"guy" [david vale]

player.
NAME/HANDLE: Mara
PERSONAL JOURNAL: cerebel
ARE YOU 16 OR OVER?: Yes
CONTACT: fishicopter on AIM
OTHER CHARACTERS: None.

character.
CHARACTER NAME: David Vale, known at the moment as "Guy"
AGE: 36
APPEARANCE: PB is Robert Downey Jr. In general, handsome, dark-haired, slim. He's extremely physically fit. And he has an extraordinarily expressive face.
BRIEF WORLD INFO: Post-apocalyptic; in 2010, America got hit by fifteen bombs in fifteen major cities, turning the country into a wasteland. Before that, there's only one minor change, with almost no effect on everyday life: NASA was disbanded in the 1990s and reformed into a more efficient, less bureaucratic space program, ASP (the American Space Program). From there, they made a concerted effort to make space travel safer, more reliable, and less back-breakingly expensive for the American public.

BRIEF CHARACTER HISTORY: David grew up with a police officer for a mom and a stay-at-home novelist for a father. He was the oldest of three, with a sister then a brother younger than her. He played soccer and basketball, deeply enjoyed math and science, and went into college to get a structural engineering degree. After that, the Air Force, and then an Air Force-funded masters degree in astrophysics. Made it to the rank of Major. And finally his life's dream: the space program.

David got married to a woman named Kate, an actress who liked beer, backyard cookouts and classic sci-fi as much as he did. They had a daughter named Claire and quickly became one of the most media-visible astronaut families in the country.

And then the nuclear apocalypse hit. Only David wasn't on the ground with his family - he was in a month-long tour in the International Space Station. He watched it all from above, seeing the bright flashes of nuclear bombs slowly take out the lights across the American continent.

He managed to use one of the new emergency capsules to get off the station and land in the ocean. Two other astronauts got off the station too, but he doesn't know if they survived. David washed up on the Pacific seaboard and began a long journey across the United States looking for his family.

PERSONALITY: I'm going to start with his base personality, who he is before the bomb. Basically: sweet, good-natured and tough as nails. He's a dreamer, a guy who imagines what it would be like with humanity expanding to the stars, who wants the future to happen today -- but a dreamer with principles, who believes strongly in doing the right thing, in protecting the innocent, in helping the little guy along. He likes underdogs, watches football, flies the stars and stripes outside his house, and is a barbecue maestro.

He's a casual kind of leader, the sort that brings people together and keeps an eye on them while they solve their own problems. It was often his habit in the space program to throw cookouts for astronauts and their families, making the program a community and a family and thus establishing a support system for people who otherwise might have had a difficult time.

His easygoing nature hides a very strong will. He knows how he likes things done and doesn't particularly appreciate people who strong-arm their way into his business. In the house, he's the one who vacuums and sets everything at right angles and cleans the toilet every two weeks like clockwork. He works well within routines and rules, and he truly believes in the building blocks of law and order. He's in love with Kate because she's brash and bold and goes after exactly what she wants; she loves him because he's an idealist and he smiles when her rough edges show themselves.

Pretty much all of this is blasted into smithereens when David witnesses the nuclear apocalypse. From here on out, I'll refer to him as "Guy", because he doesn't give his name and a kid named Jasper decided to call him Guy.

This experience for him is incredibly traumatic. Guy experiences the nuclear bombs from the point of view of someone who knows very well the devastation that this is wreaking in cities across the globe. In that moment, all of his filters -- the psychological blocks that separate a person from an object of empathy -- are blown away.

In some ways, he experiences a nuclear obliteration of his own. The shock of this utter destruction renders him silent. He is functionally mute, unwilling to think directly in terms of words because he's been shocked into emptiness. (It's worth noting that this means he will communicate neither in spoken words nor in written words; his communication will be restricted to action, gesture and drawing, though he will understand what is said to him.)

On some level, Guy understands that the world is now broken. It's bleeding out, and there's really not much he can do besides put a few bandaids on the smallest of cuts. But, hey, he has some bandaids, so why not use them? -- He's devoted to getting to Florida and finding out what happened to his family, but on the way, he won't reject people who need help. He's something of a reluctant hero, slipping silently through this horrifying world, only drawing attention to himself when he does something so completely against the kill-or-be-killed nature of post-apocalyptic America.

He has incredible courage, a strong stomach, and endless gentleness. He might only have a handful of bullets left, but he will use one to kill someone who's facing an agonizing death by radiation poisoning. He might not have enough food for himself, but he will give half to the starving child he sees staring at it. He may not be able to save everyone or even help anyone, but he will watch and he will remember and he will be a sympathetic ear when it counts the most.

