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McFroglegs

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:01 pm


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Ohoho. I have a banner. This is clearly monumental progress. 8D

* * * * *

Auxesia of Paros is an original character created specifically for Cirque. I tossed out a lot of concepts prior to this one, so hopefully you'll like it. :3

Please feel free to offer comments and critiques at any time. Right now she's just a work in progress, but you can post now and I love feedback. <3
PostPosted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:05 pm


NAME Auxesia of Paros
STAGE NAME
GENDER Female
AGE ~24 (Roughly 20 years as a tree, 4 as a human)
HAIR COLOR Soft pink
EYE COLOR Brown
COMPLEXION Dusky
RACE Tree turned.. Human? 8D Auxesia is not a dryad, but could be referred to as such for stage purposes.
SPECIES Prunus serrulata "Shirotae"
LANGUAGES English, Ancient Greek
LIKES older men (no, older than that -- we're talking Connery old), water (to the point of drinking ridiculous amounts during and inbetween meals), world hopping, pants (one of the most ingenious inventions ever, in her opinion), adrenaline rushes, technology, { blah blah blah }
DISLIKES rainstorms (they mess up her hair), { blah blah blah }
HOBBIES Trying out the local cuisine no matter how disgusting the menu sounds, learning how to cook, eating in general (particularly what's on someone else's plate), taking photos, playing in the mud, tearing technology apart to examine the insides, getting sick (okay, so that is less a hobby and more something she inadvertently seems to do constantly. At the least she has a perpetual case of the sniffles.)
FEARS Death. The average lifespan of a cherry blossom tree is only twenty to thirty years and the actual blooming from year to year tends to last only a few days. While she won't vocalize it out loud, Auxesia can feel that her time is much more limited than that of a human and this is something that drives her at the very core.

APPEARANCE
Auxesia stands at a mere five foot four though her hair adds a good four inches to her height; soft pink in color, her hair is a giant mess of curls piled on the top of her head into a giant puff while a few straightened portions flip around to frame her face and make up her bangs. Added to the mess that is her hair are gnarled cherry tree branches with the occasional bud or bloom on them depending on the season. Her facial structure is a mix of hard and soft angles and her nose is notable for the fact that it is vaguely hooked. Her heavylidded eyes are a rich brown and her skin is warm and dusky in complexion. Auxesia's general build is sturdier than most females and her limbs are strong and muscled. Her chest is not very prominent and while she isn't straight as a stick, her body curves are not terribly pronounced.

In terms of bearing, Auxesia holds herself tall and proud. Her movements, however, are less than graceful and she often moves like someone moving through water, becoming clumsy if she moves too quickly. Her presence is accompanied by the faint pleasant scent of cherry blossoms which seem to linger in the air even after she's gone.

The longer that Auxesia is away from her home world, the more the magic that transformed her into a human weakens, thus as she progresses through the stages she takes on a more tree-like appearance.

Stage 1
Looks pretty much like a normal human, aside from the pink hair and occasional tree branches poking out.
Stage 2
Skin color becomes duskier.
Pink buds mixed into hair.
Stage 3
Hair is replaced with white cherry blossoms with pink tinges.
Moss speckling artistically placed around her eyes
Skin texture becomes bark-like, though pliant so as not to limit her movements.
Shoulders have the signature burn marks of Chinese pole artists.


References: Facial Structure, Hair w/o branches, Hair w/o correct bangs

PERSONALITY
Born into a different place and time, Auxesia would surely have wound up a grease monkey. Auxesia is utterly fascinated with discovering the way things work which, while an informative past time for herself, is considered a rather destructive past time by others. Anything with the slightest hint of technology to it will be torn to pieces if it passes into Auxesia's hands. This is hardly exclusive to 'advanced' technology and she is as likely to tear apart a toaster as she is a computer. Unfortunately, while she is highly skilled at pulling things apart, putting them back together is an entirely seperate matter.

