[community profile] wilderlands App and Permissions

May. 1st, 2018 06:54 pm
easy_as_cake: (Default)
[personal profile] easy_as_cake
Character Name: Trance Gemini
Fandom: Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda
Canon point: after the end of S2E1 “The Widening Gyre”

Player: Plague
Plurk Handle: [plurk.com profile] jaetopus
E-mail: candykatt@gmail.com
Timezone: CST (-6 GMT)


[OOC]

Backtagging: As always, yep!
Threadhopping: Of course!
Fourthwalling: I don't know if anyone would ever know her canon, but she's pretty unflappable and okay with the idea of multiple universes/timelines/whatever, so go for it.
Offensive subjects (elaborate): I am nearly impossible to offend, so I can't think of anything offhand, but if anything gets stumbled upon, I'll be sure to mention it.

[IC]

Hugging this character: Always! Trance loves hugs.
Kissing this character: Trance is less pleased by kissing, but maybe. Contact me first and I'll tell you what she's likely to do.
Flirting with this character: Sure! She's likely to either be oblivious or pretend to be oblivious, though. If she really likes you as a friend, she might just make fun of you for it, instead.
Fighting with this character: You're welcome to try, but she's a lover, not a fighter. She's waaaaaaaay more likely to run away.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: HAHAHA, oh, good luck with that. Her native powers are turned off, but you're still likely to either end up seeing the inside of a star or the mental equivalent of tv static, neither of which I imagine is very comfortable for anything mortal. If your pup REALLY wants to try, we'll talk and see what's going on.

Warnings: None, really. Trance is nosy and smarter than she lets on most of the time. She may mother hen at you, given a chance.


History: Here is a link, but the wiki article is really bad.

Trance plays all her cards very close to her chest and those dealing with her history especially so. As far as most know or suspect, Trance is quirky but harmless, a strange girl from a strange race that no one seems to have heard of. In reality, Trance is the avatar of a star, created along with those like her to help safeguard the universe against the Spirit of the Abyss. She’s spent unknown millenia traveling the universe in search of the perfect possible future, time of which she doesn’t speak. Although, in the delirium of having an entire library’s worth of knowledge shoved into his brain, Harper did once mention the knowledge of a cult on some forgotten world worshipping a purple, tailed goddess. Trance quickly cut off that line of conversation.

In search of that perfect possible future, Trance eventually crossed paths with Beka Valentine, captain of the Eureka Maru. She signed onto the crew, making a name for herself as Beka’s ‘good luck charm’ and quickly becoming Seamus Harper’s best friend. Not long after, completely coincidentally, Beka took a mission to recover the lost High Guard ship, the Andromeda Ascendant. Although the crew had no real concern for little details like intergalactic laws, this trip was mostly legal and very highly paid, promising to get Beka and the Maru out of debt for good. The one thing they hadn’t planned on was Dylan Hunt, the Andromeda’s captain who had managed to survive 300 years in the event horizon of a black hole along with his ship.

Trance was one of the first to sign on to Dylan’s mission of peace and restoring the Commonwealth, in no small part because Dylan was her best chance to achieve her own goals. Over the course of the next year, the Andromeda traveled the known worlds: solving problems, spreading peace, and signing worlds to the reborn All Systems Commonwealth. With the Andromeda’s less-than-skeleton crew, Trance took over the medical bay as well as the hydroponics garden, naming and caring for all of the plants there. She continued her ‘good luck charm’ streak, leading Dylan to begin to suspect that perhaps Trance was more than she seemed. This was only cemented by Trance’s more outlandish accomplishments, including but not limited to somehow piloting the Andromeda through Slipstream 300 years into the past and pinpointing the one planet out of thousands on which part of the crew was being held captive.

