Application for TSW
PLAYER
NAME: Danny
AGE: 23
PERSONAL LJ: stedelweiss , and the same characters at <"lj user="rosenhanclinic"> [Gary Smith from Bully, Tidus from FFX, Harley Quinn, Deadpool, John Constantine, Trowa Barton]. I've also played Beat from TWEWY, Seifer Almasy, and The Joker
CHARACTER NAME: John Constantine
CANON SOURCE: Hellblazer
TIMELINE:
CANON ABILITIES: Decent brawler. Very knowledgeable about demons and magic). Divination, curses, binding demons, raising golems, olumancy, necromancy, illusions. Also canonically has the instinctual ability to be in the right place at the right time. Also, hypnosis, Sleight of hand and escape magic. Also, can drink for a really, really long time.
PERSONALITY: I was sorely tempted to just write badass. Like, seriously. Because you don't get much more badass than Constantine. But alas, that's not quite a description of his personality, so I guess I have to elaborate.
I could have used the word bastard too, but that's still not quite right. Constantine is a bastard. He's a fast talking, vengeful bastard. He doesn't let old hatreds die, and he sure as hell doesn't take well to anyone getting one over on him. Constantine grew up in the punk scene, was a large part of that social scene, and so he hates authority, and actively tries to overturn it whenever possible. He believes in self-determination, and flips anyone or thing that tries to tell him how things are supposed to be, the bird. Up to and including God himself. He is often described as a humanist, who would much rather the world go down in flames than suffer through the false perfection of a lack of free will.
However...as pro-humanity as he is, he's a cynical fucker through and through. He's likely to think of those people who trust as pitiable buggers, even though he may befriend them and or use them as he sees fit. He's very manipulative, but as far as he sees, he's only manipulative when it's necessary. Of course, if he thinks you're a bastard, he might think you deserve the con job out of principle. This is one of those many things that John is conflicted on however; he holds his friends, no matter how naïve, foolish, or pathetic they are, very dear to him as well.
He's got friends and lovers all across the world, literally, but he's also got a nasty history of sacrificing those close to him. Sometimes it's for the greater good, but sometimes...? Sometimes it's to save his ass. If it's him or them, he's going to choose himself in the end, no matter how much he’ll hate himself in the morning over it. It’s a knee jerk reflex. He'll feel like shit, eventually, but he's the defensive sort. According to him, there's a legitimate reason behind every sacrifice. Whether or not there is, however, is questionable.
Also, John Constantine is known to have amazing luck (probably due to his use of divination). So on top of his alcoholism, I’d like this to manifest as an old gambling problem he’s trying to kick. He usually does well, but still, he loves it too much to just walk away sometimes.
CANON HISTORY: John Constantine’s entrance into the world was as marred with death and misery as much of his later life. He was born May 10, 1953, in Liverpool. His mother Mary Anne died during his birth, along with what would have been his twin brother. The fetus was found strangled; for years, John’s father Thomas blamed him for both deaths. It wasn’t until much later on that John was to discover that his father tried to last second abort the fetuses, which was what actually led to Mary Anne’s death.
Thomas spirals into alcoholism, depression and depravity. John suffered from at least verbal abuse for most of his childhood. When he was nine years old, John and his sister Cheryl lived with their aunt and uncle when Thomas was jailed for six months (he stole a woman’s underwear). It’s during this time that John finds a boy’s heart and throws it away, possibly causing a homeless man’s death.
John started doing magic in the late 60s. He removed all his bad memories and put them inside a locket, which he buried. He and his father fight even more after John’s expulsion from school; they fight so much, that John curses Thomas to slow and painful agony, without actually killing the man. John runs away, and starts building the strange connections which he is known for later in his life, during this first adventure, he tries to free Dream from captivity. During his second attempt at running away, he is almost molested by a priest who had encountered the First of the Fallen demons of Hell, who would later be one of John’s greatest adversaries. Settling in London, John came to live with his friend Chas and his mother. During this time, John starts to study magic in earnest, picking up many friends and even more knowledge about the arcane.
Discovering the punk rock scene influenced John Constantine nearly as much his exposure to magic did. He saw the Sex Pistols perform in the late 70s, and was immediately fascinated with their music and their personas. This led to him forming the less than impressive Mucous Membrane. They only ever release one single.
The start of John’s tradition of swatting a fly with an anvil was in Newcastle, a location which haunts John for most of his adult life. He went to perform an exorcism at the Casanova club, and summons a demon (Nergal) in order to defeat the demon that currently resided there. It was a foolhardy move; he did not know the true name of the demon he was summoning, and so had zero control over the creature. This led to the soul of a young girl, Astra, being sent to hell. John is found guilty of her murder (with the assumption that he’d sexually abused her before her death), but as the experience drove him insane, he is sent to The Ravenscar Secure Facility for the Dangerously Deranged, where he is frequently tortured by the staff. He finds himself in and out of the facility.
