APP TO sticksandbones

PLAYER INFO
Name: Kelly
Pronouns: any
Contact: tinybro | orbynit @ discord
Permissions: Here

CHARACTER INFO

Name: Dysthymia ("Dys")
Canon: I Was A Teenage Exocolonist
Canon Point: Just before setting the bomb to sabotage the colony in Wet Season of the 18th year.
Age: 17
Species: Human

History: Dys was born on the spaceship Stratospheric midway through its one-way twenty year voyage to Vertumna IV, along with his twin sister Tangent. They were born in colony fashion – to a single mother with genetic material provided by an unknown father via lottery – and their mother, the ship's counselor, committed suicide when they were five. Though they were close when they were young, Dys and Tang started drifting apart after her gender transition due to a clash between personalities and priorities, exacerbated by the colony's constant comparison of the two of them.

The Stratospheric landed on Vertumna when they were nine, and while Dys initially hated it in all his pre-preteen angst, he quickly came to love the wild, untamed nature of the planet. He started sneaking outside the colony walls to explore within that first year and eventually shared his secret escape route with the protagonist, Sol. Dys was distant with most of the other people in the colony and spent as much time away from it as possible, officially joining the surveyors once he was thirteen to aid with exploration and foraging. At some point in those early years of exploring, Dys became friends with Sym, an alien known as a Gardener and tasked with maintaining the planet.

In the course of their explorations, Dys and Sol discovered the ruins of an ancient, long-gone alien society and slowly learned more about them and the Gardeners, who were responsible for the yearly attacks on the colony as well as the famine and disease that plagued it. Dys grew more and more attached to the planet and distant from most other humans, and eventually met another of the Gardeners, Noctilucent, who was far more antagonistic than Sym and viewed humans as an invasive species to be purged from the planet. In Dys' late teens, Noctilucent made him an offer – sabotage the colony during the next attack, and in exchange he could become a Gardener.

Personality:
✽ What is your character's main motivation? What drives them and keeps them going?
More than anything, Dys wants to feel connected to something. He never really felt like he belonged with other humans, and as he liked old Earth folklore, he related heavily to the idea of changelings, creatures that look human but really aren't. He fell in love with the planet Vertumna in part because of how it functions almost like a single body, every part of the ecosystem connected and serving a purpose. He both wants to be a part of that and wants to protect it at all costs, even the destruction of the human colony.

✽ What is their biggest regret? Why?
He regrets growing apart from his sister, even if he doesn't think it's all his fault. As much as he's willing to abandon her and everyone else in the colony, knowing they could die as a result, part of him does miss the relationship they had when they were young.

✽ What is their worst fear? Their greatest comfort?
Dys is genetically augmented to have no sense of fear, so it's not quite the same thing, but he does hate feeling trapped in any sense of the word. Understandably, his greatest comfort is escaping out into the wilderness, far from any walls or people.

✽ Top three strengths?
He fears nothing, which makes him brave and unhesitating in the face of physical danger, social embarrassment, and the unknown. He's good at seeing the bigger picture and can shrug off a lot of things, buoyed by the freedom of nihilism. And when he does love something, he cares deeply and fiercely.

✽ Top three weaknesses?
He fears nothing, which makes him reckless at times and limits his sense of self-preservation. His focus on the bigger picture and nihilism can lead to him shrugging off comparatively "smaller" harms like bombing a fucking colony. And as such, he's capable and willing to do horrendous things, even to those he cares about.

✽ What was their last lie?
Dys doesn't actually lie much. Fearlessness of social consequence has made him bold and straightforward, so his most recent lie was likely just something to dissuade attention when going to plant the bomb or something.


Inventory:
- Survival knife
- Basic exploration gear including rope and some dry rations
- Physical journal and pencil
- Air filtration mask
- Surveying gauntlets, which contain GPS and maps from the planet Vertumna, all of which is useless if not totally inoperable here
- Holopalm – a small device embedded in the palm of the hand and powered by the body's heat and electrical charge, with more or less the same features as your average smartphone (though it can project three-dimensional images instead of just 2D ones, and it can also function as a makeshift defibrillator in an emergency by discharging all its battery at once). With no access to the holonet here, it's limited similarly to how a smartphone would be without internet – flashlight, notepad, calculator, some games and saved media that don't require a connection, etc. are still functional, but it can't access the holonet's databases of information and media or communicate at all.

Abilities: Completely normal human aside from the lack of fear. He's very physically capable and knows how to handle a knife for self-defense, but nothing super-human. Also good at navigation, and used to dabble in ventriloquism and comedy acts as a kid.

