[App] hometrail
player info.
name/handle: Aubrey
contact info: aubrey@beyondtherift.com, allfireburns (AIM)
personal journal: allfireburns
previous characters: N/A
character info.
character name: Harkness, Jack
canon & medium: Torchwood, television
age & species: 171 (speculation based on him being in his late 20s/early 30s when he met the Doctor), if you don't count those two millennia he spent buried under Cardiff (I... don't, under the theory that he was not really conscious most of that time). Still appears physically 30-ish. Human (with a bit of alien hybridization and Time Vortex in).
appearance: link
timeline: Post-Children of Earth, before End of Time
background/history link: link
personality: Jack tends to project one of two faces to the world, depending on the circumstances and what there is to gain by either approach. In some cases, he's seemingly open, friendly, and easy to talk to. He likes to chatter about irrelevant things, share stories about past lovers (without ever getting too personal), make stupid jokes, and... well, just keep talking enough to distract people from the fact that he never actually says anything. He gets by, for the most part, with a cocky smile, a whole lot of charm, and a heavy dose of flirtation - it's endearing or more than a little irritating, depending on your personality and point of view. That's the considerably more pleasant public persona.
Other times - and much more often, lately - he's distant, unreadable, and kind of intimidating. Times like that, he's sarcastic and really kind of a bastard to people, especially when they manage to touch on things he doesn't want to talk about. He's very good at making himself seem intimidating, and giving the impression that knowing him might be a lot more dangerous than it's worth. He might even believe that last part, himself.
Both of those approaches are designed to keep people at arm's length, in one way or another, and while that may not actually be in Jack's best interest, he does have some fairly good reasons for it. He's lived longer than any human was meant to, seen a lot more than anyone should, and he's built up a lot of cynicism toward the universe in that time. Jack is not the hero of the story, and he knows that - he's the one who does the necessary thing so that others can do the moral thing, the one who takes the coldly calculated risks and makes the necessary sacrifices. He makes the decisions that get good people killed, knowing the stakes aren't the same for him, and especially in recent years, that has taken its toll. He's grown weary of watching his loved ones wither and die while he remains the same, of being the only one still standing in the wake of complete disaster, and even though he needs that human connection, he's more likely than ever to avoid it like hell until someone or something convinces him the risk and the pain is worthwhile.
These days, he's much more likely to run from responsibility than actively take it on, and he's even more desperate to avoid getting too close to people... though that last part is kind of doomed to fail right from the start. Jack falls in love easily and fast, and his affections aren't limited by sex, gender, species (provided they're... sentient), or silly concerns like monogamy. 21st century concepts of sexual morality tend to annoy him more than anything, and trying to put a label on any relationship he has is a fast way to get him defensive and avoidant. With people he cares about and trusts enough to show it, he's often playful, warm, and very physical, but he still almost never opens up entirely, even to those closest to him. He has a particular (and possibly unconscious) tendency to adopt people who are deeply dysfunctional in one way or another, and then looking after them whether they particularly want to be looked after or not.
Jack is not a natural leader. Sure, people tend to follow him because he gives every impression of knowing what he's doing - and to be fair, he does, to a certain degree. He is absolutely certain in his ability to deal with a crisis situation and come out on top, and he is able to utilize a group of people to that purpose with ease and efficiency. When it comes to making sure those people come out of the situation more or less undamaged, though, he really sucks - there's not a person who made it out of Torchwood without losing some part of themselves to the job.
For that matter, when the people under his command don't do as he expects, he doesn't react in the most rational manner - he's been known to deal with a team rebellion by pulling a gun everyone in the room knew he would never fire and proceeding to insult his entire team in turn. He's trained to force compliance, not earn loyalty; that doesn't mean he hasn't earned the loyalty of his team, but he seemed to manage it more by accident and happenstance than through any effort or design of his own.
Jack's natural inclination, basically, is to be selfish. He's a lot better at hiding it than he used to be in his Time Agent and conman days, but the fact of the matter is that his first instinct - especially in interpersonal matters - is often to do the thing that's best for him, and screw the effects it has on those close to him. He pushes people away, he clings to them too tightly, he abandons his team to run off and chase his ex across time and space, and all of it's for his own sake, not anyone else's.
