App for Scorched

[hebime]

In Character Information

character name: Snake-Eyes
Fandom: GI Joe (Marvel Comics canon followed by the Devil's Due continuation)
Timeline: Post-America's Elite, after the end of World War III and Cobra Commander's incarceration at the bottom of the ocean
character's age: Early to mid-30s

powers, skills, pets and equipment:

A deadly crossbreed of the ancient ninja and the modern commando, Snake-Eyes brings the best of both worlds to the fight against tyranny. His reflexes have been honed to such uncanny levels that he can dodge bullets and even deflect them with his sword. The same goes for his perception, his sense of danger in particular being almost supernatural. He appears to be unaffected by climate extremes, reacting to bitter cold as if it were room temperature. He is a qualified expert in 12 martial art systems notably karate, kung-fu, judo, taekwondo, and jeet kune do. This has earned him the role of the GI JOE team's hand-to-hand combat instructor.

Under the Army's Recondo and Airborne programmes he learned tracking, stealth, survival, demolitions, reconnaisance, and other related skills. These make him capable of operating solo in hostile territory for extended periods of time. He is proficient in all small arms as well as traditional ninja weaponry, being as good with blades as he is with firearms. Last but far from the least, Snake-Eyes is a master of the Arashikage ninjas' mental and physical techniques. These include holistic medicine, blind fighting, resistance to mind-altering, battle mindsets that remove all inhibitions, and sundry others. It's no wonder his fellow Joes see him as one of the best they've got while their Cobra enemies see him as their worst nightmare.

In Anatole, the Mist will have healed Snake-Eyes' face of his implied but never actually shown disfigurement at the hands of the Red Ninjas. He will revert to his prior blond blue-eyed lightly scarred visage, though still incapable of verbal communication.

For weapons, Snake-Eyes will arrive in Anatole with:

-Uzi submachine guns in 9mm (x2)
-Colt M1911A in .45 caliber (w/ suppressor)
-Fragmentation grenades
-Katana
-Spike-knuckled butterfly knives (x2)
-standard issue GI JOE wrist computer


canon history:

The man who became Snake-Eyes started out as a quiet but good-hearted youth from suburban America. He joined the Army as a way of following his moral compass, which told him to stand up for the people he cared about by serving his country. Following 'damn near perfect marks' in basic training at Fort Jackson and advanced infantry training at Fort Benning, he was assigned to the jungles of Southeast Asia as machinegunner of an LRRP (Long Range Reconnaisance Patrol) unit. In that unit he forged bonds that would shape the course of his life. One with squad leader Lonzo Wilkinson and another with a young Japanese-American named Tommy Arashikage. Tommy in particular became a brother to the reticent Snake-Eyes. He hinted that when the war was over, there would be a spot waiting for him at his family's business in Japan.

Snake-Eyes and his unit conducted many daring missions far into hostile territory, until a run-in with an enemy force saw half the team decimated and Snake-Eyes himself seriously wounded. Said injuries earned him a discharge and a shot at the peace he'd been fighting for. But when he touched down at the airport, none of his family was there to welcome him back. Only an Army Colonel who informed him of the tragic news: on their way to pick him up, his parents and twin sister Terri had been killed in a head-on collision with a drunken war veteran.

Devastated, Snake-Eyes wallowed in self-pity and suicidal tendencies. Worse yet his countrymen showed him ingratitude for the sacrifices he'd made abroad. They called him 'baby killer' and accused him of being a lapdog for 'imperialist America'. It was during this time when he was approached by a charismatic ex-used car salesman. This man enlightened the bitter ex-soldier to the real plight of their country: drugs corrupting the youth, wealthy landscapers paying illegal immigrants in loose change, slumlords soliciting 'favors' from pretty young tenants in exchange for lowered rent, and other evils that made the America they'd grown up in almost unrecognizable. This compelled Snake-Eyes to travel the country with his new partner as modern day Robin Hoods, dispensing vigilante justice as they saw fit. Snake-Eyes believed in what they were doing but in time he noticed his partner was avaricious when it came to the money they took from their targets. Even when he gave the money away to prove his noble intentions, Snake-Eyes could see he was actually buying the people who received them.

