pluggedintheoverlord | Application to High Seas (Reply)

[Name]: Inky
[Age]: 24
[Contacts]:
♦ DW: inkblotmeringue
♦ AIM: inkblotmeringue
♦ Plurk: inkblotmeringue
[Timezone]: EST
[Other Characters]: none

[Name]: Jeff ‘Joker’ Moreau
[Canon]: Mass Effect
[Age]: 30
[Gender]: the manliest man to ever man
[Canon Point]: end of ME3, just before the space magic ending

[History]:
Handy-dandy wiki link

[Personality]:
Jeff Moreau was born with moderate-to-severe Vrolik’s syndrome, also known as osteogenesis imperfecta, which has left many of the large bones in his body brittle and easily broken due to improperly formed collagen. For most of his life, he has had difficulty getting around, and had to rely on braces and crutches, as there is no effective cure for his disease. Because of this, he’d been judged for things he can’t do—running, lifting, shooting a pistol without cracking his wrist—rather than the things he can. Since he was a kid, he’d been overlooked and disregarded in favor of the more able-bodied.

There was one thing that he loved, though—ships. His mother was a civilian contractor on the Arcturus station, so Jeff grew up in a place where spacecraft was common. He was fascinated by them—both because they were damn cool, and because a ship’s pilot didn’t need their legs to fly. The moment that he was old enough to, Jeff signed up for the Alliance Navy to train to become a pilot.

It wasn’t easy getting through flight school, though—he got more than his share of remarks and shit for being the kid with the creaky legs and the crutches. But the more shit he got for it, the more determined he was to prove them all wrong, to show them all that having this disease didn’t mean that he couldn’t fly and didn’t mean that he couldn’t be a better damn pilot than all the rest of them combined. That was the reason that one of his instructors gave him the nickname ‘Joker’—because he was so serious about his training, working his ass off day in and day out, that he never cracked a smile. He learned damn well that if he wanted to succeed, he had to be the best fucking pilot that ever went through those doors—so he was grim as hell all throughout his training, never cracking a smile and never showing weakness. At graduation, though, when he was top of his class and could out-fly even his instructors, Joker was damn well smiling. Coming out top of his class didn’t get rid of that chip on his shoulder, though, and won’t hesitate to make it very clear that his condition doesn’t affect his abilities as a pilot, nor has it stopped him from becoming one of—if not the most—skilled pilots in the fleet. One of the few ways to get on his bad side quickly is to insinuate that his physical state will somehow impair him in doing his duties.

Joker has lightened up a little since his flight school days, though, and often will make wisecracks and snarky comments from the helm, especially about the people that Commander Shepard brings aboard. He does take his job seriously, though—when push comes to shove and things get dangerous, the jokes stop and Jeff gets the job done, no matter how impossible it may seem.

Aside from being just his sense of humor, the snark is also something of a defense mechanism—after having enough people try to put him down, he’s learned to use his sharp tongue as a way to keep people at a distance. It’s that chip on his shoulder at work; he’s always had something to prove, so he always figures that he’s going to have to keep proving himself. His first assumption when Shepard first talked to him in Mass Effect was that s/he’d read his file and was trying to figure out if he was really a good pilot or if he’d just gotten the position on charity because of his disease. Joker gets defensive easily and won’t hesitate to react sharply when he feels threatened or questioned; it’s not a good way to make friends, but making friends hadn’t been high on his list of priorities when there had been a lot of people waiting for any opportunity to remove him from his position. His record has a lot of complaints in it about his attitude, but it has a lot of commendations for his incredible job performance—most of them placed by the same CO.

