Character Questions: THE TEST RUN

[gish]

Hey everyone, it's Gish! I had a thought earlier this week about how much fun it is to fill out FORMS. Which is to say, filling out questionnaires and quizzes about your character(s). It was something that went around a lot more with the old LJ Nexus days and in a curious attempt to bring it back in a new way, I thought I'd try this!

Under the cut is a questionnaire about character basics. No one's required to fill this out, or even fill out ALL of it. This is just for funsies and a chance for all of us to talk and think a bit more about our characters.

Depending on how this goes, I might look into making this a regular thing on the OOC comm with different focuses and themes. Anyway, have at it! I look forward to reading any and all responses!

 

Name:
Nickname:
Age:
Sex:
Race:
Sexual Orientation:
Socioeconomic level as a child:
Socioeconomic level as an adult:
Birth date:
Birth place:
Current residence:
Occupation:
Title/Rank:
Hobbies/Pastimes:
Talents/Skills/Powers:

Past History

Hometown:
First Memory:
Most important childhood event that still affects him/her:
Why/How?
Other memories/events that still affects him/her and why/how:
Past failures s/he would be embarrassed to have people know about and why:
Biggest role model:
Why?
Biggest challenge from childhood:

Physical Characteristics

Height:
Weight:
Posture:
Build:
Skin:
Hair:
Eyes:
Describe their smile:
Tattoos/Scars?
Glasses/Contacts?
Left/Right handed?
Distinguishing features:
Who does s/he take after; mother or father?
Style (Elegant, shabby, etc):
How does s/he dress or what do they typically wear?
Other outfits one might find in their wardrobe:
Jewelry:
Other accessories:
Weapons:  
Health:
Hygiene:
Physical Flaws:
Physical Qualities:

Here's a copy+paste for the above HTML compliments of dembonyhips !

 

Comments

[rekindledtitan]

This got away from me just a bit, gonna take a leaf out of Plo-mun's book and just link it to make things easy.

I have no idea if I'll ever use half of this stuff...

[juststeverogers]

What I got out of that was "If Steve got angry and threw her at an enemy it would do a lot of damage and also be awesome."

Upside is it wouldn't wreck another of his motorcycles too.

[rekindledtitan]

Oh man, she'd be laughing about it for a week. So down for that.

(But you throw one Titan into the enemy ranks and they'll all want a go, Steve.)

[chiron_survivor]

The whole idea of there being a human template that Blaze was created from is fascinating to me. Is this canon, or your headcanon? How does Blaze feel about that?

MY (SEMI-)FAN THEORIES, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM (i'm sorry)

[rekindledtitan]

It's canon, although a really well-hidden bit that I've incorporated ahead of any big reveals. (Disclaimer: I haven't touched the new game yet and I have no idea if that reveals anything, but I doubt it.) It was hinted at early in various bits of evidence (Exo minds are suspiciously, unnecessarily similar to human ones, the Golden Age use of robotic 'explorer proxies' that scientists could link their minds to etc. )

But extra material confirms that one of the Exo characters remembers being human - specifically, being some type of special ops soldier deeply, deeply in debt to Clovis Bray (basically, Stark Industries with more amoral R&D). Then Bray sent him a 'job offer' that would wipe his debts, which involved him traveling to a secret facility on probably-Europa and, well... "came here flesh and bone. Gave everything to the ice. Started over. Rebooted."

It's left unclear if this involved uploading people to robot bodies or using their minds as templates for the Exos: either would fit themes the devs have explored before. I leave it open, but lean toward the upload scenario because I think it fits the evidence better. (Bonus: some other expanded material involves Clovis Bray injecting people with nanites and doing extremely shady things to cover up how badly it goes. The subjects are induced to keep quiet... because they came in desperately in debt and need the settlement money. Hmmmm....)

