Vatheon Application
Feb. 28th, 2012 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sylphauxiliatrix[ Player Name ] : HiddenKrypt
[ Personal DW ] : I don't have one. If I made one just for you to get ahold of me, I wouldn't log into it as often as I do this one. This is my primary and pretty much only DW account. I have a Plurk under the name hiddenKrypt, if that helps.
[ Age ] : I am 26.
[ Timezone ] : PST (GMT-8)
[ Other Characters ] : None
[ Character's Name ] : Kanaya Maryam
[ Character's Age ] : 6 Sweeps / 13 years
[ Series ] : HOMESTUCK
[ Canon Point ] : Up to date, having just left the green sun.
[ History ] : Wiki link
[ Personality ] :
As Great-Grandpa Alphonse always used to say: "When You don't know where to start, go back to da beginnin'"
To look at the aspects of Kanaya's personality I think it's helpful to examine the largest contributors and indicators of those aspects.
First of all, the ancestor thing. Troll society claims that the lives of your ancestors will be reflected in your own life. There seems to be some indications that this is true, even for the Trolls who have not discovered anything about their ancestors. Kanaya's ancestor had something resembling a mothering instinct, a pattern of behavior complely foreign to Trolls. Kanaya may have some of this instinct, but if so it mostly shows from her desire to help others. Not enough is known about the Dolorosa though to make much of any sort of inference from here. She may have had some form of a matespriteship with Mindfang, which might have been reflected in Kanaya's pining for Vriska pre-sgrub.
Kanaya was raised by a unique lusus, a Virign Mother Grub. This creature acted as her guardian and parent, and it is likely that from here Kanaya gained some social mores unique amongst her race. A Mother Grub accepting a young troll and becoming a lusus is an event so rare as to be without recorded precedent in a society where every good movie title has been taken so modern movies have horrifically long names. This is the first of several events that marked Kanaya as different from other Trolls. She was raised by a creature that is shown to fit the "caring mother" archetype. This is most likely the origin of Kanaya's friendly and helpful nature. In the end, Kanaya just wants to help people. sometimes this results in her getting accused of Meddling, but she does what she can to help anyway. She is accused of being "the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing". Auspisticing is a troll quadrant position of mediating between two rivals to help them avoid their rivalry getting out of hand. The village two wheel device is a troll way of saying the village bicycle. It is readily apparent that Kanaya often is put in this position of mediator for her friends, helping wherever she can. Her Lusus may not have given her a true mothering instinct like her ancestor had (Trolls don't seem to be mammals, they don't care for their young at all), but the protective nature of a mother does seem to be a permanent part of Kanaya's personality.
Her chat handle is "grimAuxiliatrix". This, like many handles in Homestuck is a window in to her personality as well. Auxiliatrix is Latin for a "helpful woman", something we've discussed quite a bit already. The grim aspect is reflected in her willingness to do whatever she needs to, and how little she flinches at necessary tasks. In this way she is a fairly typical troll, unfazed by violence. She killed Eridan pretty much entirely out of revenge and in a horrifically violent manner. She has shown little thought or remorse for this act. She may seem like a nice person but under the right circumstances she has no problems with killing, something that may be off putting to any members of other cultures should they find out about her history. Besides the normal violence inherent in Trolls and Alternian society in general, Kanaya's grim nature may be a result of her time spent gardening and landscaping around her hive. To have maintained such a lush and well grown area in the middle of what seems like arid desert would take quite a dedication the the craft of agriculture. Such skills often lead to necessarily but unfortunate decisions, a form of triage being necessary to decide what plants will not be able to grow properly. In a way Kanaya has likely been culling the weak to protect what she can for a while, and this attitude for plants matches in some ways her attitude in other unfortunate circumstances. Her willingness to kill is not a symptom of evil, but of utilitarianism. She does not have any problem doing whatever it takes to protect those she cares about.
At an early age The First Guardian of Alternia, Doc Scratch, took an interest in Kanaya. What exactly he did there is not known, but Scratch's monologue suggests he may have been responsible for some aspects of Kanaya's oddness in her society, possibly including her eventual change into a Rainbow Drinker. This may have influenced her greatly. She shows a love of novels involving rainbow drinkers and she enjoys the sun, something which is said to be actively harmful to other trolls.
