application for penancerp

[the_vigilante]

OOC Info
Name: Alishia
Age: 35
Contact: knightinqs / knightinqs#1243
Current Characters: N / A


IC Info

Name: Aiden Pearce
Canon: WATCH_DOGS
Age: 39
Appearance: Full body / close up / if I had to pick a PB
Canon Point: Just after confronting Maurice Vega during the post-credit scene at the end of the game.
Background: Here.

Personality:

• Ambitious, determined, driven. Whatever label you want to put on it, it all boils down to the same thing -- namely that, once Aiden has his mind set on something, he isn't likely to relent until he's accomplished it. There are rare exceptions, but as a whole, not even, say, his little sister asking him point blank not to chase after the men who killed his niece and her daughter, Lena, managed to get through to him. He's purposefully walked into blatant traps, like heading into the Irish Mob's base of operations, in order to take out its leader, in pursuit of his goals. It wasn't as though he didn't know what he was getting into, however (he absolutely did, smart enough to recognize the situation for what it was) he just figured that foreknowledge of the trap balanced the odds enough to allow him to walk away from it.

• For all that Aiden reads like the quiet one (or maybe because he does), he has a very short, very hot temper. He's managed to get a handle on it, for the most part, as he's gotten older, taking a few seconds after that initial stab of anger to let it cool a little into something he can carry, but his self-control is not infallible. When his former mentor and partner, Damien Brenks, went after his sister and then showed up to gloat about it, for example, Aiden immediately attacked him, and if it hadn't been important to keep Damien alive for his sister's sake, at that point, he might have killed him. If nothing else, at very least, he probably would have beat him unconscious, physical violence the first thing Aiden reaches for, when he lets his temper get the better of him.

• Along the same lines, Aiden is deeply protective of the people he loves, again to the point of violence, more than willing to put himself between his loved ones and their enemies without a second thought. And on the chance that he can't protect them in the heat of the moment? Well, insert Liam Neeson's speech from Taken here. He'll come for whoever's hurt his friends, and he won't back down until they're safe and that hurt is satisfied. He was willing to kill, to avenge his niece and save his sister, after all. He'd be willing to extend that protection to a stranger in the right circumstances, too -- he doesn't like people who hurt women, for example, so if someone was getting a little handsy after being told no? He'd absolutely step in.

• On the lighter side of things, Aiden is as tactile in friendship and love as he is in anger. He's very much the kind of person who believes that actions speak louder than words, so the people he's close to can expect a lot of casual touching, whether that's a hand on the shoulder as a matter of comfort or a literal pat on the back, in a moment of triumph. He'll back off, if and when he notices that he's making someone uncomfortable, but it's very much force of habit to lean into relationships, platonic or otherwise, with physical intimacy.

• It may take some doing to end up a member of Aiden's inner circle, however -- he's been used and betrayed by people he's considered friends, in the past, after all, and it's lead to a certain sort of paranoia on his part. He's likely to assume anyone trying to get close to him has some kind of hidden agenda, and play his cards close to the vest until they prove otherwise. Not to say that he doesn't play well with others, mind, he's just more likely to view a contact as just an asset, rather than a friend, until they prove themselves to him in some way. His criteria for what constitutes earning his trust is not infallible, though, unfortunately -- he still managed to get burned by Clara Lille, even after he decided she was a part of his inner circle. Kind of. Look, it's complicated, and he may have overreacted. See also: that short temper of his.

• Finally, underneath all that Badass Noir Protag Energy, Aiden is a little socially awkward and a lot nerdy. This is a man who wandered around a subway station, muttering BadBoy at complete strangers as they passed and to embarrassing result, when trying to meet up with his contact, BadBoy17. This is also the guy who, while murdering his way through the Irish Mob, took the time to hack into any road sign he passed to post outdated memes on them. I can haz cheeseburger?

• Other: ISFP (The Defender), Slytherin, Taurus, Wood Tiger, Melancholy Temperament, Chaotic Good

Weaknesses/Temptations:

• Slow to trust.
• Will fight a guy for the people he does trust and considers family.
• Will fight a guy for anyone who seems to be innocent and in danger, most notably women and children.
• Will probably just fight a guy, let's be real.
• Is likely to judge just about everyone, at least for a little while, because if they're here, that means they're shitty people, right?
• Once he's realized that, for the most part, everything is made up and the sins don't matter, he'll probably make an effort to snoop around and find a way to start getting people out, regardless of whether or not it adds to his own eternal torment.
• Has absolutely nothing in the way of supernatural powers or defenses against said powers, so it probably won't be too hard to get into his head and force him to do something he wouldn't normally do. Oh, he'd fight it tooth and nail, stubborn bastard that he is, but he probably wouldn't win.

