Please feel free to voice any concerns you have with my Laughing Beauty. Anon is on and IP logging is disabled. :)

Player Information

Name: NOISE
Age: 25
AIM SN: WutWasThatNoise
email: renegaderaine@gmail.com, but private messaging this journal would be so much easier (and preferred)!
Have you played in an LJ based game before? YOU BET YOUR ASS I HAVE.
Currrently Played Characters: NONE, although this girl should hopefully be familiar. :)

Character Information

General
Canon Source: Metal Gear Solid 4
Canon Format: Video game
Character's Name: She's called both Laughing Beauty and Laughing Octopus, in canon. No actual name is given, but I go with Sarina Svenson (which everyone knows her as, from her existing CR).
Character's Age: Well, I started her off at 20 (as no canon age was given), but she went through at least one birthday in SP and I dropped her two weeks before her second birthday. She'll still count it as a second birthday, so 22.

What form will your character's NV take? Something like this, without the stupid holder thing, but with a cutesy octopus charm like this. So slightly updated from what she had before, but not by too terribly much!

Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
Almost all of her most powerful abilities come from outfitting herself with her Beast suit (which I'll delve into later), but she also posses some abilities without having to put the suit on as well, which include:

• The very odd ability of draining one's life by...hugging or straddling them. Seriously. No explanation is given for how the hell she does this, but if something isn't explained in the MGS series, the answer is most likely "nanomachines". To expand on this, she doesn't gain any energy of her own from the ability; it only harms her opponent. In game, it takes 25 seconds of one of her hands staying still, somewhere on the person's body (and without the person struggling) for her to kill the player. However, she seemingly has no close quarter combat skill at all, so she can easily be tossed to the ground if she attempts this move.
• The ability to create a green flame and light one on fire; it should be noted though that the flame is very weak and can easily be extinguished by doing a combat roll.
• She also seems to have the ability to sidestep attacks, like I'm talking she can sidestep a rocket launcher blast sometimes (and she laughs at you, to boot!). However, this seems to be a randomized ability in game, as it's most certainly possibly to hit her. So in a RP setting, it'd be a very weak and under-developed ability.
• Although the game only shows this ability during her Beast fight, it can probably be assumed that she can mimic any voice she hears on her own. During the fight, she copies both Naomi and Otacon's (a man) voice perfectly as a way of trying to lure the player into traps she sets up. Seeing how she never actually meets Otacon in the game, she probably only simply has to hear a person's voice enough times to be able to copy them.
• Seeing how she wields a submachine gun in battle, it can be assumed she's proficient in using firearms.
• Even if she only speaks English in game, she's from Scandinavia (I'm headcanoning it to Norway) so she probably knows how to speak Norwegian and Swedish. In addition to this, she probably knows at lot of French, as she led a PMC unit based in France for at least four years.
• Since she -- along with every other soldier in her canon -- has nanomachines in her body, it at least regulates her body's systems (making it very hard for her to get sick) and enhances her combat ability (but by no
  means makes her invincible), and slowly (like I'm talking hours here) heals her body.

And then with her abilities with her Beast suit, she only gets worse:

• The tentacles on her suit are capable of strangling, electrocuting, bludgeoning, and having enough force to stab one through the stomach. In addition to that, they're also occasionally able to deflect bullets, and can scale ceilings and walls to greatly quicken her movements.
• Another major feature of the suit is the ability to transform herself. The Octocamo within the suit is so advanced, she can easily change the colors on the exterior of the suit to have her blend in almost completely with her surroundings. In addition to that, her suit has shown shapeshifting properties, shifting into such objects as a small robot, an anatomy model, a picture, a cardboard box, a wire, and even another person entirely. Also, she can form herself into a ball, which has the ability to trample over a person.
• She can also cover her surrounding area with ink, which appears as smoke. If one does not turn their back during its distribution, they could be blinded for a couple of seconds. Regardless if the target is blinded or not, she uses the ink as a mask to give herself some time to find a hiding spot.
• Shortly after distributing her ink, Octopus will release homing bombs to further distract her target as she flees to find a hiding spot. If one has a gun, or can move quickly, the bombs can easily be dealt with.

