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[outofclothes]

User Name/Nick: Crystal
User DW: nerdangel
AIM/IM: kyotoshowgirl
E-mail: octoberrain08 [at] gmail
Other Characters: Snow White (breathoflight), Elena Gilbert (forgetyourusedtobe), & Polly Perks (pvtparts)

Character Name: James Stark
Series: Sandman Slim
Age: 30
From When?: Post-Sandman Slim, but still pre-Kill the Dead. Killed while doing a job for the Golden Vigil.
Inmate/Warden:

Inmate -- Stark does not have his life together at all. He's got what Vidocq accurately refers to as cowboy bullshit. He wants his revenge, but otherwise he really doesn't give two shits about himself or the people around him. That's not to say that Stark is a sociopath, he's just given up more on himself than he possibly realizes. The worst part is that he knows he's got a garbage attitude and is needlessly reckless because of a semi-unspoken deathwish, but he does nothing to turn it around for himself. He just continues getting through tough situations by the skin of his teeth and flying by the seat of his pants.

Abilities/Powers:

Stark's main asset is his ability to do magic. He's able to do Hellion and Earthly magic. While the Hellion stuff is purely for destructive purposes, the Earthly magic can be used for a variety of things from making things float in the air to tricking clerks into thinking he's already paid them. While on the Barge, he's going to be cut off from his magic entirely until his warden gives him some/all of it back.

Likewise, Stark is not going to have access to his healing ability or his super angel senses. His angel senses let him notice things like breathing, heart rate, pupil dilation, etc. to gauge emotions. It also allows some minor mind reading. (Like he can know someone's name before they give it sometimes, but he rarely uses that ability.) As for his healing ability, Stark will get hit with something and heal up almost immediately. After that, a scar is left behind and whatever weapon/spell was used on that part of his body will be less effective a second time around. That doesn't mean he's immortal though. Stark can still be killed. It just makes him harder to kill. But as I said, this and the senses will not be accessible until he's given them back.

Stark also has the Key to the Room of Thirteen Doors that lets him fast-travel to various locations. This is going to not work until his warden allows it. He's also got a flaming sword since he's half-angel, but he doesn't know how to use it yet at this point. So, that's also defunct until his warden says otherwise.

Outside of that, Stark knows his way in a fight even if he doesn't quite think it all the way through.

Personality:

Stark has a lot of issues, but his issues with trusting other people is the greatest motivator for every facet of his personality. Most of this trust really stems from his life at home, particularly with his relationship to his father. Although his father raised him and Stark has always looked up to him even in the present day, he knows that his father always resented him for some reason or another. (He learns the reason why later, but I'll touch on that hot mess further on.) In fact, his father actually attempted to kill him while they were on a hunting trip. Rather than be angry with his father for the attempt or call him out on trying to call it an accident, Stark simply accepted it.

Likewise, he just accepted it when his parents tossed him a book about magic without much guidance or instruction with his abilities. Since then, Stark has always used his magic as an excuse for why he doesn't fit in with anybody. He's convinced himself entirely that people are going to use him and then toss him away the moment he's of no more value. In Stark's mind, people who can't do magic - civilians as he typically refers to them - are either afraid of his magic, want to exploit it, or they're outright jealous of what he can do. So, he very rarely interacted with people who weren't of the magical community known as the Sub Rosa. But although he made most of his relationships with people who were part of the Sub Rosa, Stark looks down at them and can't resist the urge to show-off.

Stark has never really struggled with magic due to being nephilim though he did not know that prior to the events of the first book. So, rather than being humble or trying to help other people, Stark rubbed their noses in it. That kind of behavior naturally created a lot of resentment. Stark looks at the resentment of those who tolerate him as being pure jealousy because they're not as great as he is. Generally speaking, Stark considers the Sub Rosa to be bordering on subhuman. He sees them as a mix of stupid, despicable, and pathetic who think they're superior simply because they can do magic. Of course, he's entirely oblivious to how much he's up his own ass because of his abilities with magic all the while so he manages to actively alienate himself from both groups of people and wondering why things are the way they are.

