Scrad/Charlie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
twoheadsofcabbage) wrote2012-02-25 01:29 am
twoheadsofcabbage) wrote2012-02-25 01:29 am
Entry tags:
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User Name/Nick: Bear
User DW: n/a, iplayedthem on LJ
AIM/IM: AIM VikyChicky
E-mail: same as above @ aol
Other Characters: George Crabtree
Character Name: Scrad/Charlie
Series: Men in Black 2
Age: Mid-twenties.
From When?:
After kidnapping Laura, there was a scene where Serleena gave him/them a proton bomb and instructions to blow up MIB HQ and Scrad and Charlie ended up physically fighting themselves over whether to continue following her orders or not. This scene ended up on the cutting room floor, and as a result the character just disappears from the film without explanation, so I'm going to say it happened off-screen, and that during the fight they managed to knock themself out and ended up with a face full of Barge.
Inmate/Warden:
Inmate. He/they break interplanetary laws, work for interplanetary terrorists, and make his/their living selling other beings out to the highest bidder. Scum of the Universe, and etc.
Abilities/Powers:
He/they are a guy from space with two heads. That's about all they've got going for them. Theoretically they can do two things at once, but generally they have enough trouble doing one thing at all. They do seem to be able to take quite a licking and keep on kicking, but that's more of a minion skill. They're a little different biologically from humans, but not in a way that would give them an advantage over humans, and not in a way that would be entirely alien to Earth medical science (they aren't supported by a system of bladders or anything). Charlie, the smaller head, is attached by a four foot long neck stalk that is strong enough to support itself fully extended from his and Scrad's body, and flexible enough to twist around three hundred and sixty degrees. While it seems as though Scrad has sole control of their body, Charlie can actually control it as well. He just doesn't. He's that lazy. Also, one of them knows Jujitsu. They aren't sure which one.
Personality:
Scrad/Charlie are a minion. Or possibly is two minions. They're one guy with two heads, and unfortunately, Earth languages aren't really equipped with the pronouns to deal with that. Luckily, Scrad/Charlie doesn't seem to care about our human grammar. Their boss addresses them in the singular except for on one occasion, another group of aliens refers to them as "he", and they refer to themselves as I, we, me, and us, sometimes within the same conversation. It gets a little confusing if you think about it too hard. Luckily with Scrad/Charlie, thinking too hard is not a problem.
Well, technically it is a problem if it's something you'd like them to do, because they'd prefer not to, thanks. Following orders: that's their thing. Specific orders: like, if you don't spell it allllllll the way out, they will just continue to stand there doing nothing until you do. And if you leave them to their own devices for too long, it's entirely likely they'll just stop doing what they were told to. They're only loyal to whatever the cause is as long as it keeps paying them and threatening them with bodily harm. Not that anyone has ever tried not threatening them, but they just can't picture it working.
They aren't quite as stupid as they look. But they do look pretty stupid most of the time, so that's not saying a lot. In actuality, they're of average intelligence, but poorly educated, have never been in any sort of position to have any creativity they might have nurtured, and are very easily distracted. They are shown having accomplished several tasks that would imply that they actually aren't idiots after all (tracking down someone with information on the location of the Light of Zartha, something Serleena had been attempting unsuccessfully for twenty-five years in less than half that time; finding out K's location and Agent status in MiB headquarters while said headquarters were on complete lock-down in a very short amount of time) but they're clearly most comfortable acting like idiots. It takes less effort.
A spanner in the works of their hench-career: it turns out they love Earth. Not the planet itself: but what humans have made of it and on it. They're enamored of every cheesy, materialistic, low-brow, plastic fad, particularly if it can be seen on TV. Do not get them started on sitcoms. They weren't expecting it, and it's totally shameful, and bad, and they should feel bad, but Earth, and New York City in particular is honestly the only place they've ever come the closest to feeling like they fit in. At the same time, they're still aware that they don't entirely fit in. NYC is willing to overlook a lot in its residents. Dressing like you're from space is nothing, and talking to yourself is just another Tuesday, but literally talking to yourself, and then yourself (which is a smaller but nearly identical head growing out of your back) answering: that's still a little much for the Big Apple. Passing for Earth Normal is as easy as wearing a backpack and shoving Charlie inside it, but it means they can never really participate in Human society fully and as a whole being. That hurts a little bit, but they do have living vicariously through television and the internet (they own multiple TV's and computers), so that's something. It's just not something that does much for their social skills.
