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ᴍɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ ʟᴀɴɢᴅᴏɴ 🐍 ᴀʜs: ᴀᴘᴏᴄᴀʟʏᴘsᴇ ([personal profile] bloodprayer) wrote2018-10-31 07:53 pm

maskormenace app

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Gero
AGE: 26
JOURNAL: [personal profile] retrowave
IM / EMAIL: hoechlin#5212
PLURK: [plurk.com profile] southpaws
RETURNING: i play odin [personal profile] shadowglitter & derek [personal profile] calloused

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Michael Langdon
CHARACTER AGE: It's complicated, but essentially 16.
SERIES: American Horror Story: Apocalypse
CHRONOLOGY: Episode 6. Pre-Anton, post-ghost murder.
CLASS: Villain.
HOUSING: Jeopardy jeopardy jeopardy jeopardy jeopardy

BACKGROUND: american horror story wiki ( + murder house and apocalypse entries) || Michael Langdon

Content warnings both for these links and for the app below! There'll be mentions of violence against both people and animals, rape, suicide and murder.

PERSONALITY:
Michael Langdon is, and always has been, destined for great things.

Conceived when his father, the dead Tate Langdon, had non-consensual sex with his mother, the living Vivien Harmon, Michael Langdon, your friendly neighbourhood Antichrist, is the bringer of the end of days foretold in the Book of Revelations and the host to an unimaginable evil. Even before his birth, he was an unnatural, sinister existence with a need to consume - he fed off of his twin half-brother in the womb, starving him of the nutrients he needed to survive, and he demanded raw animal flesh and organs from his mother to sustain himself, growing stronger from blood. He's very Rosemary's Baby, essentially.

Raised by his grandmother who weathered countless tragedies that would - in her belief - make her strong enough to withstand the difficulties of raising a boy like him, Michael was a violent child. He was a killer, through and through, shearing the wings off of flies as an infant before he grew older and turned his sights onto rodents, birds, cats and dogs. These acts of violence would lead to him taking the life of his babysitter, as a child, and once older, the life of a priest - but no drop of blood Michael shed was ever taken without reason. Michael, until he reached adulthood, was full of love, and every animal corpse he nailed to his grandmother's door or hung from the ceiling of her kitchen was intended as a present to prove to her how much he loved her. Constance described his love as overflowing, and that even while she tried to convince him to express himself through other avenues - something he never seemed capable of doing - there was a part of her that loved to bask in the glow of a child so devoted to showing her he cared.

Michael was always a sunny and innocent child, despite it all. He was always smiling, always kind, and he craved affection and acknowledgment in a way that combated his very nature as someone either possessed by - or created by - the devil himself. When he was only five or six years old, Michael aged ten years overnight, and he started committing violent acts he wasn't consciously aware of doing. He tried to strangle Constance in her sleep, crying when he snapped back to consciousness and realized what he was doing, and it was this stress that ultimately led to Constance's death.

To avoid the fate of one day being murdered by Michael, Constance took her life in the Murder House, a building that trapped and bound the spirits of those who died there, housing them as ghosts. Michael showed genuine remorse and grief over Constance's death, seemingly proving Constance was wrong to fear him, which marked the moment when Michael changed from an innocent, naive boy to one self-aware of the fact that there was something with about him. Consciously, he still just wanted love and affection and didn't understand why he did the bad things he did, but deep down, he was still violent and wrathful to such a degree that nothing could stop the surge of evil that constantly threatened to overtake him.

One of the ghosts in Murder House, Ben Harmon, saw Michael as the son he should have had before Constance ran away with him; he was a therapist in life, and took pity on Michael as he cried over his grandmother, vowing to help him. Through his sessions with Ben, Michael was discovered to desperately, desperately want to be good and needed someone to help him get there, and, more to the point, he was in possession of an amount of intelligence that soared off the charts. Ben was his doctor as well as his father figure, and for a time, Michael seemed to improve, enjoying all the little joys of life he hadn't had until now - and then he found out that Tate was his father.

The darkness was always encroaching Michael, hidden away on the edges, and when other spirits whispered to Michael that Tate was his father, he became curious to learn more about him. Searching through Tate's things, he found the mask to the Rubberman suit, and, when confronted, knew he had done something wrong. Tate yelled at him for touching his things, and while Ben defended him for Michael's childish curiousity and natural need for exploration, traits that seem to be a part of him even as he ages, and Michael admitted that he wanted to be like his dad, despite - presumably - knowing at least some of the horrible things Tate had done. Tate rejected him, calling him a monster, calling him evil, and telling him to stay away from him. Shaped by that rejection, Michael was never really the same.

