THE BOX | Application

[honeypot]

Player Information
Player name: Maia
Contact: discontinued
Are you over 18: Y
Characters in The Box Already: Magnus Bane.

Character Information
Character Name: Sterling Archer
Canon: Archer
Canon Point: 4.13, immediately after he's revived.
Is your character Dead, Undead or Alive: Alive
History:

Wiki Link

To fill in some gaps, there are couple significant events that run throughout Archer's life. The first is Barry Dylan who originally worked at another spy agency called ODIN until Archer dropped him from high places one too many times and the KGB eventually turned him into a cyborg. Barry then dedicates his cyborg life to killing Archer and making his life awful. Archer eventually left him stranded in space until recent events led to Barry repairing his ship and returning to earth.

The other is Katya Kazanova, a KGB agent who originally came to ISIS in order to defect. Archer falls deeply in love with Katya, even quitting drinking for her. He decides to marry her and the ceremony is underway when Barry arrives to make an attempt on Archer's life. Katya tackles Barry right off the balcony and falls to her death. Archer is crushed and runs away to an island, forcing Malory to come looking for him and bring him home. Shortly after, Katya returns as a cyborg. Archer was ready to marry her again when he finds her having sex with Barry. In a move that proves Archer genuinely cares for her, he lets her go for the sake of her happiness.

Finally, there's the issue of Archer's father. While the show reveals that Archer has met his father at least once, he suffers from a memory block that won't allow him to remember. For awhile, he believed the head of the KGB, Nikolai Jakov, was his father, but attempts to find the truth are cut short when Jakov is killed by Barry in an explosion. Archer is clearly affected by Jakov's death, inasmuch as Archer can be affected by anything. To date, Archer still doesn't know who his father is.

Personality:

Ask anyone who's had the awesome luck of running into Sterling Archer and they will tell you that he is the most selfish asshole in the entirety of space and time. He's egotistical, insensitive, and an all around douchebag. What's unique about Archer, though, is that his dickishness is really more childish than deliberately malicious; in a way, he's just never grown up. He's like a five year old that goes around putting spiders in everyone's cereal because it amuses him and other people's pain simply doesn't register.

A large (if not entire) part of this stems from his relationship with his mother -- because if you ask anyone who's also met Malory Archer, they will admit that if there's anyone worse than Archer, it's probably his mother. Archer's childhood was basically filled with the kind of neglect and verbal abuse that would be pretty awful if this weren't a comedy. (Actually, it's still pretty hideous.) When he was a boy, she plied him with alcohol and then swindled him out of his Halloween candy. She abandoned him on his sixth birthday (presumably not for the first or last time) and when she gave him a bike, she immediately had it stolen so he would learn a lesson. Without, you know. Telling him what that lesson was. Or saying that she stole it. It's clear that Archer's egotism and narcissism is a direct consequence of his mother's lack of affection and approval, as well as his lonely childhood. Archer will claim he had a better time growing up than the reality, which is that he had no friends and no role models.

"You know, when I was little, I used to pretend you weren't my mother."
"So did I."

As a result, Archer and Malory share a weird co-dependent relationship where neither one wants to see the other happy with another person. Archer refuses to approve of anyone his mother dates or tries to marry (though in the recent season, he did...kind of come around to Ron) and his mother in turn insults every girl Archer happens to be with. Did I say weird? I mean creepy. He's also been known to call out his mother's name while in bed with Lana at least once. So. You know. Mommy issues all the way.

It's only his emotional growth that's stunted, however. Archer contains a surprising amount of book smarts. We know he graduated from university, so he's obviously not an idiot, and he frequently corrects grammar and makes literary references. He's also a pretty damn good secret agent. Most of his fuck-ups occur because of carelessness or cockiness; when he actually bothers to half pay attention, he's extremely skilled at what he does and capable of plotting strategy. Hell, he's not even sober for most of the missions he winds up on and in fact, he actively goes out of his way to look for booze while on duty. Look up high functioning alcoholic and you'll find Archer's picture under the definition.

