I'm a boy, no, I'm a man...
[ Player Name ] : Dees
[ Personal LJ ] : Punchhopped
[ Age ] : 24
[ Timezone ] : GMT+1
[ Other Characters ] : Gamzee Makara & Xigbar
[ Character's Name ] : James Pleiades Hawkins
[ Character's Age ] : 15
[ Series ] : Treasure Planet
[ Canon Point ] : After the R.L.S Legacy takes off and Silver puts him on mopping duties.
[ History ] :
At fifteen, and a child to a single mother, Jim’s life hasn’t been the easiest. His father was a spacer and largely absent for most of his childhood, until he finally walked out for good on his wife and kid. Jim could not have been more than ten years old. And though Jim is quick to tell anyone that he and his mom were fine, just fine, and that they didn’t need anyone, the event left its mark on young Jim. And while Jim is not waiting for his dad to come back --not anymore, he did plenty of that, thank you very much-- a large part of him craves a father figure of any kind.
Though Jim is a bright lad, -- the kind that could be top of his class if he wanted to and the type that is skilled enough at mechanics to start building and maintaining his own solar surfer at age eight -- he’s failing school and he’s one more incident away from juvenile hall. He’s the kind of kid that drives his mother to tears and who doesn’t really see a future for himself. And why should he? In his eyes, everybody has already judged him as a trouble maker, his father didn’t even care enough to stick around, and taking over the old Benbow inn is not exactly top of his priorities. Hell, he’d probably screw it up. He always screws up, right? Or at least that is what everybody keeps telling him.
This all starts to change when one night a pirate on the run crash lands in their backyard, handing over a strange sphere along with some cryptic advice -- “Beware of the Cyborg” -- before dying. And not even five minutes after, a full fledged pirate crew descends on the Benbow Inn, forcing Jim and his mother along with Dr Doppler, an old family friend, to run, helpless as they watch the pirate burn down the old inn.
At Dr. Doppler’s residence, the three try to recover from their ordeal. However with some quick finger work, Jim quickly discovers the purpose of the odd sphere that was given to him. It’s a map. And not just any map. It’s a map leading to Flint’s trove, the biggest trove of treasure in the known universe. It’s the type of thing that Jim has dreamed of since he was little.
It takes some convincing, but eventually Jim’s mother allows Jim to leave on a treasure hunting expedition with Dr Doppler, in the hope that ‘a few character-building months in space’ might help straighten her boy out. It is not like things could get any worse at this point, after all. A ship is commissioned, a crew is hired and soon after Jim, along with Dr Doppler is after the Flint’s fabled trove.
Once on the ship, Jim is put to work as the cabin boy --something he is none too happy about-- and is put under charge of the ship’s cook John Silver. Though the two clash at first, with Silver’s joking, familiar manner clashing with all of Jim’s teenage surl, soon they start to bond. In Silver, Jim finds the undivided attention of a father figure that he has been craving for so long. Silver is the one who takes over the boy’s education, attempting to teach him the finer tricks of the spacer’s trade, and it is also Silver who is there in Jim’s most vulnerable moments, talking courage into the boy, helping him understand the potential he holds within himself.
Too bad Silver turns out to be the cyborg Jim was warned about, as well as the leader of the mutinous crew that forces Jim to flee the ship along with the good doctor and the captain. Silver’s betrayal hits Jim hard, especially after hearing Silver deny everything he told Jim, assuring his crew mates that he has not gone soft on the boy, and that it all was just a ploy to keep Jim out of the way.
However Jim does not get much time to deal with his anger and hurt; crash-landed on an alien planet with the captain injured and short one treasure map, with pirates on their heels who believe they do have the treasure map, well... life is busy to say the least.
While exploring the planet, Jim runs into an old robot named B.E.N who has been marooned on the planet for a hundred years. The old robot’s memory banks are missing, making him near useless, but Jim cannot abandon him. This proves to be a lucky move, because B.E.N’s shelter is perfect to use as a hide-out and to nurse the injured captain Amelia in.
A short confrontation follows between Silver and Jim, the pirate under the impression that the boy still has the map, which gives Jim a plan. At night, when the pirates are asleep, he sneaks back on board the ship, B.E.N. in tow and goes to steal back the map. The plan nearly goes disastrous when Jim has to face off against one of the meanest pirate that was left behind to guard the ship, but some quick thinking, a courageous heart, and a fair share of luck helps him defeat said pirate and secure the map. However, by the time he and B.E.N. make it back down to their camp, it proves to be useless; Silver and his band of miscreants have captured the doctor and captain Amelia, taking the last bargaining chip out of Jim’s hands.