He gave up on trying to get better in his sessions with Ben, and instead willingly embraced the darker sides of himself he'd spent so long fearing. In what almost seemed like an extension of his curiosity, Michael imitated at least one other ghost in the house as if trying to search for internal meaning or an understanding of who he was - because who was he, if he was neither good enough to stop being evil or evil enough to stop being good? Recreating the Black Dahlia's death while dressed in the surgical gear of another house ghost, Michael gave her a glasgow smile, acting wholesome and unashamed when he was caught. Things steadily got worse as Michael's remaining naivete, need for affection and inability to fully understand who he was continued to battle each other in a quest for self-discovery.

Two women bought the Murder House and moved in, and, while childishly believing that they didn't belong in his home, Michael slit one of their throats and stabbed the other through the skull. Ben, upset, told Michael that they were good people who deserved a chance, and that because of what he did, they would be stuck in the Murder House forever - and with no regard to the gravity of his actions, Michael tried to solve that problem by burning their spirits into ash with hellfire he controlled, completely and totally wiping them from existence. Ben told Michael he never could have helped him and that he was foolish to try, and even after committing the atrocities he committed, Michael cried at the rejection. Through all of this, Michael wore his father's Rubberman suit.

All of this is to say that it's hard to determine whether or not Michael is inherently, naturally evil, or if he's a good kid merely possessed by evil. Up until this point in his life, Michael had shown an intense need to be good and to be loved and to love in return, and, most importantly, to not be the monster he fears that he is - all while being rejected by the people who could be by his side because the evil inside of him bared teeth too big and too sharp to go ignored. He takes after both his mother and his father, in that his mood swings and his incapability of dealing with rejection are inherited from Tate, while the purity, dedication and strength of character he longs for were all visible traits in Vivien.

After being rejected by Ben, Michael became isolated within Murder House. He retreated in on himself, and at this point in his life, his ties to hell became more blatantly apparent - a murder of crows would circle the house every day, the weather would become blisteringly, swelteringly hot, and, finally, he would be approached by three strangers: Anton LaVey, Black Pope of the Church of Satan, and his two cardinals, all of them seeking an audience with him.

Anton and his cardinals instantly gave Michael everything he wanted. They praised him as a God, saying they found him by following a dark star that led them to his doorstep, and openly and affectionately titled him their Lord. They made him feel accepted and gave him purpose in life, rewarding him for being who he is with love and with guidance. Michael found direction and succumbed to the evil within him, largely obliterating his conscience and allowing him to fully and completely become accepting of - but not yet consumed by - his evil. He acknowledges Satan as his father and finds validation in him.

A myriad of things happen after this, but since the show is still airing, I'm only focusing on events and traits that can be pulled from episodes aired at least two weeks prior to apps opening. What can be said from the canon available for this app is that at some point after everything listed above, Michael moved in with Miss Mead, one of Anton's cardinals, living exclusively with her and referring to her as the only person who never betrayed him. He retains his innocence, up to a point, though he violently kills someone who speaks to her in a way he doesn't approve of and then kills again when he's cornered and scared. He draws the attention of a powerful Warlock who uses him in a scheme to kill his rivals, inadvertently giving Michael another avenue for validation while helping him amass power he secretly stockpiles for the sake of ending the world under Miss Mead and Satan's guidance - which, as is his destiny, is a goal that Michael eventually succeeds in - and he seems to become enthralled by people's reactions to his powers he inherits as the Antichrist, coming into the magic he can use and constantly using it to impress or competitively one-up people who claim he won't be able to do the things he can do.

Years pass, and as an adult, Michael is charismatic, secure in himself, manipulative and pointedly attractive. He's been shaped by the family he found amongst the satanists and the devil himself as well as in the pride he has in pursuing his destiny, and he believes, after deploying bombs that destroy civilization and most of humanity, that he's fully risen to the role of the biblical force of destruction he was born to play. After ending the world, Michael languidly toys with the remaining remnants of humanity who survived his thermonuclear apocalypse by tempting survivors wiled away in bunkers with whichever of the seven deadly sins they feel the most drawn to. Through playing mind games and offering temptations and promises of freedom, Michael coerces survivors into killing each other while he watches from a distance, never getting his hands dirty.

Essentially, Michael is a conflicted figure. Though born evil, he spends his life seeking love, approval and affection, overwhelmed with so much of his own to give in ways he struggles to express. For the majority of his youth, he longs to be good and to stop being - again, in his own words - a monster, desperately torn apart by his hope for a happier life and his inability to stop hurting the things he cares about. He succumbs to the darkness inside of him, though the show has purposefully avoided clarifying whether he was always inherently going to become the evil he was supposedly destined for, or if there was a chance, however slim, that he could overcome it. Either way - he revels in who he is, when he has the confidence and the guidance to determine who that is.

