Jill Williamson

Appearance | Personality | Abilities and Equipment | Living Space | History

In all honesty, Jill started as a joke character. Entirely. Attempting to make a scrapper I could stick with beyond 12 levels, I decided to be as weird as I could. Inspired by both Tank Girl's Rippers and my own college sports team's mascot, Jill was born some time in 2008. She was a hit immediately, and became my first 50 shortly thereafter.

She may look a little weird, but she's my first real hero and I wouldn't have her any other way.

Basic Math, Right?

Okay, lesson time. Get out your pencil and see if you can follow along: Regeneration plus Rikti gun-blast, plus kangaroo leather, times a two month coma equals a half kangaroo martial artist. Basic math, right?

Yeah, I didn't think so either.

Don't get me wrong, this ain't bad - I used to hate looking this way, but the whole thing has definite up sides to it. Thanks to the new leg muscles, I kick like a truck load of mules and can totally pull a Statesman and leap tall buildings. The claws? They can punch armor. Better than my feet used to be, for real. My regeneration factor's still goin' strong, too - I can take a serious beating, and so long as I can keep eatin', I'm snappin' right back to the way I am now. And that whole eatin' thing? Another total perk of the mutation. I got a bottomless pit for a stomach now; I make Kobayashi look like an amateur. And the best part? Regeneration makes sure I don't gain weight!

Long and short of it is, I used to really hate bein' a 'freak'. Spent a lot of time really mad at the Rikti and the world in general, just 'cause I don't look like a girl next door cheerleader anymore. But you know what? I'm okay with it now. For the first time in my life, I'm really -unique-.

I just wish someone made stylish skirts for the kangaroo-footed female.

~Jill Williamson, interview with the Paragon Times (unpublished), 2011.

Appearance

Jill has two distinct appearances she can utilize; both will be described here for completeness' sake. Art appearing in this section courtesy of Eden Carnes.

From Cheerleader...

Jill's human form is very much a classic Caucasian All-American girl next door.

Standing confident at 5'5" tall, Jill is the picture of health. She has pleasant, girlish facial features - wide, expressive eyes, plump lips and an infectious (and nearly constant) smile. She has green eyes, strawberry blond hair and tanned skin from her time outside on the farm.

She has a decently muscled but slender body, brought about through years of cheerleading, tumbling and taekwondo. She never fails to look feminine despite her training; it just seems to come naturally.

...To Kangaroo

Jill's newer - and more commonly seen - form comes with several modifications.

Her kangaroo form is a digitigrade, for one, lending her extra height - she is now 5'11". Her toes end in vicious claws, capable of punching through armor and allowing her to tear it open. She is covered from head to toe in reddish-brown fur, and has a large tail that is thicker at the base than the tip. Her belly and the underside of the tail are white-furred instead of the red-brown.

Her face has changed as well, now containing more animalistic features. She has a truncated muzzle; her nose is closer to that of a kangaroo than a human. Her eyes have shifted color to amber and gained a new feature, a nictitating membrane, which allows her to not close her eyes (when she remembers she has the membranes). Her ears have enlongated, giving her a much greater range of hearing.

Her fingers end in smaller versions of her foot-claws as well, though they are not as resilient.

She retains her slender, muscled physique in kangaroo form, and even gains some muscle bulk - most notably in her legs, though underneath the fur, her entire form is corded muscle. Overall, she is a sleek, well-oiled machine of an athlete - though a furrier one than she used to be.

Personality

Jill is very outgoing, happy-go-lucky and cheerful. She loves life, the city, and everything about her career choice. Always smiling, she loves a good laugh and will often do stupid things (like sitting on stop lights and waving at cars) just to make herself or someone else smile. She is charming, sweet, and has a genuinely caring heart, though with a very silly and disarming public face. She's very accepting, prone to talk to anyone who is willing to listen, and thoroughly enjoys stories of other peoples' lives.

