Jim Hawkins (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
knowsitsreal) wrote2011-01-15 01:04 am
knowsitsreal) wrote2011-01-15 01:04 am
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1jobonthisship
AIM/IM: girlwonder004 @ aim
E-mail: isthereair@gmail.com
Other Characters:batmanschmatman, inhistorybooks
Character Name: James Pleiades Hawkins. Just call him Jim.
Series: Treasure Planet
Age: 18
From When?: Three years after the voyage to Treasure Planet
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Jim's a good kid, currently enrolled in the Interstellar Naval Academy, and he's here to get Mr. Arrow back because he still feels responsible for his death, even if it wasn't his fault. Oh, and he's pretty into the whole 'redemption' thing in that his father figure is/was. you know. a pirate.
Item: The map.
Abilities/Powers: Jim is pretty athletic, and as such can pull his own weight in just about any circumstance, although considering he's still sort of on the smaller side of things, he usually relies more on speed and agility then physical strength in confrontations with others. From life before and after working on the Legacy, he's got considerable skill in knot tying, food preparation and general things that help a ship run smoothly. This generally centers around stuff he learned as a cabin boy, but he's also quite skilled in piloting small crafts (like longboats) and has been working with mechanics since he was a kid. He's built several functioning solar surfers out of scrap material and as such is pretty talented at working with, fixing and designing vehicles, even managing to get Captain Flint's long abandoned ship running again as Treasure Planet started self destructing. He's good at improvising even in high stress situations, and has had experience with handguns, although admittedly, these are more particle weapons then traditional pistols/rifles/etc.
Personality: Jim has baggage, and this used to be pretty obvious to the outside observer. Of course, this isn't to say that he'd tell everyone he ran into about his sob story home life or anything like that, but from his general attitude towards the universe and the people in it, he was pretty clearly damaged goods. On top of that, he was sort of stuck in a rut of not really knowing what to do with himself and in general feeling really out of place in the world, sort of stuck between being a kid and actually making the break to adulthood, even if sometimes he feels very mature and like he clearly knows what’s the best thing for him to be doing. He was moody and unpredictable around the people who know and cared about him (basically, his mother), a little socially withdrawn and really hurting inside. This hurt had turned into pretty extreme bitterness towards just about everything, and as such, he was quick to snap at others and just as quick to stomp off and sulk about whatever it was that was bothering him. He had an incredibly low sense of self worth, and honestly felt like he was going nowhere fast.
Recently, within the last couple years, this attitude has almost completely turned around. While still not necessarily the most chatty, friendly individual in the universe, his time on the Legacy really helped boost his self confidence. He doesn’t feel completely lost anymore, and actually has started to think more positively about the future. As such, he’s much more willing to open up to other people, and spends a lot less time actively trying to force others away from him with biting sarcasm. He still has these tendencies, especially if his buttons are pushed, but it is no longer a defining part of every social interaction he has.
Even though over the years his grades in school have been pretty routinely abysmal, it’s always been pretty clear to anyone who knows him that he’s actually quite (maybe even incredibly) bright. When he’s interested in a subject, he absorbs the information happily, retains it, and can apply it under pretty much any circumstance, although he’s not above feigning indifference or outright contempt for the subject if his knowledge is questioned. It’s easier to deny that it was important to him than to accept failure sometimes, as he does take failure personally and hard. However, he does and will rise to the challenge or critique of others if whatever it is important enough to him, and is generally successful when he actually applies himself to a task. He especially excels at building and fixing things, and built his first solar surfer when he was eight.
And despite the fact that he’s usually been labeled a trouble maker because of his past run ins with the law, Jim really isn’t a bad kid. Troubled? Definitely. But bad? Not so much. He really cares about his mother, and if he knows he hasn’t always been the best son to her, and really, deep down, is a genuinely good person. He can get excited and interested in things just like any other human being, and even if he doesn’t always think things through, he is always well intentioned.
Jim has always been someone who leaps without looking, and while acting instinctively isn’t always a bad thing, this has often gotten him into trouble. He doesn’t really know how to pick his fights, and as such often ends up in over his head. In the face of much larger opponents, he won’t back down and will even cleverly shoot some obnoxious comments their way if the situation really calls for it. This all probably means he’s incredibly reckless, and although Jim might protest that particular label for the sake of making sure his mom doesn’t flip out at him or anything like that, it’s pretty much the truth. It's maybe calmed down a little as he's gotten older, but his general attitude is to react first and think about it later. And really, one can’t really argue about someone sticking by their morals (which Jim does definitely have) no matter what gets thrown at them, and in that sense, Jim definitely isn’t a bad person to have on your side during a fight. It’s probably safe to call him brave, and he can be incredibly stubborn.
