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Sep. 11th, 2019 11:22 pm
info + permissions + content warning
   Lucas "Luke" Saenz there's smoke in the sky again, so i'm getting high again, take another hit to the diaphragm | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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SCIENCE, BITCH the kids don't stand a chance, no, the kids don't stand a chance BACKGROUNDGENERAL/FAMILY ✦ Age: 27 currently, born in Oakland, CA ✦ Nationality: American ✦ Ethnicity/Heritage: A mystery, possibly generic white dude (paternal), part Honduran/part (Western/Cibecue) Apache Native (maternal side, Apache part comes from Bina Saenz/grandma, who grew up on the reservation, moved to California (Oakland/Berkeley area) with Indian Relocation Act of 1956/Adult Vocational Training Program), she was at the Wounded Knee Occupation (1973) bc fuck tha man ✦ Languages - English, speaks small amounts of Spanish, but more ASL (grandma was starting to lose her hearing towards the end, so he started practicing with her, got better with Christian), and very few words and phrases from Native languages (Apache/Kiowa/Navajo) ✦ Family/Siblings: ⇢ Cara & Danny/Danielle; 2 twin sisters, 10 yrs younger (15 @ invasion, 17 now). Cara is very deadpan gen Z and argues constantly with Luke, Danny is more fond and chill, was dealing with GNC stuff in HS before the invasion and being on the run has made it weirdly freeing (goes by they/them, presents mostly masc), the twins used to constantly fight but have grown closer during the invasion. Cara has had a cute lil babby crush on Ian since the first time he came to visit (she was like 13), we all know it's silly and Danny makes fun of her for it, this sometimes results in a fight Luke has to pry them apart from ⇢ Lana; 1 baby sister, 15 yrs younger (10 @ invasion, 12 now), idk she just a happy babby who wants to color but sometimes gets v upset, has spontaneous panics and fretful episodes in which Luke must be called to hold her and tell her stories and reassure her she is safe and loved and no one is going anywhere ⇢ Bina Saenz (Grandmother): Luke’s fuckin hero, Bina would’ve fought the Judge herself is she could still walk at that point. Developed severe liver disease, became bed-ridden, and died in the first sweep of the city in the invasion, while luke and the kids were out of town. Luke likes to imagine she died while giving the judge the finger. She had a husband at some point but I haven't put effort into fleshing him out so idk he died ⇢ Julia Saenz (Mother): was not ready for kids, did not handle it well, kind of turns up for a month or two for a place to crash and pretends to be a mom, and inevitably disappears again, so Luke grows up mostly raised by grandma. Julia stole college fund money once before peacing out, Luke has a whole Complex around her ⇢ Some Asshole (father): Luke never met the dude, or any of his siblings’ dads ⇢ Allan/Elan Saenz (uncle): Helped Gran raise the kids when they were little, while going to Berkeley, sometimes took Luke with him, let Luke help him with his homework, originally ran the mechanic garage Luke continued to work at even after Elan when he left California for Houston/Nasa (Luke was about 14). He was basically Luke’s surrogate father/big bro before he died or moved away to start his own family or smth idk. Luke has not seen him or Mom since the invasion started, doesn’t know what’s going on with them or if they’re alive. EARLY BG/PRE-INVASION/TIMELINE STUFF ✦ (age 17), Grandma gets really sick, luke has to drop school to take more responsibility, look after/nurse grandma and raise the younger kids ✦ mechanic from age babby ✦ spent time in rehab for drug possession/intent to sell (15-16) ✦ Relationship 1; a girl (Name McNamerson) who lives in the same hall in his apartment complex, goes to school with him, used to help him boost cars, sell drugs, steal and pawn shit (not things he was super proud of, but drugs fundamentally change who you are as a person oops) ✦ (age 20) TA story - Luke was about to be dropped from classes due to lack of funds. He’s staying after class to get ian to sign some financial aid nonsense, starts working through the graduate problems on the board (or from the stack of papers to be graded on ian’s desk, while ian’s answering questions from another student, bc he’s nosey and has no appreciation for other ppls privacy ig), ian realizes he’s A Bright Kid. Ian hooks him up with a work/study thing, so Luke essentially becomes TA despite not actually being a grad student. ✦ (age 22), enlists in the Army, 1 tour in Afghanistan, 1 tour in Qatar ✦ 2018 (age 25), Luke and Ian are sipping starbucks and sharing a joint in the parking lot not far from Berkeley's college of engineering campus, close enough that they witness the first ship touching down, crushing about half of Berkeley campus underneath it. Ian's in shock, Luke snaps him out of it with a COME ON, DUMBASS, and they run. There's fetching off the kids, and they're off into the wilderness. ✦ 2020 (age 27), been in Crater Lake 6 mons and met Christian by now POST INVASION, PRE CRATER LAKE ✦ Bina dies in the initial invasion/massacre in Oakland, while Luke's at Berkeley watching it with Ian and the kids are elsewhere. ✦ Relationship 2: a boy (Name McNamerson) on the San Diego base with him when the