Always willing to learn, she has a keen intellect hidden within her goofy public persona. If she shows an interest in a subject, she is likely to obsess over it until she reaches expert levels. She loves video games, comics and action movies; she has filled her apartment with a collection of Hong Kong action flicks and movie posters as a result.

In a fight, Jill is an exacting opponent. Her chipperness never disappears and she is quick to taunt (often with lines borrowed from bad kung fu movies), but when it comes down to it, her foot is probably going to be the last thing you see before you wake up in a cell.

She has a true 'never say die' attitude, and is not one to ever give up regardless of how bad the odds look.

Personality Tropes

Jill has several obvious personality tropes in play; here are a few that are most easily spotted:

• The Hero
• Neutral Good
• Nice Gal
• Determinator
• Obfuscating Stupidity
• Action Girl
• Girl Next Door
• Big Eater
• Otaku (for martial arts films/actors)

Abilities and Combat Tactics

Jill is a highly trained martial artist, having practiced Taekwondo since she was six years old. As a result, her hand-to-hand (or rather, foot-to-face) combat skills are excellent. Her kangaroo form utilizes a variant on Taekwondo's kicking techniques and her increased jumping mobility in combat; her human form is exclusively weapons-form based combat and uses a staff style based on traditional Taekwondo forms. She does not use the staff in kangaroo form or the kicking techniques in human form; the differences between the two biologies mean she would have to spend time learning and re-learning all the tricks and tactics of each every time she shifted in order to accomidate for differences in balance and musculature.

She has an inborn knowledge of kinesiology, a true warrior's heart, and a regeneration factor that allows her to be much more aggressive than she otherwise would have been. She tends to dive into the middle of melee, seeking out the toughest opponent she can find and eliminating them first. Her human form allows her more room for tactically placing herself there than her kangaroo form - she is far sneakier and quieter, mainly due to smaller size and lack of foot claws, and she can frequently make it to the leader of a group without being noticed before she launches a strike.

While Jill still feels pain, she has learned to use it as a focusing agent rather than something that slows her down - the more she hurts, the more seriously she takes the fight. As she becomes more focused while in kangaroo form, she stops blinking - this form has a nictitating membrane that allows her to not close her eyes, should she choose.

Due to additional training as a tumbler and cheerleader, Jill is also highly acrobatic and known to incorporate those maneuvers into her fighting style. She will frequently vault opponents, perform flips, and add aerial stunts to combat simply because she can. While in kangaroo form, her tail allows for far better control of her balance than her human form has, and consequentially, she is much more acrobatic in kangaroo form. She is still agile and difficult to pin down in human form, but nowhere near as vertically mobile.

Despite her considerable deadly abilities, she often fights to disable rather than kill - Jill does not like the prospect of being responsible for someone's death, and believes everyone should get a second chance. Thus criminals on the end of her attacks will be badly bruised and battered, some with broken bones, but they will be alive. This still applies in her human form, where she uses staves and non-deadly strikes to disable and demoralize rather than to kill outright.

Other abilities that Jill gains from her mutations include:

• Enhanced directional hearing: Her larger ears are capable of twitching and pivoting slightly on her head, allowing for much better directionally-tuned hearing than an average human. As a result, she hears more sound - and more clearly - than regular people.
  

  

  She doesn't need to run. She likes to.
• Low light vision: While she still cannot see in the dark, Jill's eyes now allow for better distribution of light internally. As a result she can see in low light, albiet in grey-scale. She also has to wear sun glasses under normal lighting conditions.
• Increased sense of smell: Because of her redesigned nose and the muzzle behind it, Jill's sense of smell is enhanced. She has more smell receptors than a normal human.
• "Prehensile" tail: Jill's tail is not truly prehensile in the sense of being fully capable of holding her weight or allowing her to swing from it, but some latent genetics clearly were switched on while she was in a regenerative coma. The last foot or so can be moved to her wishes, and she can pick up and hold small objects with it.
• Rapid toxin clearance: Part of her extremely speedy metabolism is the ability to clear out toxins so fast, most of them never even affect her. The down side of this is that medications and pain killers also cycle rapidly - neither work on Jill, unless in doses that will produce other problems.
• High-efficiency metabolism: Aside from just clearing toxins and digesting things swiftly, Jill's kangaroo form also gives her access to pseudo-ruminant status. Her stomach has a spare chamber it normally wouldn't, and this contains specialized bacteria that allow her to properly digest plants and other fibers for their full caloric value.

