(no subject)
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Pixie
AGE: 19
JOURNAL: technobabbled
IM: pixie is bloo
E-MAIL: technobabbledftw [at] gmail [dot] com
RETURNING: N/A
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Chris Skelton
FANDOM: Life on Mars (UK)
CHRONOLOGY: End of Life on Mars, but before Ashes to Ashes
CLASS: Hero
SUPERHERO NAME: Super Skelton (Subtlety? What's that?)
ALTER EGO: Chris Skelton; Manchester and Salford CID's resident dogsbody.
BACKGROUND:
HIGHLIGHTED TEXT CONTAINS HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE OF ASHES TO ASHES (anything that isn't highlighted is spoiler free, unless you haven't seen S1 Ashes to Ashes, in which case really mild spoilers in the first paragraph of background).
Chris was born and bred in Manchester and grew up with his mum, dad, at least one sibling and a dog that eventually had to be put down because of canine distemper. He never did too well at school and didn't bother with any further education after he'd done his O-levels, although even if he'd wanted to he likely wouldn't have been able to.
He joined the police force as soon as he was old enough and tested to become a Detective Constable at the soonest chance. Somehow he managed gain this rank reasonably quickly despite his apparent incompetence and was transferred to Gene Hunt's department in CID. There he met his best friend Ray Carling and despite his naivety managed to become an integral part of the team. He started drinking at the pubs for non-uniformed police and became very involved in the work aspect as well, even if he was given most of the work no one else wanted to deal with.
At the time Sam Tyler joined their team, everyone had been expecting Ray to become their new DI. Of course, Ray resented Sam for taking his promotion, but despite this Chris found himself working with Sam a lot, even though he'd initially been concerned about what the rest of his colleagues would think of that. He still did worry as time went on, but found himself respecting Sam's new methods, often even favouring them over the traditional ways.
It isn’t until Sam’s been with them for months that they discover he’s apparently been placed in their team undercover to destroy Gene Hunt and break apart their team. Chris is very much hurt by the admission and Sam’s betrayal almost leads to their all of their deaths in a botched sting. However, Sam returns to them and saves them. From then on he continues to act as Chris’ mentor until 1980, long after the point I’ll be taking Chris from.
PERSONALITY:
Chris isn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box. He doesn't know what some words mean, gets confused by words that sound similar and his spelling's far from stellar. He's probably an undiagnosed dyslexic, which would mean he didn't get anywhere near as much out of the education system as he could have. Despite this he's not done too badly out of life and has earned the rank of Detective Constable on the police force. That isn't technically any higher than being a uniformed Police Constable, but Chris is happy enough with this and has no desire to push for promotion. And it does earn him that little bit more respect than if he were uniformed.
Chris is very much considered to be the baby of the team. He's more cautious than the rest of them, and often appears to be more nervous though he insists this isn't the case. He's often the butt of jokes from the rest of CID, although this is something he takes with good grace. He's also the one that gets stuck with all the worst jobs and has to wait his turn when he is allowed to join in with the more fun stuff. When interrogating he's always the one who has to play good cop, even though he would like to play bad cop once in a while. He'll often have paperwork pushed onto him and it's only if he's in a really bad mood he'll refuse even if it's not his turn to deal with it.
Unfortunately being as much of a pushover as he is does make him vulnerable. Chris honestly doesn't mind being taken advantage of by the rest of his CID team, but he'll also allow others to even if he doesn't want to. Although Chris refuses to take bribes at all, he still has the potential to fall into corruption very easily just because he finds it difficult to stand his ground. However, Chris never means to mess up, and on the occasions he does he works hard to put things right.
He is a little discriminatory, but this is mostly out of ignorance. There are very few (if any) groups he truly dislikes, although there are several he firmly believes in stereotypes for. He does use derogatory slurs, although again this really is just ignorance rather than meaning anything actually offensive.
POWER:
No canon abilities
Eidetic memory (audio only): [Although active, Chris is currently unaware of this ability.] In canon Chris has picked up the habit of recording interrogations with a tape recorder from Sam Tyler. Even before that he carried a small notepad for the sake of taking statements and making notes. Rather than working like true eidetic memory, this power will work more like a seventies tape recorder. Not in the sense you’d need to grab a tape and stick it in his mouth, but just that he’d need to sort through conversations in his head but once he’d remembered it he’d be able to recite the entire thing. Of course, technology being what it is in Chris’ time this may not always work. If a mun doesn’t want to give permission for Chris to be able to recall the specifics of their conversation this may be like a ‘lost’ or ‘damaged’ tape and he wouldn’t be able to remember. Or he may even just lose the critical parts of a conversation.
His memory of visual and physical things will remain as it always has. So if someone were to ask him what colour a carpet was, he’d use a more canonical response of “Hard to say, really. Sort of a reddishy-purple.”
