(no subject)
Player Information
Name: Thleen
Age: 19
AIM SN: Disco Newsie
email: disconewsie@gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yep!
Currrently Played Characters: Jack Kelly
Character Information
General
Canon Source: BBC’s Merlin
Canon Format: Television series
Character's Name: Merlin, sometimes known as Emrys
Character's Age: 21, thereabouts.
What form will your character's NV take? An old book that, when opened, will have a small screen neatly placed inside. A touch-screen, it’ll have buttons giving him options for voice, video, text, a map, et cetera.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: Haha, okay, well, he's Merlin, so magic, quite obviously. While he has the natural ability to move objects, slow time, and force some enemies away from him without speaking a word, Merlin has to utter a spell and wave his hand in order to do anything else. For a list of spells, just click those links. But he’s an absolutely prodigy at magic; by his third year of studying it, he’s good enough to defeat sorcerers who have been training their entire lives. He’s also got a resilience for magic about him; he’s survived full-on magic attacks that would kill others with hardly a scratch.
As I mentioned, he has the ability to slow down time-- but only for a few seconds. This ability gives him the appearance, at times, of superhuman reflexes. He can also communicate telepathically with other magic users, and sense when powerful magic artifacts are nearby.
He's the last Dragonlord as well, which means, essentially, that he and dragons are kin-- they speak the same language, and dragons are forced to obey what he commands. He's also, to quote, "mastered the power of life and death itself". To explain: in the Old Religion Merlin belongs to, there must always be a balance. If someone is restored to life, someone else must die, so on and so forth. Merlin defied that, bringing a friend back to life without giving his or any of his friend or family’s lives in return. However, this was not a thing he did lightly, nor unaided; there would be no real way for him to do it again in Siren's Pull.
Finally! He’s also a bit handy with a sword, thanks to some off-screen training from, presumably, Arthur. That doesn’t mean he’s very good at it, or could hold his own against someone skilled, but it’s enough that he can defend himself for a short amount of time, at least.
Weapons: None!
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Here!
Point in Canon: Right after the ending of 3x13, “The Coming Of Arthur (Part II)”.
Character Personality: Merlin is, at first appearance, nothing particularly special. He’s the friendly, cowardly and somewhat stupid manservant for Prince Arthur. Fun to be around, yes, a laugh at parties, sure, somewhat witty, certainly-- but not particularly noteworthy.
This is an act.
Granted, an act not entirely untrue (he is a genuinely friendly person), but an act nonetheless. The rest of it-- being cowardly, being stupid-- are simply traits he puts on in order to keep himself safe. The truth is, Merlin is incredibly courageous. He’s launched himself into danger and risked his life multiple times for his friends without a second thought-- and more importantly, for his master, Prince Arthur, for whom Merlin would sacrifice his life without a second thought (and has offered to do so many times). He’s also quite intelligent; time and again it’s his quick thinking that saves the day, and more and more often Arthur turns to him for advice, calling him “wise”. The reason Merlin keeps these traits a secret is simple: he’s not just a servant, but a warlock-- someone who was born with magic and, worse, someone who actively uses it.
Merlin and his magic is perhaps one of the key aspects to his character. In a land where sorcerers are hunted and slaughtered for even being born with the gift, Merlin practices his spells every day, working to both improve the vast talent he has and to keep said talent hidden from everyone he knows. It's a secret he guards with his life, and it's a secret very few-- they none of them his closest friends, ones who have proven time and again they would fight and die for him-- know. While he loves it, and considers it a gift (not a curse, unlike many magic wielders), it also isolates him, making him feel as if he is the only one of his kind. In episode nine of season two, The Lady of the Lake, we get some evidence of that loneliness; when Merlin meets Freya, the first magic-user who isn't evil or out to kill Arthur, his relief and joy is so great that he ends up falling in love with her-- more because he's so thrilled for the end of his loneliness than because he actually likes her. "The years before I came here were the loneliest of my life," he confesses in that episode. It's not enough that he had a friend during his childhood that knew about his magic; Merlin's feelings stem from the fact he is the only sorcerer he knows who is working under good intentions, not evil ones.
However, despite the fact he guards his magic and tells no one of it, Merlin is often careless where and when he uses it. Not only using it to, say, save Arthur or protect his friends, Merlin will often use magic just to make life a little easier. In that same episode, for example, he goes so far to heat Arthur's bathwater with magic while Arthur was in the room-- stupid, careless, but so much easier than actually going all the way down to the kitchens to fetch actual hot water.
