app for thespiderswalk

[careforacoup]

PLAYER

NAME: Liz
AGE: 20
PERSONAL LJ: rizumcbutt
EMAIL ADDRESS: silkearacna at gmail dot com
AIM SCREENAME: the p0rn nun
EXPERIENCE RPing: rivelata, plutoix, capeandcowl, theoregontrail, and a few others.

CHARACTER
NAME: Maximus Boltagon
CANON SOURCE: Inhumans, a Marvel series
TIMELINE: After his seventh unsuccessful plot to steal Attilan from Black Bolt.
CANON ABILITIES: Aside from his vast intellect and gifts as an inventor, Maximus also has psionic abilities gained from the Terrigen Mists that give all Inhumans their abilities. With them he can numb a person's mind, dull their senses. He can even dull it enough to blank it out entirely. He's also capable of inducing amnesia and switching his consciousness with another, although these abilities are limited by range and his own degree of concentration. Obviously, being insane doesn't particularly help his case in this matter.

PERSONALITY:
Maximus has lost it. Simple as that, his mind is long gone and no matter what act he might put on, there's no getting it back. But this simple fact aside, he's also something of a genius. The term mad scientist? It would fit Maximus to a T, were he allowed a laboratory. Being continuously confined puts rather a damper on his cavorting though, mad or otherwise, which is something he resents. Considerably. This is the inspiration for his continuous attempts to break himself out of containment. But Maximus is never content to stop at that, and the desire -- the need, it could be said -- to usurp his brother's throne as well drives him to ruin time and time again. The definition of insanity is the repetition of the same act, expecting a different result each time. And Maximus? Maximus has seven attempts to his name so far.

But there's still that intelligence, ever present, to be reckoned with. It tempers his insanity, coils and twists against it to make him a definite threat. Those seven attempts have had varied degrees of success, after all. He's intelligent enough to build complex machines out of simple materials and objects. He's resourceful, with an advanced understanding of mechanics, physics, and biology, which he doesn't hesitate to put to practical use. But intelligence aside, Maximus is clever as well. Clever enough to use his own insanity as a cover. He can appear as lucid or as absolutely batshit as the situation calls for -- however, the genuine imbalance in his mind exists at the root of all, and Maximus isn't so intelligent and so clever as to overcome it entirely. The insanity and, it could be said, lack of judgment, colors all his actions.

This insanity could be said to be the reason for Maximus's extreme mood shifts. One moment he might be excitable, gleeful, overjoyed that his plan is going as he'd intended to -- and the next he might be seen strangling an underling for a slight mishap. And even after that he might switch again, reassuring said pawn that it's okay, everything will work out, and aren't they just the best of friends? But despite the high intensity of emotion for local conflicts, Maximus carries a definite apathy for things which don't involve him. The entire world could be under attack from an invading force, and Maximus would be content to sit in his cell and count the bricks in the wall if it didn't involve him. It isn't until it becomes personal that he takes an interest -- and once he does, it's an intense interest, as all his emotions tend to be.

The strangest thing about Maximus is, it could be said, his own conflict. He tries time and time again to overthrow his brother, to steal his crown, to conquer him. This courtesy extends to all Inhumans, and Maximus unfalteringly and unfeelingly uses all of them to achieve his goals. And yet he does seem to carry some emotion for them, if only in that he's never killed any of his remaining family members. For as much as he taunts and tortures his brother's wife, Medusa, he loves her. He once stopped his allies from killing her, at personal danger to himself. And after his last and latest scheme to rule Attilan, once Black Bolt had caught up with him, the two shared an almost tender moment -- Maximus asking in a tentative, small voice, "Will I be punished?"

CANON HISTORY:
Maximus the Mad started out normally enough, if one can consider being raised in a society of Inhumans normal. He had a mother, a father, a younger brother. It was a shame that he seemed to have no powers from the Terrigen Mists (his developing psionic powers were kept neatly under wraps from the rest of the colony), but nothing terrible. Certainly the boy was on the antisocial side, perhaps with a touch of sadism, but he wasn't mad. Not yet. It was for his brother, Black Bolt, that he first displayed tendencies towards something other than brotherly love. Black Bolt had been locked since birth in a protective chamber (to protect the rest of the world from his highly destructive mutation, received as all Inhumans to from the Terrigen Mists), and upon being released, Maxims took it upon himself to trick Black Bolt into using his power, to display for all to see how little control his brother had over it. Surely then they would see that he belonged locked away, surely Maximus's game would yield pleasing results. -- It didn't. Black Bolt triumphed, the world remained safe from his destructive voice, and Maximus turned his attention to other endeavors.

Shortly after the fiasco, Black Bolt witnessed Maximus making a deal with an emissary from a hostile alien race. Then Black Bolt used his voice, a sonic scream, and it was successful. To a degree. The blast destroyed the alien ship, but as it fell from the sky it landed on none other than the parliament building, killing a good number of Inhumans. Maximus and Black Bolt's parents among them.

Their parents' death had no immediate psychological effect on Maximus. On the contrary, it became something Maximus would use to taunt Black Bolt with for years to come. Black Bolt's guilt at his parents' death is one of Maximus's favorite playtoys. However, the lethal scream did more than simply destroy the alien ship. It had caught Maximus as well, starting him on the path of insanity and disrupting his growing psionoc powers. Black Bolt assumed the throne, and it was then that Maximus first pledged to oppose his brother for as long as it took to steal the crown.