Her next Slipstream piloting attempt ended even worse than the first. When Harper mistakenly restored a backup of Andromeda’s core AI, the ship became hostile toward its new crew and forced Trance, as the most convenient sentient creature, to pilot the ship as it attempted to continue a mission it had abandoned long before Dylan became the Andromeda’s captain. The mission took them directly to the Magog Worldship, a terrifying collection of planets tied together in orbit around an artificial sun created by the Abyss. Although the ship and crew escaped mostly in one piece, Harper was infested with Magog larvae and Trance had begun to lose sight of how to achieve the perfect possible future she’d been chasing for so long. She instead dedicated her time to finding a cure for Harper, so far only managing to cause the larvae to go dormant.

Personality: Trance is described by her best friend as “an enigma wrapped up in a riddle with a tail in the middle.” Granted, said best friend was delirious from pain and having his brain quite literally overloaded at the time, but it’s possibly the best way to describe her. Pretty much everything about her is a mystery in one way or another, even what (and who) exactly she is. Still, as strange as it sounds, while Trance hides quite a bit of herself, she’s free with her time, affection, and attention, giving to others what she wouldn’t ask for herself.

She often outwardly approaches life much like a child would, still able to see the wonder in the universe despite the time she’s spent in it. She’s either very unfamiliar with, or at least wants to appear unfamiliar with, life among humans, or indeed most residents of the known worlds. She rarely understands seemingly simple phrases and idioms, tending to take them literally instead. When we first meet her, she talks happily about her predecessor who retired and bought a farm, only to be corrected that, no, he had bought THE farm, when his space suit tore.

A pretty flower or picture will earn more attention than any amount of money. She smiles and laughs and loves and feels sad or heartbroken without worrying about what everyone else will think. Trance is basically everything a little girl would expect in her favorite Disney princess, minus the Prince Charming. She’s kind, generous, loving, caring, and kind of ditzy. Usually. Back her into a corner, though, and you’ll see that it isn’t all she can be.

She chooses to trust in the innate goodness of people until they’ve more than shown otherwise, and more importantly she trusts her own abilities to find and follow the perfect path in any situation which allows her the freedom of that trust. She can make friends with anyone, and she usually chooses to do exactly that at every opportunity. Or tries to, at least. The more she thinks someone ‘needs’ a friend, the harder she’ll try to be one. Once, when she’d been kidnapped, she tried to ‘reform’ the kidnapper by gifting him the last of a rare species of flower which could be worth many fortunes. According to Trance, sometimes all a person needs is something beautiful to call their own.

All of this isn’t to say she’s stupid or incapable of understanding the world. Her occasionally wicked sense of humor (offering to get steak sauce for one of her alien crewmates to eat another one) says she understands far more than she lets on, but she chooses to ignore the worst parts of the world when she can. Focusing on the negative won’t get her any closer to her goals.

When pressed, though, shades of what Trance is capable of begin to show through. In order to stop a fight, she quite calmly promises to kill both people involved unless they stop, including her best friend. “And I’ll get away with it, too. Know why? Because I’m cute.” She knows exactly what her image makes people think and uses that to her best advantage. When she’s captured by a scientist who wants to learn how to kill her because he blames her species for the near destruction of his homeworld, she slowly transforms over the course of the incident from the persona she usually projects to one that’s darker and far more worldly, outwardly lying to him and laughing when he believes her. Her people, she says, truthfully or otherwise, can grow bored with the universe and find their own sources of fun. She, on the other hand, has enough to do just fixing the mess of the whole place. While this darker side rarely makes an appearance, it does exist, making a sharp counterpoint to her usual bubbly outlook on life.

Canon Powers: As the avatar of a star, Trance is only vaguely a living creature, meaning she’s basically impossible to kill in canon, and things that would adversely affect living creatures tend to have strange effects on her. Conversely, some things that have little to no effect on living creatures, such as spending time in Slipstream, can affect her gravely.

Trance also comes ready equipped with the ability to read probabilities and possibly even affect the outcomes. She uses this for anything and everything from being the sort of gambler that’s been banned from multiple casino drifts for just winning too much to causing a coffee machine to short out and subsequently make the ship’s antigravity malfunction. The ship docked for repairs, only to discover that had the entire thing not happened then, the antigravity likely would have broken the next time the ship entered Slipstream, instead, likely killing everyone on board.

