Laughing Beauty "LB" | Laughing Octopus

PLAYER INFO.
✖ Handle: NOISE
✖ Contact: DatAss on Plurk or WutWasThatNoise on AIM
✖ Are You Over 16: Yes!
✖ Other Characters Played in Consignment: Shinobu Jacobs

CHARACTER INFO.
✖ Character Name: Laughing Beauty. Also goes by Laughing Octopus, but considering her canon point, I'll be going with Laughing Beauty for her email and such. No real name is given in canon.
✖ Canon: Metal Gear Solid 4; after her Octopus suit battle with Snake is done, but before she fights him in her Beauty form.
✖ Character Appearance: In her Octopus armor. And out of it.
✖ Character Age: It's never explicitly stated in canon. However, in one codec conversation, Snake asks Drebin how old Raging Raven (one of her teammates) was. Drebin states that she's about 20 and the rest of the B&Bs were about the same age. Lyndall Jarvis, whose appearance she's modeled after, would have also been 20 around the time MGS4 was being made. So, I'll go with 20.
✖ Pick A Number: RNG me, please!

✖ Canon Setting: The year is 2014 (keep in mind, this game was made about six years ago), and the entire world is pretty much a huge clusterfuck of different on-going wars, entrenched in what’s described as a “war economy” -- using war as a lucrative business. Because of this, PMCs (or Private Military Companies -- think of it as armies for hire) are in high demand all over the world, mostly so that weakened national armies have a way of defending themselves against rebel armies and thus keeping their status in the world.

Also, important to mention, by now virtually every soldier has been injected with nanomachines, incorporating them into what’s called the Sons of the Patriots system (or SOP), a system controlled by a group called the Patriots.

The system had three different functions: first, it allowed multiple members of a military unit to share each other’s senses and work better as a team. Second, it monitored the neural and chemical balances of every soldier. The nanomachines would then induce soldiers into a “combat high”, essentially heightening their senses, making them better at battling when put into a situation of combat. Lastly, it monitored the use of weapons, ID locking guns -- basically making it so only certain soldiers could use certain guns. The nanomachines acted as sort of a key to the guns, you could say.

I should note that nanomachines are basically what causes almost anything akin to magic in the world of the MGS series, but especially in the future, when MGS4 takes place.

Liquid Ocelot, who was in control of the five biggest PMCs in the world under his Outer Haven company (and thus basically controlling the most powerful group in the world), hatched a plot to overthrow the SOP system and thus cripple the Patriots. In addition to owning those PMCs, he recruited four women with incredibly unstable mental states (afflicted with PTSD, because of the horrors of war they experienced in their youth) and turned them into lethal soldiers. Each of them were outfitted with a different suit -- resembling an animal associated with their most traumatic memory -- turning them into beasts of war. All of the women were then put in charge of four out of the five PMCs that Ocelot owned and were told that they could achieve some sort of solace from their suffering by hunting down and killing Solid Snake (known as Old Snake in MGS4). Laughing Beauty (or Laughing Octopus) was one of these women in this group known as the Beauty and the Beast Unit (or the B&Bs).

Though the B&Bs really don't have much effect on the plot (to the point that they're notably left out of the official novelization entirely), they're put into the game to represent how war has changed and gone too far; armies are now taking even the most traumatized women and exploiting their pain for them to become beasts -- as weapons -- to give themselves even more of a boost in fighting their wars

✖ Character History: Right here!

✖ Character Personality: "The word on the streets says beneath those ugly-ass suits, the B&Bs are real babes -- drop dead gorgeous. They also say that each one of them's been traumatized by war... badly -- weren't even soldiers to begin with, you know -- more like victims of war. They suffered shell-shock on the battlefield -- post-traumatic -- it damaged their minds pretty much beyond repair. So the only way they could cope with the reality of battle was to become war machines themselves. The remnants of their human side is buried deep within. The Beast... that's what you see on the outside. War transforms us, Snake -- into Beasts. But deep within that shell, something human survives -- a fragile, scarred heart. Without a shell to protect it, it's like the yolk of an egg."

-- Drebin monologuing about the B&Bs to Old Snake.

