(no subject)

[metalwield]

Player Information ;
Your Nickname: Brig
OOC Journal: hane
Under 18? no
Email/IM: twopoinsettias@gmail.com
Characters Played at Singularity: O'Brien

Character Information ;
Name: Erik Lehnsherr | Magneto
Name of Canon: X-Men First Class
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: canon
Reference: http://marvel-movies.wikia.com/wiki/Eric_Lehnsherr
Canon Point: during the missile strike

Setting:
Okay so on an Earth very much like our own, you've got normal humans, and more or less normal history, up until the Atomic Age (1940s) when suddenly mutated humans with extraordinary powers begin appearing. Whether it's due to radiation or unexpected evolutionary miracle is anyone's guess, and at this point it hardly matters, because the rest of the world is still pretty oblivious to the existence of mutants. Many young mutants believe themselves to be the only one of their kind in the world, hiding their powers as best they can and trying to fit in with regular society.

Many mutants come into their powers as they hit puberty, although this is not a consistent standard and some are born with their abilities. Mutations range from the almost inconsequential, like primate-esque feet that can grip like hands, to telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, wings, the power to teleport, absorb energy, generate energy, etc etc. Some mutants look completely ordinary and some have drastically altered physical appearances, like the shapeshifter Mystique and the teleporter Azazel.

As might be imagined from this premise, the story of X-Men in general is the struggle of mutants (who of course become known to the public) to survive in a world full of humans being human, aka racist. Some mutants despise their otherness and desperately want to just fit in, some mutants believe that humans must be eradicated or subjugated in order to prevent the same from happening to them first, some believe that peaceful cohabitation is possible, some just want to be left alone, some are willing to be superheroes, etc. Humans share just as many differing views, from those that willingly aid mutants to those that fear them, or use them for good or ill, or want them identified to the government, to those that want them rounded up and executed. In what is essentially a civil rights movement/race war with a lot more explosions/aliens/alternate dimensions/threats to the ~entire Earth~, there are two key players standing on opposing sides. One is Charles Xavier aka Professor X, likely the most powerful telepath on the planet, who believes passionately that mutants and humans can learn to co-exist. He runs the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters, a private school intended to help mutants deal with their powers and give them a safe haven with other mutant peers. The school also functions as a base of operations for older mutants/graduated students, who have chosen to take Xavier's vision to heart and function as the X-Men, a trained team dedicated to doing good and saving the Earth and generally setting a positive mutant example.

On the other side is Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto, a Holocaust survivor who witnessed firsthand the cruelty of attempted genocide. With the weight of history on his side, Erik believes that humans will never accept mutants and that their only solution, indeed their only chance for survival, is to treat the conflict like a war. He embraces the idea that mutants are a higher order of creature than humans, and that it is both inevitable that mutants will inherit the Earth and that scared humans will fight tooth and nail to keep their privileged status. Erik believes in strength through violence and necessary sacrifice, and leads his own band of mutants, the Brotherhood. Erik and Charles work within the story as equal and opposing forces, understanding and even sympathizing with each others' goals but unable to condone each others' ideologies. Charles cannot accept Erik's violent "ends justify the means" behavior and Erik cannot accept Charles' passive faith in the hypothetical better nature of humans. Being the powerful figures they are with influence and wealth and resources (Charles comes from old money, Erik is supposedly financing his crusade with stolen Nazi gold), it would not be incorrect to say that the entire good mutant vs bad mutant conflict is an extended custody battle between them, especially in the beginning. Their "children" come into constant conflict, as Erik's Brotherhood of Mutants wreak havoc which the X-Men are obliged to halt, or sometimes they team up, or sometimes the X-Men end up getting blamed for whatever happened, because mutants are mutants and if a handful of them are terrorists, they must all be terrorists. It is also not uncommon for individual mutants to switch sides, finding shelter with one or the other and then realizing the opposing side is more relevant to their personal goals. Both Charles and Erik are diplomatically open to this, as neither believe in forcing anyone to stay where they feel they don't belong.

But of course this story wouldn't be complete without the background where, you guessed it, Charles and Erik used to be close friends working for the same goal of mutant rights before their personal philosophies drove them apart. Which is where First Class comes in.

