Ten Forward App
25/12/2014 13:00![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magnetic_magpieYour name or online alias: Komix
Your email: komikbookgeek@gmail.com
Another preferred means of contact: komikbookgeek
Character's Full Name: Magneto | Max Eisenhardt
Character's Canon: Marvel Comics 616
Character's Journal Name: magnetic_magpie
What would you like your character's tag to be?: magneto
Answer the following questions in no less than 300 words but no greater than 1000 words put together...
Character's background (their past and present):
Fictional Character Biography via wikipedia.
Expanded early life history, focus on the historical events.
Character's personality:
If one were to ask Magneto to describe his personality, the answer given would be quite different than the answer one might come to through observation.
Which does not mean there are not places where Magneto would agree with any observational data presented, just that there are many places he wouldn't.
Magneto is, by nature, a loner. This was not a result of the War, but something he speaks to Xavier about, that even as a boy he wanted to be left alone, to explore nature, “As though the fierce unyielding emptiness without struck a resonant echo within my heart and soul.” There is something haunting about a man who can admit to such loneness, even as a child, and the weight of that has not diminished over time.
Magneto admits his happiest time was in the USSR with Magda and Anya, a self and home taught scholar working as a carpenter to support his family while dreaming of being an engineer. However quiet an existence this was, even still he was a man of action, actively tutoring himself in a Roma village where books and formal education are met with suspicion at best, while working a physically demanding, punishing job as a primarily a carpenter but also as a day laborer. This is not the action of a man who is able to sit around on his thumbs.
He is also devoted, even obsessively so, to his family and those he loves. He has told Cyclops there are none left that bear his name, and that he comes from a large family – given he himself changed his name post-War, it is not difficult to imagine others doing so. Then there were children smuggled away and adopted out – and yet, he knows he is the sole surviving member of his family. That takes an obsessive level of devotion. As does his searching Europe, mostly on foot, for Magda after she abandoned him. To quote himself, “I was willing to deny who I was, everything that my family died for, so that I could find one woman…” This speaks highly of the lengths he is willing to go, both for those he loves and what he devotes himself to. The people and causes that matter to him are placed above his own needs – and certainly, an IDENTITY is a fundamental need.
Magneto gives himself, often times, completely to his cause, be it discovering the fates of his family members, searching for his wife, hunting War Criminals, or working as an orderly in a hospital. These are selfless actions, and in them, he becomes so devoted that he loses sight of the bigger picture. He’ll become so devoted to a task he forgets his own needs, or believes to be to be less important, even when dealing in matters of sleep and food.
Through a Mirror, Darkly:
For a man with such extensive in field training of medicine and psychology, Magneto is frighteningly, cripplingly blind to his nature.
Magneto would tell you he is a realist and has a will to survive second to none. Nor would he deny having a healthy ego.
The fact that his ‘ego’ is sometimes twisted in megalomania, and that he has been blindly arrogant, is more related to the ravages of his powers than an ego out of check. He isn’t a braggart, nor is he falsely modest. For the most part, you are not going to injure him by striking at his ego, although those he has a strong attachment to certainly can. However due to being brought to adulthood in a world that did not tolerate weakness – indeed weakness would mean certain death – he may not allow the wounds to be seen. His own sense of self assuredness can leave him blind however, meaning that it takes an incredibly forceful metaphorical kick to the head to make him realize the error of his ways. Which is not to say he cannot grow and change – but it is slow and subtle, so much so that he often believes himself incapable of it. And this is perhaps what hamstrings him. One has to wonder if a man born bare the surname of ‘Eisenhardt’ was meant to embody is so completely.
Certainly, he has a strong will. It has been credited to be so strong as to give him equal footing against Xavier in a telepathic attack. It certainly takes a strength of will often unseen to survive what he has survived – life in the Ghettos, the murder of his family, being buried alive, Auschwitz-Birkenau, life as a Sonderkommando, the murder of a child, the lost of a beloved wife, the murder of a lover, trust betrayed again and again by those he should have been able to trust, and the genocide at Genosha, to name a few – and to continue to pick himself up, keep going, keep breathing, keeping believing that the world can be made to be a better place (and he does believe this, despite all).
But that is not the behavior of a ‘realist’. That is a behavior of a romantic – even an idealist. Magneto is certainly romantic in his relationships with women, and certainly seems to believe that relationships are long term. His grief over the loss of Magda, even over thirty years later, and his devotion to his lover Lee, even long after their relationship ended speaks to how completely committed he is to those he loves. He truly believes in the strength of his own will, his inclination to melodrama and grandiosity, his ability to carry a grudge and hatred years after the event, and his ability to carry love and loyalty to person years after others would have given up all point to a deeply romantic nature. Even his work – and what many forget for all his political scheming, Magneto is a genius and a devoted scientist. His devotion to his work – and the rage at losing it – it was caused him to nearly kill Kitty Pryde. He is a man ruled by his heart, his passions, with that great intellect put to work after the fact to explain it, and explain it so well that he believes himself.
Clinical Pathology:
Is Magneto a victim or a survivor in the psychological sense of resilience?
