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Feb. 24th, 2016 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
outer_spaceOUT OF CHARACTER
Player Name: Carolyn
Are you 16 or older: Yep!
Contact: smugfrog@plurk or PM.
Current Characters: Nope!
Tag: kylo ren
IN CHARACTER
Name: Kylo Ren (born Ben Solo)
Canon: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Canon Point: I'll be bringing him in from the end of the movie, after he's been bested (YEAH I SAID IT) by Rey and left bleeding in the snow on Starkiller Base. He's been pretty seriously wounded, and although he'll undergo the same healing process as any new arrival, I'd like the lightsaber gash on his face to leave a scar.
Age: 29
History: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kylo_Ren
Personality: It's difficult to define Kylo Ren as a person—so difficult, in fact, that Kylo Ren himself is still struggling with it. Striding down the halls of the Star Destroyer Finalizer, he cuts an imposing figure, but a figure is really all he is. It's not that he's spineless, or biddable—he's simply used to defining himself in relation to others. In the course of his life, he's been shaped to serve various agendas—that of the Republic, the Jedi Order, and, most recently, Supreme Leader Snoke's First Order. His loyalty to Snoke is nearly absolute—over the years, Snoke has helped Ren attain a degree of power he'd never dreamed possible, conferring on him a new name and title, and entrusting him with (joint) command of the First Order's troops. He both fears and respects Snoke, the man who long ago selected Ren as his apprentice and shared with him his knowledge of the dark side. Snoke knows Kylo Ren better than anyone—strengths, weaknesses, secret doubts—because he had a hand in fashioning him. And Kylo Ren is almost content to be an extension of Snoke's will, almost untroubled by the widespread death and destruction necessary to achieve the First Order's aims. This is almost who he wants to be.
Since everybody in Star Wars is related, Kylo Ren is the son of two legends: Han Solo and Leia Organa. It seems to him he spent most of his life being measured not against his parents, who he knows to be as flawed as anyone else in the galaxy, but the myths that've sprung up around them. He's fallen short, of course—what person can compete with a legend?—and as a result resents his mother and father for both who they are and who they're revered as. He's done his utmost to distance himself from them, renouncing not just the Republic his mother serves and the Jedi Order his uncle leads but his very name (a name that carries with it yet another set of expectations—Ben Kenobi was the Jedi Master who served as Luke Skywalker's first mentor, introducing him to the Force and ultimately laying down his life for him). Throughout The Force Awakens, Ren refers to Han as “Han Solo”—never “my father,” or even “Han.” He insists the man means nothing to him. Over and over again, he tries to convince himself that the ties binding him to his parents are old and frayed and better off severed. When he needed them most, they sent him away (that they did so out of concern for his own well-being, fearing they were no match for the darkness overcoming their young son, is irrelevant), and he's determined to return the unkindness. While he'd rationalize it as eliminating sentimental attachments, he'd really like to hurt them as much as they hurt him.
That's not to say family isn't important to him—quite the opposite. In rejecting his mother and father, he turns to another family member for guidance—his grandfather, the infamous (and, it bears mentioning, deceased) Darth Vader. It's Vader's legacy that Kylo Ren believes he's furthering, Vader who he considers his true family. He's awed by the Dark Lord's command of the Force and devotion to the dark side, the purity of purpose that drove him. Ren regards him as a great man undone, in a tragic moment of sentimentality, by his love for his son. While Han and Leia were wary of their son's tremendous potential, he's convinced Vader would have wanted him to embrace his abilities and fully develop his powers. Vader, he tells himself, would be proud of him. Kylo Ren's admiration for Vader runs so deep that he models his attire on that of the Dark Lord, to the point of wearing a completely unnecessary helmet. He also managed to recover his grandfather's own helmet—no mean feat, considering Luke burned Vader's remains before Kylo was even born—and keeps it in a place of honor in his private quarters. In moments of uncertainty or distress, he'll confide in his grandfather, sometimes imploring him for assistance. When Rey turns Ren's own interrogation tactics on him, delving into his innermost thoughts via the Force, she finds fear—fear that he'll never be as strong as Vader. Tellingly, despite having all but wiped out the Jedi order, taken a new name, and established himself as one of the most terrifying Force users in the galaxy, Ren still dreads not being able to measure up.
