TANAGURA APP

[blowfish]

OOC INFO
_NAME: Kris
_PLURK: fireant
_AGE: 28
_CONCURRENT CHARACTERS: N/A


IC INFO
_CHARACTER'S NAME: Jesse Pinkman
_CANON: Breaking Bad
_CANON POINT: 4.7, "Problem Dog" - Episode End
_CHARACTER'S (ACTUAL) AGE: 25
_CHARACTER'S (APPARENT) AGE: 25
_CHARACTER'S HAIR COLOR: Light brown
_TANAGURA (elite) OR MIDAS (mongrel)?: Mongrel
_HOUSING PREFERENCE: Now in Neal Darts, Area-1 1D


_HISTORY: Click.

_PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY:

Approximately a year and half spent in the horror jamjar Haven means that Jesse has been through a variety of bizarre experiences he was never exposed to in his original canon. One of his first ordeals upon arriving came from a fellow Havenite, one who was going through an event effect that turned them violent, which really set the tone for him when it came to trusting the stronger characters. His first few months were spent in a confusing haze, as he proceeded to deal with the shock of his new environment and his feelings of alienation by abusing the drugs he had brought with him on his person. The barren wasteland of an atmosphere and the supernatural level of horror made for a rough adjustment. What's more, he noticed quickly the gap between his abilities and the abilities of his fellow captives.

Jesse could not parse why he was even brought in for Yao's experiment. It seemed like everyone had something truly unique and valuable to bring to the table, except for him. He was confused, perpetually angry and almost obscenely pessimistic about his future prospects when it came to surviving with the others. He just didn't see the point in trying. Things took a turn for the worse when he was captured by Dr. Kite, the leader of the ring and resident psychotic sociopath. As it turned out, drugs were extremely rare in the environment and having a specimen with a body that had been exposed to narcotics was a special opportunity. Kite proceeded to dissect Jesse alive, while explaining to him that he would harvest his organs for this reason. This was, as one might expect, incredibly painful and especially traumatic.

When he "woke up", bearing a new vivisection scar from sternum to stomach, it was with painful withdrawal symptoms that had been planted in him. As sickening as the whole experience was, as well as finding out his supremely twisted "purpose" to being in Haven, the only thing on his mind was to get high again. Haven, being the kind place that it was, made this impossible to do unless he travelled through dangerous, monster-filled tunnels. Jesse cared so little for his life at this point that he was not deterred. All it took was convincing a few of the stronger folk to be his escort, and off he went. This was how he meant Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, someone who would become one of his closest and most important friends-- but at the time, he wasn't looking for friends.

Nevertheless, he made them. Eventually he ran out of his product and was caught by Dr. Gottlieb, his oldest acquaintance in the joint. With little other choice, and an irritating feeling of guilt, Jesse went through withdrawal and resolved to face Haven with a clear head. He came to rely on his relationships for support, and slowly he relearned how to trust the people in his environment. Without the luxury of numbing himself to everything, and with constant stressors abound, he became hyper-dependent on the people he felt like he could trust. This was a double-edged sword: he was happier than when he started, but it also meant that when people inevitably disappeared, he felt the losses that much more sharply. One by one he lost friends, acquaintances, loved ones... all the while, the nature of the game was causing him to become clingier and needier than ever.

Jesse's second death was, somehow, even more horrific than his first. After being trapped in an underground maze for days in a Battle Royale type situation, he succumbed to his wounds. Ellie, practically his little sister in everything but blood, was forced to put him down, and what followed was a waking nightmare unlike anything else. Havenites who died in the maze stayed "conscious" and experienced the sensations of their corpses rotting, as well as anything that may have happened to their bodies, while immobilized for about forty-eight hours. Yikes. This messed him up pretty badly, and drove him further down the rabbit hole of relying on human comfort to make it through these brutal ordeals. One of the worst things about Haven for Jesse was that he became complacent in his uselessness during these times. If the superheroes and superhumans couldn't fight it, how could he?