Or did they?
It turns out that Jim is the only one who can operate the map and find the treasure. In return for the promise that they will not be killed, Jim leads the pirate to Flint’s treasure, which turns out to be buried right in the center of the planet. Too bad ol’ captain Flint really did not like sharing. Before his death, the old captain booby-trapped the planet, making it so that anyone who tries to take the treasure will set of the mechanism that will blow the planet to smithereens.
Oops.
Using his technical skills, Jim manages to hotwire himself one of the old sloops, while B.E.N., the captain and doctor Doppler escape on the big ship. However before he can fly his sloop filled with treasure out of there, Jim is interrupted by Silver. Silver wants the treasure, has gone through too much for this dream to let Jim get away with it. Their fight however is interrupted when one of the explosions rocks the sloop and Jim falls. He nearly falls to his death, but then Silver does something unexpected -- he lets go of his treasure, his dream, to save Jim.
Together, with their bond once more restored, they escape to the R.L.S Legacy. Before they can get out of there however, the ship sustains enough damage that they won’t be able to clear the explosion in time. It is Jim’s quick thinking that saves the day. With Silver’s help, he quickly cobbles together a solar surfer. Using Flint’s technology, he promises to open a portal in time for the ship to escape. It’s a dangerous idea, a crazy idea, it’s the kind of idea that might just work.
Also, it was their only hope.
Luckily, Jim pulls through. He manages to open the right portal just in the nick of time, saving himself and his friends. Captain Amelia however makes no secret of the fact that one they land in port, Silver will be turned over to the authorities. Mutiny is a serious offense, after all. And yet, it is only Jim that sees Silver slip away to their only remaining life boat. When he confronts him there, Silver tries to pass it off as a joke, telling Jim he was only checking if their last boat was secure, before he pleads with Jim to let him go.
And Jim lets him.
Silver offers the boy the chance ot come along with him. It would be the start of the great pirating career of Hawkins and Silver. And Jim says no. He tells Silver that if he had been offered this when he first came aboard, he would’ve taken him up on that offer in a heart beat, But since then an old cyborg taught him that he could set his own course, that he could do anything he wanted, that’s he’s got potential, and well, Jim is going to try that. They exchange a final hug before Silver leaves, but not before giving Jim enough of the treasure he hoarded away in his pocket to rebuild the old Benbow Inn.
The end of the movie sees Jim a bit older, wearing the uniform of the Interstellar Academy, with the old Benbow Inn rebuild, no longer the aloof lost boy, but now a man with a course to sail.
[ Personality ] :
James Pleiades Hawkins, or Jim for short, is the living breathing embodiment of the phrase ‘good kid, bad choices’.
Jim’s troubles started when the one person who should’ve been there for him, finally walked out on him -- his father. After that, the smiling, happy boy that Jim had been when growing up withdrew into himself, evolving changing into a lost, surly teenager. And while he still had the love and support of his mother, she was busy running the Benbow inn by herself, and Jim was left largely on his own. Without supervision and attention, Jim started to act out. Because even negative attention is attention. And yet the problem with receiving only negative attention is that Jim started to believe it. He started to believe the things people were saying about him, started to believe that he was not good for anything, that he had no future. Which only fed more into the alienated surly teen mood, everything just continuously reinforcing itself like a negative spiral.
Now, at age fifteen, Jim is practically the textbook case of an aloof, alienated teenager. Constantly in trouble with the law and his school, Jim is the type to react to things with an expressive eye roll, a snarky comment and a heavy, put on sigh. Your typical troublemaker, he does not deal with authority figures very well. He doesn't trust them to do what is best for him and when it comes to close emotional attachments, he doesn't trust them not to leave him.
Underneath all the surl and sighing and snarky comments, Jim is a kid who wants nothing more than the undivided attention of a father figure. He wants someone to pay attention to him like that, someone who he can trust, who can tell him he is worth something, and who above all won’t leave. You could even say that his attitude is a way of testing people, driving them off early. The last thing he wants to do is trust someone fully again only to be left alone. no, in that case, Jim is much more happy to be alone.
