Applications

APPLICATIONS

Since the game is in the closing process, applications are permanently CLOSED.
Reserves are currently CLOSED.

Please be sure to review our FAQ, rules, and taken page!

Player Cap: 38/60

Please note that reserves only hold the character for you to apply with. Should all player slots be filled before the end of the scheduled application round, applications will close at that time. Due to the limited number of player slots, revision requests will be given a 24 hour window for re-submission.

To submit your application during an open round, copy and paste it directly in a comment here. If your application exceeds the character length, please only use one top-level and reply to it with as many comments as needed.

Please title your comments in the following format:

CHARACTER NAME | CANON | RESERVED/NOT RESERVED

Player

Name:

Age:

Contact:

Preferred Pronouns:

Other Characters: If this is your second character, please list your first here.

Character

Name: Please include any known aliases as well.

Age:

Memory Option: (1, 2, 3 -- see HERE for more information).

Established Status: Y/N. If yes, please state for how long (up to five years, more information can be found here) and detail briefly what they've been doing since they've come to Overjoyed. Please note that no memory regains will be possible prior to game-start: this option is only available to allow you to better establish your character and their potential organizations/business/etc.

Canon:

Canon Point:

Citizenship: Please review the settings guide and job guide, as not all characters will have citizenship. This will be very important for plot events and will not be easily changed once accepted, so consider your options carefully.

Job: See our jobs, FAQ, and culture pages for more information. Who they work for--whether it's The Company, The RAC, or another option, will have a significant impact on their daily lives. The most important thing to bear in mind is that the job should make sense for the character--we probably wouldn't have Gundam Wing's Heero become a pastry chef (though that would be its own level of awesome), and likewise, Ash Ketchum probably isn't suited for biomedical engineering.

* Level: For characters who are applying as members of the RAC, please state the level you believe is the most logical starting point for them. Keep in mind that no one begins higher than a level 4.

Abilities: For an overview of how your character's canon powers can translate to Overjoyed, please review the FAQ, powers guide and/or hit up the brainstorming meme where a mod will be happy to work with you. In short, we will only be nerfing those abilities deemed game-breaking, but will require that magical abilities translate into more scifi iterations of themselves. Additionally, you will need to classify your abilities between minor and major and explain why you chose that classification. Minor abilities will be available from day one, but major abilities can only be regained through AC purchases.

This section should also include any standard physical or mental abilities that are noteworthy about your character.

Personality: We expect this section to be thorough and as comprehensive as possible. While we understand that the nature of an AU-bending game will skew a canon personality, we ask that you refrain from heavy use of headcanon and, in the instances where you do use it, provide your logic and reference canon to back it up. Things to consider in this section: How do they react to conflict? What are their strongest traits and their weakest points? In their worst moments, what are they like? How about when they're at their best? We want to see well-rounded characters--no one is perfect and no one is completely flawed.

CRAU: Yes or no. If yes, please provide a brief summary of the world setting they're coming from, the developments and/or formative experiences that occurred during the time they were there, and a link to the game's main navigation page.

AU History: This is the section where you will blend the world setting with your character's original history. Because we realize that this isn't the easiest task, we want to make it as painless--and as fun--as possible. If you're struggling for ideas, please don't hesitate to hit up the brainstorming meme. Your history does not need to mirror canon precisely--some things just won't translate well at all, but try to stay as true to the original path as you can. The people tasked with rewriting your character's memory would try to align it as closely to true experiences as they could.

Original History:
If canon: A wiki link is sufficient as long as it covers the pertinent details and pertains to the specific universe in which you're pulling your character from (anime, manga, game, etc).

If OC: Please provide a detailed account of their life and general world setting of their original universe. If possible, try to limit this section to no more than 1000 words, but know that this is more of a general guideline for your moderators' sanity than unbending rule (so if you feel that you need to write more to convey important details, we understand).

Inventory: Items that your character had on their person at the time of leaving their universe will be permitted, though some may change form when entering Overjoyed to suit the environment (i.e., if you had a magical pocketwatch, it would probably look slightly different now.) For application purposes, please list any items within their possession at the canon point you'll be taking them from, and describe any changes the items will undergo.

Samples: Please provide either (A) a sample written within the game verse or (B) two threads, only one of which may be network, wherein at least one is set within game verse (i.e., tdm).

Miscellaneous Notes: Is there anything you would like the mods to consider that didn't quite fit into the above sections? For original characters, please note your PB here. Otherwise, feel free to add anything pertinent that didn't quite fall into the above categories.

Template

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Name:

Age:

Contact:

Preferred Pronouns:

Other Characters:

Name:

Age:

Memory Option:

Established Status:

Canon:

Canon Point:

Citizenship:

Job:

<div style="margin-left: 40px;">* Level:</div>

Abilities

Personality:

AU History:

CRAU:

Original History:

Inventory:

Samples:

Miscellaneous Notes:

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Player

Name: Laure

Age: 30+

Contact:

elvellyn

Preferred Pronouns: She/Her/ or my favorite: Ari’s wife

Character

Name: Kanda Yu

Age: 21

Memory Option: 1

Established Status: YES. Kanda has been in-verse for three years. During that time, he’s been partnered with Lavi as a Reclamation Agent team.

Canon: D. Gray Man

Canon Point: Manga chapter 217, after he agrees to become a new General in the Black Order

Citizenship: Authorized non-citizen

Job: Reclamation Agent

* Level: Four

Abilities:

Translated Personal Abilities

Passive | Enhanced Regeneration : While his canon ability originally allowed him to do such things as revive from death within 580 seconds, re-grow his entire body from cells, recover from a crushed skull, and burn off a universally fatal akuma virus, those abilities have been exhausted to a significant degree by his current canon point so his in game healing ability will reflect that. He can still heal rapidly, though to keep this balanced this will be represented as roughly double the normal human rate. It is also assisted by a sphere full of medical nanites in his chest in order to translate the canon source of his regenerative powers that had been developed by the Asian branch’s Chang family.

Minor | Blood transference: In canon, his blood is able to close and/or heal considerable wounds on others as well so this will still be the case in ‘verse – it will just be assisted by transferring those medical nanites. This aspect of his ability is outside the ‘passive’ status since it directly affects others.

Passive | Physical strength: Despite his animanga physiology, Kanda is quite strong. Canonically, he’s able to carry a man four times his size on his back and still run (this as a child) or cut akuma in half with a regular sword as opposed to using his innocence. This will still translate to being stronger than the average joe, but not excessively so. Exerting physical force over other people or objects will come with a ‘rebound’ cost. It will leave him weak for a while and slow his regeneration rate.

Passive | Speed: His regenerative abilities allow him to move faster and jump further than a normal human could. To translate, this will also be a drain on his regenerative rate, but will also be limited to, essentially, a 50% increase above the average human for movement, reaction time, and distance covered.

Passive | Expert swordsman/close combat fighter: Kanda is an expert swordsman with various forms of Japanese swords and can use them effectively in ‘boss-level’ battles. This doesn’t really need translating.

Translated Innocence (Mugen) Abilities

Innocence in his canon is a special form of weapon that can be used to destroy/purify akuma and Noah clan members alike and can only be wielded by those that have the ability to synchronize with a piece of raw Innocence. Once synchronized, however, the weapon is modified to grant the user special abilities, based largely on their synchronization rate. Those rare few that exceed 100% are considered ‘Criticals’ and usually become generals within the order, such as Kanda’s own elevation.

Mugen started as an equipment-type weapon, however, after Kanda’s return to the Order it reverted to a cube state and evolved into a crystal-type weapon. After liquefying, he drank his Innocence to re-synchronize with it. In doing so, a cross stigmata appeared on each of his forearms (that, afterwards, look like scars) before the Innocence used his own blood to reforge the blade. Mugen’s current form is near-impossible to break and has a red sheen to the blade. The translated abilities of the sword are:

Major | First Illusion: Netherworld Insects (界蟲「一幻」, Kaichū: Ichigen): This command allows Kanda to release detailed holographic ‘hell’s insects’ towards an enemy to serve as a distraction.

Major | Ripping Flash Claw (五幻・裂閃爪, Gogen Ressensou): Rather than unleashing seven sharp energy beams from his sword, this command will emit a strong electrical current when it touches an enemy.

Major | Double Illusion Sword (二幻刀, Nigentou): This command triggers the nanites used to forge the blade to release and split into two swords.

Major | Ascending Flower (昇華, Shouka lit. Sublimate): Kanda activates the nanites in his system in order to increase his speed, agility, and in-battle healing. When this happens, veins appear around his eyes

Major | Forbidden Spell: Triple Illusion (禁忌「三幻式」, Sangenshiki): Can only be used after ascending flower in that it actually forces the nanites to work at max capacity, but at the cost of destroying the nanites themselves – thus decreasing his regeneration rate/longevity.

Major | Fourth Illusion Style (四幻式, Yongenshiki): Kanda's pupils take on a silver sheen and he gains another drastic increase in speed and power, at a severe cost to his regenerative ability and significantly decreases his longevity.

Recovering from injuries incurred in this state will take twice as long as a normal human would recover from any injury.

Major | NERFED | Fifth Illusion Style (五幻式, Gogenshiki): Mugen's blade emits a large amount of dark, lightning-like energy and pushes past the max of his regeneration by essentially tearing apart his body from within. It also causes him to enter a mindless berserker state. Due to the extreme nature of this ability, it is nerfed entirely.

**While players are not required to list abilities that will not be used, this one is included to show an example of a power that would be nerfed by the mods.

Personality

His time spent as first a military experiment and then a soldier has shaped him into an extremely detached person. He often comes across as vulgar and abrasive; an exceedingly cold, ruthless and arrogant individual, with little to no respect for the lives, trials, and/or tribulations of others. When he was younger, this often manifested in an utter disregard for those weaker than him - if they fell behind in battle, he was callous enough to leave them there without a second thought. If they got in his way, he was just as likely to cut them down to remove the obstacle, rather than fight beside them.

The process of change was non-existent while he was still in the military, until he met that one annoying kid (and even then he’d stabbed the guy in the end). But the very act of saving Kanda from his own personal hell, of forcing freedom on him after such a long time, has had a considerable impact on him - it forced him to see people for who they are, rather than who he assumed them to be.

It forced him to understand that he knew very little of humanity, but that it did exist outside the rigid structure of dark-side military operations.

Even so, his personality is changing at a glacial pace.

Where once he was outright dismissive, now he’ll give a passing glance before moving on. Where once he would have shot first and not bothered with the questions later, he now attempts to assess a situation in full (or to the best of his abilities, since so very many interpersonal actions still seem a waste to him). He’s beginning, slowly, to...actually remember faces, to carry on conversations.

Regret and a debt owed have a way of giving one an altered perspective on humanity and their own place in it.

Lavi, much to Kanda’s annoyance, doesn’t leave much room for backsliding. From the beginning, he refused to call him ‘Kanda’ - only Yu, despite all of Kanda’s demands otherwise. And while that wouldn’t mean much of anything to some… Kanda is all he’s really been, from the moment he’d opened his eyes in that stasis-pod. It’s the one way Lavi has forced him to be more ‘man’ than ‘soldier’ and to this day, he still doesn’t even know if Lavi realizes it.

Bastard’s smart though, so he probably does.

His partner often fills the quiet with conversation - regardless of whether Kanda participates or not, drags him to all sort of ‘social’ places to mingle or simply observe the chaotic mesh of humanity, and challenges the way Kanda perceives the world around them with little moments of insight that Kanda would have never been able to ascertain on his own.

Small, unconscious steps bring him closer to human. But he doesn’t consider himself there, not entirely. Not that he’s fucking trying, either.

CRAU: No

AU History:

Kanda’s earliest memories are of running along the streets of Sugar Point and helping his mother tend both his baby sister and their small vegetable garden – but then, the adults became angry. When he was eight everything seemed to change. Before anyone knew it there were constant protests in the mines, pockets of violence that began cropping up between the Company enforcers and the local miners with an alarming frequency... his dad’s constant grumbles of being worked too hard for no pay.

As a child, he understood that the matter was grave, even if the nuances that defined the struggle escaped him.

At the height of the disagreement, he could remember his dad coming home, eyes manic as he boasted about people shooting someone called an ‘executive’, much to his mother’s horror. The revolutionaries had decided to celebrate their victory and called for a festival that night. He could remember the feel of his sister’s small hand in his as they followed their parents, eyes wide and curious as they watched vendors sell food and toys, their cheerful shouts drowned out by the cacophony of revelers and wandering players alike.

There were game stalls for children, where he won Akuma demon masks for both his sister and himself and what he thought were fireworks… until the lights started landing all around them, shattering buildings and people alike. The Company, it seemed, had retaliated for the executions of so many distant relatives with extreme prejudice. Their bombs razed Sugar Point to the ground, leaving a scattered maze of broken buildings and ruins before they walled off the city itself.

(Now, Sugar Point is a nest of vipers, where wild men clash with gangsters and slumlords to claim territory, but that’s another story.)

His next memory was that of waking up in a stasis chamber, wrapped in a cocoon of wires connecting his body to machines. Mother, father, and sister… all died at the hands of Company pilots, though Kanda’s own status is little better.

For the next two years, he remained captive on a black ops military vessel in space, a lamb offered to the dubious gods of science and technology aiming to create more efficient soldiers. Ones that can heal faster, move faster, sustain damages with higher pain thresholds.

Mindless cogs that look like men and fight like demons.

Two years he endured a vicious cycle of testing designed to see first how far both body and mind could be bent before it broke and how much damage could be inflicted and repaired thanks to the sphere of medical-grade nanites they’d implanted in his chest, until one of the other test subjects finally snapped. The boy had slaughtered everyone - the medical staff, the technicians, the military officials, the other test subjects until all that was left was the two of them, this boy that had attempted to befriend him. He claimed they all needed to die, to stop the testing, but surprisingly… Kanda’s will to live was stronger than his friend’s determination to kill.

After that, he was shifted from one specialized unit to the next, with the first year little more than an endless stream of planetside battles that blended together, a hazy time where broken limbs and shredded muscles heal at an exceptional rate, allow him to continue fighting long after his ‘normal’ squad mates had fallen, until they finally stopped assigning him to teams.

