Dakki Sigal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
photonicfighter) wrote2021-04-18 02:40 am
photonicfighter) wrote2021-04-18 02:40 am
Application for We the Lost
Player Name: Lampdevil
Preferred Pronouns?: female ones (she, her, etc)
Player Contact: AIM: geenacorbell (infrequently used) | Plurk:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
lampdevil
Other characters in play? Natalie Waters, Kain Highwind
Character Name: Dakki Sigal
Canon: Phantasy Star Online/Universe (OC)
Game Transplant: Mayfield
Original App: Here
Game Summary: Mayfield was a "jamjar" style game, set in a pseudo-1950s America. It was designed to be the "perfect" town full of "perfect" residents, and beings from all across the multiverse were snatched away from their homes, sorted into families, and forced to live there. But the town was far from perfect. The people in charge were strange and corrupt, and the reality of the town was flimsy and dangerous. Injury and death were commonplace, and death was impermanent.
The town was eventually revealed to be a computer simulation, and the residents were simply data copies of their original selves. The game ended with the overthrow of the administrators, the collapse of the town proper, and an escape of sorts to a "Better Place", an incomplete town that the characters were free to build and maintain as they desired.
How long was your character in Game: 1 year, 5 months (August 2011 to game close, December 2012)
History of Character in their Game: After a long day out on a routine clean-up mission, Dakki returned to her apartment and went into sleep mode. When she awoke she found herself in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar house, and human. Next to her was Falk Gatt, in a similar state of humanization. Disturbed and confused, the two rose and began to explore this strange, alien town that they had found themselves in. It was apparently in a country called "America", on a planet called "Earth". The houses were all the same, in neat and tidy little rows. The sky was blue, the weather was warm, and the vapid, smiling children in the household and the neighbors in the streets all declared that it was "the happiest little town in the good ol' US of A."
It took less than 24 hours for the pair to realize that the happy face the town presented was a lie. The milk delivered to the house was poisoned and spiked with razor blades, and Dakki nearly died from drinking it. When Gatt dumped the next day's milk delivery down the sink, a maligant force within the town "droned" him and made him attack Dakki. And so it went for a full week, until the "event" finished, the milk-related mayhem abated, and the town settled itself into its usual state of dormant wrongness. The pair had been given a crash course in how Mayfield worked, and resolved to find a way out and to keep as many others safe and secure as possible.
The town had also seen fit to make them into parents. The house contained two drone children upon their arrival, but shortly afterwards one of them was replaced with a real girl by the name of Aurica Nestmile. While most Mayfield residents didn't take the arbitrary family assignments seriously, Aurica did. She immediately took to calling Dakki "mama" and Gatt "papa". It was awkward at first. Gatt may have been an appropriate age to be the girl's father, but Dakki certainly wasn't. But Aurica was quiet, and timid, and fragile, and very much in need of a loving family to take care of her. If it would make the girl happy, then Dakki was happy to play the part of the girl's caretaker. What was first just playing along and making nice became a surprisingly cozy and pleasant household. Things became even nicer when Chen, a friendly nekomata, was placed into the household as the pet.
Mayfield could be a decent enough place, when the administrators weren't tormenting folk and the neighbors were well-behaved. Dakki and Gatt were hardly the only odd imports. The town was full of sentients from all kinds of worlds, ones just as stuck and just as desperate to leave as they were. Dakki was quick to make friends, eager to make friends. It was mostly a practical matter at first. In a hazardous situation, people with the same goals and interests ought to stick together. Making friends wasn't always easy, though even when everyone had the common experience of having been spirited away to somewhere strange. She wound up in a fistfight with Thor (yes, the Norse god) and in a long and meandering over-emotional conversation with Loki (yes, also the Norse god) when the milk was poisoning everyone and making them act strange. Though she hadn't expected anything to come of either of these interactions, she wound up more or less befriending them both once everyone was sober and sane again. Although Thor refused to regard her as a proper warrior because she was a woman, and it frustrated her to no end, she was still doggedly determined to prove herself to him and have a rematch. And Loki was... well, he seemed like the sort of man prone to get himself into horrible trouble, no matter how clever he claimed to be, and Dakki felt determined to keep watch over him.
She had a chance to prove her expertise in combat when Mayfield was overrun by zombies, but did not have the best of luck in doing so. She, Gatt, and Aurica fought to make it to a safehouse set up at the church, but Dakki was bitten and infected partway there. She sent the other two on ahead, then fought zombies as long as she could before her human body succumbed to the infection. Aurica had asked both Garviel Loken (a futuristic space marine) and Ciel (a holy warrior) to find her and bring her some mercy, and they did just that. She awoke the next day, as always happened upon dying in Mayfield, and rejoined the fight with considerably more caution. She almost saved Loki from zombie infection as well, but the situation went somewhat off the rails and she wound up having to chop off his arm. Overall, it was an extremely unpleasant experience for everyone involved, and she was relieved when it ended as abruptly as it had started.
