⇀ Description

• Height || 5'6
• Build || Fragile
• Eyes || Blue
• Skin tone || Ashen grey
• Hair color || Honey blonde
• Hair style || Long, a little messy
• Demeanor || Personable and friendly
• Style || Girly

William's a fragile looking boy, with pale skin, a slight frame, and a sort of haunted look in his light-blue eyes that's present even when he's smiling. Despite this, he carries himself confidently, making expressive gestures with when he talks and moving his hands to punctuate sentences. He's a chronic 'leaner', often draping himself against door-frames or slouching on chairs, and he's not afraid to posture himself so he's in other's personal space. Still, he lacks a sense of... presence, and when he's not actively involved in a conversation, he fades into the background. He's not a man who sparkles, not a man who naturally shines. Any dazzle he has is because of his sincere kindness and his way with words, and he doesn't come across as overly attractive due to his pallor. Quite honestly? That's how he likes it. He wants to be able to fade into comfortable obscurity at command.

His general style does make that a little more difficult. His hair is very long, stretching in a honey-blonde tumble down the length of his back. For pure aesthetic's sake, he often paints his nails, and he prefers traditionally 'feminine' colors such as pink and purple. Despite this, he's often sporting a bit of stubble, though whether or not he's clean shaven depends entirely on his mood that day. His nose is short, his eyes are sloped downwards, and his brows are... about average, and could probably use a bit of styling. That's a big too much effort for him on a general basis, though if he was given a reason to clean up, he'd absolutely put in the extra time to make his face look nice. As much as William enjoys being ignored, he also enjoys engaging in playful banter, as it's both an entertaining distraction and a way to cover up his own insecurities. If he projects the image of a confident guy, people won't notice everything wrong with him, right?

While on the job, he most tends towards jeans and oversized sweaters, though he's actually very warm to the touch and doesn't often get cold. He wants to appear approachable, rather than pristinely manicured and stylishly beautiful, as he believes it helps with his clients. He does like cute, pretty things though, and he'll allow himself to dress up a bit on special occasions - particularly when going out with Molly, though he will literally never admit that to anyone, ever. If it does get brought up, he will absolutely conceal it with a joke. William's very good at not taking things seriously, and it shows.

Overall, other people matter more than his own appearance, and he'll sacrifice whatever he's wearing without a second thought if things get... messy in the ectoplasm department. Molly has absolutely had to help him clean out his hair before, and there was one tragic instance early on in his career where all of his hair was rendered unsalvagable by a particularly foul bit of monster gunk.

⇀ Important Notes

• He can be drawn with or without stubble.
• William's a short guy - and much shorter than his best friend, Molly!
• He's got a very pale, greyish complexion.

⇀ Moodboard

⇀ History

Born out of wedlock as the result of his father's extramarital affair, William spent the early portion of his life in the care of his mother, a single woman who raised him with all the love and affection she could offer in her situation. When he was still a child, she fell to disease, and her last request was sent to William's father, Friedrich, imploring him to take their son. Despite what it meant - revealing his infidelity, bearing yet another financial burden - his own pride forced him to accept the boy, and so William was brought into the Kapple household at the tender age of eight. Friedrich's wife, Johanna, was less than pleased with her husband, and through no fault of his own, William symbolized the rise in tensions between their already suffering marriage. His half-siblings, being young themselves, resented him for it. William had no place in that home.

When William was ten, he began to see ghosts. It was after an encounter with something he could only call a demon, and he only survived it due to the bravery of courage of his older sister, Lorelei.

Lorelei Kapple never hated William; she was sensible enough to know the family's circumstances weren't his fault. But neither did she express affection for him, because she was a serious, severe girl who had difficulty with showing her feelings. He thought she detested him; she always liked him and took him on 'adventures' in the city that they lived in.

It was during one of those adventures where they met a demon lurking at the end of an alley.

William, being only ten, cowered from it, and despite being only twelve, Lorelei fought it with the viciousness of a valkyrie. She screamed at it, cursed it, and told it that she'd rip it apart if it so much as touched her brother. Sadly, even the most impassioned struggling of a child didn't have much effect. She did, however, acquire the notice of a passing monster hunter, who vanquished the beast before it could take both of their lives.

