Player name: Zita Plurk handle (or other contact if no plurk):zitasaurusrex What other characters do you play? -
Character name: Jack Spicer Canon: Xiaolin Showdown OU or CRAU? OU Canon point: The end of the series
History: Jack Spicer, self-styled evil boy genius, is the son of wealthy American businesspeople living and working in China. His parents are almost never home, leaving Jack largely unsupervised. Their absence and affluence are apparently so great that Jack can get the house partially destroyed all the time without drawing notice.
Jack's parents either don't know he's trying to take over the world, or just don't take him seriously. Either way, Jack has been using his pocket money to bankroll lots and lots of robotics research in the basement for years. Unfortunately for him, he's good at building robots, but terrible at actual villainy.
The first real breakthrough he had was a couple of years ago when his dad sent him an antique puzzle box for his birthday. When Jack solved it, it released the spirit of a Heylin (evil) witch called Wuya. Wuya had been stuck in the puzzle box for 1500 years, and was eager to continue her quest to collect a series of ancient magical artifacts called the Shen Gong Wu so she could take over the world. Unfortunately for her, she had no body to handle them, and she had competition from a group of teenaged Xiaolin (good) monks in training.
Things came to a head for the first time when Wuya managed to trick one of the young Xiaolin monks (Raimundo) into joining her and helping her restore her physical form. She plunged the world into darkness, and didn't need Jack anymore. Jack realized that he'd never have a chance at world domination with Wuya in charge, so he teamed up with the monks to stop her. Using a time machine that Jack built and an electricity-generating Shen Gong Wu to power it, they sent one monk into the past to recover another puzzle box to contain Wuya.
Through their combined efforts (and despite Jack trying to rejoin Wuya for a little bit after she captured them) they managed to seal Wuya away again. Jack parted ways with the monks on confusingly almost-friendly terms, but was eager to go back to being enemies. But... you know. Maybe they could all go get ice cream sometime? His treat? That could be cool? (They never did.)
Another villain found and released Wuya again, but that partnership didn't last and she eventually patched things up with Jack. Jack and Wuya continued their alliance until an even more powerful Heylin evildoer named Chase Young started to get involved. Jack idolized Chase as one of his evil heroes and eagerly sought his attention, but Chase had no patience for Jack's nonsense and mostly ignored him. Wuya was quite taken with Chase, and ended up ditching Jack for him. Chase was about as thrilled with her as he was with Jack.
Jack was left to do his own scheming, and it has gone poorly. He's tried to recruit other villains to work for him and had that fall through. He's been used as a pawn by Chase and Wuya in their power games multiple times, getting both physically and emotionally hurt. (And yet he still clings to them, and they're easily the most important adults in his life.) He's not considered a major threat unless he gets lucky these days. But hey, at least there's never a dull moment?
There have been two important incidents for Jack's character since winding up on his own. The first was when Chase Young offered Jack a chance to become his apprentice (as part of a scheme). Jack, of course, failed. Then he went home and got kicked out of his own house by his robot doppelganger he'd built. Completely defeated, he went and plunked himself down at the doorstep of the Xiaolin temple to languish in his failure and wait for the inevitable beatdown.
Instead, the youngest monk (Omi) took pity on him and decided to try to adopt him onto the side of good. Jack was surprised, but he accepted. The other monks were hard on Jack, and he spent a day doing all of their chores. That night, another young villain attacked the temple to take its Shen Gong Wu and Jack helped repel her. However, his resolve to be good broke when he found an opportunity to take the Wu himself. When Omi tracked him down, they held a Xiaolin Showdown game of Truth or Lies.
During the showdown, Jack tried to claim that he had only joined the monks to backstab them later (a lie, he'd been sincere and only quit due to fear of failure) and that he wasn't pursuing evil to make himself feel less worthless (also a lie). Meanwhile, Omi truthfully told Jack that he really had believed in him, and the betrayal had been a genuine disappointment. Jack lost the game and, though a little rattled, returned to his life of crime. The events of that showdown provide a straight canonical explanation of Jack's motives.
The second important incident was the time Chase Young's main scheme finally played out: he tricked Omi into join the Heylin side. Chase did this by trapping Omi's mentor in another dimension called the Ying-Yang world. Omi used a Shen Gong Wu called the Ying Yo-Yo to rescue him, but didn't know that it would affect the balance of his chi. When he returned from the Ying-Yang World, the yo-yo left his good chi behind. Without its influence, he immediately joined Chase Young.
Jack was extremely jealous of Omi for becoming Chase's apprentice, but he still took Chase's side when the other monks showed up. He chased them into the Ying-Yang world when they went to recover Omi's good chi. The monks used the Ying Yo-Yo and Yang Yo-Yo together so that none of their chi would be left behind, but Jack was carrying the Reversing Mirror (which reverses the effects of other Shen Gong Wu magic). When he followed them back out of the Ying-Yang world, it was without his bad chi.
With all the bad taken out of him, "Good Jack" was overwhelmingly friendly and selfless. The monks decided he was even more annoying than regular Jack, but he still proved instrumental to their success. A monster from the Ying-Yang world had pursued them through the portal, and it came to steal the monks' chi, both good and bad. They were left in a mindless state. Good Jack decided to lure the creature back into the Ying-Yang world and rescue the monks' chi, even though he knew that (because he only had one of the yo-yos) he would reverse alignments again when he returned. Good Jack was sad to know he wouldn't miss being good, but saving the monks (and the world) was more important. He made a plan with the monks' dragon friend and, when he came back with the chi, the dragon caught him in a Shen Gong Wu trap. Jack didn't escape from it until after the monks had saved the day. Jack immediately went back to his scheming, but now with evidence (to his endless disgust) that he really does have a lot of good in him. Ugh.
Things have been pretty normal for Jack lately, or at least as normal as they can be when he's regularly getting in magical kung fu showdowns for the fate of the world. Most recently, he lost all the Shen Gong Wu he has except the Monkey Staff and he's still licking his wounds from that. This was where Jack was at the end of the series, and as far as he's concerned? It's fine. He'll get them back, one of these days. Evil never gives up!
...But man, he sure has been at this for several years with very little to show for it. And he sure is getting older.
Personality: Jack is a real piece of work, as one might expect from a guy who wants to conquer the world. He's meanspirited, petty, selfish, and the proud cultivator of each of those traits. Unsurprisingly, the closest thing he has to friends are the martial artists who hand his ass to him on a regular basis. Because Jack is used to being ignored, though, bad attention is better than no attention at all and he will cheerfully latch on to anything he can get.
While he might have friends if he actually tried being nice to people, Jack is dedicated to being a bad person. He blusters theatrically about what he does, trying to maintain his brand as the rising prince of darkness. Despite his best efforts, though, his world's superstar villains (Jack's heroes) consider him little more than a sniveling worm, and that kind of stings. Someone else might get discouraged and quit, but it's outright stated in canon that the reason Jack pursues world domination is to combat his feelings of worthlessness. It's a hell of a motivator. Being good sounds scary and difficult and he's sure he'd fail, so he has to keep trying with the evil thing even though he knows (and sometimes admits) he's more of a loser than a cool evil badass. Jack wants, more than anything else, to be acknowledged, taken seriously, and respected. He believes that being a great villain is the only way he's going to get to have those things.
Really, Jack's a lonely young man with poor social skills who just keeps digging his hole deeper. It doesn't help that he's no good at hiding his emotions at all, and can only keep up an act for a short time (and usually while he's feeling good about himself). The honesty of Jack's feelings can almost be endearing at times. He's genuinely and ecstatically enthusiastic about the things that make him happy, he's extremely proud when he does something right, he cries easily when he's upset, and he's forever filled with this vibrating desire to be noticed and maybe (dare he wish for it) liked, but mostly? It means all the nasty, petty, and unpleasant feelings in Jack just leak everywhere when things go wrong for him. Things go wrong for Jack a lot, and that shit's not cute.
Despite how unpleasant he can be, and despite how unpleasant Jack wants to be, he's not as rotten to the core as he claims. Irritating? Sure. Spoiled? Yes. Selfish? Definitely. But it's hard to argue he doesn't have a capacity for decency, giving, and nobility of spirit in there somewhere when it's been proven through magical misadventure. Jack doesn't exercise these things and furiously denies altruistic impulses when they come to him, but he can't just make them stop existing. (Even though he really, really wants to.)
