Gabriel Reyes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gravemistake) wrote2019-04-11 06:37 pm
gravemistake) wrote2019-04-11 06:37 pm
meadowlark app
> PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Whit
PRONOUNS: she/her
AGE: 29
CONTACT:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
whitticus
> CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Gabriel Reyes
CANON: Overwatch
AGE: 51
CANON POINT: Uprising, after the liberation of King’s Row, plus ~7 months in![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
elnysa.
HISTORY: [here]
Additional references for optional extra content: [The Omnic Crisis] [Overwatch (organization)] [Blackwatch]
PERSONALITY: Gabriel Reyes is, more than most, a man shaped by his experiences, the product of three decades in covert ops, where duplicity and subterfuge is the name of the game. Hardened by war and difficult to impress, Reyes has spent a lifetime doing the dirty work required to keep the world safe and as such has about the attitude you’d expect—vaguely cynical, no-nonsense, and extremely serious about his high-stakes occupation. A complete hardass.
Having earned a reputation in the US military even before leading a hand-picked team to stop the robot apocalypse, Reyes has a leadership style that can be described as “do whatever it takes”. He's seen immeasurable war and loss and is exceedingly pragmatic as a result, knowing intimately that the machinations of government and politics only serve to delay what needs to be done. Where his counterpart Jack Morrison exists largely in the public eye and therefore must adhere to protocol, Reyes sees no need for anything that might impede his work, which he views as absolutely vital. If there’s red tape (or say, a nation’s sovereignty) between point A and point B, well, he’ll just sneak around it. Everyone is better off sitting back and letting him do his job unobstructed.
Whether that’s true or not is debatable (and opens up a larger discussion regarding the ethics of secret black ops as part of international peacekeeping), but Reyes has been at this a long time, and likes to think he knows what's effective. He’s an intelligent, highly capable wartime commander with an eye for talent, but has difficulties translating those abilities to bureaucracy and politicking, which is likely the reason he was passed over for command of a peacetime Overwatch. That’s fine by him (mostly), as it affords him the opportunity to operate in the way he sees fit, with little accountability or regard for broader repercussions. Those are for Jack to worry about.
Without the burdens of being a public figure, Reyes tends to act how he wants. Despite the sky-high expectations he has for his subordinates and the tight ship he runs, his general demeanor is almost overly-casual. He's got a sense of humor, though it tends to be on the sardonic side—even snide, when the occasion calls for it. This tends to give the impression that he just doesn’t care, however, the sarcasm is a mask for the toll his job is taking on him and the increasingly precarious situation in which he finds himself. When push comes to shove, he understands the gravity of what he does and knows that sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.
Given the decisions he’s been making for two decades, he's not above subverting orders, acting unsanctioned, or taking entire missions off the rails if he thinks it’s necessary. Reyes is arrogant, refusing to admit wrongdoing or admit to poor choices, even when his actions nearly get his team killed, betray the trust placed in him, and catalyze the decline of Overwatch. On some level, he might know he's making a mess by continuing to adhere to his methodology in a changing world, but as he grows paranoid, desperate, and isolated, all he can really do is double down.
Predictably, Reyes has a complicated relationship with his subordinates and colleagues. Jack Morrison and Ana Amari are ostensibly his closest friends—he commanded them in the Crisis and shares leadership of Overwatch with them in the years following. Their confidence in him speaks to his dependability and character, but he can just as easily be manipulative and duplicitous. He extends a “lifeline” to disgraced geneticist Moira O’Deorain but seeks her out largely to investigate his own genetic curiosities. He recruits a desperate Genji Shimada to capitalize on the cyborg’s desire for revenge against his crime syndicate family. He has no issue lying to or withholding information from Jack and Ana if he feels he needs to, taking advantage of their unconditional trust in him. Even his protegé Jesse McCree came to Blackwatch through coercion—work for Reyes, or spend a lifetime in prison. Though years later the two have developed a working relationship and rapport, there’s still residual bitterness between them. Still, when one of his agents is injured in the line of duty, Reyes is shown to be deeply troubled, implying an underlying devotion to his people, even if it manifests in less-than-healthy ways.
