SIREN'S PULL APPLICATION
PLAYER INFORMATION
Name: Anna.
Age: 18.
AIM SN: annarcotic
email: hehinition@gmail
Have you played in an LJ based game before? @capeandcowl
Currently Played Characters: n/a
Conditional: Official Reserve Link: Here.
CHARACTER INFORMATION
GENERAL
Canon Source: DC Comics
Canon Format: Comics
Character's Name: Hugo Strange
Character's Age: We'll say he's 45.
What form will your character's NV take?
A rather clunky flip phone that opens up into a two-pane touchscreen.
ABILITIES
Character's Canon Abilities:
Hugo Strange is quite human. As such, he has no metahuman, magical or supernatural abilities intrinsic to him. He is, however, at a peak physical shape for his build, trained in martial arts and is a skilled shooter. He's also a grand and devoted geneticist and one of the most supremely talented psychologists in his universe.
In fact, his talent at his psychological work is so outrageously great that he's able to full-on hypnotize people into doing his will, becoming insane, taking on different identities to serve him. This consistent ability is so awfully comic-booky that I'll be, in essence, converting it to his arrival power rather than trying to awkwardly try to implement it as a human thing. Although, if anybody expresses interests in having their character being mentally manipulated in a way separate to his power, I'll definitely consider it!
Conditional:
He'll be getting powers of hypnosis and mental manipulation! That is, the ability to force a person to take a certain action, with a few caveats to make sure it's not overpowered.
He'd require, at the very least, thirty seconds of uninterrupted eye contact and for the person to be able to hear him, and for the action to end within twenty-four hours. ("You will save this kitten from a tree" would work, but not "you will fall in love with that guy at the convenience store.") Bursts of willpower can break someone out of this trance (or prevent it from occurring in the first place) and individuals would, unless a decent reason was given, remember what happened and the actual act of the hypnosis.
Weapons:
A loaded semi-automatic pistol.
HISTORY/PERSONALITY/PLANS/ETC.
Character History:
Hugo Strange, not unlike the majority of his criminal peers, had a terrible life. An extremely clever but unceasingly aggressive child, Hugo was abandoned by his mother and father and was raised for the rest of his childhood in an orphanage in a particularly nasty part of Gotham. Teased and bullied mercilessly during his young life, his psyche suffered massively―but, through sheer mental strength and dedication, managed to get into his university and medical school. A Ph.D. in psychology in hand, he rose to claim his position as Head of Psychiatry at Gotham State University. Life was swell. With his captive and willing audience, though, Hugo couldn't help but share his rapidly evolving ideas with his colleagues and students: on genetic engineering, on evolutionary psychology. It was only a matter of time that the university suspended his tenure for that subjective fervor and they parted ways.
Hugo was hurt, and badly. But he was motivated and his bizarre ideas (which were honestly rather noble, if not a little bit selfish) on creating a way to genetically engineer people into a healthy and idealized form, so humanity would not be humiliated for not being born with a certain appearance or state of health like he did. He had plenty of resources at the beginning of his research, he had the mental capabilities and the interest. He bought himself a lab and set to work, deciding to do the most direct approach (comics!) approach of directly modifying the human genome and integrating it into human bodies. Surprise, he didn't really get any volunteers. Save for one desperate man, Sanjay, whose brother Rajan was suffering from a chronic and terrible illness that no doctor could cure. Hugo pledged that he would try to help him, and Sanjay became his faithful assistant and friend.
Without subjects other than Rajan, they had to resort to bribing orderlies at Arkham Asylum to selling them the most broken and forgotten of patients, mentally and physically beyond repair. Hugo's funds quickly dwindled and he, in desperation, had to borrow money from a loan shark by the name of Maroni. It didn't help that each of his subjects turned into powerful but brutish and cannibalistic creatures referred to Monster Men, either. In the whole research-spiraling-out-of-control-body-parts-found-in-the-sewer fiasco, his work attracted the attention of Batman, who was, at the time, merely a whispered myth around Gotham.
Here, at that moment, his obsession sprouted at bloomed: the man who was Batman was the perfect specimen in both intellect and strength, the goal that mankind, that he, should follow. Even when Sanjay and Rajan were killed and his research was ultimately turned to wreckage, the impulse to approach the media as the authoritative former Head of Psychology at G.S.U. to psychoanalyze this strange Batman was an irresistible one. The people of Gotham ate his new role up.
It's a pleasant surprise to him that when he's on a show with the mayor of Gotham and commissioner Jim Gordon (that one!) that a new Vigilante Task Force headed by the commissioner has been created and that he, with his splendid analysis of Batman, would be a consultant for it. In the search for who Batman is and, by that extent, his secret identity, Hugo goes terribly mad. Acknowleging that he cannot, due to his physical status, be him, he hypnotizes the Second-in-Command of the Task Force, a Sgt. Max Cort, to become a violent vigilante by the name of the Night Scourge. Eventually, Hugo gets way too close to Batman's tragedies, Hugo kidnaps the mayor's daughter, Hugo fucks up, Hugo gets riddled full of bullets by the police and Hugo falls into a river, presumed dead.
...And, of course, he doesn't die. He rises from the waters in his homemade Batman costume to murder an old patient of his, spreading his blood across the wall in the shape of a bat as a clear signal: I'm here. A plan, already fleshed out in his mind, is turned to action: Under a false name, he enters Arkham Asylum as a psychiatrist to work with Jonathan Crane and hypnotizes him, (~~the scarecrow~~ why am i writing this app this late) sneaking him out for fear gas shenanigans. To utterly nobody's surprise, his hypnotism awakens the Scarecrow in Crane's personality and he chases him into a trap, falling into a hole to the basement―impaling himself on a weathervane transplanted onto a roof. Hugo (jfc hugo oh my god) manages to survive, luring rats with his blood and feasting on them for days. When the basement is flooded out, he floats off the vane and escapes, again, into a river.
By now, his life becomes a blur of madness. He flees out of the country to hide in Zurich, Sweden, where he meets Dora, a young woman with an identity disorder, and trains her to be the twisted Catwoman to his convoluted identity as Batman. He stays with her for a while as the awfully accurate, as usual image of Bruce Wayne as Batman blooms red in his mind. It's only a matter of time before he comes back to Gotham to try to confront him in a vulnerable situation, posed as a corporate psychiatrist. All he gets from that particular adventure is the displeasure of learning about Nightwing and Robin and ambiguous feelings about Batman's identity. And he turns himself in to Arkham in a mad desperation to be free of his created identity as the bad Batman.
The halls of Arkham are a welcoming one to him; with his wits and his experience, it's all too easy for Hugo to wrap both inmates and staff around his finger. The, at the time, fresh director of the asylum Jeremiah Arkham was assigned to be his psychiatrist. It wasn't difficult to create an unwieldy alliance with the Joker to utterly wreck the man. Joker would introduce a drug-soaked marotte in his sessions with the man, Hugo would manipulate his subconscious from the weakened state. With the both of them, they spawned another Black Mask, a brutal villain and a brilliant leader. With outwardly good behavior, he's granted a little bit of freedom within the halls; of course, he escapes.
(additional history source.)
Point in Canon:
With a little bit of sanity restored, he aims for a simple goal of self-preservation using criminality. That is, realizing that Gotham's East End is only truly protected by Catwoman, he reaches out to grab it, recruiting a team of D-listers to assist his ventures. Realizing her potential, he offers Catwoman to join him. She, surprisingly, accepts―but it isn't long until Angle Man (yes, really!) gets a recording of her talking about all that "bringing them down, one-by-one" stuff that prompts them to murder her, leaving her corpse on some rooftop. But, due to comic book shenanigans she's alive! She kicks his ass, tells him to get out of her neighborhood, and he does. He ditches Gotham, fleeing outward to maybe Metropolis, maybe New York. (catwoman 49)
Character Personality:
Hugo Strange is, most aptly put, a ruined man.
Rather, he's a being who is now fully at the mercy at his own psychosis, bending one way and back whenever his crippling obsession with either certain individuals or his own ideals hits him, sporadically, like a brick.
When Hugo is not suffering from a fit of madness, he's outwardly like how most people imagine psychiatric professionals. Rather, he projects a cool and thoughtful demeanor, patient and undramatic. For those who are unfamiliar with his psychosis and his more cruel actions, he's a perfectly respectable individual that radiates a definite sense of authority and knowledge. He's the sort of individual someone would feel comfortable quoting from television, the one whose theories weigh something more than the average person.
And those people wouldn't be wrong in doing so. He's an extremely intelligent and capable individual who holds a wonder of knowledge in his respective fields, motivated enough to bring his own theories into action. His ability to psychoanalyze people and come up with their past tragedies and inner thoughts verges on uncanny with his accuracy. He knows how good he is at it and he thrives in it, enjoys getting under other people's skins. It's in this particular strength that his madness sprouts, in that he's always too over-invested in other people's minds, wishing oh-so-badly to get into their particular mindset.
Even stable, Hugo is still particularly ruthless and, at times, vicious and cruel. The world is separated very clearly into people that will assist him in his efforts (both willingly and unwillingly) and those who will impede them. The only true friendships, the only true trust he holds are with those who he deems are devoted to him or his ideals. All others are sacrificial pawns to the games he plays, everyone else is mentally (if not morally) expendable. And he has a particular talent to breaking an individual's sanity.