The only one of those abilities that still applies if she's in her human form is the toxin clearance; the rest are dependent entirely on her kangaroo form's unique biology and structure.

Carried Equipment

Jill has a rather motley collection of gear she carries, the loadout of which is changed based on what she is wearing and what she is doing; what follows is a basic listing of the items that are always on her person.

• Explosive Shuriken: "Thank you, Ebay!" Jill found these online and thought the item was a joke. Who sells explosive, sharp flying objects on an open auction site? It turns out they're not only real, but very combat-viable. The shuriken are small, four-pointed throwing weapons packed with just enough charge to startle (and potentially knock down) a group of opponents. They're generally non-lethal, so they fit her style well. She's worked them into her arsenal quite happily, because nothing says 'awesome' like explosives. Jill does not carry these in her human form, as she feels that the flash-bang effects are too much of an attention draw.

• Black iPhone: Until recently, Jill battled with attempting to text on an enV 3; not an easy feat when you're a hero on the go who has claws on their fingers. With the advent of Siri, her problems were solved. In her own words, "I can just yell at it now, and it does stuff for me!" She carries the phone in a ruggedized case and has it synched to a Bluetooth ear piece; she has a specially fit one for her kangaroo form. It is how she takes care of all her out-of-office communications. The ringtone is the very recognizable Jump Around by House of Pain.
• Teleporter Wrist Unit/Barrier Generator: Given to her by Vanguard, Jill's teleporter unit has had codes added for a number of locations she may need to access in a hurry - her own offices, Oroboros and Wentworth's, among others. It is programmable and other locales can be added, so long as proper authorization codes are obtained. It is also cleverly disguised as a common LED watch, mainly to allow Vanguard field agents to hide it in plain sight. It also has a built-in barrier function that casts a magically-charged 'bubble' around the user and a group of allies. Originally intended to allow for a group of agents to pull back from a dangerous area by protecting them so they could retreat, Jill frequently uses this function to aid allies running into danger instead. Jill also occasionally uses the teleporter function to summon in a few of her friends from Vanguard to help her fight.
  

  

  Da magics.
• Police Band Radio Upgrade: A small addition made to both of her Bluetooth ear pieces, this allows Jill to listen in on PPD radio broadcasts and respond to emergencies.
• Shadow Magic Ring: A 'gift' from the mage Methea, this is a black band with a single round gemstone that bears a resemblance to a men's wedding ring and is always worn on Jill's right hand middle finger. It acts as a focus through which she can change her form between human and kangaroo and it retains several spare outfits for either form in a 'memory' state. With a little concentration, this allows Jill to swap her outfit or armor on the fly.

Home Sweet Home

Jill's apartment is situated in the back of her business, Facekickers LLC, in Kings Row. It is a loft converted from an old warehouse, complete with wood flooring and red brick wall. It contains many useful features, including:

• An enormous fridge, for all the food!
• A state of the art home theatre system and massive kung fu dvd collection.
• Many movie prop weapons and posters.
• A training room, complete with sparring ring.
• A Pillar of Ice and Flame, allowing easy transport to Oroboros missions.

Aside from this, the apartment is 'protected' by a Rikti monkey who imprinted on Jill while she was on a mission for Vanguard. Jill has named him Sammo, after one of her favorite legends of kung fu cinema. Sammo is fiercly loyal to Jill and somewhat overprotective of his turf. His overwhelming psychic shock is usually enough to scare off anyone who manages to make it past the offices and to her apartment during the day.

