☽ Application for AX
Jan. 5th, 2013 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lycanthnopeP L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Arc
OOC Journal:seiryuu
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Over 18! (24)
Email + IM: tachiharae[at]gmail.com; antichlorobenzene
Characters Played at Ataraxion: N/A
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Jackson Whittemore
Canon: Teen Wolf
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: 2x12, after his triumphant werewolf roar but just prior to that good ol' feelings-affirming embrace
Number: If 002, 037 or 137 become available, that would be awesome; otherwise randomization is totally fine!
Setting: Teen Wolf is set in the fictional town of Beacon Hills, California, and aside from your run-of-the-mill werewolves and lizard monsters, it's pretty much indistinguishable from present-day earth. (Canon hasn't properly detailed the extent of the supernatural world, only shapeshifters, mutations thereof, and that certain natural substances can act as poisons against them. Anything else wouldn't be relevant to Jackson specifically, even if it were explained).
For reference, series-specific locations are further described at the show's wiki.
History: Jackson Miller was born on June 15, 1995 via c-section as his mother's life faded away after a fatal car crash that also took the life of his father. Because of the incident, he is set to receive an enormous insurance settlement upon his 18th birthday. (In an odd coincidence, it was Erica's father who worked on the case. We'll learn about her a little later.)
However, he was adopted without much delay by the Whittemores, a wealthy family who kept him in the dark about his birth parents... until he was about five years old (11 years before 2x06). Since then, struggling with issues of identity, he never again said "I love you."
There are no other notable incidents in his pre-series life worth mentioning. He grew up a spoiled overachiever, concerned with social status and being the best. He drives a Porsche he certainly didn't save up for (with vanity plates reading "jcksn37", referencing his jersey number), and is captain of two school teams (swimming and lacrosse) despite being only a sophomore, potentially because of actual effort and potentially because his father's name gives even police officers pause.
When the camera first settles on Jackson Whittemore, he is a king. He opens his car door into Scott, our protagonist, and immediately does the right thing by advising him to watch the paint job. People are banished from his lunch table. They play on his field. They envy his girlfriend, queen bee Lydia Martin.
And suddenly his world comes crashing down, all because some asthmatic social reject goes from zero to hero overnight, royally screwing up Jackson's shoulder during practice.
Although it seems like a minor scene, with Scott and Stiles encountering him at the hospital while they're snooping around, it's certainly worth mentioning that he's there to get a cortezone shot. Lydia, waiting for him, suggests he get a second shot before the game, despite the doctor's warning. Like I said, a very minor scene, but also very, very indicative of the value he places on winning (being able to play, being able to show off, being able to be the best). It also shows how much influence she has over him -- for now it seems they're content to use each other for optimal social ladder climbing, although the audience learns later on that they share a real emotional connection underneath it all.
After all that's said and done, Jackson has a new goal. Suspicious of Scott's sudden talent, he spends most of the first season trying to figure out just what the hell is going on.
First, the simple approach: demanding where Scott's getting his steroids. And Jackson's not buying the adorably oblivious act. During a double date (Jackson and Lydia, Scott and Allison), he continues their confrontation, swearing to get to the bottom of things and threatening to drag Allison into the mix, since it's obvious even to him that Scott won't want her involved.
The drug theory starts to seem pretty credible when unfriendly neighborhood werewolf Derek Hale comes to school looking for Scott. Poisoned by wolfsbane, he looks the part of a dealer who's been sampling some not-so-great product, as Jackson kindly points out. His winning personality gets him slammed into a locker and Derek's claws sunk into the back of his neck. Ouch.
The drug theory seems a lot less credible a short while later.
While out renting a movie with Lydia -- seriously, they don't have Netflix? DVD rental places actually still exist? -- the two of them are attacked by the season's mysterious alpha, the only type of werewolf capable of turning a human! While they never get a perfect look at the giant lumbering man-beast, they each see just enough to traumatize them in their own ways. Jackson lashes out at the police, demanding to go home, and then refuses to talk about the incident to anyone, Danny included. Even Derek, whohomoerotically confronts him in the locker room the next day. (Does anyone else see a pattern here? Derek, you really need to stop perving on high school kids.)
Fun fact: when poisoned by wolfsbane, a werewolf can pass on that poisoning through his claws. Wolfsbane, while not magically toxic, is still not something a human's body takes kindly to. Jackson's health begins to deteriorate rapidly. He even experiences a variety of hallucinations -- notably something trying to claw its way out his mouth, as well as some vivid dreams/memories that were accidentally transferred by Derek (a werewolf ability later confirmed to be canon by word of god).
Our golden boy doesn't know what to think when he spies on Stiles training Scott to keep his heart rate low by throwing lacrosse balls at him, but it continues to raise his suspicions. Apparently this is more important than going to the doctor.
It may sound like a joke, but to Jackson it is serious business. Juxtaposed over him drinking and trying to practice some lacrosse drills in the middle of the night, a parent-teacher conference discusses his adoption and theorizes that he's so driven, that he tries so hard because he wants to please the parents he's never met. Though a bit of a problematic theory, his desperate effort seems to back up the narrative.
A series of unfortunate events sendsthe Scoobies our core cast -- Scott, Stiles, Allison, Lydia, and Jackson -- back to school after hours to find out what it's like being trapped in a jamjar horror movie, stalked by a big bad alpha werewolf they never get to see (and that Scott claims is just Derek Hale).
There's some unusual tension between Jackson and the two girls: he seems friendlier with Allison, even going so far as to almost express concern for her, whereas he and Lydia are a little more distant. Friendship and relationship dynamics have been shifting since he's realized getting closer to Allison is beneficial to his soon-to-be-blackmailing of Scott.
Ultimately, he discovers a few things: when whatever the hell is stalking them roars, the wound on his neck hurts; there are claw marks on Stiles' jeep; and it is unwise to say mean things about the sheriff because Stiles will punch you in the face.
Lydia explains she can make some self-igniting molotov cocktails and calls on everyone to help out. Jackson is either so distracted that he accidentally sabotages her efforts, or so spiteful toward Scott that he actually gives her the wrong ingredients on purpose. Allison and Scott break up when they all get out alive.
The next day at school, a combination of Lydia's quest for social status and Scott's werewolf pheromones lead to some secret makeouts. Due to his long-standing crush on her (and the major, major violation of the bro code), Stiles does not approve. Jackson notices her makeup is a little off but, oddly enough, doesn't actually confront her.
Instead, he simply tries getting closer to Allison, knowing that the more she values him as a friend, the more he can blackmail Scott by threatening to ruin their chances of getting back together... or even being friends again. While a good deal of it is probably an act, the occasional bit of honesty seems to shine through: he even confesses his suspicions about the creature that attacked him and Lydia at the video store. The part where it wasn't human.
Scott, whose personality at the time is literally "Allison Allison Allison", wolfs out on the full moon and ends up spying on the conversation by jumping onto the roof of the car they're sitting in. Who even knows. But it's a bad, bad move because he leaves a claw behind. (A clue, a clue!)
Jackson finally gets the damn scratches looked at. After hallucinating the doctor using some seriously terrifying medical equipment to pull a long string of wolfsbane out of his neck as if he's removing his whole damn spine -- and watching the doctor turn into Derek partway through! -- it's over. He's told it was aconite poisoning. A quick internet search confirms his theories: Scott's a goddamn werewolf.
"Desperation" seems like a good word to describe his first season character arc. Sure, he's experienced a giant monster attack and he's seen claws and scratch marks as proof, but most normal people would continue denying the possibility of lycanthropy until the very last minute. Maybe even until they saw a werewolf transformation with their own two eyes. Your average sixteen year old jock should not think this is a logical conclusion.
But Jackson? Jackson marches up to Scott and tells him I know what you are, harasses him throughout the day, and demands Scott find a way to make him a werewolf too. Preparing for his return to greatness, he dumps Lydia via text message: he's dropping the dead weight in his life and she's "the deadest." This frees up his time even more, allowing him to continue fostering his friendship with Allison with delightful ulterior motives.
Too bad he accidentally implicates himself as a potential threat in the process when the werewolf-hunting Argents notice the healing scratches on the back of his neck at a lacrosse game. If claws penetrate deep enough, transformation is a possibility. (He does display an unexpected show of intelligence when he lampshades that, because Argent means silver, it's really not surprising they'd be werewolf hunters.)
Chris Argent messes with Jackson's car, allowing for a confrontation charged with some seriously uncomfortable undertones. That's just how the Argents do things. Scott and Stiles come along to save the day, forcing Chris to leave, and Jackson... Jackson is still not grateful for a damn thing. Against Scott's insistence that the bite is a curse, he posits that Scott simply doesn't know how to handle all that power, and he still wants it. Badly.