And while it’s true that his time working on the Legacy and the whole Treasure Planet incident has helped smooth over some of these issues, Jim is still pretty vulnerable. There are certain triggers that can really send him spiraling into the pit of despair, key among them feeling like he’s really screwed something up and general abandonment. Although again, Jim is not out to please everyone he runs into, he does look for the approval of the people he cares about, and, considering it’s a big deal for him to open up to someone, being betrayed or abandoned by them is a major fear and trigger for him.
Although he isn’t the most patient person in the entire world, Jim isn’t outright cruel either, and as such can put up with just about anyone if he really has to. Of course, this might be accompanied with some huffing and eye rolling, but he definitely has the potential to warm up to people over time, especially now that he’s a little less surly in general. He’s also always found it easier to get along with kids than adults, although again, this is starting to get a little easier now that he’s more comfortable with the idea of the future and what exactly he plans on doing with himself. His sense of humor is biting and witty, and although by no means is he a complete laugh riot to be around, this really characterizes his general speech quite well, in that in just about any circumstance he’s ready with a quasi obnoxious comment.
Path to Redemption: -----------------
History: To understand Jim Hawkins, it’s best to begin with his parents. Leland Hawkins met Sarah went they were both young, and the two fell in love quickly. They were sure that this was what they wanted, even though pretty much everyone around them warned the young couple that they were awfully young to be making these sort of decisions, and so when Leland was twenty and Sarah seventeen, the two got married. Not long afterwards, Sarah found out she was pregnant, and Leland got a job working as a miner. It was really the only thing someone on Montressor could do to make a living - as it was, after all, a mining planet, and for a while, things didn’t seem to be all that bad. But pretty much as soon as their son, Jim, was born, it became clear to Leland that this wasn’t really what he wanted at all, and being tied down to this stupid planet with a low paying job and a wife and kid just wasn’t really working out for him. Of course, he tried to make it work, but things were tough for the small family. Leland would spend more and more time away from home, which put a huge strain on his relationship with Sarah.
As for Jim, all he ever wanted was his father’s love and attention. He would always go out of his way to try and make sure he was doing stuff to make his dad proud and happy, because maybe if he liked Jim more, he’d stay home more often. He would stay up late with his mom watching out the window, waiting for any sign of when his dad was coming back. He cherished every moment he had with his father, no matter how brief, and if Leland thought to pick up something for him on the way home from work, no matter how battered or worn the toy was, the kid loved it because it came from his dad. Still, he was a smart kid, and he could tell things weren’t really good, and hadn’t been for a long time.
When he was around eight, it started getting harder to ignore that something was wrong. Even if he tried to ignore it or pretend like he wasn’t listening, he knew things were getting bad. His parents fought a lot, mostly about how Leland was never home and there never seemed to be enough money to really live the life he seemed to want, and then, one morning, Jim woke up to the sound of the front door slamming and just knew something was wrong. He looked out the window to his bedroom and saw his dad walking down the road towards a small boat tied to the dock, a bag over his shoulder, and Jim immediately rushed down the stairs to find his mother sobbing at the kitchen table. Struggling to cope with what he was seeing, Jim raced out the front door and, struggling not to just completely lose it and burst into tears, ran after his dad, tripping over his own feet in his desperation to catch up to him. Just as Jim made it to the end of the dock, the ship Leland had boarded was zooming off to parts unknown. Leland would never be seen by his family again.
Sarah picked herself up as best she could, bravely soldiering on without her husband. She turned their home into an inn in an attempt to keep the family afloat, and it became pretty clear that she was going to do just fine without her husband. She was still struggling to make ends meet, yes, but she could and would make it work.
Jim, on the other hand, was never really the same. The once friendly and eager to please child became sullen and withdrawn, and pretty quickly started acting out. Jim blamed himself for what happened, and couldn’t help but think that if he had maybe run a little faster, if he had just caught up to him, Leland wouldn’t have left. Or, ignoring that, if he had just been a better son, maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to leave in the first place. Although he’d always been smart (particularly when it came to things like building stuff), his grades started nose diving, he was almost constantly in trouble (with teachers, classmates, the police...), and made an effort to completely distance himself from just about everyone, preferring to go through life moody and alone rather than dealing with the hurt.
The day when everything really changed started out just like almost every other. Jim had been caught operating his solar surfer in a restricted area by the police, which was violating his probation and pretty much his last strike. One more offense and he would be off to juvenile hall. After getting another exasperated lecture from his mother about how she didn’t want to see him throw away his entire future, Jim retreated to the roof for some time alone. This was first interrupted by hearing his mother discuss his problems with her good friend Dr. Delbert Doppler, and then any chance of just sulking by himself was interrupted when a space ship crash landed on the dock near the inn. Jim jumped off the roof and went to investigate. The badly injured and apparently very sick captain of the battered vessel began ranting about a cyborg that was after something in his trunk, and Jim helped him back to the inn. Not long after they got inside the building, Billy Bones collapsed and opened the trunk, shoving a package into the teenager’s hands before succumbing to his injuries.
