Jake Chambers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thehangedboy) wrote2015-10-13 02:04 am
thehangedboy) wrote2015-10-13 02:04 am
Ryslig App
OOC INFORMATION
Name: Ink
Contact: AIM: misterporcelain |![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
mister_inkwell
Other Characters: N/A
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Jake Chambers
Age: 11
Canon: The Dark Tower
Canon Point: Wizard and Glass, as Blaine crashes
Character Information: Here!
Personality: "I don't like people, they fuck me up." Not words you would expect to hear from an eleven year old boy, because in a lot of ways Jake is not a typical eleven year old. He has dealt with death both by killing and being killed (he has died twice at the point I'm taking him from). He has survived brushes with demons and murderers and madmen. He left his world for another and gave up a safe life for a dangerous life he actually felt was worth living.
How does he deal with all that, you ask? Jake is mature for his age and had to grow up before his time. Living with distant parents taught him to be self-sufficient. Instead of depending on his parents for support and guidance, Jake views them more as obstacles to be managed. At one point his father is angry with him and to resolve the situation Jake says what he knows his father wants to hear to placate him. He doesn't apologize because he feels genuinely sorry, he apologizes because he knows his life will be easier if his father is happy with him.
Jake's treatment by his parents and especially by his father was very formative to his personality. His father puts great expectations on him: he sends Jake to a prestigious private school and constantly talks up all the great things Jake will do when he's older, very much with the air of someone parading around a show dog. This predictably had the opposite effect of the one Elmer Chambers wanted: instead of growing up into a self-satisfied asshole TV executive like his father Jake becomes quiet and disillusioned. When your parents put more importance on your grades and the future they want for you than they put on your actual emotional well-being, it's difficult to be happy-go-lucky. Add on top of that Jake's surprising maturity and intelligence for an eleven year old making it difficult for him to connect with kids his own age, leading to his preference for the company of adults. Now mix in his deep dislike and distrust of arrogant 'professional' adults like his dad. What do you get? You get a kid who has a very businesslike way of dealing with people as a baseline and has very few choices when it comes to people he can connect with enough to get close to. Jake's go-to mode of dealing with people is to be standoffish and observe them until he can get a read on what he thinks of them and proceed accordingly. Most of his life in New York was spent merely surviving, managing his parents to keep them happy with him and drifting from shallow friendship to shallow friendship.
The exception is Greta Shaw. While she and Jake were never close in the way he's close with his Mid-World ka-tet (likely because in the end Greta was being paid to look after him and didn't care for him as her own family), Greta Shaw is one of the few people in Jake's New York life to treat him with genuine care. Here we see the duality in Jake's personality: while he finds it hard to make deep connections, people who are kind to him or whom he has a reason to respect/identify with can expect his affection and loyalty. We see this a little bit with Greta, for whom he has genuine affection as an ally in surviving life with his parents.
We see it even more in Roland Deschain. In fact with Roland we see how Jake's tendency to love only a few people very deeply can lead to him idealizing the people he loves, particularly because in Roland's case Roland was the first person Jake really felt he could love and connect with emotionally. As will be discussed below, Jake's idealization of and need to trust in his loved ones is not always a good thing for him. Roland and the ka-tet are Jake's first real experience with an actual family and his loyalty to that family often prompts him to walk directly into danger.
Jake tends to make snap decisions both in terms of his actions and judgement of people. If someone displays a quality he associates with bad things that colors his perception of them immediately and the same is true of the reverse. A first impression can cement his view of a person and it will take quite a lot to change it (though it definitely can be done; Jake is a perceptive boy, as will be discussed below, and won't outright ignore someone's words and actions because he dislikes them. As discussed above, the same is far less true of him losing trust in someone he already likes). Having to leave the old people in River crossing, who he'd only known a day, actually moves Jake to tears because they were so kind to him and he wants to stay behind and help them. By contrast Tick-Tock displays all the negative qualities Jake dislikes: he's arrogant, power-hungry, and uses people, and Jake hates him and the kind of person he is enough feel no remorse for shooting him. This shows as well the way Jake tends to categorize people: people he likes get care and respect, people he dislikes he doesn't waste time caring about at all. He runs away from home and away from his world not only to escape the doubled memories driving him mad but because he would rather be in a dangerous world with Roland, a man who loves but let him die, than in the safety of New York with a family that doesn't care about him.