Lastly, I'm listing some weaknesses, because it'd be totally unfair not to have some, after all!

• Cameras. It only works on her normal (Beauty) form in canon, but if one points a camera at her, she compulsively freezes into a modeling pose and stays in that position until the camera is put away.
• This song. But only that song (no other song on the iPod works). The video should be self-explanatory.
• Mental instability, but that'll be covered in personality.

Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them?: I'll be going with what she had before: the ability to transform in and out of her Beast suit, as I took her from a canon point where her Beast armor was destroyed, and half the fun of playing her is playing with that suit! And as she spent a little over a year, in the Port, she had developed that ability to the point where she could control when she could activate her Beast Suit at will.

Weapons: In addition to her suit, she also wields a FN P90 submachine gun.

History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: RIGHT HERE
Point in Canon: She was originally taken from after her defeat in her second (Beauty) fight, but I'm hoping to bring her in with her memories she had in Siren's Port before. So she'll be all "OHAI GUYS I'M NOT DEAD ANYMORE, SORRY ABOUT THAT."
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: This covers most of it.

The only thing to really add to that is that after that point, she became more careful as she trained herself to get a handle on her dormant power more and more, wanting to become strong and independent enough to take on the companies herself, if she had to. After the disappearance of so many of her friends, she became more protective of the ones she had left, not wanting to lose them as well.

However, as soon as she mastered her transformation power, she once again became reckless and bit off more than she could chew, as she took on too big of a group of monsters and ultimately met her death.

Character Personality:


The most important thing to remember about Laughing Beauty is that she more or less has a sort of has two different personalities that she created herself in order to help her cope with the events that led to her becoming traumatized: the Beauty (her normal personality) and the Octopus (her "Beast" side). Both personalities are most definitely her, but she finds it easier to associate all of the bad things -- and all of her most destructive traits -- with something else that isn't her. Before Snake faces her in battle against her Beauty form, she seems to start to come to terms with the fact that it was her who did all of the terrible things (which is the point I'm pretty much taking her from), but the process of fully accepting that both the Beauty and the Beast personalities are a part of her would be a long and arduous one (which she was making great progress in, during her previous stay in the Port, but I'll get into developments later).

Seeing as the "Beauty" personality is/was the more active personality by far, I'll start with that. As the above quote mentions, beneath that scary Beast armor and bloodthirsty personality (which I'll delve into soon), there is a scared and very, very unstable individual. When her Beast armor first comes off, she still tries to continue her Octopus persona, but in just mere seconds she has a breakdown of sorts as she clenches the sides of her head saying that nothing was funny, started apologizing to a very confused Snake for laughing, told him that she was scared, and then swore that she'd never laugh again. Then a few seconds later, she starts hysterically laughing again and tries to kill him. However, I do not believe she would be the type to try to kill everyone (even before her development), as it was a specific mission of hers to kill Solid Snake.

Which leads to another point: she is (or at least was) extremely impressionable. Since her psyche was shattered to pieces, during the events of her youth, she hasn't quite learned to live outside of her suit, and it made her quite susceptible to suggestion. Even in canon, she was entirely convinced that the pain, sorrow, and guilt she constantly felt could be alleviated just by simply killing Solid Snake (even if he had absolutely nothing to do with her traumatic experience).

Being more used to living as a Beast -- a tool of war -- for at least the last few years of her life, she was very skittish and confused by trying to live as a normal person. However, as a proclaimed master of stealth and mimicry, it's possible that her talents will prove to be useful even outside of combat in the form of adapting and blending into her surroundings. Even though she was scared and confused upon arriving in a new world (as she was certainly not used to living as an actual person instead of a war machine), she'd ask a lot of questions to better understand the environment and attempt to appear as normal as possible...although even the dimmest of people will (and did) probably be able to tell that there's something off about her, probably because of how often she laughs (even at things that aren't supposed to be funny).

