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Jan. 11th, 2013 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hearrrtofgoldUser Name/Nick: Shankill
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huddle
AIM/IM: mintyfreshevil
E-mail: marasque@gmail.com
Other Characters: Esther Coleman, Sterling Archer (trade-in for Beatrix Kiddo)
Character Name: Duke Crocker
Series: Haven
Age: 34
From When?: Season 4 episode 1, during his brief stay in the mental ward in Boston. The Admiral got to him right before Jennifer did.
Inmate/Warden: Warden. While Duke is admittedly a criminal, his crimes are either nonviolent or absolutely necessary (homicide in self-defense or in defense of others). He has a very strong innate knowledge of right and wrong (always, to his occasional frustration, choosing Right), which he effortlessly blends with a complete disregard for the law and others' expectations. This sort of paradoxical behavior means he can connect with strange people easily, and he understands quite a lot about crime and the criminal mind. He is open-minded and nonjudgmental, and he's good at finding ways to cope with or get around problems when he can't fight them. He may do well with an inmate who needs to learn self-control or just to get their own mind in order.
When necessary he can firmly put his foot down, take charge, and deal out some discipline. That said Duke does not do well with authority figures, and has sympathy for others who feel the same. Being "The Man" is not something he'd like to do, although if it means ensuring there's a way to end the Troubles without Audrey leaving or killing Nathan he's willing to. Although he can be an effective leader, he'd prefer to work in tandem with someone or as part of a team. He would much rather work with an inmate on the level of a friend or teacher than a boss or disciplinarian. (The term "warden" will mildly disturb him.)
He won't fully trust his inmate in that he'll make plans, Batman-like, in case the pairing goes south. But he does this with everyone.
Item: The heirloom Crocker family journal.
Abilities/Powers: Duke has a Trouble, a superpower with a really crappy side. When a Troubled person's blood touches his skin his strength multiplies dramatically (and his eyes turn silver for some reason). In this state he's powerful enough to throw someone across a room one-handed and to rip a car door off its frame. The bad side is, Duke's power is designed to help him kill Troubled people. The Crocker family curse is ending other families' curses -- all they have to do is kill one individual with said Trouble. The rush of power from using his Trouble can and has been addictive to some members of the Crocker family, though Duke is very good at controlling it.
Personality: The very first thing we hear about Duke in Haven is Nathan Wuornos' firmly held opinion that he's "unreliable, untrustworthy, and a pain in my ass". While Nathan's an admittedly biased source, it's fairly obvious right away that he's got a point. A smuggler, Duke's got a rap sheet of various, mostly theft- and tax-related crimes and appears mostly interested in his own ends - such as refusing to give information to the police until Nathan apologizes to him for being rude. For the most part he is content to simply go on with his own life of theft, smuggling, and selling contraband while pissing off Nathan by making snarky jokes. However, as his curiosity about the Troubles grows and more and more of his friends and acquaintances become affected by them, he begins to show something surprising: he's a good guy.
He first begins to show selflessness when his childhood friends, brothers Bill and Jeff McShaw, suffer a sudden decline in business at their bistro due to Bill's Trouble, which, when he is upset, causes the foods he's tasted to rapidly rot. The venture goes so badly that Jeff ends up murdered after an argument, and due to his closeness to both brothers Duke cooperates with Nathan and fellow officer Audrey Parker. It's also at this point that he begins to develop a fondness for Audrey, as well as some more patience regarding Nathan. Duke's interest in the Troubles grows more personal when he learns that his family is enmeshed in the history of Haven, and that his life may be in danger - yet he continues to grow closer to Audrey and to let Nathan in more, and continues helping them despite a lack of obligation.
Admittedly, part of this newfound interest in the town and the Troubles is due to his own "destiny": a friend with the Trouble of foreseeing others' deaths informed him that he was to be killed by a man with a certain tattoo (that turns out to be an esoteric symbol tattooed on a great many Haven citizens). He swears to offset his supposed destiny and save himself, cataloguing all the information he can find on this symbol and making careful note of all areas he can find where it occurs: this research takes up an entire wall of his Cape Rouge cabin. His search is relentless, and in order to continue it he appears to ally himself with the Rev, an extremist local minister who leads a faction of Haven citizens who believe the Troubled are ungodly. The search leads to the death of his wife, yet he persists until he uncovers his family's secret. Despite this apparent duplicity, he remains sympathetic to the Troubled and loyal to his friends, something he repeatedly tries to demonstrate in order to reassure Audrey and assert his place as a helpful presence in the town. He refuses to become a simple killer, opting instead to fight for those he cares about.
