tristan shaw
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
biography
abilities
personality
verses
basics
Name: Tristan Élie Devereux—Shaw
Alias(es): Subject 33, Shadowhound, Deathstalker, Tris
Age: 34
Date of Birth: October 7, 1987
Birthplace: Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada
Sexual/Romantic Orientation: unlabeled
Gender: cis man, he / him
Species: human ( formerly ), artificially created werewolf
Born in Nova Scotia, Canada to Fleur and Owen Shaw as their third and youngest child ( after twins Amélie and René, two years Tristan’s senior ), Tristan lived in the small coastal town of Mahone Bay until he was ten years old. That year, his father received a job offer from America that he simply couldn’t refuse, and the whole family packed up their belongings and moved to Boston, Massachusetts.
Tristan lived in Boston for the next ten or so years, grew up and studied there. After graduating early from high school, Tristan went on to study at Harvard, majoring in Psychology (like his mother) and again, graduated early, at age nineteen. After graduation, instead of focusing on a career in psych, however, Tristan chose to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and pursued a career in the military. Growing up, Tristan and his siblings spent a lot of time in their paternal grandfather’s farm, and it was him who first taught Tristan to shoot and handle firearms. He proved gifted and the accuracy of his aim was spectacular.
After about three years of active service in the USMC, Tristan caught the eye of the people looking for subjects to add to their new, top secret program to create supersoldiers. Tristan, of course, wasn’t privy to this particular piece of information until much later on, but he went along with it anyway, mostly because they let him do what he was good at. The longer the program went on, however, the more Tristan began to question its purposes … but, by the time he knew enough, leaving was no longer an option, except in a body bag.
The training — sometimes bordering on pure brainwashing, if anybody asked him — the soldiers were subjected to ended up changing Tristan permanently … and definitely not for the better.
And as good of a sniper as Tristan was, during the program a new set of skills was discovered and later exploited: he became an expert tracker. His senses — particularly his sense of smell and his ‘ intuition ’ and ‘ sixth sense ’, as he came to call it —, were enhanced and turned up to eleven. He could find anyone, anywhere, even in his human form, and seemed to have a supernatural gift to guess his target’s next, most likely moves beforehand. His accuracy, efficiency and stealthiness earned him the nickname Deathstalker.
In battle, he was scarily efficient and the more he was used, the more missions he was sent to, the better he got; the questions of morality he’d been battling with before simply faded away, and he seemed to give more and more into the beast within him — so much so, it began to affect him in his human form, too.
However, although Tristan had fewer complaints than some of his fellow Subjects, he wasn’t fully satisfied. The more he gave into the wolf in him, the harder he became for his handlers to control. Following orders had become a chore, he hated doing what he was told because he thought he knew better, and he was prone to improvising during missions. His defiant behaviour and constant undermining of the authority of the program’s leadership led to numerous punishments, some of which affected him and his mental stability severely. His intense dislike of the handlers he saw as inept, amateurish and incompetent caused him to join the other Subjects in planning and executing an escape plan. He wanted to be free of his shackles and that meant leaving the program behind.
Following the escape, in official records Tristan was ruled as KIA. His family buried an empty coffin, an event Tristan witnessed from afar, and to keep his pursuers at bay, he’s used a myriad of fake identities along with his birth name whilst building himself a new, somewhat normal life. For the longest time, he thought he was the sole survivor, and kept all those memories and trauma of Project Lykaion locked away in the back of his mind, never to be addressed again. After seven years of living on his own, however, he was found by some of the other Subjects who'd survived, and he reconnected with a few of them.
Today, he works as a private investigator in New York City, as well as providing other, shadier services to the people inhabiting the underbelly of society on the side. His side job as a gun—for—hire helps keep him sane (in his own definition of the word), and keeps the money flowing.
2020 — early 2022
Today, a lot has changed. After rediscovering his friends, the other wolves from the program he had thought long dead, for a while things were good. Or, at least, better than they'd been. He wasn't alone anymore, he wasn't the sole survivor of the inhumane treatment they'd been subjected to. He had others who shared the trauma. During these few months, he found a new family.
But everything comes to an end, sooner or later. The program leaders were always on the lookout for the escaped Subjects, and as it happens, Tristan ended up in their cross hairs; he was blackmailed into coming back and after certain events, he did so willingly. He returned to the soldier's life and once again became Deathstalker, the government's own little secret plaything, a weapon in human form. He was brainwashed into killing their targets just as before, one of which was his own father.
