000 - Contact/Application
[character name]: Tyler Durden/Joe (sometimes Jack)
[series]: Fight Club
[4th walling?]: Go nuts. But if you mention fight club and/or the rules he is gonna be pissed.
[series]: Fight Club
[character]: The Narrator (we'll call him Joe) and Tyler Durden
[character history / background]:
There are two versions of his background: There is the truth, and then there is the story the way Tyler tells it.
To hear Tyler tell it, he's spent the better part of his life in a series of menial dead-end jobs, working alternate night shifts as both a film projectionist and a banquet waiter at a 5 star hotel. Tyler got by on these shit jobs for one reason, and one reason only: they were the perfect outlets for his naturally deviant tendencies. At these jobs he could exercise such pleasures as splicing single cels of pornography into G-rated family feature films, or operate as a "food terrorist" (pissing in soups, spitting on flans, etc.) at the ritziest banquets in town.
From these minor acts of mayhem, Tyler eventually grew into more "serious business"- he began making soap (out of liposuctioned human fat salvaged from medical waste disposal sites) and selling it to department stores for 20 bucks a bar while he perfected the art of fashioning his own home-made explosives out of the leftovers.
It was around this time that Tyler met a guy name Joe, and together they began a project that later grew into something truly magnificent. It started as a drunken brawl between them in a parking lot at 3am, and together they called it “Fight Club”, a nihilist support group- a therapy session conducted via fist fights- a means to reduce people down to their lowest, most basic parts, and help them find the real truths and values in life.
It didn’t take long for Fight Club to grow in popularity. Almost overnight it extended beyond its original manifestation as a group of men beating each other senseless in a bar basement and into something infinitely more profound. Tyler called this next step “Project Mayhem”, and it was his secret magnum opus- his attempt to reshape society into something more suitable for human consumption. Project Mayhem was a serious effort to realize Tyler’s vision of a nihilist, neo-luddite, anarchistic society built upon the ashes of the consumer-oriented/materialistic society he loathed. Via Fight Club and through Project Mayhem, Tyler built an army of devoted followers who (under his direction) executed finely coordinated attacks on the corporations and icons of consumer-culture.
At its most basic, the idea was that Tyler wanted to free mankind from its own history- to give it a fresh start without all its current burdens of ownership and class. However, at his finest hour- at the point when Tyler was poised on the brink of his new society's first great achievement, it all went wrong. He was betrayed by Joe, and standing on the verge of all he had worked so hard to build, Joe pulled the trigger of a gun held against his head, and Tyler lost everything.
However, there is another side to Tyler's story. A more truthful side. A side named Joe.
Joe grew up living a normal life of normal ambitions, working a 9-5 job as a recall coordinator for a major car company. He met Tyler on a beach where the two became friends, and shortly thereafter (via a series of events that culminated in his apartment being blown to smithereens) Joe began living with Tyler in an abandoned house in an industrial part of town. It was Tyler who made Joe aware of how unhappy he was with his life- a slave to his job and his possessions- and it was both of them together who created Fight Club, and for a while it seemed like they had a really good thing going for them. However, Tyler alienated Joe with Project Mayhem, which is what eventually lead to Joe realizing the truth about Tyler and caused their final falling out.
There were clinical terms used to explain it: split personalities, multiple personality disorder, disassociative personality disorder, psychogenic fugue sate, hallucination... Whatever the term, the simple fact was that Tyler was born from a mental disorder Joe had carried with him for his entire life. By creating Tyler as his split personality, Joe had made someone who was everything he himself could not be. However, once he had been given life, Joe's sickness quickly grew out of hand. No longer in control of his other half and desperate to stop himself and the madness he had wrought, Joe finally came to the conclusion that the only way to stop Tyler was for Joe to stop himself, and holding a gun to his own head he shot himself.
(If that is not enough, please see the Wikipedia entry on Fight Club which summarizes these characters quite nicely.)
[character abilities]:
Joe's abilities run conservatively and tame, with some pedestrian skills like cooking, cleaning and gardening. Perhaps his best skill is his ability to get along living a regular day-to-day life as a regular day-to-day person, which is something Tyler cannot do.
