[Accepted]allow me to be the leaf - Nursie's Diona Whitelist

[witchbells]

BYOND Key: WitchBells
Character Names: Phoebe Essel, Zuhzir Mansurhani, Oceoyl'Fedas Wruorv'hxeo (whose.. name I'm probably going to change, actually. The character needs a rewrite.) Aserok Guwan, Mari Wu-Jeong, XI-Pumpkin, and those are basically all my favorites at the the moment.

Species you are applying to play: Diona

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: tree

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

 

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:

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

Where do I even start?

Despite all the weird shit we've tried with skrell, dionae have gotten the closest to being The Terrifying And Weird Eldritch Thing in our lore. As far as I'm concerned, nobody in the universe really knows where they came from, they just showed up and we started giving them citizenships. It's fine. The skrell vouched for them, they're fine. Probably.

 

 

Character Name: Emerging Networks Of Mycelium Singing In Tandem

Please provide a short backstory for this character

It's impossible for humanity to touch every surface of a planet. Deep in the woods, where nature grows wild, unchecked and untamed, a small colony of nymphs would emerge from the ground. They sang to eachother, explored, and basked in the glorious radiation of the yellow dwarf that shone through the treetops. It was in that  kingdom of forest that the newly-formed gestalt observed the cyclical nature of life firsthand - how ancient, withering trees fall to make way for the young ones, and when they hid among the branches, watching wildlife tear eachother apart, how animals would feed upon the remains and insects would be born among what was left - and the most beautiful demonstration of all: fungi.

 

Mycelium was uncertain how long they had spent in those woods. When they deliberately emerged as a gestalt, fungi fruited from their limbs and occupied the thoughts of their collective, driving their actions. The gestalt threw themselves into a singular passion, a singular voice driving the gestalt to pursue greater knowledge. Mycelium spent decades in their wilds, seeing how life functioned, but now was the time to learn how. Thankfully, the possibility of mastery was within their grasp, thanks to the hospitable amphibious creatures they met with after emerging. While they were focused on the stars, Mycelium kept their eye close to the ground, watching, and listening, and studying the beautiful things that grew from the balls of dirt floating through space. But some sacrifices must be made for such an endeavor - even if, in case of some unfortunate circumstance, one finds themselves studying the majesty of nature in a particularly large metal box floating through space, but one must make sacrifices for what they love.

 

What do you like about this character?

mushroom

I know I'm required to put more here, but.. mushroom. Mushroom!

 

How would you rate your role-playing ability?

I say about the same shit every time this question pops up. I mean, I think I'm good at roleplaying. I think I approach characters more like a writer would. It's more fun to create characters with really engaging stories that some people can relate to. I like to challenge myself and experiment with my roleplay, and sometimes it doesn't always work out! Some times, the months and years go by and a character isn't right anymore, and sometimes they evolve on their own into something that's different, but not wrong. I resent the phase Aurora went through where we said "make a side character, not a protagonist!" because everyone is the protagonist of their own story, even if it's a slice of life sitcom where the biggest problem they have to worry about is having to go to the stupid, awful grocery store after work, and it's a fucking saturday.

 

Notes: I swear this isn't a self-insert.

Edited December 27, 2021 by witchbells
significantly improved backstory

[Mofo1995]

I beLEAF strongly in Nursies capabilities as a role-player. They have deep ROOTS in this community which they have been a part of so long. I'm happy to see them BRANCHING out into other species to give playing them a try. I think nothing but good role-playing could STEM from giving them a diona whitelist. It Chlorophylls me with joy! +1

[witchbells]

4 hours ago, Mofo1995 said:

I beLEAF strongly in Nursies capabilities as a role-player. They have deep ROOTS in this community which they have been a part of so long. I'm happy to see them BRANCHING out into other species to give playing them a try. I think nothing but good role-playing could STEM from giving them a diona whitelist. It Chlorophylls me with joy! +1

thank you for your kind words, frond!

[Nowbillynotreally]

Great person to play with. A hearty recommendation!

[Butterrobber202]

(commenting as a player)

nursie I love many of your characters, and I think you're an excellent roleplayer.

 

but man, that backstory is just not there. The only diona-specific lore present is nymphs and radiation. I have no idea what planet this diona might be from, how they got to NT or... anything really. Additionally, it does not seem to meet the two paragraph requirement, you seem to have a paragraph and two sentences.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Butterrobber202

[witchbells]

3 hours ago, Butterrobber202 said:

(commenting as a player)

nursie I love many of your characters, and I think you're an excellent roleplayer.

 

but man, that backstory is just not there. The only diona-specific lore present is nymphs and radiation. I have no idea what planet this diona might be from, how they got to NT or... anything really. Additionally, it does not seem to meet the two paragraph requirement, you seem to have a paragraph and two sentences.

It's not my best work! I'm not good at making lots of words. A whitelist application usually takes me much longer than two or so weeks, but I was intent on publishing this, collecting feedback and improving the application while it's up.