Despite the fact that Magneto has a strong will to survive, and strong survival instincts, he is not what psychologists would call a model of resilience. He has remained very much a victim of his experiences.
An external lotus of control:
How an abused child views fate and control.
An external lotus of control is a belief that one’s fate lays outside one’s hands. This is not uncommon in children who have been abused. They were so completely powerless, so helpless, and despite as adult intellectually knowing better, often believe the abuse they suffered was their own fault. Magneto wasn’t the “classic” example of an abused child – it was not his parents or a family member that abused him. No, Magneto was abused by his classmates, by strangers, by the police, occasionally teachers, by soldiers, and later by medical personal, camp guards, and other inmates. Even his uncle Erich’s intervention when the young man acted to avenge a murder of a Jewish boy by a Nazi in the Ghetto’s reinforced his on helplessness. Strike back against those that abuse you and your people, and you will simply be the cause of more of us being slaughtered. A necessary lesson, to be sure, but at the cost of teaching Magneto that others are in control of his fate, and that even acting in a justified manner only causes more death.
He grew to blame fate. And in doing so, he absolves himself of responsibility for his own choices. Fate is the fault of his broken children, not his own choices, the damage wrought by children having a terrorist for a father. He blames the past for shaping him while denying his own responsibility for making the choices that have cost so many lives, and lead to so much suffering. He reacts, he doesn’t act. This leaves him feeling as if he never in control of his life.
And, like most who believe the centralizing forces that control their lives are beyond their control, Magneto attempts control EVERYTHING around him. He’s built grand citadels and staffed them with robots, when he staffed them at all. He ‘commanded’ his Brotherhood with ruthlessness. In several instances with the women in his life, when they have attempted to leave him, he has physically stopped them – or in Magda’s case, attempted to. Even his twins, who he no doubt feels a very strong paternal responsibility for, and loves – but doesn’t trust – he attempts to ‘cultivate’ a relationship, built on loyalty rather than love, to bind them to him and control the situation. He was only beginning to learn the error of his ways when Pietro interfered and Wanda created the House of M world – and when Magneto found out how his son had manipulated him, he reacted in sheer blind rage – the result, had Wanda not intervened, would have been him beating his only son to death for accidentally tripping over one of the worse triggers Magneto has – ripping the control of his life away from him.
Survivor’s Guilt and PTSD:
Wanda and Pietro aren’t the only twins in Magneto’s life.
The fact that Magneto suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder seems to be only hidden from himself. The chronic insomnia; routine flashbacks and constant nightmares causing him to relive not only the Holocaust but the death of Anya and the loss of his wife; inability to form and maintain interpersonal relationships passed a superficial level – with the exception of Xavier, leaving him emotionally cut off; the irritability, aggression, and violence that colors his nature; the quickness of his mind to make connections between past negative events and current ones, as well as the permanence of them; and how they rule his thinking – these are all textbook of PTSD. The only difference between Magneto and the “classic” presentation is that rather than avoid the circumstances that caused the trauma, he seeks them out (and that isn't actually that uncommon when it comes to people with PTSD). He attends Holocaust memorials, has visited Auschwitz at least once, placed Avalon of the co-ordinates of Anya’s grave – what better marker for his beloved child than that! – and has visited the marker he set up for his beloved wife.
There are sub fields within PTSD and in Magneto’s case, he crushing load of Survivor’s Guilt. This only makes sense – twice now he has been one of the few survivors of Genocide. Twice now, he has been (or thought to have been) the single survivor of an event which was planned to murder his entire family. And in both acts of genocide, in both losses of family – he had the power to stop it. To save them all. If only he had known. If only he had been prepared.
Guilt & Self Hatred, Depression & Suicidal ideology:
And like Wanda, Survivor’s guilt has created its own set of twins, though there are two sets.
Guilt & Self Hatred:
There is no mistaking the guilt that comes with Survivor’s Guilt. The need to apologize for surviving when others died by making one’s life WORTH something – that is Magneto in a nutshell. But coming with guilt is self-hatred. And Magneto has it. In soul crushing amounts. Magneto didn’t just witness the massacre of his people – he HELPED. Had he been fed enough, he would have had have the power to save them. But instead, he helped in not only their murder, but in the desecration of the bodies. While he has mostly convinced himself that he has overcome the shame he once felt by convincing himself he did what he must to survive, he has not been able to do so any more than he has overcome the self hatred. Even his actions as Auschwitz – continuing his smuggling as he had in the Ghettos – which saved lives, doesn’t ease that, as it was born partly out of shame for how he was surviving. This is also something he has never spoken about to anyone, save Xavier (and Isabelle), and is probably the reason that friendship has remained throughout all – Xavier knows, to Magneto’s mind, the true extent of what horrible things Magneto has done, knows the true extent of what a horrid person he is – and yet, has remained his friend, despite them both acting against each other, although self-sabotaging behavior is normal with that level of self-hatred. He vents his rage, or blinds himself to betrayals he should have seen coming, or simply alienated those who would be his allies, causing his own failures.