Additionally, electronics and plants both react peculiarly to her presence. Electronics tend to react poorly, breaking or malfunctioning as they might in the presence of a solar flare. Plants, on the other hand, love her, and tend to grow exceptionally well in her care.

Freebie Powers:

Cosmetic Differences. Trance is purple with slightly pointed ears. She also has a prehensile tail. The tail doesn’t have any supernatural powers, but it is physically useful for holding things or catching herself if she’s falling (assuming it can grab onto something like a branch). It can hold her weight for short periods of time, which is very useful as a cat burglar, and is dexterous enough for simple tasks like loosening knots. It also bears a strong resemblance to what some cultures might consider a “devil’s tail” and all the complications that might… entail.

Agelessness. I’m fine if this is a no, but I’m hoping to be able to keep this bit of Trance’s avatarness despite cutting off the rest of her abilities. In canon she’s not technically quite alive or not alive at any given time, which is apparently very confusing to people/machines that try to scan her for life signs. Specifically things like her body temperature running very high, nothing much like a heartbeat, that sort of thing. Taking away the immortality and any other practical benefit she might have gotten from it, I just want her to be able to confuse people that look too closely. That’s really the Essence du Trance, right there.

Power Selection: Magic: Monk

Game Powers:

Sunlight: Encourages health and growth. Works on both plants and animals/people. Plants grow slightly faster/larger than normal. On people, skin may grow faster to close small wounds, broken bones may begin to mend, or the body may begin to replenish bloodloss. Basically it speeds up healing by a day or two depending on the severity of the injury.

Entanglement: Within 10 feet, the vegetation around Trance grows and tries to grab/restrain any enemies for up to ten minutes. It will not hinder allies. Can only be used if there’s some existing plant life in the area to draw on.

Solar Flare: A shield spell, Trance can either use it on herself or one selected target. The target is surrounded by a bright corona, blinding enemies and making the target more difficult to hit. Enemies weak to light/holy damage suffer damage if they get too close.


Non-Powered Abilities: In a long enough lifetime, you pick up a lot of tips and tricks here and there. She’s as athletic and flexible as a fit human. She has learned enough about fighting and self-defense to know she’d rather not be doing it, but she’s very good at dodging and running away. She’s no stranger to criminal activity and has gained a good working knowledge of all the usual skills of thievery including breaking and entering, being sneaky, picking locks, and lying her head off. She’s also skilled at all forms of cheating at cards.

Her really useful skills are in healing and helping things grow. On the Andromeda, she is the chief medical officer, and while most things are done with the help of computers and other technology, she’s also learned a good deal about humanoid bodies. Certainly enough to be good at basic first aid and enough to assist in more complicated procedures. And even without her solar aspects, plants still love her. She could cultivate even the pickiest of gardens.

Setting/Suitability: I think Trance will be (quietly) dismayed at losing the ability to see probabilities, but she’ll adapt. You don’t live for untold ages without being able to adapt. You also don’t live for untold ages as the avatar of a star without seeing plenty of weird things. Being magically abducted to another world to save all of nature probably isn’t even the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to her. The cause will have her 110% on board from word one. Saving nature? She’s all about that life.

While she’s not specifically the type to do what she considers heroics (she leaves that to people like Dylan and Beka), she’ll be very good at supporting and making sure the people who are good at heroics are in the right place at the right time with the right help to make their heroics the best heroics they can be. And considering she threatened to kill her best friend if he wouldn’t just get along with the bad guy already so they could finish the job and go home, I think she’ll fit in perfectly with the group.

SAMPLES

Prose Sample: 200 word minimum. You may use a test drive thread, use the following prompt, or make up your own. Links to RP samples at other games are not accepted, you must either use a Test Drive thread or write up a new prompt, but you may use samples at other games to supplement your samples. If you use a Test Drive thread, at least one post made by your character in the thread must meet the 200 word minimum.