Blaze doesn't know most of this, of course, but so far she basically refuses to accept it as canon. She's savvy enough to realize how many ethical questions are involved but doesn't have enough information to judge whether it was all above-board, whether Bryn volunteered, whether the goals were noble... and she hates that kind of existential uncertainty. Plus, there's the very personal aspect that she's always been happy thinking of herself as a machine, and of her Golden Age creators as the kind of people who could just build a new form of life and live in harmony with it. The new version isn't so rosy and it invites a lot of awkward personal questions.

And needless to say, she feels very awkward at the idea of mentioning any of this to Adia. ;) She already feels uncomfortably like she's lying by not bringing it up sometimes. Her feelings regarding Khan and his Augments are also about a hundred times more complicated than she's let on to anyone but Ghost.

Never apologize for length and depth of fan theories!!!

[chiron_survivor]

Ah, this is so interesting!!! Amnesia tropes are my jam as well as humans-turned-robots or robots with human memories (as should be obvious to anyone who has seen my OCs). I can see why this sort of information would be stressful to Blaze, particularly because she is so Good and would not want her origin story to be tainted by ethical quandaries.

And also why she doesn't share this with Adia, haha. Maybe someday she and Caspar can enlighten her to the Cylons' true biological origins. Which I could go on and on about, but I want, because spoilers. ;) (I will say that it's not too much like how the Guardians were created, although there are some similarities.)

EDITED TO ADD: What about the origin of Ghosts?? Is there any canon about that? Do you have a headcanon for that? I like how "human" he is, too, even though he's even more alien than Blaze.

This is so cool

[smartass_captain]

I would literally pay money to learn more about these things from both yourself and Falx omg.

[chiron_survivor]

Please make checks payable to By the time I get through Adia's canon, all shall be revealed. :3

[rekindledtitan]

Hell yes roll on the robo-angst! :D

[chiron_survivor]

Yes! I'm particularly excited to reveal Caspar's backstory. (Which is 99% speculation on my part, but whatever, I do what I want.)

I AM *STILL* TALKIIIING... /Maui

[rekindledtitan]

Haha, yeah! Even the 'good version' of her origin that Blaze is attached to goes 'I was a killing machine who fought a losing war, then got raised from the dead to fight another endless war between powers none of us understand.' She doesn't need to add dubious corporate practices to that tally, thank you!

She absolutely does need to have that talk with Adia and Caspar someday, I'm so looking forward to all the Cylon revelations. :3

Ghost has a clear origin, though! So the whole Golden Age thing was kicked off/nurtured by the Traveler swooping in to gently uplift humanity, and then when things went to hell it fought the Darkness to defend them. A stalemate seems to have occurred: the Darkness didn't win outright, but human civilization essentially collapsed and the Traveler was grievously wounded. Its last action was spawning the Ghosts - their job is to seek out people with the strength/potential to wield the Traveler's power in its stead, thus creating Guardians. Said people are chosen almost exclusively from the ancient dead, but then that is the biggest demographic available...

Canon tells us that much, and that Ghosts have individual names they only seem to use among themselves. How they choose their Guardians is a mystery within the game, and there is a great deal of argument, but personal virtue is unlikely to be the only factor. It's not even clear if the Ghosts are consciously aware. No-one knows if new Ghosts are being created, but sad to say a portion of them never do find their Guardians. You find quite a lot of dead Ghosts scattered around the game areas...

I'm trying to play around more with the stark divide between 'Before Guardian' (centuries of lonely, obsessive searching and information gathering) and 'After Guardian', when suddenly it's all running into the battles and trying to counsel/babysit your new amnesiac soldier companion. Also Ghost doesn't know it yet, but if he ever watches human romances all those tropes about soulmates and finding 'the One' at first sight are going to hit such a chord. Sure, he knows it's not realistic for humans, but it is for him...

[chiron_survivor]

Noooooo, dead Ghosts! D: That's very sweet that the tropes about soulmates resonate with him. I never thought that would be something that he has in common with Adia.