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Mar. 12th, 2014 01:40 am
blinkersoff: (047)
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OUT of CHARACTER
Name: Tipple
Other characters: Guy Crood and Brainiac 5

IN CHARACTER
Name: Jan Arrah / The Progenitor (formerly Element Lad)
Fandom: DC Comics (Legion of Superheroes)
Canon point/AU: Legion Lost #12, before merging with the Omniphagus
Journal: [personal profile] blinkersoff
PB: Comics icons
History: HISTORY LINK right here.

I have some comic panels that elaborate on his transformation to the Progenitor HERE.

Presentation: Jan is completely insane and presents a demeanor that is distinctly "off." He's often spacey and vacillates from one mood to the next without warning. What's unusual is that whenever he's in these moods, he's completely sincere. So if he's acting kind and beneficent, it's completely sincere at that moment. If he turns around and murders someone in a rage the next moment, that hatred is just as sincere. This fluid aspect of his personality is compounded by the fact that he sometimes has difficulty remembering things, due to having billions of years to remember. In his encounters with the Legion after his horrific transformation, he kept remembering and forgetting their names and even that he knew them throughout his conversations with them.

He's also a narcissist of the highest order. After millions of years of immortal life creating and destroying species, Jan thinks he's a god and that the universe revolves around him. He feels no qualms about killing anyone he doesn't like - and routinely commits genocide - and is willing to do it on a whim. He's effectively a sociopath, nearly incapable of feeling empathy for "blinkers," seeing their lives as so small and meaningless that it doesn't matter what happens to them. He sees all other people as extensions of himself and expects worship from any of the beings he creates and complete control over everyone around him. He's destroyed entire species because he's gotten bored with them, deciding they were "variant" from his purpose.

Despite his madness, he can be a very charming, charismatic figure, prone to sweeping theatrics and grand gestures. He's the type to show hospitality to old friends by using his powers to regrow their missing limbs, for instance. He's something of a trainwreck of charisma, a walking disaster that can be difficult to look away from. He also sometimes shows odd moments of the vulnerability and sensitivity of his old life, sometimes lamenting how lonely it is to be a god.

Motivations: Jan is ancient and because of it his perspective is tremendously skewed compared to most mortal beings. He doesn't see most other people as actually being people. They're more objects or constructs that he feels should do what he wants, props to reinforce his worldview and view of himself.

That view of himself is that he's a god. He feels like he is someone that should be worshiped, respected, and loved regardless of what he does. He sees himself at operating at a scale beyond mortal comprehension and thinks that beings created by him should be grateful to exist and that a lack of violence on his part is some kind of benevolent gift. He constantly rationalizes his evil actions, even treating things like genocide as the fault of the peoples he kills, as if they brought it on themselves for getting out of line and working against his purpose. If he's killing people because he's bored with them he thinks it's their fault for no longer being interesting.

He is particularly fascinated by the concept of change and transformation, as befitting someone with the spirituality he once had. Trommites placed great spiritual significance on change and transformation. For him, the act of shaping and destroying species is a holy thing and he feels the people he kills are simply part of a holy thing, that they should be grateful for being murdered and having their genetic matter used as the base materials for new species. He sees being changed in such a way as a positive thing they should be grateful for.

Despite all of the horribleness of who he is now, there are still touches of the old Jan he was once buried deep within him. There are times he is kind and during those times, for a brief time, he means it, sometimes even selflessly. Old instincts to protect and nurture others sometimes briefly resurface before they're buried deep again by his narcissism and lack of empathy. There is also, at his core, a deep sense of loneliness after such a maddening length of time by himself. By putting himself on a pedestal and believing himself to be peerless, he has no way of ever stopping his loneliness, and his tendency to create and destroy species is part of an endless sick cycle of trying to assuage that feeling, but no matter how many species he's created and how much he shaped them into being obedient and worshipful, it never really filled the void.

While there are times that his sense of loneliness drives him to be almost a person rather than a monster, there are also times it will be twisted into something sick. If he comes to see people as being almost peers, such as those that are capable of creating change of some kind or people that evoke long-buried feelings of camaraderie, he'll likely become obsessed with making them love and revere him - at least until he gets bored or takes offense with something they do and decides he wants them to die just to be out of his sight.

Setting: Jan will react very badly to the setting. Having his powers and immortality taken away will make him furious, as he'll feel that the people of Panem have committed a desecration by altering his state of godhood. He will want to try to regain his powers and will plan to single-handedly slaughter the entire planet if he does. He'll feel that they damned themselves in the greatest way possible and that it is his inborn right to eventually rain fire down upon them.

That said, he'll play their games almost gleefully. While he finds it loathsome and disgusting there is a certain charm in being reduced to a mortal beast in that it provides him a chance in proving his superiority and that it still exists despite his lack of godhood and immortality. This will be his short-term goal. His longterm goal will be regaining his "godhood," punishing all the "variants" of this world, and then moving on to go back to his usual work.

