Spider Jerusalem (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
readmyscripture) wrote2012-03-01 02:45 pm
readmyscripture) wrote2012-03-01 02:45 pm
Application for Siren's Pull
Player Information
Name: Candy
Age: 23
AIM SN: tenaciouscorpse
email: PM this journal.
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yep!
Currrently Played Characters: Kurt Hummel |showbizpanache
Conditional: Activity Check Link: Here.
Conditional: Official Reserve Link: Here.
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Transmetropolitan
Canon Format: comic series
Character's Name: Spider Jerusalem
Character's Age: Never specified, but I'm assuming his 40s or 50s.
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played. N/A
What form will your character's NV take? Just a small, sleek tablet that can be hidden or stored easily.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: Journalism. Spider is a cunning, ruthless investigator who will stop at nothing to get the truth. If at all possible, I'd like for him to arrive in the Port with some of his journalistic tools-- Specifically, gadgets that make it impossible to trace him, and difficult-to-detect recording equipment. Since Spider is arriving from hundreds of years into the future, these objects won't be recognized by anyone in the Port and thus won't be identified easily. They are usually in pill or gas form.
Additionally, Spider is a pretty decent fighter. He's a small guy and not very strong, but he's tenacious as hell and can hold his own in a fight. Because of his small and compact stature, his fighting style is really close and dirty, often relying on whatever he happens to find to use as a weapon (Chair Leg of Truth, anyone?). He's fairly good with firearms as well.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? Since Spider won't have all the journalistic tools he had back home, digging for information will be a little trickier. Because of this, I want to give him the ability read people--not their thoughts, but their previous actions and history, like reading a book or watching a short film of their life. Doing so would require touching a person directly, so it couldn't be used over the NV. Of course, a permissions post will be created for those who want to opt out.
Weapons: His trusty Bowel Disruptor. When hit by it, an opponent violently shits themselves. Spider never leaves home without it.
He'll also be arriving with his typewriter and his pair of glasses, which are capable of taking photos, recording video and storing information.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Let me know if you need a more detailed history; this one is pretty basic, but I think it covers everything.
Point in Canon: Right after he takes down the Smiler and heads back to the mountain. He's going to be cranky.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: N/A
Character Personality:
Spider Jerusalem is, first and foremost and above all else, a true gonzo journalist. He can easily and succinctly be described as a futuristic Hunter S. Thompson--unconventional and a little insane, but with a keen and incomparable understanding of the dirty underlying truths of humanity. He is bitter, angry, cynical, wild, jaded, manic, determined, unstoppable. No other journalist pries open the minds of the public and tears the world apart like he does, and no other journalist is quite so simultaneously revered and hated. The City loves him. Politicians hate and fear him. The entire world knows his name. And he hates it.
His antics aside, Spider is a deeply personal human being. He enjoys his solitude, finding comfort in peace and simplicity. Unfortunately, his job requires him to be in the thick of urban life, to deal with people on a consistent basis, and as a result Spider is generally in an exceptionally cantankerous mood. He despises the apathy of everyday society, and rages against it in any way he knows how--be it heavy-handed journalism or taking a dump on someone's front porch.
The driving force behind Spider's career and very existence is his relentless, often self-destructive pursuit of The Truth. No matter how long it takes, how many laws are broken, and how many people's lives are ruined, Spider will stop at nothing in pursuit of truth. He lives to expose the underbelly of society, to rub people's faces in their own folly, to dig past the artifice of daily life to point out everything that is fundamentally wrong or overlooked in the world he lives in. While many journalists value cold, unbiased detachment in their work, Spider believes the exact opposite; he believes in giving a damn, in immersing himself in every story, to care deeply about changing the world for the better.
Because of humanity's pervasive inability to grasp what he sees as obvious holes in the world around them, Spider finds himself in a constant state of frustration. In order to keep himself from giving up and losing his drive, he engages in just about every drug available and then some, wrecking his body within an inch of itself. While drug use is commonplace and relatively harmless in the City, Spider's incessant use is excessive to the point of being destructive.
While foul-mouthed, vile and ruthless in most of his actions, Spider is in possession of a deepy empathetic heart. In his interactions with many of his column subjects--particularly a Revival by the name of Mary--his Filthy Assistants and with children, he is seen being genuinely caring and helpful. There is a sense that he does care about the people he writes about, even as he constantly rages about how much he hates them. His feelings about the City and the world are complex, deeply curious, and far too involved.
