#jack blaylock headcanons

[terrence-silver]

Give us some basic headcanons about Jack Blaylock, please? Anything that comes to mind? Why he's the way he is? What turns the gears inside his head? He's such a fascinating, mysterious character but there's so little content about him to enjoy.

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Okay, random thoughts on Jack Blaylock and how he ticks:

Believes in reincarnation, fated soulmates and karma.

Is an US-expatriate born on Japanese soil who’s never actually been in America, yet maintains this weirdly idealized, fiercely patriotic image of it, all while for all intents and purposes, man’s technically infinitely more Japanese than American. 

Traveled all across Asia for, erhm, jobs, but he’s never actually been ‘home’.

As a result of this, he also romanticizes tradition and ‘the way things are meant to be / the way people are originally meant to live’ precisely because he was born and raised between two worlds and two very distinctive cultures, neither here, nor there, wanting to find his own place under the sun and go back to a simpler time when ‘everything made sense’.

He’s a hitman because he’s immensely talented at it and if he causes carnage and breaks laws with a general disregard for human life (winding up in jail and the newspaper at least once from what we’ve seen, going as far as changing his name...at least once too) he probably feels he at least isn’t doing all of this at ‘home’ and that half of the time whenever he assassinates some whistleblower, gangster, nosey investigative journalist or corrupt politician, he’s actually doing America a favor by ‘offing her enemies’ from afar and blaming it on someone else is need be, pshhh.

As such, man’s convinced he’s in a weird way…doing a necessary deed.

Jack might feel it’s infinitely better to arrange the termination of some politician promoting unfavorable international policies than have entire countries duke out disputes that came about from one rotten apple at a later date through actual warfare, sanctions, serious repercussions and millions of people dying, losing their jobs, ending up displaced and suffering the casualties when it’s just easier to simply off one dude and lop his head off, for example. He feels his profession is dirty, uncomfortable, taboo, not something everyone can stomach doing, but very much needed. People like him are not liked. People like him are on the margins of society. In the shadows, always hiding behind other professions and made-up identities, precisely the way he himself does. They don't get happy endings. They’re very much a requirement, though. Have been all throughout history. Where there’s civilization, there’s people who kill professionally. There's always been some Jack Blaylock out there one way or another. Or some Timothy Calloway.

And he will kill anyone and everyone in the most gruesome ways possible if the job demands it (exacerbated by his bigotry for certain groups, which, ironically, include the Japanese) --- and he can really make it into a scene if he wants to --- but in his own words, the one possible hard no he has is other Americans and mainly the women precisely because he has this ingrained patriotism and longing for a home he’s never actually experienced. Man has his own (hypocritical) preferences and biases he conflates with honor. A code of sorts.

Ultimately, Jack's oddly romantic and idealistic, yet somehow simultaneously fiercely realistic and even cynical. There's something bizarrely spiritual about him, I'd even dare say. He believes a better world is possible --- if not now, then in another life, cycles and cycles from now, and in the meantime, someone, namely people like him have to get their hands seriously dirty to make all of that possible for themselves and everyone else. So happens that sometimes a better world starts by unloading a round of bullets into someone standing in the way of it all.

It's preferable if you enjoy doing it along the way. If you're good at it.

He's both.

[larabiatasstuff]

maybe weird question, but sleepwear headcanons for TIG characters? 😂 for example, we know older Terry wears elegant silk black pajamas and robe, Terry McCain sleeps in his underwear and I bet Max wears nothing 😂 what do you think? feel free to agree or disagree and name as many characters as possible.

We are all weird here and I actually love the question anon🖤Okay let's see how many characters I know.

Kk3 Terry: I think he sleeps in boxers and shirtless

CK Terry: yes we know he sleeps in his silk pyjama but without the shirt(because I love his body)

Terry McCain : sleeps in his underwear, I haven't seen the movie yet but I saw a picture

Max Parish : Max sleeps naked and you can't convince me otherwise.

Jan Valek : fully clothed, he doesn't even have a bed. Poor guy.