As an origin story, this movie is set before mutants have become public knowledge, starting in the 1940s and ending in the 1960s. By the end of it the American government at least is well aware of the existence of mutants. Charles and Erik start out as children dealing with their powers and being shaped by their surroundings and personal traumas. Erik is a prisoner at Auschwitz and the pet project of a mad scientist, Klaus Schmidt, who tortures him in order to unlock his "gifts" and even goes so far as to murder Erik's mother in front of him. Seventeen years or so the war's end, a grown-up Erik has spent his life hunting down ex-Nazis, trying to find and take revenge against Schmidt, who is under the new name Sebastian Shaw. Erik falls in with fellow mutant Charles Xavier and the CIA when they find they are targeting the same psychopath from opposite angles. The two men become allies and good friends, with Charles imparting his vision of a future where mutants could come together as a community and still live peacefully with humans. As a victim of oppression himself, Erik is unsure about all this idealistic tolerance but goes along with it for a time, initially more focused on his goal of revenge than on a hypothetical race/civil rights movement. Eventually, though, his and Charles's personal philosophical differences drive a wedge between them, which culminates in betrayal at the scene of the final battle against Shaw (an AU version of the Cuban Missile Crisis) and the two of them adamantly choosing separate paths. By the end of the movie they have both started to become the recognizable and opposing Professor X and Magneto characters, and we see the beginnings of the X-Men team and also the opposing Brotherhood of Mutants.

Personality:

This kid is fucked up. :|

No, really. If there was a checklist for How To Grow Up To Become A Supervillain, Erik's life would be the basis for it. Prisoner at Auschwitz, mother murdered in front of him, tortured by a sadistic mad scientist, driven by revenge for the twenty or so years of his life... there's no way it could have ended well for him.

Erik is, by his own admission, a human weapon. Or mutant weapon, in this case. He believes religiously in his revenge because he has allowed himself nothing else in his life. No lasting friends or relationships, no thoughts of the future, nothing but Shaw's death. He is a hard, cynical, fucked up man who views the world in absolutes. There is his side, his enemies, and then everything else is collateral damage. He's spent most of his adult life cultivating himself as a spy/assassin, basically, playing roles and interrogating/torturing informants in order to hunt down ex-Nazis, and he has apparently spared no expense in training himself to dress the part, speak the part, and generally do whatever it takes to accomplish his goal. He speaks several languages and can blend in among the rich and cultured, can handle various weapons, probably knows how to navigate the underground of any given region for information and other resources, and is backed financially by a substantial stolen fortune. Erik is a one man army and knows it and likes it, although his tactics lean towards assassin rather than trained soldier. He is not a cruel man by nature but an eminently practical one, he doesn't shy away from torture or theft or physical harm to others if he deems it necessary. By necessity he is obsessed with power, having been taught through misery that only the powerful can affect the world and that those without power are doomed to be crushed under iron bootheels.

There are three major defining forces in Erik's life. One is Sebastian Shaw, aka Klaus Schmidt, the second is Charles Xavier, and the third is a Beach In Cuba.

Shaw is responsible for 90% of Erik's psychological issues. Imagine a child who can control metal. Imagine a child in the grip of an uncontrollable rage who can control metal, in a concentration camp, surrounded by soldiers and guns and knives and all the havoc-wreaking opportunities one could want. What a handful he must have been, right?

Wrong. According to the scrapped, original version of the Magneto origin story movie, the premise was for little Erik to be liberated from the camp. Liberated. As in, he was still there. Shaw had him for something approaching an entire year, if not longer, and Erik didn't escape, or slaughter everyone, or kill himself, because he didn't try. Despite the fact that Shaw murdered Erik's mother in front of him, despite the fact that Erik hated him for that, he was still young enough to fall into the abuse victim mentality, where he accepted Shaw as an authority figure responsible for him and even tried to please him by learning to develop his powers. In a sense, during that time Shaw was the one in actual control of Erik's abilities and Erik himself was just the empty vessel. Shaw's lines where he calls Erik "son" are not coincidental and Erik, despite himself, reciprocates the attachment helplessly. Shaw is his father, his maker, and an absolute in his life. When he envisioned his revenge he never actually saw himself killing Shaw, because he was never sure that he would be successful. If anything he saw himself taking Shaw with him when he died, and he never let himself consider a future beyond Shaw's death.

Anyway, issues. Shaw branded a lot of triggers into Erik. Medical triggers, experimentation triggers, authority figure triggers, trust issues, control issues, self-worth issues, even specific limits imposed on Erik's abilities caused by Shaw's emphasis on anger and pain. ALL THE ISSUES. Erik's obsession with power lies in the fact that some tiny part of him will always be that abused child, powerless to stop his tormentor. He spent his childhood in fear and now that he is an adult, his first instinctive reaction is to lash out against anything that reminds him of that fear, anything that might want to control him, and anything that might be capable of harming him. Governments, for example, and their untrustworthy secret service branches.

And then Erik met Charles Xavier, polar opposite, who ran roughshod over all of his issues and in some cases helped him get better and in some cases helped him get worse.

