APPLICATION.

[metalica]

( PLAYER INFORMATION )
- ★ NAME: Rachel
- ★ CONTACT: aziraphale @ plurk

( CHARACTER INFORMATION )
- ★ NAME: Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto
- ★ AGE: Early/Mid-30s
- ★ CANON & CANON POINT: X-Men Movieverse (Earth-10005) / the Aeroplane Scene, Days of Future Past
- ★ CANON INFORMATION: HERE & HERE
- ★ PERSONALITY:

'Identification, that's how it starts. And ends with being rounded up, experimented on and eliminated.' / 'My parents didn't have a name. It was taken from them... by pig farmers... and tailors.'

One of the most formative aspects of Erik's personality is his disgust and hatred for humanity - which did not start of as an all-encompassing emotion but developed as a violent desire to kill all of those that stand by and watch their kind be killed - or do what the Nazis did in Germany and round up and exterminate a particular group of people for simply being born the way they were. His experiences in Nazi Germany and in the concentration camps (one that killed his father and where he was held, tested upon by Shaw and the Nazi regime because of his mutation) has influenced him in a way that is obvious to anyone that meets him; Erik is a mistrustful, dark person with a great capacity for rage, frustration and a deep, dark sadness that can, at times, overcome him. It has created a pit of vengeance inside of him - not just because of what Shaw did to him, treating him as a lab rat and pushing him to limits - but because of what happened to his people during the Holocaust.

It's obvious that his experiences as a child (bearing in mind that he was mid-teens at best when he was 'taken in' by Schmidt) had shaped the man he becomes. Not only has he become distrustful of people, working as a solitary figure for most of his life, until he stumbles into the path of Charles Xavier, but he has actively begun to work against them in the quest for vengeance. He has no qualms about killing anyone he deems to have been a part of the terrible history of his people and he doesn't care at all about the mess and destruction he leaves in his wake; his solitary quest comes above all else. This is not a healthy way to live, of course, but to Erik it is as simple as something he has to do. Shaw is the foundation if his life and the quest to punish the other man for his transgressions, annihilating those who were a part of the horrors in Germany along the way, is the focus of his life - and when Shaw is gone his anger turns on the humans that would murder him and his brothers for simply existing, reminiscent of his experiences in Germany.

The fact that, to Erik, all of this seems as simple as A and B indicates how completely broken he is, as a person, due to the things he has been forced to endure in his life. When using his mutation he powers himself using his rage rather than a place inside of himself that has peace; it's only after he meets Charles that he is capable of finding the balance between peace and serenity that gives him greater control over the gift he was born with. He remains isolated from most people despite the friendships he has forged because, despite working as a part of a team he still acts as a solitary part of it, going ahead with his own plans and not waiting to create a group plot before charging ahead. Erik is fuelled by his own anger and it makes him volatile even as it strengthens him.

Much of this disgust for humanity carries over into the second film and, from what he learns of the future, Erik feels entirely justified in hating their race - because, in the future they attempt to stop, the humans have abused mutant DNA and used it to create machines that go around exterminating them. It is, quite literally, everything he had feared come to life and, if anything, it only strengthens his resolve. During the years he and Charles had spent apart too many of their allies had died - Azazel, Banshee, Emma Frost, Janos - as a result of experimentation and 'tests'; the anger that he had been battling with his entire life only grew and lead him down a path of even more destruction and hatred. 

'There is so much more to you than you know. Not just pain and anger. There is good, too. I felt it. When you can access all of that, you will possess a power no one can match. Not even me.'

Interestingly enough, it's nothing solitary that allows Erik to enhance both his own strength and the strength that comes from his spirit - it's being around one Charles Xavier. If Erik is the devil on his own shoulder then Charles is the angel, a constant source of consideration and calm that speaks to him - literally - in his mind. Before he met Charles Erik believed himself only capable of using his powers, at least in a massive sense, when he was encased in fury and his own agony; it was through his friendship with Charles and the way the other man touched him mind that he found out that his strength was far deeper than the things he had experienced and he had it within him to reach greater levels of power - he merely needed to shrug off the reigns of his anger to do so.

Charles' positive influence doesn't go as far as he'd have liked in changing Erik, though. True, he encourages Erik to become part of a team to help stop Shaw, stop the reveal of mutants and to protect the planet from the outbreak of World War III but it isn't enough; in the battle of his own morality versus the one that Charles holds dear Erik's wins out. He believed, perhaps foolishly, that Charles would agree with his beliefs later - his desire was to keep the only person who had ever empathised with him and had attempted to understand him as a partner, calling them brothers, but Charles' ideals for a better future included living in harmony with humanity. Erik, blinded by his experiences and the fact that the human population had turned on them - with missiles aimed at them, prepared to destroy them despite them having saved them all - turns his back on Charles and, in a way, also turns his back on the last piece of good morality that's left within him.

