Application: savetheearth

[tenaciousc]

OOC Information:
Name: DC
Are you over 15? Yes.
Contact: insanityprelude90 [at] gmail.com, or private plurk to insanityprelude

IC Information:
Name:
Preincarnation: Chell [Redacted]
Reincarnation: Michelle Velasco
Canon and medium: Portal 2; video game
Age:
Preincarnation: Unknown: likely in the 20-30 range, not counting time spent in stasis. (The fact that she looks noticeably younger in the second game than the first complicates things a bit.)
Reincarnation: 26
Preincarnation Species: Human.
Preincarnation Appearance: Here!
Any differences: About the same, other than having access to a better wardrobe.
Preincarnated History:
Once upon a time, there was a company called Aperture Science. Under the leadership of their frankly lunatic CEO Cave Johnson, they had a gift for coming up with inventions that kicked physics and common sense to the curb. They also had no talent whatsoever for marketing their inventions, which coupled with their habit of killing off their test subjects, would probably have been the end of the company if the homicidally insane AI Cave put in charge hadn't killed all their employees first.

Well, almost all of them. At least one test subject survived in stasis. How Chell got there is a mystery; though the existence of a science fair experiment with her name on it in the Enrichment Center implies she was the daughter of an Aperture employee, and trapped in the facility since GLaDOS's "Bring Your Daughter To Work Day" takeover. This only raises more questions than it answers, though: GLaDOS killed nearly everyone else, and Chell clearly didn't age in stasis between games, so she'd have had to be awake and running around the facility through adolescence. It doesn't really fit, is what I'm saying. Eventually, GLaDOS woke her up and ran her through a series of increasingly deadly "tests" revolving around the use of the experimental portal gun, culminating in a blatant attempt to murder Chell after she made it through all the chambers successfully. Chell narrowly escaped the trap and worked her way through the maintenance areas of the facility to the lair of GLaDOS herself, where she seemingly destroyed the AI in a final confrontation and escaped...

Not so fast, there’s still a second game. GLaDOS’s Party Escort Bot (the name makes slightly more sense in context) dragged Chell back into the building and shoved her back into stasis, and this was almost the end of it- if there hadn’t been another survivor around (one Doug Rattmann) to restore power to her pod, she would never have woken up. But there was, and he did, and so she was still alive when Wheatley came around looking for someone to help him escape. It didn’t take long for the two of them (okay, mostly Wheatley) to accidentally wake GLaDOS—who was, it turned out, still alive. This made things a bit more complicated and resulted in Chell getting put through some more test chambers, but eventually the pair made it to GLaDOS’s lair and initiated a core transfer that put Wheatley in charge of the facility…

Which was a terrible idea, as the little idiot immediately went mad with power and knocked Chell and GLaDOS (the latter now attached to a potato battery) into the furthest depths of Aperture's ridiculously enormous compound. Those Long Fall Boots really are something. Seriously, that fall stretches suspension of disbelief. Ahem. Anyway, Chell and her former nemesis, now unlikely allies, made their way back up to the newer levels to find the whole place on the edge of destruction thanks to Wheatley's incompetence. To make a long story short, what followed involved more testing, some blatant death traps, and an impromptu trip to the moon. With Wheatley out of the picture and GLaDOS back in charge, Chell was finally allowed to leave… because it was just too much trouble to keep her around. Or so GLaDOS said, anyway. It’s not like she *cares* or anything…

Wiki links: The first game, the second, and the page for Chell herself at the Half-Life wiki.

Reincarnated History:

Born in the summer of 1987, Michelle spent much of her childhood in a biggish New England town. An only child, she was close to her parents; particularly her father, a high school science teacher who encouraged her to develop an interest in science and technology. While he never did actually convince her to become a scientist, Michelle was a bright and curious child that consistently got decent grades. She developed a liking early on for puzzles and "building" toys (Legos and so on), both of which she still turns to today to help her relax.
Sometime during this time, she fell while climbing a tree and broke her arm, causing her to develop a fear of heights.

