Teodoro 'Ghost' Laudani
this image is funny because there is a wall in it
Portrayed By Chris Evans Paul McGillion
Sex Male
Status Registered Evolved Unregistered Evolved
Ability Limited Telepathy Astral Projection
Age 36
Date of Birth November 15, 1982
Date of Death May 13, 2019 (bodily slain by Gabriel Gray)
Occupation Counter-terrorism Operative, Ninja, Spook
Family Walter Trafford (illegitimate son), Romero Laudani (brother), Amadora and Paolo Laudani (parents), and Lucrezia Bennati (aunt)
Significant Other(s) Jesse Knight (deceased), Eve Mas (former, estranged), Delilah Trafford (former), that potted ficus over there, the kitchen sink …
First Appearance Without Distance
Last Appearance The Hero Dies In This One
Presently teo_icon.gif
Got a look that'll kill, voice that'll carry,
Half a dozen women that think I want a marry.
I got trouble on my mind, I'm refusin' to lose,
But still I got a find someone to abuse.
I'm gonna run spread the news, help say the word, jump the fuck back and just act like you heard
.

They call me white sinner, black martyr, live wire,
Fire-starter, jungle brother, red neck cracker, freak of nature, new world slacker,
Sex junkie lookin' for a dealer,
You can play the leper, girl, and I can play the healer,
Shit is only gettin' realer, baby haven't you heard,
That the bird, bird, bird, yes the bird is the word?

And it go on and on like a rolling stone, baby, anywhere I lay my hat is my home.

Everlast,
Black Jesus

After seven years and a dozen circles around the world, Teo was still just walking it off in 2019. Or, you know. Right up until Gabriel Gray telekinetically sawed his head in half. He might even have thought he deserved it.

However, thanks to some agile maneuvering through space, time, madness, and whatever other intervening mediums, Teo has reemerged in 2009, usurped the body of his younger self, and is currently rolling through human history like a pig in shit. God only knows.


Character History

After Phoenix was safe, Teo was temporarily cast into the illusion that he didn't have things to do. His temperament was not suited to standing on podiums and explaining about his feelings on Evolved-non-Evolved relations.

Despite that his personal experiences co-leading a pro-Evolved activist/terrorist/thing organization probably could have provided the intellectual and political world with some authentic gems of wit to pass on, it remained so painfully obvious to him that even the most dangerous of these people were still people and that coexisting with them was a question of practical services. His answers lacked poetry. He got tired of the question, What power would you want if you could have one? He was not terribly marketable, and he faded into the background.

He spent two years finishing up his degree in Italian literature, zip-lining through the cloud forests of Panama, trying his hand tuna fishing with the camera della morte, practicing Aikido, talking Deckard through his withdrawal, and doing a mediocre job dating various people before he wound up on Alexander's doorstep in Georgia. Alexander had gone home to Redneck Land where he was living on a little island which was very idyllic. Water everywhere, and Teo still loved water. Swimming, kayaking, you know.

He then almost accidentally killed himself with a broken piece of old pier and that was apparently the right sort of romantic, because they got together shortly after. Toward the end, the floors were covered in maps; places to go, though it was beyond him to request they sell the house, because he figured they had time. They didn't.


Personality

Most of the time, Teodoro Laudani operates like a disturbingly simplified creature, a sociopath with nothing but a viciously practical probability engine and cold inert ashes for an inner-life, give or take a few superficial, make-believe behaviors he borrowed from his kinder, sweeter, younger self. He is a liar, a thief, a murderer, deadbeat dad, cheat, and rapist. Complexity and contradiction arise with the fact that most of the brutality he commits is done so because he is terribly upset about something that happened eight years ago. He's watched his friends die, play to the whims of a corporate megalomaniac and, worst of all, can't know for sure any of it was wrong on any standard worth acknowledging. As a result, he has developed a serious case of inconsolable rage. Now, he is trying to change the course of history.

green things are pretty

He doesn't believe in God anymore (the world seems to be driven by the clockwork pistons of the machinations of slightly less prepossessing assholes than God, frankly), but if he did, he'd feel like he's been waiting and training for this single, impossible opportunity for the past eight years. What are the odds?

Pretty fucking slim, is what. It's the closest thing to a sign as Teo is capable of recognizing anymore.

