I Drag You Down I Use You Up

player name: Katie
player livejournal: superkappa
playing here: Cordelia Chase
where did you find us? I play here :D
are you 16 years of age or older?: yes



character name: Sylar (Gabriel Gray)
Fandom: Heroes
Timeline: Post 3x09, "It's Coming"
character's age: 30ish? Heroes timelines...flux a lot. 34 is my best guestimation.

powers, skills, pets and equipment:
Sylar's main ability is known as intuitive aptitude which is basically the ability to see how things work. It is this ability that allows him to steal the ability of others. When he pulls open someone's brain he can see how all the pieces fit together, much like he can with clocks. From what we see of him working on Claire's brain in the beginning of season 3 we can assume that he finds the power in the brain, and absorbs it from there.

With this power comes "the hunger" which is basically a thirst for more knowledge and power. It fuels him almost like an addiction, which is why he really struggles to stop killing and taking powers because there's something wired inside of him to make him want to do it.

In "It's Coming" it's revealed that he can also take powers through empathy, which means that he doesn't actually have to kill people to do so. However, this is much more difficult for him as it's not easy for him to empathize with people.

Other powers that Sylar has acquired (I'm not including the ones he lost when he had the Shanti virus....since he lost them):

Telekinesis- the ability to move things with his mind. This is the one we see Sylar use the most of, probably because it was the first power he ever stole. He uses it to do things as small as stopping bullets or as big as

Rapid Cellular Regeneration: A healing ability, basically. It prevents him getting any lasting injury as everything heals rather quickly. It also keeps him from aging, making him more or less immortal. There is, however, a weak spot in the back of his head that can be stabbed and it's like an off switch for the ability. Also cutting off his head works for this too.

Alchemy- The ability to turn things into gold. He doesn't use this one much, but it's there.

Clairsentience - the ability to get the history of a person or object by touching it. Sylar uses this one to his advantage a lot, especially because it helps to fill his thirst for more knowledge.

Sound manipulation - the ability to create and distort frequencies and sound waves, including creating blasts out of them. Sylar is never really seen using this one, but he does have it.

Electric manipulation - the ability to create electric bolts from the range of minor damage to knocking out electricity or lethal damage. This is the first power he's ever taken from empathy and seems to end up favoring it a lot as well during fight scenes later on in the series.


canon history: http://heroeswiki.com/Sylar

personality:
Sylar was born as Gabriel Gray, a quiet, shy and lonely watchmaker. He was extremely reserved and isolated from the rest of the world. He didn't know how to connect to people. His closest relationship was his mother, Virginia Gray. She was the first person to plant in the idea that he needed to be different. Special. It wasn't enough to be just Gabriel the watchmaker, he was meant for more than such a simple existence.

His mother's dissatisfaction in his life was passed onto him. He knew his parents weren't bad people, but they were boring. Uninteresting. He longed to be someone else. He knew he was better than those around him, he just didn't know how to assert it. So he withdrew, he didn't assimilate because he didn't know how. And then one day he met Chandra Suresh. And he found out he was special. He had a power. And so did other people.

That desire to be different, to matter, to make himself important is what drives Gabriel to kill his first victim, Brian Davis. But Gabriel was not fully evil, not yet. He was still struggling with himself, and it wasn't until his perceived salvation (Elle, someone who finally seemed to think he was special for just being Gabriel) betrayed him that he turned his back on everything that he had been before.

This is when Gabriel's personality changes drastically, and he becomes Sylar. He reinvents himself. But a lot of that reinvention is just show. Deep down inside, those insecurities remain. He still more than anything else in the world wants acceptance. He feels guilt over his murders, sometimes, but he has convinced himself that he can be nothing more than a villain.

His outward personality as Sylar is cocky, to say the very least. He likes playing with people, seeing what makes them tick. He sees those around him as a game, things to play with for the most part. Unless they have something he wants, or something that catches his attention. Every once in a while, someone will stand out to him as special, like himself. And he usually becomes obsessed with them (Elle, Claire, even Maya to a certain degree are all examples of this). He is sardonic, and often cruel with his words for no reason other than he was bored. Very few things he says aren't carefully calculated.

He builds up walls of justifications for his actions, and when people tear them down he usually gets defensive. It's not his fault he's a killer, it is never his fault. There is always something or someone else to blame. His mother, Elle, the Hunger. He's the real victim here. He could have been normal, had people just given him the chance. Or that's how he chooses to see things, anyways.

Through most of season 3, he's in a period of rehabiliation. But it's tenuous as best. Because he thinks he's a Petrelli he finally has a family that matters, and someone to make proud of again. Angela serves as a good replacement for Virginia, but then Arthur steps in and gives him something he never had before: a father. He becomes obsessed with becoming a good soldier, to fighting Daddy's fight and making him proud. Because in many ways he is still a stunted child who never got over his father (Martin Gray) going out for cigarettes and never coming back. He tries to reinvent himself again, change himself again to win that father's love that he had never had before.

But he also begins to learn how to connect with people during this period, first with Peter, with Claire (when he realizes the depth of what he did to her), and then to a greater degree, Elle. He lets her use him as a human lightening rod, to atone for the sin of killing her father. By learning to forgive her for what she did to him, helping her forgive herself, he was also able to find some peace and begin to forgive himself as well. He sees salvation in the form of picking up her power through empathy.

Perhaps he has a chance to be something other than just a monster.

