Herpetophilia's epic Tajara whitelist application

[Herpetophilia2]

BYOND Key: Herpetophilia

Character Names: Ian Peters, Tori Deimos, Caleb Toe, Ari Matz

Species you are applying to play: Tajara

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Brownish, probably Kochiba 

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: 

For a while, I have been noticing that I've been getting tired of humans, and was also beginning to show some flaws in my roleplaying. I decided that I should mix up my experience and increase my role-playing skills by trying out a new species to play as. This turned out to be pretty hard, as I read through many race lore pages but could never really find anything that stood out to me especially. Later, I paid some closer attention to Tajara lore and discovered that they had a very interesting back-story, which included many cool artstyles that reminded me of WWI and WWII, which I enjoy talking about and studying. This, with the addition of sci-fi and fantasy elements, is what made me pick Tajara over any other species. 

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

First things first, it should be noted that Tajara biology is quite different from humans, being so that they evolved to live in colder environments and prefer such. They also possess claws and digitigrade limbs, which prevent them from wearing or using most human gloves and shoes. Although they bear many similarities to Terran felines, Tajarans are omnivorous and are able to gain nutrients from both meat and plants. However, their biology and mechanics don't play as much of a role in me picking them as their lore and culture does. Having multiple revolutions and civil wars, the Tajara people are now suspended in an un-easy state of peace between three large factions. Certain ethnicities of Tajara are discriminated against and most life conditions are not the best. All this opens up a gateway to interesting roleplaying opportunities between different Tajara that grew up in different factions and with different political views. I also love the current technological state, where Tajara have now only discovered space travel but still heavily depend on NanoTrasen and humanity to get accustomed to it. 

Character Name: Aleksey Rusirovich 

Please provide a short backstory for this character:

Being born into a modest Hharar family living in the South of Nal'tor's in 2438, Aleksey was provided most of the tools and education needed for him to grow up by his parents. Because his family consisted of wood choppers and wood workers, he did a great deal of carrying, lifting and chopping as a kid. This allowed him to grow into a strong and fast Tajara who valued good and effective work. Although his parents believed in S'rendarr and Messa and so did Aleksey in his childhood years, he slowly became agnostic and then atheistic after his father died to unknown reasons at his workplace. Young Aleksey begged the Gods for forgiveness and the reason for his father's death, but got no answer. He participated in services less and less, and his belief faltered and dissipated as he saw no point to remain religious as the church or the Gods themselves never helped him or his family. The final nail in the coffin arrived when a corrupt priest told Aleksey to screw off after he asked them for a couple of credits to buy flowers for his father's grave. Aleksey decided that religion was unnecessary for him to work effectively and productively, and that so far it has brought nothing but grief to him. In his teenage years, he lived through the assasination of Rhagrrhuzau Hadii. Being raised in a Hadiist family and believing in most Hadii beliefs, he was shocked but however overcame it with the announcement of Njadrasanukii Hadii taking over as president. As he slowly matured and got through high school, Aleksey started noticing the decline of life conditions around him. At first he ignored it and simply thought that others were just being unlucky. But before he knew it, the said problem came to him and his family. 

Aleksey's family was caught in a nasty financial problem, as its wood-working business was shut down and taken over by the government. Aleksey was devastated, but never being quite the planner himself waited for his parents to decide what to do. With nowhere else to go to make a living, they turned to their son, and using their remaining money managed to get him through the Nal'tor College and into a job contract with NanoTrasen. His parents moved into a free communal apartment with multilple other families. Aleksey was grieved at the thought of leaving his kin and siblings in such conditions but went along with it because he knew that if his family was to survive, it needed money and he was its last bet. Armed with a NanoTrasen-sponsored college degree and Tau Ceti Basic fluency, he was hired by the company as a cargo technician. After a long journey aboard a NanoTrasen carrier, he received a work visa in Biesel and was deployed on the Aurora, to earn and send back money to his family as try tried to survive in the big city.

What do you like about this character? 

What stands out to me about Aleksey is that he chose to put religion aside to focus on his life, family, and future. The way I see it, doing something like that in the current state of Adhomai would be very hard with the unstopping labor and economical state, where most of the time people don't have anything to believe in except the Gods. Although he lived through the assassination of Al'Mari, he managed to pull through without giving much thought to it only to find himself and his family affected by it, and even then he did not falter and continued to try and rescue his family out its constantly deterioting position. 

How would you rate your role-playing ability?

Lately I've been seeing that all of my characters are extremely similar in behavior and that I've been getting worse at having fun myself and bringing fun to other people when roleplaying. I will grade myself a solid 6 or 7/10 but I believe that this whitelist is going to help me to go beyond and try out new things, which in turn will help me become a better roleplayer.

Notes: Thanks to DeadLantern for helping out with some lore facts, proof-reading and the like. 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Herpetophilia2

[Really BIG420]

Herpetophilia's  roleplay is good enough and I see no problems with this whitelist +1

[Activeknockback]

+1 They are a good RPer that would bring more nice RP given the chance.

[TheSenate]

Herpetophilia has been nothing but solid in my presence, I see no reason to oppose his whitelist.

[KingOfThePing]

I think I interacted only with your medic Matz directly and I can't remember anything you did that was immersion-breaking or the like. You also took time and actually read about the lore, trying to show it, too. Your character's story is not the deepest, but that's not required. It has some really cool beats to it, like how Aleksey's parents "lost" their business.

At first I wanted to ask if you can't elaborate more on the father's death or why he needed money from the priest if the loss of the business and the following financial problems happened after the death of his father, but I wouldn't want my story set entirely in stone, too, so I'd rather not ask these questions. Almost all other questions I wanted to ask were still, even if short, answered by your app. I still have some questions, though:

1. Where will he live in Tau Ceti? Cargo Technicians don't make heaps of money and he wants to send much of it back home. Where and how would he live?

2. How has his view on the Republic changed, after their business was taken away from them? What does he think of Malik Hadii?

3. If you want and/or can, I'd like to hear a bit about their personality. They have gone through a lot, how do they treat and talk to others? Other Tajara, humans, etc.

I'm sure you'll have no problem with these questions thus, I support this application.

[Herpetophilia2]

8 minutes ago, KingOfThePing said:

I think I interacted only with your medic Matz directly and I can't remember anything you did that was immersion-breaking or the like. You also took time and actually read about the lore, trying to show it, too. Your character's story is not the deepest, but that's not required. It has some really cool beats to it, like how Aleksey's parents "lost" their business.

At first I wanted to ask if you can't elaborate more on the father's death or why he needed money from the priest if the loss of the business and the following financial problems happened after the death of his father, but I wouldn't want my story set entirely in stone, too, so I'd rather not ask these questions. Almost all other questions I wanted to ask were still, even if short, answered by your app. I still have some questions, though:

1. Where will he live in Tau Ceti? Cargo Technicians don't make heaps of money and he wants to send much of it back home. Where and how would he live?

2. How has his view on the Republic changed, after their business was taken away from them? What does he think of Malik Hadii?

3. If you want and/or can, I'd like to hear a bit about their personality. They have gone through a lot, how do they treat and talk to others? Other Tajara, humans, etc.

I'm sure you'll have no problem with these questions thus, I support this application.

Yo, thanks! To answer the three questions you had:

1. Being as he didn't have that much money left after the incident and that he only has a pretty low-paying job, Aleksey was given a cheap living unit on the Odin thanks to his NanoTrasen-sponsored degree and contract. 

2. Aleksey did not know the reason for his family's business being shut down and was infuriated at first. However seeing as he couldn't do much about it and because of his belief in Hadii ideology, Aleksey decided that it was a necessary evil of some sort done by the goverment for the good of other Tajara. He wasn't just fine with it and was still angry, however he suppressed it with that idea in order to keep himself from breaking down. As for Malik Hadii, Aleksey still supports him as a Hadiist but does not exactly love him because of the incident with his family's business. 

3. Seeing the recent events of his life, Aleksey became a bit of a workaholic alongside with becoming a bit depressed. Due to this and the small amount of sleep he gets because of his shifts, he is normally easily irritated. Because he was raised in a Hadiist family, Aleksey tries to treat every Tajara comrade he meets equally regardless of their ethnicity, however he is a bit suspicious of Zhan-Khazans. Since he couldn't get his job and most of his education without the large human megacorporation NanoTrasen, he is content with humans and even is quite thankful to them.

I hope these answers suit you! If not, I can still use the criticism

[Coalf]

This is a good application.

The Good:
For a long time we have been trying to dissuade people from making their Tajara atheistic/neutral-leaning due to it usually being used to avoid lore. However, you have buldozered through that stigma and made your characters atheism a centerpiece and a big part of his character, hell it is THE turning point for the character and his behaviour. I enjoy this very much as it displays that you have an understand of how important religion is on Adhomai, using it to boost up your characters backstory rather than using a atheism as an excuse for laziness.

Second, I enjoy your character still being a Hadiist. Roots run deep and the Tajara who change their mind as soon as their ass hits human space always dissapointed me. So I enjoy very much that your character tries to justify the governments behaviour to himself, rather than trying to immediatly fault the government.
It shows you are actually engaged in the characters mindset, rather than just roleplaying your own personality in a cat.

Overall from what I've seen and from the little I've talked to you, I can tell that you are very much interested in lore and don't just say that because you want to play your furry OC and we won't let you otherwise. If I were in charge of accepting your applications I'd have no reason not to.

The Bad:
Your justification on WHY exactly your character works at Nanotrasen is, weak and generic. I know this kind of explanation is the easiest and most common to reach, but after reading the rest of your application the ending in contrast left me very dissapointed.

However, that's only a small issue and I don't see why it would stop you from acquiring your whitelist.

So yes, this application has my support ?

 

[KingOfThePing]

Your answers are very good and I fully believe you'll do just fine. You have my full support on this whitelist.

[Herpetophilia2]

Thank you both. In future applications, I will make sure to try and use your criticism to the best of my ability.

[Alberyk]

As other players already covered the questions that I had, I will accept this application.