john [ PYRO ] allerdyce (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fuckrobertfrost) wrote2011-12-23 07:08 pm
fuckrobertfrost) wrote2011-12-23 07:08 pm
baedal app
Out of Character Information
Name: Jillian
Username: (if applicable)oneroi
Are you over the age of eighteen? y
Current characters in Baedal: Rodolphus Lestrange
In Character Information
Basics
Character Name: St. John Allerdyce
Username:fuckrobertfrost
Fandom: X-Men movies
Played By: Aaron Stanford
Canon Character Section
Physical Description: Though about 5'8" and baby-faced for his age, John is habitually scruffy to make up for his youthful appearance; as a result, his age is open to interpretation, anything from 15 to mid 20s, depending on whether he shaved that day (he is 18). He has short brown hair and brown eyes, an unathletic build, and usually dresses very casually — the kind of guy whose "wardrobe" consists of jeans and t-shirts and hoodies, and very little else.
Sexuality: There is very little canon to indicate John's sexual preferences. He identifies straight and is pretty committed to that, but he hasn't had many romantic relationships or much sexual experience at all. Because he's kind of a jerk and also he's a committed, um, terrorist.
History: In the X2 movie, John's decidedly minor role doesn't give us much information regarding his background. Much of it must be inferred from what's shown of his personality, which can be summed up as "asshole." Selective comics canon and created canon have been used to fill the gaps.
John was an only child and suffered (along with his mom, the one who named him "St. John", which generally Americans don't know is to be pronounced "sinjin") minor physical and verbal abuse from his father. They weren't particularly well to do, meaning he was the short, sullen, angry, poor kid who got picked on at school. He was smart, but the usual teacher comment appended to that was "if he applied himself," along with other notes about his attitude. His pyrokinesis manifested when he was twelve: during a (mostly verbal) fight with his dad, John exploded the cigarette the older man was holding, resulting in second degree burns on his hand and part of his arm. After the ensuing, highly problematic week, John ran away, managing to stay at large for about six months before being caught. The case had come to Charles Xavier's attention, and from then on he attended the Institute on a "scholarship." While initially supportive of Xavier's goals and respectful of the man himself, things started to change the night William Stryker's men invaded the mansion. Stryker's men captured several students, though John escaped with Bobby, Rogue, and Wolverine. The ensuing day, the police shot Wolverine in the head on the porch of Bobby's house. At first, John's retaliation was a reaction to Wolverine's apparent death, but he'd had very few opportunities to cut loose before this, and the exploding cars and singed policemen act started to get out of hand. Rogue then leeched his powers away and used them to put out the fires. After meeting and talking to Magneto, John ultimately decided to take his chances with the older man's more antagonistic policy against humans.
From this point onward, John is AU, because the third X-Men movie was really bad. Jean-Grey did not "die" while lifting the plane out of the oncoming flood; Bobby just repaired the dam because his powers are FUCKING ICE WHICH THEY WERE SURROUNDED BY... meanwhile, Magneto, Mystique, and Pyro skipped over to Russia and spent some time roaming Europe and recruiting. Of the more notable recruits were the Stepford Cuckoos, 5 telepathic sisters who are Emma Frost's "daughters" (Celeste, Esme, Irma/Mindee, Phoebe, and Sophie are actually Emma's clones) and who helped to shield the Brotherhood's whereabouts from Xavier and Jean Grey; Jamie Madrox, Multiple Man; Callisto, the leader of a gang of mutants, the Marauders; and Joanna Cargill, a member of the Marauders with superhuman strength and durability who isn't actually notable in any way except that she is friends with Pyro. Gambit was also involved with the Marauders, though he was never a member, and ultimately sided with the X-Men. (John's first person post and arrival post reference Sabretooth, Toad, and the Juggernaut as well, although Sabretooth is dead. He just made an impression on John.)