Which brings us to: Kylo Ren despises weakness—his go-to insults when addressing his father are “weak” and “foolish”—because he senses it within himself. He wants to devote himself completely to the dark side, to eliminate the doubts plaguing him. Unfortunately (for him, anyway), the call of the light side isn't easy to ignore. Ren does horrible things—tortures people, orders the eradication of an entire village, and stands by and watches as the First Order's superweapon reduces planets to rubble, to name a few—but it isn't enough to extinguish the light in him. He confesses to feeling torn apart, and that's perhaps the most accurate description of who he is—a man pulled in too many directions at once, struggling to reconcile light and dark, the legacy of his mother (and uncle) and that of his grandfather. Because his emotional state is such a shambles, he compensates by acting decisively, believing on some level that if he demonstrates enough conviction his thoughts will follow suit. He's prone to truly spectacular (and truly juvenile) fits of temper, repeatedly demolishing machinery with his lightsaber, and while there's no question these tantrums speak to a profound emotional immaturity and lack of self-control, they also show how heavily Kylo Ren relies on his anger—at the first sign of failure, he reacts with a rage so consuming that all other emotions are blotted out. Because he equates force (that's lowercase-f force, more on That Other Force later) with strength, he has little reason to hold his temper in check, even when his outbursts result in property damage or escaped prisoners. Anger is his connection to the dark side and the source of his power, and the fact that he still has the potential to turn back to the light only makes him cling to his fury that much more desperately.
All Kylo Ren's life, the Force has been there. It's a little silly to attempt to describe his relationship with it—like trying to describe a person's relationship with their thumbs, or breathing. In many ways, the Force operates like another sense—it's not simply a skill to be mastered or a power to be wielded but a means of perceiving the universe. As Ren has changed, so has his understanding of the Force, but it's always been the thing that set him apart, an essential aspect of who he is. He was literally a preternaturally sensitive child, subject to inexplicable but intense feelings—some good, some bad—that he wasn't sure what to do with. His Force sensitivity was often isolating—his was a gift understood by few, and though his mother possessed similar abilities, she was ambivalent toward and sometimes fearful of her powers. At the same time, he was privy to a universe not many people experienced, aware—in sublime moments, anyway—of the connection between all living things. After he'd been shipped off to train with his uncle and other aspiring Jedi, the Force increasingly became his sole source of connection.
Now, a Master of the Knights of Ren, able to stop a blaster bolt in midair or telekinetically choke the life out of a person, he considers those without Force abilities unworthy of his attention—sure, they might occasionally prove useful, but he has little interest in developing a relationship of any kind with someone who's oblivious to the Force. He doesn't view these people with hatred, simply an indifference that can give way to contempt, perhaps even pity. (That he's liable to underestimate them almost goes without saying.) His attitude toward Force-sensitive individuals is very, very different. When he and Rey, a young, tremendously gifted woman unaware of her own potential as a Force-user, cross lightsabers on Starkiller Base, Ren briefly refrains from pressing his advantage so that he can offer to teach her. (“Offer” is perhaps a little misleading—he bellows, “YOU NEED A TEACHER” at her.) He jeopardizes his life for the opportunity to, yes, tempt her to the dark side, but also afford her the chance to fully develop her powers. In his own extremely dysfunctional way, he hates to see potential squandered. For all that he ruthlessly pursues power and cuts down his enemies, Kylo Ren remains mindful of the Force.
