App for Siren's Pull
Player Information
Name: Hannah/Murph
Age: 20
AIM SN: hkmmurph
email: hkmmurph@bellsouth.net
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Of course.
Currrently Played Characters: N/A
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Supernatural
Canon Format: TV series
Character's Name: John Winchester
Character's Age: 52
What form will your character's NV take? A Blackberry 7250. They may look ancient now, but they were hot shit in the mid-2000s.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
John served in the Marines for a short period of time during Vietnam, so he has to an extent some militaristic training. He also got over 22 years of hunting experience, with a vast knowledge of various religious rites/protective symbols/etc., supernatural and mundane weaponry (including firearms), hand-to-hand combat, and an impressive ability to find and track patterns of supernatural activity with very little resources.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them?
Power nullification. At first, it’ll just be other people’s abilities will not work on him, but there are a few exceptions. If someone who was telekinetic used their powers to hurl a rock at him, it would definitely hurt. However, if that same telekinetic were to try to hurl him around, it wouldn’t work.
He’ll eventually be able to train up to nullify the powers of everyone around him (in about a 10 foot radius), and then specific people (again, in that general 10 foot radius). He won’t be able to block a few people out of several in his area as it divides his concentration too much. It’s either one person, or a blanket block out of everyone.
Weapons:
John’s only going to have an old pocket knife and the Colt. Also, while not strictly weapons, he’s also got on him a small bottle of holy water and a rosary.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Here and here.
Point in Canon: Episode 2x01, “In My Time of Dying”, just before completing his deal with Azazel.
Character Personality:
Before his wife’s untimely death, John was just a regular middle class family man. Despite what he saw and experienced during Vietnam, he was able to keep a fairly positive outlook on life and not let his time in the service color his life. He did come away with a sort of need to protect and a hatred of loosing, but it wasn’t something that he let overtake his life. He was kind and openly friendly, the kind of person who’d be willing to buy coffee for a hungover stranger in need. Most of all, he was head over heels in love with Mary. They were quite literally a match made in Heaven, their romance having been assured by the interference of a cupid. They weren’t a perfect couple; they did have their fights like anyone else. One fight even ended in John moving out for a few days. Still, John was absolutely devoted to Mary. He was willing to do anything to protect her, even allowing the Archangel Michael to possess his body in order to save Mary’s (and presumably an unborn Dean’s) life.
Mary’s death was absolutely devastating to him, and it fundamentally changed him in countless ways. He became emotionally distant from everyone, including his children (to a point). Instead, he focused every fiber of his being on revenge for her murder. He began seeing threats everywhere, and he not only distanced himself, but Sam and Dean, from the world. John also developed somewhat of a drinking problem. He didn’t really bother hiding it from his kids when they were growing up, and it wasn’t unusual for him to disappear for a few days on a binge.
John served in Vietnam as a Marine, and that kind of hardass alpha male mentality has stayed with him all these years. He rarely seeks assistance from anyone and probably won’t take it if offered. In the unlikely event that he does have help from someone (for a hunt or hustling pool or what have you), he’s the one in charge at all times, no questions asked. He answers to absolutely no one but himself, and he won’t hesitate to bust heads if someone challenges him. No matter who he’s butting heads with, be it against his friends or his own children he, refuses to back down. It’s completely lost him several friends over the years, alienated him from others, and gained him quite a few enemies. Though, no falling out has been so severe that the other person hasn’t been willing to help out John or his children when they were in danger, particularly when their lives were on the line.
Part of what makes John such an exceptional hunter is his determination (bordering on obsession) to finish the job. It started out as an obsession to find the thing that killed his wife, but he quickly learned to channel that into hunting and killing anything supernatural he came across. Once he gets on a hunt, or even a whiff of one, all of his attention is focused onto it. Everything else, people, money, and occasionally his children, takes a back seat until he sees it to the end. It’s gotten so bad in the past that he’s disappeared without word for weeks on end, only coming up for air after he’s finished the job. However, he’s not a perfect hunter. Out of the countless victims of Azazel, he was only ever able to help one family, and that was only due to Sam’s demon-blood induced visions. He was also directly responsible for the death of a close friend, Bill Harvelle, during a hunt. Bill was the bait, and John jumped the gun and got Bill mauled. After Bill’s death, John never worked with another hunter again.
As a father, John fails miserably. He took a distant, militaristic approach to raising Dean and Sam, treating them like soldiers under his command. He expected (still expects, actually) them to blindly obey every order he gave them, trained them like soldiers and even taught them how to handle weapons while still in elementary school. He tried to keep the truth about monsters and the like from Sam, at least, for as long as he could. However, John had no qualms with throwing him right into the fray after he learned the truth at age nine. Early on, John would leave the boys with other people for extended periods of time while he would go on hunts, usually a babysitter, but a lot of the time it would be another person with hunting experience. After he thought they were old enough (the keyword here being ‘thought’), he began leaving the two alone, essentially forcing Dean to become a parent to Sam. He believed, at the time, it was the only way to keep them safe in the dangerous, uncertain world he was forcing them into.
