We the Lost - Application

[defrostedpride]

Player Name: Cygna
Player Contact: cygna.hime@gmail.com / Cygnahime@AIM / Cygnahime@plurk / Cygnahime@Tumblr / Cygna_hime@DW / just look for Cygnahime wherever

Character Name: Even
Canon: Kingdom Hearts
Game Transplant: Revenance
Original App: On the blog
Game Summary: Revenance is a Kingdom Hearts-based panfandom RP; the basic premise is that the characters have fallen asleep and entered the Realm of Dreams. While there, they acquire animalesque companions called ‘Spirits’, which they can used to fight hostile Nightmares and gain access to various worlds (both Kingdom Hearts-based and otherwise). Some characters settle in to life in this realm, while others struggle to unlock the mysteries it hides, such as: how are they here? Why are they here? And who’s that anonymous asshole who keeps hacking everyone’s communicators?

How long was your character in Game: ~1 year OOC/4 months IC
History of Character in their Game: Since Even had just been resurrected (and, due to lingering traces of attempted possession, not regained coherence), the shift from Radiant Garden to the Realm of Dreams didn’t come as much of a shock…once he became assured that his vague memories of waking up in Radiant Garden, heart restored (see general character history), were not, in fact, just another one of those dreams where you wake up and never caused an apocalypse that stripped you of all feeling.

He’d had those dreams a lot.

Fortunately, he found Ienzo, who informed him that it wasn’t a dream. This was. Confused conversations over communicator revealed that they were in the Realm of Dreams, that various people (both those with whom Even was familiar and others) had also found themselves there, and…that seemed to be about it. Here’s your new purple spiky cat Spirit, have a nice day. Stupid Moogles…

Even learned a great deal more about the ‘real’ world, however. He learned about the full depths of Xehanort’s betrayal, about what had become of Braig, and about how some utter nincompoop had given the asshole who immolated him a Keyblade. None of this was easy to take in. He and his new heart elected to open a potion shop, as a lack of equipment made more advanced scientific pursuits impracticable, and he was driven to do something while looking for a way to wake up.

He and his new lab assistant, a Nobody – or possibly former Nobody? He couldn’t recall – named Xion, settled in physically fairly well. Emotionally…Even had a lot to think about. More pressingly, he had a lot to feel about, including things from ten or more years before that he’d never been able to emotionally process, not to mention memories of his own death – twice over. A morose drinking session with Aeleus (the only person Even trusts enough to open up to of his own free will) led to resolving to do whatever they could to investigate their current circumstances without falling into the mistakes of the past. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much to do. More worlds were unlocked, monsters defeated, strange objects discovered, and a mysterious person contacted, but the worlds didn’t seem connected thematically, the monsters were only Nightmares (the native beasts of the Dream Realm), the strange objects refused to give up their secrets (only muttering telepathically but inaudibly), and the mysterious person showed no sign of wishing to do anything but gloat about how they couldn’t do anything to prevent some unknown circumstance. Furthermore, persistent dreams featuring Keyholes and an overwhelming emotion of having “broken” something and needing to “fix” it did absolutely nothing whatever for Even’s emotional stability. Thanks, mysterious dream entity. It’s not like he wasn’t consumed by his inability to fix any of the things he’d broken already.

At some point during this period, a young oliveblooded troll moved into Even’s bedroom. He couldn’t say when exactly, as she had been there for some two weeks or so before she posted pictures on the communicator network of the shipping wall she’d drawn, and he recognized the room. Despite Aeleus’s, occasionally Ienzo’s (though he has no leg to stand on and knows it) and for that matter Xion’s best efforts, he’d been sleeping increasingly on a cot in his lab. He attempted to eject Nepeta and failed utterly. (But she let him ask xenobiology questions and take a blood sample, so it’s okay.)

The emotional slow boil came to an abrupt head when Xion revealed to him that she wasn’t technically a Nobody; she was a replica – one Vexen had built, but whom he now could not remember. And she’d been incomplete, which had eventually destroyed her along with all memory of her existence. In a stunning display of maturity and rational adult behavior, Even responded to this revelation by running from the room, pacing wildly about much of Traverse Town, and finally knocking on Aeleus’s door to demand explanations of such concepts as “parsing your own emotions” and “caring about another person”.

What a lovely time to be whisked away to an entirely different set of people he failed and circumstances he’s helpless to fix!

How did they change from their canon personality wise?: Even gets to have emotions again! Yay! …Even spent ten years not having emotions (or convincing himself he didn’t have emotions, after they started to grow back), and he was never particularly good at handling them in the first place. Unyay. A cursory glance, or a conversation in less stressful circumstances or over less fraught topics, will give the impression that Even is much as he has always been: irascible, obsessed with science, dubiously moral. Underneath, however…okay, underneath those things are all still true, but they don’t begin to cover it. Even abruptly and without warning found, as he awakened in Revenance, that memories of a decade of mad scientist Disney villainy, including participation in causing the end of the world, suddenly carried emotional baggage. Like guilt. Lots of it. More, in fact, than he has any capacity to manage, and which he has therefore been attempting to ignore. That isn’t easy, since few things in his life fail to remind him of what he’s done.

He’s trying to work on this whole “scientific ethics” concept, at least, and is doing significantly better at it through simply remembering to ask people’s permission before examining them for science. Beyond that…well, it’s a work in progress. At least it still is in progress, unlike most of the rest of his life.