The problem them comes into how he defines himself beyond those powers that he uses to make himself feel special. In season two when he loses his powers due to the Shanti virus he goes insane without them, because he doesn't know how to exist, how to be someone worthy of continuing to exist without them. But by season three, he's begun to come to grips with who is, and in the episode The Eclipse he even talks about feeling relief when he doesn't have his powers, no longer being ruled by the Hunger, the need for more powers. Considering that episode is only a few episodes after the canon point I'm taking him from, he should adjust to that particular part of Atia. Without his powers, there's no threat in him becoming a monster again. It makes his rehabilitation easier, and Sylar likes it when things are easy. If they're too hard or difficult he tends to throw fits, acting like a spoiled brat. Which is exactly what he is.
He's extremely paranoid, and it's not hard for him to distrust someone or turn on them. For as much as he trusted Angela's word that she was his mother and loved him, all it took was a well crafted story from Arthur for him to change sides. He's constantly doubting not only himself but all those around him. Because he understands people on such an innate level, can figure out how they work so easily, it makes things hard for him. He sees their true natures too well. And he knows his own flaws and sees them reflected in those around him. By seeing them in others, by focusing on the faults of others, he doesn't have to confront his own. It's much easier to see the rest of the world as the problem in his life than confront the very real possibility that his bad situations might be of his own creation, his own weakness.


why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting?
Sylar's a pretty dark character himself, honestly. He used to steal powers by ripping people's head opens and examining their brains. He also has a buttload of powers that should make it easy for him to go up against the monsters of Anatole. For those reasons, I think he would do just fine in the game.




Network Post Sample:
[The feed opens up to show a somewhat agitated man wearing sweats and a white tank top.]

So I've gotten the basics here so far. Big archway called the Door that brings everyone here. People come from all sorts of different worlds. This place is called Anatole right? I know, normally people come in and want everything explained to them but what can I say? I like to figure things out for myself. To piece the puzzle together.

See how things work.

But the one thing I couldn't seem to discern so far is why we're here. Why do they bring us here? And what exactly is powering the Door [His voice lifts in this question because even though he's trying to be good power is always going to attract him like a moth to the flame.] It has to be powerful to bring in people from all sorts of different worlds and times.

Surely, someone must have some answers, right?

[The feed ends.]

Third Person Sample:
The last thing Sylar had remembered was going to bed after staying up with Elle for most of the night, working on mastering his new ability. It was strange, by taking her electricity the way he did he lacked the understanding of just how it worked the way he normally did. But there was time. She could teach him. He didn't have to be a monster. He could be something better.

He could be a hero.

He had gone to sleep fairly easily, easier than he had in a long time, but when he woke up, he was no longer in the almost cell like room he had in Pinehearst. It was...outside, for one thing. He frowned a little, standing to his feat. In front of his was a marble archway. A door. It seemed so real.

But that didn't mean it was real. After all, that tropical paradise Candice had placed him had seemed real too. And that was his gut instinct. That this was another illusion. Another plot to try to control him, he was sure.

Perhaps the Company had found a way to take him from Pinehearst? He wouldn't put it past Angela. She was a controlling bitch and she probably wasn't pleased he sided with Daddy.

But maybe she should have thought about that before trying to drown him as a baby. And then giving him up. She had no right to try to play the mother card with him now.

An idea struck him as he approached the archway. He could try to gain some information himself. He placed his hand on the hard marble, closing his eyes as he took in the history of the thing. It was old. And not an illusion. It was powerful. Brought people from many worlds (there were other worlds?).

There was a little more information he could gather from it, but not much. This place was called Anatole. And people were pulled here every day. He was just another statistic in that regards. But the one thing he couldn't figure out was why he had been pulled.

Which he hated. He hated not being able to figure out why things worked the way they did. So he would have to try to figure it out, since he was stuck here anyways.

How hard could it be?


Anything else? ...Anything else? :D

They got together on most of Elle's nights off now, usually at her apartment. They had tried going out for dinner once, but it had ended up being more awkward than anything else, really. Talking to one another still wasn't their strong point. At least if they were at her apartment, they could give up on the pretenses of dinner and conversation more easily. Which is often what ended up happening. Gabriel doubted that was normal, but then again there was little about their relationship (was it a relationship? they had never labeled it formally as such, but it was beginning to feel like one) that was normal to begin with.

Still, the last week or two had been nice. Almost too nice. He felt restless from it, on nights where he wasn't with her he usually stayed at his apartment, locked up in his solitude, plotting his next move. A few nights ago he had went to a strip club he hadn't been to yet, and another blond, Daphne Milbrook, showed up missing on the news a few days later. The official report was that there was a serial killer in their midst, and most of the clubs were beefing up their security because of it. Not that he minded. He liked a challenge. It helped quell that darkness inside of his head. That darkness that threatened to ruin everything. After all, Elle could never know what he truly was, what he was truly like. She would never accept him. Even though she had promised to never hate him, he wondered if that was really true, if she could even keep a promise like that.

But all of that was pushed into the back of his mind (as much as it ever could be)as he knocked on the door of her apartment, a pizza in his other hand to add to all the other dinners they never ate much of. He was dressed like he normally did outside of work, black jeans and a black button down shirt, complete with his worn leather jacket. His hair was slightly gelled and spiked. The glasses, vest and ties were all at home, tucked away in his closet. They were just a costume, this was who he really was.

Or as close to it as he could ever show her, at any rate.