After about a month of being gone, Tristan came head to head with an old friend: Jax, another Subject from the program and Tristan's best friend. . . and the one he was supposed to bring in, which he was determined to do. The fight didn't well for either of them: with Tristan's face bashed against a mirror, bones broken and memory screwed up, Jax, weighed by guilt of what he'd done, dragged him back home and away from Lykaion. Tristan spent weeks in a coma, recovering from his injuries much slower than he should have. His healing factor, courtesy of lycantrophy, was stunted by the trauma, and although he couldn't recall what'd happened even after waking up, it never truly came back, and finding out that he'd killed his father and that it was Jax who'd done this to him didn't help matters. After the revelation, they fought and he told Jax to get out of his life, and that was the last time he saw his best friend alive.
Months passed and Tristan recovered slowly, regretting everything that'd happened. Worried about Jax, whom he hadn't heard of since their fight, Tristan began his search for him, and it didn't take long for this seasoned tracker to find a trail. He followed it and found he'd come too late: Jax had been killed in a building collapse long before he'd gotten there. As he buried his best friend's — his lover's — remains, Tristan felt himself shatter, and he spent the better part of the next year simply existing, succumbing to the depression he'd been fighting for years.
But as he began to come into terms with Jax's death, one could say he returned to life; left his house again, saw other people again. Not many of the Subjects remained — only him and Teddy Volkova, with whom Tristan had never truly seen eye to eye. As the last two surviving members of their little family, they started to form a bond, eventually even a friendship of sorts.
Later in the year of 2021, about a year after Jax's death, Tristan had grown accustomed to this new normal of his life, unaware that it was about to be turned upside down once again by the reappearance of an old friend —— Jax, who'd somehow come back from the dead, except he wasn't quite himself. With his memory wiped entirely by his death and subsequent resurrection, Jax was more an enemy than a friend. Distraught for having to fight against him, Tristan knocked him out and locked him up, aiming to keep him hidden until he'd figure out what'd happened to his best friend —— but before long, Jax escaped and vanished, and Tristan was, once again, left to deal with the emotional consequences on his own.
Loss of memory (current event)
In the early days of April, 2022, Tristan got into an accident caused by nothing else but his own carelessness and wounded ego. He walked out into a busy street after a rather silly argument, and was hit by a car, the impact knocking him out for a couple hours. Although at first, once he awoke, it seemed he'd miraculously gotten away from the accident without much more than a few scratches and a headache, it soon became apparent that this wasn't the case. The impact, stacking with all the physical trauma he'd suffered over the years, seemed to have knocked a large part of his memories out of his head and Tristan, unaware that he'd even been in an accident, woke up to a cruel reality: he had forgotten the past nine years of his life.
Tristan's mind was reset to the year of 2013, before the Subjects made their daring escape from the Project, and now he's a man out of time, plagued and tortured by constant nightmares and flashbacks of events he cannot recall, desperate to find a way out of this predicament as he attempts to survive the life he's made for himself.
Along with rewriting his entire genetic makeup, the serum made Tristan practically immortal. He still ages but the process has been slowed down significantly, and his body regenerates many times the speed of a regular human. He heals quickly, even from wounds that would prove lethal to humans, but it also means he’s unable to get drunk. His senses and physiology ( strength, durability, agility, etc. ) have been enhanced to superhuman levels.
He’s an expert marksman and hand—to—hand combatant, and an exceptional tracker; his senses are sharper than any other wolf's in the Program. He can also handle weaponry of all kinds but has developed a special liking to knives; unless he’s taking someone out from afar, you can be sure he will bring the fight up close and personal.
Tristan has developed a rather savage, ferocious fighting style over the years, and won't shy away from using his teeth in a fight —— whether he's in human or wolf form. He will tear open your throat and watch as you choke on your own blood whilst licking it off his fingers, and he will do it casually. In this regard, the voice of his conscience has died a long time ago.
His werewolf form is nothing short of terrifying: standing 7 feet tall when on his hind legs, it's a monstrous creature that bears a resemblance to a wolf and a man, and in Tristan's case. . . the wolf is a horrendous and rotting, undead creature that belongs in a grave. The wolf itself is dead and no longer has a mind of its own (and hence, is fully under Tristan's control, even during full moons) but Tristan isn't — so the wolf has no choice but to remain on this earth and come forth whenever Tristan wills it, looking more and more like the dead thing it is rather than something living. Although he doesn't have an exact explanation for why this has happened, in his pessimistic, overly dramatic style, he's speculated it shows the true state of his soul: that it's gone, dead, and he's nothing but a shadow of a man, doomed to wander the planet for all eternity, all alone.
weaknesses
Something injected in him during the program made him react strongly to silver. It itches when the contact is short-term, and burns like white-hot iron if it’s left on his skin for long periods of time; silver—induced burns and wounds also heal poorly and at a much slower rate than other injuries, and leave permanent scars.