And if that wasn’t strange enough, almost immediately the inn was suddenly under attack by pirates. Jim, Sarah and Doppler fled to the upstairs and made their escape in Doppler’s carriage. The pirates set the building on fire, and Sarah watched in horror as her home burned. It seemed like a lot of effort for a strange little gold sphere, and back at Doppler’s mansion, the scholar remarked that it would probably take years to figure out exactly what it was. But, in about three seconds, Jim’s fiddling around with it managed to unlock the mechanism, which turned out to be a holographic map of the universe, leading to one specific location: Treasure Planet.
Ever since Jim was a kid, he was fascinated by the legendary Loot of a Thousand Worlds, and even though most other people wrote it off as nothing more than a myth, he’d always believed that it was actually out there somewhere. Sure, those ideas had been pushed aside a little as he’d gotten older, but now once again he was immediately convinced that this was the answer to all their problems. Sarah was skeptical, but after some reassuring words from Doppler, she agreed to let the two go off on a voyage to investigate.
Jim and Doppler traveled to Monstressor Spaceport, and headed off with the crew of the R.L.S. Legacy to find the legendary planet. Jim was put under the care of the ships cook John Silver as a cabin boy, and upon meeting the cook, he was immediately suspicious, as the man was actually a cyborg, just like Billy Bones had warned him about. It all seemed a little coincidental, but Silver had a point in saying that there were a lot of cyborgs hanging around this spaceport, so after the initial reaction of distrust, he didn’t think too much of it.
The voyage started off uneventfully, for the most part. Jim managed to make a new archenemy in Scroop within a few hours of leaving port, and Silver pretty quickly started putting the boy to work. Although initially incredibly resistant and defiant, Jim stepped up to Silver’s challenges and was pretty much the best damn cabin boy they could have asked for. Eventually, he found himself warming up to Silver too, and the two became less like adversaries and more like mentor and protégé, a role that Jim accepted happily.
While continuing on their voyage, a nearby star went supernova and began to devolve into a black hole. Jim was charged with making sure the lifelines of the crew were secured, and although the teenager made sure they were, Scroop cut the first mate’s line, and Mr. Arrow plummeted to his death. Jim blamed himself for what had happened, not knowing about Scroop’s treachery, and the fragile sense of self confidence he had managed to build over the last several weeks shattered. But, with some reassuring words from Silver, he was able to pull himself together and keep going along.
Unfortunately, the next morning things really went to hell. While goofing around with Morph, Jim overheard Silver and the other members of the crew plotting a mutiny. Feeling incredibly betrayed, especially when Silver said that he had only gotten close to Jim in an attempt to keep him off his scent, Jim rushed to tell the captain and Doppler about what he’d overheard, damaging Silver’s cyborg leg in the process. The three non pirate members of the crew managed to escape to the planet, but Morph disguised himself as the map, and as such, the real device was still back on the ship. In their less than perfect landing on the planet, Captain Amelia was injured, and Jim was sent ahead to scout for a safe place to hide from the pirates. He stumbled upon a marooned robot named B.E.N., who offered up his home as a shelter. After a parlaying session with Silver went south, with Jim asserting that Silver would never seen one drubloon of his treasure, Jim, B.E.N. and Morph returned to the Legacy to retrieve the map.
After narrowly escaping death on the ship, Jim returned to see that Silver had found the captain and Doppler, and was forced into unlocking the map for him. The pirates, Jim and B.E.N. made their way to the location of the treasure, and discovered that it was actually housed in the core of the planet itself. While trying to find a way to escape without Silver, Jim discovered B.E.N.’s missing memory chip in the skeletal hands of Captain Flint, and B.E.N.’s restored memories revealed that the planet was going to self destruct. Jim sent him back to help the captain and Doppler, while he stayed and tried to get Flint’s ship working again. Most of the pirates fled, but Silver saw what Jim was up to and went to confront him. Right as it seemed like Jim was going to be either murdered by Silver or forced to hurt him instead, a blast knocked the ship sideways and Jim tumbled off, finally catching himself on a small ledge of the collapsing core walls. Silver tried to hold on to the treasure filled ship, but realized that he couldn’t save Jim and the ship, and in a moment proving his true character, he grabbed the teenager before he plummeted to his death. The two caught up with the remaining crewmembers and went to escape the exploding planet.
… Only to have their mizzen sails destroyed by debris. Without them, they wouldn’t be able to clear the planet’s explosion in time, and Jim quickly came up with a plan. Throwing together a makeshift solar surfer, he convinced Doppler to turn the ship back towards the portal, and took off to change the location it opened on to. It was a narrow escape, but Jim managed to get them back to Montressor Spaceport safely. So, things were looking good. They’d survived, Amelia offered him a recommendation to the Interstellar Naval Academy and he was really feeling a lot better about himself. He noticed one face was absent from the group, and immediately headed down to the last long boat they had left. As he expected, Silver was there, trying to make his escape. Considering the pirate had shown that he really did care about Jim, enough to even give up his lifelong obsession, any resentment of the man he’d come to think of as a father figure was pretty much gone, and as such, Jim helped him escape. The two tearfully parted ways, and Jim returned home.
