James "Sawyer" Ford

Name: Shana
Age: 23
Contact: antivillain
Characters Already in Teleios: Captain Hook
Reserve: voila

Character Name: James Ford/James Sawyer/Jim LaFleur. In game he’ll be going by that last one.
Journal: conman
Age: 39
Fandom: Lost
Canon Point: Right between 5x17 and 6x01
Debt:

Class A: 12 years (7 murders, 4 betrayals, 1 espionage)
Class B: 300 years (fraud, assault, theft, and a lot more fraud. Estimated.)
Class C:

attempted murder: 2 months

offensive nicknames: 600 months.

killing endangered species (polar bear): 1 month

looting corpses: 18 months

GRAND TOTAL: 363 years 9 months

History: A lot of stuff happened to him.

Personality:

At first glance James Sawyer is selfish, smug, rude, obnoxious, and all too charming for his own good. That actually holds up at second glance too. But there is a lot more to him than that. As a little boy, his father shot his mother and then himself after a conman slept with his mother and cheated them out of all their money. James has wanted revenge ever since. Unfortunately, in the process he ended up deeply in debt and used the same trick that had led to his parents’ demise to get money. After that, he became the thing he hated: a conman. He even went to using the name of the original conman: Sawyer. He never quite loses his conscience, however. He’s called off a con after seeing the family had a child, and on learning that he had a daughter, he arranged to have some money he received for conning a fellow inmate in prison sent to a trust fund for her. He’s an awful person before coming to the island, but he has some limits. He’s just careful not to let anyone know about them.

He’s opportunistic and selfish enough to go through the belongings of dead people and set up a stash that others have to pay dearly to access. He’s happy to gloat about it and keep things that people desperately need—such as medicine—to himself on a twisted power trip. He’s too restless to sit out of the action for too long, though, and starts going on missions and helping out just to deal with boredom.

He also reads a lot. For the first season he can generally be found reading any of the many books people had on the plane without much discretion. His favorite writer is Steinbeck. He is definitely reading partly to lessen his boredom, but he has good retention and later mentions that it sharpens his mind. He frequently quotes books and movies and even Winston Churchill. He is not as dumb as he likes to come off. Intellectually speaking, anyway. He makes a lot of dumb choices.

He also isn’t as unattached and uncaring as he’d like people to think. He makes an effort to shove everyone away partly to punish himself and partly because he has a lot of trouble actually accepting people maybe even liking him. He does terrible things like con the entire camp and get Sun hurt to get control over the guns and actively divide himself from the people he’d started bonding with. It doesn’t work long term, though, as by his canon point he is very close with his fellow survivors.

Sawyer calls people by sarcastic and often insulting and even offensive nicknames. He has no problem using racial or religious slurs or making fun of people’s appearances or weight or whatever else he feels like at the moment. He calls Korean characters by the names of Japanese characters and Sometimes it’s to show affection. More often, it’s to show how little he cares about other people. He’s comfortable being hated, so he doesn’t need to worry about pesky societal rules. He is very much not polite company. He’ll happily sell you back your own possessions at three times the value, and he’ll insult you for being an idiot while he does it.

Even once he starts making friends and caring what people think of him, he doesn’t stop giving out nicknames, though they’re somewhat less offensive in nature. He’ll actually use a person’s real name, and even when he doesn’t, he’ll stick with one like “Blondie” or “Freckles” that’s more affectionate than meant to hurt. This is where his method of distancing backfires and he ends up close despite himself and the nicknames just show that. By the time that’s happened, though, it’s too late.

He’s an excellent liar thanks to all his experience as a conman. He’s exceptionally aware of how attractive and charming he is and more than willing to use that against other people. Even people he cares about. He uses Kate’s feelings for him and trust in him against her when he decides to pull a con, getting her to make accusations that would never have sounded convincing coming from him. He’s a good liar and good at talking his way into and out of things. He’s good at reading people. Knows what makes them tick. It’s useful both for cons and for finding the best way to hurt someone and push them away.

Why he’s so determined to shove people away varies by the person and situation. Part of him is convinced he doesn’t deserve it. He knows how bad a person he’s been and how he’s betrayed people he loves. Better they never get the chance to be in that position and have to deal with that pain. It’ll also protect him. He’s pulled cons on people he loves before, and it feels like crap. He’s selfish and self-preserving enough that he knows it might be necessary, that there could and probably will be situations where he has to hurt someone he loves in order to survive. He thinks of himself as a survivor, so he knows he’ll do it anyway. The best way to avoid that feeling of betrayal is to never get close enough to people that hurting them hurts him.

Despite himself, he does let people in, and once he does, he’s fiercely loyal and protective. He’ll risk his life without hesitation for someone who has wormed their way past his defenses. Once he gets his head out of his ass and fully accepts his position as one of the good guys, he threatens anyone who might possibly harm his people and his main goal starts to be protecting those he loves instead of just protecting himself. He’s still very interested in his own needs and goals, of course. But he rates other people equally highly now. Some people even more highly than himself. It takes him a while to get there, but by his canon point, he’s very much there. Still, he’s very suspicious of people who haven’t managed to get through his walls and on coming to Teleios, he’ll be slow to trust anyone but Juliet, who he already knows. Eventually, though, others can win him over. Deep down, he actually likes other people.

Powers/Abilities: He’s a con man! Basically, his charisma is through the roof. Seriously, have you seen those dimples. They qualify as a superpower, I’d say. He’s a very good liar and an expert and turning bad situations to his advantage. He also is a pretty decent leader once he gets his head out of his ass.

Appearance: just look right over here

He’s got perfect dimples and hair that would make a Disney princess jealous. His stubble probably would not make a Disney princess jealous, but they might like it for other reasons. He’s very attractive and knows it.

Samples:

Actionspam Sample:

sawyer at the picture prompt meme

Prose Sample:

sawyer on the test drive meme