Her Beast form -- or rather the Octopus -- was something she created in her mind, shortly after killing her family in an attempt to make herself feel better about what she did (not that it helped any). The most prominent trait, in this state of mind, is that she is very sadistic; it's said that she laughs the hardest when she's in the middle of a battle. As she was forced to laugh -- to act like she enjoyed killing her family and friends -- it kind of fucked her up for life. If she gets in a battle, she'll get so wrapped up in it that someone else would probably have to drag her away from it (or in canon, someone had to throw a knife at her to force her to leave one person alive). Violence may even be a possible secret kink for her, as she moans if she tries to drain Snake's life away.

She also becomes more playful...to the point where a lot of her actions probably be read as condescending. As the one out of the B&Bs that probably talks the most, as an Octopus she constantly challenges people to find where she's hiding, taunts the player if she manages to deflect gunfire, and will laugh even harder if one should fall into one of her traps she sets up in her boss fight (and even taunts you for not being very smart...in another person's voice). Perhaps the reason for this behavior is the result of her own ego, considering the power she has within the suit, but I also believe part of it is sort of a defensive mechanism; she wants her opponent to be as scared of her as she's probably scared of them.

Conditional: Personality development in previous game:

Mostly due to the kindness that Claire Bennet showed her, when she first arrived, Sarina developed into a pretty helpful sort around the Port. However, due to a weirdly large portion of her friends being the morally-grey sort of people (or at least at the time), in addition to knowing from her own example that she shouldn't be quick to judge people, she feels the compelled to help them. It's not that she won't help anyone else, but she figures she might as well help the people that most others won't bother with.

Also, although she was really clueless about social things, upon her arrival, she's gotten the slightest bit better because of holding two waitressing jobs. It's not to say that she's a social genius (not by a long shot), but she's at least better off than she was before by dealing with people on a constant basis.

She's also gradually becoming less and less timid -- at least when it comes to confronting dangerous matters. Before, she was afraid to even walk outside, and tried to separate herself from her Beast side completely. However, she found that it was necessary that she embrace the power that her Beast side gives her in order to fight against the issues she gives a damn about (introduced to her, through the bond she formed with Alex, and swore to continue fighting against the companies, even after his disappearance). So even if she still hasn't quite found a way to balance the two sides of her yet, she's at least trying to figure it out.

Not all of her developments have necessarily been positive though; with her drive to take part in a successful resistance movement, she developed a serious stalking habit on the comm. Luckily for everyone, she doesn't have any sort of hacking ability, but it still makes her kind of creepy. Also of note is that because the disappearances/deaths of several of her friends hit her hard, she's become very protective of the people she's formed bonds with (that are still alive) to the point where she'll chastise them for reckless behavior...even if that's totally hypocritical of her, considering her own reckless behavior (AND PEOPLE SHOULD CALL HER OUT ON THIS).

Character Plans: Continue her VIVA LA RESISTANCE movement (in which I hope to be far more active with, this time around) and engage in terrorism acts against both SERO and AGI. In addition to this, she'll be looking to become more independent and mature as she figures herself out more. She'll also look to reconnect with old friends, and hopefully make new ones!

Appearance/PB: Check out this hot chick. Even as an Octopus, she still has nice curves...

Writing Samples

First Person Sample

[When the video feed starts, the viewer sees...nobody. Instead, the video shows a large span of the night sky, with the wind functioning as the only sound for several seconds -- nearly a minutes. Until suddenly, a nervous giggle is heard, which may or may not tip off the older residents on who this video was made by. She stays silent for a couple more seconds, before finally speaking hesitantly, her voice full of wonder.]

Has it-- really been over three months? Heheheheh? I-I really don't know why I'm ali-- why I'm back again, but I suppose I'm thankful for it.

[At last, her face slides into view, though it's awkwardly cropped because of the fact that she's using the camera of an iPhone. From the camera shift, the viewer would be able to tell that she was on a rooftop, but she was very careful in making sure that any defining traits of said rooftop weren't revealed. That place was sacred to her, after all. Her eyes glance toward the camera, while her lips form in a strained -- almsot ashamed -- sort of smile.]

Sorry if I worried anyone. I was stupid, I know -- eehee! But - ah - who's still here? Who's still over at the house I was at? Are my things still there? Heeheehee? And...ah! The companies! What have SERO and AGI been up to?