So, while he didn’t have amazing riches or anything like that, Jim really felt like a better person. He was planning on attending the Naval Academy, and rebuilding the inn was officially in progress, and really, things were looking great.
Three years later, and Jim's a dedicated if still sort of moody student at the Academy, learning the ins and outs of protocol and procedure and all that. Repairs are still underway at the Benbow, and overall, life's looking pretty good for the teenager, if, you know... kind of boring. It's not that he minded being at the Academy - because really, it was pretty cool - but after the Treasure Planet expedition, he kind of was looking for something more exciting.
So, enter the admiral and the offer to make a deal, and here we are.
Sample Journal Entry:
[There's a couple seconds of silence as Jim turns on the audio function. The journal's more different then advanced compared to the stuff back home, but also... not really. So it's been an interesting thing to start messing around with.]
Uh, is this thing on? [And there's some more fiddling with the journal. It's probably a good thing Jim's always been good with technology and taking things apart, so this really isn't too hard to figure out, and eventually he gets the video function working, looking into the curiously.] Huh. This is... definitely different, I guess.
[And then the screen is invaded by a very excitable looking... thing, that can really only be described as a floating pink blob with eyes, which is excitedly chattering "definitely different, definitely different" as the teenager tries to get control of the journal back.]
Morph, knock it off, don't do that -
[The camera turns away for a moment, and there's a couple seconds of muffled bargaining with the creature before Jim turns the camera back on him, looking a little embarrassed. Or maybe just awkward. He's never really been great with this introducing himself thing.]
Uh, I'm Jim. Guess I'm one of the new kids the Admiral picked up.
So, this kind of stuff - [He gestures for a second.] The journals, I mean, run of the mill for everyone else or... what?
Sample RP:
Putting the Benbow back together hadn’t been an easy project to get off the ground. Not that Jim had really expected it to be, but in any case, the whole thing was starting to give him one hell of a headache. While the gold and jewels Silver had managed to smuggle out of the treasure room had given them more than enough money for rebuilding, first there was the issue of what it was going to look like, then who they were going to order the materials from, then whether or not they should be hiring someone to start putting things together, and at this point, Jim knew way more about how to build a building than he ever would have expected he would. And somehow he’d been talked into actually helping put the thing together himself, which was why at the moment, he was kneeling on a somewhat rickety looking scaffolding almost forty feet off the ground trying to hammer nails into a supporting beam. He'd gotten a lot better at it, after sort of mangling his hands the first couple days, and honestly? He definitely preferred boats and solar surfers to putting up walls.
A voice called from below - his mom - reminding him of something. He waved it off, still distracted by the beam he was supposed to be hammering into place, trying to mark where the nails would be going, not really paying attention to whatever she was saying.
“Yeah, I got it, Mom.”
Whatever it was, it wasn't important, and she'd been nagging him all day to remember to do this or that or the other thing, and he just wanted to get this done before the sun went down. The project was never going to get done if he didn't get to actually put in the work for it.
So he was sort of surprised when the familiar slight squeaking and loud, slightly grating voice of B.E.N. suddenly interrupted his focus, and he looked over to see the robot climbing up the side of the scaffolding, chattering basically aimlessly, and the teenager couldn't suppress an eye roll as he tried to get back focused on the task at hand, muttering a "Yeah, that's great B.E.N." to at least make it look like he was paying attention.
But once again he was interrupted by said chatty android slipping and almost tumbling over the side of the scaffolding. And while yes, B.E.N. was technically an artificial life form, a fall from that height would still do damage and anyone who tried to make the argument that he wasn't a sentient being clearly didn't know the guy very well. Fortunately, the teenager's reflexes were good, and he reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder before he plummeted over the edge.
"B.E.N., geez!" he said, dragging the android back up to safety on the scaffolding, frustration and concern evident in his voice. “You’ve gotta be more careful.”
Special Notes: Based on the timeline established in the video game sequel (where Jim is twenty and a graduate of the academy), I'd place the events of the final scene (with the completed Benbow Inn and Doppler and Amelia's infant kids) at at least two to four years after the actual plot of the film, since I sincerely doubt that Doppler and Amelia hopped off the ship, got married and had kids within a couple months, plus Jim's appearance at the end is generally accepted to be a 'hooray I graduated' moment then a 'hooray I got into school' moment. So, Jim is from before the final scene of the movie, but still three years older then he is for most of the film. /ramble.