Three years of quasi-solo missions where he played the advance party for the regular soldiers.

By eighteen, he’d accepted that this life held no escape for him - that his loathing of the military may be fuel for his battler rage and little else, until one particularly irritating squad member tried to befriend him. The kid, around his own age, was annoying. All bright grins and polite friendliness, with his bleeding heart worn on his sleeve that just begged Kanda to punch it. Repeatedly.

Kanda had expected him to die in a day.

A year later, the kid had gotten in his way, tried to stop a bloodied battle that Kanda had been fighting with a former ally turned enemy and had been stabbed in the gut by Kanda’s own knife for the effort. Despite that, this same kid had managed to save Kanda after the battle was over - even managed to get them off planet before the next round of attacks came - only to jettison an unconscious and critically wounded Kanda from their disabled ship before sending the SOS out to a nearby non-combatant vessel. Afterwards, he’d lied to the military, told their superiors that Kanda had died when their mission had failed, and Kanda had been plucked out of the black by a Reclamation Agent.

Becoming a killjoy was an easy decision – he had no attachment to his dubious status as a citizen and this, at the very least, protected him from further military reprimand, should they ever find out he’d lived. While his skills qualified him as a Level Four from initiation, his handler had had initial misgivings because of his military background. Too often, soldiers weren’t able to transition from following orders to making snap decisions in the heat of the moment, when a swift decision determined whether the warrant was completed or failed, but Kanda displayed a situational awareness and ability to make those hard decisions that was needed to be a successful killjoy.

He’d never been that good at following orders anyway.

By the end of that year, he’d managed to gain his freedom, a ship, and a (grudgingly tolerated) partner, one Lavi Bookman, Jr. He owes that bastard for all of that and he knows it. One day, he might even have the opportunity to do something about that…

Original History: D.Gray Man wiki

Inventory: His sword, Mugen, is currently hanging on the wall in his crew quarters on their ship, along with his golem. The book containing all of General Cross and Allen Walker’s bills and Kanda’s exorcist uniform (to include the newly acquired General insignia) are locked in one of many storage containers in the cargo bay, hidden behind all others.

Samples:
Overjoyed TDM #1
Overjoyed TDM #2

Miscellaneous Notes: Their ship, Noah, will be purchased with half of his intro HP points and half of Lavi’s as agreed upon by both players OOCly.

Edited 2016-12-01 03:18 (UTC)

Player

Name: Ari

Age: 27.

Contact: Plurk; see player or mod contact page.

Preferred Pronouns: She/her.

Character

Name: Lavi "Bookman Jr." (Alias; real name unknown.)

Age: 21

Memory Option: 1

Established Status: 3 Years

Canon: D. Gray-man (Manga)

Canon Point: Ch 207

Citizenship: None; reclamation agent or authorized non-citizen.

Job: Killjoy

* Level: 3

Edited 2016-12-04 04:55 (UTC)

Congratulations! You've been accepted into Overjoyed.

We’re so excited to have you join our community. Before we can get started, please do the following:

Request to join the following communities: Logs · Network · OOC · Memes

Friend the mod account, thenine, and respond to the player contact page.

Reply to the taken page.

Fill out the job registry.

(Optional) Follow the mod plurk here to stay up to date about upcoming plots, community discussions, and more!

(Optional) Put your application, IC contact/inbox, and permissions post in your journal, then introduce yourself to the OOC community!

First Round Only: See welcome post on the OOC community for more information on pre-game start activity.

All characters will start with a balance of 100 bonus HP. This balance can be used towards AC bank purchases, but may not be used for satisfying monthly AC requirements.

If you have any further questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to us by PM or on the contact page.

Once again, we’re so happy to have you, and thanks for joining us!

Yours,
Overjoyed Mods

Player

Name: Christy

Age: 25

Contact:

swagu

Preferred Pronouns: female pronouns!

Character

Name: Handsome Jack

Age: 42

Memory Option: One, with a full AU

Established Status: Yes — Jack has been here for five IC years.

Canon: Borderlands

Canon Point: In between The Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 2

Citizenship: Westerley, as an employee of the Company

Job: General managerial position at the Prisoner Intake Facility

Abilities
Jack is a normal enough dude, so there are no phenomenal cosmic powers for him. Instead, Jack's talents lie in his intelligence, since despite his personality that might suggest otherwise, Jack is extremely intelligent. He's very gifted with programming, technology, and engineering (roughly in that order), and anything to do with these subjects tends to come fairly naturally to him. However, these skills might not be very well known if only because Jack largely uses his smarts in management. He has a natural talent for leading people, and he tends to use his technological expertise as a supplement rather than something he brags about at the forefront. That said, physically speaking, he is in shape and above average in strength for a man of his age, though not extraordinarily so. He's also a decent shot, but onnly very slightly above average in this area.

Also, as one of the items in his inventory, Jack's class mod (the pocketwatch looking thing) also allows him to be invisible, but not undetectable when he activates it. You can see it in use in his boss fight here. It's completely technological in origin, however, and explained in a fair amount of detail! It was developed from Stalkers, which are (potentially) invisible enemies in Borderlands. Stalkers are able to appear invisible by creating an electrical field that allows them to blend in with the environment, and Jack's class mod presumably works very similarly, though it does seem to be indefinite, whereas the Stalkers' is not. That said, if something comes into contact with the electrical field, it does tamper the distortion effect enough to make an outline visible, and the invisibility is seemingly purely for vision, so anything that might sense heat or electricity would be able to see through it.

Similarly, though I'm not sure if he'd actually be able to use it, Jack does have a dataport just under his ear. In canon, this would allow him to essentially put data into his brain or convert thoughts to data (the process isn't super clear). The port allows him to work with technology a little more directly, and though they're somewhat common in canon, I'm fine with him not having as much use in game!

Otherwise, his main ability would be making terrible jokes pretty much constantly. He's a walking shitpost, and that's a talent.

Personality:
The first thing you're likely to notice about Jack is that he's an awful, terrible person. It's not exactly something he hides, and in fact, he almost seems to be proud of it. He's an egotistic maniac who is seemingly amoral and unhinged, and without a doubt, he's dangerous. He has the kind of immediate impression that you have to wonder how he got to hold any power at all, because who in their write mind would give it to someone like Jack? That question is where you start to dig into more of who he is as a person, because even though he's a monster, he wasn't always so blatant about it.

Earlier in his life (during the events of The Pre-Sequel), Jack was much more normal and down-to-Earth. The events of that game change him into the man he is today, and if you're curious, there's a personality section for this canonpoint here, which provides a bit more background on who he was before. However, it's important to note that while he was certainly a better person, he was never a good person. The events of The Pre-Sequel push Jack into his characteristic insanity for this canonpoint, but it wasn't something that came out of nowhere. Every bit of who Jack is today is an exaggerated version of who he once was.

One of the largest motivations for Jack is a massive hero complex that's always been a part of him. Jack is someone who genuinely wants to do good and help the world be a better place, but as he's gotten older, that desire has gotten quite twisted. In the world of Borderlands, there are hard choices that have to be made because of the harshness of the environment. Jack wants to be a hero because the world he lives in is unforgiving and cruel, and his vision is optimistic and idyllic to the point of seeming naive. Jack wants to create a utopia where people can live peacefully, and to do so, he's willing to do whatever it takes.

In canon, part of Jack's moral decline comes from making these kinds of choices like sacrificing an ally for the sake of thousands of lives. There's a ruthless calculus in many of Jack's decisions, and that's true even after his decline. Jack may seem impulsive and emotional, and at times, this is true, but he's actually far more logical and cunning than he might give off. Jack believes in the idea of sacrificing a few for the good of the many, but this gets to be less tragically noble when combined with the fact that he also has no problems assigning value to some lives over others. This is worsened as he gets older and loses more of his original motivations. Jack assigns very harsh values to lives to the point of not assigning any value whatsoever to people he considers truly lesser. At the start, this is only Bandits, the people who lost their minds and have essentially gone feral, but by this canonpoint, anyone who opposes Jack falls into the category of being a Bandit. The people of the planet he's ravaging have very little worth, so it's fine to sacrifice their lives for the sake of "better" people by his measure.

This leads into another major part of who Jack is, and it's the fact that he's absolutely delusional in his hero complex. Jack genuinely and truly believes that what he's doing is the best thing for everyone, even if they may not see it right now. Jack has certainty in himself and his actions because he'll create little narratives to suit it. He even calls himself the hero often, and to the hero of the story, anyone that opposes him is clearly the villain that needs to be taken down. It's a harsh black and white in Jack's mind, and he'll manage to twist things around to fit that idea. Another example of this lies with his daughter. Jack has kept her locked up for most of her life and eventually used her natural powers for his own personal gain, which leads to her killing herself both to help the player character(s) of Borderlands 2, but also to escape her father's control. But Jack never understands this. He believes that by keeping her away from people, he's keeping her safe, and that by using her powers for himself, she's really just helping him achieve that goal of utopia that will benefit them both.

His delusional mindset also extends to his view of himself, and you can see that down to his very name. Handsome Jack is the moniker that Jack takes on, and in that, it's clear that he's an egotistic narcissist. This is a delusion in itself, but also ties into some of Jack's major flaws. Despite being so delusionally sure of himself, Jack is also fairly insecure. His harsh response to people that question him seems to be because he can't handle people challenging his viewpoints and potentially bringing that delusion to a crash. He doesn't respond well to insults that have a bite with them, and he'll tend to over respond to people that he feels have wronged him, which is quite dangerous. After all, Jack also has an extremely vicious and ruthless temper. It can burn very hot or very cold, but once that temper of his is set off, it's extremely dangerous for anyone around him.

So, with all of these massive character flaws in mind, how did he get to that position? How is Jack so admired? That, as it turns out, comes down to a natural charisma.

Jack is extremely charismatic, even if it's the kind of charisma that's not the typical sort you might expect. Jack is extroverted, driven, and funny, all three of which are qualities that make him surprisingly easy to talk to and even admire. Jack's delusional belief in himself does have a positive in that sense, because it's the source of his drive. Jack believes that everything is possible for him with enough work, and it's that hard, clever work (and some brutal violence) that gets him to his position in Hyperion. He's admirable in that way, because he came from nothing and made quite a lot of himself. Then even though he has twisted views on people, he's absolutely a people person all the same. He loves being around people, and he loves to make people laugh too, which is why he tends to speak in the odd way that he does. He's the kind of person that will absolutely harass people until they laugh, which tends to be his way to get people to like him. After all, he does love to be loved--It supports and bolsters that ego of his very nicely.

It's also not as frequent as it was in his younger years because Jack is rather paranoid about people trying to usurp him, but Jack is very trusting and puts a lot of faith in people. He may not believe that people will do the good or right thing (by his measures of both) naturally, but once someone has proven themselves to him as someone intelligent, useful, or simply trustworthy, his own loyalty is surprisingly strong. Once Jack cares for someone, it's quite steadfast to the point of being overwhelming, because this ties back into his insecurity. Jack may be able to draw people in with his oddly amiable yet also abrasive personality, but he has very few friends because he's reluctant to let people close. So when he does let someone in, Jack's attention can be overwhelming and dangerous. After all, if Jack has a very lose definition of betrayal, and if Jack ever feels he's betrayed, he'll stop at nothing to make that person suffer for hurting him.

Overall, the impression that you get Jack is going to depend entirely on how he views you. With his delusional outlook on himself and on life, there aren't exactly many people above him, but people closer to him are treated relatively well. He makes off-color jokes as easily as he breathes, but he's more the asshole friend than anything else. He has admirable qualities, after all, and his drive and optimism for a better tomorrow make him someone very good at whatever he puts his mind to. He can be easy to get along with... So long as you don't mind how he treats people he considers lesser. After all, to them, he's nothing short of an insane, manic tyrant. They're simply irrelevant to Jack and can be sacrificed for that better tomorrow, since in his view, it's not as if they were ever going to see it or benefit from it in the first place. He can be callous and cruel, killing and torturing people because he enjoys it, but it fits into that perfect narrative that he's constructed for his life.

After all, the perfect, storybook hero doesn't exist. You can't be a hero without getting your hands bloody, and that's an idea that Jack embraces far more than he should.

AU History:
Jack's history begins with his family. The Marten family was one of the families drawn in by the promise of the Seventh Generation Accord, and John "Jack" Marten is one the last of his family sworn to work for the Company. Like many of his peers facing the fact that their children might be free, Jack has a plan, but his plan has always been a bit more radical than most...

Jack had a difficult childhood, having been raised by his grandmother. His mother left him with his grandmother at a young age and simply never returned, and Jack never knew and still doesn't know just who his father is. Jack’s mother may still be in the mines, having tried to run from her contract with the Company, but Jack neither knows nor cares, though it’s a popular rumor. However, rather than a kindly grandmother, Jack's was anything but. His grandmother had once worked for the Company herself, and out of a sense of trying to give Jack purpose or a way out, she had tried to push him towards becoming a Scarback in his adulthood. Jack's grandmother raised him strictly, which gave him a sense of order, but because of her own ideas of what she should be, her punishment were physically abusive when she used a special tool with the idea of getting Jack ready for the scarification she felt he'd need to be ready for. Unsurprisingly, Jack holds a large amount of resentment for the Scarbacks as a result, though only his grandmother knows why, since he'd never speak of it himself.

Growing up, Jack had dreams of becoming a Killjoy, finding the work heroic and freeing, but he found that he had a talent for technology. Jack threw himself into programming, engineering, and any kind of technology he could get a hold of, instead shifting his focus as he grew older from becoming a Killjoy to truly throwing himself into working for the Company. He developed a great deal of skill in these areas, and though he was hardly a prodigy, he did have a natural talent for the work, and he jumped at his first opportunity to be able to leave home and work for the Company. It was a way to both leave his grandmother behind and give her a giant middle finger. Jack started working for the Company as soon as they would hire him, and he's never considered any other kind of work since.

