Siren's Pull App/Character Information
☣ Player
Name: Ambi
Personal LJ: none
Age: 22.
Contact: Pick your poison -
Plurk is Ambigem, add as you will
AIM: crackthecodes, I'm stupid awkward but on pretty frequently
or just send me an lj pm to formerfoxhound
☣ Character
Character Name: Name: David | Codename: Solid Snake | Other known aliases: Iroquois Pliskin
Character Age: 37
Canon + Format: Metal Gear Solid, video game
Background: tl;dr, Snake's life sucks.
Canon Point: Post MGS2: 2009, just after the Big Shell incident.
Abilities: He's a highly skilled stealth operative, specializing in infiltration, sneaking missions and combat. Snake is highly proficient in the use of many different firearms and explosives, including, but not limited to, various types of handguns, rifles, missiles, and machine guns, as well as unarmed hand-to-hand combat and CQC. Because he often has to procure his equipment on-site, it's important that he has an understanding of a wide array of different weapons, though he is, by his own admission, not very fond of blades. During his time in FOXHOUND he was trained by Master Miller and by Big Boss himself in the use of CQC, though he is reluctant to use it overmuch due to the association with his dead mentor. He served as a Green Beret before joining the Special Forces Unit FOXHOUND, has experience as a mercenary and briefly worked as an undercover agent for the CIA. Physically he's agile and strong, able take quite a bit of damage and keep right on going, as well as resist torture. For a garden-variety, non superpowered human (clone) he's extremely hard to kill.
Tl;dr, he's damn sneaky and, though he'll deny it staunchly, he's pretty much an action hero. He takes down giant robots on foot.
He is also very intelligent, with an IQ of 180 and the ability to speak six different languages. (Only English and French confirmed, but I'm going to say among them English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, and Japanese.) He's also shown some ability to resist psychic powers (such as those shown by Psycho Mantis.) And since he raised and mushed sled dogs for a number of years, he has quite a bit of knowledge in that area as well.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them?
Being an infiltration expert, (and for the wordplay, because he's Solid Snake and mun finds it hilarious,) I’d like to give him the ability to become intangible and "phase" through solid objects a la Kitty Pryde.
Despite this being a potentially useful ability, Snake will likely hesitate to use it, being extremely unsettled by it, even to the point of ignoring it. But as the ability begins to manifest, if he can’t get a handle on it, it will start to show itself in gradually more dramatic ways (dropping a mug of coffee even though he hadn't lost his grip, maybe even waking up one floor down from his bed without knowing why, etc.)
The most challenging thing will be gaining control. Especially in the early stages, maintaining a state of focused and deliberate intangibility would be very difficult and draining. (Not to mention the kind of trouble he’d get in if he got stuck...)
Weapons: SOCOM pistol (MK.23 Mod 0, with suppressor), M9 handgun modified to shoot tranquilizer darts
Personality:
Solid Snake is one of Les Enfants Terribles, the three clones of the legendary soldier Big Boss. Though he spent most of his life unaware of this connection, he later learned that he was notsomuch born as he was created; designed and raised for a single purpose: to be a weapon. The project created a pair of twins with Big Boss' genes divided between them along lines the Patriots deemed important for what they were trying to create. Liquid, who received the “superior” genes, became the commander, the charismatic leader, the revolutionary. Snake is the soldier, the philosopher and, for a time, the pawn. He has spent nearly his entire life on and off the battlefield as a tool of war, moving from one fight to the next, and that affected him deeply. Despite his repeated attempts to retire from that and live a peaceful life, there is always something that pulls him back in. He can’t deny that he's good at it, even likes it. It gives him a purpose, even if that means he’s committed acts that most people would find deplorable. He’s under no illusions that he’s a good person. People like him exist so that good people can live in peace.
As his codename suggests, Solid is, at first glance, unshakably cool and level headed. Collected, even in the face of extreme weirdness and the most dire of circumstances. The proverbial "strong, silent type," he'll keep himself visibly calm right up until his frustration and anger become too much to suppress and he snaps. Emotions are dangerous things when you kill people for a living, and it's implied that their artificial creation and the way they were raised made the clones legitimately less “human” than Big Boss himself. But still waters run deep, and he isn’t nearly as stoic as he appears. Instead he has developed, over the years, a habit of dealing with his emotions by closing himself off, trying to keep them under tight control and project a neutral front. This makes him pretty difficult to read and hard to rattle, but he isn't entirely inscrutable or anywhere near bulletproof, especially if someone knows how to hit him where it hurts.