While he is willing to put himself in danger for his adoptive family the success of that depends on his family actually being there to help him out of the trouble he gets himself into. The fact that he trusts them to always be able to do that is telling of how much faith he puts in them. He comes through the door back into Mid-World despite it being guarded by two demons because he trusts that Roland, Eddie and Susannah will be on the other side. And, indeed, Roland saves him from the doorkeeper demon and promises never to let him die again, cementing Jake's unwavering trust in him despite them both logically knowing it's a promise Roland can't be sure he'll be able to keep. For instance, a little later in the city of Lud a man named Gasher threatens to blow up the bridge the entire ka-tet is standing on unless Jake goes with him to see Tick-Tock. Jake makes the decision himself to go to him, trusting that Roland will save him later and that he'll be able to survive in the meantime.
Jake is an incredibly brave boy. Not only is he intimately familiar with death and at this point able to face it head-on but as shown above he will walk into dangerous situations if necessary and hold his own. He keeps his head dealing with Tick-Tock despite watching Tick-Tock murder a woman, and when Tick-Tock becomes violent he is able to stay calm enough to get to Tick-Tock's guns and shoot him twice, first in the leg and then in the head. Even if he's internally frightened and panicking, Jake is able to put that aside to do what needs to be done: when he and Roland are being chased by the slow mutants and Jake must get down off the cart to clear the track of rocks, he does it and he does it quickly despite his fear. Perhaps the best example of his bravery is allowing himself to fall from the trestle the second time he died. Knowing the fall is inevitable, Jake makes the decision to let himself fall and accepts his death. He tells Roland to go on and doesn't even scream as falls. Roland considers himself responsible but in the end it was Jake who actually made the decision about how it happened and handled it with a good deal of bravery.
It helped that he knew it was coming. The thing is, Jake is a perceptive kid. As indicated by his attendance of a prestigious private school he is very intelligent, an intelligence that manifests not just as book smarts (he can speak basic French and is doing advanced work in English) but also as emotional intelligence. He can read his parents' moods and actions very well and react accordingly to best keep them happy; by the same token he can read the people he is close to even better. All through book one before he falls from the trestle Jake can tell from Roland's demeanor that he expects Jake to die eventually and he even correctly infers that the gunslinger expects it to be by his own hand. He doggedly attempts to talk about this, preferring respect and honesty in dealings with people he cares for (and expecting respect and honesty from people who truly care for him). Despite Roland never addressing it, when it comes time for Jake to fall Jake is able to face his death because he knew on some level that it was going to -- had to -- happen. He is also able to continue to love Roland despite Roland letting him fall because he understands Roland as a person and understands Roland's dedication to his quest does not invalidate Roland's love for Jake.
Part of the reason Jake is able to make such quick snap judgements and decisions is because he trusts his ability to read people and situations and apply his prior knowledge and experiences to them. That doesn't mean he always makes the right decisions, but it often helps him make decisions that can at least be recovered from if they go badly for him. For instance during his conversation with Tick-Tock he's reading Tick-Tock's mood via his vocal and physical cues, comparing him to other powerful men like him in order to decide how to proceed. This ability to think on his feet and quickly change his gameplan has saved Jake's life a few times, Tick-Tock being the most notable example. This shows his adaptable nature, arguably one of his greatest strengths. Jake is still young and not only that but he's smart, allowing him to take in new information and change gears incredibly quickly. While it takes Eddie and Susannah weeks if not months to acclimate to Mid-World, Jake feels comfortable living there after only a week or so and even begins to pick up Mid-World expressions and practices from Roland.
