Tommy App 2.0
Aug. 8th, 2015 05:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bleak_midwinterUser Name/Nick: Lieke
User DW: n/a
AIM/IM: plurk @ poliorketes
E-mail: n/a
Other Characters: Elizabeth Jennings
Character Name: Tommy Shelby
Series: Peaky Blinders
Age: Late thirties
From When?: Last episode of season 3.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Although Tommy has been to the Barge as a warden before, four years down the road he's far from that man. He's not super great at making ethical decisions, will usually take violence over avoidance and has stopped listening to the several voices of reason in his life.
Not even his own wedding day is free from criminal activity. Part of it isn't his fault-- there is a spy from the Russian government, as well as a money handover from the exiled Russian government who shows up unasked, but Tommy also doesn't hesitate to ask his brother (who has recently stopped drinking and turned to Jesus and is very clearly against the idea) to kill the spy. On his own wedding night, he watches men who work for him burn the body on his property. And that's just the start of things.
All throughout the season, he's being blackmailed and extorted, but he absolutely could put up more of a fight-- like he does, two years earlier, when he tells the people pressuring him that he won't do it. This time around, he doesn't even blink when he tells ordinary people to do what he wants them to do or else he'll kill them and their family. And he would, too: there's no bluffing. He will fight violence with violence, no compromises, no stepping back, not an inch given. In fact, he'll fight it with worse violence, and with senseless violence, because he fucking can.
He gets more and more selfish, too. There's still the 'family business', but a lot of the time he'll just tell people to do what he wants them to do, including the family, and he expects them to do just that. If they complain, he shuts them down; if they don't do it, retribution will surely come. He straight up plans to torture the man who ordered the hit on him that ended up killing his wife, and he would definitely have done just that if his brother didn't kill him to prevent that from happening.
Right before he comes to the Barge, he's straight up planning a robbery, while he also ordered his brothers to kill six innocent people in an explosion. Of course, this is all to save his son, but if he hadn't just sat the extortion out, if he had just done what was asked of him because he knew his child would be in danger, he never would've been in this position. But he does it, he tells his entire family that he doesn't trust them, he says the cruelest things just because he's panicking, and then he orders them to kill people for him.
Arrival: He'll die in the tunnel he was digging for the jewelry heist in 3x06!
Abilities/Powers: Nothing.
Personality: Four years down the line, Tommy is still quiet and considering, smart as a whip and (more or less) patient, but the naivety has completely left him. Whereas the earlier version of Tommy still honestly believed he could one day be satisfied with what he has, as long as the business was legitimate and his family happy, this man has no such pretensions. He's completely given up on that, both because he recognizes a need in himself to always keep going as well as the fact that he tried, and the world kept cutting him out.
Here is a man who sits his family down in his office and tells them all that they've 'taken the King's shilling; and when you take the King's shilling, the King expects you to kill'. He tells them that their lofty dreams of society acceptance were naive, he tells them that they shouldn't delude themselves into thinking they're better than they are. And only then, after that humiliation, does he tell them that he's made a deal with the elected government and it involves them being arrested by the local police. He could've told them immediately, but he chooses not to.
Where Tommy in season one inspired confidence and hope in his family, by season three it's blind loyalty, and more than a hint of fear: Tommy says, so they do. Especially his brother Arthur is easily to manipulate, and Tommy almost blatantly does so. Season one has a touching scene where Tommy talks to him after an attempted suicide; season two has him pouring anti-anxiety medication down the drain because he 'needs him sharp' (i.e. He needs him a little mad and a lot violent); season three has Tommy telling Arthur that this is his job, and that he can try to hold on to the faith and sobriety he'd developed but it's of no use. He literally gives him a flask when he knows that he's been trying not to drink so he can be less violent and less unpredictable-- which is what Tommy wants from him.
