APPLICATION.

[poleaxed]

Content warnings for app:
Character backstory includes child abuse, child death, violence against children, murder, sexism (external & internalized), bullying, neglect, & medieval violence (sacking of cities, massacres). While these elements are not discussed in gory detail, they are extant.


(all apps in comments.)

Comments

RUBI.

[poleaxed]

Content warnings for app:
Character backstory includes child abuse, child death, violence against children, murder, sexism (external & internalized), bullying, neglect, & medieval violence (sacking of cities, massacres). While these elements are not discussed in gory detail, they are extant.

PLAYER

Player Name: pel
Pronouns: he / him.
Are you over 18? y
Contact: vocative
Current Characters: Was kindly invited by Eppy who plays Nikolai.
Triggers: I would like CWs provided for the eating of / transformation into bugs.

STATISTICS

Character Name: Joan Dority
Character Canon: OC
Character Age: 31
Canon Point: December 2018
Link to History: Link
Skills: Joan is a broadly competent auto mechanic-- these skills don't extend to general mechanics or electrical work, just cars. She's a good fighter, but has no formal training. She's relatively strong, exercizing regularly, and has good endurance, stamina and core strength. She has a strong knowledge of Catholic doctrine and practice. She speaks some gutter Spanish, which includes basic mechanic lingo.
Abilities: N/a.
Curse Mark: Diabel, right shoulder. (While Joan has aspects of wanting to be a protector which might put her in Wilk, she is more ruled by her hedonistic lack of self control.)

CHARACTERIZATION

FORMATIVE EXPERIENCES:

• EARLY CHILDHOOD: - Joan spent most of her childhood fighting. Her father-- and later her oldest brother-- were physically abusive toward her and her twin brother Luke. This caused her to become extremely accustomed to violence, finding it comfortable, even familiar. Conflict was the only way she interacted with her father. The constant fighting also caused her to center her life around someone else-- while eventually she would grow to fight for the sake of fighting, she initially only fought to draw attention away from or protect Luke. Her father's verbal abuse took a toll as well; Joan is an unfeminine, ungainly, physically strong woman, and she despises herself for these traits, her 'failure' to be a 'normal' woman.


• MURDER WITNESS: - At fourteen, Joan witnessed Luke's murder. When her father's trial was over, and the nearest thing to revenge she could have was finished, she had nothing left. She had centered her identity around protecting Luke, a task which she'd failed. Her identity suffered permanent destabilization because of this; ever since, she was felt purposeless. Accordingly, this also makes her desperate for purpose, but she flinches back from easy opportunities (like forming relationships with others) because she fears failing again; because she is unaccustomed to and suspicious of kindness; because years on the wounds are still too raw and leave her feeling despicably vulnerable.


• BACK IN TIME: - In 2014, Joan was transported to 1209, in Béziers, a part of France was under a major upheaval-- a crusade. Joan remembers knights, screaming, fire and pillage; she witnessed towns being sacked, massacres, and death. She experienced hunger and deprivation. And then, suddenly, it was over, and she was back in the present day with two years of missing time. The event shook her as much as it filled her with meaning-- if it really happened, if she isn't crazy, was that a message from God? Joan interprets suffering as inherently meaningful due to her religious upbringing and childhood of abuse, so what was that? It left her with questions and hope. It also left her brittle. Pain and senseless violence rarely make anyone into the angelic creatures Joan wishes she could be; kindness takes work, and her strange misstep in time sapped her of the energy to perform that work. Where Joan was difficult and aggressive before, she became cruel and domineering. Never wanting to feel such incredible vulnerability again, built an even thicker shell around her heart.

PHILOSOPHY: Joan is religious, and accordingly interprets the world through a religious narrative. Specifically a narrative, rather than a political or social bias. Suffering has inherent meaning. Nothing is worthwhile if it isn't a struggle, and (especially physical) pain renders life with meaning. Yet she hates feeling like she's not in control, and frequently uses whatever crude aggressive tactics necessary to gain what she sees as her due, for her suffering (she is owed) and her authority (she is strong).

