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[jackedthename]

Out of Character Information player name: Mandy
journal: tyriangalley 
playing here: uh duh.
where did you find us? ...you got dis, guys
are you 16 years of age or older?: yes :c

In Character Information

character name: Jack Harkness
Fandom: Torchwood
Timeline: Just after the end of season 2, episode 1
character's age: No one really knows, but he looks as though he’s in his late 30s-early 40s.

powers, skills, pets and equipment: Jack is immortal. Even if he gets exploded, shot, has the life force sucked out of him -- he will come back. It just depends on how bad the injury was -- if it was something like the life force thing, it’ll take a few days. He’s also got 51st century pheromones that just make him smell good. Really, really good. He’s a pretty damn decent shot with a pistol, too. ….Also he’s got a pet pterosaur at home.

canon history: Jack is from the world of Doctor Who -- which means that he’s very familiar with species, times, and places of all kinds. He is a time-traveller, sort of like the Doctor, though he does it by a different method. Due to this fact, his history is very much non-linear and somewhat muddled, no one really knows much about his past. He was born in the 51st century, a time long after humans had spread and colonized the galaxy. Jack is not technically from Earth, though he has adopted it as his second home after some complications. He was born on the Boeshane Peninsula and had a younger brother who went by the name of Gray. They spent much of their time playing cricket and singing at campfires with their father. One day, Jack’s homeland was attacked by an unknown enemy, and Jack’s father told him and Gray to run, while Jack’s father went back for his mother. Jack lost hold of his brother’s hand and continued to run, eventually returning in search of his brother. He only found his father at their home, dead.

Eventually, after a short stint in the military, he ended up joining with the Time Agency in the hopes of finding his brother, Gray -- which was a group that used humans as their agents on unspecified missions through time. They travelled with the use of time vortex manipulators worn on their wrist. Jack gained a partner, John Hart, whom he subsequently became stuck in a two-week time loop with for five years. However, eventually Jack realized that the Time Agency had stolen two years of his memories, which he wanted back. He considered this as grounds for leaving the agency, and promptly quit. Then he became a time-travelling con artist, using his knowledge of the future to his advantage. He would demand money for objects that he knew would be destroyed without giving the buyer a chance to see what they had paid for. Some time after becoming a con man, he acquired a Chula warship modified for human use, and decided to set up a base of operations in London in 1941.

After spending some time in 1941 -- and taking on the name of a recently deceased American RAF volunteer --that would be Jack Harkness, incidentally, Jack met up with and rescued a girl hanging from a barrage balloon. One look at her clothing and her accessories confirmed his suspicions that this girl was probably a Time Agent, or at the very least, another time traveller. This girl was Rose Tyler. Jack promptly chose to begin his con on Rose, telling her that a Chula warship had crashed in London and it was about to be destroyed. He began to wine and dine Rose, who took him off to find the Doctor. The Doctor, Rose, and Jack all worked together to figure out and stop the mystery of ‘the empty child’, which Jack had inadvertently caused by crashing a Chula ambulance in the middle of London, after admitting as much to the Doctor. The nanogenes contained in the ambulance had healed a dead child, but in an entirely wrong way, and would continue healing all of humanity in the image of that child. Our trio of intrepid travelers helped the child find his mummy, the nanogenes realized and fixed their mistakes, and just this once, everybody lived. Aside from the little fact that a German bomb was about to hit them -- Jack’s con had said as much, and he was telling the truth. So in order to save the day, Jack managed to hold the active bomb in a tractor beam and take it back to his ship. He had time to pour himself his very last martini, assuming he was going to blow up; before the TARDIS (the Doctor’s ship) materialized inside his ship, where he was greeted by the Doctor and Rose. He promptly became their newest companion, and proceeded to hit on both the Doctor AND Rose about five seconds after stepping in the TARDIS.