Again, it's after-hours and Jackson's been working out. (He's serious about his training, okay?) This time, Derek shows up in the locker room and ambiguously makes him an offer he can't refuse.Mostly because the sight of Derek causes most people to piss themselves just a little, so they tend to do what he "suggests." He takes Jackson to his old house (which our boy then claims to remember, thanks to the memories he received in the claw incident) and then the claws come out. Jackson is a threat and needs to be eliminated. He begs for his life with real tears, real emotion; this is the real Jackson Whittemore, a scared teenage boy in over his head.
Like a true protagonist, Scott shows up just in the nick of time to deliver a witty remark, play the hero, and save him. Some hunters crash the party, too. Jackson manages to escape during the ensuing fight.
At school the next day, they argue about the winter formal: it would be safer if Jackson took Allison, given all the danger she could be in. However, Jackson acts like he doesn't owe Scott a damn thing for saving his life -- Scott's all healed up, forget how much he bled at the time! Although he does express some small measure of compassion for her, he places his personal safety above all else and continues to refuse.
...Until Scott wolfs out on him, which makes a very compelling argument. Jackson asks Allison out as friends, everyone dances, and they all live happily ever after.
Did you really believe that? Teen Wolf is a show that starts out campy and then rips your heart out. Sometimes literally. No, this is where it all goes to hell.
Jackson drinks to cope with everything. He's sullen and doesn't give a crap about the dance. In fact, he heads outside and, after catching a glimpse of something in the distance that looks like red eyes, starts stumbling towards it, hoping it's the alpha. He falls to his knees, literally begging for the bite: it's another raw moment we're not usually privy to.
Spoilers: is actuallyDolan Chris Argent and another hunter, who think he can help them get what they want, even if they can't help him.
Lydia goes looking for him, only to run into Peter Hale, the notorious alpha. He attacks her on the spot. Stiles is technically the one to find her, but his chance to play hero is thwarted when Peter decides to kidnap him, generously allowing him one phone call (Jackson, to inform him of Lydia's whereabouts and bleeding-outs).
So it really is Jackson to the rescue! He picks her up and rushes toward the school, calling for help. Again, we get a rare display of real emotion -- "dead weight" or not, she's pretty much bleeding out in his arms for a little while and he is not okay with that.
In the hospital, his unfortunate tendency to get thrown around by adults manifests twice. First, Sheriff Stilinski accuses him of being involved in Lydia's attack, unaware of the breakup. (Jackson seems to take small comfort in retorting she was Stiles' date so hey, lay off the blame and the wall-shoving.)
Secondly, when Peter finally lets Stiles go, the two of them are thrown into a hospital room by hunters and interrogated as to Scott's whereabouts. Jackson is virtually useless -- like he'd know in the first place. Stiles, on the other hand, knows just what buttons to push to make them leave. The boys join in the race toward the Hale house.
...And somewhere along the way, they pick up some self-igniting molotovs! God only knows where. Or how they had time. More importantly, it's thanks to their help that Peter is set on fire a second time and Derek is able to kill him, thereby becoming the new alpha.
Jackson shakes as he enters the house later that night, calling for Derek. "I helped save you," he claims. Derek got what he wanted, so doesn't that entitle Jackson to getting what he wants?
Why yes, it does.
Season two begins with Jackson erupting dramatically from a large body of water, something which may never be explained because the actor is leaving the show, but apparently this is actually significant. He grins wildly: there is a bite on his side indicating the bite did not kill him. And if it doesn't kill you, it turns you*.
*some exceptions may apply, specifically if you are a strawberry-blonde girl or live in a state of frequent identity crisis.
At school, he's back to his old self, plus an extra-douchey scarf. He pays a homeless man a dollar to "go die in another parking lot" and doesn't even seem give a damn that Lydia is missing, running around naked in a fugue state, potentially also a werewolf. So much for all that "hang on!" stuff at the formal, amirite?
Too bad he starts taking cues from Supernatural's Leviathans and bleeding black all over the place. Derek shows up (in the guys' bathroom, keeping up his tradition of being an A+ creeper), tries to find out how Jackson is doing ~because they're pack now~, and explains that his body must be fighting the bite. When pressed for a further explanation, Derek simply fades back into the shadows because he's confused. Seriously.
The next day, a neighbor/teammate's father dies. Isaac Lahey's dad. This is significant, honest! You see, for the first few episodes, Derek Hale's been building up a new pack: Isaac first, then a girl named Erica, then finally a guy named Boyd. Each one is an outcast, low on the social food chain. None of them deserve it even half as much as Jackson (or so he'd think).
Jackson proves himself to have absolutely no sense of human decency when he calls Isaac and his father "freaks" after hearing domestic abuse from across the street. He also confirms to Sheriff Stilinski that Mr. Lahey had been beating his son regularly. It wasn't his problem, so he never reported it.
You know what else isn't his problem? Lydia. He completely ignores her attempts to thank him for saving her life, reiterating that they are never, ever, ever getting back together.
Jackson's only problem is making sure he turns into a werewolf as planned. He enlists the help of Matt The Camera Guy, paying out the nose for a camera that can record -- ahem -- in low light, all night long. Did he stutter? In low light. All night long.
The transaction with Matt is completed like a shady drug deal. Jackson poses in front of a mirror, settles into bed, and-- when he wakes up, the camera shows nothing but him sleeping peacefully through the night. Nothing happened.
...Yeaaaaah, he's actually been turning into a werelizard (a kanima, to use the technical term) and taking part in those murders. Someone's tampered with the footage, he'll learn later on.
His day only gets worse when Jackson conveniently watches a video about immunization in class and he begins to suspect foul play. Clearly it's Lydia's fault! He confronts her, a bit more angrily than usual*, and accuses her of making him immune to the bite. She's taken aback by his hostility, which he also seems to regret as soon as he's walked away, but he's Jackson Whittemore and damn if he'll let remorse make him apologize.
*A side effect of the kanima's master having some element of control over him, potentially.
Next stop, the Hale house. Apprehensive, clearly remembering his past terrible horrible experiences, he calls out to Derek and finds hunters instead. Chris warns him against hisdrug lycanthropy-seeking behavior, unaware he's already been bitten, and sends him on his way. Jackson takes his frustrations out by doing what he always does: practicing lacrosse in the middle of the night. Only this time, his car gets stuck in the mud... and he lifts it to push it out.
This is the face he makes and I'm linking it because it gives me gross feelings.
We turn our attentions now to Danny, child prodigy hacker and BFF, who is given the tape of Jackson sleeping with instructions to figure out if it had been tampered with.He also is forced to reiterate, potentially for the thousandth time, that Jackson isn't his type. Danny is initially skeptical but promises to keep the contents of the video a secret.
Later, hoping for another spontaneous display of supernatural strength, Jackson drags Danny to the gym after hours and insists on lifting weighs he can't possibly handle. It's cool, guys. Even though Danny's not there, Erica steps in to help him when he struggles.
...To stage a kidnapping, more like. She drags him to the abandoned subway station that Derek and the pack like to train in. There, she and Isaac hold him down and Derek forces him to taste a strange white substance. Poison! It's poison, okay! Derek forces him to ingest the kanima's poison, under the assumption that the kanima can't poison itself, hoping to prove or eliminate the possibility of Jackson being the creature.
Instead, he falls to the ground, paralyzed like an ordinary human. (Derek claims he's still a snake, even if not the one they're looking for. Sigh. Can't catch a break.) Isaac takes advantage of his own newfound strength to threaten Jackson into rescinding the testimony that implicated Isaac in his father's murder, thus allowing him to return to school.
At school, he has intermittent superhearing, allowing him to discover the pack is going to target Lydia to give her the same poison taste-test. It also exposes him to the term "kanima", though nobody will explain it to him. The heroes more or less make plans to abduct her after school to protect her from the pack.
Meanwhile, Danny is a lying liar who lies. Turns out he didn't keep the video a secret at all. He showed Matt, in part because it's Matt's camera and in part because Matt is definitely His Type. The two of them put their heads together to realize that some footage had been deleted, prompting the question of who would have access to Jackson's house. And it dawns on him. Lydia.
Lydia has the key.
An actual key, which is also incidentally the key to the problem.
Which leads to Jackson following everyone on their quest to hide her from Derek, Isaac, Erica, and Boyd, so he can demand the key back. He manages to confront her away from the rest of the group. She reveals she not only still has the key, but wears it around her neck. In an explosion of feelings, she expresses both her reluctance to hand it over and that she should hate him (but clearly, clearly doesn't). They kiss-- and are promptly interrupted by the plot.
The fight comes to them. In the ensuing chaos, Jackson transforms against his will and runs away, revealing the true identity of the monster they've all been a-chasin'. The poison didn't work on him, it's explained, because while Jackson is the kanima, the kanima is unaware that it's Jackson. It's an animal with no sense of self.
