@lock me=*-Shadowcat-
&STAFF_EMAIL me=gina@nac.net
@lock me/STAFF_EMAIL
@Sex me=Male
&CODENAME me=Shadowcat
&SPECIES me=Homo Superior
&TYPE me=OC
&FULLNAME me=Jonathan Samuel Wisdom[pemit(me,\[%N has just +fingered you.\])]
&AGE me=34
@Adesc me=@pemit me=\[%N looked at you.\]
&AFFILIATION me=Chaotic Neutral
&TEAM me=-New Brotherhood-
&TIME me=2041
@lock me/TIME
&OCCUPATION me=Professional Killer
&EMAIL me=wisdom@cleverdick.co.uk
&TIMEZONE me=EST
&WWW me=Not for this character, no.
&ACTOR me=John Cusack%r(http://wso.williams.edu/~sorme/pictures/magazine2.jpg)%r(http://robotgirl.org/art/jackwisdom.jpg \[sketch\])%r(http://wso.williams.edu/~sorme/pictures/misc24.jpg)
&THEMESONG me=Top Five Jack Wisdom songs:%r%t1) 'Gouge Away' - Pixies%r%t2) 'Close to Me' - The Cure (Get-Up Kids cover)%r%t3) 'Farther' - Third Eye Blind%r%t4) 'Rudie Can't Fail' - the Clash%r%t5) 'Karma Police' - Radiohead%r
&QUOTE me=[u(q[rand(10)])]
&Q0 me=%r%t"What am I going to say? I killed the President of Paraguay with a fork, how have you been?"%r%t%tGrosse Pointe Blank
&Q1 me=%r%t"No, no, no! A psychopath kills for no reason! I only kill for money."%r%t%tGrosse Pointe Blank
&Q2 me=%r%t"You get the engine started, and I'll run you over."%r%t%tMidnight Run
&Q3 me=%r%tEvie: "Do you -swear-?"%r%tRick: "Every damn day."%r%t%tThe Mummy
&Q4 me=%r%t"A good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means THEY screwed up somewhere along the line."%r%t%tConspiracy Theory
&Q5 me=%r%t"There aren't evil guys and innocent guys. It's just... It's just... It's just a bunch of guys."%r%t%tZero Effect
&Q6 me=%r%t"I'm not wearing any pants. Film at eleven."%r%t%tKentucky Fried Movie
&Q7 me=%r%t"If you guys know so much about women, how come you're at, like, a Gas-n-Sip on a Saturday night completely alone drinking beers with no women anywhere?"%r%t%tSay Anything
&Q8 me=%r%t"You have failed me for the *LAST*...hey, nice shoes..."%r%t%tSix-String Samurai
&Q9 me=%r%t"I ran outta gas! I had a flat tire! I didn't have enough money for cab fare! My tux didn't come back from the cleaners! An old friend came in from outta town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts!! It wasn't my fault, I swear to /God/!"%r%t%tThe Blues Brothers
&NOTE me=Yes, I'm the son of Kitty and Pete. No, I will not reconsider.
&POWERS_SHORT me=Phasing through matter, 'walking on air', generation of extreme heat while phased.
&SKILLS_SHORT me=Stealth, firearms, good driver, limited piloting, disguise, strategy, lockpicking, chemistry, kosher cooking, paramedic, defensive martial arts, pressure points, multilingual, electric guitar, computer savvy/technical knowhow.[pemit(me,\[%N checked your +traits.\])]
&FLAWS_SHORT me=Requires conscious effort to retain solidity, vulnerable to energy attacks, vulnerable to psi/magic while phased, unable to breathe while phased through solids, short temper, foul mouth, warped morality, tobacco addiction, surl, comparatively weak, mad bloody paranoid, crazy father holed up with liquor and ammo in an apt. in London.
&PERS_SHORT me=British sense of humor, 'wasted genius', flirty, charm, apparently amoral, good deep down somewhere, temper, surl, secretive/paranoid, decidedly non-urgent, tendency to get geeky.
&RESOURCES_SHORT me=Intelligence contacts, firearms, Lockheed, chemistry equipment, mercenary contacts, really big paycheck, computer/'net hookup, extensive vinyl collection (records, dippy, not kinky stuff).
&SHIRT0 me=ludicrously faded black Pixies t-shirt from an early 90s tour - apparently inherited
&SHIRT1 me=tan Clash t-shirt
&SHIRT2 me=light blue Radiohead reunion tour shirt
&SHIRT3 me=once-white Weezer shirt with holes in
&SHIRT4 me=positively venerable Cat's Laughing shirt that looks way too small for him
&SHIRT5 me=faded yellow Soul Coughing 'El Oso' tour shirt
&SHIRT6 me=maroon Cake shirt with pale blue lettering reading 'Prolonging the Magic'
&SHIRT7 me=black bootleg Bad Religion t-shirt
&SHIRT8 me=white 'NYC Ska' shirt with the sleeves ripped off and tour dates for the late 2020s on the back
&SHIRT9 me=olive green Snakefinger and the Residents shirt with the eyeball logo on the front
&SHIRT10 me=orange artsy-arsed Promise Ring t-shirt
&SHIRT11 me=light grey gym-type shirt that says Property of TMBG Athletics on the back and front
&SHIRT12 me=white bootleg Pogues shirt
&SHIRT13 me=black Elvis Costello profile shirt
&SHIRT14 me=replica white Abbey Road t-shirt
&SHIRT15 me=navy blue Chemical Brothers t-shirt
&SHIRT16 me=pale yellow Moby t-shirt with red sleeves and a red collar
&SHIRT17 me=faded black Slipknot t-shirt
&SHIRT18 me=dark green Jethro Tull t-shirt with *lots* of holes in
&SHIRT19 me=long sleeved red Violent Femmes t-shirt
&SHIRT20 me=sleeveless black and purple Big Audio Dynamite II shirt
&SHIRT21 me=white bootleg Madness shirt with the hat-wearing 'M' logo in front
&SHIRT22 me=dark orange Oingo Boingo 'Alive!' t-shirt
&SHIRT23 me=light green, skintight, long-sleeved Everclear band shirt with paler green stars on
&SHIRT24 me=faded brown 'Spirit of the West' tour shirt
&SHIRT25 me=bright red Goldfinger pouch sweatshirt with the sleeves ripped off
&SHIRT26 me=ugly pale grey and green Great Frog shirt
&SHIRT27 me=beat-up blue and white Scare Tactics t-shirt
&SHIRT28 me=tattered yellow R.E.M. 'Daysleeper' shirt
&SHIRT29 me=black and white deco-style Squeeze t-shirt
&SHIRT30 me=dusty purple art-bastard Beck shirt with yellow and black lettering
&SHIRT31 me=white Fishbone t-shirt with black and red lettering and a stylised fish skeleton on front
&SHIRT32 me=once-black 'Moist' t-shirt from a tour in the mid-aughts
&SHIRT33 me=relatively new-ish Fender logo shirt
&SHIRT34 me=artistically done bootleg black and green Man or Astro-Man? t-shirt
&SHIRT35 me=black and white checkered Skavoovie and the Epitones t-shirt with a lounge lizard on back
&SHIRT36 me=black and white Crass shirt with the sleeves ripped off and just the logo on front
&SHIRT37 me=stained orange shirt with 'The Cramps' and a faded album cover on front
&SHIRT38 me=garish green and yellow Voodoo Glow Skulls Redux shirt from the homage band's 2037 tour
&SHIRT39 me=ridiculously unabashedly nostalgic 'The Ramones LIVE!' tribute album shirt
&SHIRT40 me=almost comlpetely faded black, white, and red Sex Pistols 'Anarchy in the UK' shirt
&SHIRT41 me=tan, dark brown, and black Thomas Dolby 'Astronauts and Heretics' album promo shirt
&SHIRT42 me=faded black t-shirt with the iconic Atari Teenage Riot sigil emblazoned on the front
&SHIRT43 me=light blue, grey, and silver 'Gravity Kills' logo tank top
&SHIRT44 me=totally ripped up black Dead Milkmen t-shirt with simple white lettering, almost all peeled off at this point
&SHIRT45 me=black Misfits t-shirt with the glow-in-the-dark skull logo on front and the sleeves ripped off
&SHIRT46 me=black and green Bomboras t-shirt with a picture of a shrunken head above the logo
&SHIRT47 me=white Operation Ivy t-shirt with a million coffee stains all over it
&SHIRT48 me=blue and orange Manic Street Preachers reunion tour shirt, still in relatively sparkling condition
&SHIRT49 me=black and yellow bootleg Dire Straits t-shirt
&SHIRT50 me=simple grey Depeche Mode t-shirt
&SHIRT51 me=blue, red, and yellow Cette t-shirt which is *this* close to copyright infringement
&SLOPPY me=%rSo he *does* wear clothing other than a wrinkled suit. It happens! Especially with slackassed musicians that kill people for a living. Don't mock him terribly; he lives in the past.%r%rJack's "casual" gear is functional, comfortable, and noncommittally classic: along with a breathtakingly worn-out and ripped pair of Levi's jeans and a filthy old pair of checkered canvas Vans, he's wearing a [u(shirt[rand(52)])] (generally, but not always, under a wrinkled black blazer). His black hair is uncombed, wildly curling every which way, and if he's hung-over and too picky to be wearing the blazer, you can see a faded blue pattern tattooed around his upper right arm.%r%rIt's at times like this that it's almost certain Jack hasn't shaved in at least a day, and his hair's only kept out of his eyes by the pair of outmoded 'Buddy Holly' style glasses perched on his slightly bent nose. His hair even covers the Fascinatingly Mysterious Scar(tm) down his forehead, making him even -more- harmless-looking. Three words: Retro loser geek.%r
&USUAL me=%rTall? Check - somewhere around six foot two. Handsome? Check - hey, it's only natural; he got it from his parents. Swanky attire? Ehn. We'll have to say 'no', here. Groomed? Nice try.%r%rJack Wisdom basically looks like your average devastatingly handsome Stylish Rogue archetype: disarmingly cheerful bright blue eyes, thick black hair that both needs a trim and constantly has the coveted 'just rolled out of bed' look to it, pleasantly even features, permanent five o'clock shadow, quirky smile. Hell, he even comes complete with a Fascinatingly Mysterious Scar(tm) down his forehead, through one eyebrow.%r%rHaving learned from the best that the simpler your wardrobe is, the less needless complications enter your life, Jack'll usually be seen wearing a rumpled suit, with the occasional addition of a grotty black trenchcoat. Rumor has it he's got a closet full of white shirts and black and navy trousers, and three identical pairs of shoes. This is untrue, but it's not hard to believe. It's a widely-known fact that he only has one tie, which he always wears loose; his sleeves are almost always rolled up.%r
