[INDENT][COLOR=SLATEGRAY][CENTER][center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/0199a223-f589-7609-94ed-37709394b859.webp[/img][/center][/CENTER][table][row][/row][row][cell][center][sub][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] C H A R A C T E R   P O R T R A I T[/color]
[color=lightgray]C H A R A C T E R   P O R T R A I T[/color] [/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/sub][sup]_________________________________________________________[/sup][img]https://www.muzines.co.uk/images_mag/articles/im/IM_85_07_sting_2_large.jpg[/img]
[sup]_________________________________________________________[/sup][sub][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] C H A R A C T E R   S U M M A R Y[/color]
[color=lightgray]C H A R A C T E R   S U M M A R Y[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/sub][sup]_________________________________________________________[/sup]
[sub][COLOR=darkgray]John Thomas Constantine[/COLOR]
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[COLOR=darkgray]19[/COLOR]   [b]|[/b]   [COLOR=darkgray]Single[/COLOR]
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[COLOR=darkgray]Independent[/COLOR]   [b]|[/b]   [COLOR=darkgray]English[/COLOR][/sub][/center]
[indent]
[sub][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] A L L I E S   &   A N T A G O N I S T S[/color]
[color=lightgray]A L L I E S   &   A N T A G O N I S T S[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/sub][/INDENT][sup]_________________________________________________________[/sup]
[INDENT][hider=][color=#2e2c2c]-[/color]
[indent][sub][b][color=lightgray]   A L L I E S [/color][/b][/sub]
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[COLOR=DARKGRAY][color=lightgray][b]◼ FRANCIS 'CHAS' CHANDLER[/b][/color] - Best Friend
[color=lightgray][b]◼ CHERYL CONSTANTINE[/b][/color] - Sister
[color=lightgray][b]◼ GARY LESTER[/b][/color] - Friend (Deceased)
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[sub][b][color=lightgray]   A N T A G O N I S T S[/color][/b][/sub]
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[COLOR=DARKGRAY][color=lightgray][b]◼ THOMAS CONSTANTINE[/b][/color] - Father
[color=lightgray][b]◼ THE LAUGHING MAGICIANS[/b][/color] - Ancestral Constantines
[color=lightgray][b]◼ JACOB CONSTANTINE[/b][/color] - Stillborn Brother
[color=lightgray][b]◼ NERGLE[/b][/color] - Demon
[color=lightgray][b]◼ BEVERLY 'BEAVER' HUGHES[/b][/color] - Drug Dealer
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[color=#2e2c2c]-[/color][/indent][/hider][color=#2e2c2c]-[/color]
[sub][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] P O S T   C A T A L O G U E[/color]
[color=lightgray]P O S T   C A T A L O G U E[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/sub][/INDENT][sup]_________________________________________________________[/sup]
[INDENT][color=lightgray][b]1.01 -[/b] [URL=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5627360][COLOR=DARKGRAY][i]TBC #1[/i][/COLOR][/URL]
[b]1.02 -[/b] [URL=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5628360][COLOR=DARKGRAY][i]TBC #2[/i][/COLOR][/URL]
[b]1.03 -[/b] [URL=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5629097][COLOR=DARKGRAY][i]TBC #3[/i][/COLOR][/URL]
[b]1.04 -[/b] [URL=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5630553][COLOR=DARKGRAY][i]TBC #4[/i][/COLOR][/URL]
[b]1.05 -[/b] [URL=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5631283][COLOR=DARKGRAY][i]TBC #5[/i][/COLOR][/URL]
[b]1.06 -[/b] [URL=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5631935][COLOR=DARKGRAY][i]TBC #6[/i][/COLOR][/URL]
[/COLOR][/INDENT][/cell][cell][INDENT][sub][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] T H E   S T O R Y   S O   F A R...[/color]
[color=lightgray]T H E   S T O R Y   S O   F A R...[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/sub][/INDENT][sup]__________________________________________________________________________________[/sup]
[COLOR=DARKGRAY][indent]John was born May 10th 2006 to Mary-Anne Constantine and Thomas Constantine, alongside his stillborn twin brother, Jacob. Mary-Anne died during the birth, and Thomas, now a widower with a dead son, never forgave John. John wouldn't understand his father's hatred - but Cheryl, his older sister, would, and did her utmost to shield him from what she could all her life.

For seventeen years, the bond between Cheryl and John would form an impenetrable barrier against Thomas' hate, a bubble of compassion and love to retreat into no matter what baseless punishment their father meted out; a bubble made only stronger by the addition of Gary Lester and Francis Kramer to their alternative family. The four formed a powerful union of friendship, each individual guided and guarded by the other three, pursuing interests both independently and collectively, treading the new and old that surrounded them. The darker aspects of art, Punk and Emo, Horror and the Occult, let them explore the darkness of their own lives in measured, controlled environments, binding them with a common pursuit. In each other they found safe harbour. 

Until Cheryl disappeared. 

The absence of one splintered those remaning. Gary turned to vice, pushing his mind to oblivion rather than suffer the hole; Francis fled to London, abandoning memories now turning sour; John found his psyche fracturing completely, growing obssessive and fevered, now subject to Thomas without shelter. When the investigation stalled, and then closed, John threw himself from the Ethelfleda Bridge, and after being fished from the Mersey River, was sectioned to Ravenscar Psychiatric Hospital.

Two years later and nineteen years old, John has been remanded from Ravenscar to temporary residency. Cheryl is still gone, and John is still haunted by her absence. Thomas is to the wind, absconded from the family he had grown to hate so much. His old and only friends are scattered, burying their pain in the intervening years. But fresh spectres are beginning to re-open old wounds; will John lose what little fragile mind he has left entirely? Or will he strive to finally put old ghosts to rest?
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[INDENT][sub][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] P L O T ( S )   &   G O A L ( S )[/color]
[color=lightgray]P L O T ( S )   &   G O A L ( S )[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/sub][/INDENT][sup]___________________________________________________________________________________[/sup]
[COLOR=DARKGRAY][INDENT]My drive behind bringing John back into the mix is to rekindle my drive for writing in general. After a long period of struggle and burnout at work I now find myself facing into a lot of free time, and to that end I want to re-discover my passions and hobbies, and begin a slow-but-steady road back to some manner of happiness. Please understand my character submission is predicated on a real possibility that I will not be able to immediately overcome these barriers.

This story for Constantine is, I think, one of my best; mapped out from start to finish with (I feel) a strong narrative and a core thread of emotion, it brings a humanist side to John that I think in recent years has been lost behind the Liverpool con-man bravado and the occultist flash-magic. John Constantine is a man with sadness and heartbreak at his core, and I think the idea of him as a wretched, pitiable figure who'd rather just have a normal life but is inexorably forced - one way or another - to face into tragedy after tragedy is one left by the wayside in many incarnations and appearances. 

The use of the [i]Absolute[/i] ident is no accident or embellishment, either; the central principle of DC's new run is to retain the core traits and pillars of the characters while stripping away something previously thought vital: Bruce's wealth, Kal-El's upbringing with the Kents, Flash's connection to the Speedforce. My Constantine - my [b]Absolute Hellblazer[/b] - is a John [i]without[/i] Astra, [i]without[/i] magic; and yet, calamity somehow even more profound has struck him down, and John will have to rely on deals struck with others and the strength of his own wits to claw himself back from the Hell he will find himself mired in.[/INDENT][/COLOR][/cell][/row][/table][hr][/COLOR][/INDENT]