Carlos the Scientist (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
notaheroascientist) wrote2014-07-16 06:27 pm
notaheroascientist) wrote2014-07-16 06:27 pm
Entry tags:
Application - Tu Shanshu
Player Information:
Name: Blue
Age: Over 18
Contact: blue[dot]rampion[at]gmail[dot]com |![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
blueflowers
Other Characters Played: NA
Character Information:
Name: Carlos the Scientist
Canon: Welcome to Night Vale
Canon Point: Around episode 50, after Carlos has become trapped in the otherworldly desert for several weeks
Age: somewhere in his 30s
Reference Links: For WTNV in general, the Night Vale wiki, and also Carlos's wiki page.
Setting:
Night vale is a desert town located somewhere in the southwest of America, although it is not, by any means, a normal town. In fact Night Vale could be most accurately be described as the kind of place the Addams family would go to for their summer vacations. Paranormal events, existential horrors, invasive and totalitarian governments - in Night Vale, all of these are normal and commonplace.
The City Council rule Night Vale, and while in name they are democratically elected in practice draconian measures such as holding people's family members hostage are taken in order to ensure that residents vote 'correctly'. Or in the case of Night Vale's mayor, all votes are simply ignored and mysterious pulses from Hidden Gorge choose the mayor instead. Rulings from the City Council include banning all writing utensils, making it mandatory to eat at Big Rico's Pizza once a week, and spending council money on projects such building a drawbridge even though there is no water in Night Vale to build a drawbridge over. Council laws are then enforced by the Sheriff's Secret Police, who are also responsible for constantly running surveillance on all citizens of Night Vale. All of this the citizens of Night Vale take in stride and regard as not only normal, but necessary.
And while the inhabitants of Night Vale are largely human, there are quite a few oddities among the populace. There are the angels who are all named Erika (and who the City Council and most of Night Vale's residents insist do not exist), there is Hiram McDaniels the five headed dragon, the mysterious hooded figures that inhabit the forbidden Dod Park, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your (i.e. everyone's) House, and Sarah Sultan the Community College President who is also a fist sized river rock. And regardless of whether they are human or more supernaturally inclined, the residents of Night Vale are a people who are used to danger, and as a result there are a high number of locals who know how to do things like use high powered weapons and build explosives.
But, for all of the danger and restrictive governments, Night Vale is also a very accepting place. There is very little in the way of prejudice, and those who are prejudiced in one way or another are routinely scorned by the entire community. In Night Vale you will be accepted regardless of race, gender, sexuality, or species.
When it comes to the outside world, it's hard to know just how much of it is weird and bizarre like Night Vale. Night Vale's neighbouring town, Desert Bluffs, is certainly not normal, being a town taken over by the evil corporation StrexCorp (which for a while managed to take over Night Vale as well, but was recently overthrown). Several non-existent and very strange European countries are mentioned, and the five-headed dragon Hiram McDaniels isn't native to Night Vale, so the rest of this universe definitely has it's share of oddness. Nonetheless, it's still much closer to what we'd know of as 'normal' than Night vale - strange things might happen, but they're not everyday occurrences.
For Carlos, there are several significant events that have affected him significantly. One of the first major events was the discovery of an underground city underneath one of the bowling alleys in the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. Residents of Night Vale assumed that this underground city planned to make war on them and feared up, but Carlos attempted allay these fears by climbing down to the city and proving that it was, in fact, miniature and made up of tiny people that could not hurt them. Unfortunately, these tiny people actually proved more than capable of hurting Carlos and nearly killed him, leading him to have a personal epiphany and decide to return Cecil's romantic feelings for him.
Later, condos came to Night Vale and Carlos tried to buy one, hoping to move into it with Cecil. The condo actually turned out to be a giant featureless black cube, that would take people inside to try and make them 'perfect', in a perfect picket universe before disappearing into the earth with them. Fortunately, Cecil managed to pull Carlos out and save him from this.
Carlos spent a lot of his time in Night Vale studying various phenomena, but the one which had the greatest impact on him was the House That Does Not Exist, a house which seems like it should exist, but according to their experiments doesn't actually exist at all. When Carlos finally entered the house as part of his research he ended up trapped inside, as this at the same time StrexCorp was solidifying their takeover of Night Vale and prevented his team of scientists from helping him get out of the house again. The House That Does Not Exist is connected to an empty otherworldly desert - a kind of alternate version of Night Vale's desert - and Carlos ended up trapped here, along with Cecil's intern Dana, who had been trapped there some time before.