About a year after John's defection, a pharmaceutical company announced that it had developed an inoculation to suppress the X-gene that gives mutants their powers and makes them different from other humans, offering the "cure" to any mutant who wanted it. The Brotherhood naturally saw this as a threat, but more pressingly, they had picked up on rumors of a strange virus that debilitated mutants but left humans alone. In the background of all of this was the ongoing Mutant Registration Act. Things were... tense. While the Brotherhood carried on recruiting, they were also engaged in what can only be described as terrorism, destroying clinics, facilities, and factories involved with the production and distribution of the "cure." Though they warned the X-Men about the virus, they also fought them at every turn. They would sabotage government transport with mutant prisoners, and on one occasion, a vastly altered skirmish did take place in San Francisco to take Leech from the lab, but they were repelled by the X-Men, who then enrolled Leech in the Institute. So while no more "cure" is being produced (and the "cure" was only temporary anyway), the Brotherhood is still actively searching for the virus and destroying samples when they find it, quite often killing a lot of people in the process. It's during this period, when John has turned eighteen, that he is taken to Baedal. While he has clashed on several occasions with his former classmates, and been defeated by Bobby more than once (which pisses him off so bad :E!!!!!), there have been a lot fewer mutant deaths and most key figures are still alive.
Powers: "Pyrokinesis" actually means the ability to manipulate fire, which is what John has. He cannot generate his own flame and must use external sources. One version of his comic book counterpart has the ability to control other pyrokinetics' fire as well (he uses it to fuck around with Johnny Storm), and since this version of John is AU anyway, I'm going with that as well. His level of control allows him to work both extremely delicate maneuvers with fire as well as induce towering infernos, physically propel people with the force of his fire, and even explode flammable objects. If something is not primed for explosion, however, it is not going to magically explode just because he sets it on fire. The presence of at least an accelerant is necessary for Hollywood style explosions.
In keeping with his ability to control fire, he also has the ability to sense it, though he must be able to see or know where the fire is in order to control it. He can also to a limited extent sense the potential for fire, such as banked coals, or intense heat sources.
Talents/Abilities: He is a decent writer. He is okay with guns, though his aim could use work; he's up to date with most technology, though he's no hacker; he's a really good driver, but that's probably not gonna come up in BDL; he's scrappy and knows how to throw a punch but he is not a trained fighter. Jack of many trades, master of none. He would make a great member of the militia, if, you know, Magneto hadn't gotten to him first.
Personality: Angry and disaffected, John isn't without a sense of humor, though it's fairly black for someone his age. He's sort of an asshole, both in the typical way that teenage boys can sometimes be, and in his own special dickwad way. It stems from a few things — the way he grew up, he expects that people (especially adults) cannot be relied upon, and thus should be treated warily until they prove themselves. Secondly, he expects that other people too will have a certain amount of hostility, even (or especially) if they appear friendly. That covers the standoffish aspect. What drives the more obnoxious parts of his personality is the chip in his shoulder. He constantly has something to prove to people, that he's smarter than they think, that he's tougher than he looks. Though he'd be the first to call someone out on playing alpha games, he too almost blindly subscribes to them, responding to most other males with automatic hostility. It takes a persistent or very laidback attitude to reach him, like Bobby did (actually, it's mostly fanon that they're friends; when I watched the movie I personally didn't think they acted very friendly).
He doesn't back down, but at the same time, he chooses his battles. That's why he chose to be a dick to the two guys who wanted a light (in... a museum........). Because he could, and he'd win, which he did, even if they did step up the odds by swiping the zippo. During X2, he's more cautious, still constrained by conventional ideas of law and normal behavior. Prior to nearly exploding everybody on Bobby's lawn, he'd broken some laws — vandalized, stolen, broke into places — but after deciding to go with Magneto, he more or less shed conventional constraints in favor of doing whatever needed to be done to further Magneto's agenda. Hand in hand with this attitude is a sense of mutant (moral) superiority, which will take a backseat in Baedal, seeing as there is a sizeable population of non-humans and humans that can do extraordinary things. While he didn't exactly go psycho right off the bat, he has developed to the point where he can and will kill people without hesitating. He'll feel a bit bad about it, he understands there are farther reaching consequences than are immediately obvious, but... he mostly doesn't care.