In essence, Spider Jerusalem is more than a man. He is a Voice. He speaks for the downtrodden, the abused, the neglected, the forgotten. He speaks for the people who are stepped all over by authority, and he berates those who fail to do anything about it. While he fully realizes that he can't change the world on his own, he knows that the written word can do so much more damage than the barrel of a gun. Wake up, he says. This is the world you live in, and the one you'll die in. Start giving a shit.
Despite this, when those people reach back to him? When he gets fans, and TV shows, and merchandise? He flies into a rage. Spider needs to be hated to do his work. He can't handle admiration and love, especially from people he lambastes on a regular basis.
When Spider returns to his mountain after bringing down the Presidency, he fakes that he's still suffering from his degenerative illness even though he's among the one percent who can recover from it. At the end of the day, all Spider really wants is some fucking peace and quiet.
And a cigarette.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: N/A
Character Plans: JOURNALISM. Here's where I'm going to have to sit down and chat with mods. Because of Spider's bare-bones, down-and-dirty penchant for getting information, I'm going to have to be privy to some information about the companies and the Port for me to play him ICly. Obviously I'm not looking to nose into the game's secrets, but any information he could get that could potentially lead to some really hard-hitting columns exposing dirt about the companies would be fantastic. I'd love to get him into the News and really have him open up some plot opportunities for people.
Appearance/PB: Spider is a pretty short, compact guy, completely bald and covered in tattoos. He's always seen wearing a black blazer with no shirt underneath, black slacks, and his glasses.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
Log; Day 1
I can't smell the City anymore. That ringing, metallic, chemical smell. It's different here. It's darker, older. Like someone took a shit in a smokestack. It's all wrong.
Now, there's a chance that this could be the result of those Ugandan energy pills I chased this morning with essence of powdered baby seal, so I take it in stride. I kick the fucker trying to greet me where he probably fucks his mom every Sunday after brunch and step down onto the street. It isn't the street I know. There are cracks in it, cars so low to the ground they're rubbing on it like cats in heat, people with all four appendages, dogs actually walking on leashes.
It's all fucking wrong.
To make myself feel better I grab one of those dogs for a midday snack and start wringing people for information. Siren's Port, they all say. AGI and SERO. Canada. Now wait just a fucking minute, I say to them. If I were going to trip all day with baby seal extract and some hallucinogen derived from Afrian ape semen I wouldn't be tripping about Canada.
That's when it hits me. I'm 100% fucking awake and somehow I've been shipped to Canada. I have my typewriter, one pack of cigarettes and a week's meager supply of drugs. Someone must be trying to kill me.
[He stops typing immediately, and the feed switches over to video. His face can be seen pressing close, and then he starts screaming.]
I'm onto you, Royce! You sick father-fucking dog-semen-guzzling son of a burst testicle--
[A scandalized gasp can be heard, and Spider wheels on a nearby woman. He drops the NV and gets in her face. And, er, everyone else's. He's basically running around and screaming at everyone, getting right up in their faces and seizing them alternately by the collars.]
Answers, goddamnit! Which one of you is it? Is it you? You look as though you sprayed yourself in the face with your own syphilis-crusted spunk, you fucking invalid-- Or how about you--?!
[And the feed cuts out.]
Third Person Sample
I wake up with my face pressed in dirt. That's the first thing I think about--fucking dirt. There isn't any dirt in the City, not like this. It's all sprinkled finely over concrete, speckled over a TV screen--and in the finest of places, littered with blood and shit and semen. It's never pressed so close, so soft.
For a moment I think I might have actually fucking died after all. Ninety-nine percent of degeneration and death, right? Or maybe I passed out in my tomato garden again, waiting for some backward broke-ass hillbilly from the bar to pop his chlamydia-smeared cock into my waiting asshole. But then I remember that I blew up that bar.
I stand. And it gets worse. The air isn't clean and sterile here, swimming with information and telecommunication. Instead there's the smell of gasoline, which just sucks me right back to those days in my youth when I'd huff it from gas tanks while chewing on leftover lizard jerky.
Good times.
Some fuck tries to tell me where I am. I could listen, but instead I kick him hard in the testicles and make for civilization. I figure I'm high at this point--exceptionally high, to the point where I might need Yelena to fire darts into my ass to get me out of it--so it's with a vague detachment that I walk out from that fenced-in pile of dirt towards the city.
When I see it though--the City, stripped down from its computer screens and cigarette smoke and clean energy and drugs and sex--I realize that I'm not actually high, and that I haven't done drugs since I went back to the mountain, and I really need to find a fucking bathroom and you don't need to shit when you're dreaming. And a person just walked by me holding a phone. Not speaking into their hand, or to the air, or having kinky wired sex with a person who looks like a phone. Actually talking to an honest-to-lizard-Jesus cell phone.
