![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Apocalypse How App
Character Name: Luka Kovač
Age: 34
Canon: ER
Canon point: S10 Episode 5
History: History here
Personality: cw: PTSD, trauma, graphic description of major character and child deaths, war, blood, violence, violent death, abuse, stalking, suicidal ideation, self-harm, medical terminology, severe contagious illness
1. Protective - Luka is an incredibly protective person. He's experienced tremendous loss with his wife and children dying around him and in his arms while he tried desperately to save them, and he's fiercely protective with those that he loves. For example, on his and Abby's very first date, Abby was attacked by a mugger and Luka attacked him in self-defense, but was so intent on stopping him he accidentally kills him by smashing his head against the pavement. In another instance (and this is when he and Abby aren't even dating), she was punched by her abusive neighbor for helping his wife. Luka tracks him down at a bar and beats him up, and threatens to kill him. In the future (past his current canon point) when he starts a family and he suspects his family is being stalked by an angry patient of his named Ames, he threatens to kill him as well.
Luka isn't afraid to get into a physical fight, is strong, and his punches are quite effective. He does have the ability to carry out his threats. His attitude towards violence has changed a little, considering how he was so upset over accidentally killing the mugger even though it was in self-defense, but later on has no problem threatening to kill people. It's possible that event may have desensitized him, plus he has already lost one family and will fight fiercely to save his future family.
2. Guilty - Luka's entire life after his family was killed has been wracked with guilt. He feels that he is at fault for their deaths during the war in his country. He wanted to stay in Vukovar, Croatia, to finish up his internship but his wife, Danijela, wanted to move. It was soon too late. The apartment where they were living was hit by a mortar shell while he was going out to get supplies. He passed by neighbors that were hurt and bleeding but he had to get to his family, so he ignored them and ran to his apartment, which was destroyed. His son, Marko, the youngest, was killed instantly and his wife Danijela was bleeding out. His daughter, Jasna, wasn't breathing and he had to do CPR to try to save her. He knows that if he had managed to get Danijela to the hospital she would have survived with surgery, but he couldn't leave Jasna and stop doing CPR on her. He kept calling for help but no one came. He did CPR for hours but he lost her and Jasna as well. He blames himself for their deaths. He will talk to people about what happened to his family but he doesn't talk much about his feelings about it unless prodded, preferring to keep it inside. He often tries to hide the pain with a smile or changes the subject, such as when Abby once asked him if he misses his kids.
Another example of his guilt is when he killed the mugger that attacked Abby, the guilt ate him alive, and he hovered around the police station and around town trying to find more about the man, who he was, to the point where he even went to the morgue to ask if they found anything that could help them identify the man. Luka's guilt can lead him into self-destruction, for example, the first time that he and Abby broke up he was drunk and insulted her because he was annoyed she wasn't having fun when he was (and failed to pay attention to her). The guilt over this break-up has haunted him for years, and eventually he went into a spiral of depressive self-destruction. He was careless with people's hearts when they thought they might have a chance at relationship with him--instead he coldly rejected them. He started to drink a lot, and ended up nearly killing a med-student from recklessly driving. He was genuinely depressed during this time and had a hard time feeling anything, but the guilt from the med student getting hurt and his major mistake with a patient that very same day only made his depression worse. It lessened somewhat after he volunteered to go to the Republic of the Congo in Africa to help in the rural clinics, there he found purpose and his reckless behavior was actually a benefit in the war-torn area. He felt he was paying penance there, and didn't really care if he got hurt or killed as long as he was helping people. It was really only after finding a new relationship with Abby in the future that he was able to truly get out of his depression and put his guilt to rest.
3. Prankster - Before Luka lost his family, he was very much into practical jokes in college, according to his colleague and fellow medical school alumni Dr. Gordana Horvat. There is still some evidence of this even now, but Dr. Horvat mentioned that he has changed very much from the person he used to be, though. He occasionally does pranks still, for example, gluing one of his colleague's hand to his forehead in revenge for a previous prank. He also tricked Abby into thinking he wanted their son to be named Mongo after his father (his father's name was actually Josip) and that it was a popular name in Croatia. She completely believed him, looking upset and resigned that her son was going to be named Mongo. (There's also a deleted scene where Luka snuck springy jumping snakes--the ones that come in a fake peanut can--into her purse so when she opened it, they would spring out. She less than amused, while he thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.)
4. Anger - Luka certainly has a temper. It can be seen in his protectiveness, for example, when he killed the mugger previously mentioned. He almost couldn't hear or see Abby at the time, and was just completely focused on stopping the threat. He didn't even realize how bad the man was injured until he got out of his fugue state. The same can be seen in the instance where he beat up the abusive man who attacked Abby. Luka was absolutely furious, but his fiery rage turned ice cold when he said that he would kill him.
For the most part (when not prompted to deadly violence) Luka's anger comes in the form of everyday general annoyances from working at County, but during his depressive spiral his anger and guilt was turned inward and he was mostly self-loathing and angry at himself at that point. His angry self-loathing was so bad that he got into a car accident from reckless driving, because of his guilt about missing a diagnosis and giving a patient brain damage (effectively killing him even though his body was still alive), which severely injured the med student he was giving a ride to.