Tommy's always told himself that everything he did, all the danger and the illegal business, was for a better future-- but when he's living in a mansion and his family is raking in money by the handfuls, he still doesn't stop. Part of this is the world around him using him and his station (i.e., a gangster of a low background, easy to threaten with jail or worse), but part of it is just that he doesn't know how to stop. He just keeps going, even after his wife is shot, even when his family is endangered, even after he almost dies from a skull fracture. His family gets more and more afraid of him, but they keep doing his bidding.
He also seems to have zero interest in constructively dealing with his grief. The only thing he really does to move on after his wife dies is give the 'cursed' sapphire she'd worn when she died to a gypsy queen, so he can sleep and stop worrying about having it in his house. But a mere mention of her can have him snap into anger or immediate crying.
He's cruel, and relentless, and the fact that he's stopped lying to himsel about the future is going to make him even more dangerous. Of course, that's right when he comes back to the Barge.
Barge Reactions: He's going to be very angry about it at first, but even though he'd spent four years at home without remembering the Barge most of it will come back to him upon his return. The technicalities of it will definitely come back, and he'll remember those who were most important to him, but since that was four years previous he won't remember everyone and everything. Mostly his reaction will be Anger and eventually Apathy.
Path to Redemption: The thing that always separated season-one Tommy from the later versions of him was his genuine belief in a better life. That's what makes him so dangerous in the later seasons: he stops really believing in that, and just lying to his surroundings about it. He really just wants to get more, more, more, without having a firm goal in mind so he can stop. By the time I want to pull him from he'll even have let go of the idea that he wants to be legitimate and respected by the rest of the world, because he's tried and it's only gotten him into more trouble.
He needs to learn how to be satisfied, first of all; he needs to have a goal and that goal needs to change from 'having money' to something that is closer to 'protecting his family'. He also really needs to deal with his war trauma, because even if he doesn't address it much in the last season it's still a significant part of who he is and why there just seems to be this gaping hole in him that can't be filled.
There's also this deep, simmering anger about him that he tries to get rid of by getting rich, working his way up in the world, getting legal. The anger is part of his trauma, but it's also just a part of him that he uses to intimidate, he harnesses it and makes it a weapon. If he could be less angry about what the world is like, what it's done to him and his family, it would be a big step towards graduation.
History: Link!
Sample Journal Entry: [These days, Tommy doesn't spend much time on the communicator. He doesn't have the patience for it, just like he has no patience for books, or films, or music. It's all trivial. At home, these things are distractions from the business.
But here, he doesn't have the business. He has no trouble with Russians, he has no letters to write to parliament. He just has the boat, and its inhabitants. So he shows up on the communicator today, sitting in his deep desk chair, smoking morosely.]
This whole fucking shit we're all wrapped up right now, yeah? The part where we're all just so fucking eager to talk, tell each other the worst parts of our lives. And it's all so awful, but aren't we growing closer? Don't you feel redeemed already? A better, more productive part of this little society?
[He flicks his cigarette away, off-screen, and sits up.]
Well, my wife took a bullet that was meant for me and she died in my arms less than a month after we were married. No amount of talking is going to make that alright. So to hell with this-- I have enough liquor to get me through this week. See you then.
Sample RP: When Tommy opens his eyes, his ears are still ringing.
There is mud in his ears, in his nose, in his mouth. His tongue tastes earth and dampness, his shoulders feel a crushing weight that he can't quite remember the origin of- was it the earth crashing down on him, or is that just the fact that there seems to be earth in his lungs?
He scrabbles at the ground underneath him when he tries to get up and his nails only find purchase on the wooden boards of the deck, and that's when it hits him. He sees stars instead of darkness and he remembers: the tunnel, the danger, the panic and the plan. He remembers what he was doing, and he remembers the crash, and suddenly he also remembers a year in his life he'd forgotten about for the past four.
“No,” he says, as he gets up on shaky knees. He is covered in dirt, his chest bare and the kerchief that had covered his mouth hanging around his neck.
“No, no, fucking no--”
He had to get him back, he was giving everything to make sure Charlie made it back to him, and now he's on the Barge.