This is not to say Jake is a hardened boy with none of the childishness his age implies left in him. While he gets serious when he needs to survive (and in Mid-World, that's most times), when he's safe with his loved ones and more relaxed he acts more immature. After he re-enters Mid-World he and the ka-tet have some bonding downtime and Jake takes great delight in asking Roland to teach him swears in other languages as well as a great time telling bad jokes with Eddie. He even adopts a Mid-World canine called a billy-bumbler because he can't resist giving it food. He names this bumbler Oy and clings to him with the kind of love and devotion a small child can display toward a beloved pet. Indeed, he pretty much immediately decides that Oy is his best friend and the two are inseparable; Jake often carries him around. This is just another facet of the way he clings to and idealizes the people he loves deeply in that way only young children can. He only really feels safe with his found family close, believing that so long as he has them he'll be okay.
Of course in a dangerous place like Mid-World he cannot always depend on that. When Gasher is taking him through Lud they pass several booby-traps and at one point they hear one go off. Gasher assumes that this means Roland has died coming after Jake. Jake believes it, and this is the point where he loses hope. Jake shows fear in plenty of situations but he is always able to put that fear aside. He'll do what he feels needs to be done even if he has to do it screaming. It's when he feels as though he is completely alone that he gives up hope of surviving at all and gives in to his fear. Because of the way he was raised in almost total emotional isolation, Jake deeply fears losing the emotional closeness and support he now has from his ka-tet. He hates feeling as though he's being shut out (see him attempting to be open and honest about his eventual death) and he is terrified of being left alone and abandoned, particularly by Roland. Again, remember that he would rather have support and emotional closeness from a man who let him die than live in safety with people who he has no connection with. He draws a lot of his strength from his family: he is able to regain his resolve when he's with Gasher by telling himself that Roland would not want him to give up because of his death, and in fact Roland would want him to take down Gasher and some of Gasher's friends along with him. Losing that support network in Ryslig will be difficult for him but he'll be able to survive on 'what would Roland do? Roland would keep moving' until he finds new people he feels he can trust.
5-10 Key Character Traits:
+Perceptive
+Honest
+Adaptive
+Brave
+-Makes snap decisions
+-Desensitized to/able to withstand trauma
-Judgemental/Standoffish
-Idealizes loved ones
-Fears isolation
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? FITS
Opt-Outs: Manticore, Faerie, Were-Bear, Minotaur, Harpy
Roleplay Sample: Test drive!
Name: Ink
Contact: AIM: misterporcelain |
Other Characters: N/A
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Jake Chambers
Age: 11
Canon: The Dark Tower
Canon Point: Wizard and Glass, as Blaine crashes
Character Information: Here!
Personality: "I don't like people, they fuck me up." Not words you would expect to hear from an eleven year old boy, because in a lot of ways Jake is not a typical eleven year old. He has dealt with death both by killing and being killed (he has died twice at the point I'm taking him from). He has survived brushes with demons and murderers and madmen. He left his world for another and gave up a safe life for a dangerous life he actually felt was worth living.
How does he deal with all that, you ask? Jake is mature for his age and had to grow up before his time. Living with distant parents taught him to be self-sufficient. Instead of depending on his parents for support and guidance, Jake views them more as obstacles to be managed. At one point his father is angry with him and to resolve the situation Jake says what he knows his father wants to hear to placate him. He doesn't apologize because he feels genuinely sorry, he apologizes because he knows his life will be easier if his father is happy with him.
Jake's treatment by his parents and especially by his father was very formative to his personality. His father puts great expectations on him: he sends Jake to a prestigious private school and constantly talks up all the great things Jake will do when he's older, very much with the air of someone parading around a show dog. This predictably had the opposite effect of the one Elmer Chambers wanted: instead of growing up into a self-satisfied asshole TV executive like his father Jake becomes quiet and disillusioned. When your parents put more importance on your grades and the future they want for you than they put on your actual emotional well-being, it's difficult to be happy-go-lucky. Add on top of that Jake's surprising maturity and intelligence for an eleven year old making it difficult for him to connect with kids his own age, leading to his preference for the company of adults. Now mix in his deep dislike and distrust of arrogant 'professional' adults like his dad. What do you get? You get a kid who has a very businesslike way of dealing with people as a baseline and has very few choices when it comes to people he can connect with enough to get close to. Jake's go-to mode of dealing with people is to be standoffish and observe them until he can get a read on what he thinks of them and proceed accordingly. Most of his life in New York was spent merely surviving, managing his parents to keep them happy with him and drifting from shallow friendship to shallow friendship.