General Taligaro : shirtless with (I don't know the english word for that) , it's a piece of leather around his waist. Like a barbarian I hope that makes sense 😂

Jack Blaylock : definitely pyjama pants without a shirt. I don't know him very well it's just a feeling.

Brandon Miller : Boxer and t-shirt, that's the first thing that comes to my mind when I look at him

That's all I have, feel free to reblog and add characters I forgot. Sending much love to you anon 🖤

[terrence-silver]

what items can be found in your muse’s pockets? for Terry Silver and Jack Blaylock

(💸)

--- Terry Silver doesn't practice wearing anything inside of his pockets. Why? Because he's orderly, he's precise and he's meticulous. Doesn't enjoy anything unnecessarily jiggling and dangling around his clothes, serving as a distraction and messing with his balance. Bothering him. Anything that is consistently dragged around, from one pocket to the other, from one jacket, coat or expensive blazer can only be a hindrance and distraction, and has no business being there unless he's quite literally breaking in somewhere and stealing something with the need of quick tactical concealment, which, yes, extreme situations require extreme measures. Other than that? Every item has its own allotted place. Every item has its own intended carrier inventory; paperwork goes into a leather briefcase. Cigars go into a carved box. Cocaine goes into a specialized signet ring, if that is what it took. Only thing he's likely to carry around is money for the sheer timeless theatrical purpose of being able to pull it out of his jacket's inner pocket from some slinky wallet. In later years, not even a mobile phone gets carried around in Terry Silver's pocket, no. He thinks it is uncouth.

---

(🗡️)

--- Jack Blaylock is a hitman by trade (posing as a detective, sure), and a hitman by trade makes use of whatever he can to make his own job easier and the flow of his own direction smoother; if need be, the utilization of pockets gets introduced alongside other methods, which, in his case, can and may contain anything from knives, a gun, a syringe, cash, recording devices, cigarettes, lighters, wallets, fake ID, passports, bullets, keys, picklocks, stolen items, items he intends to plant on someone else for whatever nefarious reason --- really, all depends of the exact nature and details of the hit he's currently working on; you name it. It can prove useful for all it's banality even though Jack quite honestly prefers his own person to be clean in case of arrest or capture as to avoid complications and to avoid compromising himself or his handlers if any clues are discovered on him. Whatever is in his pockets usually isn't the concern, anyway. Not the biggest one. It is what he comes armed with is what should worry whoever he's after. Who cares what's in Jack Blaylock's pockets when he brandishes a literal katana at you with killer intent?

[terrence-silver]

Jack Blaylock strikes me as the sort of fellow who’d smear the warm blood of his freshly killed target all over his face in a sort of ghoulish mask, grinning when he’s finished as he visualizes their blood seeping into his pores and becoming a part of him.

I mean, yes, yes, yes and yes.

Not to mention that Jack Blaylock (real name; Timothy Calloway) always gave me major serial killer vibes. Like, he is a hitman for hire, sure, and he is hired as per regular by a very powerful and shadowy clientele. He does this professionally and operates all over Asia (with his current base in Japan, so to speak), he has changed his identity at least once from what we've seen and has been in jail, as reported on by the newspapers at least once as well --- although much is left to the imagination with this man. Yet, he seems to be living with various shades and conflicting degrees of harrowing sensibilities and eerie glee alike when faced with the prospect of killing and could even be deemed an unreliable narrator as to the notion of much he actually enjoys murdering people, which I envision, is a lot when one peels away the various onion layers that are Jack. I imagine he has trophies too, yes. That he took something from every person he terminated. Their blood smeared over his face like war paint, his pores absorbing a target's essence, not unlike someone who subscribes to the almost tribal notion that killing your foe grants you his strength?

Collecting a tooth?

A finger?

A strand of their hair?

A necklace? A wedding band? Images?

Whatever he can reasonably get away without any trails leading back to him?

A full blown skull, laying around, in some password protected safe of his?

Someone's bones?

