Elias Bouchard (derogatory) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
extendedbrutalpipemurder) wrote2021-11-07 08:30 pm
extendedbrutalpipemurder) wrote2021-11-07 08:30 pm
application
User Name/Nick: Anne
User DW:sprakles
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM/to a character journal/alternate method of contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
sprakles
Other Characters Currently In-Game: nil
Character Name: Elias Bouchard (aka: Jonah Magnus. The consciousness of Jonah is residing in the body of Elias Bouchard and has ejected/killed the man belonging to that name. However as he goes by Elias in canon and has been body-hopping and changing names for a long time I'm going to stick with Elias to save on confusion and avoid spoilers)(sorry mods for spoiling you :C )
Series: The Magnus Archive
Age: Appears late 40s early 50s. Actually about 200.
From When?: The point of his death, TMA 200.
Inmate Justification: Elias/Jonah is a power-hungry, manipulative man who has worked towards transforming his world into a nightmare one in order to gain more power and a shot at immortality, as well as to see what terrible things will happen to others. He will throw anyone and anything under the bus to get what he wants and sate his curiosity. He is also patient and desires to hide his aims from the people around him. He's a long way from "good person".
Arrival: Elias was brought in with his consent. He does not want to die, and having the opportunity appear at the moment of his death to have some chance of avoiding it is not something he would overlook, no matter what he's told he has to do.
Abilities/Powers: I will outline limitations after describing the full power.
Limited Omniscience/Knowing — in canon Elias has noted his ability to see and know anything he wishes, though not without effort and attention. He can see out of any eyes that exist (real/picture/abstract) to supplement this ability. He can read minds when in person, but this seems to be a case by case basis and can be blocked by various other powers interfering. This knowledge power can be blocked/thwarted by sufficiently strong power/distance. LIMITATION: All of this type of power is accessible only to Elias if he has the explicit consent of the person in question. He must ask directly what he wants and they must consent specifically. Outside of the permission granted he will have no ability to read minds/see/know what is going on anywhere on the ship.
Memory Insertion — Elias can put knowledge into another person's mind, both simple facts as well as awareness of experiences. This must happen in person and he must believe this information to be true. LIMITATION: Elias can share knowledge and experiences only with sustained effort. This exhausts him for a period of time afterward.
Limited Technology manipulation — Elias can manipulate technological eyes (cameras). He was able to doctor the CCTV footage of the security cameras inside of the Institute to give himself an alibi during the murder of Gertrude Robinson. LIMITATION: Elias cannot effect any of the ship's sensors/cameras/etc. He is able to manipulate only non-barge devices (so not communicators), and only if he can handle the device directly for an extended period of time.
Healing - he has some limited ability to heal quickly from injuries. LIMITATION: Elias has no extra-human healing abilities.
Body-hopping - In canon Elias extends his life by transferring his eyes to a new host body, thus transferring his consciousness. LIMITATION: Elias cannot do this.
Inmate Information: A primer on Elias world first; while his world's history has mirrored our own, there are Fear Entities which exist in an adjacent reality to his which prey/live on the fear of all living beings (Here's their page on the TMA wiki). There are approximately fourteen of these beings, each with a different emphasis on a type of fear (disease, the unknown, death, etc). While most people are unaware of these beings, there are some humans who have dedicated their lives to them, for various reasons. Some of these humans are granted superhuman abilities by the Fear Entities, to help them better spread fear.
While a young man in the Victorian era, Jonah Magnus found himself drawn into the world surrounding the Fears. Having always been driven by curiosity and the desire for knowledge, he gathered information and cultivated relationships with those who could tell him more about these Fear Entities, collecting stories of what happened to others, and through this information about their characteristics and influence. In time, however, he found himself more and more drawn to an entity known as the Beholding, Ceaseless Watcher, or It Knows You. This Fear pushed people to do terrible things in pursuit of knowledge, of watching horrors, or knowing about all the terrible things in the world. Jonah found himself watching friends succumbing to horrible deaths and doing nothing at all to prevent it. He lamented their deaths, yes, but his drive to know what would happen to them outweighed it.