Morph is coming too, assuming that's okay with you lovely mods. If not, let me know. <3
Oh, and people who would notice this kind of thing might realize that he sounds/looks a little like a teenaged counterpart of our resident JoGos because of the whole JGL voice acting/character design inspiration thing and all that. Sorry guys. xD
User LJ:
1jobonthisship AIM/IM: girlwonder004 @ aim
E-mail: isthereair@gmail.com
Other Characters:
batmanschmatman, inhistorybooks Character Name: James Pleiades Hawkins. Just call him Jim.
Series: Treasure Planet
Age: 18
From When?: Three years after the voyage to Treasure Planet
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Jim's a good kid, currently enrolled in the Interstellar Naval Academy, and he's here to get Mr. Arrow back because he still feels responsible for his death, even if it wasn't his fault. Oh, and he's pretty into the whole 'redemption' thing in that his father figure is/was. you know. a pirate.
Item: The map.
Abilities/Powers: Jim is pretty athletic, and as such can pull his own weight in just about any circumstance, although considering he's still sort of on the smaller side of things, he usually relies more on speed and agility then physical strength in confrontations with others. From life before and after working on the Legacy, he's got considerable skill in knot tying, food preparation and general things that help a ship run smoothly. This generally centers around stuff he learned as a cabin boy, but he's also quite skilled in piloting small crafts (like longboats) and has been working with mechanics since he was a kid. He's built several functioning solar surfers out of scrap material and as such is pretty talented at working with, fixing and designing vehicles, even managing to get Captain Flint's long abandoned ship running again as Treasure Planet started self destructing. He's good at improvising even in high stress situations, and has had experience with handguns, although admittedly, these are more particle weapons then traditional pistols/rifles/etc.
Personality: Jim has baggage, and this used to be pretty obvious to the outside observer. Of course, this isn't to say that he'd tell everyone he ran into about his sob story home life or anything like that, but from his general attitude towards the universe and the people in it, he was pretty clearly damaged goods. On top of that, he was sort of stuck in a rut of not really knowing what to do with himself and in general feeling really out of place in the world, sort of stuck between being a kid and actually making the break to adulthood, even if sometimes he feels very mature and like he clearly knows what’s the best thing for him to be doing. He was moody and unpredictable around the people who know and cared about him (basically, his mother), a little socially withdrawn and really hurting inside. This hurt had turned into pretty extreme bitterness towards just about everything, and as such, he was quick to snap at others and just as quick to stomp off and sulk about whatever it was that was bothering him. He had an incredibly low sense of self worth, and honestly felt like he was going nowhere fast.
Recently, within the last couple years, this attitude has almost completely turned around. While still not necessarily the most chatty, friendly individual in the universe, his time on the Legacy really helped boost his self confidence. He doesn’t feel completely lost anymore, and actually has started to think more positively about the future. As such, he’s much more willing to open up to other people, and spends a lot less time actively trying to force others away from him with biting sarcasm. He still has these tendencies, especially if his buttons are pushed, but it is no longer a defining part of every social interaction he has.
Even though over the years his grades in school have been pretty routinely abysmal, it’s always been pretty clear to anyone who knows him that he’s actually quite (maybe even incredibly) bright. When he’s interested in a subject, he absorbs the information happily, retains it, and can apply it under pretty much any circumstance, although he’s not above feigning indifference or outright contempt for the subject if his knowledge is questioned. It’s easier to deny that it was important to him than to accept failure sometimes, as he does take failure personally and hard. However, he does and will rise to the challenge or critique of others if whatever it is important enough to him, and is generally successful when he actually applies himself to a task. He especially excels at building and fixing things, and built his first solar surfer when he was eight.
And despite the fact that he’s usually been labeled a trouble maker because of his past run ins with the law, Jim really isn’t a bad kid. Troubled? Definitely. But bad? Not so much. He really cares about his mother, and if he knows he hasn’t always been the best son to her, and really, deep down, is a genuinely good person. He can get excited and interested in things just like any other human being, and even if he doesn’t always think things through, he is always well intentioned.
Jim has always been someone who leaps without looking, and while acting instinctively isn’t always a bad thing, this has often gotten him into trouble. He doesn’t really know how to pick his fights, and as such often ends up in over his head. In the face of much larger opponents, he won’t back down and will even cleverly shoot some obnoxious comments their way if the situation really calls for it. This all probably means he’s incredibly reckless, and although Jim might protest that particular label for the sake of making sure his mom doesn’t flip out at him or anything like that, it’s pretty much the truth. It's maybe calmed down a little as he's gotten older, but his general attitude is to react first and think about it later. And really, one can’t really argue about someone sticking by their morals (which Jim does definitely have) no matter what gets thrown at them, and in that sense, Jim definitely isn’t a bad person to have on your side during a fight. It’s probably safe to call him brave, and he can be incredibly stubborn.
And while it’s true that his time working on the Legacy and the whole Treasure Planet incident has helped smooth over some of these issues, Jim is still pretty vulnerable. There are certain triggers that can really send him spiraling into the pit of despair, key among them feeling like he’s really screwed something up and general abandonment. Although again, Jim is not out to please everyone he runs into, he does look for the approval of the people he cares about, and, considering it’s a big deal for him to open up to someone, being betrayed or abandoned by them is a major fear and trigger for him.