Of course, hearting Earth doesn't necessarily mean they also love humans. They don't dislike them or anything, and they even find some of them attractive, but as a whole they don't really care about them. To be fair: they don't really care about any species, including their own. What they care about is themself: getting as much as they can for doing as little as possible. They aren't the sort of minion who takes any pleasure in seeing someone tortured (and they never partake in any of that sort of thing personally; they aren't muscle), but it happens. Beings even get killed sometimes. As long as it's not them, it's not their problem. Even if they may have been indirectly responsible. To their credit, they don't seem to see killing as necessary, but this may just be a lack of foresight and the inability to recognize that if you horribly torture someone who has access to a lot of weapons, and then just let them go, they will probably not show you the same courtesy.
As far as first impressions go, Scrad comes off as the...smarter is the wrong word. He seems to be the less stupid of the two. He isn't. He is more socially adept than Charlie because he has carried the brunt of their interactions on Earth. Even off Earth, he tends to be the one who is spoken to first and treated as dominant because his head is larger, which he and Charlie have grown used to. He tends to be single-minded (Ha.), and a bit of a suck-up. Charlie is more empathetic and open minded than his body-mate, but he lacks any sort of filter as a result of spending most of his time in a knapsack, and ends up saying the sort of things that are better off as private thoughts. His near solitary confinement also means that when he is out of the knapsack, he tends to come off as overenthusiastic at best. He doesn't mind being relegated to the knapsack, though: it means he doesn't really have to deal with anything mentally or physically. Though Scrad and Charlie do sometimes finish each other's sentences, this is not due to any sort of telepathy: they've simply spent their whole lives together. Their symbiotic relationship has been permanently altered by their time on Earth, but they do honestly prefer it to how they would have functioned, had they never left their home planet. Everything they need to know they learned from the TV, particular from The Three Stooges, which you can sort of hear in their manner of speaking if you know to listen for it.
Scrad and Charlie are low-lifes, but they're mostly harmless. However, they tend to keep bad, bad company, and the Barge is nothing if not full of that, and are probably most likely to get mixed up in everything that is terrible.
Path to Redemption:
The easiest way to get Scrad/Charlie to do (or not do) anything is through the threat of physical violence. A warden who threatens them will have their obedience, but they won't find them graduating any time soon. Their redemptive path is less about doing the right thing (which they can be easily forced to do), than it is about them wanting to do the right thing, and for the right reasons. Hint: 'to get off this ship' is not one of the right reasons.
Relatedly, it's equally important for them to learn to both work together, and think for themself. Not, to be clear, themselves: trying to convince either of them that they can "be their own man", and don't always have to go along with what the other wants will do more harm than good. They simply can't exist like that; they need to function as a cohesive unit. They would, however, benefit from developing a little self-respect and the courage not to blindly follow anyone they think might have fifty million dollars, or shove tentacles in their ears.
They do know right from wrong, and their instincts aren't actually bad: they just ignore them. There's a scene in which another member of their gang tortures Agent J for information. When J doesn't talk, even after being bent nearly in half, Scrad/Charlie suggests that he probably doesn't know anything after all, in a way that implies they think they should let J go. Another member of the gang has to point out that that means he's useless, and that they should kill him. A warden will need to get Scrad/Charlie to acknowledge these more empathetic instincts, and encourage them to develop relationships with other people that aren't based on what the other person can do for them.
History:
Scrad/Charlie was born on a small planet in the Betelgeuse system where everyone had two heads, and dating was twice as difficult because both of you had to like both of them. Also, there was no entertainment industry, and everyone's idea of a good time was talking to themselves. They hated it, and jumped the first ship off world they could. With not money or contacts, and very little education, they quickly fell in with a bad crowd. Then a badder crowd. Then Serleena, who is the worst crowd. She sent them to Earth to find information on a cosmic force known as the Light of Zartha because they could pass for human the most easily. Once on Earth, they quickly tracked down the owner of a pizza shop who had said information, contacted Serleena, and then proceeded to fuck off for about four years, going totally Earth-Native as they discovered their true meaning in life: to get drunk and watch sitcoms.
Then Serleena had to go and answer their message. Barry Sonnenfeld made a movie about it. You may have heard of it. Follow me, won't you, for an in-depth synopsis of said film, for indeed: I am a link.
Sample Journal Entry:
[There's a man on screen. A scruffy-looking man who's recently been in a fight. His lip is split and bleeding, and there's a chunk of hair missing from one side of his head. He stares into the camera with unfocused eyes. His jaw works silently for a moment. Eventually he slurs:]
Did anybody...catch the plate on that Arquillian cru-...