One of the best things about Haven for Jesse was that he met someone who changed that for him. The arrival of Hiruma Youichi gave him a fast friend, someone he could relate to in being absolutely-fucking-average, around his age and from the same planet Earth. They even hailed from about the same year. He only realized how much he missed being able to talk to someone who had all these things in common with him when he hit the jackpot of meeting someone who did. As such, even though their actual backgrounds could not be more different, they came to rely on each other as partners in a world where the odds were totally stacked against them. Hiruma had a way of staying motivated that Jesse found refreshing. It actually inspired him to overhaul his jaded attitude. Consequently, he ended up slowly bettering himself and trying harder, even if he didn't believe he could change his or anyone's fate.

By this point, Jesse's blockmates were everything to him. Two of his closest friends went off the rails by the end-- Rosie and Wade, both Haven veterans like himself. The crushing nature of them game got to them, causing two consecutive suicide attempts. Those close calls left lasting impressions on Jesse, reminiscent of times he had lost people back home. It was particularly difficult for him to deal with sudden personality changes in Wade, who began shutting him out entirely. One of the last events Jesse ever experienced was one that will have long-term consequences for him, albeit in a different way than the others. To put it bluntly, due to an event involving lowered inhibitions, and due to his game-specific habit of sleeping close to others to keep night terrors at bay, he engaged in hanky-panky relations with two of his blockmates. Neither of those entanglements resulted in traditional relationships, but did result in stronger bonds with both friends. Alas, just as life was getting a little better for him in Haven, the game was put on hold and Jesse went into storage, the holding cell for dropped characters.

_ABILITIES:

Nothing extraordinary, other than working knowledge of how to make really good meth. He's picked up a knack for the chemistry involved and could potentially be useful in other contexts due to the knowledge and fastidiousness he's absorbed from Walt. The business he's in means he's learned how to shoot a gun and knows how to run with low to high level drug rings, but otherwise he's an average, mundane person from modern-era New Mexico. He has no formal training when it comes to fighting or self-defense.

During his year in Haven, Jesse picked up skills he never had in his canon. His best friend forced taught him sign language, how to run for endurance, and how to catch a football. Not quite an ability, but definitely a landmark in character development: after sobriety was forced upon him by the environment, he received support in remaining clean from Hermann Gottlieb and Carlos. Given how one of his greatest weaknesses is how easily he is swayed to self-destruct, this really made a difference re: overall development.

During an event where a specific group of prisoners was allowed to lead a false life, one where they were always happy, content and well-taken care of by Yao, Jesse became an apprentice carpenter. Nothing about his first life or his Haven life was known to him; this was an "alternate universe" in the truest sense. The only difference was it wasn't meant to last. When it ended, he kept the memories and also the skills he'd honed. He's rather good at building things and working with his hands now.

_PERSONALITY:

Young, directionless and troubled, Jesse Pinkman is frustrating to watch. When his character is first introduced, it's made clear that at age twenty-five he hasn't gone anywhere after high school. The person we're presented with is an immature loser with a partying habit in place of any serious type of ambition. His drug habits, both using and selling, estranged him from his family and steered him to become Walt's full-time partner in manufacturing Crystal Meth, a decision that constantly had him in way over his head. Jesse likes to partake in illegal activities, but he can't stand the business of murder, dead bodies or being in real and terrifying danger, realities which hit them almost immediately and escalated out of control the further they went. Uncomfortable as he was, he was too easily manipulated by Walt into taking whatever extra steps are required for them to keep cooking. It's also something he became very good at, under Walt's guidance, and since he hadn't managed to make much of himself otherwise, he enjoyed the idea of having a profitable skill, of being really good at something. Even if that something was selling poison to the vulnerable masses.

Another major reason he stuck by Walt was that that he simply became dependent on him, the old Chemistry teacher he still referred to as Mr. White. When his parents gave up on him completely, Walt became the only older role model available to Jesse. Without quite realizing it, he began to look to him for approval and for acknowledgment of any kind. It mattered that Walt chose him over others, although he could never understand the reasons why. They did look out for each other in the lonely world that they created, the only two people who knew everything about it, but they argued constantly and bounced tension back and forth just as much. After some time, Jesse seriously felt Walt's constant criticism and judgment start to weigh on him-- something often played for comedic effect, but he actually takes most of it to heart. With Mr. White, he was stuck in a vicious cycle of wanting to be a good partner to him and never quite figuring out how to please him.