Although he isn’t the most patient person in the entire world, Jim isn’t outright cruel either, and as such can put up with just about anyone if he really has to. Of course, this might be accompanied with some huffing and eye rolling, but he definitely has the potential to warm up to people over time, especially now that he’s a little less surly in general. He’s also always found it easier to get along with kids than adults, although again, this is starting to get a little easier now that he’s more comfortable with the idea of the future and what exactly he plans on doing with himself. His sense of humor is biting and witty, and although by no means is he a complete laugh riot to be around, this really characterizes his general speech quite well, in that in just about any circumstance he’s ready with a quasi obnoxious comment.
Path to Redemption: -----------------
History: To understand Jim Hawkins, it’s best to begin with his parents. Leland Hawkins met Sarah went they were both young, and the two fell in love quickly. They were sure that this was what they wanted, even though pretty much everyone around them warned the young couple that they were awfully young to be making these sort of decisions, and so when Leland was twenty and Sarah seventeen, the two got married. Not long afterwards, Sarah found out she was pregnant, and Leland got a job working as a miner. It was really the only thing someone on Montressor could do to make a living - as it was, after all, a mining planet, and for a while, things didn’t seem to be all that bad. But pretty much as soon as their son, Jim, was born, it became clear to Leland that this wasn’t really what he wanted at all, and being tied down to this stupid planet with a low paying job and a wife and kid just wasn’t really working out for him. Of course, he tried to make it work, but things were tough for the small family. Leland would spend more and more time away from home, which put a huge strain on his relationship with Sarah.
As for Jim, all he ever wanted was his father’s love and attention. He would always go out of his way to try and make sure he was doing stuff to make his dad proud and happy, because maybe if he liked Jim more, he’d stay home more often. He would stay up late with his mom watching out the window, waiting for any sign of when his dad was coming back. He cherished every moment he had with his father, no matter how brief, and if Leland thought to pick up something for him on the way home from work, no matter how battered or worn the toy was, the kid loved it because it came from his dad. Still, he was a smart kid, and he could tell things weren’t really good, and hadn’t been for a long time.
When he was around eight, it started getting harder to ignore that something was wrong. Even if he tried to ignore it or pretend like he wasn’t listening, he knew things were getting bad. His parents fought a lot, mostly about how Leland was never home and there never seemed to be enough money to really live the life he seemed to want, and then, one morning, Jim woke up to the sound of the front door slamming and just knew something was wrong. He looked out the window to his bedroom and saw his dad walking down the road towards a small boat tied to the dock, a bag over his shoulder, and Jim immediately rushed down the stairs to find his mother sobbing at the kitchen table. Struggling to cope with what he was seeing, Jim raced out the front door and, struggling not to just completely lose it and burst into tears, ran after his dad, tripping over his own feet in his desperation to catch up to him. Just as Jim made it to the end of the dock, the ship Leland had boarded was zooming off to parts unknown. Leland would never be seen by his family again.
Sarah picked herself up as best she could, bravely soldiering on without her husband. She turned their home into an inn in an attempt to keep the family afloat, and it became pretty clear that she was going to do just fine without her husband. She was still struggling to make ends meet, yes, but she could and would make it work.
Jim, on the other hand, was never really the same. The once friendly and eager to please child became sullen and withdrawn, and pretty quickly started acting out. Jim blamed himself for what happened, and couldn’t help but think that if he had maybe run a little faster, if he had just caught up to him, Leland wouldn’t have left. Or, ignoring that, if he had just been a better son, maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to leave in the first place. Although he’d always been smart (particularly when it came to things like building stuff), his grades started nose diving, he was almost constantly in trouble (with teachers, classmates, the police...), and made an effort to completely distance himself from just about everyone, preferring to go through life moody and alone rather than dealing with the hurt.
The day when everything really changed started out just like almost every other. Jim had been caught operating his solar surfer in a restricted area by the police, which was violating his probation and pretty much his last strike. One more offense and he would be off to juvenile hall. After getting another exasperated lecture from his mother about how she didn’t want to see him throw away his entire future, Jim retreated to the roof for some time alone. This was first interrupted by hearing his mother discuss his problems with her good friend Dr. Delbert Doppler, and then any chance of just sulking by himself was interrupted when a space ship crash landed on the dock near the inn. Jim jumped off the roof and went to investigate. The badly injured and apparently very sick captain of the battered vessel began ranting about a cyborg that was after something in his trunk, and Jim helped him back to the inn. Not long after they got inside the building, Billy Bones collapsed and opened the trunk, shoving a package into the teenager’s hands before succumbing to his injuries.