[His eyes roll back in his head and he drops like a ton of bricks. The communicator lands with a clatter, camera still focused on the man's face. And then another voice pipes up. It is, in fact, the same voice.]
Oh, you did not just pass out. Scrad? Scra-ad!
[No one named Scrad responds. The man on the floor remains still. His eyes are closed. His mouth has not moved. It continues not to move as his disembodied voice quips:]
Annnnnnnnnd the champ! Is! Down!
Sample RP:
Earth. They never expected to love the place. Hell, they never expected to like it either. Low on tech, high on oceans (almost three-quarters of it is covered in water, for fuck's sake): it doesn't sound like much of a destination.
Or, that's what they thought, anyway. That was before they learned what Earth had to offer. The Humans seem overly proud of their national landmarks, which are pretty unimpressive for the most part (a bunch of old buildings, a couple of holes in the ground, a big green chick in a toga, like they think there isn't a whole planet full of those out there...). In Scrad/Charlie's opinion (which is one opinion), the planet's real draw is shag carpeting. Or velour. Lava lamps. Mayo. Games populated by female warriors clad in non-functional but enticingly minuscule armor. Restaurants that give you a toy with your meal for free. The human internet. Bumper stickers. Phoebe Buffay, who is the best of all of the Friends, and who has a twin(!), and who seems like she'd be into a little something, you know, out of her planet's limited perception of ordinary.
Earth kinda had them at hello. Or at least: at their first episode of Everybody Loves Raymond (they really do!). Sometimes, between sitcoms, one of them will consider turning to the other (but rarely at the same time), and mentioning how much it would suck if someone came along and wrecked it all. Blew it up, or took it over; all of its many treasures lost for all time.
But then the commercials are over, and there are more important things to focus on.
Special Notes:
I've used the shooting script and official novelization to help expand on Scrad/Charlie's personality, but am taking them from a point in the film before the scripted ending, and the ending which ended up on screen diverge. I see it as: the events of the film as it played out are what might happen to them if they don't change; their actions in the novelization/script are what they have the potential to be. I've also just app-ed a guy with two heads, but we've actually had enough "two dudes, one body" characters on the Barge (Valmont/Shendu, Brock/Venom, Jaime/Khaji Da [Blue Beetle]), that I thought it could work. I'm particularly looking forward to finding creative ways to incorporate their bicephalic biology into breaches or physically transmuting floods (such as the animal flood). There are a lot of ways their relationship could be represented beyond just turning them into traditionally conjoined twins.
User DW: n/a, iplayedthem on LJ
AIM/IM: AIM VikyChicky
E-mail: same as above @ aol
Other Characters: George Crabtree
Character Name: Scrad/Charlie
Series: Men in Black 2
Age: Mid-twenties.
From When?:
After kidnapping Laura, there was a scene where Serleena gave him/them a proton bomb and instructions to blow up MIB HQ and Scrad and Charlie ended up physically fighting themselves over whether to continue following her orders or not. This scene ended up on the cutting room floor, and as a result the character just disappears from the film without explanation, so I'm going to say it happened off-screen, and that during the fight they managed to knock themself out and ended up with a face full of Barge.
Inmate/Warden:
Inmate. He/they break interplanetary laws, work for interplanetary terrorists, and make his/their living selling other beings out to the highest bidder. Scum of the Universe, and etc.
Abilities/Powers:
He/they are a guy from space with two heads. That's about all they've got going for them. Theoretically they can do two things at once, but generally they have enough trouble doing one thing at all. They do seem to be able to take quite a licking and keep on kicking, but that's more of a minion skill. They're a little different biologically from humans, but not in a way that would give them an advantage over humans, and not in a way that would be entirely alien to Earth medical science (they aren't supported by a system of bladders or anything). Charlie, the smaller head, is attached by a four foot long neck stalk that is strong enough to support itself fully extended from his and Scrad's body, and flexible enough to twist around three hundred and sixty degrees. While it seems as though Scrad has sole control of their body, Charlie can actually control it as well. He just doesn't. He's that lazy. Also, one of them knows Jujitsu. They aren't sure which one.
Personality:
Scrad/Charlie are a minion. Or possibly is two minions. They're one guy with two heads, and unfortunately, Earth languages aren't really equipped with the pronouns to deal with that. Luckily, Scrad/Charlie doesn't seem to care about our human grammar. Their boss addresses them in the singular except for on one occasion, another group of aliens refers to them as "he", and they refer to themselves as I, we, me, and us, sometimes within the same conversation. It gets a little confusing if you think about it too hard. Luckily with Scrad/Charlie, thinking too hard is not a problem.
