Post by Glenn on Mar 7, 2007 0:51:26 GMT
NAME: Glenn Porter.
NICKNAMES: It isn’t exactly easy to create any witty nicknames or abbreviations from either of his names, though ‘Port’ is one that’s been used fleetingly in the past, now and again. Mostly, around the department, people just call him by his surname. One or two of the more cocky officers try to get his attention by yelling ‘G’ at him. It doesn’t really work all that well.
RACE: Human.
OCCUPATION: LAPD Vice Detective.
GENDER: Male.
SKIN COLOUR: Caucasian; subtly tanned.
NATIONALITY: American.
AGE: 36.
CLOTHING: Glenn is pretty no-nonsense, and it shows through in his clothing. He isn’t one to wear flashy attire, or a man who tries to make a statement with what he wears. He believes in practicality and comfort, and merges the two aspects in whatever outfit he wears. At work, he always looks professional; it depends on the day as to whether he puts on a suit, complete with tie — some days, he simply wears a dark t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans. In these cases, he will always keep his badge on-show, usually hooked on his belt, or sometimes slung around his neck on a kind of black material ‘necklace’. When going for the more professional look, he’ll wear a full-blown suit, the jackets and pants always black or dark blue in colour, and his shirts vary, but only ever in tasteful colours, such as grey, white, subtle blues and reds; the same can be said of his ties. He can’t stand ties with patterns on them. In these cases, he will wear sensible black shoes without fail; on the days where he tends to look a little more ‘undercover’ or casual, he will wear toe-capped boots, and they are usually scuffed quite badly around the fronts. When away from work, he’ll wear whatever he finds comfortable; jeans and a sweatshirt or t-shirt… whatever takes his fancy and ‘feels’ right for that day. For work, when wearing a suit, he tops it off with a black cloth jacket that reaches just above his knees, if the weather calls for it, otherwise he has a black leather jacket, which he wears when riding his motorcycle, no exceptions.
HEIGHT: 6’.
WEIGHT: 163lbs.
TATTOOS: None.
PIERCINGS: None.
JEWELLERY: Glenn will sometimes wear a dark metal chain around his neck, but it’s pretty unremarkable, and apparently holds no sentimental value of any kind. He will often wear a watch on his left wrist, but like the chain, it holds no great importance to him.
BODY MODIFICATIONS: Being a cop, and a streetwise one at that, Glenn has his fair share of scars from those days where the odds weren’t in his favour. The most noticeable scar he has is on his torso, just above his left hip, where a lucky gang member knifed him.
HAIR.[/i]
LENGTH: A few inches at least, over the top, his hair is pretty varied in terms of length, depending on the position; it gets progressively shorter the further back and down it goes, just tickling the top of his neck at the base of his skull, and framing his ears. He keeps it sensible, in that it’s never likely to impede his vision by hanging in his eyes, even if soaking wet.
STYLE: Stylishly haphazard, carrying a lazy spike over the top.
COLOUR: A dirty, dark blonde, with what some might call ‘frosted’ highlights over the ends of the length along the top of his head, easily noticed when he spikes his hair.
FACIAL HAIR.[/i]
LENGTH: Stubble at best.
STYLE: Glenn shaves daily, if time permits, so ‘accidental’ is usually accurate; a five o’clock shadow.
EYES.[/i]
COLOUR: Green-blue, predominantly green.
ODDITIES: N/A.
PERSONALITY: Glenn Porter didn’t have the best childhood, but he does his best to keep from letting it control him. He is a rather gritty, hard cop when he has to be, but at the same time, he can have a downright silly sense of humour when the need or urge strikes him. He knows the value of laughter on any given day, and tends to try and see the good in people so he doesn’t let his pessimism creep in and take over. He can be sarcastic and even plain cruel if the situation calls for it, and he isn’t the most sympathetic when it comes to criminals and crooks; he just can’t bring himself to care about them all that much, and he has on occasion almost gone too far for the sake of wrapping up a case. Usually, he can pull himself back from the edge, but on the off-chance that he doesn’t manage it himself, his partner is usually able to pull him back.
