[Accepted]VViped *chirps

[VVipEdout]

BYOND Key: vvipedout

Character Names:

Spoiler

And a bunch of others who got the bullet to make space.

Species you are applying to play: Dionaea

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

Why do you wish to play this specific race: It's straight up the most alien species we have. You're playing a star vampire made out of not-quite-plant not-quite-animal DNA-less extremophile millipede-slugs the size of a reasonably fat cat each who eats practically anything, lives off radiation, learns off flesh and blood and is by default a multiple personality system whose base biology demands to develop a way to act in coordination. You have no homeworld to speak of, the vast majority of the galaxy has zero idea how your anatomy (whose growth is largely determined by you and all your yourselves) works, your citizenship and legal status is extremely dubious in most of civilization, and the average botanist can grow you with the right nodes and nutritious enough soil. Not to mention every single one of your component nymphs can have a different mental condition. Yes, your left foot can have major depressive syndrome and it effectively means philosophical cancer to the rest of your body, so you split it off. If you split enough times you develop another disorder and your separate bodyparts have to go and treat it via finding a new body or handholding.

Despite these, as-played Diona don't have much variety to speak of.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: See last question. Diona either spend an incredible amount of time drifting around an orbit, exist on an isolated planet, or are born in a florist's backyard and transition from pets to person, or grow up hard and fast by being scraped off a colony ship's hull for being sentient barnacles and end up becoming the world's first Vaurca with bark. You've got a massive amount of origins to pick from and about zero of them could conceivably be 'Human but X', yet you could conceivably be from anywhere and span a massive amount of experiences to go with it. Want to start off in a star's orbit? You got it. Move to the Moghean wasteland, live relatively happily sucking off radiation, caring for the lizards and becoming a community figure? Why not. Skip through the systems until you finally get to Ceti and pursue your passion for underwater basket weaving? Of course you can. It's as open ended as you can get and any themes to the lore you use can be twisted, bopped, pulled and hit at your leisure, which is one of my favourite forms of storytelling.

Character Name: Camarilla Among Bottom Feeders (Carmilla or Bottoms, for friends)

Please provide a short backstory for this character:

Olga Kravchenko was born to a small, unremarkable Vysokan host not worth mentioning. While dull, she was known to her peers as a talented gurmori rider and a decent shot with a laser, though a terrible cook and a worse tanner. A series of poor decisions and questionable contacts led her to a brief stint as a pirate, after which a better set of decisions and a newfound sense of self-preservation established her career as a poacher. While the illegal flora and fauna market can be extremely varied, particularly around Xanu Prime, Olga (now known as 'the Cossack' in business circles) saw herself thriving in the Ambergris niche; not a sustainable one as she'd later find out, but a profitable one with a clientele ranging from eccentric Xanusii to at least one Asmara frequent at Eridani. One of her middlemen, a Martian going by Frances Cioelle, receives a set of frightened, lonely and homesick nymphs of dubious origin as an anniversary gift. Cioelle herself being an odd personality, she takes to the quartet of nymphs with utmost care and a healthy diet of 'meat and a desk lamp', as per Kravchenko's advice. One redecoration saw the nymphs now combined (Covert Feeding, being Covert, Treasure, Amber, and Feeder as one) and now past their loneliness very literally incorporating a large lamp into their diet, after which the figurative lightbulb lit above Cioelle's head.

Frances Cioelle had a variety of less than legal businesses, which meant a variety of evidence that needed disposals. Covert Feeding had taken happily to eating through sheaves of papers, hard drives, clothes and even weapons more than once. Now more knowledgeable on her four 'pets' and their owner for nearly twelve years, Cioelle had even taken to spicing their diet up with the occasional blood sample, giving the trash disposal Cerberus a child's grasp of Freespeak and an obvious Martian accent from an unidentifiable region. Albeit the arcology's lower levels were dimly lit, great pains were taken to maintain a constant, intense light shining around the Diona, courtesy of multiple LEDs and light tubes. It was a matter of time until the gestalt came to plant its seeds, and so it did; four healthy nymphs from whatever hydroponic solution Cioelle could arrange for the gestalt's seeds to develop in. This Cerberus, now having learned the concept of care and a vague notion of business from Cioelle, and indignation or even anger at a nebulous offence they'd later come to call 'kidnapping' from Kravchenko, had little time to share their experiences with the four young and ignorant nymphs before being shoved into their newest major one. On one day, 'evidence' had come in the form of a bloodied and pallid Elysian youth, a petty dealer's enforcer dragged in a bag straining the back of the gestalt's caretaker with effort until the bagged corpse finally lay between eight nymphs and a tightly sealed door.