Jack Blaylock gives off the impression --- heck, not even the impression --- a full-blown series of facts that very much portray the image of someone morbidly fascinated with death. With blood. Killing. The weaponry, culture and mechanics behind it. Myths of rebirth and destiny. Murder. The borderline fetishized, romanticized art of it. He has an actual scene where he mules over a woman's corpse with his friend from the morgue and does so with avid humor, almost, even while posing as a commonplace investigator with the best of intentions at heart Like seeing a carcass is just a daily thing for him --- just a mundane fact of life (and it is) --- and in fact, something to be leered at. Which begs the question if some of Jack's victims had to disappear, as per description of his hits, and instead of merely smearing their blood of his face like war paint and ''absorbing'' them, he's taken some corpses as trophies too? We may never know for sure. What is know is that Jack Blaylock is definitely Thomas Ian Griffith's darkest and most gruesome roles to date.

[terrence-silver]

(Basically, I devised a full backstory for Jack Blaylock from Ulterior Motives (1992)

---

Timothy Calloway is a military brat.

Born to American parents stationed in Japan (either one or both working as military personnel to some degree) and I genuinely don’t ever think he set foot on American soil (at least not well into his adulthood when his later profession took him there, but it would be deeply ironic if he never did at all), which led to this strange disconnect where he was both raised with the type of ingrained mega-patriotism one can only acquire from parents — you guessed it — employed with the army abroad and a family in the same profession multiple generations back, but all while actually being physically, culturally and geographically detached enough from his supposed home cradle to not actually know or having personally experienced anything tangible about The States except some idealized, hybrid version that maybe doesn’t even necessarily exists outside of a nationalist pamphlet or a Norman Rockwell painting. It doesn’t help when your basic and most elementary education took place on foreign soil school dedicated especially to the children of on stand army employees either. It would’ve been like growing up in an insular bubble.

Which is exactly what it was.

Thing is, Timothy is technically more Japanese than American all while not being ethnically Japanese at all (A cause for bitterness and complicated feelings where identity is concerned, perhaps?) He learned to speak Japanese back to back with English from his earliest years, he learned to write the same way, he observed customs, knows the nuances, knows the cuisine, knows the history, the mentality, the ‘what to do’s’ and ‘what not to do’s’ but he still sticks out like a sore thumb and is more often than not deemed a tourist by natives and actual tourists on sight alike, even though he was born in Japan (and is a legal citizen with no dual citizenship to anywhere else), his parents spent their whole lives in Japan, great great grandparents very much the same and he possibly has familial roots in the country going back at least as far back as WWII, with his whole relation having been raised around military bases since the very start.

As such, ironically, his pastoral fantasy ‘All American’ white picket fence idyllic dream home is actually located in the countryside of Japan (Where he grew up), where, according to him ‘eight generations have previously lived’ — possibly a household built by his ancestors who might’ve, at one point, been wealthy and extravagant enough to simply be able to afford to have a summer vacation home as far as the other side of the globe (Perhaps, ambassadors of some sort? Missionaries? Someone with enough disposable income to be able to pull off such an endeavor?); naturally, which ended up being an unsustainable revenue and somewhere down the line as the decades passed. This is an estate Timothy’s family lost for any number of reasons. War. Debt. Crime. Gambling. Lack of funds. The presence of wealthy foreigners on Japanese soil (validly) being a bit of a sore spot for many an enemy who wanted to be rid of them. Run-ins with unsavory syndicats. Banks. You name it. Basically, once Timothy lost this piece of property ‘from a better and more simpler time’, he lost his very own piece of pocket Americana outside of America as the only tangible representation of roots he ever had, and he became some guy with and without a country who didn’t exactly belong anywhere anymore.

I think once Timothy couldn’t belong anywhere anymore, he became Jack Blaylock.

Basically, what I mean to say by this is that I can genuinely imagine Timothy turned homeless very early on, perhaps as an older teenager (16-17 years of age, give or take). I do imagine his parents died. Or were killed. Any such combination is very much believable. I imagine he was orphaned, I think his childhood home was lost and foreclosed because there was no adult left to manage it and Timothy hit the streets — too young to be left to his own devices and too old for the system or for anyone to want to adopt (He was this six foot tall white kid who already looked like an adult and came with a whole world of baggage — not exactly anyone’s model child for adoption).