Against the advice of friends he made an attempt to bring the Eye into this world (using Milibank prison, the prisoners therein and a Panopticon) but failed. Through this failure, however, he gained a number of abilities, importantly the capacity to transfer his consciousness to other bodies via transplanting his eyes. Believing himself capable of success, however, Jonah set about a long, patient effort to correct his mistakes. He founded the Magnus Institute, nominally dedicated to cataloguing information about the other entities but in reality a hub for the Ceaseless Watcher to observe the suffering and misery which the Fears caused around the world.
In the 200 years since he has been body-hopping, taking control of successive men in order to remain head of the Institute, doing whatever is needed to learn what he needs and remain in power. He has not only continued to allow others to come to harm and death by his inaction, but he has killed and deliberately sent others to their deaths by his actions. He has, importantly, also learned how to summon the Eye and turn his world into a fear domain.
Recently, as Elias Bouchard, he shot to death one of his Archivists when she proved a threat to him. He murdered an old man with a pipe when he proved the same, allowed an imposter to operate inside his institute, put his new Archivist in grave danger on multiple occasions while manipulating them into becoming the door by which the Eye and other entities could enter the world, and finally succeeded in transforming his entire world into a fearscape where all of humanity lives in perpetual torment without hope of escape outside of death.
There are two major drivers in Elias' life. The most obvious is a desire for knowledge, a curiosity about the world and the things which happen in it. The second, perhaps less obvious, is his desire for control and power. These have made him a perfect servant to the Eye.
He is a patient man, not one to blow his own trumpet or demand recognition for his accomplishments. It's only at the moment of success that Elias finally takes the time to force someone to listen to all he has done and just how pleased with himself he is. Most of his history has consisted of acting the ineffective, bureaucratic head of a boring, uninteresting institute-- willing to endure scorn and dismissal from those around him as he hid his true nature from them. He often refuses to answer direct questions, preferring for others to think him ignorant rather than reveal key information he thinks others shouldn't know.
That said-- Elias's patience also comes from his willingness to take a risk on things rather than meticulously plan everything out himself. This is tied in with his strong sense of self-confidence, that he's so certain he'll achieve what he wants that he doesn't feel too much pressure to overengineer his success. He has a long history of taking bets with others working for the fears, not worried about losing because he knows in time it'll him who is owed the favour. His pride also means that when situations turn out as he wants he's very willing to act as though it's exactly what he meant to happen all along. Not appearing to be in control when he wants to is something he is very loathe to do.
His pride and self confidence are also seen when once his cover is partially blown. Elias acts much more arrogantly than he previously had, though still maintains a faux-concern for the world and the danger it is perceived to be in. Only when he finally reveals himself fully to Jon does he drop all pretenses, making no bones about how much he has done and how he has succeeded where no one else has.
His self confidence also helps him smooth out any hiccoughs he might have in his desire for control. Elias does not enjoy being at the mercy of others, really at their mercy and without options. Feeling backed into a corner he becomes much more vicious and prone to violence, often using psychological means to inflict trauma on those who are in his way, but also very willing to murder anyone he sees as a threat. This sometimes means he can act without a lot of thought-- actually admitting at one point that he perhaps did not need to murder the old man he caught in his archives, but that it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to ensuring that Jon didn't know too much too soon.
There is an irony in his quest to give the world over to the Fears in order to ensure he has control in the world that follows-- it becomes clear that Elias is used in that world as the means by which the Eye surveils all the suffering in the world. He is found to be in an almost dreamlike state, unaware of his surroundings, unable to do anything but experience and describe the horror he is witnessing and is only freed from it because of the Archivist's intervention. But even then, when confronted by Jon and Martin, he gives no indication about whether or not this is a problem. For them, he insists it is nothing more than a pleasant dream.
Finally, his desire for self-presevation and control is shown to outweigh his pride. When confronted with the knowledge that he is in a situation in which his death is imminent and once his capacity for talking his way out of the situation has been exhausted and he has no tools to either threaten or harm the Archivist coming at him with a knife, Elias does break down and beg for his life. This is the only time in the series we see him come to this point, and it highlights that his self-interest really is his core motivator. It definitely supports the idea that if he was offered any escape at the point of death, he would take it.
Path to Redemption: There will be a number of large roadblocks on the path to Elias' attempt at redemption, not the least of which is that he's had a long time to be the way he is.
