app. ( savrou )

[procedures]

OUT OF CHARACTER

Player Name: danzy
Are you 16 or older: Yep!
Contact: PM me pls!
Current Characters: N/A, first-time app!
Tag: alan varren

IN CHARACTER
Name: Alan Varren
Canon: original character
Canon Point: after the Gloriana explosions, and right around the time he's meeting up with the resistance fighters on the route leading to House Bathory
Age: 34

History: Verse Background | Character Background | Gloriana Background

Personality:

Alva is, if forced into a brief profile, four things: kind, careful, pragmatic, and loyal.

Because of his upbringing out in the Alaska, where many displaced and discriminated people tend to run to, he had grown up being taught that kindness towards others is a given, not a privilege. He's the kind of person who would take a day out of his week to help the sick, or to walk someone across the street even if they were perfectly capable to. He rarely has anything terrible to say about anyone because he sincerely believes that there is a kindness in everybody, and when he does have anything untoward in mind about anyone, he tends to keep it to himself. Alva was always a gentle person; being raised by two loving parents had only nurtured this trait and brought it forward. This very same aspect of his character is why he chose to go into the medical fiel - this desire and inclination to help people however he can. For Alva, becoming a nurse seemed like the most rewarding path to take, and if things had panned out in his favor, this would have proved true for him.

Alva is also a careful man. Growing up in Alaska meant that there was always a shortage of everything; wastefulness isn't welcome, and wastefulness is curtailed by caution. He'd taken this mindset with him as he grew up and moved out to New Orleans, where (eventually) he's a lab tech in Gloriana strictly in name but more than that in function. Given that his wards are put through all sorts of experiments, and their bodies have been modified to such extremes, Alva's developed a strong sense of carefulness for everything he does. Be it just trimming someone's nails or installing plate glass into someone's chest, or cradling a child in his arms as he lulls them to sleep, Alva is very careful in every action he makes. He cares for everyone and everything as though life depends on it, and it is often the case. As far as Alva's concerned, every little thing matters, and so nothing should be taken lightly.

His kind and careful nature, on the other hand, is tempered by some measure of pragmatism. Specifically, he's very much conflict-avoidant, and would do a lot to not have to directly confront people or situations if he can help it. He doesn't act unless he has all the data he can possible have in front of him, which makes him seem very cautious (he is) and insensitive (he isn't) in his refusal to do something he feels might risk hurting people. He truly believes that if something hurts others, then it cannot be wholly good; this is a big reason for his low-level involvement in the resistance despite his acknowledging that the violence resulting from it is long due. Alva's the kind of man who would sooner burn his own hand than get out of the way of a fire, if it meant ten people won't burn their hands if he stays in place. This is his mentality: if one sacrifice means the relief of ten, or a hundred, then the sacrifice is worth it. This thinking is pretty much the biggest reason for why he can stomach working in the Gloriana labs, despite the abuse prevalent everywhere within it, and why Andyr wasn't wrong in calling him a traitor for working for the people who experiments on them.

Ultimately, these three traits come together to make Alva one heck of a loyal person, once he's been engaged and involved with. He's predisposed to caring for other people, and his kindness is tempered by a driving desire to always know the full measure of goings-on - he's not one to make snap judgments on anyone, which means that once he's committed himself to being a friend, he's for keeps. He'll go the distance for you, because he trusts you completely, and his trust comes from having weighed everything he knows about you, good and bad. He's very slow to trust, in part because he's been betrayed so greatly (first by a woman he loved, and then by humanity in general), and in part also because he's cautious by nature, but when that's gotten past of, Alva would kill and die for you - which is exactly what he does when he goes full-tilt on his involvement with the resistance. (He bombs the shit out of whole compound, knowing he's condemning himself to hell and death. And he truly believes it's the right thing to do.)

To sum up: Alva is kind, which makes him careful, and his carefulness results in a cautiousness that keeps him grounded but slow to trust. But when he trusts, he's one very loyal friend, and one who's pretty much ride or die, no looking back. These traits make him impossible to work with, at times, because he's always looking out for the "what if" and "we don't know"s of every situation, but he does so out of concern for everyone's safety. And he takes safety really seriously; he will stop at nothing to save a life, especially one that's placed in his hand. And while his opinions may seem like straddling the fence way too many times to be reasonable, he does so because he hates to see people get hurt, and especially when they get hurt because of his actions.

This is the kind of person Alva is.

Contracts: There isn't really any thinking about it: Alva would sign, if only purely because being stranded somewhere he doesn't have the slightest idea of getting off of is his biggest nightmare. It would mean not being able to get back to his kids, and Alva would do anything to prevent that from becoming his reality. He would sign up, and serve the best he can until the Moira reached its final destination, and then make his way back to his family first thing.

Abilities/Skills:

• STRENGTH A natural byproduct of Alva's activation had been the increase of his previous base strength; Gloriana has yet to augment him in this aspect as Alva's already strong enough as is to crush someone's head in his hands.


