withtheoldbreed | permissions for lastvoyages

REPEAT, REPLAY EACH DEATH, EACH DAY.
there's a guilt you can't shake away for coming back

OOC PREFERENCES:
•CONTACT METHOD: AIM (girlwonder004), plurk (batmanschmatman), or PM Gene's journal.
•THREAD-JACKING: Totally fine! But if it starts getting to the point where it might make more sense to start a new spam somewhere else or something, I would appreciate it if you moved it. c:
•FOURTH WALLING / CANON PUNCTURE: I'd prefer it if people didn't recognize Gene from the HBO show or as the historical Eugene Sledge, although I might change my mind on the latter moving down the line. I'd also appreciate it if anyone who would have had reason to read With the Old Breed either hasn't, or their copies have mysteriously vanished because Gene would flip. 8v THAT SAID, feel free to recognize him as other Joseph Mazzello roles, and you can certainly confuse him with Dillon.
•BACKTAGGING: Always!
•AVOIDED TOPICS: I'm pretty uncomfortable when it comes to vampires drinking people's blood, and I'm generally uncomfortable being brought into plots involving sexual assault. If there's a specific reason why you want me/my character in it, just let me know well in advance so we can discuss it before I decide to get involved.
•PREFERRED GENDER PRONOUN: She/Her/Etc.

IC CHARACTERISTICS:
•CURRENT CANON POINT: 1x07: Peleliu Hills - After Ack Ack is shot and killed by a sniper.
•PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Gene is about 5'9", slim, very pale, with red hair and brown eyes. He wears his hair short, stays clean shaven if he can, and had a young face, which means it's probably fair to assume he's a good three or so years younger than he actually is. His clothing is fairly old fashioned in that he's going to be sticking exclusively to clothes from the 1940's unless someone talks him into wearing modern clothes and goes shopping for him. As a note, right now he's wearing his combat uniform pretty exclusively - a fatigue green dungaree jacket, pants, boondockers and a white t-shirt, with a belt with lots of pouches around the waist and a pretty big knife (called a KA-BAR) on his hip. At some point, he'll probably switch to civilian clothes exclusively. He has a distinctive southern accent (he's from Alabama) and smells like pipe tobacco or cigarette smoke and soap. On bad days, he's got a really noticeable thousand yard stare.
•DEMEANOR: Like an onion, Gene has many layers. For the most part, he's polite and seemingly friendly enough to strangers, but there's sort of an edge to him, or a disconnect that comes from being incredibly fucked up by everything he's seen. It's hard for him to fully relate to other people who haven't been where he's been, and he'll struggle a lot with finding a good balance of being genuinely open to making new friends and trying to wrestle down the feelings of disconnect and frustration. Once you get past that, Gene can be a goofy, pleasant person to be around, who's genuinely very fond and protective of his friends. He's good at following orders even if he doesn't respect the person they're coming from (although he will have a hard time hiding his disgust if he's being bossed around by someone he doesn't respect), and generally keeps relatively level headed in a crisis situation. He's sort of quiet and an observer of people, two traits that have only gotten more pronounced the more he's struggled with combat fatigue. When he's really struggling with feelings of disconnect and depression, he'll get very quiet and blank faced.
•ABILITIES: Sledge is a normal baseline human powers wise, with nothing supernatural about him. He's been trained by the United States Marine Corps to be an efficient, competent fighter with firearms, in hand to hand combat, and various other pieces of 1940's tech and weaponry. He was a mortarman, but also acted as a rifleman and a stretcher bearer. While he couldn't take Batman in a fight or come anywhere close, the USMC emphasized brutal, deadly hand to hand combat, so he'll likely be able to put up a decent fight if someone jumps him despite looking about as intimidating as a kitten.
•MEDICAL INFORMATION: As a child, Gene had a variety of health problems including a bout of rheumatic fever that left him with a heart murmur. His health has greatly improved as he's gotten older, and the heart murmur's gone away, but he'll still likely be forthcoming with that information while getting checked out with Barge doctors because it's a good thing to know about. After initially arriving on the ship, Gene will be filthy, covered in sores, cuts, abrasions and bruises, probably suffering from dysentery and desperately in need of some decent food that isn't coming out of a can. After getting treatment and time to recover, physically, he should be fine. Mentally, he's going to be struggling with severe PTSD and have a very difficult time talking to anyone about it.
•CABIN INFORMATION: Gene's room is his bedroom from home - a clean, well kept space with a lot of books and fancy looking furniture with a nice bathroom attached. The door is a heavy, polished brown wood.
•OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS: Gene will have an incredibly difficult time with anyone trying to say they understand what he's been through unless they're also a combat veteran, and will get super touchy about anyone who tries to turn personal suffering into a pissing contest or dismisses his experience as not a big deal/get over it/etc. He'll also get extremely touchy if anyone tries to play a "Americans were just as bad as the Japanese/Nazis" card, because even though he's disturbed by the war crimes he's seen committed, he knows the enemy's been doing the same thing and worse to civilians. This will also extend to anyone trying to tell him to drop some of the racist attitudes/language he's picked up towards the Japanese, because it's just another way he thinks people don't understand what horror he's been witness to. Fortunately, there's a very good chance the extremely deep hatred will fade now that he's out of the combat zone and it doesn't extend as severely towards civilians, so hopefully he'll come around on that with time.

IC PERMISSIONS:
•MENTAL: Ask me first.
•MIMICRY: Ask me first.
•VIOLENCE: Ask me first.
•MAGIC: Ask me first.
•DEBATE: Go for it!
•OTHER / NOTES: I'm really pretty flexible about most things, I just want to know when something's going to happen so I know what to expect from the thread instead of going WOAH WAIT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN, GENE IS NOW A FROG.