Depression & Suicidal ideology:
Nor is his self hatred limited to subconscious acts. He may have an indomitable strength of will, but he has been suicidal on and off longer than he has known Xavier. “I should have died…” he has said. At another time, “Too late to do anything but die!” More recently, he quite calmly asked Xavier to kill him, choosing to die rather than witness the loss of another child - though this passed the canon point I'm bringing him in from. He simply stated he want to be at peace.
Hatred and Prejudice:
To which ‘-ism’s is Magneto guilty of?
There are a few ‘-ism’s Magneto could be accused of, sexism, ageism, racism/speciesism being the ones most often thrown around.
Two of the three can be answered in one example – he willing followed Storm’s orders, without there being an issue, while working with the X-Men. If he were discount someone solely based on age or sex, then there would not have been a frictionless working relationship between them. But there are countless dismissive comments towards females – exclaiming “Woman!” or – even worse – “Foolish Female!” on more than one occasion, and his fairly common “My dear” really isn’t much better. But is this sexism or merely the product of having been raised in the 1930’s? Again, refer to his relationship with women and you see it’s not born of sexism but of a different time. It is masculinity without machismos – he needn't flirt or seduce with every female he crosses, or doesn’t underestimate women in their opinions or training – in fact seems to enjoy working with strong women, rather than being threatened by them.
Now, to the bigger question, is Magneto racist? No. Speciesist yes. Without a doubt. Sort of. In general, Magneto is more than a bit of a misanthrope, and clearly guilty of speciesism but at the same time – his wife Magda, Isabelle, Lee Forester – these were all HUMAN women he did love. Two of them at least cared for him as well, despite knowing he was a mutant. He’s shown attending a Holocaust memorial, clearly on good terms with a couple there – he can get passed the attitude and the prejudice, when he stops seeing someone as ‘human’ and sees them as a person, an individual. His hatred isn't born out of dislike, it's born out of fear of being harmed - something he's able to, with time, overcome.
Character's skills/abilities/powers:
Magneto is an Alpha level mutant whose primary powers lie in electromagnetic field manipulation. He can manipulate electromagnetic fields, be they natural or artificial. This makes his power practically limitless, the only stumbling blocks being Magneto's own perceptions of his power and his physical condition at the time (and his physical condition factors far far more heavily into his mastery of his powers than he ever lets on).
The main powers he relies on for defensive combat would be creating magnetic force fields, magnetic flight, and matter manipulation. His force field can be quickly expanded to protect large areas, or to include several people and is capable of withstanding some of the most extreme environments, from nuclear strikes, the vacuum of space, and multiple concurrent attacks. Magnetic flight is Magneto's main mode of long-term travel. He can accomplish flight in two ways, by either manipulating magnetic fields between himself and the Earth or by gliding along the naturally occurring magnetic lines of the Earth. While the latter is far quicker, it is also far more dangerous and technically difficult as Magneto does not possess speedster reflexes and enhanced senses in order to travel safety in this way he must use his force field to protect himself and must concentrate a great deal on where he is over the planet. When he is flying at any speed at all by any method, he must take precautions normally through the use of his armor and his force field to protect himself from friction and debris. As a result, typically when he is traveling at speeds greater than twenty miles an hour or while flying through debris filled area he has to use his force field. This is something he wouldn't really be able to do aboard a ship, because of space restrictions and because he'd be truly concerned with damaging something, but it is something he is still capable off.
During offensive combat Magneto uses pretty much whatever he can to win, or failing winning, survive and escape. Using his powers he can create bolts of magnetic force or lightening, electricity, influence and control other forms of energy or radiation, manipulate gravity, and bend or deflect the visible light spectrum around his body.
While he can use his powers to create magnetic fields around non-ferrous objects this is exponentially more difficult for him, requiring so much effort than while weakened he will not be able to do so.
In addition to combat related purposes, his powers make him capable of matter manipulation, of viewing (and to some level influencing and controlling) the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and organic iron manipulation. He understands the theory of using his powers to be a living MRI machine but has not yet perfected this ability yet.
Magneto has an almost subconscious link to the Earth's EM field. As a result, he forever knows what is happening to it, draws from it unconsciously, and uses it as a sort of permanent map - meaning he doesn't get lost - at the same time, the Earth's field grants him a sort of odd immortality. He will be extremely disoriented without the constant flow from the Earth and is likely to become weaker before he becomes stronger, though he'll even learn to use other sources of EM fields for this purpose.
In rare instances, his is able to channel vast amounts of magnetic energy to boost his strength, stamina, durability, reflexes, and speed to superhuman levels. There is a cost to him - and a high one - leaving him weakened and exhausted if not unconscious, causing debilitating migraine headaches and occasionally petite mal and grand mal seizures, and leaving him at a high risk of a brain hemorrhage. Luckily for him, he has the ability to regrow nuero-tissue though it takes a good deal of time.
He has also been shown as able to use Cerebra and on at least on occasion, enter the Astral Plane, leading to the idea that he has some telepathic ability though for all practical purposes it's so stunted and broken it might as well not be there.
