FoxFireAlchemist
Moderator and Dark Ducklett Priestess
Posts : 1903
Poké : 5045
Join date : 2012-07-29
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 |  Subject: Adopting Shawn the Zorua  Mon May 07, 2018 12:58 am | |
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» Gender: Male
» Species: Zorua #570 The Tricky Fox Pokemon
» Affiliation/Rank: Ex – Guild(?) He was previously the founder of Team Bodark, but I no longer see the team listed in the guild records so I assume the team has been retired due to inactivity. If it has not, I will gladly adopt the team name along with him.
» Why do you want to adopt them?:
Ooooooooh don't you worry, I always have a plan when I come here.
-Shawn is a frightening pile of a character; he’s so amazingly, obtusely… Shawn. Up until this point I’ve adopted poor unfortunate souls who haven’t had many topics and the personalities of un-risen bread dough. Shawn is the exception to the rule in that he actually has a considerable amount of threads, but he’s still an unfortunate soul with the taste of a soggy saltine cracker. I leave out the "poor" in that statement because nobody sympathizes with Shawn. He’s actually worse off in the META than he is IN-CANON. Nobody likes Shawn. In Grassveil, they tolerate him. In the real-world, he's the butt of our jokes. He's Shawn. Nobody wants him because he's Shawn. I think I can do it, though. I can be the hero nobody wanted, the hero nobody deserved, who can appreciate Shawn for the capricious narcissist that he is. We have lived under the threat of Shawn floating ambiguously in the Archive purgatory, but I can be the one who will take him into my home and convert him into a threat we can understand HAAAAA HA AHAH WHO AM I JOKING. NOBODY, THAT’S WHO.
-Additionally, I have no outwardly antagonistic characters to speak of. Lennox has a bit of a confrontational personality, but he’s still got well-meaning or innocent intentions at the root of his encounters. Chiyako has become a bit of an espionage-y character for me, but she’s actually a decent contributor to society. The rest are their own forms of… them. It’s no secret that I have a deep affinity for “morally grey” characters, and I would love to bring a character who is outwardly “dark grey” aboard the Fox express and actually tear some shit up. I feel like I have a certain “charisma” “certifiable insanity” that I could bring to the character to continue his tradition of being a smart-alec-y butt nugget who apparently lived through ‘Nam (judging by the way he has a flashback and has to teach some poor innocent a “lesson” every other thread he’s in). Gonna try and cut back on that little quirk, immediately. Not the “condescending” bit, certainly not that. Just the Sailor-Moon-End-Card-style lessons of the day. He’s far too jaded to be of any actual “assistance” to anybody. Additionally, not to get too big for my britches or anything, but I believe I’ve been around the site long enough to have the experience to properly handle a Zoruer (watching Mirage grow up from a tiny barkling has certainly provided a valuable precedent). I welcome the opportunities that arise from having a character that could actively stir up some sabotage in threads; it would give me some interesting new opportunities to explore in dealing with encounter rolls.
-Listen, he may have been a guild member, but Bodark is long dead and it specifically states in his bio that he’s a wishy-washy shit head (paraphrasing, of course) who’s as open to the illegal as he is to the legal. I’m thinking it might be time he stops pussy-footing around his more dubious roots and get him straight into the thick of this whole antagonist thing. And how might I do that? Well, I went through a list of misdemeanors that might feed this growing animosity he’s been harboring towards the system that’s ignored/reviled him without call and might serve as good gateway to a more antagonistic lifestyle. My final decision: libel. Pure, unadulterated, maliciously – intended slander. I am aware that libel isn’t technically a crime that has specific consequences in the site’s system, but you haven’t seen Shawn libel. It wouldn’t make (complete) sense to have him start off ripping into higher rank characters (or characters who can do anything about it in general), so we’ll start small. Some passive-aggressive prose here or there that will eventually turn into an entire book dedicated to the defacing of the characters who live and work on PMD as he takes out his pent-up frustrations on them. I wouldn’t be surprised to see his salty fanfiction snowball into other acts of retribution, and of course the libel would mean nothing if there wasn’t at least a kernel of truth behind it so of course he’ll be doing some digging. We’ll get there when we get there though, hmm? (If you’re wondering, I’ve taken my inspiration for Shawn and his burn book from the Renaissance master Giorgio Vasari and am parodying his infamous work of fictional non-fiction “The Lives”.)