Auxesia is someone who has to keep active and she always has been. If something sounds exciting, she is quick to sign up, having never been the sort of person to pause and think things through carefully. She relies heavily on his emotions to guide her, though this is less being "in touch with her feelings" and moreso being terribly impulsive. Given the chance, Auxesia is the sort of person who could gamble away her life savings if she had one. (Add to that her lack of skills at card games and she is an ideal poker partner if you're looking to make a quick buck.) Quiet moments that others would use to catch their breath are the kind that make Auxesia very anxious. At these times, she turns to keeping her hands busy in any number of ways, be it handstands, eating, etc.

Auxesia is not what one would consider a "deep thinker." While she isn't a fluff headed idiot, she has never been much of one for theories and philosophizing and would do poorly in the world of academia. Auxesia is much more a hands-on practical sort of person. Give her a new toy to tear apart and she's quite content. Of course, this attitude added to her uncommon strength likely gains her a brawn over brains reputation. In general Auxesia seems to be lacking in more typical feminine attitudes; she's quite likely to laugh at someone for screeching over a spider and she certainly isn't afraid to get herself dirty. Even without her natural strength she would gravitate more towards physical labor than ticket sales or passing out fliers.

Just because Auxesia doesn't philosophize doesn't mean she isn't interested in the world around her. On the contrary, Auxesia is highly inquisitive about just about everything. She knows that she has little in the way of life experiences when compared to her traveling companions and they can expect to be deluged with all manners of questions about life and other worlds. Unfortunately she isn't very skilled at picking up on verbal and nonverbal cues and therefore is likely to continue asking questions about your terribly painful past when you think it's quite clear you'd like to talk about anything else.

Auxesia is absolutely terrible at intrigue and manipulations. Her personality is very straight-forward, very rarely engaging in double-talk, and is perhaps the sort of person that could be described as honest to a fault. This does not mean that she is overly naive, but rather that she has a tendency to be very blunt. As a person who prefers to be told straight-up what a person thinks rather than beating around the bush, she is often left confused when someone reacts poorly to something she says. In short, she lacks the general diplomacy when dealing with people that keeps someone from agreeing that 'yes, that dress does make you look fat.'

Despite having a generally masculine nature, Auxesia is secretly a hopeless romantic. Emphasis on the word hopeless. Auxesia has a very high regard for love and romance, though her actual understanding of relationships is very poor. Thanks to her crash course in love (which she received chiefly from romance novels and fairy tale-like stories), Auxesia is under the belief that everyone will one day meet their Prince Charming, be swept off their feet into a kiss, and live happily ever after. Because of this very childish viewpoint, she believes that love and romance are all about grandiose romantic gestures and as a result, attempting to woo Auxesia is most likely an exercise in futility and should only be undertaken by those who enjoy needlessly causing themselves stress. Auxesia herself is not an intentionally flirtatious person by nature and she is pretty much devoid of any actual sexual interest in others to the point of having a slight aversion to the idea of any real intimacy, generally choosing to flip past those passages in her readings.

+ { blah blah blah paragraph about carpe diem s**t }


HISTORY
+ An older man, Galenus of Paros, loses his wife and channels his grief into raising a cherry blossom tree from infancy.
+ After twenty years of patiently tending to the tree, a goddess takes pity on the man and, not unlike Aphrodite & Pygmalion, turns the tree into a human female.
+ Spends roughly three years with the man before he dies. Auxesia is very shaken by this as she doesn't understand death. As a tree, she's observed the cherry blossoms falling each year, but they always came back without fail. That the man is not going to come back is a difficult concept for her to grasp.
+ Once she does fully grasp it, realizing her mortality only shakes her further. Withdraws for a period of time into depression and becomes overly concerned about her personal safety.
+ { Something happens } and she kicks herself out of it. Has some sort of near-death experience that is also totally fun and she realizes she's wasting her time by hiding inside her home.
+ When the circus comes to town, she is totally mesmerized by the acts as she comes to realize there's so much more out there than just her tiny little corner of the world. There's pants. Signs on to see more of the world, not realizing there's worlds out there to explore.