When it comes to his fellow officers, Glenn is respectful and considerate. He shows his more playful side when there’s no imminent danger or case weighing on his mind, and given that Vice is a male-dominated division, it isn’t unusual for him to be seen ‘horsing around’ with some of the other guys in one way or another, whether it just be laughing about one thing or another, or practically scuffling in the break room by the coffee machine, for whatever reason. He believes that the LAPD are a family, and he views his fellow officers as just that; he would go to great lengths for any of them, even if he didn’t know them by name. He isn’t a born and bred cop like many of them, but he worked damn hard to get to where he is, and he knows it is the best thing he has ever done in his life. His badge means a lot to him, and he would fight tooth and nail to keep it.
His partner, Ophelia — or Phee, as he calls her — Stone, is pretty much his best friend, and it isn’t hard to see it. He respects her a hell of a lot, and values her advice and input on any given subject. He is somewhat old-fashioned in that he is always, even when they’re teasing and laughing about something, a gentleman towards her, but not in such a way that he believes her inferior in any way. He knows she can hold her own, and respects that she comes from ‘blue blood’. Secretly, he envies her for the family she had before the loss of her father, but he has never said that to her, in case it is taken in a bad way. Like all good partners, Glenn holds Ophelia’s safety above his own, and would risk his own skin to help and protect her.
Taking his job very seriously, whenever Glenn has spare time, he can usually be found at the gym — either the one in his apartment building or one of the larger ones the city has to offer — or at the firing range, practising in one way or another, honing his skills and ensuring he keeps on top of his game.
WEAKNESSES: Being mortal, Glenn can be killed in any manner of ways, including illness and old-age. His black-and-white view of criminals can be taken as a weakness in that he often must literally be pushed into listening to their side of a story, and this can taint his opinion on a case. His left hip gives him trouble sometimes, after the stab wound that has long since healed; the blade did quite a bit of internal damage, and has definitely left its mark on him, both outside and in. He isn’t ever likely to admit to it, though, and given his partner’s inability to run full-out over distances, he ignores his own soreness in favour of reaching a goal or catching a perpetrator. Glenn also has a rather — in his opinion — shameful fear of water, and going near deep bodies of it makes him nervous and noticeably restless.
ABILITIES: As a cop, and one who pushed himself to get to where he is, Glenn is physically strong, and it shows; he is muscular without being over the top, and in his prime. He is an expert fighter when it comes to hand-to-hand, specialising in kickboxing, and can most certainly hold his own in a fight. He has excellent marksmanship skills, and can drive and manoeuvre a car at top speeds, even through the streets of Los Angeles. He can manage a motorcycle at breakneck speeds as well, even though is normally a very sensible driver no matter what vehicle he’s controlling. He is ambidextrous when it comes to fighting, but is actually left-handed, and so writes and holds his gun that way. Glenn can also carry a tune, and play an acoustic guitar pretty well.
WEAPONS: Glenn’s police-issue weapon is a Glock 25 that he carries at his right hip, the grip facing out so he can grab it with his left hand. He also owns a licensed Sig Sauer P 226, which, if he feels is necessary, he will sometimes wear in a harness so it hangs around his torso below his right arm, but this is only ever if he is wearing both guns at the same time, otherwise it hangs at his belt in a holster.
PRIZED POSSESSIONS: A Harley Davidson Softail Night Train 2004.
HOME(S): A reasonable apartment in Building A of the Apartment Complex that belongs on Cole Stanton’s side of town, though he is unaware of the territories.
HISTORY: Glenn Porter was born to Allison and Nicholas Porter in Los Angeles, an unstable family at best. Glenn’s mother died of an overdose before he was even a year old, and his father went off the rails, trying to dump his son like trash, unable to even care for himself, let alone a baby. Luckily, he was caught in the act by some neighbours who had been keeping an eye on him out of concern for the infant’s safety, and Nicholas Porter was arrested. Glenn was taken away, and with nowhere else to go while his father was run through the system, put in an orphanage. It wasn’t exactly the most ideal atmosphere for a young boy, especially since he was one of the youngest in the institute, a badly funded and badly organised place that took in the youths just because there was nowhere else for them to go; the couple that managed it weren’t like others who might see the children as their own. The boys got in trouble a lot, and Glenn had learned, by the age of ten, how to hold his own in a fight, having already had his wrist broken in a bad tussle with three of the other ‘inmates’ as they sometimes called themselves.