Maybe I really am fucking dead.
Name: Candy
Age: 23
AIM SN: tenaciouscorpse
email: PM this journal.
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yep!
Currrently Played Characters: Kurt Hummel |
showbizpanacheConditional: Activity Check Link: Here.
Conditional: Official Reserve Link: Here.
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Transmetropolitan
Canon Format: comic series
Character's Name: Spider Jerusalem
Character's Age: Never specified, but I'm assuming his 40s or 50s.
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played. N/A
What form will your character's NV take? Just a small, sleek tablet that can be hidden or stored easily.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: Journalism. Spider is a cunning, ruthless investigator who will stop at nothing to get the truth. If at all possible, I'd like for him to arrive in the Port with some of his journalistic tools-- Specifically, gadgets that make it impossible to trace him, and difficult-to-detect recording equipment. Since Spider is arriving from hundreds of years into the future, these objects won't be recognized by anyone in the Port and thus won't be identified easily. They are usually in pill or gas form.
Additionally, Spider is a pretty decent fighter. He's a small guy and not very strong, but he's tenacious as hell and can hold his own in a fight. Because of his small and compact stature, his fighting style is really close and dirty, often relying on whatever he happens to find to use as a weapon (Chair Leg of Truth, anyone?). He's fairly good with firearms as well.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? Since Spider won't have all the journalistic tools he had back home, digging for information will be a little trickier. Because of this, I want to give him the ability read people--not their thoughts, but their previous actions and history, like reading a book or watching a short film of their life. Doing so would require touching a person directly, so it couldn't be used over the NV. Of course, a permissions post will be created for those who want to opt out.
Weapons: His trusty Bowel Disruptor. When hit by it, an opponent violently shits themselves. Spider never leaves home without it.
He'll also be arriving with his typewriter and his pair of glasses, which are capable of taking photos, recording video and storing information.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Let me know if you need a more detailed history; this one is pretty basic, but I think it covers everything.
Point in Canon: Right after he takes down the Smiler and heads back to the mountain. He's going to be cranky.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: N/A
Character Personality:
Spider Jerusalem is, first and foremost and above all else, a true gonzo journalist. He can easily and succinctly be described as a futuristic Hunter S. Thompson--unconventional and a little insane, but with a keen and incomparable understanding of the dirty underlying truths of humanity. He is bitter, angry, cynical, wild, jaded, manic, determined, unstoppable. No other journalist pries open the minds of the public and tears the world apart like he does, and no other journalist is quite so simultaneously revered and hated. The City loves him. Politicians hate and fear him. The entire world knows his name. And he hates it.
His antics aside, Spider is a deeply personal human being. He enjoys his solitude, finding comfort in peace and simplicity. Unfortunately, his job requires him to be in the thick of urban life, to deal with people on a consistent basis, and as a result Spider is generally in an exceptionally cantankerous mood. He despises the apathy of everyday society, and rages against it in any way he knows how--be it heavy-handed journalism or taking a dump on someone's front porch.
The driving force behind Spider's career and very existence is his relentless, often self-destructive pursuit of The Truth. No matter how long it takes, how many laws are broken, and how many people's lives are ruined, Spider will stop at nothing in pursuit of truth. He lives to expose the underbelly of society, to rub people's faces in their own folly, to dig past the artifice of daily life to point out everything that is fundamentally wrong or overlooked in the world he lives in. While many journalists value cold, unbiased detachment in their work, Spider believes the exact opposite; he believes in giving a damn, in immersing himself in every story, to care deeply about changing the world for the better.
Because of humanity's pervasive inability to grasp what he sees as obvious holes in the world around them, Spider finds himself in a constant state of frustration. In order to keep himself from giving up and losing his drive, he engages in just about every drug available and then some, wrecking his body within an inch of itself. While drug use is commonplace and relatively harmless in the City, Spider's incessant use is excessive to the point of being destructive.
While foul-mouthed, vile and ruthless in most of his actions, Spider is in possession of a deepy empathetic heart. In his interactions with many of his column subjects--particularly a Revival by the name of Mary--his Filthy Assistants and with children, he is seen being genuinely caring and helpful. There is a sense that he does care about the people he writes about, even as he constantly rages about how much he hates them. His feelings about the City and the world are complex, deeply curious, and far too involved.
In essence, Spider Jerusalem is more than a man. He is a Voice. He speaks for the downtrodden, the abused, the neglected, the forgotten. He speaks for the people who are stepped all over by authority, and he berates those who fail to do anything about it. While he fully realizes that he can't change the world on his own, he knows that the written word can do so much more damage than the barrel of a gun. Wake up, he says. This is the world you live in, and the one you'll die in. Start giving a shit.