He couldn’t go back to the States because he was not a citizen (and had nobody to speak of there to Sponsor him), and he didn’t exactly feel like a part of the very country he was born to, left to fend for himself entirely forsaken in a place that was as known as it was foreign, resorting to petty crime, scams, pickpocketing, theft, the occasional jail time, juvenile detention and being tossed back to the streets again until he reached legal age and he was entirely alone; Eighteen and with already enough lived experience to put most grown people to shame. I think falling down the rabbit hole of being groomed and scouted to start roughing up people for money as a pipeline leading to begin killing as well was only so easy. He was big, he was tall, he had the way of the streets about him and had nothing and nobody to lose. Most importantly, he was foreign enough where he could be used to do dirty jobs no local wanted traced back to them, preserving their reputations intact. It was one crook hiring him, then another and another — handling petty vendettas, retaliations, spying, gangster disputes, money extortion, transporting packages, the work of a loan shark, roughing someone up — you name it — until word spread on the street that this kid is good and he started getting serious contractors and began making buck. I think this is how he got embroidered with that corrupt politician we see in the movie. Malcolm Carter?

I think this is around the time Timothy Calloway legally had to ‘die’.

And Jack Blaylock was invented as a false identity.

(Possibly even one of many identities)

Malcolm Carter sponsored Jack, introduced him to important and powerful people, made sure he earns himself a more cultured sleek, polishing away some of his rougher street manners, endowed him with anything from exclusive weapons, the ability to learn how to use them, an indefinite amount of cash, an apartment to utilize as a base of operations, the ability to travel anywhere when necessary, a job as a Detective and a Private Investigator he could use as a ‘front’, he gave him connections, expensive suits, nice shades, nice shoes, the perks of being in close ties with some who possesses diplomatic immunity — but the price was that Jack  started doing high profile, high stake hit jobs for him exclusively and this mentorship extended to Carter being Jack’s maker in the figurative and literal sense, forming something of a relationship with him that stood on the foundation of lies and gaslighting, promising Jack anything from the ability to ensure he gets his familiar home back and the understanding that ‘Americans should stick together out in the great big World’ and that one day, ‘the gilded ancestral manor of his family will be rightfully restored to him’. Of course, these promises from a supposed father figure turned handler to a supposed son figure turned terminator extended from plans that should’ve taken place somewhere in the near future to a full two decade working contract between Blaylock and Carter, during which, not only did their relationship become highly codependent, festering, bitter and mutually jilted, landing Jack in jail several times due to Carter’s machinations (even though Carter was always there to pull him out) they couldn’t break apart from each other because they mutually knew too much compromising information about one another to go their separate ways. That is, how, in essence, Jack Blaylock ended up trapped being an assassin for people of importance all while living a fake civilian life to cover up his more obscure dalliances. He began this trade before he even turned twenty, and well nearing his forties, he was in his prime and very much at it, having spent his whole life up until that point killing and knowing nothing else but killing, subterfuge, extortion, seduction, executions and murder for hire. Except, Jack doesn’t even believe himself stuck anymore. He’s far too gone for that.

 This is who he is now.

[terrence-silver]

Okay then, what happens to Jack Blaylock in his aftermath, after we see him literally walk away as the movie credits roll? What does the life of a hitman for hire deeply entrenched in the underworld look like after the main story is over and his part in it?

― I think Jack Blaylock (or rather Timothy Calloway, as is his real name --- but what does it matter, he's had so many as is) leaves Erika because a person like him has to leave a person like Erika. It is inevitable. Namely, an individual with his lifestyle, a murderer, a killer for hire, someone who committed unspeakable and gruesome acts of violence can never be around people like Erika, who are normal and decent despite not realizing the danger the close proximity to darkness can bring. They can't be friends with people like that, they can't be lovers, they can't even be acquittances, even though Erika walks the fine line between the world of ordinary people and his shadow world, her world is out there, with people, and not monsters, so he leaves. And I doubt this is the first ''Erika'' figuratively speaking, who Jack has left. There has been many Erikas. Many Erics. And he's killed some of them as a goodbye, yes. This Erika can count herself lucky that he was actually rather fond of her even though she was clearly not the soulmate he wished she was. Maybe they can meet again, he thinks, under better circumstances, in another life? Or maybe not. If it is meant to be, it will be.