Well, technically it is a problem if it's something you'd like them to do, because they'd prefer not to, thanks. Following orders: that's their thing. Specific orders: like, if you don't spell it allllllll the way out, they will just continue to stand there doing nothing until you do. And if you leave them to their own devices for too long, it's entirely likely they'll just stop doing what they were told to. They're only loyal to whatever the cause is as long as it keeps paying them and threatening them with bodily harm. Not that anyone has ever tried not threatening them, but they just can't picture it working.
They aren't quite as stupid as they look. But they do look pretty stupid most of the time, so that's not saying a lot. In actuality, they're of average intelligence, but poorly educated, have never been in any sort of position to have any creativity they might have nurtured, and are very easily distracted. They are shown having accomplished several tasks that would imply that they actually aren't idiots after all (tracking down someone with information on the location of the Light of Zartha, something Serleena had been attempting unsuccessfully for twenty-five years in less than half that time; finding out K's location and Agent status in MiB headquarters while said headquarters were on complete lock-down in a very short amount of time) but they're clearly most comfortable acting like idiots. It takes less effort.
A spanner in the works of their hench-career: it turns out they love Earth. Not the planet itself: but what humans have made of it and on it. They're enamored of every cheesy, materialistic, low-brow, plastic fad, particularly if it can be seen on TV. Do not get them started on sitcoms. They weren't expecting it, and it's totally shameful, and bad, and they should feel bad, but Earth, and New York City in particular is honestly the only place they've ever come the closest to feeling like they fit in. At the same time, they're still aware that they don't entirely fit in. NYC is willing to overlook a lot in its residents. Dressing like you're from space is nothing, and talking to yourself is just another Tuesday, but literally talking to yourself, and then yourself (which is a smaller but nearly identical head growing out of your back) answering: that's still a little much for the Big Apple. Passing for Earth Normal is as easy as wearing a backpack and shoving Charlie inside it, but it means they can never really participate in Human society fully and as a whole being. That hurts a little bit, but they do have living vicariously through television and the internet (they own multiple TV's and computers), so that's something. It's just not something that does much for their social skills.
Of course, hearting Earth doesn't necessarily mean they also love humans. They don't dislike them or anything, and they even find some of them attractive, but as a whole they don't really care about them. To be fair: they don't really care about any species, including their own. What they care about is themself: getting as much as they can for doing as little as possible. They aren't the sort of minion who takes any pleasure in seeing someone tortured (and they never partake in any of that sort of thing personally; they aren't muscle), but it happens. Beings even get killed sometimes. As long as it's not them, it's not their problem. Even if they may have been indirectly responsible. To their credit, they don't seem to see killing as necessary, but this may just be a lack of foresight and the inability to recognize that if you horribly torture someone who has access to a lot of weapons, and then just let them go, they will probably not show you the same courtesy.
As far as first impressions go, Scrad comes off as the...smarter is the wrong word. He seems to be the less stupid of the two. He isn't. He is more socially adept than Charlie because he has carried the brunt of their interactions on Earth. Even off Earth, he tends to be the one who is spoken to first and treated as dominant because his head is larger, which he and Charlie have grown used to. He tends to be single-minded (Ha.), and a bit of a suck-up. Charlie is more empathetic and open minded than his body-mate, but he lacks any sort of filter as a result of spending most of his time in a knapsack, and ends up saying the sort of things that are better off as private thoughts. His near solitary confinement also means that when he is out of the knapsack, he tends to come off as overenthusiastic at best. He doesn't mind being relegated to the knapsack, though: it means he doesn't really have to deal with anything mentally or physically. Though Scrad and Charlie do sometimes finish each other's sentences, this is not due to any sort of telepathy: they've simply spent their whole lives together. Their symbiotic relationship has been permanently altered by their time on Earth, but they do honestly prefer it to how they would have functioned, had they never left their home planet. Everything they need to know they learned from the TV, particular from The Three Stooges, which you can sort of hear in their manner of speaking if you know to listen for it.
Scrad and Charlie are low-lifes, but they're mostly harmless. However, they tend to keep bad, bad company, and the Barge is nothing if not full of that, and are probably most likely to get mixed up in everything that is terrible.
Path to Redemption:
The easiest way to get Scrad/Charlie to do (or not do) anything is through the threat of physical violence. A warden who threatens them will have their obedience, but they won't find them graduating any time soon. Their redemptive path is less about doing the right thing (which they can be easily forced to do), than it is about them wanting to do the right thing, and for the right reasons. Hint: 'to get off this ship' is not one of the right reasons.