In fact, despite preferring a great deal of space and little imposition on his actions, and his general sarcastic and wise-cracking demeanor, Duke is very good at taking care of and supporting people. This is most obvious in dire situations - such as when his ship is hijacked with several of his friends on board. Enduring a brutal beating, Duke refuses to give up the cargo the hijackers want until they threaten a woman on board. He immediately gives up the crate's location in order to save her. When a teenage busboy who works at his restaurant, the Grey Gull, is threatened by a murderer, Duke not only promises to protect the boy but assists Nathan and Audrey in hunting down the perpetrator. Tragedy, naturally, also brings out this tendency: when Nathan's father dies, Duke arrives to support him and help bury the man. But this shows in small ways, in regular moments: spoiling people with good food, checking in with friends when they're not doing well, giving those constantly bombarded by the Troubles a breath of normality and the space to relax.
Part of Duke's charm, on that note, is that despite the massive amounts of misfortune in his life he remains an optimistic and friendly presence and has a certain degree of happiness, or at least acceptance, in his life. Although his life has been very strange, he rolls well with bizarre circumstances and seems able to find the normal in the abnormal. He has very strong faith in most of his own decisions, and is proud of the paths he's chosen for himself. Most of these paths seem to be in direct opposition to those usually taken by the Crocker family, and he shows his abject refusal to follow examples by swearing off the "family business" of murdering the Troubled and ending Curses. There are, of course, tragedies he's had to work through, such the murder of his wife, Evi; the loss of his biological daughter, Jean; his rather abysmal childhood with his neglectful alcoholic father, Simon. But Duke's confidence in himself is strong and well-placed, and he is an emotionally aware individual prone to soul-searching - if there is a reasonably healthy way to work through pain, he will find it. Moreover, he will attempt to lead others to it.
In many ways, Duke is the most emotionally mature character shown in Haven. He and Nathan have a thorny relationship due to Duke's disrespect for the law and, earlier than that, his childhood habit of bullying Nathan. Still, despite their enmity it's Duke who reaches out to Nathan in jeopardy. When Audrey is abducted and Duke is framed for it, Nathan turns violently on him; Duke eventually talks him down, reasoning that they'll have to work together to save their friend. Audrey is extremely important to Duke, and early on he has a romantic interest in her that remains notable but is eventually dwarfed by their friendship. When Audrey admits she's in love with Nathan, Duke is obviously disappointed but accepts this immediately, harboring no resentment for either of them. If anything, his friendship with and respect of Nathan grows stronger after this revelation.
This is also apparent in his self-control, which manifests in various ways. The most obvious is his ability to keep the Crocker Trouble under control, although the rush of power from touching Troubled blood is intense. Although he never uses his Trouble without very good reason, he compares the sensation to a heroin high. (Unusually for a child of an alcoholic, Duke is also very good at moderating himself in regard to various substances. He drinks socially and occasionally engages in recreational drug use, but he does not allow himself enough exposure to develop any sort of addiction.) When he does use the strength part of his Trouble, it's almost exclusively in self-defense or to help others. At one point, a Troubled woman named Daphne was caught in a rising tide after a traffic accident knocked her off the road and trapped her in her car. Despite Nathan's fear that Duke would touch Daphne's blood and give into the family Curse, he touches a cut on her leg and uses his strength to pry her car door off its hinges and carry her to safety. Interestingly, the Crocker Trouble is one of the few in Haven that can be controlled, although Duke is the first one to realize this.
As the series goes on Duke discovers nearly all the complications and misfortunes in his life are directly related to the Troubles. Like every Havenite, Duke wants them to end. He wants to go back to an adventurous but relatively normal life of questionably legal shipping operations and running his bar. He wants Haven, and his life, to be normal, although not at the costs necessary. Truth be told, friendship is the most important thing in Duke's world - far more important than his own safety and definitely more important than family. When possible he ensures his loved ones are far away from Haven and the mess going on therein, but as he shows when he runs into the Barn as it implodes, he will do all he can to keep them alive.