During Night Vale's rebellion against StrexCorp, after Carlos and Dana figured out how people could get from the other desert to Night Vale, the other desert was vital in reclaiming the town, acting as a kind of base of operations. But while StrexCorp was successfully overthrown, and Dana managed to get back home (and ended up elected mayor in the process), Carlos ended up still trapped in the other desert and is currently trying to figure out how to get back again.
Personality:
For Carlos, his most defining character trait is the fact that he is a scientist. True, 'science' is not usually a word that can be used as a personality trait, but Carlos manages it anyway. Science is his noble purpose in life, his entire reason for being an existing, and the thing that Carlos spends most of his time thinking about and doing. His very idea of a perfect world involves endless rows of Erlenmeyer flasks filled with bubbling liquids. In fact, Carlos considers being a scientist to be so integral to his identity that he will actively reject other labels, even highly positive labels such as 'hero', in favour of just the label 'scientist'. Saying that Carlos is obsessed with science is an understatement.
In fact, even when Carlos gets trapped in a mysterious desert that is not of this world, one of his first reactions is still to be excited at all the science he can do there. Sure, he's all alone and can't get back home, but there's so many important and unknown discoveries that he can make while he's there, so it's not all bad! Analysing things, solving problems, discovering new and interesting scientific facts - these are the things that make Carlos happy. On the converse side, not being able to figure things out and being unable to solve a problem makes him frustrated and unhappy.
Also, for all that Carlos is ever the rational, logical scientist, his view of science isn't necessarily the same as our view of science, as for some unknown and strange reason Carlos does not consider botany or dendrology to be science. And while on occasion Carlos can be incredibly poetic about science, for the most part he's actually hilariously bad at actually explaining any of it. He's been known to say things like "you know, what with science and all" as explanations, as well as just flat out shaking his head and saying 'science' by way of explanation.
He's highly focused on his work, often to the exclusion of all else. His personal relationships tend to end up with him talking about science a lot, not to mention the fact that he'll also drag his boyfriend along to do scientific experiments on trees in the middle of dates. That's if he ever gets to the date in the first place, as he's also been known to get so caught up in science that he'll forget to call to cancel that date he was supposed to be going to instead. Thankfully though, Carlos has been getting much better at prioritising things other than science, largely thanks to the insistence of his boyfriend Cecil. So he'll only forget to call about those canceled dates sometimes now, and does make an effort to do non-science related things on occasion.
Science is an incredibly important part of who Carlos is, but it's also not everything there is to know about him. Next to his love of science, one of the most notable parts of Carlos's personality is his bravery. Carlos won't hesitate to put himself at risk in order to save the town (and indeed 'running around trying to save the town' is something Carlos does a lot of), but unlike everyone else in Night Vale he's very much aware of how dangerous Night Vale actually is. When the people of Night Vale want to remove a door marked with warnings about Plutonium, Carlos is the only one who suggests that that would actually be a bad idea. So when Carlos puts himself into harm's way, it's not out of any kind of ignorance about what could happen to him - he knows full well what could happen, and it does worry him, but he risks himself anyway. Over time he does get used to Night Vale's weirdness and learns to take things in stride and only worry about the really dangerous stuff, but he never becomes completely blase about it either.
He also possesses strong ethics, particularly in regards to his scientific integrity, refusing to accept $5 to go into the House That Does Not Exist because as far as he's concerned he should be doing it for science, not money. He's a hard worker, not only in regards to his job but also for normal, everyday chores - when the rest of Night Vale is experiencing a Lazy Day in which no one can do anything at all, he's running around mowing the lawn and cleaning the gutters.
Socially, Carlos can also be a bit awkward. Part of this is how much he focuses on science, but part of it also just a bit of cluelessness on his part. He manages to miss quite a few of Cecil's romantic hints and suggestions, which is quite a feat considering that Cecil is not at all subtle in this. It's not that Carlos doesn't understand - he certainly does, and he actually ends up being the one who always initiates progressions in their relationship - but he doesn't quite always pick up on cues, has a tendency to be overly literal, and just gets distracted by science a lot. Cecil claims that Carlos is never direct about what he means, but in reality Carlos can actually be very direct. He's just direct on a rather different wavelength, such as his tendency to declare whether he's talking to someone for 'personal or nor personal' reasons when striking up a conversation with them. And, awkward as he is, Carlos also doesn't let that stop him from occasionally having a bit of a flair for the dramatic, saying things like 'behold!' when revealing discoveries that he's made.