He started out low in the Company, doing general programming, but was able to make his way up through the ranks with a healthy combination of hard work and blackmail. After all, Jack's skill with technology was something he tended to purposefully underplay, since Jack had always known he was facing different prospects compared to coworkers. The Marten family didn't have any particular influence where he could count on nepotism to aspire to something better (in fact, the reputation was rather negative considering how his mother disappeared), so he took this into his own hands. When Jack saw opportunity, he would hack into Company servers and take what juicy bits he could find and use against his superiors quietly. Early on, Jack had no intention of making waves by doing this, but simply wanted to have more respect.

However, this changed when Jack started a family of his own.

Though Jack was naturally ambitious, his ambition changed completely when he got married and had a child. Jack very naturally fell into the position of a father, and though his own childhood had been troubled, he enthusiastically threw himself into being the best father and husband he could be. He was a family man, and though he was still loyal to the Company to a fault, having a daughter changed his outlook on the accord that he was bound to. Now that his daughter would be the one who would benefit from Claimant Day, Jack's ambition aligned to make sure that when that day came, it would be the kind of world that his daughter would be safe and happy in. Jack's fervor in his work became more pronounced, because unlike some of his coworkers, he felt rebellion wasn't the answer. So far as Jack was concerned, it was stupid to expect that the Company would actually honor the request, or at least fully, so it quickly became his goal to try and inspire change from within... At least in a sense. Jack is a Company man through and through, so while he does genuinely want the promise to be honored for the sake of his own daughter, he also quietly feels it would be beneficial to cut out those who aren't quite deserving, largely meaning Westies who he judges to be unwilling to work and make an honest living.

Though this had always been his quiet thought, it became much more pronounced after a personal tragedy when his daughter was young. Though Jack had always had a negative opinion of Westies despite being one himself (though this is a fact he doesn’t tend to speak about, considering himself better than the rest), this was intensified when his wife was killed in an act of essentially random crime. Jack's focus shifted once again after this event, and it's after this that Jack managed to stumble into the work that he still excels at today. After putting out a warrant for the Westie that was responsible, Jack found a purpose and opportunity in that system instead of working on the tech he had been. Though most people tended to work at the Intake Facility out of a lack of other options, Jack specifically requested to work there as a part of his plan to deal with the Westie who he placed a warrant on. Hardly having the resources to place a kill warrant on them (and probably not wanting to anyways), Jack instead took to the work solely for the sake of killing that person himself once they were turned inThis began the process of climbing the ranks in the relatively unpopular and undesirable Facility much more quickly than he had been in more tech-oriented sectors.

Jack quickly started to ascend the ranks there, but ran into trouble about five years ago when a manager in the Facility realized Jack's ambition and his ability to seize them. Trying to make sure that Jack wouldn't be able to usurp his position or move any of those ambitious, optimistic plans for reforming what Claimant Day might look like, his superior placed a warrant on Jack's head. Jack was able to escape with his life with thanks to some RAC agents of his own (since he's a paranoid kind of guy who had anticipated that someone might place a warrant on his head eventually), but not without injury. Jack's face was badly burned in the process, and this, combined with the fact that the assailants were agents Jack had hired before and (probably unreasonably) had trusted started to send him on a downward spiral. It was clear enough by the sudden death of his superior, and though Jack was never caught, there's a popular rumor that Jack killed him himself.

Of course, being rather vain, Jack decided to look into some of his biotech contacts, who not only made Jack the mask that makes him quite a distinct figure, but also performed the surgery to mount the hinges that keep it on his face. It was with the mask that Jack started to go by Handsome Jack, which is the subject of plenty of jokes, but they're definitely not the ones you want Jack to catch wind of. After all, the name seems to be daring people to make fun of it, because with a new, much more ruthless and much less trusting outlook on life, the people of the Facility that go against him tend to just disappear. And this is what the Jack of today is infamous for. While he's quite excellent at managing his parts of the Facility, he does so with a tyrannical ferocity. Anyone that steps out of line is "dealt with" however Jack sees fit.

Similarly, it's not unheard of for Jack to reach out to RAC agents to have people sent to his section of the Facility in particular. He tends to do so only for the worst of criminals, which makes him something of a polarizing figure. For some, he is a hero, because he pursues the worst of criminals to bring justice to the people that they wrong, and he's especially well known and admired for his dedication within the Company. In fact, because of his successes, he’s quickly undoing the reputation of the Marten family past. However, to most, he's the very worst that the Company has to offer, because while he may pay to place lucrative warrants on criminals, the more innocuous offenders that have the bad luck to come across him in his work are rarely the same if they leave at all. Most Westies are scum, so far as he’s concerned. Even so, Jack is also unpopular because of his more ruthless approach. Though he won’t have people “killed in accidents” without what he considers a good reason, there’s a quiet market for Jack finishing jobs that were too expensive for someone to buy a kill warrant.

Still, this is just the beginning of Jack's story, His daughter is getting older, though she lives in expensive isolation on Leith. Though Jack puts all of his ambition into proving to the Company that he's an asset worth rewarding, his ambition is nearly limitless. If he could get to the top of the Company and change everything to be exactly how he pictures it for that ideal of the utopia that people were promised, he would do so without hesitation, no matter how many people were hurt along the way.

CRAU: N/A

Original History:
Right over here!

Inventory:

- a godawful dad outfit
- a terrifying mask
- a Hyperion pistol
- his class mod, which is the watch-like item on his chest

Samples:
TDM if the replies count as separate threads...! But if it's not enough, just let me know and I'd be happy to write a sample for the A option!

Miscellaneous Notes:
Just a general note that if there are details in the AU history that don't quite jive with Killjoys, let me know! I wanted to stick close to his Borderlands history since that's easiest for me, but not being canon familiar with the other half here, I'm super not married to the history and I'm definitely open to changes/suggestions if they're needed!

Edited 2016-12-07 17:51 (UTC)

(CW for suicide mentions, as it is part of Leo's canon history.)

Player

Name: Monica

Age: 25

Contact:

staves

Preferred Pronouns: She/Her

Character

Name: Leo Elster

Age: Early twenties, presumed to be 22

Memory Option: 1

Established Status: 1 year

Canon: Humans

Canon Point: Post Series One

Citizenship: Westie

Job: MOSTLY A HOBO— wait. No. He works for The Company as a cafe waiter. Actually also an informant to Takasugi who seeks revenge against The Company.

Abilities: As Leo is a hybrid, he does not have all the abilities of an actual synth. He can't access the internet in his head, nor does he have an internal GPS. His very existence is reliant on energy, as well as his pumping heart. He has a charging port on the left side of his abdomen, which gives him energy.

He also has a digitised memory, which means he can't forget anything, and everything he sees and feels gets recorded in his brain and can be played back if he's wired to something.

He's also very good at hacking and programming!

Personality:
Leo grew up in a very secluded home. His mother was sick ever since he was a child, and his father thought it best to buy a home away from the city where only few people could come in. It's why Leo hardly had friends, and even though he lived under the same roof as his parents, they were barely there for him. Growing up, he became introverted and lonely. Cold and aloof. Taciturn.

Whenever he had to talk to people, it was with a tough exterior. He's lost most of his faith in humanity and finds it very difficult to trust others. Basically, he isn't a very easy person to deal with. For most of his adolescent years, he spent them running and being away from civilisation, only communicating and spending time with his new family—a family of synthetic robots, rather than humans. It's why he's rather ambivalent with regards to working with humans or even being around them. When he does have to talk to humans, he usually uses sharp tongue and bad sense of humour (it's really bad) to the point that most of what he says comes off as sarcasm. And sometimes, he even uses hostility to communicate. He really has great people skills.

When he was thirteen, his mother broke away from the care of her nurses and took Leo with her in her car and drove off and got into an accident. This accident led to both of them drowning and dying, but one of the synths his father created saved him and brought him back to shore. He was in a coma for a good while until he woke up as a half-human, half-synth hybrid. Upon waking up and becoming part-synth, he found out that all his memories have been digitised, meaning he can't ever forget anything and that his memories can be played out as long as he is plugged in. It's his synthetic brain that's affected him a whole lot, what with him being able to relive his death over and over again. He's more stable now regarding the whole ordeal, but it still haunts him and has changed the way he thinks about life.

He believes that humans are supposed to remember the good memories to get rid, or at least, not remember the bad memories so much. And it's because he literally can't forget that he's developed such a pessimistic way of thinking. While good things still happen to him, the bad memories weigh over him much more. Often times, he drinks alcohol until he passes out because when he isn't in the right state of mind, he could forget about his death and all the awful things that has happened in his life, even for a short while.

Leo has a lot of issues about his existence as he's the only human-synth hybrid. Frankly, none of the scientists even thought something like Leo could be possible, but he is. Whenever he sees his naked body, he gets emotional and sometimes cries about how he doesn't know where he belongs. Is he a human, or a synth? He grew up in a home full of synths as his father created his "family" to take care of him because he and his mother can't, and he identifies with them a lot especially now that he is almost one. He sides with the synths more than humans, wanting and yearning for synthetics to be accepted in society as actual contributors and to not just be treated as something—someone—disposable. Despite his negative way of thinking, he still hopes and dreams of living in a world where humans and synths (with or without consciousness) lived together without any violence. In a way, Leo has this childlike way of thinking.

While Leo may present himself as cold and indifferent, he's actually a very emotional person. He only shows this side of him to his synth family, who has taken care of him and has been with him since he was a child. He can actually get very impatient at times, even showing aggression when he can't get what he wants right away. And when things don't go his way and he's given up hope (which doesn't take very long, truth be told), he starts yelling and goes off on his own, not even caring about where he'll end up in. Not even caring for his own safety. He also loves his synth family a lot—so much that he would do anything for them. What drives him to continue to stay alive is the fact that his synth family needs him and that he also needs them. What makes him keep moving is the idea of living in a happy home with his synth family. They're his whole world.

Having been raised by robots, Leo barely knows how to be human. While in his synth family, he supposedly has a younger brother (Max was built when Leo was 12-13, and looks like he's in his early twenties), he's still treated as the precious one. After all, the synths were built to cater to Leo's needs and be there for him as both his parents could not. It's why he's grown up to be a bit bratty and dependent on his family, truth be told. Not to mention, he lacks social skills and his strange sense of humour doesn't really help anybody. He's been told that he's weird by Mattie, a human he was seeking help from. It bothers him a little at first, but eventually, he concedes that he is. He's just too focused on his family that he forgets about the other things, even taking care of himself.

Even though Leo is mostly abrasive, he's fully aware that he does shut people out. He's aware that he doesn't trust humans, and that he mostly relies on himself to do everything. And even though he does have an unpleasant personality, there are still people who wish to get to know him better or to be his friend. He's even apologised to Mattie for pushing her away when all she was trying to do was help. In a way, being exposed to more people and having to work together with them is slowly uncovering the child inside him. He wants to have friends, to have people to depend on, but he knows that the situation he's in doesn't give him a chance to do any of those. It's why his vulnerability is also easily taken advantage of. Pandering to his weaknesses will gain his eventual trust, and the tough cookie cracks.

On the surface, Leo is one of those quiet, brooding types. He can be nice, and he wants to be nice and be surrounded by people he cares about and who care about him, but he's too afraid to place his trust in people. There will be times when he'll let people in, but that's only if he can tell that the other can do something for him or if he's getting anything good out of it.

AU History: (I know I commented to the brainstorming meme with ideas, but I figured out something else that could be more interesting for his character arc. Hopefully this is okay!)

David Elster was a leading doctor who researched mostly on robotics and android-related sciences. In fact, he was the leading doctor for hack-modded people. David was even known for modding his own son, Leo. What David did was experiment on his brain and turn it into something digital to keep him alive. Some of Leo's body parts were changed into a robot's parts as well, which then meant that he needed to charge every now and then just to stay alive. But this was all when Leo was just born. Leo grew up believing that he was 100% human, but has a port just because he was very sickly as a child and this was David's only way of saving him.

David's research was well-known throughout the Quad, and he was revered by many other scientists for it. Unfortunately, one of his sons, Fred—which Leo will believe to be his elder brother when in canon, David Elster only has one son—drowned and died. It was said that David Elster turned that son into a full android, losing his humanity. And that was when things changed. It was illegal, of course, which then made him lose his place in The Company. Scandals were everywhere regarding David Elster, and because of this, he killed Fred and then himself, leaving poor Leo Elster behind to take care of his sick mum.

Beatrice Elster, on the other hand, was Leo and Fred's sickly mum. She was sickly in the psychotic way, and because the Elster name basically got screwed, Leo had a very difficult time taking care of her. He was only thirteen when all of this happened too. He had to take up all sorts of jobs just to be able to feed both him and her. He always hid his family name whenever he introduced himself, but at times that he couldn't, he was beat up for it or heavily scolded for even having the gall to try and find a job at their business.

Life wasn't easy for Leo Elster growing up. And eventually, Beatrice's sickness was just too much that she tried killing both herself and Leo, but she only succeeded in the former. It hadn't even been a year since David passed away, and that happened. This memory of his constantly haunted him and he always dreamt of being hunted down by Beatrice. It was, of course, a traumatising experience and one that he would not want to happen again, but it keeps haunting him in his dreams.

Alone and having a difficult time trying to keep himself fed and clothed and to have a roof on his head, he turned to the resistance. Or rather, a group who sought vengeance against The Company. He works for The Company doing various small jobs for small wages, but he also served as an informant of sorts because many people come and go at the cafe he works for. He gets to hear all sorts of things, which helps him a lot. He gets money for it, and those against The Company get what they need.

CRAU: N

Original History: Leo at the Humans wiki

Inventory: A wire that can connect him to various ports (computers, TVs, electrical sockets)

Samples:
Link one
Link two

Miscellaneous Notes: n/a

Edited 2016-12-04 03:00 (UTC)

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First Round Only: See welcome post on the OOC community for more information on pre-game start activity.