Their partnership ended on the night of their last mission, when Snake-Eyes was ordered to kill a judge. This judge had presided over the case of his partner's war veteran brother Dan, whose halfway house had burned down in an accident. Although the jury had found for Dan the judge had overturned their verdict and spitefully accused him of insurance fraud to teach the 'freeloading' vet a lesson. Having lost everything, Dan had turned to drink and gotten himself killed in a highway accident. The same accident that had killed Snake-Eyes' family. Snake-Eyes' partner revealed that he had been watching him since that day and had seen in him the perfect accomplice for his master plan. By killing the judge, the partner argued, he would bring justice for both his brother and Snake-Eyes' family as well as take his first step into helping him remake the world in his own image. Horrified at where this vengeful path had taken him, Snake-Eyes held back from pulling the trigger. His now ex-partner did the deed himself and called him a weakling, warning him that when next they met it would be as enemies.

With his mind clear for the first time in months, Snake-Eyes decided to make a new start for himself. He took up his blood brother Tommy on the business offer he'd made during the war and travelled to Japan to meet him. Tommy warmly welcomed his old friend to his ancestral home and introduced him to his family. Much to Snake-Eyes' surprise, the Arashikages turned out not to be a family of accountants like he'd assumed... but a family of ninja. This noble breed of shadow warriors had been around for centuries, hiding in plain sight and when necessary, fighting for peace from the cover of darkness. Since the clan's leaders were getting old, it was the perfect time for a new generation to rise up. And Tommy wanted Snake-Eyes to join him in being a part of it.

His soldier's disposition translated well to the shinobi's. Snake-Eyes embraced his training and flourished under the tutelage of Tommy's uncles, the Hard Master and the Soft Master. He learned not only the old ways of stealth and subterfuge but the newer noble ways of honor and duty. He also learned to become one with 'the hidden world' and reach out with mind and body in ways he had never imagined. Within three years he was a rising star among the clan's ranks. Most of the Arashikage looked to him as their next leader over Tommy, who was the clan's rightful heir. But that didn't matter to Snake-Eyes. What did matter was that he'd found a new home, a purpose in life, a way to deal with his personal demons, and a new family that transcended mere blood ties.

As his fame grew among the Arashikage, so did jealousy and resentment on Tommy's part. Snake-Eyes knew this and held back during their training sessions so that their sensei would judge Tommy as the worthier heir. The Hard Master wasn't fooled and one night, during a demonstration of blind sword techniques, he personally told Snake-Eyes that he'd be the one to lead the Arashikage when his time came. Snake-Eyes turned this down, refusing to take what was Tommy's birthright. The Hard Master carried on with his lessons and showed Snake-Eyes the Cloak of the Chameleon, a technique wherein the ninja could imitate the heartbeat and breathing patterns of any target. Suddenly, an arrow flew in from the garden outside and penetrated the shoji screen whence the Hard Master had concealed himself, killing him instantly. Tommy was then spotted fleeing the scene with longbow in hand. To all eyes, Tommy, in a fit of jealous rage, had used a technique called The Ear That Sees to murder his own uncle.

Snake-Eyes blamed himself for what happened and, unwilling to see the rest of the clan tear itself apart because of him, fled back to America. He retreated to a log cabin in the High Sierras and cut himself off from his fellow man. At least that way, he reasoned, he couldn't hurt anyone though he also yearned for people to know he never meant anybody harm. With no one but a wolf he'd saved from a bear trap to keep him company, Snake-Eyes planned to live the rest of his days in peaceful isolation. He believed no one in their right mind would ever seek him out. He was wrong.

Sometime later, his old squad leader Lonzo 'Stalker' Wilkinson and Colonel Clayton 'Hawk' Abernathy (the very Colonel who'd informed Snake-Eyes of his family's death) came to call. The US government was putting together a covert strike force in response to rising incidences of terrorism across the globe. Stalker had been the very first recruit and in turn he'd recommended Snake-Eyes for membership. After a bit of soul-searching, Snake-Eyes agreed to join for the same reason he'd joined the Army in the first place: looking out for people. In no time he was part of the founding thirteen members of Counter-Terrorist Group Delta. Or to use the codename that the world would soon know them by: GI JOE.