Part of it is because of his loyalty to Magneto. It isn't actually that difficult to gain John's trust, though he puts up a tough guy front of being distant and hard-hearted. Magneto was basically the first person to come along and impress him during a time of important conflict, and he transferred his loyalty from Xavier to Magneto after only a brief period of reflection. There was then a few weeks of watchfulness, a trial period, but after that he was basically committed. While he does value critical thinking and often thinks poorly of others for following the status quo and listening to authorities, it is, in fact, easy for John to unironically do the same thing with Magneto. Because he trusts and admires Magneto, he doesn't really question him on important things -- even in the godawful third movie, when Magneto abandons the now human Mystique, all John does is give him an uncertain look. Because while John is fairly smart and hones himself to remain useful for Magneto, Magneto and the Brotherhood are the context in which he thinks -- they are not wrong, they are never wrong, and they are the most important thing in his life right now. THE CAUSE. And that's why he can kill people and explode things and remain fairly happy. If he had to examine his life and look at all the consequences of everything he's done, he wouldn't be so happy, though he probably wouldn't stop either.
There is a certain element of wannabe that will always and forever remain a part of him. He's not as tough as he wants to be, he's not as competent or as smart or as powerful as he wishes he were. At eighteen, he's learned quite a lot and is a pretty handy guy to have around, but he's still something of a junior officer in comparison to say, Mystique. Technically, in the third movie, mutants are given power ratings of one through five, and Magneto is said to be a five, the most powerful, while Pyro is not said explicitly but implied to be a four. His power does have great destructive potential, but that's... all it has. It does nothing else, he's not actually very useful, and he can't even create the fire himself, he only controls it. While this makes his control very good, he has a huge chip on his shoulder about this. He would prefer to be ase useful as Mystique. He definitely has something to prove, though he's calmed down a bit from when he was sixteen.
Object: his zippo with a shark face on it (but he is in fact wearing his wrist-lighter thing too)
Reason for playing: Partially for the Marvel cast, partially because Pyro does well in a multifandom setting. He is abrasive and sometimes provocative, which is a good for setting off situations and getting all kinds of CR. Plus there is the satisfaction of "correcting" his horrible canon and making something more and more interesting out of a very stereotypical character. I would like him to sass all the people.
Gods: Pretty much has to be Vell. For obvious reasons. They are a little alike in personality as well, though John has hardly suffered as much as Vell has. If he had, though, his attitude would be much the same.
Writing Samples
First-Person Network Post: I'm looking for a compass. I was separated from my hiking group, and I'm carrying all the matches. We were doing a scavenger hunt, and we had found the following items: a blackbird, a frog, a tin can... do I have to go on? If you can't help me with that, maybe you can just let me out of this room?
And do not fucking yell at me if this isn't subtle enough, what the hell else was I supposed to ask for. Just come and get me, or tell me where to go.
First-Person Journal Post: (The following is a poem that John once wrote for a girl who had electricity powers.)
fuck shakespeare.
fuck whitman.
fuck byron, burns, and yeats.
I read them trying to find you.
they don't know anything.
I'm kind of worried that
this would make our first date
really fucking weird. But
it's really just this: I like you,
I like hanging out with you,
we should hang out together more,
like, officially.
this poem is crap,
please don't electrocute me for it.
if you go out with me
I promise never to write another one again.
Third-Person Arrival Post: Some things don't really burn, or take a hell of a lot of concentration to reach that point, but doors should not be in that category. John stared at the completely unburnt door and let his hand drop to his side. It looked like wood and it'd felt like wood, when he had knocked earlier — which he had, all right — but evidently it was not. Weirder things were possible and had happened (up to and including disappearing from the Brotherhood's most recent main base and reappearing in a locked room), so he read one of the pamphlets on the table while banging on the door as loudly as he could. After a while his hand started hurting so he quit, and found himself, as he was so prone, idly speculating as to what Magneto or Mystique would have done. Doubtless the door had something metal in it, and maybe Mystique would have slithered under it in an unnerving fashion. Sabretooth would have knocked it down. Toad would have melted the hinges with his acidic spit or whatever the fuck came out of his mouth, John didn't want to know. He didn't waste his time thinking about the rest of the Brotherhood. He didn't really give a shit about the rest of the Brotherhood. It was just impossible (and often a bad idea) to ignore Sabretooth or Toad; one was fucking huge and psycho, the other was small and loud. One might kill him on accident (or "on accident"), and one might put his repulsive tongue on something that belonged to John.