Appearance:
Carlos is a Latino man, described as having dark and delicate skin, a strong square jaw, teeth like a military cemetery, and dark hair that is going prematurely grey at the temples (which is described as looking 'dignified' rather than making him look old). In fact Carlos's hair in particular is frequently described as being perfect - so perfect that the barber who dared it cut it off soon after his arrival in Night Vale was run out of town.
Most of the descriptions of Carlos do come from Carlos's boyfriend Cecil though, who highly biased in this area. But what we do hear about Carlos's appearance from other characters does corroborate this somewhat, so Carlos is at least a good looking man...but probably not ridiculously perfect to the heights that Cecil attributes to him at times. His hair is definitely fabulous though.
Clothing-wise, Carlos is almost always wearing a lab coat. Always. He even wears lab coats to dates. Underneath the lab coat, his clothing tends come in flannel shirts and jeans. And while in canon he's never mentioned as having glasses, I do headcanon him as having them.
In regards to icons, I'm using fanart rather than a PB, as I haven't really found any PBs that match up well enough for me.
Abilities:
When it comes to supernatural abilities, Carlos has absolutely nothing. He's just a regular, normal human without even the slightest bit of weirdness about him.
But as a scientist, Carlos has developed a number of skills, even if they are of the regular, non-superhuman kind. He's highly intelligent, and he'd have to be in order to even have the slightest hope of making sense of all of Night Vale's bizarre phenomena. Carlos's exact scientific skill set is unknown though, and even fact exactly what science is even like in the universe of Night Vale is a little bit fuzzy. Not being from Night Vale originally, Carlos's ideas about the world are much closer to our normal than the natives, but he still has odd ideas, like insisting that botanists and dendrologist aren't scientists. But it's most likely that Carlos scientific knowledge lies in areas like chemistry and physics, and his research background was probably focused on anomalous phenomena. And even if it wasn't, he'd have had to figure it out anyway once he got to Night Vale.
Carlos is also a very capable inventor, having been able to create a 'danger meter' that does exactly what it sounds like and tells Carlos how dangerous his current situation is. He also invented a device to block the light of the Smiling God (although admittedly it is somewhat implied that this device may have just been a really big umbrella). Regardless, Carlos certainly knows his way around gadgetry and is capable of creating his own.
Inventory:
Suitability:
While Carlos definitely isn't the type to go and join the military, he's not a character who would have trouble adapting to a militaristic and dangerous environment. Having lived in Night Vale for two years he's definitely used to dangerous situations by now, and even more recently he and the whole town had to deal with overthrowing Strexcorp, so he's even had experience in revolutions. Carlos isn't a character who sits by idly, and it wouldn't take him long to start getting involved and trying to help people. He is much more likely to try and do this through science, and he's not a fighter, but he's not shy about putting himself into danger as well.
Suite:
Metal Sector - as a Scientist, Carlos is most definitely a thinker. In fact he's even stated that thinking is what a scientist does, so really being a thinker is his entire job. And while he's not overly eccentric, he's enough of a massive science nerd to certainly lean in that direction.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person (Prose):
Before Carlos came to Night Vale, he might not have believed that he could be transported to another world, nor that such a world could feature a state-sized turtle. Such things were scientifically not possible, after all. But then there was Night Vale, and Carlos learned to expand his understanding of 'scientifically possible' by a considerable margin.
Of course, just because Carlos was willing to consider a giant city-carrying turtle possible didn't mean he was going to discard the scientific process. A scientist didn't just believe what was told to him, he tested it. So Carlos had made a few inquiries, and gotten direction's to the place that could confirm this hypothesis as fact: the turtle's head.
So now Carlos stood there, on the edge of the walkway with Tu Vishan's great head rushing through the ocean waves below him, and a giant grin on his face. A giant turtle! Right there, in front of him! No - no in front of him. Below him. This was - this was amazing. This was breathtaking. This was beautiful. And he felt so...so calm. Carlos tended to run through his life at breakneck speed, dashing about working on experiments or running around Night Vale trying to save it from whatever calamity had befallen it that week. There was just so much in the universe to research and test and understand, he rarely had time to just sit and just be. Usually, the only time he ever did was when he was with Cecil. And Cecil...Cecil wasn't here. Just Carlos.