“Take me back!”
User DW: n/a
AIM/IM: plurk @ poliorketes
E-mail: n/a
Other Characters: Elizabeth Jennings
Character Name: Tommy Shelby
Series: Peaky Blinders
Age: Late thirties
From When?: Last episode of season 3.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Although Tommy has been to the Barge as a warden before, four years down the road he's far from that man. He's not super great at making ethical decisions, will usually take violence over avoidance and has stopped listening to the several voices of reason in his life.
Not even his own wedding day is free from criminal activity. Part of it isn't his fault-- there is a spy from the Russian government, as well as a money handover from the exiled Russian government who shows up unasked, but Tommy also doesn't hesitate to ask his brother (who has recently stopped drinking and turned to Jesus and is very clearly against the idea) to kill the spy. On his own wedding night, he watches men who work for him burn the body on his property. And that's just the start of things.
All throughout the season, he's being blackmailed and extorted, but he absolutely could put up more of a fight-- like he does, two years earlier, when he tells the people pressuring him that he won't do it. This time around, he doesn't even blink when he tells ordinary people to do what he wants them to do or else he'll kill them and their family. And he would, too: there's no bluffing. He will fight violence with violence, no compromises, no stepping back, not an inch given. In fact, he'll fight it with worse violence, and with senseless violence, because he fucking can.
He gets more and more selfish, too. There's still the 'family business', but a lot of the time he'll just tell people to do what he wants them to do, including the family, and he expects them to do just that. If they complain, he shuts them down; if they don't do it, retribution will surely come. He straight up plans to torture the man who ordered the hit on him that ended up killing his wife, and he would definitely have done just that if his brother didn't kill him to prevent that from happening.
Right before he comes to the Barge, he's straight up planning a robbery, while he also ordered his brothers to kill six innocent people in an explosion. Of course, this is all to save his son, but if he hadn't just sat the extortion out, if he had just done what was asked of him because he knew his child would be in danger, he never would've been in this position. But he does it, he tells his entire family that he doesn't trust them, he says the cruelest things just because he's panicking, and then he orders them to kill people for him.
Arrival: He'll die in the tunnel he was digging for the jewelry heist in 3x06!
Abilities/Powers: Nothing.
Personality: Four years down the line, Tommy is still quiet and considering, smart as a whip and (more or less) patient, but the naivety has completely left him. Whereas the earlier version of Tommy still honestly believed he could one day be satisfied with what he has, as long as the business was legitimate and his family happy, this man has no such pretensions. He's completely given up on that, both because he recognizes a need in himself to always keep going as well as the fact that he tried, and the world kept cutting him out.
Here is a man who sits his family down in his office and tells them all that they've 'taken the King's shilling; and when you take the King's shilling, the King expects you to kill'. He tells them that their lofty dreams of society acceptance were naive, he tells them that they shouldn't delude themselves into thinking they're better than they are. And only then, after that humiliation, does he tell them that he's made a deal with the elected government and it involves them being arrested by the local police. He could've told them immediately, but he chooses not to.
Where Tommy in season one inspired confidence and hope in his family, by season three it's blind loyalty, and more than a hint of fear: Tommy says, so they do. Especially his brother Arthur is easily to manipulate, and Tommy almost blatantly does so. Season one has a touching scene where Tommy talks to him after an attempted suicide; season two has him pouring anti-anxiety medication down the drain because he 'needs him sharp' (i.e. He needs him a little mad and a lot violent); season three has Tommy telling Arthur that this is his job, and that he can try to hold on to the faith and sobriety he'd developed but it's of no use. He literally gives him a flask when he knows that he's been trying not to drink so he can be less violent and less unpredictable-- which is what Tommy wants from him.