But none of the above (assuming Sabretooth could read) would stand here gaping at a stupid pamphlet, reading it three times to make sense of the prim printed bullshit. He was probably being recorded, though no camera was visible. This could, he considered, be some kind of twisted government mind test. It was possible that Professor Xavier or some other telepath was putting him through these paces to get a feel for him. Unlikely, though. It wouldn't take a telepath to know that he couldn't be bought or turned, and he wasn't important enough to make that kind of effort anyway. If they wanted to use him to get at Magneto, there would be no need for this crap. But what idiot would try to use him to do that? Like he was capable of harming Magneto at all, even while mind controlled.
No, he was far from sure, but... this felt about as real as anything. The pamphlet was so fucking pompous, the room was just this side of dirty, and this CID thing, it was full of other people's conversations. That was a lot of effort to go through for smallfry like him. He folded the pamphlet up and stuck it in his jacket pocket, thinking hard. There was no sign of the Brotherhood on these forum things, but that didn't mean they weren't around. Generally, they were coordinated enough that they did not really use prearranged signals, so announcing his presence would require some subtlety; he didn't doubt for a second that 'authority figures' would be reading this thing, so he would have to be careful.
Third-Person Action Post: The first time John kills someone with fire, it's indirect, a result of the explosion. He feels nothing, of course, except perhaps satisfaction at a job well done. Killing people with fire might be a popular internet meme, but it's actually kind of hard and messy if explosions aren't involved, and even then, that's just easy and messy. It's not very precise. It takes a while. These are all good reasons to use other means, and he learns those from Magneto and Mystique as well as he can, which is to say, not as well as he'd like.
There is also one other reason not to burn someone to death: it's fucking weird.
The first time John really kills someone with fire, it's because he's cornered and has no other recourse. It doesn't go well, but there isn't actually a way for it to go well like that. The woman screams and screams, clawing at the floor, rolling, slamming into furniture, trying to stifle the flames with her hands, with her coat. But the fire is Pyro's, and it can't be stifled by anything but his own will. She would have killed him, most definitely; she was better trained and better armed, faster and stronger. He's pretty sure she'd knocked out a tooth when she caught him, and she didn't shoot him only because he'd melted her gun. She was quicker with the knife, though, and there is a gash in his neck that isn't bleeding as hard as it very well could have been if he hadn't just managed to blast her away.
It's a curious... sensation? That is not quite the right word, but he will never find one that fits. The fire is not an extension of him, though he moves it as easily as he breathes, as effortlessly as seeing or thinking. It has no nerves, he does not feel through it. He ascribes no anthropic qualities to fire. It does not dance or tease or even hunger. Yet he is consuming her somehow — converting water, which comprises 85% of the human body, to oily smoke, crisping fat and flesh, strangling and stifling and taking away, though he himself receives nothing. He can smell and taste her, but nothing transfers from her to him, apart from this 'feeling' of... frustrated potential. A cremator is an industrial furnace capable of generating temperatures of 870–980 °C (1598–1796 °F) to ensure disintegration of the corpse. Disintegrating the woman is not his concern. Living is his concern, as is getting away. But maybe, if he made the fire hotter, this would go quicker. It would be more kind. And kindness isn't his concern either, but neither is sadism, nor the creeping nausea filling the back of his throat. He's going to have to throw away (burn, ha fucking ha) these clothes. And take a shower, maybe a cold one so he can forget this heat, and not because he's getting off on it. There's nothing to get off on, and plenty to get sick on, but he's better than that, so he won't.
When she quits thrashing around, he stops the fire, easy as blinking, and just to be absolutely sure, John sticks the knife in the charred remains of her neck. He has been to burn wards. Mystique took him once, and he visits every so often just to remind himself, when he has the chance. It will not deter him, but he won't forget. Even in WWII, they killed the prisoners before they shoved them in the cremator. Doing it like this is wrong, or so close to it that it doesn't matter. Next time, he'll figure out another way.