Life continued in this rough vein until Glenn was fourteen. It was while he and a few others, those he had come to call ‘friends’, were out, before their curfew kicked in, that a stranger approached them. The man started winning their trust, steadily, cautiously. Glenn had never had a male role-model in his life, so this stranger was interesting to him, but one day when they had stayed out too late, he realised the man wasn’t exactly the right candidate. As the others boys headed back for their ‘home’, the man wouldn’t allow Glenn to leave, insisting he had something to show him, and even though the teenager kept repeating that he had to leave, the man refused to let him go. Glenn tried to run. The man chased him down. It wasn’t much of a fight, when the older, larger, much stronger man caught up with the boy, and he proceeded to lose his temper with Glenn, slamming him into the wall and telling him he ought to respect his elders. He dragged Glenn to his car, and forced him inside, taking him to the river before he let him out, but he managed to keep the teenager from running away.
He held Glenn by the scruff at the water’s edge, and it was then that the boy realised he was staring his father in the face; Nicholas Porter revealed himself to his son, near-hysterics as he ‘explained’ the family line was tainted. He babbled that their blood was cursed, and all who carried it were evil, and that he had come back to finish the cycle. Glenn tried to fight him, but his awkwardly-learned techniques were nothing compared to the brute strength of his father, who knocked him to the ground with a single hit, in tears as he said there was no other way. And with that, he threw them both into the river, determined to drown himself and his son. Glenn cried out for help before his father pushed his head under, trying to hold him there, and the younger Porter kicked and struggled like a panicked animal to get himself free.
It was a complete fluke that a couple had been walking their dog on the opposite side of the river when it all happened, and they quickly called for help, unable to do anything else but watch, horrified, as Nicholas Porter held his own son under the water. By the time help arrived, the husband of the couple had dived into the water, refusing to just stand by and watch, and he had managed to get the hysterical man off the teenager. Nicholas Porter, dazed by the blow, went under himself as the bystander pulled Glenn’s head above water. The emergency services pulled them all out of the river, realising neither Porter was breathing. The paramedics quickly went to work on trying to get them to breathe again, managing to resuscitate Glenn but inexplicably failing with Nicholas, who had swallowed too much of the water for his lungs to clear again.
While in the hospital, recovering, Glenn was adamant about never going back to the orphanage where his father had tracked him down. Even after he was reminded, time and time again, that the man had died at the riverside, he refused to back, and it seemed life had finally decided to offer him an olive branch. The couple from the water’s edge had inquired with the orphanage about adopting him, and after the man had actually given a damn enough to save the teenager’s life, Glenn seemed enthusiastic. And so, the Thorpe family adopted him, taking him into their family and home, and trying to make up for everything Glenn had lost in the first fourteen years of his life. For the most part, they succeeded, but that portion of his childhood would never truly leave him, they knew. Glenn seemed to know it too.
When it came time for Glenn — who had decided, for some reason, to keep his family name of Porter rather than change it to Thorpe — to consider college, he surprised his adoptive parents, James and Melanie, in saying that he wanted to go to the Police Academy instead. He seemed blindly determined to make up for ‘all the crap’ his family had created by getting a badge and taking that kind of character off the streets. And so, with their blessing, he went ahead with it. He applied himself, striving with everything he had, and after getting through all the training and preparation, earned himself a place on the streets as a uniformed officer, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to go higher; he wanted to really hit the crime syndicates in LA where it hurt, and it was that odd determination that led him to Vice. Glenn was never really able to tell anyone why he went into Vice, but after earning his Detective’s Shield, he seemed satisfied with his place; his purpose.
Glenn has remained in the LAPD Vice Department ever since; even after a rather nasty injury in the line of duty and more than his fair of near-misses and the like, he is more determined than ever to stand his ground and do his job.