[Accepted] KingOfThePing's Diona Application: Chirpsong Edition

[KingOfThePing]

BYOND Key: KingOfThePing

Character Names: Sei Armas, Dana Zirin, Quik'Kin Zish, Quorrdash Fraseq, Za'Akaix Nex Zo'ra, Ka'Akaix'Ven C'thur, Kamkin Daminkhonov

Species you are applying to play: Diona

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: e x e m p t

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question.

Why do you wish to play this specific race: I like alien races. Like as alien as possible. Dionae are a mysterious race, where they come from and how exactly they work. Every gestalt works as a mini-hivemind and not a single entity, and that's pretty cool, if you ask me. It's something completely different and can provide ample opportunities for RP. Also, in theory, they can become a planet sized entity with unknown capablities, how cool is that? The recent discussion about them being under-represented also made me read the lore page again and I found it all very interesting.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human:

First of all they are way slower than any other race. They dont care about atmosphere or pressure but their weakness is, that they will die, when exposed to darkness for a longer time. Since they feed off of radiation they also dont really need food, despite being able to eat small critters to get more biomass. All pretty un-human to me. Since they are also formed from multiple sentient parts, I imagine it's possible that the personality of a Diona can change in a moment's notice too, maybe not drastically, but noticable, maybe, which again, gives cool RP opportunities which you don't get with any other race really. Another really, really interesting point is how Dionae are organized within their society, since they know no "rank" or social standing and the primary way to difference between themselves is through their names, which reflect their age and knowledge they gathered.

 

Character Name: One From Deep Below

Please provide a short backstory for this character

One From Deep Below hatched from a pod in a skrellian lab, deep, deep underground under the surface of the ice planet Aliose, together with many, many other nymphs he was studied extensively by the skrellian scientists who wanted to research everything they could about them. The life in the lab wasn't all that bad. Optimal temperature, light at any given time and the occasional radiation bath. During his time as a nymph, Below was content. He didn't knew it any other way. The nymphs were allowed to roam the lab freely, sooner or later forming into a gestalt. This gestalt is known as One From Deep Below, the name was agreed upon forming the gestalt, it was meant to never forget their place of birth. After forming One From Deep Below the scientists continued to conduct experiments and tests on them and very soon Below started to show real interest in the work of the scientists. They, watched the scientists do their work and started to gather knowledge. First only by spectating the scientists doing observation and experiments on him, but sooner or later, every "test subject", and he was nothing else to them at this point, reaches it's end - regarding the data, that can be collected from them, so a new batch is grown. Below is aware, that he lives in a lab, as a test subject, for data collecting, gaining knowledge and for better understanding and he is fine with that. The emotion he experienced most during his time, before he became the gestalt he now is, was happiness. He, of course, also experienced sadness and anger, but this was much, much less frequent as happiness. As said above, all nymphs in the lab were cared for well, they were given ample opportunity to satisfy their curiosity. He never saw the skrellian scientists as a threat, more like companions that were very different from himself. Eager to be able to communicate with them, Below started to learn their language, which luckily was not too hard to do for him, given the fact that he had more than enough time to study it. After being able to communicate properly with the scientists and explaining his great interest in the work they are doing. The relationship was frosty, at best, at the beginning, but with time passing, this changed. He asked questions, a lot of questions and after a time he was given materials to study. Eventually he was allowed to leave the lab, under supervision of course, able to finally explore his enviroment. He learned about the facility, the scientists that lived there, the planet they are located at and so on.