The biggest hurdle, I think, will be getting him to recognise that there is a need for change. Elias knows that he is not a good person, that is is not viewed well to do things for power or success, and yet he wants the things that he wants enough to terrible things anyway. Developing compassion for others (literally anyone other than himself) and allowing that empathy to outweigh his pursuit of knowledge and control will be the second major hurdle.
Elias, as he is now, is willing to do just about anything to get off the Barge, except change what he wants. He is a patient man, competent in deception and manipulation, favouring the appearance of civility as a means to hide his true nature from others, and is sure that playing the long-con will get him what he wants. He won't necessarily mind being Wardened, unless/until it becomes clear that he cannot manipulate them into doing what he wants and he becomes backed into the corner of change or remain stuck here forever. It's likely he'll be extremely hostile for a time, attempting to stir unrest on the barge to see if things really have to be as they are.
I'm genuinely unsure what style would work best or worst, both lenient or very strict wardening would provide opportunities for him to try to manipulate or pretend he is having changes of heart, and would provide chances for him to resist. The key will, I think, be eventually in highlighting the lack of agency and control he had as the pupil of the eye (both things he values highly) and also using the experiences he might have during Flood AU events. Elias has starved himself of any empathic tendencies, so forcing him to process the connections he has with others during Floods will go a long way to reminding him that he is capable of such feelings, even a little. It's going to be a long process in any case.
History: details of the history of Elias' recent history and Jonah's previous history.
Sample Journal Entry: Third prompt on his TDM thread, continued with Carol Denning (classifieds).
Sample RP: TDM thread with canonmate Tim Baker.
Special Notes: I've spoken with the other TMA characters in game and they're all ok with Elias being apped!
User DW:
spraklesE-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM/to a character journal/alternate method of contact:
Other Characters Currently In-Game: nil
Character Name: Elias Bouchard (aka: Jonah Magnus. The consciousness of Jonah is residing in the body of Elias Bouchard and has ejected/killed the man belonging to that name. However as he goes by Elias in canon and has been body-hopping and changing names for a long time I'm going to stick with Elias to save on confusion and avoid spoilers)(sorry mods for spoiling you :C )
Series: The Magnus Archive
Age: Appears late 40s early 50s. Actually about 200.
From When?: The point of his death, TMA 200.
Inmate Justification: Elias/Jonah is a power-hungry, manipulative man who has worked towards transforming his world into a nightmare one in order to gain more power and a shot at immortality, as well as to see what terrible things will happen to others. He will throw anyone and anything under the bus to get what he wants and sate his curiosity. He is also patient and desires to hide his aims from the people around him. He's a long way from "good person".
Arrival: Elias was brought in with his consent. He does not want to die, and having the opportunity appear at the moment of his death to have some chance of avoiding it is not something he would overlook, no matter what he's told he has to do.
Abilities/Powers: I will outline limitations after describing the full power.
Limited Omniscience/Knowing — in canon Elias has noted his ability to see and know anything he wishes, though not without effort and attention. He can see out of any eyes that exist (real/picture/abstract) to supplement this ability. He can read minds when in person, but this seems to be a case by case basis and can be blocked by various other powers interfering. This knowledge power can be blocked/thwarted by sufficiently strong power/distance. LIMITATION: All of this type of power is accessible only to Elias if he has the explicit consent of the person in question. He must ask directly what he wants and they must consent specifically. Outside of the permission granted he will have no ability to read minds/see/know what is going on anywhere on the ship.
Memory Insertion — Elias can put knowledge into another person's mind, both simple facts as well as awareness of experiences. This must happen in person and he must believe this information to be true. LIMITATION: Elias can share knowledge and experiences only with sustained effort. This exhausts him for a period of time afterward.
Limited Technology manipulation — Elias can manipulate technological eyes (cameras). He was able to doctor the CCTV footage of the security cameras inside of the Institute to give himself an alibi during the murder of Gertrude Robinson. LIMITATION: Elias cannot effect any of the ship's sensors/cameras/etc. He is able to manipulate only non-barge devices (so not communicators), and only if he can handle the device directly for an extended period of time.
Healing - he has some limited ability to heal quickly from injuries. LIMITATION: Elias has no extra-human healing abilities.
Body-hopping - In canon Elias extends his life by transferring his eyes to a new host body, thus transferring his consciousness. LIMITATION: Elias cannot do this.