Player

Name: Justine

Age: 25

Contact:

batsecretary

Preferred Pronouns: She/her

Player

Name: Val
Age: 26
Contact: PM to this journal, private plurks to

speedforce
Preferred Pronouns: She/her, "that weirdo"

Character

Name: Riza Hawkeye
Age: 29 (28 in canon + 1 year established)
Memory Option: 1 — AU Memory Deterioration
Established Status: Yes — 1 year spent working for the Company
Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist, manga
Canon Point: End of Chapter 83
Citizenship: Westerley, formerly Leithian
Job: Company Enforcer, focused primarily on border control

Abilities

Canonically, Riza's wholly human and possesses not an ounce of supernatural ability in any direction. Thus, her skills would consist entirely of learned skills, ones that she naturally would have picked up during her time in the military:

SHARPSHOOTER — Very well-versed and highly efficient with firearms of any kind. She almost never misses her mark, giving rise to the nickname "The Hawk's Eye". (As an aside, the nickname is also due to her uncanny ability to notice whenever someone around her is slacking off.)
BATTLE TACTICS/COVERT OPERATIONS — She basically spends four years of her life in canon planning and carrying out a secret rebellion against the government. She knows what she's doing.
HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT/SELF-DEFENSE — Pretty self-explanatory, though I imagine she's only about average at it and obviously outclassed by anyone bigger/stronger than her.
FAMILIARITY WITH MOST COMMON WEAPONS — Bombs, hand grenades, knifes, etc. Obviously bigger/more complicated pieces of tech are probably a little out of her range of expertise but she could probably give them a good try.

Other stuff......she is apparently an adept driver in canon, which I'd like to at least translate into motorcycles and rovers in Overjoyed. Also has an exceptionally good sense of direction - she's shown walking underground without any sort of landmark and later is able to mark her path on a map using only the length of her steps and her knowledge from before she went underground.

Personality:

First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye is the model of a perfect soldier - attentive and alert, capable of maintaining her composure even in high pressure situations, and ever responsible even when it comes to finishing mountains of unexciting paperwork. She's quite intelligent, able to put two and two together in investigations, and is always polite to fellow military personnel, always addressing them by their proper rank and title. Unlike several of her fellow officers, she doesn't nap while in the office, shirk on paperwork, or use the military phone lines for personal conversations entirely unrelated to work; in fact, she tends to chastise this behavior in others, particularly in the case of her direct superior Colonel Roy Mustang. Her professionalism borders on strictness in these cases and it's given rise to Riza's nickname of "the colonel's scary bodyguard" in the office, though one that's only ever murmured whenever she's out of earshot.

Speaking of the colonel, Riza's dedication to him is absolute. The two of them have a long history together - Riza's father was Roy's teacher in alchemy, and Roy was the one who assisted her with funeral arrangements after her father's death. It's at her father's grave that Roy reveals his true wishes - to use both his military and alchemy skills to help protect others. It's a dream that Riza finds to be "wonderful" and shortly afterwards she joins the military academy, likely in part due to Roy's naive dreams. However, the skills she learns at the military academy are ultimately put to less pleasant uses: during her final year at the academy she's shipped out to the front lines and forced to murder hundreds of civilians in an extermination effort more gracefully named the Ishval Civil War. Ultimately the war itself ends, but the war inside Riza does not. Even to this day, she carries the weight of the crimes she committed during the war. However, she refuses to ask for forgiveness or atonement for her actions, stating that to do such a thing would be disrespectful to those who had died. Instead, she continues to move forward, continuing to use her skills so future generations won't have to kill as she has—and so she can protect and ensure the fruition of Roy's dreams, in which both the military and the secrets to alchemy are used for protection instead of destruction.

Though Riza can come across as intimidating or even cruel, in actuality Riza's quite kind, particularly towards animals and children. While she doesn't go around adopting every single animal on the street, she does take in a dog one of her fellow officers finds on the street but is unable to keep himself, despite being the one to tell him not to take in stray animals if he can't keep them. She also has a protective streak towards the Elric brothers, always asking after their health whenever she catches them in town and making sure they're as safe as possible, whether this means sending an escort with them during times of danger or watching over their safety herself. Her kindness isn't just limited to those younger than herself, but also to her fellow officers. After one of her fellow officers is put in the hospital and loses use of his legs, Riza visits him and encourages him not to lose hope in either himself or the colonel. Riza's softer side also shows in her decision not to eschew her femininity entirely. On her days off, she does her errands while wearing skirts (despite the fact that she herself admits skirts are less practical due to their limited movement) and she also chooses to grow her long after meeting Winry the first time around and deciding it wouldn't be such a bad idea.

It's important to note that for Riza, kindness does not equate to withholding heavy or burdensome information. She questions Roy's decision in lying about Hughes' death to Edward and Alphonse, asking him if it really was a kind thing to do, and doesn't conceal the truth about the Ishval War when Edward shows up at her door and asks her about it. Along the same vein, she doesn't try and make excuses for the fact that she kills people for a living when questioned about it by Winry several years prior. Instead of hiding behind excuses or using her guilt as a cover, Riza elects instead to come to terms with the mistakes she's made and her inexcusable actions during the war. She's the one who chose the path she did and thus she must be responsible for her actions and bear the weight of her own guilt. This manifests in an overly serious nature, though Riza is not wholly without humor, nor is she without her own particular brand of stubbornness. She's not afraid to - politely - disobey the orders of those ranking above her and also has no qualms with calling people out in situations where they're clearly acting without thinking. In rare moments, usually around friends or others she trusts, she displays a dry humor, unafraid to gently mock people or point out the obvious when it is missed by others.

How this all translates to Overjoyed: For the most part, her personality will be largely unchanged, with her guilt over her actions during the Ishval War tweaked slightly to be guilt over her actions while with the Company (since they're not exactly the most righteous of folks sometimes....). She will be a little more closed off in terms of her relationships with others due to the slightly tougher atmosphere of the Company and the Nine, and more willing to be decisive rather than waiting to follow orders, due to the lack of Roy Mustang in her life in Overjoyed. Instead, the largest tie she has right now is to her father, still living in-game.

AU History:

Fairy tales are forgiving; reality, less so.

At least, that's what her father had always told her at night each time she'd asked why Mommy wasn't with them anymore, why she never saw any of her grandparents and cousins the way the other children did. Mommy was gone, poisoned by one of the Nine - "those bastards" - and their hatred of anything that wasn't well groomed, expertly coiffed, and perfect in every way.

Riza would learn later that her mother had died of illness, and that the family that had sent her to Leith for daring to consort with a "dirty Westie" had actually sent medicine, albeit a few days too late. But her father had always been a little paranoid, seeing things where nothing existed, and he cut off all contact with them shortly afterwards, prohibited her from going out and mingling with the rest of the lesser Nine that inhabited their town. Not just because he hated them, but because he had a secret, one he hid in a safe place no one would ever think to look: his daughter. Be careful, he whispered, don't let them find out about you, he warned, and because she was young and naive and a child desperately in want of her father's attention, she listened.

So she grew up lonely, with only the books in the library and the growing dreams in her head. Eventually they left Leith and went back to Westerley's grime-filled streets, dangerous in their own right but in a far more blunt and honest way. Her father tinkered with his projects and she helped where she could, and though she loved her father, part of her longed for something better than a life under her father's shadow.

The answer came in the form of a snippet of conversation, filtering through an open window one muggy summer day. A group of boys eagerly discussing their trip out to the military camps within the week, most of them excited to fire a gun in order to prove their balls had dropped but one of them eager to tinker with the tech, make sure artillery and shields were in working order. It piqued her interest, enough for her to broach the subject with her father. He approved, encouraged her to go ahead and try something different, though he never did tell her it was more for the connections and the information that he wanted her to go, rather than out of any real support for her.

Turns out she didn't end up as engineer in the backseat, didn't even come close. A surprise ambush revealed a cool head under pressure and alarming accuracy and precision with a firearm. (Alarming and soft-bellied—her first kill left her folded halfway over a bush, retching up her breakfast from earlier while trying to hold back tears.) But as with all things, even killing became easier with practice, her hand shaking less each time she pulled the trigger and her eyes seeing quicker and quicker the exact location on the body she'd have to hit to kill instead of wound. Along with her queasiness, her youthful naivete also faded as her eyes took in more and more of reality's underbelly - the corruption, the abuse of power, the rumors that spread in hushed whispers of illegal experiments carried out in a secret dungeon no one would ever see. Eventually she tired of it, and with a record of good service and no black marks, was discharged home.

But home was not the same place she'd left it five years ago. Her house was a pile of ash and her father a prisoner, accused of leading a local group of Resistance and sentenced to death. In a panic, she went to the Company, bartered her life - or more accurately, her services - for her father's. They agreed, though not without a price: her father was to be kept under surveillance, and she was to follow orders without so much as a peep.

Which she did, albeit with great difficulty that first year. The Company does not forgive traitors or even those with an ounce of evident doubt in their heart. They gave her a series of tests to shake her loyalty, task after dirty task to see if she would tuck tail and run. She passed them all. And so they cut her loose, assured of her devotion to their cause.

Since then she's kept her head down, done as she's told with precision and promptness, and has found herself with a tidy rank affixed before her name and a measure of trust she's careful not to break in order to keep the citizens on the streets of Westerley - and more importantly, her father - safe.

CRAU: No

Original History: here's a wiki!

Inventory:

Two pistols, altered slightly into sleeker sci-fi pistols
A hair barrette, now a fancy hair pin
A pair of earrings
Her clothes but that seems like a given

Samples:

TDM thread in which I have no idea what I'm doing
Second (TDM) verse, worse (and way shorter) than the first
Thread from a different game, because these TDM threads are questionable at best

Miscellaneous Notes: I'd like to spend all 100 of my starting HP into getting a pet regain for Riza. In canon she has a black Shiba Inu named Black Hayate. In Overjoyed, he'll actually be a black German Shepherd mix named Roy with otherwise the same history, if that's alright!

Also I heard y'all liked cat gifs. Here is a cat gif to make up for this absolutely horrific app:

EDIT: I just realized I posted with a different journal than the one I reserved with, I swear this is still the same person.

Edited (i'm a disaster tonight) 2016-12-04 04:49 (UTC)

Character

Name: Kára Styrdóttir

Age: Pushing 1000, looks in her early 20s, gonna be like nebulously in her mid-twenties in game

Memory Option: 1

Established Status: Yes, for almost a year. She's been keeping to herself working at Eulogy while occasionally meeting with Killjoys and Resistance members to trade information.

Canon: Original

Canon Point: 21st Century, after the Masquerade is dropped

Citizenship: Originally from a moon called Svergie, with fake papers for Westerley if that is… okay

Job: Security at Eulogy, part-time information broker, low-key Resistance informant/member

Abilities:

• Immortality/invulnerability (minor): Kara can die, but it's a hard task to manage (headshots or massive bodily trauma will do it). She doesn't age, heals quicker than a human, can take harder hits without it damaging her, is mostly immune to poisons and can't get sick. In canon this is magic, in game it will be due to nanos and some minor genetic modification done by the military.

• Enhancements (I want to say minor? But maybe major): She's slightly stronger and faster than a human, with reflexes and stamina to match. Basically for someone who's like 5'4 she fights as though she's built like The Rock. A result of genetic modification in game.

• Wings (minor): More magic in canon but in game these will have been grafted on by the military as a genetic mod experiment; they're a combo of lab grown flesh/bones with cybernetic wiring to hook them into her brain. Her top speed is 90mph but she can't maintain it for more than a couple of minutes, and her average speed is about 50mph. She can fly for about an hour at a low speed with a good wind, but longer than that and she just tends to pass out from exhaustion. She's still learning to properly control them. The cybernetics also include a cloaking device.

• She's an ex-soldier, so she knows how to handle most weaponry as well as hand to hand combat, and tactical/recon knowledge and abilities.

Personality:

Kara is, in one word, old. While not necessarily a personality trait, her age does influence a lot of her personality. Being somewhere around 1000 years old means that Kara has been around for a long time, and she's seen pretty much everything there is to see. As a result she tends to be very pragmatic dealing with situations, especially those involving humans. It influences how she relates to people, how she lives her life, how she thinks about the world. A lot of the time, she likes being immortal and appreciates having been able to experience so much. There's a part of Kara that really admires humanity, despite the fact she tends to act as though she looks down on them. Watching how humanity has grown is fascinating to her and she respects it, the same way she respects how much they can pack into their tiny little lives.

Immortality has given her maybe too much time to create a persona for herself. Which is to say that a lot of how Kara acts isn't genuine, or at least not entirely genuine, despite the fact she claims to prefer honesty. She will be honest with people, but only if it doesn't require her to admit anything about herself.

That's partly why her relationships with people are kept purposefully casual. She hasn't had a romantic relationship for an incredibly long time, and doesn't really plan to have one in the future. She also doesn't really have friends, there's just people whose names she happens to remember, or who she'll go for a drink with if they promise to pay, but she doesn't make a habit of forming any sort of emotional connection. Before most of them retreated with the gods, she was close to her fellow valkyries, but it's been a long time since she's seen most of them. It doesn't necessarily bother her, but she does get a bit lonely on occasion, it's just something that she doesn't like to admit to herself. She tells herself she's perfectly happy by herself, which she is most of the time. While she does sleep with people (of any gender), she primarily restricts it to one night stands.

Despite her reluctance to get close to people, Kara isn't cruel. While she can often be blunt, but she's rarely actually mean to anyone, just a bit cold. She shows she cares in somewhat strange ways, often by forcing people to learn hard lessons they don't want to, or telling them point blank to get their shit together. Once upon a time, she was warm and caring and cheeky, but a lot of that has been buried with time.

There are exceptions to everything, and Kara's exception is warriors. She can't actually separate what's part of being a valkyrie, and what's her own feelings when it comes to soldiers/warriors, but she feels herself drawn to them and often ends up being quite protective.

That said, for someone who's so damn old, she can be kind of immature. The thing about the supernatural is that their behaviour can become somewhat 'stuck' in the age they were when they gained immortality, or 'stuck' at a time to reflect their nature. For example, a dryad in spring will be very childlike, due to the association of spring with birth, and in the same way, Kara is still somewhat of a young adult. She can be petulant and a bit of a smart ass, especially if she feels like someone is mocking her. Along the same lines, she tends to talk back to people she shouldn't talk back to, like incredibly old and powerful creatures. To Kara, respect is something earned through actions, not because someone was born into it. Her immaturity doesn't extend to her sense of humour; she does have one, somewhere, but it's more inclined towards dry jokes or sarcasm, (she hates puns), but it is one of the most human things about her.