― Of course he keeps dabbling in his business of extermination for various clients because that is about the greatest talent Jack has, albeit, he does it under a different name now, travelling all across Asia and beyond for various clients who need some high profile target eliminated. Jack might be a Bob. Or he might be a Todd. Or a Blake. A Peter. He might have several fake identities at once to conceal the real one. But thing is, Jack could be here one month and some other country the next, always booked into the odd hotel or other, coming and going at leisure, utilizing various fronts to make himself seem legitimate, sometimes even going as far seduction, subterfuge, manipulation in his channel of killing. Basically, Jack's life doesn't really change all that much after the movie ends. It remains the same, tragically and perhaps frighteningly so. He might get involved or is at least the enforcer of some major execution that makes it big worldwide in the media, but that is simply testament to the dedication of his craft and a reminder to himself who he really is. I can genuinely envision Jack Blaylock becoming a renowned, veteran hitman and an infamous demon of the underworld in his own right into the present day.

― Does he ever get back his ancestral home? Where many generations have dwelled in? Where he can imagine living, in his own words ‘as man was meant to live’. Possibly, yes, because this represents Jack’s last vestige of humanity and even normality and he would, quite literally kill to acquire it back, and he does, for years, until it is rightfully his again. I can imagine that his plan is to retire there, and simply die there and be buried there, where so many of his previous family members have lived. What does he do between that? Visits temples. Meditates with monks anywhere from Thailand to Japan, India and back. Learns about reincarnation. More and more and more. Occasionally, he might kill for the pleasure of it rather than pay and a contracted job, becoming a serial murderer as much as a professional one because he simply develops an even more abstract fascination with the act of it. I can see him finding love, actually, if it wasn’t already Erika, but whoever he finds he most likely might kill. Ritualistic. In a roundabout sense, he wants to release and mark them as his so they can, as he himself already said ‘be reunited in another life and recognize each other’. But, whatever exploits Jack gets down to are mainly of the dark and gruesome variety.

― Jack Blaylock’s life boils down into many things. Bloody. Morbid. In and out of jail. Wanted by almost every authority under the sun with a big enough reward on his head to constitute a smaller fortune. Sky high criminal records, some sealed, some destroyed, some very much ongoing. Falsified passports. Falsified identities. Stolen ones . A trail of bodies in his wake. Never staying in one country too long, lacking an address, roots, a home, any semblance of normality. A network of contract givers protecting him while he’s valuable and passing him unto the next customer when his time is up. It involves mysticism. Loneliness. Yearning. Him waiting, to in effect, die, and be reborn as something or someone different and be given the love that a man in his business can’t validly have or enjoy. He is polarizing. Undeniably dark, yet also tragic. A harrowing figure. Might actually die at an (ironically) deep old age simply because he wishes to respect the cycle life and rebirth and not interrupt it, having a chance at being a different someone in a different life. 

[terrence-silver]

RANDOM JACK BLAYLOCK HEADCANONS for @devilsangel29​ 🖤​

― He subscribes to reincarnation. Vehemently so. There’s this belief that nobody is ever truly gone and that the cycle of life only ever continues on and on and on. An odd bit of contradictive spirituality for someone who kills for a living (I’d even argue that he enjoys it), but not only does Jack trust in that, but he trusts that people who have loved each other once will love and inadvertently find each other in every life, under every circumstance, always, re-connecting each other because they were meant to find each other and that it is simply the one truth the universe effectively runs on.

