Post by Thomas Zane on Aug 15, 2013 18:02:45 GMT -5
Basics
Name: Thomas Zane
Nicknames: Zane. Does not go by Tom or Tommy.
Age: 33
Birthday: October 8, 1973
Gender: Male
O/C: Original
Category: Hunter
Powers: N/A
The Look:
"Nothing says 'I don't wanna kill you if I don't have to' like a good pair of pressed slacks."
6'3" and well built from daily training, Zane could easily look intimidating if it weren't for his upbeat demeanor and neat, professional style. He puts a lot of pride into his appearance, with black hair neatly shaved close to his head and a small soul patch under his lip. Though he's ready enough to jump into a fight if necessary, he thinks of himself more as a negotiator than a hunter and dresses the part, wearing slacks and button-down shirts on most of his jobs (though he does dress down occasionally for low-key meetings or more high-risk work).
Celebrity: Coby Bell
Personality:
"You're seriously gonna let this thing walk? On its word?"
"Yeah, that's pretty much the plan."
Easygoing and open-minded, Zane rarely holds a grudge and always remembers a favor, and tries to enjoy life as much as possible despite the darkness in his job. He might seem naive, but he's a good judge of character - less prejudiced than most hunters, he focuses less on what a creature is or what its done than the motivations it had and the person it's trying to be now before he passes judgment. He believes that the tenets "serve and protect" and "innocent until proven guilty" are just as applicable in the supernatural world they are in human society.
Before becoming a hunter, Zane was always a bit of an outsider, laughed at for his belief in the supernatural, and now that he's a hunter he's still mocked or regarded with suspicion for his support of the rights of supernatural beings. He's made his peace with being an outsider, and jokes that he's about three decades and a wacky wool hat away from being that old man who rants in a corner booth and everyone tries to ignore.
Despite his easygoing nature, he is absolutely dedicated to doing what he thinks is right: when he makes a promise, he'll stick to it, when he makes an ally, he'll drag himself a hundred miles to get them out of a jam, and when he sees a wrong being committed, he'll do whatever's necessary to try and right it.
History:
"I don't hunt creatures, I hunt bad guys."
Zane doesn't have any kind of tragic back-story. ...At least, he'd never see it that way. When Thomas was a year old his grandmother, who'd been living with the family for years, passed away of natural causes. A deeply committed family woman, her spirit elected to stay in the house instead of moving on, and to Thomas it seemed like she'd never gone at all. Though he couldn't always see her, she continued to play with him or put out snacks for him when his parents were busy, and he loved having her around.
His parents, strangely enough, were less thrilled. At first they ignored his sporadic shouts for "Nana", thinking he was just confused about her death, but as he got older and more verbal, and they began noticing things moving around the house, they started to worry about their son"s mental health, or their own. Thomas was sad and confused when, at four years old, he and his family moved to a new house very far away, leaving Nana behind, and while his parents eventually wrote off the strange happenings, he never did.
Despite this, Thomas had a very normal life growing up. He graduated high school without any real solid ambition and spent two years in community college to pass the time, getting an Associate's Degree in Law Enforcement almost by accident because those were the classes that tended to interest him. After that the next logical step was to become a cop, which he did at 20 years old.
Zane, influenced by his childhood, had always been open-minded about the idea of magic and the supernatural, which manifested itself in various superstitious practices that kept him from being taken seriously around the precinct ("Zaney Zane" was the easiest rib). Despite dedication and an excellent service record, he was passed up for several promotions during his five years on the force. But his attitude eventually did catch the attention of a hunter coming through the area on a job. The hunter was on the trail of a selkie, a seal shapeshifter, which was going on a killing spree at a local fishery, and recruited Thomas to help track the creature down. When he did, Zane - heeding the hunter's advice and half panicked at the sheer craziness of the situation - shot the selkie on sight, killing it. Only afterward did he discover that the fishery's entire work force was comprised of selkies who'd had their seal skins stolen by upper management, keeping them trapped in human form and imprisoned as slave labor (their powers over and knowledge of the ocean profited the company immensely). The selkie Zane had shot had only been attempting to free its enslaved kin and return their skins to them so they could return home to the water.
