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[doctopoda]

Player —

Player Name: Lu
Pronouns: She/her
Are you over 18? Yes
Contact: lluosogrwydd / goldfinch#4530 on Discord
Current Characters: None
Who Invited You?: Invite here!

Character —

Character Name: Dr. Otto Octavius
Character Canon: Spiderman 2 / No Way Home
Character Age: 51
Canon Point: post-No Way Home
Link to History: Here!
Inventory: Literally zero personal possessions except for a palm-sized arc reactor he shoved in his pocket and possibly forgot about.

Powers —

Skills:
Genius Scientist
Otto's a genius in the field of nuclear physics, and also evidently in biochemistry and robotics. He's an inventor and was once considered a pioneer in the field of renewable energy - like, that went badly, he was clearly very well-known and well-regarded beforehand. Along with being talented, he firmly believes in the value of hard work, and applies himself ferociously to his projects. He built a nuclear fusion reactor in an abandoned warehouse in a matter of months using only stuff he stole? Wild.

Tentacle Combat
A lot of this could potentially be attributed to the tentacle AI rather than Otto himself - in many cases, it's sort of difficult to distinguish which of them is responsible for things, or even if there is a meaningful difference. But the point remains that Otto is formidable in a fight, easily keeping pace with Spiderman despite no indication that he had any prior fighting experience. The actuators provide the power and reflexes, and Otto brings cleverness and an ability to think on his feet. He's good at reading an opponent's behavior and using the environment to his advantage, and also pretty practiced at covering for the fact that he's still just a normal squishy human.

Superpowers:
1. Actuators
The actuators are a technological power, although Otto's accident fused them with his nervous system to the point that they're pretty much just part of his body now. They cannot be removed, and any attempt to do so would likely prove fatal. To someone.

They're incredibly strong and resistant to heat and magnetism. They also operate on a semi-independent AI, which means that their speed and reflexes exceed human capacities. This means that they're technically capable of continuing to operate even if Otto's unconscious. When they're left without Otto's restraint, they aren't really the greatest planners and definitely do not share his ideals; their primary goal would be their combined safety, by whatever means necessary.

Each actuator contains a camera that's hooked up to Otto's brain, essentially giving him a 360-degree field of vision. They also have a retractable set of smaller claws for more delicate work, and a large retractable metal blade for reasons that are completely opaque to me.

2. Camouflage
Octopuses can alter both the color and the texture of their skin in order to blend into their surroundings! We are stealing this trick! It works to a pretty impressive degree - look at this beautiful creature, it's amazing and I love it - and also extends to his clothing and actuators. While the most typical use of this would be cloaking into his surroundings, he can also manipulate it more freely with some practice. For example, he could cloak his tentacles himself rather than using a hologram device to do it! Or he could just turn himself blue for no reason. The possibilities, if not the utilities, are endless.
Of course, this isn't true invisibility; it could easily be defeated by heightened senses or just like, infrared cameras. It'll also take practice and concentration for him to be able to reliably keep up solid camouflage while in motion.

3. Poison Touch
Blue-ringed octopuses are the only octopus with venom that's actually dangerous to humans, but recent studies have shown that all octopuses actually do possess some degree of venom for subduing their prey! Otto can secrete venom from his skin now! Anyone who makes direct skin-to-skin contact with him while he's doing this will pretty quickly start to experience symptoms such as numbness, nausea, and dizziness. Prolonged contact, or a concerted effort from Otto, can result in full paralysis which could be fatal if the victim does not receive prompt medical attention. He'll be able to turn this on and off at will...eventually. Also, here is a pretty picture of a blue-ringed octopus!

4. Ink
He can shoot ink like Peter Parker shoots webs. I'm gonna be real, I just put this in here because it was funny, but further research shows that cephalopod ink may have chemical effects on their predators, so! Maybe it's a mild skin irritant too. He can shoot it into someone's eyes or something.