Tyler's abilities, however, run along the lines of “practical, but terrible”- he’s a master of all the things most people would be embarrassed to even consider. He is remarkably self sufficient- you'd be hard pressed to find a skill (a practical skill) that Tyler doesn't have at least a basic working knowledge of. Of course, it goes without saying that Tyler's best abilities are in fist fighting and organization- he is a master when it comes to coordinating people, and getting them to do exactly what he wants.
[character personality]:
"A nihilist, neo-Luddite, radical environmentalist and anarcho-primitivist with a strong hatred for consumer culture."
On the surface Tyler is outgoing, engaging and humorous. He's mischievous, he's practical, he's smart (full of interesting, if not somewhat irrelevant, facts) and he's funny- though he tends to find humour in dark things that most people would feel bad for laughing about. He is the kind of guy you'd probably like to be friends with. He's a bit crude, a bit rude, but he seems genuine, and above all: he’s fun.
It's only on closer inspection that Tyler's massive resentment for everything society stands for becomes apparent. He has issues with just about everything around him and he's not about to hide it or apologize for it. He holds a series of truly outrageous values and he isn’t afraid to air his problems with materialism, capitalism, technology and social order (given the right provocation). He yearns for (and actively works towards) a complete destruction of the foundations of society, and while it may seem radical, from Tyler's point of view he believes that he is perfectly justified in his actions. To be honest, he can't see why anyone would choose to live any way other than what he's decided is best for them.
Tyler has a dominating personality, but that being said, if you aren't going to play his game then he's not going to waste time trying to convince you. In general he considers himself too smart to argue, and he knows not to get involved in a losing battle. Still, Tyler isn't stupid- he's perfectly aware that you can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar, and he puts up a good front as a nutty, devious prankster, full of confidence and charm- all the while quietly selecting his targets and drawing them into his world with subtle (sometimes downright underhanded) conniving and manipulation.
Joe, on the other hand, is more easily described as everything that Tyler is not. He is a materialist and a little self-obsessed, depressed, and an insomniac, who is embarrassed and ashamed of everything Tyler celebrates and revels in. He doesn't like to argue and he doesn't want to get in the way. He doesn't stand out as anything special (you'd miss him in a crowd), and while he was a founding member (in fact the founding member) of Fight Club, it was something that he acknowledges grew quickly out of hand, and to be honest, he regrets ever starting it.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]:
Immediately after Joe pulled the trigger of the gun he held against his head at the end of Fight Club. Arriving in the City, it was Tyler who woke up first, and while Joe is still very much a part of Tyler, he is having trouble regaining control.
[journal post]:
So this is the way it's gonna be, eh? Well, bring it on. I woke up first, pal, and this time I know I can keep you quiet.
I don't know where I am. So stupid. You spend a lifetime deconstructing familiarity and then some jackass pulls a trigger and suddenly all you want is to do is cling to something you recognize.
It feels like I've had this headache for forever.
I need information. I need a fight. I need it now.
[third person / log sample]:
Tyler wanted to laugh long and hard. He hadn't felt this good in years. Behind his sunglasses- big, dark lenses that swallowed up half his face- he took in all that the evening had to offer him. The humidity in the air made him feel like he was moving through something sluggish and heavy, and the overcast sky trapped the city lights, tinting everything with saturated shades of orange and blood red. He could feel the bruise under his arm that he’d spent all afternoon admiring- it was shaped like a map of Canada. The edges were pulpy green and tender, Hudson’s Bay was bloodshot. Everything else was healing nicely, though. He could pick the puckering scabs off his knuckles, if he felt so inclined.
It was like a video game. Game over. You lose. Please insert two credits. Clinking coins in a slot and then: bam-o, you’re back on top.
In some way he felt like he was cheating.
It was just weird, that was all. Standing where he was, dressed as he was, thinking what he was. Like everything that happened before waking up in the City had been a bad dream. Absently his hand went back through his hair- he was growing it out bit by bit, no use keeping it short, not right now anyway.
He couldn’t place the emotion he was feeling- A mixture of frustration and pure, unadulterated glee.
Freedom.
