Jack the Ripper (Finished!)

[JACK THE RIPPER]

Victor Griffiths
"Yours truly, Jack the Ripper"
OOC: I'm Izzi or Jill, I've been here on RC since a little past it's first birthday, and I'm seventeen. In the past I've played Inspector Javert, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, Christine Daae, etc etc.

Canon: OC, technically
Face-claim: Richard Armitage
Social Status: Middle class. He's well off, but he's not like ooh froo froo living in Trump Towers type thing
Occupation: World News journalist for the Wall Street Journal
Age: 36, birthday January 22nd
Appearance: Lithe and agile, reasonably muscular, strong mostly in the arms. Barely six feet. His eyes are a striking frosty blue which has proved both disarming and sinister; he can use his eyes to either assure or to strike fear into someone. Almost like knives in and of themselves. His eyes are hooded by expressive dark brows. Victor has never thought much of his looks. He’s become aware that people consider him attractive, and he uses that to its full advantage. No one suspects the handsome, engaging guy. He has wavy black hair which can often be quite unruly, but he never bothers to gel it--this makes his eyes even more striking, being the only light, lively part of his face. He often wears a smirk. He has many scars, most notably on his abs and one terrible scar on his right shoulder. His appearance lends some to think at first that he’s as cold as he really is (like Neil Patrick Harris once said “And sometimes there's a third, even deeper level, and that one is the same as the top surface one. Like with pie..."); his face and nose are long and sharp, and he sometimes hangs back from social situations, chiming in when he’s needed. Victor has paid very close attention to behaviors that are received well in society and mirrors them, but can sometimes come off as awkward, like a child trying to control a tool that's too big for him, the tool being his body.

Overall Personality: One word that would perfectly describe Jack is psychopath: “...a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions (in particular reduced fear), stress tolerance, lacking empathy, coldheartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity, and antisocial behaviors such as parasitic lifestyle and criminality.” He is textbook. Jack is charming, but he is a compulsive liar, something he can't help even if he wanted to. He can feel emotions, unlike someone who is sociopathic; he can feel emotions like love and happiness and sadness and anxiousness, but once he zeros in on something he wants he will do anything to get it, even if that means hurting someone else or putting himself at risk.

He is selfish and manipulative, two things that should never be put together; he will bend anyone to get what he wants, and he’s become expert at it--in childhood, he stole and told plenty of lies and hurt others, but so much has happened since then and it escalated as time went on. He does not usually care about other people, but he’s extremely good at masking that fact if the person in question will be of use to him. To be frank, he doesn’t understand when others get overly emotional, just because he doesn’t understand emotions himself--if you were to tell him that he was sick for having homicidal thoughts, he would probably wonder why it mattered so much to you. He may even be concerned for you, seeing you so upset for something he regards as no big deal.

Victor is well-liked for his charisma and thought of as a harmless, if not slightly eccentric man. He can play the brother, uncle, father, or lover at the drop of a hat. People are a game to him--like I said, when he zeros in on what he wants, people transform into objects. Tools. When trying to gain someone's trust, he often fabricates stories from his childhood that would convince them to feel sorry for him.

In his work, the senior editor of the Wall Street Journal’s World News column, he is regarded as a stern but decent man who’s happy to help if he must. He has a keen sense for money and a clever mind for business, but writing something he particularly enjoys doing. That isn’t to say he’s bad at it--he’s actually a fantastic writer. He’s bored of it though, and he always wanted to be a doctor.

As for when his inner psycho shines through. He is sinister as they come, in a twisted way. One side of him is full of hatred; cool, calculating, cannot get his mind off of ‘work’. The other aspect of this persona is the whimsicality of him--he loves to tease and fantasizes about the reactions of the public and police, and finds them absolutely delightful. This is what makes his persona twisted, the calm... almost joy... violent thoughts bring him. He believes himself to be far too clever for the police, or anyone for that matter. He likes to think he’s always in complete control of everything he thinks and everything he does, though of course, he isn't. He is very sharp, critical, and cruel in his own thoughts, and absolutely relishes fantasizing about causing commotion. He loves the thrill of being close to the enemy, loves the chase, and is one hell of a cheeky bastard. Cheeky, yes, but also reserved and quietly condescending about things. His ego is so huge that he’ll even give the police tips into his own case. But the ego is just another mask to hide his insecurities.