Two years later, crime boss Harry Cooper ‘encouraged’ the staff of Ravenscar to say John was sane, and toss him out. Cooper than gave John an ultimatum: Cure his sick son (read: resurrect his dead son) or Cooper would make him regret it. The only problem was that resurrection simply wasn’t possible. So John gathered up a few of his friends and summoned a demon to revive young Cooper’s body. What he doesn’t tell anyone-and what bites him in the ass over a decade later-is that his seal and control over the demon wore off after two, three years (meaning that a child-shaped demonic incarnation of rape and horror was running amuck for quite some time). During the 80s, everyone thought that John was dead after a failed exorcism. He had no qualms about showing up at the end of the funeral, with a snarky comment, pissing everyone off. This isn’t really important in the long run, but, well, it’s classic John. He also protects the demon Elle from being punished by heaven and hell for having a child
A year later, he meets the Swamp thing, and starts a chain of events that results in the deaths of his girlfriend and four friends; the first of a cadre of ghosts which haunt him. They are far from the last deaths that could technically be attributed to John, however. Gary Lester, a school yard friend of John’s, is also sacrificed in order to get rid of the demon which Lester had accidentally released.
The end of the 80s introduced the beginning of John’s serious and long-term dealings with heaven and hell. He finds himself entangled with both the Resurrection Crusade and the Damnation army, and ends up making a deal with the damnation army which mixes his blood with the demon Nergal’s-he does not yet know that Nergal was the demon from Newcastle. When he finally learns Nergal’s name, he kills the demon, but is also accused of any/all of the murders which the demon had committed.
For a short time, John had a semi-happy life, living with Marj and her daughter Merc in the Freedom mob. That happiness doesn’t last, although Merc, like John’s teenaged niece Gemma, holds a special place in John’s heart as one of the younger individuals that he feels comfortable being protective of. Both girls shared his talent for magic as well.
The end of the century suffers from even more ups and downs than the previous three. Thomas was murdered by a serial killer that was hunting John, a serial killer whose death John was responsible for. Thomas’ soul could not rest, however; Gemma continues to see Thomas after his funeral. John realizes that the curse that he’d cast on his father when he was a teenager prevented him from passing on. He ended the curse, but he left his family because he couldn’t handle what he had done. Merc doesn’t let him wallow, however, and throws him into vision of both his future and his past. It’s then he learns that he was responsible for his twin brother’s death; he strangled the fetus in the womb.
At 38 John develops lung cancer. His friend, Brendan, had sold his own soul to the First of the Fallen, in order to have the most extensive collection of wines and beers ever. John tricked the First into drinking holy water, therefore negating the soul deal (which was dependent on Brendan’s soul being collected at a specific time). The First swore to have Constantine tortured for all time.
In order to get out of this stick situation, he tricks all three of the Fallen to heal him, locking them in a contract where they would have had to battle heaven in order to claim his soul. After the demons heal him and swear vengeance, John runs across Kit, Brendan’s long-term girlfriend. They fall in love and move in together.
I’m taking Constantine from the year of his 40th birthday, during his back and forth dealings with heaven and hell. His demon friend Elle seduces the fallen angel Gabriel, and steals the angel’s heart for Constantine. John then holds the heart hostage, making Gabriel do his bidding for a time. A little after this is when he ends up in 1930s New York City.
Canon History Update:
Last week, on Danny's Constantine application: John Constantine turned forty, had the heart of the angel Gabriel, and still had a girlfriend. He's riding atop the world for a bit there, until he gets wrapped up battling a fairly racist group, and Kit dumps his ass. Something about being nearly killed in her own apartment sort of killed the last remaining hope of her having a normal life if she stayed with him, and she went back home to Ireland. John was devastated, and promptly found himself drunk and homeless, wallowing in his own filth and misery. Because he takes rejection so well and all.
Around this time he kills the King of Vampires, who had been pretty much raring to off John due to John being a flippant little bastard. It did not go well for the vampire. It takes a little while for John to get back on his feet, however, and when he does, he almost immediately ends up tripping balls in hell for a little while.
However, the nightmare with the First of the Fallen starts over again fairly soon after, when the First starts going after Constantine's remaining friends, killing off some of the few people he has left. He manages to beat the First, relegating him to the mortal realm, which we find out later.
A year later, John finds a group of old friends, again, and things seem to be working out just a little bit. However, their child, Syder, is possessed by a demon who targeted the child to get to John. The plan was to make John sign his soul over to Hell, in order to get the First back into power. However, John pulls one of his infamous cons-- He takes all the worst parts of himself, puts it in a body double he creates, and signs that part over to hell. Because of this, there's a dark, even more fucked up version of John chilling in hell, becoming more demonic and evil as time goes by, but the First is also ruler of Hell once more.