Left to his own devices, he's generally quiet and patient, if a bit of a grouch sometimes. Things like physical contact beyond the casual (or violent) or talking openly about his feelings can often make him uncomfortable, even if you're one of the few that know him well. Though he can sometimes manage to be charming, more often than not his social skills are practically nonexistent. Words aren't his forte, and he can be nearly monosyllabic right up until he's talking your ear off about something. He has a lighter side, which shows itself subtly or unpredictably to friends and even more rarely to strangers. But he's got a wry sense of humor when it really breaks through, and he’s not above playing a joke or two on his partner, even during a mission. Mostly, however, he tends to come off as rather serious and grim. If you aren't put off by his short answers or his habit of parroting your words back at you, you might be surprised when he suddenly breaks into a lengthy and heartfelt monologue about loyalty or love. He genuinely cares about others and is willing to give up everything and put his own life on the line to protect them, but he's lousy at showing it in other ways. Unlike Big Boss, he's no great leader of men.
A habitual loner, by nature or by practice, he's used to spending time on his own. He's got a fondness and an affinity for dogs, having raised dozens of them in Alaska and even sled raced competitively; and a weakness for pretty girls, (and maybe nerds, too.) He's kind of an idiot. Social cues tend to fly over his head every now and then. He'll flirt casually with a girl, but miss it entirely when a different one shows interest in him. He's secretly a romantic, but he doesn't put a whole lot of effort into seeking out relationships of his own because he legitimately has trouble connecting to people on that kind of level. When there is someone he starts to care for deeply, he may even deny it (insisted Meryl was just a “combat buddy” who are you kidding Snake) or run away from it. (Never showed up for that Christmas dinner with Holly, walked out on Meryl after 6 months.) But he really believes that people can fall in love in any circumstances, and that the most important thing you can do for your loved ones is to protect them. That being said, it's no surprise that he's extremely protective of the very few people he considers close to him, and very loyal.
He's aware that he's not really a likable guy, swearing up and down that the real him is no match for the stories people tell about him. In fact, Snake's pretty determined that people not get the wrong idea about him when they meet him, lest they get disappointed. Though he's been renowned as a legendary soldier in his own right, as far as he's concerned he's not a hero at all. He's confident in his abilities to do what has to be done, and rightly so, but despite near-singlehandedly saving the world from nuclear war several times over, he doesn't consider the myth of “Solid Snake the Legendary Mercenary” to have much truth to it at all. He's stubborn, which is both a good and a bad thing. When he sets his mind to something he'll keep at it with an intense, dogged tenaciousness, no matter what. The importance of a soldier's will to survive was one of the most important lessons he learned from Big Boss, and in fact, one of Snake’s most defining attributes is his considerable will. He believes that what truly sets him apart from other soldiers isn’t his genes, but his actions. He doesn't intend to let his genetics dictate his future, instead focusing on his own beliefs and instincts. However, despite his strong will, he has an unfortunate habit of getting himself manipulated and used by others to further their own goals.
He can be rather judgmental and critical of others and himself, even to the point of getting a bit lecture-y. Though he may come off as belligerent, he's often pointing these things out with the person's best interests in mind. In part, he’s trying to pass on the lessons he's learned the hard way, (though he can sometimes have trouble following his own advice.) Often blunt and even sort of rude, Snake isn’t one to mince words. If he disagrees with you, he'll say so. He isn’t above withholding the truth, especially if he feels he has to, but having spent much of his life being lied to and used, he is far more likely to offer the blunt truth instead of a fabrication. For a stealth operative, he’s rather forthright in his actions, preferring not to deal in deception except when necessary. But despite being very intelligent, he can be rather dense at times, somehow missing the incredibly obvious on occasion, (infamously falling for a disguise that consisted of a pair of sunglasses, a shirt, and a bad accent. Later he himself uses "Iroquois Pliskin" as an alias, which is a thinly veiled reference to a movie character called “Snake” and a Native American word translating to the same.)
Snake is prone to becoming moody and sarcastic, drifting in and out of fits of depression over his whole life. (Not surprising when one considers the things he's seen and done.) His coping mechanisms aren't the healthiest, as during these times he's far more likely to retreat into himself than reach out to others for comfort or help. (His history shows him turning to isolation and even alcohol in order to deal.) Despite all this, he's been slowly growing as a person since the Shadow Moses incident that took place 4 years ago. Beforehand, he had given up on people and lived in isolation for years in a remote region of Alaska, retreated there because of the trauma he suffered when he was manipulated by Big Boss and forced to kill him. He regretted what happened during the Outer Heaven uprising and in Zanizibar Land not only because he once respected, trusted, and even admired the man as a soldier as well as his commander and teacher, but Big Boss revealed in his “dying” moments that he was Snake's father as well. He suffered from post traumatic stress and recurring nightmares from the trauma he suffered then, and it took him years to start to work his way out of it.
