Paradisa app
Jul. 13th, 2011 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fumidusFANDOM: Lost
CANON: Season 4 "There's No Place Like Home"
WHAT THEY LOST: The man in black will no longer be able to "scan" the minds of people and find out about their pasts and who they are. The loss of this ability also leads to the loss of another ability, the ability to morph into someone that has already died in another character's past. The man in black used these two abilities to manipulate everyone on the island by transforming into people they knew- but without it, he can't do this and will have to find out about people's pasts by actually talking to them. Plus, he won't be able to manipulate people as easily without it.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER:
The Man in Black's history starts with his mother, Claudia, who washed up on the shore of the island when the ship she was on crashed. She was heavily pregnant at the time, and was found by another woman who was already living on the island. However, when she finally gave birth, the woman killed her and took her twin sons in as her own. The boys grew up on the island, not realizing that the woman who they called "mother" wasn't really their mother at all. When the twins spotted visitors on the island and questioned "mother" about them, she told the boys that they were "special" and different from those who visited the island. She believed that the humans were inherently corrupt, and that the boys should stay away from them for their own good.
Later, she went and showed them both a cave, filled with beautiful golden light. This was the "heart of the island", and the woman said that it must be protected at all costs, or the light would go out everywhere all over the world. They were never to enter the cave of light, or there would be horrible consequences. One day, one of the boys saw the apparition of a woman he had never seen before- it was the ghost of his mother, who told him the truth about her murder. She also informed him that his true home lay across the sea; he had not come from this island. When the boy went and told his brother, Jacob, about what he had seen, Jacob didn't believe him, thinking he was making up lies. The boy became angry, and taking a torch and a few supplies, left his "mother" and brother, set on living with the people who were visitors on the island.
Thirty years passed, and the boy grew up into the man in black. He came to believe the same thing about the people he was living with like his mother- he realized how greedy and intent on corruption they were. However, he stuck with them because they had discovered a strange energy in a well which they had dug. The man in black met with his brother and told him of this strange power, and told him that it could let him leave the island. He offered the same to Jacob, but he refused and told his "mother" about it. Angry, the "mother" destroyed the man in black's village and the well which he had discovered with the others. The man in black, grieving over the loss of his chance to leave the island, took his knife and killed his "mother". Jacob was furious. He beat up the man in black and tossed him in the cave of light. Suddenly, the unforeseeable happened- the man in black's consciousness escaped as a cloud of black smoke, resulting in the birth of what was known to the survivors as "the smoke monster".
The man in black is ruthless. Having been turned into a monster because of his brother and finding that leaving the island was near impossible for him, he set on finding a way to kill Jacob and be freed from his torment. His determination to escape the place can't be wavered, and if he has to kill tons of people and use them to make him succeed in his plans, so be it. Human beings are nothing but playthings which he can use in his game against Jacob, and he believes without a doubt that they are only good for ruining and destroying everything around them. The man in black is a cold creature without a real definition of morals- he could spare one person and kill the next, depending on who he thinks would be more useful for him. Even in conversation he seems a little detached- he can't waste true emotion on the people around him. But if worst comes to worst, his temper will come out, and who knows what might happen to the poor guy who has wronged him. All in all, he is quite the force to reckon with, and even the most manipulative person would find it hard to go against his plans.
If you allow him to speak, he already has you.
If you had to compare the Man in Black's personality to any one thing, you could compare it to an iceburg. At first glance, he seems like he couldn't pose any danger. He will approach people, promising to help them if they could just do a little favor for him in return. He will smile even though his eyes won't. He will even shake your hand and call you his "friend". But brimming underneath the surface is a very different image, one that is deadly and full of ways to use people for his own advantages. But the Man in Black is not the type of man who has his emotions on his sleeve. He could go up and tell you that he wants to kill you in the same tone of voice that he uses to ask the time of day. His human face reveals nothing- in fact, the rage and ruthlessness he shows in his monster form is truer to what he really thinks of the people around him. And although the Man in Black knows he could throw around people as if they were nothing but dolls, he understands just how words could be used as a much more deadly weapon. Throughout the series, he turns the people stranded on the island against one another by simply pushing them with his influence. But the Man in Black is not the type of villain who sits on his throne and watches his plans unfold while laughing evilly- he plays all the roles he can, becoming the friend, the enemy, the uneasy ally, the lover, the memory of a past best not remembered.