The exception is Greta Shaw. While she and Jake were never close in the way he's close with his Mid-World ka-tet (likely because in the end Greta was being paid to look after him and didn't care for him as her own family), Greta Shaw is one of the few people in Jake's New York life to treat him with genuine care. Here we see the duality in Jake's personality: while he finds it hard to make deep connections, people who are kind to him or whom he has a reason to respect/identify with can expect his affection and loyalty. We see this a little bit with Greta, for whom he has genuine affection as an ally in surviving life with his parents.
We see it even more in Roland Deschain. In fact with Roland we see how Jake's tendency to love only a few people very deeply can lead to him idealizing the people he loves, particularly because in Roland's case Roland was the first person Jake really felt he could love and connect with emotionally. As will be discussed below, Jake's idealization of and need to trust in his loved ones is not always a good thing for him. Roland and the ka-tet are Jake's first real experience with an actual family and his loyalty to that family often prompts him to walk directly into danger.
Jake tends to make snap decisions both in terms of his actions and judgement of people. If someone displays a quality he associates with bad things that colors his perception of them immediately and the same is true of the reverse. A first impression can cement his view of a person and it will take quite a lot to change it (though it definitely can be done; Jake is a perceptive boy, as will be discussed below, and won't outright ignore someone's words and actions because he dislikes them. As discussed above, the same is far less true of him losing trust in someone he already likes). Having to leave the old people in River crossing, who he'd only known a day, actually moves Jake to tears because they were so kind to him and he wants to stay behind and help them. By contrast Tick-Tock displays all the negative qualities Jake dislikes: he's arrogant, power-hungry, and uses people, and Jake hates him and the kind of person he is enough feel no remorse for shooting him. This shows as well the way Jake tends to categorize people: people he likes get care and respect, people he dislikes he doesn't waste time caring about at all. He runs away from home and away from his world not only to escape the doubled memories driving him mad but because he would rather be in a dangerous world with Roland, a man who loves but let him die, than in the safety of New York with a family that doesn't care about him.
While he is willing to put himself in danger for his adoptive family the success of that depends on his family actually being there to help him out of the trouble he gets himself into. The fact that he trusts them to always be able to do that is telling of how much faith he puts in them. He comes through the door back into Mid-World despite it being guarded by two demons because he trusts that Roland, Eddie and Susannah will be on the other side. And, indeed, Roland saves him from the doorkeeper demon and promises never to let him die again, cementing Jake's unwavering trust in him despite them both logically knowing it's a promise Roland can't be sure he'll be able to keep. For instance, a little later in the city of Lud a man named Gasher threatens to blow up the bridge the entire ka-tet is standing on unless Jake goes with him to see Tick-Tock. Jake makes the decision himself to go to him, trusting that Roland will save him later and that he'll be able to survive in the meantime.
Jake is an incredibly brave boy. Not only is he intimately familiar with death and at this point able to face it head-on but as shown above he will walk into dangerous situations if necessary and hold his own. He keeps his head dealing with Tick-Tock despite watching Tick-Tock murder a woman, and when Tick-Tock becomes violent he is able to stay calm enough to get to Tick-Tock's guns and shoot him twice, first in the leg and then in the head. Even if he's internally frightened and panicking, Jake is able to put that aside to do what needs to be done: when he and Roland are being chased by the slow mutants and Jake must get down off the cart to clear the track of rocks, he does it and he does it quickly despite his fear. Perhaps the best example of his bravery is allowing himself to fall from the trestle the second time he died. Knowing the fall is inevitable, Jake makes the decision to let himself fall and accepts his death. He tells Roland to go on and doesn't even scream as falls. Roland considers himself responsible but in the end it was Jake who actually made the decision about how it happened and handled it with a good deal of bravery.
