Handsome Jack (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amaskofmyownface) wrote2018-04-04 01:41 pm
amaskofmyownface) wrote2018-04-04 01:41 pm
Entry tags:
Handsome Jack :: Application
• Player Information •
Name: Jack
Age/18+?: 23
Contact:
plurk || brokemycrown
discord || Jack đź‘‘#1256
Other Characters Played: N/A
Most Recent AC Link: N/A
Age/18+?: 23
Contact:
plurk || brokemycrown
discord || Jack đź‘‘#1256
Other Characters Played: N/A
Most Recent AC Link: N/A
• Character Information •
Name: Handsome Jack
Canon: Borderlands series (Appears in Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Telltale’s Tales from The Borderlands)
Canon Point: End of Borderlands 2
Age: Likely 40s
Type of Character: Canon
Reference: Fan Wiki Link
To be perfectly frank, there are some information in the games that don’t line up due to the fact that The Pre-Sequel happened before Borderlands 2 but was made after. Anthony Burch, the lead writer, has admitted inconsistencies in the canon. Here, I will be listing them down and providing my own way of reconciling the disparate information given.
- Control Core Angel, just as an entire thing, doesn’t line up with the timeline. Control Core Angel is a massive building located in Pandora, a planet Jack doesn’t even have anything to do with in The Pre-Sequel. The existence of THE BUNKER, a defense bot made from advanced tech, is too big for a a low level programmer to even have. Given the existence of Angel’s picture smiling happily at him, Angel herself seems to be friendlier to him before the events of Borderlands 2 as well.
My theory: Control Core Angel used to be nicer for Angel, and she and Jack had a better relationship. The only reason why his second wife protested was because he isolated Angel from the world. Ever since Jack fell from grace and became Hyperion’s CEO, he had no problems torturing and enslaving his own daughter, opening Angel’s eyes to how horrible Jack truly is. The bigger building and THE BUNKER were built after the events of The Pre-Sequel.
- In Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Jack is frequently stated to be a low-level programmer, but he seems to have many underlings, control over the development of Helios, and his own top floor office.
My theory: Jack was the one that proposed to have Helios built in the first place (greatly suggested by Tassiter), and its success as a Hyperion station could elevate him in rank, so his investment in it was genuine. During its construction, he was assigned control of the funds and power over its workers.
- In Borderlands 2, Moxxi claims Jack was a hotshot who threw money around to woo her, but then he destroyed her thunderdome because she cheated on him. This apparently happened before the events of The Pre-Sequel, where he doesn’t have the resources or money to make that possible.
My theory: Lines up with “Jack got power during the development of Helios.” He went crazy with his new money and power that he dated Moxxi to show off. Her cheating on him bruised his ego, so he misused his resources to get back at her.
Note: For inconsistencies with characterization between Jack as written by Anthony Burch and Jack as written by Telltale, I will defer to Burch’s Jack.
Personality:
Handsome Jack is a big, big personality. Love him or hate him, it’s hard to take your eyes off him. To his allies and loved ones, he likes to flatter and win them over. To his enemies, he’s deliberately inflammatory. To people he doesn’t care about, he’s dismissive or outright rude. Whatever his mood is, he’s likely to be chipper or comedic about it. Humor is a big part of Jack’s style. It’s dark, mean-spirited, and in-your-face. Jack is confident to the point of arrogance. The title ‘Handsome’ he put in front of his own name should be enough to gauge how narcissistic he is.
As far as his general personality goes, Jack is a force to be reckoned with. What Jack wants, Jack gets, no matter the costs. He will use any and all manipulation tactics at his disposal. In the course of the two games, Jack has used emotional manipulation, deals, threats, seduction, favors, money, and even brute force to get what he wants. Jack is efficient to a painful degree, and possesses no dignity or empathy to speak of. He takes ‘ends justifies the means’ to its most twisted conclusions.
That begs the question then: What are Handsome Jack’s goals? At his core, all Jack wants to be is a hero. Jack was unwanted by his two parents, and he’d been beaten and abused by his own grandmother. It’s no wonder Jack sees the world as unforgiving and cruel. Something to be “fixed.” This formative view may even be why he locked up and isolated his own daughter in a heavily fortified prison – he said it himself, everything she had was inside those four walls, so why did she still want to engage with a world that had hurt him?