It doesn't take much to push Hugo into one of his "states"―an extreme disappointment, humiliation, even a revelation of some sort. When he falls, he falls hard becomes manic in all ways. He becomes excitable, short-tempered, prone to fits of extreme physical violence and lashing out in love, hate. Everything becomes that much clearer to him. Crazed, he's able to take more creative, greater, riskier leaps. His priorities shift, his demeanor becomes aggressive, outwardly manipulative, psychosexual and even needy in the worst possible way. He wants to take hold of people and never. Let. Go. It's so apparent to him what people are and what they suffer from; he craves to watch them drown in their own flaws.
In the end, Hugo is measured by his own feelings of inadequacy stemming from his childhood and following him for the rest of his life. It was never enough for him to simply know that he was the intellectual better of his peers and his colleagues. He needed to know that they had respected him, saw value in his thoughts and works. When he had realized that few would give him what he had deserved, he was content with fear and intimidation as being a fine substitute to what he truly needed. So, he thrives off of the negative emotions and pains of others in the mistaken notion that it will restore a sense of self, of equality to himself―of course, it never does.
Character Plans:
As Hugo will be brought in from one of his saner points, he'll be laying low (and pretending not to know any of the Gothamites!) with the identity of Karl Wolpe. No doubt he'd seek a position of genetic research with SERO in the hope of eventually getting his own lab and some funding. At that moment, he'll be putting priority back into his noble eugenics, rather than his usual games of manipulating his peers into obscurity. No doubt that would come in full force later, when his sanity inevitably crumples and he makes it known that, yes, the Port should rightfully fear him.
Appearance/PB:
uh, oblig awkward pre-crisis him, heh
WRITING SAMPLES
First Person Sample
[ The video opens up to Hugo puffing heartily on a cigar on a plush chair, the room he's in―fire lit in the corner, lighting warm in an opulent way―clearly set out to be theatrical. Leaning forward toward the propped NV, he blows a plume of smoke toward it. Grins. ]
Now, I've been coming up with a few thoughts on the creatures that arrive at nightfall. More specifically [ He leans back, taking another drag. ] what these fiends mean to our individual psyches, aside from the physical threat they impose.
Tell me, do you fear them for reasons relating to concepts of mortality? Do you fear them for the death that they hold and represent? The doubts they cast on the concepts of heaven, of hell?
Perhaps it's the loss of control that bothers us the most. Sentience is too oft taken for granted, not praised for the privilege it truly is. The loss of it is seen as a tragedy in nearly all, not a sweet sort of release it should be considered as.
But, no. [ A shrug. ] It's certainly more primal than that.
Tell me: How many of you had to sleep with a light on, as a child? How many of you could not fall asleep alone? I'm all ears.
Third Person Sample
It's not that the world is swimming underneath him as Hugo gains consciousness, but that he's swimming underneath the world. Deliriously, he turns to the side to take a deep breath and, with immediacy, chokes on the air that now appears to be water. Sputtering and coughing, he lifts himself upward from the―the puddle he now sees he was in, gaining his bearings. He shivers as the cold March rain now becomes apparent, now chills his bones. The light in the sky is muted by dark rain clouds, waning dangerously. There's not enough time. It must be at most an hour and a half before nightfall, there's not enough―
Focus. There are two, maybe three cracked ribs underneath his thin coat, and the memory hits. What a fool he was, dealing with those brutes! It's only a surprise to him that those unaffiliated thugs hadn't taken a kidney of his in their little supply dealing. Mugged him, left him for dead in... an alleyway, of course, but Sector 9? 10? No matter. He'd survive this night like any other, give a tip to the big two about a little private operation, simple. The worth of his vengeance is far greater than the paltry sum he had lost.
But for now, the feeling that he might die of cold rather than the Darkness is a troubling one.
Dragging his feet to the otherwise empty street save for a few rolling cars and a handful of figures huddling under the downpour, he takes his chances on knocking on the nearest door: a shabby, thin little dwelling, two stories high and pockmarked with dirt and scrabbled graffiti. It's to his luck that an elderly, tired-looking woman opens the door, eyebrows knotting together at the sight of him. No doubt he looks mad right now, blue from cold and bloodied from his attack.
Before she has a chance to speak, his arm snaps outward to hold the door open, leaning in toward her face. "Madam. My apologies for this," he speaks lowly, keeping contact with her stunned gaze. "But please, listen to the sound of my voice..."
Oh, yes. With a little bit of self-granted charity, he can survive anything this new world can throw at him.