The most important thing to remember about Laughing Beauty is that she more or less had two different personalities she created herself, in order to help her cope with the events that led to her becoming traumatized: the Beauty (her normal personality) and the Octopus (her "Beast" side). Both personalities are most definitely her, but she finds it easier to associate all of the bad things -- and all of her most destructive traits -- with something else that isn't her. Before Snake faces her in battle against her Beauty form -- which is the canon point I'm taking her from -- she seems to start to come to terms with the fact that it was her who did all of the terrible things, but the process of figuring out how to deal with two contrasting sides of herself will be a long and arduous one.

Her Beast persona -- or rather the Octopus -- was something she created in her mind, shortly after killing her family in an attempt to try to cope with what she was forced to do (not that it helped any). The most prominent trait, in this state of mind, is that she is very sadistic in battle; it's said that she laughs the hardest when she's in the middle of one. As she was forced to laugh -- to act like she enjoyed killing and torturing her family and friends -- it really fucked her up for life. Though her mind has begun to sober from this more violent side of herself, it'll still be something repressed, deep within her. In fact, if she gets in a battle, there's a possibility she'd get so wrapped up in it that someone else would probably have to drag her away from it (or in canon, someone had to throw a knife at her to force her to leave one person alive). I believe this stems from her history of being overpowered by the cult from her past and being terrified of ever being put in that position again -- if she's stronger than her enemy, then they can't force her to do something terrible again.

She also becomes more playful in her Beast suit, to the point where a lot of her actions could probably be read as condescending. As the one out of the B&Bs that seemingly talks the most, when she's engaged in battle, she constantly challenges people to find where she's hiding, taunts the player if she manages to deflect their gunfire, and will laugh even harder if one should fall into one of her traps she sets up in her boss fight (and even taunts you for not being very smart... in another person's voice). Perhaps the reason for this behavior is the result of her own ego, considering the power she has within the suit, but I also believe part of it is sort of a defensive mechanism; she wants her opponent to be as scared of her as she's probably scared of them. Part of this is probably also because the incident, that changed her life, happened when she was a teenager -- by trying to convince herself that she was another being (that wasn't herself), her emotional state likely hasn't matured as much since then.

As the above quote mentions, beneath that scary Beast armor and bloodthirsty personality, there is a scared and very, very unstable individual -- with her canon point in mind, this will be the facet of the personality seen the most from her (particularly when she's outside of her Octopus suit). When her Beast armor first comes off, she still tries to continue her Octopus persona, but in just mere seconds she has a breakdown of sorts as she clenches the sides of her head saying that nothing was funny, starts desperately apologizing to a very confused Snake for laughing, told him that she was scared, and then swore that she'd never laugh again. Then a few seconds later, she starts hysterically laughing again and tries to kill him. However, I do not believe she would be the type to try to kill everyone, as it was a specific mission of hers to kill Solid Snake (and everyone else she was shown killing in canon, she was ordered to do so first). To me, I see that scene as a good example of her trying to comprehend all of the facets of her personality, becoming overwhelmed and incredibly confused by it, and then attempting to go back to her more violent persona to try to finish her mission.

As she slowly recovers, though, there's still going to be a few different things that are sure to trigger feelings of anxiety within her, particularly if she feels defenseless. Though there's still the possibility that she might get too obsessed with the idea of protecting herself (or rather killing everything she sees as a threat, if she gets too out of hand), within her Octopus suit, it will also act as a sort of security blanket if she feels threatened. It should be noted that most people likely wouldn't intimidate her enough in most conversations (and therefore shouldn't have to worry about her running off in the middle of a conversation to put on some freaky armor) unless they're directly antagonizing her.

Laughing Beauty is also extremely impressionable. Since her psyche was shattered to pieces, during the events of her youth, she hasn't quite learned to live outside of her suit, and it made her quite susceptible to suggestion. Even in canon, she was entirely convinced that the pain, sorrow, and guilt she constantly felt could be alleviated just by simply killing Solid Snake, even if he had absolutely nothing to do with her traumatic experience. While she probably wouldn't believe every single thing anyone would tell her ever, if one were particularly persuasive, it wouldn't be too hard to sway her.

Being more used to living as a Beast -- a tool of war -- for at least the last few years of her life, she is going to be very skittish and confused by trying to live as a normal person, as she comes to terms with the fact that she can indeed live outside of her suit (as they had her convinced, in canon, that her life functions depended on her being inside of it). However, as a proclaimed master of stealth and mimicry, it's possible that her talents will prove to be useful, even outside of combat, in the form of adapting and blending into her surroundings. Even though she would be scared and confused upon arriving in a new world (as she certainly would not be used to living as an actual person, instead of a war machine), she'd ask a lot of questions to better understand the environment and attempt to appear as normal as possible. There's also a good possibility that if she bonds with a person enough, that she'll start to try to copy traits of theirs that she admires. Even the dimmest of people will probably be able to tell that there's something off about her, most likely because of how often she laughs -- even at things that aren't supposed to be funny -- though not many might not be able to realize that her constant laughter is a result of the PTSD she's suffering from.

She also seems pretty uninhibited and probably isn't very modest, when it comes to her body. It's not to say that she would sleep with everyone, but during the Beauty portion of the fight, she doesn't seem to have any qualms against pressing herself against Snake and even straddling him. Granted, she was trying to kill him, using her incredibly absurd powers, but I can't imagine that she'd really shy away from that kind of contact in a non-combative way if she really wanted to go that way either. There's also the fact that she herself was actually supposed to be naked in her Beauty fight, though it had to be changed to her wandering around in a skintight suit to avoid the dreaded Adults Only ESRB rating.

Lastly, in spite of having high confidence in her looks, as well as her battle prowess, Laughing Beauty generally has a very low opinion of herself. The overwhelming guilt she feels over her past weighs the heaviest on her mind, which really clouds any other confidence she might have in herself. Being used as a human weapon, for the last few years, she has it hard-wired into her brain that it's the only thing she's good at, even if she really does have a lot of other skillsets and the intelligence to learn many more. The confidence in her beauty stems from the fact that one of her given names is Laughing Beauty -- it's not hard to pick up that she's attractive to others. However, it's something she really tries to be humble on and certainly not something she would brag about. She would be highly appreciative of any compliments that didn't have to do with attractiveness or her destructiveness, even if she wouldn't quite believe it -- she'd be the type to smile and feel a little flustered about it, rather than the kind of person who would straight up deny it, though.

✖ Character Powers & Skills: Almost all of her most powerful abilities come from outfitting herself with her Beast suit (which I'll delve into later), but she also posses some abilities without having to put the suit on as well, which include:

• The very odd ability of draining one's life by...hugging or straddling them. Seriously. No explanation is given for how the hell she does this, but if something isn't explained in the MGS series, the answer is most likely "nanomachines". To expand on this, she doesn't gain any energy of her own from the ability; it only harms her opponent. In game, it takes 25 seconds of one of her hands staying still, somewhere on the person's body (and without the person struggling) for her to kill the player. However, she seemingly has no close quarter combat skill at all, so she can easily be tossed to the ground if she attempts this move. Most people would have enough common sense to struggle within 25 seconds (I would hope, anyway), so this ability really isn't very useful at all.
• The ability to create a green flame and light one on fire; it should be noted though that the flame is very weak and can easily be extinguished by doing a combat roll.
• She also seems to have the ability to sidestep attacks, like I'm talking she can sidestep a rocket launcher blast sometimes (and she laughs at you, to boot!). However, this seems to be a randomized ability in game, as it's most certainly possibly to hit her. So in a RP setting, she wouldn't be able to dodge every attack. If anything, it'd be a stroke of dumb luck.
• She can seemingly mimic any voice she hears on her own. During the fight, she copies both Naomi and Otacon's (a man) voice perfectly as a way of trying to lure the player into traps she sets up. Seeing how she never actually meets Otacon in the game, she probably only simply has to hear a person's voice enough times to be able to copy them.
• Seeing how she wields a submachine gun in battle, it can be assumed she's proficient in using firearms.
• Even if she only speaks English in game, she's from Scandinavia (I'm headcanoning it to Norway) so she probably knows how to speak Norwegian and Swedish. In addition to this, she probably knows at lot of French, as she led a PMC unit based in France for at least four years.
• Since she -- along with every other soldier in her canon -- has nanomachines in her body, it at least regulates her body's systems (making it very hard for her to get sick, to the point that the nanos are canonically stated to be able to filter out alcohol and cleanse dirty water) and enhances her combat ability (but by no means makes her invincible). If, by a stroke of a miracle, other people app in other B&B members (Screaming, Raging, or Crying Beauty), the nanomachines make it so that the unitmates are able to sense each other, making it possible for them to coordinate in battle, with each other, without the need of verbal communication (basically, it's sort of like they can communicate with each other on a level that's akin to telepathy).