Alliance Of Bottom Feeders knocked on that door barely hours after, standing tall before a completely clean floor and the blinding bright lamps they'd grown so used to. The gestalt that left that room did not come out wise or learned, but armed with a poor Martian gangster's grasp of Freespeak, an innate sense of how to swing a bat, and a sharp curiosity for what their next meal would be. Business and skullduggery came to them far earlier than standing on two feet had, and their quasi-filial attachment to Cioelle had them involved in plenty of both soon enough. As a result, a lot of their early existence had skewed basic concepts in the wrong direction; 'education' meant what already warped interactions they could pick up from the arcology's underworld, or the Cyclops' caretaker-associate saw fun to read to them, or lunchtime. 'Employment' took long to associate to 'qualifications' or 'papers' rather than just 'money' and 'contacts', and 'death' had not quite settled in until Cioelle came face to face with it. In a strange move for an Elysium crook, Frances Cioelle managed to die from natural causes at the ripe age of 93, leaving the gestalt largely alone in the world, a nymph short due to a mortally threatening if understandable case of depression, and a very experienced corpse's worth of knowledge. Enough knowledge for a gestalt of seven to find their way to Biesel in search of the ever-present ideal of business, if not terribly qualified business. With a backpack of memories and a less crude grasp of language, the eco-friendly thug left the Alliance behind.

Camarilla Among Bottom Feeders found themselves as a talented tunnel lurker and a decent shot with a pump-action, if a terrible academic and a worse socialite. These skills and the gestalt's best application of a few newer ones led them to their first legal job as a shaft miner in the comfortably arcology-like Aurora, at relatively less risk of losing a second nymph to an obstacle, cognitive or lead based.

What do you like about this character?

They let me explore avenues of Diona I feel are severely underplayed, like cultural affectations, their gene-based learning system, the (very, very new) psychology additions, a lack of pacifist or amiable tendencies, the possibility of being reticent to even temporary splits, what a role model means to a gestalt and how it can skew their growth, so on. Also the idea of a tree showing up to your house to break your legs is funny to me.

How would you rate your role-playing ability?

10/10. I've always been interested in CCIA.

Notes: _{seriously why do we still have the rating question everyone always answers 6-8}

Edited July 2, 2020 by VVipEdout
Prettied up again. I knew I'd missed a typo :agony:

[Zundy]

Looking good home slice. I like the idea of a thug Dionae and I hope they get involved in illicit activity on station if the app goes through. I too made a thug Dionae recently but I made a fatal error in calling them "Pounded by the Credit" which it turns out is a very similar name to a parody erotic novel and his attire, while supposed to be intimidating leathers, made them look like a leather daddy. Needless to say I deleted them. Rip Credit.

My questions to you are:

- How would Carmilla/Bottom fit in with the Dionae community on Biesel? If not at all why not?

- Why did they decide to be shaft miner instead of a cargo tech/janitor/assistant?

[VVipEdout]

1 hour ago, Zundy said:

Looking good home slice. I like the idea of a thug Dionae and I hope they get involved in illicit activity on station if the app goes through. I too made a thug Dionae recently but I made a fatal error in calling them "Pounded by the Credit" which it turns out is a very similar name to a parody erotic novel and his attire, while supposed to be intimidating leathers, made them look like a leather daddy. Needless to say I deleted them. Rip Credit.

My questions to you are:

- How would Carmilla/Bottom fit in with the Dionae community on Biesel? If not at all why not?

- Why did they decide to be shaft miner instead of a cargo tech/janitor/assistant?

Jesus fuck I shouldn't have stayed up for the manifest. I dig the questions, let's see:

- Strictly in Biesel, the Songless Gang feels like the only real fit; I wanted to fuck around with both of the Choirs if it ever came up, but Bottom's individual nymphs none have a philosophy that's immediately compatible with either, and are directly opposed to the Culture by merit of being on the wrong side of the police the Culture assists, lacking a concept of patriotism (much less a Biesel one) and prime Songless candidates. The Song is a weird one, being an extension of the first Choir, so I'd lean towards no. Chipping in out of curiosity isn't out of the question and a Songless member would at least want to be informed, though. There's also the bit about being a set of nymphs detached from a Wild One originally, which you can hook up to splitting disorder and play at the Dionae sense of biological unity. Songless offers just that without having to give up any nymph's experience and views, so it's the natural fit.