After a while they asked to assist the scientists in their experiments and after some hesitation they were allowed to. Smalls steps were made, first it was merely delivery of materials or holding things for the scientists conducting experiments, then maybe writing down readings or comparing two values, after that he was allowed to prepare experiments, assembling setups and maintaining them. He took it all in, learning, experiencing everything. Time moves on even further and soon Below was a well known and liked colleague, working in the very lab they were grown in, assisting here and there, not confined to a single field of study. He passed all required tests, and acquired a bachelor's degree. He wanted to go further, though, knowing how much an official paper that states that he, in fact, actually knows his field of study, so he wants to acquire a masters degree, too. Not knowing yet, what field of study he wants to finally graduate in he still "only" is a lab assistant, currently. Below is fine with that, though. He is still able to learn new things, assisting in the everyday duties of the lab he lives in. One day though, the time came and the scientist he currently worked with for quite some time now wanted to move away. "To see a new place, conduct bigger and better experiments." - so Below was asked if they want to accompany them. "One can always use a good lab assistant as you." And Below accepted the offer, which brought him to Tau Ceti, to the NSS Aurora, where he now not only helps a single scientist, but got a whole department to discover now, with a great variety of fields of study to discover and thus - knowledge to gather.

What do you like about this character?

One From Deep Below is a gestalt that hasn't seen much of the outside world or the universe in general. So he will be clueless about some things, since life in a lab is probably quite different to a "normal" one. He always interacted with one race, one profession (even though the term "scientist" can mean a lot of things, of course.) so he will be very fascinated by other races and other professions. Maybe he will gree the next cargo technician as "Hello, Doctor.", too, who knows. It will be great fun to interact with others and I believe it makes him a very, very intersting character to interact with.

How would you rate your role-playing ability? 7/10

Notes: Dooona.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Neinbox
Application accepted.

[EngineersDream]

Okay, so first of all: I gave myself an 8/10 for roleplaying on my last application. So Lanze has earned at least a 9/10.+

But yeah, Lanze has shown his ability to roleplay well on multiple occasions. I will absolutely put in a +1.

[Neinbox]

Hi @KingOfThePing! Popping in to point out a few things here.

First is that your short story should be two paragraphs long, as stated in the format.

[b]BYOND Key:[/b] (byond key)
[b]Character Names:[/b] (character name)
[b]Species you are applying to play:[/b] (species name)
[b]What color do you plan on making your first alien character:[/b] (Color of your character; Dionaea & IPCs exempt)
[b]Have you read our lore section's page on this species?:[/b]

[u]Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question.[/u]

[b]Why do you wish to play this specific race:[/b]
(One paragraph minimum)

[b]Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human:[/b]
(One Paragraph minimum)

[b]Character Name:[/b] (Character name)
[b]Please provide a short backstory for this character[/b]
(Aproxomately two paragraphs)
[b]What do you like about this character?[/b]
(Describe what you like about this character
[b]How would you rate your role-playing ability?[/b]

[b]Notes:[/b]

Next is that your role-playing self-rating feels a bit lacking. I'd like it to be a paragraph long like what's needed for the rest; why do you feel like you should be rated as a 7/10?

Lastly, I see you refer to your Gestalt as a "he" a lot. Do they call themselves a "he" a lot too?

 

Hope to hear from you soon!

[KingOfThePing]

Hey, @Neinbox,

Firstly, I expanded the story as per request from you. Since he will only arrive in Tau Ceti the day I will first play him, the new parts will also cover his life in the underground lab he grew up with, the new things are marked in yellow to stand out better.

Second, regarding the self-rating, to be perfectly honest I do not know what you want to hear from me here. but maybe it is this: I used to put in this, for my self-rating: "Rating yourself is presumptuous, but I think my roleplaying is alright." until I was told to stop that. I think rating yourself is the worst kind of review - since people usually don't think they are bad at what they are doing. All I can say is that my roleplay is alright, and my characters are all fleshed out and universally liked. No one is perfect though and there are a lot of factors that can influence one's ability to roleplay and I have better and worse days like any other player. 5 to 6 I'd call average, I would "rate" myself slightly above that. So a seven.

To your last question, no, he wouldnt refer to himself as a "he". Due to being raised in a lab he was not forced anything gender related onto him (Don't forget he was grown to be researched and in this case you want to interfere with your test subjects as little as possible, really). He is too young to properly understand why other races (like the Skrell) sometimes use different pronouns even though they look so similar. When talking about himself One From Deep Below would refer to him as a "We", most likely, since he is really not that old yet, from a Dionae point of view so he did not have enough time to understand the word "I" yet nor did he any reason to change his natural talking, where gestalts normally refer to them as "We/They" etc. Referring to the character with a male pronoun in the app is merely done due to simplicity reasons, since English is not my native language it was just easier to do it like that. If you want me to change it, then I really have no problem with it. I'm aware that Dionae are asexual and do not have/difference between any genders.

