User Name/Nick: A.J.
User DW:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wyrish
Plurk: surfaceshine
E-mail: surfaceshines @ gmail . com
Other Characters: Callisto (fuckaround_findout)
Character Name: Alec McDowell / X5-494
Series: Dark Angel
Age: Early 30's
From When?: Post-canon, both official and game
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Alec first came on board the Barge as an inmate and over the course of two years, learned that it was okay to function as part of a social group and graduated. He stuck around long enough to help another inmate graduate before going home for several years and is now returning for a second try. Alec has suffered a lot in a lifetime of having been born into a program that gave him a serial number rather than a name, among other things, but that's only forced him to figure out how to let the damaged parts of himself go and build on the healed or unexplored parts of himself. He still has issues to deal with in and of himself, but his own conscious choices to become better rather than give up, to live and enjoy his life rather than become embittered and hateful, put him in a good position to be able to show someone else how to do the same and that it's possible.
Abilities/Powers: For more information on full transgenic powers and abilities, see here. Where Alec is concerned:
Personality: As one of his closest friends says of him, "Look outside: lots of pretty colors, tricks and treats. Inside darkness, confusion." Alec is a far more complex character than he allows others to realize, because it's much easier to just be the reckless, smug, happy-go-luckysociopath jerk with charisma and wit. He's able to have fun and then move on, which is just how he likes it. Or how he thinks he likes it.
As with all transgenics, born straight into Manticore's training programs to be products rather than sentient beings, he was conditioned to the life of a soldier and later an assassin; he spent the first 21 years of his life at Manticore and still managed, unlike some other transgenics, to foster an independent enough attitude that he immediately separated from them the moment he got the chance, knowing they would eliminate their products rather than face the exposure and able to cope with that despite his conditioning to depend on them. He is capable of being passionate (he loves life and everything about it, vices in particular), sensitive (he won't allow Max to use him as an excuse to break up with her boyfriend and does not take advantage of a drunk woman he picks up at a bar as a rebound), and charismatic (people he has inadvertently gotten beaten up, infected with retroviruses, and almost killed still genuinely like him), but is also selfish (he sometimes gets people beaten up, infected, and almost or actually kills them - also, this was the only way to survive Manticore intact), cocky (he's awesome and he knows it, unfortunately), and quicker to act than think (reckless and fearless, but sometimes too fearless). What really sets Alec apart from his contemporaries is his resiliency: Manticore wanted the X5 series to be leaders, and to double as field operatives that could be sent on deep cover missions or trusted to carry out military operations on all levels. He embraced it as his salvation, as something to give him the tools he would need to eventually escape, and he bided his time despite every reason to make a break for it at the first opportunity.
Alec is also capable of thinking and acting with merciless practicality, to the point of turning off his own morals to meet an end for survival; for example in order to maintain a clean, obedient record for himself, Alec posed as Max's breeding partner, pretended to cover for her while she planned and executed an escape, only to follow her back to her boyfriend's house where he explained that she had infected him via touch with a fatal genetic virus that only Manticore could cure, and he was meant to take them both back as prisoners, which he did attempt half-heartedly to do. Also, later, when he was captured by the man hired to clean up the mess of Manticore and the escaped transgenics, to save his own life he offered to help track down the other escaped transgenics; he was implanted with a bomb at the base of his skull and told to kill and collect the barcodes of three transgenics in 24 hours or he would be killed himself, so instead of escaping as he probably intended to do, he actually set out to do it. Alec first showed little hesitation in killing another transgenic that was more cat than human, clearly using the logic of her just being an animal even though she hadn't hurt anyone and was actively hiding in the sewers, because the next target he found was a younger transgenic in poor shape but fully human appearing and that time he only cut off the barcode and dumped him at a hospital, though he was caught out doing this and the X6 was killed anyway. He later uses the same "animal, not human" logic when in desperation to save his own life he tries to kill Joshua only to discover he has no barcode and goes after Max instead; he's not happy about any of it, even defends his actions with the X6 by saying "he was just a kid," but he does it anyway when losing his life is the consequence. This is what he needed to do to survive growing up there without giving them reason to send him through PsyOps and thus effectively steal his free will. This is his greatest fear.
In an existence where transgenics owned literally nothing, not even their own bodies and abilities, and no one in the rest of the world either knew about them in order to fight for their rights or cared to, his mind and his free will were all Alec had and he managed to navigate the odds to keep them. He learned that people could be taken from him and he could be used against other people on his first deep cover assignment, when he fell in love with the girl and tried to thwart her assassination and succeeded, instead, in causing her to fall into a coma when Manticore detonated the bomb he refused to anyway, and earned himself a trip to PsyOps for re-conditioning. After that, he buckled down to the only thing that really matters: himself.
Alec is someone who has had his means of survival dictated to him throughout his entire life, but has still managed to find wiggle room in between to build a sense of self. He is highly intelligent, calculating and self-serving, keeps his emotions rigidly compartmentalized, and is not keen on letting anyone in close where they can get the chance to turn on him; he has suffered horrific institutionalized abuse from the time he was born to only a few months prior to appearing on the Barge, and he hadn't the first clue how to overcome any of what he'd dealt with in his life other than by shoving it down and soldiering on. Despite all of this he remained vivacious and charismatic, deliberately making himself into Manticore's golden boy and model soldier in order to place himself in a position to take advantage of any opportunities that might pass him by without giving them a reason to force his loyalty through brainwashing. He is a survivor, against every odd.
His loyal streak is present, but it's been abused so much by Manticore and by knowing that at any time his unit mates and fellow transgenics can be brainwashed by PsyOps into turning against him that it might be difficult to believe it exists at all. He is very, very wary of applying it to anyone; still, even though Max constantly pushes him away and insults him, Alec sees potential in her for leadership and compassion and sticks by her when he could very easily have abandoned her to be killed.
People just meeting him will see him as sarcastic, quick to joke and laugh - often inappropriately - friendly, and willing to try almost anything once; people who take the time to get to know him a little better may find themselves aware that this is just the front he puts up and that beneath it is he capable of being ruthlessly practical and self-serving but not always entirely sure that's what he wants. While Alec doesn't exactly hold grudges, people who betray him will find themselves cut off quickly and completely; people undecided will find him quick to serve his own interests, be that by helping them or abandoning them, until they climb down off the fence and make up their minds about what they want to be to him or vice. He doesn't have a lot of patience for uncertainty, in himself or in others.
After graduating on board the Barge, much of Alec's original personality remains intact: after all, imprisonment on the Barge was much nicer than the imprisonment he was used to, and making himself into a model inmate was even easier than becoming the perfect soldier. Having a few years of good experiences with people who he did finally believe actually cared about him - for whatever that's worth - did not undo the entire rest of his life, but it gave him time to stop and breathe and really learn how to be part of a group without sabotaging himself and them in the name of practical survival. He learned it was okay to let go of some of the rigid conditioning he'd used as armor and shield up to that point in his life even if he'll never quite be able to set it down, and that he could admit to having a more "human" side without the repercussions he'd feared since he was a child. He's still volatile and sharp-tongued and self sufficient and riddled with loss, but he's also openly loyal and confident and curious and more comfortable in his own skin than he's ever been.
Barge Reactions: Alec spent several years on board the Barge both as an inmate and a warden and will remember all of them, so he knows the drill. He's not super excited to be back in the crosshairs of such lovely experiences as floods and breaches, but it's worth it to him to be here so he'll cope. He's also much more capable of handling people from all walks of life more gracefully than he did previously even if he chooses not to do so.
Deal: Alec is back to resolve some hiccups in the lycanthrope genetics that shorten their lifespans significantly from when they were human. If Lark gets this deal first, Alec will ask for his daemon, Riley, to be with him full time because why wouldn't you?
History: Dark Angel Wiki Page: Alec McDowell/X5-494 and Additional History
Alec came onto the Barge originally pretty early in his canon appearances, killing him off before he gets to join Jam Pony as a bike messenger or begin to get close to Max or any of her friends. Once graduated he went back to that same point and continued through the rest of the canon until he returned for his first stint as a warden post-canon.
In addition, I have some headcanon as we do not meet Alec until his early 20s in the series. I've decided that his unit did give him a name in his youth, and (somewhat arbitrarily) that it was Knox; he buried this when the '09 Escape happened and he was put under duress with the rest of the remaining transgenics, giving Manticore absolutely no excuse to think he would be remotely independent-minded (such as having his own name instead of his serial designation, X5-494), and goes exclusively by Alec now. At his introduction in the series he was also given what was, at the time, a very high profile assignment requiring a lot of trust in his abilities and loyalty, which leads me to believe Alec has had several successful solo missions throughout his early adulthood, proving himself a "true blue soldier." That's all pre-Series, and while we are shown Max's experience as a child at Manticore and later Alec hints at some of this, we are never explicitly shown any of it except his single assassination assignment for Robert Berrisford (which is also pre-series) and his interaction with Max and Logan in first episode of season 2 when he was acting on Manticore's behalf.
The CRAU version of his canon that happened between leaving the Barge after graduating his first inmate and now is that he went back to his world, moved as many transgenics as he could get to come with him to the world of (Barge versions) Furiosa and Max Rockatansky to assist with rebuilding Citadel in a better way and thus earning themselves a spot in that society. He stayed to help with that for a while, then went home to modern day Los Angeles with his then-lover Lark Tennant, where they worked on Lark's goals and were ultimately married before Alec's shoddy genetics caught up with him and he was struck with the progeria that lurks in some bloodlines from Manticore's meddling. After a deal fixed that nonsense, he's back on his feet and ready to go another round.
Sample Journal Entry: Alec on the TDM
Sample RP: More Alec on the TDM
Special Notes:
Headcanon Notes:
- Explaining PsyOps
- He remembers Shila screaming she was sorry as they dragged her away but he never found out what she was so sorry about, he doesn't think. He hopes.
- He thinks, briefly, of Jer, who always was the most sensitive, who never complained even when the dark circles beneath his eyes became near permanent. He doesn't know what happened to Jer. He lost track of him in the shuffle.
User DW:
wyrishPlurk: surfaceshine
E-mail: surfaceshines @ gmail . com
Other Characters: Callisto (
fuckaround_findout)Character Name: Alec McDowell / X5-494
Series: Dark Angel
Age: Early 30's
From When?: Post-canon, both official and game
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Alec first came on board the Barge as an inmate and over the course of two years, learned that it was okay to function as part of a social group and graduated. He stuck around long enough to help another inmate graduate before going home for several years and is now returning for a second try. Alec has suffered a lot in a lifetime of having been born into a program that gave him a serial number rather than a name, among other things, but that's only forced him to figure out how to let the damaged parts of himself go and build on the healed or unexplored parts of himself. He still has issues to deal with in and of himself, but his own conscious choices to become better rather than give up, to live and enjoy his life rather than become embittered and hateful, put him in a good position to be able to show someone else how to do the same and that it's possible.
Abilities/Powers: For more information on full transgenic powers and abilities, see here. Where Alec is concerned:
- Enhanced strength: At normal strength Alec can lift and carry three times his own body weight, leap great distances and heights, and break through walls made of most building materials that are not actually cement or brick.
- Enhanced speed and reflexes: At normal speed, Alec is capable of moving so quickly his form will blur to the normal human eye and has caught crossbow bolts fired at his face and been able to dodge rounds from semi-automatic weapons.
- Enhanced stamina: At their peak a healthy, uninjured X5s can exert themselves for several hours before their muscles begin to weaken.
- Enhanced agility: At full strength Alec would be capable of performing cat-like feats of physicality, including walking along high wires, flipping through the air at near-impossible angles and distances, climbing nearly smooth surfaces, and squeezing through small spaces.
- Enhanced durability: At full strength, while they can still be damaged and killed by knives, stabbing weapons, bullets, shrapnel, and kinetic impact, X5s' bodies hold together much better than normal and they can get right back up from falling several stories.
- Enhanced immune system and metabolism: At full strength Alec is virtually immune to most poisons and drugs, except in very large doses, and his accelerated metabolism allows him to stay in near perfect shape with only light exercise. This also makes it extremely difficult for them to become intoxicated from alcohol, but means they require an abnormally high caloric intake.
- Enhanced regenerative capabilities: At full strength, X5s have been able to heal and fully recover from injuries such as gunshot wounds, broken bones, damaged organs, and pulled and/or torn muscles at incredible rates with little or no intervention.
- Enhanced senses: X5s can see in the dark, zoom their vision in on narrow and distant areas at will, and have exceptional hearing and sense of smell due to the animal DNA used to create them.
Although it is not explicitly stated at any point, because the X5 series was intended to be the officer class of transgenics and useful in a broad array of fields and Alec himself is shown learning incredibly complex skills from zero to proficient in 36 hours, I have also played him as fluent in several languages and capable of picking up new ones at an accelerated rate, as well as having an eidetic memory and excellent retention skills. He also earned a wide array of medical knowledge from several different canons/timelies via studying and practice during his previous stint in the game. I have and will use these with discretion on plots moving forward.
Personality: As one of his closest friends says of him, "Look outside: lots of pretty colors, tricks and treats. Inside darkness, confusion." Alec is a far more complex character than he allows others to realize, because it's much easier to just be the reckless, smug, happy-go-lucky
As with all transgenics, born straight into Manticore's training programs to be products rather than sentient beings, he was conditioned to the life of a soldier and later an assassin; he spent the first 21 years of his life at Manticore and still managed, unlike some other transgenics, to foster an independent enough attitude that he immediately separated from them the moment he got the chance, knowing they would eliminate their products rather than face the exposure and able to cope with that despite his conditioning to depend on them. He is capable of being passionate (he loves life and everything about it, vices in particular), sensitive (he won't allow Max to use him as an excuse to break up with her boyfriend and does not take advantage of a drunk woman he picks up at a bar as a rebound), and charismatic (people he has inadvertently gotten beaten up, infected with retroviruses, and almost killed still genuinely like him), but is also selfish (he sometimes gets people beaten up, infected, and almost or actually kills them - also, this was the only way to survive Manticore intact), cocky (he's awesome and he knows it, unfortunately), and quicker to act than think (reckless and fearless, but sometimes too fearless). What really sets Alec apart from his contemporaries is his resiliency: Manticore wanted the X5 series to be leaders, and to double as field operatives that could be sent on deep cover missions or trusted to carry out military operations on all levels. He embraced it as his salvation, as something to give him the tools he would need to eventually escape, and he bided his time despite every reason to make a break for it at the first opportunity.
Alec is also capable of thinking and acting with merciless practicality, to the point of turning off his own morals to meet an end for survival; for example in order to maintain a clean, obedient record for himself, Alec posed as Max's breeding partner, pretended to cover for her while she planned and executed an escape, only to follow her back to her boyfriend's house where he explained that she had infected him via touch with a fatal genetic virus that only Manticore could cure, and he was meant to take them both back as prisoners, which he did attempt half-heartedly to do. Also, later, when he was captured by the man hired to clean up the mess of Manticore and the escaped transgenics, to save his own life he offered to help track down the other escaped transgenics; he was implanted with a bomb at the base of his skull and told to kill and collect the barcodes of three transgenics in 24 hours or he would be killed himself, so instead of escaping as he probably intended to do, he actually set out to do it. Alec first showed little hesitation in killing another transgenic that was more cat than human, clearly using the logic of her just being an animal even though she hadn't hurt anyone and was actively hiding in the sewers, because the next target he found was a younger transgenic in poor shape but fully human appearing and that time he only cut off the barcode and dumped him at a hospital, though he was caught out doing this and the X6 was killed anyway. He later uses the same "animal, not human" logic when in desperation to save his own life he tries to kill Joshua only to discover he has no barcode and goes after Max instead; he's not happy about any of it, even defends his actions with the X6 by saying "he was just a kid," but he does it anyway when losing his life is the consequence. This is what he needed to do to survive growing up there without giving them reason to send him through PsyOps and thus effectively steal his free will. This is his greatest fear.
In an existence where transgenics owned literally nothing, not even their own bodies and abilities, and no one in the rest of the world either knew about them in order to fight for their rights or cared to, his mind and his free will were all Alec had and he managed to navigate the odds to keep them. He learned that people could be taken from him and he could be used against other people on his first deep cover assignment, when he fell in love with the girl and tried to thwart her assassination and succeeded, instead, in causing her to fall into a coma when Manticore detonated the bomb he refused to anyway, and earned himself a trip to PsyOps for re-conditioning. After that, he buckled down to the only thing that really matters: himself.
Alec is someone who has had his means of survival dictated to him throughout his entire life, but has still managed to find wiggle room in between to build a sense of self. He is highly intelligent, calculating and self-serving, keeps his emotions rigidly compartmentalized, and is not keen on letting anyone in close where they can get the chance to turn on him; he has suffered horrific institutionalized abuse from the time he was born to only a few months prior to appearing on the Barge, and he hadn't the first clue how to overcome any of what he'd dealt with in his life other than by shoving it down and soldiering on. Despite all of this he remained vivacious and charismatic, deliberately making himself into Manticore's golden boy and model soldier in order to place himself in a position to take advantage of any opportunities that might pass him by without giving them a reason to force his loyalty through brainwashing. He is a survivor, against every odd.
His loyal streak is present, but it's been abused so much by Manticore and by knowing that at any time his unit mates and fellow transgenics can be brainwashed by PsyOps into turning against him that it might be difficult to believe it exists at all. He is very, very wary of applying it to anyone; still, even though Max constantly pushes him away and insults him, Alec sees potential in her for leadership and compassion and sticks by her when he could very easily have abandoned her to be killed.
People just meeting him will see him as sarcastic, quick to joke and laugh - often inappropriately - friendly, and willing to try almost anything once; people who take the time to get to know him a little better may find themselves aware that this is just the front he puts up and that beneath it is he capable of being ruthlessly practical and self-serving but not always entirely sure that's what he wants. While Alec doesn't exactly hold grudges, people who betray him will find themselves cut off quickly and completely; people undecided will find him quick to serve his own interests, be that by helping them or abandoning them, until they climb down off the fence and make up their minds about what they want to be to him or vice. He doesn't have a lot of patience for uncertainty, in himself or in others.
After graduating on board the Barge, much of Alec's original personality remains intact: after all, imprisonment on the Barge was much nicer than the imprisonment he was used to, and making himself into a model inmate was even easier than becoming the perfect soldier. Having a few years of good experiences with people who he did finally believe actually cared about him - for whatever that's worth - did not undo the entire rest of his life, but it gave him time to stop and breathe and really learn how to be part of a group without sabotaging himself and them in the name of practical survival. He learned it was okay to let go of some of the rigid conditioning he'd used as armor and shield up to that point in his life even if he'll never quite be able to set it down, and that he could admit to having a more "human" side without the repercussions he'd feared since he was a child. He's still volatile and sharp-tongued and self sufficient and riddled with loss, but he's also openly loyal and confident and curious and more comfortable in his own skin than he's ever been.
Barge Reactions: Alec spent several years on board the Barge both as an inmate and a warden and will remember all of them, so he knows the drill. He's not super excited to be back in the crosshairs of such lovely experiences as floods and breaches, but it's worth it to him to be here so he'll cope. He's also much more capable of handling people from all walks of life more gracefully than he did previously even if he chooses not to do so.
Deal: Alec is back to resolve some hiccups in the lycanthrope genetics that shorten their lifespans significantly from when they were human. If Lark gets this deal first, Alec will ask for his daemon, Riley, to be with him full time because why wouldn't you?
History: Dark Angel Wiki Page: Alec McDowell/X5-494 and Additional History
Alec came onto the Barge originally pretty early in his canon appearances, killing him off before he gets to join Jam Pony as a bike messenger or begin to get close to Max or any of her friends. Once graduated he went back to that same point and continued through the rest of the canon until he returned for his first stint as a warden post-canon.
In addition, I have some headcanon as we do not meet Alec until his early 20s in the series. I've decided that his unit did give him a name in his youth, and (somewhat arbitrarily) that it was Knox; he buried this when the '09 Escape happened and he was put under duress with the rest of the remaining transgenics, giving Manticore absolutely no excuse to think he would be remotely independent-minded (such as having his own name instead of his serial designation, X5-494), and goes exclusively by Alec now. At his introduction in the series he was also given what was, at the time, a very high profile assignment requiring a lot of trust in his abilities and loyalty, which leads me to believe Alec has had several successful solo missions throughout his early adulthood, proving himself a "true blue soldier." That's all pre-Series, and while we are shown Max's experience as a child at Manticore and later Alec hints at some of this, we are never explicitly shown any of it except his single assassination assignment for Robert Berrisford (which is also pre-series) and his interaction with Max and Logan in first episode of season 2 when he was acting on Manticore's behalf.
The CRAU version of his canon that happened between leaving the Barge after graduating his first inmate and now is that he went back to his world, moved as many transgenics as he could get to come with him to the world of (Barge versions) Furiosa and Max Rockatansky to assist with rebuilding Citadel in a better way and thus earning themselves a spot in that society. He stayed to help with that for a while, then went home to modern day Los Angeles with his then-lover Lark Tennant, where they worked on Lark's goals and were ultimately married before Alec's shoddy genetics caught up with him and he was struck with the progeria that lurks in some bloodlines from Manticore's meddling. After a deal fixed that nonsense, he's back on his feet and ready to go another round.
Sample Journal Entry: Alec on the TDM
Sample RP: More Alec on the TDM
Special Notes:
Headcanon Notes:
- Explaining PsyOps
- He remembers Shila screaming she was sorry as they dragged her away but he never found out what she was so sorry about, he doesn't think. He hopes.
- He thinks, briefly, of Jer, who always was the most sensitive, who never complained even when the dark circles beneath his eyes became near permanent. He doesn't know what happened to Jer. He lost track of him in the shuffle.
Pairing comment
Date: 2021-08-01 05:26 pm (UTC)From:Character Journal: [personal profile] kissthatgoodbye
Status: Warden
Pairing Information:
Alec is a nearly five year veteran of the Barge, having come in as an inmate, graduated, and then wardened for an inmate of his own. He took a nearly decade IC hiatus from the ship and is back now to support his friends and try to influence Barge culture towards something more stable. This is important to him, but not so important that he'll stay indefinitely like some other wardens. He has a happy life that he loves back home and he'll be glad to return to it when he's done.
He is a genetically engineered supersoldier originally from a version of Earth that suffered a technological apocalypse and plunged the US into something like third world country status. The secret military program that produced him raised him from birth to be a measure against loss of human life, both in the sense of traditional protection and to take the place of humans serving in the military, so his opinions of humans in general is not exactly sterling but he likes people nonetheless. He still has a lot of trauma over this and it influences his wardening style significantly, but he's also lived several years now as a married civilian and that's softened him and allowed for more flexibility in his methods.
Alec is friendly, sarcastic, intelligent, well trained, disciplined, and physically resilient. He can also be quick tempered, disconnected from "civilian" priorities and concerns, and irrationally attached or disconnected from people or situations. He's morally flexible but generally optimistic. He has no magical abilities and honestly is kind of annoyed magic exists because it makes no logical sense.
A.J. loves to communicate a lot about pairing needs and plans and is available reliably on plurk. I'm in CST and my tagging is a bit sporadic thanks to a rotating work schedule, but I can always prioritize something if necessary.