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> PLAYER INFORMATION

NAME: Pana

PRONOUNS: Any

AGE: 35

CONTACT: pana

> CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: John Murphy

CANON: The 100

AGE: 23

CANON POINT: Episode 701 · From the Ashes

HISTORY: Wiki

PERSONALITY:

John Murphy is a survivor.

That's a less virtuous thing to be than legends would have you believe. He's not the kind of survivor that people aspire to be in times of hardship. No, he's the coward. The traitor. The cockroach. He has to be. He was incarcerated and sentenced to death for arson at the tender age of thirteen, his execution to be carried out on his eighteenth birthday.

Even before his arrest, he was an orphan. His father had been executed for stealing medicine and his mother blamed ten-year-old Murphy for it, for being ill, until the day she drank herself to death. The arson was revenge against a system that seemed to exist just to destroy his life. The only person who wanted to keep him alive was himself.

Loathed by his mother and his society, Murphy was shaped in his early years by the idea of himself as the bad guy. And because for so long people expected only the worst from him, he played right into those expectations. How could he ever be a good person when everyone around him had already decided he was bad? He might as well be exactly the kind of asshole they wanted him to be.

There's no sugarcoating it. Murphy is objectively a terrible person. When he was younger, he bullied and abused his peers. He threatened lives. He took them. But while the other delinquents around him were responsible for the same crimes (and worse), it was Murphy alone who was ostracized and cast as the antagonist in their lives - a judgment that continues to this day.

It's easy to hate Murphy. He rarely sees reason to be kind. He's sarcastic and snide and doesn't play by the rules of polite society, even by post-apocalyptic standards. He pokes holes in theories and bursts bubbles and says the things no one wants to hear. He's cynical, a pessimist and a skeptic, at a time when most people want to cling desperately to hope. "Shut up, Murphy," is the typical response he gets anytime he opens his mouth. Even when he has a point.

The thing is, he's a realist. He values logic, circumspection, self-sufficiency, and power. Life does not, in fact, give a single shit about ideology. When given only a selection of bad choices, he doesn't just stand there wishing for a good choice. And since he has never been able to rely on the loyalty of others, the best of all his shitty choices is the one that benefits him most, even at the expense of others. Why not steal from and lie to and betray those who have never seemed reluctant to turn on him? They've done their part to earn his resentment and duplicity.

There's a magic that happens, however, when Murphy is shown genuine kindness. He's wary of generosity, of course. He knows that no one gives anything without expecting something in return. But the people who show up for him are the people who eventually get close to his heart and earn something like fidelity. He will work to protect those people, even if they wouldn't approve of his methods.

Pragmatism is key. Murphy isn't ruthless for the sake of cruelty, not without good reason. He likes the taste of revenge as much as anyone else, but if he can't justify the risk in chasing it, he'd just as soon not have it. Self-preservation requires mercy more often than it requires brutality. Murphy is a cunning and adaptive young man who knows the value of employing deception or diplomacy over bloodshed. He doesn't have an ego to serve. All he wants to do is see tomorrow.

He's afraid to die. For all the reasons people usually are, but also because he's died before. His heart once stopped for several minutes and he believes he went to Hell, that someday he'll return there. That belief is not the result of some religious awakening. It's his guilt over the harm he's done, accumulating over the years, dragging him into the darkness. When others around him were exposed to a toxin that brought out their worst sides, Murphy was unaffected, because he's already his worst self. His near-death experience held the mirror up to his face, and he's still in the process of recoiling from what he's seen.

Murphy is, in his own deeply imperfect way, trying to do better. The problem is, he doesn't know who to be in times of peace. His self-worth disappears when he isn't fighting for his life, when he's left with his restlessness and his uselessness to organized society. These depressive episodes send him withdrawing into himself, frustrating the people who can see his potential so clearly, who want to help him rise to the occasion. But he doesn't know he has it in him to be a good person.

SPECIES: Nightblood

APPEARANCE: Link

SKILLS:

• Radiation Resistance · As a Nightblood, Murphy is capable of metabolizing enormous levels of radiation with little to no detrimental effects.
• Survivalism · Though he wasn't the most attentive student, Murphy was trained in Earth Skills and is adept at surviving in the wilderness.
• Thievery · He made his way as a thief and a conman for several months, experienced in stealth, deception, pick-pocketing, and robbery.
• Parley · They may find him suspect, but he's good at figuring out what someone else needs and how he can trade it to get what he wants.
• Combat · Murphy can work with crude explosives and trained in hand-to-hand martial arts, bladed weapons, and firearms for several years.

NEW POWER:

Scapegoat, the unfortunate ability to be blamed for anything bad that happens in his presence, despite all the evidence proving otherwise. Someone else could commit a murder in front of a crowd of witnesses and somehow everyone there - including the killer - would be convinced Murphy was to blame and should be punished for it, even if he himself didn't pull the trigger. Eventually, Murphy will be able to shift this absolute blame onto another target, but for now, everything is totally Murphy's fault.

POWER REASONING:

Although Murphy has one of the lowest kill counts in his canon, he continues to be viewed as an antagonist by his peers. When a murder has been committed, others are quick to assume Murphy is the killer, which has made him the subject of torture and mob justice in the form of lynching. For whatever reason, he's irredeemable even in the eyes of people who thought gladiatorial death matches and cannibalism were a good idea.

> SAMPLES

SAMPLE ONE: Log

SAMPLE TWO: TDM