Since then, Maximus had used used his ingenuity and wit to masterminded many coups. Some lasted a few years, some lasted a few days, some failed entirely. But always Black Bolt was returned to power, and always Maximus slipped away to plan another coup. After his second takeover, Maxiums returned voluntarily to the Inhumans' land of Attilan, where Black Bolt sensed a return of his psionic powers. He had his brother locked away in suspended animation, where use of said powers would be impossible, but it was one of the king's aides -- Gorgon -- that felt the treatment unjust and freed Maximus. His third plot immediately went into action, and when it failed, as they all do, he feigned insanity to escape punishment. His forth plot brought him some measure of victory, in that he tricked Black Bolt into releasing his voice. The power of it leveled the city -- and when Black Bolt saw that he had been deceived, he struck Maximus for the first time and had him imprisoned.

His fifth attempt landed him, by the end of it, in a death-like coma. His crypt was taken with Attilan to the moon, where his dormant mind made contact with an alien crystal with enough power to awaken him -- and his subdued psionic powers. His sixth attempt was successful for several months, but its eventual ruin bought him solitary confinement in The Labyrinth. His sanity by now in tatters, but his wit as sharp as ever, Maximus plotted his seventh attempt entirely from his cell. All went according to plan, his scheme was pulling neatly together -- until he was met with a devastating realization. The seventh scheme hadn't been in his control at all, but had been a plot of Black Bolt's all along. His brother had used him, had purposefully brought his own city to the brink of ruin through Maximus, all for the purpose of feigning the destruction of their nation to move it somewhere safe. A happy ending for Attilan, although Maximus was left with the devastating knowledge that not only had he failed and been used, but he had been caught yet again.

PREFERRED PLACEMENT: Unaffiliated
HOW DIFFERENT DO YOU WANT THE MEMORIES TO BE FROM THEIR CANON? Considering that the Inhumans work on a large scale, I'll be toning it down a lot. Attilan replaced with a large, well-known and very rich corporation, and Maximus's many schemes pulled off without mutation-given-ability, placed onto a corporate scale rather than that of a kingdom. His goal shifts from ruling Black Bolt's country, to owning the company instead -- still called Attilan. He'll still have put to use his mechanical aptitude to help him, but, aside from a few very questionably legal plots, his attempts won't be too different from any other power-hungry brother of a CEO. His confinements won't be legal ones -- the family would have kept the law out of it, preferring to deal with it themselves -- but they'll have been just as well-enforced as they are originally. Regarding the death of Maximus and Black Bolt's parents, it will have been Maximus's dealing with criminals that Black Bolt saw and attempted to stop. It will have resulted in a violent confrontation that caused the death of both parents. At present, Maximus would have moved away from the home base (in Chicago, shall we say) and to New York.

PLANS FOR YOUR CHARACTER: I'm definitely planning on playing with Maximus's insanity, as well as his periodic urges to steal positions of power. His 'mad scientist' inclinations will come into play, perhaps at a higher up's benefit? He would make a great underling, and would never stop plotting ways to work his way up to replace his employer if his brother is out of the picture. I also look forward to the rediscovery of his powers, and if memories begin to resurface, the realization that he was made to commandeer things much greater than businesses and/or crime syndicates (and the arrogance that would go with that).

SAMPLES

LOG SAMPLE:
Maximus enjoyed wandering the streets. He enjoyed the biting cold that his coat didn't quite keep out, he enjoyed the harsh winds, he enjoyed the city's poor gathering around flaming barrels in alleyways. He walked, he watched, he enjoyed. A madman's life is a simple one, full of pleasure and cold and rejection and he was coming back, he would make Black Bolt see that, take him back only to have himself voted out of the seat of power and Maximus voted in.

Maximus realized he was snarling. He noticed it around the time an old woman darted nervously out of his path, shooting worried glances over her shoulder as she hurried away from him. He quickly smoothed his face again, pressed onto it a charming smile. The smile that he would present to his brother on the day Attilan became his. Yes, that smile. He'd often practiced it. In diamond-rimmed mirrors and in silver-plated spoons and in hubcaps as he looked up from a mud puddle at the side of the road, street dirt still dripping in greasy rivets from his chin.

He sent out another private thank you to that king of kings, safe and sound in Attilan. Thank you for all those cozy roadside resting places, thank you for the casting out of your own brother, thank you thank you thank you thank

"Yes, today's paper, please?" Maximus brought out the charming smile again, turned it onto the street vendor. "Very kind, good sir. Thank you."

Paper tucked under one arm, he started back down the cold sidewalk again. A cheerful tune escaped pursed lips as he walked, though the chilling winds whipped it away before any could hear it.

JOURNAL SAMPLE:
I bet you wish you were here now, don't you? I bet you wish you hadn't cooped yourself up inside that building, surrounded by the paper-pushers and the brown-nosers and those infuriating halfwits you call cousins, no? Don't you envy me my escape, my freedom, my luxury?

Rhetorical questions, of course. Hah. I don't suppose you would humor me with an answer anyway. Hah.

I'm coming back, brother. You can't stay there forever. And you can't keep me out forever, either. You might try, and for a while it might even look like you're succeeding. But you can't keep the cold out and you can't keep the noise out and you can't keep me out.

Well, it's been lovely chatting! I'll write you a postcard soon.

NOTES: WITH TWENTY MINUTES TO SPARE OHHHH YEAH