invasion starts. His unit is sent to engage the structure in Berkeley, only 2 come back. BF is one of them, deeply traumatized and in shock from the horror they witnessed, barely gets the report out, kills himself a couple nights later. Luke takes it as a good fucking reason to run, before his unit is sent next. ✦ Luke decides then to take his kids, hotwire a humvee loaded with weapons + rations, and desert. They already know by this point that Bina (and the whole apartment complex) is gone ✦ Biotech Alien Electricity Powers: Once upon a time, in a split-second bad decision, Luke stuck his hand into a Judge weapon he knew nothing about in order to stop it from going off on some loved ones. He lived through the encounter (barely), but also integrated somewhat with the partly organic tech. He now hosts an ability to absorb, manipulate, and neutralize electrical charges. However, this power does give him frequent migraines, often leaves him feeling restless and jumpy, Luke has a lot of fidgeting and ticks to deal with that excess energy, often seeks over-stimulation. ✦ Smokes/substance abuses a lot more post-apoc (and post-deployment) bc he’s Seen Some Shit, especially in the period before meeting back up with Ian, and it fuels some really fucked up calls ✦ Contention post-apoc with relapse, fueled some of his more fucked up decisions pre-crater lake, he goes obsessively protective, to the point of paranoia and torturing some folks ✦ A group of survivors freed from a work camp beg to be let into luke’s camp, but they mention having been chased for a while. The group assures luke that they lost the soldiers trailing them, but luke doesn’t trust it. He says he’s taking them to a safe house, actually takes them out far from the camp and executes them instead. A friend (not-Ian, specifically does not take Ian) goes with him to do this, but is horrified with what luke does. Luke tells them to keep it to themselves or they’ll end up the same. ✦ Tortures a dude who steals meds, Ian talks him down from it and they have a come to jesus moment (minus the jesus) ✦ Mutiny + talks with Ian mean they leave this first survivor group and head for Crater Lake by themselves (Ian, Luke + kids) CRATER LAKE ✦ Run into Nia's group on the way to Crater Lake, they decide to join forces, trust is tenuous (from Luke, at least) at first, but they end up bonding through it ✦ 0 trust of human beings post-apoc, only folks from the camp ✦ The Engineering Workshop becomes the new fuck around and find out science lab ✦ but can i make a bong out of it ✦ Christian's arrival, bleeding all over the place ✦ gardens for peace (usually goes mechanicing/engineering but that hypes him up more than calms him down, gardening his not his first instinct but Cara and Lana love it and will drag him over to do it until he stops bitching and settles in, Christian probably becomes aware of this later and helps them with him) ✦ The Megaphone, and other such abominations of engineering PERSONALITY✦ loyalty and family is everything ✦ sometimes he is a mom, sometimes he will suplex a bitch ✦ 80% of the time - a range of unconcernedly chill to unashamedly ridiculous, a caring manchild, who happens to really like making things go boom with science ✦ 20% of the time - will shoot a stranger directly in the face if he thinks they're about to bring trouble to his family's safe place. ✦ luke’s fear reaction is abrupt and aggressive action, or to plot some kind of ambush/surprise attack, generally goes for bamboozle + overwhelm, make sure you get the jump on them and not the other way around, etc ✦ when luke gets scared or stressed or angry, he gets an unnerving kind of calm, fiercely focused and determined, but detached. he has this "get it done, freak out about it later" mentality where he'll do pretty much anything to complete an end goal - typically keeping his family safe, or escaping something, etc. it only became more intense since joining the military, and if it's a combat situation, he can get pretty scary. if shit is hitting the fan and someone is trying to do something stupid, he will 100% shoot them rather than waste time trying to calm them down (unless they're someone very important). surviving and protecting his family > all other things ever, the end. ✦ flourishes in the end times?? in the sense that all the societal and financial bullshit is gone and everyone's kind of on equal footing (in that they're all screwed). definitely would rather things were still safe and less decimated, but also, american culture kind of sucked ✦ really dislikes the entire culture of higher education and degrees and accolades making your competency worth something. he prefers to be surprisingly freakishly good and then tell people he's a janitor/gear head ✦ relatively quick to judge and can be very standoffish and dickish to people if they get off on the wrong foot or they rub him the wrong way. he doesn't tend to waffle much on character judgments and it takes a lot to earn respect or trust from him if you didn't start off on good terms with him. ✦ A bit adrenaline addicted, except when the sibs are around, then he’s hyper responsible mom-boy ✦ mcfreakin loses it if he can’t find one of his sisters, like total panic that starts getting destructive and lashing out the longer it goes ✦ morality/humanism + pet-the-dog moments; pre-invasion, he’d stop to