Contact Info + Application
Player contact
AIM: practicedrowning
Email: onlyonairplanes@gmail.com
LJ: stopcounting
Plurk: stopcounting
Game Application
Series: DOGS: Bullets and Carnage
Character: Lily Rammsteiner. Technically, her only name is Lily, since Rammsteiner is more of a make-and-model designation. Other characters in the series use it as a surname when they enter the outside world, but since she's never known anything but the deep underground, the word would mean nothing to her and she wouldn't recognize it as part of her name.
Age: In canon, she was brought into consciousness at roughly eight, but currently appears between twelve and thirteen and (with the exceptions described below) acts like a normal child in that age range.
Sex/Gender: Female
Canon Role: Minor character?
"Real" Name: Holly Klein
Please give us a personal history of your character's life and explain to us in detail how they grow and develop over the course of their canon:
Before I get too far into her history, I just want to make one thing clear: Lily is dead. Not dead in the sense that she met her tragic end in chapter 20 and everyone was sad, but dead in that sense that she was killed long before the series began and only a few characters remember her. Although we see a good portion of her life through flashback and can extrapolate most of the rest based on the shared experiences of surviving characters, it’s important to remember that she's not a character in the series but a character before the series that we're seeing through the lens of memory. I don't know how relevant that is when it comes to an application and I know there are other characters in the same situation, but I thought I'd toss it out there.
The common opinion, implied by canon, is that the children in Angelika Einstürzen's lab are clones or were genetically engineered to be suitable for her project: creating an army that she plans to use to take over the higher level of the city for undisclosed reasons. She's fruitlessly gone through multiple generations already, and it is members of these generations, mindless and deformed, that serve as combat practice for the Rammsteiner series.
The first time she wakes up, Lily seems to be about eight years old. Trapped in a white room along with a dozen other kids, she's confused about her location and the collar around her neck, but their purpose is soon made clear: a white door opens and a massive, twisted creature lumbers in. It immediately swipes Lily aside and into the wall, leading the other kids to believe that she died. When she wakes up seconds later, though, it's with a sense of purpose: she leaps onto the creature and attacks it with what seems like an animalistic instinct, ripping at it with her hands and teeth until it finally collapses. More of the beings are released, and this time the other children seem to react to some order conveyed by their collar, now knowing what to do.
The children grow. The slaughter of these creatures is a training exercise, and they compete with one another for the highest number of kills. The underground facility is fully stocked, containing even a cafeteria, and one gets the sense that it could be a real school, if a school's only subject was violence. When she's free to do her own thing, both Lily and Giovanni seem to spend their time drawing flowers--boxes and scribbles, since neither have ever seen a real one, though Lily recognizes Giovanni’s drawing right away. Ever pragmatic, Heine reminds her that none of them have any idea what flowers look like.
As she grows older, Lily becomes increasingly unstable. She's an excellent fighter, but seems that she has trouble switching between the mindless slaughter that the children were created to perform and the human life of a preteen. At one point, she nearly attacks Giovanni after a practice session before Heine stops her. She offers several horrified apologies, but Giovanni seems to forgive her immediately.
Following the session, as they head toward the cafeteria, Lily is quiet and withdrawn, occasionally trembling. She quickly reports that she's fine whenever anyone asks, but within moments, she snaps and, screaming, throws one of the larger boys over her head and runs off. Heine quickly follows, intending to stop her.
In one of the arenas used for fighting, Lily perches on top of a large pile of rubble left by a previous practice session, ready to attack anyone who comes near her. Heine yells for her to stop but the violence continues, this time between the two of them. Despite his attempts to calm her down, but Lily seems set on killing anything in her path. Once he finally has her pinned, Giovanni makes it to the room as well, and with both of them telling her to stop, Lily finally falls free of her berserk state. It’s not clear which of the two she reacts to, since she says the beginning of Giovanni's voice before saying Heine's, but she seems to believe it was Heine.
Crying, she tells him that she’s terrified of what happens to her: she feels like there's a voice behind her telling her to just do what's fun, but then everything goes black and the emotions like 'fun' and 'scary' just go away. When she comes to, everything's red. She's afraid, and she's tired of the black and red.
[This is the point I’d like to take her from, for reasons described in the next section]
Because of his ability to calm Lily, Heine is drawn into Einstürzen's chamber and told that he will have a test performed on him, to see if he’s suitable for what she calls the Führer spine, which, if compatible, will allow him to control the other subjects, but if incompatible, would result in his death. Heine refuses the test and immediately agrees to the experiment, seeing the opportunity as a chance to save the others. After a mental conversation with his alter ego, apparently a dark version of himself given life by the modification, he breaks free of the machine and runs to the combat chamber, where the other children, now useless to Einstürzen, have been ordered to kill each other. Everyone is on the floor, seemingly dead and covered with blood, aside from Lily who, also covered in blood (though not her own), is dancing among the bodies in a clearly altered state. For Heine, everything goes black, and when he regains consciousness, he’s torn her body in two. His alter ego mocks him, pointing out that by killing her, he’s finally saved her.
