Duncan Heimdall Jackson

Appearance
Natural Hair/Eye Color: Brown hair, blue eyes

Height: 5'8"

Body Type: Skinny. Duncan is a weed.

Noticeable Scars/Tattoos and Location: He has a nice collection of scars obtained from unfortunate encounters with staircases, but most of them are standard wear-and-tear scars that aren't terribly noticeable. He does have a large scar along the outside of his left elbow where he needed stitches after a fall. No tattoos or piercings.

Clothing Style: Duncan dresses very simply. He's a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy, with a collection of flannel shirts for long-sleeve weather. He does wear cowboy boots occasionally, but not often, because it marks him as obviously Texan. He's more often seen in black leather boots, because they're part of his biking ensemble.

When he needs to dress up, he has a charcoal suit and a handful of dress shirts and ties to choose from; the shirts are all standard white, but the ties are shades and patterns of red. All of his accessories--scarves, gloves, etc--tend toward red.

He has a full set of Personal Protective Equipment for his motorcycle, which he is commonly seen in: reinforced leather jacket, kevlar reinforced jeans, leather boots, full-face helmet, and gloves. In fact most of his jeans are the kevlar reinforced type and he doesn't wear plain denim unless he's sure he won't be hopping on his bike that day.

The leather jacket is red and black.

History
Duncan grew up on an emu farm just outside of Austin. His family has raised emus since before he was born, and he's come to have a healthy loathing of the things due to knowing more about them than anybody has any right to know. He was the oldest of seven children, and spent much of his childhood getting blamed whenever his siblings got into trouble. Because of the age differences (he was fifteen when the youngest was born), he has lots of experience with young children, and he's very good around them.

He's always been a nerd, and he got into RPing and MMOs in his early teens. He met his best friend, Lynea, through MMOs when he was fifteen. They hopped games with each other until finding Zenderael. After graduating high school, he went to college in Austin and earned a bachelors degree in genetics. He chose to go to grad school in Lynea's city, because getting to hang out with his BFF in real life on a regular basis sounded awesome.

Duncan is currently a year into his PhD in genetics. He interns at the university lab, where he's involved in some less than ethical experiments in the name of SCIENCE! It makes him feel a powerful sense of guilt around rats.

Personality
Duncan is a pessimist. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. And he isn't even the type of pessimist who will cover for it by claiming to be a "realist." He's well-aware that he's just assuming the worst for the sake of whining about it. See, Duncan's the kind of person who isn't happy unless he's miserable. He just needs something to complain about. You know that one guy who will watch a show he hates for years and won't stop ranting about how terrible it is, but won't stop watching it either? That's Duncan.

He's sarcastic and cynical and his particular brand of humour is of the deadpan variety. He can be a real dick sometimes, but it's usually in the form of mockery directed at people he hates and/or finds idiotic. But only online. He doesn't want to risk getting punched for it in real life, because he's pretty twiggy.

He's easy to push around if you have any kind of authority over him. Any fight he puts up will be half-hearted at best because he already knows he's going to walk away from the situation the loser. This applies to friends with very strong personalities, as well. Lynea can force him into anything with a stern enough stare, and guilt is a strong motivator.

He's also the most loyal friend you will ever have. If you call him up at 3AM the night before a big test because you need a ride home after your car broke down on the side of the road, he will go out there and pick you up. He might complain about it, loudly and at length, but he will be there. If you need something that he is able to give, he will give it.

Despite the negative personality, he's an incredibly helpful person. If you're new at something and he can tell you're trying, he'll help you out. He tutors classmates, mentors new leaguemates, helps new RPers get involved in the game. He'll even defend newbies when it comes to games. If somebody's yelling at the healer who's still learning his class, Duncan will tell them to fuck off and leave the new guy alone. As long as you're trying, he'll be very patient with you. If you're not trying, he'll get frustrated, feel like he wasted his time, and hate you forever. (Okay not forever.)

When Duncan decides to do something, he will get it done. He is a hard worker and very dedicated to anything he puts his mind to. He'll whine about it the whole way, of course--do you even REALIZE how much HOMEWORK he has to do by the end of the week and OF COURSE the lab results aren't turning out right when do they EVER and he'll have to REDO EVERYTHING oh my GOD--but he'll get it done and done right.

He's a tightly wound spring, very high-strung. Sometimes it works in his favour--he will always make a deadline because his panic fuels him--but more often it works against him. He gets unnecessarily stressed out by minor setbacks, and the smallest problem can be the last straw, throwing him into a full-on nervous breakdown.