Name: Jillian
Username: (if applicable)
oneroiAre you over the age of eighteen? y
Current characters in Baedal: Rodolphus Lestrange
In Character Information
Basics
Character Name: St. John Allerdyce
Username:
fuckrobertfrostFandom: X-Men movies
Played By: Aaron Stanford
Canon Character Section
Physical Description: Though about 5'8" and baby-faced for his age, John is habitually scruffy to make up for his youthful appearance; as a result, his age is open to interpretation, anything from 15 to mid 20s, depending on whether he shaved that day (he is 18). He has short brown hair and brown eyes, an unathletic build, and usually dresses very casually — the kind of guy whose "wardrobe" consists of jeans and t-shirts and hoodies, and very little else.
Sexuality: There is very little canon to indicate John's sexual preferences. He identifies straight and is pretty committed to that, but he hasn't had many romantic relationships or much sexual experience at all. Because he's kind of a jerk and also he's a committed, um, terrorist.
History: In the X2 movie, John's decidedly minor role doesn't give us much information regarding his background. Much of it must be inferred from what's shown of his personality, which can be summed up as "asshole." Selective comics canon and created canon have been used to fill the gaps.
John was an only child and suffered (along with his mom, the one who named him "St. John", which generally Americans don't know is to be pronounced "sinjin") minor physical and verbal abuse from his father. They weren't particularly well to do, meaning he was the short, sullen, angry, poor kid who got picked on at school. He was smart, but the usual teacher comment appended to that was "if he applied himself," along with other notes about his attitude. His pyrokinesis manifested when he was twelve: during a (mostly verbal) fight with his dad, John exploded the cigarette the older man was holding, resulting in second degree burns on his hand and part of his arm. After the ensuing, highly problematic week, John ran away, managing to stay at large for about six months before being caught. The case had come to Charles Xavier's attention, and from then on he attended the Institute on a "scholarship." While initially supportive of Xavier's goals and respectful of the man himself, things started to change the night William Stryker's men invaded the mansion. Stryker's men captured several students, though John escaped with Bobby, Rogue, and Wolverine. The ensuing day, the police shot Wolverine in the head on the porch of Bobby's house. At first, John's retaliation was a reaction to Wolverine's apparent death, but he'd had very few opportunities to cut loose before this, and the exploding cars and singed policemen act started to get out of hand. Rogue then leeched his powers away and used them to put out the fires. After meeting and talking to Magneto, John ultimately decided to take his chances with the older man's more antagonistic policy against humans.
From this point onward, John is AU, because the third X-Men movie was really bad. Jean-Grey did not "die" while lifting the plane out of the oncoming flood; Bobby just repaired the dam because his powers are FUCKING ICE WHICH THEY WERE SURROUNDED BY... meanwhile, Magneto, Mystique, and Pyro skipped over to Russia and spent some time roaming Europe and recruiting. Of the more notable recruits were the Stepford Cuckoos, 5 telepathic sisters who are Emma Frost's "daughters" (Celeste, Esme, Irma/Mindee, Phoebe, and Sophie are actually Emma's clones) and who helped to shield the Brotherhood's whereabouts from Xavier and Jean Grey; Jamie Madrox, Multiple Man; Callisto, the leader of a gang of mutants, the Marauders; and Joanna Cargill, a member of the Marauders with superhuman strength and durability who isn't actually notable in any way except that she is friends with Pyro. Gambit was also involved with the Marauders, though he was never a member, and ultimately sided with the X-Men. (John's first person post and arrival post reference Sabretooth, Toad, and the Juggernaut as well, although Sabretooth is dead. He just made an impression on John.)