He does get into arguments and can be very stubborn. For example, right after the car accident previously mentioned, he was riding in the ambulance with the med student and needed to do a procedure to save her life. The EMT didn't want him to do it because it was dangerous and he had a blunt head injury. Luka yelled at him, and when the EMT refused to do it since they were near County anyway, Luka was afraid the med student would go into cardiac arrest, so he performed the procedure--even while he had a hard time focusing his eyes because of said injury. His anger rarely comes out in physical displays, but when it does, it's really bad, such as the reckless driving incident with the med student. Another example is when Abby was suffering from a dangerous complication to her pregnancy which threatened her life and the baby's life, Luka took a moment to calm down in the bathroom and then simply broke from the fear of losing his family again. He flung a trash can wildly into the mirror out of sheer rage and his inability to do anything to help the situation except wait.
5. Passionate - Luka is a very passionate person. He's constantly advocating for his patients, fighting rules and outright breaking them if he thinks he can help the patient or is confident in his abilities. He broke rules to get an ill Croatian boy to Chicago to save his life. Luka is a good doctor and he's usually (most of the time) right about his diagnoses and is fantastic with procedures, which kills him when he's not right and makes a mistake. He is quick to fall into self-loathing and guilt, which leads into his depression. When he temporarily loses his passion, for example, during an entirely of a season where he makes every bad choice that he could possibly make, he falls into a blank sadness and a depression where he can't feel anything. He becomes rude and belligerent, fights with the nurses, and cares nothing for the women he carelessly pursues for flings. However, Luka will be honest and own up to some mistakes--during a meeting where they discussed the case where he gave the patient brain damage, he admitted he made 'a series of critical errors' and that 'about the only thing I didn't do was put a plastic bag over the guy's head and hit him with a brick.' He eventually joined the Alliance de Medicine Internacionale and worked in the Republic of the Congo, Africa as a way to get away from it all and maybe as penance from his guilt as well, and had recovered somewhat there, even though it was also a band-aid for his issues. He became passionate about helping people there, but he also liked being needed, liked directly helping people in a war-torn country, even though it was incredibly difficult and they were always short of medicine and supplies, and often in danger from warring factions. His self-destruction combined with his stubbornness led him to nearly being killed, to the point where he was almost executed at gunpoint in the midst of suffering from severe malaria. He did save many lives and remained vehement about helping the people there. Even after he recovered from his ordeal and nearly dying from Malaria, (it was bad enough that he had to be airlifted back to Chicago), he still wanted to go back to the Congo to help.
Suitability: Luka would do very well in this world, he was already planning to go back to the Congo at his current canonpoint, despite nearly dying and seeing horrors and atrocities committed. He doesn't have any particular attachments to Chicago at the moment so he would not feel as bad being stuck in this world. He's been through terrible trauma--multiple times even--and is able to keep functioning and working in terrible situations, so he would be able to handle even whatever the supernatural has to throw at him. Once he figures out what ADI is doing, he will want to stay and help considering they are the most knowledgeable to handle the supernatural situation and his skills can be put to good use here where bad stuff is constantly happening. He truly wants to help people so he will stay to help.
Powers/Abilities: No superpowers
Fighter - Luka displays fairly good skill at fistfights and brawls, and has served in the Croatian army, so he has been professionally trained at some point to fight.
Medical Doctor - Luka is an attending Emergency Medicine physician, which means the brand of medicine he is an expert in deals with a little bit of everything--internal medicine, ENT, cardiology, etc. They call for consults with the experts in their particular fields, for example, if someone is having a heart problem they'll call a cardiologist down to see a patient, but he will know how to get a patient stable if they're having a heart attack. His main goal as an ER doc is to get the patient stable and breathing, so he will first make sure that their heart is beating and their airway is clear. He can fix bones, sprains, deadly injuries, minor injuries, and treat serious illnesses. He is also good at diagnosing without using expensive equipment and limited resources from his time in the rural clinics of the Republic of the Congo.
Fencing and acting - Luka learned how to fence from being an actor in college.
Entity Affinity: Luka would be most likely aligned with The Desolation or The Slaughter.
The Desolation - Luka's background and loss from war multiple times would fit with the themes of devastation and mindless destruction of something. He also has a bad habit of absolutely destroying relationships he's been in, so this would fit pretty well. His most successful relationships were with his late wife, Danijela, and with Abby, his future wife, but even the latter was tumultuous and they had broken up badly before they became better friends and learned to deal with each other's personality better.
The Slaughter - Luka's background of war and devastating loss from war would fit in for the Slaughter as well. He lost his family to violence, and has experienced multiple instances of random violence against himself and his friends/loved ones.
Inventory:
1. Clothes - button up shirt, tie, pants, shoes, and white lab coat with hospital ID clipped to it
2. 5 Pens in his lab coat pocket
3. Stethoscope
4. Wallet with ID, credit cards, Green card (US Permanent Resident card) and $200 cash
5. Watch
6. A pupil gauge penlight
7. Cell phone (flip phone)
Samples:
ONE
TWO