Ultimately, he's not in covert ops for the accolades, but Reyes is watching the organization he gave his life to at great personal cost and for little recognition start to crumble around him, partly due to his own actions. His friends are bound by bureaucracy and international law and won’t sanction what he believes are necessary preemptive strikes, despite the fact that they were more than willing to let him take decisive, off-the-books action when it was convenient for them. Gradually, he’s become embittered by this change in philosophy and willingness of his supposed allies to throw him under the bus, feeling cast aside by the organization he founded. Unable to take full responsibility for the mistakes he’s been making but still steadfast in his convictions, he’s finding himself in too deep, with his support system vanishing from underneath him.
If preventing total collapse this means getting in bed with the enemy, well. It certainly wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s ever done.
CRAU:
Gabriel spends most of his time on El Nysa coming to terms with the fact that everyone else from his world is at least five years ahead of him. As if being transported to another world upon the destruction of his own via an entity called the Storm isn’t enough, his awakening from stasis involves a kidnapping and interrogation at the hands of Jack and Ana. Gabriel very quickly realizes that they’re from the future thanks to their appearances, though at first he doesn’t understand why they’re treating him like an enemy. The fact that they refuse to tell him about his missing time certainly doesn’t help.
The truth is that Jack and Ana remember the series of events that brought about the fall of Overwatch—they treat him like an enemy because, from their point of view, Reyes has turned on them and is working with Talon as the mercenary Reaper.
Without this information, Gabriel can’t help but feel betrayed that his friends no longer consider themselves such, and he spends a not insignificant amount of time attempting to weasel the truth out of them, often to the detriment of a potential reconciliation. However, they’re his strongest ties to his former life, and despite the tension, Gabriel can’t help but try to insert himself into their orbit, forcibly re-acclimating all three of them to a working relationship, however strained and distrustful. He doesn’t spend much time involving himself in the politics of El Nysa, simply because he’s so fixated on solving the mystery of what happened to Overwatch and his closest allies.
Eventually, Moira O’Deorain awakens, further complicating the situation, as she’s similarly from his future and also not very forthcoming about it. Gabriel finds himself trying to navigate his relationship with her while keeping things from getting worse with Jack and Ana, feeling as though there's no one he can really trust. Eventually, they decide that Gabriel should hear the truth from them, before Moira gets the chance to reveal what awaits him. Jack and Ana don’t tell him the entire story—they omit the part where he defects to Talon and is currently serving on the organization’s council—but it’s enough. Gabriel is left to grapple with not only the dissolution of Overwatch, but also his own death and transformation into something apparently inhuman. This realization is sobering, enough for Gabriel to give up on further probing.
When Ana returns to stasis, his relationship with Jack becomes increasingly tenuous. Without a mediator, their progress deteriorates and they eventually come to blows. However, this serves as a turning point for Gabriel, who rescues Jack from a spell cast by one of the planet’s gods. The gesture begins to repair their relationship as Gabriel is faced with losing his last ally and starts to admit (to himself, at least), his role in Overwatch’s downfall, and the multitude of ways he took advantage of Jack over the years.
As the Storm descends on Nysa, the refugees engage in a last-ditch plan to undo the end of the world, traveling back in time to solicit the help of the Thesian gods to prevent catastrophe. It’s here that Jack and Gabriel fall back into the familiarity of working as a team, the desperation of the situation bringing them closer together. Gabriel starts to consider the sacrifices Jack made in leading Overwatch, and for the first time he begins to think about the fact that this is a second chance for both of them. There’s damage that can’t be undone, sure, but Gabriel can make the conscious decision not to walk down the path that eventually leads them all to destruction, even if their version of Earth seems assuredly long-gone. Perhaps he's able to choose a different path because of that.