The other main aspect of Kara's personality is the fact she's a warrior. While she doesn't wade into battle like she used to, she's still a fighter, and it's still played a huge part in who she is as a person, and she isn't sure how to be anything else (or if she even wants to). It's the reason that she's never settled down after leaving Valhalla, and the reason that she works for the council despite not feeling any loyalty to them. Kara just doesn't know what else to do. She's battle hardened, and that hasn't left a lot of room for anything else, so she copes by filling her long life with work.

Kara is wired for battle, so she's incredibly helpful in a fight or anything that requires similar strategy (she's great in car chases, when they happen), but it isn't so applicable in the real world, and that's left her floundering in a lot of situations. It's contributed to her being a little rough around the edges, because whenever she encounters circumstances she doesn't know how to handle, she covers it with bluster. And occasionally tries to provoke a fight just so she'll be in familiar territory again.

Both her age, the period she was born in, and the fact she's a warrior by nature has had a big impact on Kara's morality. While she has adapted as time passed and cultural standards changed, the fact of the matter is that she was born in a time when morals were a little bit different to what people expect in the twenty first century. Combined with the fact that she's old and effectively immortal, Kara tends to think on the large scale rather than small. She won't kill or hurt someone for no reason, she isn't sadistic, but she will if it's for the 'greater good', and is willing to make sacrifices if necessary. She also tends to take a bit of a 'live and let live' approach to what other people do with their lives; while she can be slightly judgemental, and will call someone an idiot if she thinks they're being one, Kara isn't going to go out of her way to change someone's way of life, even if what they're doing is illegal or dangerous. If she spent her life getting involved in everyone else's shit, she'd never get anything else done.

At the end of the day, Kara is functional, but only because she's carefully created the circumstances in which she operates. She has limited contact with people, fills her time with work to keep herself busy, and has found a few hobbies that distract her the rest of the time (music being the main of these). Her life is one of constant movement, because settling down risks making connections, it risks interacting with the world in a way she can't control, and she doesn't know how to do that.

AU Notes: Obviously Kara won't remember being as old as she is in canon, so she's going to be a little like she was when she was younger, which means she's slightly more willing to get involved with people and causes, and is less inclined to withdraw into herself. The change in memories isn't going to completely overwrite her personality, it's just that some of the stronger aspects that came about due to her age will be toned down a little.

Player

Name: jay
Age: 21+, though if you need a real age i'll provide.
Contact:

charred!
Preferred Pronouns: she/her!

Character

Name: aguero agnis koon ( he'll be going by just "koon", but aguero's his first name and agnis is his mother's maiden name. sometimes, he goes by A.A. )
Age: 28 ( 26 + 2 years established. i recently found out that ages in tower of god are useless, and koon, physically, is closer to 250-300?? apparently... however, the universe apparently treats the mental age as the "real age", so i'm... just going to take 28 and roll with it. )
Memory Option: 1 — full AU / deterioration
Established Status: established — 2 years.
Canon: tower of god
Canon Point: season 2, episode 202 ( hell train — name hunt station 5 )

Citizenship: authorized non-citizen.
Job: reclamation agent (/resistance mole)

* Level: 4

Edited 2016-12-04 04:47 (UTC)

Abilities:
Characters in Tower of God have a "position" (optional wiki link) — an easy way to describe this is RPG classes, but they're a lot more free-form in nature. No one is strictly limited to one position, though they tend to pick one and train in that specifically, before branching out. Koon is a light bearer; someone that uses light houses to gain insight into the field/battle ( less surveillance, and more satellites ), and use that information, in turn, to formulate strategies and communicate it to the rest of his team.

Light houses typically have two states ( though only one will be described in the app/used in the game ) — in both cases, a light house is capable of gathering information about the "flow of the battle", though it's never explicitly stated what this means. Within the context of the game, the light-houses will be made out of hardlight (link)! The skills of a light-bearer (✦), as well as Koon's own skills (◉), are broken down into passive/minor/major skills as shown below.

→ PASSIVES & SKILLS
   ◉ Enhanced speed & strength In canon, there are examples of Koon carrying weight equivalent to 3+ people in one hand while still matching the speed and strength of other characters ( which are also impressive in their own way ). There's another scene where he manages to move around a charging enemy and have him in a headlock from the back in a blink of an eye... Basically he's stupidly strong and fast.
   • I'll be blaming this on genetic modifications, and nerf it down to a point where his speed/strength is about double the average human. He's stamina will be that of a fit human though, which means he will get tired. He can try to exert more force / push past his stamina, but this will take a significant toll on his body, and to recover back to 100% he'll need a few days of rest ( basically, a higher cost to pay to match his enhanced abilities ). If this needs to be nerfed further, feel free!
   ◉ Youth The effect of shinsoo ( the basic energy form of the tower, as well as what provides air/moisture in the universe ) essentially gives everyone eternal youth ( not immortality! He'll still take hits like a regular individual, more or less ). It provides no extra buffs aside from making him look like he's 20-ish when he's actually much, much older than that.
   • I'll also be blaming this on genetic mods.

   ◉ Combat He's familiar with a lot weapons / can hold his own in a fight without one. He's good at it, but think of him more as a jack of a lot of trades, but a master of none. He does have a good sense of aim though, and is found in canon shooting a pistol or throwing a dagger accurately over a long distance.
   ◉ Hacking Pretty standard; he's decent at hacking into systems, but also tracking down those that hack him in turn. It's nothing amazing, and translates pretty easily.
   ◉ Light-fingered He stole from a high security vault owned by the head of his ( very powerful ) family in canon. On top of that he can definitely pick-pocket unsuspecting individuals, and also cheat card games/coin-tosses/etc using hand tricks.
   ◉ Expert strategist Which is just a nice way of calling him a "con man". He's almost stupidly good at reading people/situations/etc, and using that to his own advantage, whether that's inside or outside the battle, short-term or long-term. Multiple times in canon he crosses/double-crosses his enemies and friends in order to get the exact outcome he wants; he's considered a genius in this regard, surpassing many other light-bearers of his rank. He's a skilled liar, actor, and capable of thinking very quickly on his feet. Daring, too, often taking ( calculated ) risks that leave others in disbelief that he just did that?!

→ MINOR
   ✦ Quadruple Barrier Using 4 light houses, Koon can create a shield that blocks most attacks. Each light house becomes a "point" in the shield, though the shape itself is flexible.
   • Like the light houses, the shield will be made out of hard-light! I'll be nerfing them down so that they'll be no bigger than 2 people standing side-by-side, and they'll stop bullets/energy rifles ( are those a thing ) but nothing more than that.
   ✦ Weapon Boost — Emerald sword Pretty self-explanatory— using his light house, he can strengthen a melee weapon of his choice. There aren't any specific conditions listed in canon, but for the sake of clarity I'll assume that the blade will double its sharpness and overall strength ( so cut things better and break less ).
   • Normally, this is done with shinsoo — but here, the hard light projector on his body will sheathe a single weapon in hardlight, making it sharper and stronger. There are no particular nerfs, but within the game, he'll only be able to strengthen one weapon at a time, and after a radius of 10m, or a time limit of 30 minutes, the weapon will lose its buff. If this should be considered a major power, let me know and I'll make the change!

→ MAJOR
   ✦ Quadruple Blockage Again, using 4 lighthouses, Koon can stop the movements of multiple individuals within the perimeter his light houses make.
   • The hard light can extend to trap people into a light-prison of sorts. In canon it's an invisible force ( shinsoo ) that does this, but I can't think of a good reason for hard light to suddenly generate force, so!!! Light prisons it is. If this is an issue, please let me know! It'll only trap up to 2 people, but otherwise it'll be the same strength as his shield.

Personality:
Koon (never Aguero, sometimes A.A.), as he proclaims himself, is a born leader and ruler; but he's also a thief, manipulator, and "scammer" (as often called by fans). A "light bearer" in the tower. To most he's a dangerous foe, but to the select few, he's a formidable ally — and to even fewer, a loyal friend.

Calling him an advantage-grabbing, cocky, scheming jerk is definitely an understatement. He's not overt about it, though; he prefers underestimation to overestimation, and really only starts being smug when it's advantageous for him to do so. Often the series' "brains", every one of his actions even at critical moments are carefully calculated, every scenario imagined as he carries out his plans. It's rare to see him without a plan, or leave unknown variables ( it's also impossible to see him anything but put-together; he spends a lot of time caring about his appearances, and takes forever getting ready ). He's level headed and cunning, and has a knack for understanding people's traits and using that against them; he knows how to act and how to speak to get what he wants out of the person, whether that's a reaction or information.

He's rather ruthless about getting what he wants, too. He climbs the tower to gain political power and authority, and makes this very clear from the start; in fact, this is how he chooses to entice people to join his team — "help me get to power, and I'll do everything in my power to get what you want, in return". He's shown in canon be perfectly okay using other people, teammates or not, to achieve his goals. This is why the Koon the world interacts with is a package of smug and prickly, reluctant to take that first step to friendship. It's rare to see him without a smug "I know more than you" aura about him. He's bossy, and the reason he dislikes fighting is it gets in the way of ordering people around ( he's not weak, by any means ).

Despite this, though, he's still incredibly human when it comes to his emotions. His loyalty, while difficult to earn and even more difficult to see, is surprisingly strong and steadfast ( we'll get to this a bit later ). He's prone to outbursts, to anger, especially when the person causing it appears to be particularly hot blooded themselves. Riling him up, especially by insulting him, is almost too easy, and he's the type to engage in petty arguments especially when it starts getting personal. He's also a grudge-holder, whether it's on his behalf or someone else's. Forgiving or forgetting aren't exactly in his vocabulary, and his hatred can extend pretty deeply. Koon gets especially insufferable with the people he despises, purposely goading them, making snide remarks, lording his ( usually ) superior powers and abilities. It takes a special kind of action to get to a point where he'll genuinely hate you, though — like his affection, extreme opinions are difficult to earn from him.

But despite his tendency to want to appear invincible, he's got his own weaknesses, and is more than capable of feeling fear and loneliness. As mentioned previously, he only does something if he's guaranteed to succeed, and despises relying on luck. It's a double edged sword — because his plans tend to succeed, he's easily enabled into this behavior. So when something does fail, he doesn't know how to handle it. It's never a full blown panic; again, Koon's character is never overt about his feelings, but those who know him better can usually see exactly when he loses his usual cool.

Which is why he doesn't fail — it's either succeed, or don't try at all. While good in principle, this means he has a tendency to be overly cautious, or over-think everything. This doubles when the goal involves someone ( or rarely, something ) that he deeply cares about. He's extremely ingrained in the behavior of protecting what he owns, that very rarely he'll take the opportunity to enjoy it for himself — being calculated and collected means that this is how he lives all the time. He's aware of his flaws, again, but never quite takes the action to fix this. Later, he's described to be an individual that "bears all the burden himself, when he could ask others to join him" — he expects absolute trust from his teammates, but never quite reciprocates it.

Which is where the other extreme emotion comes in — his affections. He comes from a ruthless household, known for their clever and cold-hearted schemes, as well as their confidence and pride ( so really, despite his status, he's the stereotypical member of the Koon family ). Kindness and altruism were not traits that he was exposed to for a long time — so when it did enter his life in the form of a distant cousin, he was absolutely entranced by it. Suddenly, he wanted to help her, not for his personal gain, but instead because he wanted to see her succeed. This costs his entire branch's place in the family ( in return he steals a few things from the head of family's vaults ), and the aforementioned cousin moves on to bigger and better things ... without him.

It's a sad story, in some ways, but it's obvious Koon's not broken up over the exile; multiple times in canon he speaks of overtaking the family, and his heritage does come up in the form of snide, yet self-deprecating jokes about himself. That's not the point, though — the second kind, altruistic person he meets comes in the form of his now best friend, Ba'am. And suddenly he's drawn towards this boy who's frail and weak and someone Koon would never benefit from. He starts making sacrifices to his own morals and principles just to help Ba'am succeed. He easily takes the title of the "bad guy" if it means that the people he cares about will succeed; his morals are already in questionably grey areas, this is nothing in comparison. Kindness and altruism, despite qualities that Koon never possesses himself ( qualities he never wants to possess, thanks very much ), are his biggest weakness; every comment about his loyalty, his protectiveness, his fear, can be made because someone like Ba'am exists to bring those qualities out of him.

All of this happens subtly; again, playing to the theme that Koon is rarely an overt person, save for his occasional penchant for drama, and the few extremes in his life. He's content playing the sidekick, despite his bossy nature; he would much rather stick to the shadows, with his schemes and string-pulling. And really, that's all there is to him — he's an ambitious person driven by the things he wants in life. He's someone who insists on a level-headed, smug persona, while still being incredibly human in his emotions — whether he realizes it or not.

AU History: Koon Aguero Agnis learns of power at a young age.

He's born into a small branch of one of the Nine, the Land Derrish; not anyone particularly important, but still with enough riches and authority to lord over some. From a young age, he learns from his mother and sister that should he want to be someone in life, he needs the power to back him up — lucky for him, he's been born into a family that will give him a heads start. While he never realizes what they mean until later, he still notices the sudden number of guests that visit his household, all of them with sharp eyes and greedy smiles. He only puzzles out the pieces to realize that his sister's reach for power did not come with clean, noble methods. Despite what is supposed to be a "noble" bloodline, their tactics were dirty, underhanded, cruel.

( At the same time, he realizes he feels no remorse for his family's actions, comfortable with the idea that he would have done something very similar. The apple never falls far from the tree, and he learns the same cunning, ruthless, sly skills that earn him his place among similar family members. )

Life is peaceful as it can get, until he meets a girl — a simple guard who is kind and selfless and a plethora of things he's never seen before. She's assigned to accompany him during his outings, and from there, a strange sort of friendship blooms — one that, for once in Koon's life, isn't based on personal gain or greed. Which is exactly why when he learns there's a chance for her to move on to bigger and better things, he pulls all the strings to make sure she gets there. Not that he ever tells her this — but he chooses not to treat her any differently until the last day.