Inmate Information: A primer on Elias world first; while his world's history has mirrored our own, there are Fear Entities which exist in an adjacent reality to his which prey/live on the fear of all living beings (Here's their page on the TMA wiki). There are approximately fourteen of these beings, each with a different emphasis on a type of fear (disease, the unknown, death, etc). While most people are unaware of these beings, there are some humans who have dedicated their lives to them, for various reasons. Some of these humans are granted superhuman abilities by the Fear Entities, to help them better spread fear.
Please, Jonah, if you have any compassion within your heart, you will not leave me in this place.
Your loyal servant,
Barnabas.
Statement of Barnabas Bennett, as given in a short letter to Jonah Magnus. April 9th, 1824.
Jonah Magnus did leave him in that place. [...] He could have interceded, perhaps even saved him, but he did not. [... B]ecause he was curious. Because he had to know, to watch and see it all.
Addendum on the above statement by Elias Bouchard, February 2nd, 2018.
While a young man in the Victorian era, Jonah Magnus found himself drawn into the world surrounding the Fears. Having always been driven by curiosity and the desire for knowledge, he gathered information and cultivated relationships with those who could tell him more about these Fear Entities, collecting stories of what happened to others, and through this information about their characteristics and influence. In time, however, he found himself more and more drawn to an entity known as the Beholding, Ceaseless Watcher, or It Knows You. This Fear pushed people to do terrible things in pursuit of knowledge, of watching horrors, or knowing about all the terrible things in the world. Jonah found himself watching friends succumbing to horrible deaths and doing nothing at all to prevent it. He lamented their deaths, yes, but his drive to know what would happen to them outweighed it.
Against the advice of friends he made an attempt to bring the Eye into this world (using Milibank prison, the prisoners therein and a Panopticon) but failed. Through this failure, however, he gained a number of abilities, importantly the capacity to transfer his consciousness to other bodies via transplanting his eyes. Believing himself capable of success, however, Jonah set about a long, patient effort to correct his mistakes. He founded the Magnus Institute, nominally dedicated to cataloguing information about the other entities but in reality a hub for the Ceaseless Watcher to observe the suffering and misery which the Fears caused around the world.
In the 200 years since he has been body-hopping, taking control of successive men in order to remain head of the Institute, doing whatever is needed to learn what he needs and remain in power. He has not only continued to allow others to come to harm and death by his inaction, but he has killed and deliberately sent others to their deaths by his actions. He has, importantly, also learned how to summon the Eye and turn his world into a fear domain.
Recently, as Elias Bouchard, he shot to death one of his Archivists when she proved a threat to him. He murdered an old man with a pipe when he proved the same, allowed an imposter to operate inside his institute, put his new Archivist in grave danger on multiple occasions while manipulating them into becoming the door by which the Eye and other entities could enter the world, and finally succeeded in transforming his entire world into a fearscape where all of humanity lives in perpetual torment without hope of escape outside of death.
Why does a man seek to destroy the world?
It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my god. The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.
It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, Jon, the freedom of it all. I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction in that choice.
I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die.
Statement of Elias Bouchard, Read by Jonathan Sims, October 18th, 2018
There are two major drivers in Elias' life. The most obvious is a desire for knowledge, a curiosity about the world and the things which happen in it. The second, perhaps less obvious, is his desire for control and power. These have made him a perfect servant to the Eye.
He is a patient man, not one to blow his own trumpet or demand recognition for his accomplishments. It's only at the moment of success that Elias finally takes the time to force someone to listen to all he has done and just how pleased with himself he is. Most of his history has consisted of acting the ineffective, bureaucratic head of a boring, uninteresting institute-- willing to endure scorn and dismissal from those around him as he hid his true nature from them. He often refuses to answer direct questions, preferring for others to think him ignorant rather than reveal key information he thinks others shouldn't know.
That said-- Elias's patience also comes from his willingness to take a risk on things rather than meticulously plan everything out himself. This is tied in with his strong sense of self-confidence, that he's so certain he'll achieve what he wants that he doesn't feel too much pressure to overengineer his success. He has a long history of taking bets with others working for the fears, not worried about losing because he knows in time it'll him who is owed the favour. His pride also means that when situations turn out as he wants he's very willing to act as though it's exactly what he meant to happen all along. Not appearing to be in control when he wants to is something he is very loathe to do.