Limitations:
Inhibitor Chip
Otto has a pretty glaring vulnerability in the fact that if anything happens to his inhibitor chip, the actuators' AI will infect his brain. Under their influence, Otto becomes amoral and single-mindedly obsessed with achieving their goals, as well as pretty emotionally volatile if anyone tries to stop him.

It should be said that the actuators aren't really evil; I honestly don't think their AI is developed enough that they could really be considered moral agents at all. They're robots who were programmed to work on the fusion reactor, and by god, they are going to do it! If this happens in game, though, which it almost certainly will because we all live for drama, I feel that they won't necessarily start trying to build the reactor again. Otto himself will have moved on to other projects, and they'll probably be focused on something from his more recent ventures. Even so, it will go badly: the most efficient path to many goals is crime, and regardless, Otto will violently resist any attempts by even his closest CR to repair the chip.

Maybe this isn't a traditional weakness, but it would definitely be a form of defeat for Otto as he is right now. He very much does not want this! Once it's happened, there's little he can do about it himself; he doesn't seem capable of resisting the effects unless someone else severely damages the actuators first, and even then it takes a lot of willpower and the ability to actually realize that his thinking's been compromised - a train of thought that the AI will actively try to prevent him from having.

Over-Reliance on Tentacles
Otto's combat ability relies pretty much entirely on his actuators, and he's also very used to working with all four of them at once. Damaging or destroying even one would be a pretty big hindrance, and if anything took them all out he'd basically just be a guy with a lot of dead weight stuck to his back. They're tough, but they're certainly not invulnerable; for example, the Goblin blades were able to sever one, and they don't appear to be waterproof right now. I also can't imagine any conflict with someone who has technopathy to any degree would end well.

It should be said that he'll likely work to remedy a few of these issues in-game - specifically by waterproofing them (mostly so he can shower a little easier tbh) and disabling Bluetooth. But he certainly can't make them invulnerable.

Literally Just a Guy
More generally speaking, Otto is literally just a dude with sick robot arms. He doesn't have super-durability, a healing factor, or anything of that nature. If you can get past the tentacles, you can just punch him a lot. You can shoot him with a gun! He's sort of a glass cannon.

Serious Lab Accidents Are Bad For You Actually
There are physical drawbacks to having a big heavy machine accidentally grafted onto your spine with lightning! This man's health is a little fucked! He's managing a lot of this, like the massive back problems I have to imagine are going on here, but he's not exactly a young spry superhero. His ability to run around the city doing metahuman fights all the time is limited. The accident also left him with some lingering neurological damage. Most notably, he's developed photophobia; without some sort of tinted lenses, many normal lighting conditions are uncomfortable for him, and bright lights can cause severe pain. Additionally, despite the octopus theme, the added weight of the actuators mean that Otto works more like Sonic the Hedgehog in water. If he ends up in any, he's just going straight to the bottom immediately.

Personality —

• What were your character's most formative experiences?:
  Becoming Dr. Octopus
  Otto went through a lot of traumatic events in quick succession: his life’s work failed spectacularly, his wife was killed in front of him as a result, he experienced significant physical trauma that left his body permanently altered, and he woke up after all of that in a room full of corpses slaughtered by his own creations.
  
  He feels like all of this was his fault, and he’s been running from it ever since. While the strength of the AI’s effect on his mind is clear, it also seems that he was more easily swayed towards becoming a supervillain afterwards just because he couldn’t confront everything that had happened. It was easier to be convinced that everything would be better if he just rebuilt the reactor. Of course, now that he’s recovered from the AI bit, he’s even more certain that he’s at fault, but he’s still running. He just latches immediately onto the project of helping Norman recover instead and acts like he’s totally fine now. His normal personality and sense of morality are back, but his behavior’s really the same: he’s repressing alot, he’s on a psychological knife’s edge, and something’s gotta give.
  