Romantically she is constantly attracted to women who live dangerous lives. This resulted in her infatuation with Vriska for a while, which was mostly ignored by the other Troll. She tried to curb Vriska's more violent tendencies, but could not keep an eye on her constantly, a fact that may bring her some remorse. She was hurt by Vriska, and has become more hesitant in her romantic inclinations. She is aware of her tendency to fall for dangerous women, and isn't sure if it is worth the risks anymore. She recognizes the same patterns with Rose, thus her infatuations are tainted with the fears caused by the wounds she has fairly recently gotten. Her primarily same-sex attraction is another aspect that separates her from most trolls whom Humans would identify as being normally Bisexual.
Finally, fashion and design. Kanaya is a consummate aesthete, taking time to landscape the area around her hive, to decorate her home, and to make unique clothing. It seems she is unique amongst trolls for a dedication to style as well as or instead of function. She enjoys making the world around her look better, and has on occasion made clothes for others, even though her friends have no care for frippery.
[ Strengths/Weaknesses ] :
Strenghts: Psychologically, she is quite resilient; barely fazed by scenes of violence or unpleasant necessities (sawing off Tavros's legs to prepare him for the robot prosthetics, cutting a disarmed Troll in half out of revenge.) Physically she seems to have gained much from becoming a Rainbow Drinker. She obviously can survive injuries, as we have no indication that the hole in her torso has been magically healed and yet it doesn't even seem to be an inconvenience. She also shows greater strength and speed, having punted Gamzee into the air and having sent Vriska flying with a punch. Seems like your typical undead vampiric damage resistance, strength, and speed, but not as over the top as often shown in films. For example, I doubt she's as strong as Equius even with her new state.
Weaknesses: In canon we haven't seen anything to indicate any special weaknesses really. There seem to be hints that Rainbow Drinkers receive energy from the sun though, and Kanaya misses sunlight quite a bit (it's why she wanted to stay with Sollux and Aradia a the sun.) Because there's some obvious advantages to being a rainbow Drinker, I think this would be turned into a weakness as well. Vatheon lies beneath the waves, so she will not get the sun she needs. I think she will lose energy a bit quicker than other characters, needing to spend more time touching Coral to get a "full charge", and needing to do so more often than others might.
There's also the matter of Blood. The canon has not indicated if Blood is a requirement of rainbow drinkers or something they just enjoy. It doesn't look like it will matter too much either way though, as this question in the FAQ seems to indicate that Kanaya will not be without options when it comes to drinking. Should I end up in a situation where blood is not available, I'll roleplay out the hunger anyway and probably try to petition other player characters for a drink. Either way, if she can't get to the locals for blood I doubt she can get to the coral, so she'll probably be pretty bad off from the energy thing already. If you think this is something that should be figured out anyway let me know what you think, I could play it nearly any way.
[ Other Important Facts ] :
She is armed with a chainsaw that doubles are black or green lipstick. She's alchemicalized a more powerful chainsaw, but really, it's a chainsaw. We're all pretty familiar with the sort of damage it can cause. IT seems to change from it's innocuous double to a weapon at Kanaya's will, so there's no chance of her accidentally chopping her head off while touching up her makeup. This also makes such a bulky weapon surprisingly portable.
Kanaya is a Rainbow Drinker, which is sort of a Troll reverse vampire. They "charge up" in the sunlight, and glow in the dark. They drink blood with the attitude of a connoisseur, and seem to have heightened physical prowess. They differ greatly from and in opposition to many vampire myths of human culture. The canon has not suggested any special weaknesses to garlic, crosses, running water, wooden stakes, or any other typical vampire things. The weaknesses I suggested above are pretty much headcanon, added because a character with this sort of a buff and no drawbacks isn't much fun!
[ Sample ] :
My primary example is this thread in a friend's musebox. That friend is the one that convinced me to apply to Vatheon, I don't know what name she uses here though.
For completeness and humor I will respond to the prompts you have as well:
- A new curse has settled upon the city of Vatheon: Suddenly you character realizes they are unable to lie for the duration of a week. How do they react?
I Don't See What The Problem Is. There Is Some Inconvenience Here But Is Honesty Really That Bad? I Don't Know What You're All Complaining About.
- What is this? Is that rain? How nice-- wait a minute, is it raining rubber duckies? Seriously?
...No comment. Goes about her day, ignoring the rubber quackbeasts.
- Suddenly, by the force of Vatheon, an over zealous npc, or even your character's friends playing a joke, your character suddenly finds themselves wearing clothes they otherwise would never wear. What do?
This Do.
But seriously, she would not be pleased. The first goal is to get OUT of this horrible outfit or at least modify it into something less appalling. Then, find out who or what is responsible for this travesty. Make them Pay. Preferably in a manner that with either serve as a lesson to others, or in such way as to give the perpetrators a lesson in proper fashion.
- The city of Vatheon is under attack (again). Giant sea-creatures are wrecking the city (again). Time to prepare for battle.
Prepare my Chainsaw/lipstick, touch the coral again just to be sure, and head to battle. I must protect this place, not for myself but for the friends I have here.
- A new plot development has happened and your character has decided to get some more information from one of the NPCs. How do they proceed?
Perhaps If I Simply Ask Nicely I Can Get The Information I Require With A Minimal Fuss. It Depends On How Much I Need The Information Though; I Just Want To Make Sure We Are All Safe. I Will Resort To Threats Or Even Violence If I Must.
[ Questions? Comments? Concerns? ] :
I don't know how other Homestucks handle the quirks thing. If I am accepted I'll just mimic their ways of doing the Quirks, or I'll do it the way I have above for the prompts.
With Kanaya it isn't so bad, but I use punctuation just because it makes dialog so much easier to understand when I'm not using newlines to indicate sentence ends. If I am communicating via some sort of chat client I will follow the quirk faithfully (No punctuation at all, each word starts with a capital letter, text will be styles ala pesterchum / trollian)
i.e.
GA: Hello
GA: Is Anybody Receiving This
GA: I May Require Assistance
[ Personal DW ] : I don't have one. If I made one just for you to get ahold of me, I wouldn't log into it as often as I do this one. This is my primary and pretty much only DW account. I have a Plurk under the name hiddenKrypt, if that helps.
[ Age ] : I am 26.
[ Timezone ] : PST (GMT-8)
[ Other Characters ] : None
[ Character's Name ] : Kanaya Maryam
[ Character's Age ] : 6 Sweeps / 13 years
[ Series ] : HOMESTUCK
[ Canon Point ] : Up to date, having just left the green sun.
[ History ] : Wiki link
[ Personality ] :
As Great-Grandpa Alphonse always used to say: "When You don't know where to start, go back to da beginnin'"
To look at the aspects of Kanaya's personality I think it's helpful to examine the largest contributors and indicators of those aspects.
First of all, the ancestor thing. Troll society claims that the lives of your ancestors will be reflected in your own life. There seems to be some indications that this is true, even for the Trolls who have not discovered anything about their ancestors. Kanaya's ancestor had something resembling a mothering instinct, a pattern of behavior complely foreign to Trolls. Kanaya may have some of this instinct, but if so it mostly shows from her desire to help others. Not enough is known about the Dolorosa though to make much of any sort of inference from here. She may have had some form of a matespriteship with Mindfang, which might have been reflected in Kanaya's pining for Vriska pre-sgrub.
Kanaya was raised by a unique lusus, a Virign Mother Grub. This creature acted as her guardian and parent, and it is likely that from here Kanaya gained some social mores unique amongst her race. A Mother Grub accepting a young troll and becoming a lusus is an event so rare as to be without recorded precedent in a society where every good movie title has been taken so modern movies have horrifically long names. This is the first of several events that marked Kanaya as different from other Trolls. She was raised by a creature that is shown to fit the "caring mother" archetype. This is most likely the origin of Kanaya's friendly and helpful nature. In the end, Kanaya just wants to help people. sometimes this results in her getting accused of Meddling, but she does what she can to help anyway. She is accused of being "the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing". Auspisticing is a troll quadrant position of mediating between two rivals to help them avoid their rivalry getting out of hand. The village two wheel device is a troll way of saying the village bicycle. It is readily apparent that Kanaya often is put in this position of mediator for her friends, helping wherever she can. Her Lusus may not have given her a true mothering instinct like her ancestor had (Trolls don't seem to be mammals, they don't care for their young at all), but the protective nature of a mother does seem to be a permanent part of Kanaya's personality.