[Ugh. The companies. Raising a hand, she rubbed at her head, while grimacing. How could she let her ego get in the way, like that? Who knows what terrible shit they had done, in the last few months, that she could maybe have had some hand in stopping...with the help of friends, of course. And her friends! How many were even left now? She was so tempted to call them out by their individual names, but if they heard or saw her, they'd respond...right? Or did they all forget her? Not that she'd blame them; she was stupid enough to get herself killed, after all.

Her head arched down as a few impulsive giggles slipped through her lips, but after clenching the sides of her face tightly, Sarina took a few deep breaths and regained her composure. Looking embarrassed about her mini-breakdown being broadcasted, she glanced back at the camera.]

...sorry. This is a lot of questions, I know. Hahaha...but I'm back...for what it's worth.

Third Person Sample

Even if it had apparently been three months, since she last roamed the streets of the Port, the Octopus really had no trouble at all in switching forms. She had been outside almost every night for nearly a year, trying to master the darker and more dangerous part of her; it would be incredibly frustrating if she had to start from scratch again. Granted, there was still a lot about her darker side that she still couldn't get a grip on: she still had an insatiable need to fight -- to kill, her laughter still hadn't ceased, and as much as she tried to deny it, putting herself in the middle of the battle was still the greatest form of enjoyment she could put herself into. Although she had just recently returned, she already felt that urge, tugging at the back of her head. After all, it was better to take it out on the beasts, rather than strangers, wasn't it? Even if that couldn't compare to the feeling of slaying your enemies, but she had to be more careful now.

Surveying the area from a rooftop, she chuckled lowly as she searched for her first target. The first thing, within her sight, happened to be a small group of Mutations. Ha! Those were simple enough to beat -- hell, most of the time they were pathetically easy to defeat! As disappointing as the challenge was though, perhaps it'd be better to start off small -- no need to get herself killed again, after all.

The Octopus took another quick glance of her surroundings to get a sense of what colors she should shift her Octocamo to, before making a stealthy leap behind two of the Mutations. As soon as she got her footing down, two of her tentacles raised her body up while she used the other two tentacles to squeeze the life out of the closest beast. Naturally, that was enough for the other two monsters to notice that all was not right and come after their attacker. The Octopus knew enough to act quickly, however. In a blur of movement, she sent one tentacle through one monster's stomach, and then shot a round of ammunition into the other one. She let out a breath, looking down at the corpses of the slain monsters, and then let out a distorted sounding laugh as a result of the adrenaline that was starting to course through her veins. She was just getting started.

Activating her Octocamo again, her tentacles slithered on the ground as she searched out her next battle. As she rounded the corner though, she was greeted with a sight unfamilar enough to stop her dead in her tracks. Of course, it had been three months, why wouldn't there be new monsters by now? Even if an Octopus should be good at adapting to any situation, did she really want to risk this? Did she really want to get herself into a battle with an enemy she knew nothing about and risk getting killed again?

While she was deliberating this though, the-- whatever it was approached closer and closer to her. Not knowing how to deal with this thing, she backed away quickly, using her ink to create a sort of smog for her to use to escape. After running -- scaling numerous buildings -- for god knows how long, she finally stopped at a rooftop that was all but burnt into her memory. Even if the place only had importance to her now, it wasn't a place she'd ever forget.

With the risk of danger gone, her Octopus suit melted off of her body as she looked off into the distance. Well, because she used the ink, she had to bend over to vomit the excess of the ink onto the ground, but that was to be expected -- it happened even before coming to the Port. Once she got that out of her system though, she glanced back over the familar cityscape. Just how much had changed in three months? Was it for the better? For worse? Was she strong enough to fight the things that weren't right about this place? Could she become strong enough?

Instinctively, her eyes darted to the side, causing the briefest wave of loneliness to pass through her. Enough time had passed though, that it wasn't the soul-crushing feeling she once experienced. Still, could she ever become as strong as he was? Could she find enough people to fight if she couldn't?

The onslaught of questions that plagued her mind left her as confused as ever, but one thing was for certain; she couldn't just sit back, like she had been. This time, she needed to make a difference...someway, somehow.