@Desc me=[get_eval(me/usual)]
&BASE me=#1727
&STARTDATE me=Aug 2000
@lock me/STARTDATE
&BACKGROUND me=For a mutant, and for the mutant son of Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom, occult and parahuman investigators extrordinaire, Jack had an extremely normal childhood. It could have been the fact that he was raised in England, where the mutant hysteria of the States was nearly nonexistent; it could have been the fact that his parents, though once affiliated to varying degrees with the X-Men, had decided for the most part to shy away from the bizarre lifestyle afforded the spandex set; it could have been the fact that his metahuman abilities kicked in early and he had parents practiced in the use of their own powers to train him in their application. Even growing up with a miniature purple dragon in he household wasn't near enough to deter Jack from the siren call of normalcy. In fact, it could have been any number of things. The fact remains that up until his bar mitzvah, young Jonathan Samuel Wisdom was an incredibly happy little camper. He was often spoken of as a good-looking, clever little bugger, finding favor with his peers and adults alike, coming up with the best games, leading the neighborhood children in play, cheerfully mocking those and that which didn't agree with him, but never abrasively. His father, though posessing a reputation among adults as a creepy ex-spy guy and kind of a jerk, was never anything less than incredibly kind and loving to his wife and son. His mother was everything a boy could wish in a mother, letting him get away with pretty much anything that wouldn't hurt him or someone else, comforting him when he was sick or upset, letting friends stay over, not giving him embarrassing school lunches. It was truly a mirror of nostalgia's gloss.
&BACKGROUND2 me=This all changed at Jack's thirteenth birthday - the day before his bar mitzvah party, in fact, due to scheduling. Everyone'd been invited - his parents' friends from Excalibur and the X-Men, and F.66 and the Weird Happenings Organization, the blokes from the Crown, his grandparents, his Aunt Romany and the crazy old blond mage she was currently involved with, his friends from school, some of the young children of his parents' friends. It was going to be a gargantuan affair, and everything was ready for it, but this was the night before: Kitty and Pete were having a quiet birthday dinner at home with Jack when the doorbell rang. Jack got up to answer it, and it was Romany's friend - the blond guy in the trenchcoat - and he looked like hell. Beaten almost to a pulp, scorched in a myriad of places, sagging against the doorjamb and bleeding all over the front steps. It was all Jack could do not to cry out, but he managed to keep a level head and dragged the skanky old magus into the front hallway and shut the door before calling for his parents. When they got there they immediately shooed him away, apologizing, but 'This wasn't something they wanted him getting mixed up in'. Obligingly, he wolfed down the rest of his meal and went upstairs - waiting, naturally, until he heard them going out the door before he phased outside and tailed them. Buggered if he was going to miss something involving *magic*, for the love of Mike. Several hours later, he wished to god he *had*.
&BACKGROUND3 me=The horrors he witnessed then - that night he saw his mother killed in front of him, and he saw his father's sanity crack and fall to pieces, and he saw Hell unleashed on earth and only contained by luck and the collective force of will of his broken father, his aunt (aging before his eyes) and her current lover Constantine - would scar young Jack for the rest of his natural life, and would probably taint his chances at a pleasant afterlife. It certainly ruined his birthday, and robbed him of a proper Bar Mitzvah, though anyone could tell you that that night turned him into a man far more than a traditional ceremony could. The thirteen year old Jack found himself sobbing uncontrollably as he dragged his father away from the mess, and only allowed his aunt to put him to bed once he was sure Pete was going to be all right. This impulse would illustrate the trend of his actions for the rest of his father's life. After losing his seemingly indestructible mother, there was no way he would chance losing his far more vulnerable father. And all the people who were invited to his Bar Mitzvah? They were there for his mother's funeral, instead.
&BACKGROUND4 me=After Kitty's death, Pete went into a rapid decline, and Jack found himself more and more in his aunt Romany's care. Simply by virtue of the fact that some of the things Romany involved herself in were fairly frightening and definitely not natural, Jack applied himself to study more and more, hoping to build himself a buffer between himself and the strange. More in honor of his mother than out of any special religious bent, he continued to keep kosher and say his prayers, and insisted on finally having his bar mitzvah a year later. Throughout high school, the boy took care of his father, who grew more paranoid and irrational every year. Kitty's death had hit Pete as hard as the man had always feared it would, and without even realizing it, Pete was turning into *his* father. The difference was that when he was sober enough to realize who was talking to him, he never blamed Jack for what had happened to Kitty.%r%rBut Jack did.%r%rAlso throughout high school, Jack worked on and in anything that would allow his mind to come away from his body, anything that would allow him to lose the horrible focus on his life that he kept in all his waking hours. It still wasn't a bad life, but it was growing progressively stranger and more depressing, the further his father went from sanity and the further his aunt delved into magic. Jack applied himself to learning martial arts, chemistry, several different languages, and guitar; he had a natural affinity to computers and exploited it, growing more and more adept at it and his other chosen hobbies even as he grew less and less social.
&BACKGROUND5 me=In his second to last year of high school, Jack was contacted by MI5. Unbeknownst to him or to his father, they'd kept an eye on him from the time he was born, partially because of who his father was and partially because of the abilities of both of his parents. That interest that they had in him doubled when he started what was essentially basic training for spy school, all on his own, in high school. These things that kept his attention, the linguistics and electronics and organized combat, they were the sort of skills that would serve Jack well in any sort of intelligence job - and MI5 wanted to make sure they got to him first.%r%rWhen Pete found out about this, he blew up - he didn't want his son getting involved in the life that he'd tried so hard to keep away from and never could. He didn't want Jack to turn into the bitter wreck he had been before he found Kitty, and the even bitterer wreck that he presently was. Jack, however, being seventeen and quite sick of the stagnation he'd felt he'd reached, would hear none of it, and accepted MI5's invitation to him. Pete refused to speak to him for a good eight or nine years after that, though he never sent back the cheques that Jack mailed him regularly.
&BACKGROUND6 me=During his time at the Spy School and afterwards, affiliated with the British Security Service (MI5), Jack continually improved his skill set, adding whatever the current mission required or whatever the administration told him he needed to know. His only failing, according to them, was the fact that he didn't seem to take much of anything seriously. Oh, he always got the job done, and he always did it within deadline, but he never seemed to care about it. They couldn't decide if this meant he had a death wish - lack of worry - or if it meant he was overly cocky, thinking he could handle anything, or if it meant that it really took a *lot* to faze him.%r%rHis 'offduty' life was limited, both due to the fact that he was the best agent that the Security Service employed and they kept him busy, and because he was so deeply 'in' that he never ended up getting involved romantically or socially with anyone on a serious level. What little free time he had, the man spent playing his guitar, drinking, smoking, reassuring Lockheed he wasn't gonna get killed, and amassing and listening to the largest collection of vinyl record albums this side of the store in High Fidelity. If nothing else, the act of creation when writing music and the sense of accomplishment gained from reorganizing his massive collection were positive additions to his karma pool, which grew more and more tainted with every job he did wilfully for MI5.