Because the kanima's masterjust can't stand the idea of someone else watching Jackson sleep can't afford to let his secret out, Jackson is sent to target Danny/keep him busy while the master steals Danny's tablet to delete the re-rendered footage. This involves a little Panic! At The Local Gay Club, during which everyone is assumed by the police to be tripping balls because there's no way a giant lizard monster would show up and start paralyzing people, right? Right? Needless to say, the master grabs Danny's tablet before anyone's the wiser, leaving everyone in the dark (again).
Scott and Stiles find Jackson, human again, and abduct him in an armored police van to prevent him from causing further damage. Thinking it a brilliant plan, Stiles texts Jackson's family that he's staying the night elsewhere... "love you". You remember the lesson we learned up in the first paragraph? Jackson's dad immediately goes to the police and gets everyone out searching for his poor lost heartless son.
Overhearing a conversation about what should be done with him -- kill him? let him live? -- Jackson is unexpectedly moved to a single manly tear when Scott insists he has nobody and that's why the big-hearted good guys should try to help him. Being forced to confront this truth causes an identity crisis. He shifts into the kanima and escapes, only to make it to the police station and file a restraining order. Because that is exactly what you do when someone says he doesn't want to kill you.
Back at school, Jackson gets his hallucination on (again), eating a snake and later watching it pop out of his eyeball. This is significant because everyone watching it had to fight the urge to vomit, and so everyone reading deserves an equal chance at nausea. The point is, his sanity's being chipped away slowly, and it's getting easier and easier for the kanima's master to take control of him -- even as a human.
He assaults Allison, resulting in a fight with Scott that gets detention for a whole group of people: himself, Scott, Stiles, Erica, and Matt the Camera Guy. He spends some time half-human, half-lizard monster, paralyzing Erica and giving Matt a concussion, and generally proving how much his sanity has spiraled down the drain.
Finally, it's clear Jackson isn't himself. He buys tickets to the rave in a daze, overacting to the point of "okay dude, we get it, someone else is behind the wheel", and generally spends the episode menacing everyone. He does some sexy dancing with Isaac and Erica, briefly gets sedated, and the master uses his mouth to deliver some exposition about how all of the victims were responsible for his death.
But the plot must go on! Lydia's birthday part is fast approaching, and she extends an invitation to our favorite walking shell of a boy. "You don't want me there," he insists, and there's a brief glimmer of humanity in his eyes when they touch. Honest to god, he looks like a kicked puppy.
And so, because Teen Wolf is about pain and suffering, Jackson goes to the party anyway. Thanks to Peter Hale, the drinks are all laced with wolfsbane of the hallucinatory variety. The "hallucinate your deepest fears" variety, to be even more specific. (Really, can this guy ever get a break from seeing things?)
Jackson's hallucination reflects, once again, the concept of a lost identity: faceless people claiming to be his birth parents showing up at the party, and suddenly becoming equally faceless.
Matt ends up falling into the pool and shrieks about his inability to swim, words which go unheard because everyone at the party is still drunk. Jackson saves him because he's a good samaritan, captain of the swim team, and-- oh, right, and because Matt is actually the kanima's master. Surprise!
Knowing that it's only a matter of time before Scott and Stiles find a way to legally implicate him in murder, Matt takes Jackson to the police station to kill a few more people, take some hostages, and generally entertain us with some fight scenes. But he's been killing those who don't deserve it, breaking the rules of the kanima's master, and that starts turning him into a monster, as well.
...it's all good, though! Our heroes escape and Principal Badtouch (Gerard Argent, Allison's grandfather) drowns Matt and gives Jackson that control-affirming high-five he so desires. Unfortunately, Jackson's sense of self continues to erode.
He's used to threaten Scott's mother in exchange for Scott's cooperation with Gerard, and is sent off to school to continue being a normal teenager.
The lacrosse team prepares for The Big Game. He has just enough presence of mind to give Danny a warning (specifically to run away from him during the game if Jackson gets close), but he's back to his old zombie of a self before long. The game is uneventful for our resident lizard. What comes after is far more relevant.
The lights go out on the field. Screams ensue. Someone's down! Stiles is missing! What's going on?!
Oh, not much, just Jackson bleeding on the ground from his own claws. It's fairly ambiguous as to whether he was instructed to attack someone he cared about and turned on himself as a preventative measure, or if the goal all along was "gore yourself, pretty boy." (My own interpretation is the latter, simply because he hasn't demonstrated the willpower necessary to break free of anyone's command except for a quarter of a second when in physical contact with Lydia, and even that's debatable.)
Paramedics pick him up and take him to the morgue with Mama McCall in tow because she suspects shenanigans. In fact, it's all because of her that we discover he isn't dead at all! The kanima's poison seems to be forming a cocoon around his body, preparing it for the next stage in its evolution. His final form is apparently some kind of winged monstrosity that frightens even the revived Peter Hale.
Peter waxes poetic on an old myth about werewolves: that speaking its Christian name could cure lycanthropy. It's not true, of course, but he tells Derek that there is hope for Jackson -- that the power of human love can give a person back their sense of self.
Eventually, he wakes up and dashes off into the wild blue yonder.
Little by little, everyone joins the party. Derek and Peter want to kill the kanima, Gerard agrees that Jackson should die but he's too busy trying to use Allison as leverage so that Chris will stand down and Scott will go along with his plans--
Long story short, Gerard is dealt with (mountain ash poisoning was never so satisfying to watch) and Jackson gets ready to, as instructed, KILL THEM ALL!!! That is, until Stiles and Lydia come crashing through the side of the building and nearly run him over.
She produces his house key, he de-lizardifies, and just when everything seems like it's finally going right, Jackson is gored from both ends by the Hales. In his final moments, he and Lydia more or less reenact the end of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. There are Touching Flashbacks, they affirm their feelings for each other, and he appears to die...
...only to spring up again dramatically (and very much naked) as a werewolf! Congratulations, Jackson, you finally got what you wanted! Your character arc is finally making some amazing progress! We can't wait to see how you'll deal with everything that's happened to you!
Oh, what's that, Colton Haynes? You won't be back for season three?
Damn it.
Personality: "This is Jackson's world. You get to live in it. You're welcome." -- his "facebook profile" off the show's supplemental ARG ("The Hunt" facebook game)
As the history section's pretty much covered, when we first meet Jackson, he is the living embodiment of a stereotype many people love to hate: the asshole jock, watching everyone else smugly from the top of the high school food chain.
There doesn't seem to be a good bone in his body. He's cocky, aggressive, overtly masculine, lords his privilege over others, and is quick to anger.He also has great hair. When asked about Jackson's attitude toward his best friend on a scale of 1-to-murder, the answer from said friend is that he usually averages a 4.
It's the little things that really seem to tick him off. Jackson looks ready to pitch a fit when he starts losing in a casual game of bowling.
Sometimes it manifests in his refusal to take action against injustices he could easily, easily step in to correct. He lives in a horribly self-involved bubble where other peoples' problems don't matter. While aware that Isaac's father is abusive - often violently so - he says nothing until questioned by the police. Unprompted, he would never have come forward.
The reason for this is totally up in the air, though he's probably always been very condescending toward the characters in question. Maybe it's a classist issue, or some sort of repressed fear of not wanting to have a broken home? He calls them "freaks" after hearing the sounds of a conflict, just hours after coughing up black blood and having a confrontation with a werewolf in the bathroom at school. (On that note, hypocrisy doesn't seem to bother him one bit.)
"[Child abuse happens to] the ones who least deserve it," Sheriff Stilinski remarks, unnerving him considerably. Having his own callous actions thrown back in his face does give him a moment's pause, even if it's not necessarily the level of remorse a decent person ought to show. He has similar guilty reactions every so often (as with yelling at Lydia), but never rises to the occasion to right his own wrongs. It's a pride thing, most likely, ultimately stemming from the refusal to acknowledge someone else was right.
When the main gang kidnaps him and he overhears them arguing that it's for his own good, that he's alone and brought everything on himself, he doesn't re-examine his life and his choices, but opts to file that restraining order instead. Somebody get this kid a moral compass and fix his priorities, stat.
We do see hints that he has the potential to be a decent guy, though. For example, he isn't homophobic at all! Danny is gay and he is totally cool with that. And after Lydia gets bitten at the end of season one, he does help save her life! Not being able to let someone die is a good thing, right? On the other hand, when she thanks him for it, he thinks it's a ploy to get back together with him, as if he's unable to grasp the concept of gratitude with no strings attached.
He's very adamant about the fact that he won't just come when she calls any time there's a crisis and that she isn't his responsibility -- something that sounds rude, but actually seems to be a clumsy way of saying "There are dangerous things out there and I can't possibly fight them off [for you or for myself]". He sends her some seriously mixed signals (text-message breakup, calling her "the deadest" of the dead weight in his life, then having an oddly tender moment after learning she still does have real feelings for him), but all actual aggression toward her seems to be instigated at moments when he's not fully in control of himself.
In a flashback near the very end, we see the two of them cuddling in bed - the scene where he gives her his house key. While he downplays the key's importance (easier booty-call access, not a wedding ring), it obviously means a lot. There's no doubt after that, for all their yelling and social climbing machinations, that they have real, real feelings for each other.
