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_________________________________________________________ John Thomas Constantine _________________________________________________________ Caucasian | Unemployed _________________________________________________________ London | Greater London Area | England
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N O T A B L E P E R S O N S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Cheryl Constantine - Sister ► Thomas Constantine - Father ► Mary-Anne Constantine - Mother (deceased) ► Jacob Constantine - Twin-brother (deceased) ► Gary Lester - Former friend ► Francis 'Chas' Kramer - Former friend -
May 10th, 2004. Mary-Anne Constantine, struggling with a strenuous labour compounded by complications from a previous abortion, passes away while giving birth to John Constantine and his stillborn twin brother. Thomas Constantine, father and suddenly widower, would not forgive the mewling infant for the death of his wife, or the stillbirth of his other son. John would not come to understand this animosity from his only remaining guardian for twelve years; but his older sister, Cheryl Constantine, would pick up on it the same night that Thomas returned home with John. She would spend her days from that point forwards protecting John from the father that had spurned him, pouring into him the love he was otherwise denied.
By the time of his teen years, the bond between Cheryl and John had created an impenetrable barrier against Thomas' drunkenly-hurled abuse and persecution, and was only stronger for the addition of Gary Lester and Francis Kramer to their cabal of found-family. The four of them formed a strong union of friendship, each guarded and guided by the others. They would pursue their interests both independently and as a unit, exploring the new and old of the world around them. The darker aspects of art would become the glue that cemented them together, a deep interest in Punk and Emo, as well as Horror and the Occult, binding them with a common pursuit. Cheryl, oldest of the group, would often guide the four in practice rituals and pretend spells, filling the younger boys' minds with fantasies of weaved magic and sorcery that would fix their fragmented lives and grant them all their teenaged minds could dare to imagine.
When John was seventeen, he would participate in another such ritual lead by Cheryl, one she treated with hitherto unknown gravitas. This one was different, they could all feel it; Cheryl radiated a solemnity that was undeniable, bringing promises of magical power and great fortune that the four boys were compelled to believe in.
The ritual was no fantasy - no pig-english nonsense garbled for cheap thrills, words catching in throats from schoolboy fright - no pound-shop tealights, extinguished accidentally when you waved your arm too enthusiastically. This was the real deal: components scavenged and crafted, specific chants and intonations to be uttered at specific intervals. Words and runes were drawn carefully, positions selected with forethought, and when the hour finally came, all was conjured as it was meant to be - but what the ritual achieved was not what Cheryl had been lead to believe.
Unbeknownst to Cheryl, John, Thomas, or even the departed Mary-Anne, the Constantine's bloodline was one of powerful magic and a specific title passed down through ancestry from one Constantine to the next: the Laughing Magician, a wizard unlike any other, who bent the world to their will through the secret power of synchronicity. It was John's stillborn twin, Jacob, that had been the next to inherit this power - but with Jacob's death, powerful wheels had been set it motion to re-right this broken prophecy. Cheryl's previous rituals had been no mere games - they were in fact practice runs, as Cheryl had secretly uncovered her own witchcraft, granted through her bloodline. The ancestral ghosts of Constantine mages had felt this, and spun lies around Cheryl, tricking her into casting a very special spell.
The ritual, rather than granting power and fortune, instead opened a terrible gateway to the Astral Plane, through which flooded the warped spirits of long-dead Laughing Magicians. They tormented the attendees, lashing them with psychological scars, and abducted Cheryl wholly into their ethereal, limbo-like plane. When the tear closed, Cheryl was gone, and John was left only with the memory of her screaming, pleading face, surrounded by hundred of hideous spectres.
Each in attendance left traumatised, and each experienced their own fallout. Gary turned to drink and drugs, pushing his mind into oblivion rather than live with the memories. Francis fled to London, reinventing himself as 'Chas', a man who'd never experienced such terror. John, for his part, found his psyche fracturing completely, reeling from the loss of Cheryl, and ended up committed and incarcerated at Ravenscar Asylum.
Now, two years later and only nineteen years old, John has been remanded from Ravenscar to a temporary residency in a halfway-house for recent releases. Cheryl is still gone, and John remains haunted by her absence; his father refuses to reveal his whereabouts to his only remaining family; and his only friends have scattered to the winds in the intervening years. When fresh hauntings from John's past begin tormenting him anew will he lose what little fragile mind he has left? Or strive to finally put old ghosts to rest?