However, although silver is a big threat, there is nothing he hates more than water. As a result of torture ( waterboarding ) endured during the program, Tristan is aquaphobic and will do anything to avoid large bodies of water. He can shower and drink it, obviously, but you will never see him swimming, staying out during rain, taking a bath or staying in the shower any longer than five minutes. If forced to enter a lake etc., he will panic and lash out.
And whilst it cannot be classified as a phobia, he isn't particularly fond of high places. This is due to an accident he had back in his army days; on a mission, he was pushed off a high rooftop during a fight and although he survived the fall, it came with the price of numerous broken bones and weeks worth of suffering.
Independent, emotional (as in, emotional responses to situations rather than emotional connections formed with other people), charming when needed. Ruthless and calculating when it’s called for. Impulsive yet a planner (as in, prefers to plan ahead but isn’t afraid to change those plans on a whim if a better way to do things presents itself mid—mission). Suspicious of other people’s intentions because his own are often selfish. He sleeps around, lies to get what he wants, and rarely thinks twice about the consequences of his actions when it comes to other people.
Tristan values his freedom and independence above all else; he’s an individualist first and last. He doesn’t want anyone telling him what to do and how to do it, and that includes the law enforcement. He has a certain disregard for the rules and unless it’s earned, he has no respect for authorities of any kind.
His alignment is Chaotic Neutral, though he dips his toes in Chaotic Evil.
ᅠᅠᅠA chaotic neutral character is an individualist
ᅠᅠᅠwho follows their own heart and generally shirks
ᅠᅠᅠrules and traditions. Although chaotic neutral
ᅠᅠᅠcharacters promote the ideals of freedom, it is their
ᅠᅠᅠown freedom that comes first; good and evil come
ᅠᅠᅠsecond to their need to be free.
He looks after himself first, everyone else comes in second. He is his own master and there is no leash on him that anyone can hold. He considers himself above the law and in his eyes, those who try to control others are, by nature, corrupt. His loyalties are fleeting and he will break any contract when he feels like it no longer benefits him — but he will never betray a family member or a close friend unless circumstances are dire and his own life is in immediate danger.
Tristan has his arrogance and pride, and when combined with his astronomical stubbornness, he absolutely refuses to ask for help even if he'd sorely need it. His sense of pride only goes so far, however; unlike your regular arrogant asshole, Tristan owns up to his mistakes when he makes them and rarely blames others for his own misdeeds (unless it has the potential to save his life and freedom, then he might —— or if he happens to dislike you). He sees no wrong in choosing to flee a losing battle; honour is a very subjective concept.
In a fight, Tristan may get consumed by blood—lust. A scent, a taste, sometimes even just a sight of blood can trigger the beast within him and when it takes control, even if he doesn't shift forms, the part of him that is still human is pushed back and locked away, and the wolf with primary instincts of self—preservation at any cost is in control.
He doesn't shy away from hunters (rather, the exact opposite) and has killed a fair few who've come after him over the years, always collecting "trophies" from them —— namely, the silver weapons they used in their attempt to kill him, and has them on display in his home.
tristan in relationships
Tristan makes a point of avoiding relationships. It's the way he's always been; from high school romances that lasted two weeks to random college hook—ups, he's never been one to commit to a relationship with one single person. He doesn't date, casually or otherwise, because he knows that life isn't for him. He's aware he's too emotionally unavailable, too selfish and morally grey to be a decent partner for anyone. He isn't comfortable with talking about his feelings, with expressing them or giving in to them, and to avoid ever even developing them, he never hooks up with the same person twice —— and he doesn't sleep with his friends. Those are rules he avoids breaking at all costs. And if, by god, he realises he's catching romantic feelings for someone, you can bet he will bolt. He'll distance himself and he'll basically run away until the feelings die or he convinces himself that they were never there.
In a way, you could say he's afraid of commitment in every aspect of the word — romantic and otherwise. He fears losing people; he's lost so many in his life, he doesn't want to add to the list. He cannot add to it, and this applies to friendships, as well. So if he calls you a friend, know you are special.
It'd require a miracle to get Tristan to settle down. Or a long—term friendship built on mutual trust and respect and shared experiences slowly turning into a relationship. Either way, if someone somehow manages to lure him into one, they should be prepared for a rocky road. He's selfish; it's one of his defining traits. He thinks of himself before anyone else and this won't suddenly change because he's in a relationship now. He is emotionally distant, won't open up easy, won't trust easy, and will be jealous and possessive, even controlling. He will expect you to realise what a horrible partner he is and walk away, like any sane person would and should do; hence, he'll try to keep himself from getting too attached so the inevitable break—up won't hurt as much.
fandomless / project lykaion
Tristan's main verse where his story and background play out as they've been written here.
college!au
19—year—old Tristan tackling the last year of university: "studying" psychology (running late from class and half—assing his papers), playing the part of an enthusiastic theatre kid, and spending far too much time yearning after a certain football player.