Being a telepath and a fellow mutant and a man in a particular position to basically give Erik anything he could ever want, Charles establishes himself as another elemental force in Erik's life, rather than a person. When Erik is pretty sure no random person would ever risk their life for his, because people don't really do that, Charles dives off the deck of a goddamn ship to save him from drowning himself. When Erik is cursing the fact that he's been taken into CIA custody and lost his best lead on Shaw, Charles offers him allies and resources and a more viable way to fight Shaw, and not because he wants something from Erik, just because he wants so very much to help and is in a position to make it happen. Charles goes out of his way to treat Erik like an already established friend, someone he's known for years and accepted wholeheartedly, which is just so damn bizarre that Erik finds himself going along with it out of sheer confusion. Whether Erik realizes it or not as it's happening, he is slowly socialized like an angry abused puppy into accepting that maybe one person, just one, isn't out to get him. Which, considering how Charles is tied to the CIA and is a soft idealistic civilian and is generally everything Erik's better judgment would reject, is a huge change for him.

This isn't to say that Erik trusts him entirely, because he doesn't. Charles might be an apparently honest and well-meaning dude who only wants to help, but he's still in a position of power over Erik, and that is never to be trusted. If Charles hadn't essentially blackmailed him into sticking around with the CIA and trying to get him involved with forming a mutant team, Erik would've been long gone. His instincts tell him that Charles is dangerous to him. Ironically enough, however, it is Charles's power and force of influence that attracts him. If Charles is equal and opposite to Erik himself, he also comes across as equal and opposite to Shaw, right down to his interest in Erik that Erik can't dissuade, and that is a powerful association.

That Erik starts to reciprocate the attachment isn't a surprise. It would be very hard to deny a telepath that is so earnestly confident in your better qualities, especially those you're secretly afraid you've lost. Erik is a little bit (and sometimes a lot) afraid of what Charles claims to know about him, as if he knew Erik better than Erik knows himself, and at times Erik would like nothing better than to dismiss Charles as a crazy, overly friendly loony who doesn't respect things like boundaries or social cues to leave him alone. But Erik can't dismiss him. Can't get away from his damned kindness, can't spurn his friendship, can't deny that Charles might be the only person on the planet capable of understanding and accepting him. And for all he's told himself that he doesn't care about that kind of crap, well, he does. One could even say he's been trained from childhood to be more susceptible to relationships that are forced on him, and more susceptible to falling in with someone else's opinions of himself.

Of course this is not nearly so unhealthy as Shaw's domineering control over him. Charles does honestly want to help Erik be happy again and grow past his trauma. And the longer Erik is in Charles's company the more he starts to see this other version of his future, where his life doesn't have to end as a Nazi hunter. He could become this important figure that Charles claims their species needs. He could help scared young mutants with their powers to make up for the way that no one had helped him. He could become more than what Shaw made him, and really take part in and become valuable to something important and life-changing and history making.

In a nutshell, Charles changes Erik's outlook on life. Despite their differing beliefs on how mutants and humans are going to/should interact, it is Charles who makes Erik see himself for the first time as part of a larger movement, and impresses on him his own potential value within it. He would not be just a grown up abuse victim with convenient violent powers, he could be a part of making sure that no mutant child would ever be victimized or isolated again. And Charles, with his money and his idealism and his blithe self-confidence, would be at his side helping to make it all possible. Or Erik would be at Charles's side, rather.

And, really, there are worse fates than to spend one's life building a community, even co-parenting a very irregular family of young mutant recruits, with someone who might as well have been created to complement and contrast every aspect of yourself. Manipulated into it or not, Erik might have been happy to live that life.

But then Cuba happens.

Now this is complicated, as there are several life-altering events that happen in the span of ten minutes. Before Cuba, Erik and Charles were still at the point where, even if they disagreed, they privately believed that the other would "do the right thing" in the heat of the moment. Erik believed Charles would recognize the danger in revealing themselves as mutants openly, and that Charles would accept that Erik had been right. Both of them still had faith that no matter what else happened, they would still choose each other.

Unfortunately, Erik is still determined to go after Shaw by himself, and Charles apparently doesn't have the foresight to stop him. Remember where I said 90% of Erik's psychological issues are Shaw's fault? Yeah. In the span of moments Shaw is able to undo all of the progress Charles had made in making Erik more stable, and Shaw drags the admission out of Erik that he is a weapon. Not a person, not a teacher, not a man with a future ahead of him, but a perfect, deadly weapon, existing in the service of someone's cause. Something meant to be used.