{ + In truth, this is not Auxesia's first go at life. When the tree was brought to life, it was merged with the spirit of the man's late wife, Metharme. Auxesia is not aware of this. Metharme led a very sheltered existence, being married off to Galenus at a young age. While she loved him very much, her life was spent doing little more than being a caring wife. Now reborn, she has a second chance at life which Auxesia seems to be aware of only on a very subconscious level. }

WORLD Mythic Ancient Greece (Type B)
+ Milder in climate than the Greece of our world with four distinct seasons.
+ Like Ancient Greece in language, clothes, culture, what have you.
+ According to world's mythology, cherry blossom trees are the sacred tree of { insert female deity } because { insert reason }.
+ Like the Ancient Greece of myths where centaurs and nymphs exist, though most are reclusive. Sailors have a great deal of threats to worry about though.
+ { blah blah blah }

McFroglegs

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McFroglegs

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:12 pm


TALENT
Though not strong enough to pull off a strong (wo)man act, Auxesia has an unusually strong upper body and core. She chooses to showcase this through hand balancing acts and the Chinese pole. { blah blah blah }

Hand Balancing on Canes: Reference #1, Reference #2
Chinese Pole: Reference #1, Reference #2

STAGE ONE ( carnie )
Auxesia is generally willing to do whatever task is assigned to her, though she is most useful when tasked to do manual labor as it takes advantage of her unusual strength. She helps out with setting up tents and booths and breaking them down again when it's time to move on. General grunt work. She can occasionally be seen doing handstands to relieve extra energy when there's nothing else to do.

COSTUME None, but she does wear . . .

STAGE TWO ( castmember )
Auxesia begins her journey into the performing world by tackling the hand balancing on poles act. The act relies heavily on both strength and the ability to keep the body in a state closely resembling equilibrium. At this stage, Auxesia is capable of holding simple forms and perhaps relying as much on the oddity of her appearance as the actual physical feat she is performing to garner audience attention.

As she continues on, she will discover the Chinese pole and learn to do use her physical abilities to do more than simply hold her body up in space. During the second stage she is only familiarizing herself with this piece of equipment and primarily focuses on strength and endurance feats while starting to mix in some flashier moves.

COSTUME

STAGE THREE ( headliner )
As Auxesia enters the third stage, the magic that has allowed her to become human has significantly weakened. While Cirque magic has filled in some of the gaps, the result is a creature very unlike the one that originally joined the troupe. Her hair, once a mop of soft pink curls has blossomed into a full head of white cherry blossoms tinged in pink and her skin no longer looks like flesh but highly pliable bark. In addition her hands and feet have become less defined and more root-like and her once human shaped ears now have a more elven shape, though they're clearly hard and made of tree branch.

With the lessening magic, Auxesia finds herself tiring at a disturbingly easy rate and must replenish her energy in one of two ways: the first is by rooting herself into the ground while the second is merging herself with another (preferably large) tree.

ROOTING By rooting herself into the ground (via her feet), Auxesia is able to feed off the nutrients, etc that the soil has to offer and regain her energy. She is also able to rapidly grow her hands into tree branches when she is in this state, which she can then break off and put to use. When she is rooted into the ground, she also becomes very difficult to move except by very strong forces.

This is likely a risky move in Type C Worlds where the soil make-up may be more hurtful than helpful to plant life.

MERGING Auxesia more commonly replenishes her strength by merging into the largest, healthiest tree she can find. When she merges with a tree, regardless of the tree's species, cherry blossoms begin to rapidly bloom among its leaves (or lack thereof if its winter) and they remain one the tree even after she has split from the tree later. When merging, she can partially merge herself and continue to interact with people (though they'll have to come to her) or completely merge herself to take advantage of the full energy benefit of merging. When completely merged, she is able to move around under the tree's "skin" and reemerge elsewhere on the tree thus allowing her to enter at the trunk of a tree and reemerge up in its branches. She is also capable of taking control of the tree she has fully merged with and moving its branches around, though she cannot uproot herself and walk around like some sort of giant tree monster.

Merging with an insect infested or disease ridden tree would cause serious health problems for Auxesia who is generally prone to getting sick.

PERFORMANCE ARTS In addition to all the physical changes and new found abilities, Auxesia continues on in her chosen disciplines. By this point she has trained enough to perform advanced techniques in both and has gained a level of artistry absent from her act during the second stage. Her flexibility has increased as well, though she is by no means performing contortionism.

Perhaps at this stage she could take on a partner and perform a hand to hand balancing act. By this stage, Auxesia could perform the base position of this act.