» Sample of roleplay: [As per usual, I will be continuing my roleplay sample from a canon thread in Shawn’s career. Specifically, the thread “hunting for supplies”, which was the most recent thread to feature Shawn. It has been 5 years since this thread (in-canon and literally). Yes, I am serious. 5 years. It has been 5 years since anyone has ever heard from or cared about the vulpine nuisance known as Shawn the Zorua after he spent an unspecified amount of time in Beelzebub’s frosty-fresh armpit, and Shawn has not been blind to it. On the contrary; he’s rather quite fucking pissed about it. You wouldn’t be? It’s been 5 whole years since an active contributor to the community just up and vanished, and nobody gives a rat’s ass. Hell, they’ve been talking about him; he’s heard it. Whenever he does grace a conversation, they’re always slamming him; talking about how nobody wants him because he’s Shawn the Zorua. Well. He has words for that. God, does he ever have words. FURTHER DISCLAIMER: I have borrowed the semi - exact wording (I have included edits to keep from plagiarizing entirely and also to make it readable) from his personality section in his bio/first post of his first thread in a purely ironic and artistic satire. I did not count this when considering my total word count and I will remove immediately if necessary.]
There was in the town a male vulpine Pokémon - mainly slate gray in coloration with accents on his head and feet that were red and black in hue. His triangular ears grow dark on the inside, and the edges of the ears have a curvature that folds inwards. His ears are constantly perked and feigning attentiveness to any speaker who addresses him. Those clever ears are always angled just a few degrees away the tufty, whorled scruff of fur on his head. The majestic fur formation is tipped with that red accent, giving it the likeness of a small flame being planted on his head. His eyes appear pupil-less, consisting only of a cyan ring dotted by one white spot. His eyelids are most frequently drawn into a devious slant, conveying the unfathomable number of cunning plots that run through his mind with every new sight he sees. His conically shaped muzzle houses the, graceful mouth which adds to his scheming air. He has circular "eyebrow" markings that are also shaded red and positioned just above where his eyelids stop slanting inward – from a distance appearing as a second set of eyes. In addition, he possesses a ruff of black fur around his neck that fans out just above his shoulders, like a misleadingly gentle puffy cloud housing a dangerous storm. He has limbs tipped with red; he touches the ground gracefully with just the tips of his paws. Those agile paws hide the swift death that awaits inside them from the unlearned masses. His tail is bushy, pointing upward majestically as an ascending staircase would; while being similar in form to an evergreen bush. When he opens his mouth, small fangs can be seen to grow there. They allude to any potential enemies the danger of encountering this Pokémon. On the front of its head, on each opposing side are two stacked spikes of fur - the top spike being fuller than the bottom one, fanned slightly backwards so to give it a windswept look. He is a Zorua, sometimes revered to as the master of illusions. This is appropriately so, due to his possession of a skill in the art of ethereal Illusions. With this skill he may take on the visage of any other Pokémon he wishes, to frighten off enemies or otherwise enact his devious whims upon those unfortunates that he decides to make his prey.
...Hmm. Shawn wasn't sure whether what he had written needed more embellishment to accurately capture his character as the author of this absolute period piece, or if it had too much embellishment and had become deliriously overblown. The language flowed the way he had hoped it would, but the details sounded… too large for themselves. Maybe he had addressed his eyebrows too much. He certainly considered his eyebrows to be some of his best-defined features, but were they necessary here? Even more pressing was the question of whether or not he should include confirmation of his species at all. There weren’t many of his sort around, let alone males, that would be likely suspects should his literary work actually be discovered and arouse some kind of investigation. He had every intention of remaining anonymous in this endeavor. He had decided that it would be far more advantageous to him if he remained in the shadows; it was the nature of his type after all. He let a coy smile slip onto his mouth as he thought about all the contexts in which his little passion project could take off.