Her chat handle is "grimAuxiliatrix". This, like many handles in Homestuck is a window in to her personality as well. Auxiliatrix is Latin for a "helpful woman", something we've discussed quite a bit already. The grim aspect is reflected in her willingness to do whatever she needs to, and how little she flinches at necessary tasks. In this way she is a fairly typical troll, unfazed by violence. She killed Eridan pretty much entirely out of revenge and in a horrifically violent manner. She has shown little thought or remorse for this act. She may seem like a nice person but under the right circumstances she has no problems with killing, something that may be off putting to any members of other cultures should they find out about her history. Besides the normal violence inherent in Trolls and Alternian society in general, Kanaya's grim nature may be a result of her time spent gardening and landscaping around her hive. To have maintained such a lush and well grown area in the middle of what seems like arid desert would take quite a dedication the the craft of agriculture. Such skills often lead to necessarily but unfortunate decisions, a form of triage being necessary to decide what plants will not be able to grow properly. In a way Kanaya has likely been culling the weak to protect what she can for a while, and this attitude for plants matches in some ways her attitude in other unfortunate circumstances. Her willingness to kill is not a symptom of evil, but of utilitarianism. She does not have any problem doing whatever it takes to protect those she cares about.
At an early age The First Guardian of Alternia, Doc Scratch, took an interest in Kanaya. What exactly he did there is not known, but Scratch's monologue suggests he may have been responsible for some aspects of Kanaya's oddness in her society, possibly including her eventual change into a Rainbow Drinker. This may have influenced her greatly. She shows a love of novels involving rainbow drinkers and she enjoys the sun, something which is said to be actively harmful to other trolls.
Romantically she is constantly attracted to women who live dangerous lives. This resulted in her infatuation with Vriska for a while, which was mostly ignored by the other Troll. She tried to curb Vriska's more violent tendencies, but could not keep an eye on her constantly, a fact that may bring her some remorse. She was hurt by Vriska, and has become more hesitant in her romantic inclinations. She is aware of her tendency to fall for dangerous women, and isn't sure if it is worth the risks anymore. She recognizes the same patterns with Rose, thus her infatuations are tainted with the fears caused by the wounds she has fairly recently gotten. Her primarily same-sex attraction is another aspect that separates her from most trolls whom Humans would identify as being normally Bisexual.
Finally, fashion and design. Kanaya is a consummate aesthete, taking time to landscape the area around her hive, to decorate her home, and to make unique clothing. It seems she is unique amongst trolls for a dedication to style as well as or instead of function. She enjoys making the world around her look better, and has on occasion made clothes for others, even though her friends have no care for frippery.
[ Strengths/Weaknesses ] :
Strenghts: Psychologically, she is quite resilient; barely fazed by scenes of violence or unpleasant necessities (sawing off Tavros's legs to prepare him for the robot prosthetics, cutting a disarmed Troll in half out of revenge.) Physically she seems to have gained much from becoming a Rainbow Drinker. She obviously can survive injuries, as we have no indication that the hole in her torso has been magically healed and yet it doesn't even seem to be an inconvenience. She also shows greater strength and speed, having punted Gamzee into the air and having sent Vriska flying with a punch. Seems like your typical undead vampiric damage resistance, strength, and speed, but not as over the top as often shown in films. For example, I doubt she's as strong as Equius even with her new state.