( He thinks he's being sneaky, but somehow the actually important people of his family learn of his actions. Why the once-guard of Koon Aguero Agnis secured a position that was supposed to belong to someone else. Suddenly, the entire branch of his family looks less favorable in their eyes. )

Fast forward a few years after her departure, when he suddenly loses everything. It's not even his fault, either ( or so he believes ) — it's his sister's failures that lead them to their collective exile. He goes from 100 to 0, and while losing the name doesn't particularly bother him, having the power stripped from his hands hurts a lot more than he wants to admit. Fortunately, Koon is nothing but adaptable. He learns to make do in Westerley, blending in yet remembering he's never one of them — he's too ambitious, too clever, to be associated as a simple Westie. He grows to live without the family that abandoned them, and the mother and sister that clung to the past. While his grudge against them is very, very real, he turns all of that into productivity; he begins to work for his successes in equal parts to succeed ( whispers of a level 6 wouldn't exist if no one can get there ), but also to spite his once-family.

The spite, in part, comes in the form of the Reclamation Apprehension Coalition, five years ago. He loses his citizenship without a second thought, and suddenly he's on a ladder to power and glory again; just a slightly different one. A once-member of the Nine that's now working as a Killjoy; a good Killjoy, too, with a clean enough record and a decent enough level that keeps up a steady steam of warrants. Only he doesn't lose all of his habits from the days as Nine — he's picky, bossy, purposely avoiding fights because he'd much rather order people around. It's a bit of a miracle in itself that he manages to find people to work with ( because as much as he dislikes the concept of working together with someone, it's necessary and convenient ), but he does.

But it doesn't stop there ( it never stops, to be accurate ). Climbing the RAC ladder isn't enough at some point, and he starts picking up subtle whispers of individuals that aren't happy with how the Quad is run. So he picks up a ... side job, so to speak, feeding information and occasionally nudging the group what he believes is the right direction — he doesn't know if it's established enough to be called a proper resistance, but that's the general idea behind it. Especially if it succeeds — if they manage to upturn the entire system and he ends up on top again, he delights himself at the idea of the number of people that are going to be pissed.

( notes: as it stands, he won't have an equal AU translation for the events he experiences in canon. his canon experiences depend a lot on the actions of other characters, and to try and fit that into an au setting while handwaving those character would be ... difficult / wouldn't make a lot of sense. i also want him to experience the events for the "first time" in game, and his backstory provides more than enough for me to work with. if this is an issue at all please let me know! )

Original History: history | a full summary of tower of god if you ever feel like it.

Inventory:

→ armor inventory — as the name suggests, a shield that doubles as inventory space. when activated it becomes a floating shield that blocks a number of attacks, but normally it's attached on his person to be used as a glorified bag (one, two). it doesn't have infinite storage space, and probably carries just as much as anyone would expect it to. it will likely look as-is, and the "floating" effect is probably achieved through many small propulsors that can be controlled through will ( brain implants for remote control? )
→ light houses (4) — smooth, blue cubes that he can activate and control at will (img). in addition to what's been outlined in the abilites section, they're capable of increasing/decreasing in size and number ( though he will never be able to control more than 4, and none of them will be greater than a meter in length ). if they're large enough, they can definitely carry people/things around on top! they'll be made with hardlight technology, with the projector for them being somewhere on his body.
→ a dagger — the blade is about a forearm's length, with no special powers. (img)
→ clothes on his back — white button up shirt, black tie, black pants, shoes, a hair tie.

Samples: one, two, and and an older thread from crosscheck!

Miscellaneous Notes: cats!! ALSO I HECKED UP AND THEN DW BROKE ON ME AND THEN I HECKED UP AGAIN aka i'm so, so sorry about the assault on your inboxes, i didn't want this to happen at all oh my god

AU History:

Kara was born on a moon named Svergie, somewhere in the outer edges of the J-Star Cluster, and she spent the first 16 years of her life on that moon, one relatively untouched by technology. Her people grew their own crops, raised their own cattle, and traded with the other moons surrounding an inhospitable planet. Kara always had aspirations of joining the Einherjar, the military organisation that started in the little cluster of moons she called home, and grew into a formidable force. There was a little bit of raiding, because these guys are based on Vikings, what else did you expect, but overall it was a well-respected military.

When she was 16, Kara's village was attacked by a rogue group from one of the other moons, and though they were eventually defeated, Kara lost her family (mom, dad, a gaggle of siblings) in the process. It was the final push that Kara needed to join the military, since she didn't have anything left on Svergie.

The next few years passed relatively simply; she rose up through the ranks amongst the Einherjar, having an almost uncanny affinity for battle, though she was never cruel. Somewhere around her third year in the organisation, Kara was tapped for an elite soldier program that involved some minor genetic modifications, changing how her body produced and utilized adrenalin, making her stronger, faster, and increasing her stamina. It was the first hint to Kara that the military was beginning to dabble in things they likely shouldn't, but she accepted it at the time. She wanted to be a better warrior.

The Einherjar primarily concerned themselves with business in their own little corner of the universe, but would occasionally ally themselves with other organisations or planets if it would benefit them. As their interests in genetic modification grew, they started to become more of a mercenary force than a traditional military, and Kara started to grow wary.

A battle on a planet called Edo is the first place the Einherjar crossed paths with the Company (this is to give Kara and

shikomizue some past CR). Although initially fighting alongside the people of Edo, the higher ups of the Einherjar were encouraged to withdraw their forces, mainly by the Company offering them some shady shit to help with their experiments. Though the equivalent of a Captain at this point, Kara wasn't privy to the reasoning behind the decision, but being pulled out of an effort that she thought worthwhile was the start of her disenchantment with the Einherjar.

Unfortunately things came to a head rather quickly after that; Kara was mortally wounded at another battle, and the experimental division of the Einherjar were essentially given free rein to bring her back, as they were with all mortally injured soldiers. Kara was one of the few successes, having received a treatment via nanotechnology, increasing her healing speed. The scientists, bolstered by their success, decided to go one step further with the modifications, and attempted to attach a pair of wings to Kara. The aim of the experiment was to create flight-capable soldiers who would give them an edge in battle, and Kara was the first test subject.

It was a success, mostly. Kara woke to a tremendous amount of pain and a large set of wings grafted to her back, interlaced with circuitry. Outraged at the violation, as the operation was done without her full consent, Kara waited until her healing was complete, then broke out of the lab and left her life behind. She hitched a ride on a slaver ship, working in return for passage, travelling the J-star cluster with the only intention being to stay the hell away from the Einherjar.

Eventually, she ran into someone from the Quad, and the chaos of Westerley sounded like the perfect place to get lost. With a very expensive stolen identity, Kara travelled to the dirty moon and started a new life, not knowing that the Einherjar had expanded their relationship with the Company, or that they had set up shop in the Badlands.

Luckily, she hasn't run into them yet, focusing instead of keeping her head down and staying under the Company's radar. After making some connections and earning a reputation amongst the criminal element as someone not to be trifled with, Kara landed a security role at Eulogy, where she met a few low tier members of the Resistance. Despite having no personal connections with Westerley, Kara resented the control of the Nine and the Company, as it went against the notions of justice and honour that her parents instilled her with, so when small opportunities to help the Resistance cropped up, she accepted.

And that's been her life for the past year, working at Eulogy, developing a little information network with the Killjoys, because it's important to know what's going on in the world (and because despite her day job, she thinks some criminals deserve to be caught), and doing what small things she can for the Resistance. So far, it's going alright for her.

That's probably going to change.

Original History:

Kara Styrdottir was born in the early 11th century, into a world where legends, gods, and myths are real. Both her parents were warriors and Kara followed in their footsteps, training as a shield maiden. By the time she was in her twenties, Kara was quite an accomplished young warrior, and when a rival clan attacked, she was one of the first to leap to defend her people. The battle was a gruesome one, and although Kara managed to cut down the attacking clan's leader, she was mortally wounded in the process, and died not long after.

This is where things got interesting for her. Not all valkyries are born, some are women who died in battle and were given the opportunity to do more than simply wait for Ragnorak to come. Kara was taken to Fólkvangr, where Freyja offered her the choice to become a valkyrie, and Kara accepted withou hesitation. For a long time, life (or... undeath) was good. Kara missed her parents, but she befriended her fellow valkyries with ease, and did her duty as she supposed to, leading the slain to Valhalla and ensuring they were ready for the final battle of Ragnorak.

And then monotheism took over.

The growth of Christianity is what affected Kara's own world the most, because as it spread and various 'pagan' religions were being lost in favour of it, the gods of those religions began to withdraw. Power comes from worship, and with their worshippers dwindling, most of the gods decided to cut their losses and close themselves off with the followers they'd already gathered. The gates of Asgard were closed, the beings there given the choice to leave and be cut off from their people, or to stay and be cut off from the world. Similar choices were being made throughout other religions, both in the East and the West, although some gods remained while their people were untouched by Christianity and Islam.

For Kara, the idea of being locked away from the world for an unknowable amount of time was terrifying; it would be like being trapped, and being locked out seemed easier to cope with. If only in part because she hoped that one day the gods would return. Some days, she regrets her choice, but that's a conversation for another time.

In the space left by gods, there was a scramble for power amongst supernatural creatures, that eventually resulted in a council being formed. With humanity expanding and monotheism leaving little room for anything that didn't fit into their world view, the council decided that they should hide themselves away. Thus the Masquerade was born.

Although the balance of power would occasionally shift within the newly dubbed High Council, it was fairly stable, with certain species having more power than others and preferring to keep things how they were to further their own interests. The politics of the supernatural aren't all that important to Kara's life; she works for the council on occasion, but only as a PI/bounty hunter/parole officer, and she's made a point not to get involved in all the inner workings, for her own sanity. She doesn't care who's in charge, as long as she's getting paid and no one's trying to kill her.

For several centuries, life carried on. Kara drifted from place to place, tracking down stray creatures if they broke any of the councils rules, picking up work in various countries when the opportunity arose, or simply wasting decades doing nothing but drinking when things got a little too hard to handle. She made sure to keep up with the developments of the world, adapting and adjusting where it was necessary, but she remained more of an observer than anything else.

Things changed again, for everyone, in the 21st Century. Throughout history there had been various pushes to break the Masquerade and reveal the supernatural to humans, but it was always decided against, until it started becoming nearly impossible to remain secret. CCTV, cellphone cameras, and the internet, all made it increasingly difficult for the supernatural creatures to keep themselves secret. That isn't to say that no one knew about them; a number of governments worked alongside an assortment of beings, but the general public was kept in the dark for a very long time.

Eventually the High Council decided to reveal their existence to humanity, thinking it was better to control the information while they still could. It happened in small increments; governments informed more of their workers, those beings who'd created normal lives for themselves told friends or family, a few creatures revealed themselves within the small communities they were in. By the time the media was starting to report on the rumours, the High Council had reached an agreement with the United Nations, and a press conference was held.

People were, understandably, a little shocked. For about two years, there were a lot of protesting and inquiries and, well, witch hunts across the world. The supernatural beings had been prepared for a backlash, and as such retreated to safe places while the storm raged, allowing the High Council and it's new public representative team handle all the problems that arose when humanity found out that the things that go bump in the night are real. It was stressed that no one meant humanity any harm, that they would be self-policing, but would also follow the laws of the countries they were living in.

It wasn't perfect, people were still unhappy, but things started to settle down and life moved on, as it always does. Without any reason to keep themselves secret, supernatural beings began to draw a little more attention to themselves, in some cases using their abilities to their advantages, often for monetary profit. But the High Council watches them closely, to ensure no one steps over any lines and endangers the shaky peace with humanity, and Kara found herself with a full-time job again. Since the Masquerade was abandoned, she's working almost entirely for the Council, tracking down rogue creatures who've been hurting or killing humans in a way that could attract too much scrutiny, and either bringing them in, or eliminating them as a last resort. It isn't a job she particularly enjoys, but she knows that it's necessary to ensure humanity doesn't decide that the supernatural needs to be wiped out.

Inventory:

The only thing I'd like her to keep is her +VLFBERH+T sword. In canon it's magic and can never dull but I'm okay to nerf that. If someone actually using a sword would be a bit too anachronistic, it could just be an ornamental thing that she got during her military service.

Samples:

There's a couple threads here!
A bunch of threads from an old game

Miscellaneous Notes:

Edited 2016-12-04 05:04 (UTC)

Abilities:

Skills

Memory: Bookman training and work requires a sharp eye for detail and an even sharper mind. Lavi has a photographic memory and needs no more than a glance to commit an image to mind.

Strategy: A keen observer of history and culture, Lavi has a considerable repertoire of battle strategies and tactics at his disposal when necessary. He cultivates the image of a person with a careless attitude and lacking wit, but when he chooses to turn his intellect on an enemy, the results can be devastating.

Deception: Disciplined and well-practiced at slipping into different personas, Lavi is described as a mirror pane--reflecting nothing back but the image of others. An expert liar, he can often deduce the best route for endearing himself to someone--friend, enemy, or otherwise--in order to meet his goals with none the wiser to his true intent.

Combat Specialist: Canonically, he's spent a lifetime learning martial arts and honing close quarters combat skills. Since his weapon of choice is staff-like and he's evidently not bad with a flag pole, he's appears better with long-range weapons rather than melee.

Field Medic: A lifetime spent in one war zone after the next has garnered Lavi some crude but effective medic skills--nothing that would qualify him to work in a clinic, certainly, but basic understanding of how to treat wounds, poisons, and keep himself or someone else alive long enough to find a more qualified set of hands.

Passives

Lavi has no out of the ordinary passives, though his physical capacity is hinted at being slightly above average in terms of strength and endurance. For simplicity's sake and because canon doesn't like being clear, we'll just say he's exceptionally well trained and in peak condition.