There would be no more nagging now, no more heels dragging, no more “Tyler we shouldn’t, Tyler we can’t, Tyler we’ve gone too far” and always no no no, keeping him crammed down, struggling to restrain him when all he was trying to do was help, trying to open their eyes and make them see that it was all for them.
Everything he'd done, he had done for them.
Tyler fought the urge to laugh again, shaking his head as he rubbed the side of his jaw, big dimples appearing as he grinned like a fool.
This City, this beautiful, blessed City, it had saved him from everything that had been holding him back. All those little nagging voices, all that anxiety and guilt and hesitation- are we doing the right thing? Are we fighting the good fight? Can we ever possibly succeed? No more. Inside his head he was alone. He'd never have to deal with that reluctance again.
He was already making lists, putting things in order, analyzing the situation and preparing- he'd need space. Money was an issue, but money wasn't the issue. Soap? Maybe. For the moment: a bar, a dive, a miserable little shit-hole that he could call his own, and soon: his first convert, the first inductee into the new Gospel according to Tyler Durden.
The first rule of fight club, was that you didn't talk about fight club.
He was going to like it here.
---
A note on the nature of Tyler and Joe:
As we (hopefully) all know, in Fight Club Joe and Tyler were two personalities living within the same body as a result of Joe's multiple personality disorder. While previously Joe was arguably the dominant personality, when they were brought to the City it was Tyler who woke up first, and it is now Tyler who is in control. There will undoubtedly be times where Joe muscles his way into control of the body they share, but as of this moment it is Tyler who is top dog (and unfortunately for Joe, he's determined to keep it that way).
A note on appearance:
THE THING IS seeing as Tyler is going to be the dominant mind in Poly I thought it best to stick with a single face instead of forcing the poor guy to literally change features as he goes back and forth between the Tyler and Joe/Jack personalities. If it helps to clear up some confusion, you can think of him as based more on the original novel than the film- and that in the novel he just so happens to look more like Brad Pitt than he does like Edward Norton.
Hopefully that clears things up! If you have any further questions on the (admittedly complicated) nature of Tyler and Joe/Jack, I'm more than willing to offer a hasty explanation!
[series]: Fight Club
[4th walling?]: Go nuts. But if you mention fight club and/or the rules he is gonna be pissed.
[series]: Fight Club
[character]: The Narrator (we'll call him Joe) and Tyler Durden
[character history / background]:
There are two versions of his background: There is the truth, and then there is the story the way Tyler tells it.
To hear Tyler tell it, he's spent the better part of his life in a series of menial dead-end jobs, working alternate night shifts as both a film projectionist and a banquet waiter at a 5 star hotel. Tyler got by on these shit jobs for one reason, and one reason only: they were the perfect outlets for his naturally deviant tendencies. At these jobs he could exercise such pleasures as splicing single cels of pornography into G-rated family feature films, or operate as a "food terrorist" (pissing in soups, spitting on flans, etc.) at the ritziest banquets in town.
From these minor acts of mayhem, Tyler eventually grew into more "serious business"- he began making soap (out of liposuctioned human fat salvaged from medical waste disposal sites) and selling it to department stores for 20 bucks a bar while he perfected the art of fashioning his own home-made explosives out of the leftovers.
It was around this time that Tyler met a guy name Joe, and together they began a project that later grew into something truly magnificent. It started as a drunken brawl between them in a parking lot at 3am, and together they called it “Fight Club”, a nihilist support group- a therapy session conducted via fist fights- a means to reduce people down to their lowest, most basic parts, and help them find the real truths and values in life.
It didn’t take long for Fight Club to grow in popularity. Almost overnight it extended beyond its original manifestation as a group of men beating each other senseless in a bar basement and into something infinitely more profound. Tyler called this next step “Project Mayhem”, and it was his secret magnum opus- his attempt to reshape society into something more suitable for human consumption. Project Mayhem was a serious effort to realize Tyler’s vision of a nihilist, neo-luddite, anarchistic society built upon the ashes of the consumer-oriented/materialistic society he loathed. Via Fight Club and through Project Mayhem, Tyler built an army of devoted followers who (under his direction) executed finely coordinated attacks on the corporations and icons of consumer-culture.