Things are sort of in flux for Jack at the moment. He's starting to realize that something very scary and important is happening to him: Jack Spicer is growing up. He has styled himself an "evil boy genius" for years, but now? It won't be too long before that moniker doesn't fit anymore. Jack has all the anxiety of any other kid figuring out what they want to do, even though his current choice of career is a really bizarre one with absolutely terrible role models. And despite his insistence he's sure of where he's going, he really isn't confident about his future.
This is a critical point in Jack's life, and one where other people have the potential to make a huge impact on where he ends up.
Why did the CFP recruit them? Jack has many faults, but he's a legitimately gifted roboticist and programmer. The things he builds do work, from fighting drones to realistic androids to vehicles to a time machine (even if the last one needed more power than he could actually generate). Jack complains a lot, but he's actually pretty resilient and is accustomed to winding up in dangerous situations. Every time he gets knocked down (physically or emotionally) Jack usually bounces back with just as much bombast and dramatic flair as before, ready to take on the next bout of dire nonsense. He can fight, but he's not a match for anyone with actual training and his wheelhouse is building things that will do it for him (...Or relying way too much on the Monkey Staff).
Admittedly, Jack isn't ideal. He styles himself as a supervillain, and he's a minor. Still, Jack has proven he can play ball with the good guys and help keep the world from being screwed up. If CFP-DNR sniffs around his universe, other villains do trash him online (he's a bit of a meme, honestly) and the stories make it pretty apparent that while he does have certain skills, he's mostly ignorable when nobody smart is directing him. He's also not a particularly young minor and will likely hit his 18th birthday during the game. As for his behavior: having other people treat his skills as valuable will do a lot to mollify him, and it helps that he has nothing to gain by doublecross. Jack is annoying, but he's a person who can be managed and will back down at a reprimand. His most idolized people also treat him like garbage all the time, and anything even slightly more decent would win his loyalty.
He's not someone you want spearheading a mission where he has to keep an act for extended periods, but he makes an excellent gadgets/lab/hacker guy and a solid support if you can deal with having to glare at him from time to time.
(But hey, if he doesn't fit the tone and vision of the game, I really do understand.)
Equipment: Jack's backpack is a personal flight device he calls a helibot. When activated, a rotor pops up and out of each shoulder.
He has one Shen Gong Wu in his possession: the Monkey Staff. When activated, the staff gives its user enhanced strength and agility in addition to monkey features (sharp canines, a prehensile tail, grasping toes, fur) that become more and more pronounced with time. The downside is that the longer the staff is active, the more monkey-like the user's thoughts become. This can leave a person in an almost completely animal state if they go for too long (about a day) and they have to let go of it to start coming around.
It's possible he could lose it during a home trip (because he's still actively fighting with the monk kids over those) and he might even end up with something else, but I'd only really be interested in using the other Shen Gong Wu as plot fodder. If I have a cool idea, I'll write it up as a player plot and make sure that 1) it's super clear what they can and can't do 2) they end up back in Jack's world and out of the way when we're done with them. (Probably in more responsible hands than his.)
Samples: One of your samples should be written out and should be at least 100 words. You have the option of providing a link to a previous game for the other sample; said thread needs to be from within the past 3 months and needs to have at least 5 comments from your character. Network Sample: Link Prose Sample: There's a scrape and a thump from behind the access panel, releasing a shower of paint chips and rust. Another, more certain thump, and the thing pops open. The scrawny, somewhat besmudged shape of Jack reemerges, flashlight between his teeth. He spits it back into his hand.
"Alright, it's not completely fried," he says. That's a surprise, but he's okay with being wrong this time. "I can fix it. That's the good news."
Jack rests a forearm in a weathered groove of the machine's housing and leans on it, still squinting down at the mess inside.
"The bad news is? I need time. We're talking at least a day here. I'm a genius, but I don't do miracles."
It is, unfortunately, the most confident statement he's made on this whole mission.