Despite that rocky start, he warmed up to Commander Shepard throughout their mission—Joker keeps a friendly sort of repartee going between himself and his superior, and obviously respects the commander greatly. He’ll follow Shepard to hell and back, and, between going after the geth, the Collectors, Cerberus, and even Reapers, probably has done just that. His loyalty towards Shepard is so apparent that Anderson, the admiral leading the resistance on Earth, tells him to make sure that he takes care of him/her, and he does his best to make good on that promise. Getting on Joker’s good side isn’t an easy thing, but once you’re there, he’s a damn good friend to have. He won’t always be too easy to get along with, but he’s loyal to a fault and will always have your back.

And speaking of ‘not easy to get along with’, Joker’s also a bit of a control freak; he’s big on always being in control of a situation and he doesn’t much like it when people start invading his territory. It’s one of the reasons that he was so heavily against EDI being a part of the ship at the beginning of ME2—not only was she a potentially dangerous AI, but she was a potentially dangerous AI who was taking over part of his job. He doesn’t like it when people try to take responsibilities from him or try to ‘help him out’, even if their intentions are genuinely good, since he views it as them thinking he isn’t capable of handling those tasks; he’s very independent and wants to do things his own way or not at all. He spent his whole damn life trying to prove that, no, he’s fine and he can take care of himself and be an awesome pilot, so mind your own damn business and let him get his job done.

[Abilities / Strengths & Weaknesses]:
Joker’s claim to fame is his amazing flying skills, which are so good that they border on the supernatural. He does things with a frigate (a ship about 300 meters long) that would be difficult to do in a fighter, and he pulls it off with grace and aplomb. He also probably has a pretty good working knowledge of ships and their systems, though not nearly as extensive as what you’d expect from an engineer. Other than that, he’s the same as any other human, except less durable.

His glaring weakness (other than his sterling personality) would be his brittle bone disease, which leaves him physically fragile. No fistfights for this guy, thanks. Over the years, he’s gotten some tricks and tech to compensate for this, including some fancy Cerberus tech that got shoved in his legs that acts as an internal support system, allowing him to walk without crutches and braces. He still limps and it’s fairly obvious that there’s something wrong with him, but hey, he’s mobile.

His personality sort of works for and against him. On one hand, his sarcastic, defensive tendencies make it pretty difficult to make friends and get on people’s good sides; on the other, he’s fiercely independent and self-reliant, and doesn’t require a social support structure to survive. He’s also very discerning about whose company he keeps, which is good for avoiding trouble but bad for making friends. Really, most of the issues with his personality is that he can come off as a jackass and that doesn’t win him brownie points with people; he also doesn’t care, and that doesn’t help matters.

Joker has very few fears and is difficult to intimidate because of it; the ones he does have generally revolve around failing his duties and responsibilities, and the fallout of that. He's already had a taste of how shitty it can be when he fucks up-- the last time he did, it got Shepard killed and himself dishonorably discharged. He's well aware of the fact that Cerberus isn't going to come along and fix his mistakes twice.

[Limited Powers]:
Joker has no supernatural abilities that would need to be limited.
[Other Important Facts]:
Just the whole brittle bone disease thing, which is going to be toned down a bit so that he doesn't break his everything falling on the deck. He's still going to have a noticeable limp and some skeletal deformities, but his durability will only be slightly less than average.
[Samples]:
♦ Thread:
Post with Hawke and Anders from Dragon Age at Gargleblasted

♦ Post:

Y’know, you’d think after spending like two years in a terrorist organization, I’d be better at running from the navy. Different navy now, and I’m not actually a terrorist anymore, but hey, the experience should apply.

Not that being a pirate is really a whole lot better than a terrorist. I know, I’m kinda lacking the moral high ground here.

But what I’m saying is that it is fucking rude for these assholes to blow holes in my ship. I mean, do you know how much fucking work it takes to fix a cannonball-sized hole in the hull? And how much fucking water gets in? Fuck this ocean crap, I’ll take space any day of the week. At least then when your hull’s compromised, you’ve got bulkheads to close or you can put up a mass effect field to keep your atmosphere in. Not this bullshit keeping the ocean out thing.

So, really, what it comes down to is fuck these navy guys and the ship they rode in on.