[table][row][cell][color=Gainsboro] 
[hr][h2][color=#0080ff]Laughtrack[/color][/h2][hr]
[color=ff3838][sub][b]History[/b][/sub][/color]
[justify]Jax Veynar was born aboard the Horizon’s Folly, a small fringe salvage hauler that worked the quiet trade between independent freeports and drifting hulks. The ship was family-run in the loosest sense: his parents, Merek and Sera, captained the operation, with a patchwork crew of blood relatives, old hands, and hangers-on filling out the ranks. Life aboard the Folly was rough but steady. Jax’s days were spent cataloguing scrap, hauling cables, and running errands, always underfoot but too young for EVA or demo work. His father made sure of it — “the black takes kids first.” For Jax, the Folly was simply home: cramped, noisy, but safe, and made brighter by his cousin Rynn’s stories and the games he shared with his friend Lio, another boy aboard.

Everything changed when the Folly went after a military derelict adrift in contested space. The adults whispered arguments in the corridors, and Jax overheard one word that made Rynn go pale: munitions. Still, the gamble was too tempting. The Folly latched onto the wreck, and crews went out with torches and clamps. The first explosion came without warning. A charge bit too deep, or the wreck’s innards were already unstable — no one had time to say. The blast rippled through the derelict and into the Folly, crippling her. Alarms howled, bulkheads warped, and atmosphere vented in rushing streams.

In the chaos, Jax was shoved into an escape pod. The launch sequence fired just as another shockwave struck the hull. The pod blasted free but was crippled by flying debris, its systems failing even as he tumbled clear. Through the viewport he saw the Folly limping away, lights stuttering across her battered frame. For a heartbeat he believed they would recover. Instead, the second detonation bloomed across the void, tearing the ship apart and scattering her crew into silence.
[/justify][/color][/cell][cell][sub][sup][color=2e2c2c]____________________________________________________________[/color][/sup][/sub][hr][color=Gainsboro][h3]◤  [sub]“Dead quiet out here..”[/sub][/h3][/color]
[abbr=Artist: LI HH][img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/014/821/583/4k/li-hh-.jpg?1545705665[/img][/abbr]
[hr][color=ff3838][b]Full Name:[/b][/color] Jax Veynar
[color=ff3838][b]Age:[/b][/color] 19
[color=ff3838][b]Homeworld:[/b][/color] N/A
[color=ff3838][b]Occupation:[/b][/color] Salvage & Demolitions Specialist
[hr][/cell][/row][/table][color=Gainsboro][justify]The pod’s life support was dead within hours. Hungry, cold, and terrified, Jax forced himself into a patched EVA suit and crawled out into the graveyard. He scavenged oxygen tanks from corpses, cracked open compartments with salvaged torches, and learned to use breaching charges to reach food and tools sealed away by twisted hulls. At first every detonation was terror, but survival left no room for fear. Each blast that opened a hatch became salvation. Explosives turned from monsters to lifelines.

Days blurred into weeks. He muttered to himself to fill the silence, naming tools and charges to keep track of them, building his own system in the haze of exhaustion. Explosions became punctuation marks — silent fireworks in the void, proof that he was still alive. When a scavenger crew finally picked up his jury-rigged distress beacon, they found a gaunt boy, frost-scarred and half-starved, grinning through his helmet as though the wreck around him was the punchline to a joke only he understood.

Rescue brought no easy future. At fourteen, he was too young to hire, too restless to stay put. He was left at Vanth Freeport in the Kuiper Belt, where lost kids slipped through the cracks. Jax drifted between stations and crews, taking whatever work he could find — sweeping hangars, hauling cargo, running errands. He pestered EVA hands with questions, lingered around demo crews, and scavenged scraps of knowledge wherever he could. Most wrote him off as a nuisance.

By seventeen, he was no longer just the wreck-kid. Crews began paying him for the jobs nobody else wanted — crawling into unstable hulks, wriggling through maintenance shafts, slapping charges onto bulkheads without hesitation. His small frame was an asset, and his nerve even more so. He was reckless, he was strange, but he always came back with something worth selling.

By nineteen, Jax had made a name for himself on the Belt fringe. Not trusted, not famous, but remembered. He was the wiry salvager who laughed through wrecks, muttered to himself on open comms, and treated explosives like playthings that always worked exactly as intended. With no ties to Sol, Jovians, or Centauri, he owed loyalty to no one but the job. All he needed was EVA gear, demo charges, and the chance to break something open. It was only a matter of time before a ship came along that could make use of the chaos he brought with him.[/justify]

[color=ff3838][sub][b]Personality & Reputation[/b][/sub][/color]
[justify]Jax Veynar is restless, manic, and rarely quiet. He cracks jokes where others grit their teeth, finding humor in corpses, vented hulls, and the silence of the black. He laughs too easily, talks too much, and treats explosions like fireworks. Some crewmates find his energy infectious, others think he’s unhinged, but nobody forgets him.

