Skip Ref Sheet

Skip

History:
Skip, like pretty much everyone else in the late 1930's, is down on his luck. He finds an ad for a job on an out-of-the-way little island that's recently been open to colonization, and he really can't turn the offer down. It's that, or starve. When he reached the island, he found out he was to work for a cargo company, dragging cargo and the occasional idiot through the jungle from outpost to outpost while avoiding flora, fauna, disease, and bad equipment. On his first run, where he and the other newcomer, Scruffy, were being shown the usual route by Captain Robert Asmuth, he managed to save the boat from crashing in the middle of a river after a hippo attack and took everyone into the jungle to find a place to stay for the night before returning to base. They soon came across a ruined civilization, accidentally released the demons that were trapped in stone, and he ran off while the other two were being possessed. This is how he came to be in charge of either recapturing or, preferably, destroying them. So far, he's tracked down Scruffy and managed an imperfect bonding of the Ennumi to her, but he still has to find Asmuth, and it is on this search that they ended up coming to the Leviathan.

Personality:
Skip is usually easy-going. He tends to get really excited about technology, and less excited about things he perceives as dangerous. He's also a smoker, and he doesn't have any cigarettes on him. Unless someone is kind enough to supply him with tobacco, he's likely to be somewhat unpleasant as he goes through withdrawals.

He likes to be prepared. He'll keep things on him that he thinks are important, like the toolbox and a supply of bells. He also collects useful things as he goes along, including bits of string, buttons, or anything else. He's from the Great Depression. Everything is valuable to him.

He also reads funny books, just not as avidly as Scruffy. He really doesn't pay attention to what happens in them.

When he's nervous, or even when he's in fear for his life, he's likely to start making jokes. Bad ones. Mostly he uses puns. He tends to use "Damn!" more than any other invective.

Strengths:
He's something of a Macgyver. He can fix or build practically anything. This skill was useful in the run-down facilities of the Jungle Navigation Company and should serve him well for any adventure he finds himself in. It doesn't always look pretty, but it will do the job. He'll create any kind of useful contraption he thinks he needs, so long as he can find the parts.

He's a quick learner, and generally a likeable young man.

He's also a good shot with a gun. He won't like shooting at a person, but if he or his team is threatened, he'll defend them.

Weaknesses:
Skip is not good at physical confrontations. In a fight, his most likely response will be to run away. He's also likely to try to ease the tension with bad jokes at exactly the wrong moment. When flustered, words sometimes get mixed up in his mouth and he accidentally says the wrong thing.

He's afraid of large animals, particularly hippos, large cats, and elephants.

His lack of cigarettes can make him snappish and irritable, and he can only go so far before he starts coughing and hacking. He may also be shaky at times because of this.

Relationships:
He has control over Ellie's actions. She cannot use her abilities without his permission, and this causes a lot of tension between them. He's somewhat scared of her, but somewhere deep down the two have developed a strange affection for each other.
He is aware Scruffy has a crush on him, but she's also ten years younger than him. Until a few weeks ago, he was under the impression she was a young man who "batted for the other team."

Belongings:
Skip has a toolbox, a gun, various bells, and about half a boat at his disposal. This includes plenty of wood, as well as the nails, bolts, and screws holding things together, parts of an engine block, a microphone, a crate of quinine, a mostly-full ammo case for his six-shooter, a lifesaver, mosquito netting, a canteen, a frying pan, three measuring cups, a few iron rods, part of the canvas roof of the boat, two blankets, a crate of instant coffee, various foodstuffs, both perishable and nonperishable, rope, a Swiss army knife, and a small sewing kit. There may be one or two other things he hasn't inventoried yet, not to mention some lianas he doesn't really want to have with him.

1938:
Skip, Scruffy, and Ellie all live in 1938. The States have yet to join the War, instant coffee and Superman have just been invented, the Great Depression is in full swing (although government work programs have been initiated to help turn that around.) Televisions exist, but are not popular and won't be until the Lone Ranger comes out. Animated films are not doing well, but the entertainment industry is booming.

If you have questions or comments, send them my way!



NOTE:
The whole set up for their reality comes from working at Disneyland. The Jungle Cruise has this beautiful backstory that nobody ever tells, so hardly anyone knows it any more. It's set in 1938, most of the skippers are supposed to have run away from their lives and tried to start again, and most of it ties together fairly well. There are major issues, like the fact that you jump from continent to continent on the tour, so if I'm asked I tell people that they are, in fact, on a small island that's under the same debunked land-bridge theory that made Swiss Family Robinson work. We also used to have characters we portrayed with all kinds of stuff in their history, but now most of us just use personas, so there's a "Skip" version of my Jungle tours and a "Scruffy" version. I decided to further develop the characters and use them in a story of my own.

Ellie is not supposed to be a part of the ride. She was put next to Trader Sam, sneezing on people and showing signs of elephantine panic and smiling in a creepy manner all the while. One day we noticed that the robot's skin had ripped, leaving a huge gash across her throat. A few of us decided that, seeing as everything in the Jungle is supposed to be real and alive no matter what the ten-year-olds say, there had to be something supernatural. The boss suggested she was demonspawn. It stuck. So did her helping in Trader Sam's Cannibal Cafe and occasionally eating unwary guests and new kids. It's sick, but then again a lot of us are too.

I tried writing the story, but like many of the projects I undertake, I didn't really have a solution to the problems the characters faced, and after a while I lost interest. The three main characters stuck with me, and I was already using my primary set of characters for another OCT. Now I've got three total anachronisms in RotL.