Application: Jack Spicer | Xiaolin Showdown
Plurk handle (or other contact if no plurk):
What other characters do you play? -
Character name: Jack Spicer
Canon: Xiaolin Showdown
OU or CRAU? OU
Canon point: The end of the series
History:
Jack Spicer, self-styled evil boy genius, is the son of wealthy American businesspeople living and working in China. His parents are almost never home, leaving Jack largely unsupervised. Their absence and affluence are apparently so great that Jack can get the house partially destroyed all the time without drawing notice.
Jack's parents either don't know he's trying to take over the world, or just don't take him seriously. Either way, Jack has been using his pocket money to bankroll lots and lots of robotics research in the basement for years. Unfortunately for him, he's good at building robots, but terrible at actual villainy.
The first real breakthrough he had was a couple of years ago when his dad sent him an antique puzzle box for his birthday. When Jack solved it, it released the spirit of a Heylin (evil) witch called Wuya. Wuya had been stuck in the puzzle box for 1500 years, and was eager to continue her quest to collect a series of ancient magical artifacts called the Shen Gong Wu so she could take over the world. Unfortunately for her, she had no body to handle them, and she had competition from a group of teenaged Xiaolin (good) monks in training.
Wuya recruited Jack for his nice, corporeal thumbs, and Jack became her (extremely disappointing) evil protegé. Jack fought for her in Xiaolin Showdowns, magical reality-warping contests initiated whenever multiple people tried to claim a Shen Gong Wu. Jack usually lost, but it was still a great time to be him. He had regular contact with people his age! And a mentor! Sort of! All of these people hated him, but!
Things came to a head for the first time when Wuya managed to trick one of the young Xiaolin monks (Raimundo) into joining her and helping her restore her physical form. She plunged the world into darkness, and didn't need Jack anymore. Jack realized that he'd never have a chance at world domination with Wuya in charge, so he teamed up with the monks to stop her. Using a time machine that Jack built and an electricity-generating Shen Gong Wu to power it, they sent one monk into the past to recover another puzzle box to contain Wuya.
Through their combined efforts (and despite Jack trying to rejoin Wuya for a little bit after she captured them) they managed to seal Wuya away again. Jack parted ways with the monks on confusingly almost-friendly terms, but was eager to go back to being enemies. But... you know. Maybe they could all go get ice cream sometime? His treat? That could be cool? (They never did.)
Another villain found and released Wuya again, but that partnership didn't last and she eventually patched things up with Jack. Jack and Wuya continued their alliance until an even more powerful Heylin evildoer named Chase Young started to get involved. Jack idolized Chase as one of his evil heroes and eagerly sought his attention, but Chase had no patience for Jack's nonsense and mostly ignored him. Wuya was quite taken with Chase, and ended up ditching Jack for him. Chase was about as thrilled with her as he was with Jack.
Jack was left to do his own scheming, and it has gone poorly. He's tried to recruit other villains to work for him and had that fall through. He's been used as a pawn by Chase and Wuya in their power games multiple times, getting both physically and emotionally hurt. (And yet he still clings to them, and they're easily the most important adults in his life.) He's not considered a major threat unless he gets lucky these days. But hey, at least there's never a dull moment?
There have been two important incidents for Jack's character since winding up on his own. The first was when Chase Young offered Jack a chance to become his apprentice (as part of a scheme). Jack, of course, failed. Then he went home and got kicked out of his own house by his robot doppelganger he'd built. Completely defeated, he went and plunked himself down at the doorstep of the Xiaolin temple to languish in his failure and wait for the inevitable beatdown.
Instead, the youngest monk (Omi) took pity on him and decided to try to adopt him onto the side of good. Jack was surprised, but he accepted. The other monks were hard on Jack, and he spent a day doing all of their chores. That night, another young villain attacked the temple to take its Shen Gong Wu and Jack helped repel her. However, his resolve to be good broke when he found an opportunity to take the Wu himself. When Omi tracked him down, they held a Xiaolin Showdown game of Truth or Lies.
During the showdown, Jack tried to claim that he had only joined the monks to backstab them later (a lie, he'd been sincere and only quit due to fear of failure) and that he wasn't pursuing evil to make himself feel less worthless (also a lie). Meanwhile, Omi truthfully told Jack that he really had believed in him, and the betrayal had been a genuine disappointment. Jack lost the game and, though a little rattled, returned to his life of crime. The events of that showdown provide a straight canonical explanation of Jack's motives.
