Revenance Application
May. 16th, 2013 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
statisticallyterrible[OOC Information]
Name: Sarah
AIM/Plurk/Dreamwidth/Email: UniverseJuice/![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
yunisverse/unij/cageddemon-at-comcast-dot-net
[IC Information]
Character Name: Chell
Series: Portal
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown; mid-20s
Species: Human
Appearance: For a woman whose stature borders on the smaller side of average, Chell carries herself with the aura of someone steadfastly determined and not at all in doubt of her ability to handle herself. Regardless, confident body language and a no-nonsense attitude can't quite cover up poor health. Her complexion has gone pale from years without real sun exposure, and her ice-blue eyes are bloodshot and weary, lined with the heavy bags of someone who sleeps rarely and poorly. Even with hard-toned, wiry muscles, her figure edges towards malnutrition. Scars and nicks of varied freshness cover her skin, with two especially deep old scars inside the backs of her knees. Her ragged orange jumpsuit usually hangs half off, tied at her waist, and her Aperture-marked tank top has been stained with sweat, dirt, and scorch marks. For simplicity's sake, her dark hair has been pulled back into a basic ponytail, just to keep it out of her way. Somewhere under the grime, fatigue, and accusing glare, there might have been a fairly attractive person, but aesthetics have never been a priority of hers.
Personality: Chell will find a way to succeed. This is her defining characteristic. How she gets there is more of a footnote in terms of importance; all she's concerned about is getting herself to her goal. It's not necessarily about efficiency; if there's a maze between her and the end, she's fine with taking the long way instead of busting through the walls, and doesn't concern herself with learning any more than seems necessary to get through. When GLaDOS sets her on a testing track, Chell doesn't try to escape immediately. She goes right ahead and completes the levels laid out for her, since no better opportunity has presented itself readily. Her goal was to stay alive over escaping, and thus she followed the outlined guide before her to that end. It's no good to go barreling headfirst into a puzzle--better to take as much time as needed to see the proper solution, before running headfirst into turret fire. Then again, she's never past thinking on her feet as the need comes--with Wheatley suddenly opening up a wall and yelling he's found an escape route, slowing down and analyzing is only going to get in the way.
Pride, as well, won't factor in as a priority for what needs to be done. When it became clear that she'd need to work alongside GLaDOS in order to escape, she didn't let her pride or hatred keep her from the obvious, though unpleasant, route to success; she sucked it up and worked with the same being that had tried to kill her countless times. On the reverse side, sentimentality hasn't held Chell back at any point, as with the burning of the Companion Cube. She holds onto things as long as they're needed, and won't dither about discarding them when the time calls.
Despite her willingness to obey instructions as needed and let herself be guided at times, Chell still makes a point of defying others by taking control of the one thing she can: herself. They may take away her freedom, her options, her agency, but they cannot make her submit her will. This is displayed by her refusal to speak, no matter the circumstances. Through danger and anger and mockery, her voice is the one thing that is strictly and solely hers, and they will not take it from her. Even the idea of writing out messages can feel like a surrender, and it's to be expected she'll have reluctance to communicate with others at all.
Despite her silence and determination, it's not to say Chell can't find ways to enjoy herself through what few means she has available to her. She's not beyond wasting time making portal loops to try reaching terminal velocity, defying the laws of physics for the hell of it, or jumping around instead of giving a proper response when spoken to. Though she's never been one for showiness, she's not past throwing in a few extra flips and spins while hurtling through portals at breakneck speeds, just for a little self-indulgent adrenaline at the motion, and preening at the thought of how cool it probably looks. Her sense of humor keeps to sardonic smiles and pointed looks, her bouts of levity brief, but she takes what few opportunities she can.
Naturally, her driven stoicism comes from a life of being victimized and hunted, imbuing her with a need for constant vigilance against danger. It's all a coping method for a life without any human interaction or kindness, and it's the only way she knows. Her ability to push aside pride, anger, and sentimentality comes from having worked alongside inanimate beings, robots and turrets and guns, allowing her to disconnect. Teamwork with living, breathing humans is a whole new animal, one she'll have a lot of trouble coping with. Much as she's worked to get away from Aperture, she's not prepared herself at all for what any other sort of living circumstances could be, and she has no idea what sort of person lives behind the mute lunatic--the idea of finding out scares her. She'll distance herself as long as possible, but naturally a time will come when it won't be conducive to the end goal. Who knows what'll happen then.