Anyway, they proceeded to have amazing crazy adventures throughout time and space, and eventually ended up in Cardiff so the TARDIS could refuel. The Doctor encountered an old enemy there, and Jack and Rose (and Mickey) helped him stop her and take her back home to the planet Raxicoricofallipatorius. After this, they made a quick stop in Kyoto in the 1600s, but were then very rudely transported out of the TARDIS and into various gameshows being filmed on Satellite 5 in the far future, which was a large satellite orbiting Earth. Jack was transported into a futuristic version of What Not to Wear, which involved him being naked on live TV and going through various outfits, at least until the droids hosting the show wanted to give him a facelift. Involving a chainsaw. Jack correctly realized that the games were basically deathtraps, promptly exploded the droid’s heads, and broke out to find the Doctor and Rose. They unfortunately reached Rose just as she was, to all appearances, disintegrated.

However, she wasn’t ACTUALLY disintegrated, but transported to a ship full of Daleks. The Doctor and Jack promptly located the TARDIS and headed for the Dalek fleet, where they saved Rose. The Daleks’ intention was to take over the planet Earth and destroy all of humanity, then turn them into more Daleks. Obviously, our intrepid trio had to stop them. So they returned to Satellite 5 to set up a giant radiation beam to stretch across the entire Dalek fleet, which would, hopefully, disintegrate all of them. To give the Doctor time to set this up, Jack and Rose decided to tinker with some things in the TARDIS and made a forcefield that would stretch down 5 floors, hopefully leading the Daleks upstairs and away from any more human casualties. The Doctor then sent Rose home in the TARDIS, having promised her mother that he would keep Rose safe. Then he and Jack continued their work, while Rose tried her hardest to open the TARDIS and send herself back to Satellite 5. Eventually she succeeded, and looked into the heart of the TARDIS, basically meaning the TARDIS and the time vortex took control of her body. Meanwhile, Jack and the Doctor were fighting for their lives, losing level after level to the Daleks. Jack was killed shortly before Rose and the TARDIS’ arrival. Once she had arrived back on the satellite, Rose/the TARDIS promptly disintegrated all the Daleks, and, in the process, unknowingly brought Jack back to life. The Doctor absorbed the power of the time vortex from Rose and brought her back to the TARDIS, where he would eventually regenerate. Jack came back to life and ran upstairs just as the TARDIS was leaving. He was abandoned by the Doctor; so it seemed the only thing to do was go back to Earth and wait for him to return to Cardiff, where the rift was. Jack knew he would be there eventually to refuel. So he used his time agency vortex manipulator and teleported back to Earth, aiming for the 20th century. Unfortunately, his manipulator wasn’t exactly correct, and he ended up in 1869, with the manipulator burnt out. He decided to stick around Cardiff and bide his time, waiting.

Jack first realized he couldn’t die in 1892 -- he was shot in the heart at Ellis Island. Presumably, some time after that, he returned to Cardiff before 1899, where he was picked up by Torchwood. Torchwood was, in essence, an organization to protect England from interstellar threats; namely, the Doctor. It was begun by Queen Victoria after an encounter with the Doctor and an alien that was suspiciously similar to a werewolf. Anyway, Torchwood had heard about ‘the man who couldn’t die’ and his connections with the Doctor, and decided to torture Jack for information. Namely, information on the Doctor and why he couldn’t die. They released him on the condition that he would then work for Torchwood, which Jack refused. He then ended up in a bar in Cardiff, where he got his fortune told. The fortune-teller accurately predicted the return of the Doctor to Cardiff in about 100 years; so Jack decided to hedge his bets and sign up with Torchwood, since he had about a century of time to kill.

While working for Torchwood, Jack encountered fairies in India. Some soldiers had killed one of the fairies’ ‘Chosen Ones’ and the fairies decided to take their revenge. Jack was rather distressed by this, but there was little he could do. He would encounter the fairies again much later, when he was working with his own Torchwood team. When World War 1 came around, Jack left Torchwood to fight in the army, and the Ninth Doctor is told in passing that ‘Captain Harkness survived a bullet to the head and is recovering in hospital.’

When World War II came around, Jack had to lay low and continue working for Torchwood, in order to avoid crossing his own timeline and adventures in 1941. However, he did have time to meet and fall in love with a woman named Estelle Cole. Eventually, they lost touch, though Jack did meet up with her again much later, pretending to be the son of Jack in the 1940s. In the 60s and 70s, there were a few encounters with an alien race called the 456. However, I will not be going into detail on these points, as they are from later in Jack’s canon than the point I am apping him from.

