User Name/Nick: Liz/EC
User DW: ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
madwomanwithaboxAIM/IM: madwomanwabox (AIM), madwomanwithabox (Plurk)
E-mail: madwomanwabox at gmail dot com
Other Characters: Allison Argent [TEEN WOLF]
Character Name: Michael Scofield
Series: PRISON BREAK
Age: 31 (born October 10, 1974)
From When?: The beginning of episode 1.15, "By The Skin And The Teeth, in the gallery at his brother's execution. The Admiral will pull him out just seconds before Lincoln is scheduled to be executed for murder.
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Michael is a good person at his core, a law abiding citizen with a strong moral compass and a fierce devotion to family over even friends, in some cases. He is also deeply empathetic, and takes the suffering of others on as his own. Though his world view was once very much black and white in terms of good and evil, his brother's predicament has taught him to both see and operate within varying shades of gray. He understands that good hearts can often move men to do despicable things, having spent some time among such men in Fox River, as well as among those with no little to no moral footing. That said, he will do his best to understand where his charge is coming from. Michael is also described, by some, as a creative genius, making him capable of finding unconventional ways to help an inmate graduate. In addition, Michael suffers from a condition called low latent inhibition, making him acutely perceptive to the details of his everyday world almost against his will. In other words, quite literally, it will be incredibly difficult for an inmate to try and fool him.
Item: Michael's tattoos (If the mods find this unacceptable, a paper crane)
Abilities/Powers: Michael is bog standard human, but as previously mentioned, suffers from a unique disorder called low latent inhibition. Essentially, when Michael perceives the world around him, he does so as a whole. An example provided by his therapist in canon is that of a lamp. A normal person perceives the lamp as a whole, having seen lamps countless times before. For Michael, however, to see a lamp is to see it, and every component, as something new. He perceives the shade, the bulb, the filament within the bulb, the cord, the body, and so on. His brain does not have the capacity to filter out these details, which can sometimes overwhelm him. Most of the time, however, this disorder works to his advantage in his chosen field as a structural engineer.
Personality: Michael Scofield is a man of hidden depths. On the surface, he is charismatic, driven, and incredibly intelligent. As a well educated and successful structural engineer, one would expect him to be nothing less than well adjusted and content with his lot, save for the inconvenience of a ne'er-do-well older brother. However, beneath the surface there lurks a darker history, a far more powerful bond between Michael and Lincoln than meets the eye, and a deeply troubled man whose demons have only served to make him a kinder and more compassionate human being...often to his detriment.
Though we see an obviously loving and deeply loyal relationship between Michael and Lincoln early in the series, perhaps even to the point of codependency on occasion, prior to Lincoln's arrest Michael was openly disdainful of him. Though the two were very close growing up, being that Linc was Michael's primary guardian, in later years Linc's bad behavior and inability to stay out of trouble became a source of tension. Michael grew to look down on Lincoln, and resented him for constantly having to clean up his mistakes...as Michael put it, having to be the older brother to
his older brother. Later, when he finds out that Lincoln was arrested for murder, all while making good on a debt he incurred to put Michael through school, it puts years of bad behavior in a brand new light and made Michael realize that the promise Linc made to him at their mother's funeral, to always look out for him, was one that his brother took very seriously. Michael swiftly transformed from Lincoln's biggest critic to one of his most loyal supporters. He followed Lincoln's case closely, visited him regularly in prison...and later went on to engineer Lincoln's escape.
While a familial relationship may not seem openly critical to aspects of Michael's personality, in this case it plays a key role in who Michael is as a person. Their father abandoned them early on, and their mother died when Linc was 13 and Michael was only 11. Allusions are made in the series to the pair having a rough upbringing, with Lincoln spending most of his time on the streets and, according to Veronica Donovan, beating up Michael to keep him
off the streets. Though Michael spent some long stretches in foster care when Lincoln got in trouble with the law, ultimately it was always his brother who looked after him. During periods in Lincoln's care when Michael would wake up alone, he always found a folded paper crane on his pillow beside him. He learned later that paper cranes were a symbol of familial obligation, and Lincoln's way of letting Michael know he was watching over him. Later on, even when he was disgusted with his brother, Michael would always answer the phone when Lincoln called. The one time he didn't, the night Lincoln took the fall for the vice president's murder, became the driving force behind every action Michael took afterwards.
The love and loyalty that Linc instilled in Michael, along with the precious few years he had with their mother, also shaped the way Michael perceived the world. With abandonment issues surrounding his parents and his troubled older brother, as well as a history of abuse in foster care, Michael grew up with little to no sense of self worth. He also grew up suffering from low latent inhibition, making his brain incapable of blocking out peripheral stimuli. Paired with a high IQ, it effectively made him a creative genius, and with the virtues instilled in him early on, it made him wildly perceptive to the suffering of those around him. His neurological condition made it impossible to ignore...and paired with his low self esteem, it made Michael so deeply empathetic and compassionate, he readily put the needs of others before his own. Often, this resulted in extreme displays of kindness and loyalty, and tormented him when he was unable to render aid to others. Such was the case with the new inmate that escape partner, and sexual predator, T-Bag, swiftly began victimizing. The inmate, nicknamed "Cherry," pleaded with Michael for help, but because of T-Bag's threats to expose the escape, he ignored the younger man. When Cherry took his own life rather than continue suffering, and T-Bag found a new target in newcomer David Apolskis, nicknamed "Tweener," Michael anguished over his failure with Lincoln, who reassured him he did the right thing in protecting the escape. Eventually, however, Michael found an adequate threat to keep T-Bag away from Tweener that preserved the escape. In doing so, he not only neutralized a threat, but earned Lincoln's pride.