The First still doesn't let up his assault on John's life. John finds himself in a coma, and ends up on a bit of a stroll with the First to go see his father. This is when John discovers that it wasn't his fault that his mother didn't survive the birth; Thomas had tried to force an abortion. This act damned Thomas to hell.
Shortly after this he meets Dani Wright, a journalist, who he quickly falls for. Their relationship is extremely close; however, John isn't quite himself, he feels. He's off his game, something is missing. And what is missing, he realizes, are the dark aspects of his personality. He can't function without those parts of himself. So he goes on a bit of a journey to gain a bit of darkness back. When the part of himself that's been residing in hell refuses to come back to him, he goes and sleeps with the demon Elle, using her to get a little taste of darkness. She is furious and swears revenge.
Then the plot gets twisty (twistier?) for awhile. There's Merlin and it turns out Connie's friend Rich is the descendant of Arthur, and then Constantine has all his friends eat some flesh from a dude from the round table. This saves them, or something. John and Dani go to America to meet Dani's family. The Fallen screws with Dani's family some, turning them against each other temporarily.
After that lovely holiday, John finds himself facing the wrath of Elle. One by one, she turns all of his friends against him, including making it look like he cheated on Dani. In order to protect the ones he loves, he sells his soul to the First.
Then there's the Cooper crime family incident. Ronnie Cooper, the little demon-boy, had impregnated Harry Cooper with the anti-christ, which John promptly and disgustingly destroyed. All I can say is: Garth Ennis? Y U DO THIS.
The new millenia does not start out well for John. Approached by an old friend named Lucky, John refuses to help the guy get out from under the price on his head, out of self-preservation. Lucky then asks John to shoot him, to get the price for himself. John refuses, handing back the gun to Lucky.
Lucky proceeded to shoot himself in the mouth. John was sentenced to thirty five years for murder. He didn't speak out about the actual circumstances of the death because of guilt; he knew that Lucky was likely to kill himself if handed the gun.
John ends up literally running the place, turning the prison into a madhouse. He's given immunity by FBI agent Turro, in order to regain order in the rioting prison. Traveling through America to atone for his guilt. Going to talk to Lucky's brothers resulted John uncovering a horrifying bestiality porn ring (and, um...being drugged into being into a video, but we pretend that didn't happen). Going to see Lucky's widow Marjorie does not end up not better for him. She has joined a white supremacy religious group. John fucks the group right up, but also discovers the twisted truth behind the Lucky's suicide:
A very rich man by the name of SW Manor (whom John had had a brush with in his youth), had offered Marjorie and Lucky a lot of money to frame Constantine, and Marjorie convinced Lucky that she would be better off.
John is ACTUALLY going to be pulled post his revenge. He discovered that Manor was extremely masochistic, and then joined the same underground s&m club that he went to. He seduced Manor, made Manor fall in love with him, and then used magic to show Manor how horrified Manor's parents would be at what he had become. Manor killed Agent Turro before killing himself. This is a canon update of (fml) nearly ten years, placing him at 49 instead of 40.
PREFERRED PLACEMENT: (Fisk, Osborn, X-Men, The Brotherhood, the Bugle, Police, Unaffiliated?) If at all possible, I’d like him to be cross-affliated with Fisk and Osborn.
HOW DIFFERENT DO YOU WANT THE MEMORIES TO BE FROM THEIR CANON? John’s personality and outlook on life is extremely dependent on his strange, arcane knowledge, and his numerous connections. So, instead of a focus on magic, I’d like to redirect that same attitude towards the criminal underground.
John would have still grown up in Liverpool and London, and still would have had much of the same family difficulties as he had in his normal canon. He would have started getting involved with street thugs at a young age, getting in and out of trouble often. However, he would have started to regret his life choices when he is accidentally responsible for leading a mob boss to a young girl Astra, the daughter of some rich Londoner. She is kidnapped and later murdered. The crime is pinned, in part, on John, who is absolutely devastated by her death. He goes temporarily insane, and spends a few years in Ravenscar because of it. Another gangster, Cooper, releases him and orders him to go find his son, because of John’s reputation and because John used to hang out with the dumb thugs responsible.
The deaths of John’s other friends are also due to dealings with the London underworld. Failed attempts at making deals with higher ups, friends getting caught by the police, that sort of thing. John moves to New York City after his father dies of a long-standing illness. He wants to try and get away from his past, but he can hardly stay away from what he knows: the underworld, and gambling. It’s gambling, initially, that puts him in deep trouble. It’s only a short time before he’s in debt to (organization of Mod’s choice). He puts his street smarts into overdrive in order to get out of debt, and that’s how he comes upon his current employment. He starts out making quick trades of old manuscripts and things like that, becoming a middle man for less than legal trades. He then becomes a fence, even opening up a pawn shop to cover the fencing gig (however, I would be all for the shop technically being owned by whoever he was in debt to).