&BACKGROUND7 me=Once the younger Wisdom had spent enough time working for MI5, the organization decided that he was both sound enough and capable enough to 'graduate', as it were, to its sister service: MI6. This echelon of government intelligentsia was the one whose black ops were so dire that half the jobs the agents took on were *beyond* plausible deniability, falling instead into the realm of 'here's a cyanide cap for your molar. You know what to do if you're caught'. Oddly enough, when Jack changed organizations (not telling anyone, of course - discretion isn't just the better part of valor, here, it's absolutely bloody necessary), his father started talking to him again (which relieved the hell out of Lockheed, who spoke to them both and sometimes needed to act as a go-between). The bitter irony of this didn't escape Jack, and neither did the fact that his job clashed completely with his religious beliefs. Both are things that he only thinks about when utterly knackered, and as a result, he doesn't drink all that much when he drinks.%r%rAfter a good (bad!) seven years in MI6, Jack started showing the signs that his superiors looked for in older and more experienced agents - signs that he was going to crack, signs that he'd lose it or go rogue if he were kept on duty that much longer. However, due to his overwhelming reliability, they felt he could be safely semi-retired, and allowed to keep the knowledge he'd gained over the years of any number of horrible and classified operations. What they *did* was call him in and let him know that he was being taken off of active duty, but would remain under the employ of the Service, and called in again when his specific talents were desperately needed. He wasn't being fired, and he wasn't going to lose his salary, and he'd have to do them a job here and there, but for the most part he was released. Think of it as a vacation, they said. Think of it as time to catch up on your life, with your friends, they told him. You have friends, right?
&BACKGROUND8 me=At a total loss, Jack Wisdom didn't really have any comment for his bosses. He accepted without a fight, but honestly didn't know what he'd do with his life. He knew with a bitter certainty that they'd never let him out of their sight, would make sure he never let any of their secrets go, would never *truly* leave him alone no matter what they promised him. But he also knew that he'd realized that years ago, and could have left before the really heavy stuff came his way - but he hadn't wanted to. It was, therefore, the bed he made - and he had to lie in it. So he thanked them, he made sure his father was all set (read: holed up in a dingy flat in King's Cross with an assault rifle and a year's supply of cheap scotch and Silk Cuts), and he packed up and left. He was given a network of contacts all over the world, which let him knew that basically whereever he went, he'd be watched, and he went to the States. Jack *did* give Lockheed a choice - he could stay in London with Pete, where he'd been spending a lot of his time when Jack was busy (much to Pete's chagrin), or he could come with Jack to the States. The little dragon, naturally, would much rather stay permanently with Kitty's son than Pete, so he smuggled him over with him - he wouldn't be much of a sneaky sort if he couldn't smuggle one little dragon on an airplane across the ocean. He'd only ever been there briefly before, on missions, and he decided it was time to see the country his mother spent her childhood in.
&BG_SHORT me=Jack's parents, Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom, raised him in England where being a mutant wasn't such a horrible stigma. Kitty was killed right before Jack's bar mitzvah, and Pete went off the deep end; Jack spent his high school career mostly keeping to himself and taking care of his father, learning things and being watched over by his aunt Romany. He was recruited into the British Security Service near the end of high school, and became a spy; he's been a spy and a black ops agent ever since. He was recently forcefully 'semi-retired', and is now exploring the country of his mother's birth.
&POWERS me=There are three facets to Jack's power, the ability to phase himself and any objects he can carry through matter.%r%rPHASING: This h'yar is the main power, really. Jack can phase himself, his clothes, and anything he can carry (including people - so the upper limit on what he can phase would be the upper limit on what he can lift, even though it wouldn't have any weight at all once it was phased - so about 200 lbs unless it's a really short time, in which case a bit more) through matter. That's -all- matter, by the way, including gases, liquids, solids, and plasma. It should be noted here as well as in flaws that the phased state is Jack's *natural* state; it takes a conscious effort for him to retain solidity. Unlike his mother, he -can- breathe while phased; whether this is due to his being more fully out of step with this plane than she was is unknown.%r%rWALKING ON AIR: Due to the nature of this power (being physically out of step with reality) he can also move around in space with no restrictions from gravity or weather. His mother called the former 'walking on air' - it's basically flying, the way a ghost would due to a lack of ties to the physical plane. The weather bit is basically just because when he's phased, he can't get wet from rain or cold from wind or hot from overexposure to the sun. His body's in a neutral state, somewhere other than this plane of existance, but visible to people here.%r%rHEAT GENERATION: Jack's hypothesized that the fact that he can generate heat in this plane - intense heat - even though he's not actually *in* this plane when he's phased, is tied somehow to his father's power to create and give off supercharged plasma; the way it works is that the interaction of normal matter with the *possibility* of his matter existing in the same place can, with concentration, create enough quantum friction to slag steel. This ability is, however, something that he can only make work if he concentrates hard enough, unlike his phasing.
&RESOURCES me=Jack Wisdom's resources come primarily from his years in intelligentsia: the contacts, both official and mercenary, are all people he's worked with in the field; his equipment, both chemical and weapon-wise, are all things he's purchased and learned to use because of various missions over the years; his paycheck is still from MI6, and is now more of a pension than a salary as he'll only do a job for them once in a while. One thing he insisted on when he arrived in the states was the best possible computer and internet hookup available to civilians, in order to keep himself in the loop informationally and allow all his contacts a means of communication with him that would remain steady. His record collection isn't really a resource, but it's really big and tends to impress girls, so it's listed. Lockheed is more of a friend than anything else, but since he'll back Jack up if needed and tends to be omnipresent, he's also listed.%r%rJack's contacts include his father Pete, his aunt Romany, her erstwhile lover and general Bad News Sorcerer John Constantine, former members of F.66 and the Weird Happenings Organization (both now long defunct), the mercenaries Cable and Domino (now pretty damn old, like Pete, Romany, and John), an assortment of creepy spy people he'd worked with who lived through the process, and Lockheed.%r%rHis equipment includes sundry chemicals used for interrogation, incapacitation, and assasination, the containers and devices used to hold, mix, and measure them, a modest collection of firearms and accoutrements, mostly small enough to hide easily and subtle enough in their use to make it difficult to trace back to an assassin, and his sweet-ass computer system.
&SKILLS me=I've divided Jack's skills into three main categories - specifically intelligentsia related skills, generally useful things to know how to do, and things learned in martial arts training. So, on with the show:%r%rINTELLIGENTSIA:%r%rLockpicking - Jack's spent a lot of time getting into rooms that the owners of the rooms preferred he didn't get into. He can pick locks that use keys, depending on how complicated they are, with little to a moderate amount of effort. He can pick electronic locks only if he knows beforehand and has brought the correct equipment.%r%rFirearms, use of - As a black ops man, Jack's not only had the opportunity, but many times has _had_ to use a variety of different firearms. He's versed in the use and care of quite a few, from assault rifles to handguns, and everything in between.%r%rDisguise - Generally, Jack's job on missions has been 'get in, do your thing, get out, don't be seen'...but if he's required to make any sort of contact, be it for purposes of information gathering or for doing a job that'll leave witnesses, he's gotten rather good at changing his appearance. Obviously, he's no shapeshifter, but secret agents have been doing the 'change your face/hair/build with makeup/prosthetics' thing long before shapeshifters became more to the public than a fairytale.%r%rStrategy - Team or solitaire. You *have* to be good at both coming up with plans ahead of time and changing them to fit the circumstances if you're going to be doing work as dangerous as Jack's done. Normally he works alone, but if given the resources of a team, he can quickly figure out a good way to use them all to their capacity.%r%rChemistry - A lot of the dirtier jobs Jack's done for the Security Service, at different levels, have required him to have a working knowledge of the effects of certain chemicals on human and mutant neurological systems. He's able to concoct mixtures that can kill, incapacitate, or make a target extremely free with information.%r%rMultilingual - Jack knows, for various reasons (mostly from having to go relatively deep into a situation before defusing or disposing of it, but not all) a plethora of languages. He's not fluent in all of them, and some of them he only has a passing knowledge of, but he can get by. These languages include Hebrew (from his studies early in life); French, Spanish, and Italian (all a rather passing knowledge - far better at interpreting than speaking); German, Yiddish, and Irish Gaelic (he can speak these reasonably well, and can swear in them fluently).