At the selkies' request, Zane hid their existence from the hunter who, considering the job done, left town. But the notion of the rest of the selkies being kept on as prisoners continued to haunt him. Eventually, he planted false evidence of a drug smuggling operation at the fishery and used the pretense of a drug bust to search the owners' property, discovering the selkies' skins and returning them to their true owners.
The "drug bust" finally earned him some real respect at the department, but Zane couldn't stomach the idea of staying a cop after he'd manipulated the law to his own ends, and after he'd killed a more or less innocent, desperate person in the field instead of helping them. So he resigned, left his home in favor of the road, and started living on the fringes of hunter society instead. He likes to think of himself as less of a "hunter" and more of a "creature cop," protecting the ones that stay on the straight and narrow and taking out the ones that exist to cause harm. This hasn't won him many friends amongst other hunters, but he's willing to keep an open mind and work with anyone if their interests align. And he has made various supernatural allies that, grateful for his help at one time or another, have gifted him with boons, favors, and even more material tokens of thanks. (He has a troupe of Brownies that pop by every week to clean the hunting lodge that was gifted to him by a Leszy, for example.)
Family:
Mom: Gabrielle
Dad: Jeffrey
Both retired and living comfortably in Florida.
Likes/Dislikes:
+ Honesty and integrity
+ Setting foot in new places - be it small towns or big, bustling cities
+ Starting random conversations with strangers
+ Big guns, even though he's not a fan of shooting people
+ Fast cars and fine clothes
+ ...which he'll immediately ruin by sitting in the dirt in front of a campfire in them. Which leads us to:
+ A good dry cleaner
- Stereotypes
- Black cats and other bad omens (yeah, it's hypocritical, but some childhood habits are hard to break)
- Studying or research
- Spiders
Strengths/Weaknesses:
+ Contacts, both in the supernatural and human community
+ People skills - good natured, naturally friendly and upbeat, he gets others to trust him quickly
+ Generally a good judge of character
+ Strong physically
+ General fighting experience, good with a gun, but his preferred weapon is a single tonfa/police baton
+ just because he gives chances, doesn't mean he fights fair. He'll use deception and underhanded tactics to get a job done the way he thinks it should be.
- Few friends (and various enemies) amongst other hunters
- Not the fastest footwork
- While not naive, his desire to see the best in people also makes him more susceptible to innocent acts or redemption ploys
- Tries to keep his conscience as clear as possible - if he does lie or break rules to finish a job he'll go out of his way to accept the consequences or try to pay back for it however he can, even if it hurts him to do so.
+/- (depending on the situation) tends to fall back on superstition when knowledge fails
Interests: MMA and basketball, trips to new places, getting involved and making a difference.
Sample Post:
"Look, just get the company to stop chopping down their trees, and they'll stop setting houses on fire. I mean, come on man, that's where they live. If you started getting your house chopped down and turned into lumber, you telling me you wouldn't retaliate?" He rolled his eyes and cut a sharp left. The Camaro tore down the narrow road, kicking up snow and skidding dangerously as it took each curve. How long had it been since he'd gotten the call? Six, six and a half hours?
"Look, just keep things calm, stall the workers for the next day or so. I'm in the middle of something, but I'll be on it ASAP."
He flicked the phone shut and focused his full attention back on the road. It'd been a long night. Even flying down most highways, there was only so fast you could get from Oregon to Riverton, Wyoming, especially in this endless winter. The car skidded on some slush, and he slowed, bringing his phone back to his ear and hitting redial for the way-too-many-to-counth time, not really expecting the kid to answer. She didn't.
Along the road north of town, he brought the car to a crawl and squinted in the dawn light for any sign of a small, brunette figure by the side of the road. Twice, he was passed by a line of cops and ambulances screaming by, sirens blaring. What had the kid gotten herself involved in out here, that ambulances were still rushing around half a day later? Part of him itched to follow the cars up the road, to see what had happened. Get a read on the situation, whether it was something the cops could even handle on their own.
But there was someone else who needed him right now, and she'd been bleeding out in the frozen woods waiting for him all night. Besides, how long could he hope to crawl along this road before someone decided to stop and question him, and what could he possibly say if they did? Eventually, he found a place where the trees broke enough for him to pull off and drive out of sight. The woods stretched out for miles around him, but the kid had at least told him she was close to the road. That'd cut down the search some, give him a better chance of finding her before she froze to death.
"Alright, Eve," Zane muttered, stepping out of the car and picking a direction at random. "Time to drag your butt out of trouble again."