Shawn closed his notebook and stretched his limbs. He was satisfied with this start, he decided, and would come back to his portion later once he had a fresh mind to analyze it with. The day was already half-over according to the sun’s position in the sky, and it would be a waste to spend his whole day deliberating on the small details. It was time to make a trip out of his concealment - Grassveil Town was nearby, so it seemed like a reasonable destination - to interact with the masses. The Zorua had developed a certain… strange affinity for being around other pokemon after the long run he had had managing Team Bodark. He had gotten used to being the voice of reason that his group of hopeless tryhards had needed. It had been a long time since those days, but he still couldn’t shake that feeling. That… almost lonely feeling. It wasn’t something he’d let himself indulge in for long, but every once in a while, he’d let himself indulge in it. Of course, his lack of affiliation also opened his time up to interacting with a more varied group of unsuspecting characters - interactions which filled the void left in the absence of his defunct squad. In any case, his new free time was very important to his new idea for toying with people; this idea he considered a “more realistic” account of the history of the town and the guild since he had arrived. A little delve into the real faces of Grassveil and beyond.
…That was beginning to sound like a title name if he had ever heard one. Hmph. He’d log that away for future consideration.
It was still too soon to get that far ahead of himself, Shawn reasoned as he headed off in the direction of Grassveil. He was still getting caught back up with everything he had missed, and there were certainly a lot of things that he needed to get re-acquainted with. The guild was different, there were new facilities in every town he had to feel out, there were still more new residents, and plenty of other events he needed to learn about. He knew better than to play his aces too early; he wasn’t going to do anything unless he was doing it the right way. At the stage he was at, he couldn’t even make any worthwhile impact with his scheme if he didn’t go into town and observe something to write about. On that note - the guild had a tendency to get awfully rowdy around this time: assuming his memory was still accurate after 5 years of absence.
5 years… the only reason he believed it had been that long was how much had changed to separate him from the place he had known before. It had started with a normal trip, just a completely routine visit to gather supplies in the Icy Lands. It had been his first trip there, so maybe he should have expected to get lost in the same-y appearance of the landscape. Still, he never would have expected the place would have demanded three years of his life. Three years lost in an eternal land of ice and snow… and without any way of knowing his rescue requests were falling on deaf ears. The ones that had even reached ears, that was. He had grown bitter in all the time he had spent waiting; where exactly was his team in this time of need??? He wasn’t so much surprised at the newer members of Bodark; he hadn’t had any history with them and had been wary of this very result from them. Jacky, however… he had actually put a lot of trust in Jacky. When he out of all the other members of Bodark didn’t show up, Shawn’s morale hit its lowest point. He had to even question Jacky’s allegiance, and that actually made him feel… bad, almost. Shawn had done a lot of growing with Jacky. For a while, he reasoned that maybe his requests had been intercepted. Perhaps Jacky couldn’t make it to him; perhaps the wintery landscape had been too much for Jacky’s flying-type weaknesses. By the time the Zorua’s trial in the forest reached his conclusion, however, Shawn had written him off like all of the others. “I should have expected this. What did I think was going to happen? That everything would be the same after we re-formed a team together?” His hurt turned to disappointment as he hardened himself against the betrayal.
Shawn hadn’t even imagined the extent of the situation until he finally managed to stumble upon the frozen river that would lead him back to Grassveil. He arrived there again at around the three and a half year mark to find that everything he had known was gone. His absence had barely even been noticed, and his rescue requests… not a single one had been recorded. Not only had Jacky not received a single one of his correspondences, he had entirely vanished along with the rest of Team Bodark. The team had been stricken from the record entirely, it seemed. Shawn was absolutely flabbergasted. He had no idea how to address the situation; he wanted to demand answers as to why he had been left to the sidelines like this, but he quickly realized from the way he heard others talking about him once in a while that it would do him no good. They ridiculed him, wrote him off as if he were nothing. Even pokemon who hadn’t known him!! This… This was the place that he had considered his redemption. The experience that had turned him down the “right” path… This whole experience was making Shawn re-think everything. Instead, he resorted to what was now his daily routine: visiting these places in the forms of illusions and observing anonymously, slowly recovering from the shock. Of course, the grey Fox had adapted, but he hadn’t let the transgression go. His trickster nature demanded that he act on this somehow. That impulse had driven him to this point; it had him thinking: “Maybe I air out some of their dirty laundry; in appreciation of how they handled my… situation.”
The little moment of recollection ended as Shawn came within range of the guild. He readied his badge and ribbon, just in case he needed them. He had felt it only fair that he retained them both as compensation for his duress, but he also wasn’t dull enough to go flashing them around and draw suspicion from the other recruits. He ran through all the names and faces he had gathered as potential guises, ultimately deciding on an earnest Dave the Drilbur. He was unassuming enough to go unnoticed.
