001 ∴ App/Info
User Name/Nick: Naomi
User LJ: asyndeta
AIM/IM: metonumia
E-mail: asyndeta@gmail.com
Other Characters: Tosh, Shego, Iroh, Merlin
Character Name: Alice Morgan
Series: Luther
Age: Never stated; estimating 26
From When?: Sometime between the first and second series. We know from Series 2 that she carried out multiple suicide attempts - calculatedly, in order to be moved from a prison to a secure (but nonetheless more easily escapable) psychiatric hospital - and one of these would bring her to the Barge.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Alice is a killer. She knows the difference between right and wrong but just doesn't care.
Abilities/Powers: N/A, she's very (very) clever but that's it.
Personality:
Alice is an almost textbook malignant narcissist; her pathological need for attention and validation can be likened to a drug addiction. She will threaten, kill and manipulate to make sure that she is someone's centre of attention, to the extent that Luther had to threaten to frame someone else for the murder of her parents to make her back off a little (see History); she would sooner do as he asked than let someone else take the credit for her work and deprive her of her place at the centre of her parents' mysterious deaths.
Her motivations are unknowable by design. When asked why she killed her parents, she simply says it was because she wanted to; given the lack of any triggering event besides a slow build of resentment, this may well be true, although she might have needed to carry out the act to reassure herself of her sense of self; she felt compelled to keep potentially damning evidence as a reminder of the malicious core beneath her surface identity. She describes herself once as being 'slightly kooky, a bit random' and her sense of humour certainly is, but her actual behaviour doesn't bear this out; she very rarely acts on the spur of the moment, and plans ahead very carefully. While she is more than intelligent enough to consider the consequences of her actions insofar as they will affect her or her plans, the wider moral ramifications are shrugged off as unimportant. (When she does act on the spur of the moment, however, she's no less dangerous: her decision to kill Ian Reed might not have been a definite item on her agenda but she definitely enjoyed doing it.)
The way she relates to others is almost wholly negative. She perceives herself as being hurt, offended and humiliated by people around her, people of lesser minds and little insight. She matured early sexually, isn't fussy about the gender of her sexual partners (taking a 'needs must' approach while institutionalised) and may be quite promiscuous as a means of feeding her narcissism, but she considers her lovers with the same disregard as everyone else, bordering on disgust. The upshot of this is when she encounters someone who can keep up with her intellectually, someone she judges as being 'special', the way she relates to them becomes dangerously obsessive. During the series, Luther was this person. Her invasion into his life was extensive, but all undertaken in the apparently sincere belief that she was helping him to address his problems. Although she didn't quite say it out loud, what she did was done out of love. It's just that her perception of what is and isn't okay to do for the people you love is more than a bit distorted.
In day-to-day interactions, her affect changes enormously depending on who she's talking to and what she expects to get out of the conversation. When she first met Luther after her parents' deaths, she was playing the broken, pathetic victim almost perfectly; when he saw through her she dropped the act, almost gloating over the fact that they both knew she was the killer but he couldn't prove it (and later in their relationship, when she knew Luther had lost interest in pursuing her over a crime he couldn't prove she committed, she had no problem casually discussing their murder). At other times she plays seductress, at others the academic, and sometimes behaves like a malicious, gleeful little girl. At almost all times she's articulate, eloquent and never seriously attempts to conceal her intelligence; generally she's good-tempered and rarely outright abusive. The only exception is when she feels like she's being ignored; she responds with deeply felt anger when someone turns their back, doesn't let her get the last word in or responds to her highly dubious 'favours' with ingratitude. During these rages she can be very petty and sullen.
Alice will be coming to the Barge as a newcomer - a different instance of her character, rather than that same one with amnesia. After learning the ropes, she'll probably quite enjoy herself. Although she'll recognise early on that fostering a vulnerable persona won't fly with anyone - after all, she can't disguise that she's an Inmate for long (although she may use that window of opportunity, especially if she uncovers another Alice's former presence), and everyone will know there has to be a reason for her being there. However, she may create a number of reasons behind her current personality, presenting herself as damaged by others and needing protection from harm rather than simply being a malign person in her own right.
Path to Redemption:
Within her canon timeline, Alice had become a little more human; she saw herself as being capable of experiencing love, which was new, although what she did out of her 'love' for Luther was pretty batshit by most people's standards. She isn't a psychopath, but the emotions she's feeling and the emotions she's expressing can be completely at odds.
Ideally, she will need a Warden who can keep up with her intellectually without being closed off emotionally. Treating her need for attention as you'd treat a child's - by ignoring bad behaviour and rewarding good - just won't work; she'll just keep acting out with increasing violence until she gets her validation somewhere. Any decent Warden will be able to curb most of her more malicious tendencies just by being active and attentive.