He will be terrible at making friends and allies because of his fickle nature. Anyone that spends times with him will be able to pick up on the fact that he might turn on them any second, even if he's acting nice in that moment. However, some may be able to take advantage of his insanity and create enough of an attachment to pit him against their enemies. Validation and preening his ego can sometimes get him very cooperative, especially since he'll enjoy killing anyway. When it comes to manipulating people, however, because he's not entirely with it, he'll have trouble deceiving people since he can't maintain a ruse for long and sometimes forgets he's even met people moments after he has.

He'll likely have trouble charming sponsors, since he's so crazy and outright terrifying, and will regularly threaten to destroy Earth and murder everyone in Panem. In fact, I've spoken to Lisa and it will probably take someone like Penny torturing him and messing with his head to keep him from killing people outside the arena (something he'll obsess over her for, because she transmuted his mind, she's like him). However, some may sponsor him just because he'll be an unpredictable and ridiculously violent element in the games. Jan excels at shaking things up and creating change and will sometimes undertake actions that cause mass chaos on a whim, a very entertaining thing to see in the Arena.

SAMPLES
First Person Thread: An example of a first person post, at least 200 words minimum. Feel free to use introspection and scene setting if your character is not chatty. Please use one of the two following prompts:

For Tributes: You have just been killed in your first arena. It was violent, messy, and unexpected. And just as suddenly you wake back up in a very cold, very medical room. After a few moments of silence, a voice comes up over the speakers.

"Please use the device to the right to record your current feeling on your loss. Once you are finished, someone will be along to take you back to the Capitol." On cue, a small recording device starts to chirp at your side.

It is quite clear that you will be staying in the room until you make that recording.


Oh. Oh, look at how primitive this is! I haven't seen digital video like this for more than - than a month? Maybe. No, longer perhaps. Longer to you at least, if not for me.

[The Progenitor, once known as Jan Arrah, picks up the recording device, holding it up close to his face. Green insect eyes glitter in the light. They had transmuted him, made him an organic being again but they'd left his eyes the same as they were, green tromium, compounded so that he sees the world in a state as fragmented as his mind. ]

You're still very young, aren't you. I imagine you haven't even invented telepathic napalm yet. You're always so interesting at this stage, though, you blinkers. You create your skyscrapers and holograms and think you're unstoppable, so advanced, without knowing how far there is left to go before everything you've built up to that point crumbles away into dust.

[He gently places the recorder down again, withdrawing his hand in a gesture that's almost delicate.]

First you crawl out of the oceans where I stirred the soup that made you and then blink you're walking upright and blink you're digging your little mortal fingers in the earth to make it grow your bread. Blink blink and there are cities and skyscrapers and your pointless little wars over land and silly ideas - the ones you don't get from me. Then blink I get bored and you're all gone.

You're not special, you know. You're not special at all. I decide what species are special and I don't remember making you. I doubt any of mine would dare do what you've done to me.

[His almost amiable expression immediately sharpens into one far more hateful and threatening.]

What you've done is desecration and you'll pay for it. When I transmute myself back to my true state, I'll turn your atmosphere to gasses that will melt the inside of your lungs. Your children will fall to the ground crying and choking.

You're variant to my purpose and for that alone, I'd end you, but for this? For this, I'll unmake you. One by one, if I can.

[His expression goes just a little distant.]

Did I make you in the first place? I really can't remember - it all goes by so quickly, you know?

[He leans his chin against his hand as if it's just a funny sort of thing that happens now and again, forgetting if you made a species.]

Like that game. I think I enjoyed that game but it ended before it had even begun. Well, I enjoyed it other than the screaming - it was so grating and seemed to always happen around me for some reason. But otherwise, I enjoyed it. Will I get to play it again? It's been such a long time since I've enjoyed a good game. I always have trouble finding people willing to play with me.

I think - I think some existed once but that was a very, very long time ago...

Prose: 200 word minimum. To mimic the spirit of capriciousness within this game, please write your third person sample based on the following prompt:

You have been set in a room in front of the Gamemakers to be judged on a score of one to twelve, with one being the lowest and twelve being the highest. The Gamemakers sit safely behind a force field and watch, and you are provided with an array of weapons and targets, though no gun to be seen.

If you are a new tribute, you have been plucked from home and rushed in here with only a brief explanation of what is going on: You are about to enter an arena death match that only one person will make it out of, and impressing these people will help you live.


They had taken his godhood. He could feel blood rushing through veins, a throbbing warmth at the center of him replacing the cold hardness of the living tromium he's been for billions upon billions of years. He was in shock the entire time he'd been ushered around, frozen in a state of disbelief and indignation.

How dare they? How dare anyone commit such sacrilege? How dare they transmute his un-living flesh into this disgusting gene dreck? He had been changed and hadn't been the one to do the changing and that was as crime of the highest order.

By the time he was ushered in front of the gamemakers, he had recovered from his shock and now all that was left was thick hatred, lava-hot, rumbling at his center, ready to erupt explosively. It was a pyroclastic flow he unleashed at the gamemakers hiding behind their shield.

"How dare you sully my perfection with mortality! You filthy little variants, you're playing with forces you don't understand."