Tommy's always told himself that everything he did, all the danger and the illegal business, was for a better future-- but when he's living in a mansion and his family is raking in money by the handfuls, he still doesn't stop. Part of this is the world around him using him and his station (i.e., a gangster of a low background, easy to threaten with jail or worse), but part of it is just that he doesn't know how to stop. He just keeps going, even after his wife is shot, even when his family is endangered, even after he almost dies from a skull fracture. His family gets more and more afraid of him, but they keep doing his bidding.
He also seems to have zero interest in constructively dealing with his grief. The only thing he really does to move on after his wife dies is give the 'cursed' sapphire she'd worn when she died to a gypsy queen, so he can sleep and stop worrying about having it in his house. But a mere mention of her can have him snap into anger or immediate crying.
He's cruel, and relentless, and the fact that he's stopped lying to himsel about the future is going to make him even more dangerous. Of course, that's right when he comes back to the Barge.
Barge Reactions: He's going to be very angry about it at first, but even though he'd spent four years at home without remembering the Barge most of it will come back to him upon his return. The technicalities of it will definitely come back, and he'll remember those who were most important to him, but since that was four years previous he won't remember everyone and everything. Mostly his reaction will be Anger and eventually Apathy.
Path to Redemption: The thing that always separated season-one Tommy from the later versions of him was his genuine belief in a better life. That's what makes him so dangerous in the later seasons: he stops really believing in that, and just lying to his surroundings about it. He really just wants to get more, more, more, without having a firm goal in mind so he can stop. By the time I want to pull him from he'll even have let go of the idea that he wants to be legitimate and respected by the rest of the world, because he's tried and it's only gotten him into more trouble.
He needs to learn how to be satisfied, first of all; he needs to have a goal and that goal needs to change from 'having money' to something that is closer to 'protecting his family'. He also really needs to deal with his war trauma, because even if he doesn't address it much in the last season it's still a significant part of who he is and why there just seems to be this gaping hole in him that can't be filled.
There's also this deep, simmering anger about him that he tries to get rid of by getting rich, working his way up in the world, getting legal. The anger is part of his trauma, but it's also just a part of him that he uses to intimidate, he harnesses it and makes it a weapon. If he could be less angry about what the world is like, what it's done to him and his family, it would be a big step towards graduation.
History: Link!
Sample Journal Entry: [These days, Tommy doesn't spend much time on the communicator. He doesn't have the patience for it, just like he has no patience for books, or films, or music. It's all trivial. At home, these things are distractions from the business.
But here, he doesn't have the business. He has no trouble with Russians, he has no letters to write to parliament. He just has the boat, and its inhabitants. So he shows up on the communicator today, sitting in his deep desk chair, smoking morosely.]
This whole fucking shit we're all wrapped up right now, yeah? The part where we're all just so fucking eager to talk, tell each other the worst parts of our lives. And it's all so awful, but aren't we growing closer? Don't you feel redeemed already? A better, more productive part of this little society?
[He flicks his cigarette away, off-screen, and sits up.]
Well, my wife took a bullet that was meant for me and she died in my arms less than a month after we were married. No amount of talking is going to make that alright. So to hell with this-- I have enough liquor to get me through this week. See you then.
Sample RP: When Tommy opens his eyes, his ears are still ringing.
There is mud in his ears, in his nose, in his mouth. His tongue tastes earth and dampness, his shoulders feel a crushing weight that he can't quite remember the origin of- was it the earth crashing down on him, or is that just the fact that there seems to be earth in his lungs?
He scrabbles at the ground underneath him when he tries to get up and his nails only find purchase on the wooden boards of the deck, and that's when it hits him. He sees stars instead of darkness and he remembers: the tunnel, the danger, the panic and the plan. He remembers what he was doing, and he remembers the crash, and suddenly he also remembers a year in his life he'd forgotten about for the past four.
“No,” he says, as he gets up on shaky knees. He is covered in dirt, his chest bare and the kerchief that had covered his mouth hanging around his neck.
“No, no, fucking no--”
He had to get him back, he was giving everything to make sure Charlie made it back to him, and now he's on the Barge.
“Take me back!”