Despite this, when those people reach back to him? When he gets fans, and TV shows, and merchandise? He flies into a rage. Spider needs to be hated to do his work. He can't handle admiration and love, especially from people he lambastes on a regular basis.
When Spider returns to his mountain after bringing down the Presidency, he fakes that he's still suffering from his degenerative illness even though he's among the one percent who can recover from it. At the end of the day, all Spider really wants is some fucking peace and quiet.
And a cigarette.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: N/A
Character Plans: JOURNALISM. Here's where I'm going to have to sit down and chat with mods. Because of Spider's bare-bones, down-and-dirty penchant for getting information, I'm going to have to be privy to some information about the companies and the Port for me to play him ICly. Obviously I'm not looking to nose into the game's secrets, but any information he could get that could potentially lead to some really hard-hitting columns exposing dirt about the companies would be fantastic. I'd love to get him into the News and really have him open up some plot opportunities for people.
Appearance/PB: Spider is a pretty short, compact guy, completely bald and covered in tattoos. He's always seen wearing a black blazer with no shirt underneath, black slacks, and his glasses.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
Log; Day 1
I can't smell the City anymore. That ringing, metallic, chemical smell. It's different here. It's darker, older. Like someone took a shit in a smokestack. It's all wrong.
Now, there's a chance that this could be the result of those Ugandan energy pills I chased this morning with essence of powdered baby seal, so I take it in stride. I kick the fucker trying to greet me where he probably fucks his mom every Sunday after brunch and step down onto the street. It isn't the street I know. There are cracks in it, cars so low to the ground they're rubbing on it like cats in heat, people with all four appendages, dogs actually walking on leashes.
It's all fucking wrong.
To make myself feel better I grab one of those dogs for a midday snack and start wringing people for information. Siren's Port, they all say. AGI and SERO. Canada. Now wait just a fucking minute, I say to them. If I were going to trip all day with baby seal extract and some hallucinogen derived from Afrian ape semen I wouldn't be tripping about Canada.
That's when it hits me. I'm 100% fucking awake and somehow I've been shipped to Canada. I have my typewriter, one pack of cigarettes and a week's meager supply of drugs. Someone must be trying to kill me.
[He stops typing immediately, and the feed switches over to video. His face can be seen pressing close, and then he starts screaming.]
I'm onto you, Royce! You sick father-fucking dog-semen-guzzling son of a burst testicle--
[A scandalized gasp can be heard, and Spider wheels on a nearby woman. He drops the NV and gets in her face. And, er, everyone else's. He's basically running around and screaming at everyone, getting right up in their faces and seizing them alternately by the collars.]
Answers, goddamnit! Which one of you is it? Is it you? You look as though you sprayed yourself in the face with your own syphilis-crusted spunk, you fucking invalid-- Or how about you--?!
[And the feed cuts out.]
Third Person Sample
I wake up with my face pressed in dirt. That's the first thing I think about--fucking dirt. There isn't any dirt in the City, not like this. It's all sprinkled finely over concrete, speckled over a TV screen--and in the finest of places, littered with blood and shit and semen. It's never pressed so close, so soft.
For a moment I think I might have actually fucking died after all. Ninety-nine percent of degeneration and death, right? Or maybe I passed out in my tomato garden again, waiting for some backward broke-ass hillbilly from the bar to pop his chlamydia-smeared cock into my waiting asshole. But then I remember that I blew up that bar.
I stand. And it gets worse. The air isn't clean and sterile here, swimming with information and telecommunication. Instead there's the smell of gasoline, which just sucks me right back to those days in my youth when I'd huff it from gas tanks while chewing on leftover lizard jerky.
Good times.
Some fuck tries to tell me where I am. I could listen, but instead I kick him hard in the testicles and make for civilization. I figure I'm high at this point--exceptionally high, to the point where I might need Yelena to fire darts into my ass to get me out of it--so it's with a vague detachment that I walk out from that fenced-in pile of dirt towards the city.
When I see it though--the City, stripped down from its computer screens and cigarette smoke and clean energy and drugs and sex--I realize that I'm not actually high, and that I haven't done drugs since I went back to the mountain, and I really need to find a fucking bathroom and you don't need to shit when you're dreaming. And a person just walked by me holding a phone. Not speaking into their hand, or to the air, or having kinky wired sex with a person who looks like a phone. Actually talking to an honest-to-lizard-Jesus cell phone.
Maybe I really am fucking dead.