Magneto suffers from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder but has chosen thus far not to receive treatment (or for the most part acknowledge it exists). Minor fluxes in energy around him, from lightening storms, power stations and sub stations, and other small surges can affect him, especially if he is caught off guard. Large fluxes, from solar flares, solar storms, near gamma ray bursts, and other surges of EM energy do affect him. In peak health, he can normally monitor for these fluxes and prepare himself for the overload. If he is ill or injured, he is less able to prepare himself and more adversely affected. These effects are the same ones his suffers from due to the nature of his powers, only amplified. In space, this is clearly much more of a concern for him and something he will have to take care to monitor.
His powers cause chronic migraine headaches, and occasional nose bleeds. He has a history of seizures, mostly petite mal seizures, and brain hemorrhages. Only a trusted few - Charles Xavier and Isabelle - have ever known the full extent of the physical toll his powers place on his body. He is paranoid and distrustful, and there forth not likely to seek medical intervention or help unless in dire need. In that vein, his powers are linked to his neurological health. An injury to his nervous system WILL affect his powers, with an injury to his central nervous system proving the most destructive.
One side effect of his powers is the creation of ozone. While ozone is detectable in high connections to normal people, to those with enhanced sense a lingering order of ozone is always be detected. Ozone in high concretions is toxic however Magneto's body has evolved in order to breathe it safely. While not a side effect to him, pure oxygen is high flammable, a concern he must weigh in combat situations. Ozone is pale blue gas, detectable with normal human senses at around 0.01 parts-per-million and smells like chlorine bleach - it would not be outside the realm of possibility for someone to think he's wearing a freshly washed white shirt most times. From .1 to 1ppm Ozone starts to become hazardous to people, causing headaches, blurry eyes/burning vision, and respiratory distress. Ozone will start to dissipate after about 30 minutes in normal atmospheric conditions but in even low level amounts can harm latex, plastics, and sensitive plant life.
Another side effect is the accumulation of static electricity on his person, meaning he has to constantly discharge it or risk damaging electronic equipment.
Also due to how his body has adapted to his powers, he has a higher need for iron and electrolytes than a normal person, and a slightly higher need for copper. Also, he has polycythermia which means that his blood contains more red blood cells than it should, which in a body not built for this would cause many health problems. Magneto's body however adapted to this as it did to the ozone production. There is an added benefit that if someone receives a transfusion of his blood, they get more of the red-blood cells than in a standard donation - like receiving a 'double count' pack of cells, or a pint of blood product with an additional pint's worth of red blood cells added, however this is only after his blood chemistry has been corrected, otherwise it's high PH levels and other non-baseline human factors would like prove lethal.
An added side note, while it may or may not be related to his powers, Magneto gets horribly seasick but has no other form of motion sickness.
Any special equipment your character is bringing along? This includes weaponry, magic items, etc. :
No, just his clothing - worn, heavy work boots, jeans, tee shirt, and sweater
Are you bringing your character to![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ten_fwd from another game? If you are, which game? : no
If you answered yes above, briefly summarize how they were changed by and what challenges they faced in the climate of their previous game(s) : n/a
Why do you want to play this character in Ten Forward, and what do you plan to do with them? :
I miss having Magneto in a game - he's the muse I've had the longest and he's the one I enjoy the most. It's very difficult for to find a game for him however, because as I mentioned above, he's a mass of largely unaddressed trauma. And while he will chafe and be extremely unnerved about being stuck somewhere, in a ship that isn't moving, the setting is both very different (a different universe, a space ship) and familiar enough (space, from the man who keeps claiming asteroids as bases) that he'll have something to do and won't feel (as) trapped as he would in a typical jamjar situation. There's also nothing overtly terrible or threatening about the Enterprise and while it might take him a while to believe it, he'll come to relax a little in time. Honestly, when I started reading the setting of the game, I couldn't believe it, because the setting is just perfect, literally everything I've been looking for in a game for him. Excited doesn't really cover it. Eventually, when they are moving, he'll be one of the ones wanting to explore (especially if something seems uninhabited, or wild - he loves those kinds of places and mourns the lack of them on Earth) but in the mean time, there's a great deal for him to explore (he'll be quite interested in the life support systems and anti-gravity, wanting to compare it to his own systems). Magneto's not a hero, to nod at a recent run, but he's not entirely a villain either. He'll be a bit lost, certainly, without his cause and his people and given I'm bringing him in during the Xorn arc, he's actually greatly weakened and still recovering from the massacre on Genosha, which will dampen how much trouble he'd otherwise get into (such as crawling out an airlock to look at the OUTSIDE of the Enterprise). I don't have any set plans with him as far as what to do with him, to be honest. That's part of the fun with him - pitching him at people and seeing who he takes to, who he doesn't, and giving him something that for him, will be almost entirely new. And new in a good way, really for him. The world Trek is set in isn't perfect, but it's much much better than what he's come to expect from the world. It's something he needs to see, because he doesn't really believe anymore that it can happen, even if he'd like it to.
Writing Sample #1: test drive meme
Writing Sample #2 (optional): Talking with Billy
Your email: komikbookgeek@gmail.com
Another preferred means of contact: komikbookgeek
Character's Full Name: Magneto | Max Eisenhardt
Character's Canon: Marvel Comics 616
Character's Journal Name: magnetic_magpie
What would you like your character's tag to be?: magneto
Answer the following questions in no less than 300 words but no greater than 1000 words put together...
Character's background (their past and present):
Fictional Character Biography via wikipedia.
Expanded early life history, focus on the historical events.
Character's personality:
If one were to ask Magneto to describe his personality, the answer given would be quite different than the answer one might come to through observation.
Which does not mean there are not places where Magneto would agree with any observational data presented, just that there are many places he wouldn't.
Magneto is, by nature, a loner. This was not a result of the War, but something he speaks to Xavier about, that even as a boy he wanted to be left alone, to explore nature, “As though the fierce unyielding emptiness without struck a resonant echo within my heart and soul.” There is something haunting about a man who can admit to such loneness, even as a child, and the weight of that has not diminished over time.
Magneto admits his happiest time was in the USSR with Magda and Anya, a self and home taught scholar working as a carpenter to support his family while dreaming of being an engineer. However quiet an existence this was, even still he was a man of action, actively tutoring himself in a Roma village where books and formal education are met with suspicion at best, while working a physically demanding, punishing job as a primarily a carpenter but also as a day laborer. This is not the action of a man who is able to sit around on his thumbs.
He is also devoted, even obsessively so, to his family and those he loves. He has told Cyclops there are none left that bear his name, and that he comes from a large family – given he himself changed his name post-War, it is not difficult to imagine others doing so. Then there were children smuggled away and adopted out – and yet, he knows he is the sole surviving member of his family. That takes an obsessive level of devotion. As does his searching Europe, mostly on foot, for Magda after she abandoned him. To quote himself, “I was willing to deny who I was, everything that my family died for, so that I could find one woman…” This speaks highly of the lengths he is willing to go, both for those he loves and what he devotes himself to. The people and causes that matter to him are placed above his own needs – and certainly, an IDENTITY is a fundamental need.
Magneto gives himself, often times, completely to his cause, be it discovering the fates of his family members, searching for his wife, hunting War Criminals, or working as an orderly in a hospital. These are selfless actions, and in them, he becomes so devoted that he loses sight of the bigger picture. He’ll become so devoted to a task he forgets his own needs, or believes to be to be less important, even when dealing in matters of sleep and food.
Through a Mirror, Darkly:
For a man with such extensive in field training of medicine and psychology, Magneto is frighteningly, cripplingly blind to his nature.
Magneto would tell you he is a realist and has a will to survive second to none. Nor would he deny having a healthy ego.
The fact that his ‘ego’ is sometimes twisted in megalomania, and that he has been blindly arrogant, is more related to the ravages of his powers than an ego out of check. He isn’t a braggart, nor is he falsely modest. For the most part, you are not going to injure him by striking at his ego, although those he has a strong attachment to certainly can. However due to being brought to adulthood in a world that did not tolerate weakness – indeed weakness would mean certain death – he may not allow the wounds to be seen. His own sense of self assuredness can leave him blind however, meaning that it takes an incredibly forceful metaphorical kick to the head to make him realize the error of his ways. Which is not to say he cannot grow and change – but it is slow and subtle, so much so that he often believes himself incapable of it. And this is perhaps what hamstrings him. One has to wonder if a man born bare the surname of ‘Eisenhardt’ was meant to embody is so completely.
Certainly, he has a strong will. It has been credited to be so strong as to give him equal footing against Xavier in a telepathic attack. It certainly takes a strength of will often unseen to survive what he has survived – life in the Ghettos, the murder of his family, being buried alive, Auschwitz-Birkenau, life as a Sonderkommando, the murder of a child, the lost of a beloved wife, the murder of a lover, trust betrayed again and again by those he should have been able to trust, and the genocide at Genosha, to name a few – and to continue to pick himself up, keep going, keep breathing, keeping believing that the world can be made to be a better place (and he does believe this, despite all).
But that is not the behavior of a ‘realist’. That is a behavior of a romantic – even an idealist. Magneto is certainly romantic in his relationships with women, and certainly seems to believe that relationships are long term. His grief over the loss of Magda, even over thirty years later, and his devotion to his lover Lee, even long after their relationship ended speaks to how completely committed he is to those he loves. He truly believes in the strength of his own will, his inclination to melodrama and grandiosity, his ability to carry a grudge and hatred years after the event, and his ability to carry love and loyalty to person years after others would have given up all point to a deeply romantic nature. Even his work – and what many forget for all his political scheming, Magneto is a genius and a devoted scientist. His devotion to his work – and the rage at losing it – it was caused him to nearly kill Kitty Pryde. He is a man ruled by his heart, his passions, with that great intellect put to work after the fact to explain it, and explain it so well that he believes himself.
Clinical Pathology:
Is Magneto a victim or a survivor in the psychological sense of resilience?