Her parents died in a car crash shortly before Michelle turned ten, and she was taken in by her aunt and uncle in Michigan. The adjustment was difficult for her. Though her aunt and uncle loved her well enough, they were busy and a bit distant, and Michelle often resented them for “replacing” Mom and Dad or felt like they preferred their own son over her. They never became especially close.

Middle school was less than pleasant; high school was much better. As somewhat of an introvert, Michelle preferred to stick with a handful of friends and was never one of the “popular kids”, though generally liked among her peers. She participated in track and field (she was a particularly good jumper) and the dance team, and for the most part stayed out of trouble. As graduation approached, she began to look forward to getting out of town.

She had a major falling-out with her aunt and uncle over college. She intended to go to LCU, where she’d landed a decent scholarship, and make her way in the faster pace of the big city. Her aunt and uncle wanted her to stay closer to home and eventually help run the family’s small business. Michelle refused to bend, and ultimately moved to Locke City to attend college with little help from her adoptive parents. They’ve all more or less forgiven each other now, but she still doesn’t talk to them much.

By the time she graduated with her bachelor’s in communications, Michelle had grown attached to Locke City, and decided to stay. There were a few roommates, some unsuccessful attempts at dating, jobs that didn’t really go anywhere, and she came to realize city life wasn’t as exciting as she expected it to be, but even slow progress was progress and most of the time that was enough. Fast-forward to the current year: In the spring, she landed a position in Prometheus*’s marketing department. Assuming they have a marketing department. She found it suited her better than she expected, and was only expecting things to get better from there. Then one morning in November, she saw a deer…

*Just to be on the safe side, I got permission from carolinesays's player for her to work for Prometheus.

First Echo:

Michelle was taking a morning walk through one of the city’s parks when a deer ran across her path, spooked out of whatever deer things it was doing by her presence. She’d never seen one that close before. To her bafflement, she suddenly remembered a strangely familiar, female, mocking voice talking about seeing a deer, and a number she couldn’t get out of her head...

Preincarnation Personality:
Chell had one singular trait that convinced Rattmann she was The One that could bring down GLaDOS. It wasn’t because she was the smartest or the most athletic member of the subject pool; some were smarter and faster. It was because she was the most stubborn. Simply put, her defining (and most indisputably canon; like I said, we’re not told much about her) trait is tenacity. A highly goal-oriented individual, with sufficient motivation Chell will move mountains to achieve her objective. While she is human and probably finds setbacks, obstacles and lousy odds as discouraging as anyone, the thing is that she doesn’t let that stop her. She just keeps. On. Going. It’d probably be an uphill battle to get her to forgive someone or let an argument go.
Or, to quote Aperture’s files on her: “She never gives up. Ever.”
She Gets Shit Done, and not just because of the whole not backing down thing. She made it through some pretty alarming, difficult and dangerous situations without giving up: she’s not prone to panic even when things are literally falling apart around her. She does her best to just shove pain and fear etc. aside to deal with when it’s safer. (Basically nowhere in Aperture counted as “safer”.) It’s probably not the healthiest thing, but it did get her through.
Her biggest asset next to her tenacity and portal gun is her brain. Chell has a natural knack for problem-solving and a good deal of creativity; the spatial reasoning involved in the use of the portal gun comes easily to her. (Think of it this way. That level you failed ten times before finally figuring it out? From an in-universe point of view, Chell had to get it right on the first try. Or at least not wrong enough for it to kill her.) She’s good at thinking on her feet and reacting quickly. She’s pretty practical-minded. The times she followed along with GLaDOS or Wheatley, there was no other option or it lined up with her goals at the time. Although in the latter case there was nothing but regrets.
Now, socially… Well, she’s not mute. The silent treatment, officially, is her response to people/robots being a bag of dicks and/or trying to murder her: why give them the satisfaction of a response? After keeping it up for so long though, she got used to being quiet. She’s a woman of few words, often preferring to let actions speak for her. She doesn’t have much tolerance for bullshit, and her response to threats isn’t to negotiate; it’s to retaliate. She also has a little bit of a smartass streak. This explains the “say apple” thing: she didn’t trust Wheatley, and he was being a bit of a condescending ass, so she jumped instead just to mess with him. Maybe she was a little loopy from extended stasis, but definitely not brain damaged.
She has a fairly thick skin. She rarely lets others get an obvious rise out of her; it just gives them more ammo, and again, there’s a spiteful pleasure in not giving them the reaction they want. Though GLaDOS’s insults did get to her sometimes, they didn’t slow her down or discourage her from her path.
Around people that aren’t trying to mislead/use/straight-up murder her, she’s reserved and awkward, especially after the isolation and ordeals in Aperture. Her experiences have made her slow to trust, especially of AIs or robots. She is, however, a good listener.