For whatever reason, whether it's a strange nonhuman appearance, special powers or magic, having actual dental hygiene, or wearing a digital watch, the locals have declared your character a witch and want to burn them at the stake. Write your character reacting to the situation in whatever idiom is natural to them, whether it's with appealing to compassion, using logic, fighting their way out, terrifying them by playing death metal on their dying ipod, etc.

“Um. I feel like there’s been kind of a misunderstanding? Maybe I should go for now.”

The villagers didn’t seem to pay her any attention beyond the few pointing pitchforks menacingly in her direction. They’d been so friendly when she first arrived, but then someone saw her tail and everyone started shouting and obviously this was a very excitable village. She started to back up, only to squeak as her back hit a post. Two people approached with a rope.

“Oh, no, I’m fine, thank you. I don’t need a r-OW!” A third had come up behind her when she wasn’t looking and was in the process of manhandling her tail. “Hey, that’s not very nice!” The other two wasted no time binding her hands and then the rest of her while she was distracted keeping her tail out of Mr. Meanie’s grasp.

The next thing she knew, she was in a little cage, tied hand and foot, watching the villagers build… a something. It was a pretty messy something, whatever it was, but they seemed happy with it, so maybe she’d just leave them to it.

She sighed. “And their festival thingy was so pretty, too.” As much as they’d enjoyed tugging on her tail, it hadn’t occurred to any of them to tie it down with the rest of her. It was already in the process of loosening her ropes. “I guess they’re just not used to strangers.”

And maybe that stung, just a little, but people were always like that, in the end. They liked the things they knew and didn’t like the things they didn’t know. Even purple girls like her.

Across the town square, something crashed and a flash of flame erupted from wherever it had fallen. A few people shouted and started to run that direction. The rest were all staring, trying to figure out what might have happened. Absolutely none of them saw the lock on her little cage pop open. She sighed as she stood, shaking off the last of her bonds and helpfully closing and relocking the cage door behind her. It was only polite, even if they didn’t want to be polite to her.

Her tail curled in tightly behind her as she picked a direction out of town.



Network Sample: 200 word minimum. You may use the following prompt, or make up your own. Links to RP samples at other games are not accepted, you must write up a new prompt, but you may use samples at other games to supplement your samples. Since the test drives rarely use network format, you cannot use a test drive thread for the network sample, only the prose sample.

Your character's inner child has been separated from your character into its own individual entity by a powerful spirit, and your character can speak to them through the game's magic mirror network. The child has been commanded to listen in silence, and in an ultimate test of self-awareness, your character has been told they must talk to them and pass them wisdom and emotional honesty they've gained through life experience. Every time you character lies or is otherwise insincere about something from their adult life, they get zapped with a painful magical shock from the spirit.

[Can you have an inner child if you were never a child? Apparently… sort of.]

Hi?

[She waits, but there’s no answer. Right. Silence. It’s strange, seeing herself as she was, a little more blue around the edges, colorful hair that makes her smile even now. Not that hers is much plainer at the moment.]

So. Advice. I guess. I’m not very good at advice.

[She hesitates, but there’s no shock. It’s the truth. She’s never been good at advising herself. Just too fond of lost causes.]

The perfect possible future is out there. I… don’t know if I can find it anymore, but maybe you can. Or we can. Or someone can. I guess that’s… not very helpful.

[Or very advice-like. She presses her lips together, fingers tapping the edge of the mirror idly. There isn’t really much she could tell herself that she doesn’t already know just by virtue of knowing it: past, present, future, whenever. Sometimes, though… maybe saying things you already know can count for something, too.]

It shouldn’t be so hard. OW! I mean it! It shouldn’t. It… It is. It’s really hard. And sometimes you have to let things happen that are bad so that better things can happen later. It gets harder when you meet Beka and Harper and everyone. But you can do it.

[She winces at that shock. It’s not technically a lie, but it feels like it is, and apparently that’s what counts.]

They’ll all need you. Good luck?

Profile

easy_as_cake: (Default)
Trance Gemini

May 2018

S M T W T F S
   12345
6 789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios