avoideddrowning | [ooc] jarjammed application

PLAYER INFO:
Name: Frank (or Simone I guess!!!)
Preferred pronoun: dudenous, he/him/etc.
Preferred means of contact: Plurk: FiremanSam || AIM: BluePeterLadyboy || Email: simmichan@gmail.com
Any other characters currently in-game? Nope!

CHARACTER INFO
Name: Raiden (or Jack I guess Jack is also his name)
Gender: Male
Source: Metal Gear Solid
Canon point: After MGS2
Age: fuck knows. Somewhere in his mid-20s. AROUND 26??
Colour: #585858
Chumhandle: ..............nanoMachines

History: Like hell I'm going to try and summarise anything in MGS if I don't have to
Personality:

So how do you feel about personhood issues?

If you are fond of them, then boy have I got the guy for you!

Raiden changes fairly immensely over the course of the Big Shell mission. When it starts, he's as wide-eyed as an owl and bushy tailed as a... Bush... A tad naive and eager to please, he deferred quite readily to his C.O. without question.

This all started to change after he met Pliskin. The Colonel's constant refusal to factor him in to the mission and his instance that Raiden ignore him made our young protag suspicious. This, alongside being in the field with a more experienced soldier who knew a startling amount about what was really going on, made him finally start to question the Colonel and the true nature of the mission, finally beginning to develop the much needed skill of sniffing out bullshit. Sadly he never does become that great at it. He does, however, learn pretty quickly that being an authority figure doesn't make someone infallible. (I mean at this point really he's just switched his trust and desire to please from the Colonel to Snake, but he learns that Snake's not perfect and also a bit of a dick pretty soon after.)

The biggest changes probably come during his time in Arsenal Gear - being reminded of his childhood and having the truth about his mission and relationship with Rose shoved in his face. His ability to cope comes under severe attack, coming dangerously close to a full-scale BSOD. Raiden's natural instinct when faced with hurtful things is to lash out and blame other people, and when he's called on this-- when it's pointed to as a major factor as to why the Patriots chose him, it kind of makes a guy question his worth. Not to mention, the whole game suddenly tripping massive balls and his spectacular ability to blot out the past and ignore things that bother him throws his perception of his life into question. How much of anything was ever really real?

Ultimately, he comes out of it a little worse for wear, but wanting to try for a better future; thanks to some Deep Thoughts from Snake and the Power of Love from Rose.

But - oh I bet you thought I was finished - some things really aren't that simple. I know I'm taking him from shortly after MGS2, but it's probably important to take stock of the underlying issues that contribute towards him becoming Cyborg McNinjapants. Because the problems he has aren't things that you just get over with good intentions and a li'l bit of lovin'.

For starters, he has hecka issues with emotional intimacy. Probably initially as a consequence of having blocked out the first third or so of his life, and then later as a result of having those memories fired into his brainpan like a big ol' memory bullet. Ultimately, it seems to come from fear and self-revulsion. Even before he could remember, it was always there in the back of his head. Something wrong and dirty about him, a fear that he couldn't let anyone in because of what he'd done and what he was. Once he does remember, it really just makes it worse. Confirming his anxieties and making him more withdrawn than he'd been before.

That also ties massively into some abandonment issues he's got all twisted up in his guts. He has - in his own mind - always been alone. The kind of person who can be picked up and tossed aside as the situation demands. It's easier to keep people at arm's length, rather than deal with the eventual heartbreak when they're done. But he doesn't want to be alone either; just being a bit lonely of your own volition is better than being left to the wayside.

There's also the fact that he really hasn't ever learned to cope with his problems - therapy doesn't seem to exist in this franchise - and as such, his coping mechanisms are ultimately self-destructive. In the short term, it manifests as lashing out at the people around him, blaming them and questioning their intentions. In the long term, it's a lot worse. Drinking and fighting are the way he elects to manage his PTSD. When it comes to getting all cyborg'd up, he chooses to disassociate himself from himself as a person.

It's a common thread that keeps coming up in his life - the idea of himself as a weapon rather than as a person. Even though it's pushed to an extreme come MGS4, it's obviously a feeling that's always there. That he's not much more than just some soldier and a dirty mark on history. He wants desperately to be something more, something better - which is probably a large part of why he takes so much to Snake and why he's so fiercely loyal. Because Snake's a hero - but he never quite figures it out.

Also the most played song in his iTunes library is Fight the Power by Public Enemy.

(That last bit is probably a lie.)

Abilities & physical limitations:

As a member of fake!FOXHOUND and a former child soldier, he's pretty handy in a combat situation - coming fully equipped with a wide array of weapons knowledge and hand-to-hand training. He also has a seemingly natural talent for wielding a sword (well, depending on whose hand the controller's in...) which probably comes from Solidus favouring them as a weapon. Those and tentacles. But Raiden doesn't have tentacles.

Yet.

One could also assume that he has a fair number of the skills that the real FOXHOUND required of its recruits. Probably not to quite as high a degree - he's most definitely not on par with, oh I don't know. Solid Snake - but I guess if you ever need someone to do 80 sit-ups, you've found your guy.

Also nanomachines.

Appearance: thighs of a killer
Notable AU differences from canon, if applicable: N/A

Strife Specibus: Sword...kind... I am imaginative.
Prototyping: Just an ordinary cardboard box...
Title: Sage of Loss
In-game abilities: I can't think of anything 8( I'll work it out ingame!
Planet: The Land of Munitions and Memories. Which sounds great except mostly it is filled with empty photo albums and oversized representations of weapons and ammo that aren't of any use to anyone. Its consorts are surly, beige chameleons who wear eyepatches and quote things from action movies. The Denizen is Mnemosyne, who is an asshole wreaking a plague of forgetfulness across the land. It's at best really annoying, and at worst, deadly and occasionally explosive.

RP Sample:

Right. Okay. This was... weird. Extremely so.

Raiden pulled a face at the chameleon stuck on his shoe; he'd kicked by accident, and when he attempted to apologise it had screamed some sort of war cry at him at went back to acting like nothing was going on. Not that anything about this was especially normal, but that weirded him out a bit more than anything else so far.

He picked it up, wanting to ask if maybe it had some directions or something, but all he got for it was, "see you in hell, motherfucker," and a puff of cigar smoke in his face. How did it even smoke?

"Thanks for that," he sighed, putting the thing back down and watching as it scuttled off to go back to its monotonous routine of walking in and out of its suppressor-shaped home and grunting at another chameleon that was walking up and down the street every time it passed. "Useless sack of-- can any of you help me?"

"Why don't you go back where you came from and tell your daddy who sent ya?" Came another frustratingly gruff voice from behind him.

Now, Raiden's never been one for punching small animals, but damn if it wasn't tempting. "Great. Thanks. Tarantino write that one for you?" He thought it wasn't a bad comeback, the chameleon won the upper hand, however, by being completely unfazed by this witty retort and turned to go about its business. Whatever that was.

Well that was a good start. Upstaged by a bunch of reptile graduates from the Duke Nukem school of conversation. Next he'd get beaten up by a squirrel. That's where this day was headed.

He huffed, a mighty huff that communicated all sorts of malcontent, and headed off in an arbitrarily picked direction. Maybe he'd luck out and find someone who actually knew how to converse.