It's plausible to suggest that Charles and Erik work as a kind of yin and yang in their approaches to their mutations and the way they adapt and work in the human world they live in. While Charles wants to live in a world of peace and harmony, even after the humans threaten their existence and it's proven that, at least in some shape, that Erik was right about their threat, Erik wants to remove them entirely; in his mind if there are no humans then the mutants, the next stage in evolution and the greater, stronger race, then the mutants, his brothers and sisters, can live without fear of being round up and persecuted.

It's almost ironic that Erik seems incapable of seeing how his own views on humanity tie in with those that he so carelessly punished; he believes his own race to be the stronger and better and that they will one day take the world by storm and own it, just as those that took over his home in Germany did. The difference is, of course, that while the Nazi population was founded upon prejudice and racial hatred Erik's is based on fear and anger. He is terrified of losing his kind, the only people he has ever known to share his mutation and gift, to the same things he experienced when he was young. He goes to the extremes because, to him, there is no other option; his anger blinds him to the fact that he is creating the problem he is trying to fix.

Again, in the second part of the film series, Charles becomes an influencing factor on Erik. At first he is a target for his fury and ire, having let their people down by hiding in his mansion, using a serum to numb his mutation, but he soon becomes a partner once more, albeit a rather unwilling one. The catalyst of the film - Raven's attempted assassination of Thrask/Nixon, results in Erik attempting to draw mutants out but, instead, being taken down by Raven and shown that there might still be another path. He is still dark, the secondary antagonist, but Charles admits there is still hope - for both Erik and Raven. It's through Charles that we continue to see a more positive side of Erik, the other man's view of him, and his empathy considering how much of Erik's mind he can see when he doesn't wear his helmet, allows us to see Magneto is a better light. 

'You want society to accept you, but you can't even accept yourself. '

Alongside his belief that mutants should inherit the Earth, Erik is also particularly certain in his belief that mutants should not have to hide their gifts or who they are. He reacts to Raven with a positivity that, it's suggested, has been missing from her life for a long time; he tells her, constantly, that her natural, blue form is beautiful and urges her to accept the fact that she is perfect as herself, not hiding behind her mutation and pretending to be something she is not. He wants her to accept her gift, to relish it, find strength in it and make it a part of herself rather than trying to be two separate beings - Raven and Mystique.

Oddly enough, it's this strength of character that seems to make Erik a rather good teacher, despite his harsh nature and evident stoicism. He draws Raven out of her shell and encourages her to be proud of who she is while, at the same time, he doesn't allow the children (those that are later christened the X-Men) to hide behind fear - even if his methods are a little dangerous and unorthodox they do work.

What Charles Xavier lacked, due to his own mutation being a mental one and hidden (even though Erik's was the same) was an empathy for being forced to hide who you were, to disguise yourself entirely - something that Raven, Hank McCoy and, in part, Alex Summers struggled with. Erik was almost a sounding board of reason, calling them out on their shame and demanding that they be proud of their heritage and proud of who they were, of what made them stronger. It's easy to say that this might be because he wanted to try and give the children he and Charles had requited a kind of dignity and pride they had lacked, but it could also stem from his own mental encouragements to himself.

Since he was a child Erik had been molded into believing that he was a weapon, something that had made him stronger even if, as a child, it had made him feel impossibly small due to the experiments he suffered. By projecting pride onto the children it shows his own pride in himself, the fact that he is encouraged by his mutation, proud of the work he has put into it and the strength it gives him above humans that dared to try and harm him as a young boy. It's not kindness that makes Erik offer the other mutants gentle words of encouragement - it's his own pride and his own love for mutation and the power it offers.

'Shaw's got friends. You could do with some.'

One of the less violent aspects is his stoicism and aloofness. While there is a rather charming aspect to his personality that comes from his sense of humour Erik remains a rather distant character. He's spent the majority of his life alone, since the death of his parents, and because of it there's an obvious lack of social interaction that he's been able to experience. It's made him a rather blunt, arrogant soul with a stoicism that stems from his awful history and the fact that, for quite some time, he had imagined himself to be alone.