In the 1990s, Jack stopped by the Powell Estate (Rose Tyler’s childhood home), just to keep an eye on her. Also because he’s sort of creepy, when it comes down to it. Anyway, by this point, Jack was a full time agent for Torchwood Three, based in Cardiff. One of his fellow agents suffered a nervous breakdown and killed the staff of Torchwood Three, aside from Jack, because he knew Jack couldn’t die. The agent then proceeeded to commit suicide in front of Jack -- who then had to recruit a new staff for Cardiff’s Torchwood.

However, Jack had quite a bit of freedom in his recruitment. Torchwood One, which was based in London, had been destroyed in the Battle of Canary Wharf. Torchwood Four, on the other hand, had somehow ‘gotten lost.’ So Jack was now running Torchwood by himself, and could make changes that he felt were necessary and operate according to the Doctor’s ideals, instead of through fear and torture. Their primary objectives were still, of course, protecting the UK from interstellar threats, but also from whatever comes through the Rift. Jack rescued Toshiko Sato from prison in 2004, and in 2006 Owen Harper joined the team. At some point, Suzie Costello also joined up. He kept the team on strict lockdown when he knew his younger, mortal self would be in Cardiff with the Doctor and Rose. After the events at Canary Wharf, Ianto Jones joined the team. Jack remained hopeful that he would meet up with the Doctor, and even managed to catch the Tenth Doctor’s hand after it got cut off during a fight with the Sycorax. During this fight, Torchwood was ordered to destroy the Sycorax’s ship by the current Prime Minister, Harriet Jones. Jack kept the Doctor’s hand in a jar and used it as his ‘Doctor detector’, keeping it in the Torchwood Hub for easy reach. (Like I said. He’s kinda creepy.)

Shortly after this, Jack’s second-in-command, Suzie Costello, exposed herself as a serial murderer. (She was attempting to learn how to use a resurrection glove the team had managed to pick up.) She then shot herself and Jack as well. But, Jack being immortal, he quickly came back. He then recruited a young police officer, Gwen Cooper, for Suzie’s spot on the Torchwood team. Jack trained Gwen in how to deal with aliens and proper weapon handling, and Gwen quickly became his second-in-command. He was always very private, revealing little of his past to any members of his team. Gwen was the first to know about his immortality, simply because she was there when Suzie shot him. Jack being Jack, though, he also pursued relationships with his team members -- keeping it mostly flirtatious with Gwen, and a bit more physical with Ianto. He was always very compassionate when he felt like showing it, especially for innocent bystanders who were caught up in Torchwood’s missions. When they had to deal with some people who had accidentally fallen through the Rift from 1953, Jack pursued a friendship with a few of the members, sharing a little of his past experiences. He was quite a capable and efficient leader, even if he showed a bit more ruthlessness at times than the Doctor would have approved of. (Sometimes it’s necessary, when you are up against cannibals and your team is in danger.) At one point, while investigating a seemingly abandoned dance hall, Jack and Tosh fell through the Rift and ended up in 1941.

This time, however, Jack was in Cardiff, and he managed to meet up with the very man he had stolen the name ‘Captain Jack Harkness’ from. While Jack was in the process of becoming friends with (and romancing) the real Jack, his teammates back at the Hub were trying to open the Rift to get Jack and Tosh back to the present time. Owen and Ianto disagreed on how to do this, but Owen ended up opening the Rift. By doing this, he set free a demon that was trapped underneath the Rift, and inadvertently began the ‘end of days’. The Earth was panicking, being flooded by aliens, demons, and people from different time periods -- like medieval England, Roman times, even carriers of the Black Death. Torchwood was trying to keep it contained without much success, until they managed to find out what exactly the demon, Abaddon, was coming for. It was coming to take the life forces of the world -- and who better to give him a feast than the man who can’t die? Jack said his goodbyes to his team members, paused to give Ianto a very thorough kiss; and had Gwen drive him off to an open space on the outskirts of Cardiff, where he faced off with Abaddon. Abaddon promptly attempted to leech Jack of his life force, which ended up in Abaddon collapsing and Jack remaining dead for three days. He was eventually revived back at the Hub by a kiss from Gwen. Shortly after this, he heard a very familiar sound. In fact, it was the sound he had been waiting for for more than a century. It was the sound of the TARDIS engines. Jack didn’t even pause, he grabbed the Doctor’s hand and raced towards the TARDIS, which was stopping to refuel in Cardiff again.