He wished Cecil was here, though. Cecil would love it, Carlos was sure. Well, maybe not the whole being transported to another world thing. Cecil was much too attached to Night Vale to really be happy living anywhere else. But Carlos was pretty sure that Cecil would love the giant turtle. He'd probably want to know if Night Vale could get one, never mind that Night Vale doesn't have so much as a pond for a turtle to swim in, let a lone an ocean.
One day, Carlos would find a way back home, and he'd tell Cecil all about this. And somehow, even though he didn't have the faintest idea about how he would do that, something about just sitting here with Tu Vishan made him feel like everything would turn out okay in the end.
Network:
[on the screen, Carlos appears in his ever-present lab coat]
I believe this is the point where introductions are in order, so on that point my name is Carlos and I am a scientist. I am not of this world, but from what I have been told neither are any of you. I'll need to run some surveys on that later - scientifically speaking, other worlds are very exciting. I mean, I'm here in a world where an entire city can be built on the back of a giant turtle the size of - well I don't know what size yet, I'll need to run some tests, or maybe just find an accurate map - but it's a really large turtle! There are so many rules of physics that this thing must be breaking! Like, how does a turtle that large even float? And that's just this world!
[Carlos coughs, suddenly remembering that this is actually the time for introductions, and figuring out what on earth (or in this case, what on turtle) he is meant to be doing next, and not time for Science]
Um. Yes. But I can figure that all out later, I'll need time to organise a proper survey questionnaire anyway. In the meantime this is me, and I would really appreciate it if someone could tell me where to get food, groceries, that sort of thing. Also is all of this [Carlos waves around him to indicate the place he's been set up in] something paid for, or am I going to need to pay this all back? I meant to ask, but I kind of got distracted with all of my questions about the turtle.
Also I...I realise this is a long shot, but the last other world I got stuck in had this really great wifi, and no matter how much I used it my phone's battery never died. Which meant being stuck in an otherworldly desert wasn't so bad, because I could still ring home. That...that's not going to be possible here, is it? I mean, obviously if time is not passing in my world then there is no time in which anyone will be able to answer the phone, but I...I just thought I'd check. Just in case.
Name: Blue
Age: Over 18
Contact: blue[dot]rampion[at]gmail[dot]com |
Other Characters Played: NA
Character Information:
Name: Carlos the Scientist
Canon: Welcome to Night Vale
Canon Point: Around episode 50, after Carlos has become trapped in the otherworldly desert for several weeks
Age: somewhere in his 30s
Reference Links: For WTNV in general, the Night Vale wiki, and also Carlos's wiki page.
Setting:
Night vale is a desert town located somewhere in the southwest of America, although it is not, by any means, a normal town. In fact Night Vale could be most accurately be described as the kind of place the Addams family would go to for their summer vacations. Paranormal events, existential horrors, invasive and totalitarian governments - in Night Vale, all of these are normal and commonplace.
The City Council rule Night Vale, and while in name they are democratically elected in practice draconian measures such as holding people's family members hostage are taken in order to ensure that residents vote 'correctly'. Or in the case of Night Vale's mayor, all votes are simply ignored and mysterious pulses from Hidden Gorge choose the mayor instead. Rulings from the City Council include banning all writing utensils, making it mandatory to eat at Big Rico's Pizza once a week, and spending council money on projects such building a drawbridge even though there is no water in Night Vale to build a drawbridge over. Council laws are then enforced by the Sheriff's Secret Police, who are also responsible for constantly running surveillance on all citizens of Night Vale. All of this the citizens of Night Vale take in stride and regard as not only normal, but necessary.
And while the inhabitants of Night Vale are largely human, there are quite a few oddities among the populace. There are the angels who are all named Erika (and who the City Council and most of Night Vale's residents insist do not exist), there is Hiram McDaniels the five headed dragon, the mysterious hooded figures that inhabit the forbidden Dod Park, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your (i.e. everyone's) House, and Sarah Sultan the Community College President who is also a fist sized river rock. And regardless of whether they are human or more supernaturally inclined, the residents of Night Vale are a people who are used to danger, and as a result there are a high number of locals who know how to do things like use high powered weapons and build explosives.
But, for all of the danger and restrictive governments, Night Vale is also a very accepting place. There is very little in the way of prejudice, and those who are prejudiced in one way or another are routinely scorned by the entire community. In Night Vale you will be accepted regardless of race, gender, sexuality, or species.