Danny's the only other person who brings out anything resembling a good side in Jackson. He trusts Danny enough to restore the destroyed footage of his supposed transformation: that is, potential knowledge that Jackson is becoming a werewolf. Just as often as Danny placates Jackson, he also isn't afraid to talk sense into him; there's a lot of implied mutual respect.
Generally, people aren't on Jackson's radar unless he perceives them as a threat... and boy, does Scott fit that description. Jackson's not being a whiny little kid who never learned to share -- he sees Scott's promotion to co-captain as his own demotion. In his mind, it's an admission from the coach, plain as day, that he isn't fit to be #1.
On the surface it appears he simply can't stand the competition. And he is ruthless about it. Emotional manipulation and blackmail aren't out of the question. Getting close to Allison with the intent to either seduce her away from Scott or turn her against him? No problem at all. There are no visible signs of guilt. He'll do anything to come out on top.
Because Jackson Whittemore is as insecure as anyone else, hell if he'll ever admit it. Remember, the Whittemores speculate that he's hardest on himself, and all of his unrealistic expectations stem from the need to please the parents he can't ever meet. What isn't up for debate in this questionable scenario is how touchy the subject of birthright and family are for Jackson.
Identity crisis is so very central to his character, as his hallucination in 2x09 proves. Not knowing who he is or where he came from must be hard for someone who places so much stock in his current social standing -- what if it's all wrong? What if the guy he would have been is too incongruous with the self that he's built up? It's a lot for a kid to wonder, and also no wonder it upsets him to the degree it does.
It's not that Jackson isn't willing to work hard -- the Whittemores are right, he does push himself. Probably harder than he should. The problem is, while he's top dog around your average high schooler, humans are at the bottom of the supernatural food chain. He's a lightweight competing against heavyweights. There's no way to win, yet we see more than once that he returns to school after hours (late night, in the dark) to practice lacrosse or lift weights, as if somehow he could possibly overcome the limits of being ordinary. He's holding himself up to a standard he can never achieve and still finds himself inadequate. And it pisses him off.
Is it perfectionism? An inferiority complex disguised as the aggressive drive to succeed? There are a lot of ways to read it, but probably more of the former. This compulsive desire to win turns to desperation, and desperation turns to obsession.
Jackson Whittmore is so desperate to be on top, so unsettled by Scott's sudden ability to stand on (at least) equal footing with him, that he is willing to believe in werewolves. I said that before and I will say that until I am blue in the face. People do not just wake up and decide to believe in werewolves. Your average teenage jock has probably not read a fantasy novel a day in his life. He is not conditioned to believe in the supernatural, in chosen ones, in daydreams that act as escapes from the misery of geekdom. And yet he does. And he's not scared of it -- not initially, anyway.
He doesn't think Scott will use his wolfy powers to tear his throat out. Nope. Total opposite. Jackson wants it. He craves it. He literally begs for it. He allies himself with anyone who promises him a chance to surpass the limits of his humanity and become great again.
Actually, once he begins learning more about this world he's trying to jump headfirst into, viewers really start see his composed facade fall apart. He's angry at himself for not being strong enough; he's terrified of Argents pointing guns in his face. He puts up a bit of a fight because he can't not, but is ultimately intimidated by and acquiesces to the demands of those he understands to be stronger (Derek, Scott, and even Isaac in season two, when Jackson is "urged" to take back the statement he made to the police that implicate the new werewolf in his father's murder).
When Jackson does get the bite he so desires, he's instantly back to being full of himself. So full of himself and so vain that he decides he has to videotape his first transformation. It's a great moment in history. You cannot put into words how much emphasis he places on being able to see it happen. His whole shift in attitude stems exclusively from the fact that he thinks he has the power to back up being a douche again.
"What happened?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
As you already know, it backfires in ways only the irony gods could imagine. In cases when the bite doesn't work, we learn, "sometimes the shape you take reflects the person that you are."
What Jackson becomes is a kanima, a creature that kills murderers according to the whims of another. According to lore, whereas werewolves look for a pack, the kanima seeks a master; it seems incomplete without one to target its destructive impulses.
This lines up with Jackson's personality nicely, as identity is the driving factor behind his whole being. He seeks to please (one might say his perfectionism and overachieving has been sublimated into the kanima's inherent need to seek a master), and he doesn't know who he truly is (the kanima is his knowledge of the Whittemore family, while the werewolf he can't become is the knowledge of his birth parents he doesn't yet have).
While we may never get another glimpse of his character on screen, what will always remain true is this: Jackson is infinitely more complex than he appears on the surface. And he is easily manipulated by his girlfriend into watching The Notebook.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Jackson is, up until season two, a normal human with a good deal of intelligence, athleticism and charisma, but he is still just a squishy bag of meat just like anyone else. He is overconfident even in the face of certain danger -- cocky to a fault, believing himself infallible but not incapable of recognizing his own weaknesses, just able to ignore them. Because he does find fault in himself, he is driven and desperate, an overachiever of the highest caliber.
As a werewolf, literally everything is speculative. We've seen that he is a werewolf, but nothing about his attitude toward it or the specific parameters of his abilities have been confirmed.
+ He should be a beta, part of Derek's pack because Derek was the one to originally bite him. Even after Peter's revival, he did not revert back to being his own Alpha, so Jackson's death should have no impact on the matter. Being a beta means that biting a human will not turn them into a werewolf.
+ He should have the "average" amount of enhanced strength, speed, and healing. As he's already athletic, he should have no problems harnessing and honing the his power to its upper limit (if in fact there is one). He will not heal as quickly if given a wound by an Alpha or presumably, by extension, a cross-canon character with an equivalent level of supernatural power.
+ With enhanced senses brings the ability to hear a person's heartbeat to gauge their emotions, and to sniff out... pheromones... (Illness seems to have its own scent, though the series is fairly vague about everything except that a canine's pain can be removed through touch.)
+ Like all werewolves, he has the ability to transfer or manipulate memories by clawing the intended victim. This ability will get more canon exploration in season three. With no knowledge of how to do it in the first place, Jackson won't be using it unless someone tells him and teaches him. (Memory transfers have happened by accident, but it usually requires a lack of self control, as demonstrated with Derek in season one).
+ While susceptible to turning on the full moon (a half-human, half-beast sort of form), focusing on an "anchor" will keep him grounded and sane: it's implied that his feelings for Lydia will be his anchor, considering how she pretty much helped revive him. (Whether he's able to recognize this in time is, of course, up in the air).
+ He is weak to wolfsbane. If it enters his bloodstream, the death clock will start ticking. (Oddly enough, the cure seems to be the hair of the dog that bit him -- er, wolfsbane that came from the same stock, judging from Derek's wolfsbane poisoning in "Magic Bullet").
+ He is also weak to mountain ash. It causes a "you shall not pass" effect, acting as a barrier for reasons that haven't been explained. Because it is literally werewolf repellent, it is even worse than wolfsbane if ingested.
Inventory:
(3) too-expensive outfits including
--> the douchey sweater from 2x03
--> that unfortunate plaid shirt from 2x10
--> socks and sneakers
--> name-brand boxers
(1) Lacrosse jersey
(1) Lacrosse stick
(0) balls
Appearance: Jackson is played by Colton Haynes, an actor in his twenties, but let's suspend disbelief and pretend he's still in high school. Check out those aerodynamic cheekbones.
Age: ~16
AU Clarification: N/A
S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
Jackson comes to, gasping and choking, sure this is what hell must be like. He remembers the past few weeks in vague flashes, a rollercoaster of emotion, a loss of self-control-- and then he remembers his last moments, vivid and clear. Lydia, holding up his house key, tears streaming down her face. Bleeding out, content in the knowledge she'd absolved him of all his wrongdoings toward her. His wounds stitching themselves back together. Getting what he'd wanted all along.
And having it yanked from him, as it had been, time and time again.
Maybe he truly hadn't been forgiven for the crimes he'd committed as the kanima. Maybe forgiveness had been an illusion, another hallucination. They always said death made life flash before your eyes, didn't they?
Experimentally, he concentrates, willing the change. He watches his fingernails extend, brings a clawed hand to his face to feel the hair growth--
He feels a surge of pride when he realizes that much hadn't been a lie. It's a short-lived joy, cut by guilt, by the knowledge of all he'd done to get here. And because something was still missing. Lydia, the only thing, the only person he could never admit had been most important all along, was nowhere to be seen.
Thoughts of her bring the change to an abrupt halt, reverse them to make him human again.
His eyes fall on the tattoo on his arm. That certainly hadn't been there before. Things were getting weird -- weirder than usual.
Jackson's jaw clenches in anger. Even without this new beast inside him, it's still the emotion that drives him. It's impossible to rationalize what's happening. Unless it's another hallucination (and a very vivid one, at that), this had to be another kidnapping, plain and simple. But who was to blame? McCall and Stilinski? Derek and the other one who'd stabbed him from behind? The Argents?
