Entry tags:
Reality Shifted Application
Player Name: Bex
Timezone: MST
Other Characters: Alex Drake (poshmouthytart), Ashes to Ashes
Character: Gwen Cooper
Series/Fandom: Torchwood (spin off of Doctor Who)
Deviance: d1
Age: 30
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Canon Used: Television series (both Doctor Who and Torchwood), radio plays, and (selected) spin-off novels
Appearance: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/thexwoman/RPG%20stuff/gwen.jpg
Psychology: The highlight of Gwen’s personality is 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 ends in a discredit to herself, as she had been known to sabotage herself by launching her into tantrums and emotional bitterness when she feels slighted. This is a result of her 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.
While extremely loyal to those who have earned her trust, she can be pushed to disloyalty in matters that she feels she has no choice, or in a swirl of emotions she can’t handle. She tends to be highly emotional and reactionary, although she struggles to keep these emotions under control.
Gwen 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.
Other Skills/Abilities: Gwen has intermediate hand to hand combat skills honed both by the police and her work at Torchwood. She's also knows her way around a gun with both hands.
Other Weaknesses: Gwen had typical human weaknesses; she can be a hardass but she's no superhero.
History: 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 Three, an organization 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, even 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.
To Gwen's horror, Rhys was murdered by a Torchwood enemy, and Gwen betrayed Jack in order to reset time and 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 chose to strengthen their relationship, and eventually introduced Rhys to the Torchwood team and let him into the secret life she had been living for over a year. This helped her solidify her confidence in her relationship with him; even through their wedding she 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.
Canon Point: After the radio play “The Lost Souls” (also post 4x13 of Doctor Who, “Journey's End.”)
Reality Description: Gwen's reality starts in typical 2008 Cardiff, Wales. A typical bustling city with typical people, typical technology and typical day to day things like cars and buses and bills and coffee shops.
But Gwen's world isn't always as typical, because hidden beneath all that is the Torchwood Three Hub, where “typical” is less along the lines of queuing for a cash point and more along the lines of aliens in the sewers, space whales in warehouses, and mind-reading technology. There's a rift that runs through the centre of Cardiff, a tear in space and time, and Gwen's work days are filled with examining and sometimes battling what falls through that rift, be it alien or otherwise. They are two realities with different challenges and difference difficulties, wrapped up in a single reality that Gwen often has to fight to balance.
The most common NPC Gwen will encounter is her husband, Rhys Williams. He knows about Torchwood and the dangers of Gwen's job, but (often begrudgingly) supports her. They've had their ups and downs, but she loves him and appreciates his loyalty after all Torchwood has put them through. They live together in a flat in Cardiff.
First Person Speaking Sample:
[It seems as though the plane has a new visitor! Meet Gwen Cooper; dark hair, wide eyes, and why, yes, she is staring up at the strange hole in the sky with a look on her face somewhere between drooling amazement and abject horror.
She may also be muttering some near indistinguishable words to herself. After what she's looking at now, talking to oneself in public is certainly the least of her worries.]
Oh, this is brilliant, yeah? Leave it to my life, just tryin' to make sure no one gets maimed on a Saturday night, and I end up... here. Where ever here is, anyway.
[She takes a deep breath and examines her surroundings. She's probably taking this just a tad better than she would even have expected.]
I'm startin' to think we need a handbook. Don't press mysterious buttons, don't go down dark alleyways on your own, and don't go explorin' mysterious shops without backup.
This must be what's on the other side of the Rift. Only a matter of time, you end up on the wrong side of the very thing you've been fightin' for two years. Must have been what Mum meant when she said “Don't play with fire, Gwen, or you'll get burned.”
'Course, at the time she was referrin' to Rhys, but a lot has changed since then.
[She crosses her arms and taps her foot, finally taking her eyes off the sky to look around.]
So, anyone interested in tellin' me what's goin' on around here?