Having thus been reminded of his 'true nature,' Erik remorselessly shuts Charles out of his mind by putting on the telepathy blocking helmet, and effectively forces Charles to help him murder Shaw while the man is defenseless. As if Shaw's reminder that he is the son of a monster, created to be monstrous himself, is all that was necessary for him to overcome his own weakness and kill his father and fulfill his father's expectation.

Erik now operates under a new role, unbound by previous anxieties and no longer depending on someone else's guidance to tell him what he's capable of and what his purpose is. He sees himself as the pragmatic protector who would be necessary to step in and save the day when those pesky humans inevitably disappoint Charles's hopes for a diplomatic solution. For Erik, it is the first time he wholly and completely believes himself to be part of the mutant movement or whatever you want to call it, since let's face it, before this he wasn't going around calling the recruits brother and sister and giving much of a damn about them personally. But suddenly he's had this ~revelation~ about himself and his place in the grand scheme of things, and he wants to be the weapon for this cause. The iron fist, literally, that would make things happen for Charles instead of the other way around. Someone who didn't have to rely on diplomacy or waiting for the humans to concede if he chose not to. Erik would be the one calling the shots with Charles at his side, and together they would be powerful enough to create the future that mutants deserved.

But, inexplicably, Charles recoils from this change in him. Doesn't want him to murder hundreds of soldiers even though they opened fire on the beach and tried to kill every mutant there. Doesn't want him to lead their cause with violence and the threat of force. Charles seems to think there's something wrong, which is pretty fucking ungrateful, if you ask Erik. Charles even goes so far as to physically attack him to keep him from killing all those soldiers, which is stupid and Erik doesn't understand why he would do that.

The weight of rejection doesn't really sink in until Charles is gunshot and bleeding and completely helpless, and all he has to do is let Erik take care of things, take care of him, and Charles still says no. Rejects him utterly. Sides with the humans who are trying to kill them all, even after Erik and Co. saved their sorry lives from Shaw. Charles does not want him like this, Charles doesn't even know who he is, and all of that acceptance and understanding that had been the foundation of their friendship goes out the window. This is a huge betrayal to Erik, who is doing all of this for Charles, and it's the most unbelievable slap in the face and pretty much the messiest break up ever. Both of them are too angry and upset and irrational to make logical life-changing decisions right then and there but that's what Erik does anyway. Scorned and furious and hurting, he chooses to leave his former bff bleeding on the sand while Erik skips off with a bunch of criminals and also Charles's little sister.

One imagines he regrets such a snap decision for the rest of his life. But it's always easier to be angry and feel slighted than forgive, especially when you're so sure that you're right and the other guy just needs to wake up and realize it, and then everything will be fine.

All Charles has to do is admit that Erik was right, and then everything will be fine and forgiven and everyone will be where they belong.

Erik repeats this to himself every night when he's trying to sleep in that telepathy-blocking helmet, because he is clearly winning this break up.

Note: Now this particular Erik is going to be brought in before the Ultimate Rejection of Ultimate Destiny, so he doesn't know about Charles being shot and he's still safe in Assumptionland believing that, after some arguing, Charles is going to agree with him that all those damn humans need to be taught a lesson. In other words, he'll be brought in right as he's caught all the missiles and is considering turning them around but before he's made the decision etc. If he gets canon updated, then there'll be a lot more rage and butthurt, but I'd rather not have him trying to kill all humans the moment he sets foot on the station.

Abilities, Weaknesses, and Power Limitation Suggestions:
Movie!Magneto isn't quite as strong as the comic version, so we'll stick to what's been shown so far in the movies. He can manipulate magnetic fields aka manipulate metal objects, from guns to barbed wire to bedframes to freaking submarines. He does have to concentrate and there is a limit to how much "weight" he can throw around, for the purposes of Sing this'll be limited to something like generic super strength. He can rip open a hole in a metal wall or throw a car at someone but only so many times before it's going to exhaust him, and anything larger will probably require a certain telepath's support and will knock him out after. Or during.

Canonly his power is supposed to be limited by his physical condition, ie if he's drugged or been shot his powers will be that much weaker. As a further limitation, some kind of convenient glitch in his trip through the rift will have tampered with his abilities, so from time to time he'll randomly be without powers at all or only very weak ones. As he's still a young brash idiot, presumably his fine control is also not as good as it will later become, and Erik tends to use his abilities in very simple, direct ways, for example only affecting things that are in his direct line of sight. He doesn't seem much for multi-tasking, either, when he's not stopping dozens of missiles as part of a Plot Point.

Note: Pending mod permission, Erik can also unwittingly cause glitches in other mechanical or AI based characters that come close to him, as he is basically a walking magnet. Due to the fluctuations in his power, the glitching will probably be minor (no erasing AI chips entirely) and its extent will be at the discretion of the other player(s).