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's and why?:
I'd like to take Lily from the point after Heine pulls her out of her berserk fit. I chose this point because it leaves Lily aware of her uncontrollable violent tendencies, but she doesn't know what the future holds for her and the others in her generation. This would make it easier for her to find a place in the game, and allows for more versatility when it comes to growth. Taking her from an earlier point would mean that she had a more vague sense of her weakness, which would make her less interesting as a character, and taking her from her point of death would make her nearly unplayable.
Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality:
In essence, Lily is two people. Her artificial spine and a metal collar have created a creature of senseless violence, one who attacks indiscriminately and ruthlessly, but when that self has been peeled away, it reveals an innocent child. We see this in the first scene: when all of the creatures have been destroyed and many of the other children lie unconscious or dead, she wakes out of the killing trance to see red everywhere. Lily walks over to Heine, the only other person standing. She leans against him, presumably looking for comfort and whimpering that she's scared. True to form, Heine offers none, but these few pages show Lily's human side, her real side. And she is scared. Very scared. Scared of what she is and what she can do, and scared of what she'll become.
When relaxed, Lily seems like a normal girl of her age. The flashback scenes are focused on Heine so there's a lot we don't see about Lily, but extrapolation isn't that difficult. Because she's the outgoing type (evidenced in her first appearance), and cheerful by nature (she's almost always smiling when entirely herself), it's safe to say that she makes friends easily, or at least tries to make friends easily. There's something about her that makes people want to protect her, and she’s genuinely very caring and loyal. When she nearly attacks Giovanni, she apologizes profusely, even after he’s seemingly forgotten about the incident.
She's also a bit absentminded, shown when she asks Heine why he has a collar before she notices that she has one as well.
Lily is imaginative, shown by her ability to conceptualize flowers in what appears to me a mess of squares and lines, and she symbolically takes refuge in a world she knows is beyond her reach. She's not the most intelligent of the Rammsteiner series, but in a way, she's the most obviously human. There's an innocence within her that no amount of blood can stain.
Now, for the darker half.
In her berserk state, Lily is one of the most aggressive fighters in the complex. She's the first to leap onto a foe, the first to swing, the first to shoot, and occasionally, she doesn’t just stop at the enemy. The force of this state sometimes threatens to overwhelm her more peaceful self even when no violence is taking place, and these aspects of her personality are caught in a struggle for power that only worsens as she ages. There isn’t much to be said about this part of Lily that hasn’t been covered elsewhere in the application, but I thought I should touch on it again because when active, it eclipses her ‘true’ personality.
Please give us a physical description of your character:
Lily's height is average for her age. She's thin but wiry, and she has slightly layered shoulder-length blond hair with blunt bangs. Her eye color is never revealed, but I plan to write it as blue. She wears a large metal collar in canon, but obviously, that wouldn't work in Damned. I'd like to give her a thin necklace that's just small enough that she couldn't slide it over her head. It would be purely cosmetic, but I think the idea of being unable to break free of something is symbolically important.
What kinds of otherworldly abilities does your character have, if any?:
Like all of the children in the Rammsteiner series, Lily has grown up with an artificial spine that sharpens her reflexes, makes her stronger, and gives her the ability to heal at a superhuman rate. We see her lift a character several times her size, and moments after she wakes up, she kills a gigantic beast by leaping onto it and tearing its skin to rip out tendons and muscle. When not in control of herself, Lily seems to be a more ruthless fighter than most of her peers; she is the last one standing when the children (sans Heine) were pitted against each other (though Giovanni was still alive).
If present, how do you plan to tweak these powers to make your character appropriately hindered in the setting of Landel's?:
I'd like to lower Lily's reflexes and agility to that of a fully human but decently trained fighter. Her strength would be equal to the strength of a fit adult, so she'd be able to do things like, say, kick in a door, but she couldn't throw tables/people or lift things that are twice her size, etc.
Her only truly superhuman ability is rapid healing. This is a tough one to nerf since all characters heal quickly in damned, so I thought I'd mix it with negative side effects. I'd like her to heal at a baseline of about five times slower than her normal rate. MOD CHANGE: when severely injured, there's a good change she'll lose control of herself.
Canon shows that although the Rammsteiner series heals relatively quickly, they take the side effects of physical damage the way any human would: a bleeding gash, for instance, might heal quickly, but after it's healed, a person will feel the effects of blood loss for a longer period
Does your character have any non-otherworldly abilities/training that surpass the norm?:
Some of her fighting technique might be learned instead of innate? In practice, though, there’s no distinction.