― I think he’s gotten into the ‘business’ as it were, because of his family’s debts, which led to him losing a multigenerational family home, and by extension, a piece of his identity, going from Timothy Calloway to Jack Blaylock, as an alias, once he started terminating people for contractors, looking for a quick buck, understanding that a man doesn’t make a lot of money fast through good means. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, the initial reason he went down such a dark path became muddied and Jack found he actually, well...enjoyed it, a little way too much. 

― Chances are, if we’re going to get analytical, that he simply stooped down such a grimy, morbid path as a career criminal that he never felt worthy of what his childhood home he’s lost both literally and figuratively represented ever again. He was a murderer. He’s killed people. How could he ever go back? At the same time, he’s always wanted to go back, even when he was in out of prison, travelling around Asia, taking hits, mingling in the type of underworld no honest person would ever dare set foot in. It was and remained his one weakness. It was often taken advantage of by contractors wanting to appeal to a soft spot.

― I can see him being a military brat --- from a family of other military brats. Don’t ask why, but I can see it. It would also explain a lot plot-wise. He was simply born in Japan, travelling back and forth between the island and the US, effectively tying him to both places. It would also explain the major amounts of patriotism he has for home (Perhaps, because he’s been continuously ripped away from it time and time again), and the copious amounts of Japanese culture he dabbles in. Suffice to say, he went to school in Japan, he speaks Japanese, he writes Japanese, he’s grown up there, all while being anything but himself.

― In spite of everything, though, he’s immensely cultured. Regardless if he’s been in and out of jail, if he’s undoubtedly changed his identity for safety reasons countless times, if he’s downright a rotten man who lived and continues living a downright rotten life. He’s worldly. He’s cunning and skilled. He spars. He fences. He speaks several languages. He’s sleek and charming when he needs to be --- bordering on being gentlemanly because he truly is, rather than always only pretending. And he can murder with anything, given the opportunity. Jack’s a man of frightening contradictions. 

― He’s also harrowingly morbid. Which should be a given, seeing what his profession is, but it goes further than that. I think Jack romanticizes death. The act of it. Someone taking their last breath. How they die. The wounds they die from. The artistry of their cuts. The way the bleed and groan.The way every victim effectively belongs to the one taking their life. It is almost erotic to him. Heck! It is erotic to him. It is definitely a paraphilia induced from years and years of professional deformation where he views it through occasionally sensual lenses very much verging into the territory of Erotophonophilia.

― But, outside of that, I think that Jack, bottom line, craves and also romanticizes a tremendously simple life; something he himself says too. The way people should’ve always lived. Easy. Routinely. Peaceful. Natural. I think this is his ideal and always was. A man. A woman. Children. White picked fence. A lawn. An orchard. A creek and a garden. A pie cooling on the windowsill, as funny as that may sound. All the things he’s effectively disconnected from and all the things a notorious hitman can never quite as easily return to because of what he is. Doesn’t mean he can’t fantasize about it, though.

[terrence-silver]

Can you share some your favourite yandere headcanons about Jack Blaylock? 💓🔪

― Jack doesn't want his beloved to have any part of his lifestyle and possibly not even any knowledge of it whatsoever, relegating them to a series of hotel rooms, rented spaces, rented, suspicious accommodations, shady apartments (that are actually safehouses, which beloved has zero knowledge of, thinking this is simply revenue like any other) and chances are beloved's moved around a lot, too much even, even going as far as switching entire countries and continents at times, as he keeps the details of his dealings deliberately murky and even stubbornly evasive. What they don't know cannot possibly hurt them. But, in his world, even the things beloved doesn't know can ensure they're collateral of blackmail fodder. He's a professional, international hitman, after all, and as such, he has a great many enemies, both from his employers and rivals alike. Beloved is like an exposed, gaping weakness. As such, Jack Blaylock goes out of his way to maintain them a secret for their own good.