- CT/Assistant are interaction heavy positions and so is Janitor to a degree, which aren't intuitive picks for a gestalt whose lived cross-species interactions have by and large been thuggery. The dark tunnels and pump-action bit is a jab at KA mining, though I can see it work as CT if they end up being more smooth criminal as a collective/as a head nymph than just straight up thug. Mining has the unga appeal of 'go somewhere dark, shoot gun, come back with goods' and doesn't stray too far from the arcology experience, with the added bonus Bottom here doesn't care at all about EVA so long as it isn't pitch dark.

Thanks for hitting me up so soon. Absolutely gonna crime with the cargo goblins if it does go through, don't worry about that.

[Caelphon]

Hi there!

Your application is clearly well-thought out, however, I do have a few questions; 

1. It seems Bottom was located from the Solarian Alliance, however, it seems they never 'paid' off their debt. How did your Dionae flee the Alliance?

2. How do you plan on incorporating this 'thug' ideal into your character's life on the Aurora? 

3. Your character appears to have been one of the only ones around for the death of their, for lack of a better word, Mob Boss. Are they hunted by his colleagues? Is your character quite aggressive? 

 

thanks for applying!

[VVipEdout]

1 hour ago, Caelphon said:

Hi there!

Your application is clearly well-thought out, however, I do have a few questions; 

1. It seems Bottom was located from the Solarian Alliance, however, it seems they never 'paid' off their debt. How did your Dionae flee the Alliance?

2. How do you plan on incorporating this 'thug' ideal into your character's life on the Aurora? 

3. Your character appears to have been one of the only ones around for the death of their, for lack of a better word, Mob Boss. Are they hunted by his colleagues? Is your character quite aggressive? 

 

thanks for applying!

Being perfectly honest it's stream of thought for a bunch of loose ideas I wanted to use eventually, so I appreciate the questions to polish it out.

1. Smuggled out was my first pick. It's a common enough Tajara backstory and the most thematically fitting, being that the original four nymphs were smuggled in to start with. Chipping is something I can see being (necessarily, likely) bypassed at Mars and less so at Ceti. It drops us as an undocumented gestalt in the middle of Biesel which I like, and 'how did you get a passport' is a fun question you can answer at several different angles, from a best effort to look good in a background check, to forged papers, to begrudgingly joining the TCFL for the minimum length. Integrating at Mars and paying off the debt through legal or less legal means is an option, but it also plays at integrating into general society and I want to leave that for TC in full.

2. This is a hard one, because to me soft antagonistic/crime RP is more organic than planned, but for an outline the Songless hook of 'work supply to steal high value material' is a good start. What comes after is largely dependent on what characters and situations they bump into, though the vibe I get right now is more 'anything a slow as shit treeman can reasonably get away with at work,' so very much a tone down from Alliance Of Bottom Feeders. It's also thematic that they'd move away from more obvious/violent crime after leaving Mars/digesting Cioelle and taking their new name, but again, it's very context dependent to what actually happens in game.

3. I never liked 'active bounty in X system' or 'being trailed down by Y people' for backstories, personally. It feels off to have conflict brought in by purely out-of-game factors before you even start playing, so it's gonna be a no. Outward, obvious aggression is likewise a dumb trait OOC for being unfun to play with, and IC for being a dumb move for a more or less experienced gestalt with at least two human bodies to incorporate experiences from. Maybe if they were Viscerabelt, but the tone I want to aim for is less 'aggressive' and more 'unscrupulous,' with all that implies in a nymph's worldview and, if something critical were to happen during play, psychology.

Also, to note, I'm not too sure of what a chipped nymph involves. So far I assume that it's little but an electronic ID in the form of an implant and that the nymph-gestalt information isn't anymore exhaustive than what one would find on equivalent documentation for other species, but if it's intentionally vague or intended to be more detailed than that it's something I can see having fun playing with.

[Caelphon]

I will likely be implementing more details on Diona Chipping - but your answers were good.

This application has my support. 

[Yonnimer]

Sorry for the delay! After some discussion, we've decided to go ahead and accept your application!