Jill lets Sammo have free reign of the offices at night, allowing him to both sleep on the photocopier and act as a further security measure against random Skulls break-ins. This has the added benefit of meaning she doesn't wake up with a monkey jumping on her chest every morning; he's usually engaged making faces at the local kids in the office window.

Other Tenants and Business Members

Modern Zenko - A pleasantly happy and intelligent Japanese fox spirit with a passion for modern weaponry and heroism, Zen has taken up a home in Jill's spare room as well as a job as technology consultant for Facekickers LLC. She personally built - and then upgraded - the Facekickers' teleporter pad.

Kichra - A six foot tall anthropomorphic cat from another (unnamed) dimension, Kit is basically a barn cat with the ability to use guns who adopted Jill and refuses to leave her apartment. It doesn't help that Jill continues to feed her sandwiches because she likes cats.

Ms. Andrews - While she doesn't actually live in the apartment, this stalwart (and heavily armed) secretary mans the front desk of Facekickers LLC several days a week. Her pleasant mannerisms and efficiency are second only to her skill with firearms and heavy explosives. She never did say exactly who her former employers were, but it's clear they were top-notch for training...

Diesel Blitz - Alex Cooper is Jill's business partner and girlfriend, who Jill 'rescued' from a life of robbing banks and doing property damage after they met during a job Jill took on for the PPD. Super strong, super tough and super mouthy, she's frequently the Lancer to Jill's hero. And Jill wouldn't want it any other way.

Aegis Onus - Odie is the ultra-tough owner of a magical shield that just wants her to pick a fight - but that doesn't mean she's not a total sweetheart! Facekickers LLC's security specialist, this Traceur is a part time consultant who earned her place in the company by breaking Jill's arm during their first meeting. Jill didn't take it personally; she took it as a sign the petite girl was the perfect heavy hitter for their misfit squad.

Meet the Neighbors

There are businesses on either side of Facekickers, some sporting heroes of their own - although these people don't officially consider themselves such.

Push Button Get Lulz - Dave is the owner and operator of the notorious Pwn Shop, a huge internet forum junkie, and the guy who gave Jill her space on the cheap. He can sometimes be seen running around the 'Row, testing various gadgets and hero items that have been pawned at his store to see what they're really worth. His latest obsession is a powered backpack and a set of supposedly alien-tech gauntlets that let him project energy blasts when he presses a button in their palms, hence his newest forum moniker...

Sugar Pill - A nurse normally seen at the medical clinic on the side of Facekickers not occupied by the Pwn Shop, Sugar may or may not be a metahuman. It's never been really clear to the members of Facekickers. What they -do- know is that when she's around, injury seems to clear up a lot faster than normal - even for Jill. Whether that's a testamint to her nursing skills or something else remains to be seen.

Other Drop-ins

Some other people have been given free reign to visit the apartment and Facekickers proper when they want; these are some of Jill's closer friends.

Project Supernova - Doctor Sarah Davidson is a fairly new, but very close friend to Jill. Jill admires the scientist's sharp mind and dedication, and knows there's some sort of secret up her sleeve (aside from the fact she may not actually be Sarah at all due to a catastrophic lab explosion). Jill enjoys her company and values her advice.

Kleptomaniac Kat - Katty is a friendly talking cat with jackdaw tendencies and a backpack that seems to be capable of hiding a battleship. Jill took a shine to her on Formspring, and after accidentally falling into Katty's base (and losing the contents of her pockets to the happy feline), she invited Katty to drop by whenever she wanted, even though this means she risks missing a few shiny objects later.

Vertigirl - A Praetorian Resistance refugee now living in Paragon, Vertigo is a true fighter - though an untrained one - at heart who Jill loves hanging around. Despite the occasional lack of understanding (Vertigo speaks in heavy Resistance cant), Jill gets along very well with her, and has invited the other girl to show up and raid the cupboards whenever she wants.

Character History

Jill's personal history is available here, where it was relocated due to growing size.

It runs from her childhood in Stilwell, Kansas up through her current major plotline in Paragon City, for your enjoyment.