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APPLICATION

Player Name/Handle: Joy or Joys are both good!
Plurk Handle: [plurk.com profile] joysweeper
Preferred pronouns (optional): She/her
Player Status: New
Other characters: Need
Invited by: I was in WL v1 for a hot minute, and in p90.

Character Name: Alloran-Semitur-Corrass
Fandom: Animorphs
Character Journal: [personal profile] takenalive
OU, AU, CRAU, Canon OC, or OC? OU and CRAU
Canon point: In Animorphs, mid book 54. In Piper 90, shortly after helping to get Reid Planker killed.
Age: As an alien, Alloran’s age is difficult for a human to discern, but he has a certain haggard and weary aspect. He’s somewhere in his seventies, but Andalites live longer than humans and he’s equivalent to being in his forties - the peak ability of youth is past.

His preferred human morph is of “Aria”, a woman who seems to be in her late twenties early thirties.

SETTING BACKGROUND

Animorphs is a setting where two nearly godlike alien entities, Crayak and the Ellimist, balance in conflict over the fate of life. There are many alien civilizations, several of which have discovered interstellar travel. Among them are the Andalites, an old species, proud and convinced of their own benevolence. One Andalite took pity on the Yeerks, a low-tech species of small sluglike people who infested other species to use their senses and bodies, and the Yeerks promptly took advantage and spread off their homeworld, creating an Empire and embarking on war and conquest. The Andalites fought them, nominally trying to protect their victims but much more intent on avenging their dead and covering their shame. One of these was Alloran, who was captured alive and infested for decades by a particularly cruel Yeerk.

In time the Yeerks reached Earth and started a slow, covert invasion. Only a small force of Andalites was nearby and most were killed. A dying Andalite gave five human children some of the situation and the power to morph; they joined up with an Andalite cadet and as the Animorphs ran a covert campaign of terrorism against the Yeerk Empire, gaining allies and eventually gearing up to balk the Andalite fleet from scouring Earth.

Piper 90 is a game set in a world where humans fucked up the planet in weird abstract ways and an evil megacorp scuttled in to try some disaster capitalism. Panfandom characters were pulled in and enslaved by the megacorp, which insisted they were ‘New Hires’ and put them through some real bullshit.
OC/AU/CRAU REQUIREMENTS

CRAU HISTORY
RP NAME: [community profile] piper90
Getting to spend time uninfested has let Alloran relearn a degree of control over his body - he no longer uncontrollably sings what he feels - but still being enslaved in a different form means he hasn’t been able to unlearn as much of the overpowering daydreaming and vacancy as he might like. He’s also had to find out that humans suck as much as Andalites, when he’d been vaguely positively inclined before, and had to work with ancillaries, who strike him as Yeerklike and wig him out.

Alloran came to trust Stacia and Saturday enough to reveal some information about his morphing ability and that he’s capable of morphing Yeerk and infesting someone. He doesn’t trust his own sense of what’s ethical but feels that these two can both understand his reluctance and will call on him if they must. This led to acquiring Reid Planker and impersonating him during a riot so that the real thing could be killed and the killers given an alibi.

PERSONALITY
Alloran’s baseline Andalite optimism is mostly crushed but there’s still a degree of confidence to him. He's highly pragmatic, can creatively re-interpret rules and regulations, sees the big picture, and is ready to use whatever tools are at hand. Plus he can think very quickly on his feet. Alloran's also arrogant and prideful, prone to anger especially when people challenge him. At one point this extended into fits of rage, but after his infestation and the erosion of his temper a harsh tone of voice and deliberately proper phrasing are more likely. His pragmatism also shades into ruthlessness and obsession. In war you have to kill your enemy, yes, but he thinks of it rather personally and can fixate on causing casualties to the exclusion of other goals.

There's a lot of bitterness and a sense of betrayal in Alloran. As a youth he was known for idealism even by young Andalite standards, and you know what they say about idealists becoming pessimists. When the Yeerks turn on the Andalites and escape their homeworld he's incensed at them and at Seerow for not seeing the danger. When he loses most of his command and commits atrocities on the Hork-Bajir homeworld but still fails to secure victory and is censured he's incredibly cynical - the tactics he used, while they don't align with the benevolent image Andalite civilians have of themselves, are not uncommon in the military, but history is written by the victors, and he knows he was scapegoated. This comes back again when he's scorned over Earth by a War-Prince who'd come to Earth to do the exact same thing he did to the Hork-Bajir. So does a scrap of idealism. He joins with the Animorphs, backing their effort to use Andalite technology to empower Yeerks and Taxxons so they have no reason to fight and can make a better way instead of all being killed.