Name: Thomas Zane
Nicknames: Zane. Does not go by Tom or Tommy.
Age: 33
Birthday: October 8, 1973
Gender: Male
O/C: Original
Category: Hunter
Powers: N/A
The Look:
"Nothing says 'I don't wanna kill you if I don't have to' like a good pair of pressed slacks."
6'3" and well built from daily training, Zane could easily look intimidating if it weren't for his upbeat demeanor and neat, professional style. He puts a lot of pride into his appearance, with black hair neatly shaved close to his head and a small soul patch under his lip. Though he's ready enough to jump into a fight if necessary, he thinks of himself more as a negotiator than a hunter and dresses the part, wearing slacks and button-down shirts on most of his jobs (though he does dress down occasionally for low-key meetings or more high-risk work).
Celebrity: Coby Bell
Personality:
"You're seriously gonna let this thing walk? On its word?"
"Yeah, that's pretty much the plan."
Easygoing and open-minded, Zane rarely holds a grudge and always remembers a favor, and tries to enjoy life as much as possible despite the darkness in his job. He might seem naive, but he's a good judge of character - less prejudiced than most hunters, he focuses less on what a creature is or what its done than the motivations it had and the person it's trying to be now before he passes judgment. He believes that the tenets "serve and protect" and "innocent until proven guilty" are just as applicable in the supernatural world they are in human society.
Before becoming a hunter, Zane was always a bit of an outsider, laughed at for his belief in the supernatural, and now that he's a hunter he's still mocked or regarded with suspicion for his support of the rights of supernatural beings. He's made his peace with being an outsider, and jokes that he's about three decades and a wacky wool hat away from being that old man who rants in a corner booth and everyone tries to ignore.
Despite his easygoing nature, he is absolutely dedicated to doing what he thinks is right: when he makes a promise, he'll stick to it, when he makes an ally, he'll drag himself a hundred miles to get them out of a jam, and when he sees a wrong being committed, he'll do whatever's necessary to try and right it.
History:
"I don't hunt creatures, I hunt bad guys."
Zane doesn't have any kind of tragic back-story. ...At least, he'd never see it that way. When Thomas was a year old his grandmother, who'd been living with the family for years, passed away of natural causes. A deeply committed family woman, her spirit elected to stay in the house instead of moving on, and to Thomas it seemed like she'd never gone at all. Though he couldn't always see her, she continued to play with him or put out snacks for him when his parents were busy, and he loved having her around.
His parents, strangely enough, were less thrilled. At first they ignored his sporadic shouts for "Nana", thinking he was just confused about her death, but as he got older and more verbal, and they began noticing things moving around the house, they started to worry about their son"s mental health, or their own. Thomas was sad and confused when, at four years old, he and his family moved to a new house very far away, leaving Nana behind, and while his parents eventually wrote off the strange happenings, he never did.
Despite this, Thomas had a very normal life growing up. He graduated high school without any real solid ambition and spent two years in community college to pass the time, getting an Associate's Degree in Law Enforcement almost by accident because those were the classes that tended to interest him. After that the next logical step was to become a cop, which he did at 20 years old.
Zane, influenced by his childhood, had always been open-minded about the idea of magic and the supernatural, which manifested itself in various superstitious practices that kept him from being taken seriously around the precinct ("Zaney Zane" was the easiest rib). Despite dedication and an excellent service record, he was passed up for several promotions during his five years on the force. But his attitude eventually did catch the attention of a hunter coming through the area on a job. The hunter was on the trail of a selkie, a seal shapeshifter, which was going on a killing spree at a local fishery, and recruited Thomas to help track the creature down. When he did, Zane - heeding the hunter's advice and half panicked at the sheer craziness of the situation - shot the selkie on sight, killing it. Only afterward did he discover that the fishery's entire work force was comprised of selkies who'd had their seal skins stolen by upper management, keeping them trapped in human form and imprisoned as slave labor (their powers over and knowledge of the ocean profited the company immensely). The selkie Zane had shot had only been attempting to free its enslaved kin and return their skins to them so they could return home to the water.
At the selkies' request, Zane hid their existence from the hunter who, considering the job done, left town. But the notion of the rest of the selkies being kept on as prisoners continued to haunt him. Eventually, he planted false evidence of a drug smuggling operation at the fishery and used the pretense of a drug bust to search the owners' property, discovering the selkies' skins and returning them to their true owners.