What do you see your character doing in the scope of the game and how do you plan to use the setting of Landel's Institute to develop them and affect their psychology in a unique, interesting way?:
Because she's known nothing but the underground training facility, Lily will be confused and stunned by her surroundings. However, she's also very kind and outgoing, so it shouldn't be hard for her to make friends. Although she'd be the first to attack a monster, she's not the brains of an operation, and will usually follow someone else's lead when it comes to night shift plans. Because I don't know who she'll meet and befriend, it's impossible to know exactly how she'll develop, but I think being surrounded by entirely new people will help her grow to understand that friends won't necessarily abandon her if she loses control of herself. For Lily, this will be a very significant change.
Given that this RP takes place in an unsettling and outright horrific environment, how do you justify your character as being appropriate in both body and mind for this kind of setting?:
Within the first half hour of her conscious life, Lily is slammed against a wall with enough force to crack it, then kills the monstrous creature that threw her using nothing but her teeth and hands. That pretty much encapsulates everything I'll cover here, but I know that she’s in that ‘need more justification’ age bracket, I’ll go into more detail.
The parts of night shift that require NPC mods? That's been Lily's entire life. She's never known a world that wasn't soaked in blood, and having an entire day to talk to people and relax, not to mention actually realizing that there’s a sky, would actually be harder for her to adjust to than the survival-horror aspects of the game. She's literally hard-wired for violence, and killing things is as much a part of her day as lunchtime is for a normal person.
As for her body, she'll be in for quite a shock when she doesn't heal as quickly as usual, but she'll either adjust or ignore it, depending on her mindset at the time. When it comes to fighting, Lily's body isn't the body of a child. It's the body of a weapon, just like her peers, and she's never known anything else.
Third-Person Sample:
The petals of the largest flowers were as fragile and soft as skin, lilac with dark purple veins radiating from a center that smelled like nothing she'd smelled before. The entire glass room was filled with a mixture of those nameless scents, amplified by the humidity and warmth. Lily was certain that if the world let her she could have stayed there forever, surrounded by colors that Giovanni’s crayon set had never imagined. She couldn't, though. The people had told her that she couldn't.
She touched another flower, this one with yellow petals and center threads, and her fingertips came away painted with pale dust. When she bent to smell it she sneezed, covering her nose before sneezing again and then grinning. Despite having never seen them, Lily knew what the plants were as soon as she stepped through the door of the greenhouse, and it was like walking into a half-remembered dream. If she couldn't stay in this place, maybe she could take part of it with her.
She started with a petal, a thin white one from a blossom that had petals to spare. Separated from its source, though, it no longer felt like part of a flower: only a pale, thin spear that turned soft and translucent as she pressed it between her fingers, broken. It was nothing without its source. She pressed her fingers around the stem and tugged carefully but firmly until the stalk broke free from the ground, dangling small clumps of dirt from its broken root. Lily stared at it in amazement. A real flower, alive in her trembling fingers. Then two flowers, three, all different colors, shapes, and sizes. She held them tenderly, aware of how precious each blossom was.
She'd just added a half-opened pink bud to the collection when a voice rose behind her, shrill and belonging to a girl not much older than herself. "What the hell are you doing?"
"They're flowers," Lily said, as if it were an explanation.
"You can't just rip them up like that. Some of us spent weeks growing them." Her voice was hard, and although the girl's posture was not threatening, Lily stepped back and cradled her messy bouquet as if it were a child.
"I won't hurt them," she promised. "I just wanted to see them all together."
"So you yanked them out of the ground."
"I was careful. Look." Not a petal was bruised or torn, even on the most fragile violets. "I'll keep them safe. I won't let anything hurt them."
"Geez, what kind of idiot are you? Flowers die when you pick them."
"What?" Lily's voice was small, and she took yet another step away.
"They need the dirt to grow. They'll shrivel up and turn brown and all of the petals will fall off. Just wait. You’ll see." The other girl folded her arms, voice full of angry accusation.
They couldn't die. They were so vibrant, so alive. They had to be alive. "I'll put them back. They'll be okay." Immediately, Lily dropped to her knees and laid the flowers gently beside her, then began digging a shallow hole. She selected one blossom, small and white with a yellow center, and propped it up by piling dirt around the stem. When she looked up her expression was expectant, hopeful.
"You really are an idiot."
"I fixed it."
"It'll still die."
"But..." This time, her voice was less certain and her throat tight, voice trailing into silence.
"You can't just stick it back in the ground," the older girl said with disgust. "I'm not even human and I know that."
Lily bit her lip. "I'm sorry," she whispered. The returned flower slipped to an angle, insufficiently supported by the shallow hole.
"It's too late for sorry. Just don't be such an idiot next time."
Lily said nothing until the girl walked away, then she leaned forward to let her fingers rest beneath a white petal. "I'm sorry," she repeated. No matter how many times she wiped her burning eyes, the flower's shape remained blurred.
First-Person Sample:
[The first page of her notebook is covered with mediocre sketches, things barely recognizable as clouds and trees. A few recovered leaves, ones that have fallen naturally, are tucked between the pages with great care. The text at the bottom, regardless of whether she arrived during day or night, says simply: “Everything is so beautiful. I wish the others could see it.”]