History Update:
I still plan for John to move to NYC after his father's illness. Falling into dire straits due to his depression, there is a short while he finds himself homeless, after throwing away most of his remaining cash at the horse tracks. When he finally gets his act together (a chance encounter with a fellow homeless man who is subsequently murdered bringing him around to realize what is life is currently), he uses all his conning and sleight of hand manuevers to at least get enough cash to get a place to stay (quick hustling and the occasional pickpocket work, although even in canon, John has mugged a guy or two for quick cash). It's around this time that he first opens the fencing shop, although it does close temporarily for reasons to follow.
He plays street thug a bit for awhile, charming and drinking and partying his way through life. It's how he makes connections with the NYC underworld (anyone willing to be an old contact/friend/ally/enemy of Constantine's is welcomed to IM me to fill in the history there). The suicide/frame job of Lucky happens in the US; Constantine spends a year in prison before it's revealed that there were a number of pay offs to frame him.
It's at this point that he comes back to his shop, to gamble, drink, and be grouchy upon occasion. Sorry for this being so long.
PLANS FOR YOUR CHARACTER: I plan to do with Constantine what he tends to do in the comics; make a lot of quick and desperate deals to keep his head over water. He likes to convince himself that he’ll eventually step away from this life, but he’s never going to; he not only attracts the dangerous life, but he seeks it out.
SAMPLES
LOG SAMPLE:
I slammed the phone down on the receiver. "Fucking hell."
Two days out of debt and already I'm twenty bucks in the bloody hole. Brilliant. It was a bad bet, one I shouldn't have made in the first place; went against my gut, I did, and look where that got me. Owing Fink and his boys again.
I fumbled with my lighter. One of the few things that I hadn't gotten around to selling yet from before I stupidly got on the boat to the colonies. If I wasn't so sure this recent string of rotten luck that had befallen me of late.
Befallen me? Great, not only was I beat, but I was talking like a sodding git too.
I lit myself a cigarette and leaned against the counter, wondering whether I could scrounge up the cash to get myself back to London. It wasn't likely; even if I managed to do it, I'd have to get out of town unnoticed. New York was big, but I couldn't squelch on my debts. It would likely get me shot between the eyes, that would.
And anyway, I reminded myself, trailing a hand across the counter, I'd have to leave the store then, wouldn't I? And I might not have owned the joint, but it was as good as mine. I was the one who'd built up this store, brokered all the deals to have the clientele list I'd gathered. I'd made myself a name, now, and there wasn't a bloke in all of New York who could find goods like I could. Needed a piece of art that recently got stolen from some sod on the upper east side? I could likely find it, and make enough of a profit off the deal to still have money for a pack of cigarettes and a few hands of poker.
Sure, I kept most of the arcane stuff for myself, but not even I was desperate enough to sell my private collection. Used to have a reason to collect the stuff, but that reason got shed about as fast as I shed my life back in Liverpool.
The shop was the very reason I couldn't leave, discounting all that nonsense about getting myself shot (all of which was fairly fucking valid). I needed this place as much as it needed me. Without it, I'd be in more debt than I was now, or knee deep in the sort of shit that came with a gun and a blood stain. Assuming I wasn't six feet under.
Staying a little dirty kept me clean, I suppose. That was the excuse I'd been using since the beginning of all this, yeah? There wasn't a reason to stop now, at any rate.
The bells on the door chimed, and I looked up, shaken out of the intimate moment with my cigarette. A customer I hadn't seen before had walked in. " Hello, mate, need something?"
He passed me a business card. I read it. One of Osborn's guys. Great. Bloody fucking brilliant. Just what I needed. I flicked a little ash from the end of my cigarette, and motioned with my head to head into the back room. "I'll be with you in a minute. I imagine it's about the necklace, yeah?" He didn't nod, just walked back into the room silent. I snorted. Lovely bloke, wasn't he?
I went to the door and locked it, flipping the sign in the door to say we were closed. If I was lucky, I'd walk out and get myself a scotch in a minute or two. If not? I'd at least be sure to spit in the fellow's eye before he stabbed me.
That was likely to be the way I went anyway. I just had to work on it being later, rather than sooner.
JOURNAL SAMPLE:
Stupid bloke didn’t pay up in time. I’ve got an old bible, if any collectors are in the market. Early 1800s-not the oldest piece I’ve sold, but it’s something, yeah?
Even if you’re not interested, I’ve got a line on a couple of new pieces. Stop by the shop a minute. Unless you’re the bloody brat that nicked those dime novels off of me. Lucky for me, they’re not worth a fucking thing. Dumb little shits…
6:1 on that new horse Nickels, right? Anyone know if that’s worth my time?
NAME: Danny
AGE: 23
PERSONAL LJ: stedelweiss , and the same characters at <"lj user="rosenhanclinic"> [Gary Smith from Bully, Tidus from FFX, Harley Quinn, Deadpool, John Constantine, Trowa Barton]. I've also played Beat from TWEWY, Seifer Almasy, and The Joker
CHARACTER NAME: John Constantine
CANON SOURCE: Hellblazer
TIMELINE:
CANON ABILITIES: Decent brawler. Very knowledgeable about demons and magic). Divination, curses, binding demons, raising golems, olumancy, necromancy, illusions. Also canonically has the instinctual ability to be in the right place at the right time. Also, hypnosis, Sleight of hand and escape magic. Also, can drink for a really, really long time.
PERSONALITY: I was sorely tempted to just write badass. Like, seriously. Because you don't get much more badass than Constantine. But alas, that's not quite a description of his personality, so I guess I have to elaborate.
I could have used the word bastard too, but that's still not quite right. Constantine is a bastard. He's a fast talking, vengeful bastard. He doesn't let old hatreds die, and he sure as hell doesn't take well to anyone getting one over on him. Constantine grew up in the punk scene, was a large part of that social scene, and so he hates authority, and actively tries to overturn it whenever possible. He believes in self-determination, and flips anyone or thing that tries to tell him how things are supposed to be, the bird. Up to and including God himself. He is often described as a humanist, who would much rather the world go down in flames than suffer through the false perfection of a lack of free will.
However...as pro-humanity as he is, he's a cynical fucker through and through. He's likely to think of those people who trust as pitiable buggers, even though he may befriend them and or use them as he sees fit. He's very manipulative, but as far as he sees, he's only manipulative when it's necessary. Of course, if he thinks you're a bastard, he might think you deserve the con job out of principle. This is one of those many things that John is conflicted on however; he holds his friends, no matter how naïve, foolish, or pathetic they are, very dear to him as well.
He's got friends and lovers all across the world, literally, but he's also got a nasty history of sacrificing those close to him. Sometimes it's for the greater good, but sometimes...? Sometimes it's to save his ass. If it's him or them, he's going to choose himself in the end, no matter how much he’ll hate himself in the morning over it. It’s a knee jerk reflex. He'll feel like shit, eventually, but he's the defensive sort. According to him, there's a legitimate reason behind every sacrifice. Whether or not there is, however, is questionable.
Also, John Constantine is known to have amazing luck (probably due to his use of divination). So on top of his alcoholism, I’d like this to manifest as an old gambling problem he’s trying to kick. He usually does well, but still, he loves it too much to just walk away sometimes.
CANON HISTORY: John Constantine’s entrance into the world was as marred with death and misery as much of his later life. He was born May 10, 1953, in Liverpool. His mother Mary Anne died during his birth, along with what would have been his twin brother. The fetus was found strangled; for years, John’s father Thomas blamed him for both deaths. It wasn’t until much later on that John was to discover that his father tried to last second abort the fetuses, which was what actually led to Mary Anne’s death.
Thomas spirals into alcoholism, depression and depravity. John suffered from at least verbal abuse for most of his childhood. When he was nine years old, John and his sister Cheryl lived with their aunt and uncle when Thomas was jailed for six months (he stole a woman’s underwear). It’s during this time that John finds a boy’s heart and throws it away, possibly causing a homeless man’s death.
John started doing magic in the late 60s. He removed all his bad memories and put them inside a locket, which he buried. He and his father fight even more after John’s expulsion from school; they fight so much, that John curses Thomas to slow and painful agony, without actually killing the man. John runs away, and starts building the strange connections which he is known for later in his life, during this first adventure, he tries to free Dream from captivity. During his second attempt at running away, he is almost molested by a priest who had encountered the First of the Fallen demons of Hell, who would later be one of John’s greatest adversaries. Settling in London, John came to live with his friend Chas and his mother. During this time, John starts to study magic in earnest, picking up many friends and even more knowledge about the arcane.
Discovering the punk rock scene influenced John Constantine nearly as much his exposure to magic did. He saw the Sex Pistols perform in the late 70s, and was immediately fascinated with their music and their personas. This led to him forming the less than impressive Mucous Membrane. They only ever release one single.
The start of John’s tradition of swatting a fly with an anvil was in Newcastle, a location which haunts John for most of his adult life. He went to perform an exorcism at the Casanova club, and summons a demon (Nergal) in order to defeat the demon that currently resided there. It was a foolhardy move; he did not know the true name of the demon he was summoning, and so had zero control over the creature. This led to the soul of a young girl, Astra, being sent to hell. John is found guilty of her murder (with the assumption that he’d sexually abused her before her death), but as the experience drove him insane, he is sent to The Ravenscar Secure Facility for the Dangerously Deranged, where he is frequently tortured by the staff. He finds himself in and out of the facility.
