My Adam....

[changehistory]

How I see/play/write Adam, quirks and insights into him as a person, friend and lover.  Player/Mun knowledge only.

• Grew up in Puritan England.
• Converted to Catholicism in Milan to marry his second wife, Maria.
• Still carries most of his religious upbringing close to his heart.
• Wants more than anything to be a hero.  He may have twisted ideas of what that means, but he truly wants that feeling back.
• Feels Hiro truly gave him both a mission and a destiny he has yet to fulfill--setting him on a life-course.
• Believes that his immortality as a gift makes him akin to God because of his religious upbringing and the Genesis story -- Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God did not cast them out of Eden solely for that disobedience, but to keep them from eating of the Tree of Life and becoming like God.  Genesis 3:22 - "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:" Adam takes that "become as one of us" very seriously, and that immortality was the final separation between God and man.  Having that, now, Adam believes he is either God or like of the Fallen Angels -- and better blasphemy than abomination. 

• Needs to be loved--more than loved, even. Needs to be adored, to feel like he is someone's hero. 
  
• Desperately needs someone to believe in him, to follow him, to need him, to listen to him and trust him.  If this is lacking, he will keep looking until he finds someone to fulfill that need.
• Identifies a bit too much with Jareth's, "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave" line.  Could be his credo, honestly.
  

• Is a leader, by natural instinct and learned skill, and thus does not follow well.
• Does not share well at all. Believes that it is the first step to abandonment.
• Fears abandonment and betrayal, but believes that they are nearly inevitable.  Wants to be proven wrong.
• On a similar note -- Hiro was his first love--and he's convinced that pattern of love + betrayal + being rejected in favor of someone else is the defining pattern his love life follows. He's been proven right on that too many times.
• Suspects anyone who says they would choose him above everyone else is lying, but wants someone to genuinely put him first in their life more than nearly anything else--tying in to the need to be someone's hero, to be believed in.
• At the same time, wants someone who challenges him, questions, rather than just agreeing with him blindly.
• However, gets annoyed when questioned, making for a delicate balance.
• Would rather have disciples, but needs friends. 
  
• Doesn't know what to do with friends who are not disciples.

• Was tested, tortured and experimented on by the Company, to include the severing of multiple limbs without anesthesia--on the tame end.
  
• Is more traumatized by those 30 years than he will admit even to himself.
  
• Formed the Company with truly good intentions to both save the world and bring powered people together, to let them grow and learn about their powers in safety
• Honestly believe(s)(d) that pushing "restart" on the Earth was the best way to save it from the never ending wars, famines, plagues, energy crises, overpopulation, destruction of natural resources.

• Excluding RP developed relationships, has truly loved five people in his life: Hiro, Angelica, Diane, Angela and Peter.
• Believes Nathan is his son, even in 'verses where he has no proof of this.
• Seduced Elle Bishop when she was a teenager.  Maybe 18 as implied in canon, but possibly younger, and he was trying not to shock Peter. ;-)  I leave that up to the Elles I play with. *g*
  
• Cares about Elle (and in some RP universes truly loves her), and feels sorry that "his" Company was responsible for torturing her and making her what she is.
• Whether he loves her or not, is fairly obsessed with Elle in a Stockholm Syndrome way, no matter what universe he plays in.

• Drinks too much whiskey, knows it, and doesn't care.

Comments

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

*nods* I think...Adam sees one as leading to the other. Abandonment is betrayal/Betrayal is abandonment. Mostly lately coming down to the fact that he believes people he loves will always choose someone else over him if forced to choose. That he is never enough, etc, etc.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Considering the Puritanical background, I'm not surprised he feels that way. After all, Puritanism had a very strong "you're utterly worthless in the eyes of God" philosophy behind it. (Yes, I have read Cotton Mather's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God")

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and then link that into a conversion to Catholicism and Original Sin and all that lovely guilt--he easily figures he doesn't deserve to be happy and people leaving him/him having to share is penance or punishment.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Added to the fact that he considers himself as nearly godlike in his immortality, he's got to, on some instinctual level, wonder when he's going to get blasted for his blasphemy.

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

Yup. It's all so very very twisted in his head that it's almost scary. No, no almost. Scary.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Well, if nothing else, he has to figure that God would be jealous. After all, the first commandment says "Thou shalt not have strange gods before me".

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yeah. He figures that's bad for anyone claiming to be Christian, or for him. Always thinking "not that there aren't other gods, but that they shouldn't come before Yahweh" and then wonders if that's what he's doing--and expecting a lightning strike.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Hee!Hee! That's why he hangs around Elle! He figures that she'll absorb any lightning strike intended for him.

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

LOL. Hmm. That's possibly part of it, yes.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

It can't hurt.

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

he really is seriously attached to her, though. Even the ones he no longer sleeps with.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

I can see why. Especially with the whole Stockholm Syndrome side of it. Not to mention similar abandonment issues...

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Put those together and he really...just attaches to her. He can be cruel and snarky about it, but he can't bring himself not to care.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Well, especially since he has an idea of just how abusive her "keepers" have been.

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

Yup. He blames himself.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Which he really shouldn't, since it's not like he was given a choice in getting locked up, but it was probably against everything he'd thought the company should have been.

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's it exactly. They were supposed to nurture the children. Yes, help them learn to use their abilities, but not through torturing tests and memory modification.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Definitely. And the fact that he's seeing that none of the kids were taught to use their abilities (except Elle) or even knew they had them has got to gall him, too.

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

Oh, he's furious about it. He's torn into Angela viciously over it. That no one believed Peter, that Nathan didn't know he might be special.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Definitely. Seeing as both of their parents were members of the company, they should have been encouraged from day 1 to look for abilities. I can see the retisence in people like Maury, who may have married a normal person (ignoring his just plain bad parenting). I'm sure he was furious with both of them (but Arthur was gone at that point).

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

Yes. He...gah. I don't know where the fight is anymore, but it's in one of their threads. He was livid, and taking it all out on her. It wasn't at all what he wanted for any of them.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

If you look at the basic charter of the company, it actually is a beneficent one, but they obviously twisted it to their own ambitions once they got Adam out of the way. Another thing, I'm sure, that he nailed into Kaito's coffin.

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yeah, it really is. I mean, ok, Adam probably started the whole twisting with the virus, but even then--he meant the Company and the people and its children to survive and prosper and be safe and make others like them safe after, so. Yeah, I'm sure he did. He's so angry at all of them for that.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

I'm sure he is. He's got to be so angry that they'd turned on everything he believed in. And everything he showed them, because he accepted them for what they were. That, probably more than anything else, has to gall him. That he taught them to be proud of who and what they were and then they shamed their children into hiding or not manifesting until they couldn't help themselves.

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yes. There is a lot of that. That more than anything is what he's taken Angela to task for again and again--what makes him angry.