However, the Doctor saw Jack coming and took off, since the TARDIS does not exactly like Jack anymore, now that he is a fact in time and can’t die. Jack was not about to let this stop him; he jumped onto the TARDIS as it was taking off, and managed to stay on throughout the entire trip through the time vortex. They eventually landed in the year 100 trillion, and the Doctor and Martha Jones, his current companion, found Jack dead outside the TARDIS. He quickly returned to life, and managed to flirt with Martha about five seconds after doing so. The Doctor and Jack had a rather awkward reunion, in which Jack found out why the Doctor abandoned him, and that Rose Tyler was still alive, but in another universe. He did not, though, actually forgive the Doctor, but that’s another story. They met up with a man named Professor Yana, and helped him to complete a spaceship that would, supposedly, take the last remnants of humanity to Utopia. Unfortunately, Professor Yana was actually the Master, disguised as a human by the use of the Chameleon Arch -- and he turned back into the Master after opening a fob watch. The Master regenerated and stole the TARDIS, returning to Earth and leaving Jack, the Doctor, and Martha at the end of the universe, under attack.

They managed to escape that with the help of Jack’s vortex manipulator, which put them back on Earth a few days after they had left, much to Jack’s surprise. This was due to a little extra help from the Doctor, who had modified the manipulator with his sonic screwdriver. In their absence, the Master had taken on the name of ‘Harold Saxon’ and been elected Prime Minister. He was plotting to turn Earth into the new Time Lord empire, and obviously, he could not have the Doctor and his companions interfering with his plans. Jack, the Doctor, and Martha were named as public enemies numbers one, two, and three. They were eventually captured and brought aboard the Master’s appropriated ship, the Valiant, and Jack and the Doctor were held captive. The Doctor told Martha to escape using the manipulator and walk the earth, telling humanity his story, so they could eventually defeat the Master’s psychic blocks he had placed over the whole of humanity. The Doctor was aged 100 years by the use of the Master’s handy laser screwdriver, and Jack was chained up to the Valiant’s engines and tortured. Both Jack and the Doctor were kept prisoner for a year -- ‘The Year that Never Was’.

One year later, Martha let herself get captured again, after she had told everyone she could about the Doctor’s instructions. She, Jack, and the Doctor gained control of the Valiant by having the whole of humanity think the Doctor’s name at one certain point, effectively breaking the Master’s psychic hold over the planet. Jack destroyed the paradox machine that the Master had used in his plot, and in doing so fixed and freed the TARDIS. As a result of this, time reverted one year, and only the people that were aboard the Valiant remembered ‘the Year that Never Was’. Just after this, the Master was shot (by ‘Harold Saxon’s’ wife, Lucy,) and died in the Doctor’s arms, refusing to regenerate. Jack, the Doctor, and Martha returned to Earth, and the Doctor FINALLY gave Jack the opportunity to travel with him again. Jack refused, though, saying he had had a year to think about things, and he had a responsibility to his team at Torchwood. After worrying about what exactly he would look like in a million years, and informing the Doctor and Martha he used to be called ‘the Face of Boe’ back home -- Jack salutes the both of them and returns to the Hub and Torchwood Three.

personality: First and foremost, Jack Harkness is a man of mystery. He likes it that way, and actively encourages his mysteriousness. Not even the Doctor knows a lot about who he is, which is saying something. There are, however, a few constants. He is an incorrigible flirt -- Jack is, in a word, omnisexual. He will hit on anyone and anything, including the Doctor, who is very much (in theory) not into dating his companions. Before the Doctor, he generally played the role of the mysterious conman, never staying in one place for very long and keeping his own safety as the most important thing in his life. As he put it, when in Pompeii, he always made sure to ‘get out before volcano day.’ Jack does, however, have a fondness for Earth in both the 20th and 21st centuries, which is one of the reasons why he’s stayed there so long.

