Azazel Scratch

"Let us ponder the moral of The Hare and His Ears for the moment--'Your enemies will seize any excuse to attack you'. My dear friend, you should have learned that moral..."

-- Scratch making a small sort of threat...For the time being.

Azazel Scratch--Though he prefers the moniker of Lil' Scratch, or just Scratch--is the...Son?...Of the keeper of the House of Mystery, Cain.

Personality
Scratch is...Friendly. Eerily so. He's eager to get chummy with everyone he meets, calling them 'my friend' and always smiling so very wide when he sees them. He's polite, he's civil, he always talks like he's trying to sell you something. He trusts you. Can you find it in yourself to trust him? He's got friends in high places, so he says, and he can get you want you want if you just make a deal. What does he want from you? Nothing much, nothing much...Perhaps a vial of blood? Your name? Your pinky finger? Just tokens, merely trifle. His speech is eloquent and refined, always ready to extend a hand and shake on something. Civility, courtesy, and generosity are of utmost importance. He values cleanliness, micromanaging pens and pencils into perfect rows when he's lonely. And, despite his friendliness, Scratch is very, very often lonely...

...But that's not without just cause. Despite his charm and civility, Scratch is not a nice person. If you're not acting how you should, he's quick to turn angry, even violent. He can't stand those who break his rules. He can't stand those who get in his way. He can't stand those who ruin his work. Many a time he's ended up in trouble because he just so happened to completely snap and began trying to bash someone's brains out with his thick book. Nobody's ended up dead (yet), but there's been too many close calls. He adamantly claims it isn't his fault--Blame his papa if you must, violence just sort of runs in the family! Heh. He's claimed to be on his way to change his behavior, but those claims are all complete and total lies. He just wants you off your guard so he can strike again. Is that fair? No, but whoever said he had to play fair? His deals make liberal use of exact words to twist everything into his favor, and while he'll never flatly lie to you, he will omit many gory details. When the deal eventually botches and backfires, he'll smugly remind you that you agreed to it, it isn't his fault, he kept his word. Nothing's ever Scratch's fault. Nothing.

One last thing. Cain is known for both being the first murderer (hence the copious violence) and being a master storyteller. Scratch, therefor, has an interesting story fixation. He's rarely seen without his very thick book of Aesop's Fables (which is stained with an...Interesting liquid), always ready to read one of them. He likes the simplicity of stories with morals. He likes thinking that everything happens for a reason. If something can be applied to a fable, he's more then happy to read it, and to do everything in his power to make it come true to the letter. His morals can grow annoying sometimes, his insistence that he's right. But the biggest problem with Scratch is, despite his morals, despite his exact words, and despite his borderline hobby of hurting people...In the end, he is usually right. True, his words are always so very carefully chosen so that he's right. But he's still right. And it's just so hard to wipe that smug little grin off of his face once you admit that, yes, he was completely right.

But now, now. My friend, let's move on, let's read a story...

Physical Description
Scratch is rather tall, with more leg then you'd probably expect and a habit of moving a little too fluidly. His skin is slightly pinkish and his hair is a sort of reddish-brown and very scruffy, long enough to cover his eyes. He wears a thick coat, red with yellow accents and a yellow 'S'. The shirt below that, as can only sort of be seen sometimes, is white. His slacks are an orangey-brown hue, his boots slightly too big and sort of grey-brown in color. He has three scars, one on his cheek and two going right across his knuckles. None of them have properly healed. It could be because of some magical reason, or perhaps he just has very itchy fingers.

Sometimes, the strange liquid staining his book will rub off onto his hands, creating a very eerie sort of air to his sophisticated hand gestures. Pay no attention to it.

Family
There are no records of Scratch's birth. If you ask where he came from, you'll get shifty glances and non-committing hand gestures. Some say he's a corrupt lost soul. Some say he's a fracture of Cain's own spirit. Others claim he's a lesser demon sent to rake out the sinners and send them on their way. Who knows? Scratch himself, he says he's Cain's son. Yet the two of them never talk. One has yet to see them interact. Scratch says their relationship is really quite grand, but...Considering his scars...Hmm. It's all so very confusing, to say the least.

Don't bother asking Cain himself about it, though. That will get you nowhere fast.

Friends
Everyone is Scratch's friend. Everyone. Even you. Of course, you're only friends until Scratch deems you useless, so...It's best to say on his good side. If only for the sake of your wrists.

But if you want to go into specifics, fine. Lyman C. Juster is his roommate, and the two get along...Well? Okay, not very well, but they're not at each other's throats or anything. The two sometimes swap stories and talk plots, Scratch even acting as an editor for Lyman's writing sometimes. That doesn't always end too well, though, considering Scratch's violent nature and Lyman's inability to take critique. He also has a particular interest with Jylndmkwyx, always smiling a little wider around her, since his papa once said that her daddy was a resident in the House of Mystery once, a while back. So, obviously, they're written to be companions. He's well aware she's thinks very little of his pestering--Very little of him in general, really--But that hasn't stopped him yet.

Pet
Just a scorpion and a frog (Mephistopheles and Faust, respectfully). Keep them far apart, if you would. They both don't like company too much. They can't help it, it's in their nature.

Romance
To be frank, he's never really thought about it before. His sexuality is currently something more akin to a non-committing hand gesture then any sort of concrete statement, and he's never shown any interest in anyone beyond his standard 'friendship'. So, er...Take that as you will, I suppose.

Trivia

 * Azazel was strongly based on the interpretation of Lucifer as seen in The Devil's Carnival; hence the fixation on Aseop's Fables. But then again he was always supposed to evoke the devil himself--Hence 'Scratch' as in 'Old Scratch' (one of the devil's many names), or knowing myself more likely 'Doc Scratch' (the loose devil-figure in Homestuck).
 * On the same line, 'Azazel' is a name given usually to devils and demons, or a word used to mean 'scapegoat'. It's used thrice in the Hebrew bible.
 * It's unknown how Cain was able to actually produce a child, all things duefully considered. Also, isn't the House of Mystery not even his anymore? We're not so sure, and Scratch pretty feverishly says it still is, so...
 * In his earliest draft, Azazel would have been a girl.
 * Even weirder, he began as a roommate for Salabim--As the son of Mirror Master, obviously playing off a magician's favorite thing, smoke and mirrors. And then Lissa started clicking links and ended up more interested in the House of Mystery.
 * Azazel is a bit of a strange case, as while he's a villain, he has no set hero to go up against. This does not bother him, though. He just thinks it makes him look far stronger.