Despite the fact that Magneto has a strong will to survive, and strong survival instincts, he is not what psychologists would call a model of resilience. He has remained very much a victim of his experiences.
An external lotus of control:
How an abused child views fate and control.
An external lotus of control is a belief that one’s fate lays outside one’s hands. This is not uncommon in children who have been abused. They were so completely powerless, so helpless, and despite as adult intellectually knowing better, often believe the abuse they suffered was their own fault. Magneto wasn’t the “classic” example of an abused child – it was not his parents or a family member that abused him. No, Magneto was abused by his classmates, by strangers, by the police, occasionally teachers, by soldiers, and later by medical personal, camp guards, and other inmates. Even his uncle Erich’s intervention when the young man acted to avenge a murder of a Jewish boy by a Nazi in the Ghetto’s reinforced his on helplessness. Strike back against those that abuse you and your people, and you will simply be the cause of more of us being slaughtered. A necessary lesson, to be sure, but at the cost of teaching Magneto that others are in control of his fate, and that even acting in a justified manner only causes more death.
He grew to blame fate. And in doing so, he absolves himself of responsibility for his own choices. Fate is the fault of his broken children, not his own choices, the damage wrought by children having a terrorist for a father. He blames the past for shaping him while denying his own responsibility for making the choices that have cost so many lives, and lead to so much suffering. He reacts, he doesn’t act. This leaves him feeling as if he never in control of his life.
And, like most who believe the centralizing forces that control their lives are beyond their control, Magneto attempts control EVERYTHING around him. He’s built grand citadels and staffed them with robots, when he staffed them at all. He ‘commanded’ his Brotherhood with ruthlessness. In several instances with the women in his life, when they have attempted to leave him, he has physically stopped them – or in Magda’s case, attempted to. Even his twins, who he no doubt feels a very strong paternal responsibility for, and loves – but doesn’t trust – he attempts to ‘cultivate’ a relationship, built on loyalty rather than love, to bind them to him and control the situation. He was only beginning to learn the error of his ways when Pietro interfered and Wanda created the House of M world – and when Magneto found out how his son had manipulated him, he reacted in sheer blind rage – the result, had Wanda not intervened, would have been him beating his only son to death for accidentally tripping over one of the worse triggers Magneto has – ripping the control of his life away from him.
Survivor’s Guilt and PTSD:
Wanda and Pietro aren’t the only twins in Magneto’s life.
The fact that Magneto suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder seems to be only hidden from himself. The chronic insomnia; routine flashbacks and constant nightmares causing him to relive not only the Holocaust but the death of Anya and the loss of his wife; inability to form and maintain interpersonal relationships passed a superficial level – with the exception of Xavier, leaving him emotionally cut off; the irritability, aggression, and violence that colors his nature; the quickness of his mind to make connections between past negative events and current ones, as well as the permanence of them; and how they rule his thinking – these are all textbook of PTSD. The only difference between Magneto and the “classic” presentation is that rather than avoid the circumstances that caused the trauma, he seeks them out (and that isn't actually that uncommon when it comes to people with PTSD). He attends Holocaust memorials, has visited Auschwitz at least once, placed Avalon of the co-ordinates of Anya’s grave – what better marker for his beloved child than that! – and has visited the marker he set up for his beloved wife.
There are sub fields within PTSD and in Magneto’s case, he crushing load of Survivor’s Guilt. This only makes sense – twice now he has been one of the few survivors of Genocide. Twice now, he has been (or thought to have been) the single survivor of an event which was planned to murder his entire family. And in both acts of genocide, in both losses of family – he had the power to stop it. To save them all. If only he had known. If only he had been prepared.
Guilt & Self Hatred, Depression & Suicidal ideology:
And like Wanda, Survivor’s guilt has created its own set of twins, though there are two sets.
Guilt & Self Hatred:
There is no mistaking the guilt that comes with Survivor’s Guilt. The need to apologize for surviving when others died by making one’s life WORTH something – that is Magneto in a nutshell. But coming with guilt is self-hatred. And Magneto has it. In soul crushing amounts. Magneto didn’t just witness the massacre of his people – he HELPED. Had he been fed enough, he would have had have the power to save them. But instead, he helped in not only their murder, but in the desecration of the bodies. While he has mostly convinced himself that he has overcome the shame he once felt by convincing himself he did what he must to survive, he has not been able to do so any more than he has overcome the self hatred. Even his actions as Auschwitz – continuing his smuggling as he had in the Ghettos – which saved lives, doesn’t ease that, as it was born partly out of shame for how he was surviving. This is also something he has never spoken about to anyone, save Xavier (and Isabelle), and is probably the reason that friendship has remained throughout all – Xavier knows, to Magneto’s mind, the true extent of what horrible things Magneto has done, knows the true extent of what a horrid person he is – and yet, has remained his friend, despite them both acting against each other, although self-sabotaging behavior is normal with that level of self-hatred. He vents his rage, or blinds himself to betrayals he should have seen coming, or simply alienated those who would be his allies, causing his own failures.