When it comes to the outside world, it's hard to know just how much of it is weird and bizarre like Night Vale. Night Vale's neighbouring town, Desert Bluffs, is certainly not normal, being a town taken over by the evil corporation StrexCorp (which for a while managed to take over Night Vale as well, but was recently overthrown). Several non-existent and very strange European countries are mentioned, and the five-headed dragon Hiram McDaniels isn't native to Night Vale, so the rest of this universe definitely has it's share of oddness. Nonetheless, it's still much closer to what we'd know of as 'normal' than Night vale - strange things might happen, but they're not everyday occurrences.
For Carlos, there are several significant events that have affected him significantly. One of the first major events was the discovery of an underground city underneath one of the bowling alleys in the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. Residents of Night Vale assumed that this underground city planned to make war on them and feared up, but Carlos attempted allay these fears by climbing down to the city and proving that it was, in fact, miniature and made up of tiny people that could not hurt them. Unfortunately, these tiny people actually proved more than capable of hurting Carlos and nearly killed him, leading him to have a personal epiphany and decide to return Cecil's romantic feelings for him.
Later, condos came to Night Vale and Carlos tried to buy one, hoping to move into it with Cecil. The condo actually turned out to be a giant featureless black cube, that would take people inside to try and make them 'perfect', in a perfect picket universe before disappearing into the earth with them. Fortunately, Cecil managed to pull Carlos out and save him from this.
Carlos spent a lot of his time in Night Vale studying various phenomena, but the one which had the greatest impact on him was the House That Does Not Exist, a house which seems like it should exist, but according to their experiments doesn't actually exist at all. When Carlos finally entered the house as part of his research he ended up trapped inside, as this at the same time StrexCorp was solidifying their takeover of Night Vale and prevented his team of scientists from helping him get out of the house again. The House That Does Not Exist is connected to an empty otherworldly desert - a kind of alternate version of Night Vale's desert - and Carlos ended up trapped here, along with Cecil's intern Dana, who had been trapped there some time before.
During Night Vale's rebellion against StrexCorp, after Carlos and Dana figured out how people could get from the other desert to Night Vale, the other desert was vital in reclaiming the town, acting as a kind of base of operations. But while StrexCorp was successfully overthrown, and Dana managed to get back home (and ended up elected mayor in the process), Carlos ended up still trapped in the other desert and is currently trying to figure out how to get back again.
Personality:
For Carlos, his most defining character trait is the fact that he is a scientist. True, 'science' is not usually a word that can be used as a personality trait, but Carlos manages it anyway. Science is his noble purpose in life, his entire reason for being an existing, and the thing that Carlos spends most of his time thinking about and doing. His very idea of a perfect world involves endless rows of Erlenmeyer flasks filled with bubbling liquids. In fact, Carlos considers being a scientist to be so integral to his identity that he will actively reject other labels, even highly positive labels such as 'hero', in favour of just the label 'scientist'. Saying that Carlos is obsessed with science is an understatement.
In fact, even when Carlos gets trapped in a mysterious desert that is not of this world, one of his first reactions is still to be excited at all the science he can do there. Sure, he's all alone and can't get back home, but there's so many important and unknown discoveries that he can make while he's there, so it's not all bad! Analysing things, solving problems, discovering new and interesting scientific facts - these are the things that make Carlos happy. On the converse side, not being able to figure things out and being unable to solve a problem makes him frustrated and unhappy.
Also, for all that Carlos is ever the rational, logical scientist, his view of science isn't necessarily the same as our view of science, as for some unknown and strange reason Carlos does not consider botany or dendrology to be science. And while on occasion Carlos can be incredibly poetic about science, for the most part he's actually hilariously bad at actually explaining any of it. He's been known to say things like "you know, what with science and all" as explanations, as well as just flat out shaking his head and saying 'science' by way of explanation.
He's highly focused on his work, often to the exclusion of all else. His personal relationships tend to end up with him talking about science a lot, not to mention the fact that he'll also drag his boyfriend along to do scientific experiments on trees in the middle of dates. That's if he ever gets to the date in the first place, as he's also been known to get so caught up in science that he'll forget to call to cancel that date he was supposed to be going to instead. Thankfully though, Carlos has been getting much better at prioritising things other than science, largely thanks to the insistence of his boyfriend Cecil. So he'll only forget to call about those canceled dates sometimes now, and does make an effort to do non-science related things on occasion.