The "drug bust" finally earned him some real respect at the department, but Zane couldn't stomach the idea of staying a cop after he'd manipulated the law to his own ends, and after he'd killed a more or less innocent, desperate person in the field instead of helping them. So he resigned, left his home in favor of the road, and started living on the fringes of hunter society instead. He likes to think of himself as less of a "hunter" and more of a "creature cop," protecting the ones that stay on the straight and narrow and taking out the ones that exist to cause harm. This hasn't won him many friends amongst other hunters, but he's willing to keep an open mind and work with anyone if their interests align. And he has made various supernatural allies that, grateful for his help at one time or another, have gifted him with boons, favors, and even more material tokens of thanks. (He has a troupe of Brownies that pop by every week to clean the hunting lodge that was gifted to him by a Leszy, for example.)
Family:
Mom: Gabrielle
Dad: Jeffrey
Both retired and living comfortably in Florida.
Likes/Dislikes:
+ Honesty and integrity
+ Setting foot in new places - be it small towns or big, bustling cities
+ Starting random conversations with strangers
+ Big guns, even though he's not a fan of shooting people
+ Fast cars and fine clothes
+ ...which he'll immediately ruin by sitting in the dirt in front of a campfire in them. Which leads us to:
+ A good dry cleaner
- Stereotypes
- Black cats and other bad omens (yeah, it's hypocritical, but some childhood habits are hard to break)
- Studying or research
- Spiders
Strengths/Weaknesses:
+ Contacts, both in the supernatural and human community
+ People skills - good natured, naturally friendly and upbeat, he gets others to trust him quickly
+ Generally a good judge of character
+ Strong physically
+ General fighting experience, good with a gun, but his preferred weapon is a single tonfa/police baton
+ just because he gives chances, doesn't mean he fights fair. He'll use deception and underhanded tactics to get a job done the way he thinks it should be.
- Few friends (and various enemies) amongst other hunters
- Not the fastest footwork
- While not naive, his desire to see the best in people also makes him more susceptible to innocent acts or redemption ploys
- Tries to keep his conscience as clear as possible - if he does lie or break rules to finish a job he'll go out of his way to accept the consequences or try to pay back for it however he can, even if it hurts him to do so.
+/- (depending on the situation) tends to fall back on superstition when knowledge fails
Interests: MMA and basketball, trips to new places, getting involved and making a difference.
Sample Post:
"Look, just get the company to stop chopping down their trees, and they'll stop setting houses on fire. I mean, come on man, that's where they live. If you started getting your house chopped down and turned into lumber, you telling me you wouldn't retaliate?" He rolled his eyes and cut a sharp left. The Camaro tore down the narrow road, kicking up snow and skidding dangerously as it took each curve. How long had it been since he'd gotten the call? Six, six and a half hours?
"Look, just keep things calm, stall the workers for the next day or so. I'm in the middle of something, but I'll be on it ASAP."
He flicked the phone shut and focused his full attention back on the road. It'd been a long night. Even flying down most highways, there was only so fast you could get from Oregon to Riverton, Wyoming, especially in this endless winter. The car skidded on some slush, and he slowed, bringing his phone back to his ear and hitting redial for the way-too-many-to-counth time, not really expecting the kid to answer. She didn't.
Along the road north of town, he brought the car to a crawl and squinted in the dawn light for any sign of a small, brunette figure by the side of the road. Twice, he was passed by a line of cops and ambulances screaming by, sirens blaring. What had the kid gotten herself involved in out here, that ambulances were still rushing around half a day later? Part of him itched to follow the cars up the road, to see what had happened. Get a read on the situation, whether it was something the cops could even handle on their own.
But there was someone else who needed him right now, and she'd been bleeding out in the frozen woods waiting for him all night. Besides, how long could he hope to crawl along this road before someone decided to stop and question him, and what could he possibly say if they did? Eventually, he found a place where the trees broke enough for him to pull off and drive out of sight. The woods stretched out for miles around him, but the kid had at least told him she was close to the road. That'd cut down the search some, give him a better chance of finding her before she froze to death.
"Alright, Eve," Zane muttered, stepping out of the car and picking a direction at random. "Time to drag your butt out of trouble again."