And if that wasn’t strange enough, almost immediately the inn was suddenly under attack by pirates. Jim, Sarah and Doppler fled to the upstairs and made their escape in Doppler’s carriage. The pirates set the building on fire, and Sarah watched in horror as her home burned. It seemed like a lot of effort for a strange little gold sphere, and back at Doppler’s mansion, the scholar remarked that it would probably take years to figure out exactly what it was. But, in about three seconds, Jim’s fiddling around with it managed to unlock the mechanism, which turned out to be a holographic map of the universe, leading to one specific location: Treasure Planet.
Ever since Jim was a kid, he was fascinated by the legendary Loot of a Thousand Worlds, and even though most other people wrote it off as nothing more than a myth, he’d always believed that it was actually out there somewhere. Sure, those ideas had been pushed aside a little as he’d gotten older, but now once again he was immediately convinced that this was the answer to all their problems. Sarah was skeptical, but after some reassuring words from Doppler, she agreed to let the two go off on a voyage to investigate.
Jim and Doppler traveled to Monstressor Spaceport, and headed off with the crew of the R.L.S. Legacy to find the legendary planet. Jim was put under the care of the ships cook John Silver as a cabin boy, and upon meeting the cook, he was immediately suspicious, as the man was actually a cyborg, just like Billy Bones had warned him about. It all seemed a little coincidental, but Silver had a point in saying that there were a lot of cyborgs hanging around this spaceport, so after the initial reaction of distrust, he didn’t think too much of it.
The voyage started off uneventfully, for the most part. Jim managed to make a new archenemy in Scroop within a few hours of leaving port, and Silver pretty quickly started putting the boy to work. Although initially incredibly resistant and defiant, Jim stepped up to Silver’s challenges and was pretty much the best damn cabin boy they could have asked for. Eventually, he found himself warming up to Silver too, and the two became less like adversaries and more like mentor and protégé, a role that Jim accepted happily.
While continuing on their voyage, a nearby star went supernova and began to devolve into a black hole. Jim was charged with making sure the lifelines of the crew were secured, and although the teenager made sure they were, Scroop cut the first mate’s line, and Mr. Arrow plummeted to his death. Jim blamed himself for what had happened, not knowing about Scroop’s treachery, and the fragile sense of self confidence he had managed to build over the last several weeks shattered. But, with some reassuring words from Silver, he was able to pull himself together and keep going along.
Unfortunately, the next morning things really went to hell. While goofing around with Morph, Jim overheard Silver and the other members of the crew plotting a mutiny. Feeling incredibly betrayed, especially when Silver said that he had only gotten close to Jim in an attempt to keep him off his scent, Jim rushed to tell the captain and Doppler about what he’d overheard, damaging Silver’s cyborg leg in the process. The three non pirate members of the crew managed to escape to the planet, but Morph disguised himself as the map, and as such, the real device was still back on the ship. In their less than perfect landing on the planet, Captain Amelia was injured, and Jim was sent ahead to scout for a safe place to hide from the pirates. He stumbled upon a marooned robot named B.E.N., who offered up his home as a shelter. After a parlaying session with Silver went south, with Jim asserting that Silver would never seen one drubloon of his treasure, Jim, B.E.N. and Morph returned to the Legacy to retrieve the map.
After narrowly escaping death on the ship, Jim returned to see that Silver had found the captain and Doppler, and was forced into unlocking the map for him. The pirates, Jim and B.E.N. made their way to the location of the treasure, and discovered that it was actually housed in the core of the planet itself. While trying to find a way to escape without Silver, Jim discovered B.E.N.’s missing memory chip in the skeletal hands of Captain Flint, and B.E.N.’s restored memories revealed that the planet was going to self destruct. Jim sent him back to help the captain and Doppler, while he stayed and tried to get Flint’s ship working again. Most of the pirates fled, but Silver saw what Jim was up to and went to confront him. Right as it seemed like Jim was going to be either murdered by Silver or forced to hurt him instead, a blast knocked the ship sideways and Jim tumbled off, finally catching himself on a small ledge of the collapsing core walls. Silver tried to hold on to the treasure filled ship, but realized that he couldn’t save Jim and the ship, and in a moment proving his true character, he grabbed the teenager before he plummeted to his death. The two caught up with the remaining crewmembers and went to escape the exploding planet.
… Only to have their mizzen sails destroyed by debris. Without them, they wouldn’t be able to clear the planet’s explosion in time, and Jim quickly came up with a plan. Throwing together a makeshift solar surfer, he convinced Doppler to turn the ship back towards the portal, and took off to change the location it opened on to. It was a narrow escape, but Jim managed to get them back to Montressor Spaceport safely. So, things were looking good. They’d survived, Amelia offered him a recommendation to the Interstellar Naval Academy and he was really feeling a lot better about himself. He noticed one face was absent from the group, and immediately headed down to the last long boat they had left. As he expected, Silver was there, trying to make his escape. Considering the pirate had shown that he really did care about Jim, enough to even give up his lifelong obsession, any resentment of the man he’d come to think of as a father figure was pretty much gone, and as such, Jim helped him escape. The two tearfully parted ways, and Jim returned home.