Sins:

• Abandonment (sending his sister and nephew away)
• Aggravated Assault
• Arson
• Attempted Murder (multiple counts)
• Betrayal
• Blackmail
• Breaking and Entering
• Complicit in the Death of Clara Lille
• Complicit in the Death of Lena Pearce
• Criminal Threat
• Dealing in Stolen Goods
• Destruction of Property
• Escaping Custody
• Grand Theft Auto
• Greed
• Identity Fraud
• Joyriding
• Kidnapping (Maurice Vega)
• Lying
• Murder (multiple counts)
• Pride
• Reckless Endangerment
• Resisting Arrest
• Revenge-seeking Behavior (see also: the motivation behind his entire character arc)
• Stalking
• Theft (multiple counts)
• Torture
• Wrath
• Vigilantism

Powers/Abilities: Aiden has no supernatural abilities to speak of, his world basically an analogue for ours. He does, however, have several skills that he's picked up over the course of his career as a criminal, for better or worse, as detailed below.

• Driving: Back home, Aiden had a reputation as one of the best (if not the best) drivers in Chicago. Comfortable with just about anything ranging from compact sport motorcycles to a full-sized firetruck, Aiden knows more than his fair share of tricks behind the wheel. He's also familiar with performing general maintenance on anything he drives, how to disable a car alarm, how to hot wire a car he's stolen, and so on and so forth. Basically, if it has to do with a motor vehicle, it's probably in his wheelhouse.
• Expert Combatant: Employing a mix of martial arts and grittier, more underhanded street fighting, Aiden is no slouch in a physical fight. While he prefers to use the tactical baton he carries to finish anything he does start fast, however, he does know how to throw a punch, and has the strength and agility to back it up, when he does. He's also quick enough on the fly to be able to improvise weapons in a fight, if he's disarmed or otherwise lacking.
• Freerunning: Despite the fact that the man's almost forty, Aiden has no problems running, jumping and climbing trees -- or, well, buildings, more accurately. This isn't necessarily his strongest suit, not one for outright acrobatics, but it definitely helps, knowing how to vault over an obstacle and not have it slow your momentum, or being able to get up to a higher story window on a building you're trying to break into, and Aiden can absolutely do both.
• Hacking: While most of Aiden's hacking expertise had to do with having an exploit into ctOS, the operating system that monitored and controlled most of Chicago's infrastructure, he's not a complete slouch at the keyboard. Even without the aforementioned backdoor, Aiden still knew how to get into the code, find a weak point and run with it, so while he may not be causing any citywide blackouts without something to springboard off of, he can still do smaller things like disable car alarms and security systems, steal personal information like bank account and credit card numbers, or breaking into a CCTV network to use it to spy on people.
• Manipulation: Aiden has a knack for being able to read people and, from there, manipulate them. Whether that means knowing just what to say and do to intimidate someone, being able to calm someone down enough to get them through a tense situation, or being able to see a punch coming a mile away -- well, he's good at all three and then some. It helps that he was prone to people-watching, quiet a man as he is, long before he started trying to use that skill to turn social situations to his advantage.
• Marksmanship: Aiden is very good with a gun. He has a broad knowledge of them, too, which means he can absolutely handle and maintain anything from a handgun to a an assault rifle with ease. His favorite, however, seem to be a pistol, for all that it's easy to carry and conceal -- if he has time to set up and the higher ground for it, however, he's also a big fan of sniper rifles.
• Tinkering: Given some time and the right parts, Aiden could build anything ranging from frag grenades and bigger IEDs, to devices capable of jamming cell phone signals to prevent anyone in the area from calling for help or causing brief, localized blackouts to give him cover to slip in or out of somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. It's kind of scary what he can do with an armful of random parts from Radio Shack.

Items:

• A Beretta Px4 Storm, with full magazine (10 rounds)
• An extra magazine for his handgun
• A P416 Assault Rifle, with full magazine (30 rounds)
• An extra magazine for the assault rifle
• An expandable tactical baton
• His personal cell phone, an iPhone 4S, complete with his hacking toolkit, for all the good it will likely do him, here. If nothing else, he might at least try to clone its contents onto the Blackberry he wakes up to.

SAMPLES

Network: Here at his IC inbox.
Log: Here on the TDM; if the mods would prefer something longer, however, there's a long here of him interacting with his canonmates as part of a PSL.