He'd get to the bottom of this, just like he'd gotten to the bottom of every other problem that came his way. Before, all he could do was sic his father on them. But now... Now he had the power to make the culprit pay all by himself.
Comms Sample:
[ A few days into his stay, Jackson's got a very important question for the ship.
(The ship. This was like some kind of nerd's wet dream. Who the hell kidnapped people and took them to space? But if he could come to realize werewolves as a logical part of life, maybe it wasn't so unusual after all.)
He holds his arm up, putting his tattoo in plain view of the camera. ]
While anything's preferable to a tramp stamp, being branded like a cow isn't all that flattering, either. Someone tell me they've found a way to remove these things without taking a lighter to their arm.
[ It's for the best you can't see the condescending look on his face, as if he thinks people who've been here for months are morons for not being able to defy their mysterious space captors. He'll learn eventually. ]
Your Name: Arc
OOC Journal:
seiryuuUnder 18? If yes, what is your age?: Over 18! (24)
Email + IM: tachiharae[at]gmail.com; antichlorobenzene
Characters Played at Ataraxion: N/A
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Jackson Whittemore
Canon: Teen Wolf
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: 2x12, after his triumphant werewolf roar but just prior to that good ol' feelings-affirming embrace
Number: If 002, 037 or 137 become available, that would be awesome; otherwise randomization is totally fine!
Setting: Teen Wolf is set in the fictional town of Beacon Hills, California, and aside from your run-of-the-mill werewolves and lizard monsters, it's pretty much indistinguishable from present-day earth. (Canon hasn't properly detailed the extent of the supernatural world, only shapeshifters, mutations thereof, and that certain natural substances can act as poisons against them. Anything else wouldn't be relevant to Jackson specifically, even if it were explained).
For reference, series-specific locations are further described at the show's wiki.
History: Jackson Miller was born on June 15, 1995 via c-section as his mother's life faded away after a fatal car crash that also took the life of his father. Because of the incident, he is set to receive an enormous insurance settlement upon his 18th birthday. (In an odd coincidence, it was Erica's father who worked on the case. We'll learn about her a little later.)
However, he was adopted without much delay by the Whittemores, a wealthy family who kept him in the dark about his birth parents... until he was about five years old (11 years before 2x06). Since then, struggling with issues of identity, he never again said "I love you."
There are no other notable incidents in his pre-series life worth mentioning. He grew up a spoiled overachiever, concerned with social status and being the best. He drives a Porsche he certainly didn't save up for (with vanity plates reading "jcksn37", referencing his jersey number), and is captain of two school teams (swimming and lacrosse) despite being only a sophomore, potentially because of actual effort and potentially because his father's name gives even police officers pause.
When the camera first settles on Jackson Whittemore, he is a king. He opens his car door into Scott, our protagonist, and immediately does the right thing by advising him to watch the paint job. People are banished from his lunch table. They play on his field. They envy his girlfriend, queen bee Lydia Martin.
And suddenly his world comes crashing down, all because some asthmatic social reject goes from zero to hero overnight, royally screwing up Jackson's shoulder during practice.
Although it seems like a minor scene, with Scott and Stiles encountering him at the hospital while they're snooping around, it's certainly worth mentioning that he's there to get a cortezone shot. Lydia, waiting for him, suggests he get a second shot before the game, despite the doctor's warning. Like I said, a very minor scene, but also very, very indicative of the value he places on winning (being able to play, being able to show off, being able to be the best). It also shows how much influence she has over him -- for now it seems they're content to use each other for optimal social ladder climbing, although the audience learns later on that they share a real emotional connection underneath it all.
After all that's said and done, Jackson has a new goal. Suspicious of Scott's sudden talent, he spends most of the first season trying to figure out just what the hell is going on.
First, the simple approach: demanding where Scott's getting his steroids. And Jackson's not buying the adorably oblivious act. During a double date (Jackson and Lydia, Scott and Allison), he continues their confrontation, swearing to get to the bottom of things and threatening to drag Allison into the mix, since it's obvious even to him that Scott won't want her involved.
The drug theory starts to seem pretty credible when unfriendly neighborhood werewolf Derek Hale comes to school looking for Scott. Poisoned by wolfsbane, he looks the part of a dealer who's been sampling some not-so-great product, as Jackson kindly points out. His winning personality gets him slammed into a locker and Derek's claws sunk into the back of his neck. Ouch.
The drug theory seems a lot less credible a short while later.
While out renting a movie with Lydia -- seriously, they don't have Netflix? DVD rental places actually still exist? -- the two of them are attacked by the season's mysterious alpha, the only type of werewolf capable of turning a human! While they never get a perfect look at the giant lumbering man-beast, they each see just enough to traumatize them in their own ways. Jackson lashes out at the police, demanding to go home, and then refuses to talk about the incident to anyone, Danny included. Even Derek, who
Fun fact: when poisoned by wolfsbane, a werewolf can pass on that poisoning through his claws. Wolfsbane, while not magically toxic, is still not something a human's body takes kindly to. Jackson's health begins to deteriorate rapidly. He even experiences a variety of hallucinations -- notably something trying to claw its way out his mouth, as well as some vivid dreams/memories that were accidentally transferred by Derek (a werewolf ability later confirmed to be canon by word of god).
Our golden boy doesn't know what to think when he spies on Stiles training Scott to keep his heart rate low by throwing lacrosse balls at him, but it continues to raise his suspicions. Apparently this is more important than going to the doctor.
It may sound like a joke, but to Jackson it is serious business. Juxtaposed over him drinking and trying to practice some lacrosse drills in the middle of the night, a parent-teacher conference discusses his adoption and theorizes that he's so driven, that he tries so hard because he wants to please the parents he's never met. Though a bit of a problematic theory, his desperate effort seems to back up the narrative.
A series of unfortunate events sends
There's some unusual tension between Jackson and the two girls: he seems friendlier with Allison, even going so far as to almost express concern for her, whereas he and Lydia are a little more distant. Friendship and relationship dynamics have been shifting since he's realized getting closer to Allison is beneficial to his soon-to-be-blackmailing of Scott.
Ultimately, he discovers a few things: when whatever the hell is stalking them roars, the wound on his neck hurts; there are claw marks on Stiles' jeep; and it is unwise to say mean things about the sheriff because Stiles will punch you in the face.
Lydia explains she can make some self-igniting molotov cocktails and calls on everyone to help out. Jackson is either so distracted that he accidentally sabotages her efforts, or so spiteful toward Scott that he actually gives her the wrong ingredients on purpose. Allison and Scott break up when they all get out alive.
The next day at school, a combination of Lydia's quest for social status and Scott's werewolf pheromones lead to some secret makeouts. Due to his long-standing crush on her (and the major, major violation of the bro code), Stiles does not approve. Jackson notices her makeup is a little off but, oddly enough, doesn't actually confront her.
Instead, he simply tries getting closer to Allison, knowing that the more she values him as a friend, the more he can blackmail Scott by threatening to ruin their chances of getting back together... or even being friends again. While a good deal of it is probably an act, the occasional bit of honesty seems to shine through: he even confesses his suspicions about the creature that attacked him and Lydia at the video store. The part where it wasn't human.
Scott, whose personality at the time is literally "Allison Allison Allison", wolfs out on the full moon and ends up spying on the conversation by jumping onto the roof of the car they're sitting in. Who even knows. But it's a bad, bad move because he leaves a claw behind. (A clue, a clue!)
Jackson finally gets the damn scratches looked at. After hallucinating the doctor using some seriously terrifying medical equipment to pull a long string of wolfsbane out of his neck as if he's removing his whole damn spine -- and watching the doctor turn into Derek partway through! -- it's over. He's told it was aconite poisoning. A quick internet search confirms his theories: Scott's a goddamn werewolf.
"Desperation" seems like a good word to describe his first season character arc. Sure, he's experienced a giant monster attack and he's seen claws and scratch marks as proof, but most normal people would continue denying the possibility of lycanthropy until the very last minute. Maybe even until they saw a werewolf transformation with their own two eyes. Your average sixteen year old jock should not think this is a logical conclusion.
But Jackson? Jackson marches up to Scott and tells him I know what you are, harasses him throughout the day, and demands Scott find a way to make him a werewolf too. Preparing for his return to greatness, he dumps Lydia via text message: he's dropping the dead weight in his life and she's "the deadest." This frees up his time even more, allowing him to continue fostering his friendship with Allison with delightful ulterior motives.
Too bad he accidentally implicates himself as a potential threat in the process when the werewolf-hunting Argents notice the healing scratches on the back of his neck at a lacrosse game. If claws penetrate deep enough, transformation is a possibility. (He does display an unexpected show of intelligence when he lampshades that, because Argent means silver, it's really not surprising they'd be werewolf hunters.)