&SKILLS2 me=GENERALLY USEFUL THINGS TO KNOW:%r%rDriving - Yep, Jack can drive. Since England *still* has people driving on the opposite side of the street from a good deal of the world, I thought it'd be good to mention that he can legally drive in both systems, and is rather good at it.%r%rPiloting - Come on, he's a Secret Agent Man. And he's reasonably old, and he's been at it since he was seventeen. *Several* of the missions he's been on have ended up with pilots dead, and he was luckily (not actually luckily - forseeing the unforseen is something spy school's good at) able to fly the plane. This, it should be noted, is limited - he's not able to fly jumbo jets or whatnot, just small aircraft and helicopters.%r%rParamedic - Jack's been trained as a paramedic, just in case someone he's responsible for is seriously injured in the field and no doctors are present, and there's time to take care of the person instead of offing them or leaving them to rot.%r%rComputers - He's always had a natural affinity, courtesy his mother, and has played with them for most of his life. Once he started working for MI5, this became even more useful, as it was one more means of his gathering information.%r%rGuitar - This would be Jack's one actual hobby. He's got himself a Fender Stratocaster and he knows how to use it. Been playing it for years. Good release of tension.%r%rKosher cooking - Out of both necessity and taste, he's very good at cooking, and he keeps the kashrut. (Yes, this also means he doesn't tend to eat out.)
&SKILLS3 me=MARTIAL ARTS RELATED:%r%rCombat - Jack is proficient in the techniques and philosophies of several schools of martial combat. On the defensive side, he's studied jujitsu and aikido; on the offensive side, Aiki-Silat and Kenpo; for purposes of centering and relaxation, Tai Chi.%r%rPressure Points - In the process of his training, Jack's learned to exploit and/or utilize the points on the human body which cause pain and pleasure, and heal or cause damage. This makes him really great at massages, and also really great at putting people who trust him to get that close out of commission, if he has to.%r%rStealth - Now, aside from the fact that he can walk through walls, fly when he's desolid, and move without making a sound if he doesn't talk while phased, his martial arts training has also given him the ability to move extremely quietly when solid, and get really good at blending in and not being seen. It's a 'sneaky old tosser' skill, indeed.
&FLAWS me=Ohhh, baby. Jack-o's flaws are many and varied. He's got powers flaws, mental flaws, physical flaws, and outside-influence flaws. We'll start off with the powers ones, just for kicks. Then I'll probably squash the rest together since they really can't make up their own sections.%r%rPOWERS FLAWS:%r%rEffort to remain solid - That's right, Jack's natural state is being phased. This makes it difficult for him to sleep, because he loses solidity as soon as he goes unconscious...and since he can't breathe while inside solids, he's by nature a light sleeper: if he floats into his bed (or something else) when he's asleep, he'll suddenly not be able to breathe. Also, if he's not concentrating and loses solidity while in a wakeful state, it'll become damn obvious he's a mutant, 'cause he'll go through doors or people or things people throw to him that he wants to catch; it's generally a real pain in the neck. Think about it - all the things you routinely touch or interact with, he can't touch or interact with unless he's consciously making an effort to do so. Makes life complicated.%r%rPsi/magic - Barring psycho- and telekinesis, which require an object to be physically movable before it can be moved mentally, Jack is quite vulnerable to psi-based attacks. His mind, after all, is still there. He also has an intense vulnerability to magic, especially when phased - magic-based attacks will get him, and get him good.%r%rNo breathing in solids - When Jack is inside a solid object, he can't breathe. Has to hold his breath before he goes in, see.%r%rVulnerability to energy - Energy weapons or energy-power attacks disrupt Jack. They actually physically hurt him while he's phased, just as they would physically hurt someone who doesn't phase - even worse, they make it more difficult for him to regain solidity, so he can't recieve medical attention if he needs it (which he would). Yep, he can even be killed while he's phased. Don't do that. It'll tick him off.
&FLAWS2 me=NON-POWERS FLAWS:%r%rShort temper - Jack has the tendency to fly off the handle over totally inconsequential things. This is, naturally, only while he's not in 'spy mode', where he'll only blow up over something if someone pushes exactly the right buttons. He doesn't *stay* mad, though, and he doesn't hold grudges - but when we're talking mad, we're talking throwing-things-and-breaking-them mad.%r%rFoul mouth - Jack's language is rated Vertigo. If in mixed company this will include a lot of CCA-approved bleeps and blotted-out words and pound signs and ampersands. He *can* be awfully diplomatic, but again, this is only when in 'spy mode'.%r%rWarped morality - Well, listen. He was raised in the Jewish faith, and still keeps kosher and the Sabbath, but he's a professional killer in the employ of the British Secret Service. If that's not a morally warped dichotomy, I don't know what is. He doesn't have any problem with the phrase 'the ends justifies the means', or with killing if it needs to be done, or with low-down dirty spy tricks if he has to use them. However, he's overprotective of anyone he actually lets get close to him.%r%rTobacco addiction - He smokes like a chimney.%r%rSurl - Really, this belongs more in personality, but it's definitely negative and definitely makes it hard for Jack to win friends and influence people (positively), so it goes in flaws too. He's generally *really* surly, thanks to his years of exposure to dear old dad (who went off the deep end and back to his old surly self with Kitty's death).%r%rComparatively weak - Not a *weakling*, but definitely not the best physique in the world. His strength is wiry, but it's hampered by the fact that he smokes and has smoked for years, and therefore hasn't got the full use of his lungs.%r%rMad bloody paranoid - Jack is a Secret Agent Man. He has been one for the entirety of his adult life. Therefore, paranoia is ingrained so thoroughly into his psyche that it'll never fully come out. He sits with his back against the wall, he checks for bugs under tables and cameras in corners, he eyes shadows suspiciously, and he doesn't trust anyone (well, anyone but Lockheed, his dad, and his aunt).%r%rPete - Jack's got a crazy old dad holed up in a grotty apartment in King's Cross with an assault rifle and a year's supply of cheap scotch and cigarettes. He cares deeply for his old man. If his enemies ever find this out, and find out how easy it is to get to Pete (barring, naturally, the assault rifle and the hot knives), then Pete is a gigantic liability to Jack. Bad thing. Bad thing indeed.
&PERS me=Right! It's Mr. Personality!%r%rJack's got your stereotypically warped British sense of humor - dry and heavily ironic, occasionally completely and utterly off the wall. Think Monty Python meets Fawlty Towers, with a dash of Tom Baker's Dr. Who thrown in for good measure. He's incredibly bright, but the only creative things he does never really see the light of day - he doesn't, you see, consider the planning, research, and savoir faire that the spy business entails to be creative enterprises...and neither does anyone he's run into outside of 'the biz'. People who knew him before he started in with MI5 consider his genius to be totally wasted; they say, my god, you could be making millions in the technology industry! You could start a band and rise to the top of the charts! You could do just about anything other than what you do and achieve fame and fortune, instead of notoriety and a whopping big record collection!%r%rJack is terminally flirty and charming when he wants to be, which is generally when interesting women are around - when they're not, he's a surly bastard with a chip on his shoulder the side of the rock of Gibraltar. He's apparently totally amoral, but I swear! he's good deep down inside (in fact, he's remarkably close to your standard Ellis Insert - the rotter with a heart of gold).%r%rHe has a terrible temper, and is unhealthily secretive and paranoid, and remarkably lonely as a result - but he'd be damned before he'd ever admit it, even to himself. Well, maybe when he's drunk. Every once in a blue moon, he'll get into a relationship that he actually thinks will work, and it does for a while, but then something goes very very wrong and it's invariably his fault.%r%rFinally, nothing seems to bother him - that is, nothing that has anything to do with his missions or any crises or urgent matters that may pop up. He's very laid back when it comes to emergencies, and it tends to drive his associates absolutely up the wall. Actually, that wasn't final, this is: he geeks out when it comes to technology or music. He can go on for hours about the intricacies of a certain brilliantly concieved circuit or a really tight guitar riff, unless someone stops him.
&DATE_APPLIED me=15:24 Feb 18
&APPLY_COUNT me=1
&APPROVALS me=Lina Inverse 15:42 Feb 18: Lina Like. Even if purple dragon talks. |Dark Ami 23:32 Feb 18: Not bad... |Darwin 18:37 Feb 19: Darwin say Jack has watched too much 'Grosse Point Blank'. |               ***** -Jack Wisdom- is now fully approved. *****                
&APPROVAL_COUNT me=3
&ISAPPROVED me=yes
&IC_OOC me=OOC
@lock me/IC_OOC
&IC_OOC_AFK me=OOC
@lock me/IC_OOC_AFK
&IC_LOC me=#333
@set me=VISUAL
Hardbody says "That is why I keep a copy in a notebook file of everything I put in here."
@lock me=*-Jack Wisdom-
&STAFF_EMAIL me=gina@nac.net
@lock me/STAFF_EMAIL
@Sex me=Male
&CODENAME me=Shadowcat
&SPECIES me=Homo Superior
&TYPE me=OC
&FULLNAME me=Jonathan Samuel Wisdom[pemit(me,\[%N has just +fingered you.\])]
&AGE me=34
@Adesc me=@pemit me=\[%N looked at you.\]
&AFFILIATION me=Chaotic Neutral
&TEAM me=-New Brotherhood-
&TIME me=2041
@lock me/TIME
&OCCUPATION me=Professional Killer
&EMAIL me=wisdom@cleverdick.co.uk
&TIMEZONE me=EST
&WWW me=Not for this character, no.