Abilities: Human through and through, Chell isn't abnormally strong or smart or fast--no moreso than any other human might be, after an indeterminate time spent solving deadly obstacle courses. Endless puzzles have sharpened her mind, deadly traps have sharpened her reflexes, massive test chambers have sharpened her eyesight. She can think on her feet and keep working through a lot of pain, can go long stretches with little to no sleep or food. What truly differentiates her from the rest, however, is Chell's refusal to give up, under any circumstances. Testing showed her in the 99th percentile of tenacity, an unstoppable determinator. Sometimes, the willpower to keep trying, no matter the circumstances, is all that's needed to beat out the geniuses and brawlers.
Items: Aperture-branded belongings are all she has to her name: the orange jumpsuit given to all test subjects, a pair of Longfall Boots (designed to ensure a test subject will always land safely on their feet, regardless of speed or distance fallen), and one very useful, very expensive Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. The ASHPD, or simply Portal Gun, allows instantaneous transfer between any two points set up by the gun. (Note that portals can only be put on flat, light-colored surfaces.)
History: Very little of Chell's history is known, even to her. Maybe Aperture's questionable ethics removed and altered the memories of their test subjects. Perhaps she experienced a great trauma that has been repressed. It could be her overlong stays in cryostasis ate away at her mind, rotting out her long-term memories. The point is, her life before Aperture lies in a haze. GLaDOS tells Chell that she was adopted, that she had no friends, and that she was Not A Good Person. On the one hand, GLaDOS is a compulsive liar. On the other, Chell hardly finds any of it relevant to her situation either way, so she hasn't deigned to waste any thought on the matter.
What she does remember is waking up in the Aperture Science Testing Facilities, being informed by a robotic voice that her specimen has been processed, and now they can begin. The Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System went on as her guide through the sterile halls of the facility, providing the information needed to solve the physics-defying obstacles. With nothing else to do but follow the directions given, Chell went ahead with the testing, even as she was led into lethal danger. Child-voiced machine guns, electrified water, unsafe particle fields, and a frustrating exercise in personifying an inanimate box all pushed her physically and mentally, but she persevered. The end was coming, the voice said, and then it would all be over.
The final chamber promised relief, freedom, and reward for her hard work. The final chamber was full of fire.
After a narrow escape, Chell began to learn the truth: the offices and observatories behind frosted glass panes are empty. There's no scientists watching and taking notes--not a single other human being remains to observe her testing. There's only GLaDOS, the robot designed to run the facility, who killed all of Aperture's workers by filling the halls with a deadly neurotoxin. Without restraints set upon her by human workers, the AI conducted tests infinitely, permanently deleting each test subject as their usefulness wore out.
From that point on, Chell had to crawl through the underbelly of Aperture while GLaDOS' attempts at murder became less and less passive. Eventually, she found her way to the central AI chamber, and was forced to find a way to turn GLaDOS' own weapons against her, before the neurotoxin could kill her.
With the AI's processors ripped apart and burned, GLaDOS shut down, and Chell thought she might finally be able to escape to the surface. However, weakened from the trial, she only managed to glimpse sunlight before collapsing, and felt a robot drone dragging her back down into the depths of the facility.
Though Chell was kept alive in cryostasis, caught in an endless sleep, Aperture began to decay and crumble without GLaDOS' maintenance to keep things running. By the time she found herself woken from Schrodinger's bed, the facility had nearly fallen apart entirely, littered with rust, rubble, and creeping vines; decades or even centuries had passed since she'd last opened her eyes. A robot called Wheatley had woken her, in a panic--the program meant to keep test subjects in stasis stopped waking them up, and without periodic stimulation for their minds, essentially all the subjects had been reduced to braindead vegetables. All, that is, except for Chell.
Since the both of them wanted to escape Aperture, they worked together to find a way out. Well, she did most of the work, and he did all of the talking, but he did help her make her way to the main breaker room, where there supposedly should have been an escape pod. In their attempts to locate it, they accidentally managed to switch on all the breakers, reviving GLaDOS.
Wheatley was cast aside, while Chell was returned to the testing tracks, where GLaDOS intended to keep her to the end of her days. While the AI harbored a deep resentment for her long death by Chell's hand, she also developed a perverse respect for the only human wily enough to defeat her, and so a quick death would be too simple a response. Taunting and testing would be far more appropriate.