Her decision to kill her parents as a means of grabbing attention was probably influenced by her resentment over how quickly her fame as a genius burnt out; to graduate, she will need to start perceiving her intellect as something positive, not just as a tool to mess with other people and satisfy her ego. Her narcissism is not something that is ever going to go away but it can be fed with positive accomplishments in her field of expertise.
History:
A celebrated child prodigy, Alice attended Oxford University at the age of 13 and left aged 18 with a PhD, her thesis studying the distribution of dark matter in disc galaxies. It was likely the media attention, high expectations, and sense of superiority placed upon her during her formative years that seeded her poisonous narcissism as an adult. She also came to resent her parents, who had basked in the light of her genius without having any real understanding of their daughter or her work. When she vanished from the limelight, working as a research fellow in London, she turned to more malign ways of satisfying her need for attention: she shot both her parents and their dog, and - by using a polymer-frame gun, hidden in the dog's body, knowing it would be incinerated - destroyed any forensic evidence that would link her to the crime.
DCI John Luther, the lead detective on the case, saw through her 'mourning daughter' act - much to her delight - but couldn't prove that she was the killer. Seeing him as a worthy adversary, perhaps even a kindred spirit, Alice started doing 'favours' for Luther - she threatened his estranged wife, Zoe, and had Zoe's lover Mark badly beaten as part of a convoluted (yet ultimately successful) plan to get Zoe and Luther back together. At the same time (although he denied that they were friends), Luther used her as a sounding board on ongoing cases, knowing that she had the mind of a killer.
Although he claimed to hate her meddling, eventually Luther used Alice's preoccupation to protect himself. Henry Madsen, a paedophile he had tried to kill, had awoken from his coma and was sure to give up Luther; Luther told Alice that while the Madsen investigation was hanging over his head, he'd be under surveillance and couldn't see her any more. Predictably enough, Alice responded by setting Madsen's hospital on fire to create a distraction while she swanned into his room and suffocated him. It's overwhelmingly likely that she knew she was being manipulated but just didn't care. After all, it worked to her advantage.
Eventually, when Luther's was framed for Zoe's murder - by a colleague and close friend, Ian - he went to Alice for help getting his revenge, and she agreed with great enthusiasm. Eventually they and Mark tricked Ian into a showdown at a deserted railway station; Luther extracted a confession and refused to kill him, wanting him to serve hard time for what he'd done. Alice picked up the slack with remarkable cheerfulness and (having placed the decision into Mark's hands) killed Ian with his own shotgun.
Shortly afterwards, the station was stormed by armed police; Alice was taken into custody, confessed to the murder of Ian Reed and later imprisoned. One of her multiple suicide attempts would be her ticket to the Barge.
Sample Journal Entry:
[From here.]
I never understood the appeal of summer camps. To children, anyway; the appeal to parents is clear enough. I was always under the impression that summer holidays were the one time to avoid being herded around an enclosure by grown-ups with no interest in your wellbeing.
Then again, I don't suppose I was ever a member of that demographic.
[She pauses, then gives a little shrug.]
At least no-one died. And I don't remember tripping over any bodies yesterday, so...that's at least five days. That must be a record in the time I've been here.
[She smiles brightly.] Speaking of which. Call it an academic curiosity - how does it get decided, whose deaths get investigated and whose get ignored? From what I can put together, the former group seems like a much, much more exclusive gang than the latter. At the moment, I can just assume it's a perk. Inmates have to earn their justice, or take it into their own hands, or just....accept that their existence here is meaningless. It's no wonder so many people graduate.
Sample RP:
The port was nice enough. It wasn't home, there were some things about it that were just a little bit off - but it served. And it was full of wonderful people - people who wouldn't know her face on sight, wouldn't recognise her voice, wouldn't give her up to her stick-in-the-mud Warden the moment she stepped out of line. A few months and already the Barge felt oppressively tiny, like a little rural village where everyone knew each other's business.
Here, the streets were lined with strangers. And one of them - standing very rigidly in the alleyway off the main drag - was about to be very helpful.
"Now. Let's not mess each other around, shall we? I'm sure you recognise your situation. You are....in a lot of trouble." She pressed her knife a little harder against his ribs to underline her point. "And you could scream, because it's very crowded out there, isn't it? So crowded....that every single one of them can pretend you're screaming for help from someone else. I could gut you, like a fish, and none of them would come after me, and none of them would lose any sleep. Do you understand?"
He nodded once.
"Good. Good." Her voice took on a light, asking-a-friend-for-a-favour tone. "I want you to find someone for me. And what I say next, I want you to repeat to her word for word. It'll be very, very easy. You'll do exactly what I say, and you'll be fine."
She paused, cocked her head, then smiled impishly.