Powers

Innocence: Canonically, Lavi is an exorcist of the Black Order, an individual capable of synchronizing with "innocence". Innocence is a substance which can purify and destroy the akuma virus when it takes on a weapon form and is paired with an appropriate accommodator. Lavi is one such user and his innocence takes the form of a size-shifting war hammer. In Overjoyed, its size-changing abilities are owed to its use of claytronics or programmable matter. Although he'll have access to the hammer, he won't remember how to use it until he begins his first major regain. It currently rests dormant in his room.

Outside of its obvious offensive abilities, Lavi uses the hammer to strike magical seals and release powerful spells. While retaining their overall visual impact, their interface is now a holographic display, and the seals themselves are made of the same programmable matter that the hammer is--by selecting the different commands (i.e., hellfire and ash, violent thunder, so on), he instructs the catoms to rearrange and change their charge to produce the desired effect.

Major | Fire Stamp: Hellfire and Ash: Similar to canon, this produces a column of flame, but unlike canon, he no longer has the ability to ride said flame like he's hanging ten, because that's not a thing. Because of its nature as programmable matter, he is only capable of directing the column within a limited range around him.

Major | Heaven Stamp: Violent Thunder, Whirling Skies: Selecting this command from the interface menu creates a directional column of lightning or electrical charge.

Major | Wood Stamp: Wind: This seal creates a localized vortex with limited directional abilities.

Major | Wood Stamp: Spinning Dist of Heaven and Earth: A more advanced technique than the previous, this technique can canonically control the atmosphere and objects in nature (such as the clouds, atmospheric pressure, wind, rain, etc), but in Overjoyed will be limited to more localized effects--controlling one or the other, but not both, and within a short radius of his position.

Major | Combo Stamp: Terrible Lightning of Heaven: Using a combination of fire and heaven commands, the claytronics matter can be shaped into a wall of fire and iron as either a defensive or offensive measure.

Personality: Bookmen take no sides, harbor no loyalty. They are the impartial chroniclers, the untouched wanders, drifting through history like whispers of wind.

Lavi is a successor of this esoteric clan, and though his smile is always warm and his laughter rings bright, his heart is separated by a distance that none may cross.

He cares for others, he can't stop himself--but it doesn't matter.

(Sometimes, he even believes that's still true.)

「 The Bookman’s successor. I take on a new name each time I go somewhere new, and discard it each time I leave. 」

49 names, 49 logs. Each record a bookman creates entails a new name, a new persona. Lavi has existed longer than all others before, and perhaps therein lies the critical flaw. This 49th persona has stayed entrenched so long now that it's begun to seep past the skin and into his bones, that it's become him.

The smiling fool, laughing and charming his way through people, aching for the burdens of others but keeping his own hidden .. that person is steadily becoming indistinguishable from the bookman who fabricated him. That person's smiling face has controlled his for so long that he no longer knows when it's lying or telling the truth.

He no longer knows if the distinction is important, either.

「 He must not become attached or be controlled by emotion. He speaks with all kinds of people, then leaves as if nothing has happened. 」

In this way, being a killjoy is an easy double-life for Lavi. The creeds of his clan and ultimate goal of his mission often run in concert with one another: remain neutral, remain true to the word of the warrant.

But he is first and foremost a bookman--the Reclamation Apprehension Coalition is a stepping stone in his pilgrimage, a convenient means to an end. Given the choice between his duties as one or the other, he wouldn't hesitate to betray everything the RAC stands for and everyone in it.

Save, perhaps, Yu.

Yu is a liability, a perpetual threat to his impartial distance. He won't admit it to himself, but every time he has to consider leaving his partner's side and beginning a new log, taking a new name--it comes with a measure of heartbreak. Three years spent together, three years spent behind a mask of friendly lies and steady banter...

The edges of his smile are beginning to fray now, the veneer beginning to chip.

Each time a secret passes through the curve of his lips, he knows he's breaking a vow, complicating the inevitable day when they become enemies.

(Every human is just an enemy waiting to happen; all societies are just wars in delay -- )

All the same, he hopes that their semblance of friendship, of trust, might make that complication worth it.

「 Like a gust of wind. The wind doesn’t stay in one place. It feels nothing for the places it’s passed through. It just keeps wandering. 」

But that is not to say that Lavi is not without his joyous moments. He genuinely enjoys his work and his studies, his shallow relationships. His warm persona often endears him to others and his intelligence, albeit carefully hidden unless he has call to do otherwise, provides him insights that most people miss.

And above all else, Lavi is young.

Too young to ever fully adhere to his creed as either a killjoy or bookman. Too young not to get wrapped up in the moment and emotions of others, even if he can disconnect and shift between them with greater ease than others. His temper can still run hot beneath that placid mask, especially in the face of cruelty or ignorance. Although he may be trained to think in terms of black and white, his heart still very much deals in shades of gray.

He is imperfect in each of his positions in life, but his priorities--at least for now--are clear.

「 I am the Bookman’s successor. My current name—

—Lavi. 」

AU History: Suffering from a serious case of Side Character Fever, little is known about Lavi's pre-canon history. When canon does address his history, it does so largely in relation to his clan, Bookmen.

Bookmen are a highly respected but secretive clan of history keepers, individuals tasked with observing and recording the hidden sides of history. They record the wars that no one else hears about, observe the regimes that no one else sees pulling the strings. In Overjoyed, they serve much the same function, but because of the vastness of the stars and density of contested borders, they no longer hold the same universal authority to observe at will. Rather, they're now a relatively obscure secular organization dispersed through the galaxy. Some bookmen operate in public offices and security agencies, conducting themselves in the middle of the events they seek to record, while others retain the more traditional approach, traveling from planet to planet, war to war, changing sides to get the best vantage point for their records.

Each time a bookman ends a log, they change their name and adopt a new persona. Sometimes these changes are minute, at others, not--while in canon this was viable due to 19th century England having relatively poor security encryption, this will be handled on a governmental level in Overjoyed. The bookmen who operate within public offices and bureaus across the galaxy will be responsible for changing the identities of their clan brethren, though it's safe to assume that these identities will be shallow and imperfect when first created--deep enough covers to fool most officials, but scarcely enough to convince the suspicious and determined.

Lavi's current identity has existed for roughly three years, offering some measure of protection from prying eyes. On record, his birth planet is Telen, but due to his relationship with the RAC, little else is available for viewing outside of his birth date and completed warrants.

Born on a backwater planet on the far side of the J, Lavi's life prior to becoming an apprentice of the Bookman Clan is a wash of patchy memories and wordless images. An orphan, he was chosen to become the successor of a wandering bookman at age six, wherein he renounced his birth name and took on his first alias. From that day forward, whoever he was originally--whoever he might've become--was discarded, and Lavi traded his childhood in for a life of training and traveling.

A decade of war followed, a decade of watching humans repeat the same mistakes over and over again. No matter what planet they were on, no matter which side they temporarily allied themselves with, Lavi watched the emergence of the same pattern. Of greed and power hunger, of foolishness exacting a cost too high for either side to pay but neither being willing to relent.

Ten years of travels and for all his esoteric knowledge, the thing he came to understand most strongly was that humans are a feeble species. That people are just enemies waiting to be turned against one another, and peace? Peace is merely the pause between wars, the ash left as one society crumbles and another rises to repeat the cycle all over again.

Traveling so much had its downsides--the bullet wounds, the sicknesses, the often near death experiences--but it also had its perks. In his 48 names and personas prior to "Lavi", he experienced cultures that others seldom hear about, let alone immerse themselves in. He met with respected elders and ingratiated himself with criminal overlords, studied cultural rites and saw the overturn of governments while most children were still learning to master their hormones.

(That one, as it happens, he still hasn't quite pulled off, but that's another story.)

When he was sixteen, he took on the persona "Deak", following his mentor to a small mining planet on the outskirts of the J. A militia force there was beginning to grow into a full scale rebellion, and though his clan had previously been on the side of their oppressors, they now offered their services as strategists in exchange for the ability to compile a new record. They arrived during a particularly trying time for the militia, their halls filled with the dead, and though Lavi--then Deak--smiled and laughed, few responded in kind.

A girl, her face young but her regard somber and bitter like a soldier, met his gaze in rebuke.

What a depressing place, he thought that first night.

Eventually they fitted him with a uniform, began to think of him as one of their own, sharing meals and heartaches together. As the years ticked on, he began to find it difficult to remember his place as an outsider--to not think of himself as one of them in turn.

Like all home-grown revolutions, however, the tides of war began to turn against the militia force. Sensing that his pupil was beginning to grow too attached to his place in the vagabond order, Lavi's mentor decided to end his participation in the log prematurely, instructing his student to begin his rite of passage at the age of nineteen.

The rite of passage, a pilgrimage, would be his first assignment without the oversight of a senior bookman.

The Quad had long since been on the history keepers' radars, and Lavi, having traveled it briefly in the earliest days of his tutelage, was sent to observe the growing changes therein. How and who he became to do so was up to him--the success of his mission would determine his ability to graduate from apprentice to full-fledged bookman.

And so "Lavi" was born.

After some brief skirmishes with border authorities and visas, Lavi realized he needed a better cover for moving through the area without impediment, and that eventually brought him to the Reclamation Apprehension Coalition. A seasoned combatant, Lavi passed through their evaluations and became a level 3 killjoy, notably receiving particularly high marks on his psychological examination.

Not sanctioned to form his own team, Lavi was pointed in the direction of a particularly surly young man of the same age, and with enough taunting, teasing, and well placed comments, the two became partners.

He's pretty sure Kanda still wishes he'd missed his flight that day, but it hardly matters now. As long as "Lavi" exists, he'll do so in tandem with that man.

CRAU: No.

Original History: Link.

Inventory:
War Hammer (in his room; dormant), a leather bound journal written in an undecipherable language mixed into his overabundant collection of books, a collection of acupuncture needles wrapped carefully and forgotten in cargo storage.

Samples:
TDM Sample #1
TDM Sample #2

Miscellaneous Notes: Their ship, Noah, will be purchased with half of his intro HP points and half of Kanda’s as agreed upon by both players OOC.

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First Round Only: See welcome post on the OOC community for more information on pre-game start activity.

Congratulations! You've been accepted into Overjoyed.

We’re so excited to have you join our community. Before we can get started, please do the following:

Request to join the following communities: Logs · Network · OOC · Memes

Friend the mod account, thenine, and respond to the player contact page.

Reply to the taken page.

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(Optional) Follow the mod plurk here to stay up to date about upcoming plots, community discussions, and more!

(Optional) Put your application, IC contact/inbox, and permissions post in your journal, then introduce yourself to the OOC community!

First Round Only: See welcome post on the OOC community for more information on pre-game start activity.

All characters will start with a balance of 100 bonus HP. This balance can be used towards AC bank purchases, but may not be used for satisfying monthly AC requirements.

NOTE: That pet purchase is totally fine, but please post us a note on the AC page just so we can keep track! And noted about the journal! She's totally cleared to be an ace navigator with ATVs/motorcycles as well in 'verse.

If you have any further questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to us by PM or on the contact page.

Once again, we’re so happy to have you, and thanks for joining us!

Yours,
Overjoyed Mods

Congratulations! You've been accepted into Overjoyed.

We’re so excited to have you join our community. Before we can get started, please do the following:

Request to join the following communities: Logs · Network · OOC · Memes

Friend the mod account, thenine, and respond to the player contact page.

Reply to the taken page.

Fill out the job registry.

(Optional) Follow the mod plurk here to stay up to date about upcoming plots, community discussions, and more!

(Optional) Put your application, IC contact/inbox, and permissions post in your journal, then introduce yourself to the OOC community!

First Round Only: See welcome post on the OOC community for more information on pre-game start activity.

All characters will start with a balance of 100 bonus HP. This balance can be used towards AC bank purchases, but may not be used for satisfying monthly AC requirements.

NOTE: Her enhancements are cleared as minor/passive and will not require any regain purchase. However, her wing speed will be halved -- top speed at 45, average speed at 25 -- as a minor regain, and can be upgraded as a "major" regain.

Edit -- her sword is also good to go! It can be some weird combination of new technology and ceramic edges that keep it exceptionally sharp. Swords are never out of place.

If you have any further questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to us by PM or on the contact page.

Once again, we’re so happy to have you, and thanks for joining us!

Yours,
Overjoyed Mods

Edited 2016-12-04 05:36 (UTC)

Congratulations! You've been accepted into Overjoyed.

We’re so excited to have you join our community. Before we can get started, please do the following:

Request to join the following communities: Logs · Network · OOC · Memes

Friend the mod account, thenine, and respond to the player contact page.

Reply to the taken page.

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(Optional) Follow the mod plurk here to stay up to date about upcoming plots, community discussions, and more!

(Optional) Put your application, IC contact/inbox, and permissions post in your journal, then introduce yourself to the OOC community!

First Round Only: See welcome post on the OOC community for more information on pre-game start activity.

All characters will start with a balance of 100 bonus HP. This balance can be used towards AC bank purchases, but may not be used for satisfying monthly AC requirements.

Note: We understand your choice not to add in additional canon elements to his AU background and have approved all of your power designations/limitations, well done!

If you have any further questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to us by PM or on the contact page.

Once again, we’re so happy to have you, and thanks for joining us!

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Overjoyed Mods

Player

Name: t!
Age: 21+++
Contact: pm works!
Preferred Pronouns: she/her

Character

Name: keith.
Age: 19? 17-8 in canon.
Memory Option: 1!
Established Status: y. . . es? let's say a year, which keith has grimly taking every warrant attached to an agent willing to oversee him. this has likely meant getting partnered with several different people, none of whom have quite clicked. his success rate is. . . not great.
Canon: voltron: legendary defender
Canon Point: post-s1.
Citizenship: authorised non-citizen!
Job: reclamation agent!

* Level: one

Abilities:

BASIC COMBAT | canonically, keith's punching sends four (deeply unprepared) adult doctors flying unconscious across the room. which suggests a certain level of cartoonish strength! it's hard to gauge hand-to-hand skill in a show where 90% of the action is giant robots pounding each other, but keith shows a practiced ease with blade and fists alike, using his bayard with some sense of actual technique. he isn't quick enough to dodge lasers as a good shounen protagonist might be, but he's consistent with his training, fastest on his team, and has good instincts and some physical skill. recklessness also makes him more open to dangerous moves that an opponent may not expect. call it a middling-level talent, probably, with plenty of room to improve.