He's a very intelligent person and enjoys learning, but school stresses him out so badly. His preferred mode of destress is playing games online with his friends, but even then he's the one yelling at the raid tank for being an idiot and losing aggro while he's trying to heal everyone.

Flaws

 * Being incredibly fucking high-strung with a penchant to panic. Everything is a federal fucking issue. He's the sort of person to stay up for 5 hours wrestling with technical difficulties the night before a turn-in or final and just cry when the printer breaks down for the 75th time.
 * He does not always think before he acts/speaks and tends to say stupid shit and then turn around and say, "Forget I said that."
 * He's notoriously unobservant and frequently manages to miss the obvious, no matter how obvious it might seem.
 * Being easy to push around and also wary of face-to-face conflict can leave him very bitter toward people who take advantage of these traits. Rather than fix himself, he internalizes his anger and holds grudges against the people responsible.

Etc.

 * He falls on staircases a lot. Or at least, more than most people. If there's an elevator available, he'll always take it instead.
 * Don't get him started on emus you guys he can rant about how much he hates emus for days.
 * Having grown up in Texas, he does have a Texan accent, but he trained himself in the "default" American accent after being made fun of on vent one time too many by his guildies. The Texas twang still comes out when he's tired or drunk. Or right after he gets off the phone with his mom.
 * His nose is perfectly straight, and he's a bit self-conscious about it. It doesn't help that one of his idle fidgets is rubbing the bridge of his nose.
 * He rides a red Kawasaki motorcycle and does not own a car (though he does know how to drive one). He is very intense about motorcycle safety and also will not let anybody touch his bike unless he is driving them somewhere on it.
 * The motorcycle's name is Regina Nichole Avery. Gene > Gina > Regina, initials RNA, Avery is the name of the scientist who discovered DNA. His last bike was Diane Naomi Avery.
 * He met Harriet in a fandom RP where he played a character from a Utena-esque magical girl type show named Iris.

Forum info

 * Username: Heimdall
 * Avatar: It cycles through different fanart of the Mazda. Currently an artsy shot of her looking out over the Nenakret.
 * Signature: None

CR

 * Alison Koch: Way too fucking nice, he can't stand her (DROPPED)
 * Allen Marks: A psych major from FCU, got in touch with him to ask if he' be interested in being Ravi's therapist
 * Ezra Amos: Knows him as Nadir/Ras's player, didn't really start talking to him until he became the Spenta and had to deal with Ravi regularly
 * Gabriel Chen: A friend who is okay in small doses, but they grate on each other due to some personality clash
 * Gunnar Hydrik: He's staying with Theresa, Duncan introduced him to Missie so she could give him some advice on his damaged arm
 * Harriet Webster: AKA Nix, plays Nova, used to play with her in a fandom game, she looks up to him as an adult who knows things
 * Jack 'Malachai' Brampton: A good friend who is constantly needling him (DROPPED)
 * Jordan Hayes: RP partner turned hostile, they got along okay online but it turns out they can't stand each other in person
 * Lera Savinkov: Makes maps, has a paladin who will probably be dangerous now that he's real; also his sister's roommate
 * Lindsey Valeria Stern: BFF, helps take care of her son--or did, until he vanished into Zen. He worries about her but tries not to hover too much
 * Lynea: wow no okay you can't just burst into his room and threaten him and his sister, we are not on speaking terms
 * Marlene Reliace: His alt, the first to become real. She forgave him for her backstory and they are friends now
 * Melissa 'Missie' Eir Duncan: His oldest younger sister, was living in his dorm but has since moved in with Lera, they are very close
 * Nadir Kahil: Duncan helps him out with monster hunting by providing encyclopedic bestiary knowledge
 * Nova Kylethe: Harriet's crazy alt who is unfortunately fascinated with him, Duncan is terrified of him but intent on defending himself whenever they're in the same world
 * Rasmus: Ravi's friend, played by Ezra, currently living with Lera and his sister
 * Rhys Elena: A total bro, former lead singer of a band he likes whoops
 * Samuel Stern: Lindsey's son, calls him 'Uncle Duncan' (NPC)
 * Theresa Hargrave: He likes her quiet, undemanding nature a lot; recently had his first date with her
 * Yonca Ulle: Had CR with Artemis, has an arrangement with Duncan where he gives her things and she gives him enchantments in return