Jack hasn’t always been a genocidal psychopath. In his younger years, Jack wasn’t above working closely with other people and listening to their input. Jack got along with his daughter better. He spoke in admiration of his co-workers, worried about the people the bad guys were hurting, and expressed open concern and admiration for the Vault Hunters he worked with. Despite his shortcomings, Jack could’ve genuinely been categorized as a good person.
The events of The Pre-Sequel did two things that made Jack the villain that he is today. First, it taught him that rules and authority only got in the way of his goals. Second, he can’t trust anybody.
Addressing the first – the dismantling of authority figures. During the events of The Pre-Sequel, Jack is frequently talked down by his boss, Tassiter. Jack tries to humor him first, but he then quickly grows glib at him, then finally, angry. Jack realizes that the only authority that has any meaning is himself. After all, he’s the only one that can get results.
The second one is a lot heavier, and severely twists his view of the world. Repeatedly, Jack is betrayed by people he’s trusted. The Meriff is the first one that does this. After his betrayal, Jack starts to fear he’s surrounded by enemies, so he kills the scientists that could’ve possibly betrayed him. Regardless of how right the decision was, it encourages Moxxi and her group to attempt to kill him later on, paranoia turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So here we have Jack at the end of The Pre-Sequel, learning that the boss he pledged loyalty to was incompetent and the people he thought were on his side considered him to be a dangerous psychopath. He has to rebuild his world view and personality in the ashes of all these awful events. What’s left?
Jack becomes an unhealthy mix of brutally efficient, vengeful, and self-righteous. Jack literally doesn’t have a conscience, but because he used to abide by normal standards of ‘goodness’, he learned to be sympathetic to other people. Now that he believes himself to be the ultimate good, he’s capable of the most inhumane atrocities because he believes he’s the good guy and the victim. Jack will never admit he’s done anything wrong, ever. He can justify everything he’s done with his own twisted logic and world view. After all, he was the one that almost got killed by the people he used to call friends. He has a right to get even and strike at them harder than they hit him. Jack neither believes in the law or in compromise. Only he has the capability of being good, fair, and impartial.
Even though he could masterfully play with other people’s weaknesses like an instrument, he’s blind to his own. He has a very tenuous grasp of empathy, and would often only be sympathetic to other people as long as it benefits him. He’s paranoid, self-centered, abusive, and sadistic. Oftentimes, he doesn’t realize how much he’s hurting the people he loves. When he doesn’t get what he wants, he’s whiney at best, angry and vindicated at worst.
Jack is often paranoid about getting hurt, and it’s possible he feels guilt, considering he laments that his good intentions ended up with him and his loved ones dead in Tales from the Borderlands, but he only feels this when he knows he’s lost. As long as he’s alive, he could still find a way to fix everything. He never gives up as long as there are still options available.
As much as possible, Jack only gets hands-on when he’s been cornered, or when he knows he can win. He’s not one for fair fights. Before the Vault Hunter could even get to him, he covered the cave leading up to him with waves of his militia and robots, then also prepared tech to help him in battle just in case they got to him. It’s apt that he has a cloaking device to hide his presence. His ideal strategy would be to stay out of the way, then reap another person’s hard work.
It goes without saying that Jack is incredibly intelligent. He’s a planner, and he could contrive the most convoluted plans just to get what he wants. He spent months assembling a team of Vault Hunters to get to the Elpis vault. He got it. He spent years taking over Pandora to awaken The Warrior. He did it. Even just in the usual sense, he’s very handy with tech.
Despite Jack’s flaws, he is actually capable of caring about other people. He might’ve abused his daughter, but it came from a place of caring. He and his girlfriend Nisha have a loving and healthy relationship as well. Nisha even admits to loving him. Jack loves to pamper his loved ones, and only lashes out when he believes they’ve trampled on his good will. It’s implied he’s beaten Angel because she helped the Vault Hunters, but even when she betrayed him, he begs her to reconsider her course of action. Jack does try to mend relationships he values, as seen with him trying to win back Athena after she leaves his company. It's perfectly possible for Jack to maintain a healthy level of respect with others as long as he can see for himself that they're competent.
Jack’s actual “goodness” is debatable, but he does strive for it, even if his version of it has been perverted and twisted by trauma. What isn’t debatable is that he has a tendency to change his surroundings, for good or for ill, and that’s the sort of energy I hope to bring with him in the RP.