His element is the void, and he’s always the first to volunteer for EVA, whether it’s a dangerous breach or a trivial inspection. He treats the black like a stage, keeping a constant commentary over open comms without realising it: rambling stories, grim one-liners, bursts of cackling laughter. That habit is what earned him his nickname. After one especially noisy dive, a fellow spacer summed it up with, “Good, but I could’ve done without the laughtrack.” The name stuck, and Jax leaned into it.

But his obsession with charges and explosions doesn’t end at the airlock. On the Dullahan, Jax is just as comfortable manning the missile racks or climbing into a turret. To him, it’s all the same — breaching charge, cutting torch, or guided missile, it’s just another tool that makes something go bang. He delights in watching explosions bloom in vacuum, childlike in his awe even while laughing like a madman. Crewmates swear he looks happiest when his hands are on a firing grip or a detonator.

Reckless as he seems, he has a reputation for always bringing something back. Scrap from a wreck, gear pulled from a bulkhead, or even an injured crewmate — if Jax goes out, he returns with something in hand. That consistency, paired with his unnerving humor, has made his reputation a paradox: the half-mad salvage rat whose dives and detonations always deliver.[/justify]

[color=ff3838][sub][b]Appearance[/b][/sub][/color]
[justify]Jax Veynar is nineteen but looks a few years older, the kind of wiry spacer who’s lived rough since childhood. He’s lean and restless, all sharp edges and nervous energy, never still for long. His hair is long enough to tie back but usually hangs loose, a dark, tangled mop that constantly falls into his eyes. He rarely bothers to cut it properly, just hacking it shorter with a knife when it gets in the way. His jaw carries a patchy stubble that he never quite grows into a beard, adding to his scruffy look.

The most striking marks on him are the scars from frostbite. His fingers are mottled and pale at the tips, with a few nails warped or missing entirely. His ears show the same damage, ragged around the edges from his weeks stranded in the wreck. He hides it poorly — gloves off, sleeves rolled up, he wears those scars like part of his kit.

His skin is pale from too many hours under artificial lights, and his build is wiry from years of salvage work, more agility than strength. A faint lattice of burns and old cuts mark his arms, earned from torches, charges, and wreck metal. A few rough tattoos add to the mess — stick-and-poke jobs from freeport backrooms, crude symbols and scrap-crew logos he collected during his drifting years. None are neat, but all mean something to him.

Jax dresses like he never expects to stay planetside. His boots are scuffed, his jacket burned at the cuffs, his trousers patched in more places than they’re whole. Belts and straps jangle with clamps, cutters, and pockets for charges. Even out of EVA he looks halfway suited for it, a man who always expects to step back into the black.

Despite the grime, there’s a glint in his grey eyes that makes him memorable — sharp, mischievous, and just a little unhinged, as though he sees a joke no one else does. When he grins, it’s wide and sudden, all teeth and laughter, the same expression he wore when they pulled him out of that wreck.[/justify]

[color=ff3838][sub][b]Strengths & Limitations[/b][/sub][/color]
[justify]Jax has carved a niche for himself as both a salvage hand and a demolitions man. He’s unnervingly comfortable in vacuum, thriving where most spacers freeze, and years of clawing through wrecks have given him instincts for EVA that few can match. What looks like reckless chaos is in fact hard-earned precision: his demo charges and torches always work, his turrets fire clean, and his salvage dives always turn up something. For all his chatter and laughter, he has an iron nerve in dangerous situations, the sort of spacer who can haul a crewmate out of a collapsing hull without losing his grin.