He’s still not a very good person, but he’s starting to realize that he can be better, and that Jack is all he's got. Since this comes with a lot of complicated feelings, it’s most certainly going to be slow going.
SPECIES: Genetically-enhanced human
APPEARANCE: [tactical jeggings]
SKILLS:
Gabriel was genetically augmented in his early twenties as part of an experimental soldier enhancement program, and as such has the following abilities:
NEW POWER: Dematerialization, based on the ghost powers he will eventually develop in canon. Gabriel can become formless for a few seconds at a time, resembling a cloud of black smoke. To start, he will have limited control over the ability, and will be largely unable to manipulate himself beyond his human shape, nor will he be able to travel. As the power progresses, he will be able to remain in this state for longer periods of time, change shape, and even localize it to certain parts of his body.
POWER REASONING:
Gabriel has spent an entire career working in the shadows, a figurative ghost and master of covert operations. In that sense, this power is a physical extension of his expertise. As he’s vaguely aware of and is grappling with what he becomes after the fall of Overwatch, I intend this power to reflect his darker impulses, forcing him to navigates the conflict between its inherent usefulness and the loss of his humanity.
> SAMPLES
SAMPLE ONE: [here]
SAMPLE TWO: [here]
NAME: Whit
PRONOUNS: she/her
AGE: 29
CONTACT:
> CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Gabriel Reyes
CANON: Overwatch
AGE: 51
CANON POINT: Uprising, after the liberation of King’s Row, plus ~7 months in
elnysa.HISTORY: [here]
Additional references for optional extra content: [The Omnic Crisis] [Overwatch (organization)] [Blackwatch]
PERSONALITY: Gabriel Reyes is, more than most, a man shaped by his experiences, the product of three decades in covert ops, where duplicity and subterfuge is the name of the game. Hardened by war and difficult to impress, Reyes has spent a lifetime doing the dirty work required to keep the world safe and as such has about the attitude you’d expect—vaguely cynical, no-nonsense, and extremely serious about his high-stakes occupation. A complete hardass.
Having earned a reputation in the US military even before leading a hand-picked team to stop the robot apocalypse, Reyes has a leadership style that can be described as “do whatever it takes”. He's seen immeasurable war and loss and is exceedingly pragmatic as a result, knowing intimately that the machinations of government and politics only serve to delay what needs to be done. Where his counterpart Jack Morrison exists largely in the public eye and therefore must adhere to protocol, Reyes sees no need for anything that might impede his work, which he views as absolutely vital. If there’s red tape (or say, a nation’s sovereignty) between point A and point B, well, he’ll just sneak around it. Everyone is better off sitting back and letting him do his job unobstructed.
Whether that’s true or not is debatable (and opens up a larger discussion regarding the ethics of secret black ops as part of international peacekeeping), but Reyes has been at this a long time, and likes to think he knows what's effective. He’s an intelligent, highly capable wartime commander with an eye for talent, but has difficulties translating those abilities to bureaucracy and politicking, which is likely the reason he was passed over for command of a peacetime Overwatch. That’s fine by him (mostly), as it affords him the opportunity to operate in the way he sees fit, with little accountability or regard for broader repercussions. Those are for Jack to worry about.
Without the burdens of being a public figure, Reyes tends to act how he wants. Despite the sky-high expectations he has for his subordinates and the tight ship he runs, his general demeanor is almost overly-casual. He's got a sense of humor, though it tends to be on the sardonic side—even snide, when the occasion calls for it. This tends to give the impression that he just doesn’t care, however, the sarcasm is a mask for the toll his job is taking on him and the increasingly precarious situation in which he finds himself. When push comes to shove, he understands the gravity of what he does and knows that sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.