He continues this attitude of not belonging when he discovers he's a nephilim. He decides almost right away he "doesn't care." In reality, of course, he does care. This changes and explains so much about himself and his past, but he's already pretty deeply enmeshed in serious denial, so what's one more thing? Stark doesn't want anything to do with the part of him that's an angel. He doesn't like angels because although they're supposed to be paragons of virtue and all that jazz, he knows they look down upon humanity and would sooner watch them burn than lift a finger. He doesn't ask who his real father is and he doesn't want to really ponder what it means to be the last of his kind because he doesn't want to accept that's part of him. For once, he'd like to just be normal (relatively speaking) and he'd much rather the angels and Hellions go fuck themselves and stop trying to use him to wage their on-going war with one another. But at the same time, Stark doesn't want to be the champion for humanity because he doesn't feel human any longer even before he found out he was a nephilim. (A topic that I will wrap up this hot mess that is James Stark. But first...)

All of these issues with other people/fitting in, served to fuel his view of his recently deceased girlfriend, Alice. Stark has a huge issue of idealizing Alice to the point he now projects her onto other women (especially women who are killed that he maybe could have done something about protecting) and bearing a ridiculous amount of guilt over what happened to her (because Mason killed her to draw him out and the last conversation they had was a fight). When Alice was alive, Stark considers her to be the only person who actually gave a legitimate damn about him and she was the only person he gave a damn about. Stark didn't care that he got tossed into Hell as much as he probably should have (you know, by actively trying to get out of there) because he had the promise that Alice would be unharmed. When she was killed and that promise was broken, Stark left Hell to get his revenge. While he cared about succeeding in avenging her death, he didn't give a damn about what happened to him afterwards. Stark would've been equally okay with killing Mason if it was a suicide job and the way things actually went down.

In some ways, Stark would have been more satisfied with taking Mason down in a suicide run. Because of his overwhelming guilt related to Alice, he feels that anything bad that may or may not happen to him is a) a matter of time and b) a just punishment for him letting Alice (and the other people like her) die. He also just doesn't see much point about carrying on in the world (there's some, but not much) without Alice. Not only is she gone, but Stark thinks any shred of decency he had was torn out of him in Hell.

Stark views himself as both a monster and as a killer. At first, the killing was difficult. But after a while, Stark became numb to it and it's just become another day at the office. While he doesn't get his jollies off killing monsters, he does not find something familiar and soothing about violence. Setting aside the obvious negative putdown of deeming yourself a monster/killer, Stark also doesn't acknowledge the fact he has something akin to a code when it comes to his killing. In the arena, the killing was for the purpose of mindless entertainment as it was the Hellion equivalent of gladiator games. But once he was out to get his revenge, Stark didn't just blindly or mercilessly start slaughtering people. Stark only goes after the monsters - be they Lurkers or humans. He doesn't go after people who he doesn't feel deserve it and deserving it doesn't mean he woke up on the wrong side of the bed or he doesn't like their face.

Barge Reactions:

Frankly, Stark ain't gonna be none too impressed with anything on the Barge. He doesn't take too kindly to being kidnapped and will probably be constantly trying to find a way out. He will not have a warm & fuzzy attitude towards wardens regardless of whether they're his actual warden or just a warden to another inmate/nobody. At the same time though, Stark's not going to be besties with every single inmate he runs across either. There's going to be some that he'll have a bond with and others he's going to deem too much of a dickbag to bother with. It really just depends on whether or not they're actually bad because of a tough situation or if they're bad because they're assholes. So, he's capable of being nice to some people, but he doesn't know how to friends very well.

He's going to be pretty stupid about the technology on the Barge. Stark missed the whole internet revolution thing so anything high-tech on the Barge is going to confuse him. He gets a gold star for effort though in trying to use it. Breaches, floods, and ports are HAHAHA no to him. He's not amused. He'll gladly want to punch the Admiral right in the face.

Path to Redemption:

Stark is a very long-term project with a pretty lengthy to-do list in terms of finally gaining redemption and graduating with planned canon updates along the way.

Stark needs to learn to give a shit about himself. He feels like because he lost Alice and has since gotten revenge on Mason for ordering her death, there's just not much else to live for. Stark doesn't place much value on his life. He just doesn't care one way or another if he gets hurt or if he dies. This particular goal for him is something that's going to fluctuate a lot depending on his canon update and his time on the Barge. At some points, he will get his act together and other times the cowboy will come out all over again. Likewise, Stark needs to learn to stop feeling sorry for himself. Despite his not-giving-a-shit, he has a tendency to feel really bad for himself and that needs to stop. He really needs to realize how much of his own problems he creates himself and if he'd just stop being a jackass, life would be a billion times easier.