Science is an incredibly important part of who Carlos is, but it's also not everything there is to know about him. Next to his love of science, one of the most notable parts of Carlos's personality is his bravery. Carlos won't hesitate to put himself at risk in order to save the town (and indeed 'running around trying to save the town' is something Carlos does a lot of), but unlike everyone else in Night Vale he's very much aware of how dangerous Night Vale actually is. When the people of Night Vale want to remove a door marked with warnings about Plutonium, Carlos is the only one who suggests that that would actually be a bad idea. So when Carlos puts himself into harm's way, it's not out of any kind of ignorance about what could happen to him - he knows full well what could happen, and it does worry him, but he risks himself anyway. Over time he does get used to Night Vale's weirdness and learns to take things in stride and only worry about the really dangerous stuff, but he never becomes completely blase about it either.
He also possesses strong ethics, particularly in regards to his scientific integrity, refusing to accept $5 to go into the House That Does Not Exist because as far as he's concerned he should be doing it for science, not money. He's a hard worker, not only in regards to his job but also for normal, everyday chores - when the rest of Night Vale is experiencing a Lazy Day in which no one can do anything at all, he's running around mowing the lawn and cleaning the gutters.
Socially, Carlos can also be a bit awkward. Part of this is how much he focuses on science, but part of it also just a bit of cluelessness on his part. He manages to miss quite a few of Cecil's romantic hints and suggestions, which is quite a feat considering that Cecil is not at all subtle in this. It's not that Carlos doesn't understand - he certainly does, and he actually ends up being the one who always initiates progressions in their relationship - but he doesn't quite always pick up on cues, has a tendency to be overly literal, and just gets distracted by science a lot. Cecil claims that Carlos is never direct about what he means, but in reality Carlos can actually be very direct. He's just direct on a rather different wavelength, such as his tendency to declare whether he's talking to someone for 'personal or nor personal' reasons when striking up a conversation with them. And, awkward as he is, Carlos also doesn't let that stop him from occasionally having a bit of a flair for the dramatic, saying things like 'behold!' when revealing discoveries that he's made.
Appearance:
Carlos is a Latino man, described as having dark and delicate skin, a strong square jaw, teeth like a military cemetery, and dark hair that is going prematurely grey at the temples (which is described as looking 'dignified' rather than making him look old). In fact Carlos's hair in particular is frequently described as being perfect - so perfect that the barber who dared it cut it off soon after his arrival in Night Vale was run out of town.
Most of the descriptions of Carlos do come from Carlos's boyfriend Cecil though, who highly biased in this area. But what we do hear about Carlos's appearance from other characters does corroborate this somewhat, so Carlos is at least a good looking man...but probably not ridiculously perfect to the heights that Cecil attributes to him at times. His hair is definitely fabulous though.
Clothing-wise, Carlos is almost always wearing a lab coat. Always. He even wears lab coats to dates. Underneath the lab coat, his clothing tends come in flannel shirts and jeans. And while in canon he's never mentioned as having glasses, I do headcanon him as having them.
In regards to icons, I'm using fanart rather than a PB, as I haven't really found any PBs that match up well enough for me.
Abilities:
When it comes to supernatural abilities, Carlos has absolutely nothing. He's just a regular, normal human without even the slightest bit of weirdness about him.
But as a scientist, Carlos has developed a number of skills, even if they are of the regular, non-superhuman kind. He's highly intelligent, and he'd have to be in order to even have the slightest hope of making sense of all of Night Vale's bizarre phenomena. Carlos's exact scientific skill set is unknown though, and even fact exactly what science is even like in the universe of Night Vale is a little bit fuzzy. Not being from Night Vale originally, Carlos's ideas about the world are much closer to our normal than the natives, but he still has odd ideas, like insisting that botanists and dendrologist aren't scientists. But it's most likely that Carlos scientific knowledge lies in areas like chemistry and physics, and his research background was probably focused on anomalous phenomena. And even if it wasn't, he'd have had to figure it out anyway once he got to Night Vale.
Carlos is also a very capable inventor, having been able to create a 'danger meter' that does exactly what it sounds like and tells Carlos how dangerous his current situation is. He also invented a device to block the light of the Smiling God (although admittedly it is somewhat implied that this device may have just been a really big umbrella). Regardless, Carlos certainly knows his way around gadgetry and is capable of creating his own.