Biscuit/cookie detection: What Chris thinks of as biscuits, but in this particular setting the reality is it’s far more likely to be cookies. Canonically, Chris is the guy who’s expected to fetch tea and biscuits for the rest of his team and occasionally witnesses/suspects whenever there isn’t a plonk (female officer) around to do it for them. This ability will make his job far, far easier as instead of having to search for them he’ll be able to tell the type, amount and exact location without looking. Now all he’ll need to do is work out where those tea bags have got to...
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[video]
[Having somehow managed to work out how to get the video function to work, Chris squints at the camera, tilting his head.]
Blimey. Bit flash this, innit? Better picture than my telly. Bit smaller, mind...
[He taps the lens experimentally.] Thought you’d need some ruddy great thing to do proper filming... Reels and that. Don’t see how people are even supposed to be getting this. Can’t send pictures down the phone line, can you?
[Seeming to realise he’s distracted himself, Chris straightens, ready to get to the point.]
Right. Well. I was just wondering if anyone knew how I could get back to Manchester.
...Or call, I suppose. Only I’m supposed to be working and I don’t reckon my Guv’d be too happy about me not turning up and I don’t know the code thingy for calling from abroad or nothing. And I’ve only got a few quid on me, so no chance of a plane... Don’t even use sterling out here, do you?
Um. Ta. For helping me, if you do. [He offers the camera a nervous grin.] I’m Chris.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
Chris wipes the grease from his bacon and sausage sandwich as he makes his way painfully to his desk in CID. He’s taken both Tyler’s and Ray’s hangover advice this morning, balancing his fried breakfast with as many glasses of juice as he can stomach before facing going to work. Ray swears by a fry up; “the grease’ll get your gears turning”, whilst Sam insists the vitamins in freshly squeezed orange juice are exactly what your body needs to get it working again. Chris can’t recall the exact words of that theory. Taking his seat gingerly, Chris props his head on his hand and watches Ray who’s talking his sordid tones to some bird on the other end of the telephone, feet propped up in the top drawer of his desk. It’s Peggy, if this is the same bird Ray’s been seeing these past few weeks. He doesn’t even bother to hide that the call’s clearly not work related.
Catching his staring, Ray turns to face him as much as he can manage, raising his eyebrows. Chris offers him a weak grin, mouthing something at him.
‘Hangover?’ Chris already thinks he knows the answer to that one. Ray looks right as rain. Bastard.
Just as expected, Ray smirks, lifting a mug of something that's clearly not tea and takes a swig. ‘Hair of the dog!’ Ray mouths back, tipping the mug so Chris can see the whiskey. Smug git.
He returns to his call then and Chris catches something about ‘...those nice lacey ones you wore when I...’. He switches off then, because it’s none of his business. And much as he admires Ray, it embarrasses him a little to listen to him speaking to his conquests. Left to his own devices Chris clears a spot on his desk, leaving a haphazard pile of paperwork he might try to deal with when his headache’s gone a bit. On top he places a battered Matchbox car, his gum and a pack of cigarettes for when he wakes up. After second thoughts he moves the cigarettes to his blazer pocket. The last thing he wants is for someone to pinch them again and leave him begging off one of the others. He looks at his pile for a moment, almost proud. At least he won’t have to worry about leaving drool on his papers now. Tyler hadn’t looked too impressed the last time that had happened.
He almost wonders if it’s the thought of Tyler that summons him, because no sooner has his head hits the desk Tyler’s standing in front of him. He senses him before he can see him, and when he looks up with bleary eyes his suspicions are sadly confirmed. There’s Sam Tyler with his arms folder, eyebrows raised disapprovingly. “Working hard this morning, I see, Chris.”
Chris swallows guiltily, rolling the toy car off his paperwork and parking it on the opposite side of his desk. “Yeah, I was just... Getting this.” He picks the file up from the top, Juicy Fruit gum landing on the floor by his foot. He considers picking it up, but it can wait a minute. Just until his DI has gone.
Sam’s clearly not buying what he’s saying, but he nods. “I’ll leave you to it. I want to see those done by 12 sharp, Chris. There’s a few other things I want to get you looking into.”
Chris nods slowly, feeling himself sink into tired defeat. “Right... Thanks, Boss. I’ll just... Finish them.”
Sam gone, Chris retrieves the chewing gum from next to his seat, dropping it next to the small car and flipping open the first file. He lights up a cigarette, inhaling and exhaling smoke before simply letting it hang from his lips and staring blankly at the file in front of him. He’s only there for a minute before he pushes away from his desk, heading hopefully to Cartwright’s instead. With any luck she’ll have some painkillers, or at the very least be willing to help him shift some of his work.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
Being from a 1973 Britain without superheroes Chris may take a bit of time to adjust... Then again, the premise is probably the sort of place Chris dreams of ending up and he’s reasonably adaptable.