As the beast died, it cursed both siblings for their insolence. William's eyes were haunted, giving him the Sight and allowing him to see the hidden horrors plaguing his mundane world. Lorelei's heart was haunted, giving her terrible strength, endless endurance, and a deep, primal fury that she tried with difficulty to suppress. William's curse was manageable, but the hunter knew that Lorelei could not be left alone in the human world. He said he would take her, train her, and he offered to take William as well, but - in a choice he would come to always regret - William shied away in fear. It was too scary. His world, up to that point, had been normal.He didn't want to fully step into the land of ghosts, demons, and evil things lurking behind the fabric of reality, so he thought if he ran from it, he could escape. It was only his eyes that were haunted, right? He could pretend he couldn't See. But as he went back to that home, he also knew that he'd just been separated from the one person who saw him as their family rather than as a burden.

By fourteen, William was steadily drinking and doing drugs to try to escape the horrors no one else could see, and that's when he met Molly Burke, the woman who would become his dearest, greatest friend, and ultimately, his... 'partner in crime'.

⇀ Symbol

Rabbit - cute, endearing, and flirtatious, but he'd rather hide from anything painful than take action of his own. His natural inclination towards kindness combats that, forcing him to save those that only he can save, but that never changes the fact that he's always afraid. He hides his weakness behind a smile, terrified that others will notice his faults. In private, he hates himself, because if he were a braver, more proactive man, maybe those important to him wouldn't have had to suffer so much.

⇀ Abilities

Whether William's truesight is a gift or a curse is a matter of debatable opinion. It's a powerful ability, allowing William to gaze far beyond the scope of reality. He can see monsters, ghosts, and demons imperceptible to the human eye - sometimes even better than those who've been trained in the art of looking "behind the curtain". At a glance, he can tell if someone is going to die soon by the miasma of death hanging around them, and he can discern evil intentions in people through their auras, making him a pretty good judge of character. However, the things he sees are also uniquely horrible, and it wasn't like he had anyone to confide in about these things as a young child. Even if the spirits he encounters aren't rotted, mutilated specters, he's presented with a different problem - he can't always tell what's real or not. Even worse, it isn't a one-way connection. By noticing the supernatural world, the supernatural world notices him, putting him in a very dangerous position... particularly when he was a child and couldn't defend himself.

This is something that causes Molly a great deal of stress, as he's always encountering some malignant spirit or another, and he's so genuinely empathetic that he'll put himself at risk to help them move on.

⇀ Flaws

Well, where to start?

First of all - sure, he's kind, but he's also horribly unreliable and thinks he knows how to make people happy better than they do. This means he'll do idiotic self-sacrificial bullshit without thinking at all about the feelings of those closest to him, which causes them undue amounts of pain that could have been avoided if he'd just been honest, forthright, and good at communication for literally once in his life. But no, no. He can't do that! He's awful, right? He should suffer, because he deserves it for being a burden on everyone around him! By thinking that, he takes the feelings of the people who love him - like Molly - for granted, and he continually puts her in a terrible position where she can't actually rely on him, because if she takes her eyes off of him for two seconds he might actually try to get himself killed. This tendency edges into flat-out manipulation territory; he's fully and completely willing to... curate the truth and to present the face that he thinks will be most effective at any given time. His thought process regarding his friends is horribly unhealthy, and he will mislead, misdirect, blatantly lie to, and outright abandon them in the interests of 'protecting them'.

He's also terrible at academics. Sure, he affects some of his stupidity, but some of it is really just a complete disinclination towards anything mathematical or difficult. He's a heavy proponent of 'let's fudge it!', which can be great if he's dealing with a spirit and needs to think out of the box, but it's horrible if he needs to do his taxes. Or keep track of gas. Or... really most facets of adult life. Honestly, if he didn't have Molly fretting over him, he'd probably be sleeping on a mattress in a cockroach-ridden apartment whose "lease" he pays underneath the table with money he earns from selling marijuana. With her help, he at least sleeps on a couch, and while ghost-busting for petty cash isn't much better, it's... something, right?