Stark needs to let go of his guilt as well as that self-pity though. Stark doesn't give a shit about himself, but he does give a shit about other people. He blames himself for everything bad that happens to people he considers a friend/decent enough person/Lurker. Most of all, he blames himself for the death of his girlfriend, Alice. While this is going to be something that's going to take pretty much the entire time he's an inmate to do, Stark has to stop blaming himself for her death and let her go. Until he starts making some progress on that, it's going to be really hard to make much progress on anything else. (It's doable, but hard as fuck to get around the Alice thing.) The tricky part about this is that Stark will get deeply, deeply offended and pissed off if someone brings Alice up to him. That's just a off-the-table topic for him. So a warden is definitely going to have to coax or force the issue.

Stark also needs to understand the magic of friendship. Right now, he realizes he has friends, but he tends to look at them as people that are eventually going to either disappoint or stab him in the back. He's used to being unwanted to the point that he'll act like a smarmy dick just to not have to deal with people. And for the people that put up with that, Stark is always waiting for the other shoe to drop. He's used to people wanting to or outright using/manipulating him. That using/manipulation is only going to get worse as he is canon updated so depending on things that happen on the Barge, this could get easier or more difficult on the warden's part to get him to understand people aren't out to get him. (If he starts climbing on the ceiling, just leave a fifth of whiskey on the floor and he'll come down eventually. That's only half a joke.) This ME AGAINST THE WORLD attitude is also probably going to be a hindering point for his warden. Trust between him and his warden is going to be very slow and shaky at the best of times. He's also probably going to be a resentful little dick anyway because he's stubborn and doesn't want to change like every other inmate. But baby steps will get a warden there.

Ultimately, Stark needs to come to terms with what he is. This is definitely something that's going to be heavily impacted by his canon point. From his initial start in the game, he just doesn't really give two shits about being nephilim and doesn't really consider it a thing. He's also 110% accepting of the idea that he's a monster. Even though he's already saved the world once from this starting canon point, he doesn't see himself as anything but a killer. Killing doesn't bother him and violence is soothing. He needs to work on seeing that he doesn't engage in senseless violence for the hell of it/stop engaging in stupid behavior that's going to get his ass into a fight he may or may not be able to handle. Once he's been canon updated, he's going to need to come to terms with his angelic half. More or less, the angel part of him becomes more sentient and Stark is at constant war with it because he doesn't believe that's part of him and believes he's incapable of being that good (or that much of a tight-ass).

This overall goal of getting Stark to learn to like himself and accept himself/understand people can like/love and want him is going to be the most difficult part of getting him where he needs to be because it's so deeply enmeshed in everything else. So...GOOD LUCK WITH ALL THAT.

History: Pre-canon through the end of Sandman Slim.

Sample Journal Entry: Here
Sample RP:

Stark hasn't dreamed about Alice since he arrived on the Barge. He doesn't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

On the one hand, it could serve as proof that it was her all this time reaching out to him and trying to help. But that's also bad news because that means he's so far-removed from his own reality that not even the key in his chest was going to be able to get him back. Not that it was working all that well right now. Stark's tried and tried a handful of times to walk through a shadow, but it doesn't work. He just gets odd glances from the other people while they try to puzzle out what the hell it is he's doing. He's more bothered by the lack of working though than their facial expressions.

But on the other hand, this could be a sign that it wasn't Alice after all. It was just his subconscious all this time talking to him through the only person he'd ever even maybe consider listening to. (And what a shit job he'd done of that.) Which just meant that as time went on, he was...

Forgetting her.

As if Stark couldn't feel lower than he already does. That's by far the worst of the two. Stark could live with never getting back home. It's not much of a home at this point. But he doesn't think he could live with himself if he ever really forgot Alice. Not to be too melodramatic, but he's pretty sure this ranks at the very top of fates worse than death. He's terrified of a day where he closes his eyes can't remember the way she looked when she laughed or smiled. He doesn't want to let go of the sound of her voice when she was whispering some of her personal and sometimes outlandish philosophies into his ear while he was, of course, trying to get some sleep. Stark's pretty certain he'd fucking lose it if he forgot the feel of her skin or the taste of her lips.

The jury's out as to which it is - whether he's really gotten himself stuck this time or if he's fucking up worse than ever - but while they debate, Stark's convincing himself he still remembers, that she was there, and he's going to find a way back eventually without having to jump through all the damn hoops they want him to.

Special Notes: