App for Singularity

[usavatar]

Player Information ;
Your Nickname: Jae
OOC Journal: N/A I literally don't have one that I use, sock or otherwise. @-@
Under 18? Nope.
Email/IM: anjelsword at gmail dot com
Characters Played at Singularity: N/A

Character Information ;

Name: Steven G. (presumably Grant) Rogers

Age: 26

Appearance: Herp. He's 6'2'', two-hundred-fifty or so pounds, and as blonde-haired and blue-eyed as the imaginary Boy Next Door.

Name of Canon: Captain America: First Vengeance/Captain America: The First Avenger

Reference:

Wikipedia for the movie
The Marvel Cinematic Universe

I can find a download of the prequel comic, probably, if it's necessary.

Canon Point: Directly as the Valkyrie hits the ice; aka about five minutes from the end of the movie.

Inventory: He's really got nothing but the shirt on his back, as it were - his uniform, an empty gun holster, and his compass, with a picture of Peggy Carter tucked in side. Take away the gun and shield, add a lot of dirt, soot, some tears in the fabric and blood, and that's pretty much what he's got.

His shield would end up in the junkyard, to be found in all likelihood by one of the other Avengers, if the mods are okay with that?

Setting:

When we first see Steve we're in 1943, our time primarily spent in New York for the first half of the film; it's four years into World War Two, with rationing, propaganda, and fearmongering in full-swing despite America's grind upwards out of the Depression thanks to the industrial necessities of war. It's the world we know, really - unlike with the other films, the only piece of Marvel Movieverse canon to date that really effects Steve's reality is the idea presented and proven in Thor - the Norse gods exist, but not as gods in and of themselves. They're an alien race of vast technological superiority, former visitors to the earth - which is how the Norse legends came to be. They don't practice magic, but a science so advanced that it appears to be magic (hereafter referred to as 'voodoo science').

Certain personalities believe the legends are more than just that, and have devoted themselves to proving it. Johann Schmidt, the man who becomes known as Red Skull, is the only other person in the world to undergo the serum injections that changed Steve Rogers into Captain America. But his change was prompted by a search for a power left behind by the Asgardians, and the belief that man is man's best weapon. Schmidt finally does locate the power source he's hunting for, and uses it - in the span of a year - to develop technology that puts anything up to and including modern military weapons to shame. The Tesseract is a source of explosive power that, when channeled properly, literally annihilates living tissue and can rip chunks from some of the strongest metals in the world. Schmidt leads the Nazi's deep science division, called HYDRA - but breaks away from Hitler and his followers to pursue his own ends once he has all the pieces in place. His followers are fanatics, their faith in Schmidt cultlike, their willingness to die for him absolute.

The division Steve joins to help fight Schmidt and HYDRA is called the SSR - the Strategic Scientific Reserve - and is, in Marvel continuity, the direct precursor to SHIELD. Serving much the same purpose as special forces during Vietnam, they perform hit-and-run raids on Schmidt's facilities deep behind enemy lines, and are to all intents and purposes not acknowledged as existing by the military at large. It seems to be a coalition made up primarily of American and British military and intelligence forces. They're HYDRA's non-evil twin, essentially, though their tech levels are nowhere near those of HYDRA itself and their manpower is limited.

As far as the world at large is concerned, the conflict between HYDRA and the SSR isn't even happening; there might be occasional stories about strange technology (or, you know, UFOs, that sort of thing) seen in regions where HYDRA is active, but Schmidt and the SSR are tangled in their own very private battle for dominance. The only information people outside of the conflict are liable to get with any consistency are propagandist articles about Captain America's exploits, carefully edited to make it seem as though the missions are part of the every-day war effort.

Abilities and Weaknesses:
HE'S A GOOD MAN. IT'S SUPERPOWER NOW. ALSO, IF YOU GO BY THE MOVIE, VULNERABLE ONLY TO FIRE.

But no really. As Erskine puts it, the serum takes what is already there - inside - and amplifies it. It took, in essence, the spirit of the man that Steve was and made him into more than that - it's voodoo science, we don't question. As far as what he displays during the movie, he has vastly heightened stamina, a healing and recovery rate that far outstrips that of an ordinary individual, is more difficult to injure generally speaking (he went flying off the top of a capsizing cab and hit the ground before rolling and came up without a scratch until the dude shot him, I mean really), and is strong as ten regular men, definitely. He also has a metabolism four times faster than average, which means (I suppose unless he's trying really, really hard), this here 26-year-old-virgin can't get drunk. Other than that, he's flesh and blood - he can be injured, he can be killed. All it takes is a well-placed bullet or more injuries than his body can heal.

I don't think there's any real need to limit his abilities, though the mods are certainly welcome to disagree; he has no particular powers that would do devastating damage to the station. He's just a guy with superhuman strength and a few extras, really.

Personality:
Steve was raised until age ten by a selfless nurse and a heroic story - his father, a soldier in the army's 107th heavy armor division during WWI, was also one of the 2% of victims killed in the field by mustard gas. To say it colored his psyche would be one massive understatement; he's tried to live the life he thought his father would want him to since he was old enough to self-actualize. Considering the fact that he'd always been unhealthy - extremely unhealthy - it's taught him a resilience and stubbornness bordering on the moronic. Once he gets an idea in his head he does. Not. Quit. He won't lay down in a fight, and he won't lay down for a bully. He'd have to be literally incapable of getting off the ground to keep himself from a fight once he's involved. One of the last things his mother said to him was to understand the difference between fearlessness and foolishness, which - while it is something he understands - doesn't always stop him from stepping past the edge of what's reasonable when it comes to standing up against bullies.

The Great Depression hit the US in a bad way shortly after his mother's death - shortly after Steve was moved from his Hell's Kitchen home to an Orphanage in Brooklyn. All things considered, he was lucky. The populations in orphanages exploded in the years after 1929, orphanages becoming refuges for children whose parents never came back after they left their kids to the state while they went elsewhere to find work, as well as the simply abandoned, the runaways, and those whose parents died. Considering the priority parentless children were given it's something of a miracle that Steve turned out to be as selfless as he did; though he couldn't have been without friends, I doubt he was close to any of those he knew. For all his warmth and empathy, he doesn't trust easily, and his first expectation has always been that he'll be tested somehow by the company of others - either physically or in his ability to take or ignore a joke.

This constant testing has instilled in him a pathological need to prove himself. To be more resilient, more persistent, more disciplined, more responsible than everyone else. If he didn't have the physical benefits that others did, he would distinguish himself in other ways.

The most significant thing about him, however, is the bottom-line reason Erskine picked him for Project: Rebirth in the first place. Steve Rogers is, plain and simple, a good man. Whether through his mother's influence, his father's legacy, his own self-depreciation, or just some peculiar accident of fate, he's an exemplar of selflessness, humility, empathy, and sensitivity to the needs of others. Even as he tries to prove himself, he values others above himself, and sees in them all the potential that others can overlook. What drives him in the film to put down the mic and pick up the shield is the determination to free 400-odd heroes imprisoned behind enemy lines, to track down his best friend/virtual brother. In every instance where he's given the opportunity to either take on the bad guy or try to save someone's life, he goes first for the save without a second thought. He values humanity. He has faith in people, faith in their ability to do the right thing if given the chance, and faith in his country and what it stands for if not all those who manage its policies.

In spite of all that, his initial relationship with the persona of Captain America was shaky at best. He wasn't the kind of person to embrace the stage - too used to being laughed at or ignored for that - and he wasn't expecting the offer of a patriotic job and a promotion to entail singing, dancing, and speeches. Over time, however (the USO and publicity circuit lasted about six months) he started to realize not only how happy his appearances made people, but how important the symbol he represented was to them. His final, true step into the position of Captain America came when he rescued Bucky and his fellow prisoners - when Bucky himself called for the soldiers to cheer the icon they'd been mocking and jeering just days before. One of the reasons Steve remains humble despite the attention and accolades is his own mental divide between himself and the hero; people aren't cheering for Steve Rogers. They're cheering for the Captain. Bucky knows him well enough to realize this, which is probably why he makes the distinction between who he's following into war. Not Captain America. The skinny kid from Brooklyn who was too stupid to run away from a fight.

It's understanding that difference that sets his WWII colleagues apart from the (movieverse) Avengers, or will at least at first. The former know Steve Rogers and Captain America; they see where the man and the character meet, and value both for who they are and what they mean. Through experience, they're able to marry the symbol and the individual, and both are stronger for it. Pull Steve out of that time period, away from those who've experienced him as a person, and suddenly you take away that portion of humanity so essential to Captain America himself; he becomes simply the hero without the man Erskine put such faith in. Yes, Steve is still there, who he is hasn't changed, but the way those around him react to his presence does. You can't truly be friends with a charicature, which is what the public face of Captain America was during WWII. He was the USO hero who went overseas to become a real one; an image attached to headlines, not a man. Until his new companions start to see the kid from Brooklyn standing behind the shield, he just won't really be one of them.

That's not the only thing that will create distance between them. As untested as the emblematic Captain America might be in their eyes, the Avengers are equally unreliable in his. His Commandos were proven in the field, loyal and trustworthy. They'd saved each others' lives and could be counted on to do it again. Perhaps most importantly, Steve hand-picked them himself with Bucky's help, whose judgement he trusted without fault. The Avengers were (or will be) thrown together by circumstance, a conglomeration of egos and leaders whose goals might be the same but whose differences make achieving them a hair-pulling exercise in Rube Goldberg reasoning.