"Or you won't, and...you won't."
User LJ: asyndeta
AIM/IM: metonumia
E-mail: asyndeta@gmail.com
Other Characters: Tosh, Shego, Iroh, Merlin
Character Name: Alice Morgan
Series: Luther
Age: Never stated; estimating 26
From When?: Sometime between the first and second series. We know from Series 2 that she carried out multiple suicide attempts - calculatedly, in order to be moved from a prison to a secure (but nonetheless more easily escapable) psychiatric hospital - and one of these would bring her to the Barge.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Alice is a killer. She knows the difference between right and wrong but just doesn't care.
Abilities/Powers: N/A, she's very (very) clever but that's it.
Personality:
Alice is an almost textbook malignant narcissist; her pathological need for attention and validation can be likened to a drug addiction. She will threaten, kill and manipulate to make sure that she is someone's centre of attention, to the extent that Luther had to threaten to frame someone else for the murder of her parents to make her back off a little (see History); she would sooner do as he asked than let someone else take the credit for her work and deprive her of her place at the centre of her parents' mysterious deaths.
Her motivations are unknowable by design. When asked why she killed her parents, she simply says it was because she wanted to; given the lack of any triggering event besides a slow build of resentment, this may well be true, although she might have needed to carry out the act to reassure herself of her sense of self; she felt compelled to keep potentially damning evidence as a reminder of the malicious core beneath her surface identity. She describes herself once as being 'slightly kooky, a bit random' and her sense of humour certainly is, but her actual behaviour doesn't bear this out; she very rarely acts on the spur of the moment, and plans ahead very carefully. While she is more than intelligent enough to consider the consequences of her actions insofar as they will affect her or her plans, the wider moral ramifications are shrugged off as unimportant. (When she does act on the spur of the moment, however, she's no less dangerous: her decision to kill Ian Reed might not have been a definite item on her agenda but she definitely enjoyed doing it.)
The way she relates to others is almost wholly negative. She perceives herself as being hurt, offended and humiliated by people around her, people of lesser minds and little insight. She matured early sexually, isn't fussy about the gender of her sexual partners (taking a 'needs must' approach while institutionalised) and may be quite promiscuous as a means of feeding her narcissism, but she considers her lovers with the same disregard as everyone else, bordering on disgust. The upshot of this is when she encounters someone who can keep up with her intellectually, someone she judges as being 'special', the way she relates to them becomes dangerously obsessive. During the series, Luther was this person. Her invasion into his life was extensive, but all undertaken in the apparently sincere belief that she was helping him to address his problems. Although she didn't quite say it out loud, what she did was done out of love. It's just that her perception of what is and isn't okay to do for the people you love is more than a bit distorted.
In day-to-day interactions, her affect changes enormously depending on who she's talking to and what she expects to get out of the conversation. When she first met Luther after her parents' deaths, she was playing the broken, pathetic victim almost perfectly; when he saw through her she dropped the act, almost gloating over the fact that they both knew she was the killer but he couldn't prove it (and later in their relationship, when she knew Luther had lost interest in pursuing her over a crime he couldn't prove she committed, she had no problem casually discussing their murder). At other times she plays seductress, at others the academic, and sometimes behaves like a malicious, gleeful little girl. At almost all times she's articulate, eloquent and never seriously attempts to conceal her intelligence; generally she's good-tempered and rarely outright abusive. The only exception is when she feels like she's being ignored; she responds with deeply felt anger when someone turns their back, doesn't let her get the last word in or responds to her highly dubious 'favours' with ingratitude. During these rages she can be very petty and sullen.
Alice will be coming to the Barge as a newcomer - a different instance of her character, rather than that same one with amnesia. After learning the ropes, she'll probably quite enjoy herself. Although she'll recognise early on that fostering a vulnerable persona won't fly with anyone - after all, she can't disguise that she's an Inmate for long (although she may use that window of opportunity, especially if she uncovers another Alice's former presence), and everyone will know there has to be a reason for her being there. However, she may create a number of reasons behind her current personality, presenting herself as damaged by others and needing protection from harm rather than simply being a malign person in her own right.
Path to Redemption:
Within her canon timeline, Alice had become a little more human; she saw herself as being capable of experiencing love, which was new, although what she did out of her 'love' for Luther was pretty batshit by most people's standards. She isn't a psychopath, but the emotions she's feeling and the emotions she's expressing can be completely at odds.
Ideally, she will need a Warden who can keep up with her intellectually without being closed off emotionally. Treating her need for attention as you'd treat a child's - by ignoring bad behaviour and rewarding good - just won't work; she'll just keep acting out with increasing violence until she gets her validation somewhere. Any decent Warden will be able to curb most of her more malicious tendencies just by being active and attentive.