Appearance:
Appearance Reference
Jack wears a mask that adjusts to his mouth and facial expression. I imagine it has the same capabilities of skin and makes up for the blindness in his left eye. Here is what he looks like without it.
Abilities:
Jack is technically a human being, but human beings in Borderlands are a bit different from regular human beings. For the purposes of the RP, he has the same needs as an average human when it comes to basic physical requirements like eating and sleeping, but he is unable to take fall damage, so he can jump off buildings with no problems. The reason I decided to keep this is because there’s dialogue in Borderlands 2 where Brick asks the Vault Hunter to jump off the building because it would look cool, and I don’t know if it’s a meta game mechanic or they really don’t get hurt by gravity, so I will err on the side of game canon and take it as a biological capability.
As for Jack himself, he’s healthy and combat competent. He has high skill in computer programming and machinery. He’s not as good as Angel or Moxxi, but he was the one that modified the Fragtrap unit, created THE BUNKER, hacked through Atlas’ systems, and programmed a better hacking program than Rhys.
Suitability: I’ll be taking Jack after his death. He’s going to be pissed as hell, but then he’ll see it as a second chance to carry out his plans and get revenge. His ultimate plan is to go back to his dimension and kill everyone who wronged him, but before he can do that, he’ll try to develop his powers and gain influence within the island. At the moment, I can see him attempting to infiltrate the criminal factions with the intention of destroying them from the inside. Or taking it for himself. Big goals, yes, but he’s an ambitious man. I want to see how far he gets.
Inventory:
x1 Pistol with 2 extra clips – A normal Hyperion-grade pistol. Let’s say 20 bullets with 2 extra clips, with each clip having 10 bullets.
x2 Energy Wrist Launchers - Two energy launchers he can strap to his wrists. It fires charged bolts or a more focused laser. It operates on a recharge time and has infinite ammo, but has a tendency to overheat.
x1 Cloaking Device - A fist-sized hexagon gadget strapped to his jacket that could cloak his presence and even make multiple holographic copies of himself to disorient people. The doppelgangers can be destroyed with one shot.
x1 Shield – A shielding device strapped to his leg that can absorb heavy fire power and melee damage directed at his body until it breaks. It can recharge back to full power when he’s not being attacked.
x1 Picture – A crumpled up picture of his daughter, Angel, at 10 years old, smiling brightly and making a peace sign at the camera.
Talent Preferences: Alteration, Destruction, and Illusion
Additional Notes: For timeline purposes, he’s familiar with the entire cast of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 2, but the presumed player characters will be Nisha the Lawbringer and Zer0 the Assassin.
Canon: Borderlands series (Appears in Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Telltale’s Tales from The Borderlands)
Canon Point: End of Borderlands 2
Age: Likely 40s
Type of Character: Canon
Reference: Fan Wiki Link
To be perfectly frank, there are some information in the games that don’t line up due to the fact that The Pre-Sequel happened before Borderlands 2 but was made after. Anthony Burch, the lead writer, has admitted inconsistencies in the canon. Here, I will be listing them down and providing my own way of reconciling the disparate information given.
- Control Core Angel, just as an entire thing, doesn’t line up with the timeline. Control Core Angel is a massive building located in Pandora, a planet Jack doesn’t even have anything to do with in The Pre-Sequel. The existence of THE BUNKER, a defense bot made from advanced tech, is too big for a a low level programmer to even have. Given the existence of Angel’s picture smiling happily at him, Angel herself seems to be friendlier to him before the events of Borderlands 2 as well.
My theory: Control Core Angel used to be nicer for Angel, and she and Jack had a better relationship. The only reason why his second wife protested was because he isolated Angel from the world. Ever since Jack fell from grace and became Hyperion’s CEO, he had no problems torturing and enslaving his own daughter, opening Angel’s eyes to how horrible Jack truly is. The bigger building and THE BUNKER were built after the events of The Pre-Sequel.
- In Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Jack is frequently stated to be a low-level programmer, but he seems to have many underlings, control over the development of Helios, and his own top floor office.
My theory: Jack was the one that proposed to have Helios built in the first place (greatly suggested by Tassiter), and its success as a Hyperion station could elevate him in rank, so his investment in it was genuine. During its construction, he was assigned control of the funds and power over its workers.
- In Borderlands 2, Moxxi claims Jack was a hotshot who threw money around to woo her, but then he destroyed her thunderdome because she cheated on him. This apparently happened before the events of The Pre-Sequel, where he doesn’t have the resources or money to make that possible.
