app for thegames

[hashtagyolt]

OUT of CHARACTER
Name: Yami
Other characters: Enjolras

IN CHARACTER
Name: Jason Todd (The Red Hood, formerly Robin II)
Fandom: DC Comics → The New 52
Canon point/AU: Red Hood and the Outlaws #11
**If you are apping a canon Hunger Games Character your canon point is automatically set to just after the 74th Annual Hunger Games.
Journal: hashtagyolt
PB: Comic art. I’ve used Sean O’pry for New Earth Jason, but idk man, he seems a little bit old for nu52 stuff.
History: Wiki. Issue #11 leaves off just before the outer space nonsense with Starfire’s crew starts. Cause that’s when it got real dumb real fast.

Presentation:
Jason as the Red Hood tries really hard to be an asshole. That isn’t to say that deep down he’s not (Because he is. Well intentioned assholes are still assholes.), that’s simply to say that he puts forth a concerted effort to be an asshole. It’s an effort, a front, and, frankly, he doesn’t care if people know it’s a front.

Emotional investment is not his shtick. He tries hard to play everything as if it doesn’t matter, as if he’s too genre savvy for it to affect him or his life. Because of this, he doesn’t “do” friends. He has teammates, useful contacts, acquaintances, fuck buddies, but not “friends”, and he wants you to be very clear on that. He might vaguely have some loyalties, but it’s all quid pro quo, all more out of a sense of tying up loose ends.

As Jason Todd, attractive, twenty-something jet setter, Jason models himself (either intentionally or unintentionally) off of Bruce Wayne. He plays flippant still, teasing without ever having any real malice behind it; Not dumb necessarily, but more benign. He’s charming without being a threat, smart without being dangerous. Emotional investment is still not his shtick, exactly, but Jason out of his red fiberglass helmet is very different from Jason within it. He’s humbler, and less self-involved, but still just shy of “friendly”.

Motivations:

Okay, everything I’m about to say is going to make him seem like a giant woobie and he’s not, so let’s clarify that now. Jason Todd is not some tragic kicked puppy. He is, but you’d have a better case for that being his characterization with his New Earth counterpart. New 52 Jason, on the other hand, doesn’t let the kicked puppy thing get to him. Get it? Got it? Good. Let’s do this thing.

Everyone that Jason has ever cared about (with like, two exceptions both of whom are pretty recent) has let him down. I don’t just mean in the my parents suck kind of way, I mean in the let him die alone or made him shoplift for food kind of way. They’re not small offenses, they’re deep soul-crushing hurts. As such, the whole “I don’t do friends” thing isn’t just him being too cool for school and a loner, no, it’s a self-defense mechanism. Don’t have friends, don’t care about anyone, and no one can hurt you.

Which is some pretty typical anti-hero bullshit, but that’s kind of what he is. The thing is, he’s not brooding about it. He doesn’t go off on giant misanthropic tirades about how the world wronged him, and about how everything is so fucked up and awful that he just can’t!! It did, and it is, but what’s the point? You move on.

He left Gotham because “those crazies deserve each other”. Even if life sucks and everybody dies, he doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction of wrecking his life. Or un-life. Whatever.

There’s a bit of a dissonance between the events of his life and how he takes them. One could either read into it that DC editorial is such a mess that they can’t create coherent characters even for their new “less complicated” universe, or that even after everything that’s happened to him, Jason is determined not to let life get him down. The former is probably more likely, I’ll be real, but the latter is both less meta and more narratively interesting. Another brooding anti-hero is another brooding anti-hero. Jason is the fun (not really kid-friendly) anti-hero for the twitter generation!

Anyway, despite the I don’t care, nothing really matters shtick, he does care, and things do matter. He doesn’t do “friends” necessarily, but he does have two teammates, Roy Harper and Koriand’r, who he does care about (albeit reluctantly in Roy’s case). They’re close because he doesn’t have to really think that hard about their dynamic. When he does, it bothers him, but as long as they’re teammates and there for the convenience, it’s cool.