The Time Agency was an organization full of cold-hearted mercenaries, cheerful psychopaths, and bright, promising people with nowhere else to go. Jack was the latter, but a certain amount of the general culture rubbed off: you followed orders from superiors, you made bargains with or conned favours from your peers, and you did whatever it took to get what you wanted so long as you could avoid the consequences. Jack did some terrible things in that time, and possibly worse things he doesn't remember. The guilt for those things still weighs on him, but there's some part in the back of his mind always ticking away, forming contingency plans and battle strategies and ways to turn the situation to his advantage, and not all of those options are the sort of thing you'd call ethical. He may never act on those thoughts, but the fact remains that they're still there, drilled into him by the sort of people who considered scruples a liability rather than an asset.
Despite that, he's worked very hard to become a better man than that. The Doctor is everything Jack wants to be - a good man, the kind of man who always seems to do the right thing, and makes sure that everybody lives. Jack's tried to live up to that example, to be someone the Doctor would be proud of, and over the years - particularly the past three or four - he's become more like the Doctor than he ever expected. The thing he's learning, though, is that the right choices still get good people hurt, and now that he can't ignore that knowledge any longer, he's pretending as hard as he can that he doesn't give a damn. It might even be believable, if you don't ever meet his eyes - that sad, exhausted look doesn't go away no matter what he does, and that easily gives the lie to all his brash arrogance and his heartless bastard persona.
abilities: Jack can't die. Or, rather, he can, he just doesn't stay that way. The Vortex energy in his body restores him to exactly the state he was in just before he died that first time. The amount of time it takes him to return to life varies depending on how traumatic the death was, ranging from less than a minute to half a day. It's not really a fun process for him, though - it's painful when it happens, and sometimes has lingering effects for a few days afterwards. He also heals from non-fatal wounds incredibly quickly, doesn't get sick, and doesn't really sleep.
Jack's been a soldier in wars in several different centuries, and he has extensive combat experience. He's very good with most weapons, and hand-to-hand combat. He used to be a very good torturer, and as a result, he is very good at making bodies do what he wants them to. Take that in as creepy a context as you like, because even if he doesn't use that particular talent much anymore (for... torture, at least), it really is sketchy.
He has a low-level psychic ability - the most he can do with it is shield his thoughts from casual psychic prying, and possibly pick up thoughts other people are projecting, if they're very loud. Any psychic with any real power or training would probably be able to get around Jack's shields without any trouble, though.
any plans for your character here? I would like to force him to stop avoiding actually connecting with people. Just being stuck around a group of people who he can't get away from until the journey's over will probably help with that, at least. I want him to make friends and possibly build a team of some kind within the Caravan - Jack is most fun (both to play and to be around) when he's surrounded by people he cares about.
possessions:
samples.
sample journal entry: You know, I kind of always figured falling through a transdimensional rift would be a lot more exciting. Weird noises, flashing lights, possibly even being conscious at the time... Am I the only one who feels a little cheated just waking up without getting any of the special effects in between?
And for that matter, while I'm asking questions, doesn't it seem like a civilization that's apparently managed to develop antigravity would have a slightly more advanced mode of transportation? That's not just me, right?
third-person sample: Jack doesn't sleep. Some nights, when he's died recently enough and whatever energy keeps him going runs low, he can manage a sort of half-doze... but even that doesn't happen so often these days.
So when he wakes up, cracking his eyes to get his bearings, the obvious assumption is that he has died, somehow without his notice. It happens, and it's certainly preferable to the much more common "incredibly painful" option, but it does tend to make him nervous. Particularly when he wakes up in a strange bed, in a strange room, with no idea how he got there.
He really misses the days when waking up like this was just a sign of a really good night.
Jack rolls smoothly out of the bed and reaches unthinkingly for his gun. It's still there - they all are, actually, so it's probably safe to assume he wasn't killed and then kidnapped or anything. Probably. His hand eases away from the Webley slowly.
He starts out of his room and down the hall, walking carefully, but not cautiously. He half-expects some threat to present itself - or an explanation, barring that - but he doesn't even see anyone else until he steps outside, and then he stops completely, staring at the scene in front of him.
The people on the street appear mostly human, nothing like the assorted blue-gray-green shades and way too many limbs of Bentilore natives. The sky's blue, the grass is green, and the air smells clean - and here he was just getting used to the lead-gray sky and suffocating smog on Bentilore. This is not the planet he was on, last he checked, and that raises more questions than it answers. Jack is not loving any of the possible answers he can think of, either.