There is much that Victor completely blocks out about himself. Number one is that he is very childish; always getting into any sort of mischief he can, purely for attention and other selfish reasons. He is also rather cowardly in the sense that if it comes down to you or him, you will always be the first one to go, little as he might like that. He is a man who has been very hurt in his lifetime, which has harbored an icy hatred for most people; truthfully, he’s a lonely man, since no one can ever get close to him because of his barriers. Any person is capable of love, but his mind is not; it just doesn’t register actual feelings of love, and so it manufactures a shallow sort of affection when it must. All of the tragedies in his life have had to do with women, and so he’s developed a hatred for them in particular, which shines through at times. Especially during sex, what little of it he has or has had, ever. He feels as though sex should be a shameful event for women, thus when they enjoy it, he tends to hurt them or belittle them. He feels insecure about himself to no end, and almost feels objectified himself. He doesn't like when they close their eyes or experience any moment of ecstasy, because he feels like they're shutting him out and leaving him, going somewhere that he isn't aloud to go. So it usually doesn't go too well.

Like I said, there are moments when he can tolerate a person, though friendships and rare and sparse in feeling. When he gets terribly upset, which is not all that often, he gets a little...insane; he will twitch and squirm, hallucinate and hear things, and his paranoia will be heightened exponentially. As for his killings, when he starts them, he will get pleasure out of them; an animalistic, sexual sort of high, which doesn’t feel the same or doesn’t feel right with healthy sex practices. He hasn't actually partaken in lots of sex--he's only had sex a handful of times in his life. He prefers toying with emotions much more. He doesn't enjoy it--and this is awkward XD—in part because he's built up a tolerance, as like most serial killers, he has a history of compulsive masturbation. He will rarely get into a relationship and will probably never get into a meaningful relationship because of his deep-seated fear of rejection.

Right now he’s just fantasizing about killing, as he has for years, but when he does start; he has a very special relationship with the girls he kills—not that he will know any besides Mary before the fact. But when he sees them die in his arms, the light go from their eyes, their bodies go limp—he feels like he really knows them. He offers himself to them almost as a sort of comfort. For, despite all of the hurtful things he says about them, he knows somewhere that they've had lives as hard as him. He almost likes to believe that the act of killing them liberates them from this life, like he's some sort of merciful angel instead of the selfish monster he really is. He'd like to think that they are grateful toward him—after all, they should be thankful, being specially chosen by him! Part of his strangely affectionate relationship with them is probably the reason he kills—all of the women I mentioned that have hurt him in his life, he loved at one point or another... so, you know, that's hard to shake, even when you're killing them.

You could call him a genius; he certainly would. It’s just a matter of him using his intellect for a bad thing. He’s self-taught a bit of medical science. People often don't see him as the artsy type, but he's been known to sketch furiously, and he's actually quite good. He even considers violence porn and murder to be art. He’s clever and is a perfectionist when it comes to his ‘work’, though it’s never really planned--the killing is something he can’t control. He has a compulsion, an impulse, and even if he wanted to stop, he couldn’t. But doesn’t he want to stop? Somewhere deep, deep down, does he hate himself? He’s insecure and pathetic, but he does what he must do in order to experience the high he NEEDS. Either way, he has had lots of practice covering his tracks and leading suspicion away from himself. The fact that he knows the consequences and are scared of them mostly makes up for his impulsive nature. His biggest concern is, if he actually goes through with his fantasies, he may be caught by a detective like Sherlock Holmes.

A list of his weaknesses could go on for miles, and I've already listed some. For one, he’s got scores of mental problems (Sadistic Personality Disorder, Psychopathy, OCD, and manic depression being predominant) and he’s going to kill perfectly innocent women while trying to convince himself he’s doing something good or at least something harmless, to convince himself he's slaying monsters. He tries to ignore his own insecurities and likes to think himself pretty damn awesome and above all people. Also he’s got a slight case of... cannibalism.