His other significant attachment is to the All-Caste, his band of mystical ninjas with whom Talia al Ghul left him, and probably more significantly, their leader, Ducra. Most of his motivation through the first half the the Outlaws book is that of revenge for Ducra. Yes, there’s an unspeakable evil that was unleashed upon the world when the All-Caste were destroyed, and yeah, that’s probably a problem, but Jason is less concerned with that, and more with fucking shit up because they killed his teacher. He and Ducra did have a falling out (probably over Ducra’s daughter Essence, who Jason was sleeping with for a while, but it’s never really said), and she did cast him out of their sanctuary, but he isn’t really bitter about that, and definitely not in the same way that he’s bitter about Batman.

Which brings me to Batman and that whole mess! Jason doesn’t blame Batman for his death, he blames Batman for not seeking revenge for his death. Jason was killed by the Joker, and he was confident, as he died, that he would be the last person the Joker ever hurt because surely Batman would snap out of his dumb no-kill-thing and make the Joker suffer. That didn’t happen and so Jason was pissed when he came back and swore revenge upon Batman and the Joker both. It didn’t work out, and now they exist uneasily. It isn’t that he wants to see Bruce suffer anymore, but he’s still kind of mad. Alas, while New Earth was obsessed with this dynamic, the New 52 is pretty vague about it. They’ve made some kind of peace because Jason is more than willing to help the Batfam out in a few issues, (and he doesn’t want to kick the everloving snot out of Tim Drake in this universe) but things still aren’t really cheerful.

This is probably because while Batman’s sense of justice is all righteous indignation and the protection of the innocent, and Jason can kind of get behind that sort of I guess, Jason’s own sense of justice is a lot more pragmatic and falls more into the eye for an eye make up. It’s not that he’s heartless, it’s that you’re never going to rid the world of all evil (or Gotham of crime, in Batman’s case), so don’t get your panties in a twist over it. Be good to people where you can, and don’t pull one over on them just because you can, but stop stressing.

Setting: Jason’s kind of used to his life being a cosmic joke. He doesn’t take it well, but it won’t bother him off the cuff. He’ll pretend like none of it really matters and that everyone is just a tool of fate anyway, so why get hung up on the particulars? He’s also incredibly used to gratuitous violence, so none of that will bother him, really. He’ll be pissed that there are kids in the Games, and pissed at the prostitution angle of the Capitol, and eventually he’ll start to rebel. But his rebellion won’t necessarily be some great act of nobility and righteous indignation, it’ll be more of a temper tantrum. For the most part, anything he does will look like he’s just looking out for himself.

SAMPLES
First Person Thread:

[The screen flickers to vivid life to show a cold and sterile medical bay. An attractive young man, maybe 20 or 21 years old, with dark hair and impossibly clear blue eyes blinks at the screen. His expression is less dazed and more annoyed by the unfamiliarity of the technology, and he frowns. It’s almost a pout, and there’s a cold mirth in his eyes. He doesn’t appear troubled at all by the idea that he’s just died.]

There’s a Hindu epic that comes to mind. It’s a conversation between Arjuna, one of the great heroes of the Hindu epics and probably the only one who’s not just an incarnation of one of the lesser gods, and Krishna, the god of creation and death. I always liked how he got to be the god of both, that’s pretty distinct from most Western religions wherein death automatically equals bad, life equals good. Not that I’m pro-death, really, I’m just saying it’s a different take on the subject. Variety is the spice of life. And death. Or something. [He smirks and it’s attractive, but unnerving. Less malicious, and more predatory.]