― Maintaining a secret that is a fully fledged relationship on the downlow, and possibly Jack's only connection to normality and a commonplace civilian life that doesn't involve crime, murder for her and killing comes with a cost, though. Especially for beloved; they're something of a hostage to a professional executioner that is convinced he's doing the right thing. Probably the only right thing he's done in a while. Or ever. That he's a benefactor to somebody who deserves it. That he's safeguarding someone ordinary, and by extension pure for being ordinary --- the only perquisite for purity being not belonging in his world. The entrapment is never glaringly obvious, though and it comes in the form of his over protectiveness, fiercely territorial overattachment and even at times a frenzied disposition whenever beloved wants to do anything at all. He tends to get visibly agitated, beady eyed and sweaty like stress is pouring out of his pores at the mere thought of beloved being unsupervised. In potentially harm's way.

― Jack oscillates between over-smothering beloved with his presence and absolutely wanting to disappear from their life, without any trace whatsoever. Leave them in peace. Thinking that he being present in their sphere is only trouble and by extension more trouble than it is worth by mere association to a man such as himself. He's both the most selfish and most unselfish person ever. He doesn't think he deserves love, and at the same time, he'd literally rather kill beloved and then himself if he cannot have it. Which he has contemplated a great many times non ironically as a way out for both him and the one he loves. He sees death as a sort of a great equalizer. There's no escaping the lifestyle of a hitman for hire. There's probably no chance for a normal life, unless he changes his identity, which he has already done, going between Jack Blaylock, and his real name, which is Timothy Calloway. As such, Jack romanticizes death to worryingly fetishistic, eroticized degrees. Escape through death? Rebirth through death? Second chances through death? A clean slate through death? Love through death? Love and death? These are concepts closely intermingled with each other in his world.

[mrgriffiths]

Ya'll know I'm always here for Jack!

Thank you Bea🖤

(Basically, I devised a full backstory for Jack Blaylock from Ulterior Motives (1992)

---

Timothy Calloway is a military brat.

Born to American parents stationed in Japan (either one or both working as military personnel to some degree) and I genuinely don’t ever think he set foot on American soil (at least not well into his adulthood when his later profession took him there, but it would be deeply ironic if he never did at all), which led to this strange disconnect where he was both raised with the type of ingrained mega-patriotism one can only acquire from parents — you guessed it — employed with the army abroad and a family in the same profession multiple generations back, but all while actually being physically, culturally and geographically detached enough from his supposed home cradle to not actually know or having personally experienced anything tangible about The States except some idealized, hybrid version that maybe doesn’t even necessarily exists outside of a nationalist pamphlet or a Norman Rockwell painting. It doesn’t help when your basic and most elementary education took place on foreign soil school dedicated especially to the children of on stand army employees either. It would’ve been like growing up in an insular bubble.

Which is exactly what it was.

Thing is, Timothy is technically more Japanese than American all while not being ethnically Japanese at all (A cause for bitterness and complicated feelings where identity is concerned, perhaps?) He learned to speak Japanese back to back with English from his earliest years, he learned to write the same way, he observed customs, knows the nuances, knows the cuisine, knows the history, the mentality, the ‘what to do’s’ and ‘what not to do’s’ but he still sticks out like a sore thumb and is more often than not deemed a tourist by natives and actual tourists on sight alike, even though he was born in Japan (and is a legal citizen with no dual citizenship to anywhere else), his parents spent their whole lives in Japan, great great grandparents very much the same and he possibly has familial roots in the country going back at least as far back as WWII, with his whole relation having been raised around military bases since the very start.

As such, ironically, his pastoral fantasy ‘All American’ white picket fence idyllic dream home is actually located in the countryside of Japan (Where he grew up), where, according to him ‘eight generations have previously lived’ — possibly a household built by his ancestors who might’ve, at one point, been wealthy and extravagant enough to simply be able to afford to have a summer vacation home as far as the other side of the globe (Perhaps, ambassadors of some sort? Missionaries? Someone with enough disposable income to be able to pull off such an endeavor?); naturally, which ended up being an unsustainable revenue and somewhere down the line as the decades passed. This is an estate Timothy’s family lost for any number of reasons. War. Debt. Crime. Gambling. Lack of funds. The presence of wealthy foreigners on Japanese soil (validly) being a bit of a sore spot for many an enemy who wanted to be rid of them. Run-ins with unsavory syndicats. Banks. You name it. Basically, once Timothy lost this piece of property ‘from a better and more simpler time’, he lost his very own piece of pocket Americana outside of America as the only tangible representation of roots he ever had, and he became some guy with and without a country who didn’t exactly belong anywhere anymore.