Shawn hadn’t been totally absent from the guild since his return, but he had been wary of it all the same. He had wanted to acclimate himself before really investing more time digging in the place; his unfamiliarity with the place since his departure was a weakness that threatened to raise suspicion were ne not careful about his tactics. Recently, he had begun to feel pretty confident about his handle on the system. He had been spending longer and longer visits within the building, and he even dared to venture into private areas such as the dormitories. He decided to start there today; the private area usually yielded some kind of locker-room talk with interesting topics.
Right away, though, something felt off to the Zorua. There were way too many eyes on him considering what a nameless visage he had adopted. He had to dodge way too many pokemon calling out to him, asking “Where are you going, Dave? Weren’t you heading towards the barracks?” and “How are things doing, Dave? Are you okay?” Shawn only just barely managed to dodge into a seemingly abandoned hallway in the guild. What in the hell was going on? He considered bailing after such a close brush; clearly there was something going on today that he hadn’t anticipated. At the same time, that very thing made him stay. The prospect was just too good for him to skip over.
A loud crashing noise in one of the rooms ahead of him made Shawn pause. Perhaps an altercation, or a fight? Was there some kind of brawl going on? He snuck up and listened through the door for a considerable amount of time, but he picked up no other noise, save a couple of muffled voices that could have just as easily been coming from the end of the hall. The continuous silence gave him a boost of courage; enough to consider peeking into the room himself. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained?" he reasoned as he extended his claws. He picked the lock as quickly as possible to let himself inside. Peeking through the smallest crack in the door he could manage, he found what was either a passed-out Jolteon or a corpse strewn across the floor within. He smirked; clearly this was the place he wanted to be. He snuck up to the hole in the wall, from which he could hear voices emanating from the room a few doors down. He was able to pick up enough of the conversation from his perch, pulling out his notebook to jot the things he heard down.
““Sova:” Suffered some traumatic event. Complicated. Further Details need to be elaborated on. What obliterated him so? There is something strong enough to break even him. Detailed list of insecurities needs to be formed.
“Izumi:” Inconclusive. Sounds like a poor decision maker? Or a mom? Watch.
“Alki:” Seems to have problems keeping their hands to themselves. Harrassed Sova while apparently gravely injured. Healer. Perhaps a new nurse? Malpractice? Citation needed. Further observation will be enacted.
“Dave:” A good friend of “Sova’s.” A male guild member and a mute. Who speaks. Has unresolved ties with “Darcy…” involving a bedroom. And going to one, to get away and “talk.” A… did he/she have a confirmed gender?? Clearly has something to hide; feels it necessary to disguise himself.
Dave…
Suddenly everything was making sense now. This “Dave” was already present at whatever this serious get-together this was, and Shawn’s impersonation was only creating in continuity in his disguise’s timeline. Clearly his stealth was in jeopardy every second he remained in this identity. The information he was getting was too valuable for him to abandon the drama breaking down before him. No, Shawn was more than prepared to adapt his strategy to this new turn of events. He backed away from the wall, stepping over the unconscious Jolteon. He got out of view of the hole and changed his form to something more friendly and jovial; the blue bird Varda. He exited the room, planning his next moves out. Perhaps he could approach the room as a concerned ally and get a first-person experience. It would be risky… but it was possible that the discourse would derail any questions directed at him. He left the room and walked down the hallway, to find a place where this one met up with the one containing the room of interest.
Shawn did not go long without meeting another conflict, however.
“Hello, Varda!” a cheery guildmember called as they rounded the corner into his hallway. He jumped in surprise, struggling to maintain his illusion through the sudden upset. “How are you doing? Sad news about Sova; are you heading over to visit him?”
Drats. He shouldn’t have put himself at risk like this. He immediately cursed his choices in hindsight, but he composed himself to try and formulate a response. Varda was… somewhat dull, wasn’t he? In the way a child was dull. He recalled the large blue entity using fragmented, simple sentences. Perhaps it would be as easy as that…
“…”
“…Varda?” the guild member asked. They had stopped at a door to the left; presumably it was their room. He only had to stall until then.