&ACTOR me=John Cusack%r(http://wso.williams.edu/~sorme/pictures/magazine2.jpg)%r(http://robotgirl.org/art/jackwisdom.jpg \[sketch\])%r(http://wso.williams.edu/~sorme/pictures/misc24.jpg)
&THEMESONG me=Top Five Jack Wisdom songs:%r%t1) 'Gouge Away' - Pixies%r%t2) 'Close to Me' - The Cure (Get-Up Kids cover)%r%t3) 'Farther' - Third Eye Blind%r%t4) 'Rudie Can't Fail' - the Clash%r%t5) 'Karma Police' - Radiohead%r
&QUOTE me=[u(q[rand(10)])]
&Q0 me=%r%t"What am I going to say? I killed the President of Paraguay with a fork, how have you been?"%r%t%tGrosse Pointe Blank
&Q1 me=%r%t"No, no, no! A psychopath kills for no reason! I only kill for money."%r%t%tGrosse Pointe Blank
&Q2 me=%r%t"You get the engine started, and I'll run you over."%r%t%tMidnight Run
&Q3 me=%r%tEvie: "Do you -swear-?"%r%tRick: "Every damn day."%r%t%tThe Mummy
&Q4 me=%r%t"A good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means THEY screwed up somewhere along the line."%r%t%tConspiracy Theory
&Q5 me=%r%t"There aren't evil guys and innocent guys. It's just... It's just... It's just a bunch of guys."%r%t%tZero Effect
&Q6 me=%r%t"I'm not wearing any pants. Film at eleven."%r%t%tKentucky Fried Movie
&Q7 me=%r%t"If you guys know so much about women, how come you're at, like, a Gas-n-Sip on a Saturday night completely alone drinking beers with no women anywhere?"%r%t%tSay Anything
&Q8 me=%r%t"You have failed me for the *LAST*...hey, nice shoes..."%r%t%tSix-String Samurai
&Q9 me=%r%t"I ran outta gas! I had a flat tire! I didn't have enough money for cab fare! My tux didn't come back from the cleaners! An old friend came in from outta town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts!! It wasn't my fault, I swear to /God/!"%r%t%tThe Blues Brothers
&NOTE me=Yes, I am the child of Kitty and Pete. No, I will not reconsider.%rDetails on my opinion: http://www.eyrie.org/~brainy9/wisdom.txt
&POWERS_SHORT me=Phasing through matter, 'walking on air', generation of extreme heat while phased.
&SKILLS_SHORT me=Stealth, firearms, good driver, limited piloting, disguise, strategy, lockpicking, chemistry, kosher cooking, paramedic, defensive martial arts, pressure points, multilingual, electric guitar, computer savvy/technical knowhow.[pemit(me,\[%N checked your +traits.\])]
&FLAWS_SHORT me=Requires conscious effort to retain solidity, vulnerable to energy attacks, vulnerable to psi/magic while phased, unable to breathe while phased through solids, short temper, foul mouth, warped morality, tobacco addiction, surl, comparatively weak, mad bloody paranoid, crazy father holed up with liquor and ammo in an apt. in London.
&PERS_SHORT me=British sense of humor, 'wasted genius', flirty, charm, apparently amoral, good deep down somewhere, temper, surl, secretive/paranoid, decidedly non-urgent, tendency to get geeky.
&RESOURCES_SHORT me=Intelligence contacts, firearms, Lockheed, chemistry equipment, mercenary contacts, really big paycheck, computer/'net hookup, extensive vinyl collection (records, dippy, not kinky stuff).
&SHIRT0 me=ludicrously faded black Pixies t-shirt from an early 90s tour - apparently inherited
&SHIRT1 me=tan Clash t-shirt
&SHIRT2 me=light blue Radiohead reunion tour shirt
&SHIRT3 me=once-white Weezer shirt with holes in
&SHIRT4 me=positively venerable Cat's Laughing shirt that looks way too small for him
&SHIRT5 me=faded yellow Soul Coughing 'El Oso' tour shirt
&SHIRT6 me=maroon Cake shirt with pale blue lettering reading 'Prolonging the Magic'
&SHIRT7 me=black bootleg Bad Religion t-shirt
&SHIRT8 me=white 'NYC Ska' shirt with the sleeves ripped off and tour dates for the late 2020s on the back
&SHIRT9 me=olive green Snakefinger and the Residents shirt with the eyeball logo on the front
&SHIRT10 me=orange artsy-arsed Promise Ring t-shirt
&SHIRT11 me=light grey gym-type shirt that says Property of TMBG Athletics on the back and front
&SHIRT12 me=white bootleg Pogues shirt
&SHIRT13 me=black Elvis Costello profile shirt
&SHIRT14 me=replica white Abbey Road t-shirt
&SHIRT15 me=navy blue Chemical Brothers t-shirt
&SHIRT16 me=pale yellow Moby t-shirt with red sleeves and a red collar
&SHIRT17 me=faded black Slipknot t-shirt
&SHIRT18 me=dark green Jethro Tull t-shirt with *lots* of holes in
&SHIRT19 me=long sleeved red Violent Femmes t-shirt
&SHIRT20 me=sleeveless black and purple Big Audio Dynamite II shirt
&SHIRT21 me=white bootleg Madness shirt with the hat-wearing 'M' logo in front
&SHIRT22 me=dark orange Oingo Boingo 'Alive!' t-shirt
&SHIRT23 me=light green, skintight, long-sleeved Everclear band shirt with paler green stars on
&SHIRT24 me=faded brown 'Spirit of the West' tour shirt
&SHIRT25 me=bright red Goldfinger pouch sweatshirt with the sleeves ripped off
&SHIRT26 me=ugly pale grey and green Great Frog shirt
&SHIRT27 me=beat-up blue and white Scare Tactics t-shirt
&SHIRT28 me=tattered yellow R.E.M. 'Daysleeper' shirt
&SHIRT29 me=black and white deco-style Squeeze t-shirt
&SHIRT30 me=dusty purple art-bastard Beck shirt with yellow and black lettering
&SHIRT31 me=white Fishbone t-shirt with black and red lettering and a stylised fish skeleton on front
&SHIRT32 me=once-black 'Moist' t-shirt from a tour in the mid-aughts
&SHIRT33 me=relatively new-ish Fender logo shirt
&SHIRT34 me=artistically done bootleg black and green Man or Astro-Man? t-shirt
&SHIRT35 me=black and white checkered Skavoovie and the Epitones t-shirt with a lounge lizard on back
&SHIRT36 me=black and white Crass shirt with the sleeves ripped off and just the logo on front
&SHIRT37 me=stained orange shirt with 'The Cramps' and a faded album cover on front
&SHIRT38 me=garish green and yellow Voodoo Glow Skulls Redux shirt from the homage band's 2037 tour
&SHIRT39 me=ridiculously unabashedly nostalgic 'The Ramones LIVE!' tribute album shirt
&SHIRT40 me=almost comlpetely faded black, white, and red Sex Pistols 'Anarchy in the UK' shirt
&SHIRT41 me=tan, dark brown, and black Thomas Dolby 'Astronauts and Heretics' album promo shirt
&SHIRT42 me=faded black t-shirt with the iconic Atari Teenage Riot sigil emblazoned on the front
&SHIRT43 me=light blue, grey, and silver 'Gravity Kills' logo tank top
&SHIRT44 me=totally ripped up black Dead Milkmen t-shirt with simple white lettering, almost all peeled off at this point
&SHIRT45 me=black Misfits t-shirt with the glow-in-the-dark skull logo on front and the sleeves ripped off
&SHIRT46 me=black and green Bomboras t-shirt with a picture of a shrunken head above the logo
&SHIRT47 me=white Operation Ivy t-shirt with a million coffee stains all over it
&SHIRT48 me=blue and orange Manic Street Preachers reunion tour shirt, still in relatively sparkling condition
&SHIRT49 me=black and yellow bootleg Dire Straits t-shirt
&SHIRT50 me=simple grey Depeche Mode t-shirt
&SHIRT51 me=blue, red, and yellow Cette t-shirt which is *this* close to copyright infringement
&SLOPPY me=%rSo he *does* wear clothing other than a wrinkled suit. It happens! Especially with slackassed musicians that kill people for a living. Don't mock him terribly; he lives in the past.%r%rJack's "casual" gear is functional, comfortable, and noncommittally classic: along with a breathtakingly worn-out and ripped pair of Levi's jeans and a filthy old pair of checkered canvas Vans, he's wearing a [u(shirt[rand(52)])] (generally, but not always, under a wrinkled black blazer). His black hair is uncombed, wildly curling every which way, and if he's hung-over and too picky to be wearing the blazer, you can see a faded blue pattern tattooed around his upper right arm.%r%rIt's at times like this that it's almost certain Jack hasn't shaved in at least a day, and his hair's only kept out of his eyes by the pair of outmoded 'Buddy Holly' style glasses perched on his slightly bent nose. His hair even covers the Fascinatingly Mysterious Scar(tm) down his forehead, making him even -more- harmless-looking. Three words: Retro loser geek.%r
&USUAL me=%rTall? Check - somewhere around six foot two. Handsome? Check - hey, it's only natural; he got it from his parents. Swanky attire? Ehn. We'll have to say 'no', here. Groomed? Nice try.%r%rJack Wisdom basically looks like your average devastatingly handsome Stylish Rogue archetype: disarmingly cheerful bright blue eyes, thick black hair that both needs a trim and constantly has the coveted 'just rolled out of bed' look to it, pleasantly even features, permanent five o'clock shadow, quirky smile. Hell, he even comes complete with a Fascinatingly Mysterious Scar(tm) down his forehead, through one eyebrow.%r%rHaving learned from the best that the simpler your wardrobe is, the less needless complications enter your life, Jack'll usually be seen wearing a rumpled suit, with the occasional addition of a grotty black trenchcoat. Rumor has it he's got a closet full of white shirts and black and navy trousers, and three identical pairs of shoes. This is untrue, but it's not hard to believe. It's a widely-known fact that he only has one tie, which he always wears loose; his sleeves are almost always rolled up.%r