Jesse's insecure about his self-worth and tends to assume most people will dismiss him out of hand as a worthless junkie, which makes him a bit of an easy target for the people who see him as worth manipulating. He tries to use sarcasm, anger or just plain apathy for defenses, which means he can be a straight-up rude little shit. His speech patterns are peppered with street slang and he has a tendency to come off as a rambling idiot, but this can be misleading. Point of fact, when Walt attempted to quit the business midway, Jesse took it on himself to replicate the crystal blue with nearly the same purity as Walt was able to achieve. It showed that he was capable of learning and listening, something that he does more of than he lets on. In fact, he has a habit of copying the people around him, absorbing what they say or do and sometimes incorporating it into his personality. It's safe to assume his street-boy persona is something he picked up from his friends, considering he comes from an overachieving family with a middle-class background. While he's definitely more emotional and intuitive than he is logical, and sometimes he's slow to come up with good ideas or prone to screw-ups under pressure, he's learned how to be smarter and more graceful in tight spots. Indeed, when he actually has his shit together, he's a hard-worker and a good teammate.

Loyalty and dependability are some of his best qualities, but he falters when it comes to believing in himself. To quote Vince Gilligan, "Jesse is a leader who thinks he's a follower." He's a big-hearted character with an instinctive sense of right versus wrong, but he makes poor choices nonetheless. With people that he likes, Jesse can be pretty charming and sweet. We see this especially when he interacts with children, having a big soft spot for them and being something of an overgrown child himself. He is not shy about approaching people, not typically, and seems comfortable using his people skills to get others to trust him. That is, after all, a big part of the job when you're a drug dealer. The darker side to that is a manipulative one-- he's able to peddle meth to a teenage girl in exchange for gas, seemingly with no remorse, and actually tries to seduce a young woman at his rehab group into becoming an addict again. That attempt failed, but only after he decided he couldn't do it after finding out she had a young child.

In other words, he may appear cute and guileless, when sometimes he is really anything but. He has a moral compass and a strange sense of burning righteousness (strangely intense for someone in his position), both of which keep him in check while Walt spirals into villainous denial and rationalizing. He is not, however, a blameless victim. Jesse's active attempt to become the "bad guy" is an interesting, autonomous choice, something he takes upon himself with no prompting. Rather than challenge himself, he passively accepts and believes that he's irredeemable. After everything he's been through with his less than stable career, not to mention what being an addict can do to a person's emotional state, he can also be paranoid, distrusting and distant. He is much more so these things when he's high. You'll see the ugliest and most pathetic sides of his personality when he's tweaking. No matter what, though, Jesse is an extremely emotional individual, a highly sensitive young man who will express his feelings without reservation and will weep openly without shame. He doesn't have much of a temper normally, but if someone hits a hot button issue with him or pushes him over the edge? The resulting rage can be downright explosive. When he snaps, he snaps hard.

Whenever stress piles too high and he's just looking for ways to blow off steam, his coping skills are lacking. Distractions, substances and noise are his favorite ones, although he's been on the wagon for so long that he'll be trying not to fall back into old habits. It remains to be seen how that will go. He's come some ways from the bumbling and naive character he started out as, but those parts of him aren't completely gone either. Thankfully, in a way. If he wasn't able to keep some of that intact, he'd have a much darker personality. When he isn't in the Breaking Bad environment, he suddenly gains back his freedom to behave like an average, unencumbered young man. He can really much more be himself, despite the eccentricity of your modern-day jamjar and game environments, when he is not functioning as a mini-kingpin and reluctant partner to Walter White. As a result of simply being away from his home for so long, he's more lighthearted and easygoing, much less angry and destructive.

Before Haven, Jesse wasn't used to finding fulfilling relationships with other people. Most of his friends were fair-weather ones, his role models were largely absent or downright intimidating and his significant others met bad ends. He needs people, is very much a people-person, but he was used to being alienated away from that need. He was alone with what he had done, too deeply entrenched in the business to seek true friendship in anyone other than Walt. Now, he has had so many incredible new experiences and relationships that his approach has shifted. Placing his priorities in other people in a big way has given him a way to escape the cycle of alienation he was trapped in before.

_ITEMS:

( 1 ) vial of ricin poison hidden in
( 1 ) pack of cigarettes
( 1 ) 1930's era Pistol - formerly belonged to Aoi Miyoshi
( 1 ) 9mm - formerly belonged to Cecil Palmer
( 1 ) Night Vale style dictaphone - formerly belonged to Carlos the Scientist