It helped that he knew it was coming. The thing is, Jake is a perceptive kid. As indicated by his attendance of a prestigious private school he is very intelligent, an intelligence that manifests not just as book smarts (he can speak basic French and is doing advanced work in English) but also as emotional intelligence. He can read his parents' moods and actions very well and react accordingly to best keep them happy; by the same token he can read the people he is close to even better. All through book one before he falls from the trestle Jake can tell from Roland's demeanor that he expects Jake to die eventually and he even correctly infers that the gunslinger expects it to be by his own hand. He doggedly attempts to talk about this, preferring respect and honesty in dealings with people he cares for (and expecting respect and honesty from people who truly care for him). Despite Roland never addressing it, when it comes time for Jake to fall Jake is able to face his death because he knew on some level that it was going to -- had to -- happen. He is also able to continue to love Roland despite Roland letting him fall because he understands Roland as a person and understands Roland's dedication to his quest does not invalidate Roland's love for Jake.
Part of the reason Jake is able to make such quick snap judgements and decisions is because he trusts his ability to read people and situations and apply his prior knowledge and experiences to them. That doesn't mean he always makes the right decisions, but it often helps him make decisions that can at least be recovered from if they go badly for him. For instance during his conversation with Tick-Tock he's reading Tick-Tock's mood via his vocal and physical cues, comparing him to other powerful men like him in order to decide how to proceed. This ability to think on his feet and quickly change his gameplan has saved Jake's life a few times, Tick-Tock being the most notable example. This shows his adaptable nature, arguably one of his greatest strengths. Jake is still young and not only that but he's smart, allowing him to take in new information and change gears incredibly quickly. While it takes Eddie and Susannah weeks if not months to acclimate to Mid-World, Jake feels comfortable living there after only a week or so and even begins to pick up Mid-World expressions and practices from Roland.
This is not to say Jake is a hardened boy with none of the childishness his age implies left in him. While he gets serious when he needs to survive (and in Mid-World, that's most times), when he's safe with his loved ones and more relaxed he acts more immature. After he re-enters Mid-World he and the ka-tet have some bonding downtime and Jake takes great delight in asking Roland to teach him swears in other languages as well as a great time telling bad jokes with Eddie. He even adopts a Mid-World canine called a billy-bumbler because he can't resist giving it food. He names this bumbler Oy and clings to him with the kind of love and devotion a small child can display toward a beloved pet. Indeed, he pretty much immediately decides that Oy is his best friend and the two are inseparable; Jake often carries him around. This is just another facet of the way he clings to and idealizes the people he loves deeply in that way only young children can. He only really feels safe with his found family close, believing that so long as he has them he'll be okay.
Of course in a dangerous place like Mid-World he cannot always depend on that. When Gasher is taking him through Lud they pass several booby-traps and at one point they hear one go off. Gasher assumes that this means Roland has died coming after Jake. Jake believes it, and this is the point where he loses hope. Jake shows fear in plenty of situations but he is always able to put that fear aside. He'll do what he feels needs to be done even if he has to do it screaming. It's when he feels as though he is completely alone that he gives up hope of surviving at all and gives in to his fear. Because of the way he was raised in almost total emotional isolation, Jake deeply fears losing the emotional closeness and support he now has from his ka-tet. He hates feeling as though he's being shut out (see him attempting to be open and honest about his eventual death) and he is terrified of being left alone and abandoned, particularly by Roland. Again, remember that he would rather have support and emotional closeness from a man who let him die than live in safety with people who he has no connection with. He draws a lot of his strength from his family: he is able to regain his resolve when he's with Gasher by telling himself that Roland would not want him to give up because of his death, and in fact Roland would want him to take down Gasher and some of Gasher's friends along with him. Losing that support network in Ryslig will be difficult for him but he'll be able to survive on 'what would Roland do? Roland would keep moving' until he finds new people he feels he can trust.
5-10 Key Character Traits:
+Perceptive
+Honest
+Adaptive
+Brave
+-Makes snap decisions
+-Desensitized to/able to withstand trauma
-Judgemental/Standoffish
-Idealizes loved ones
-Fears isolation
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? FITS
Opt-Outs: Manticore, Faerie, Were-Bear, Minotaur, Harpy
Roleplay Sample: Test drive!