That same nerve, however, feeds into recklessness. Jax volunteers for every EVA, every boarding, every risky salvage job, even when it’s unnecessary. His dark humor unsettles as often as it entertains, and his habit of laughing at corpses or cackling through the comms can fray tempers fast. Physically he’s wiry and agile but lacks raw strength, and in close combat or drawn-out brawls he’s often overmatched. His training is self-taught, born of desperation rather than discipline, and it shows — to Federation or corporate crews he looks sloppy, dangerous, even amateur. Perhaps most telling, the weeks he spent alone in silence never really left him. If grounded too long, kept away from EVA or denied work, he grows restless and jittery, like a fuse burning too close to the powder.[/justify]

[color=ff3838][sub][b]Miscellaneous[/b][/sub][/color]
[justify][list][*] Known As: “Laughtrack” - a nickname that stuck after a spacer quipped about his constant chatter over open comms.
[*] Convictions / Records: No formal criminal record, though his name has appeared on dockmaster warnings for “reckless use of explosives” and “failure to comply with port safety standards.”
[*] Cybernetics / Mods: None. Jax doesn’t trust them. He’ll happily strap himself into a patched EVA rig or cuddle up to a charge he’s duct-taped together, but the thought of wiring metal into his body makes his skin crawl. He claims machines break down faster than people — though his frost-scarred fingers might argue otherwise.
[*] Belongings: A battered, patched EVA suit he’s modified with hazard stripes and tally marks. His kit is a jumble of torches, clamps, and demo charges with extravagant names like the Bulkhead Overenergiser or the Popjack Special.
[*] Fun Facts:[list]
[*]Talks and laughs to himself during EVA, often forgetting his comms are open.
[*]Always drags something back from a dive, whether it’s scrap, a tool, or a crewmate.
[*]Loves watching explosions in vacuum, comparing them to fireworks.
[*]Long hair often tied back with whatever cord or scrap is at hand.
[*]Bears several crude stick-and-poke tattoos picked up in freeports, mostly scrap-crew logos and rough symbols.[/list]
[/list][/justify]

[hider=Vinnie]She’s small, quiet, lot of chrome, lot of clicking, and those eyes, ugh, those eyes, like black cameras that never blink, like I’m gonna see myself on replay later, and I don’t need that, nobody needs that. It’s not her fault, she’s not doing anything, but augments just… get under my skin. Don’t like the ports, don’t like the whirring, don’t like wondering if I’m being recorded while I’m just trying to sit and breathe. Nothing against her, seems decent, really, just the tech. Always the tech.[/hider][hider=Gravel]
You look at him and you think, “oh, washed-up spacer, coat, boots, busted aug, big scary gun.” Wrong. That’s the costume. The arm? Not broken, it’s a shell, hiding whatever’s really in there: micro-rigs, recorders, things we don’t even have names for. The shakes? Fake. He clinks glasses on purpose so you’ll think he’s slow. The gun? Oversized distraction, a stage prop to point you the wrong way. All of it, the tremor, the booze, the coat, props.

Because here’s the truth nobody else sees: he’s not washed-up, he’s not ruined, he’s not, 

Not. Even. Human.

Yeah. Alien. Been chewing through our feeds, bingeing every old vid and archive, building a disguise out of what he thinks a person is. Not a smuggler, not a duelist, not some crime story cliché, the default setting. Coat, gun, gravel stare: “this is a man, right?” He’s not wearing a persona; he’s wearing humanity itself like a costume.

And that voice you all think is wrecked? That’s the tell. It’s too steady under the crackle. That’s not damage, that’s a machine. A translator. You’re not even hearing him. You’re hearing what he wants you to hear. When he switches it off, it won’t be words. It won’t be anything we’re ready for.[/hider][hider=Everest]
YES yes yes yes yes, finally, someone gets it! Captain in his perfect shirts, rings flashing, moustache sharp as a blade, talking destiny, greatness, future, and they roll their eyes, they mutter “corpo,” but I hear it, I hear it. The way he leans when he says “stars,” the way his eyes stick, like he’s listening, like he knows the black isn’t empty, it’s alive, it’s humming, it’s waiting, and he’s answering, he’s answering just like I’ve been answering all along.

And the beauty of it, he looks normal while he does it. Shiny, polished, one of them. They’ll nod, they’ll smile, they’ll follow, because he can package it in meetings and pep talks and poetry and they’ll swallow it whole. They won’t listen to me, too fast, too jagged, too much, but him? Him they’ll believe. He’s the bridge. He’s the voice. He’s the proof.

So let them laugh at his suits, let them groan at his speeches, I’m already grinning, already leaning in, because this is it, this is the moment, this is how it spreads. He’s going to make them see, make them feel it, make them know what I know. Finally. FINALLY.[/hider][hider=KC]
Finally, someone who doesn’t just sit still, doesn’t brood, doesn’t watch from the corner with glassy eyes, she moves, she talks, she laughs, she smokes, she fills the space with noise and colour and that’s good, that’s right, because space is too big and too quiet and it eats you if you let it. She charges in like gravity doesn’t apply, finger twitching, knife flashing, voice carrying, and I love it, because she’s chaos but she’s present, alive in a way half this ship pretends not to be. And the eye, yeah, cybernetic, don’t like those, but hers? It fits. It’s like she’s staring right through the smoke she makes for herself, keeping it all together with one busted lens and sheer volume.