So, while he didn’t have amazing riches or anything like that, Jim really felt like a better person. He was planning on attending the Naval Academy, and rebuilding the inn was officially in progress, and really, things were looking great.
Three years later, and Jim's a dedicated if still sort of moody student at the Academy, learning the ins and outs of protocol and procedure and all that. Repairs are still underway at the Benbow, and overall, life's looking pretty good for the teenager, if, you know... kind of boring. It's not that he minded being at the Academy - because really, it was pretty cool - but after the Treasure Planet expedition, he kind of was looking for something more exciting.
So, enter the admiral and the offer to make a deal, and here we are.
Sample Journal Entry:
[There's a couple seconds of silence as Jim turns on the audio function. The journal's more different then advanced compared to the stuff back home, but also... not really. So it's been an interesting thing to start messing around with.]
Uh, is this thing on? [And there's some more fiddling with the journal. It's probably a good thing Jim's always been good with technology and taking things apart, so this really isn't too hard to figure out, and eventually he gets the video function working, looking into the curiously.] Huh. This is... definitely different, I guess.
[And then the screen is invaded by a very excitable looking... thing, that can really only be described as a floating pink blob with eyes, which is excitedly chattering "definitely different, definitely different" as the teenager tries to get control of the journal back.]
Morph, knock it off, don't do that -
[The camera turns away for a moment, and there's a couple seconds of muffled bargaining with the creature before Jim turns the camera back on him, looking a little embarrassed. Or maybe just awkward. He's never really been great with this introducing himself thing.]
Uh, I'm Jim. Guess I'm one of the new kids the Admiral picked up.
So, this kind of stuff - [He gestures for a second.] The journals, I mean, run of the mill for everyone else or... what?
Sample RP:
Putting the Benbow back together hadn’t been an easy project to get off the ground. Not that Jim had really expected it to be, but in any case, the whole thing was starting to give him one hell of a headache. While the gold and jewels Silver had managed to smuggle out of the treasure room had given them more than enough money for rebuilding, first there was the issue of what it was going to look like, then who they were going to order the materials from, then whether or not they should be hiring someone to start putting things together, and at this point, Jim knew way more about how to build a building than he ever would have expected he would. And somehow he’d been talked into actually helping put the thing together himself, which was why at the moment, he was kneeling on a somewhat rickety looking scaffolding almost forty feet off the ground trying to hammer nails into a supporting beam. He'd gotten a lot better at it, after sort of mangling his hands the first couple days, and honestly? He definitely preferred boats and solar surfers to putting up walls.
A voice called from below - his mom - reminding him of something. He waved it off, still distracted by the beam he was supposed to be hammering into place, trying to mark where the nails would be going, not really paying attention to whatever she was saying.
“Yeah, I got it, Mom.”
Whatever it was, it wasn't important, and she'd been nagging him all day to remember to do this or that or the other thing, and he just wanted to get this done before the sun went down. The project was never going to get done if he didn't get to actually put in the work for it.
So he was sort of surprised when the familiar slight squeaking and loud, slightly grating voice of B.E.N. suddenly interrupted his focus, and he looked over to see the robot climbing up the side of the scaffolding, chattering basically aimlessly, and the teenager couldn't suppress an eye roll as he tried to get back focused on the task at hand, muttering a "Yeah, that's great B.E.N." to at least make it look like he was paying attention.
But once again he was interrupted by said chatty android slipping and almost tumbling over the side of the scaffolding. And while yes, B.E.N. was technically an artificial life form, a fall from that height would still do damage and anyone who tried to make the argument that he wasn't a sentient being clearly didn't know the guy very well. Fortunately, the teenager's reflexes were good, and he reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder before he plummeted over the edge.
"B.E.N., geez!" he said, dragging the android back up to safety on the scaffolding, frustration and concern evident in his voice. “You’ve gotta be more careful.”
Special Notes: Based on the timeline established in the video game sequel (where Jim is twenty and a graduate of the academy), I'd place the events of the final scene (with the completed Benbow Inn and Doppler and Amelia's infant kids) at at least two to four years after the actual plot of the film, since I sincerely doubt that Doppler and Amelia hopped off the ship, got married and had kids within a couple months, plus Jim's appearance at the end is generally accepted to be a 'hooray I graduated' moment then a 'hooray I got into school' moment. So, Jim is from before the final scene of the movie, but still three years older then he is for most of the film. /ramble.
Morph is coming too, assuming that's okay with you lovely mods. If not, let me know. <3
Oh, and people who would notice this kind of thing might realize that he sounds/looks a little like a teenaged counterpart of our resident JoGos because of the whole JGL voice acting/character design inspiration thing and all that. Sorry guys. xD