@Desc me=[get_Eval(me/sloppy)]
&BASE me=#1727
&STARTDATE me=Aug 2000
@lock me/STARTDATE
&BACKGROUND me=For a mutant, and for the mutant son of Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom, occult and parahuman investigators extrordinaire, Jack had an extremely normal childhood. It could have been the fact that he was raised in England, where the mutant hysteria of the States was nearly nonexistent; it could have been the fact that his parents, though once affiliated to varying degrees with the X-Men, had decided for the most part to shy away from the bizarre lifestyle afforded the spandex set; it could have been the fact that his metahuman abilities kicked in early and he had parents practiced in the use of their own powers to train him in their application. Even growing up with a miniature purple dragon in he household wasn't near enough to deter Jack from the siren call of normalcy. In fact, it could have been any number of things. The fact remains that up until his bar mitzvah, young Jonathan Samuel Wisdom was an incredibly happy little camper. He was often spoken of as a good-looking, clever little bugger, finding favor with his peers and adults alike, coming up with the best games, leading the neighborhood children in play, cheerfully mocking those and that which didn't agree with him, but never abrasively. His father, though posessing a reputation among adults as a creepy ex-spy guy and kind of a jerk, was never anything less than incredibly kind and loving to his wife and son. His mother was everything a boy could wish in a mother, letting him get away with pretty much anything that wouldn't hurt him or someone else, comforting him when he was sick or upset, letting friends stay over, not giving him embarrassing school lunches. It was truly a mirror of nostalgia's gloss.
&BACKGROUND2 me=This all changed at Jack's thirteenth birthday - the day before his bar mitzvah party, in fact, due to scheduling. Everyone'd been invited - his parents' friends from Excalibur and the X-Men, and F.66 and the Weird Happenings Organization, the blokes from the Crown, his grandparents, his Aunt Romany and the crazy old blond mage she was currently involved with, his friends from school, some of the young children of his parents' friends. It was going to be a gargantuan affair, and everything was ready for it, but this was the night before: Kitty and Pete were having a quiet birthday dinner at home with Jack when the doorbell rang. Jack got up to answer it, and it was Romany's friend - the blond guy in the trenchcoat - and he looked like hell. Beaten almost to a pulp, scorched in a myriad of places, sagging against the doorjamb and bleeding all over the front steps. It was all Jack could do not to cry out, but he managed to keep a level head and dragged the skanky old magus into the front hallway and shut the door before calling for his parents. When they got there they immediately shooed him away, apologizing, but 'This wasn't something they wanted him getting mixed up in'. Obligingly, he wolfed down the rest of his meal and went upstairs - waiting, naturally, until he heard them going out the door before he phased outside and tailed them. Buggered if he was going to miss something involving *magic*, for the love of Mike. Several hours later, he wished to god he *had*.
&BACKGROUND3 me=The horrors he witnessed then - that night he saw his mother killed in front of him, and he saw his father's sanity crack and fall to pieces, and he saw Hell unleashed on earth and only contained by luck and the collective force of will of his broken father, his aunt (aging before his eyes) and her current lover Constantine - would scar young Jack for the rest of his natural life, and would probably taint his chances at a pleasant afterlife. It certainly ruined his birthday, and robbed him of a proper Bar Mitzvah, though anyone could tell you that that night turned him into a man far more than a traditional ceremony could. The thirteen year old Jack found himself sobbing uncontrollably as he dragged his father away from the mess, and only allowed his aunt to put him to bed once he was sure Pete was going to be all right. This impulse would illustrate the trend of his actions for the rest of his father's life. After losing his seemingly indestructible mother, there was no way he would chance losing his far more vulnerable father. And all the people who were invited to his Bar Mitzvah? They were there for his mother's funeral, instead.
&BACKGROUND4 me=After Kitty's death, Pete went into a rapid decline, and Jack found himself more and more in his aunt Romany's care. Simply by virtue of the fact that some of the things Romany involved herself in were fairly frightening and definitely not natural, Jack applied himself to study more and more, hoping to build himself a buffer between himself and the strange. More in honor of his mother than out of any special religious bent, he continued to keep kosher and say his prayers, and insisted on finally having his bar mitzvah a year later. Throughout high school, the boy took care of his father, who grew more paranoid and irrational every year. Kitty's death had hit Pete as hard as the man had always feared it would, and without even realizing it, Pete was turning into *his* father. The difference was that when he was sober enough to realize who was talking to him, he never blamed Jack for what had happened to Kitty.%r%rBut Jack did.%r%rAlso throughout high school, Jack worked on and in anything that would allow his mind to come away from his body, anything that would allow him to lose the horrible focus on his life that he kept in all his waking hours. It still wasn't a bad life, but it was growing progressively stranger and more depressing, the further his father went from sanity and the further his aunt delved into magic. Jack applied himself to learning martial arts, chemistry, several different languages, and guitar; he had a natural affinity to computers and exploited it, growing more and more adept at it and his other chosen hobbies even as he grew less and less social.
&BACKGROUND5 me=In his second to last year of high school, Jack was contacted by MI5. Unbeknownst to him or to his father, they'd kept an eye on him from the time he was born, partially because of who his father was and partially because of the abilities of both of his parents. That interest that they had in him doubled when he started what was essentially basic training for spy school, all on his own, in high school. These things that kept his attention, the linguistics and electronics and organized combat, they were the sort of skills that would serve Jack well in any sort of intelligence job - and MI5 wanted to make sure they got to him first.%r%rWhen Pete found out about this, he blew up - he didn't want his son getting involved in the life that he'd tried so hard to keep away from and never could. He didn't want Jack to turn into the bitter wreck he had been before he found Kitty, and the even bitterer wreck that he presently was. Jack, however, being seventeen and quite sick of the stagnation he'd felt he'd reached, would hear none of it, and accepted MI5's invitation to him. Pete refused to speak to him for a good eight or nine years after that, though he never sent back the cheques that Jack mailed him regularly.
&BACKGROUND6 me=During his time at the Spy School and afterwards, affiliated with the British Security Service (MI5), Jack continually improved his skill set, adding whatever the current mission required or whatever the administration told him he needed to know. His only failing, according to them, was the fact that he didn't seem to take much of anything seriously. Oh, he always got the job done, and he always did it within deadline, but he never seemed to care about it. They couldn't decide if this meant he had a death wish - lack of worry - or if it meant he was overly cocky, thinking he could handle anything, or if it meant that it really took a *lot* to faze him.%r%rHis 'offduty' life was limited, both due to the fact that he was the best agent that the Security Service employed and they kept him busy, and because he was so deeply 'in' that he never ended up getting involved romantically or socially with anyone on a serious level. What little free time he had, the man spent playing his guitar, drinking, smoking, reassuring Lockheed he wasn't gonna get killed, and amassing and listening to the largest collection of vinyl record albums this side of the store in High Fidelity. If nothing else, the act of creation when writing music and the sense of accomplishment gained from reorganizing his massive collection were positive additions to his karma pool, which grew more and more tainted with every job he did wilfully for MI5.