She doesn’t give people room, no personal space, and that’s perfect, because I don’t want space, not that kind, I want noise, motion, someone else to break the silence. And she does. She’s fire on Callisto legs, burns too bright, too fast, but burns real. Everyone else might worry about the flask, the tin, the shakes, I don’t. I see someone who says yes to the moment every damn time. KC gets it: if the void’s gonna swallow us, might as well make it choke.[/hider][hider=Rol] 
Someone else who builds. Not guns, not speeches, not ledgers, builds. I make bombs, he makes food, and it’s the same thing if you squint: ratios, timing, heat, pressure. I’m crouched over a charge, he’s bent over a pot, both of us sweating, both of us counting heartbeats, and when it’s right-boom. Mine blows a hole, his makes silence fall over a table. Same art, different detonation.

He’s quiet, steady, doesn’t chatter, doesn’t posture, just hums and stirs and slides a bowl your way like it’s nothing. But it isn’t nothing. It’s control. It’s focus. It’s the one thing on this ship that feels like gravity. Everyone else sees “cook, filler of bellies.” I see another technician of combustion, only he detonates calm instead of fire. That’s rarer. That’s harder.

So yeah, I call him the only other one here who gets it: building something fragile and perfect out of pieces that shouldn’t fit, knowing it all comes down to the smallest spark, the tiniest slip.[/hider][hider=Ringworm]
Who the hell thought it was a good idea to bring that onboard?! Don’t you start with “oh, he’s just an old man,” nuh-uh, no way. That thing’s here to straight-up murder. Look at him, stiff, wound up, like a walking kill-switch waiting for the word. You think he’s slouching into retirement? No. He’s here for something. Some mission. Some list. And when it comes, when the mask slips, you’ll all see it, and I’ll be ready. Got charges mapped, wires tucked, fuse-paths planned. Let him click wrong one time, just once, and boom, problem solved. You’ll see. You’ll all see.[/hider][hider=Big Mo]
Too bright for this place. I mean.. he laughs like he doesn’t know what the dark can do, like it’s never gotten its hands around his throat! And I [i]hate[/i] that I love it. He’s big, sure, bigger than all of us, but there’s something untouched in him. Still soft where the rest of us have been filed down to wire and scar. Makes my chest twist. Makes me want to snarl at anyone who gets close.

I know what I am. I’m wreckage: burnt up, black, and broken. The void got in my head and rattled around, made space until it fit. I can’t fix that. But him? He’s whole. Still has real laughter. Still believes people can be decent. And that? that’s rare enough to kill for.

So I’ll watch. I’ll keep my teeth bared, just in case the world decides to reach for him. You don’t get to ruin him. You don’t get to make him like me. Let the universe take me, burn me, chew me up… I’m used to it, but it doesn’t get to take him. I’ll fight to the damn death so he doesn’t have to.[/hider][hider=Brenko]
Uuuuugh... look, I’m sure he’s a fine guy, alright? I’m normally good at cracking things open, but I just, I can’t be [i]arsed[/i] with him! He’s all concrete. Nothing to spark. If he wants to sit in the corner and polish his gun, that’s fine by meee. Go on. Have your silence.

He’s the sort that makes a room colder just by standing in it. Doesn’t even glare, just exists. I tried talking to him once. He gave me a grunt, maybe a couple words. [i]Riveting[/i] stuff. Nah, he can keep his mystery. I’m too tired to wrestle stone. He’s a gun, pointed in the right direction, and that’s enough.[/hider][hider=Dr. Treschow]
You ever meet someone and think, yep, that one’s got skeletons? That’s him, I think he likely keeps them stacked alphabetically, too. White-coat energy even without the coat; calm hands, calm voice, you know the type? Calls himself “Doctor” and wants everyone else to, too. Somehow makes it sound like a threat. I don’t like doctors at the best of times. Too clinical for me, but he looks at you like a problem he wants to solve, once, and maybe put back together right.

Still, he’s good. Scalpels don’t shake, even when the ship does. Talks, too, all dry humour and precision, like he’s narrating a cooking show for sociopaths. Heh, I like that.. But I can’t tell if I’m a patient or a specimen? Sometimes I catch him watching people the way I look at circuits trying to see what makes them pop, you know? It’s… unnerving. But useful! Every crew needs someone who can stitch and sew, afterall.

I’ll keep my distance, if I can. Let him tinker. He’s fine. Probably?[/hider]
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