Her decision to kill her parents as a means of grabbing attention was probably influenced by her resentment over how quickly her fame as a genius burnt out; to graduate, she will need to start perceiving her intellect as something positive, not just as a tool to mess with other people and satisfy her ego. Her narcissism is not something that is ever going to go away but it can be fed with positive accomplishments in her field of expertise.
History:
A celebrated child prodigy, Alice attended Oxford University at the age of 13 and left aged 18 with a PhD, her thesis studying the distribution of dark matter in disc galaxies. It was likely the media attention, high expectations, and sense of superiority placed upon her during her formative years that seeded her poisonous narcissism as an adult. She also came to resent her parents, who had basked in the light of her genius without having any real understanding of their daughter or her work. When she vanished from the limelight, working as a research fellow in London, she turned to more malign ways of satisfying her need for attention: she shot both her parents and their dog, and - by using a polymer-frame gun, hidden in the dog's body, knowing it would be incinerated - destroyed any forensic evidence that would link her to the crime.
DCI John Luther, the lead detective on the case, saw through her 'mourning daughter' act - much to her delight - but couldn't prove that she was the killer. Seeing him as a worthy adversary, perhaps even a kindred spirit, Alice started doing 'favours' for Luther - she threatened his estranged wife, Zoe, and had Zoe's lover Mark badly beaten as part of a convoluted (yet ultimately successful) plan to get Zoe and Luther back together. At the same time (although he denied that they were friends), Luther used her as a sounding board on ongoing cases, knowing that she had the mind of a killer.
Although he claimed to hate her meddling, eventually Luther used Alice's preoccupation to protect himself. Henry Madsen, a paedophile he had tried to kill, had awoken from his coma and was sure to give up Luther; Luther told Alice that while the Madsen investigation was hanging over his head, he'd be under surveillance and couldn't see her any more. Predictably enough, Alice responded by setting Madsen's hospital on fire to create a distraction while she swanned into his room and suffocated him. It's overwhelmingly likely that she knew she was being manipulated but just didn't care. After all, it worked to her advantage.
Eventually, when Luther's was framed for Zoe's murder - by a colleague and close friend, Ian - he went to Alice for help getting his revenge, and she agreed with great enthusiasm. Eventually they and Mark tricked Ian into a showdown at a deserted railway station; Luther extracted a confession and refused to kill him, wanting him to serve hard time for what he'd done. Alice picked up the slack with remarkable cheerfulness and (having placed the decision into Mark's hands) killed Ian with his own shotgun.
Shortly afterwards, the station was stormed by armed police; Alice was taken into custody, confessed to the murder of Ian Reed and later imprisoned. One of her multiple suicide attempts would be her ticket to the Barge.
Sample Journal Entry:
[From here.]
I never understood the appeal of summer camps. To children, anyway; the appeal to parents is clear enough. I was always under the impression that summer holidays were the one time to avoid being herded around an enclosure by grown-ups with no interest in your wellbeing.
Then again, I don't suppose I was ever a member of that demographic.
[She pauses, then gives a little shrug.]
At least no-one died. And I don't remember tripping over any bodies yesterday, so...that's at least five days. That must be a record in the time I've been here.
[She smiles brightly.] Speaking of which. Call it an academic curiosity - how does it get decided, whose deaths get investigated and whose get ignored? From what I can put together, the former group seems like a much, much more exclusive gang than the latter. At the moment, I can just assume it's a perk. Inmates have to earn their justice, or take it into their own hands, or just....accept that their existence here is meaningless. It's no wonder so many people graduate.
Sample RP:
The port was nice enough. It wasn't home, there were some things about it that were just a little bit off - but it served. And it was full of wonderful people - people who wouldn't know her face on sight, wouldn't recognise her voice, wouldn't give her up to her stick-in-the-mud Warden the moment she stepped out of line. A few months and already the Barge felt oppressively tiny, like a little rural village where everyone knew each other's business.
Here, the streets were lined with strangers. And one of them - standing very rigidly in the alleyway off the main drag - was about to be very helpful.
"Now. Let's not mess each other around, shall we? I'm sure you recognise your situation. You are....in a lot of trouble." She pressed her knife a little harder against his ribs to underline her point. "And you could scream, because it's very crowded out there, isn't it? So crowded....that every single one of them can pretend you're screaming for help from someone else. I could gut you, like a fish, and none of them would come after me, and none of them would lose any sleep. Do you understand?"
He nodded once.
"Good. Good." Her voice took on a light, asking-a-friend-for-a-favour tone. "I want you to find someone for me. And what I say next, I want you to repeat to her word for word. It'll be very, very easy. You'll do exactly what I say, and you'll be fine."
She paused, cocked her head, then smiled impishly.
"Or you won't, and...you won't."