PILOTING | possibly keith's one shining skill -- he's described as the most talented pilot of his generation, moves from acing garrison simulations to piloting a giant robot (and okay, sentient) lion with ease, and weaves through an asteroid belt without hitting a stone. practiced alien smugglers admire his skill with remarks like "this kid can flat-out fly." what this amounts to in practice: being able to handle most vehicles with some squiggling to figure out small differences between models, probably some knowledge of basic mechanical fixes, excellent at weaving through traffic and speeding without getting caught. definitely the guy you want as your getaway driver.

. . . PLOT-RELATED INTUITION | it's implied that keith has some galra affinity, which means he's done things like ~ sense ~ a connection to the blue lion's mystery, opened galra doors by putting his hand on an electronic handprint coded to acknowledge only galra soldiers, etc etc. i am assuming that all of this has to do with voltron-specific shenanigans, rather than general psychic powers, and will not be playing with it without further clarification, but y'know. in the interest of full disclosure, etc. he also has some kind of mental bond to the red lion, in that he can sense where it is if he focuses and tries, and the red lion will periodically show him new functions ~ in his mind ~ that'll get him through a battle. in conclusion: deus ex instincta.

Personality:

Keith's a mess.

Enlisted at the Galaxy Garrison as the most talented pilot of his generation, he drops out. Stripped of the only position that's ever needed him, he wanders away from civilisation and chooses to spend months studying rocks in the desert. He gets angry when one of his team-mates suggests that she may leave the gang to go look for her lost family. His leader narrowly survives an encounter with their most dangerous enemy, a monster who's burned out galaxies and left millions in dread -- and Keith's first to ask, not whether he's okay, but if he accomplished the mission goal.

Put together, a pattern surfaces: Keith demands purpose. Keith is still young, a boy moved by anger and absolutes. And Keith is. . . not good with niceties, subtleties -- or any other kind of ties. Look, the boy clearly never learned to comb his hair. You can't expect him to know how to handle ties.

In an ensemble cast geared towards defending the universe, Keith's notable for being a contradiction in himself: he's the most devoted to the idea of working together, but the least connected to his team. He lacks the Garrison ties of Lance and Pidge and Hunk, who worked together as cadets, and never manages the princess's take-charge authority or Takashi Shirogane's king-next-door charisma. It isn't even that he likes groupwork and company. Supplementary materials tell us that Keith's a loner, and his actions in-series bear this out: he defaults to the vanguard position when the team walks out together, executes orders as he gets them, and defers to Shiro or Allura whenever an opportunity arises for him to contribute a serious opinion. Keith's idea of personal relationships borders on hilariously theoretical. "We had a bonding moment!" he tells Lance, his self-declared rival, in disbelief after the latter rejects him again. "I cradled you in my arms." Nevermind his awkwardness, his tendency to criticise others (mostly Lance) at the worst moments, his idealism which demands sacrifice of all else -- in Keith's world, physical closeness should be all you need to level up your social link. (Let all Persona-franchise characters take this opportunity to count their blessings that Keith's not one of theirs.) It isn't that he's afraid of intimacy or friendship, but ultimately, he gears towards cooperation because saving the universe demands it, and Keith isn't one for holding back.

Luckily, what Keith lacks in social heft, he makes up with grim sincerity. Keith's devotion is an absolute -- to the point of actual danger. With great instincts come. . . well, a total lack of self-preservatory intelligence. Cut loose from outside instructions, Keith's reckless and thoroughly disinterested in caring for himself: he charges headlong into the fray against an alien battalion, sets off bombs as distractions, chases conspiracy theories for months on end. This goes some way towards explaining the 'disciplinary problems' he had at the Garrison -- if the end's greater than the means, it's hard to see why he should follow a particularly stupid regulation just to get into space, where there are no rules.

His sole saving grace is perhaps when all that recklessness comes under control -- turns to loyalty and blind, undying belief. Where Keith commits himself, whether to saving the known universe or tobeing a little too good a friend, he does so without regard for little things like 'actual odds of success' or 'common sense'. It never seems to occur to him to ask, for example, whether Shiro's actually fit to lead with all of his equivocations, his midbattle breakdowns, and the uncontrolled alien prosthetic attached where his right arm used to be. This suggests an absolute trust -- and a striking bit of impractical blindness coming from the boy who'll tell a fourteen-year-old, with clear-eyed fury, that she has no right to put rescuing her lost father and brother (sent to a labor camp and an alien hunger games setup, respectively) before the fate of the universe.

Purpose and a good cause is everything to Keith, but not, it seems, without exceptions.

Call it instinct, maybe -- but Voltron seems to use that term very narrowly. Despite its vaunted penchant for pilots who rely on instinct more than skill alone, the Red Lion only chooses Keith after he bashes open a bay door to sweep out an unbeatable number of enemy soldiers into open space -- and himself nearly with them. When the plot doesn't call for Keith to drive it forward, instincts lead him to pull a blade on a small cuddly alien, to dive nosefirst and alone at an emperor who hasn't suffered defeat in ten thousand years -- and to say ". . . Voltron?" to a prompt of "When I say VOL, you say TRON. Vol--?!" Keith really isn't good at small cues; he's impulsive, wary when facing unknowns, reckless with everything that comes into his own hands. He's quick with a dry putdown and quicker to take his marching orders, the only main character ever to say yes, sir. His personal convictions shade towards black-or-white, and he relies on a few trusted others to pull him back when he's going too far.

And yet: when told to focus, an unguarded Keith dreams his way back to an empty cabin in the desert, where he had nothing to gain and nothing left to lose.

In short: Keith's a loner, inexperienced and blunt, bad at following rules and making friends and not taking things literally. He's brutal with his devotion, quick to flare when someone tramples on one of his broad ideals. He understands the world in terms of sacrifice, and the worst of him is this: that it's not quite clear whether he has a vision of his own. Keith talks a big game about saving the universe, but not about living in it after the fact. He never seems to think about going home.

But for a boy who's always moved from cause to cause, there's probably something dangerous in the idea of a universe that can't put him to good use anymore.

AU History:

( note: in light of extremely limited canon + events that were difficult to translate without brewing a tediously dramatic background -- see: mystic rock markings -- i've tried to build an au that skews towards the broader themes of what little we actually know about keith's history and character while incorporating the major game institutions. )

As far back as memory goes? Mostly Keith just remembers being hungry.

Orphans weren't scarce among the Tunnel Rats, and Keith never learned to milk it quite the way the other kids did. Gimlet-eyed, with pride stiff down his spine, he tore through job after job without success. Serving boy, newspaper hawker, errand-runner, beggar -- no matter the work, Keith was a brat who mouthed off at just the wrong moments, wound up brawling with the other kids, earned himself a kick and a grumbling stomach all the way back to his niche. Up to about age ten, Keith lived largely off the watered congee they'd spoon out of the communal pots for kids -- kept an eye out for the split wires and dripping pipes of the Old Town Tunnels, learned how to wake with the first shout and take off at a running start.

At ten, he discovered the Old Town junkyard.

Dumpster diving wasn't good work, but it paid -- there was always a local shop that'd trade a bowl or two for parts. They paid more, Keith learned, if the parts were clean, and better if he fished up more than nuts and bolts and disparate joints, and best if he strung some of the pieces together into an actual proper fit. It wasn't that he'd any gift for the work -- building would never be Keith's niche -- but he was getting too big to live off of scraps alone, and starving was a strong motivator. Keith learned from the few pawnshops and repairmen who'd buy from him; in their care, he grew into a gangling shadow, all chin and folded arms and jutting dark brows, hanging around the garages and stealing looks at the monstrous machines that they'd piece together out of the parts he brought to them. It took a year before they'd let him do more -- let him look at the undercarriage of a ship, replace an oxygen sensor, strip the solenoid valves for cleaning.

Once they'd let him in, of course, it took no time at all to figure out that Keith's interest lay not in enginework, but in what the engine could do. Patient mechanics learned to work around the snarls and angry kicks of a boy led out of a cockpit by the ear for the third time in a week. From there, Keith made his knack clear -- not merely for driving, but for pushing an engine, knowing the exact dimensions of whatever he drove, taking a corner-turn on a dime. The Old Town garagemen were inherently practical -- it wouldn't be bad to have a topflight pilot owe his spot to them. A mechanic called a client, who called a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend -- and after a barrage of tests and a much-begrudged entrance fee (with just a little extra to overlook an ex-rat's missing paperwork), Keith was unofficially enrolled at the city's cargo-runner academy. ("Don't figure you don't owe us that change back when you make your first commission, kid," the shopowner grumbled, and smacked him upside the head in congratulations.)

Keith did pretty well at the academy -- or a little more than well. Technically, cargo-runners would only ever shuttle between moons, if ever they made it off-world -- but the old testing standards had held, and Keith learned every word. Sheer, furious determination tore him through book after practice-book, through equations and lettering and a forest's worth of star-charts. He glutted himself on diagrams of old ships and instruction manuals, memorised every set of controls they pushed between his hands, and landed in his second-last year with only a few major infractions to his record. At seventeen years old, the academy promised him first pick of job placements after he graduated.

But Keith'd been lucky -- the garagemen had paid his fee, and with his scores, the academy had taken the rest on credit. Other runners'd had fewer resources on which to fall back. Discrepancies began to float up over the year: docked ships turned out with broken parts, though they'd never been signed out for practice; fuel dropped and rose in the engines; instructors lectured on breaking the bay locks for joyrides.

A brighter, more cynical eye than Keith's might have made the connection sooner: practice ships, after all, wouldn't be expected to carry the same pilot every time. Customs inspectors could hardly expect to memorise the face of every cargo-runner out on their first tour. Who'd bother worth to check the hull of an academy ship out on a practice jaunt, or to make sure that they came back within the trip estimation that they gave on departure?

In short: someone was loaning the academy's ships out to smugglers.

Born a rat, raised in a crowd of mechanics, Keith never quite learned strategy or subterfuge. On spotting the discrepancies and breakages for his favorite ships, he started to pick fights with the cadets who'd taken to loitering near the bay, and then with the few, well-placed instructors who defended them. In a reckless, desperate bid for proof, he broke into customs' records to collect the papers which proved that someone was sending the ships out without permission -- and was caught. Having their worst troublemaker hauled in by a crew of bored border-patrol officials was the academy's last straw. Keith had no connections, no citizenship papers, no last name -- but then, the academy didn't want too close a look at its own affairs, either. The compromise: six days short of his eighteenth birthday, Keith was booted from the school without one credit to show for years of work.

Call it sheerest luck that someone else was paying attention.

Within the week, a reclamation agent caught up with him. The academy, as it turned out, was the tip of the iceberg; it'd opened up an avenue for smuggling, and someone'd put a warrant out on the name at the very end of the chain. Keith had lacked the authority and the opportunities to chase; the agent lacked the right names, the sense of which ships had been signed out for tours where they shouldn't. It was a rocky, terrible partnership that resulted in a spectacular near-crash just outside the city. But the warrant went through, in the end, and Keith got the recruitment pitch that every Killjoy must've surely had at the start of their career -- with one extra line. Level up enough, the agent said, and he might even be able to afford his own ship.

That was a year ago.

CRAU: n/a.

Original History:

By and large, Keith's backstory won't be released until next year at the earliest, so I'll be brief! What we do know about his background's limited to a patchwork of facts dropped throughout the reboot: on some nebulous future Earth, Keith was orphaned at a young age and recruited to the Galaxy Garrison.* There, he ranks up to fighter pilot class and washes out about a year before the proper start of the series. After his expulsion, Keith wanders for a time. Instinct draws him out to an outcropping in the desert riddled with enough bizarre ancient markings to make any conspiracy theorist's heart sing, and he takes up a shack close to it as he struggles to piece together the story of a giant blue lion.

Fortunately, a giant spaceship crash-lands nearby on cue, saving Keith from having to answer any hard questions about why riddling himself an answer to an anthropological puzzle's more important than living somewhere with decent running water.

The crash leads him to discovery of Takashi Shirogane, one of the crew members lost on the Garrison's mission to Kerberos to pilot error -- and, in short order, to a cave in the desert, which appears to have housed a giant robotic blue lion for millennia.

As it turns out, the Blue Lion begs capital letters: it's one piece of five, designed to form a space weapon to take on Zarkon, an alien warlord from Galra who's expanded his empire to encompass most of the known galaxy over ten thousand years. Its subsequent flight from Earth drags Keith, along with three space cadets and one newly-rescued pilot, back to the Castle of Lions and to Princess Allura, the castle's only survivor after ten thousand years of cryosleep. There, cadets and pilot and princess decide to battle the continued expansion of the Galra empire.

Cue space adventures! . . . which I am skipping in summary because Keith has no real character arc in any of it. He tags along, fights some things, and upsets every member of his team at least once. Their missions culminate in the Galra Empire's capture of Princess Allura, Keith's singlehanded challenge to Zarkon during her rescue, and the whole team getting split up in wormhole transport as they flee. Wikipedia provides a perfectly good rundown of the series; there's also the fan-wikia for another take.

(* The Garrison itself comes out as some hodgepodge of military and scientific interests -- the fan-wikia describes it as "a school where humans come to study space travel", but there's a strong implication that its students are taught actual combat skills (both hand-to-hand and basic weaponry), and 'fighter pilot' isn't really. . . reconciliable with the Garrison's space exploradora missions. On the other hand, let's be frank, nobody with Pidge Gunderson's hair would have ever flown in an actual military setting.)

Inventory:

- a bayard;
- two fanny-packs; (are they still called fanny-packs when they're not on your fanny?)
- a moderately ugly 90s-style red jacket whose collar doesn't roll down;
- a really ugly knife;
- relatively normal-looking gloves.

Samples: - tdm #1
- longer meme thread #2

Miscellaneous Notes: i have nothing to declare but my tl;dr and a truly appalling sense of humor. i'm very sorry.

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「 I am the Bookman’s successor. My current name—

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