&BACKGROUND7 me=Once the younger Wisdom had spent enough time working for MI5, the organization decided that he was both sound enough and capable enough to 'graduate', as it were, to its sister service: MI6. This echelon of government intelligentsia was the one whose black ops were so dire that half the jobs the agents took on were *beyond* plausible deniability, falling instead into the realm of 'here's a cyanide cap for your molar. You know what to do if you're caught'. Oddly enough, when Jack changed organizations (not telling anyone, of course - discretion isn't just the better part of valor, here, it's absolutely bloody necessary), his father started talking to him again (which relieved the hell out of Lockheed, who spoke to them both and sometimes needed to act as a go-between). The bitter irony of this didn't escape Jack, and neither did the fact that his job clashed completely with his religious beliefs. Both are things that he only thinks about when utterly knackered, and as a result, he doesn't drink all that much when he drinks.%r%rAfter a good (bad!) seven years in MI6, Jack started showing the signs that his superiors looked for in older and more experienced agents - signs that he was going to crack, signs that he'd lose it or go rogue if he were kept on duty that much longer. However, due to his overwhelming reliability, they felt he could be safely semi-retired, and allowed to keep the knowledge he'd gained over the years of any number of horrible and classified operations. What they *did* was call him in and let him know that he was being taken off of active duty, but would remain under the employ of the Service, and called in again when his specific talents were desperately needed. He wasn't being fired, and he wasn't going to lose his salary, and he'd have to do them a job here and there, but for the most part he was released. Think of it as a vacation, they said. Think of it as time to catch up on your life, with your friends, they told him. You have friends, right?
&BACKGROUND8 me=At a total loss, Jack Wisdom didn't really have any comment for his bosses. He accepted without a fight, but honestly didn't know what he'd do with his life. He knew with a bitter certainty that they'd never let him out of their sight, would make sure he never let any of their secrets go, would never *truly* leave him alone no matter what they promised him. But he also knew that he'd realized that years ago, and could have left before the really heavy stuff came his way - but he hadn't wanted to. It was, therefore, the bed he made - and he had to lie in it. So he thanked them, he made sure his father was all set (read: holed up in a dingy flat in King's Cross with an assault rifle and a year's supply of cheap scotch and Silk Cuts), and he packed up and left. He was given a network of contacts all over the world, which let him knew that basically whereever he went, he'd be watched, and he went to the States. Jack *did* give Lockheed a choice - he could stay in London with Pete, where he'd been spending a lot of his time when Jack was busy (much to Pete's chagrin), or he could come with Jack to the States. The little dragon, naturally, would much rather stay permanently with Kitty's son than Pete, so he smuggled him over with him - he wouldn't be much of a sneaky sort if he couldn't smuggle one little dragon on an airplane across the ocean. He'd only ever been there briefly before, on missions, and he decided it was time to see the country his mother spent her childhood in.
&BG_SHORT me=Jack's parents, Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom, raised him in England where being a mutant wasn't such a horrible stigma. Kitty was killed right before Jack's bar mitzvah, and Pete went off the deep end; Jack spent his high school career mostly keeping to himself and taking care of his father, learning things and being watched over by his aunt Romany. He was recruited into the British Security Service near the end of high school, and became a spy; he's been a spy and a black ops agent ever since. He was recently forcefully 'semi-retired', and is now exploring the country of his mother's birth.
&POWERS me=There are three facets to Jack's power, the ability to phase himself and any objects he can carry through matter.%r%rPHASING: This h'yar is the main power, really. Jack can phase himself, his clothes, and anything he can carry (including people - so the upper limit on what he can phase would be the upper limit on what he can lift, even though it wouldn't have any weight at all once it was phased - so about 200 lbs unless it's a really short time, in which case a bit more) through matter. That's -all- matter, by the way, including gases, liquids, solids, and plasma. It should be noted here as well as in flaws that the phased state is Jack's *natural* state; it takes a conscious effort for him to retain solidity. Unlike his mother, he -can- breathe while phased; whether this is due to his being more fully out of step with this plane than she was is unknown.%r%rWALKING ON AIR: Due to the nature of this power (being physically out of step with reality) he can also move around in space with no restrictions from gravity or weather. His mother called the former 'walking on air' - it's basically flying, the way a ghost would due to a lack of ties to the physical plane. The weather bit is basically just because when he's phased, he can't get wet from rain or cold from wind or hot from overexposure to the sun. His body's in a neutral state, somewhere other than this plane of existance, but visible to people here.%r%rHEAT GENERATION: Jack's hypothesized that the fact that he can generate heat in this plane - intense heat - even though he's not actually *in* this plane when he's phased, is tied somehow to his father's power to create and give off supercharged plasma; the way it works is that the interaction of normal matter with the *possibility* of his matter existing in the same place can, with concentration, create enough quantum friction to slag steel. This ability is, however, something that he can only make work if he concentrates hard enough, unlike his phasing.
&RESOURCES me=Jack Wisdom's resources come primarily from his years in intelligentsia: the contacts, both official and mercenary, are all people he's worked with in the field; his equipment, both chemical and weapon-wise, are all things he's purchased and learned to use because of various missions over the years; his paycheck is still from MI6, and is now more of a pension than a salary as he'll only do a job for them once in a while. One thing he insisted on when he arrived in the states was the best possible computer and internet hookup available to civilians, in order to keep himself in the loop informationally and allow all his contacts a means of communication with him that would remain steady. His record collection isn't really a resource, but it's really big and tends to impress girls, so it's listed. Lockheed is more of a friend than anything else, but since he'll back Jack up if needed and tends to be omnipresent, he's also listed.%r%rJack's contacts include his father Pete, his aunt Romany, her erstwhile lover and general Bad News Sorcerer John Constantine, former members of F.66 and the Weird Happenings Organization (both now long defunct), the mercenaries Cable and Domino (now pretty damn old, like Pete, Romany, and John), an assortment of creepy spy people he'd worked with who lived through the process, and Lockheed.%r%rHis equipment includes sundry chemicals used for interrogation, incapacitation, and assasination, the containers and devices used to hold, mix, and measure them, a modest collection of firearms and accoutrements, mostly small enough to hide easily and subtle enough in their use to make it difficult to trace back to an assassin, and his sweet-ass computer system.
&SKILLS me=I've divided Jack's skills into three main categories - specifically intelligentsia related skills, generally useful things to know how to do, and things learned in martial arts training. So, on with the show:%r%rINTELLIGENTSIA:%r%rLockpicking - Jack's spent a lot of time getting into rooms that the owners of the rooms preferred he didn't get into. He can pick locks that use keys, depending on how complicated they are, with little to a moderate amount of effort. He can pick electronic locks only if he knows beforehand and has brought the correct equipment.%r%rFirearms, use of - As a black ops man, Jack's not only had the opportunity, but many times has _had_ to use a variety of different firearms. He's versed in the use and care of quite a few, from assault rifles to handguns, and everything in between.%r%rDisguise - Generally, Jack's job on missions has been 'get in, do your thing, get out, don't be seen'...but if he's required to make any sort of contact, be it for purposes of information gathering or for doing a job that'll leave witnesses, he's gotten rather good at changing his appearance. Obviously, he's no shapeshifter, but secret agents have been doing the 'change your face/hair/build with makeup/prosthetics' thing long before shapeshifters became more to the public than a fairytale.%r%rStrategy - Team or solitaire. You *have* to be good at both coming up with plans ahead of time and changing them to fit the circumstances if you're going to be doing work as dangerous as Jack's done. Normally he works alone, but if given the resources of a team, he can quickly figure out a good way to use them all to their capacity.%r%rChemistry - A lot of the dirtier jobs Jack's done for the Security Service, at different levels, have required him to have a working knowledge of the effects of certain chemicals on human and mutant neurological systems. He's able to concoct mixtures that can kill, incapacitate, or make a target extremely free with information.%r%rMultilingual - Jack knows, for various reasons (mostly from having to go relatively deep into a situation before defusing or disposing of it, but not all) a plethora of languages. He's not fluent in all of them, and some of them he only has a passing knowledge of, but he can get by. These languages include Hebrew (from his studies early in life); French, Spanish, and Italian (all a rather passing knowledge - far better at interpreting than speaking); German, Yiddish, and Irish Gaelic (he can speak these reasonably well, and can swear in them fluently).
&SKILLS2 me=GENERALLY USEFUL THINGS TO KNOW:%r%rDriving - Yep, Jack can drive. Since England *still* has people driving on the opposite side of the street from a good deal of the world, I thought it'd be good to mention that he can legally drive in both systems, and is rather good at it.%r%rPiloting - Come on, he's a Secret Agent Man. And he's reasonably old, and he's been at it since he was seventeen. *Several* of the missions he's been on have ended up with pilots dead, and he was luckily (not actually luckily - forseeing the unforseen is something spy school's good at) able to fly the plane. This, it should be noted, is limited - he's not able to fly jumbo jets or whatnot, just small aircraft and helicopters.%r%rParamedic - Jack's been trained as a paramedic, just in case someone he's responsible for is seriously injured in the field and no doctors are present, and there's time to take care of the person instead of offing them or leaving them to rot.%r%rComputers - He's always had a natural affinity, courtesy his mother, and has played with them for most of his life. Once he started working for MI5, this became even more useful, as it was one more means of his gathering information.%r%rGuitar - This would be Jack's one actual hobby. He's got himself a Fender Stratocaster and he knows how to use it. Been playing it for years. Good release of tension.%r%rKosher cooking - Out of both necessity and taste, he's very good at cooking, and he keeps the kashrut. (Yes, this also means he doesn't tend to eat out.)