Chris Argent messes with Jackson's car, allowing for a confrontation charged with some seriously uncomfortable undertones. That's just how the Argents do things. Scott and Stiles come along to save the day, forcing Chris to leave, and Jackson... Jackson is still not grateful for a damn thing. Against Scott's insistence that the bite is a curse, he posits that Scott simply doesn't know how to handle all that power, and he still wants it. Badly.
Again, it's after-hours and Jackson's been working out. (He's serious about his training, okay?) This time, Derek shows up in the locker room and ambiguously makes him an offer he can't refuse.
Like a true protagonist, Scott shows up just in the nick of time to deliver a witty remark, play the hero, and save him. Some hunters crash the party, too. Jackson manages to escape during the ensuing fight.
At school the next day, they argue about the winter formal: it would be safer if Jackson took Allison, given all the danger she could be in. However, Jackson acts like he doesn't owe Scott a damn thing for saving his life -- Scott's all healed up, forget how much he bled at the time! Although he does express some small measure of compassion for her, he places his personal safety above all else and continues to refuse.
...Until Scott wolfs out on him, which makes a very compelling argument. Jackson asks Allison out as friends, everyone dances, and they all live happily ever after.
Did you really believe that? Teen Wolf is a show that starts out campy and then rips your heart out. Sometimes literally. No, this is where it all goes to hell.
Jackson drinks to cope with everything. He's sullen and doesn't give a crap about the dance. In fact, he heads outside and, after catching a glimpse of something in the distance that looks like red eyes, starts stumbling towards it, hoping it's the alpha. He falls to his knees, literally begging for the bite: it's another raw moment we're not usually privy to.
Spoilers: is actually
Lydia goes looking for him, only to run into Peter Hale, the notorious alpha. He attacks her on the spot. Stiles is technically the one to find her, but his chance to play hero is thwarted when Peter decides to kidnap him, generously allowing him one phone call (Jackson, to inform him of Lydia's whereabouts and bleeding-outs).
So it really is Jackson to the rescue! He picks her up and rushes toward the school, calling for help. Again, we get a rare display of real emotion -- "dead weight" or not, she's pretty much bleeding out in his arms for a little while and he is not okay with that.
In the hospital, his unfortunate tendency to get thrown around by adults manifests twice. First, Sheriff Stilinski accuses him of being involved in Lydia's attack, unaware of the breakup. (Jackson seems to take small comfort in retorting she was Stiles' date so hey, lay off the blame and the wall-shoving.)
Secondly, when Peter finally lets Stiles go, the two of them are thrown into a hospital room by hunters and interrogated as to Scott's whereabouts. Jackson is virtually useless -- like he'd know in the first place. Stiles, on the other hand, knows just what buttons to push to make them leave. The boys join in the race toward the Hale house.
...And somewhere along the way, they pick up some self-igniting molotovs! God only knows where. Or how they had time. More importantly, it's thanks to their help that Peter is set on fire a second time and Derek is able to kill him, thereby becoming the new alpha.
Jackson shakes as he enters the house later that night, calling for Derek. "I helped save you," he claims. Derek got what he wanted, so doesn't that entitle Jackson to getting what he wants?
Why yes, it does.
Season two begins with Jackson erupting dramatically from a large body of water, something which may never be explained because the actor is leaving the show, but apparently this is actually significant. He grins wildly: there is a bite on his side indicating the bite did not kill him. And if it doesn't kill you, it turns you*.
*some exceptions may apply, specifically if you are a strawberry-blonde girl or live in a state of frequent identity crisis.
At school, he's back to his old self, plus an extra-douchey scarf. He pays a homeless man a dollar to "go die in another parking lot" and doesn't even seem give a damn that Lydia is missing, running around naked in a fugue state, potentially also a werewolf. So much for all that "hang on!" stuff at the formal, amirite?
Too bad he starts taking cues from Supernatural's Leviathans and bleeding black all over the place. Derek shows up (in the guys' bathroom, keeping up his tradition of being an A+ creeper), tries to find out how Jackson is doing ~because they're pack now~, and explains that his body must be fighting the bite. When pressed for a further explanation, Derek simply fades back into the shadows because he's confused. Seriously.
The next day, a neighbor/teammate's father dies. Isaac Lahey's dad. This is significant, honest! You see, for the first few episodes, Derek Hale's been building up a new pack: Isaac first, then a girl named Erica, then finally a guy named Boyd. Each one is an outcast, low on the social food chain. None of them deserve it even half as much as Jackson (or so he'd think).
Jackson proves himself to have absolutely no sense of human decency when he calls Isaac and his father "freaks" after hearing domestic abuse from across the street. He also confirms to Sheriff Stilinski that Mr. Lahey had been beating his son regularly. It wasn't his problem, so he never reported it.
You know what else isn't his problem? Lydia. He completely ignores her attempts to thank him for saving her life, reiterating that they are never, ever, ever getting back together.
Jackson's only problem is making sure he turns into a werewolf as planned. He enlists the help of Matt The Camera Guy, paying out the nose for a camera that can record -- ahem -- in low light, all night long. Did he stutter? In low light. All night long.
The transaction with Matt is completed like a shady drug deal. Jackson poses in front of a mirror, settles into bed, and-- when he wakes up, the camera shows nothing but him sleeping peacefully through the night. Nothing happened.
...Yeaaaaah, he's actually been turning into a werelizard (a kanima, to use the technical term) and taking part in those murders. Someone's tampered with the footage, he'll learn later on.
His day only gets worse when Jackson conveniently watches a video about immunization in class and he begins to suspect foul play. Clearly it's Lydia's fault! He confronts her, a bit more angrily than usual*, and accuses her of making him immune to the bite. She's taken aback by his hostility, which he also seems to regret as soon as he's walked away, but he's Jackson Whittemore and damn if he'll let remorse make him apologize.
*A side effect of the kanima's master having some element of control over him, potentially.
Next stop, the Hale house. Apprehensive, clearly remembering his past terrible horrible experiences, he calls out to Derek and finds hunters instead. Chris warns him against his
This is the face he makes and I'm linking it because it gives me gross feelings.
We turn our attentions now to Danny, child prodigy hacker and BFF, who is given the tape of Jackson sleeping with instructions to figure out if it had been tampered with.
Later, hoping for another spontaneous display of supernatural strength, Jackson drags Danny to the gym after hours and insists on lifting weighs he can't possibly handle. It's cool, guys. Even though Danny's not there, Erica steps in to help him when he struggles.
...To stage a kidnapping, more like. She drags him to the abandoned subway station that Derek and the pack like to train in. There, she and Isaac hold him down and Derek forces him to taste a strange white substance. Poison! It's poison, okay! Derek forces him to ingest the kanima's poison, under the assumption that the kanima can't poison itself, hoping to prove or eliminate the possibility of Jackson being the creature.
Instead, he falls to the ground, paralyzed like an ordinary human. (Derek claims he's still a snake, even if not the one they're looking for. Sigh. Can't catch a break.) Isaac takes advantage of his own newfound strength to threaten Jackson into rescinding the testimony that implicated Isaac in his father's murder, thus allowing him to return to school.
At school, he has intermittent superhearing, allowing him to discover the pack is going to target Lydia to give her the same poison taste-test. It also exposes him to the term "kanima", though nobody will explain it to him. The heroes more or less make plans to abduct her after school to protect her from the pack.
Meanwhile, Danny is a lying liar who lies. Turns out he didn't keep the video a secret at all. He showed Matt, in part because it's Matt's camera and in part because Matt is definitely His Type. The two of them put their heads together to realize that some footage had been deleted, prompting the question of who would have access to Jackson's house. And it dawns on him. Lydia.
Lydia has the key.
An actual key, which is also incidentally the key to the problem.
Which leads to Jackson following everyone on their quest to hide her from Derek, Isaac, Erica, and Boyd, so he can demand the key back. He manages to confront her away from the rest of the group. She reveals she not only still has the key, but wears it around her neck. In an explosion of feelings, she expresses both her reluctance to hand it over and that she should hate him (but clearly, clearly doesn't). They kiss-- and are promptly interrupted by the plot.
The fight comes to them. In the ensuing chaos, Jackson transforms against his will and runs away, revealing the true identity of the monster they've all been a-chasin'. The poison didn't work on him, it's explained, because while Jackson is the kanima, the kanima is unaware that it's Jackson. It's an animal with no sense of self.
Because the kanima's master
Scott and Stiles find Jackson, human again, and abduct him in an armored police van to prevent him from causing further damage. Thinking it a brilliant plan, Stiles texts Jackson's family that he's staying the night elsewhere... "love you". You remember the lesson we learned up in the first paragraph? Jackson's dad immediately goes to the police and gets everyone out searching for his poor lost heartless son.
Overhearing a conversation about what should be done with him -- kill him? let him live? -- Jackson is unexpectedly moved to a single manly tear when Scott insists he has nobody and that's why the big-hearted good guys should try to help him. Being forced to confront this truth causes an identity crisis. He shifts into the kanima and escapes, only to make it to the police station and file a restraining order. Because that is exactly what you do when someone says he doesn't want to kill you.