Given the decisions he’s been making for two decades, he's not above subverting orders, acting unsanctioned, or taking entire missions off the rails if he thinks it’s necessary. Reyes is arrogant, refusing to admit wrongdoing or admit to poor choices, even when his actions nearly get his team killed, betray the trust placed in him, and catalyze the decline of Overwatch. On some level, he might know he's making a mess by continuing to adhere to his methodology in a changing world, but as he grows paranoid, desperate, and isolated, all he can really do is double down.
Predictably, Reyes has a complicated relationship with his subordinates and colleagues. Jack Morrison and Ana Amari are ostensibly his closest friends—he commanded them in the Crisis and shares leadership of Overwatch with them in the years following. Their confidence in him speaks to his dependability and character, but he can just as easily be manipulative and duplicitous. He extends a “lifeline” to disgraced geneticist Moira O’Deorain but seeks her out largely to investigate his own genetic curiosities. He recruits a desperate Genji Shimada to capitalize on the cyborg’s desire for revenge against his crime syndicate family. He has no issue lying to or withholding information from Jack and Ana if he feels he needs to, taking advantage of their unconditional trust in him. Even his protegé Jesse McCree came to Blackwatch through coercion—work for Reyes, or spend a lifetime in prison. Though years later the two have developed a working relationship and rapport, there’s still residual bitterness between them. Still, when one of his agents is injured in the line of duty, Reyes is shown to be deeply troubled, implying an underlying devotion to his people, even if it manifests in less-than-healthy ways.
Ultimately, he's not in covert ops for the accolades, but Reyes is watching the organization he gave his life to at great personal cost and for little recognition start to crumble around him, partly due to his own actions. His friends are bound by bureaucracy and international law and won’t sanction what he believes are necessary preemptive strikes, despite the fact that they were more than willing to let him take decisive, off-the-books action when it was convenient for them. Gradually, he’s become embittered by this change in philosophy and willingness of his supposed allies to throw him under the bus, feeling cast aside by the organization he founded. Unable to take full responsibility for the mistakes he’s been making but still steadfast in his convictions, he’s finding himself in too deep, with his support system vanishing from underneath him.
If preventing total collapse this means getting in bed with the enemy, well. It certainly wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s ever done.
CRAU:
Gabriel spends most of his time on El Nysa coming to terms with the fact that everyone else from his world is at least five years ahead of him. As if being transported to another world upon the destruction of his own via an entity called the Storm isn’t enough, his awakening from stasis involves a kidnapping and interrogation at the hands of Jack and Ana. Gabriel very quickly realizes that they’re from the future thanks to their appearances, though at first he doesn’t understand why they’re treating him like an enemy. The fact that they refuse to tell him about his missing time certainly doesn’t help.
The truth is that Jack and Ana remember the series of events that brought about the fall of Overwatch—they treat him like an enemy because, from their point of view, Reyes has turned on them and is working with Talon as the mercenary Reaper.
Without this information, Gabriel can’t help but feel betrayed that his friends no longer consider themselves such, and he spends a not insignificant amount of time attempting to weasel the truth out of them, often to the detriment of a potential reconciliation. However, they’re his strongest ties to his former life, and despite the tension, Gabriel can’t help but try to insert himself into their orbit, forcibly re-acclimating all three of them to a working relationship, however strained and distrustful. He doesn’t spend much time involving himself in the politics of El Nysa, simply because he’s so fixated on solving the mystery of what happened to Overwatch and his closest allies.
Eventually, Moira O’Deorain awakens, further complicating the situation, as she’s similarly from his future and also not very forthcoming about it. Gabriel finds himself trying to navigate his relationship with her while keeping things from getting worse with Jack and Ana, feeling as though there's no one he can really trust. Eventually, they decide that Gabriel should hear the truth from them, before Moira gets the chance to reveal what awaits him. Jack and Ana don’t tell him the entire story—they omit the part where he defects to Talon and is currently serving on the organization’s council—but it’s enough. Gabriel is left to grapple with not only the dissolution of Overwatch, but also his own death and transformation into something apparently inhuman. This realization is sobering, enough for Gabriel to give up on further probing.