At its most basic, the idea was that Tyler wanted to free mankind from its own history- to give it a fresh start without all its current burdens of ownership and class. However, at his finest hour- at the point when Tyler was poised on the brink of his new society's first great achievement, it all went wrong. He was betrayed by Joe, and standing on the verge of all he had worked so hard to build, Joe pulled the trigger of a gun held against his head, and Tyler lost everything.
However, there is another side to Tyler's story. A more truthful side. A side named Joe.
Joe grew up living a normal life of normal ambitions, working a 9-5 job as a recall coordinator for a major car company. He met Tyler on a beach where the two became friends, and shortly thereafter (via a series of events that culminated in his apartment being blown to smithereens) Joe began living with Tyler in an abandoned house in an industrial part of town. It was Tyler who made Joe aware of how unhappy he was with his life- a slave to his job and his possessions- and it was both of them together who created Fight Club, and for a while it seemed like they had a really good thing going for them. However, Tyler alienated Joe with Project Mayhem, which is what eventually lead to Joe realizing the truth about Tyler and caused their final falling out.
There were clinical terms used to explain it: split personalities, multiple personality disorder, disassociative personality disorder, psychogenic fugue sate, hallucination... Whatever the term, the simple fact was that Tyler was born from a mental disorder Joe had carried with him for his entire life. By creating Tyler as his split personality, Joe had made someone who was everything he himself could not be. However, once he had been given life, Joe's sickness quickly grew out of hand. No longer in control of his other half and desperate to stop himself and the madness he had wrought, Joe finally came to the conclusion that the only way to stop Tyler was for Joe to stop himself, and holding a gun to his own head he shot himself.
(If that is not enough, please see the Wikipedia entry on Fight Club which summarizes these characters quite nicely.)
[character abilities]:
Joe's abilities run conservatively and tame, with some pedestrian skills like cooking, cleaning and gardening. Perhaps his best skill is his ability to get along living a regular day-to-day life as a regular day-to-day person, which is something Tyler cannot do.
Tyler's abilities, however, run along the lines of “practical, but terrible”- he’s a master of all the things most people would be embarrassed to even consider. He is remarkably self sufficient- you'd be hard pressed to find a skill (a practical skill) that Tyler doesn't have at least a basic working knowledge of. Of course, it goes without saying that Tyler's best abilities are in fist fighting and organization- he is a master when it comes to coordinating people, and getting them to do exactly what he wants.
[character personality]:
"A nihilist, neo-Luddite, radical environmentalist and anarcho-primitivist with a strong hatred for consumer culture."
On the surface Tyler is outgoing, engaging and humorous. He's mischievous, he's practical, he's smart (full of interesting, if not somewhat irrelevant, facts) and he's funny- though he tends to find humour in dark things that most people would feel bad for laughing about. He is the kind of guy you'd probably like to be friends with. He's a bit crude, a bit rude, but he seems genuine, and above all: he’s fun.
It's only on closer inspection that Tyler's massive resentment for everything society stands for becomes apparent. He has issues with just about everything around him and he's not about to hide it or apologize for it. He holds a series of truly outrageous values and he isn’t afraid to air his problems with materialism, capitalism, technology and social order (given the right provocation). He yearns for (and actively works towards) a complete destruction of the foundations of society, and while it may seem radical, from Tyler's point of view he believes that he is perfectly justified in his actions. To be honest, he can't see why anyone would choose to live any way other than what he's decided is best for them.
Tyler has a dominating personality, but that being said, if you aren't going to play his game then he's not going to waste time trying to convince you. In general he considers himself too smart to argue, and he knows not to get involved in a losing battle. Still, Tyler isn't stupid- he's perfectly aware that you can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar, and he puts up a good front as a nutty, devious prankster, full of confidence and charm- all the while quietly selecting his targets and drawing them into his world with subtle (sometimes downright underhanded) conniving and manipulation.