For all his anger and annoyance at the world, Jim actually loves being amazed by the things around him when he lets himself be. He loves flying his solar surfer into free fall, loves the sensation of the ship lifting off, and seeing those space whales was pretty cool too. But he only shows this excitement when he is either alone, with someone who he really trusts, or around kids and small animals who are not really all that threatening to him. Everybody else gets the walls and the surl, cause damnit, if you don’t let people in, they can’t hurt you.
When Jim does open up to people, he is an eager to learn, eager to show off what he can do type of kid. When he knows and trusts someone he becomes somewhat better at saying what he is actually thinking rather than retreating behind eye rolls and snappy comments.
Despite the aloof attitude, Jim actually has fairly low self-esteem. Or rather, he believes he cannot and is not doing anything right. He feels like he is destined to screw up somehow. Usually he keeps this all inside, but when it gets to much, he'll vent it, usually angry and full of teenage self-loathing. He went on this crazy treasure hunt because he thought maybe, maybe, it could make his mom proud of him for once, rather than just making her cry. When he believed it was his fault Mr Arrow's lifeline was not secured --it was not; it had been cut by someone else-- he yelled at Silver over for once in his life feeling like he had done something right for two seconds before it blew up in his face again.
Jim is not really a touchy-feely kid. He normally maintains quite the personal bubble and doesn't let people up in his personal space. He told B.E.N. off for touching him so much. That said, when he is around people he really trusts, he relaxes a lot more. And if he is downcast in addition to that, well, he'll be the one to make the first move for a hug. It doesn't happen very often, so when Jim Hawkins comes to hug you, you know you are in his good book.
However when push comes to shove, and with the support of those who need and believe in him, the type of man Jim will one day grow into start shining through. He's loyal, he's a leader, he doesn't like letting people down, and he has boundless potential. All in all, pretty good captain material. All he needs is someone to be there for him for it to start blossoming.
[ Strengths/Weaknesses ] :
Strengths
+ Bravery; Jim is a daredevil. He loves adrenaline and he is definitely not the type of person to pass on something just because it is a bit risky. Rather, he’s the type of person always ready to pull of a daring move, no matter the risk and costs. Especially if this move is for the sake of his friends or something he believes in.
+ Mechanical skills; Despite the fact that Jim is only fifteen, he is already well on his way to being a skilled mechanic. According to his mother, he build his first solar surfer when he was eight and has only managed to get better at it. He managed to hot wire a hundred year old sloop and when it came down to it, he even managed to build an ingenious pseudo solar surfer just a bunch of scrap parts. Sure it wasn’t going to win any beauty prizes, but it pulled through and that is what matters.
+ Heart of gold; Naturally, being a disney protagonist, Jim has a heart of gold. No matter his aloof teenage surl, or his anger, or his hurt, when it comes down to it, he’s a forgiving kid. He cares about people, and he really wants to do the right thing. He just... screws up a bunch too.
+ Jack of all trades, master of none; Over the course of the movie, Jim picked up a multihood of skills, from simple skills like bussing tables and doing dishes to being able to sail, tying knots etc etc. He’s not a master of any of these things, but he knows them well enough to serve him.
Weaknesses
- What pokerface; Jim is the kind of kid where what you see if what you get. Meaning, he has no poker face what so ever. If he is angry? He looks angry. If he is hurt? You can count on the tears. Everything shows, which is not very good if he is trying to hide anything.
- Father issues; Jim will be coming in from before Silver and him really bond. Meaning that this aloof surly kid still has a giant father shaped hole in his life which he is desperate to fill. Of course, he’d deny it in every way, but when it gets down to it, it is really hard for him to just watch a simple scene between a father and a son without wanting that as well. He doesn’t even want his dad anymore, just... someone to pay attention to him.
- Impulsive; Jim can be pretty impulsive. Part of that comes from being just fifteen and not in the best state to be making long term decisions. Add in a touch of daredevilness and you’ve got a recipe for impulsive actions. Especially if they are kinda cool and neck-breaky. He flew his solar surfer through a giant deadly machine just cause he could, seriously, not Captain Smartypants here all the time.
- Low self-esteem; Just as it says on the tin; Jim's self-esteem is pretty low. He expects to screw up somehow, so when that happens, he can quickly fall into a depressive mood while he tries and shut out everybody.
[ Other Important Facts ] :
Uh. I’m still here / Jim’s theme’ is a great sum up of this kid?
[ Sample ] :
DM thread one
DM thread two
[ Questions? Comments? Concerns? ] :
Building a solar surfer in Vaaaath, you can’t tell me what to do.