My theory: Lines up with “Jack got power during the development of Helios.” He went crazy with his new money and power that he dated Moxxi to show off. Her cheating on him bruised his ego, so he misused his resources to get back at her.
Note: For inconsistencies with characterization between Jack as written by Anthony Burch and Jack as written by Telltale, I will defer to Burch’s Jack.
Personality:
Handsome Jack is a big, big personality. Love him or hate him, it’s hard to take your eyes off him. To his allies and loved ones, he likes to flatter and win them over. To his enemies, he’s deliberately inflammatory. To people he doesn’t care about, he’s dismissive or outright rude. Whatever his mood is, he’s likely to be chipper or comedic about it. Humor is a big part of Jack’s style. It’s dark, mean-spirited, and in-your-face. Jack is confident to the point of arrogance. The title ‘Handsome’ he put in front of his own name should be enough to gauge how narcissistic he is.
As far as his general personality goes, Jack is a force to be reckoned with. What Jack wants, Jack gets, no matter the costs. He will use any and all manipulation tactics at his disposal. In the course of the two games, Jack has used emotional manipulation, deals, threats, seduction, favors, money, and even brute force to get what he wants. Jack is efficient to a painful degree, and possesses no dignity or empathy to speak of. He takes ‘ends justifies the means’ to its most twisted conclusions.
That begs the question then: What are Handsome Jack’s goals? At his core, all Jack wants to be is a hero. Jack was unwanted by his two parents, and he’d been beaten and abused by his own grandmother. It’s no wonder Jack sees the world as unforgiving and cruel. Something to be “fixed.” This formative view may even be why he locked up and isolated his own daughter in a heavily fortified prison – he said it himself, everything she had was inside those four walls, so why did she still want to engage with a world that had hurt him?
Jack hasn’t always been a genocidal psychopath. In his younger years, Jack wasn’t above working closely with other people and listening to their input. Jack got along with his daughter better. He spoke in admiration of his co-workers, worried about the people the bad guys were hurting, and expressed open concern and admiration for the Vault Hunters he worked with. Despite his shortcomings, Jack could’ve genuinely been categorized as a good person.
The events of The Pre-Sequel did two things that made Jack the villain that he is today. First, it taught him that rules and authority only got in the way of his goals. Second, he can’t trust anybody.
Addressing the first – the dismantling of authority figures. During the events of The Pre-Sequel, Jack is frequently talked down by his boss, Tassiter. Jack tries to humor him first, but he then quickly grows glib at him, then finally, angry. Jack realizes that the only authority that has any meaning is himself. After all, he’s the only one that can get results.
The second one is a lot heavier, and severely twists his view of the world. Repeatedly, Jack is betrayed by people he’s trusted. The Meriff is the first one that does this. After his betrayal, Jack starts to fear he’s surrounded by enemies, so he kills the scientists that could’ve possibly betrayed him. Regardless of how right the decision was, it encourages Moxxi and her group to attempt to kill him later on, paranoia turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So here we have Jack at the end of The Pre-Sequel, learning that the boss he pledged loyalty to was incompetent and the people he thought were on his side considered him to be a dangerous psychopath. He has to rebuild his world view and personality in the ashes of all these awful events. What’s left?
Jack becomes an unhealthy mix of brutally efficient, vengeful, and self-righteous. Jack literally doesn’t have a conscience, but because he used to abide by normal standards of ‘goodness’, he learned to be sympathetic to other people. Now that he believes himself to be the ultimate good, he’s capable of the most inhumane atrocities because he believes he’s the good guy and the victim. Jack will never admit he’s done anything wrong, ever. He can justify everything he’s done with his own twisted logic and world view. After all, he was the one that almost got killed by the people he used to call friends. He has a right to get even and strike at them harder than they hit him. Jack neither believes in the law or in compromise. Only he has the capability of being good, fair, and impartial.
Even though he could masterfully play with other people’s weaknesses like an instrument, he’s blind to his own. He has a very tenuous grasp of empathy, and would often only be sympathetic to other people as long as it benefits him. He’s paranoid, self-centered, abusive, and sadistic. Oftentimes, he doesn’t realize how much he’s hurting the people he loves. When he doesn’t get what he wants, he’s whiney at best, angry and vindicated at worst.