He does have extreme post-traumatic stress disorder. Flashes of light are a trigger for him and will cause him to freeze, experience spikes of adrenaline or go into flashbacks. Thunderstorms are particularly difficult for him to get through, and he cannot tolerate flashing or strobing lights. This, ironically, does not extend to sounds or explosions themselves; it is restricted to visual recognition of flashes of light.

ABILITIES: He's an Air Force veteran, extremely physically fit and trained in Special Ops, versed in the uses of many different kinds of weapons. He has a degree in structural engineering and another in astrophysics, is deeply intelligent and has a quick head for numbers. He was also in the Space Program, which required heavy training for survival situations, including requiring qualifications as a medic. He also has a good eye for drawing.

Importantly: he is not fluent in sign language and he will not be making any written messages or speaking out loud. His ability to communicate is thus extremely restricted.

POSSESSIONS: He has his pack, and given that he's been using it to survive and has been scavenging for weeks, he is actually quite well-equipped.

Clothing, including jeans, jacket, boots -- hardy and tough. There's a pair of extra socks, a spare shirt and a couple pairs of extra underwear in his bag.

Weapons, including a large knife, a smaller pocketknife/multitool, and a semi-automatic gun with one clip and one spare (a total of 16 rounds).

Survival gear, including fishing line, hooks, nylon rope, sleeping bag, blanket, flashlight, cigarette lighters (3), box of matches (waterproof), first aid kit (including bandaids, gauze, antiseptic, antibiotic, gloves, tape), wire for snares, tiny sewing kit, pencil, sketchpad-notebook. And a roll of tinfoil.

A Geiger counter, taken from the space station.

Two fish he caught, plus a few handfuls of wild carrot and blackberries.

A small pot with a wooden handle.

Three bottles of water, one half-empty.

A photo of him with his fellow astronauts and a photo of him with his wife and daughter.

samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE:
Entry, from rowantree_rpg. This is his intro post, and he's writing in a diary. I know this is the sort of character that might prompt some concern about interactability, since his communication is so limited. I wanted to demonstrate here some of the ways he can communicate.

To that end, a couple more links also including interaction:
Log from rowantree_rpg that takes place not long after that journal post.
The Rainy Meme
The Survival Meme

THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:

[ Taken from the Train to the Afterlife meme. ]

He's found a can of paint, as little sense as it makes. Red. Bold red, not blood-red, and now his hands are stained from it. It's the observation car, or something like it; one wall is just a window, but all there is outside is passing shadows and stars. Impossible to tell what's really there.

He paints on it, with the precise strokes of a trained draftsman. The Eastern Seaboard, from Maine to the curve of Massachusetts to New York, the Chesapeake Bay. He begins to fill in the shapes of the states. Clinging to memories? Maybe. Or maybe he just wants something to do with his hands. He hates staying idle.

He knows he's on his way somewhere. Doesn't know how he knows, but he feels it, like tasting with his skin, like reality has started to thin and any moment he might catch a frayed thread of it. Pull on that, and the whole thing becomes undone, the train, the stars, the paint, the heartbeat he should be feeling in his chest. He's dead. Here's to hoping that listening to the pleas of a dying, desperate hooker, rashed all over with radiation sickness, is the sort of thing that sends him to Heaven.

Is it terrible of him to hope his daughter died first? His wife, too? That somewhere, he'll step out onto a platform and she'll run to him and he'll sweep her up in his arms and hold her for a thousand perfect years. Maybe they'll have beer and cookouts in Heaven. Maybe he'll want to speak again.

He hums, softly, as though to remind himself that his vocal cords still function. A few strains of a distant tune, something old-fashioned. He doesn't remember the name. And he notices, with a hint of detached surprise, that a tear has fallen from the outside corner of his left eye. That his vision is somewhat blurred.

He wipes it away, leaving a streak of red along his cheekbone, and turns back to the map, shunting his mind neatly back into questions of black and white, of this line and that line. Facts. What's real, not the shivery, fleeting-real of thoughts or emotions. He grounds himself in the world, and he remains, still, silent.

When he wakes up, it's still dark - dark, but light enough that the stars aren't quite visible anymore. Nevertheless, he takes a moment, still prone on the ground, eyes open, searching the pale-dawn-sky for --

For nothing.

He moves to his feet, smoothly but with a hint of pain. Crouches, does a quick series of stretches.

He rummages through his bag, quietly enough not to wake those nearest him - a good twenty feet away, under a tree - and starts discarding what isn't useful anymore. He'll leave as soon as the gates open.