He rarely shows Dean and Sam anything that could normally be considered parental affection. It's even rarer that he openly praises them. He felt it was never really conducive to the militaristic lifestyle they lived. It's only in times of great distress, namely under the threat of death, that he's willing to do anything outwardly paternal. The same can be said for his emotions in general. He doesn’t like to outwardly display any emotions that could make him lose control over a situation. He’s more willing to convey how he’s feeling to his children, but he’ll hold back or close himself off if he feels it’s necessary to the situation.
It’s not to say that John doesn’t care for his kids. He does, probably more than anyone knows. He’s willing to do anything, even straight up murder, to keep Sam and Dean safe. Unfortunately, this makes them his greatest weakness. He’ll still take risks even when he knows his sons can handle whatever they’re dealing with. His concern for their safety clouds his judgment, and it’s caused him to play right into the bad guys’ hands on more than one occasion. He does regret the way he raised them, as evidenced by his desperate attempts to reconcile with them on his deathbed. He’s well aware what he did was wrong, and it eats at him constantly. But he also knows that mistakes and damage he did is permanent, and there’s no other way to fix it besides owning up to his errors and apolpgies.
Character Plans:
My initial plans are pretty canon-centric at this point. He’ll be greeted by his wife Mary, who he’ll go home with. There will be a lot of fighting between his entire family (directed at him), and Mary and John will separate for a little while before realizing how miserable they are.
Also, I feel that the ability I’ve given him has a ton of potential for some really interesting CR all around, and could be pretty damn useful on bounty hunts.
Appearance/PB: The ridiculously good looking Jeffery Dean Morgan.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[John still doesn’t feel comfortable with showing his face to the entire city. So an audio announcement it is.]
I’m need to know if anyone knows anything about garages in the city are hiring? I’ve got at least 40 year’s experience with trucks, bikes, busses, you name it. I’ll work minimum if I have to, I need the money.
[An then an almost audible grinding of his teeth. This is the part he’s been dreading.]
And if anyone is looking for a bouncer, or body guarding, I’ve…got some experience there too.
Second Sample
[At first, all that is audible is a rustling and what sounds like muffled voices. Obviously, the broadcast is unintentional. One of the voices, John’s, becomes clear quickly. He’s yelling.]
-no Mary, I did what I had to do, and-
[He’s cut off by Mary's voice. It’s too muffled and far off to make out what’s she’s saying, but the sentiment is clear. There is a long pause after the woman stops speaking, with only rustling to fill the tense silence. John responds after a few solid minutes, sounding calmer but, but still angry.]
Okay, fine. Just go. Do whatever you want.
[There's the sound of footsteps and a door closing a little harder than necessary. John groans, sitting down heavily, and begins muttering to himself almost immediately.]
Perfect. Just great. Not even here a week and I've fucked it- [A pause, followed by frantic rustling] Shit, how long has this thing been on?
[The frantic rusting continues for a few more seconds, but he doesn't hang up. He addresses whoever happens to be listening in, his tone mildly threatening.]
I don't know how much of that anyone heard, and I really don't care. Just don't say a word and you're good.
...no, actually, if anyone could tell me where the hell I could get a drink in this city, then we're good.
Third Person Sample
John knows he should be sleeping now. After everything that he’s been through in the past few days, and tonight especially, he should be jumping at the chance to just close his eyes and just rest for once. But for whatever reason, be it the soreness or the sex or Mary’s mere presence, he’s entirely too keyed up to let himself relax.
Mary. Mary was here. He couldn’t believe it at first, that just as he was going to trade away his soul he’d be delivered right into her arms. He’d threatened to shoot her, convinced she was some sort of shape shifter or monster borrowing her face. But no, it was her, really and truly 100% the woman he married. John has no idea what he did to deserve this, but fuck, if he isn’t grateful. He steals a glance at his wife, sleeping soundly next to him. She looks like an angel, all blond hair and curves, and he’s half tempted to wake her up for another round. But no, they’d have plenty of time for that later. No need to disturb her now.
So now he’s left with the problem of being entirely too wired to sleep. Something to drink might calm his nerves, he decides. Mary wouldn’t have any of the hard stuff, he knows, going by the acid looks she used to give him when he would have a drink after work. Water, then. It’ll do fuck-all, but at least it’s something.
John rolls out of the bed and locates his boxers clear on the other side of the room (he’s impressed, for sure). He gropes and stumbles his way to the kitchen in the almost pitch dark, stubbing multiple toes and swearing up a silent storm along the way. He finds the glasses and sink with minimal noise, and pours himself a glass of water.
The second the water hits his tongue he knows something’s wrong. He spits out what he hadn’t already swallowed, looks at the glass, and holy shit. It’s grimy and rust-colored, specked with floating bits of god-knows-what. He drops it instantly, the glass shattering to bits in the sink.
What the hell is wrong with this city? Monsters running loose- ones he’d never even seen, much less killed- the city itself crumbling before his eyes, and whatever the hell that was in the sink (he’s not even sure it can be called water anymore) was being pumped into people’s homes. It's almost hellish.
A thought strikes John in that moment, though honestly it’s been at the back of his mind since he was spit out on that baseball field. Maybe Azazel had gotten the drop on him after all. Maybe he didn’t even need to go hand the bastard the gun, just seeing Dean was enough.
Maybe…maybe this city was Hell.