I think once Timothy couldn’t belong anywhere anymore, he became Jack Blaylock.

Basically, what I mean to say by this is that I can genuinely imagine Timothy turned homeless very early on, perhaps as an older teenager (16-17 years of age, give or take). I do imagine his parents died. Or were killed. Any such combination is very much believable. I imagine he was orphaned, I think his childhood home was lost and foreclosed because there was no adult left to manage it and Timothy hit the streets — too young to be left to his own devices and too old for the system or for anyone to want to adopt (He was this six foot tall white kid who already looked like an adult and came with a whole world of baggage — not exactly anyone’s model child for adoption).

He couldn’t go back to the States because he was not a citizen (and had nobody to speak of there to Sponsor him), and he didn’t exactly feel like a part of the very country he was born to, left to fend for himself entirely forsaken in a place that was as known as it was foreign, resorting to petty crime, scams, pickpocketing, theft, the occasional jail time, juvenile detention and being tossed back to the streets again until he reached legal age and he was entirely alone; Eighteen and with already enough lived experience to put most grown people to shame. I think falling down the rabbit hole of being groomed and scouted to start roughing up people for money as a pipeline leading to begin killing as well was only so easy. He was big, he was tall, he had the way of the streets about him and had nothing and nobody to lose. Most importantly, he was foreign enough where he could be used to do dirty jobs no local wanted traced back to them, preserving their reputations intact. It was one crook hiring him, then another and another — handling petty vendettas, retaliations, spying, gangster disputes, money extortion, transporting packages, the work of a loan shark, roughing someone up — you name it — until word spread on the street that this kid is good and he started getting serious contractors and began making buck. I think this is how he got embroidered with that corrupt politician we see in the movie. Malcolm Carter?

I think this is around the time Timothy Calloway legally had to ‘die’.

And Jack Blaylock was invented as a false identity.

(Possibly even one of many identities)

Malcolm Carter sponsored Jack, introduced him to important and powerful people, made sure he earns himself a more cultured sleek, polishing away some of his rougher street manners, endowed him with anything from exclusive weapons, the ability to learn how to use them, an indefinite amount of cash, an apartment to utilize as a base of operations, the ability to travel anywhere when necessary, a job as a Detective and a Private Investigator he could use as a ‘front’, he gave him connections, expensive suits, nice shades, nice shoes, the perks of being in close ties with some who possesses diplomatic immunity — but the price was that Jack  started doing high profile, high stake hit jobs for him exclusively and this mentorship extended to Carter being Jack’s maker in the figurative and literal sense, forming something of a relationship with him that stood on the foundation of lies and gaslighting, promising Jack anything from the ability to ensure he gets his familiar home back and the understanding that ‘Americans should stick together out in the great big World’ and that one day, ‘the gilded ancestral manor of his family will be rightfully restored to him’. Of course, these promises from a supposed father figure turned handler to a supposed son figure turned terminator extended from plans that should’ve taken place somewhere in the near future to a full two decade working contract between Blaylock and Carter, during which, not only did their relationship become highly codependent, festering, bitter and mutually jilted, landing Jack in jail several times due to Carter’s machinations (even though Carter was always there to pull him out) they couldn’t break apart from each other because they mutually knew too much compromising information about one another to go their separate ways. That is, how, in essence, Jack Blaylock ended up trapped being an assassin for people of importance all while living a fake civilian life to cover up his more obscure dalliances. He began this trade before he even turned twenty, and well nearing his forties, he was in his prime and very much at it, having spent his whole life up until that point killing and knowing nothing else but killing, subterfuge, extortion, seduction, executions and murder for hire. Except, Jack doesn’t even believe himself stuck anymore. He’s far too gone for that.

 This is who he is now.