"Well... crap," he mutters under his breath, settles his coat around him, and sets out to find someone to tell him what the hell is going on.
name/handle: Aubrey
contact info: aubrey@beyondtherift.com, allfireburns (AIM)
personal journal: allfireburns
previous characters: N/A
character info.
character name: Harkness, Jack
canon & medium: Torchwood, television
age & species: 171 (speculation based on him being in his late 20s/early 30s when he met the Doctor), if you don't count those two millennia he spent buried under Cardiff (I... don't, under the theory that he was not really conscious most of that time). Still appears physically 30-ish. Human (with a bit of alien hybridization and Time Vortex in).
appearance: link
timeline: Post-Children of Earth, before End of Time
background/history link: link
personality: Jack tends to project one of two faces to the world, depending on the circumstances and what there is to gain by either approach. In some cases, he's seemingly open, friendly, and easy to talk to. He likes to chatter about irrelevant things, share stories about past lovers (without ever getting too personal), make stupid jokes, and... well, just keep talking enough to distract people from the fact that he never actually says anything. He gets by, for the most part, with a cocky smile, a whole lot of charm, and a heavy dose of flirtation - it's endearing or more than a little irritating, depending on your personality and point of view. That's the considerably more pleasant public persona.
Other times - and much more often, lately - he's distant, unreadable, and kind of intimidating. Times like that, he's sarcastic and really kind of a bastard to people, especially when they manage to touch on things he doesn't want to talk about. He's very good at making himself seem intimidating, and giving the impression that knowing him might be a lot more dangerous than it's worth. He might even believe that last part, himself.
Both of those approaches are designed to keep people at arm's length, in one way or another, and while that may not actually be in Jack's best interest, he does have some fairly good reasons for it. He's lived longer than any human was meant to, seen a lot more than anyone should, and he's built up a lot of cynicism toward the universe in that time. Jack is not the hero of the story, and he knows that - he's the one who does the necessary thing so that others can do the moral thing, the one who takes the coldly calculated risks and makes the necessary sacrifices. He makes the decisions that get good people killed, knowing the stakes aren't the same for him, and especially in recent years, that has taken its toll. He's grown weary of watching his loved ones wither and die while he remains the same, of being the only one still standing in the wake of complete disaster, and even though he needs that human connection, he's more likely than ever to avoid it like hell until someone or something convinces him the risk and the pain is worthwhile.
These days, he's much more likely to run from responsibility than actively take it on, and he's even more desperate to avoid getting too close to people... though that last part is kind of doomed to fail right from the start. Jack falls in love easily and fast, and his affections aren't limited by sex, gender, species (provided they're... sentient), or silly concerns like monogamy. 21st century concepts of sexual morality tend to annoy him more than anything, and trying to put a label on any relationship he has is a fast way to get him defensive and avoidant. With people he cares about and trusts enough to show it, he's often playful, warm, and very physical, but he still almost never opens up entirely, even to those closest to him. He has a particular (and possibly unconscious) tendency to adopt people who are deeply dysfunctional in one way or another, and then looking after them whether they particularly want to be looked after or not.
Jack is not a natural leader. Sure, people tend to follow him because he gives every impression of knowing what he's doing - and to be fair, he does, to a certain degree. He is absolutely certain in his ability to deal with a crisis situation and come out on top, and he is able to utilize a group of people to that purpose with ease and efficiency. When it comes to making sure those people come out of the situation more or less undamaged, though, he really sucks - there's not a person who made it out of Torchwood without losing some part of themselves to the job.
For that matter, when the people under his command don't do as he expects, he doesn't react in the most rational manner - he's been known to deal with a team rebellion by pulling a gun everyone in the room knew he would never fire and proceeding to insult his entire team in turn. He's trained to force compliance, not earn loyalty; that doesn't mean he hasn't earned the loyalty of his team, but he seemed to manage it more by accident and happenstance than through any effort or design of his own.
Jack's natural inclination, basically, is to be selfish. He's a lot better at hiding it than he used to be in his Time Agent and conman days, but the fact of the matter is that his first instinct - especially in interpersonal matters - is often to do the thing that's best for him, and screw the effects it has on those close to him. He pushes people away, he clings to them too tightly, he abandons his team to run off and chase his ex across time and space, and all of it's for his own sake, not anyone else's.
The Time Agency was an organization full of cold-hearted mercenaries, cheerful psychopaths, and bright, promising people with nowhere else to go. Jack was the latter, but a certain amount of the general culture rubbed off: you followed orders from superiors, you made bargains with or conned favours from your peers, and you did whatever it took to get what you wanted so long as you could avoid the consequences. Jack did some terrible things in that time, and possibly worse things he doesn't remember. The guilt for those things still weighs on him, but there's some part in the back of his mind always ticking away, forming contingency plans and battle strategies and ways to turn the situation to his advantage, and not all of those options are the sort of thing you'd call ethical. He may never act on those thoughts, but the fact remains that they're still there, drilled into him by the sort of people who considered scruples a liability rather than an asset.