Back at school, Jackson gets his hallucination on (again), eating a snake and later watching it pop out of his eyeball. This is significant because everyone watching it had to fight the urge to vomit, and so everyone reading deserves an equal chance at nausea. The point is, his sanity's being chipped away slowly, and it's getting easier and easier for the kanima's master to take control of him -- even as a human.
He assaults Allison, resulting in a fight with Scott that gets detention for a whole group of people: himself, Scott, Stiles, Erica, and Matt the Camera Guy. He spends some time half-human, half-lizard monster, paralyzing Erica and giving Matt a concussion, and generally proving how much his sanity has spiraled down the drain.
Finally, it's clear Jackson isn't himself. He buys tickets to the rave in a daze, overacting to the point of "okay dude, we get it, someone else is behind the wheel", and generally spends the episode menacing everyone. He does some sexy dancing with Isaac and Erica, briefly gets sedated, and the master uses his mouth to deliver some exposition about how all of the victims were responsible for his death.
But the plot must go on! Lydia's birthday part is fast approaching, and she extends an invitation to our favorite walking shell of a boy. "You don't want me there," he insists, and there's a brief glimmer of humanity in his eyes when they touch. Honest to god, he looks like a kicked puppy.
And so, because Teen Wolf is about pain and suffering, Jackson goes to the party anyway. Thanks to Peter Hale, the drinks are all laced with wolfsbane of the hallucinatory variety. The "hallucinate your deepest fears" variety, to be even more specific. (Really, can this guy ever get a break from seeing things?)
Jackson's hallucination reflects, once again, the concept of a lost identity: faceless people claiming to be his birth parents showing up at the party, and suddenly becoming equally faceless.
Matt ends up falling into the pool and shrieks about his inability to swim, words which go unheard because everyone at the party is still drunk. Jackson saves him because he's a good samaritan, captain of the swim team, and-- oh, right, and because Matt is actually the kanima's master. Surprise!
Knowing that it's only a matter of time before Scott and Stiles find a way to legally implicate him in murder, Matt takes Jackson to the police station to kill a few more people, take some hostages, and generally entertain us with some fight scenes. But he's been killing those who don't deserve it, breaking the rules of the kanima's master, and that starts turning him into a monster, as well.
...it's all good, though! Our heroes escape and Principal Badtouch (Gerard Argent, Allison's grandfather) drowns Matt and gives Jackson that control-affirming high-five he so desires. Unfortunately, Jackson's sense of self continues to erode.
He's used to threaten Scott's mother in exchange for Scott's cooperation with Gerard, and is sent off to school to continue being a normal teenager.
The lacrosse team prepares for The Big Game. He has just enough presence of mind to give Danny a warning (specifically to run away from him during the game if Jackson gets close), but he's back to his old zombie of a self before long. The game is uneventful for our resident lizard. What comes after is far more relevant.
The lights go out on the field. Screams ensue. Someone's down! Stiles is missing! What's going on?!
Oh, not much, just Jackson bleeding on the ground from his own claws. It's fairly ambiguous as to whether he was instructed to attack someone he cared about and turned on himself as a preventative measure, or if the goal all along was "gore yourself, pretty boy." (My own interpretation is the latter, simply because he hasn't demonstrated the willpower necessary to break free of anyone's command except for a quarter of a second when in physical contact with Lydia, and even that's debatable.)
Paramedics pick him up and take him to the morgue with Mama McCall in tow because she suspects shenanigans. In fact, it's all because of her that we discover he isn't dead at all! The kanima's poison seems to be forming a cocoon around his body, preparing it for the next stage in its evolution. His final form is apparently some kind of winged monstrosity that frightens even the revived Peter Hale.
Peter waxes poetic on an old myth about werewolves: that speaking its Christian name could cure lycanthropy. It's not true, of course, but he tells Derek that there is hope for Jackson -- that the power of human love can give a person back their sense of self.
Eventually, he wakes up and dashes off into the wild blue yonder.
Little by little, everyone joins the party. Derek and Peter want to kill the kanima, Gerard agrees that Jackson should die but he's too busy trying to use Allison as leverage so that Chris will stand down and Scott will go along with his plans--
Long story short, Gerard is dealt with (mountain ash poisoning was never so satisfying to watch) and Jackson gets ready to, as instructed, KILL THEM ALL!!! That is, until Stiles and Lydia come crashing through the side of the building and nearly run him over.
She produces his house key, he de-lizardifies, and just when everything seems like it's finally going right, Jackson is gored from both ends by the Hales. In his final moments, he and Lydia more or less reenact the end of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. There are Touching Flashbacks, they affirm their feelings for each other, and he appears to die...
...only to spring up again dramatically (and very much naked) as a werewolf! Congratulations, Jackson, you finally got what you wanted! Your character arc is finally making some amazing progress! We can't wait to see how you'll deal with everything that's happened to you!
Oh, what's that, Colton Haynes? You won't be back for season three?
Damn it.
Personality: "This is Jackson's world. You get to live in it. You're welcome." -- his "facebook profile" off the show's supplemental ARG ("The Hunt" facebook game)
As the history section's pretty much covered, when we first meet Jackson, he is the living embodiment of a stereotype many people love to hate: the asshole jock, watching everyone else smugly from the top of the high school food chain.
There doesn't seem to be a good bone in his body. He's cocky, aggressive, overtly masculine, lords his privilege over others, and is quick to anger.
It's the little things that really seem to tick him off. Jackson looks ready to pitch a fit when he starts losing in a casual game of bowling.
Sometimes it manifests in his refusal to take action against injustices he could easily, easily step in to correct. He lives in a horribly self-involved bubble where other peoples' problems don't matter. While aware that Isaac's father is abusive - often violently so - he says nothing until questioned by the police. Unprompted, he would never have come forward.
The reason for this is totally up in the air, though he's probably always been very condescending toward the characters in question. Maybe it's a classist issue, or some sort of repressed fear of not wanting to have a broken home? He calls them "freaks" after hearing the sounds of a conflict, just hours after coughing up black blood and having a confrontation with a werewolf in the bathroom at school. (On that note, hypocrisy doesn't seem to bother him one bit.)
"[Child abuse happens to] the ones who least deserve it," Sheriff Stilinski remarks, unnerving him considerably. Having his own callous actions thrown back in his face does give him a moment's pause, even if it's not necessarily the level of remorse a decent person ought to show. He has similar guilty reactions every so often (as with yelling at Lydia), but never rises to the occasion to right his own wrongs. It's a pride thing, most likely, ultimately stemming from the refusal to acknowledge someone else was right.
When the main gang kidnaps him and he overhears them arguing that it's for his own good, that he's alone and brought everything on himself, he doesn't re-examine his life and his choices, but opts to file that restraining order instead. Somebody get this kid a moral compass and fix his priorities, stat.
We do see hints that he has the potential to be a decent guy, though. For example, he isn't homophobic at all! Danny is gay and he is totally cool with that. And after Lydia gets bitten at the end of season one, he does help save her life! Not being able to let someone die is a good thing, right? On the other hand, when she thanks him for it, he thinks it's a ploy to get back together with him, as if he's unable to grasp the concept of gratitude with no strings attached.
He's very adamant about the fact that he won't just come when she calls any time there's a crisis and that she isn't his responsibility -- something that sounds rude, but actually seems to be a clumsy way of saying "There are dangerous things out there and I can't possibly fight them off [for you or for myself]". He sends her some seriously mixed signals (text-message breakup, calling her "the deadest" of the dead weight in his life, then having an oddly tender moment after learning she still does have real feelings for him), but all actual aggression toward her seems to be instigated at moments when he's not fully in control of himself.
In a flashback near the very end, we see the two of them cuddling in bed - the scene where he gives her his house key. While he downplays the key's importance (easier booty-call access, not a wedding ring), it obviously means a lot. There's no doubt after that, for all their yelling and social climbing machinations, that they have real, real feelings for each other.
Danny's the only other person who brings out anything resembling a good side in Jackson. He trusts Danny enough to restore the destroyed footage of his supposed transformation: that is, potential knowledge that Jackson is becoming a werewolf. Just as often as Danny placates Jackson, he also isn't afraid to talk sense into him; there's a lot of implied mutual respect.
Generally, people aren't on Jackson's radar unless he perceives them as a threat... and boy, does Scott fit that description. Jackson's not being a whiny little kid who never learned to share -- he sees Scott's promotion to co-captain as his own demotion. In his mind, it's an admission from the coach, plain as day, that he isn't fit to be #1.
On the surface it appears he simply can't stand the competition. And he is ruthless about it. Emotional manipulation and blackmail aren't out of the question. Getting close to Allison with the intent to either seduce her away from Scott or turn her against him? No problem at all. There are no visible signs of guilt. He'll do anything to come out on top.