Joe, on the other hand, is more easily described as everything that Tyler is not. He is a materialist and a little self-obsessed, depressed, and an insomniac, who is embarrassed and ashamed of everything Tyler celebrates and revels in. He doesn't like to argue and he doesn't want to get in the way. He doesn't stand out as anything special (you'd miss him in a crowd), and while he was a founding member (in fact the founding member) of Fight Club, it was something that he acknowledges grew quickly out of hand, and to be honest, he regrets ever starting it.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]:
Immediately after Joe pulled the trigger of the gun he held against his head at the end of Fight Club. Arriving in the City, it was Tyler who woke up first, and while Joe is still very much a part of Tyler, he is having trouble regaining control.
[journal post]:
So this is the way it's gonna be, eh? Well, bring it on. I woke up first, pal, and this time I know I can keep you quiet.
I don't know where I am. So stupid. You spend a lifetime deconstructing familiarity and then some jackass pulls a trigger and suddenly all you want is to do is cling to something you recognize.
It feels like I've had this headache for forever.
I need information. I need a fight. I need it now.
[third person / log sample]:
Tyler wanted to laugh long and hard. He hadn't felt this good in years. Behind his sunglasses- big, dark lenses that swallowed up half his face- he took in all that the evening had to offer him. The humidity in the air made him feel like he was moving through something sluggish and heavy, and the overcast sky trapped the city lights, tinting everything with saturated shades of orange and blood red. He could feel the bruise under his arm that he’d spent all afternoon admiring- it was shaped like a map of Canada. The edges were pulpy green and tender, Hudson’s Bay was bloodshot. Everything else was healing nicely, though. He could pick the puckering scabs off his knuckles, if he felt so inclined.
It was like a video game. Game over. You lose. Please insert two credits. Clinking coins in a slot and then: bam-o, you’re back on top.
In some way he felt like he was cheating.
It was just weird, that was all. Standing where he was, dressed as he was, thinking what he was. Like everything that happened before waking up in the City had been a bad dream. Absently his hand went back through his hair- he was growing it out bit by bit, no use keeping it short, not right now anyway.
He couldn’t place the emotion he was feeling- A mixture of frustration and pure, unadulterated glee.
Freedom.
There would be no more nagging now, no more heels dragging, no more “Tyler we shouldn’t, Tyler we can’t, Tyler we’ve gone too far” and always no no no, keeping him crammed down, struggling to restrain him when all he was trying to do was help, trying to open their eyes and make them see that it was all for them.
Everything he'd done, he had done for them.
Tyler fought the urge to laugh again, shaking his head as he rubbed the side of his jaw, big dimples appearing as he grinned like a fool.
This City, this beautiful, blessed City, it had saved him from everything that had been holding him back. All those little nagging voices, all that anxiety and guilt and hesitation- are we doing the right thing? Are we fighting the good fight? Can we ever possibly succeed? No more. Inside his head he was alone. He'd never have to deal with that reluctance again.
He was already making lists, putting things in order, analyzing the situation and preparing- he'd need space. Money was an issue, but money wasn't the issue. Soap? Maybe. For the moment: a bar, a dive, a miserable little shit-hole that he could call his own, and soon: his first convert, the first inductee into the new Gospel according to Tyler Durden.
The first rule of fight club, was that you didn't talk about fight club.
He was going to like it here.
---
A note on the nature of Tyler and Joe:
As we (hopefully) all know, in Fight Club Joe and Tyler were two personalities living within the same body as a result of Joe's multiple personality disorder. While previously Joe was arguably the dominant personality, when they were brought to the City it was Tyler who woke up first, and it is now Tyler who is in control. There will undoubtedly be times where Joe muscles his way into control of the body they share, but as of this moment it is Tyler who is top dog (and unfortunately for Joe, he's determined to keep it that way).
A note on appearance:
THE THING IS seeing as Tyler is going to be the dominant mind in Poly I thought it best to stick with a single face instead of forcing the poor guy to literally change features as he goes back and forth between the Tyler and Joe/Jack personalities. If it helps to clear up some confusion, you can think of him as based more on the original novel than the film- and that in the novel he just so happens to look more like Brad Pitt than he does like Edward Norton.
Hopefully that clears things up! If you have any further questions on the (admittedly complicated) nature of Tyler and Joe/Jack, I'm more than willing to offer a hasty explanation!