tl;dr: smart, defiant, and stubborn as balls, with a phenomenal will to live.

Any differences: In general, Michelle is a much happier, better-adjusted individual, not having gone through the ordeals her preincarnation did. She doesn't have the same ridiculous degree of tenacity: though people that know her would still describe Michelle as "stubborn" or "persistent," she falls within the generally normal range. i.e. she can, eventually, back down, give up, and let things go. This also affects how she responds to dire situations; she remains composed in a crisis to a point, but can’t just power through forever the way Chell did.
She’s less socially awkward, and about as talkative as the average person. It’s easier to get a rise out of her, and rather than reacting with stubborn silence when someone hurts her or pisses her off, she tends to get snotty and passive-aggressive. (She’s the kind of person who expects you to know what you did, rather than being straight about why she’s upset.)
It’s also worth mentioning again that she’s afraid of heights. That ought to be fun once she starts getting echoes, with all the jumping and/or falling her past self had to do.

Abilities: Chell didn't have any supernatural abilities of her own. What she did have were her problem-solving skills, a decent degree of physical fitness, and most importantly, two pieces of physics-breaking Aperture Science equipment with which she could pretty much flip the bird to the laws of physics:
* The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, or portal gun. Creates linked pairs of holes in space on certain flat surfaces.
* The Long Fall Boots, which somehow force the wearer to land on their feet at all times, and prevent injury even from a fall at terminal velocity.

Roleplay Sample - Third Person:
Chell leaned against the wall for a moment to catch her breath. It took a conscious effort not to let herself just slump down the wall, just sit for a while, but if she had, she wasn’t sure she would be able to get up again. Her legs were killing her, the rest of her body wasn’t far behind, and she couldn’t even guess how long it had been since she’d eaten or slept. This wasn’t science, it was torture.

No one would blame her for taking a rest…

She looked up, and a security camera looked down at her. Maybe it was just because she was a bit loopy from exhaustion, but it looked an awful lot like an eye from her angle, its gaze distinctly malevolent. She wanted it gone. The constant surveillance was creepy to begin with; and now, its presence drove home the fact that she couldn’t have a moment of peace as long as she was here, not really. Too bad it was out of her reach, and securely bolted to the wall besides…
The wall. It was the same flat, gray concrete that composed most of the rooms so far. Surfaces like that could take a portal, not like the dark and shiny ones. It gave her an idea.

She took a long step backward, raised the portal gun, sighted. Fired. The camera dropped to the floor with an echoing clunk.

“To ensure the safe performance of all authorized activities, do not destroy vital testing apparatus,” the voice immediately informed her. It was hard to tell with the distorted, warbling way it spoke, but it sounded a little like it was scolding her.

Chell smiled. Good. She’d hoped it would notice that.

She’d better be moving on.

Roleplay Sample - Network:
[medium: text. she got here by googling the number]

I’ve been looking around this forum thing for a bit and I still can’t figure out what it’s all about. No offense, but you guys sound a little crazy. Monsters? Powers? I kind of want to write this all off as some conspiracy nut thing, but I saw that snake thing on the news. And how I got the passcode(?) for this is… weird.

Can somebody explain?


and just for the heck of it, here’s her test drive post: here. (I’d link an actual thread, but the only ones I have are an AU that went in a much different direction.)

Any Questions? Not at the moment!