He has the ability to empathize and see himself in others, when he's not squashing it. Alloran mostly ignored the humans he was transporting until hearing one talk about how her father had come back from war a different person, at which point he defended her from her dismissive companion and spoke with sympathy about how some people never return from war. Seeing how upset Arbron and Elfangor were after their first battle, he quelled his impatience and spoke kindly to them. Alloran cares deeply about people in his in-group and is very loyal to them, and beats himself up when he gets his people killed. When he can't remember his own name, he can still remember his love for his wife and children. He has much less interest in people outside of that category and is far too willing to sacrifice them, even allies, if it means saving his people and/or advancing the big picture. His Andalites worked with Hork-Bajir and Arn during the war for that world, and abandoned both to die or be enslaved after most of his people died themselves. Since infestation he hadn't really had an in-group and throws in with humanity against his own people, working for a cause he once would have decried and defending the very Yeerks he fought from genocide.

He can hang on to some degree of sanity and hope in an unfathomably bad situation for literally decades. The long infestation beat an unnerving patience into him, wore out the bulk of his anger, and forced him to examine his prejudices and have some perspective on himself and on others. He was made humbler and is more inclined to stop and examine his thoughts and choices, more inclined to let go of some things rather than get angry. Just as some of his weaknesses were blunted by long infestation, that confidence above has also been irreparably dented - he's had a lot of time to look back at his own actions and decisions and regrets many of them, but doesn't have a clear image of what the 'right' thing would have been either. Consequently he's more reluctant to take charge and his pride is in rags. That patience I mentioned also verges on passivity and can be maladaptive; he can easily get lost in thought or just zone out for long periods, the kind of thing that’s sanity-saving while infested but makes it hard to focus afterwards.

Alloran tends to seem thoughtful and remote, aloof, set apart from the situation. Much of the time he's able to fade into the background and be overlooked. He's steady when things are dire, seeming calm and assertive as he looks for a course of action. He often seems to be enjoying himself at times like that, whether that's grim satisfaction or an odd energetic delight. He also has a sensitive, creative streak he rarely shows. Sometimes he says oddly poetic things, and he designed his elaborately-crafted personal ship himself and named it after his wife, who he loves dearly. He's also got a sense of humor. It's typically a dark, sarcastic humor, but it's there.

After being freed he tends towards a flat affect but can have bouts of enjoyment-to-wild-enthusiasm and greatly enjoys not being a host. It's just that he's been a host for so long he's forgotten how to unconsciously be anything else. Keeping himself distinct from Esplin has been important. He enjoys not being loathed and feared and largely keeps quiet about what he’s capable of. In Piper 90, especially, he concealed his powerset.

CANON POWERS

* Thought-speech. 'Universal symbols' are broadcast and interpreted as words, mostly understood even without a shared language. Several species have this ability and I interpret it as having a physiological basis.
** Can be private, public, or anywhere in between. The range is longer when addressing someone the speaker is close to - one Andalite couple is able to hear one anothers’ voices as long as they’re on the same planet, though that’s an exceptional case - and shorter if the speaker is unused to thought-speech.
** Images and emotions can also be broadcast in a kind of song or aura. Can influence emotional states, but with exposure comes tolerance to this.

* Microscopic translator chip. Takes in a sample of language and starts to auto-translate.