He really never planned on being a hero. Sometimes that's just how it works out.
Barge Reactions: Part of the great thing about living in Haven is that you see so much weird stuff it's hard to be rattled. Duke is pretty desensitized to strangeness, angered but not particularly fazed by displays of evil, and pretty difficult to scare. That said, there are definitely enough unusual people and species on the Barge that he'll be surprised and curious. He'll approach strangers with friendliness mixed with a dash of sarcasm and wariness, and will pretty much afford people respect and amiability unless they're dangerous or are downright disrespectful. If they're dangerous, he will fight back and he probably has several contingency plans in case his first try doesn't work. If they're disrespectful, he'll snark at them.
A definite social butterfly, Duke will attempt to make "business" and social connections with basically everyone on the Barge - either people he likes to spend time with, people who want to barter for things, or just those he's interested in.
Path to Redemption: Already walked it.
History: For the sake of brevity, click here.
Sample Journal Entry: Voice test post
Sample RP:
Duke could never get used to the deck. A normal deck, the type the Cape Rouge and every other ship he'd ever been on had, meant waves lapping at the sides and open skies overhead, a great dark canopy of stars he could identify and read. Growing up in Maine he'd heard stories about all the major constellations in the Northern Hemisphere's skies, and as soon as he crossed the equator he'd learned the southern constellations and pushed himself to navigate by them before using a compass or GPS. It used to thrill him to see the Southern Cross in the sky, to be under different stars.
Here, it inspired a sense of wonder tempered by unease. Nothing he saw from the Barge was familiar - there was no way to even tell what galaxy they were in, let alone what timeline. There was no fixed point to observe from, no reliable standard here. No familiar stars to follow.
But he'd always been good at finding his own road. The journey here was unclear, but he knew the destination: a redemption here, and a redemption back home. Another way to end the Troubles and save Haven, one that didn't require losing one of his best friends. At least Duke knew how to walk the path wherever it might take him, treading carefully and looking out for the others on the journey.
Even if it was, as a nagging doubt reminded him, the blind leading the blind.
Special Notes: If accepted, Duke may require a few extra days to be introduced, in order to give time to tie up Beatrix's loose ends.
User DW:
huddleAIM/IM: mintyfreshevil
E-mail: marasque@gmail.com
Other Characters: Esther Coleman, Sterling Archer (trade-in for Beatrix Kiddo)
Character Name: Duke Crocker
Series: Haven
Age: 34
From When?: Season 4 episode 1, during his brief stay in the mental ward in Boston. The Admiral got to him right before Jennifer did.
Inmate/Warden: Warden. While Duke is admittedly a criminal, his crimes are either nonviolent or absolutely necessary (homicide in self-defense or in defense of others). He has a very strong innate knowledge of right and wrong (always, to his occasional frustration, choosing Right), which he effortlessly blends with a complete disregard for the law and others' expectations. This sort of paradoxical behavior means he can connect with strange people easily, and he understands quite a lot about crime and the criminal mind. He is open-minded and nonjudgmental, and he's good at finding ways to cope with or get around problems when he can't fight them. He may do well with an inmate who needs to learn self-control or just to get their own mind in order.
When necessary he can firmly put his foot down, take charge, and deal out some discipline. That said Duke does not do well with authority figures, and has sympathy for others who feel the same. Being "The Man" is not something he'd like to do, although if it means ensuring there's a way to end the Troubles without Audrey leaving or killing Nathan he's willing to. Although he can be an effective leader, he'd prefer to work in tandem with someone or as part of a team. He would much rather work with an inmate on the level of a friend or teacher than a boss or disciplinarian. (The term "warden" will mildly disturb him.)
He won't fully trust his inmate in that he'll make plans, Batman-like, in case the pairing goes south. But he does this with everyone.
Item: The heirloom Crocker family journal.
Abilities/Powers: Duke has a Trouble, a superpower with a really crappy side. When a Troubled person's blood touches his skin his strength multiplies dramatically (and his eyes turn silver for some reason). In this state he's powerful enough to throw someone across a room one-handed and to rip a car door off its frame. The bad side is, Duke's power is designed to help him kill Troubled people. The Crocker family curse is ending other families' curses -- all they have to do is kill one individual with said Trouble. The rush of power from using his Trouble can and has been addictive to some members of the Crocker family, though Duke is very good at controlling it.