POWER:
Everything listed here is canon, but I do have a quick note to make! Canonically, Michael's abilities come naturally to him as part of his status as a demonic being and could easily be lumped under the same single power umbrella. The warlocks at Hawthorne, however, mistake some of his supernatural abilities as latent magical talent, and while that's not actually the case, I've gone ahead and made those particular abilities their own umbrella just for legibility purposes.

power one - Demonic Heritage

Signs of Hell - There are times, beyond Michael's control, where he'll slowly become surrounded by ill omens aesthetically tied to hell. The inside of whatever building he's staying in will slowly warm up until it feels as if it's the middle of summer, crows will circle overhead and gather where he lives, and the sky might seem red if you look at it from where he's standing. All of these effects will be incredibly confined and only impact where he lives or where he's staying, totally unnoticeable to the game as a whole.

Illusory Magic - Michael can create and project illusions so powerfully strong that those who see or interact with them will believe that they're truly there. His most notable use of this was when he conjured a manifestation of a man in his father's Rubber Man suit to have sex with Mister Gallant after Mister Gallant tried to seduce him, allowing him to fully feel and experience the act. While the show hasn't been clear on if it's his true face or just something he can affect, Michael is also feared as the White-Faced Demon, and is seen at multiple times with black eyes and a hidden white face beneath his own.

Clairvoyance - The ability to read a person's thoughts or feelings. Michael is shown to be able to see into the minds of the people he toys with in the bunkers as an adult, revealing their secrets in a one on one interview and bringing to the surface their immediate thoughts as well as their deepest wants and fears.

Blood Prayer - Michael can evoke sudden epiphanies and ideas within himself through drawing heavy amounts of blood and painting a pentagram within a circle of candles, crediting Satan for his wisdom. His spilled blood will boil, and from it, snakes will emerge. He can't obtain knowledge he doesn't already have through doing this; it's a kickstart to his brain to make him think a little clearer. Like washing your face in the morning, but demonic, and also with snakes.

power two - False Alpha

Believed by Ariel to be the Alpha warlock, a fabled warlock powerful enough to have magical abilities that eclipses even those of the Supreme, a coven's most powerful witch, Michael had to pass the test of The Seven Wonders to prove his talent. The Seven Wonders are a series of spells that only the most superior witch can showcase, and Michael not only succeeded at each one, but handily conquered them.

Concilium - The ability to place a person under the user's control. Through concentration, Michael is capable of influencing the decisions and will of another person using his thoughts alone, and resistance to this can lead to internal pain and hemorrhaging due to intracranial pressure.

Pyrokinesis - The ability to control, create and extinguish fire. Michael's fire is supernatural and capable of being used for evil, as shown when he burns and eradicates the otherwise immortal souls of the dead. Basically: his fire is super hot and capable of burning or igniting anything that wouldn't be able to smother or otherwise defeat it. Hot hot fire.

Divination - The ability to sense an awareness of an object or person's location, as well as the ability to scry for messages or visions. Michael used this ability to both find and retrieve a book hidden by the warlocks during training for his test of the Seven Wonders, as well as to find the location of the Hotel Cortez by sensing an image of the building and drawing it on a piece of paper.

Vitalum Vitalis - The ability to tip the scales between life and death. Vitalum Vitalis refers to both the ability to resurrect the dead and the ability to take life from the living. While for witches and warlocks, this would involve giving or taking from the caster's own life force, Michael in canon suffers no such restrictions.

Transmutation - Also referred to as salire per spatium by the Warlocks, Transmutation refers to teleportation, or the ability to instantly transport from one location to another. While he's probably capable of going further, this is only seen in short distances, so Michael will only be capable of doing this within the same room he's standing in.

Telekinesis - Arguably Michael's strongest power, Telekinesis refers to the ability to move or manipulate objects with one's mind. Michael has been seen unbinding chains, projecting knives at incredible speeds, breaking bones, slamming people against ceilings and walls, and shattering a man's skull with nothing but his thoughts.

Stiricidium - Though not one of the Seven Wonders like the other powers listed here, Stiricidium refers to the ability to control the weather and was one of the tests Michael had to pass to show his talents to the Warlock council. By manipulating water molecules in the air, Michael is capable of conjuring rain or snow, but this will only be in a limited capacity, and the effects of this will be confined to the room that Michael is standing in.

While in canon Michael is also capable of the final and most dangerous Seventh Wonder - Descensum, the ability to descend into Hell - that's not included in his powers here for obvious setting reasons.