The method to neutralizing that threat involved a display of violence, one that does not come altogether naturally to Michael. In prison, Michael has been forced to develop the darker parts of himself, and present a carefully manufactured facade of hard distance in order to appear strong to other inmates, capable of far more than he is truly comfortable with doing. Early on, during a lockdown due to racial tensions, we see Michael come apart after witnessing an inmate brutally murdered, all while Michael was trying desperately to take a bolt from him that he needed for the escape. Retreating to his cell, he is panicked and blindly ready to defend himself from every body that passes by his cell. During lockdown, he collects himself again, honing the bolt into a makeshift Allen wrench. Later in that same episode, we see him being interrogated by John Abruzzi, an escape partner, and withstands his efforts at torture, losing two of his toes in the process. Though he feels intensely and abhors violence, Michael is an impassive and hard to read presence within the prison population, showing vulnerability to very few, and gradually becoming more and more comfortable with the use of extreme measures and even force to achieve his means. This includes beating T-Bag to threaten him away from Tweener, setting up a major mob boss to be arrested, and as he grows more desperate after Lincoln's stay of execution, investigating open areas of the prison in a stolen guard's uniform and ultimately threatening the warden to ensure their eventual escape. We do see, at one point, the pressure finally get to him when he suffers a small mental breakdown, one that he rolls with and parlays into an admission into the prison's psych ward, where he acquires a lost set of his blueprints from psych resident and former roommate Haywire.
Barge Reactions: Michael will be easily swayed by the Admiral in the eleventh hour before his brother's execution. The rest of his stay on the Barge, however, will be defined by trying to Figure It Out: how it works, how the comm system works, how the Admiral himself works. The odd universes, magic powers, and creatures beyond his understanding will likely overwhelm him quite a bit, as will his surroundings. He won't be capable of compartmentalizing or accepting things as readily as he should, and after his recent prison stay he will be a little wary of others. His first floods and breaches will be shocks to his system, but with enough time and patience from his fellow wardens and subordinate inmates, he will find a way to deal with his surroundings. Worst case, he will find coping mechanisms, and at best he may find some added help in acclimating to the strangeness by being able to help people aboard the ship, even if it's with something trivial like hanging a picture that's bound to fall off the wall with some flood-induced turbulence.
Path to Redemption: N/A
Deal: To save his brother's life by fully exposing the conspiracy that put him in prison, and thereby granting Lincoln Burrows a full pardon for his crimes.
History: Michael Scofield on Wikipedia,
Michael Scofield on Prison Break WikiaSample Journal Entry: [PUBLIC VIDEO]
[The man in the feed is totally at odds with his surroundings: dressed in prison blues, he's perched on the edge of a desk within the office of a spacious loft apartment. Modern and minimalist in decor with polished hardwood floors giving it a warmer feel, full height windows behind him look out into the space field gently passing by as the Barge drifts on its interstellar currents.
Some of those windows are covered by articles and newspaper clippings, by notes and sketches and schematics. Not all of them, however...it's not his setup, it's something from home, something to restore a measure of order in his world...of that much, Michael is certain.
As he looks into the feed, his features are a practiced mask of stoicism...but a vaguely manic, uncertain gleam of something like hope burns within the open resolve in his piercing blue eyes.]
Introductions are customary, as I hear it. My name is Michael Scofield...and this is the second prison I've been in this year. [He hesitates only a moment before he allows himself the smallest of smiles.] Except this time, I'm not an inmate.
For the curious, I was doing time for armed robbery at Fox River in Illinois. Don't worry, though: I'm here to do a job. I've been told that, in exchange for my services, I'll receive...payment.
[It's better than saying that far-flung thing he's clinging to, believing in beyond all reason...believing when Lincoln is sitting in that chair and the world as Michael knows it is falling apart.]
So...anything you need, any questions you have...don't be a stranger. I'm here to help.
Sample RP:
There's a bathroom in his cabin, but Michael still hits the inmate showers.
He doesn't do it all the time, maybe two or three times a week. He does so as if he were any other inmate: brings his toiletries to the locker room, strips down, and heads in to claim the first available shower. He takes his time, lets the water run over his head and back, tracing various droplets as they trail through the corridors and cells inked into his skin. He thinks about Fox River, about Lincoln...about the next body walking through the door.
He counts them, focusing more on the inmates around him then the act of rinsing shampoo off his scalp or washing. Most times, he lingers until someone gets impatient and tries to rush him. Michael is quiet and obliging about moving on when it happens. He rinses if need be, wraps his towel around his waist, and pads out with barely a nod, rarely a word.
He doesn't want to draw attention, he wants to pay attention. This is, after all, a prison ship, and he's a warden now. It's a job he takes seriously, one he's dissecting as deep and as carefully as he can to make sure he doesn't make any mistakes.
In the showers, he can watch people, read people, and today it pays off as he watches a dark haired man showering next to him, singing some bawdy song as another guy veers over to him. He's bare ass naked, but his towel is wrapped tellingly around his hand.
He waits until he sees the towel pull off before he veers to the side, knocking the singing inmate out of the way. He makes a grab for the weapon, slipping a little on the wet tiles and getting his palm sliced open for his trouble.
"I don't think so."
Eyes narrowed, he gets the shiv away from him, twists his arm around behind his back, and just barely manages to grab a towel for himself as he shoves the inmate out of the showers and into the changing room, heading right for Zero.
Until he gets a permanent inmate assignment, all Michael can do is help...and if there's one thing prison taught him, there's always a place to save lives in the showers.
Special Notes: ...none that I can think of? 