There is a conflict inherent in her philosophy-- she wants religious meaning but fails to turn the other cheek-- and this drives her into a sense of bitter loathing. Her personal theology relates strongly to the lives of Isaac and Jesus Christ, two sons who were sacrifices of their fathers; she sees in this a cosmic pattern, because her brother was also killed by her father. She feels some anger at God for this, because she interprets God's authority as like a father, and thus is her suffering not just more abuse?

Surely this explains everything: God exists and He is cruel. It can't be Joan's fault that her life is unfulfilling, that she is vengeful and angry.

DESIRES: Belonging, and to protect the weak, and to be in control.

In her mind, all of these desires are the same thing; she wishes to become a knight (though she thinks of it more as a 'saint') protecting the weak, with no concerns or needs of her own, always powerful and always active. She idealizes this notion, and will jump in without asking if she thinks someone is being unjustly persecuted. This is how she gains control of conflicts that have nothing to do with her.

Yet her fear of closeness means she often 'ghosts' these people soon after 'protecting' them. She cannot truly be an ideal, a living saint, a person with no wants, because this desire is innately unrealistic and frankly impossible. Yet this desire guides all her 'virtuous' actions, her rarely-seen mercy, her tempered heroism.

FEARS: Vulnerability, loss of control.

Joan is terrified of being the 'passive' receiver of action-- she of course interprets all 'meaningful' action as violence-- and tries at all times to be a 'doer' so nothing is done to her. She shrinks from becoming close to others, 'ghosting' people because vulnerability means weakness. Whenever she was vulnerable, it meant pain.

While she loves the virtuous action of protection, the strength and, inevitably, violence, she does not realize that striving for such ideals as protecting the weak means caring about them. She is in love with the concept of championing the underdog, but she is terrified of the aftermath, of the caring and consideration that truly makes these violent victories matter. This inability to balance her internal urges-- her desires and fears are essentially two sides of the same coin-- cause her to turn to violence and loneliness again and again.

GAMEPLAY

SUITABILITY: Joan is a character prone to violence and crudity, and a game environment that allows that openly is obviously an immediate match. However, she also has the capacity for good if she's forced to confront her own vulnerability and fear, which events in this game are geared toward. Her animal form will take on a demonic bent, doubling down on her religious concerns and making her question her actions more than she usually does, and forcing her to self reflect, which she tries to never do (because, of course, it hurts).

SAMPLE: Joan shows up and makes everything worse. Warning for naked fighting, attempted eye damage.

MONSTER: I'm thinking of a demon, specifically the kinds that tend to show up in medieval manuscripts. Because these demons are different from our 'modern' idea of demons, it won't be immediately obvious to her what she's becoming until she's farther transformed. The horns will probably show up last.

Her final demonic form will be a synchesis between the above provided images: jagged yellow tusks, a thin furred tail, discolored skin (teal-grey), yellowed fur in some places (stretching from the nape of her neck, down her spine to base of her tail), mouths on her shoulders (around her tattoos, the ink of which will be transferred to the tongues), goat-like yellow eyes, and finally curved goat's horns.

This form will have a heightened sense of hearing, scent, and feeling (pain will feel more painful and pleasure will feel more pleasurable, etc), but poor eyesight. Joan relies far too much on appearance, and needs to rely on her other senses.

In the medieval period, a very 'common' type of demon was an incubus-- succubi came later in the 14th century. In keeping Joan thematically tied to the middle ages, her demonic form will follow the patterns of incubi. Incubi were attracted to sleeping women-- though in Joan's case I'll make it people in general-- and were able to have sex with them through dreams (incubo, the word from which incubus comes, means 'nightmare', specifically in the sense of 'that which lies down upon a sleeping person'). As such, Joan's demonic form will be able to enter the dreams of others, though this will be an initially subconscious ability that is only accessible when she is more than 50% transformed, and she will have to learn to control it to be able to see dreams clearly.

When even partially transformed, Joan will feel excessive loneliness-- something she frequently feels, but during transformation will no longer be able to ignore. To calm and assuage this feeling, she will need physical touch, sexually or otherwise. Sex will cause an slow transformation back into normal body, but so will being close to another person, holding them or lying down with them. Skin-to-skin contact is essential, so long as it isn't violent, because violence only makes Joan feel more isolated from others. (Violence will stave off transformation until Joan is more than 50% transformed.)