NAME: Pixie
AGE: 19
JOURNAL: technobabbled
IM: pixie is bloo
E-MAIL: technobabbledftw [at] gmail [dot] com
RETURNING: N/A
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Chris Skelton
FANDOM: Life on Mars (UK)
CHRONOLOGY: End of Life on Mars, but before Ashes to Ashes
CLASS: Hero
SUPERHERO NAME: Super Skelton (Subtlety? What's that?)
ALTER EGO: Chris Skelton; Manchester and Salford CID's resident dogsbody.
BACKGROUND:
HIGHLIGHTED TEXT CONTAINS HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE OF ASHES TO ASHES (anything that isn't highlighted is spoiler free, unless you haven't seen S1 Ashes to Ashes, in which case really mild spoilers in the first paragraph of background).
Chris was born and bred in Manchester and grew up with his mum, dad, at least one sibling and a dog that eventually had to be put down because of canine distemper. He never did too well at school and didn't bother with any further education after he'd done his O-levels, although even if he'd wanted to he likely wouldn't have been able to.
He joined the police force as soon as he was old enough and tested to become a Detective Constable at the soonest chance. Somehow he managed gain this rank reasonably quickly despite his apparent incompetence and was transferred to Gene Hunt's department in CID. There he met his best friend Ray Carling and despite his naivety managed to become an integral part of the team. He started drinking at the pubs for non-uniformed police and became very involved in the work aspect as well, even if he was given most of the work no one else wanted to deal with.
At the time Sam Tyler joined their team, everyone had been expecting Ray to become their new DI. Of course, Ray resented Sam for taking his promotion, but despite this Chris found himself working with Sam a lot, even though he'd initially been concerned about what the rest of his colleagues would think of that. He still did worry as time went on, but found himself respecting Sam's new methods, often even favouring them over the traditional ways.
It isn’t until Sam’s been with them for months that they discover he’s apparently been placed in their team undercover to destroy Gene Hunt and break apart their team. Chris is very much hurt by the admission and Sam’s betrayal almost leads to their all of their deaths in a botched sting. However, Sam returns to them and saves them. From then on he continues to act as Chris’ mentor until 1980, long after the point I’ll be taking Chris from.
PERSONALITY:
Chris isn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box. He doesn't know what some words mean, gets confused by words that sound similar and his spelling's far from stellar. He's probably an undiagnosed dyslexic, which would mean he didn't get anywhere near as much out of the education system as he could have. Despite this he's not done too badly out of life and has earned the rank of Detective Constable on the police force. That isn't technically any higher than being a uniformed Police Constable, but Chris is happy enough with this and has no desire to push for promotion. And it does earn him that little bit more respect than if he were uniformed.
Chris is very much considered to be the baby of the team. He's more cautious than the rest of them, and often appears to be more nervous though he insists this isn't the case. He's often the butt of jokes from the rest of CID, although this is something he takes with good grace. He's also the one that gets stuck with all the worst jobs and has to wait his turn when he is allowed to join in with the more fun stuff. When interrogating he's always the one who has to play good cop, even though he would like to play bad cop once in a while. He'll often have paperwork pushed onto him and it's only if he's in a really bad mood he'll refuse even if it's not his turn to deal with it.
Unfortunately being as much of a pushover as he is does make him vulnerable. Chris honestly doesn't mind being taken advantage of by the rest of his CID team, but he'll also allow others to even if he doesn't want to. Although Chris refuses to take bribes at all, he still has the potential to fall into corruption very easily just because he finds it difficult to stand his ground. However, Chris never means to mess up, and on the occasions he does he works hard to put things right.
He is a little discriminatory, but this is mostly out of ignorance. There are very few (if any) groups he truly dislikes, although there are several he firmly believes in stereotypes for. He does use derogatory slurs, although again this really is just ignorance rather than meaning anything actually offensive.
POWER:
No canon abilities
Eidetic memory (audio only): [Although active, Chris is currently unaware of this ability.] In canon Chris has picked up the habit of recording interrogations with a tape recorder from Sam Tyler. Even before that he carried a small notepad for the sake of taking statements and making notes. Rather than working like true eidetic memory, this power will work more like a seventies tape recorder. Not in the sense you’d need to grab a tape and stick it in his mouth, but just that he’d need to sort through conversations in his head but once he’d remembered it he’d be able to recite the entire thing. Of course, technology being what it is in Chris’ time this may not always work. If a mun doesn’t want to give permission for Chris to be able to recall the specifics of their conversation this may be like a ‘lost’ or ‘damaged’ tape and he wouldn’t be able to remember. Or he may even just lose the critical parts of a conversation.
His memory of visual and physical things will remain as it always has. So if someone were to ask him what colour a carpet was, he’d use a more canonical response of “Hard to say, really. Sort of a reddishy-purple.”