Weaknesses: In canon we haven't seen anything to indicate any special weaknesses really. There seem to be hints that Rainbow Drinkers receive energy from the sun though, and Kanaya misses sunlight quite a bit (it's why she wanted to stay with Sollux and Aradia a the sun.) Because there's some obvious advantages to being a rainbow Drinker, I think this would be turned into a weakness as well. Vatheon lies beneath the waves, so she will not get the sun she needs. I think she will lose energy a bit quicker than other characters, needing to spend more time touching Coral to get a "full charge", and needing to do so more often than others might.
There's also the matter of Blood. The canon has not indicated if Blood is a requirement of rainbow drinkers or something they just enjoy. It doesn't look like it will matter too much either way though, as this question in the FAQ seems to indicate that Kanaya will not be without options when it comes to drinking. Should I end up in a situation where blood is not available, I'll roleplay out the hunger anyway and probably try to petition other player characters for a drink. Either way, if she can't get to the locals for blood I doubt she can get to the coral, so she'll probably be pretty bad off from the energy thing already. If you think this is something that should be figured out anyway let me know what you think, I could play it nearly any way.
[ Other Important Facts ] :
She is armed with a chainsaw that doubles are black or green lipstick. She's alchemicalized a more powerful chainsaw, but really, it's a chainsaw. We're all pretty familiar with the sort of damage it can cause. IT seems to change from it's innocuous double to a weapon at Kanaya's will, so there's no chance of her accidentally chopping her head off while touching up her makeup. This also makes such a bulky weapon surprisingly portable.
Kanaya is a Rainbow Drinker, which is sort of a Troll reverse vampire. They "charge up" in the sunlight, and glow in the dark. They drink blood with the attitude of a connoisseur, and seem to have heightened physical prowess. They differ greatly from and in opposition to many vampire myths of human culture. The canon has not suggested any special weaknesses to garlic, crosses, running water, wooden stakes, or any other typical vampire things. The weaknesses I suggested above are pretty much headcanon, added because a character with this sort of a buff and no drawbacks isn't much fun!
[ Sample ] :
My primary example is this thread in a friend's musebox. That friend is the one that convinced me to apply to Vatheon, I don't know what name she uses here though.
For completeness and humor I will respond to the prompts you have as well:
- A new curse has settled upon the city of Vatheon: Suddenly you character realizes they are unable to lie for the duration of a week. How do they react?
I Don't See What The Problem Is. There Is Some Inconvenience Here But Is Honesty Really That Bad? I Don't Know What You're All Complaining About.
- What is this? Is that rain? How nice-- wait a minute, is it raining rubber duckies? Seriously?
...No comment. Goes about her day, ignoring the rubber quackbeasts.
- Suddenly, by the force of Vatheon, an over zealous npc, or even your character's friends playing a joke, your character suddenly finds themselves wearing clothes they otherwise would never wear. What do?
This Do.
But seriously, she would not be pleased. The first goal is to get OUT of this horrible outfit or at least modify it into something less appalling. Then, find out who or what is responsible for this travesty. Make them Pay. Preferably in a manner that with either serve as a lesson to others, or in such way as to give the perpetrators a lesson in proper fashion.
- The city of Vatheon is under attack (again). Giant sea-creatures are wrecking the city (again). Time to prepare for battle.
Prepare my Chainsaw/lipstick, touch the coral again just to be sure, and head to battle. I must protect this place, not for myself but for the friends I have here.
- A new plot development has happened and your character has decided to get some more information from one of the NPCs. How do they proceed?
Perhaps If I Simply Ask Nicely I Can Get The Information I Require With A Minimal Fuss. It Depends On How Much I Need The Information Though; I Just Want To Make Sure We Are All Safe. I Will Resort To Threats Or Even Violence If I Must.
[ Questions? Comments? Concerns? ] :
I don't know how other Homestucks handle the quirks thing. If I am accepted I'll just mimic their ways of doing the Quirks, or I'll do it the way I have above for the prompts.
With Kanaya it isn't so bad, but I use punctuation just because it makes dialog so much easier to understand when I'm not using newlines to indicate sentence ends. If I am communicating via some sort of chat client I will follow the quirk faithfully (No punctuation at all, each word starts with a capital letter, text will be styles ala pesterchum / trollian)
i.e.
GA: Hello
GA: Is Anybody Receiving This
GA: I May Require Assistance