Albeit one that may have come too late for many things. Tragically, those very same eight years that have kept him proactive and effective also necessarily bled out his conscience, reduced his capacity to patiently coddle subjective stupidity or hangups, and obliterated his ability to see a life beyond fighting (the good?) fight. The very people whose lives he fights in refusal of losing again nevertheless remain dead to him whenever he seeks out their companionship; that is, while he can not bear allowing them to die again, living with them is equally impossible. Similarly, he is haunted by the maudlin happinesses and other tragedies that have, from Logan in prison to the countless weddings he attended alone, the lives he has taken and solitude spent. He is unable to unlive his experiences, no matter how edifying or healing that could be. Having ultimately committed himself to a paramilitary career the likes of which he admired so long in Hana and Christian, he is aware these skills came at a cost.

Refining the raw material of self-immolating passions and physical recklessness into something useful and precise is like folding and hammering out, there is no way to unmake that edge into something ductile or harmless; not even by smashing it to pieces. Never having been the most nurturing personality or gentle teacher, he is less now than ever before. Even if not in so many words, he had said it: he would have made a terrible father. If enough people had fully understood why he thought so, they probably would have stopped wibbling their lips, shut up wasting their breath on chastisement or idealized family units, and pragmatically agree.

Peculiarly enough, Teo has recovered most of his self-confidence, compared to the permanently rueful state of hands-wrung self-loathing that he had existed in when he was twenty five. Not only does he like himself, he actually loves himself.

It is the motherfucking world that has a problem.

That is not, however, to say that he is nothing like what he was before or that he has entirely regressed to the sixteen-year-old barbarian who got little Gianina manslaughtered in her tender youth. He remains 'a little' unpredictable but fundamentally steadfast in his many attachments, very sorry, lustful, neurotically vigilant, optimistic, self-sacrificing — perhaps even for honorable reasons now, and laboriously aware that every single one of his actions will have consequences. His favorite color is still red! Either he isn't all that mean, or his younger self wasn't essentially all that nice. Even now, he still loves sea, though he avoids the shore.


Evolved Human Ability

According to Pinehearst's databanks, Teo was a synthetic Evolved with basic telepathic capabilities. In reality, he had not explored the full extent of his ability when tests were originally run and chose not to update his 'Registration' with the true nature of his gift. He is an astral projectionist. A vague stunt list is as follows:

  • Telepathic blast, overall effect of a tazer (Off With Her Head);
  • Reading visual and auditory stimulus through nearby human minds. In other words, he can see what you're seeing and hear what you're hearing, but he has no idea what you're thinking (And Lethe Sings Reminisce);
  • Dream-walking and manipulation (If I Die Before I Wake);
  • Access to the passive/receptive feedback of his targets' Evolved abilities. Ie., sonar hearing, if not projection, and uncontrolled access to Tamara's madness-inducing precognitive perceptions (Attaboy);
  • ???

Relationships

hana_icon.gif Hana is still Teo's mentor and remains the face he's seen most frequently for the past 10 years, amid otherwise interchangeable or frequently abandoned acquaintances, former comrades, and lovers. She permitted him to make her one-woman war on Palestinian terrorists a two man effort and, briefly, three. Thanks to shared experiences in inconsolable losses, they are more alike than they used to be. Despite this, Teo still manages somehow to blindside her with weird questions, though the more time erodes past, the less he finds himself capable of saying the harder words.

Timeline

Pre-April 2019
Date Title Participants Summary
September 19, 2010 Without Distance Alexander Fresh out of a new trainwrecked relationship, Teo finds his best friend's pastoral retreat.
June 12, 2011 Days Go By Deckard After the deaths of the Columbia 14, Deckard chaprons Teo out drinking. Teo needs it.
???, 2018 Killers In A Previous Life Eve Killing Palestinians for funsies.
April 2019
Date Title Participants Summary
04/08 And Lethe Sings Reminisce Alexander The ghost of Alexander proves tactile and tangible when Teo comes in search of a reunion.

Memorable Quotes


Media

Gallery


Trivia and Notes

  • Federal agents involved with foreign affairs may be aware of Wireless and Teo's counter-terrorism with both American and Israeli governments, though local (New York) law enforcement is probably aware only of their assistance in going after Humanis First! He has an official designation of some fancy, obscure-clearance kind.
  • Quit smoking, drinks only in moderation, mostly at Delilah's tavern, which he had helped to set up. Personal progress in great bounding strides.
  • The full extent of his Evolved ability is not listed here or ICly with Pinehearst and may be revealed later if there is any storyline point in that actually happening. He isn't exactly a telepath, it turns out. Please see above.
  • Original poem—
  • Second poem—
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