Personality: The very first thing we hear about Duke in Haven is Nathan Wuornos' firmly held opinion that he's "unreliable, untrustworthy, and a pain in my ass". While Nathan's an admittedly biased source, it's fairly obvious right away that he's got a point. A smuggler, Duke's got a rap sheet of various, mostly theft- and tax-related crimes and appears mostly interested in his own ends - such as refusing to give information to the police until Nathan apologizes to him for being rude. For the most part he is content to simply go on with his own life of theft, smuggling, and selling contraband while pissing off Nathan by making snarky jokes. However, as his curiosity about the Troubles grows and more and more of his friends and acquaintances become affected by them, he begins to show something surprising: he's a good guy.
He first begins to show selflessness when his childhood friends, brothers Bill and Jeff McShaw, suffer a sudden decline in business at their bistro due to Bill's Trouble, which, when he is upset, causes the foods he's tasted to rapidly rot. The venture goes so badly that Jeff ends up murdered after an argument, and due to his closeness to both brothers Duke cooperates with Nathan and fellow officer Audrey Parker. It's also at this point that he begins to develop a fondness for Audrey, as well as some more patience regarding Nathan. Duke's interest in the Troubles grows more personal when he learns that his family is enmeshed in the history of Haven, and that his life may be in danger - yet he continues to grow closer to Audrey and to let Nathan in more, and continues helping them despite a lack of obligation.
Admittedly, part of this newfound interest in the town and the Troubles is due to his own "destiny": a friend with the Trouble of foreseeing others' deaths informed him that he was to be killed by a man with a certain tattoo (that turns out to be an esoteric symbol tattooed on a great many Haven citizens). He swears to offset his supposed destiny and save himself, cataloguing all the information he can find on this symbol and making careful note of all areas he can find where it occurs: this research takes up an entire wall of his Cape Rouge cabin. His search is relentless, and in order to continue it he appears to ally himself with the Rev, an extremist local minister who leads a faction of Haven citizens who believe the Troubled are ungodly. The search leads to the death of his wife, yet he persists until he uncovers his family's secret. Despite this apparent duplicity, he remains sympathetic to the Troubled and loyal to his friends, something he repeatedly tries to demonstrate in order to reassure Audrey and assert his place as a helpful presence in the town. He refuses to become a simple killer, opting instead to fight for those he cares about.
In fact, despite preferring a great deal of space and little imposition on his actions, and his general sarcastic and wise-cracking demeanor, Duke is very good at taking care of and supporting people. This is most obvious in dire situations - such as when his ship is hijacked with several of his friends on board. Enduring a brutal beating, Duke refuses to give up the cargo the hijackers want until they threaten a woman on board. He immediately gives up the crate's location in order to save her. When a teenage busboy who works at his restaurant, the Grey Gull, is threatened by a murderer, Duke not only promises to protect the boy but assists Nathan and Audrey in hunting down the perpetrator. Tragedy, naturally, also brings out this tendency: when Nathan's father dies, Duke arrives to support him and help bury the man. But this shows in small ways, in regular moments: spoiling people with good food, checking in with friends when they're not doing well, giving those constantly bombarded by the Troubles a breath of normality and the space to relax.
Part of Duke's charm, on that note, is that despite the massive amounts of misfortune in his life he remains an optimistic and friendly presence and has a certain degree of happiness, or at least acceptance, in his life. Although his life has been very strange, he rolls well with bizarre circumstances and seems able to find the normal in the abnormal. He has very strong faith in most of his own decisions, and is proud of the paths he's chosen for himself. Most of these paths seem to be in direct opposition to those usually taken by the Crocker family, and he shows his abject refusal to follow examples by swearing off the "family business" of murdering the Troubled and ending Curses. There are, of course, tragedies he's had to work through, such the murder of his wife, Evi; the loss of his biological daughter, Jean; his rather abysmal childhood with his neglectful alcoholic father, Simon. But Duke's confidence in himself is strong and well-placed, and he is an emotionally aware individual prone to soul-searching - if there is a reasonably healthy way to work through pain, he will find it. Moreover, he will attempt to lead others to it.