help strangers on the street just with opening doors or carrying books or holding a baby for someone etc, post-invasion he’s much more suspicious, much more guarded, while he’ll have the urge and instinct and want to help, he’ll keep his distance out of wariness. But he will always pet the dog, and generally try to interfere with someone being harassed, until he knows the whole story ✦ friendly/gregarious, so long as it's a person he doesn’t have a bias opinion on already (rich kids, bad students, irresponsible parents, White People Acting Like White People, people who don’t take care of their cars, ppl who talk during movies, ppl who don’t put their names on their gd papers) ✦ when PTSD triggered, he’ll snap and get irritated with nearly everyone except his kids, Christian is probably the only other exception, half bc he has to translate the snapping into signing and it takes too much time and work for him to knee-jerk it, the quiet he has with Christian is calming in that way ✦ gets overbearing + controlling when freaked, those who don’t know him generally get intimidated and just go with it, those who do (Cara) get fucking pissed and tell him to get bent ✦ body language: picks at his nails, fidgets bc nervous energy, picks at split ends in his hair, screws/unscrews things (like a bolt he carries around in a pocket idk, typically pockets some random piece of equipment to fiddle with idly later), FINDS things to be distracted by when he’s having a convo he doesn't want to be having (he’s great at dodging questions and misdirecting) ✦ dancing in the hospital smock after an OD to make his littlest sister laugh ✦ acts like he’s slept around a lot more than he has ✦ disheveled, untidy but clean, constantly looks some level of tired even if acting energetic/silly, permanent bags under his eyes ✦ lazy stroll, distracted, eyes on the ground ✦ typically slouching and chill, until he gets worked up, then goes full militant (strict, stiff, snapping, authoritative, harsh, short) ✦ terrible habit of being too harshly blunt/straightforward, does not actually feel any shame for it. he was a very rude TA, because he was a very honest TA and a good portion of the students were spoiled brats looking to half-ass the class and luke would cut them 0 slack ✦ has some long and difficult apathetic days, usually fills those with work work work until it fades, generally is v irritated and short those days, most ppl who know him know to stay out of his business on those days ✦ chain smoker ✦ self loathing, primarily bc of ⇢ shit done while on too many drugs; ⇢ selling to kids (under 18) ⇢ sketchy jobs for drug/bill money ⇢ manipulating and threatening ppl who owed him money ⇢ assault, theft (from not rich people) ⇢ child negligence (he would get so angry about having to throw his life away bc his parents couldnt be fucked to care about the offspring they made, drugs made him forget the responsibilities but the kids suffered for it and Cara’s still pissed at him for a lot of it, she was the one who gave him the most legit Talking Tos in rehab) ✦ imaginative, eccentric; the drug abuse has not helped this one, so he sometimes just comes of as a weird stoner to people, and honestly, luke doesn’t mind that. He likes being underestimated/written off, many things become easier when you’re being ignored ABILITIES✦ Engineering (mechanical): Luke was able to progress into his senior year of education at Berkeley, majoring in Mechanical Engineering, before he was forced to enlist in the military for financial/familial reasons. Prior to withdrawing, he was at the top of his class, often participating in Graduate projects and acting as TA for Ian Fowler's courses. ✦ Academics, Mathematics, Physics: Despite his relatively low access to high quality education (until Ian at Berkeley), Luke has a natural affinity for mathematics and sciences. He understands concepts quickly and enjoys exercising creative means to apply them to problem solving and adapting to environmental/circumstantial issues ✦ Mechanic: Luke's uncle ran an auto-mechanic garage in Oakland that Luke spent most of his youth at as a sort of low budget daycare. It's where he initially grew his love for mechanical engineering and complex machinery. ✦ Biotech Alien Electricity Powers: Once upon a time, in a split-second bad decision, Luke stuck his hand into a Judge weapon he knew nothing about in order to stop it from going off on some loved ones. He lived through the encounter (barely), but also integrated somewhat with the partly organic tech. He now hosts an ability to absorb, manipulate, and neutralize electrical charges. However, this power does give him frequent migraines, often leaves him feeling restless and jumpy, Luke has a lot of fidgeting and ticks to deal with that excess energy, often seeks over-stimulation. ✦ Nature Survival/Foraging: Having to live on the run and keep away from the cities that would attract the most attention from the Judge, Luke gained much experience in living on the land, scavenging for food and shelter, and building rudimentary tools, weapons and clothes. ✦ Babysitting: He raised 3 girls. He got this. He's bought so many packets of overnight maxi pads, mediated many a borrowed crop top dispute. ✦ Weed Farming: Everyone needs hobbies, ok, even in the end times. VISUALS
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