Depression & Suicidal ideology:
Nor is his self hatred limited to subconscious acts. He may have an indomitable strength of will, but he has been suicidal on and off longer than he has known Xavier. “I should have died…” he has said. At another time, “Too late to do anything but die!” More recently, he quite calmly asked Xavier to kill him, choosing to die rather than witness the loss of another child - though this passed the canon point I'm bringing him in from. He simply stated he want to be at peace.
Hatred and Prejudice:
To which ‘-ism’s is Magneto guilty of?
There are a few ‘-ism’s Magneto could be accused of, sexism, ageism, racism/speciesism being the ones most often thrown around.
Two of the three can be answered in one example – he willing followed Storm’s orders, without there being an issue, while working with the X-Men. If he were discount someone solely based on age or sex, then there would not have been a frictionless working relationship between them. But there are countless dismissive comments towards females – exclaiming “Woman!” or – even worse – “Foolish Female!” on more than one occasion, and his fairly common “My dear” really isn’t much better. But is this sexism or merely the product of having been raised in the 1930’s? Again, refer to his relationship with women and you see it’s not born of sexism but of a different time. It is masculinity without machismos – he needn't flirt or seduce with every female he crosses, or doesn’t underestimate women in their opinions or training – in fact seems to enjoy working with strong women, rather than being threatened by them.
Now, to the bigger question, is Magneto racist? No. Speciesist yes. Without a doubt. Sort of. In general, Magneto is more than a bit of a misanthrope, and clearly guilty of speciesism but at the same time – his wife Magda, Isabelle, Lee Forester – these were all HUMAN women he did love. Two of them at least cared for him as well, despite knowing he was a mutant. He’s shown attending a Holocaust memorial, clearly on good terms with a couple there – he can get passed the attitude and the prejudice, when he stops seeing someone as ‘human’ and sees them as a person, an individual. His hatred isn't born out of dislike, it's born out of fear of being harmed - something he's able to, with time, overcome.
Character's skills/abilities/powers:
Magneto is an Alpha level mutant whose primary powers lie in electromagnetic field manipulation. He can manipulate electromagnetic fields, be they natural or artificial. This makes his power practically limitless, the only stumbling blocks being Magneto's own perceptions of his power and his physical condition at the time (and his physical condition factors far far more heavily into his mastery of his powers than he ever lets on).
The main powers he relies on for defensive combat would be creating magnetic force fields, magnetic flight, and matter manipulation. His force field can be quickly expanded to protect large areas, or to include several people and is capable of withstanding some of the most extreme environments, from nuclear strikes, the vacuum of space, and multiple concurrent attacks. Magnetic flight is Magneto's main mode of long-term travel. He can accomplish flight in two ways, by either manipulating magnetic fields between himself and the Earth or by gliding along the naturally occurring magnetic lines of the Earth. While the latter is far quicker, it is also far more dangerous and technically difficult as Magneto does not possess speedster reflexes and enhanced senses in order to travel safety in this way he must use his force field to protect himself and must concentrate a great deal on where he is over the planet. When he is flying at any speed at all by any method, he must take precautions normally through the use of his armor and his force field to protect himself from friction and debris. As a result, typically when he is traveling at speeds greater than twenty miles an hour or while flying through debris filled area he has to use his force field. This is something he wouldn't really be able to do aboard a ship, because of space restrictions and because he'd be truly concerned with damaging something, but it is something he is still capable off.
During offensive combat Magneto uses pretty much whatever he can to win, or failing winning, survive and escape. Using his powers he can create bolts of magnetic force or lightening, electricity, influence and control other forms of energy or radiation, manipulate gravity, and bend or deflect the visible light spectrum around his body.
While he can use his powers to create magnetic fields around non-ferrous objects this is exponentially more difficult for him, requiring so much effort than while weakened he will not be able to do so.
In addition to combat related purposes, his powers make him capable of matter manipulation, of viewing (and to some level influencing and controlling) the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and organic iron manipulation. He understands the theory of using his powers to be a living MRI machine but has not yet perfected this ability yet.
Magneto has an almost subconscious link to the Earth's EM field. As a result, he forever knows what is happening to it, draws from it unconsciously, and uses it as a sort of permanent map - meaning he doesn't get lost - at the same time, the Earth's field grants him a sort of odd immortality. He will be extremely disoriented without the constant flow from the Earth and is likely to become weaker before he becomes stronger, though he'll even learn to use other sources of EM fields for this purpose.
In rare instances, his is able to channel vast amounts of magnetic energy to boost his strength, stamina, durability, reflexes, and speed to superhuman levels. There is a cost to him - and a high one - leaving him weakened and exhausted if not unconscious, causing debilitating migraine headaches and occasionally petite mal and grand mal seizures, and leaving him at a high risk of a brain hemorrhage. Luckily for him, he has the ability to regrow nuero-tissue though it takes a good deal of time.
He has also been shown as able to use Cerebra and on at least on occasion, enter the Astral Plane, leading to the idea that he has some telepathic ability though for all practical purposes it's so stunted and broken it might as well not be there.