About a year after John's defection, a pharmaceutical company announced that it had developed an inoculation to suppress the X-gene that gives mutants their powers and makes them different from other humans, offering the "cure" to any mutant who wanted it. The Brotherhood naturally saw this as a threat, but more pressingly, they had picked up on rumors of a strange virus that debilitated mutants but left humans alone. In the background of all of this was the ongoing Mutant Registration Act. Things were... tense. While the Brotherhood carried on recruiting, they were also engaged in what can only be described as terrorism, destroying clinics, facilities, and factories involved with the production and distribution of the "cure." Though they warned the X-Men about the virus, they also fought them at every turn. They would sabotage government transport with mutant prisoners, and on one occasion, a vastly altered skirmish did take place in San Francisco to take Leech from the lab, but they were repelled by the X-Men, who then enrolled Leech in the Institute. So while no more "cure" is being produced (and the "cure" was only temporary anyway), the Brotherhood is still actively searching for the virus and destroying samples when they find it, quite often killing a lot of people in the process. It's during this period, when John has turned eighteen, that he is taken to Baedal. While he has clashed on several occasions with his former classmates, and been defeated by Bobby more than once (which pisses him off so bad :E!!!!!), there have been a lot fewer mutant deaths and most key figures are still alive.
Powers: "Pyrokinesis" actually means the ability to manipulate fire, which is what John has. He cannot generate his own flame and must use external sources. One version of his comic book counterpart has the ability to control other pyrokinetics' fire as well (he uses it to fuck around with Johnny Storm), and since this version of John is AU anyway, I'm going with that as well. His level of control allows him to work both extremely delicate maneuvers with fire as well as induce towering infernos, physically propel people with the force of his fire, and even explode flammable objects. If something is not primed for explosion, however, it is not going to magically explode just because he sets it on fire. The presence of at least an accelerant is necessary for Hollywood style explosions.
In keeping with his ability to control fire, he also has the ability to sense it, though he must be able to see or know where the fire is in order to control it. He can also to a limited extent sense the potential for fire, such as banked coals, or intense heat sources.
Talents/Abilities: He is a decent writer. He is okay with guns, though his aim could use work; he's up to date with most technology, though he's no hacker; he's a really good driver, but that's probably not gonna come up in BDL; he's scrappy and knows how to throw a punch but he is not a trained fighter. Jack of many trades, master of none. He would make a great member of the militia, if, you know, Magneto hadn't gotten to him first.
Personality: Angry and disaffected, John isn't without a sense of humor, though it's fairly black for someone his age. He's sort of an asshole, both in the typical way that teenage boys can sometimes be, and in his own special dickwad way. It stems from a few things — the way he grew up, he expects that people (especially adults) cannot be relied upon, and thus should be treated warily until they prove themselves. Secondly, he expects that other people too will have a certain amount of hostility, even (or especially) if they appear friendly. That covers the standoffish aspect. What drives the more obnoxious parts of his personality is the chip in his shoulder. He constantly has something to prove to people, that he's smarter than they think, that he's tougher than he looks. Though he'd be the first to call someone out on playing alpha games, he too almost blindly subscribes to them, responding to most other males with automatic hostility. It takes a persistent or very laidback attitude to reach him, like Bobby did (actually, it's mostly fanon that they're friends; when I watched the movie I personally didn't think they acted very friendly).
He doesn't back down, but at the same time, he chooses his battles. That's why he chose to be a dick to the two guys who wanted a light (in... a museum........). Because he could, and he'd win, which he did, even if they did step up the odds by swiping the zippo. During X2, he's more cautious, still constrained by conventional ideas of law and normal behavior. Prior to nearly exploding everybody on Bobby's lawn, he'd broken some laws — vandalized, stolen, broke into places — but after deciding to go with Magneto, he more or less shed conventional constraints in favor of doing whatever needed to be done to further Magneto's agenda. Hand in hand with this attitude is a sense of mutant (moral) superiority, which will take a backseat in Baedal, seeing as there is a sizeable population of non-humans and humans that can do extraordinary things. While he didn't exactly go psycho right off the bat, he has developed to the point where he can and will kill people without hesitating. He'll feel a bit bad about it, he understands there are farther reaching consequences than are immediately obvious, but... he mostly doesn't care.