“Yes! Of course!” Shawn squeaked in his best approximation of the large bird’s voice. “Much a shame! Going to visit my friend now!”
The guild member didn’t seem convinced. “Varda… are you okay?” they asked, still lingering in the threshold to their room. Shawn didn’t care. He had already turned his large illusion around and was marching it down the hall.
“Fine! Fine! Just worried for a friend!”
“O-okay… if you’re sure…?” the other guild member responded warily. Shawn never turned around, not until the door had clicked shut behind him. Once he was sure he was alone, Shawn released the illusion and took on something much more trustworthy. Just a simple Riolu… Just somebody. He huffed out a disgruntled sigh. He had expected impersonating a simpleton to be much… simpler.
He only spent enough time in the hall to confirm the faces that went with the names; he had had enough of an adventure hanging around these people. There were too many close calls for his liking; being in such an intimate space invited way too much risk. Shawn didn’t have a problem turning down this challenge when it threatened to undo everything he had worked up.
Shawn hung around a little while longer in the main hall to observe the mess happening there, being more comfortable in the public area than in the more private sleeping quarters. Blending into a gawking crowd was far easier, maybe even somewhat enjoyable after what he had just gone through. He didn’t have to work very hard to avert people’s attention when it was already engrossed elsewhere. At this point, though, the Zorua had already pretty much decided that he was pretty much done with this. He dodged out of the crowd before the fight ended, still reaping the beneficial cover that the crowd’s shock awarded him before he could no longer take advantage of it.
Once outside, Shawn didn’t stop moving until he reached an area where he felt safe enough to drop his illusion. He couldn't help but be disappointed with his performance. He had only been capable of the bare minimum in his visit. He usually looked forward to causing more of a stir for the pokemon who crossed him; perhaps he was still soft from the long time he had spent away, and from his experiences with his team. The raid had left him frustrated at his poor show, especially that of his navigating the sleeping quarters, but when he considered the trip as a whole he couldn’t help but grin. There certainly were some interesting things going on in the guild these days… But at the same time, he wasn’t in any rush to get tangled up in any of those threads. The Jigglypuff seemed weak, so maybe… but Sova was a notorious for his insane training. He would be a long-term goal, something for Shawn to work towards.
He returned to his hiding place and checked through his notes on the day one more time, fixing anything he had forgotten to add before flipping to a new page entirely. Shawn had no intention of introducing anything that high profile as his first work, anyways. He wanted people to lower their guard a bit. He wanted them to think he, or his author persona, was on their side; work up a bit of a positive opinion before he flipped it all on them. He had already identified a much more attractive target; someone who seemed to have the ire of everyone directed at him. Someone who wasn’t likely to catch wind of anything Shawn were to put out too quickly…
VITE: THE LIFE OF AKUROMA
Former Researcher, Hoard Stasher, and Irksome Criminal
There is no greater lesson learned from a criminal than the one that comes from an unattended career. Someone who’s complacence is plain to see, even to those without eyes. The man who hides himself deep in the mountains today, the outlaw Akuroma, once touted his ego around on his sleeve for all to see. He was proud in his disregard of others, happy to flaunt how cruel and ruthless he could afford to be… what could one draw from his absence, then, that does not imply he can no longer afford those bold claims? Should it now be appropriate that his biography be recorded, in memorium? The dead do not seem to have the tongue to object. Let this then be a recording of the monumental achievements of Akuroma of Grassveil; a man who sat upon an unmoving mountain of gold.
Akuroma got a very eccentric start in Grassveil, as many of us do. At that time, he was a very different Akuroma. An Akuroma that strove to defy logic, to defy his stereotype; to above all else become a Gardevior. A pursuit that in hindsight was more interesting an honorable than any other he undertook…
» Link to the original bio: https://pmd-roleplay.forumotion.org/t1039-up-for-adoption-shawn-the-zorua
» Levels of existing characters: Izumi the Absol 14, Chiyako the Purrloin 8, Lennox the Venipede 10, Cecíl the Petilil 7, Lincoln the Riolu 6, Mercury the Fennekin 11, Adrol Drake the Snivy 6, Astir the Dratini 11, Simon the Dark Ducklett 7
» Other: Text code = [font=viner hand ITC][color=#6633cc][ /color][/ font] (Vasari) [color=#666666][ /color] (Shawn) | |
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