Raised by many different people before entering the military at a young age, he never had many lasting relationships with anyone while growing up. He’s used to being alone, and values the few close companions that he does have dearly. Even with those he considers friends, he can be defensive and distant at times, rarely ever letting people get too close. It seems at first glance that Snake is not hugely fond of people at all. He has trouble connecting with them off of the battlefield, so it is unsurprising that most of those he is closest with are soldiers. He’ll be the first to tell you that he has no family, and that all his life he's had few friends. (Most notably: Gray Fox, Otacon, and Raiden. Meryl too, though their relationship ended on a somewhat sour note.) He fully takes the blame for it, though he's been slowly improving in that regard. But he once claimed not to be interested in other people's lives, that they only complicate his, and thus can come off as distant and cold at first glace.
Though war will always be a part of him, even something that part of him will always crave, Snake tends to avoid unnecessary conflict. He isn't a pacifist by any means, but he is rational, pragmatic, and a survivor. It was observed by several people that the battlefield is the only place where he really comes alive, but he isn't interested in showing off, starting petty fights or holding outdated grudges. (For example, after hearing her reasons, he forgave Naomi for infecting him with FOXDIE, even though it amounted to a death sentence for him.) Allies and enemies change all the time in war, and he tends to take people as they are instead of focusing on what they had done in the past. Of course, some things are harder to forget than others, and he judges himself the most harshly of all. In fact, one of his greatest fears is that Liquid was right about him when he claimed that Snake enjoyed the act of killing, and that accusation still creeps up on him and haunts him to this day. Perhaps because there is a bit of truth hidden in it. He knows it's wrong, which leads to self-condemnation and fuels his drive to be a better person. Very little scares him like the things he himself is capable of.
Snake has the dubious honor of being able to take (and has taken) a hell of a lot of damage and keep on going. And not just physically. He faces incredible odds, terrible things happen to him, people he trusts betray him, his entire world-view could get turned upside-down and he will still carry on, no matter what. His history also shows that he can be clever and extremely resourceful. Not only is he used to procuring his own weapons and supplies while on site of an infiltration, he has shown additional ingenuity by making do with what resources he has under pressure. (Most famously by using a cardboard box as camouflage; or, in the absence of his other weapons, creating a makeshift flamethrower out of an aerosol can and a lighter.)
His trust comes at a premium. Information is distributed on a need-to-know basis. Really personal information is rarely distributed at all. But once someone earns his trust it is equally hard to shake off, even if they're on a differing side in a conflict later on. As far as he’s concerned, "war is no reason to end a friendship." He was willing to kill his best friend with his bare hands not in anger, but because it was the way Fox would have wanted it, and later the only way that he could find peace when he was revived. (However, in the end, Snake couldn't bring himself to kill Fox twice, and Fox sacrificed himself for his sake.)
Gray Fox has been one of the most important influences on him, even years after his death. Snake looked up to Fox as a mentor, and then as a rival, and considered him one of his few real friends. He promised Fox in Zanzibar Land that he wouldn't end up like him; with only war to keep him going. And he took Gray Fox's dying words to heart at Shadow Moses. “Fighting was the only thing I was good at, but at least I always fought for what I believed in.” After the Shadow Moses incident, he resolved to fight for his own future and his own beliefs, instead of letting others dictate it for him. Having spent much of his life as a tool of war, he decided to break free of all that and fight back, and came away from the incident with a new determination to live. If he couldn't escape the fact that he belonged on the battlefield, then at least he could fight for something worthwhile. Perhaps even to find a way to escape his past, atone in a way for the things he had done, and live for something bigger than himself.
Appearance: Dark haired, late 30s, nearly six feet tall. Almost identical to his "father" Big Boss at the same age, though several inches shorter and notably leaner; whereas Big Boss is more heavily muscled. And, of course, Snake is still possessed of two working eyes. He has a tendency to neglect his appearance, often unshaven and sort of in need of a haircut.
Official Art, Fanart Though for the purposes of the game, I'm going to assume he's dressed a little more appropriately for the setting.