When Ana returns to stasis, his relationship with Jack becomes increasingly tenuous. Without a mediator, their progress deteriorates and they eventually come to blows. However, this serves as a turning point for Gabriel, who rescues Jack from a spell cast by one of the planet’s gods. The gesture begins to repair their relationship as Gabriel is faced with losing his last ally and starts to admit (to himself, at least), his role in Overwatch’s downfall, and the multitude of ways he took advantage of Jack over the years.
As the Storm descends on Nysa, the refugees engage in a last-ditch plan to undo the end of the world, traveling back in time to solicit the help of the Thesian gods to prevent catastrophe. It’s here that Jack and Gabriel fall back into the familiarity of working as a team, the desperation of the situation bringing them closer together. Gabriel starts to consider the sacrifices Jack made in leading Overwatch, and for the first time he begins to think about the fact that this is a second chance for both of them. There’s damage that can’t be undone, sure, but Gabriel can make the conscious decision not to walk down the path that eventually leads them all to destruction, even if their version of Earth seems assuredly long-gone. Perhaps he's able to choose a different path because of that.
He’s still not a very good person, but he’s starting to realize that he can be better, and that Jack is all he's got. Since this comes with a lot of complicated feelings, it’s most certainly going to be slow going.
SPECIES: Genetically-enhanced human
APPEARANCE: [tactical jeggings]
SKILLS:
Gabriel was genetically augmented in his early twenties as part of an experimental soldier enhancement program, and as such has the following abilities:
💀 Enhanced strength - Shown to easily overpower (presumably) ordinary humans. The goal of the SEP was to create “perfect soldiers”, able to combat the omnics in ways that ordinary humans could not.In addition to these enhancements, Gabriel has a very particular set of skills:
💀Enhanced speed/agility - He’s not the fastest product of the SEP, but he has augmented speed and reflexes all the same.
💀Enhanced durability/stamina - Gabriel can take punishment beyond what can be withstood by a normal human, heals from injury faster, and can keep going for longer.
💀 Combat Training - Advanced military, arms, and martial arts training. Combined with thirty+ years of combat experience, this makes him fairly lethal.A NOTE. It’s heavily implied that Reyes is suffering from some kind of genetic issue or degenerative condition resulting from the enhancement program. At this point in canon, he’s been covertly working with a controversial geneticist to investigate the matter. This has escalated into outright experimentation on his person that will eventually result in wraith-like abilities and the constant decay and regeneration of his cells. Because canon is unclear as to exactly when he gains a usable version of these powers in the time before he fully becomes Reaper, and as he has not been shown to use them at the point I’m pulling him from, I assume that his experimentation with Moira has not yet reached this point.
💀Command/Tactics - Extensive knowledge of tactics and experience as a military commander. Helped end the robot uprising by carrying out a series of highly technical and very dangerous asymmetrical operations.
💀 Covert Ops - Lead the black ops division of a global peacekeeping operation. Skilled in the delicate arts of espionage, infiltration, undercover work, interrogation, extraction, and sometimes assassination.
NEW POWER: Dematerialization, based on the ghost powers he will eventually develop in canon. Gabriel can become formless for a few seconds at a time, resembling a cloud of black smoke. To start, he will have limited control over the ability, and will be largely unable to manipulate himself beyond his human shape, nor will he be able to travel. As the power progresses, he will be able to remain in this state for longer periods of time, change shape, and even localize it to certain parts of his body.
POWER REASONING:
Gabriel has spent an entire career working in the shadows, a figurative ghost and master of covert operations. In that sense, this power is a physical extension of his expertise. As he’s vaguely aware of and is grappling with what he becomes after the fall of Overwatch, I intend this power to reflect his darker impulses, forcing him to navigates the conflict between its inherent usefulness and the loss of his humanity.
> SAMPLES
SAMPLE ONE: [here]
SAMPLE TWO: [here]