All in all, he wants to be in control. Even the fact that he doesn't have a real name seems to suggest further that he can’t and won’t answer to anybody. He has to be the chessmaster of the game he is playing if he wants things to turn out the way he wants them to. Even Ben Linus, a master manipulator in the series, realized that when he was summoning the smoke monster against his enemies, it was really the monster who was summoning him. Ironically enough, all this violence and death that the Man in Black has created as the monster all stems from a very simple wish: he wants to go home. Being trapped in the place he hated for so long has driven him to extreme means. If he has to kill everyone around him to make this wish come true, so be it. While he showed pity during the first murder he ever committed against his fake mother, he has grown into a cold being that could really not care less about whom he chooses to kill and who he chooses to spare. All that matters to him is that they play their roles in his plan to escape. Even if one of his players backs out, he will patiently wait and give them the chance for them to change their minds, like he does with Richard Alpert in "Ab Aeterno".
Before the incident, the Man in Black had a very clear view on what was right and wrong, and even showed visible grief when he killed his mother. Afterwards, he became as cold and unforgiving as his monster form suggested. But, on very rare occasions, he does show slips of his humanity- but they are quickly covered up with his usual cold stare. The man that he was before might still be there, inside, but two thousand years of being trapped within the cage that was the island has changed him for the worst.
Being "special" as he is, the Man in Black has many abilities which he has used over the course of the series. Most of these powers can only be used when he is in his other form, which appears like a elongated cloud of black smoke. In both his true form and his smoke form he is invulnerable to weapons like guns and knives, though large explosions have been shown to deter him. In his smoke form, he is incredibly powerful, able to tear up trees and throw people around as if they weighed nothing. Even though he is technically intangible, he can grasp people with tendrils of smoke and is able to expand himself into massive cloud or shrink down to a thinner and longer size. He can easily surround people and disorient them with his darkness and occasional flashes of light that are produced within himself. However, with these powers comes weaknesses. He cannot pass through sonar waves and can't cross a line made with ash. Also, he can't cross large bodies of water and can't fly very high in the air- he couldn't get over a twelve-foot impenetrable fence, for example. Other than his supernatural abilities, the man in black is extremely manipulative and can lie easily with a straight face. After all, he's had over 2000 years to perfect the art of manipulating human beings.
THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:
He swept through the undergrowth of the jungle, pushing aside trees and other numerous plants as he made his way to the beach. There were advantages in being in this form- one, he didn’t have to worry about anyone bothering him as he went on his way. In the local community, he was feared. Even though they considered him the “guardian” of the island, just one look at him would bring a grown man to his knees to beg for his life.
And yet, Jacob was considered the kind one, the one who was brilliant and powerful and full of light. What a joke. Jacob was just as much of a monster as he was. If a man died as a result of the smoke monster’s judgment, Jacob wouldn’t even blink an eye at it, let alone show remorse. And yet he was the one who brought the people to the island just so he could prove his brother wrong about the fact that humans weren’t inherently corrupt. In the end, all of his plans would result in death and destruction, and Jacob would try again, and the whole cycle would start over. It had been going that way for over two thousand years.
And for those two thousand years, he had been trying to find a way out of the island without breaking Jacob’s rules. If he could find that loophole, he could leave this sorry island for good. But finding that loophole had to start with getting rid of Jacob, and that was easier said than done. Thanks to “mother”, he couldn’t even lay a finger on Jacob. It was impossible. And so, he had to content himself with the thought that one day he would find a way around that. If he couldn’t kill Jacob himself, he would find someone who would do it for him.
He was already near the beach. In the blink of an eye, he turned into his former self and strode up to Jacob, who was sitting languidly on a stump. After finding a seat on a log next to him, he stared out at the crisp horizon of the ocean. If only he could just build a raft and set sail on those waves, away from the island he had come to hate.
“Morning,” said Jacob, and the man in black turned, giving him a half-smile. What thoughts would run in Jacob’s head as he looked out over the sea? That there were people out there that he could bring here and ruin further to prove an argument that had been going on ever since they were born? That the sea was only one in a number of things that bound the man in black to the island, like a bird within a cage? Jacob’s eyes were unreadable, and the only telling thing in his expression was the remnant of a smirk on his emotionless face.
"Morning." The man in black shrugged and cast his gaze back on the never-ending sea. One day he would find a way to escape this prison. One day.
FIRST-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:A prison by any other name, huh?
[There's an amused huff. So, he had thought he had gotten out of that place. This area was absolutely new to him, after all, but after a while he realized the truth. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. What was he expecting, freedom?]
You know, the name you people have given this place is quite ironic. I've already had enough of paradise back where I come from...and it seems that not much is different here.
[A pause.] Of course, this brings up a question. Who runs the place? I know that people like you always have some sort of leader. Who's the man in charge? If possible, I want to speak to him.
[And the tone of his voice suddenly becomes cold, as if just the very mention of it brings back memories he doesn't want remembered.]
...I want to know if his name is Jacob.
INTENT: I've never seen anybody play this character in a RPG before, and I want to see how he would work out in Paradisa. I've always thought that Paradisa was perfect for Lost characters, who have experienced this sort of things before, and I want to see how a nameless character like the man in black would fit in with the world.