In many ways, Duke is the most emotionally mature character shown in Haven. He and Nathan have a thorny relationship due to Duke's disrespect for the law and, earlier than that, his childhood habit of bullying Nathan. Still, despite their enmity it's Duke who reaches out to Nathan in jeopardy. When Audrey is abducted and Duke is framed for it, Nathan turns violently on him; Duke eventually talks him down, reasoning that they'll have to work together to save their friend. Audrey is extremely important to Duke, and early on he has a romantic interest in her that remains notable but is eventually dwarfed by their friendship. When Audrey admits she's in love with Nathan, Duke is obviously disappointed but accepts this immediately, harboring no resentment for either of them. If anything, his friendship with and respect of Nathan grows stronger after this revelation.
This is also apparent in his self-control, which manifests in various ways. The most obvious is his ability to keep the Crocker Trouble under control, although the rush of power from touching Troubled blood is intense. Although he never uses his Trouble without very good reason, he compares the sensation to a heroin high. (Unusually for a child of an alcoholic, Duke is also very good at moderating himself in regard to various substances. He drinks socially and occasionally engages in recreational drug use, but he does not allow himself enough exposure to develop any sort of addiction.) When he does use the strength part of his Trouble, it's almost exclusively in self-defense or to help others. At one point, a Troubled woman named Daphne was caught in a rising tide after a traffic accident knocked her off the road and trapped her in her car. Despite Nathan's fear that Duke would touch Daphne's blood and give into the family Curse, he touches a cut on her leg and uses his strength to pry her car door off its hinges and carry her to safety. Interestingly, the Crocker Trouble is one of the few in Haven that can be controlled, although Duke is the first one to realize this.
As the series goes on Duke discovers nearly all the complications and misfortunes in his life are directly related to the Troubles. Like every Havenite, Duke wants them to end. He wants to go back to an adventurous but relatively normal life of questionably legal shipping operations and running his bar. He wants Haven, and his life, to be normal, although not at the costs necessary. Truth be told, friendship is the most important thing in Duke's world - far more important than his own safety and definitely more important than family. When possible he ensures his loved ones are far away from Haven and the mess going on therein, but as he shows when he runs into the Barn as it implodes, he will do all he can to keep them alive.
He really never planned on being a hero. Sometimes that's just how it works out.
Barge Reactions: Part of the great thing about living in Haven is that you see so much weird stuff it's hard to be rattled. Duke is pretty desensitized to strangeness, angered but not particularly fazed by displays of evil, and pretty difficult to scare. That said, there are definitely enough unusual people and species on the Barge that he'll be surprised and curious. He'll approach strangers with friendliness mixed with a dash of sarcasm and wariness, and will pretty much afford people respect and amiability unless they're dangerous or are downright disrespectful. If they're dangerous, he will fight back and he probably has several contingency plans in case his first try doesn't work. If they're disrespectful, he'll snark at them.
A definite social butterfly, Duke will attempt to make "business" and social connections with basically everyone on the Barge - either people he likes to spend time with, people who want to barter for things, or just those he's interested in.
Path to Redemption: Already walked it.
History: For the sake of brevity, click here.
Sample Journal Entry: Voice test post
Sample RP:
Duke could never get used to the deck. A normal deck, the type the Cape Rouge and every other ship he'd ever been on had, meant waves lapping at the sides and open skies overhead, a great dark canopy of stars he could identify and read. Growing up in Maine he'd heard stories about all the major constellations in the Northern Hemisphere's skies, and as soon as he crossed the equator he'd learned the southern constellations and pushed himself to navigate by them before using a compass or GPS. It used to thrill him to see the Southern Cross in the sky, to be under different stars.
Here, it inspired a sense of wonder tempered by unease. Nothing he saw from the Barge was familiar - there was no way to even tell what galaxy they were in, let alone what timeline. There was no fixed point to observe from, no reliable standard here. No familiar stars to follow.
But he'd always been good at finding his own road. The journey here was unclear, but he knew the destination: a redemption here, and a redemption back home. Another way to end the Troubles and save Haven, one that didn't require losing one of his best friends. At least Duke knew how to walk the path wherever it might take him, treading carefully and looking out for the others on the journey.
Even if it was, as a nagging doubt reminded him, the blind leading the blind.
Special Notes: If accepted, Duke may require a few extra days to be introduced, in order to give time to tie up Beatrix's loose ends.