Because Jackson Whittemore is as insecure as anyone else, hell if he'll ever admit it. Remember, the Whittemores speculate that he's hardest on himself, and all of his unrealistic expectations stem from the need to please the parents he can't ever meet. What isn't up for debate in this questionable scenario is how touchy the subject of birthright and family are for Jackson.
Identity crisis is so very central to his character, as his hallucination in 2x09 proves. Not knowing who he is or where he came from must be hard for someone who places so much stock in his current social standing -- what if it's all wrong? What if the guy he would have been is too incongruous with the self that he's built up? It's a lot for a kid to wonder, and also no wonder it upsets him to the degree it does.
It's not that Jackson isn't willing to work hard -- the Whittemores are right, he does push himself. Probably harder than he should. The problem is, while he's top dog around your average high schooler, humans are at the bottom of the supernatural food chain. He's a lightweight competing against heavyweights. There's no way to win, yet we see more than once that he returns to school after hours (late night, in the dark) to practice lacrosse or lift weights, as if somehow he could possibly overcome the limits of being ordinary. He's holding himself up to a standard he can never achieve and still finds himself inadequate. And it pisses him off.
Is it perfectionism? An inferiority complex disguised as the aggressive drive to succeed? There are a lot of ways to read it, but probably more of the former. This compulsive desire to win turns to desperation, and desperation turns to obsession.
Jackson Whittmore is so desperate to be on top, so unsettled by Scott's sudden ability to stand on (at least) equal footing with him, that he is willing to believe in werewolves. I said that before and I will say that until I am blue in the face. People do not just wake up and decide to believe in werewolves. Your average teenage jock has probably not read a fantasy novel a day in his life. He is not conditioned to believe in the supernatural, in chosen ones, in daydreams that act as escapes from the misery of geekdom. And yet he does. And he's not scared of it -- not initially, anyway.
He doesn't think Scott will use his wolfy powers to tear his throat out. Nope. Total opposite. Jackson wants it. He craves it. He literally begs for it. He allies himself with anyone who promises him a chance to surpass the limits of his humanity and become great again.
Actually, once he begins learning more about this world he's trying to jump headfirst into, viewers really start see his composed facade fall apart. He's angry at himself for not being strong enough; he's terrified of Argents pointing guns in his face. He puts up a bit of a fight because he can't not, but is ultimately intimidated by and acquiesces to the demands of those he understands to be stronger (Derek, Scott, and even Isaac in season two, when Jackson is "urged" to take back the statement he made to the police that implicate the new werewolf in his father's murder).
When Jackson does get the bite he so desires, he's instantly back to being full of himself. So full of himself and so vain that he decides he has to videotape his first transformation. It's a great moment in history. You cannot put into words how much emphasis he places on being able to see it happen. His whole shift in attitude stems exclusively from the fact that he thinks he has the power to back up being a douche again.
"What happened?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
As you already know, it backfires in ways only the irony gods could imagine. In cases when the bite doesn't work, we learn, "sometimes the shape you take reflects the person that you are."
What Jackson becomes is a kanima, a creature that kills murderers according to the whims of another. According to lore, whereas werewolves look for a pack, the kanima seeks a master; it seems incomplete without one to target its destructive impulses.
This lines up with Jackson's personality nicely, as identity is the driving factor behind his whole being. He seeks to please (one might say his perfectionism and overachieving has been sublimated into the kanima's inherent need to seek a master), and he doesn't know who he truly is (the kanima is his knowledge of the Whittemore family, while the werewolf he can't become is the knowledge of his birth parents he doesn't yet have).
While we may never get another glimpse of his character on screen, what will always remain true is this: Jackson is infinitely more complex than he appears on the surface. And he is easily manipulated by his girlfriend into watching The Notebook.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Jackson is, up until season two, a normal human with a good deal of intelligence, athleticism and charisma, but he is still just a squishy bag of meat just like anyone else. He is overconfident even in the face of certain danger -- cocky to a fault, believing himself infallible but not incapable of recognizing his own weaknesses, just able to ignore them. Because he does find fault in himself, he is driven and desperate, an overachiever of the highest caliber.
As a werewolf, literally everything is speculative. We've seen that he is a werewolf, but nothing about his attitude toward it or the specific parameters of his abilities have been confirmed.
+ He should be a beta, part of Derek's pack because Derek was the one to originally bite him. Even after Peter's revival, he did not revert back to being his own Alpha, so Jackson's death should have no impact on the matter. Being a beta means that biting a human will not turn them into a werewolf.
+ He should have the "average" amount of enhanced strength, speed, and healing. As he's already athletic, he should have no problems harnessing and honing the his power to its upper limit (if in fact there is one). He will not heal as quickly if given a wound by an Alpha or presumably, by extension, a cross-canon character with an equivalent level of supernatural power.
+ With enhanced senses brings the ability to hear a person's heartbeat to gauge their emotions, and to sniff out... pheromones... (Illness seems to have its own scent, though the series is fairly vague about everything except that a canine's pain can be removed through touch.)
+ Like all werewolves, he has the ability to transfer or manipulate memories by clawing the intended victim. This ability will get more canon exploration in season three. With no knowledge of how to do it in the first place, Jackson won't be using it unless someone tells him and teaches him. (Memory transfers have happened by accident, but it usually requires a lack of self control, as demonstrated with Derek in season one).
+ While susceptible to turning on the full moon (a half-human, half-beast sort of form), focusing on an "anchor" will keep him grounded and sane: it's implied that his feelings for Lydia will be his anchor, considering how she pretty much helped revive him. (Whether he's able to recognize this in time is, of course, up in the air).
+ He is weak to wolfsbane. If it enters his bloodstream, the death clock will start ticking. (Oddly enough, the cure seems to be the hair of the dog that bit him -- er, wolfsbane that came from the same stock, judging from Derek's wolfsbane poisoning in "Magic Bullet").
+ He is also weak to mountain ash. It causes a "you shall not pass" effect, acting as a barrier for reasons that haven't been explained. Because it is literally werewolf repellent, it is even worse than wolfsbane if ingested.
Inventory:
(3) too-expensive outfits including
--> the douchey sweater from 2x03
--> that unfortunate plaid shirt from 2x10
--> socks and sneakers
--> name-brand boxers
(1) Lacrosse jersey
(1) Lacrosse stick
(0) balls
Appearance: Jackson is played by Colton Haynes, an actor in his twenties, but let's suspend disbelief and pretend he's still in high school. Check out those aerodynamic cheekbones.
Age: ~16
AU Clarification: N/A
S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
Jackson comes to, gasping and choking, sure this is what hell must be like. He remembers the past few weeks in vague flashes, a rollercoaster of emotion, a loss of self-control-- and then he remembers his last moments, vivid and clear. Lydia, holding up his house key, tears streaming down her face. Bleeding out, content in the knowledge she'd absolved him of all his wrongdoings toward her. His wounds stitching themselves back together. Getting what he'd wanted all along.
And having it yanked from him, as it had been, time and time again.
Maybe he truly hadn't been forgiven for the crimes he'd committed as the kanima. Maybe forgiveness had been an illusion, another hallucination. They always said death made life flash before your eyes, didn't they?
Experimentally, he concentrates, willing the change. He watches his fingernails extend, brings a clawed hand to his face to feel the hair growth--
He feels a surge of pride when he realizes that much hadn't been a lie. It's a short-lived joy, cut by guilt, by the knowledge of all he'd done to get here. And because something was still missing. Lydia, the only thing, the only person he could never admit had been most important all along, was nowhere to be seen.
Thoughts of her bring the change to an abrupt halt, reverse them to make him human again.
His eyes fall on the tattoo on his arm. That certainly hadn't been there before. Things were getting weird -- weirder than usual.
Jackson's jaw clenches in anger. Even without this new beast inside him, it's still the emotion that drives him. It's impossible to rationalize what's happening. Unless it's another hallucination (and a very vivid one, at that), this had to be another kidnapping, plain and simple. But who was to blame? McCall and Stilinski? Derek and the other one who'd stabbed him from behind? The Argents?
He'd get to the bottom of this, just like he'd gotten to the bottom of every other problem that came his way. Before, all he could do was sic his father on them. But now... Now he had the power to make the culprit pay all by himself.
Comms Sample:
[ A few days into his stay, Jackson's got a very important question for the ship.
(The ship. This was like some kind of nerd's wet dream. Who the hell kidnapped people and took them to space? But if he could come to realize werewolves as a logical part of life, maybe it wasn't so unusual after all.)
He holds his arm up, putting his tattoo in plain view of the camera. ]
While anything's preferable to a tramp stamp, being branded like a cow isn't all that flattering, either. Someone tell me they've found a way to remove these things without taking a lighter to their arm.
[ It's for the best you can't see the condescending look on his face, as if he thinks people who've been here for months are morons for not being able to defy their mysterious space captors. He'll learn eventually. ]