Third Person Writing Sample:
From another game I play Gwen at. This is a recently completed log with our Ianto Jones. (This is actually a canon-update log for Children of Earth, and since I'm taking Gwen from earlier in canon I hope it's still okay to reference.)
http://community.livejournal.com/crowdedhour/74655.html
Did you read the rules? Yes
Timezone: MST
Other Characters: Alex Drake (poshmouthytart), Ashes to Ashes
Character: Gwen Cooper
Series/Fandom: Torchwood (spin off of Doctor Who)
Deviance: d1
Age: 30
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Canon Used: Television series (both Doctor Who and Torchwood), radio plays, and (selected) spin-off novels
Appearance: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/thexwoman/RPG%20stuff/gwen.jpg
Psychology: The highlight of Gwen’s personality is 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 ends in a discredit to herself, as she had been known to sabotage herself by launching her into tantrums and emotional bitterness when she feels slighted. This is a result of her 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.
While extremely loyal to those who have earned her trust, she can be pushed to disloyalty in matters that she feels she has no choice, or in a swirl of emotions she can’t handle. She tends to be highly emotional and reactionary, although she struggles to keep these emotions under control.
Gwen 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.
Other Skills/Abilities: Gwen has intermediate hand to hand combat skills honed both by the police and her work at Torchwood. She's also knows her way around a gun with both hands.
Other Weaknesses: Gwen had typical human weaknesses; she can be a hardass but she's no superhero.
History: 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 Three, an organization 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, even 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.
To Gwen's horror, Rhys was murdered by a Torchwood enemy, and Gwen betrayed Jack in order to reset time and 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 chose to strengthen their relationship, and eventually introduced Rhys to the Torchwood team and let him into the secret life she had been living for over a year. This helped her solidify her confidence in her relationship with him; even through their wedding she 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.
Canon Point: After the radio play “The Lost Souls” (also post 4x13 of Doctor Who, “Journey's End.”)
Reality Description: Gwen's reality starts in typical 2008 Cardiff, Wales. A typical bustling city with typical people, typical technology and typical day to day things like cars and buses and bills and coffee shops.
But Gwen's world isn't always as typical, because hidden beneath all that is the Torchwood Three Hub, where “typical” is less along the lines of queuing for a cash point and more along the lines of aliens in the sewers, space whales in warehouses, and mind-reading technology. There's a rift that runs through the centre of Cardiff, a tear in space and time, and Gwen's work days are filled with examining and sometimes battling what falls through that rift, be it alien or otherwise. They are two realities with different challenges and difference difficulties, wrapped up in a single reality that Gwen often has to fight to balance.
The most common NPC Gwen will encounter is her husband, Rhys Williams. He knows about Torchwood and the dangers of Gwen's job, but (often begrudgingly) supports her. They've had their ups and downs, but she loves him and appreciates his loyalty after all Torchwood has put them through. They live together in a flat in Cardiff.
First Person Speaking Sample:
[It seems as though the plane has a new visitor! Meet Gwen Cooper; dark hair, wide eyes, and why, yes, she is staring up at the strange hole in the sky with a look on her face somewhere between drooling amazement and abject horror.
She may also be muttering some near indistinguishable words to herself. After what she's looking at now, talking to oneself in public is certainly the least of her worries.]
Oh, this is brilliant, yeah? Leave it to my life, just tryin' to make sure no one gets maimed on a Saturday night, and I end up... here. Where ever here is, anyway.
[She takes a deep breath and examines her surroundings. She's probably taking this just a tad better than she would even have expected.]
I'm startin' to think we need a handbook. Don't press mysterious buttons, don't go down dark alleyways on your own, and don't go explorin' mysterious shops without backup.
This must be what's on the other side of the Rift. Only a matter of time, you end up on the wrong side of the very thing you've been fightin' for two years. Must have been what Mum meant when she said “Don't play with fire, Gwen, or you'll get burned.”
'Course, at the time she was referrin' to Rhys, but a lot has changed since then.
[She crosses her arms and taps her foot, finally taking her eyes off the sky to look around.]
So, anyone interested in tellin' me what's goin' on around here?
Third Person Writing Sample:
From another game I play Gwen at. This is a recently completed log with our Ianto Jones. (This is actually a canon-update log for Children of Earth, and since I'm taking Gwen from earlier in canon I hope it's still okay to reference.)
http://community.livejournal.com/crowdedhour/74655.html
Did you read the rules? Yes