It was during his early days with the Joes that Snake-Eyes formed the third and most powerful bond in his life. A mutual attraction developed between him and Shana 'Scarlett' O' Hara, the Joes' counter-intelligence expert. She was drawn to his silent mysterious ways and he was drawn to her fiery strength of character. That attraction blossomed into love. The two became inseperable in and out of combat, and it was for this love that Snake-Eyes experienced his life's one greatest mishap. On a rescue mission in the Middle East, a malfunctioning helicopter crashed into the one he and Scarlett were riding in. Snake-Eyes forsook saving himself in favor of cutting her loose. Unfortunately that was enough time for him to get caught in the heat blast from one of the copter's shattered windows. Though he saved Scarlett and survived the accident with his life, it left his face badly disfigured and his vocal cords damaged virtually beyond repair.

After months of recovery in an Army hospital burn unit, Snake-Eyes found himself at a crossroads. On the one hand, he could retire on a full disability pension and be alone again... or he could keep fighting and risk getting hurt more. His love for Scarlett and resolve to stop running from pain compelled him to choose the latter, though he would never speak again and he would need to keep his horrifying visage hidden behind a mask. He threw himself back into the fight with renewed fervor and grew into a living legend as the team's faceless voiceless man of the shadows. He was just in time for GI JOE to face its' greatest enemy: Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization hellbent on world domination. Snake-Eyes would find he had a personal stake in this war that no else had. For Cobra's mysterious Commander was none other than the same ex-used car salesman who'd tried to dupe Snake-Eyes into joining him. He'd used the money he gathered from multiple scams to recruit and arm various malcontents who shared the same goals as he. Now they stood poised to conquer the world. And only GI JOE could stand in their way.

There were many great battles over the years that followed. As Cobra's ranks swelled they hatched plan after plan to bring the world to its' knees. Each time, the equally growing Joe team was there to thwart Cobra and Snake-Eyes himself played an instrumental role in several of their victories. Fate decreed that he would cross paths with Tommy again. His sword brother had taken the name 'Storm Shadow' and joined Cobra as Cobra Commander's bodyguard. He had not, however, done this out of any belief in Cobra's ideals. He had done so to find the Hard Master's true killer and clear his name. Out of anger for Snake-Eyes' past betrayal, Cobra Commander had ordered the mercenary Firefly to assassinate him while training with the Arashikage. But upon realizing he was no match for the then-apprentice ninja, Firefly had subcontracted another mercenary, Zartan, to carry out the hit. It was Zartan who'd loosed the arrow meant for Snake-Eyes and instead killed the Hard Master. Storm Shadow would eventually defect to the Joes and serve beside his sword brother for many missions until Cobra Commander re-brainwashed him back to evil.

Throughout this time, Snake-Eyes also maintained an often rocky yet enduring romance with Scarlett. When the Joes were temporarily disbanded for a seven year period, Snake-Eyes found himself with the chance to settle down with Scarlett for the rest of his life. But he called the wedding off after Ophelia, an apprentice Snake-Eyes had been training to carry on the Arashikage ways, was killed in a confrontation with Firefly. Snake-Eyes left Scarlett at the altar for fear of losing her too and for a long time, she never forgave him for that. They reconciled shortly after GI JOE's reinstatement with their love stronger than ever. Snake-Eyes also found a new apprentice in Sean 'Kamakura' Collins, the son of an old war buddy from his LRRP days. This young ninja commando, like himself in more ways than one, would become a source of pride for the veteran warrior.

Snake-Eyes remained a GI JOE mainstay throughout its various iterations. The one drastic change he underwent was when he was killed during a mission to save Scarlett and revived as a brainwashed servant of the Red Ninjas, a rogue branch of the Arashikage clan. Although a reformed Storm Shadow helped bring him back to himself, the experience made Snake-Eyes abandon his ninja training and focus fully on his commando aspect. He carried on this way until Cobra Commander instigated World War III using the full brunt of Destro's MARS technology and government secrets he'd learned while disguised as the US Secretary of State. In the war's final battle, Snake-Eyes faced Firefly one last time and bested him in single combat after re-embracing his Arashikage ways. With most of Cobra in ruins and the Commander himself imprisoned at the bottom of the sea, Snake-Eyes and the remaining Joes returned to the site of their original base beneath Fort Wadsworth. They had come full circle in their long struggle against Cobra, but the war against evil and tyranny raged on. And for as long as that war continued GI JOE would stand tall as not just America's vanguards of freedom, but the world's.

