diadem :: APPLICATION;

Player Information

Player: Noa
Contact: discontinued
Invitation OR characters played: I'm my own invitation
Are you over 18?: Yes


Character Information

Character: Logan / The Wolverine (born: James Howlett)
Canon: XMCU: Days of Future Past; end of the movie, just as he's waking up.
Age: ~200, appears 45.
History: Link. His timeline is a mess.
Possessions:
— clothes! (jeans, boots, belt, t-shirt)
— a few cigars
— lighter
— keys, with a bottle opener
— lint

Weapon: (See below)

Powers/Abilities:
— Regenerative capabilities, a.k.a. his healing factor. He can spit up bullets and recover from being nuked within seconds. His stamina regenerates just as fast, preventing him from tiring himself out. As a side effect, he ages slowly. Logan is nearly impossible to kill but not impossible to stop. He's got his weaknesses (giant magnets and elephant tranquilizers), and severe injuries will slow him down as his body uses its resources to heal.

— Unbreakable skeleton. His entire skeleton is bonded with adamantium, the strongest manmade alloy on earth. On top of his healing, this makes him highly durable since his bones can't break. It also makes him heavy, adding about 200 lbs to his frame, and prevents him from having any natural buoyancy. As a result, Logan is at a disadvantage in water, and drowning at any great depth is a problem. He doesn't float back up, so...he's pretty much there forever until someone else fishes him out. His inhuman strength makes him a passable swimmer when he's conscious, but he's working against the current, so to speak.

— Claws, originally bone but now coated in the same adamantium. They can shred through anything like butter. His claws unsheathe between his knuckles and retract when not in use. They're his primary weapon.

— Heightened senses. Smell, eyesight (including night sight), and hearing are tuned to that of a predator, making him one of the best trackers.

— Enhanced strength/agility. Logan can throw people straight through concrete walls, and he's surprisingly fast despite the extra weight. He can launch himself pretty far, too. In the context of other superheroes, Marvel formally lists him at level 4, putting him above average but below heavy hitters like Hulk.

— Rage. The XMCU doesn't touch on this as explicitly, but there are discernible moments where Logan falls into a semi-primal state, usually identified by his trademark Roar™. He won't really lose control unless pushed to the brink (see: his variant in Deadpool & Wolverine), but it seems to give him a boost in ferocity.

— Abilities vaguely hinted at but not outright confirmed. In the comics, he has an affinity toward wildlife, even adopting wolf packs as his family. This aspect is referenced in The Wolverine, where he coexists peacefully with a grizzly. While the XMCU leaves it more ambiguous, Logan's animal nature is frequently referenced throughout the films. I've interpreted this to mean that the wild animals he encounters have an innate sense that he's one of them—a predator roaming the woods—and thus leave him alone. In return, Logan is protective of the wildlife whose land he shares and has little patience for those who hunt for sport.

— Other notes. While Logan is physically capable and possesses an almost unhinged level of willpower (if he has to carve out his own heart, he will), his mind can be quite fragile. Given the alteration to the original Origins timeline, the specifics of his past are a bit up in the air, but the events of Apocalypse make it safe to say he's a victim of extreme memory manipulation (that he has not, and probably never will, fully recover from) and mental conditioning that once left him entirely feral. Certain people, images, or experiences can trigger debilitating flashbacks.


Application Questions

Who is the most important person in their life and why? What might be different if this person hadn't been around?

Charles Xavier changed the trajectory of Logan's life. Directionless for years without any memory of who he was, Logan didn't find his purpose until he was taken in by the X-Men. It was Charles, though, who convinced him to stay and Charles who Logan trusted to help him uncover his missing past. He tells Rogue that Charles seems different in that he wants to help them, and for Logan, that type of decency is rare. For much of his life, the only people he met wanted to use him—if they wanted him in the first place.

This holds especially true considering Logan came into the Professor's office ready to pick a fight. Charles' steady patience disarms him, bit by bit, eventually winning him over. Charles serves as the father figure he never had, but a friend, too, someone he could rely on to try to do the right thing, to never give up on the people he loves when they might seem impossible to save. The thing is, Logan doesn't see himself as that guy. He's not a leader, he's not a teacher, he's not a team player. He's too cynical, too hotheaded, and the only thing he's good at is killing. He's the last person Charles should want on his team for his dream of peace between the mutants and humans. Charles, however, brings Logan into the fold without hesitation. He gives him a home.

Logan struggles to believe he deserves the family he found in the X-Men. Part of him is sure he'll only bring to them the death and bloodshed that's dogged his footsteps for as long as he can remember. But Charles makes him want to be the man who could deserve it one day. This brings out the best in him, even when Logan doesn't think his best is worthy of much.

cw: suicide ideation
We do see, a few times, what happens when Logan is without Charles: he becomes lost. In The Wolverine, after losing Charles and Jean both in a devastating blow, Logan disappears to the northern wilds to live alone in a cave. In Deadpool & Wolverine, an alternate version of him goes on a killing spree after finding all of the X-Men killed by "mutant hunters" and then sinks into a deep alcoholic depression. In Logan, a deteriorating and dying Charles leaves Logan with little to live for; he plans to kill himself once Charles has passed. Naturally, this is compounded by the fact that when Charles is gone, the X-Men are, too. One usually follows the other (where the XMCU is concerned).