Anyway, I could bore you with the details about how the Hindu gods are too indescribable for the human mind, how they’re creatures of Lovecraftian horror and Arjuna, bless his little heart just wanted advice about this righteous Return of the Sith Ewok-style battle he was about to get his country into, but it’s not really important. I was more thinking about how Krishna in all of this elder god glory explains life and death as being a cycle, as being two sides of the same proverbial coin. He explains that Arjuna’s enemies are all already dead and he, Arjuna just as to go through the motions and make it happen. And, while their deaths are awful, and Krishna is shown eating their souls with one of his mouths --yeah, he has multiple mouths, be afraid-- it’s ultimately a good thing because they get reincarnated and so it’s all a cycle of life, really, and not death. Creation and destruction.

[He glances away holds the camera up and further away from him for a second, scratching distractedly at his cheek.]

Which is nice, but I don’t buy it. Death in that context is described as this warm, fuzzy, emptiness wherein you find the truth of the universe and reach momentary enlightenment so you can continue your journey or whatever the fuck and nope, that is not at all how it goes. As walking talking proof of the transience of life and death I can assure you with personal anecdotes that it’s not so easy. Or maybe it’s even easier and maybe that’s what pisses me off.

But who am I telling? You guys seem to be experts on this whole life and death thing. [He frowns slightly, and the expression is a little pouty. It makes him look young.]

So, experts, Krishna, who am become death, destroyer of worlds… Who do I hassle to get a glass of water around here? You don’t just remove somebody’s breathing tube without giving them something for it. Rude.

Prose:

The grey of the tiles on the floor are the same grey as the few finished walls in the Batcave. That similarity is actually more troubling to him than being told that he’s expected to jump like a circus animal for… Well, whoever the fuck these people are.

He smiles at them, feeling naked without the shield of his helmet or even a flimsy domino mask. There’s an existential crisis to be had over Jason vs. the Red Hood and while he doesn’t really ascribe to the whole caped crusader bullshit mentality anymore, it’s a weird feeling to know that it’s all being kept from him. Kevlar would feel really good right now, better than the simple jersey against his skin. There’s also probably an existential crisis to be had over what it says about him that kevlar is his comfort fabric, but Jason’s content to ignore that one and go with it. Kevlar is practical, this isn’t.

“Friends, Romans, Countrymen!” He begins, selecting a few knives from the steel table, and noting a target. The test dummy dangling from the ceiling limply is probably what he’s intended to use, but where’s the fun in that? There’s also a target off to one side, a target which he notes a little uneasily, is in the shape of a person, and not one of a normal, adult size. He flexes, broad shoulders rippling visibly under the thin shirt.

“I come here not to praise Ceasar…” There’s a pause, and his expression shifts first from puzzled and then to apologetic. It’s still unnerving, and there’s still a destructive mirth behind his glass blue eyes. “I’m a sixth grade dropout, you have officially reached the limit of my Shakespeare. Congratulations, I hope you’re impressed. Yolo, or whatever.”

Without further ado, he raises the knives, launching them up at the corner of the room, where two barely concealed security cameras wait. Neither of them fall, but the blades slide forcefully into the lenses, shattering the glass as the metal and electronics fizzle and crack sickeningly. One of the knives finally falls with a smack of electricity, clanking unpleasantly as it hits the ground. He waves vaguely to the opposite corner.

“It’s cool, those are getting my good side.”

What is your character scored: 11 or 12. Jason’s a strong young guy and was trained by Batman in addition to being a mystical ninja. No really.

He’s not got super powers per se, but he is the last of an order of mystical ninjas and has all the physics-defying skills you would expect from comic book mystical ninjas. He’s an expert in hand-to-hand combat (both non-lethal and extremely lethal), a fantastic marksman, he knows how to fight with knives all sorts of fun swords, and a bow staff. Additionally, he’s also great with explosives and poisons. Basically, if you would expect it in a cheap kung-fu movie, Jason can probably do it.

Obviously not all of that is going to be easily seen by the Gamemakers, especially not at first glance, but in the interest of full-disclosure, there it is. His nonchalance about combat as a thing is because, yeah, he’s lazy, but also because it’s seriously no big for him.

Oh, he’s also 6’2 and 195lbs. Dude’s a tank.