OOC - Trans_9 Application

[thecopper]

Character's name: Gwen Cooper
Character's LJ: alien_catcher
Character's canon: Current Torchwood canon (up to through the Doctor Who episode "Journey's End" and the Torchwood radio play "The Lost Souls")

Brief (around 300 words) personality outline of your character:

Gwen’s personality is best noted by her concern for others and her empathetic nature – some would argue empathic, although Gwen has no notion of the difference. She is extremely caring for those she loves and sensitive to their needs and discomforts. While she holds others in high priority, it is often to the discredit of her own needs, often sabotaging herself and launching her into tantrums and emotional bitterness. She is caring, but has an overwhelming selfish side, and her impulsive nature often leads her to jumping to conclusions or saying something unnecessary, or doing something without much thought to the long term ramifications. She is loyal to a fault, but can be pushed to disloyalty in matters that she feels she has no choice, or in a swirl of emotions she can’t handle. For the most part, she tends to be highly emotional and reactionary, although she struggles to keep these emotions under control. She has a great amount of respect for authority, but is not afraid to stand up to authority when she feels her perception of justice is in jeopardy. She is curious and driven, and borderline obsessive, and when she sets her sights on a goal, she will not give it up, no matter the price. For the most part, she is often a slave to her emotions and environment, and her volatile reactions are a reflection of the traumatizing experiences she has had in the last two years mixed with a sheltered, almost spoiled background in which little was denied to her. She is still adjusting to the horrors she has seen since joining Torchwood, and struggles to balance these traumas with her sheltered life before. She is also emerging from a tendency to compartmentalize her life; the strange things she has learned in her job created a world almost completely separate from her home life. She reached the point where balancing the two worlds and blending them into a single life became necessary for her own emotional stability.


Brief (around 500 words) history and background of your character:

Gwen lived a relatively uneventful life into her late 20s. She was born and raised in Wales, and because of her drive for justice and her proud Welsh heritage, she decided to join the South Wales Police not long after her graduation from college. It was in college that she met Rhys Williams, her long time partner and future husband. They lived a very normal, almost easy life until Gwen was about 27, when she stumbled across a rash of serial murders, and ended up launched into an unsteady alliance with Torchwood, the local independent law enforcement aimed at studying and controlling alien activity. Although they tried to wipe her memory, Gwen was able to trigger the memories and regain them, and help solve the murders. In the wake of it, the Torchwood leader Captain Jack Harkness offered Gwen a place on the Torchwood team, and she jumped at the opportunity.
However, Torchwood was nothing like the police, and Gwen continually struggled with the traumas she experienced and the requirement to keep her career shielded from everyone she knew and loved, especially Rhys. She lashed out by having an affair with fellow Torchwood member Owen Harper, and eventually becoming insubordinate towards Jack. However, she deeply loved and admired Jack, resented Owen, and struggled with keeping her relationship with Rhys stable even as the lies she told him became overwhelming.

Eventually, Rhys was murdered by a Torchwood enemy, and Gwen betrayed Jack in order to reset time in order to eventually resurrect Rhys. Jack then disappeared with the Doctor, and for a while Gwen served as the leader of Torchwood, and her unexpected launch into that status helped her better understand her job and gave her a further confidence in her own authority and place among the team. It was also during this time Rhys and Gwen became engaged. After Jack returned, her previous actions did not seem to change her relationship with Jack, though it did force her to re-evaluate her relationship with Rhys. She forced herself to strengthen their relationship, eventually to the point that Rhys was introduced to the Torchwood team and let into the secret life she had been living for over a year. This helped her solidify her confidence in her life with him, and even through their wedding struggled with fighting alien hostiles. They, eventually, were successfully married, and although her feelings for Jack remain, Gwen has dedicated herself to making her marriage with Rhys work.

Recently, Owen and another member of Torchwood, Tosh, were killed. Gwen struggled with their loss and impending sentence of mortality it put on the team, and almost left Torchwood, but agreed to ultimately stay. She continues to mourn the loss of her teammates, but is dedicated to moving on with her life within and without work.

Sample post (just a general, everyday, puttering-around-the-ship post; please include a snippet of dialogue):

Gwen felt better, now that she was clothed (as strange as it was, the soft feel of an almost second skin against her body, and the uncanny throb of the veins that wound around her flesh) and the throbbing headache she had from waking in the pod receded. She crept down a hallway, still unsure of where she was, wondering what kind of city she’d been abducted into. Gwen paused for a moment, tracing the wall with her eyes, trying to associate it with anything she had ever seen before. She lay her hand against the wall, and pulled away quickly. Of course she knew that feeling, the warm, soft feel of flesh against flesh.
As she stood still, the floor almost seemed to pulse beneath her feet.

She decided to move again, taking deep breaths of the thick air, trying to think logically of what her next step would be. Obviously, to make contact with something other than the ship. Another person – preferably human, and more preferably, friendly.

She heard a noise, startling her as she sprang against a nearby wall. "Bloody hell," she muttered under her breath, and instinctively grasped for the handgun that was not at her side. Cursing, she took another breath and leapt out of the corner, deciding this was the time – be it friend or foe, she was tired of wandering aimlessly around dark corridors. "Oi! Who is that?"