Jack is often paranoid about getting hurt, and it’s possible he feels guilt, considering he laments that his good intentions ended up with him and his loved ones dead in Tales from the Borderlands, but he only feels this when he knows he’s lost. As long as he’s alive, he could still find a way to fix everything. He never gives up as long as there are still options available.
As much as possible, Jack only gets hands-on when he’s been cornered, or when he knows he can win. He’s not one for fair fights. Before the Vault Hunter could even get to him, he covered the cave leading up to him with waves of his militia and robots, then also prepared tech to help him in battle just in case they got to him. It’s apt that he has a cloaking device to hide his presence. His ideal strategy would be to stay out of the way, then reap another person’s hard work.
It goes without saying that Jack is incredibly intelligent. He’s a planner, and he could contrive the most convoluted plans just to get what he wants. He spent months assembling a team of Vault Hunters to get to the Elpis vault. He got it. He spent years taking over Pandora to awaken The Warrior. He did it. Even just in the usual sense, he’s very handy with tech.
Despite Jack’s flaws, he is actually capable of caring about other people. He might’ve abused his daughter, but it came from a place of caring. He and his girlfriend Nisha have a loving and healthy relationship as well. Nisha even admits to loving him. Jack loves to pamper his loved ones, and only lashes out when he believes they’ve trampled on his good will. It’s implied he’s beaten Angel because she helped the Vault Hunters, but even when she betrayed him, he begs her to reconsider her course of action. Jack does try to mend relationships he values, as seen with him trying to win back Athena after she leaves his company. It's perfectly possible for Jack to maintain a healthy level of respect with others as long as he can see for himself that they're competent.
Jack’s actual “goodness” is debatable, but he does strive for it, even if his version of it has been perverted and twisted by trauma. What isn’t debatable is that he has a tendency to change his surroundings, for good or for ill, and that’s the sort of energy I hope to bring with him in the RP.
Appearance:
Appearance Reference
Jack wears a mask that adjusts to his mouth and facial expression. I imagine it has the same capabilities of skin and makes up for the blindness in his left eye. Here is what he looks like without it.
Abilities:
Jack is technically a human being, but human beings in Borderlands are a bit different from regular human beings. For the purposes of the RP, he has the same needs as an average human when it comes to basic physical requirements like eating and sleeping, but he is unable to take fall damage, so he can jump off buildings with no problems. The reason I decided to keep this is because there’s dialogue in Borderlands 2 where Brick asks the Vault Hunter to jump off the building because it would look cool, and I don’t know if it’s a meta game mechanic or they really don’t get hurt by gravity, so I will err on the side of game canon and take it as a biological capability.
As for Jack himself, he’s healthy and combat competent. He has high skill in computer programming and machinery. He’s not as good as Angel or Moxxi, but he was the one that modified the Fragtrap unit, created THE BUNKER, hacked through Atlas’ systems, and programmed a better hacking program than Rhys.
Suitability: I’ll be taking Jack after his death. He’s going to be pissed as hell, but then he’ll see it as a second chance to carry out his plans and get revenge. His ultimate plan is to go back to his dimension and kill everyone who wronged him, but before he can do that, he’ll try to develop his powers and gain influence within the island. At the moment, I can see him attempting to infiltrate the criminal factions with the intention of destroying them from the inside. Or taking it for himself. Big goals, yes, but he’s an ambitious man. I want to see how far he gets.
Inventory:
x1 Pistol with 2 extra clips – A normal Hyperion-grade pistol. Let’s say 20 bullets with 2 extra clips, with each clip having 10 bullets.
x2 Energy Wrist Launchers - Two energy launchers he can strap to his wrists. It fires charged bolts or a more focused laser. It operates on a recharge time and has infinite ammo, but has a tendency to overheat.
x1 Cloaking Device - A fist-sized hexagon gadget strapped to his jacket that could cloak his presence and even make multiple holographic copies of himself to disorient people. The doppelgangers can be destroyed with one shot.
x1 Shield – A shielding device strapped to his leg that can absorb heavy fire power and melee damage directed at his body until it breaks. It can recharge back to full power when he’s not being attacked.
x1 Picture – A crumpled up picture of his daughter, Angel, at 10 years old, smiling brightly and making a peace sign at the camera.
Talent Preferences: Alteration, Destruction, and Illusion
Additional Notes: For timeline purposes, he’s familiar with the entire cast of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 2, but the presumed player characters will be Nisha the Lawbringer and Zer0 the Assassin.
• Writing Sample •