Relatedly, it's equally important for them to learn to both work together, and think for themself. Not, to be clear, themselves: trying to convince either of them that they can "be their own man", and don't always have to go along with what the other wants will do more harm than good. They simply can't exist like that; they need to function as a cohesive unit. They would, however, benefit from developing a little self-respect and the courage not to blindly follow anyone they think might have fifty million dollars, or shove tentacles in their ears.
They do know right from wrong, and their instincts aren't actually bad: they just ignore them. There's a scene in which another member of their gang tortures Agent J for information. When J doesn't talk, even after being bent nearly in half, Scrad/Charlie suggests that he probably doesn't know anything after all, in a way that implies they think they should let J go. Another member of the gang has to point out that that means he's useless, and that they should kill him. A warden will need to get Scrad/Charlie to acknowledge these more empathetic instincts, and encourage them to develop relationships with other people that aren't based on what the other person can do for them.
History:
Scrad/Charlie was born on a small planet in the Betelgeuse system where everyone had two heads, and dating was twice as difficult because both of you had to like both of them. Also, there was no entertainment industry, and everyone's idea of a good time was talking to themselves. They hated it, and jumped the first ship off world they could. With not money or contacts, and very little education, they quickly fell in with a bad crowd. Then a badder crowd. Then Serleena, who is the worst crowd. She sent them to Earth to find information on a cosmic force known as the Light of Zartha because they could pass for human the most easily. Once on Earth, they quickly tracked down the owner of a pizza shop who had said information, contacted Serleena, and then proceeded to fuck off for about four years, going totally Earth-Native as they discovered their true meaning in life: to get drunk and watch sitcoms.
Then Serleena had to go and answer their message. Barry Sonnenfeld made a movie about it. You may have heard of it. Follow me, won't you, for an in-depth synopsis of said film, for indeed: I am a link.
Sample Journal Entry:
[There's a man on screen. A scruffy-looking man who's recently been in a fight. His lip is split and bleeding, and there's a chunk of hair missing from one side of his head. He stares into the camera with unfocused eyes. His jaw works silently for a moment. Eventually he slurs:]
Did anybody...catch the plate on that Arquillian cru-...
[His eyes roll back in his head and he drops like a ton of bricks. The communicator lands with a clatter, camera still focused on the man's face. And then another voice pipes up. It is, in fact, the same voice.]
Oh, you did not just pass out. Scrad? Scra-ad!
[No one named Scrad responds. The man on the floor remains still. His eyes are closed. His mouth has not moved. It continues not to move as his disembodied voice quips:]
Annnnnnnnnd the champ! Is! Down!
Sample RP:
Earth. They never expected to love the place. Hell, they never expected to like it either. Low on tech, high on oceans (almost three-quarters of it is covered in water, for fuck's sake): it doesn't sound like much of a destination.
Or, that's what they thought, anyway. That was before they learned what Earth had to offer. The Humans seem overly proud of their national landmarks, which are pretty unimpressive for the most part (a bunch of old buildings, a couple of holes in the ground, a big green chick in a toga, like they think there isn't a whole planet full of those out there...). In Scrad/Charlie's opinion (which is one opinion), the planet's real draw is shag carpeting. Or velour. Lava lamps. Mayo. Games populated by female warriors clad in non-functional but enticingly minuscule armor. Restaurants that give you a toy with your meal for free. The human internet. Bumper stickers. Phoebe Buffay, who is the best of all of the Friends, and who has a twin(!), and who seems like she'd be into a little something, you know, out of her planet's limited perception of ordinary.
Earth kinda had them at hello. Or at least: at their first episode of Everybody Loves Raymond (they really do!). Sometimes, between sitcoms, one of them will consider turning to the other (but rarely at the same time), and mentioning how much it would suck if someone came along and wrecked it all. Blew it up, or took it over; all of its many treasures lost for all time.
But then the commercials are over, and there are more important things to focus on.
Special Notes:
I've used the shooting script and official novelization to help expand on Scrad/Charlie's personality, but am taking them from a point in the film before the scripted ending, and the ending which ended up on screen diverge. I see it as: the events of the film as it played out are what might happen to them if they don't change; their actions in the novelization/script are what they have the potential to be. I've also just app-ed a guy with two heads, but we've actually had enough "two dudes, one body" characters on the Barge (Valmont/Shendu, Brock/Venom, Jaime/Khaji Da [Blue Beetle]), that I thought it could work. I'm particularly looking forward to finding creative ways to incorporate their bicephalic biology into breaches or physically transmuting floods (such as the animal flood). There are a lot of ways their relationship could be represented beyond just turning them into traditionally conjoined twins.