Two years later, crime boss Harry Cooper ‘encouraged’ the staff of Ravenscar to say John was sane, and toss him out. Cooper than gave John an ultimatum: Cure his sick son (read: resurrect his dead son) or Cooper would make him regret it. The only problem was that resurrection simply wasn’t possible. So John gathered up a few of his friends and summoned a demon to revive young Cooper’s body. What he doesn’t tell anyone-and what bites him in the ass over a decade later-is that his seal and control over the demon wore off after two, three years (meaning that a child-shaped demonic incarnation of rape and horror was running amuck for quite some time). During the 80s, everyone thought that John was dead after a failed exorcism. He had no qualms about showing up at the end of the funeral, with a snarky comment, pissing everyone off. This isn’t really important in the long run, but, well, it’s classic John. He also protects the demon Elle from being punished by heaven and hell for having a child
A year later, he meets the Swamp thing, and starts a chain of events that results in the deaths of his girlfriend and four friends; the first of a cadre of ghosts which haunt him. They are far from the last deaths that could technically be attributed to John, however. Gary Lester, a school yard friend of John’s, is also sacrificed in order to get rid of the demon which Lester had accidentally released.
The end of the 80s introduced the beginning of John’s serious and long-term dealings with heaven and hell. He finds himself entangled with both the Resurrection Crusade and the Damnation army, and ends up making a deal with the damnation army which mixes his blood with the demon Nergal’s-he does not yet know that Nergal was the demon from Newcastle. When he finally learns Nergal’s name, he kills the demon, but is also accused of any/all of the murders which the demon had committed.
For a short time, John had a semi-happy life, living with Marj and her daughter Merc in the Freedom mob. That happiness doesn’t last, although Merc, like John’s teenaged niece Gemma, holds a special place in John’s heart as one of the younger individuals that he feels comfortable being protective of. Both girls shared his talent for magic as well.
The end of the century suffers from even more ups and downs than the previous three. Thomas was murdered by a serial killer that was hunting John, a serial killer whose death John was responsible for. Thomas’ soul could not rest, however; Gemma continues to see Thomas after his funeral. John realizes that the curse that he’d cast on his father when he was a teenager prevented him from passing on. He ended the curse, but he left his family because he couldn’t handle what he had done. Merc doesn’t let him wallow, however, and throws him into vision of both his future and his past. It’s then he learns that he was responsible for his twin brother’s death; he strangled the fetus in the womb.
At 38 John develops lung cancer. His friend, Brendan, had sold his own soul to the First of the Fallen, in order to have the most extensive collection of wines and beers ever. John tricked the First into drinking holy water, therefore negating the soul deal (which was dependent on Brendan’s soul being collected at a specific time). The First swore to have Constantine tortured for all time.
In order to get out of this stick situation, he tricks all three of the Fallen to heal him, locking them in a contract where they would have had to battle heaven in order to claim his soul. After the demons heal him and swear vengeance, John runs across Kit, Brendan’s long-term girlfriend. They fall in love and move in together.
I’m taking Constantine from the year of his 40th birthday, during his back and forth dealings with heaven and hell. His demon friend Elle seduces the fallen angel Gabriel, and steals the angel’s heart for Constantine. John then holds the heart hostage, making Gabriel do his bidding for a time. A little after this is when he ends up in 1930s New York City.
Canon History Update:
Last week, on Danny's Constantine application: John Constantine turned forty, had the heart of the angel Gabriel, and still had a girlfriend. He's riding atop the world for a bit there, until he gets wrapped up battling a fairly racist group, and Kit dumps his ass. Something about being nearly killed in her own apartment sort of killed the last remaining hope of her having a normal life if she stayed with him, and she went back home to Ireland. John was devastated, and promptly found himself drunk and homeless, wallowing in his own filth and misery. Because he takes rejection so well and all.
Around this time he kills the King of Vampires, who had been pretty much raring to off John due to John being a flippant little bastard. It did not go well for the vampire. It takes a little while for John to get back on his feet, however, and when he does, he almost immediately ends up tripping balls in hell for a little while.
However, the nightmare with the First of the Fallen starts over again fairly soon after, when the First starts going after Constantine's remaining friends, killing off some of the few people he has left. He manages to beat the First, relegating him to the mortal realm, which we find out later.
A year later, John finds a group of old friends, again, and things seem to be working out just a little bit. However, their child, Syder, is possessed by a demon who targeted the child to get to John. The plan was to make John sign his soul over to Hell, in order to get the First back into power. However, John pulls one of his infamous cons-- He takes all the worst parts of himself, puts it in a body double he creates, and signs that part over to hell. Because of this, there's a dark, even more fucked up version of John chilling in hell, becoming more demonic and evil as time goes by, but the First is also ruler of Hell once more.