"Lying is, like, 95% of what I do."

Archer also has a deeply buried sensitive side that crops up in moments like his delight over an ocelot or distress over news of a drowning puppy. Actually, apologizing isn't even beyond him. He just doesn't show the extreme horror that should come with things like shooting someone in the leg by accident. When he fell in love with Katya, it was very real, and he clearly has some strong feelings for Lana despite the tension between them. Over the course of the series, he's occasionally come to terms with how terrible a person he's been. It proves he's not wholly unaware of his behavior and the effect it has on those around him. It just takes a really big event like being diagnosed with cancer before he wakes up. In fact, after the cancer incident, there are some subtle changes to Archer. He's still not a nice person, but the moments where he shows some growth appear more frequently. He rescues Rip Riley, accepts his mother's relationship with Burt, and saves a truck full of illegal Mexicans (though a beautiful girl had something to do with it, admittedly). At the end of Season 4, he gives up his scuba gear for Lana when he finds out she's pregnant, choosing to briefly drown and be resuscitated.

In short, you shouldn't trust Archer to go out of his way to help you. But if the timing is right and the cards fall in order, he might actually do it. Or at least he might not stand there just to point and laugh at your misery.

Abilities, Strengths and Weaknesses:

Despite how much shit he gets in, Archer is actually a competent agent. This is probably the only reason he's even lived this long despite being so goddamn dumb.

Abilities
→ operating any number of weapons and vehicles.
→ making weapons out of random things.
→ counting. (bullets, in particular. he's almost always aware of how many bullets a gun contains and how many have been fired.)
→ lacrosse. he had an athletic scholarship to john hopkins until he got shot.
→ hand-to-hand, including krav maga.
→ excellent aim. accurate even when he's drunk.
→ a few languages, some better than others.
→ hacking. (sort of.)
→ breaking & entering.
→ a ridiculous arsenal of literary and pop culture references.

Weaknesses
→ tinnitus. due to years of explosions and guns being shot in his ear, Archer has a constant ringing in his ears.
→ booze.
→ promise of sex.
→ his mother.

Samples
Network/Action Spam Sample:

[Wow, okay, so getting his hands on a phone was way harder than it ever needs to be. Which, why is that? What's the deal with --

Well, whatever. He's got one now. The screen's totally cracked, but it turns on, so that's good enough.]

Hey, so, does anyone here know where I could get a gun and/or possibly a rocket launcher.

Either one.

...Both would be nice, though.

Prose Log Sample:

All things considered, maybe wandering through a swamp is not the greatest idea Archer has ever come up with. Swamps and him (swamps and he?) don't really get along. Swamps contain things like alligators and swamp water and...alligators. That eat people.

"And I don't even have a goddamn harpoon!"

Or anything, in fact. No car, no helicopter, no reception --

Wait. He holds his phone into the air.

Okay, yeah. No reception. He does have this, though. Thing. The store he borrowed it from called it a flensing knife, but Archer has seen and used flensing knives before. This looks nothing like it. He'd say it's a lot more like a paperclip that's been flattened into tinfoil and filed with broken glass. For all he knows, it probably has because it's not like this place has any kind of state of the art arsenal. Unlike back home. At ISIS. Where he is not.

Anyway, the point is, he shouldn't be here. He should be off on an island, drinking Bloody Mary's surrounded by beautiful blonde women and recuperating from his recent drowning. Which was seriously awesome, by the way. Not the drowning part, obviously, because that totally sucked (have you ever swallowed freezing cold water before? It's not fun), but the whole saving Lana and coming back from the dead...part. Yeah.

Seriously, though. Is there even a sun in this fricking town? Is it broken? Like, he can see it in the sky, but it's like thirty feet down through the atmosphere, it just gave up. God knows all the electricity is broken. Or half of it, anyway, which might as well be all of it.

Even the battery in his flashlight is crapping out. He sighs and gives it a shake, then squints into the flickering light until it flatlines. Really? Now? Really?

Perfect. Just perfect.