Biscuit/cookie detection: What Chris thinks of as biscuits, but in this particular setting the reality is it’s far more likely to be cookies. Canonically, Chris is the guy who’s expected to fetch tea and biscuits for the rest of his team and occasionally witnesses/suspects whenever there isn’t a plonk (female officer) around to do it for them. This ability will make his job far, far easier as instead of having to search for them he’ll be able to tell the type, amount and exact location without looking. Now all he’ll need to do is work out where those tea bags have got to...
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[video]
[Having somehow managed to work out how to get the video function to work, Chris squints at the camera, tilting his head.]
Blimey. Bit flash this, innit? Better picture than my telly. Bit smaller, mind...
[He taps the lens experimentally.] Thought you’d need some ruddy great thing to do proper filming... Reels and that. Don’t see how people are even supposed to be getting this. Can’t send pictures down the phone line, can you?
[Seeming to realise he’s distracted himself, Chris straightens, ready to get to the point.]
Right. Well. I was just wondering if anyone knew how I could get back to Manchester.
...Or call, I suppose. Only I’m supposed to be working and I don’t reckon my Guv’d be too happy about me not turning up and I don’t know the code thingy for calling from abroad or nothing. And I’ve only got a few quid on me, so no chance of a plane... Don’t even use sterling out here, do you?
Um. Ta. For helping me, if you do. [He offers the camera a nervous grin.] I’m Chris.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
Chris wipes the grease from his bacon and sausage sandwich as he makes his way painfully to his desk in CID. He’s taken both Tyler’s and Ray’s hangover advice this morning, balancing his fried breakfast with as many glasses of juice as he can stomach before facing going to work. Ray swears by a fry up; “the grease’ll get your gears turning”, whilst Sam insists the vitamins in freshly squeezed orange juice are exactly what your body needs to get it working again. Chris can’t recall the exact words of that theory. Taking his seat gingerly, Chris props his head on his hand and watches Ray who’s talking his sordid tones to some bird on the other end of the telephone, feet propped up in the top drawer of his desk. It’s Peggy, if this is the same bird Ray’s been seeing these past few weeks. He doesn’t even bother to hide that the call’s clearly not work related.
Catching his staring, Ray turns to face him as much as he can manage, raising his eyebrows. Chris offers him a weak grin, mouthing something at him.
‘Hangover?’ Chris already thinks he knows the answer to that one. Ray looks right as rain. Bastard.
Just as expected, Ray smirks, lifting a mug of something that's clearly not tea and takes a swig. ‘Hair of the dog!’ Ray mouths back, tipping the mug so Chris can see the whiskey. Smug git.
He returns to his call then and Chris catches something about ‘...those nice lacey ones you wore when I...’. He switches off then, because it’s none of his business. And much as he admires Ray, it embarrasses him a little to listen to him speaking to his conquests. Left to his own devices Chris clears a spot on his desk, leaving a haphazard pile of paperwork he might try to deal with when his headache’s gone a bit. On top he places a battered Matchbox car, his gum and a pack of cigarettes for when he wakes up. After second thoughts he moves the cigarettes to his blazer pocket. The last thing he wants is for someone to pinch them again and leave him begging off one of the others. He looks at his pile for a moment, almost proud. At least he won’t have to worry about leaving drool on his papers now. Tyler hadn’t looked too impressed the last time that had happened.
He almost wonders if it’s the thought of Tyler that summons him, because no sooner has his head hits the desk Tyler’s standing in front of him. He senses him before he can see him, and when he looks up with bleary eyes his suspicions are sadly confirmed. There’s Sam Tyler with his arms folder, eyebrows raised disapprovingly. “Working hard this morning, I see, Chris.”
Chris swallows guiltily, rolling the toy car off his paperwork and parking it on the opposite side of his desk. “Yeah, I was just... Getting this.” He picks the file up from the top, Juicy Fruit gum landing on the floor by his foot. He considers picking it up, but it can wait a minute. Just until his DI has gone.
Sam’s clearly not buying what he’s saying, but he nods. “I’ll leave you to it. I want to see those done by 12 sharp, Chris. There’s a few other things I want to get you looking into.”
Chris nods slowly, feeling himself sink into tired defeat. “Right... Thanks, Boss. I’ll just... Finish them.”
Sam gone, Chris retrieves the chewing gum from next to his seat, dropping it next to the small car and flipping open the first file. He lights up a cigarette, inhaling and exhaling smoke before simply letting it hang from his lips and staring blankly at the file in front of him. He’s only there for a minute before he pushes away from his desk, heading hopefully to Cartwright’s instead. With any luck she’ll have some painkillers, or at the very least be willing to help him shift some of his work.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
Being from a 1973 Britain without superheroes Chris may take a bit of time to adjust... Then again, the premise is probably the sort of place Chris dreams of ending up and he’s reasonably adaptable.