reverie terminal ø application

PLAYER
» HANDLE: coffee
» AGE: 30+
» CHARACTER(S) IN-GAME: none

CHARACTER
» NAME: Marco (no canon last name given)
» CANON: Animorphs (book series)
» CANON POINT: End of book 54.
» AGE: 19

» SETTING: animorphs @ seerowpedia; marco @ seerowpedia

» SHORT DESCRIPTION: funny, loyal, unsentimental, ruthless, confident, shameless
» INFLUENTIAL EVENTS:

↬ Death of Eva: When Marco was 11 years old, his beloved mother took the family boat out onto the ocean on a stormy night and was lost at sea. Subsequently, his father completely fell apart, losing his job and falling into a deep depression for multiple years. Marco, who had previously been described as very soft and good-natured, had to essentially start raising himself and taking care of his father both emotionally and practically, and that was the catalyst for a shift in his personality from gentle to ruthless.

↬ Becoming an Animorph: When Marco was 13 years old, he and his best friend and three other acquaintances took a shortcut through an abandoned construction site, where they witnessed an alien spacecraft landing. The dying alien they encountered told them that a race of parasitic brain-controlling slugs (the Yeerks) was taking over the world, gave them the power to morph, and then was promptly eaten alive by the leader of the invading force. This changed Marco's life forever, introducing him to the war he would fight for the next three years, and to the brutal violence and desperate fight for survival that would dominate his life.

↬ Eva Alive: When Marco was first given the power to morph, he was incredibly reluctant to fight, worried about his father being left alone. But shortly into the war, while taken captive by the Yeerks, he came face to face with his mother, being controlled by an influential Yeerk. The prospect of saving his mother gave him a personal reason to fight that was stronger than the fear of leaving his father alone, and this is when he started to truly become the team's strategist, throwing himself into the task of winning the war.

↬ Saving His Parents: After over two years in the war, Marco's father had recovered from his depression and moved on, going back to work as an engineer, where he discovered a technology advanced enough to catch the attention of the Yeerks. Marco wasn't able to stop him from being targeted and while he was watching his father about to be infested by a Yeerk, he made a decision that was driven more by his heart than his mind for possibly the first time in the war - he intervened, unwilling to lose another parent to the Yeerks, saved his father, and told him about what was going on. Both he and his father were subsequently forced to fake their deaths and live off the grid for the rest of the war as a consequence. During another mission shortly afterward, Marco was finally able to rescue his mother, and she was reunited with his father. Despite the war not being over, this was Marco's "win," and the happiest he had been since before his mother's death. After this, his entire demeanor changed to one a lot more laid-back than his previous driven, strategic persona.

↬ Winning the War/New War: When Marco was 16 years old, the Animorphs, along with some other allies, won the war against the Yeerks in one decisive battle. The war was not easily won, and Marco lost a lot of friends, some closer than others. However, it was the shift in his life afterward that more deeply affected him - Marco, who had always wanted to be rich, famous, and powerful, became all three things. A celebrity hero, he parlayed his gift of the gab and natural charm into a career and became the unofficial spokesperson of the Animorphs, and after applying his talent for strategy to his post-war life, ended up with a mansion and a very full bank account. However, life was pretty boring for him, and when his best friend came to ask him to head back into space on a stolen Yeerk ship to rescue a friend who had gone missing, he jumped at the opportunity and spent the next 7 months in space, just before his arrival in the game from a point where he is likely about to die.

» FIT: Marco is an easy fit into the setting - he's from a sci-fi horror series already, albeit one set on Earth, but he's spent a lot of time in space. Specifically, he's coming from 7 months aboard a spacecraft with all the training needed to man each station. He also has thick skin and has dealt with a lot of horrific situations, and will be interested in taking some of the characters who don't fit quite as well under his wing and helping to protect them. It won't be all smooth sailing, because the horror themes of the game will likely trigger some of his own lingering (and mostly deflected/ignored) trauma. That's something I'm quite excited about playing with, because I very much enjoy pushing past his snarky exterior to the gushy bits underneath.

» POWERS:

MORPHING
Marco can acquire the DNA pattern of any living creature and then become a copy of that creature. This includes sentient creatures, aliens or alien animals, and is not limited by size (very small or very large). When creatures are acquired, they go into a hazy, subdued "trance" for a short time.

Marco's list of morphs as of his canon point can be found here. I will keep a running tally of any additional morphs acquired in-game.

ø thought-speak: When in morph (and only when in morph), Marco can use thought-speak, which is a type of limited telepathy. It works like regular speech but without the use of sound, meaning it can work through walls and other barriers. Thought-speak has a distance range a little wider than physical speech, and can be either broadcast to everyone in range, or privately sent to one person or a small group. These "whispers" of private thought-speak cannot be eavesdropped on. Humans and other creatures who do not naturally use thought-speak can 'hear' it, but must reply in their natural way.

ø healing: Morphing uses DNA as a pattern to build and rebuild Marco's body, and DNA cannot be injured, which means that if Marco is injured, no matter how seriously, morphing out of the injured form will reset it to a default healthy state. Additionally, if he acquires the DNA of a crippled person or animal, when he morphs, the form will be whole and fit unless the defect was in the DNA to begin with (an animal paralyzed in an accident would be morphed whole, an animal with a genetic defect would be morphed with that defect). Morphing has also, on occasion, been shown to cure both poisoning and diseases (a snakebite, insecticide, and rabies, respectively), but this is not consistent or reliable, as it has not cured other illnesses (the Andalite flu) so it cannot be relied on.

ø limitations: Marco cannot stay in morph for longer than 2 hours - if he does, he will forfeit his default human form and ability to morph and be stuck permanently in whatever form he's stayed in for longer than 2 hours. New DNA can only be acquired in his natural human form, the creature being acquired must be alive at the time of acquiring, and he cannot acquire another shapeshifter's assumed form (for example, he cannot acquire tiger DNA from his friend Jake in tiger morph, only from a real tiger). He must return to human form between morphs (he cannot go straight from one animal form to another). Morphing expends a similar amount of energy to sprinting, so Marco will become physically exhausted by repeated morphs - more than four morphs in a short period of time will generally tax him to his limits.

COMPUTERS
ø hacking and tech: Marco has a natural aptitude for using computer technology. His father is a computer engineer, so he has been exposed to it from a young age, and when he started staying part time with Ax, he learned about more advanced technology than was available on Earth at the time, and became proficient with hacking. Also, during the 7+ months he recently spent on board the Yeerk prototype ship The Rachel, he has learned the basics of piloting space ships and is comfortable manning most stations on The Rachel.

STRATEGY
Marco is a ruthless strategist, able to see the clearest and most succinct path to success, and often able to deduct the enemy's plans because of it. He is not a leader.

» NOTES:

Marco has the ability to acquire humans and other sentient creatures that have DNA to acquire, and he's one of the less reluctant of the Animorphs to do so (not that he likes it much anyway). I don't know if the mods would want this nerfed or not.

» SAMPLES:

tdm top-level
tdm log
tdm text

log from riverview (cw: body horror)
network entry from riverview
newer text thread from riverview