He's also set apart from them because of the values of the era he grew up in, the era whose ideals he embodies, and his own reservedness in all areas, not the least of which is personal and physical pleasure. He's never believed in indulgence - from growing up in a frugal single-parent home to the scarcity of the Depression to the rationing of the War, he's been raised to believe you take what you need and no more, and even that should be shared if there's a need. Selflessness and restraint are ingrained in him too deeply for the excess and gratuitous selfishness of the 21st century not to disgust him in some way. Heroes and true leaders in particular have no business indulging in more than their subordinates are allowed. He didn't when he was on the ground and in the field, his Colonel didn't, his peers didn't, and he holds those around him in the modern day to that same standard. Howard was an exception to the rule, but he proved himself in enough other ways that his excesses were forgiveable, even endearing.

As far as physical pleasure is concerned, Steve is still a virgin and not particularly ashamed of it. As he tells Peggy, there are several reasons for it; it's not just that no one was interested in the twiggy asthmatic who would probably break before getting half way to the finish line. He never had the confidence to get intimately involved with a woman, for one, and then after the War began it wasn't even worth considering a priority any more. There were more important things to do. He views sex as something private, intimate, and personally important; if there's no love, there's no point. Even though he fell hard for Peggy (like a giant superweapon-loaded plane into a glacier), he knew - as did she - that there was a time and a place for a relationship like the one they wanted, and put duty to country and mission first. It's kind of what he does; his own desires, needs, and dreams are all tied up in the success or failure of the mission at hand, and if it comes to a question between personal fulfillment and a selfless act for the sake of others, he'll go the second route, without question, every time.

Samples ;
Log Sample:

Sometimes, Steve found it extremely difficult to appreciate having friends. It could have been anyone's idea, really- a casual mention, a wouldn't it be funny, if but Steve would bet anything that when it came down to the follow-up, it was all Bucky.

He stands, dripping, in the mouth of the citadel's showers, staring at where his clothes and towel were when he stepped under the blissful indulgence of hot running water. Now, there is a sock. One sock, with a smiling face chalked in black on the end. He closes his eyes. Counts to ten, and then goes over to pick up the sock.

And sees another sock, this one with a smiling face and an arrow, laying on the ground a few feet away. Beyond the arrow, his tie.

"Gee, thanks, Bucky," Steve mutters.

By the time he reaches the door to the hallway, he has two socks, his tie and tie pin, one shoe, and a cufflink. He cracks the door open, entertaining a vague kind of hope that he'll find the rest of his belongings in a tidy pile within arm's reach. Instead, his underthings are hanging from a hook on the far wall that Steve never quite saw the purpose of. Thoughtful of Bucky to find one.

Deep breath. One more look to make sure no one is in the immediate vicinity.

Steve shoves his way into the hall, snatches his underwear from the hook, and is in the process of turning when there's a flash and the poof and splintering sound of a camera bulb, followed by raucous laughter from a half-dozen very identifiable sources. Steve closes his eyes, walks back into the showers, and shuts the door. It's less than a minute later when Bucky comes in, draped in Steve's dress jacket and holding his pants.

"You're coming out with us tonight," he says. "Or I'm giving that photo to Agent Carter. Or Colonel Phillips. I'll be nice and let you pick."

Steve holds out a hand and Bucky wags a finger. "No answer, no pants. What's it going to be, Captain Rogers? Come on, Dugan's going to run your tab through the roof if you don't stop him."

"I'll come," Steve says. "I'll come. Can I please-"

The pants hit him in the head. "Twenty-one-hundred hours, captain. Don't be late."

"I'm bringing my paperwork," he says, but Bucky is already out the door.

Network Sample:

[There's some fumbling sounds, and then the voice of a young man, tired and a little uncertain.] Starting to think I should have read more pulps as a kid. And H.G. Wells, maybe. My mother did always say I needed to read more than war stories and adventure books.

[Silence, then,] I feel like I should be making sure I'm not dead. But this seems a little too much like an afterlife tailor-made by Howard for me to end up... I don't know.

[Another pause, and a muttered something that sounds like ‘get to the point, Rogers’ to those with a careful ear.

Except he’s not really sure what the point is. He clears his throat and manages to sound less lost and more officious.] Is there anyone present who knows Colonel Chester Phillips? Or maybe- [A slight falter.] Agent Margaret Carter? I need. I need to get in contact with them, somehow.

[And suddenly there’s a lot less friendliness and a lot more iron in his voice. Because Steve is as good at being covert as a hydrogen bomb is good at selective targeting.] …And if you don’t know them, does the name HYDRA mean anything to you?