Even feels his presence in the Realm of Dreams very acutely, as it prevents him from doing the only thing he can think of to make his guilt into something he can face: fix what he broke. (Even’s control issues lead to him taking, or attempting to take, more than his fair share of the responsibility, because he would rather be evil than stupid inside his own head.) Unfortunately, he’s separated from the world(s) he destroyed, and most of the people he wronged – with a few exceptions, but most of those exceptions are his colleagues and pseudo-family, and they’re in the same boat.

Not that Even doesn’t also feel terrible about what happened to them – if anything, he feels worse about them than about whole worlds, because he didn’t know the worlds. But he doesn’t know how to “fix” not having taken care of Ienzo, for example, except by making sure it doesn’t happen again, which for Even means making sure he is never that wrong again. His ego also took a serious beating when he learned how thoroughly Xehanort had lied to and fooled him. The resulting compelling need for knowledge is driving him into further frustration, not only because he’s stranded with a limited amount of equipment, but also because it’s unsurprisingly a lot harder to analyse the metaphysical fabric of reality if you really care whether or not you break it.

On the subject of experimentation, Even has also been on the verge of an intellectual crisis. He is a scientist; it’s the only thing he’s taken pride in for decades, not to mention the only thing he easily admits he loves. His intelligence is the trait of which he is most proud. And yet he was tricked so easily into performing experiments which, in hindsight, are comically obvious in their danger. And yet he was so easily led into working for a decade along the completely wrong lines, throwing his energy into project after project yet never realizing that hearts could grow back on their own. As for his experiments…research into the composition of the heart led directly to destroying Radiant Garden and everyone he ever cared about. The Replica Project, his project, created a being for whom he was responsible and whom he completely failed. What, he’s been trying to avoid asking himself, is he supposed to do, when everything he’s ever worked on turns out to be horribly destructive and better abandoned? He’s been making Potions, sure, but that’s a rote task for him, and yet he’s beginning to fear that no one would let him do anything more interesting, even if he dared.

All these issues forced themselves past his expert avoidance mechanisms very recently, when Xion revealed her history to him. She was one more thing, one more person he’d created, botched, and ultimately destroyed. Her fate, to be completely forgotten – Even had thought her familiar, but had never been able to place her – is something Even deeply fears for himself, so it hit extra hard. Moreover, he had come to care for Xion, though he didn’t fully understand this fact. (He might have processed some of this emotional turmoil if he were better at recognizing his own emotions. I’d say he’s out of practice, but he was never much better.) The conversation precipitated a moderate nervous breakdown, as Xion served as a symbol for all the issues he hadn’t addressed. He sought out Aeleus for advice, but before he could put any of it into action…[cue game change music]

Oh, memories of being burned alive (thanks, Axel) have also left him with acute pyrophobia. Of all his problems, that’s been the easiest to manage; he doesn’t automatically have a flashback or otherwise react dramatically when an ally uses fire magic in combat anymore, though he’s always acutely aware of it.

On game entry, therefore, Even is more or less a complete wreck. Enjoy?
How did they change from their canon physically?: It hasn’t been long, and the availability of healing potions/magic makes battle much easier, so he has not changed physically.
Powers: Even possesses magical control over the element of ice, including creating it without any visible water source (including projecting large ice crystals from the ground), manipulating it, and using it as a weapon in combat. Canon doesn’t show his abilities outside of combat (except, possibly, combined with his scientific expertise; see below), but inasmuch as Even is inherently more of a technician than a warrior, his combat magic is likely far from the greatest of his skills. His preferred weapon, a spiked shield, can be summoned by him at will from an extradimensional space of some kind. Kingdom Hearts weapons, how the fuck do they work. Even has demonstrated also the ability to travel through a similar extradimensional space via portals of darkness; however, without protective gear he no longer possesses, this is extremely dangerous, so he’s unlikely to do it.

Even’s most important “power” is his intellect and scientific expertise. His particular fields of interest are biochemistry and Kingdom Hearts metaphysics (one part quantum physics, one part magical theory, three parts saying “heart” a lot). He has in the past extended the latter as far as causing at least one apocalypse (lab safety is important, kids). As for the former, his masterpiece is of course the Replica Project, which is to say creating complete physical duplicates of other people, including all special powers but excluding memory or identity; this is a combined mad science/magic (mad thaumaturgy?) effort. In short, if it’s related to biology, chemistry, physiology, or how to build a doomsday device in your backyard using only the fundamental fabric of reality, he probably knows it. He makes an adequate medical practitioner if no one better is available, particularly since one of his skills is the formulation of quasi-magical healing items. His powers do not include any form of common sense.
Possessions: Even will enter game with the clothes he is wearing, his shield, two Potions and three Ethers in his pockets, a random scalpel likewise in his pockets, a handful of spare Dream Pieces (ingredients for creating Dream Eaters), and his Spirits: Myosin the Pricklemane, Helothermine the Toximander, and [possibly, Revenance mod approval currently pending EDIT: approval received!] Acetylsalicylic Acid the Tama Sheep.

Please provide three samples from your previous game, at least one will have to be third person with context:
Sample One: This is how adults handle emotional trauma, right?
Sample Two: Uninvited subletters and their uninvited shipping.
Sample Three: This is not how adults handle anything.

Notes: I apologize for everything in advance.