  Crime, Crime, Crime
  Otto spent a couple months terrorizing New York and having a blast while doing it! He remembers all of this fully, not only his actions but also the emotional experience of being so casually, gleefully cruel. He’s horrified by himself, not only that he was so monstrous, but that he still must have the capacity. He’s desperate to prove that this isn’t really who he is, yet he doesn’t really know if that’s true himself.
  
  Recovery
  Otto owes his life and his sanity to a version of Peter Parker he encountered in another universe: a child who he attempted to murder several times, who he was nothing but nasty towards, and who still risked everything to help Otto recover rather than send him off to his death. The selflessness of all the Spider-people he’s encountered has affected him deeply. Once, he felt that he couldn’t go on anymore after the loss he’d experienced, and then especially so after the crimes he committed – but here’s a literal high schooler, having lost so much, still stubbornly trying to do what’s right and help even those who don’t deserve it. It’s inspiring, and while it hasn’t fully renewed his determination, it's the first thing that’s really made him feel like maybe he shouldn’t just give up. If nothing else, he can’t throw his second chance back in Peter’s face like that.

• What values, morals, and/or philosophies does your character live by, and how are those beliefs demonstrated? What happens when they have to compromise what they believe in?
  Otto pretty clearly states his philosophy when he first meets Peter: he believes that one should use one's gifts, in their case intelligence, for the betterment of mankind. He also expresses a pretty strong belief in emotional honesty and like, the value of love? Honestly, he's an open and altruistic person at heart. His life's work was for a clean energy solution, and he intended to share it with the world; he says explicitly that he isn't in it for the money or prestige. And then, of course, shit went down. Now he's a supervillain! He's already very much compromised what he believes in, and he's now struggling to reconcile with that fact.
  
  Frankly, he seems to trend towards self-loathing and self-destruction when he feels he's violated his own values. Immediately after the incident in the hospital, he goes to the river with what seems to be suicidal intent. After his whole crime spree, he definitely intended to destroy himself along with his machine. That never happened for this iteration of him, but he's still the person who would have made that decision in those circumstances: he feels that he's become a monster and that he doesn't really deserve to live, but more importantly, he doesn't want to die without having somehow atoned. All of this is basically a roadmap for how any future instances of compromising his values would go, except for the fact that the self-loathing will compound more and more!

• What is your character afraid of? How does avoiding or preventing these fears influence their actions and decisions?
  Otto is terrified of losing control of himself and becoming violent and destructive again, and quite frankly the fear of it makes him kinda passively self-destructive. His disregard for his own welfare can lead him to be reckless in dangerous situations, unless it's one that could involve direct danger to the inhibitor chip rather than just his life - it's electricity he's most wary of. He's also afraid of dying as a monster, leaving behind only a legacy of suffering. These two things combined mean that like.......he's probably gonna do some superheroing but it is not going to be healthy at all. He'd honestly prefer to stay away from all this business entirely now, but he's also going to be trying to disregard his own desires in favor of doing the most good.
  
  Also, once he's built up some good strong CR, he's also going to be generally terrified of losing them like he lost Rosie; he's likely to get extremely protective of those he cares for.

• What goals does your character have right now? What do they want, and how do they go about getting it?
  Otto is typically a decisive and ambitious person, but his recent trauma and the upheavals in his sense of identity have left him somewhat adrift. The clearest goal he has is still to do some good for the world, although now it's more out of guilt than altruism; the method of doing so is no longer so clear at all.
  
  He wants very badly to atone in some way for what he's done, so he's most likely going to throw himself full-tilt into whatever opportunities for doing something good present themselves, with all of his old drive and...somewhat less of his old confidence. While he still trusts in his general abilities, he's lost a lot of faith in his own judgment; I'm honestly waiting to see what directions his CR pulls him in rather than deciding everything right now, just because I think he's dealing with too much emotionally right now to be forming a ton of new long-term goals? He's not someone who does well without work, though, so he'll definitely pick up something. Once he does, he's hard-working and focused; he'll put his all into whatever ventures he ultimately ends up involved in to the point where he's likely to overdo it.