MoM App

[doctopussy]

PLURK:whomps

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Dr. Otto Octavius aka Doctor Octopus
CHARACTER AGE: I'm gonna say in his 40s. Comics?
SERIES: Marvel Comics (616)
CHRONOLOGY: Web of Death part 4 OR just after being murdered by Kaine in 1995
CLASS: He's a supervillain! The evil scientist kind. Is not going to reform for a billion years.
HOUSING: individual housing, in either De Chima or Maurtia Falls please!

BACKGROUND:
Wiki link! You don't need to read past the "Death and Resurrection" header. In fact, please don't. Please love yourselves.

After you've read that I'm going to expand briefly on the story I'm pulling him from, since the wiki only has it as a single sentence and it's very important to his current characterization.

New York, ambiguous comic book time, a man named Peter Parker has been the superhero known as Spider-Man for a long time now and currently has his hands full with a certain clone saga. But more to the point, one of his villains, the Vulture, has poisoned him with a chemical virus. It's slow-acting but going to kill him soon.

Doctor Octopus stumbles across him in his weakened state -- a perfect moment for ridding himself of his long-time enemy. But he doesn't do it, instead he realizes he doesn't like it. He doesn't like how weak Spider-Man is or how he'd been acting recently, realizing he missed the way Spider-Man used to be in his mind: heroic, brave and selfless. So he leaves him and starts to get an idea.

It turns out he's currently dating a woman called Stunner (Angelina Brancale, sort of), who's loyal and very much in love with him. Realizing he doesn't actually want to lose Spider-Man, he gets Stunner to go after his foe -- so they can save his life. He unmasks Spider-Man, discovering he's Peter Parker, and obsessively creates an antidote. It works, temporarily, and he has to make his case to Peter that he legitimately wants to save his life. They work together and eventually Peter is cured, and Doc celebrates -- after all, now he and Spider-Man can continue to challenge each other to reach greater heights and fight forever.

But it's not very long after that (literally, later that issue) that Kaine (a clone of Peter without his reluctance to murder) goes and kills Doctor Octopus.

Which is the exact moment I'm bringing him from!


PERSONALITY:

Dr. Otto Octavius is arrogant, insecure, violent, callous, attention-starved, manipulative, calculating, strangely charming, and an unprecedented scientific genius.

Otto’s father thought he was weak and his mother encouraged his intelligence and education while not doing anything to help his social isolation, even contributing to it. So along with his parental issues, Otto grew with both a lot of expectations and insistence that he’s special, unique, intelligent and better than other people -- while simultaneously being belittled, ostracized and misunderstood by his father and those he studied and worked with.

Thus, on one hand he has an excessive arrogance with the belief that he’s more intelligent than anyone else and a disdain for anyone he views as an idiot. This is followed closely by a desire to be powerful – something his arms give him, but also he’s not above accumulating wealth, prestige and weapons. But on the other hand, he’s insecure in the belief in his own power and intelligence. Anything that makes him look stupid, anything that threatens his power, anything that encroaches on his ego is something to be destroyed or defeated. He doesn’t want to be laughed at, he doesn’t want to be seen as weak, and he cannot stand failure. He has a desire to prove himself is better than that, to prove to the world that he’s not to be underestimated. And he has a desire for the world to give him that vindication. It’s not just that he proves it, but that everybody acknowledges that he has.

Much as he craves validation as a scientist, a part of him also craves emotional validation. He spent so much time alone and closed off even without being outright rejected or with whispers behind his back, he often feels close to someone when they do treat him with affection and respect. You see this with his relationships to Aunt May and Stunner, where even if in the beginning he may have seen them as useful tools at best or people to be manipulated (Aunt May providing a safe haven while on the run, Stunner as a test subject), it’s clear that he does actually care for them in his own way. That being said, he can and will lie to and manipulate even people he cares for.

On that note, he has a skewed perception of violence and manipulation. He doesn’t seem to place a particularly high value on human life, especially if said human life is a worthy sacrifice for his plans or if someone being dead would be the most efficient route he perceives to prevent problems. In other words, there been numerous times when he’s literally done that “you’ve outlived their usefulness” thing. He also has a violent temper and will lash out when it’s triggered, usually by him deciding that someone is disrespecting him. But he rarely kills without reason – that reason might only make sense to his logic, but he doesn’t really go on murderous rampages. He’s also not prone to make someone suffer, except maybe through humiliation. Which doesn’t necessarily make it better, as he might think very carefully about his decision to kill someone (or even thousands of people) and if he decides it’s the right course of action he’ll do it without hesitation.

Similarly, if killing someone isn’t worth the effort or he’d rather keep them alive for whatever reason, logical or sentimental, he’ll definitely show restraint. From his pull point in particular, he not only did not take the opportunity to kill Spider-Man when he could have but even saved his life because he not only viewed Spider-Man as a worthy equal but as someone who challenges him and lets him achieve new heights, even going as far as wanting to fight Spider-Man forever. And if it’s someone he respects and/or cares for, he’s unlikely to cause them harm.

And he does, particularly at this point in time, respect kindness, compassion, selflessness. You see this in how he regards people like Aunt May and Spider-Man. He believes he’s not any of those things, nor does he really try to be, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t recognize it in others. He has a certain amount of respect for it, even if he’s not above using those things against someone.

He can be surprisingly charming when he wants to be, and can depending on who he’s speaking to can be polite, erudite and cultured. He’s not always like that, and he tends to act that way the most around women, but he’s quite capable of it. He’s also not above working with others, either through convincing them to work with him or blackmailing them into doing so. He almost always prefers to lead himself unless it’s an emergency (like letting Doom take the lead in Secret Wars). But he did form and lead the Sinister Six, used to hire henchmen, and will definitely work with people if the situation calls for it. Even mid-battle truces in order to accomplish a common goal.


POWER:
1) (canon) Mechanical Arms! Doctor Octopus has a harness with four mechanical tentacles attached to it. These work according to Comic Book Science so just run with it. Doctor Octopus controls their movements mentally and they have been known to react to his emotions or dreams as well as conscious thought, though it would have to be a really vivid dream or extremely strong emotion. Additionally, it's been shown that even after being ripped off, the arms can often move on their own, often wriggling like snakes to get back to the rest. Super gross. He can also program them to do things -- in the past he's programmed them to automatically start lashing out if he is unresponsive, for example.

The tentacles are strong enough that just one of them can lift a person off the ground, and working together (ie, if he uses two to lift & two to brace himself) can lift heavier objects such as cars or vans (about 3 tons). They can also punch through walls, bend metal, and at one point ripped off Iron Man's chest plate. They ain't no joke.

They're very flexible, and are about 6 feet but can be extended to their full length of about 21 feet. The arms have smaller attachments at the end that can do more delicate work, such as use a pencil or mix tea with a teaspoon.

This particular set is supposed to be made out of the indestructible alloy "adamantium" but I'm partially nerfing it. It's still REALLY HARD to do anything to them, but a person with superhuman strength will be able to, particularly at the joints. Not that damaging them causes immense amount of pain to Otto as he is linked to them mentally, as if one of his real arms was ripped off.

2) One is the Loneliest Number (Non-Canon) Whenever Otto is completely alone, with nobody else around, sometimes randomly "One" by Three Dog Night or a cover thereof plays softly and sadly in the background. The likelihood of this playing is increased if he feels lonely. The only exception to the "nobody around" rule is in the very specific situation where someone rips off exactly three of his tentacles, at which point everybody in the vicinity will be able to hear it.

SLOT THREE I am keeping open in case he invents something in-game that requires a power update! You don't really need to know that but listen: it's almost definitely gonna be a thing.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

TDM thread!

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

Otto Octavius, better known as Doctor Octopus, had to barely restrain himself from destroying the government agents that shepherded him to his accommodations, handed him a far-too sparse file and a completely insulting pamphlet that was supposed to explain why he was here. He read it, of course, and quickly took to reading and watching everything that was on the Network. No doubt the device was meant to watch them, but for now it was a good source of data.

There were names he recognized, of course, and names he didn't. He took note of the ones who even seemingly approached actual intelligence, and dismissed the ones who used it as some sort of glorified chat room.

But all of them had something in common. That machine they call the Porter. It would be inconceivable to assume he's not the only one who finds it grating to be at its whim. It treats time and space, even life and death as mere toys, for what? Its own amusement? An error in its programming?

It was a puzzle he desperately wanted to solve. The fact that no one else seemed to have solved it yet was irrelevant; they were not Doctor Octopus. But something holds him back: survival instinct. He's dead. Murdered. An insult. A humiliation. More than that, an end to his eternal game with Spider-Man. Except... not. The Porter had allowed him to live, albeit separated from dear, sweet Stunner.

He scrolls through the network, skimming the posts as he thinks. It's galling to think of, but if he's sent back he will be dead. He'll never be able to continue his work. But here --- Ock stops at one particular post, staring at the Network ID. He doesn't smile, but he does start to move, his arms absently lifting him up and opening a nearby window to his assigned residence.

Spider-Man was here. And as long as he was, the game could continue.

He leaves, taking to the streets. He'll find him. And maybe, just maybe, there will be others here, other geniuses from other universe he can use to test his mettle and win. He'll find those too.

No, death was not the end of Doctor Octopus. It was a new beginning. And it was time to find out who here was worthy to be included in it.

FINAL NOTES:

Also the most fashionable Otto Octavius has ever been.