(no subject)

[dontmiss]

NATIVE APPLICATION

PLAYER

Name: Chloe
Age: 29
Contact: swevene
Other Characters: I’m brand new!
Interests: I love the Dragon Age games and setting, so I’m excited to dig into culture. I am also excited to be looking at it from a different point of view (I’m a mage sympathizer myself).

CHARACTER

Name: Timothy Gutterson
Canon/OC: Justified
Journal: dontmiss
Race: Human
Nationality: Ferelden
Occupation: Ex-Templar
Mage or Non-Mage: Non-Mage
Age: 21

History

Canon History

AU History
Tim grew up in Ferelden, with a family that wasn’t wealthy or happy. Realizing fairly quickly that his best chance to get out of town (and away from an abusive father) was to join the Templars, he did his best to impress his local templars and convince them of his fervency of belief. He was recruited and trained and eventually came to be reasonably sincere in his fervency- he believed that mages needed to be both protected and guarded.

He took his vows and served at Kinloch Hold starting shortly before the Mage-Templar War kicked into gear, during which time he was the one to kill a mage who had failed his Harrowing. This was the first life he’d taken. When the war began, he initially fought against the rebel mages with other Templars until he realized that the atrocities on both sides were too heavy to be justified, at which point he stripped off his templar armour and fell face first into the bottle, living mostly off of wine and as little smuggled lyrium as he could use and still stay functional.

Tim did almost get recruited by Samson during his bad days, but turned him down because he wasn’t ready to go back to the Templars then or possibly ever.

Once word of the Inquisition spread, he saw a chance to make up for what he and the other Templars had been done and made his way to Skyhold. Although he didn’t re-join the Templars, he did begin using lyrium more regularly again.

Personality

Some people have walls up around themselves. Tim has stone walls, a portcullis, a drawbridge, a moat, and murder holes. Anyone attempting to penetrate those defenses is going to find a significant amount of resistance, in the form of dull sarcasm, strategic drops of too much information, and just plain ignoring. If he doesn’t like you, you’re not worth his time. If he does like you, he’s still going to be sarcastic.

He’s not really hiding his past behind those walls- he’ll bring it up if prompted or if it’s relevant, usually in a blunt way that makes literally everyone around him very uncomfortable, so that they change the subject. What he is hiding is debatable, but it definitely includes his emotional availability.

It’s not a case of him having a delightful squishy centre. The sarcastic, unengaged young man that people see is honestly most of Tim’s personality. He’s gotten that way as a defense mechanism- first from trying not to let his father hurt him, then having to distance himself from his mage charges, and then facing the kinds of brutality that people can inflict on each other when they’re let off the chain. Suffice to say, he doesn’t have much faith in people, either. Or dogs. He doesn’t like dogs and when someone doesn’t like dogs, you know they’ve got issues.

Basically, Tim is just an asshole with reasonably good intentions. He’s got reasons to be that way- his father kicked the shit out of him as a kid, he has more blood on his hands than someone his age should, and he’s got a raging case of PTSD and a milder drinking problem. But the gist of it all is that he’s a jerk a lot of the time and, on his best days, he can almost achieve mildly socially acceptable.

Opinions & Affiliations

As an ex-Templar, Tim has a complicated relationship with the Chantry and the Order. He joined for pragmatic reasons, not out of belief, but he still came to believe what they stood for. Now, he isn’t sure they stand for protecting and helping anymore and he’d like to keep his distance. The Mage-Templar war left deep scars on him and he came to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter which side is right, they’re both monstrous. However, he still believes that Circles are a better idea than just letting mages endanger those around them, since he’s seen how dangerous they can be. He has formed friendships with individual mages

Tim is aware of the Qun, but he doesn’t consider it as particularly relevant to his life. He vaguely disapproves of them, since they’re opposed to Andrastean beliefs, but ultimately he does not care.

Tim believes that most Orlesians and most nobles are dicks. He probably has a lot of the same unconscious prejudice against elves that other humans would, but he doesn’t actively try to be an asshole to them any more than he does to anyone

Adaptation

Tim in Justified is a veteran of at least one tour in Afghanistan, probably Iraq as well (it’s vague), and has been in the army since a young age. His elite level of skill (he’s a ranger and a sniper) corresponds to the high levels of combat training that a Templar would receive, and at one point he says ‘he was probably too young to be blowing the heads off Taliban’, so I’ve put him at a fairly young age as he has only recently left the Templars (as opposed to his canon, where he’s been in the Marshals for a while). As his superior in the Marshal Service says in Justified, he’s probably got PTSD and he’s probably an alcoholic (we do see him partially drunk and driving at least once in canon) and I’ve just brought those traits over directly. He also mentions that he missed having the chance to shoot his father while discussing Raylan’s own abusive father, which suggests that there’s a parallel there.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Tim’s strongest skill is his archery. He always says that he doesn’t miss. He’s skilled with sword and shield as well, being a Templar, but he’s always preferred to attack from range. He’s also an accomplished tracker.

His weakest skill is anything to do with emotions. He handles his own feelings by suppressing them and he doesn’t want to deal with anyone else’s bullshit.

Inventory

Tim will be bringing his lyrium philter and his bow, which is enchanted with a frost rune, as well as leather armour

Motivation

Tim doesn’t trust any organization, but the Inquisition seems a lot better than the alternative, and he wants to do something with the world the way it is

SAMPLES

TDM Thread #1
TDM Thread #2