P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S )
With this John, I'm looking to revise and tighten up a previous origin-story rewrite that paints John a little younger, a little less knowledgeable, but ultimately just as traumatised and, more importantly, cunning. The well-known initial incident with Nergal and Astra - John's defining failue in canon - has been replaced with a more personal catastrophe, tearing apart John's mind as well as the only family he had. With Cheryl abducted to the aether and his friends cast to the wind, John is left to pick up the pieces of his life and find his way back to a sense of normalcy - though of course, Constantine's 'normal' is far removed from your average, everyday 'normal'.
With this John and his story, I want to retell how the 'Laughing Magician' won his noteriety in a way that makes this interpretation of the character identifiably 'mine', and from there, build on that foundation to expand his adventures and establish my John in a wider alternative DC 'canon'.
C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y
_________________________________________________________ Roy William Harper _________________________________________________________ Caucasian | World's Most Dangerous Recovering Addict _________________________________________________________ Seattle | Washington | United States
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M I S C E L L A N E O U S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► ALLIES: None
ASSOCIATES: Dinah Lance - Black Canary: Once upon a time she doubled as both step-mother and big sister. Now she's only clouds Roy's mind when his ears are ringing, a reminder of a better life.
Oliver Jonas Queen - Green Arrow: The Man that once upon a time saved Roy. He took him in and recognized the potential in him. In many ways Ollie taught Roy what it meant to be a man. Insisting the two of them were partners, Oliver never treated Roy with anything but respect. The kind of respect that Roy would constantly throw in Queen's face. Their dynamic duo only became perfect after Oliver's death.
THE TITANS: Former allies, his first attempt at finding a family with his peers. Roy soon realized that no matter what constellation the team took, he was always the odd man out. He took his place firmly in someone else's shadow, regardless if they wore a bat or a S. That family has since fallen apart and Roy is once again a loner.
Waylon Jones - Killer Croc: Oliver was his teacher, his savior, then Croc is his jailkeeper. The former supervillain is now the only person in the world Roy knows he can count on. Talking him out of death-by-croc, Waylon is now his sponsor and ensuring Roy stays on the wagon.
Roy is a man with many different faces, each a mask layered on top of the previous one, going too deep as to confuse even himself. He'll shrug anything off, push down his emotions and stuff more crap on top of them one second, to the most heart-shattering introspection in the next. The clown, the village idiot, the super genius and now-unmatched marksman. Roy is the kind of man who could build a weapon of mass destruction with supplies from Walmart. Improvisation and innovation guides him, he's never once structured a plan yet manages to adapt to most situations he finds himself in and the ones he can't handle he manages to get out of by dumb luck. As far as adaptions go, this Roy is a very clear hybridization between Young Justice Roy (Season 1 - 3, 'Will') and the Roy we see in Red Hood & Outlaws / Red Hood & Arsenal from the New 52. He can fit the role of emotional core or jackass in any situation, a deadly killer or a charming hero, and it's that sort of ambiguity that draws me to the character. He's a fuck up, and he knows it.
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He became Ollie's sidekick early in Oliver's career, he grew up in Green Arrow's footsteps, Oliver is equal parts brother as he is father and for a long time he was the only family Roy ever knew. During the fight with Despero Oliver gave his life to give the league a shot at victory and his sacrifice allowed the League the chance to defeat the mad titan. Roy blames himself for Oliver's demise, and ever since he hung up official heroing and has spent the past four years at the bottom of every bottle or end of every needle he could find.
That is until he decided he was gonna end it all, in the sewers of Star City where he tracked down Waylon Jones, Killer Croc who at first fought him but soon took pity on him. Roy's been on the wagon for the past seven months. Now he's a man without a mission, looking for purpose or at the very least a way to keep himself busy enough to not fall back down into the bottle. There are people in the world who wouldn't wish for Roy's talent to go to waste and the young archer needs someplace to call home.
He's still full of grief that he never faced, angry at the world but most of all angry at himself. A part of him believes he should hang up the bow for good, another part believes he has to save so many people that he stops feeling so guilty, that if he lives up to Oliver's legacy he will finally find peace.