![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift application.
Apr. 2nd, 2022 12:26 amPLAYER
Name: Julie
Contact:
Other Characters: n/a
Interests: It’s been a few years since I was deep into Dragon Age, so mostly I’m just re-immersing myself in the setting via a rifter first! I love action scenes, eerie magic & spooky horror, in-world puzzles & mysteries, and a chance to build a variety of long-term CR again.
CHARACTER
Name: Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange, M.D., Ph.D
Canon/OC: Canon (Marvel Cinematic Universe)
Canon Point: Post-Multiverse of Madness
Journal:
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
portallingAge: 42 (b. Nov 18, 1976 – he lost five years thanks to the Blip, #justMCUthings)
Canon World
The MCU is largely present-day Earth, except that magic and aliens and gods and superpowers are all real and have been causing problems for a long time now. It’s also more technologically advanced than our world, thanks to the contributions of various geniuses, super-scientists, and shady organisations. Time travel is also possible, via both magic and science. An American extra-governmental org called SHIELD eventually recruited a team of superheroes called the Avengers to fight back against these unusual threats.
The most notable disasters have been a full-scale alien invasion by the Chitauri in 2012, and then Thanos wiping out half of the universe’s population in 2018 (the Blip/the Snap); everyone lived with the grief of their missing loved ones for five years, before the Avengers and their allies from Earth and other planets managed to conquer Thanos in the ‘Battle of Earth’ and bring the vanished back.
Doctor Strange was never an official Avenger, but he allied with them during the battle. He was trained up as a sorcerer within the Masters of the Mystic Arts, an ancient order of sorcerers whose duty is to protect our physical plane of existence from supernatural and otherworldly threats.
Speaking of planes! There are many dimensions within this universe, accessible by magic-users (and sometimes science); Strange is particularly experienced with travelling to the astral dimension, dark dimension, and mirror dimension.
Even beyond those dimensions, there is the concept of the multiverse, where each divergent choice can spawn an entirely new universe where the changes can be small or vast. Once described as: “Time. Space. Reality. It’s more than a linear path, it’s a prism of endless possibility where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternate worlds from the ones you know.”
The universes are like panes of glass layered over each other, and passing through them is like smashing your way through a window. This is a rare ability; so far we’ve only met a few entities who can purposefully open portals for physical travel into other universes. In the MCU, dreams and nightmares are glimpses of these alternate worlds.
History
- wiki link
- BACKSTORY: Grew up with a little sister named Donna, who drowned after falling into a lake and he was unable to save her; this spurred his decision to become a doctor.
- DOCTOR STRANGE: Strange becomes a rich and arrogant neurosurgeon operating out of Metro-General Hospital in New York. In a devastating car crash on his way to a medical conference, his hands are ruined and suffer permanent nerve damage, ending his career. He pours all of his money into experimental surgeries and treatments to try to fix his hands. None of it works, until he visits a reclusive monastery in Nepal where he meets a woman called the Ancient One, who shatters his notions of reality and teaches him that magic is very, very real. He joins the Masters of the Mystic Arts and obsessively learns magic, hoping to use it to heal himself.
- Fights a few renegade sorcerers. Defeats a malevolent entity called Dormammu by trapping it in a time loop and letting it kill him over and over and over until it gets tired. During these adventures, the Ancient One dies and passes the torch to him as the new Sorcerer Supreme. Strange could have used his new magical abilities to regain function in his hands — instead, he chooses to leave them damaged and set his medical career aside, in favour of helping more people en masse as a sorcerer.
- INFINITY WAR: Settles into his new job, guards the Time Stone, protects Earth from otherworldly threats. Joins the fight against Thanos, where our heroes suffer a resounding defeat. Having used the Time Stone to experience 14,000,605 possible outcomes (and lived through his own death in each of them— great!), Strange only sees one possible route to victory, which entails great sacrifice. He hands over the Time Stone to Thanos and lets the Blip happen, which purposefully sacrifices some trillions of lives across the universe, including his own.
- ENDGAME: Is resuscitated by the Avengers five years later and rejoins the fight. Guides their way to the one outcome he witnessed, even knowing it directly leads to Tony Stark’s death. After the war, he returns to being a sorcerer, although his bestie Wong became Sorcerer Supreme in Strange’s absence.
- SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME: Helps Peter Parker with a memory spell, but botches it and causes rifts in the fabric of their reality instead. Works with a shambolic Scooby Doo gang of teenagers to send the multiversal interlopers home.
- MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS: tl;dr protects another wayward teen from his former ally Wanda Maximoff by going on the run through the multiverse. Learns about alternate versions of himself & his own hubris. Also learns that prolonged stays in someone else’s universe will cause said universe to collapse. Eventually exhibits humility & Personal Growth™.
- At the end, instead of hopping into a portal with a hot enchantress who looks like Charlize Theron, he winds up in Thedas through a dream instead. Sorry bud.
Personality
Doctor Stephen Strange is determined and obsessive.
This can be a strength — he taught himself magic far faster than most, thanks to his single-minded focus on his studies — but also a weakness, as he falls prey to hyperfixation in pursuit of what he wants. Alternate versions of Strange have literally ripped universes apart for their own selfish ends, and while this version is more good-hearted, he still contains those seeds of hypocrisy and self-obsession. Say that he obeys the sacred duty to protect the timeline against outside meddling; but if the woman he loved died and he thought he could rewind time to save her… then, well, all bets are off.
Which is a common trend. That whip-smart intellect means he can be sarcastic, condescending, and utterly convinced that he knows better than everyone else in the room. He’s quick and impatient, and often cuts corners thanks to that impatience, seizing new spells and casting them before he’s fully accounted for all the variables. He can be abrasive on the surface, sharp-edged and acerbic with a terrible bedside manner.
Frankly, he used to be an awful person — but after having hit rock-bottom in his car crash and then starting over from zero, Strange has managed to slowly rebuild himself with more humility, and more eventual acceptance that the world doesn’t revolve around him. His apprenticeship with the Masters of the Mystic Arts and being put in his place by the Ancient One humbled him; he’s determined to help other people now, and fully-aware of how little he knows about how wild and wondrous the universe can be. His vindictive temper still gets the better of him at times, but at the end of the day he’s still committed to the greater good. He’s deeply self-sacrificial, and accustomed to putting himself through the fire for others: pain is an old friend, and a couple of his greatest accomplishments as the Sorcerer Supreme involved living his own death over and over and over, and simply outlasting through sheer stubborn persistence.
At the same time, he’s a control freak who wants to handle every variable and be relentlessly in charge of his own destiny. His last romantic relationship couldn’t succeed because, in her words, he always had to be the one holding the scalpel. It’s a flaw. But nowadays, he’s learning — slowly! — to relinquish some of that control and let other people take the reins and trust them to handle the situation, even if it doesn’t come naturally to him.
Strengths & Weaknesses
+ Years of training as a medical doctor, with a specialty in neurosurgery.
+ Photographic memory.
+ Some hand-to-hand martial artist training, although the injuries to his hands means he prefers not to throw a punch; he mainly parries, blocks, and dodges, freeing himself up to either escape or cast offensive spells.
– Physically, he is just a normal middle-aged dude. He will hurt and bleed and heal at a normal speed, and if he takes an unshielded hit, he’ll be hit hard.
– Partially physically disabled. His hands often ache and hurt and tremble, and fine-motor control is beyond him. Grip strength is difficult and he’s no longer able to write. Having lost the precision of the telekinesis he had back home, he’ll have additional difficulty with day-to-day actions like handling delicate objects, buttoning his clothes, etc.
+ Photographic memory.
+ Some hand-to-hand martial artist training, although the injuries to his hands means he prefers not to throw a punch; he mainly parries, blocks, and dodges, freeing himself up to either escape or cast offensive spells.
– Physically, he is just a normal middle-aged dude. He will hurt and bleed and heal at a normal speed, and if he takes an unshielded hit, he’ll be hit hard.
– Partially physically disabled. His hands often ache and hurt and tremble, and fine-motor control is beyond him. Grip strength is difficult and he’s no longer able to write. Having lost the precision of the telekinesis he had back home, he’ll have additional difficulty with day-to-day actions like handling delicate objects, buttoning his clothes, etc.