Part of it is because of his loyalty to Magneto. It isn't actually that difficult to gain John's trust, though he puts up a tough guy front of being distant and hard-hearted. Magneto was basically the first person to come along and impress him during a time of important conflict, and he transferred his loyalty from Xavier to Magneto after only a brief period of reflection. There was then a few weeks of watchfulness, a trial period, but after that he was basically committed. While he does value critical thinking and often thinks poorly of others for following the status quo and listening to authorities, it is, in fact, easy for John to unironically do the same thing with Magneto. Because he trusts and admires Magneto, he doesn't really question him on important things -- even in the godawful third movie, when Magneto abandons the now human Mystique, all John does is give him an uncertain look. Because while John is fairly smart and hones himself to remain useful for Magneto, Magneto and the Brotherhood are the context in which he thinks -- they are not wrong, they are never wrong, and they are the most important thing in his life right now. THE CAUSE. And that's why he can kill people and explode things and remain fairly happy. If he had to examine his life and look at all the consequences of everything he's done, he wouldn't be so happy, though he probably wouldn't stop either.
There is a certain element of wannabe that will always and forever remain a part of him. He's not as tough as he wants to be, he's not as competent or as smart or as powerful as he wishes he were. At eighteen, he's learned quite a lot and is a pretty handy guy to have around, but he's still something of a junior officer in comparison to say, Mystique. Technically, in the third movie, mutants are given power ratings of one through five, and Magneto is said to be a five, the most powerful, while Pyro is not said explicitly but implied to be a four. His power does have great destructive potential, but that's... all it has. It does nothing else, he's not actually very useful, and he can't even create the fire himself, he only controls it. While this makes his control very good, he has a huge chip on his shoulder about this. He would prefer to be ase useful as Mystique. He definitely has something to prove, though he's calmed down a bit from when he was sixteen.
Object: his zippo with a shark face on it (but he is in fact wearing his wrist-lighter thing too)
Reason for playing: Partially for the Marvel cast, partially because Pyro does well in a multifandom setting. He is abrasive and sometimes provocative, which is a good for setting off situations and getting all kinds of CR. Plus there is the satisfaction of "correcting" his horrible canon and making something more and more interesting out of a very stereotypical character. I would like him to sass all the people.
Gods: Pretty much has to be Vell. For obvious reasons. They are a little alike in personality as well, though John has hardly suffered as much as Vell has. If he had, though, his attitude would be much the same.
Writing Samples
First-Person Network Post: I'm looking for a compass. I was separated from my hiking group, and I'm carrying all the matches. We were doing a scavenger hunt, and we had found the following items: a blackbird, a frog, a tin can... do I have to go on? If you can't help me with that, maybe you can just let me out of this room?
And do not fucking yell at me if this isn't subtle enough, what the hell else was I supposed to ask for. Just come and get me, or tell me where to go.
First-Person Journal Post: (The following is a poem that John once wrote for a girl who had electricity powers.)
fuck shakespeare.
fuck whitman.
fuck byron, burns, and yeats.
I read them trying to find you.
they don't know anything.
I'm kind of worried that
this would make our first date
really fucking weird. But
it's really just this: I like you,
I like hanging out with you,
we should hang out together more,
like, officially.
this poem is crap,
please don't electrocute me for it.
if you go out with me
I promise never to write another one again.
Third-Person Arrival Post: Some things don't really burn, or take a hell of a lot of concentration to reach that point, but doors should not be in that category. John stared at the completely unburnt door and let his hand drop to his side. It looked like wood and it'd felt like wood, when he had knocked earlier — which he had, all right — but evidently it was not. Weirder things were possible and had happened (up to and including disappearing from the Brotherhood's most recent main base and reappearing in a locked room), so he read one of the pamphlets on the table while banging on the door as loudly as he could. After a while his hand started hurting so he quit, and found himself, as he was so prone, idly speculating as to what Magneto or Mystique would have done. Doubtless the door had something metal in it, and maybe Mystique would have slithered under it in an unnerving fashion. Sabretooth would have knocked it down. Toad would have melted the hinges with his acidic spit or whatever the fuck came out of his mouth, John didn't want to know. He didn't waste his time thinking about the rest of the Brotherhood. He didn't really give a shit about the rest of the Brotherhood. It was just impossible (and often a bad idea) to ignore Sabretooth or Toad; one was fucking huge and psycho, the other was small and loud. One might kill him on accident (or "on accident"), and one might put his repulsive tongue on something that belonged to John.