* Morphing! An ability granted by technology.
** Can touch an animal (humans included) and 'acquire' it, or copy its DNA. Usually it responds by entering the “acquiring trance”, becoming calm and quiet for up to 30 seconds. DNA can be copied via direct contact or from fresh blood or something that's been dead for a short enough time that there are enough living cells.
** At will, a morpher can focus on an acquired creature and transform into it over 1-5 minutes depending on their skill and focus and the creature’s similarity to their body. Existing mass is shunted into Z-space and a new body is formed for the duration in real-space, anything from flea-sized to a kaiju. A channel is retained so the brain can control the new body. The process can be reversed at any point. Must demorph first in order to morph into something different. Morphing takes effort and energy; the more often it's done over a short period the more tiring it is.
** A baseline copy of the creature's instincts and tendencies is present in morph and can be overwhelming in its effects, but is also useful for acting as the creature. A creature's senses, abilities, and genetically inbuilt powers are all present, though some practice with them is a good idea. Thought-speak is always available.
** Can't stay in morph for over two hours without being stuck in morph, as whatever creature this is. Undergoing metamorphosis, if that's something the creature does, resets the timer.
** Morphing heals injuries and most illness, in both the morph and the original body. Scars may remain if they're part of the morpher's self-image.
** The morphed version of a creature is based on its genetics, what it could have been if well nourished and uninjured for its whole life, so it's not necessarily a perfect copy - acquire a steer, morph a bull. Fingerprints, irises, and haircut carry over. Clothes don't, though close-fitting clothing can be included as part of a morph.
** Sometimes the morpher is 'allergic' to a certain pattern of DNA. Then there are a few days of morphing uncontrollably in response to emotional turmoil before the morph is 'burped up' - a whole live animal is discharged from the morpher's body and its DNA is off the repertoire.
** Alloran has a huge number of morphs. The list is absolutely much longer than this compilation, we see that Esplin when placed in a strange place full of new animals acquires the ones that seem dangerous. As with P90, Yeerk, Siberian tiger, and grizzly bear are also in the repertoire, and over the course of the game Alloran has acquired a domestic housecat and an abusive human physical trainer.

POWER SELECTION

POWER TYPE
Canon Superpowers

FREEBIE POWERS
Andalite physiology!

Alien centaur: His lower body is deerlike, with four hooves and an incredibly long prehensile tail that has a sharp blade near the end (not usually found in deer). He’s faster than humans and has decent leaping ability, and is small and agile enough to have no trouble with doors or stairs, though slippery tile can be a problem. Two of his four eyes are on stalks that can point in any direction and see a little further into the UV and IR spectrum than human eyes. By human standards his arms and hands are weak, slow, and delicate, but they’re capable of greater finesse and sensitivity. Also he can sense magnetic north and accurately keep track of time passing, and he communicates through thought speech.

Sustenance requirements: Alloran can subsist quite well off of human-inedible ground plants and small invertebrates, grazing as he walks, and doesn’t seem to have any issues with drinking untreated water. He’ll have more trouble in barren regions or places with toxic foliage and may need to eat hay or just carry denser vegetable matter to tread on. Alloran can consume different things in various morphs to get around the need to graze but he still has to eat.

GAME POWERS
Canon superpowers:
* Thought-speech (not nerfed)
* Morphing (partially nerfed)
** The longest/tallest any morph can be is 20 feet; if they were larger, they are now miniaturized.
** Can acquire and morph other New Hires (only with ooc permission!) who have DNA but most of their powers (beyond clear physiological ones like 'has claws') don't come with the morph.
** No fire generating, acid/poison spitting, or generating electricity. Morphs may have superheated or poisonous bodies and or/resist their elements but there are no projectiles. The camo-crab's colorshifting ability isn't the same as true invisibility even in the best conditions. Only the actually shown morphs (and bear, tiger, Yeerk, housecat, and abusive physical trainer) are available.
** Higher-than-normal chance of being allergic to new DNA.
** Alloran’s selection of alien monster morphs gives him a high degree of versatility, but his reluctance to use the majority of them limits this. He may be more inclined to use some morphs when out of Jorgumand’s control, but he still wants to be distinct from Esplin and not morph horrible things by default.

ABILITIES
* Having a tail: Huge and prehensile, this is his primary manipulatory appendage. Other male Andalites with a military background can use their tails to catch small items, rapidly trim each others' fur, halve mosquitos in flight, knock humans out with the flat of the blade, chop them in half with two strokes of the edge, and cut into metal. It can move too fast to track and stop precisely. Think of a blade a foot or so long that can be swung at the end of a good polearm to slice and stab, or used with hair-splitting levels of delicacy and precision. Alloran's skill has suffered from disuse but he could redevelop skill and muscle.

* Health and aesthetics of plants, landscaping
* Ship design, piloting, weaponry
* War and bureaucracy strategies
* Use of handheld energy weapons
* High tolerance for unpleasantness and bullshit

SAMPLES
I’m gonna link the Planker impersonation thread he had with Dan.

ADDITIONAL INFO
I’d like Alloran to have a couple things from the Rig. One’s a handwaved pack he carried around that had the coveralls and general uniform articles for his human morph.

The other is the bonsai of his psychic alien tree that he got as an AC reward. It basically just radiates a sense of presence and awareness and accepts bad feelings expressed in front of it. There’s a slow, strange intelligence to it.
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Alloran-Semitur-Corrass

November 2023

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