The First still doesn't let up his assault on John's life. John finds himself in a coma, and ends up on a bit of a stroll with the First to go see his father. This is when John discovers that it wasn't his fault that his mother didn't survive the birth; Thomas had tried to force an abortion. This act damned Thomas to hell.
Shortly after this he meets Dani Wright, a journalist, who he quickly falls for. Their relationship is extremely close; however, John isn't quite himself, he feels. He's off his game, something is missing. And what is missing, he realizes, are the dark aspects of his personality. He can't function without those parts of himself. So he goes on a bit of a journey to gain a bit of darkness back. When the part of himself that's been residing in hell refuses to come back to him, he goes and sleeps with the demon Elle, using her to get a little taste of darkness. She is furious and swears revenge.
Then the plot gets twisty (twistier?) for awhile. There's Merlin and it turns out Connie's friend Rich is the descendant of Arthur, and then Constantine has all his friends eat some flesh from a dude from the round table. This saves them, or something. John and Dani go to America to meet Dani's family. The Fallen screws with Dani's family some, turning them against each other temporarily.
After that lovely holiday, John finds himself facing the wrath of Elle. One by one, she turns all of his friends against him, including making it look like he cheated on Dani. In order to protect the ones he loves, he sells his soul to the First.
Then there's the Cooper crime family incident. Ronnie Cooper, the little demon-boy, had impregnated Harry Cooper with the anti-christ, which John promptly and disgustingly destroyed. All I can say is: Garth Ennis? Y U DO THIS.
The new millenia does not start out well for John. Approached by an old friend named Lucky, John refuses to help the guy get out from under the price on his head, out of self-preservation. Lucky then asks John to shoot him, to get the price for himself. John refuses, handing back the gun to Lucky.
Lucky proceeded to shoot himself in the mouth. John was sentenced to thirty five years for murder. He didn't speak out about the actual circumstances of the death because of guilt; he knew that Lucky was likely to kill himself if handed the gun.
John ends up literally running the place, turning the prison into a madhouse. He's given immunity by FBI agent Turro, in order to regain order in the rioting prison. Traveling through America to atone for his guilt. Going to talk to Lucky's brothers resulted John uncovering a horrifying bestiality porn ring (and, um...being drugged into being into a video, but we pretend that didn't happen). Going to see Lucky's widow Marjorie does not end up not better for him. She has joined a white supremacy religious group. John fucks the group right up, but also discovers the twisted truth behind the Lucky's suicide:
A very rich man by the name of SW Manor (whom John had had a brush with in his youth), had offered Marjorie and Lucky a lot of money to frame Constantine, and Marjorie convinced Lucky that she would be better off.
John is ACTUALLY going to be pulled post his revenge. He discovered that Manor was extremely masochistic, and then joined the same underground s&m club that he went to. He seduced Manor, made Manor fall in love with him, and then used magic to show Manor how horrified Manor's parents would be at what he had become. Manor killed Agent Turro before killing himself. This is a canon update of (fml) nearly ten years, placing him at 49 instead of 40.
PREFERRED PLACEMENT: (Fisk, Osborn, X-Men, The Brotherhood, the Bugle, Police, Unaffiliated?) If at all possible, I’d like him to be cross-affliated with Fisk and Osborn.
HOW DIFFERENT DO YOU WANT THE MEMORIES TO BE FROM THEIR CANON? John’s personality and outlook on life is extremely dependent on his strange, arcane knowledge, and his numerous connections. So, instead of a focus on magic, I’d like to redirect that same attitude towards the criminal underground.
John would have still grown up in Liverpool and London, and still would have had much of the same family difficulties as he had in his normal canon. He would have started getting involved with street thugs at a young age, getting in and out of trouble often. However, he would have started to regret his life choices when he is accidentally responsible for leading a mob boss to a young girl Astra, the daughter of some rich Londoner. She is kidnapped and later murdered. The crime is pinned, in part, on John, who is absolutely devastated by her death. He goes temporarily insane, and spends a few years in Ravenscar because of it. Another gangster, Cooper, releases him and orders him to go find his son, because of John’s reputation and because John used to hang out with the dumb thugs responsible.
The deaths of John’s other friends are also due to dealings with the London underworld. Failed attempts at making deals with higher ups, friends getting caught by the police, that sort of thing. John moves to New York City after his father dies of a long-standing illness. He wants to try and get away from his past, but he can hardly stay away from what he knows: the underworld, and gambling. It’s gambling, initially, that puts him in deep trouble. It’s only a short time before he’s in debt to (organization of Mod’s choice). He puts his street smarts into overdrive in order to get out of debt, and that’s how he comes upon his current employment. He starts out making quick trades of old manuscripts and things like that, becoming a middle man for less than legal trades. He then becomes a fence, even opening up a pawn shop to cover the fencing gig (however, I would be all for the shop technically being owned by whoever he was in debt to).