NOTE: When Steve first shows up, it's quite likely he'll think he's been yoinked into some kind of HYDRA facility - he did just see Skull get peeled away into space after picking up the Tesseract. As a result, he's likely to be hostile and possibly violent to the first few people he meets. I'll make a note of this in my OOC intro as well.


Log Sample 2:
Steve was well-acquainted with death before he ever hit the ice. His father, his mother, plenty of the kids he knew in the orphanage - he made his peace with it by twelve, made his peace after hearing over and over from the dying and their friends Why not you?

Steve is comfortable with the idea that death, when it finally comes for him, will have given him more chances than he probably deserved. He doesn't want to die. But the idea doesn't scare him.

Which is why when he hits the ice and the darkness slams into him - along with the control panel, the wheel, the glass of the windshield - he's a little surprised when it doesn't last. He thinks at first that the impossible happened, that they found him and he's alive. But the light doesn't change and his surroundings don't clarify and eventually he starts to wonder (after how long? how long has he been standing here, in the middle of white-tinted-blue, waiting for something to happen?) if maybe he's dead after all. He hears someone laugh, and realizes (however long he's been here) there's been nothing, nothing but silence.

The shadows start then, coming and going with murmurs that sound like voices or growls. Sometimes they stop and he feels like they watch him, but they never speak. Not in any way he can understand. He tries, a few times, to talk to the ones that come close, to reach out and stop them as they go by, but they walk through his arm like it isn't even there and he doesn't feel them passing. It's then that he realizes he can see through his own skin, see thin and wasted limbs underneatch muscle, thin hands and knobby fingers like mutated bones.

"You don't give up," someone says, quietly, but it sounds like a yell after so long without words. Steve turns, expecting the speaker to be behind him, but no one is there, and it all looks so much the same that he's not sure he turned around at all.

The shadows start to fade and take their small noises with them. Leave him alone again in a world of blue fog. First he wonders where they went, if he should have gone with them, if he's been left behind. Then Peggy comes striding through his thoughts with perfect lipstick and sensible heels, somehow more real for the flush of color in her skin, and he half-reaches out before he remembers where he is and where she's not. How are they, all of them, where are they, are they alive, did they win. Over and over like a record with a needle caught between two grooves.

The fog doesn't change. A person can only spend so much time thinking and wondering about what's going on before thoughts start to drift and then eventually, finally, peter out into nothing. The emptying turns into a relief.

"Finally," someone says, and he remembers hearing the voice before, but not where or when. "Can we talk now, Captain?"

It takes Steve a moment to remember how to form words properly as more than simple thought. Does he even have a tongue here? "Who are you?"

"You know," the voice says, and Steve starts to see a shadow taking shape in the fog. "You're almost as big a problem as others I'll meet, Captain."

"I'm sorry," he says, more confused than apologetic.

"It's forgivable," the shadow says. "Most things are."

The fog rolls back, revealing surroundings painted in gray analogues of vibrant shades; bare hills tinted green, naked trees too light to be black but too dark to quite be brown. The sky is cloudless and as empty as the landscape.

"I had hoped," Death says, "this problem might sort itself out if I left you alone long enough. Quite the breakthrough, that serum of his."

"Erskine." The name flickers through Steve's mind like lightning through the dark. He straightens, clinging to that flicker, trying to pull himself out of the retreating fog.

"Yes." Death isn't wearing robes, that Steve can see. There's no grinning skull or bone fingers. Just a space that looks as though it's eating at the air around it, dragging its surroundings into itself, held back by who-knows-what. "But I think I have a way to sort this out."

"How?" He tries to care, and even the trying seems to do something; a few smiling faces, half-formed conversations committed so carefully to memory once upon a time.

"Peggy Carter," Death says. "It's her time."

Steve takes a step forward, solidity and reality roaring through him with horrible force. It makes his head hurt - which is almost a shock. Pain. He'd forgotten about pain, too.

"Ease your mind, Captain. She's earned her rest. It's her time."

"She's twenty-seven," he says.

"Captain," Death says, almost chiding.

"Where is she?"

Two paths rise like streams from the gray-green earth, one of them rolling away downhill, the other climbing up into a forest that wasn't there before. "The end of the road," Death says.

"Which way?" He can't see very far down either one.

"She's waiting for you," Death says. "How you reach her is your choice."

Steve squints up at the sky that manages to be both blue and colorless, looks down at himself, the ghost within a ghost. He's tired. The kind of tired that comes after months of pneumonia, the kind of tired that eats through muscle to bone and brain and makes movement an achievement.

But really, when has that ever stopped him?

"I don't trust easy," he says, and Death is gone and the downhill road is fading, and for the first time in he doesn't know how long there's something else. The wind. He can hear the wind.

His eyes are closed, and he can hear the wind.