Abilities/Skills: The Force! I'll defer to Obi-Wan Kenobi here: “It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” Though all living beings are a part of the Force, some are more attuned to it than others. The extent—and nature—of a person's power is the product of a few factors: innate sensitivity (there's a genetic element to this as well, though for all our sakes I'm going to avoid any explanation involving the word “midi-chlorians”), training, and which side of the Force is being drawn on. As part of the Skywalker line, Kylo Ren has a ton of natural potential. He has also trained extensively, first with Luke Skywalker, then under Snoke (he has not, however, completed his training—he's poised to do so at the end of The Force Awakens). And because he derives his power from the dark side of the Force, his abilities tend to be more violent and less controlled than those of his light side counterparts.
Specifically, he is able to:
As far as non-Force abilities go, Kylo Ren is trained in lightsaber combat. He knows the rules to all sorts of stupid card games and is fluent in Shyriiwook, the language of wookiees.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Items:
Are you 16 or older: Yep!
Contact: smugfrog@plurk or PM.
Current Characters: Nope!
Tag: kylo ren
IN CHARACTER
Name: Kylo Ren (born Ben Solo)
Canon: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Canon Point: I'll be bringing him in from the end of the movie, after he's been bested (YEAH I SAID IT) by Rey and left bleeding in the snow on Starkiller Base. He's been pretty seriously wounded, and although he'll undergo the same healing process as any new arrival, I'd like the lightsaber gash on his face to leave a scar.
Age: 29
History: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kylo_Ren
Personality: It's difficult to define Kylo Ren as a person—so difficult, in fact, that Kylo Ren himself is still struggling with it. Striding down the halls of the Star Destroyer Finalizer, he cuts an imposing figure, but a figure is really all he is. It's not that he's spineless, or biddable—he's simply used to defining himself in relation to others. In the course of his life, he's been shaped to serve various agendas—that of the Republic, the Jedi Order, and, most recently, Supreme Leader Snoke's First Order. His loyalty to Snoke is nearly absolute—over the years, Snoke has helped Ren attain a degree of power he'd never dreamed possible, conferring on him a new name and title, and entrusting him with (joint) command of the First Order's troops. He both fears and respects Snoke, the man who long ago selected Ren as his apprentice and shared with him his knowledge of the dark side. Snoke knows Kylo Ren better than anyone—strengths, weaknesses, secret doubts—because he had a hand in fashioning him. And Kylo Ren is almost content to be an extension of Snoke's will, almost untroubled by the widespread death and destruction necessary to achieve the First Order's aims. This is almost who he wants to be.
Since everybody in Star Wars is related, Kylo Ren is the son of two legends: Han Solo and Leia Organa. It seems to him he spent most of his life being measured not against his parents, who he knows to be as flawed as anyone else in the galaxy, but the myths that've sprung up around them. He's fallen short, of course—what person can compete with a legend?—and as a result resents his mother and father for both who they are and who they're revered as. He's done his utmost to distance himself from them, renouncing not just the Republic his mother serves and the Jedi Order his uncle leads but his very name (a name that carries with it yet another set of expectations—Ben Kenobi was the Jedi Master who served as Luke Skywalker's first mentor, introducing him to the Force and ultimately laying down his life for him). Throughout The Force Awakens, Ren refers to Han as “Han Solo”—never “my father,” or even “Han.” He insists the man means nothing to him. Over and over again, he tries to convince himself that the ties binding him to his parents are old and frayed and better off severed. When he needed them most, they sent him away (that they did so out of concern for his own well-being, fearing they were no match for the darkness overcoming their young son, is irrelevant), and he's determined to return the unkindness. While he'd rationalize it as eliminating sentimental attachments, he'd really like to hurt them as much as they hurt him.