Thankfully, with GLaDOS so distracted between thoughts of revenge and repairing the dilapidated facility, Wheatley was able to work behind the scenes, and found an escape route for Chell to get out of testing again. Once more she ended up navigating her way through the backstage of the facility, though this time at least she had a companion to watch her back. After sabotaging the supply of turrets and cutting off the neurotoxin generator, the two of them faced GLaDOS. It... wasn't a complete plan, admittedly, since they still had no way to kill her, but at least she had no way to kill them, either.
A solution presented itself at the final confrontation: GLaDOS' core could be replaced by putting another AI in charge. Chell plugged in Wheatley, and watched as GLaDOS was torn from the chassis and her partner emerged, in control of the entire facility. Victory was theirs, and now freedom was a simple elevator ride away.
Chell stepped into the lift, ready to leave the facility behind her, before Wheatley started to wonder... why was she so eager to leave? Didn't she want to celebrate his new power with him? He'd come all this way, and worked so hard for this, and now she was trying to ruin the moment by leaving. Trapped inside the locked elevator, Chell was helpless but to watch as the two AI outside set her fate for her; GLaDOS, bitter and impotent after her defeat, insisted that Chell had done all of the work. Wheatley's disgust for the both of them grew, believing they were trying to steal this victory from him, so at that point, he figured it was time to show off who really had the power here--he ripped GLaDOS' AI from her core, plugging her instead into a potato battery. The former ruler of Aperture, reduced to a children's science project.
Still determined to undermine him, GLaDOS revealed his original programming--as a leash, designed by Aperture's scientists to slow GLaDOS down by overloading her systems with bad ideas. While she might have been reduced to a simple toy, he was, and always would be, programmed to be a complete moron. At this point, Wheatley flew into a rage of denial, and bashed the elevator, GLaDOS and Chell still trapped inside, until the supports snapped, and they plummeted down the shaft.
It was a long, long fall, thousands of meters deep, into the mine shaft that the facility had been expanded from. As they fell, GLaDOS reminded Chell of what an atrocious decision she'd made, how the complete idiot she'd been stupid enough to put her faith in now controlled the entire place, and how they were probably going to die if this pit ever had a bottom. With a little luck, though, some old debris broke their fall not long before the bottom, and combined with her Longfall Boots, it was enough to keep Chell from a fatal landing. Not enough, however, to prevent a nasty knock to the head from the shrapnel falling about her, and Chell only saw a dark cavern and a raven fly off with a potato, before slipping into unconsciousness.
It had been a long time since she'd last dreamed.
Name: Sarah
AIM/Plurk/Dreamwidth/Email: UniverseJuice/
unij/cageddemon-at-comcast-dot-net[IC Information]
Character Name: Chell
Series: Portal
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown; mid-20s
Species: Human
Appearance: For a woman whose stature borders on the smaller side of average, Chell carries herself with the aura of someone steadfastly determined and not at all in doubt of her ability to handle herself. Regardless, confident body language and a no-nonsense attitude can't quite cover up poor health. Her complexion has gone pale from years without real sun exposure, and her ice-blue eyes are bloodshot and weary, lined with the heavy bags of someone who sleeps rarely and poorly. Even with hard-toned, wiry muscles, her figure edges towards malnutrition. Scars and nicks of varied freshness cover her skin, with two especially deep old scars inside the backs of her knees. Her ragged orange jumpsuit usually hangs half off, tied at her waist, and her Aperture-marked tank top has been stained with sweat, dirt, and scorch marks. For simplicity's sake, her dark hair has been pulled back into a basic ponytail, just to keep it out of her way. Somewhere under the grime, fatigue, and accusing glare, there might have been a fairly attractive person, but aesthetics have never been a priority of hers.
Personality: Chell will find a way to succeed. This is her defining characteristic. How she gets there is more of a footnote in terms of importance; all she's concerned about is getting herself to her goal. It's not necessarily about efficiency; if there's a maze between her and the end, she's fine with taking the long way instead of busting through the walls, and doesn't concern herself with learning any more than seems necessary to get through. When GLaDOS sets her on a testing track, Chell doesn't try to escape immediately. She goes right ahead and completes the levels laid out for her, since no better opportunity has presented itself readily. Her goal was to stay alive over escaping, and thus she followed the outlined guide before her to that end. It's no good to go barreling headfirst into a puzzle--better to take as much time as needed to see the proper solution, before running headfirst into turret fire. Then again, she's never past thinking on her feet as the need comes--with Wheatley suddenly opening up a wall and yelling he's found an escape route, slowing down and analyzing is only going to get in the way.