And then with her abilities with her Beast suit, she only gets worse:

• The tentacles on her suit are capable of strangling, electrocuting, bludgeoning, and having enough force to stab one through the stomach. In addition to that, they're also able to deflect bullets, and can scale ceilings and walls to greatly quicken her movements.
• Another major feature of the suit is the ability to transform herself. The Octocamo within the suit is so advanced, she can easily change the colors on the exterior of the suit to have her blend in almost completely with her surroundings. In addition to that, her suit has shown shapeshifting properties, shifting into such objects as a small robot, an anatomy model, a picture, a cardboard box, a wire, and even another person entirely. Also, she can form herself into a ball, which has the ability to trample over a person.
• She can also cover her surrounding area with ink, which appears as smoke. If one does not turn their back during its distribution, they could be blinded for a couple of seconds. Regardless if the target is blinded or not, she uses the ink as a mask to give herself some time to find a hiding spot.
• Shortly after distributing her ink, Octopus will release homing bombs to further distract her target as she flees to find a hiding spot. If one has a gun, or can move quickly, the bombs can easily be dealt with.

Lastly, I'm listing some weaknesses, because it'd be totally unfair not to have some, after all!

• Though she's supposed to be a master of stealth, the fact that she has constant, manic laughter really kind of hinders the sneaky thing a little.
• Cameras. It only works on her if she's out of her suit,  in canon, but if one points a camera at her, she compulsively freezes into a modeling pose and stays in that position until the camera is put away.
• This song. But only that song (no other song on the iPod works). The video should be self-explanatory.
• It seems like she can't multitask too well in battle. While she can normally dodge bullets (in her Beast suit) with her tentacles if she's not doing anything else, if she's trying to shoot the player with her gun, it leaves her wide open for an attack.
• Her Octopus suit does not mask her body heat, so even while camouflaged, she can be easily seen with thermal vision goggles or any other device that can pick up on body heat patterns.
• She apparently needs to throw up ink after taking her Octopus suit off. No, I don't know why, but my guess is that it has something to do with the fact that her suit can emit ink (which I talked about above).
• Mental instability, but that's covered in personality.

CHARACTER SAMPLES.
✖ First Person POV: Link us to a voicetest post or thread! Make sure that you're linking threads that abide by our AC requirements. If you're worried your threads are too short, then you'll likely get asked to do a video log revision - so linking more threads is always the safer bet.

✖ Third Person POV:

[With her mind already in disarray, the suddenness of a blinding light assaulting her senses really did no favors in helping the Beauty make sense of what was going on in the least. Thinking it was some kind of trick by Snake, at first, she places a palm in front of her in a vain attempt to shield her eyes. However, it's not long before the initial flash when she finds herself in a seemingly endless void of white.

Startled, an audible gasp passes through her lips, followed by a low, panicked laugh. Curling fingers near her lips, the Beauty quickly darts wide-eyed glances around the room. She had thought that Snake didn't have any special powers added to his nanomachines, so how was this happening? Uncertainty made her even more ill at ease, as her specialty was the ability to use the environment to her advantage; without her tentacles and no weapons to wield in sight, she was powerless -- it was a feeling she never wanted to experience again.

However, as her body whips around, the Beauty finally eyes someone than she had expected... this was a stranger? Who was this and how could they have a power like this? Was this someone coming to finish her off after her Octopus suit had shed from her body?

Anxiety was at its climax within her, causing the Beauty to first fall to her hands and knees.]

I- I'm sorry! Eheheheh! I'm sorry!

[Hands maneuver to her back shortly before she begins to do a sort of backwards crab walk away from the unfamiliar female. The older female regards the other with a brief, analytical glance before lowering herself in a crouching position, trying to make the Beauty feel more comfortable by lowering herself to her level.]

It's all right. I'm not here to harm you. [A gentle smile crosses the woman's lips during a beat of silence.] I'm here to help.

[As cliche as the words were, they actually seemed to calm the Beauty down a little. Her eyes were still widened, frantically searching for a way to exit this area, but at the very least, her pitiful attempt to get away had ceased.]

Where am I? Who -- ahahaha -- who are you?

