To Benson
-
TennyoCeres84
- Site Admin
- Posts: 2934
- Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:59 am
To Benson
What is your backstory?
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IamLEAM1983
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3712
- Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:54 am
- Location: Quebec, Canada
As Benson
"There isn't much to say, honestly. I'm a brute with an above-average IQ raised in a family of brutes. Dad had friends and colleagues in Jack the Ripper's London, Mom was the kind of lady you never ask for from any madam - a bouncer in vaguely feminine clothes. Doesn't help that sexual dimorphism isn't as extreme in bugbears as it can be in humans - my mother barely had enough to qualify for a bra, but she had more muscles than the average well-built human male.
For a lot of us, life is earned by punching things either with tools or with our fists. If you aren't a metal worker or in with a construction crew or if you aren't the guy with the huge-ass manual saw in the logging camp, you'll gravitate around criminal elements. We're damn good debt collectors; good enough that we rarely need to hit anything. Just showing up makes a point.
So I was born in 1905, and it wouldn't take long for London-town to lose its charm or its prospects. Gangland was calling, the Sicillian capos and most of everyone involved in the Castellamarese War paying tons more than our previously Cockney-fied bookies who needed a few bruises on people with big interest rates. I mostly grew up in Hope's Faeside, Evergloam. The old Whitechapel slang and the accent didn't stick for long; I was as American as could be by the time Mike Callahan killed Alphonse Biggs.
The thing is, I was more patient with books than my folks ever had been. I listened when other people spoke to me. I connected dots together where most other Sasquatches would've said fuck it and left their brainy friends take over. I never needed a gang of smaller, smarter kids around me to help me make sense of things. I spent a few years eyeballing a Captain position in one of the Commission's units. I figured being a bruiser with actual brains would get me somewhere fast. I gave it a shot for something like six months, and I was bored to tears. I'm a bugbear, so I already sleep a lot. When you clock out almost twenty hours in a single day because you're bored out of your mind, something's up.
Police academy felt like the wake-up call I'd needed. The bugbear-standard course was punishing as Hell, even for me, and it made sure I'd break past my natural tendencies, get acquainted with honest productivity. If I can wrestle my old instructor in his CHAP armature down to the floor, I can tackle Eliphas Buck if his dog gets out of line. If I can do that, I can also hang back and give myself space to think; do what comes naturally to me. I don't care if some of my kinsmen think I'm pretentious because I close cases on my own. I don't have to, if that means I'm faster on the uptake than the average bugbear - and a lot of the humans and other mortals I meet. I don't work solo because nobody else fits in my car, I work solo because the captain's realized I don't need a George for my proverbial Lenny. I'm George and Lenny rolled into one.
The years leading up to my detective badge were boring, but I had a clear goal in mind. That was already more than my parents had ever had. I wanted to be more than the biggest guy on the force - I wanted to be the biggest brain on the force. A lot of my first few partners mistook my exhaustion for tiredness, but I wasn't snoozing in the squad car because Bugbear Cop eats donuts and falls asleep, harr harr - I'd actually been hitting Criminal Psychology reference texts, law textbooks and basic criminology material in my off hours. I couldn't settle with passing the exams for the DT promotion; I had to ace them, blow everyone else out of the water.
Ì managed it. I even corrected my Psych instructor on a few things.
That's pretty much it. The guys think I should brag about my degrees a bit more, but it's not in my nature to glorify what I've had to work for. I wanted it, so I got it. The only things I beat to a pulp in the process were the tests I had to pass. The family thinks I'm being hoity-toity."
He scoffs.
"I don't care. I'm not going to be someone's loudly snoring and relatively portable threat of physical abuse. The Commission hasn't earned that kind of toadying attitude from me. The force, on the other hand, earned my respect."
For a lot of us, life is earned by punching things either with tools or with our fists. If you aren't a metal worker or in with a construction crew or if you aren't the guy with the huge-ass manual saw in the logging camp, you'll gravitate around criminal elements. We're damn good debt collectors; good enough that we rarely need to hit anything. Just showing up makes a point.
So I was born in 1905, and it wouldn't take long for London-town to lose its charm or its prospects. Gangland was calling, the Sicillian capos and most of everyone involved in the Castellamarese War paying tons more than our previously Cockney-fied bookies who needed a few bruises on people with big interest rates. I mostly grew up in Hope's Faeside, Evergloam. The old Whitechapel slang and the accent didn't stick for long; I was as American as could be by the time Mike Callahan killed Alphonse Biggs.
The thing is, I was more patient with books than my folks ever had been. I listened when other people spoke to me. I connected dots together where most other Sasquatches would've said fuck it and left their brainy friends take over. I never needed a gang of smaller, smarter kids around me to help me make sense of things. I spent a few years eyeballing a Captain position in one of the Commission's units. I figured being a bruiser with actual brains would get me somewhere fast. I gave it a shot for something like six months, and I was bored to tears. I'm a bugbear, so I already sleep a lot. When you clock out almost twenty hours in a single day because you're bored out of your mind, something's up.
Police academy felt like the wake-up call I'd needed. The bugbear-standard course was punishing as Hell, even for me, and it made sure I'd break past my natural tendencies, get acquainted with honest productivity. If I can wrestle my old instructor in his CHAP armature down to the floor, I can tackle Eliphas Buck if his dog gets out of line. If I can do that, I can also hang back and give myself space to think; do what comes naturally to me. I don't care if some of my kinsmen think I'm pretentious because I close cases on my own. I don't have to, if that means I'm faster on the uptake than the average bugbear - and a lot of the humans and other mortals I meet. I don't work solo because nobody else fits in my car, I work solo because the captain's realized I don't need a George for my proverbial Lenny. I'm George and Lenny rolled into one.
The years leading up to my detective badge were boring, but I had a clear goal in mind. That was already more than my parents had ever had. I wanted to be more than the biggest guy on the force - I wanted to be the biggest brain on the force. A lot of my first few partners mistook my exhaustion for tiredness, but I wasn't snoozing in the squad car because Bugbear Cop eats donuts and falls asleep, harr harr - I'd actually been hitting Criminal Psychology reference texts, law textbooks and basic criminology material in my off hours. I couldn't settle with passing the exams for the DT promotion; I had to ace them, blow everyone else out of the water.
Ì managed it. I even corrected my Psych instructor on a few things.
That's pretty much it. The guys think I should brag about my degrees a bit more, but it's not in my nature to glorify what I've had to work for. I wanted it, so I got it. The only things I beat to a pulp in the process were the tests I had to pass. The family thinks I'm being hoity-toity."
He scoffs.
"I don't care. I'm not going to be someone's loudly snoring and relatively portable threat of physical abuse. The Commission hasn't earned that kind of toadying attitude from me. The force, on the other hand, earned my respect."