Pride, as well, won't factor in as a priority for what needs to be done. When it became clear that she'd need to work alongside GLaDOS in order to escape, she didn't let her pride or hatred keep her from the obvious, though unpleasant, route to success; she sucked it up and worked with the same being that had tried to kill her countless times. On the reverse side, sentimentality hasn't held Chell back at any point, as with the burning of the Companion Cube. She holds onto things as long as they're needed, and won't dither about discarding them when the time calls.
Despite her willingness to obey instructions as needed and let herself be guided at times, Chell still makes a point of defying others by taking control of the one thing she can: herself. They may take away her freedom, her options, her agency, but they cannot make her submit her will. This is displayed by her refusal to speak, no matter the circumstances. Through danger and anger and mockery, her voice is the one thing that is strictly and solely hers, and they will not take it from her. Even the idea of writing out messages can feel like a surrender, and it's to be expected she'll have reluctance to communicate with others at all.
Despite her silence and determination, it's not to say Chell can't find ways to enjoy herself through what few means she has available to her. She's not beyond wasting time making portal loops to try reaching terminal velocity, defying the laws of physics for the hell of it, or jumping around instead of giving a proper response when spoken to. Though she's never been one for showiness, she's not past throwing in a few extra flips and spins while hurtling through portals at breakneck speeds, just for a little self-indulgent adrenaline at the motion, and preening at the thought of how cool it probably looks. Her sense of humor keeps to sardonic smiles and pointed looks, her bouts of levity brief, but she takes what few opportunities she can.
Naturally, her driven stoicism comes from a life of being victimized and hunted, imbuing her with a need for constant vigilance against danger. It's all a coping method for a life without any human interaction or kindness, and it's the only way she knows. Her ability to push aside pride, anger, and sentimentality comes from having worked alongside inanimate beings, robots and turrets and guns, allowing her to disconnect. Teamwork with living, breathing humans is a whole new animal, one she'll have a lot of trouble coping with. Much as she's worked to get away from Aperture, she's not prepared herself at all for what any other sort of living circumstances could be, and she has no idea what sort of person lives behind the mute lunatic--the idea of finding out scares her. She'll distance herself as long as possible, but naturally a time will come when it won't be conducive to the end goal. Who knows what'll happen then.
Abilities: Human through and through, Chell isn't abnormally strong or smart or fast--no moreso than any other human might be, after an indeterminate time spent solving deadly obstacle courses. Endless puzzles have sharpened her mind, deadly traps have sharpened her reflexes, massive test chambers have sharpened her eyesight. She can think on her feet and keep working through a lot of pain, can go long stretches with little to no sleep or food. What truly differentiates her from the rest, however, is Chell's refusal to give up, under any circumstances. Testing showed her in the 99th percentile of tenacity, an unstoppable determinator. Sometimes, the willpower to keep trying, no matter the circumstances, is all that's needed to beat out the geniuses and brawlers.
Items: Aperture-branded belongings are all she has to her name: the orange jumpsuit given to all test subjects, a pair of Longfall Boots (designed to ensure a test subject will always land safely on their feet, regardless of speed or distance fallen), and one very useful, very expensive Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. The ASHPD, or simply Portal Gun, allows instantaneous transfer between any two points set up by the gun. (Note that portals can only be put on flat, light-colored surfaces.)
History: Very little of Chell's history is known, even to her. Maybe Aperture's questionable ethics removed and altered the memories of their test subjects. Perhaps she experienced a great trauma that has been repressed. It could be her overlong stays in cryostasis ate away at her mind, rotting out her long-term memories. The point is, her life before Aperture lies in a haze. GLaDOS tells Chell that she was adopted, that she had no friends, and that she was Not A Good Person. On the one hand, GLaDOS is a compulsive liar. On the other, Chell hardly finds any of it relevant to her situation either way, so she hasn't deigned to waste any thought on the matter.
What she does remember is waking up in the Aperture Science Testing Facilities, being informed by a robotic voice that her specimen has been processed, and now they can begin. The Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System went on as her guide through the sterile halls of the facility, providing the information needed to solve the physics-defying obstacles. With nothing else to do but follow the directions given, Chell went ahead with the testing, even as she was led into lethal danger. Child-voiced machine guns, electrified water, unsafe particle fields, and a frustrating exercise in personifying an inanimate box all pushed her physically and mentally, but she persevered. The end was coming, the voice said, and then it would all be over.
The final chamber promised relief, freedom, and reward for her hard work. The final chamber was full of fire.