 

On paper, I know where they're from and how long they were there (they're from Xrim, and they spent about half a century wandering the deep wilderness, the planet's background providing the possibility for the node to grow there and also for a gestalt to Get Incredibly Lost) but I found it a more compelling narrative to leave it out of the original backstory. I also (sort of) know that the same drive that kept them in the wilds leads them to grow a deeper appreciation for the cyclical nature of life (I keep using this phrase because I am very fond of it) and that appreciation evolves, as it typically does, into an interest in the sciences, and that their introduction into society leads to a sort of "wait, I can get paid to do this?" and from there on it's much, much more self explanatory. I'll add improvements to the backstory before midnight.

 

edit: did that

Edited December 27, 2021 by witchbells
update

[jrphoenix303]

Bells is a great roleplayer and I think with some more detail in the backstory that this'll get accepted easy. +1

[Butterrobber202]

Nursie asked me to come beat them up again, so here I am.

 

I think the backstory is an improvement, as it does meet the requirements this time. But, you mentioned in our DMs that your gestalt would be from Xrim, correct? The line "humanity can not touch..." doesn't make much sense in this case, as Xrim is a planet firmly under Skrell control, and would not see an overabundance of humans. Which you yourself seem to acknowledge in your app, as your Diona makes their way off-planet. Small nitpick. 

Despite this, I do think you can roleplay well, as I said earlier. Not everyone has the brain disposition to write 4 page backstories and 15 mile long records. Diona are especially alien in our setting, so writing an application for them can be difficult. Pending Loremaster interrogation, I think you can pass this app.

[Yonnimer]

Hi, few things to say. First, could you elaborate more on the "What makes this species different from humans" question? Mechanics, their factions, biology, ect.

Second, the backstory is honestly well written, but leaves us with some questions to ask: 

Were there any other Dionae where they were from? Or were they completely alone? Any way you think this could affect them personality/mentality wise?

It's implied the first other species they met is skrell, is this true? If so, are they on Xrim? If not, what species first discovered them?

How long were they with them before leaving for Biesel? What drove them to head to Biesel in the first place?

How do they feel about the other species? Humans? Synthetics?

What job do you plan on playing them? How did their backstory make them end up in this position?

What mindtype are they?

[witchbells]

2 hours ago, Yonnimer said:

Were there any other Dionae where they were from? Or were they completely alone? Any way you think this could affect them personality/mentality wise?

Yes and no. While Xrim is pretty much overtaken by dionae, the part they were apart of was more or less abandoned, with only nymphs scurrying about the forest. It will to make them a little anti-social., which.. well enough, they'll be mostly stuck in a lab anyhow.

It probably made studying weird. You're alone for decades, and then all of a sudden there's an amphibian asking what your interpretation of the essay question was.

2 hours ago, Yonnimer said:

It's implied the first other species they met is skrell, is this true? If so, are they on Xrim? If not, what species first discovered them?

Yes and yes!

2 hours ago, Yonnimer said:

How long were they with them before leaving for Biesel? What drove them to head to Biesel in the first place?

This is a good question. I would say longer than it took to finish their studies, but not as long as they were living in the woods. My tentative answer to this is twenty years, give or take, which is enough for them to get mostly well-adjusted and also get a feel for "there are whole worlds out there, and also people"

 

I think someone approached Mycelium with the idea first. A skrellian representative from Nanotrasen, maybe working with their university who recruited them some time after completion of their degree

2 hours ago, Yonnimer said:

How do they feel about the other species? Humans? Synthetics?

I'm really excited to play a character who thinks humans are just utterly bizarre. All of my other characters have grown up, the very least hearing of and knowing of humans, but Mycelium has spent a large part of their life more or less under a rock.  Though, since they've essentially been surrounded by skrell up until now, they're probably not hot on synthetics! Not even a little.

5 hours ago, Yonnimer said:

What job do you plan on playing them? How did their backstory make them end up in this position?

Xenobotanist and only xenobotanist. I think realistically, they would be more suited for a natural science, but this isn't the real world, and most of their peers were skrell, which would've encouraged Mycelium to pursue some sort of theoretical research like this.

7 hours ago, Yonnimer said:

What mindtype are they?

Singular sound. I tried to hint at it in the backstory.

8 hours ago, Yonnimer said:

First, could you elaborate more on the "What makes this species different from humans" question?

Everything. Every single thing. They don't even bleed, not really. They leak something when you injure a gestalt, or a nymph, but it isn't really blood. They're these collective consciousness aliens, presumably from somewhere deep in space we haven't reached yet, or dionae could be so old that none of them has recorded where they're from. Maybe they aren't even from somewhere, and a nymph just.. popped out of the ground one day. Mysterious is an understatement for the dionae. Almost every species has had their own encounter with them.

I guess a good summary is that I feel that dionae have some great horrorterror potential. Dionae are terrifying. We know nothing about them. Not really.

 

[Yonnimer]

Answers seem good. We'll bee accepting your app