None of this is an excuse, of course, but it does go some way to explaining why he can be a complete arse sometimes. Erik has a way of speaking with an almost dripping sarcasm and, just as much as his words can be clipping, his body language is constantly on edge, always angled away from being particularly friendly. He hasn't grown into a man that is comfortable with social situations and he isn't exactly prepared to be shoved into a group of people - but when he does he takes it in his stride, he adapts and he learns to become a part of a team, even if he's one that is a step away from the others.

The only person, other than Raven, that he shares a close connection with is Charles, and much of their relationship is founded upon the fact that Charles knows, quite literally, everything about Erik. As a telepath he is granted an insight into Erik's mind that allows him to understand the other man in a way that no one else can, perhaps giving him more of a means of breaching the walls that Erik has around him. Considering the fact that Erik is, more or less, a closed book, not content to reveal any of his past to people he doesn't know, Charles has an incredibly unique insight into him that gives him a better relationship with Erik.

This is what makes Erik's friendship with Charles one of the few points that allows us to see a softer side of his nature. It's around Charles that the edges of him are calmed and he opens up a little - to educate the children, to tease, to do more than be an aloof man hell-bent on revenge. Around Charles he jokes, develops, as if the nurture that the other man offers has been lacking from his life entirely - which is most likely true, considering he lost all his positive influences at an incredibly young age. While around Charles and the group of mutants they gather we see Erik emerge from the cruel and rather ruthless shell he has created to show some of the other aspects of himself; his humour, his frustration, his sarcasm and a side of him that relishes a challenge and a debate.

This side of him does fade throughout the years, however, which is understandable; Erik spends almost a decade trapped in a plastic prison where the only visitors he has are prison guards that give him his food. He has been forced to return to the isolation he suffered from before he met Charles and, through it, he becomes more angry, more frustrated, losing the softer edge he developed as a result of the other man's friendship. Even during the plane scene, where he and Charles finally let out their pent up rage, talk and apologise, he is unable to return to that relaxed, sarcastic side of himself; he is constantly on edge, constantly prepared for a fight he thinks is coming even if, at the end of the day, it might not be.

'I am never getting inside of that head again.' / 'That man is a monster, a murderer. You think you can convince Raven to change, to come home? Splendid. But what makes you think you can change him?'

Unfortunately, without Charles at his side and with no real calming influence to keep him away from his deep-set and dark desires, Erik falls into a role that he had once loathed; that of a murderer, of a man hell-bent on changing the world to fit an image that he wants. Erik doesn't hesitate to kill if someone - or something - were to stand in his way; he might not kill mindlessly, for fun, but if he is being blocked, prevented or threatened he would be more than happy to use his mutation to either defend himself or remove the obstruction.

Unfortunately for quite a lot of people this does not mean that Erik is loathe to use other means to get what he wants. He is more than happy to use his mutation to torture people - such as pulling out their metal fillings to force them to talk - or to push or trap people so he can get what he wants. By using his power over metal he can threaten and bully those around him so that he can get what he desires out of them - be it a path through them or something they're protecting. Erik proves that he doesn't need to kill humanity to control it and that is probably one of the more frightening aspects of his personality.

Still, despite what the Charles of Days of Future Past might initially think, Erik has not simply become a mindless killing machine. Any deaths at his hand - and, at this point in the series, they are far and few between - are calculated, meaningful, and unavoidable. The crime he is imprisoned for (the murder of President JFK) is proven to not be his fault at all despite it being the moral destruction that Charles and Hank use to weigh how little they can trust the Erik-turned-Magneto. The bullet that shot the president was bent and Erik was seen on a hill nearby, targeting him as the mutant that caused the assassination. On the plane after the prison break, however, we learn that Erik wasn't, in fact, attempting to kill the president; he was trying to save him because of the fact that he was a rumoured mutant.

This leaning towards protecting someone doesn't, of course, mean that Erik is somehow entirely prepared to adopt the same attitude as his once partner, of course. He is more than happy to attempt to kill his friend, Raven, in an attempt to stop her DNA falling into human hands and, later, he is near enough pleased at the idea of killing a human to show the strength of mutants, to encourage them to come out of hiding and show their colours, to prove their worth and let humankind see that they're the weaker race. While he might have a dark and dangerous streak, only encouraged from events in Cuba where he left Charles, even now Erik does not murder without reason or, at least in his mind, a kind of necessity that draws him to the target. He truly believed that anyone who died at his hands deserved their fate for acts they committed or acts they allowed to happen under their noses.