Inventory:
- Danger meter - a device Carlos invented that measures 'Fatality Units', telling him how dangerous his current situation is
- Clothes, including jeans, sneakers, flannel shirt, and lab coat
- Mobile phone
- Wallet
Suitability:
While Carlos definitely isn't the type to go and join the military, he's not a character who would have trouble adapting to a militaristic and dangerous environment. Having lived in Night Vale for two years he's definitely used to dangerous situations by now, and even more recently he and the whole town had to deal with overthrowing Strexcorp, so he's even had experience in revolutions. Carlos isn't a character who sits by idly, and it wouldn't take him long to start getting involved and trying to help people. He is much more likely to try and do this through science, and he's not a fighter, but he's not shy about putting himself into danger as well.
Suite:
Metal Sector - as a Scientist, Carlos is most definitely a thinker. In fact he's even stated that thinking is what a scientist does, so really being a thinker is his entire job. And while he's not overly eccentric, he's enough of a massive science nerd to certainly lean in that direction.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person (Prose):
Before Carlos came to Night Vale, he might not have believed that he could be transported to another world, nor that such a world could feature a state-sized turtle. Such things were scientifically not possible, after all. But then there was Night Vale, and Carlos learned to expand his understanding of 'scientifically possible' by a considerable margin.
Of course, just because Carlos was willing to consider a giant city-carrying turtle possible didn't mean he was going to discard the scientific process. A scientist didn't just believe what was told to him, he tested it. So Carlos had made a few inquiries, and gotten direction's to the place that could confirm this hypothesis as fact: the turtle's head.
So now Carlos stood there, on the edge of the walkway with Tu Vishan's great head rushing through the ocean waves below him, and a giant grin on his face. A giant turtle! Right there, in front of him! No - no in front of him. Below him. This was - this was amazing. This was breathtaking. This was beautiful. And he felt so...so calm. Carlos tended to run through his life at breakneck speed, dashing about working on experiments or running around Night Vale trying to save it from whatever calamity had befallen it that week. There was just so much in the universe to research and test and understand, he rarely had time to just sit and just be. Usually, the only time he ever did was when he was with Cecil. And Cecil...Cecil wasn't here. Just Carlos.
He wished Cecil was here, though. Cecil would love it, Carlos was sure. Well, maybe not the whole being transported to another world thing. Cecil was much too attached to Night Vale to really be happy living anywhere else. But Carlos was pretty sure that Cecil would love the giant turtle. He'd probably want to know if Night Vale could get one, never mind that Night Vale doesn't have so much as a pond for a turtle to swim in, let a lone an ocean.
One day, Carlos would find a way back home, and he'd tell Cecil all about this. And somehow, even though he didn't have the faintest idea about how he would do that, something about just sitting here with Tu Vishan made him feel like everything would turn out okay in the end.
Network:
[on the screen, Carlos appears in his ever-present lab coat]
I believe this is the point where introductions are in order, so on that point my name is Carlos and I am a scientist. I am not of this world, but from what I have been told neither are any of you. I'll need to run some surveys on that later - scientifically speaking, other worlds are very exciting. I mean, I'm here in a world where an entire city can be built on the back of a giant turtle the size of - well I don't know what size yet, I'll need to run some tests, or maybe just find an accurate map - but it's a really large turtle! There are so many rules of physics that this thing must be breaking! Like, how does a turtle that large even float? And that's just this world!
[Carlos coughs, suddenly remembering that this is actually the time for introductions, and figuring out what on earth (or in this case, what on turtle) he is meant to be doing next, and not time for Science]
Um. Yes. But I can figure that all out later, I'll need time to organise a proper survey questionnaire anyway. In the meantime this is me, and I would really appreciate it if someone could tell me where to get food, groceries, that sort of thing. Also is all of this [Carlos waves around him to indicate the place he's been set up in] something paid for, or am I going to need to pay this all back? I meant to ask, but I kind of got distracted with all of my questions about the turtle.
Also I...I realise this is a long shot, but the last other world I got stuck in had this really great wifi, and no matter how much I used it my phone's battery never died. Which meant being stuck in an otherworldly desert wasn't so bad, because I could still ring home. That...that's not going to be possible here, is it? I mean, obviously if time is not passing in my world then there is no time in which anyone will be able to answer the phone, but I...I just thought I'd check. Just in case.