Magic: Back home, he’s an extremely powerful sorcerer. Here, Strange will find that his magic comes to him with more difficulty and many of his spells no longer work. The ones that did persist into Thedas:
- Shields: Conjuring protective glowing handheld shields, which can block and deflect attacks both physical and magical. Can be one very large shield, or two smaller ones. The larger version is about the size of a warrior’s tower shield, so can protect himself and one other person if they’re sheltering behind him; can only be maintained consistently for 15 minutes. (Comparable to Spell Shield.)
- Eldritch weapons: Conjuring glowing weaponry for offensive attacks. Shapes can vary like a whip, sword, buzzsaw, or ropes/restraints. The weapons will burn on touch like they’re a flaming sword, although at Strange’s choice, the ropes can be made safe-to-touch. All of these can last about 30 minutes before his energy is drained and they have to dissipate. (Comparable to Spirit Blade.)
- Energy blasts: Strange can project energy blasts, streams, and bolts of fiery energy to harm an enemy (or light a campfire, heyo). Limited to line of sight. (Comparable to Spirit Bolt.)
- Telekinesis: A wave of telekinetic force which can hurtle someone away like a powerful shove, or throw a book, or move a chair, or pull something closer to him. Limited to line of sight, and can’t move anything larger or heavier than a druffalo. No longer has the fine-motor control which he used to exhibit back home. (Comparable to Telekinetic Burst.)
- Astral projection: Formerly, Strange used to be able to separate his spirit (or someone else’s) from the body and visit the astral plane in order to communicate while unconscious, read while sleeping, battle someone else’s spirit, etc. Here, he’ll instead find that he can eventually meditate to enter the Fade like a Dreamer and remain conscious and lucid throughout. This will require time and training to access.
Suggested Nerfs
- I’ve outright omitted any spells which didn’t have sensible native parallels (e.g. conjuring objects, locating people with a lock of hair, transmuting liquid, creating illusion duplicates of himself), and suggested a few nerfs for the remaining ones above. But obv pls do feel free to suggest other nerfs!
- In general, he’ll exhaust faster than he used to, due to not being able to tap into the MCU multiversal energies which fuelled his particular school of magic. His spells are overall weaker than they used to be.
- The Cloak of Levitation was fully nerfed on entry and is just a regular cloak now, so no more flying.
- Without a sling ring, he can’t teleport at all.
- Apart from the Fade, he can no longer access any of the magical dimensions he used to be able to visit at will (astral dimension, mirror dimension, etc).
Arrival Inventory
- Formal Armani suit, medical conference lanyard, adhesive nametag (‘DR. STEPHEN STRANGE, MD, PHD, NEW YORK METRO-GENERAL HOSPITAL’ now rendered in Theodosian script)
- Ornate and asymmetric red cloak; formerly the Cloak of Levitation, but now it’s just an inanimate piece of fabric
- One (1) giant tentacled eyeball monster, messily killed by Strange & Riftwatch after arrival
Humanization
n/a; no physiological difference from a regular human.
Fit
I wanted a rifter first to help get my feet wet in the setting, but Strange works so well for a few different reasons:
- As a trained magic-user who is pretty in love with magic these days, he will have a lot of opinions re: the treatment of mages here — but he’s also witnessed himself pretty much literally rip worlds apart with a spell gone awry, so he’s also well-aware of the risks, so he’d get the complexities of the issue. He’s going to want to toss himself facefirst into everything he can learn about magic in Thedas, lyrium, the rifts, etc.
- Having already gone jaunting across multiverses, the prospect of being vomited out of a rift into another world won’t be too bizarre for him.
- A kid recently told him that every dream you experience is an actual glimpse into another universe; sure does seem relevant for the theories behind rifters and their arrival here…
- The Fade’s similarity to the Dream Dimension is so fascinating and he will be so into it.
- While he might be a bit homesick as a rifter, he also has a deeply-honed sense of duty & responsibility which will lead to him getting involved (and meddling, because he is a meddler). Strange’s last canon point had him leaving Earth to clean up a mess, so joining the fight in Thedas instead won’t be too much of a leap.
SAMPLES
A bunch on the TDM, both prose & network/crystal!