He started to throw things at the shield to vent his rage. Spears, throwing knives, battle axes. His anger had driven deep, pulling forth memories of holy wars in the early years of his godhood, times before he had fully mastered his powers. During those times, he'd ridden with his chosen people in their battles against all that was variant, showing them that he was a warrior-god, to be feared as much as he was worshiped by them.

The weapons bounced off the forcefield with such force that they almost hit him on the ricochet, but he stood there as they zinged past as if he didn't fear death or injury - or simply hadn't thought to fear it.

"When I fix this, I'll will rain such fire down upon you - molecular acid, burning its way to the bone. I'll turn your atmosphere into ammonia. I'll turn all of you into whatever I want. Your little squealing children will learn to be still when I turn them into the fertilizer I grow new species with."

He pounded his fist against his chest, spittle flying from his mouth.

"It's my right! I'm a god!" He held out both hands wide. "I'm a god."

He shook his head as if he was disappointed in them. "And your sins are simply unforgivable."

What is your character scored: I think I'm going to go with 9. Jan's powers are ridiculous so in any arenas that allow people to be repowered, the Capitol will have to be careful about how much he's allowed to have back or he might break out. He can sense all of matter at the elemental level and alter it any way he pleases. For instance, in the Legion comics, he was able to sense and repair a lesion on Brainiac 5's brain that he didn't know about that would've caused him a stroke later in life and regrew his old team-mate Livewire's arms. If he wanted to, he could turn someone's blood to molecular acid or just oxidize someone and make them explode. If the Capitol ever made the mistake of taking him entirely off the leash he could turn all the atmosphere of Earth into poison gas and kill every living being on the planet.

Without his powers, he's much weaker. He has an athletic build but isn't the most physically powerful and he won't be used to his mortality. But years and years of existence and leading the species he's created in genocidal wars have left him tremendously skilled. It's implied that Jan's power was honed over the millenia meaning he wasn't as powerful in his earlier years as the Progenitor, which means he most likely wasn't able to handle all the killing remotely.

What I would like to do is treat Jan's fighting skills as something transient and changeable. Sometimes he'll only have average skills, sometimes he'll be a total monster able to fight with tremendous skill and tear someone apart with his bare hands. Sometimes he'll pick up a weapon and have no idea what to do with it and other times he'll pick it up and wield it with tremendous skill, dipping into ancient memories of his early holy wars when he took more of a hands on approach to genocide and had thousands of years experience fighting.

Something that will cause him difficulty is being mortal again, though. He's not used to having to do things like eat or sleep and is pretty crazy so he'll have trouble taking care of his mortal needs. However, unlike some in the arena, he'll have no qualms just murdering someone to steal their food, so he's not the type to have to worry about scavenging without hurting someone. He'll also be generally fearless as he didn't fear death even in his old life when he was Element Lad as his people saw death as just transmuting to the next state. This is a double-edged sword as sometimes it will mean he won't have a sense of self-preservation but other times it means he won't be frozen with fear or easily intimidated.

At this point, the only thing that would truly horrify Jan is the prospect of being alone like he was before he started creating species. Ever since his billions of years in the void, watching solar systems form, he's constantly surrounded himself by his creations and even though he's incapable of treating them as people, he would panic at the prospect of being isolated again.

I feel the mix between having occasionally out-of-this-world fighting skills sometimes (but not all the time), and not figuring out he has to do things like eat averages it all out to around a 9. Sometimes he'll be a glorious murder machine in the vein of characters like Venus, capable of using most weapons with practiced ease, and other times he'll have no idea how to use a weapon and forget that the gnawing feeling in his stomach is hunger and that he has to take care of it.

Additional information: Since Brainy and Jan are from the same canon I wanted to explain why there wouldn't be too much overlap. The Legion is a large team and Brainy was never overly close to Jan, thinking him a little dotty and weird, even if he grieved for what happened to him. I also figure that Jan won't even remember the Legion half the time so he won't seek Brainy and Lyle out, and Brainy thinks he's beyond redemption and doesn't want to be murdered by him - or to have to kill him - so he'll avoid Jan as well. So I feel despite them being from the same canon, they aren't so close that there would be too much crossover or need to RP them against each other. They'd rarely talk and if anything, Brainy would be more likely to warn others about Jan than deal with him directly.

In fact, Lyle and Brainy will probably avoid Jan at all costs to avoid him remembering them and trying to kill him in a homicidal rage for the Lost Legionnaires ruining his plans to destroy all life in the Second Galaxy and turn his sights on their own.

Also, I would like to note the fact that Jan should be treated as being from a slightly alternate but nearly identical reality to Brainiac 5 and Lyle. Brainiac 5 and Lyle are from Earth-247, which was a timeline that collapsed during Infinite Crisis. DC has established the fact that dead timelines in DC are pretty much inaccessible via time travel or other forms of access, and that incarnation of the Legion didn't have a timeline to travel back to. They're simply gone so there's nowhere to grab FROM. The only time they get accessible again is if another crisis recreates them somehow, ala Earth Prime. Lyle and Brainy and the rest of the Legion escaped dying from the rest of their universe but when it comes to digging in the past for anyone like Jan, it really should be treated as if they're from an alternate timeline with identical events that never collapsed.

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Jan Arrah | The Progenitor

April 2014

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