That's not to say family isn't important to him—quite the opposite. In rejecting his mother and father, he turns to another family member for guidance—his grandfather, the infamous (and, it bears mentioning, deceased) Darth Vader. It's Vader's legacy that Kylo Ren believes he's furthering, Vader who he considers his true family. He's awed by the Dark Lord's command of the Force and devotion to the dark side, the purity of purpose that drove him. Ren regards him as a great man undone, in a tragic moment of sentimentality, by his love for his son. While Han and Leia were wary of their son's tremendous potential, he's convinced Vader would have wanted him to embrace his abilities and fully develop his powers. Vader, he tells himself, would be proud of him. Kylo Ren's admiration for Vader runs so deep that he models his attire on that of the Dark Lord, to the point of wearing a completely unnecessary helmet. He also managed to recover his grandfather's own helmet—no mean feat, considering Luke burned Vader's remains before Kylo was even born—and keeps it in a place of honor in his private quarters. In moments of uncertainty or distress, he'll confide in his grandfather, sometimes imploring him for assistance. When Rey turns Ren's own interrogation tactics on him, delving into his innermost thoughts via the Force, she finds fear—fear that he'll never be as strong as Vader. Tellingly, despite having all but wiped out the Jedi order, taken a new name, and established himself as one of the most terrifying Force users in the galaxy, Ren still dreads not being able to measure up.
Which brings us to: Kylo Ren despises weakness—his go-to insults when addressing his father are “weak” and “foolish”—because he senses it within himself. He wants to devote himself completely to the dark side, to eliminate the doubts plaguing him. Unfortunately (for him, anyway), the call of the light side isn't easy to ignore. Ren does horrible things—tortures people, orders the eradication of an entire village, and stands by and watches as the First Order's superweapon reduces planets to rubble, to name a few—but it isn't enough to extinguish the light in him. He confesses to feeling torn apart, and that's perhaps the most accurate description of who he is—a man pulled in too many directions at once, struggling to reconcile light and dark, the legacy of his mother (and uncle) and that of his grandfather. Because his emotional state is such a shambles, he compensates by acting decisively, believing on some level that if he demonstrates enough conviction his thoughts will follow suit. He's prone to truly spectacular (and truly juvenile) fits of temper, repeatedly demolishing machinery with his lightsaber, and while there's no question these tantrums speak to a profound emotional immaturity and lack of self-control, they also show how heavily Kylo Ren relies on his anger—at the first sign of failure, he reacts with a rage so consuming that all other emotions are blotted out. Because he equates force (that's lowercase-f force, more on That Other Force later) with strength, he has little reason to hold his temper in check, even when his outbursts result in property damage or escaped prisoners. Anger is his connection to the dark side and the source of his power, and the fact that he still has the potential to turn back to the light only makes him cling to his fury that much more desperately.
All Kylo Ren's life, the Force has been there. It's a little silly to attempt to describe his relationship with it—like trying to describe a person's relationship with their thumbs, or breathing. In many ways, the Force operates like another sense—it's not simply a skill to be mastered or a power to be wielded but a means of perceiving the universe. As Ren has changed, so has his understanding of the Force, but it's always been the thing that set him apart, an essential aspect of who he is. He was literally a preternaturally sensitive child, subject to inexplicable but intense feelings—some good, some bad—that he wasn't sure what to do with. His Force sensitivity was often isolating—his was a gift understood by few, and though his mother possessed similar abilities, she was ambivalent toward and sometimes fearful of her powers. At the same time, he was privy to a universe not many people experienced, aware—in sublime moments, anyway—of the connection between all living things. After he'd been shipped off to train with his uncle and other aspiring Jedi, the Force increasingly became his sole source of connection.
Now, a Master of the Knights of Ren, able to stop a blaster bolt in midair or telekinetically choke the life out of a person, he considers those without Force abilities unworthy of his attention—sure, they might occasionally prove useful, but he has little interest in developing a relationship of any kind with someone who's oblivious to the Force. He doesn't view these people with hatred, simply an indifference that can give way to contempt, perhaps even pity. (That he's liable to underestimate them almost goes without saying.) His attitude toward Force-sensitive individuals is very, very different. When he and Rey, a young, tremendously gifted woman unaware of her own potential as a Force-user, cross lightsabers on Starkiller Base, Ren briefly refrains from pressing his advantage so that he can offer to teach her. (“Offer” is perhaps a little misleading—he bellows, “YOU NEED A TEACHER” at her.) He jeopardizes his life for the opportunity to, yes, tempt her to the dark side, but also afford her the chance to fully develop her powers. In his own extremely dysfunctional way, he hates to see potential squandered. For all that he ruthlessly pursues power and cuts down his enemies, Kylo Ren remains mindful of the Force.