He is, as mentioned, incredibly friendly and courageous; we see in multiple episodes that Merlin is willing to give his all in order to help people. In the episode “Lancelot” Merlin lies to the court, actively breaks the law and forges documents, all to help the titular character in his quest to become a knight and to repay the life debt he had to him. It’s also exemplified in “The Beginning of the End”; though it meant death if he was caught, Merlin barely hesitated before helping to sneak out a Druid child out of Camelot.
There’s also, notably, the fact he’s incredibly sardonic. Merlin will come up with a witty retort for just about everyone, regardless of whether they’re noble or peasant. It’s this sharp tongue that gets him in trouble quite a bit, but it’s also one of his endearing characteristics; by the end of the second season, when Merlin is uncharacteristically silent, Arthur (who’s on the receiving end of most of Merlin’s remarks, and often despairs of them), admits that he misses his friend’s jokes.
He’s also rather in touch with his feelings; in an age where men crying was seen to be embarrassing at best and dishonorable at worst, Merlin sheds tears every third episode. To be fair, it's usually for good reasons-- his father dying, Arthur's (faux) death, the death of a unicorn, tears of happiness when he kissed Freya, et cetera. He's startlingly open about his emotions and wears his heart on his sleeve; when he's angry or upset or happy, one knows it immediately.
He’s shown to be able to make difficult choices and to do the hard thing when he needs to-- Merlin’s shown on multiple occasions he’ll kill enemies without hesitation if it means protecting his friends. Notably, he’s also shown he’ll even kill a friend with only slight hesitance if it means saving Camelot and Arthur-- in “The Fires Of Idirsholas”, Merlin poisoned Morgana because it’s the only way he can see to save his kingdom. It wasn’t a choice he made easily, and he clearly felt guilt afterward, but he made it nonetheless.
Character Plans: Well, first and foremost, I'd love to see how Merlin reacts and deals with the fact that magic is used and celebrated in Siren's Port. It's rather a dream come true for him, but I think he'll still be a bit too terrified to come out with it right away. Two, I want to see how he'll react and deal with both coming to the future-- a thousand years into the future-- and being a legend, a person whose name and story everyone already (kind of) knows.
Appearance/PB: He of the large ears and hispter scarves.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[The feed opens with Merlin staring down skeptically at the book in his hands. There’s a moment’s pause, and then he glances back at the baseball diamond before turning back to the book.]
Er-- [He taps it once, making the screen shake, and then leans in a bit too closely, speaking as softly as he can.]
Hello? The Greeter said I could talk to several of you through this, so-- I don’t suppose any of you have seen a man named Arthur? Prince Arthur. Blond hair, blue eyes, rather a prat? He’ll probably be shouting for me if he’s here. Or a few knights-- you know, red capes, Pendragon crest, chainmail, swords. Gwaine, Lancelot, Leon, has anyone heard of those names?
[He looks at the baseball diamond and back to the book once again.]
Oh. Er. I’m Merlin, by the way.
Third Person Sample
His chest hurt. Badly.
That in itself wasn’t particularly unusual-- Merlin, for all his powers, wasn’t immune to bruises, and being the servant of Arthur-- Arthur, who threw cups and boots whenever he was in a bad mood, Arthur, who required saving from some sort of magical monster every three weeks-- certainly didn’t help him avoid them. What was strange was that Merlin couldn’t remember what he had done to acquire such an ache-- or, he realized as he sat up, where he even was. The last thing he could remember was falling asleep, feeling-- for perhaps the first time in a year-- entirely at peace with the world. Morgause was probably dead, Morgana exposed for her lies, Camelot retaken, Lancelot and Gwaine knighted, and he, Merlin, had kept to his promise and sealed Excalibur where no man could find and use it. For the first time, there was nothing for him to do, nothing for him to worry about-- he could simply sleep without fear.
Small wonder the feeling didn’t last.
Ignoring the pain in his chest, Merlin stood, glancing around warily at his surroundings. This wasn’t Camelot, that much was certain-- but it didn’t seem to be anywhere in Albion either. The green hills he had grown up with weren‘t around, nor the woods or streams or fields; all there seemed to be were strange buildings, of a make he had never before seen. They were too tall and thin, too full of windows that seemed oddly transparent and lit from within, and for a moment he vaguely wondered if he was in Avalon.
Shaking his head to try and clear it of such thoughts (he wouldn‘t ache so badly if he was dead), he glanced warily at his surroundings, still struggling to take them in-- and then tensed as he heard footsteps approach. Swallowing, he instinctively shifted his feet; if this was some new trick of Morgana’s, he was ready.
“Who are you?” he enquired of the man who approached, his tone neutral. He didn’t seem threatening, and a quick scan of his clothes told Merlin nothing-- he didn’t wear the Pendragon crest, nor that of Cenred’s fallen kingdom, nor the cloaks favored by the Druids. “Why have you brought me here?”