As stated, prior to his meeting with the Doctor, Jack was basically concentrating on himself -- the need to stay alive, get out, and make money. Maybe to actually find his brother, but primarily his was a selfish existence. He’d lie, cheat, and steal to make ends meet -- still will, if it works to his advantage. To those who don’t look close, Jack is incapable of taking anything seriously, though he is a very confident and capable leader. He enjoys being in charge -- there’s a reason the identity he appropriated was a ‘Captain’. He may not be the best leader or make the smartest choices, but he is a natural-born leader and knows it. He is irreverent to a ridiculous degree, choosing to flirt with various people in the midst of Dalek attacks and/or share stories about sexual encounters at the point of death. He enjoys flirting with danger and most anything else that comes along. Jack has a talent for empathy, though he has been used to using this talent as a weapon, to understand people and use them to get what he wants. The Doctor helped him turn that around and start opening up a little bit, learn how to be a good person again.

The Doctor made him see that the human race, the Earth was worth fighting for. Jack has a huge capacity to love -- that much is evident in his love of flirting/sex/anything involved with it. He loves humans, he (much later) loves his Torchwood team, and he’s desperately in love with the Doctor, even if he prefers to (usually) keep it to himself. This is sometimes a liability, but Jack will do anything to help the people he cares about. This love makes him loyal to a fault -- even when most people would expect him to escape, save himself and damn the rest, he will return, despite all odds. He remembers everyone he’s ever cared about and worked with, and will do whatever he can to help them, including dying. When you’re Jack, though, dying is only a temporary setback. His team and friends come first, no matter what. He would happily define himself as a hero, though not one who plays by the rules.

why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting? He deals with monsters on a pretty much constant basis in canon, whether they’re human or non-human. I’d also enjoy having him poke around with various people to see if he can find a way out. If we end up getting a bit of a Torchwood cast (I am ever hopeful), he would probably attempt to start up a Torchwood: Anatole. Or maybe he’d just join the patrol.

Writing Samples
Network Post Sample: [The person on the other end of the Forge is obviously familiar with this kind of technology. He’s looking a bit impressed at the vague dated-ness of it all, but in any case? His tone means business.]

Right. This is the second or third time in a year I’ve been unexpectedly whisked somewhere I really don’t have the time to be. Anyone want to tell me how to get back to Cardiff? I have a feeling if I don’t get back soon enough, my team will probably kill me. [A pause, then a reflective smile.]

They might anyway, actually. So. Whoever’s in charge around here? I’m Jack Harkness, and I’m going to find you and get home, any way I have to.

Third Person Sample: This was perplexing. He had been in Cardiff, they’d just sent John back off to wherever he’d come from -- and good riddance, too, the man was always more trouble than Jack would like. But now he was here, and this place didn’t appear to be anything remotely like Cardiff. Clearly an inspection would be in order, once he figured out where he was. He rose from the cot he was currently mulling things over on, craning his neck to peer out the window.

Well. Certainly not a modern city, then, but it wasn’t often that he ran into an enemy that could transport him in both time and space. He couldn’t even blame that on Rift activity. There was only one group he’d faced that could do that, and to be frank, it still chilled him to the core every single time he thought of a dalek. At first glance, this city appeared to be a bit too old-fashioned for Jack to even consider the thought of a dalek presence -- but there were odd bits of machinery. Including that device sitting by his bed.

The first thing to do, obviously, was find out where and when he was, then see who was in charge of this place -- and if anything else similar had happened. He’d probably end up improvising from there, unless some of the locals had a plan. So he sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the device, frowning thoughtfully at it. It almost made him wish his wrist strap hadn’t been deactivated, then at least he would have the knowledge that his conversations would be secure. Oh, well, nothing to do for it. So he cleared his throat and began to speak. “Right. This is the second or third time in a year that I’ve been whisked somewhere I really don’t have the time to be.”

Anything else? He is an awful person, just giving you fair warning.