[The other woman holds her position, looking on with a glance akin to the patience of a mother with a frightened child.] We understand that you were not able to able to fulfill your contractual duties with your previous employer. [Anticipating that statement would scare the other woman more, she raises a hand to continue.] I'm here to give you another chance -- an opportunity to obtain the peace of mind you want so badly.

[The Beauty doesn't respond, but her breaths return to a normal pace while her eyes focus on the other woman; she finally had her full attention. She doesn't even process the fact that the woman didn't even answer either of her questions.]

Not only that, but did you realize your superiors were lying to you? You don't have to be in that suit to be able to live. [She pauses as the one she addressed takes a few moments to feel around the cords of her plugsuit. While something like that might be beyond obvious to anyone else, Laughing Beauty's mind had been at a fragile enough place to truly believe she couldn't live without her suit.] Nor will we expect you to search an entire planet for one man. Do a few assignments for us and we'll be in your debt.



CHARACTER ITEMS.
✖ Pick a Team: GREEN: She's had quite a bit of military experience (even if it might not initially seem like it), so she'd be very familiar with the work typically handed to the Green team. In spite of being a supposed master of stealth, she would much rather be in the heat of a battle (with guns blazing or tentacles bursting through chests), laughing the entire time. Being part of the B&B Corps, on her home planet, and working with a PMC unit between the missions the B&Bs were assigned to, she also has no problems in working with a team.

Her mindset tends to be more of a grey morality, than black and white, but I believe that she does want to be a good person, deep down inside. In spite of her love for the battlefield, she'd have a lot of problems with killing someone who didn't pose a threat to her or others (though she'd be more concerned about herself initially), especially considering her past. Also, her mind is especially impressionable and it might actually do her some good to be around people who have a different mindset than hers.

ORANGE: Though her constant laughter kind of brings her "master of stealth" title into question, she's got a suit that can pretty much make her seem invisible (or make her morph to look like other objects), which heavily relies on her having the ability to quickly adapt to her surroundings -- akin to an octopus -- so she'd be pretty good at scouting areas and gathering intel.

In battles, she's also shown the ability to quickly analyze the terrain around her to effectively figure out what colors to morph her suit into, to figure out the best way to hide and displayed that she's very good at copying voices without even knowing a person for long -- basically, she's incredibly observant and would be excel at relaying things she's seen and heard.

Though she's basically a killing machine, inside of her Octopus suit, she's significantly less combat-ready outside of it, so that may or may not make her more suitable for Orange.

Basically, I'm glad you need to choose two different prospective teams, because I'm unsure myself. I'll look forward to seeing how she gets sorted. Either way, I'm sorry to either team for this hot mess.

✖ Reason for Joining the CDC: As someone who has had quite a bit of military experience, even at a relatively young age, she would be pretty familiar with the work involved with the CDC. With her at a point where her mind is starting to sober from the delusions she put herself under to cope with the violent world around her, she might internally question some of the actions that the CDC would do. However, her history of having her life completely ruined by a stronger force would definitely keep her in line and it's highly doubtful that she would ever actually rebel; the very idea would likely even trigger the hell out of her.

If she gets into too much of a frenzy, during battle, someone might have to be there to bring her mind back into reality and to calm the hell down (and stop trying to kill everything). Other than that, though, I really can't see her being the type to disobey orders, as she'd be absolutely terrified of the consequences. Of course, that could change if she got particularly attached to anyone who would want to rebel against the CDC, but if one were to threaten her life or the life of someone she cares about (which would have to be CR she gained in game, as she's already been forced to kill everyone she cares about, in canon), LB would back down in record time.

✖ Mission Freebie: An end to pain and sorrow within her. As abstract and hopeless as it seems, IT WORKED TO RECRUIT HER IN CANON.

I'll note that with a couple months of development, she might come to her senses enough to realize that's a stupid request and ICly request something more along the lines of asking for members of the cult that razed her village to be killed (so that they can't hurt anyone else ever again) or for the lives of her family members she was forced to kill. But again, this will be brought up ICly whenever she comes across this epiphany.

✖ Personal Item or Weapon: Her Octopus suit, shown in the first link in the appearance section and a more detailed look in the inventory list below.

✖ Character Inventory: Octopus suit, which includes:

• Plug suit underneath
• A couple of holsters on the suit (with nothing inside of them, of course)
• Five homing bombs -- if this violates the one weapon rule, I'm fine with them being confiscated too.

FN P90 submachine gun - CONFISCATED