Magneto suffers from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder but has chosen thus far not to receive treatment (or for the most part acknowledge it exists). Minor fluxes in energy around him, from lightening storms, power stations and sub stations, and other small surges can affect him, especially if he is caught off guard. Large fluxes, from solar flares, solar storms, near gamma ray bursts, and other surges of EM energy do affect him. In peak health, he can normally monitor for these fluxes and prepare himself for the overload. If he is ill or injured, he is less able to prepare himself and more adversely affected. These effects are the same ones his suffers from due to the nature of his powers, only amplified. In space, this is clearly much more of a concern for him and something he will have to take care to monitor.
His powers cause chronic migraine headaches, and occasional nose bleeds. He has a history of seizures, mostly petite mal seizures, and brain hemorrhages. Only a trusted few - Charles Xavier and Isabelle - have ever known the full extent of the physical toll his powers place on his body. He is paranoid and distrustful, and there forth not likely to seek medical intervention or help unless in dire need. In that vein, his powers are linked to his neurological health. An injury to his nervous system WILL affect his powers, with an injury to his central nervous system proving the most destructive.
One side effect of his powers is the creation of ozone. While ozone is detectable in high connections to normal people, to those with enhanced sense a lingering order of ozone is always be detected. Ozone in high concretions is toxic however Magneto's body has evolved in order to breathe it safely. While not a side effect to him, pure oxygen is high flammable, a concern he must weigh in combat situations. Ozone is pale blue gas, detectable with normal human senses at around 0.01 parts-per-million and smells like chlorine bleach - it would not be outside the realm of possibility for someone to think he's wearing a freshly washed white shirt most times. From .1 to 1ppm Ozone starts to become hazardous to people, causing headaches, blurry eyes/burning vision, and respiratory distress. Ozone will start to dissipate after about 30 minutes in normal atmospheric conditions but in even low level amounts can harm latex, plastics, and sensitive plant life.
Another side effect is the accumulation of static electricity on his person, meaning he has to constantly discharge it or risk damaging electronic equipment.
Also due to how his body has adapted to his powers, he has a higher need for iron and electrolytes than a normal person, and a slightly higher need for copper. Also, he has polycythermia which means that his blood contains more red blood cells than it should, which in a body not built for this would cause many health problems. Magneto's body however adapted to this as it did to the ozone production. There is an added benefit that if someone receives a transfusion of his blood, they get more of the red-blood cells than in a standard donation - like receiving a 'double count' pack of cells, or a pint of blood product with an additional pint's worth of red blood cells added, however this is only after his blood chemistry has been corrected, otherwise it's high PH levels and other non-baseline human factors would like prove lethal.
An added side note, while it may or may not be related to his powers, Magneto gets horribly seasick but has no other form of motion sickness.
Any special equipment your character is bringing along? This includes weaponry, magic items, etc. :
No, just his clothing - worn, heavy work boots, jeans, tee shirt, and sweater
Are you bringing your character to
ten_fwd from another game? If you are, which game? : noIf you answered yes above, briefly summarize how they were changed by and what challenges they faced in the climate of their previous game(s) : n/a
Why do you want to play this character in Ten Forward, and what do you plan to do with them? :
I miss having Magneto in a game - he's the muse I've had the longest and he's the one I enjoy the most. It's very difficult for to find a game for him however, because as I mentioned above, he's a mass of largely unaddressed trauma. And while he will chafe and be extremely unnerved about being stuck somewhere, in a ship that isn't moving, the setting is both very different (a different universe, a space ship) and familiar enough (space, from the man who keeps claiming asteroids as bases) that he'll have something to do and won't feel (as) trapped as he would in a typical jamjar situation. There's also nothing overtly terrible or threatening about the Enterprise and while it might take him a while to believe it, he'll come to relax a little in time. Honestly, when I started reading the setting of the game, I couldn't believe it, because the setting is just perfect, literally everything I've been looking for in a game for him. Excited doesn't really cover it. Eventually, when they are moving, he'll be one of the ones wanting to explore (especially if something seems uninhabited, or wild - he loves those kinds of places and mourns the lack of them on Earth) but in the mean time, there's a great deal for him to explore (he'll be quite interested in the life support systems and anti-gravity, wanting to compare it to his own systems). Magneto's not a hero, to nod at a recent run, but he's not entirely a villain either. He'll be a bit lost, certainly, without his cause and his people and given I'm bringing him in during the Xorn arc, he's actually greatly weakened and still recovering from the massacre on Genosha, which will dampen how much trouble he'd otherwise get into (such as crawling out an airlock to look at the OUTSIDE of the Enterprise). I don't have any set plans with him as far as what to do with him, to be honest. That's part of the fun with him - pitching him at people and seeing who he takes to, who he doesn't, and giving him something that for him, will be almost entirely new. And new in a good way, really for him. The world Trek is set in isn't perfect, but it's much much better than what he's come to expect from the world. It's something he needs to see, because he doesn't really believe anymore that it can happen, even if he'd like it to.
Writing Sample #1: test drive meme
Writing Sample #2 (optional): Talking with Billy