It speaks volumes that although DoFP Logan comes from an apocalyptic universe where humans hunt their kind to near extinction, he's actually...okay. Sure, the war has weighed on him, but at this point, Logan still has Charles, and because of that, the X-Men are still together. They're still fighting. And so Logan, too, is still fighting alongside them, with a steady sense of purpose he tends to lack when Charles—and thus the X-Men, his entire family, his whole world—is gone.

Is there an event in your character's life that they'd do differently? How so and why?

By Days of Future Past, the world has descended so deep into shit that Logan is beyond the weight of any personal mistakes and regrets. It's not that he doesn't have them, but the nature of being caught up in a war and facing eradication of his kind means that he wouldn't even know where to begin. He's lost person after person. He's pretty much just clinging to what's left.

Go back a decade, and the answer might be killing Jean Grey, though it's more complicated than that. Logan eventually accepts that he had to, that there was no way to stop her and save her; she'd have destroyed everyone. Maybe it's more like he'd want to change the whole incident altogether: her initial death at Alkali Lake, the subsequent emergence of Dark Phoenix, and the way it all spiraled out of control so fast. But that's not exactly something he was responsible for. Go back even further, it could be whatever led him to Weapon X...but not only does Logan not remember what happened, he's now got two variations of that event due to his timeline shift. I'm not sure Logan regrets the pain he endured, either. At this point, he's so embedded with the X-Men—and pain is such a constant in his life—that he'd take on any amount of suffering to make sure he's there to protect them and fight with them in a blink.

Essentially, Logan's life is a series of interconnected tragedies, both personal and not, and very few of them are events he had a direct influence over. His memory loss makes it even harder for him to retrace how and why things played out as they did. It's not that he's without agency, but it's all just...a bit out of reach. While he feels responsible for a great many actions, it's hard to pinpoint any one cataclysmic incident that he could've altered and actively changed his course in life. The closest is his current mission, where he travels to the past to stop Mystique. Even here, though, he wasn't originally in the scenario. It isn't his past; it belongs to Charles and Erik. He's only there now because no one else could be.

What's the greatest challenge you foresee your character facing in the setting?

Logan will wake up unsure if what he did saved everyone or if he broke the universe even worse. His uncertainty will be the most significant thing he has to deal with: determining how to get the answers he's missing and what to do next. Does he find a way back to his world? Or is he meant to be here for what happened to have worked? What if going back will undo his actions?

Sorting this out isn't his strong suit. He'll need to rely on other people to help him with that, and he'll need to work on his trust issues (and general impatience). It'll be a domino effect of Logan putting himself in situations he usually isn't in because, for years now, he's had the X-Men to back him up for all those parts he's not good at. Or at least, it's what he tells himself he isn't good at. Logan sees himself as a soldier and a weapon, a lingering effect of his days under Weapon X and his violent past. He's doubtful that he'll ever be good for anything more.

This isn't necessarily true. He's got some depth that he sometimes fails to acknowledge. He doesn't always believe in himself. He doesn't always have faith that he can be much more. But that, too, will be something he needs to confront head-on as he navigates this new place. Each time he's pushed into a corner, it's a tossup whether he'll do what comes easiest to him (killing) or hold back, and the choices he makes depends heavily on his current state of mind and his support system.

On that note, having Charles and the others with him will help level him out. The more support Logan has, the better he usually does—even if their presence comes with challenges, too. Logan loves his family, but in true family fashion, that doesn't mean they always get along, and Logan's not somebody who easily falls in line just to keep the peace.

What's the easiest thing you foresee your character adapting to in the setting?

The general lawlessness and murky ethics are all old hat to Logan. A survivor at heart, he can more than take care of himself, whether he's alone or he's got somebody to protect. Having just come from an apocalyptic universe, this planet is downright friendly. At the very least, no giant robots are hunting him down.

Everything else about the setting is something he's long adapted to: constant motels, the absence of a permanent home, danger at every turn, and a law enforcement/government system you can't trust. At best, they don't have your interests in mind; at worst, they're openly hostile. Though not without morals, his line between right and wrong is blurry; he won't wring his hands over knocking somebody out in a bar fight or pocketing someone's wallet if they were being an asshole in the first place. When push comes to shove, his claws can and have come out. Logan does—at this stage—exhibit more restraint, but this is more about him keeping the beast within in check and less about him having a change of heart. Either way, his life is steeped in violence. None of that will bother him.


Samples

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