Sample: TDM toplevel

app to anaplasia

APPLICATION

PLAYER INFO

Player Name/Handle: Kelly
Plurk Handle: @tinybro.plurk.com
Preferred pronouns (optional): Any
Player Status: New Player
Other characters: N/A
Invited by: I have played in aaaall those games for at least a hot minute

CHARACTER INFO

Character Name: Dysthymia ("Dys")
Fandom: I Was A Teenage Exocolonist
Character Journal: @dysappear
Character Type: Canon character
CRAU History: N/A
Canon point: Just before setting the bomb to sabotage the colony in Wet Season of the 18th year
Age: 17
PB: N/A

CHARACTER SUMMARY

Dys is one of several children born on a spaceship midway through its one-way twenty year journey to the planet Vertumna IV, along with his twin sister, Tangent. They were born to a single mom who worked as the ship's counselor and committed suicide when they were very young, leaving them to be raised communally with the rest of the ship's kids. The ship finally reached its destination when they were nine, and they spent their adolescence growing up on an alien planet amid the colony's struggles to survive and establish itself.

Dys was always the loner of his generation. The other kids tended to find him weird and sullen, and he was sometimes bullied for it. While he and his sister were close when they were little, they grew apart as they grew up due to a clash of personalities and priorities, exacerbated by the colony's constant comparison of the two of them – usually negatively on Dys' part, as Tangent was a natural genius who immediately found a place for herself among the colony's scientists and engineers. As he was genetically augmented before birth to have no sense of fear, Dys quickly took to sneaking out to explore the colony's surroundings, and while he initially hated it in all his pre-preteen angst, he quickly came to love the wild, untamed nature of the planet. He eventually found a niche for himself once he was old enough to formally join the surveyors, aiding with foraging and exploration and reveling in the alone time.

At some point in his early years on Vertumna, Dys became the first person in the colony to make contact with sentient alien life when he met Sym, an alien known as a Gardener and tasked with maintaining the planet. Dys fell quickly for both Sym and the Gardeners as a whole, enamored with their innate connection with the planet. He'd spent his whole childhood feeling like an outcast, never fitting in among his peers or with humans in general, so he was naturally drawn to this alien race and their deep ties to the planet itself and all life on it. And while Sym seemed fascinated by and fond of humans in general, the Gardeners as a whole viewed the human colony more as an invasive species to be purged, sending more and more threats in an attempt to eliminate them. In Dys' late teens, one of the other Gardeners made him an offer – sabotage the colony during the next attack, and in exchange he could become a Gardener himself. And despite the risk to everyone he'd ever known, his own twin sister included, Dys accepted the deal.

SUITABILITY

⌲ How do you expect your character to respond to the stress, unfamiliarity, and horror of the setting?

Dys will initially be frustrated and irritated to have been snatched away to a whole new world right when he was about to secure a proper place for himself on his old one, but he'll do quite well here naturally between his expertise as an explorer and his literal fearlessness. The unfamiliarity of everything will likely eventually become an appealing novelty, and he may even eventually find appreciation for the new environment despite all the stressors.

⌲ What do you hope to do with your character long-term?

I'd like for Dys to manage to build some actual relationships with others, a task which will hopefully come easier in this environment with more non-humans around and a mechanic that won't let him just run off on his own immediately.

⌲ If you're giving your character NERFs, how will they deal with the implants?

The technological nature of the implants might be a little unpleasant to Dys at first, but as willing as he is to abandon his humanity and join an alien race, he'll likely eventually embrace the whole "alien physical modifications" thing.

⌲ Does your character currently have the mentality and skills that would allow them to adapt and survive? If your character doesn't, do you think they'd have the capacity to learn quickly?

Perhaps all Dys does have going for him is the mentality and skills to survive in an alien environment.

⌲If they're not used to cooperating with others, will they be able to adapt to cooperating with the group?

While he's a natural loner, he's capable of working with others as needed (if reluctantly at times). He just might be an absolute teenager about it.

⌲ If your character is aged 12-15, do they have skills, resilience, and experience from their canon setting that would allow them to survive without too much reliance on others? Can they realistically keep up with the adults?

N/A

POWER SELECTION

(2) secondary NERFs - Medical Arc and Stealth Arc

ABILITIES

- Great sense of direction
- Excellent survival skills
- Stealthy
- Literally no sense of fear
- Basic combat skills, primarily with a survival knife
- Pretty decent at drawing
- Some programming and holopalm jailbreaking experience
- Ventriloquism, though he's super rusty at it

WRITING SAMPLES

tdm sample ahoy

ADDITIONAL INFO

Personal Belonging:
His holopalm – a small device embedded in the palm of the hand and powered by the body's heat and electrical charge, with more or less the same features as your average smartphone (though it can project three-dimensional images instead of just 2D ones, and it can also function as a makeshift defibrillator in an emergency by discharging all its battery at once). With no access to the holonet here, it's limited similarly to how a smartphone would be without internet – flashlight, notepad, calculator, some games and saved media that don't require a connection, etc. are still functional, but it can't access the holonet's databases of information and media or communicate at all. It's connected to an internally implanted set of headphones called a hearspeak to listen to audio without having to put it on speakerpalm.

Extras: N/A

IC INBOX

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