The second important incident was the time Chase Young's main scheme finally played out: he tricked Omi into join the Heylin side. Chase did this by trapping Omi's mentor in another dimension called the Ying-Yang world. Omi used a Shen Gong Wu called the Ying Yo-Yo to rescue him, but didn't know that it would affect the balance of his chi. When he returned from the Ying-Yang World, the yo-yo left his good chi behind. Without its influence, he immediately joined Chase Young.
Jack was extremely jealous of Omi for becoming Chase's apprentice, but he still took Chase's side when the other monks showed up. He chased them into the Ying-Yang world when they went to recover Omi's good chi. The monks used the Ying Yo-Yo and Yang Yo-Yo together so that none of their chi would be left behind, but Jack was carrying the Reversing Mirror (which reverses the effects of other Shen Gong Wu magic). When he followed them back out of the Ying-Yang world, it was without his bad chi.
With all the bad taken out of him, "Good Jack" was overwhelmingly friendly and selfless. The monks decided he was even more annoying than regular Jack, but he still proved instrumental to their success. A monster from the Ying-Yang world had pursued them through the portal, and it came to steal the monks' chi, both good and bad. They were left in a mindless state. Good Jack decided to lure the creature back into the Ying-Yang world and rescue the monks' chi, even though he knew that (because he only had one of the yo-yos) he would reverse alignments again when he returned. Good Jack was sad to know he wouldn't miss being good, but saving the monks (and the world) was more important. He made a plan with the monks' dragon friend and, when he came back with the chi, the dragon caught him in a Shen Gong Wu trap. Jack didn't escape from it until after the monks had saved the day. Jack immediately went back to his scheming, but now with evidence (to his endless disgust) that he really does have a lot of good in him. Ugh.
Things have been pretty normal for Jack lately, or at least as normal as they can be when he's regularly getting in magical kung fu showdowns for the fate of the world. Most recently, he lost all the Shen Gong Wu he has except the Monkey Staff and he's still licking his wounds from that. This was where Jack was at the end of the series, and as far as he's concerned? It's fine. He'll get them back, one of these days. Evil never gives up!
...But man, he sure has been at this for several years with very little to show for it. And he sure is getting older.
Personality:
Jack is a real piece of work, as one might expect from a guy who wants to conquer the world. He's meanspirited, petty, selfish, and the proud cultivator of each of those traits. Unsurprisingly, the closest thing he has to friends are the martial artists who hand his ass to him on a regular basis. Because Jack is used to being ignored, though, bad attention is better than no attention at all and he will cheerfully latch on to anything he can get.
While he might have friends if he actually tried being nice to people, Jack is dedicated to being a bad person. He blusters theatrically about what he does, trying to maintain his brand as the rising prince of darkness. Despite his best efforts, though, his world's superstar villains (Jack's heroes) consider him little more than a sniveling worm, and that kind of stings. Someone else might get discouraged and quit, but it's outright stated in canon that the reason Jack pursues world domination is to combat his feelings of worthlessness. It's a hell of a motivator. Being good sounds scary and difficult and he's sure he'd fail, so he has to keep trying with the evil thing even though he knows (and sometimes admits) he's more of a loser than a cool evil badass. Jack wants, more than anything else, to be acknowledged, taken seriously, and respected. He believes that being a great villain is the only way he's going to get to have those things.
Really, Jack's a lonely young man with poor social skills who just keeps digging his hole deeper. It doesn't help that he's no good at hiding his emotions at all, and can only keep up an act for a short time (and usually while he's feeling good about himself). The honesty of Jack's feelings can almost be endearing at times. He's genuinely and ecstatically enthusiastic about the things that make him happy, he's extremely proud when he does something right, he cries easily when he's upset, and he's forever filled with this vibrating desire to be noticed and maybe (dare he wish for it) liked, but mostly? It means all the nasty, petty, and unpleasant feelings in Jack just leak everywhere when things go wrong for him. Things go wrong for Jack a lot, and that shit's not cute.
Despite how unpleasant he can be, and despite how unpleasant Jack wants to be, he's not as rotten to the core as he claims. Irritating? Sure. Spoiled? Yes. Selfish? Definitely. But it's hard to argue he doesn't have a capacity for decency, giving, and nobility of spirit in there somewhere when it's been proven through magical misadventure. Jack doesn't exercise these things and furiously denies altruistic impulses when they come to him, but he can't just make them stop existing. (Even though he really, really wants to.)
