Post by Stiles McConnell on Aug 23, 2013 20:35:38 GMT -5
STILES MCCONNELL
AGE: 32
GENDER: Male
MEMBER GROUP: Spacer
BRIEF HISTORY:
"Verbena was scarcely surviving, barely more than a piece of barren rock, but now with the Alliance factory opening you and your families will be able to lead full and satisfying lives."
Verbena; it was supposed to be a good home, but the border world never got much help from the Alliance. Where Stiles grew up, it was rocky, lifeless in the way of greenery, and utterly bleak. Most people found it difficult to get work, few odd jobs that there were going around every once in a good while. For his family, surviving was made all the harder by the fact that there were more than a few mouths to feed. At the time, Stiles had his mother, father, and two older siblings. Five people was a lot to feed when there was no way to grow food and no credits to buy any rations. They made do for a while, but only until Stiles was eleven years old.
The Alliance had recently opened a factory on the planet for making military skiffs, they claimed that everyone could have jobs now, that they would be able to lead satisfying lives from their work. The Alliance really meant it too when they said 'you and your families'. When Stiles' dad signed up to work at the new factory, the rest of them were all drafted into the same service alongside him. So long as they worked, they were given food - though it wasn't good - and beds - though they were more like thin little mats. Stiles was young and small and he all the work that was given to him was rough, but... he had to catch on quick or else... well, he didn't want to find out what the 'or else' meant. What he began to get out of working at that horrible place was the knowledge of the machinery around the factory and how to work it, all of it, he caught on quickly.
After a short while, the machinery and tech really began to interest the boy so whenever he had free time, he would dismantle certain pieces of equipment and after trying to figure out how they worked he would test himself to see if he could put them back together again. Life went on working at the factory for nearly ten years. It became the only life he knew, and at least Stiles wasn't so bad at it. Some of the friends he'd made early on of the kids close to his age lost appendages to the machines, someone he knew had gotten his leg shattered by the machinery. But the youngest McConnell had lived through all of it without any major injuries above a few scars here and there. The only way he managed to get out was due to the war of unification beginning. People were either drafted or joining a side left and right on most worlds, but on Verbena, it was rare.
Stiles took the opportunity to go against the Alliance. He joined the Independents.
Firing a weapon, aiming, battle tactics; those kinds of things weren't among the skills that he had come into the war with. All he had was his knowledge of the Alliance ships, the tech they would have onboard, that kind of thing. Much of what he knew ended up proving useful to his surprise, so he quickly made a point of relaying as much as he could of what he knew to his fellow browncoats. Because of this, Stiles found himself becoming more of a scout and messenger than an actual fighter, and the fix-it guy when something got broken. He learned the other things along the way in times when their entire platoon had no choice but to fight off enemy soldiers or face death themselves.
Firing a weapon, aiming, battle tactics; those kinds of things weren't among the skills that he had come into the war with. All he had was his knowledge of the Alliance ships, the tech they would have onboard, that kind of thing. Much of what he knew ended up proving useful to his surprise, so he quickly made a point of relaying as much as he could of what he knew to his fellow browncoats. Because of this, Stiles found himself becoming more of a scout and messenger than an actual fighter, and the fix-it guy when something got broken. He learned the other things along the way in times when their entire platoon had no choice but to fight off enemy soldiers or face death themselves.
After the war ended, Stiles was unable to find work. Anywhere. He resorted to finding junkyards and collecting what scrap metals and the like he could in order to fashion usable gadgets and various machine components out of to sell to people who could make real use of them.
FACE CLAIM: Misha Collins
EYE COLOR: Blue
HAIR COLOR: Brown
OTHER FEATURES: He tends to squint/narrow his eyes, especially when pensive. And his hair is almost always messy with grease. He has a few scars on his body from the dangerous machinery at the factory he worked, received mostly when he was a kid and it was more difficult to operate the machines.
GENERAL:
Stiles is very loyal, sometimes to a fault, to his friends and even to those he doesn't know quite as well. As a man of principle and conviction, he would willingly risk and sacrifice himself for what he believes in. It'll become pretty clear to those who meet him that he does not take a lot of the 'bad guys' seriously, granted, he hardly takes much of his life seriously anymore, or at least it would seem so from an outsider’s standpoint. So then it probably doesn’t come as much surprise that he is indeed a naturally upbeat person who likes to make jokes and who looks on the bright side.
While his obliviousness to certain things can obviously be a detriment, in other ways, his ignorance of how things work (save for most machines and technology!) actually gives him an advantage, as he is in turn able to make suggestions about how to resolve a situation in different ways than his friends might come up with. Stiles is quick; quick to adapt, quick to understand a situation, quick to come up with a plan, and quick to enact it. Although his plans tend to be risky or may seem dumb and as such are not favored by those around him. It comes in handy here that the man has convinced himself he has an abundance of confidence, making it so he doesn’t spend a lot of time second guessing himself. In reality, his self-esteem is low at best and he has no sense of self-worth.
He can sometimes become increasingly and very visibly erratic and unpredictable for periods of time, often short. It would appear to be a slight psychological issue that he deals with alongside his compulsive tendency to take things that don’t belong to him. Stiles often feels guilty after he has taken something and becomes very apologetic about it. While he doesn't have a hard time remembering names, he often will call people by varying nicknames rather than their actual names.
WEAKNESSES:
-- Kleptomaniac
-- Oblivious to many things due to lack of schooling or a social life
-- Can be overconfident
STRENGTHS:
++ Has a wide range of knowledge when it comes to machines and technology and is skilled at fixing such things when they wind up broken
++ Composed under pressure / during a firefight
++ Loyal
OTHER CHARACTERS: Simon Tam
RP SAMPLE
See Simon...