Edited April 29, 2019 by KingOfThePing
Forgot to mention, lmao

[Neinbox]

On 28/04/2019 at 10:45, KingOfThePing said:

Firstly, I expanded the story as per request from you. Since he will only arrive in Tau Ceti the day I will first play him, the new parts will also cover his life in the underground lab he grew up with, the new things are marked in yellow to stand out better.

Read and re-read! Thank you for highlighting, it made it a lot easier to pick out the changes and read through faster. If only others started to pick up this habit!

On 28/04/2019 at 10:45, KingOfThePing said:

Second, regarding the self-rating, to be perfectly honest I do not know what you want to hear from me here. but maybe it is this: I used to put in this, for my self-rating: "Rating yourself is presumptuous, but I think my roleplaying is alright." until I was told to stop that. I think rating yourself is the worst kind of review - since people usually don't think they are bad at what they are doing. All I can say is that my roleplay is alright, and my characters are all fleshed out and universally liked. No one is perfect though and there are a lot of factors that can influence one's ability to roleplay and I have better and worse days like any other player. 5 to 6 I'd call average, I would "rate" myself slightly above that. So a seven.

Completely understandable, and your answer does count for a self-review, even you saying you would rather not. The point of these is honesty. If someone says they get a 10/10 and flaunt it but there's others out here that strongly disagree, something might be up. But being humble and admitting to difficulties and showing that you're more than willing to work on them and improve is a great way to earn trust, because applicants are being entrusted with representing an alien species. And if they make faults, they should be willing to improve or risk losing the whitelist.

On 28/04/2019 at 10:45, KingOfThePing said:

To your last question, no, he wouldnt refer to himself as a "he". Due to being raised in a lab he was not forced anything gender related onto him (Don't forget he was grown to be researched and in this case you want to interfere with your test subjects as little as possible, really). He is too young to properly understand why other races (like the Skrell) sometimes use different pronouns even though they look so similar. When talking about himself One From Deep Below would refer to him as a "We", most likely, since he is really not that old yet, from a Dionae point of view so he did not have enough time to understand the word "I" yet nor did he any reason to change his natural talking, where gestalts normally refer to them as "We/They" etc. Referring to the character with a male pronoun in the app is merely done due to simplicity reasons, since English is not my native language it was just easier to do it like that. If you want me to change it, then I really have no problem with it. I'm aware that Dionae are asexual and do not have/difference between any genders.

Again, understandable! I can see where you're coming from here. But unfortunately, it is best to get into the habit of talking about them as they are. A genderless group of entities. If you're not careful, you can slip up in-game too often with your Gestalt gendering itself and be considered by others to be breaking lore. And the worst that could happen with keeping up on using genderless pronouns is using it OOCly or IRL. I ended up talking in third person on accident after first playing my Tajara for the first few weeks. That was fun to explain!

A good way to remember it is to look at your gestalt as a group of animals, because that's literally what it is. They just got smart is all! "They" not only refers to a group of people, but it also refers to someone as neither male nor female, or perhaps somewhere in between. "It" is like talking about a bird or insect or plant or fish, etc. and is used to describe lesser sentient beings or objects. As for "we", your Gestalt is a collection of animals deciding on things as a group like one long, mobile business meeting. Just keep trying to talk about them using those terms instead of gendering them- you'll get the hang of it in no time and it'll help you out with being able to play them better. Because when you start thinking about it, your mindset will start to apply other things to it too. Best to do it while you're ahead to avoid mistakes!

Think you're up for that challenge?

[KingOfThePing]

As ready as one can be. I'll keep your advice in mind and do my best!

[Neinbox]

Best of luck, then! If you have any questions, feel free to contact me!

 

Application Accepted.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Neinbox