Abilities/Skills: The Force! I'll defer to Obi-Wan Kenobi here: “It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” Though all living beings are a part of the Force, some are more attuned to it than others. The extent—and nature—of a person's power is the product of a few factors: innate sensitivity (there's a genetic element to this as well, though for all our sakes I'm going to avoid any explanation involving the word “midi-chlorians”), training, and which side of the Force is being drawn on. As part of the Skywalker line, Kylo Ren has a ton of natural potential. He has also trained extensively, first with Luke Skywalker, then under Snoke (he has not, however, completed his training—he's poised to do so at the end of The Force Awakens). And because he derives his power from the dark side of the Force, his abilities tend to be more violent and less controlled than those of his light side counterparts.
Specifically, he is able to:
- Sense the presence of others (Ren senses Han from practically the moment he lands on Starkiller Base, which is the size of a planet). This is by no means 100% reliable and varies depending on the person. Generally, it's easier for a Force user to sense people they have an emotional connection to, or people who are especially strong in the Force. He can also receive vague impressions courtesy of the Force—he might, for instance, be able to gain a sense of a person's intentions, sense that someone important to him has died, or simply sense when things are about to take a turn for the worse.
- Manipulate objects (and people) telekinetically. Kylo Ren is pretty damn good at this—in the movie, he suspends a blaster bolt in midair for the duration of an entire conversation, drags a First Order officer over to him with no apparent effort, and renders Rey immobile even as she struggles against him with all her might.
- Enhance his strength, heighten his senses, sharpen his reflexes, and increase his endurance. Honestly, this doesn't figure much in The Force Awakens—he's most likely to use it in combat situations, or where stealth is required. While it would give him a distinct edge over a normal human, he wouldn't, say, be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound or bench-press a schoolbus.
- Extract information from people's minds. This isn't a standard-issue Force ability—it seems to be a particular strength of Ren's, a skill he's no doubt worked to hone. Where traditional interrogation methods fail, he's able to delve into someone's thoughts for answers. The process isn't simple, or clear-cut—when he tries the technique on Rey, he begins by empathizing with her, saying, “You're so lonely,” and describing what she pictures before falling asleep at night. Plunging into another person's mind requires a great deal of effort and focus—it's not like flipping through an index until you find what you're looking for.
- Induce people to follow his commands. This is the (in)famous Jedi Mind Trick, whereby a Force user plants a suggestion in a weak-minded individual's head.
- Have terrifying nightmares. Seriously though, Force users are occasionally granted visions of the future, or a possible future—besides being rare, these are never, ever straightforward and tend to raise more questions than they answer.
As far as non-Force abilities go, Kylo Ren is trained in lightsaber combat. He knows the rules to all sorts of stupid card games and is fluent in Shyriiwook, the language of wookiees.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
Strengths:
- Zealous
- Strong-willed
- Capable of intense focus
- “Intuitive”
- Can say the name “Snoke” with a straight face
- Amazing hair
Weaknesses:
- Volatile
- Violent
- Arrogant
- Frankly immature
- Questionable taste in role models
Items:
- Robes, singed at the shoulder and the side
- Padded body armor
- Gloves
- Combat...ish boots (they're not traditional combat boots, but they're reinforced with some kind of padding)
- A few stray snowflakes
- The sundered halves of his lightsaber (while it's theoretically possible he'd be able to repair this, since the kyber crystal is...as intact as it ever was, it'd take some doing—some of the parts are scorched and would need to be replaced, and the handle would need to be welded back together)