But none of the above (assuming Sabretooth could read) would stand here gaping at a stupid pamphlet, reading it three times to make sense of the prim printed bullshit. He was probably being recorded, though no camera was visible. This could, he considered, be some kind of twisted government mind test. It was possible that Professor Xavier or some other telepath was putting him through these paces to get a feel for him. Unlikely, though. It wouldn't take a telepath to know that he couldn't be bought or turned, and he wasn't important enough to make that kind of effort anyway. If they wanted to use him to get at Magneto, there would be no need for this crap. But what idiot would try to use him to do that? Like he was capable of harming Magneto at all, even while mind controlled.
No, he was far from sure, but... this felt about as real as anything. The pamphlet was so fucking pompous, the room was just this side of dirty, and this CID thing, it was full of other people's conversations. That was a lot of effort to go through for smallfry like him. He folded the pamphlet up and stuck it in his jacket pocket, thinking hard. There was no sign of the Brotherhood on these forum things, but that didn't mean they weren't around. Generally, they were coordinated enough that they did not really use prearranged signals, so announcing his presence would require some subtlety; he didn't doubt for a second that 'authority figures' would be reading this thing, so he would have to be careful.
Third-Person Action Post: The first time John kills someone with fire, it's indirect, a result of the explosion. He feels nothing, of course, except perhaps satisfaction at a job well done. Killing people with fire might be a popular internet meme, but it's actually kind of hard and messy if explosions aren't involved, and even then, that's just easy and messy. It's not very precise. It takes a while. These are all good reasons to use other means, and he learns those from Magneto and Mystique as well as he can, which is to say, not as well as he'd like.
There is also one other reason not to burn someone to death: it's fucking weird.
The first time John really kills someone with fire, it's because he's cornered and has no other recourse. It doesn't go well, but there isn't actually a way for it to go well like that. The woman screams and screams, clawing at the floor, rolling, slamming into furniture, trying to stifle the flames with her hands, with her coat. But the fire is Pyro's, and it can't be stifled by anything but his own will. She would have killed him, most definitely; she was better trained and better armed, faster and stronger. He's pretty sure she'd knocked out a tooth when she caught him, and she didn't shoot him only because he'd melted her gun. She was quicker with the knife, though, and there is a gash in his neck that isn't bleeding as hard as it very well could have been if he hadn't just managed to blast her away.
It's a curious... sensation? That is not quite the right word, but he will never find one that fits. The fire is not an extension of him, though he moves it as easily as he breathes, as effortlessly as seeing or thinking. It has no nerves, he does not feel through it. He ascribes no anthropic qualities to fire. It does not dance or tease or even hunger. Yet he is consuming her somehow — converting water, which comprises 85% of the human body, to oily smoke, crisping fat and flesh, strangling and stifling and taking away, though he himself receives nothing. He can smell and taste her, but nothing transfers from her to him, apart from this 'feeling' of... frustrated potential. A cremator is an industrial furnace capable of generating temperatures of 870–980 °C (1598–1796 °F) to ensure disintegration of the corpse. Disintegrating the woman is not his concern. Living is his concern, as is getting away. But maybe, if he made the fire hotter, this would go quicker. It would be more kind. And kindness isn't his concern either, but neither is sadism, nor the creeping nausea filling the back of his throat. He's going to have to throw away (burn, ha fucking ha) these clothes. And take a shower, maybe a cold one so he can forget this heat, and not because he's getting off on it. There's nothing to get off on, and plenty to get sick on, but he's better than that, so he won't.
When she quits thrashing around, he stops the fire, easy as blinking, and just to be absolutely sure, John sticks the knife in the charred remains of her neck. He has been to burn wards. Mystique took him once, and he visits every so often just to remind himself, when he has the chance. It will not deter him, but he won't forget. Even in WWII, they killed the prisoners before they shoved them in the cremator. Doing it like this is wrong, or so close to it that it doesn't matter. Next time, he'll figure out another way.