COSTUME
PostPosted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:15 pm


ART


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Auxesia portrait by Earthkid.
Other Auxesia art by McFroglegs.

Auxesia Headshot

McFroglegs

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McFroglegs

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 10:10 pm


Closing post is located here. Pretty sure all the basic information is up now. Just a matter of putting it into complete sentences.

This concept is ready for comments/critiques/etc. :>
PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 12:06 am


Well I thought I should let you know that Cherry Trees were found in ancient Persia (today Iran), where they are viewed as sacred. I figure it's relatively much closer than the referenced Japan.

I find the story very interesting, but it was a little odd to read. I'm kind of a sucker for people who write their histories and whatnot as real stories. It provides good depth and shows us what potential people have as a roleplayer. Simply outlining the basic parts leaves loopholes, and it doesn't really let us feel what the character has been through. For example, in what situation did the God feel pity? Which God was it? Since your world isn't exactly the general Greece we know today do they have the same Gods? The history could've been done better. The "Something happens?", raised something odd in the back of my mind. It made me wonder ... do you know what happened?

Her personality will be a light addition to the Cirque, a good thing, not all things can be serious. However I think it'd be good if you read up on Wingting, an existing Cirque character who has a very similar personality. This way, you will have the ability to evolve your concept or truly make it your own. I'm not saying you should change the personality outright, it's just good knowledge to check out people with similar personalities for future roleplaying or whatnot. Honestly I really think you could expand on her personality and history more. Both play off of each other. Note huge points in her life that might lead to affecting her behaviour. One thing can't just attribute to all of it, there are generally stages and experiences people go through before there are actually personality alterations (whether unconcious or not).

I believe you should get a little bit more into her appearance. She's part tree! Come on, toss stuff at us. Sure her hair is fluffy and pink but let's move on to some real changes. Unique makeup, create a really interesting outfit for her, drastically change her body type. Let's see those characteristics really kick in. Her talents are also very basic, I'd like to see you make it your own. Perhaps she can grow wood from her hands into the cane she uses? You really need to show what makes her an impressive addition to the Cirque besides just her history and appearance.

I hope this was okay, I'm wary of critiquing people but I do try to do a decent job. Uhhh ... okay then! Peace!

Uennie
Vice Captain

Invisible Gekko


McFroglegs

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 7:51 am


That is a lot of helpful information and ideas, thank you. : D Especially the information about Persia (I'd love to keep her as far away from Japan as possible, really, but the only information I could find listed Japan/China/Korea.) I also really like the idea about growing wood from her hands. (EDIT: Unfortunately the ornamental species that Auxesia is doesn't appear to be the same as the kind found in Persia. Too bad. :/ )

I should have probably noted that everything is just in a very basic skeleton form at this point because I wanted to get thoughts before I worked on converting it over to narrative. (Not sure what you mean by writing it like a "real story". It'll be in a style similar to EK's history.) "Something happens?" will be figured out before I'm through. But you're right, currently I haven't sorted out what it is. XD I also do intend to detail more of what has happened during her four years as a human. The history is really basic right now and mostly only to a point where people could really say "Oh, this could be cool" or "What are you smoking you crazy woman... :<"

I'll check into Wing Ting! I read over everyone once but it was more of a quick reading and I still need to do a second read-through still. :3

As for talents, I fussed over it so much trying to not overlap anyone else in this forum and not go too overboard, that I guess I didn't do enough. X) I would gladly play up the tree thing more. Thank you! (I'm totally stumped on outfits for the time being, but I'll try to sort something nice out. D: )

Thanks for your thoughts, it gives me a direction on where I need to keep hammering things out. :3
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:47 pm


Major updates to appearance, personality, and talents. 3nodding

McFroglegs

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earthkid

Vermillion Mage

PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:28 pm


I think you've chosen a really cool concept. There are a lot of things to do with it and what you've outlined for her talents is really cool. I can really visualize them. I love the direction you're taking her in. Once the history is all fleshed out it'll be awesome. Auxesia has a very creative story. 3nodding
PostPosted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:09 pm


Thank you. History should be fleshed out in the next couple days. :>

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