Things are sort of in flux for Jack at the moment. He's starting to realize that something very scary and important is happening to him: Jack Spicer is growing up. He has styled himself an "evil boy genius" for years, but now? It won't be too long before that moniker doesn't fit anymore. Jack has all the anxiety of any other kid figuring out what they want to do, even though his current choice of career is a really bizarre one with absolutely terrible role models. And despite his insistence he's sure of where he's going, he really isn't confident about his future.
This is a critical point in Jack's life, and one where other people have the potential to make a huge impact on where he ends up.
Why did the CFP recruit them?
Jack has many faults, but he's a legitimately gifted roboticist and programmer. The things he builds do work, from fighting drones to realistic androids to vehicles to a time machine (even if the last one needed more power than he could actually generate). Jack complains a lot, but he's actually pretty resilient and is accustomed to winding up in dangerous situations. Every time he gets knocked down (physically or emotionally) Jack usually bounces back with just as much bombast and dramatic flair as before, ready to take on the next bout of dire nonsense. He can fight, but he's not a match for anyone with actual training and his wheelhouse is building things that will do it for him (...Or relying way too much on the Monkey Staff).
Admittedly, Jack isn't ideal. He styles himself as a supervillain, and he's a minor. Still, Jack has proven he can play ball with the good guys and help keep the world from being screwed up. If CFP-DNR sniffs around his universe, other villains do trash him online (he's a bit of a meme, honestly) and the stories make it pretty apparent that while he does have certain skills, he's mostly ignorable when nobody smart is directing him. He's also not a particularly young minor and will likely hit his 18th birthday during the game. As for his behavior: having other people treat his skills as valuable will do a lot to mollify him, and it helps that he has nothing to gain by doublecross. Jack is annoying, but he's a person who can be managed and will back down at a reprimand. His most idolized people also treat him like garbage all the time, and anything even slightly more decent would win his loyalty.
He's not someone you want spearheading a mission where he has to keep an act for extended periods, but he makes an excellent gadgets/lab/hacker guy and a solid support if you can deal with having to glare at him from time to time.
(But hey, if he doesn't fit the tone and vision of the game, I really do understand.)
Equipment:
Jack's backpack is a personal flight device he calls a helibot. When activated, a rotor pops up and out of each shoulder.
He has one Shen Gong Wu in his possession: the Monkey Staff. When activated, the staff gives its user enhanced strength and agility in addition to monkey features (sharp canines, a prehensile tail, grasping toes, fur) that become more and more pronounced with time. The downside is that the longer the staff is active, the more monkey-like the user's thoughts become. This can leave a person in an almost completely animal state if they go for too long (about a day) and they have to let go of it to start coming around.
It's possible he could lose it during a home trip (because he's still actively fighting with the monk kids over those) and he might even end up with something else, but I'd only really be interested in using the other Shen Gong Wu as plot fodder. If I have a cool idea, I'll write it up as a player plot and make sure that 1) it's super clear what they can and can't do 2) they end up back in Jack's world and out of the way when we're done with them. (Probably in more responsible hands than his.)
Samples: One of your samples should be written out and should be at least 100 words. You have the option of providing a link to a previous game for the other sample; said thread needs to be from within the past 3 months and needs to have at least 5 comments from your character.
Network Sample: Link
Prose Sample:
There's a scrape and a thump from behind the access panel, releasing a shower of paint chips and rust. Another, more certain thump, and the thing pops open. The scrawny, somewhat besmudged shape of Jack reemerges, flashlight between his teeth. He spits it back into his hand.
"Alright, it's not completely fried," he says. That's a surprise, but he's okay with being wrong this time. "I can fix it. That's the good news."
Jack rests a forearm in a weathered groove of the machine's housing and leans on it, still squinting down at the mess inside.
"The bad news is? I need time. We're talking at least a day here. I'm a genius, but I don't do miracles."
It is, unfortunately, the most confident statement he's made on this whole mission.
"Until then, we're stuck."
This is going to be great. Excellent. Fantastic.