Name: Thleen
Age: 19
AIM SN: Disco Newsie
email: disconewsie@gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yep!
Currrently Played Characters: Jack Kelly
Character Information
General
Canon Source: BBC’s Merlin
Canon Format: Television series
Character's Name: Merlin, sometimes known as Emrys
Character's Age: 21, thereabouts.
What form will your character's NV take? An old book that, when opened, will have a small screen neatly placed inside. A touch-screen, it’ll have buttons giving him options for voice, video, text, a map, et cetera.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: Haha, okay, well, he's Merlin, so magic, quite obviously. While he has the natural ability to move objects, slow time, and force some enemies away from him without speaking a word, Merlin has to utter a spell and wave his hand in order to do anything else. For a list of spells, just click those links. But he’s an absolutely prodigy at magic; by his third year of studying it, he’s good enough to defeat sorcerers who have been training their entire lives. He’s also got a resilience for magic about him; he’s survived full-on magic attacks that would kill others with hardly a scratch.
As I mentioned, he has the ability to slow down time-- but only for a few seconds. This ability gives him the appearance, at times, of superhuman reflexes. He can also communicate telepathically with other magic users, and sense when powerful magic artifacts are nearby.
He's the last Dragonlord as well, which means, essentially, that he and dragons are kin-- they speak the same language, and dragons are forced to obey what he commands. He's also, to quote, "mastered the power of life and death itself". To explain: in the Old Religion Merlin belongs to, there must always be a balance. If someone is restored to life, someone else must die, so on and so forth. Merlin defied that, bringing a friend back to life without giving his or any of his friend or family’s lives in return. However, this was not a thing he did lightly, nor unaided; there would be no real way for him to do it again in Siren's Pull.
Finally! He’s also a bit handy with a sword, thanks to some off-screen training from, presumably, Arthur. That doesn’t mean he’s very good at it, or could hold his own against someone skilled, but it’s enough that he can defend himself for a short amount of time, at least.
Weapons: None!
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Here!
Point in Canon: Right after the ending of 3x13, “The Coming Of Arthur (Part II)”.
Character Personality: Merlin is, at first appearance, nothing particularly special. He’s the friendly, cowardly and somewhat stupid manservant for Prince Arthur. Fun to be around, yes, a laugh at parties, sure, somewhat witty, certainly-- but not particularly noteworthy.
This is an act.
Granted, an act not entirely untrue (he is a genuinely friendly person), but an act nonetheless. The rest of it-- being cowardly, being stupid-- are simply traits he puts on in order to keep himself safe. The truth is, Merlin is incredibly courageous. He’s launched himself into danger and risked his life multiple times for his friends without a second thought-- and more importantly, for his master, Prince Arthur, for whom Merlin would sacrifice his life without a second thought (and has offered to do so many times). He’s also quite intelligent; time and again it’s his quick thinking that saves the day, and more and more often Arthur turns to him for advice, calling him “wise”. The reason Merlin keeps these traits a secret is simple: he’s not just a servant, but a warlock-- someone who was born with magic and, worse, someone who actively uses it.
Merlin and his magic is perhaps one of the key aspects to his character. In a land where sorcerers are hunted and slaughtered for even being born with the gift, Merlin practices his spells every day, working to both improve the vast talent he has and to keep said talent hidden from everyone he knows. It's a secret he guards with his life, and it's a secret very few-- they none of them his closest friends, ones who have proven time and again they would fight and die for him-- know. While he loves it, and considers it a gift (not a curse, unlike many magic wielders), it also isolates him, making him feel as if he is the only one of his kind. In episode nine of season two, The Lady of the Lake, we get some evidence of that loneliness; when Merlin meets Freya, the first magic-user who isn't evil or out to kill Arthur, his relief and joy is so great that he ends up falling in love with her-- more because he's so thrilled for the end of his loneliness than because he actually likes her. "The years before I came here were the loneliest of my life," he confesses in that episode. It's not enough that he had a friend during his childhood that knew about his magic; Merlin's feelings stem from the fact he is the only sorcerer he knows who is working under good intentions, not evil ones.
However, despite the fact he guards his magic and tells no one of it, Merlin is often careless where and when he uses it. Not only using it to, say, save Arthur or protect his friends, Merlin will often use magic just to make life a little easier. In that same episode, for example, he goes so far to heat Arthur's bathwater with magic while Arthur was in the room-- stupid, careless, but so much easier than actually going all the way down to the kitchens to fetch actual hot water.