The risk he’s going to take in fulfilling his fantasies is extremely high, but he doesn’t seem to give a shit. He might not even be disappointed if he was sent to prison--that’s how bad the urge is. His original goal will be to get rid of that urge but soon it will morph into a massive labor for fame and recognition.


Likes, dislikes:
Likes:
-riddles
-magic tricks
-hospitals
-gore porn
-reading (favorite books include: The Scarlet Letter and Alice in Wonderland)
-Beethoven (not Mozart, that's important)
-Sherlock Holmes
-seeing himself in the newspaper
-money
Dislikes:
-his MOTHER
-John Watson
-doctors in general
-prostitutes
-women in general
-the NYPD in particular
-having his scars seen/touched

Goals, fears:
Fears:
-getting caught, despite what he might have you believe. Isn't that every serial killer's fear? Jeez, if he was caught, he'd probably be really stressed out.
-losing his cool. He doesn't want people to see the maniac he becomes when he gets too mad. He tries to stay calm and collected when he's in an argument, because he fears losing his cool almost above all things...
-women. Would he ever admit this? No. Does he even know it? Subconsciously, maybe. Women frighten him. Badly. I mean, he's been hurt by women all his life, so it's only natural. He has trouble even approaching or talking to women, especially women he hasn't met before. He is terrified of rejection.
-his past. The occasions when he thinks about it are rare and then occasions when he talks about it are even fewer. Like I mentioned before, he will often fabricate stories about his parents and other things. But there are some things you can't hide forever...
Goals:
-As of now, he’s just trying to keep himself under control. The thought that maybe his violent thoughts are wrong has long since left him. He just needs to choose when and how to strike, and who. It’s hard for him to plan, it being an impulse, but he will try.

Overall History:

Jack was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York to a young pair who barely knew each other. His father's parents more or less forced him to marry the young mother, Rosie, but he only lasted a few months before he fled the picture entirely. It used to bother Victor when he was younger, but he doesn’t think about it anymore--to be honest, he doesn’t blame his father for leaving her. Jack’s mother, who wasn’t a pleasant woman to begin with, became increasingly bitter toward the baby, pinning him as the source of all her problems. She tolerated him, but never made unnecessary (in her eyes) attempts to show kindness to him. As he got older, he became more needy, with food and clothing and school and everything that she honestly could not afford. Jack went to school late, but there was never room to buy school clothes or supplies, so he didn’t do too well in his later grades. Rosie chose prostitution as what he sees as an easy way out, and brought men back to her house, a practice that on several occasions created... rather traumatizing situations for the child. If you see what I mean.

His mother began dealing with her own pain by drinking heavily, which only made her lash out physically. She would get violent over the littlest things, and he saw the city streets as a sort of safe haven, it being the only place he was relatively safe (if he was careful) and/or comfortable. But he took his frustration out on others there and was constantly getting into fights. Mother famously hated it when he wet the bed, which was often, even when he was a preteen. She would punish him for that, or when he was brought home by the police, or when she was just feeling plain evil, in some of the most traumatizing ways possible. She really harmed him--beatings, burnings, humiliation, the works. He began to find other ways to get away from the house as he got older, including hanging around in gangs a lot. This resulted in many injuries, but also prepped his mind to be quick and clever in tight places. The enormous stress put upon him by years of abuse led him to be more violent as he got older, often attacking other boys. He took out his anger on stray dogs and other animals in cruel ways, sometimes even seriously injuring them.

Eventually the repeated physical, sexual, and emotional abuse chipped away fully at the former love he had for his mother, and one night he left the house right in the middle of a fight, never to return. Jack immediately took what little money he had (read: stole from his mom) and got a job. He was only seventeen and was forced to live in pretty seedy places to avoid the law. It took a long while, but his personality was already starting to blossom, and he earned many a useful friend. He began to study on his own, working slowly until he was able to pass as someone who'd had an education. His manipulative nature almost mirrored his mother’s in a weird sort of way.