&SKILLS3 me=MARTIAL ARTS RELATED:%r%rCombat - Jack is proficient in the techniques and philosophies of several schools of martial combat. On the defensive side, he's studied jujitsu and aikido; on the offensive side, Aiki-Silat and Kenpo; for purposes of centering and relaxation, Tai Chi.%r%rPressure Points - In the process of his training, Jack's learned to exploit and/or utilize the points on the human body which cause pain and pleasure, and heal or cause damage. This makes him really great at massages, and also really great at putting people who trust him to get that close out of commission, if he has to.%r%rStealth - Now, aside from the fact that he can walk through walls, fly when he's desolid, and move without making a sound if he doesn't talk while phased, his martial arts training has also given him the ability to move extremely quietly when solid, and get really good at blending in and not being seen. It's a 'sneaky old tosser' skill, indeed.
&FLAWS me=Ohhh, baby. Jack-o's flaws are many and varied. He's got powers flaws, mental flaws, physical flaws, and outside-influence flaws. We'll start off with the powers ones, just for kicks. Then I'll probably squash the rest together since they really can't make up their own sections.%r%rPOWERS FLAWS:%r%rEffort to remain solid - That's right, Jack's natural state is being phased. This makes it difficult for him to sleep, because he loses solidity as soon as he goes unconscious...and since he can't breathe while inside solids, he's by nature a light sleeper: if he floats into his bed (or something else) when he's asleep, he'll suddenly not be able to breathe. Also, if he's not concentrating and loses solidity while in a wakeful state, it'll become damn obvious he's a mutant, 'cause he'll go through doors or people or things people throw to him that he wants to catch; it's generally a real pain in the neck. Think about it - all the things you routinely touch or interact with, he can't touch or interact with unless he's consciously making an effort to do so. Makes life complicated.%r%rPsi/magic - Barring psycho- and telekinesis, which require an object to be physically movable before it can be moved mentally, Jack is quite vulnerable to psi-based attacks. His mind, after all, is still there. He also has an intense vulnerability to magic, especially when phased - magic-based attacks will get him, and get him good.%r%rNo breathing in solids - When Jack is inside a solid object, he can't breathe. Has to hold his breath before he goes in, see.%r%rVulnerability to energy - Energy weapons or energy-power attacks disrupt Jack. They actually physically hurt him while he's phased, just as they would physically hurt someone who doesn't phase - even worse, they make it more difficult for him to regain solidity, so he can't recieve medical attention if he needs it (which he would). Yep, he can even be killed while he's phased. Don't do that. It'll tick him off.
&FLAWS2 me=NON-POWERS FLAWS:%r%rShort temper - Jack has the tendency to fly off the handle over totally inconsequential things. This is, naturally, only while he's not in 'spy mode', where he'll only blow up over something if someone pushes exactly the right buttons. He doesn't *stay* mad, though, and he doesn't hold grudges - but when we're talking mad, we're talking throwing-things-and-breaking-them mad.%r%rFoul mouth - Jack's language is rated Vertigo. If in mixed company this will include a lot of CCA-approved bleeps and blotted-out words and pound signs and ampersands. He *can* be awfully diplomatic, but again, this is only when in 'spy mode'.%r%rWarped morality - Well, listen. He was raised in the Jewish faith, and still keeps kosher and the Sabbath, but he's a professional killer in the employ of the British Secret Service. If that's not a morally warped dichotomy, I don't know what is. He doesn't have any problem with the phrase 'the ends justifies the means', or with killing if it needs to be done, or with low-down dirty spy tricks if he has to use them. However, he's overprotective of anyone he actually lets get close to him.%r%rTobacco addiction - He smokes like a chimney.%r%rSurl - Really, this belongs more in personality, but it's definitely negative and definitely makes it hard for Jack to win friends and influence people (positively), so it goes in flaws too. He's generally *really* surly, thanks to his years of exposure to dear old dad (who went off the deep end and back to his old surly self with Kitty's death).%r%rComparatively weak - Not a *weakling*, but definitely not the best physique in the world. His strength is wiry, but it's hampered by the fact that he smokes and has smoked for years, and therefore hasn't got the full use of his lungs.%r%rMad bloody paranoid - Jack is a Secret Agent Man. He has been one for the entirety of his adult life. Therefore, paranoia is ingrained so thoroughly into his psyche that it'll never fully come out. He sits with his back against the wall, he checks for bugs under tables and cameras in corners, he eyes shadows suspiciously, and he doesn't trust anyone (well, anyone but Lockheed, his dad, and his aunt).%r%rPete - Jack's got a crazy old dad holed up in a grotty apartment in King's Cross with an assault rifle and a year's supply of cheap scotch and cigarettes. He cares deeply for his old man. If his enemies ever find this out, and find out how easy it is to get to Pete (barring, naturally, the assault rifle and the hot knives), then Pete is a gigantic liability to Jack. Bad thing. Bad thing indeed.
&PERS me=Right! It's Mr. Personality!%r%rJack's got your stereotypically warped British sense of humor - dry and heavily ironic, occasionally completely and utterly off the wall. Think Monty Python meets Fawlty Towers, with a dash of Tom Baker's Dr. Who thrown in for good measure. He's incredibly bright, but the only creative things he does never really see the light of day - he doesn't, you see, consider the planning, research, and savoir faire that the spy business entails to be creative enterprises...and neither does anyone he's run into outside of 'the biz'. People who knew him before he started in with MI5 consider his genius to be totally wasted; they say, my god, you could be making millions in the technology industry! You could start a band and rise to the top of the charts! You could do just about anything other than what you do and achieve fame and fortune, instead of notoriety and a whopping big record collection!%r%rJack is terminally flirty and charming when he wants to be, which is generally when interesting women are around - when they're not, he's a surly bastard with a chip on his shoulder the side of the rock of Gibraltar. He's apparently totally amoral, but I swear! he's good deep down inside (in fact, he's remarkably close to your standard Ellis Insert - the rotter with a heart of gold).%r%rHe has a terrible temper, and is unhealthily secretive and paranoid, and remarkably lonely as a result - but he'd be damned before he'd ever admit it, even to himself. Well, maybe when he's drunk. Every once in a blue moon, he'll get into a relationship that he actually thinks will work, and it does for a while, but then something goes very very wrong and it's invariably his fault.%r%rFinally, nothing seems to bother him - that is, nothing that has anything to do with his missions or any crises or urgent matters that may pop up. He's very laid back when it comes to emergencies, and it tends to drive his associates absolutely up the wall. Actually, that wasn't final, this is: he geeks out when it comes to technology or music. He can go on for hours about the intricacies of a certain brilliantly concieved circuit or a really tight guitar riff, unless someone stops him.
&DATE_APPLIED me=15:24 Feb 18
&APPLY_COUNT me=1
&APPROVALS me=Lina Inverse 15:42 Feb 18: Lina Like. Even if purple dragon talks. |Dark Ami 23:32 Feb 18: Not bad... |Darwin 18:37 Feb 19: Darwin say Jack has watched too much 'Grosse Point Blank'. |               ***** -Jack Wisdom- is now fully approved. *****                
&APPROVAL_COUNT me=3
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&RECALL me=%r%t'Imposing' isn't really the right word for Franklin, even though he's tall and well built, built like an athlete. Neither is 'looming', come to think of it. Quietly reserved, it's unlikely that any words normally associated with someone of his stature would apply. He carries himself with an air of detached capability, almost like he were far more used to observing than participating.%r%tSerious, clean-cut features are framed by shoulder-length platinum blond hair, which, even considering its length, fails to make him look even remotely feminine. His dark brown eyes almost seem to catalogue everything they light on, filing first and reacting second; his nose is slightly flat, as if broken and healed at some point in the past. But for his rather eye-catchingly almost-white hair, the young man's appearance isn't particularly striking.%r%tFranklin's clothes match his demeanor - nothing that stands out, nothing that garners any special attention. He'll generally be seen wearing a t-shirt or sweater, no logo or a very small one, and a pair of comfortable-looking jeans. On his feet are a pair of dark brown walking shoes, probably synthetic leather; everything he wears invariably matches precisely. Nothing but aesthetically pleasing colorschemes, and nothing out of place.%r
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@set me=VISUAL
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