Rocket Tucker
Rocket D. Tucker
Status Unregistered Evolved
Ability Temporal Manipulation
Age 16
Date of Birth December 12, 1992
Role Pirate under Jack's Captainship, Staten Island Runaway at The Lighthouse
Alias Rocky!
Parents Dasha Gorsky (mother, incarcerated) and Gilbert Tucker (father, estranged)
Siblings None
Marital Status fsdkakfs
Introduced Lighting The Flame
Portrayed By Michael Cera
What's happened has happened
poisons poured into the seas
cannot be drained out again, but
everything changes. We plant
trees for those born later.

Cicely Herbert,
Everything Changes (after Brecht, Alles wandelt sich)

A wee river rat who can't swim very well. He does odd-jobs, squats at derelict houses with loose-knit bands of other youths, and generally tries to stay out of harm's way. Yes, on Staten Island. You'd be surprised, how well he manages that. Not by a wide margin — but hey, if they miss by an inch they still missed.


Character History

Sixteen years ago, Rocket Derek Tucker undertook what started out as a fairly pedestrian sort of civilian life. The Tuckers were solidly middle-class. His father worked in a cubicle and his mother drank champaigne and laid out her shopping purchases at home, which was sort of like being a housewife. Home was on Staten Island. There was a garden which measured almost a perfect square out in front, and one a golden rectangle in the back. He owned a red bicycle, half of their nighboring cat lady's favorite cat, and all of his school books.

At school, he was too nebbish to be as popular than he would have liked, but was fortunately spared melodramatic humiliation after his transition into middle school by his choice in friends, who were older, intellectual jocks and local shop boys apparently disarmed by his nebbish-sidekick good manners and hilarious hippie name, and the reputation of his family family, whom he had little choice in and happened to be members of the Russian mafia. The Gorsky dynasty. Though intelligent enough to notice the highly bipolar boom and bust cycles of his uncles' wealth and wellbeing, and to realize that that wasn't normal the way their garden and his bicycle were groomed to be, he was also bright enough not to ask.

Except once. Made his mother cry and break a glass on the wall. He was a sweet boy and knew there were these whole other problems in her life with his father being a closet homosexual, and her upholstery purchases never matching the heirloom coffee table, and crying being a really noisy habit of hers like stereo music might be for a teenager, and it wasn't really his business anyway, so he only asked just that once. And never asked for a stereo.

Grandfather gave him one on Christmas when he was twelve despite that, a Porsche for his mother, and a three dollar raise for his father. The next year, he was shot. Killed by rivals. And Rocket's mother went to jail.

Things went to Hell. It felt quicker than it probably was, except for those times when time didn't seem to move at all. Like — waiting for dad to wake up out of his coke coma for the PTA meeting, though Rocket gave up after the first two hours, untied the tourniquet and tipped an armload of blankets onto him. Or when those guys smashed a brick with a note tied to it through the kitchen window and dad didn't notice for a whole day. Or waiting for him to recover from the last job rejection and get to the next interview. Or watching the water boil for their third consecutive pasta-and-Prego night. Yeah.


Personality

A good boy without being golden, shy without being timid, altruistic without being utterly hopeless at taking care of himself in a difficult world, Rocket walks a lot of fine lines, moral and otherwise. Necessity and misfortune have squeezed him a tougher texture and hardened his heart somewhat, but he remains to most purposes and effects a bumblingly hapless young man, more trusting and hopeful than he probably ought to be.

He has to make mental excuses for thieving — stealing from the rich for instance, and blabbers when frightened, seeks help and advice more readily than he ought, and honestly doesn't want to see anybody get hurt. In fact, sometimes it even makes him a little angry.

Other times, he throws up. Or runs away.

Rocket is humble, worried about Registration, good with children, believes in God over religion, is very awkward about impressing girls, and enjoys lagomorphs. He has a weakness for fudge and Billy Collins poetry, and is harshly aware that he's a little kid in a grown-ups world. He honestly prefers being on land. He can't make up his mind about either his favorite color or what tattoo to get, but he kind of wants one.

Thanks to the shit storm that has left his whole life layered over in a sticky patina of brown, Rocket does not particularly believe in a just world or trust justice, but he obeys his conscience more often than he answers to his stomach or wallet. His pain tolerance is not great, for injuries either physical or emotional; sometimes, his situation depresses him and he gets his feelings hurt a lot. That being said, he is fairly quick to forgive and his loyalty is earned in proportional quantity to reasonable evidence. He drinks a little bit, socially, but doesn't do other substances.

He isn't completely sure why he doesn't hate his mother or father, but it probably has something to do with the nostalgic, impressionistic watercolor piece that his childhood recollections have left him with. Some part of him continues to be invested in the recovery of his old life and family, but the others are ruefully aware that the picture in his head was rosier than the reality his family shared.


Evolved Human Ability

Temporal Manipulation

Rocket has the ability to fold time backward by seven seconds, effectively rewinding all events that had transpired in that time, and leaving only his consciousness aware of it. Other individuals with temporal manipulation will notice a clue of this effect if they are physically within two hundred feet of him at the time that it happens — it leaves a watermark on their memory, a faint echo and sense of 'deja-vu' of the space around them that spans anywhere from one to seven seconds.

Once Rocket has rewound through seven seconds, he can not then rewind further or accumulate increments, and nor can he rewind through the same seven seconds again. His ability is automatically, uncontrollably triggered when he experiences major physical shock, unless he is instantly outright killed. Conscious use of his ability requires focus — and major distractions will make him need to squeeze his eyes shut and things like that, but little energy or effort.

First displayed on-screen in: The Spiral's Completion, Part II


Skills


Relationships

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  • Important Scenes: :V
  • Music: :U

Timeline

January Title Summary
20th Lighting The Flame The Lighthouse opening!

Memorable Quotes

  • Ah. Ha. Hahahaha!

Media

Gallery


Trivia and Notes

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