Snake-Eyes is summoned to Anatole not long after this.


personality: Snake-Eyes comes across as an enigma to everyone he encounters. This image is compounded by his inability to speak and exacerbated by his private nature, thus making him rather difficult to approach. He prefers it that way. All the loss he's endured over the years has convinced Snake-Eyes that he's some kind of walking curse upon the people around him. He has experienced so much death and pain that he's loathe to let people get close and potentially hurt him (or worse, get themselves hurt) again. Few have been able to bring him out of this shell and even fewer have kept him out of it long enough to bond with on a personal level.

But if one digs past that forbidding veneer he'll find a heroic small-town boy who was raised with the simple but strong moral code of looking out for the little guy. It was the reason he joined the Army, and it's the reason he's remained with the GI JOE team for as long as he has. Snake-Eyes is patriotic without being a flag-waver. He believes in his country and the basic principles upon which it was founded, enough to risk his life for them in constant war. Calm and disciplined, he sees the sense of honor and duty he learned from the Arashikage clan as a way to live and adheres to it as best as he can. He seeks balance in everything, from himself to the world around him, and tends to inspire other people to do the same.

With all he's been through, it's easy to think Snake-Eyes might be the most vicious and angry man in existence. This is only true if you're his enemy. Like many men he has a compassionate, even loving, side. He's kind to children and small animals, seeing in them reminders of hope for a world without war. He claims to have never quite gotten the hang of dating and all the lovey dovey business that normal couples do, yet he can be even more affectionate and expressive than them in his own non-verbal way. He'll never admit it but he seems to have a soft spot for redheads. This is because his beloved twin sister Terri was one, and so he can't help but subconsciously see her in all of them. It was certainly true for both Scarlett and his first apprentice Ophelia, though the former became his lover while the latter was more the recipient of his big brother instincts. For hobbies, Snake-Eyes favors meditation and considers field-stripping firearms to be an actual leisurely activity. He also has a weakness for spike-knuckled trench knives, which he enjoys collecting in his spare time.

As a warrior, Snake-Eyes believes that the true master looks for peaceful ways out of violent situations. But when pushed to fight (which is often, since Cobra and their ilk rarely give him non-violent options), he does so to win by any means necessary. This means utilizing both his military and ninja training to their utmost without any regard for what's fair or unfair... because the only unfair fight is the one you lose. He's also been known to hold his true strength back so that his opponent might save face in front of his peers and superiors. He did this often when training with Storm Shadow and he did this the first time he sparred with Scarlett, who was the Joes' hand-to-hand combat instructor back then. He's one of the best fighters there is and while there's never been any indication that he's aware of it, he's certainly never felt the need to prove it.

As a soldier, Snake-Eyes tends to take a pragmatic big-picture view of things. When Cobra kidnapped an outspoken nuclear physicist and threatened to extract her knowledge of the US government's doomsday projects, he questioned the wisdom of mounting a rescue mission and proposed that a bombing run on Cobra's base would solve the problem with less risk. This indicates a penchance for taking the needs of many over the needs of one. He's also somewhat fastidious in matters of equipment. Check on him every so often and you'll find him cleaning every single weapon in the Joe armory all by himself. If you work up enough spunk to ask him why, he'll tell you that if he's going to trust his life to someone on the battlefield then he'd better make sure their weapons don't jam on him at a critical moment.

