Welcome to Gaia! ::

the personality

Virtues:

Grounded-- You won't find another 17-year-old with feet as firmly cemented to Earth as Graeme. Level-headed and sensible, he provides a voice of reason where appropriate (both a blessing and a curse-- once he starts up, who knows how long he'll go for). In a dangerous situation, Graeme's the last person who'd freak out (or let anybody see him, at least). He'll face the problem armed with common sense and the "experience" gained from watching god-knows how many worlds being blown up or eaten by zombies in movies.

Perceptive-- The eyes don't lie. Years of gluing tiny struts to wings and sniping from virtual rooftops have benefited Graeme's observational skills. He's aware of himself and his surroundings, and quick to spot the tiniest details and peculiarities. This attention to detail often, however, results in him missing the obvious right in front of his nose.

Craftsman-- As expected from his hobbies, Graeme's pretty good with his hands. While he isn't exactly a rippling model of physical strength, he's quick and deft with manual tasks. Currently, he's meandering towards an engineering focus to see if he can put use to his skills aside from sticking together mecha bits or fixing that broken desk leg of yours.

Unexpected humor-- He may be a dry snarker with a tendency to run off with words, but even this can sometimes be the unlikely source for a few laughs. As far as he knows, this pseudo-intellectual wit has won him a smattering of friends here and there. Graeme, an entertainer? Yeah, he amazes even himself sometimes.


Flaws:

Cynic-- While not often outwardly expressed, Graeme tends to hold the darkest, most brutally realistic perception of things out there, and an inability to change said views. We're all just cogs, anyway, cogs in a system, so what's the use of hopes and dreams?! (His attentiveness to disaster-and-dystopia movies does nothing to help, either.) Graeme can be quite the downer once provoked, and very easily spiral deeper and deeper into negative-land. Which leads to...

Defeatist-- That's it. It's over. I'm giving up! Once Graeme exhausts his catalog of practical solutions and gets into this state of mind, it's near impossible to rescue him from the depths of defeat. Once he loses his confidence, you're pretty much out of luck in trying to gain any cooperation. Henceforth, he will take to sitting forlornly at a side and snarking at your attempts to right the situation.

Passive-- Not a leader by any means, Graeme's perfectly content to sit back and let everyone else order him around. He sees no reason to pitch in proactively, or to take the initiative. Expect minimal contribution (until threatened), but plenty of sharp words, if you're ever stuck in a group with him.

Long-winded-- When a meaningful look crosses Graeme's face and he opens his mouth to speak-- run. What could easily be said in a couple words becomes a long, pseudo-scholarly spiel in Graeme-speak, rendering it completely incomprehensible to a normal human being. At this point, the listener's only options are to tune out, to tell him to get to the freakin' point, or to chuck something at his head. Whether faux eloquent, snarking, or filled with righteous indignation... when this boy wants to, he can go at it for ages. (This can occasionally work as a distraction when facing the enemy, but don't count on it.)

the useless knowledge


...Massicot: The mineral

...- One of the natural mineral forms of lead(II) oxide, PbO
...- Forms soft, yellow to reddish-yellow, earthy, scaley masses which are very dense
...- Forms as a result of other lead minerals' oxidation
...- Its dimorph is the mineral Litharge (both have the same chemistry, PbO, but different structures; also, Litharge is red)
...- Sometimes used as artists' pigment

the family

Cpt. Jerrod Daly, 49
Graeme's father. Army captain, away for extremely long periods. Once a lively man who loved spending time with his family, he has drifted away due to work, and become listless and withdrawn. Graeme's mission is to find out why, in order to bring his "true father" back.

Madeleine Daly née Pierce, 39
Graeme's mother. A frail, softspoken woman who nonetheless works her hardest-- often, too hard-- for the household in her husband's absence. Has poor health, made worse by worry over making ends meet, and sadness over her distant husband. Graeme is often forced to take on her duties, and to care for her, when she falls ill.

Clement Daly, 11
Graeme's younger brother. Was sweet as a child; now in that awkward stage of pre-teen brattiness, which only causes more worry for their mother. Nonetheless, Clem's always held respect for his older brother Graeme, and views him almost as a father figure in absence of their true father. By the time Clem was born, their father had already begun drifting away, and as a consequence Clem did not know or respect him as much as Graeme did.

Ack -- Dioptase is a mineral, yes! But we unfortunately used it for a rather prominent disposable character who died. x_x SO SORRY. We usually try not to use real mineral names, but in the case of Dioptase, that is the name of someone we used for an event that was run last month. So this name won't work either!

Oh, this one is totally our fault. We should have added that name to the list of unacceptable minerals. SORRY. Thank you so much for being so flexible.

Thank you! I was waffling between the two as well, actually, haha. I'll keep on searching for now, perhaps for something a bit different!

Most definitely.

When he hits General, we might need to chit-chat about exactly how his airpump-gun works since we try to steer clear of gun-guns, but this is great -- approved!