History Update:
I still plan for John to move to NYC after his father's illness. Falling into dire straits due to his depression, there is a short while he finds himself homeless, after throwing away most of his remaining cash at the horse tracks. When he finally gets his act together (a chance encounter with a fellow homeless man who is subsequently murdered bringing him around to realize what is life is currently), he uses all his conning and sleight of hand manuevers to at least get enough cash to get a place to stay (quick hustling and the occasional pickpocket work, although even in canon, John has mugged a guy or two for quick cash). It's around this time that he first opens the fencing shop, although it does close temporarily for reasons to follow.
He plays street thug a bit for awhile, charming and drinking and partying his way through life. It's how he makes connections with the NYC underworld (anyone willing to be an old contact/friend/ally/enemy of Constantine's is welcomed to IM me to fill in the history there). The suicide/frame job of Lucky happens in the US; Constantine spends a year in prison before it's revealed that there were a number of pay offs to frame him.
It's at this point that he comes back to his shop, to gamble, drink, and be grouchy upon occasion. Sorry for this being so long.
PLANS FOR YOUR CHARACTER: I plan to do with Constantine what he tends to do in the comics; make a lot of quick and desperate deals to keep his head over water. He likes to convince himself that he’ll eventually step away from this life, but he’s never going to; he not only attracts the dangerous life, but he seeks it out.
SAMPLES
LOG SAMPLE:
I slammed the phone down on the receiver. "Fucking hell."
Two days out of debt and already I'm twenty bucks in the bloody hole. Brilliant. It was a bad bet, one I shouldn't have made in the first place; went against my gut, I did, and look where that got me. Owing Fink and his boys again.
I fumbled with my lighter. One of the few things that I hadn't gotten around to selling yet from before I stupidly got on the boat to the colonies. If I wasn't so sure this recent string of rotten luck that had befallen me of late.
Befallen me? Great, not only was I beat, but I was talking like a sodding git too.
I lit myself a cigarette and leaned against the counter, wondering whether I could scrounge up the cash to get myself back to London. It wasn't likely; even if I managed to do it, I'd have to get out of town unnoticed. New York was big, but I couldn't squelch on my debts. It would likely get me shot between the eyes, that would.
And anyway, I reminded myself, trailing a hand across the counter, I'd have to leave the store then, wouldn't I? And I might not have owned the joint, but it was as good as mine. I was the one who'd built up this store, brokered all the deals to have the clientele list I'd gathered. I'd made myself a name, now, and there wasn't a bloke in all of New York who could find goods like I could. Needed a piece of art that recently got stolen from some sod on the upper east side? I could likely find it, and make enough of a profit off the deal to still have money for a pack of cigarettes and a few hands of poker.
Sure, I kept most of the arcane stuff for myself, but not even I was desperate enough to sell my private collection. Used to have a reason to collect the stuff, but that reason got shed about as fast as I shed my life back in Liverpool.
The shop was the very reason I couldn't leave, discounting all that nonsense about getting myself shot (all of which was fairly fucking valid). I needed this place as much as it needed me. Without it, I'd be in more debt than I was now, or knee deep in the sort of shit that came with a gun and a blood stain. Assuming I wasn't six feet under.
Staying a little dirty kept me clean, I suppose. That was the excuse I'd been using since the beginning of all this, yeah? There wasn't a reason to stop now, at any rate.
The bells on the door chimed, and I looked up, shaken out of the intimate moment with my cigarette. A customer I hadn't seen before had walked in. " Hello, mate, need something?"
He passed me a business card. I read it. One of Osborn's guys. Great. Bloody fucking brilliant. Just what I needed. I flicked a little ash from the end of my cigarette, and motioned with my head to head into the back room. "I'll be with you in a minute. I imagine it's about the necklace, yeah?" He didn't nod, just walked back into the room silent. I snorted. Lovely bloke, wasn't he?
I went to the door and locked it, flipping the sign in the door to say we were closed. If I was lucky, I'd walk out and get myself a scotch in a minute or two. If not? I'd at least be sure to spit in the fellow's eye before he stabbed me.
That was likely to be the way I went anyway. I just had to work on it being later, rather than sooner.
JOURNAL SAMPLE:
Stupid bloke didn’t pay up in time. I’ve got an old bible, if any collectors are in the market. Early 1800s-not the oldest piece I’ve sold, but it’s something, yeah?
Even if you’re not interested, I’ve got a line on a couple of new pieces. Stop by the shop a minute. Unless you’re the bloody brat that nicked those dime novels off of me. Lucky for me, they’re not worth a fucking thing. Dumb little shits…
6:1 on that new horse Nickels, right? Anyone know if that’s worth my time?