He was by no means cultured at this point, but he was equipped with enough knowledge to seem as though he was. Still living in Brooklyn he met a girl named Tara. She had the brightest blue eyes and long blonde curls that he still obsesses over to this day. She was a very insecure girl—tough on the outside, but an absolute flower once he got to know her. As their relationship moved forward and changed into something a little more, he began to suspect her of being unfaithful. She would leave at odd times in the night, she hung around pubs, and she had too many male friends for his liking. She wasn't unfaithful, in reality, but he couldn't help but feel betrayed and hurt that someone he loved would do something so awful. They got into a fight about it in her apartment one night and Tara was... dispatched. It was the only time he ever cried during a kill.

He'd already discovered the pleasure of killing but was disturbed when he found killing Tara was one of the most exciting things he'd ever done, and he could never get over it after that. Killing women—that could get him caught! They weren’t small like dogs or cats, they left big messes. Messes that would lead straight to him! So he kept it to his fantasies and fled Brooklyn, going to Washington D.C. until it all blew over.

Victor took several college courses on journalism and attempted to enter medical school (and a rather shady one at that), but ran out of money quickly and had to give up. His aspirations of becoming a doctor were clearly never to be, and he began to get bitter because of that. Around this time is when he began to lose sleep, and also around this time is when he admitted himself to a mental hospital. He only stayed for a month at most, and a few years later, moved back to New York City. It was around then that he stopped regarding his violent fantasies as abnormal.

He hasn’t killed since Tara, and he’s gotten a good job as a journalist. His educational credentials weren’t exactly impressive, but he impressed his boss and was, admittedly, kind of a suck up. He still kept his feelings locked up, only admitting to his fantasies when he was alone.

And so he kept waiting and waiting, until last year, when he noticed someone—a certain detective who was taking NYC by storm and yet remained rather in the shadows. Like him! It was interesting but frightening all at the same time, researching Sherlock Holmes. He was the sort of man who could solve Tara’s murder in ten minutes flat, and he wasn't sure if he liked that or not. He’s still preparing himself to face up against someone like that.

He’s going to start off near a small childhood haunt, where he would hang around when he wanted to be anywhere but home. Well, you’ll see.

So, in conclusion, he's a tool.

Most Influential Event: Tara’s death--because a lot of people have a horrible childhood and don’t end up serial killers. Something is connecting wrong in his brain, and Tara’s death triggered it.

Sample Writing:

As he slowly pulled his hand from hers, he seemed to unravel, and any signs of disdain melted from the sharp angles of his face, gracing it with an almost appreciative smile. The ice-enclosed pupils dilated and something friendly shone in the shallowness of the pits. "Sure," he muttered, looking to the boom box and what former contents had been strewn across the green.

Victor watched her a moment as she struggled to keep herself up in her ridiculous heels, the peach fabric of her dress swaying in warning. As she moved forward, teetering, he frowned at the lack of coverage over her back. He should have seen her coming from a mile away; the wayward birds made themselves known few and far between, but even through an opaque shroud, Jack found them evident. Usually he attributed it to his hypersensitivity.

She made no attempt to shroud it from him or anybody.

Victor followed her to the bench, keeping a good couple feet of distance. His brow furrowed in a look of concern, glancing at her heels again. "You alright?"

The opportunity to get to actually talk to one filled him with a sick sort of glee which he knew he couldn't let surface. It was as if the man's psyche was wired in such a way that he could not look at a woman without imagining her dead, and it was stronger with a woman who, by all rights, was prey. The possibility was just in front of his nose. The game was so teasingly sweet. Ironically, the Ripper planned to do all he could to preserve her.

"You should sit down, okay? I'll get your stuff." Before she could protest, he added, "Just stay right there."

Without question, Victor swept her uneaten lunch back into the basket and set it near her legs, a few curls falling in his face. He worked faster than she would have, had she tried to pick it up all by herself, finally nudging the boom box over to the bench with a foot. A quick glance and he examined the tape which had also popped out in the chaos before putting it back.

"I had a hard day, too," he told her softly as he lined up the batteries, breaking the silence. His tone was knowing; she, like many people, had been visiting the dead. "You shouldn't worry about it," referring to the act of picking up her things, but ultimately referencing her obvious mourning. Finally, Victor slid onto the opposite end of the bench, smoothing out his hair.

Credit to Kay, lyrics from here

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Accepted!

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