Despite that, he's worked very hard to become a better man than that. The Doctor is everything Jack wants to be - a good man, the kind of man who always seems to do the right thing, and makes sure that everybody lives. Jack's tried to live up to that example, to be someone the Doctor would be proud of, and over the years - particularly the past three or four - he's become more like the Doctor than he ever expected. The thing he's learning, though, is that the right choices still get good people hurt, and now that he can't ignore that knowledge any longer, he's pretending as hard as he can that he doesn't give a damn. It might even be believable, if you don't ever meet his eyes - that sad, exhausted look doesn't go away no matter what he does, and that easily gives the lie to all his brash arrogance and his heartless bastard persona.
abilities: Jack can't die. Or, rather, he can, he just doesn't stay that way. The Vortex energy in his body restores him to exactly the state he was in just before he died that first time. The amount of time it takes him to return to life varies depending on how traumatic the death was, ranging from less than a minute to half a day. It's not really a fun process for him, though - it's painful when it happens, and sometimes has lingering effects for a few days afterwards. He also heals from non-fatal wounds incredibly quickly, doesn't get sick, and doesn't really sleep.
Jack's been a soldier in wars in several different centuries, and he has extensive combat experience. He's very good with most weapons, and hand-to-hand combat. He used to be a very good torturer, and as a result, he is very good at making bodies do what he wants them to. Take that in as creepy a context as you like, because even if he doesn't use that particular talent much anymore (for... torture, at least), it really is sketchy.
He has a low-level psychic ability - the most he can do with it is shield his thoughts from casual psychic prying, and possibly pick up thoughts other people are projecting, if they're very loud. Any psychic with any real power or training would probably be able to get around Jack's shields without any trouble, though.
any plans for your character here? I would like to force him to stop avoiding actually connecting with people. Just being stuck around a group of people who he can't get away from until the journey's over will probably help with that, at least. I want him to make friends and possibly build a team of some kind within the Caravan - Jack is most fun (both to play and to be around) when he's surrounded by people he cares about.
possessions:
- His greatcoat (pictured above), and... y'know, the other clothes he's wearing. But the greatcoat's important.
- Time Agency wrist device - it's supposed to be a teleport and time travel device, but it's mostly broken, so right now all it's good for is various scans (of atmosphere, biosigns, and technology around him), and remote communication with other electronic devices. (If you'd like me to break it more, I'm okay with that, just let me know how much.)
- His guns: a World War II-era Webley pistol, and a couple energy-based alien guns he's picked up since leaving Earth (I expect the latter won't work in Willaknapp).
samples.
sample journal entry: You know, I kind of always figured falling through a transdimensional rift would be a lot more exciting. Weird noises, flashing lights, possibly even being conscious at the time... Am I the only one who feels a little cheated just waking up without getting any of the special effects in between?
And for that matter, while I'm asking questions, doesn't it seem like a civilization that's apparently managed to develop antigravity would have a slightly more advanced mode of transportation? That's not just me, right?
third-person sample: Jack doesn't sleep. Some nights, when he's died recently enough and whatever energy keeps him going runs low, he can manage a sort of half-doze... but even that doesn't happen so often these days.
So when he wakes up, cracking his eyes to get his bearings, the obvious assumption is that he has died, somehow without his notice. It happens, and it's certainly preferable to the much more common "incredibly painful" option, but it does tend to make him nervous. Particularly when he wakes up in a strange bed, in a strange room, with no idea how he got there.
He really misses the days when waking up like this was just a sign of a really good night.
Jack rolls smoothly out of the bed and reaches unthinkingly for his gun. It's still there - they all are, actually, so it's probably safe to assume he wasn't killed and then kidnapped or anything. Probably. His hand eases away from the Webley slowly.
He starts out of his room and down the hall, walking carefully, but not cautiously. He half-expects some threat to present itself - or an explanation, barring that - but he doesn't even see anyone else until he steps outside, and then he stops completely, staring at the scene in front of him.
The people on the street appear mostly human, nothing like the assorted blue-gray-green shades and way too many limbs of Bentilore natives. The sky's blue, the grass is green, and the air smells clean - and here he was just getting used to the lead-gray sky and suffocating smog on Bentilore. This is not the planet he was on, last he checked, and that raises more questions than it answers. Jack is not loving any of the possible answers he can think of, either.
"Well... crap," he mutters under his breath, settles his coat around him, and sets out to find someone to tell him what the hell is going on.