Crow's Application to Grimm
Player Info
Player Name: Paula
Preferred IM: perzzzdispenser
Email: paulaerz@yahoo.com
PM: Either Crow here or notoneline because I’m there the most.
Timezone: PST
Other characters: No other Grimm characters. Handful of random Doctor Who muses running about + a few misc others.
Character Info
Real Name: Christopher Warren
Codename: Scarecrow, or most often simply “Crow”
Age: 36
Unit & Position: Oz, Tactical Planning Specialist (i.e. your man with three hundred back-up plans. Oh, and that sniper there on the nearby building in case shit goes south).
Backstory: Chris was born and raised all along the East Coast to wealthy lawyer and doting housewife. Should have been a fairytale, really, and for a while it was. Spoiled, happy, and set on the track for law school, Christopher’s youth was a pretty smooth ride. So sure his father was never home and both of his parents were having affairs. So sure his sister was ten years older and wanted little to do with him. Every family has its skeletons. Chris could have gotten past it, and maybe would have. Maybe.
His symptoms began to manifest his junior year of high school. Mood swings. The pendulum swinging from severe depression one week to frenzied, reckless elation the next, classic signs of Bipolar Disorder. He was not mentally equipped to deal with his home life, and not prepared to even begin to deal with the spaces within his own head. His parents didn’t look long enough to realize he needed help, and how was he to know he needed it himself? He’d always been smart, but not necessarily perceptive. He channeled all that energy, all that emotion, all those sleepless manic nights, into a little bit of business for himself. Fake IDs, stolen exams, a whole system for cheating the SAT. His unexplained behavior drove a schism into already flaky family life.
And then it was onto college. New York University college of arts and sciences, prelaw. His focus waxed and waned when it came to his actual schooling. When he applied himself? A’s, honors, professorial accolades. Otherwise he was off the map and about a moment away from academic probation. New York suited him. There was always a new place to be, or else a new place to hole away, hide and stew. His high school endeavors didn’t end, only altered and expanded. A little bit of money laundering here, fraud and embezzlement, minor art theft, drugs. There was a lot of cocaine floating around the Upper East Side, someone had to help get it around.
He dropped out 35 units from completing his degree. Law School didn’t interest him and he’d gotten too heavily involved in drugs. Turns out he wasn’t useful just in dealing, increasingly taking jobs in hunting down suppliers, setting up connections. Someone had the bright idea to give the plucky kid a gun and set him loose. And maybe he wasn’t the best, but there was one thing he was good at-covering his tracks, and the New York underground was as good a place to perfect that as any.
His parents cut him off the moment he’d dropped out, but by then he’d worked enough risky jobs to save something up for himself or else cheat the system into giving a little back to him. He was the dirty-job guy for the politically corrupt or the desperate big-shot businessman with greedy motives. And he was good. His record is littered with whispers of fraud, embezzlement, even grand theft auto. But the only thing he could ever be convicted on were minor drug charges. He spent much of his twenties in and out of jail and rehab, and it was in this third stint of rehab that he was finally diagnosed correctly as having Type I Bipolar Disorder. It’s taken him some time, but he’s finally got it under control--mostly--thanks to weekly therapy and a convoluted cocktail of antidepressants and mood stabilizers. His recreational drug use, however, continues.
Grimm hauled his ass out of jail and into Grimm two years ago. Crow had made friends in high places across the criminal underground, and apparently that paid off. He knows his way around the law, but couple that with hands-on experience planning drug hits and information trade-offs and he’s a valuable asset to have.
Personality: He is neurotic and a perfectionist, meticulous to the very core. If things aren't done the way he likes, it will annoy him to no end. This ranges from big things, like mission plans, to little things, like only using black pens or driving exactly the speed limit. It’s a personality quirk developed to combat the helplessness and anxiety brought on in his states of mania or depression.
Crow keeps his personal life very close to his chest. Around Grimm he goes solely by Scarecrow or Crow, and very few people will have even been told his real name. He likes to keep his Grimm life separate from his outside life, and as such is wary to let people get too close.
Bipolar disorder is defined by fits (of up to weeks or months at a time and to varying degrees) of mania, characterized for him by hyperactivity, decreased inhibitions, increased sex drive, euphoria, overspending, lack of sleep. Following the mania and usually a crash period he falls into the downward slump-depression, anxiety, disinterest, lethargy. The cycles are uneven and broken up by interludes of symptom-free calm. His disease is unlikely to send him on quite the ride it had in the past, and he’s more equip to deal with the emotional rollercoaster now than he was before.
His excessive drug use often exacerbated these symptoms throughout his early adulthood. Now he largely uses as a way to help mentally manage the ups and downs. Nobody ever said self-medication was a good thing or that he was especially good at it, but old habits are hard to break.
He is still occasionally known to go on sleepless drug-alcohol benders, whirling out of contact for a week at a time once every five months, only to be found back at his desk, sullen and snarky and sharp as a tack within 7 days as if nothing has happened. He will make claims of sobriety that can last up to a month long, but he’s not particularly good at following through, and the fact that he has friends in Pridelands who encourage his bad habits doesn’t help either. There’s a part of him that seeks out the euphoria of a good high, especially from the slump of a depression.
He enjoys puzzles and, despite it all, is a hard worker and quietly loyal to a fault. When he’s not puzzling over building plans and escape routes, he can be found perusing cook books, doing the crossword, fussing over the coffee machine, or cooing over his new motorbike. Sometimes he knits. His therapist says it’s good for him.
Reason for joining?: Intellectually stimulating, good paying work, and also Not Jail. Check, check, and check in Crow’s book.