After a narrow escape, Chell began to learn the truth: the offices and observatories behind frosted glass panes are empty. There's no scientists watching and taking notes--not a single other human being remains to observe her testing. There's only GLaDOS, the robot designed to run the facility, who killed all of Aperture's workers by filling the halls with a deadly neurotoxin. Without restraints set upon her by human workers, the AI conducted tests infinitely, permanently deleting each test subject as their usefulness wore out.
From that point on, Chell had to crawl through the underbelly of Aperture while GLaDOS' attempts at murder became less and less passive. Eventually, she found her way to the central AI chamber, and was forced to find a way to turn GLaDOS' own weapons against her, before the neurotoxin could kill her.
With the AI's processors ripped apart and burned, GLaDOS shut down, and Chell thought she might finally be able to escape to the surface. However, weakened from the trial, she only managed to glimpse sunlight before collapsing, and felt a robot drone dragging her back down into the depths of the facility.
Though Chell was kept alive in cryostasis, caught in an endless sleep, Aperture began to decay and crumble without GLaDOS' maintenance to keep things running. By the time she found herself woken from Schrodinger's bed, the facility had nearly fallen apart entirely, littered with rust, rubble, and creeping vines; decades or even centuries had passed since she'd last opened her eyes. A robot called Wheatley had woken her, in a panic--the program meant to keep test subjects in stasis stopped waking them up, and without periodic stimulation for their minds, essentially all the subjects had been reduced to braindead vegetables. All, that is, except for Chell.
Since the both of them wanted to escape Aperture, they worked together to find a way out. Well, she did most of the work, and he did all of the talking, but he did help her make her way to the main breaker room, where there supposedly should have been an escape pod. In their attempts to locate it, they accidentally managed to switch on all the breakers, reviving GLaDOS.
Wheatley was cast aside, while Chell was returned to the testing tracks, where GLaDOS intended to keep her to the end of her days. While the AI harbored a deep resentment for her long death by Chell's hand, she also developed a perverse respect for the only human wily enough to defeat her, and so a quick death would be too simple a response. Taunting and testing would be far more appropriate.
Thankfully, with GLaDOS so distracted between thoughts of revenge and repairing the dilapidated facility, Wheatley was able to work behind the scenes, and found an escape route for Chell to get out of testing again. Once more she ended up navigating her way through the backstage of the facility, though this time at least she had a companion to watch her back. After sabotaging the supply of turrets and cutting off the neurotoxin generator, the two of them faced GLaDOS. It... wasn't a complete plan, admittedly, since they still had no way to kill her, but at least she had no way to kill them, either.
A solution presented itself at the final confrontation: GLaDOS' core could be replaced by putting another AI in charge. Chell plugged in Wheatley, and watched as GLaDOS was torn from the chassis and her partner emerged, in control of the entire facility. Victory was theirs, and now freedom was a simple elevator ride away.
Chell stepped into the lift, ready to leave the facility behind her, before Wheatley started to wonder... why was she so eager to leave? Didn't she want to celebrate his new power with him? He'd come all this way, and worked so hard for this, and now she was trying to ruin the moment by leaving. Trapped inside the locked elevator, Chell was helpless but to watch as the two AI outside set her fate for her; GLaDOS, bitter and impotent after her defeat, insisted that Chell had done all of the work. Wheatley's disgust for the both of them grew, believing they were trying to steal this victory from him, so at that point, he figured it was time to show off who really had the power here--he ripped GLaDOS' AI from her core, plugging her instead into a potato battery. The former ruler of Aperture, reduced to a children's science project.
Still determined to undermine him, GLaDOS revealed his original programming--as a leash, designed by Aperture's scientists to slow GLaDOS down by overloading her systems with bad ideas. While she might have been reduced to a simple toy, he was, and always would be, programmed to be a complete moron. At this point, Wheatley flew into a rage of denial, and bashed the elevator, GLaDOS and Chell still trapped inside, until the supports snapped, and they plummeted down the shaft.
It was a long, long fall, thousands of meters deep, into the mine shaft that the facility had been expanded from. As they fell, GLaDOS reminded Chell of what an atrocious decision she'd made, how the complete idiot she'd been stupid enough to put her faith in now controlled the entire place, and how they were probably going to die if this pit ever had a bottom. With a little luck, though, some old debris broke their fall not long before the bottom, and combined with her Longfall Boots, it was enough to keep Chell from a fatal landing. Not enough, however, to prevent a nasty knock to the head from the shrapnel falling about her, and Chell only saw a dark cavern and a raven fly off with a potato, before slipping into unconsciousness.
It had been a long time since she'd last dreamed.