PLAYER NAME: Lance
CONTACT: PM this journal
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Someone on my Plurk list posted a link to the TDM, so I started poking around it. I graciously received an invite from starlingroad later on! Here's my EMP comment.

CHARACTER: Martin Seamus McFly, A.K.A. "Marty"
CANON: Back to the Future
CANON POINT: After Back to the Future: The Game - Episode 5: "OUTATIME"

BACKGROUND: Wiki for film trilogy events up until Reunion with Doc. Game canon can be seen here.

ABILITIES | POWERS: Marty has no special powers, unless you count shredding his axe like a rock 'n' roll legend as a power. (He certainly does.) Otherwise, he's got some proficiencies, such as:

• Music, considering he's a skilled guitarist and singer
• Acrobatics and athletics, in the sense that he's great at moving around and using his surroundings to his advantage
• Basic survival, but in an "I go camping sometimes" kind of way
• Sharpshooting, as seen in his adventures in the Old West
• Engineering, both of the electrical and mechanical types, which he's improved after being a local inventor's research assistant for four years
• Fistfighting, and he's got a killer right hook to prove it
• Improvisation, because Marty's inability to think ahead is usually compensated for in his quick-thinking

If asked, he'll also say he's a great kisser. This is subjective.

PERSONALITY:

One of the very first scenes in Back to the Future has Marty pulled aside by the principal of his school. To his face, the man says, "Why bother? [...] No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley." And Marty's reply is quick in turn: "Yeah, well, history is gonna change."

This set-up summarises Marty's entire life story. In the beginning of his canon, he's established as a loser of the 1980s: a boy whose only meaningful friend besides his girlfriend is the dangerous, kooky inventor the whole town regards with disdain. It isn't the first time Marty's had a terrible connection, either-- his father, George, is a spineless man abused by his supervisor; his mother, Lorraine, is an alcoholic unhealthily obsessed with purity; his older brother, Dave, is a long-time fastfood part-timer with no passions of his own; and his older sister, Linda, is obsessed with finding a boyfriend without working on herself. This is his family, and ignoring the fact that he has hobbies and interests he thinks are cool-- skateboarding and making his own rock 'n' roll music, for example-- by the unspoken laws of Hill Valley's small-minded gossip mongering, it's been decided by everyone around that Marty McFly has no hopes, either. Naturally, Marty has always resented this.

Each time someone compares him to his father, Marty dies a little inside. If you ask him, he likes to think he takes after his best friend more than anyone in his family, and this is something he can proudly say. Said best friend, Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, is as much a social pariah as any McFly, but unlike them has never cared that it was part of his public identity. And after meeting him, and seeing that these two things could co-exist, Marty finally began thinking of breaking the cycle his family's been trapped in for himself. Since working for Doc, Marty's tried to adopt what he believes are his best traits and philosophies: his unwavering passion for his dreams, his belief in all that is good and kind, and his bravery in the face of every issue that comes his way. Naturally, he isn't nearly as innately good or altruistic as Doc is, but spending plenty of time with a man of so much kindness changed Marty for the better.

"If you put your mind to it," Doc's often told him, "you can accomplish anything." And because of Doc's influence, Marty became the first McFly not just to have a goal, but to actually work towards it. This is evident not just in his hopes that someday he'll be a rock star, but in the efforts he's made to start a band and actually make audition tapes too. He's also the first McFly to boldly stand up for himself as well as the little guy, as seen when he stares his father's abusive supervisor down without hesitation (and when he downright decks the guy when he travels back in time and sees him bullying his teenage parents). Despite his father's insistence throughout his life that Marty keep his head down and avoid confrontation, Marty's headstrong nature makes it impossible for him to listen. He isn't the sort of person to "grin and bear it", whether for himself or others, and he's always ready to fight for what he thinks is right. Hell, he's so dedicated that he takes a bonafide murdering outlaw down when he travels back in time to 1885 simply because he's terrorising everybody around.