He is, as mentioned, incredibly friendly and courageous; we see in multiple episodes that Merlin is willing to give his all in order to help people. In the episode “Lancelot” Merlin lies to the court, actively breaks the law and forges documents, all to help the titular character in his quest to become a knight and to repay the life debt he had to him. It’s also exemplified in “The Beginning of the End”; though it meant death if he was caught, Merlin barely hesitated before helping to sneak out a Druid child out of Camelot.
There’s also, notably, the fact he’s incredibly sardonic. Merlin will come up with a witty retort for just about everyone, regardless of whether they’re noble or peasant. It’s this sharp tongue that gets him in trouble quite a bit, but it’s also one of his endearing characteristics; by the end of the second season, when Merlin is uncharacteristically silent, Arthur (who’s on the receiving end of most of Merlin’s remarks, and often despairs of them), admits that he misses his friend’s jokes.
He’s also rather in touch with his feelings; in an age where men crying was seen to be embarrassing at best and dishonorable at worst, Merlin sheds tears every third episode. To be fair, it's usually for good reasons-- his father dying, Arthur's (faux) death, the death of a unicorn, tears of happiness when he kissed Freya, et cetera. He's startlingly open about his emotions and wears his heart on his sleeve; when he's angry or upset or happy, one knows it immediately.
He’s shown to be able to make difficult choices and to do the hard thing when he needs to-- Merlin’s shown on multiple occasions he’ll kill enemies without hesitation if it means protecting his friends. Notably, he’s also shown he’ll even kill a friend with only slight hesitance if it means saving Camelot and Arthur-- in “The Fires Of Idirsholas”, Merlin poisoned Morgana because it’s the only way he can see to save his kingdom. It wasn’t a choice he made easily, and he clearly felt guilt afterward, but he made it nonetheless.
Character Plans: Well, first and foremost, I'd love to see how Merlin reacts and deals with the fact that magic is used and celebrated in Siren's Port. It's rather a dream come true for him, but I think he'll still be a bit too terrified to come out with it right away. Two, I want to see how he'll react and deal with both coming to the future-- a thousand years into the future-- and being a legend, a person whose name and story everyone already (kind of) knows.
Appearance/PB: He of the large ears and hispter scarves.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[The feed opens with Merlin staring down skeptically at the book in his hands. There’s a moment’s pause, and then he glances back at the baseball diamond before turning back to the book.]
Er-- [He taps it once, making the screen shake, and then leans in a bit too closely, speaking as softly as he can.]
Hello? The Greeter said I could talk to several of you through this, so-- I don’t suppose any of you have seen a man named Arthur? Prince Arthur. Blond hair, blue eyes, rather a prat? He’ll probably be shouting for me if he’s here. Or a few knights-- you know, red capes, Pendragon crest, chainmail, swords. Gwaine, Lancelot, Leon, has anyone heard of those names?
[He looks at the baseball diamond and back to the book once again.]
Oh. Er. I’m Merlin, by the way.
Third Person Sample
His chest hurt. Badly.
That in itself wasn’t particularly unusual-- Merlin, for all his powers, wasn’t immune to bruises, and being the servant of Arthur-- Arthur, who threw cups and boots whenever he was in a bad mood, Arthur, who required saving from some sort of magical monster every three weeks-- certainly didn’t help him avoid them. What was strange was that Merlin couldn’t remember what he had done to acquire such an ache-- or, he realized as he sat up, where he even was. The last thing he could remember was falling asleep, feeling-- for perhaps the first time in a year-- entirely at peace with the world. Morgause was probably dead, Morgana exposed for her lies, Camelot retaken, Lancelot and Gwaine knighted, and he, Merlin, had kept to his promise and sealed Excalibur where no man could find and use it. For the first time, there was nothing for him to do, nothing for him to worry about-- he could simply sleep without fear.
Small wonder the feeling didn’t last.
Ignoring the pain in his chest, Merlin stood, glancing around warily at his surroundings. This wasn’t Camelot, that much was certain-- but it didn’t seem to be anywhere in Albion either. The green hills he had grown up with weren‘t around, nor the woods or streams or fields; all there seemed to be were strange buildings, of a make he had never before seen. They were too tall and thin, too full of windows that seemed oddly transparent and lit from within, and for a moment he vaguely wondered if he was in Avalon.
Shaking his head to try and clear it of such thoughts (he wouldn‘t ache so badly if he was dead), he glanced warily at his surroundings, still struggling to take them in-- and then tensed as he heard footsteps approach. Swallowing, he instinctively shifted his feet; if this was some new trick of Morgana’s, he was ready.
“Who are you?” he enquired of the man who approached, his tone neutral. He didn’t seem threatening, and a quick scan of his clothes told Merlin nothing-- he didn’t wear the Pendragon crest, nor that of Cenred’s fallen kingdom, nor the cloaks favored by the Druids. “Why have you brought me here?”