Player Name: Paula
Preferred IM: perzzzdispenser
Email: paulaerz@yahoo.com
PM: Either Crow here or notoneline because I’m there the most.
Timezone: PST
Other characters: No other Grimm characters. Handful of random Doctor Who muses running about + a few misc others.
Character Info
Real Name: Christopher Warren
Codename: Scarecrow, or most often simply “Crow”
Age: 36
Unit & Position: Oz, Tactical Planning Specialist (i.e. your man with three hundred back-up plans. Oh, and that sniper there on the nearby building in case shit goes south).
Backstory: Chris was born and raised all along the East Coast to wealthy lawyer and doting housewife. Should have been a fairytale, really, and for a while it was. Spoiled, happy, and set on the track for law school, Christopher’s youth was a pretty smooth ride. So sure his father was never home and both of his parents were having affairs. So sure his sister was ten years older and wanted little to do with him. Every family has its skeletons. Chris could have gotten past it, and maybe would have. Maybe.
His symptoms began to manifest his junior year of high school. Mood swings. The pendulum swinging from severe depression one week to frenzied, reckless elation the next, classic signs of Bipolar Disorder. He was not mentally equipped to deal with his home life, and not prepared to even begin to deal with the spaces within his own head. His parents didn’t look long enough to realize he needed help, and how was he to know he needed it himself? He’d always been smart, but not necessarily perceptive. He channeled all that energy, all that emotion, all those sleepless manic nights, into a little bit of business for himself. Fake IDs, stolen exams, a whole system for cheating the SAT. His unexplained behavior drove a schism into already flaky family life.
And then it was onto college. New York University college of arts and sciences, prelaw. His focus waxed and waned when it came to his actual schooling. When he applied himself? A’s, honors, professorial accolades. Otherwise he was off the map and about a moment away from academic probation. New York suited him. There was always a new place to be, or else a new place to hole away, hide and stew. His high school endeavors didn’t end, only altered and expanded. A little bit of money laundering here, fraud and embezzlement, minor art theft, drugs. There was a lot of cocaine floating around the Upper East Side, someone had to help get it around.
He dropped out 35 units from completing his degree. Law School didn’t interest him and he’d gotten too heavily involved in drugs. Turns out he wasn’t useful just in dealing, increasingly taking jobs in hunting down suppliers, setting up connections. Someone had the bright idea to give the plucky kid a gun and set him loose. And maybe he wasn’t the best, but there was one thing he was good at-covering his tracks, and the New York underground was as good a place to perfect that as any.
His parents cut him off the moment he’d dropped out, but by then he’d worked enough risky jobs to save something up for himself or else cheat the system into giving a little back to him. He was the dirty-job guy for the politically corrupt or the desperate big-shot businessman with greedy motives. And he was good. His record is littered with whispers of fraud, embezzlement, even grand theft auto. But the only thing he could ever be convicted on were minor drug charges. He spent much of his twenties in and out of jail and rehab, and it was in this third stint of rehab that he was finally diagnosed correctly as having Type I Bipolar Disorder. It’s taken him some time, but he’s finally got it under control--mostly--thanks to weekly therapy and a convoluted cocktail of antidepressants and mood stabilizers. His recreational drug use, however, continues.
Grimm hauled his ass out of jail and into Grimm two years ago. Crow had made friends in high places across the criminal underground, and apparently that paid off. He knows his way around the law, but couple that with hands-on experience planning drug hits and information trade-offs and he’s a valuable asset to have.
Personality: He is neurotic and a perfectionist, meticulous to the very core. If things aren't done the way he likes, it will annoy him to no end. This ranges from big things, like mission plans, to little things, like only using black pens or driving exactly the speed limit. It’s a personality quirk developed to combat the helplessness and anxiety brought on in his states of mania or depression.
Crow keeps his personal life very close to his chest. Around Grimm he goes solely by Scarecrow or Crow, and very few people will have even been told his real name. He likes to keep his Grimm life separate from his outside life, and as such is wary to let people get too close.
Bipolar disorder is defined by fits (of up to weeks or months at a time and to varying degrees) of mania, characterized for him by hyperactivity, decreased inhibitions, increased sex drive, euphoria, overspending, lack of sleep. Following the mania and usually a crash period he falls into the downward slump-depression, anxiety, disinterest, lethargy. The cycles are uneven and broken up by interludes of symptom-free calm. His disease is unlikely to send him on quite the ride it had in the past, and he’s more equip to deal with the emotional rollercoaster now than he was before.
His excessive drug use often exacerbated these symptoms throughout his early adulthood. Now he largely uses as a way to help mentally manage the ups and downs. Nobody ever said self-medication was a good thing or that he was especially good at it, but old habits are hard to break.
He is still occasionally known to go on sleepless drug-alcohol benders, whirling out of contact for a week at a time once every five months, only to be found back at his desk, sullen and snarky and sharp as a tack within 7 days as if nothing has happened. He will make claims of sobriety that can last up to a month long, but he’s not particularly good at following through, and the fact that he has friends in Pridelands who encourage his bad habits doesn’t help either. There’s a part of him that seeks out the euphoria of a good high, especially from the slump of a depression.
He enjoys puzzles and, despite it all, is a hard worker and quietly loyal to a fault. When he’s not puzzling over building plans and escape routes, he can be found perusing cook books, doing the crossword, fussing over the coffee machine, or cooing over his new motorbike. Sometimes he knits. His therapist says it’s good for him.
Reason for joining?: Intellectually stimulating, good paying work, and also Not Jail. Check, check, and check in Crow’s book.