• DENSITY Already well-built prior to activating, the KN1 gene made him sturdier, and effectively heavier. He isn't affected by his weight as his base strength also jumped up with it, but Alva weighs in the neighborhood of two hundred and fifty pounds easily.


• HEALING/DURABILITY Alva has the trademark KN1 healing/regeneration rate, which means he heals much more quickly than baseline humans. He doesn't have durability augments, however, which means that only his natural body strength and durability keeps him from being broken in half.


• DRUG TOLERANCE & TEST FAKEOUT Unwittingly, because Alva is constantly drugged by Gloriana to keep his physicals from reading too differently compared to before he activated (at the risk of industrial spies finding out his mutation), Alva has a very high tolerance (a near-immunity) to various types of drugs. His body practically automatically processes it and cycles it out; as a side effect, he can actually control his body to pass baseline tests, effectively cheating them. He is not aware that he can do this, however, as there hadn't been a strong personal reason for him to explore his KN mutations.


• MINDFUL RAGE An unexplored ability that he nonetheless possesses, when something or someone that Alva cares for is threatened, his mind switches between two options - a quiet obedience, or a blacked out period of destructive behavior. Alva is generally predisposed to complying, and finding the least conflicting option out, so this hasn't been a concern for him thus far.


• EDUCATION Unintentionally, Alva's late gene activation meant that he lived his life as a regular member of society well past his teens, and was in fact in tertiary education when his genes kicked in. Because of this, he has a far more advanced education compared to other KNs, as well as a corresponding life experience. Alva was in his third year in medical school when he was contracted into Gloriana, and his unique circumstance made it possible for him to be assigned as a lab tech.

Strengths/Weaknesses:

• (+) LEVEL-HEADEDNESS Alva's a six-year veteran of the Louisiana lab floors, and has gotten elbow-deep in more blood and guts than is healthy for the sanity of any person. His experience in helping put together and take apart other people at life-or-death situations has lead to a level-headedness in assessing and deciding on crucial matters that need immediate action t- that is, to save someone's life first, no matter what.


• (+) MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE On top of his curtailed college education, Alva's been trained to handle not only human physiology, but Mice physiology as well - which means he's particularly well-versed in body modifications and extreme physical augmentations on people. He wouldn't be fazed at all by a tail or twenty tentacles that a subject might possess when they're on his chair or table.


• (+) FATHERHOOD While he hasn't exactly been a present figure in his own daughter's life, Alva has much experience in helping KN2s through daily life - basically taking care of young children in adult and often overtaxed bodies. He has adopted Valarie and another Mouse, Posie, as his own, projecting on them his parenting instincts and looking out for their best interests.


• (+) TENACITY A byproduct of the previous three traits: Alva will steadfastly hold onto his decisions and act on them when he's certain of his facts and instincts. This trait leads him to educate himself on how to build bombs, set up traps, and further his engineering education for a single suicide mission, without feeling any deep regret or misgivings about the course of action. For him, once he's weighed all his options against what he knows to be true, then the choice he decides on to be correct is the only choice, and he will stop at nothing to accomplish it.



• (-) DEDICATED PACIFIST Unfortunately, Alva is also very conflict-avoidant - and this makes his tenacity both a blessing and a curse, as once Alva's decided on not engaging in any sort of argument or dispute, he will stick to it, even to his own detriment.


• (-) INACTION Because of his habit of waiting to see how things pan out when he doesn't have all the information he feels he needs, Alva tends not to act on most things that do not involve a scalpel, needle, or screwdriver. This is the main reason it takes three iterations of Miray for him to admit having feelings for her, and why he only commits to his friendship with Andyr just days before they're supposed to bomb the whole state into oblivion.


• (-) HOW DO FIGHT??? He's not trained in any way at all to fight, so all of his potential in that arena is completely wasted. Alva knows how to throw a punch if he needed, but generally speaking, he's more of a behind-the-scenes person than an active fighting participant. And that's how he'd prefer things to be.


• (-) FATHERHOOD His liability is that he has people to protect - two children, specifically, and Alva is well aware of how easily they can be leveraged against him. As well, a lot of his mistakes in life are made under the pretense of seizing opportunities for better life for his daughter, which is how he was convinced to listen to Gloriana II in the first place. Alva is a father who would do anything to make sure his children are alive and well, and this sometimes leads to many regrettable actions on his part.

Items: The clothes on his back, which include a singed tan coat, a lab coat, an ID badge for the Gloriana labs, blue long-sleeved shirt and matching trousers, and plain leather shoes. Other than his clothes, he has two photos with him: one of his daughter and parents sitting on in front of a house, and one of Miray 7 and a bloody infant.

SAMPLES
Network Sample: SAMPLE 1 (with andyr) | SAMPLE 2 (with levi) | SAMPLE 3 (with val)

Prose/Action Sample: SAMPLE 1 (thread leads to action) | SAMPLE 2 (with val) | SAMPLE 3 (test drive top level)