On the plus side, he is utterly dedicated to the mission. Give him his objectives and in time, no matter what complications arise, no matter how badly he may get banged up, you can be sure he'll have gone through hell and back just to report, "Mission Accomplished." This means, however, that he will often choose fulfilling the mission over the welfare of his own comrades. Make no mistake though; he does this only because he knows they'd do the same in his place, if just as reluctantly as he would. Otherwise he is fiercely loyal and protective of his comrades. He may not get along with some of his fellow Joes but when it comes down to it, there is no doubt he would die for every single one of them.

why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting? In the words of General Colton, Snake-Eyes is GI JOE. A living example of man's courage and determination in the face of evil and adversity. Years of war and personal tragedy may have brought Snake-Eyes much suffering. He may have lost family, friends, several comrades, an apprentice, and even his own face and voice. Yet he's never failed to rise up and keep right on fighting. He's seen it all, strictly speaking from his world's POV, and can be considered 'ripe' for a higher and more dangerous dimension. Snake-Eyes at his very heart is not a badass ninja commando, but a survivor. And survival is what living in Anatole is all about.

Writing Samples

Network Post Sample:

[There is a six second shot of video. It's a man in a full black body suit, light from an overhead lamp glinting off an unreadable steel visor and a katana sheathed on his back. He is fiddling with a device mounted on his wrist. It lies open with its circuits exposed. Inert. Unresponsive. Useless. He gives it one last experimental tap before reaching for his Forge and, for some reason, switching to text.]

This is Snake-Eyes. Have awakened in unknown surroundings in a city of equally unknown location. Inhabitants and architechture are mostly reminiscent of the 19th century. So far no evidence of Cobra occupation, a controlled environment, or hallucinogens at work. No sign either of teammates.

Wrist computer is inoperative but all weapons are accounted for with full ammunition loads. Have found this strange device among personal equipment as if left deliberately. For now, have no choice but to rely on it for communication purposes.

[It's several seconds before the message picks up again. As if this black ops ninja is taking further stock of his surroundings and processing them for more to add. Finally:]

Heading out for recon. If any members of Counter-Terrorist Group Delta can pick this up, respond immediately. Will meet you at a rendezvous point as soon as possible. Stay alert.

Over and out.


Third Person Sample:

Up until the skeletons had staggered to un-life and surrounded him, Snake-Eyes had had his doubts about this place. He hadn't believed that he'd somehow been pulled from his world into this land beyond time and space, this 'Anatole'. How could he? Where he came from there were no such things as fog that altered everything it touched. There were no such things as dwarves that roved tunnels below in search of treasure, or sprawling arenas where clockwork robots duelled for monetary gain. Above all, there were no such things as monsters. The only monsters he knew hid behind blue uniforms and cried for the downfall of the world's establishments from under the banner of a bloodred cobra.

But now, as he stood at the center of an ever-narrowing circle of bony claws and broken swords, the rational explanation his mind had instinctively thrown up in self-defense began to unravel at the seams. He fought to hold onto it. Somehow he'd been captured and held in an elaborate prison disguised as a fanciful city to disorient its prisoners. That had to be it. Cobra had transformed the quiet little town of Springfield into their secret base of operations while maintaining an innocent facade aboveground. Who was to say they hadn't done the same here? He was an inmate in this Cobra front and now they were using him as a guinea pig for the by-product of some viral agent. One that brought the dead back to life.

That had to be the answer. Yet deep down that wasn't what his heart told him. Be this hell or indeed some alien world, what mattered was that this was all very real. Somehow the dead lived and now they were coming for him. He would fight back or they would succeed where every Cobra he'd faced had failed.

He felt the stifling fear one experiences when faced with the unknown. For a fleeting moment it threatened to overwhelm him. Then, like a cooling breeze, the teachings of the Hard Master came back to him from long ago.

Attack without fear. Leave your fear behind you. To triumph over fear is to triumph over death. And to conquer death is to conquer life!

Then he felt the raw power in this creed, this way of living, scatter his fear like leaves in the wind. Had the skeletons been able to see past the masked man's visor now, they would have seen hard blue eyes glaring back at them with the steely gaze of a serpent. And maybe, had they been able to know emotion... they would have known the same terror Cobra's legions did whenever they whispered his name and deeds amongst each other.

Snake-Eyes' hands fell away from the sheathed katana and the Uzi slung at his hip, ignoring the bleached-white arms stretching out for him. Neither sword nor gun was the way out. He would have to time this just right.


Anything else? Being mute, all Forge entries and comments will forever be in text. He will also rely on his Forge for personal interaction (in much the same way Durarara's Celty Sturluson relies on her phone) since not everyone knows sign language.