There is a reason Erik wears a helmet that protects him from Charles' telepathic control - it's not just because he wants to shield his thoughts and stop Charles from controlling him but also because he wants to hide his thoughts and feelings from the other man. He would much rather Charles see him as a blank, metal slate than to admit to his own fears coming to light. We rarely see Erik's fear as a result of the man itself; throughout the films it has been a side effect of Charles' telepathy delving into his mind. When he is wearing his helmet he is safe, not just from other people's control but from Charles seeing if there is any good left in him and, as a result, if there is any hope for their future to be brighter.

'Angel. Azazel. Emma. Banshee. We were supposed to protect them! Where were you, Charles? You abandoned us all!'

Despite his bitterness and his rather obvious streak of hatred and frustration Erik does have some of the good that Charles once saw in him left; it simply resides in his desire to care for, protect and cherish the mutant race that he so obviously identifies with. His mission is not only to have mutantkind overcome the human race and take what he believes is their position above them all but also to protect those still learning about their powers, still growing or, perhaps, those that are most vulnerable - and it is interesting that this is one of the major aspects of philosophy that both he and Charles agree on.

Of course, Erik's idea of protection and Charles' differ on a major scale. While Xavier wants to open a school and raise mutants to be aware of their powers and able to control them Erik is still very stuck on the idea of mutant superiority; he wants nothing more than for his people to rise above those that would dare shame and murder them and become the dominant, if not only, force in the world. He wants his kind to be safe through power rather than through education and there is very little he wouldn't do in order to protect his cause and continue the fight, even breaking laws, friendships and endangering himself and others to do it.

Perhaps a foremost example of this is the 'Bent Bullet' story. In the X-Men movieverse it has been suggested and theorised that President JFK was shot by Raven 'Mystique' Darkholme while Erik, present on a nearby hill, attempted to save the man by moving the bullet using his metal powers. Unfortunately, the president still died and Erik was caught on camera controlling the bullet and sentenced to imprisonment after a trial. We know, from hindsight, that Erik did not shoot the President and was, in fact, trying to save him - why? Firstly, because he was rumoured to be a mutant. Erik risked life and cause to save another mutant from being assassinated, even if his death might have been a step forward in his own cause. Secondly, it's very easy to suggest that he attempted to save JFK in order to protect Raven and stop her from going down a very dark road, making her a killer rather than the woman he and Charles cared for. He even went to prison in her name, spending almost a decade in a plastic cell with nothing but himself and guards for company.

Whilst Erik can be particularly cruel and entirely unfair in his regard for humanity and their place on the planet it's unfair to say that he doesn't care deeply and powerfully. It's his care and concern for his own kind that pushes him to limits that he doesn't think anyone else would dare risk and it's his heart, which, while in the right place, technically, that makes him such a powerful enemy to those that would dare fight against mutants. He wishes for them to have a place of power, a position where they no longer have to hide or be ashamed of themselves - which is a good desire to have. The problem Erik faces is the means of going about that; he suffers from a hubris which disallows him from doing anything but negative force to get what he wants.

- ★ COURT ALLIANCE: Unseelie. While Charles might think Erik has the capacity for great good inside of him it still remains that he is quite determined to eradicate the human population from the world to make way for the ascension of a new, mutant supremacy. He has very little time for diplomacy, honour or kindness towards those who disagree with his world views or the plans he is making to have them occur and he has proven he will stop at nothing to get what he wants - even abandoning the first person to ever befriend him and make efforts to understand and empathise with him. Erik is, at heart, desperate to protect his people (those with mutations) and would stop at nothing to remove the human threat and restore what he believes to be Mutants' rightful place as the single race on Earth. He wants to change the world for the better (at least in his eyes), he uses his powers as he wants and he doesn't believe there is much honour left in the world either.

- ★ ABILITIES:

Electromagnetism / metal manipulation / ferrokinesis:

• Erik's foremost power is, put simply, the ability to control, bend and use magnetic fields alongside metallics associated with them. In the X-Men movie verse (where Erik is taken from) his powers are far less developed, at least before he ages and learns how better to control them. His powers are still, in part, influenced by his emotions – he is unable to control them to a higher level unless he is feeling a deep, powerful pulse of emotion (usually anger or loss, something that effects him on an incredible high level) which magnifies his power, almost to the point where it exhausts him.
• When he does lose control of his emotions his mutation follows suit; the metal around him constricts itself or vibrates, falls, etc. When he was inside the aeroplane and lost control of his anger the plane itself began to be crushed under the weight of his strength, the outside of it crumpling in on itself.
• He can influence things that are electric or magnetised because of these powers; the electronic waves can be manipulated and twisted using his powers, giving him the ability to control machines, such as security camera, and build them by focussing his gift on them.
• Later in life Erik is capable of developing magnetic waves to block out the effects of telepathic influences and mind-reading, but he hasn't exactly learned how to do this yet. Instead, he uses a metal helmet created by the Soviet Union that he stole from Sebastian Shaw.
• The manipulation of electromagnetic fields allows Erik to lift and mould metal – he's capable of using his gift as a form of telekinesis, lifting metal, using it, having it float in the air, etc. The limit of what he can feasibly lift isn't certain, but he's strong enough to lift and carry planes, bridges and an entire baseball/football stadium across a city.
• He is also capable of extreme precision when using his powers, being able to control racing bullets (and going to literally stop them in their path, even with their speed) while still keeping control of guns; he can multi-task with his power and doesn't seem to suffer too many side effects from doing so. A secondary example of this is Erik being able to lift a stadium by it's metal foundations and travel, floating, while also using his power to start up robotic creatures that he has 'infected' with metal so he can control them.
• Erik's “flight” ability comes from a manipulation of the Earth's electromagnetic field. By twisting it around himself he is able to lift his own body into the air and float, or fly, around the globe.
• Because of the fact that he is attuned to metal, electronic waves and so on, Erik is capable of picking out metals, ferrous or otherwise, in the Earth around him, as well as being capable of seeing/sensing magnetism and waves as a form of second sight. He can also sense and control the iron in people's blood, known as organic iron manipulation. By doing so he can knock them out, cause aneurysms and actually help heal wounds that were created by metal (ie; bullets). He much prefers using other tools than organic manipulation, however.
• The downside to Erik's mutation is that it is entirely dependent upon his concentration and physical condition. When he's weaker or physically wounded he has a far greater time manipulating the magnetic energy around him, which obviously takes a strain on his body. He is also susceptible to over-exerting himself and weakening himself due to particular physical limitations, especially if he uses a huge amount of power in a short amount of time.

Language Fluency:

German is Erik's native language and the one he grew up learning. He is also fluent in English, French and Spanish and, possibly, other languages – it's safe to say he'd be more than capable of understanding Italian, thanks to it's links to Spanish and French. Also, because of his Jewish heritage and upbringing, it's plausible to suggest that he has an basic, if not fluent, knowledge of the Yiddish language (which was only censored in Nazi and Communist controlled sectors of Europe after the 1930s).

 

Hand-to-Hand combat:

Erik has sharp reflexes and is more than capable of handling his own in a physical fight without using his powers. He has proven he can take on a number of assailants at one time, disarming them with a mixture of fists and dismantling of their weaponry – and in a fist-fight with Charles he managed to hold his own and overpower the other man. He's also proven that he is able to physically overpower opponents that seem to be far stronger than he is – such as Hank McCoy when he's in his 'Beast' form. Physical combat wouldn't be his first means of protecting himself, considering his mutation, but if necessary he is more than capable of protecting himself. 
 

- ★ INVENTORY: One outfit. With magenta trousers.

( SAMPLES )

- ★ NETWORK SAMPLE:

[ The voice post starts off with radio silence; it's a simple echo of the world around Erik, a flicker of wings as he walks out of the court he had been dragged to and, instead, into the wilderness. He has no time for the bustling world of the feast - he could almost smell the humanity on them all and it had made him on edge, moreso than being brought to a foreign land had. He had woken up in strange places before, that was nothing new, but being dragged to one, forced, told he was part of some other creature's war - that he was not particularly fond of.

When he finally speaks his voice is low and harsh, displeased with the way things are progressing. ]

My name is Magneto. The people of this land, let me tell you this - you may have been brought here to play soldier in a war but there is a far greater battle ahead. The battle between homo superior and the human race is still at play and there is nothing, nothing, that you can do the cease it. Trying to hide behind fickle skirmishes and promises of gifts and royalties will do nothing to stop the oncoming storm. It is inevitable. 

[ He snorts, then, almost amused by the fact that there's a king and queen here. ]

And to my monarchs... I am not a man to be trifled with. I will not play house in your castle and be a pawn in your games. [ A pause, then the sound of something moving as Erik feels out for metal he can draw upon, something to wrap his powers around to comfort him considering he has no helmet and nothing of his own to use. ] But thank you for this charming necklace. The metal is quite lovely.

[ And then he's gone. ]

 

- ★ LOG SAMPLE: this entire post.