As an impulsive, quick-thinking person, the best way to stop Marty from doing anything foolish when he gets excited is having someone he trusts providing a voice of reason. Most days that someone tends to be Doc, but recent developments have had him learning how to be "better" about taking care of himself, too. In the past, he was so bad at holding back that the simple implication of being weak in any way had him becoming needlessly reckless (in one timeline, this recklessness led to an accident that left him unable to play guitar for the rest of his life). These days, however, Marty's become mature enough to learn to pick his battles with more discretion. Sure, meeting jerks who hurt others for no good reason is usually enough for Marty to start throwing punches, but at least he does his best to be clever about it instead of going in guns blazing. He knows he's not the biggest or the strongest guy in any room, but it doesn't stop him from having the creativity and the guts to be great at fighting, especially if a little violence is necessary for the greater good. Just because Marty knows about the high road doesn't mean he always takes it; he's not afraid of cheating here and there if he has to, so long as no-one is hurt too badly.

Despite the larger than life circumstances of Marty's experiences, he's a typical teenager in many ways. He cares what people think of him even if he shouldn't (he couldn't tell his parents about his girlfriend out of fear of what they'd think), he suffers from uncertainty and a lack of self-esteem (one rejection for Battle of the Bands almost had Marty give up on sending tapes to record companies altogether), and he hasn't got nearly enough wisdom to even pretend he has anything under control (he flies by the seat of his pants through the whole Back to the Future series, and is decidedly awful at pretending to fit in other timelines). What goals he has are less realistic and more idealistic-- wanting a new truck or ending up on MTV, for example-- and he still carries the naive hope that everything will just work itself out. He's young in his mind and his heart and is ready to live life the way he wants to, and having recently turned eighteen, he's prone to all the trappings of "wanting freedom" that number presents as well.

At least Marty doesn't live under any delusions that he knows better than anybody. Being best friends with a genius in his 70s means he's always had someone to turn to if he ever failed to understand anything, and he's well aware that he doesn't understand a lot about the world. Occasionally this leads to a high susceptibility to being manipulated without his knowledge, and we see this in a potential timeline where a Marty in his 40s loses his job because of it. Mostly, though, accepting his limitations makes Marty more down to earth, and reminds him to always try to be kind to others if he can manage it. Sometimes this kindness leads to changes in the space-time continuum, but after all the trips through time that Marty's made, changing the course of history is only par for the course. As far as he knows, he's changing these things for the better, and having a mild saviour complex is a small price to pay if it's for what he perceives to be good. His terrible foresight in these matters is another matter entirely, but he's often so unaware of it that it tends to go on the back burner, anyway.

After all his adventures, history did change as Marty said, but not out of nowhere. History changed because he took charge with his own two hands and made it happen. Unlike everyone else he grew up surrounded by (Doc most certainly not included), Marty doesn't want to be afraid to actively make a difference, and whether he does so for deep, meaningful reasons or to make someone smile isn't important. Though he still struggles with self-esteem issues (he's quoted as saying, "Jesus, I'm starting to sound like my old man!"), he never wants to become the version of his father that he grew up with, and he never wants to be someone who just dies having never accomplished anything.

Marty has a lot of growing to do, and as a fresh high school graduate he's only just begun his journey into adulthood. Fortunately, he's more optimistic for the future now than he's ever been, because as far as he knows, "your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one."

SAMPLE: one, two

INVENTORY:

• His classic outfit, Nikes included
• A picture of his father
• His Walkman and headphones, with Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet inside
• His wallet, including his school ID, driver's license, and a picture of him and his siblings
• The keys to his Toyota 1985 SR5 Xtra Cab

SUITABILITY: Marty's whole deal in canon is getting into adventures, shenanigans, and all other manners of hooliganism. Being transported to a world he's utterly unfamiliar with isn't new at all, nor is trying to cope with these new surroundings, even if he may not go about it in the smartest way. He's not the best at subtlety, and chances are he'll accidentally throw pop culture references that give his time period and universe away constantly, but just because he's not the best at fitting in doesn't mean he'll do nothing.

Sure, outside time travel and its potential consequences, he's as normal as normal can be. But after screaming his head off at the fact horror tropes are real in this world, in the end he knows there's work to be done. Just because the hairs on the back of his neck are all standing up doesn't mean he's useless-- Marty's a man of action, even if his foresight leaves a lot to be desired. He's done all kinds of crazy things, has teamed up with all kinds of crazy people, and at this point has accepted that "normalcy" simply isn't in the cards for him. He's going to be fine (or so he'll continue to tell himself all throughout this venture).

NOTES: N/A

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT PLOT INVOLVEMENT OFF THE GROUND OR A SETTLING-IN PERIOD? Plot involvement works for me!