His pride and self confidence are also seen when once his cover is partially blown. Elias acts much more arrogantly than he previously had, though still maintains a faux-concern for the world and the danger it is perceived to be in. Only when he finally reveals himself fully to Jon does he drop all pretenses, making no bones about how much he has done and how he has succeeded where no one else has.
His self confidence also helps him smooth out any hiccoughs he might have in his desire for control. Elias does not enjoy being at the mercy of others, really at their mercy and without options. Feeling backed into a corner he becomes much more vicious and prone to violence, often using psychological means to inflict trauma on those who are in his way, but also very willing to murder anyone he sees as a threat. This sometimes means he can act without a lot of thought-- actually admitting at one point that he perhaps did not need to murder the old man he caught in his archives, but that it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to ensuring that Jon didn't know too much too soon.
ELIAS: Are you scared, Jon?In most other areas, however, Elias is all for pushing people into their worst impulses, encouraging them to pursue a desire for knowledge past the point of safety, and confronting them with uncomfortable truths about themselves that they'd die rather than admit to. He repeatedly withholds information from Jon until he has forced Jon to state explicitly that he must know something, as an example of him pushing someone he has an active interest in. Otherwise he is very happy to direct people towards things he knows/guesses will not be good for them, just to see how that will turn out. He doesn't mind it for himself for the most part, knowing he has his abilities to fall back on and ensure he shouldn't often stray too far out of control.
ARCHIVIST: (quietly) Yes.
ELIAS: Perfect.
Conversation between Elias Bouchard and Jonathan Sims, September 25th, 2018
There is an irony in his quest to give the world over to the Fears in order to ensure he has control in the world that follows-- it becomes clear that Elias is used in that world as the means by which the Eye surveils all the suffering in the world. He is found to be in an almost dreamlike state, unaware of his surroundings, unable to do anything but experience and describe the horror he is witnessing and is only freed from it because of the Archivist's intervention. But even then, when confronted by Jon and Martin, he gives no indication about whether or not this is a problem. For them, he insists it is nothing more than a pleasant dream.
Finally, his desire for self-presevation and control is shown to outweigh his pride. When confronted with the knowledge that he is in a situation in which his death is imminent and once his capacity for talking his way out of the situation has been exhausted and he has no tools to either threaten or harm the Archivist coming at him with a knife, Elias does break down and beg for his life. This is the only time in the series we see him come to this point, and it highlights that his self-interest really is his core motivator. It definitely supports the idea that if he was offered any escape at the point of death, he would take it.
Path to Redemption: There will be a number of large roadblocks on the path to Elias' attempt at redemption, not the least of which is that he's had a long time to be the way he is.
The biggest hurdle, I think, will be getting him to recognise that there is a need for change. Elias knows that he is not a good person, that is is not viewed well to do things for power or success, and yet he wants the things that he wants enough to terrible things anyway. Developing compassion for others (literally anyone other than himself) and allowing that empathy to outweigh his pursuit of knowledge and control will be the second major hurdle.
Elias, as he is now, is willing to do just about anything to get off the Barge, except change what he wants. He is a patient man, competent in deception and manipulation, favouring the appearance of civility as a means to hide his true nature from others, and is sure that playing the long-con will get him what he wants. He won't necessarily mind being Wardened, unless/until it becomes clear that he cannot manipulate them into doing what he wants and he becomes backed into the corner of change or remain stuck here forever. It's likely he'll be extremely hostile for a time, attempting to stir unrest on the barge to see if things really have to be as they are.
I'm genuinely unsure what style would work best or worst, both lenient or very strict wardening would provide opportunities for him to try to manipulate or pretend he is having changes of heart, and would provide chances for him to resist. The key will, I think, be eventually in highlighting the lack of agency and control he had as the pupil of the eye (both things he values highly) and also using the experiences he might have during Flood AU events. Elias has starved himself of any empathic tendencies, so forcing him to process the connections he has with others during Floods will go a long way to reminding him that he is capable of such feelings, even a little. It's going to be a long process in any case.
History: details of the history of Elias' recent history and Jonah's previous history.
Sample Journal Entry: Third prompt on his TDM thread, continued with Carol Denning (
classifieds). Sample RP: TDM thread with canonmate Tim Baker.
Special Notes: I've spoken with the other TMA characters in game and they're all ok with Elias being apped!