Inventory:

- STUPID BLUE AND YELLOW SPANDEX UNIFORM ARGH
- stupid Russian helmet
- that Nazi knife
- some epic butthurt

Appearance:




And with his stupid Russian helmet:




Age: early 30s.

OC/AU Justification ;
If AU, How is Your Version Different From Canon, and How Will That Come Across?
If OC, Did You Run Your Character Through a Mary-Sue Litmus Test?
And What Did You Score?

Samples ;
Log Sample:

The helmet was deceptively light in his hands. Not metal, despite its appearance, or at least not a metal that responded to his powers.

Charles was a panicked voice in his mind, pleading with him, begging him to stop and think and reconsider, please Erik please, but it was a voice behind a window of bulletproof glass. Distant. He felt curiously disconnected from everything, as if from the moment Shaw had laid hands on him (he remembered those hands, that clinical touch, how strange it was for the Doktor to touch him with affection, his palm warm and possessive as he cradled the nape of Erik's neck) he had called something up to the surface that had been buried under layers of old silt and denial. Something Erik had tried hard to forget by throwing himself on Charles's assertions that he could still change, could become more than what he was now.

What he was now was a necessity. He understood that. Charles didn't, but that was alright. One of them might as well keep their hands clean in the war that was about to start.

The helmet made his mind his own again. No more voices, no more concern over a certain telepath's will overriding his own, pushing him to make the decisions Charles felt were best for him. No more memories of surgical tables and white rooms, and a madman's promises of affection if he would just obey. If he would just push himself a little further and accept the pain as his due. He felt empty, for the first time. Not bowed by the weight of someone else's expectations or concerned by their opinions.

He felt sure.

The coin passed through his maker's skull like a knife through butter. Simple. Unimaginably easy. The corpse dropped, and Erik stared at the far wall for a full minute before he could bring himself to look down. The child in him cringed, expecting punishment, expecting that tolerant smile whenever he had inconvenienced the Doktor, but there was only a crumpled body on the floor that bore some resemblance to his maker. Just like any other body at his feet.

He wondered, abruptly, if Shaw had known what he was doing. He wondered if that had been the plan all along, to build him, to mold something indestructible, and let it loose on the world. Maybe Shaw had always known that the first thing his creation would do was turn on him. Maybe that had been the price he was willing to pay to create something out of fire and iron that would take up the stand against humans.

Who knew. But it was nevertheless comforting to think, if he had been Shaw's David to cut out of raw stone, that at least he would no longer have to endure the artist's expectations. Shaw would not get to see him succeed or fail.

He gave himself another moment, he's dead Shaw is dead it's over it's all over mother, and then went to see about keeping the children from killing each other senselessly.

The looks on their faces were not particularly trusting when he asked them to stop. The look on Charles's face was about what he had expected, and he let it roll over and past him. They were due for this argument, they'd been putting it off out of concern for other priorities and each other's feelings, but no longer. It was past hypotheticals, now. The guns on the great ships were turning, cycling up, and Charles was still looking at him like a stranger, and he accepted that one of them was going to have to save all their lives today.

Tell me I'm wrong.

Devastation, however subdued, was not a good look for Charles, and he thought he did not like to see it on his friend. After this, hopefully he would not have to. After this, everything was going to change.

The children flinched back. Even Shaw's men, he could feel their metal moving in anxious half-steps away from the barrage of missiles and bullets streaking across the sky. If he could have spared the concentration, he would have told them all that it was alright, that everything was going to be fine. He would handle this.

He reached, and it was nothing like turning the satellite. It felt effortless, as natural as breathing, and even with the conspicuous absence of Charles in his head he felt strong enough to stop a second barrage. A third. As many waves as the humans could muster.

And then without warning the world changed around him, twisted and contorted, and he was somewhere else. Pain and vertigo assaulted him and shook his grip on the missiles loose, but there were no missiles occupying his sense of the magnetic field, there was only open air and blurred movement and the impossible sense of more metal than he'd known in his life surrounding him. A gale roared in his ears and he understood, very briefly, that he was falling.

The helmet wasn't that much protection against impact, as it turned out.

Network Sample:

[ The video clicks on to a scowling man in a silly helmet, who may or may not have spent the better part of two hours trying to learn the functions on this wearable thing.

He stares for a long moment without speaking, perhaps trying to find the words, or perhaps just trying to get past the fact that he is going to address what looks like a miniature TV screen and expect to be heard by persons unknown on the other side. ]

If you're there, respond. You know who you are.

[ The feed clicks off. ]