It was around this time that her lack of her proper CAST body truly began to bother her. She couldn't fight the same way. She couldn't resist damage the same way. She didn't feel right, and often found herself ready to burst into tears or getting otherwise upset entirely too quickly. She began anxiously checking the mailbox multiple times a day, as 'regains' arrived on a semi-regular basis. Gatt had already gotten his proper body back, and surely hers wasn't far behind. She certainly tried to not be jealous of him, though it was difficult. But a human body wasn't completely terrible. Since she had a proper sense of taste, her efforts in learning how to cook came along much better than they might otherwise have. And some of these strange, volatile emotions that she was feeling weren't bad ones. She admired Thor, but he frustrated her, and she strove to somehow prove herself to him in a way that soon felt like it was about more than just battle and glory.
Mayfield was also teaching Dakki more about family, and about loss. Having grown so close to Aurica, it was profoundly upsetting when she was permanently droned shortly after Halloween. But she continued to treat the Aurica-shaped shell like family, for she and Gatt had theorized that it was possible that droned people could still remember what happened to them. It was an easy habit to fall into, and if there was even the slightest hope that Aurica was still in there, still able to perceive what was happening... well, it would be wrong to do otherwise. And even the blank drone-responses that Aurica gave were comforting to Dakki on some level. It was good to feel wanted and needed. It felt good to be called 'mother', even if she couldn't quite figure out why.
When Thanksgiving came that year, the town's administrators seemed to perceive the residents as being extremely ungrateful. So they turned the entire town into a bombed-out nuclear wasteland, and left everyone in it to fend for themselves against radiation and mutated cannibals. Dakki had her first chance to properly fight alongside Thor, and as she had been given back some of her photonic weaponry, she put up a much better fight this time around. Still, her human body could only withstand so much combat and radiation exposure. While she had sheltered briefly with other friends, when she was certain that she was about to succumb, she ventured back out into the ruins and sought out Gatt. They had both gone their separate ways to gather supplies early on, but had lost track of each other. When things were at their very worst, they found each other again and both collapsed in the ruins of one of the houses. Both knew that they were likely to die soon, and they did their best to comfort each other. There had never been any doubt that they were friends, but facing such things together was bringing them closer than ever before.
The town was soon restored, but more torment was in store. December came, as did winter, and all of the town's power was cut off. The town's residents were at considerable risk of freezing to death. Dakki traded food and scarves for an enormous coat to keep poor Gatt warm, as the power shortage was also a 'regain' shortage and his CAST body kept changing into a human one. She spent time hunkered down with Thor, Loki, and the other Norse folk, and began to feel more certain that she was feeling something out of the ordinary for him. Having been teaching herself to knit even before this mess happened, she resolved to make him the best possible scarf that she could. Christmas was coming, and it sounded like the sort of holiday that she would enjoy. But optimism only went so far. The town's torment for this holiday season was to give some of the residents dreams that implied that their worlds would have been better off if they had never existed... and to then offer to delete them. Dakki was one of the ones to receive said dream, and one of the ones to agree to deletion. And while she still existed within the town, the memory of her was what was altered. Everyone that knew her perceived her to just be a bad drone copy. It hurt enormously to be rejected by everyone that she cared for, and she withdrew as best she could, knit scarf after scarf, and wondered to herself if this was all another cruel trick. It turned out to be just that, and on Christmas Day the deception was dropped. Presents were granted by the town, and Gatt apologized sincerely for how cold he had been towards her. And then the town gave her precisely what she had wanted. In one of the Christmas packages was a card that gave her back her proper body. The holiday season and the new year were not ones of perfect joy, however. As wonderful as it was to be herself again, other things could still go wrong. Both Thor and Loki were droned in mid-January, and it was only in their absence, after Jormungandr (one of the many Norse folk) explained who they were and the Ragnarok that awaited them all, that she truly understood who she had been trying to befriend. And who she had begun to actually, maybe, possibly love in that strange overreactive human way. Dakki had felt loss before, but never a loss quite like this. Even though she was once again a CAST with well-regulated and even emotions, it threw her for a considerable loop.
Life went on in Mayfield in much the same way as it had before. The residents were certain that they had found a key part of Mayfield's inner workings, and a possible way of freeing themselves. Garviel Loken, well-meaning but wildly off the mark, blew up the uncovered machinery. It turned out to be the 'ressurection machine' that ensured that everyone would come back to life safely after being killed. In response, the town brought even more pain and suffering upon everyone when Mrs. Johnson, one of the most cruel and deranged of the ones in charge, began kidnapping and surgically altering residents in the name of somehow 'fixing' the ressurection problem. Dakki was among them, having had her hands severed and replaced with machine guns, and her circulatory fluid replaced with something that siezed control of her body and made her attack others. Ever willing to help a friend, even in the darkest of times, Garviel once again put Dakki down for the sake of everyone else's safety. In the end, Mrs. Johnson seemed to have accomplished what she wanted, for the dead were once again coming back to life again... but the process was slower and less reliable now.
The next little while was mercifully less stressful. Dakki and Chen found themselves swapping bodies for a few days, which was strange but not harmful. And as April became May, she found herself caught up preparations for a prom. A party was a welcome distraction from all of the grim things, and Dakki was happy to put her new sandwich-making skills to use. She contributed to the food prep, and deepened her friendships with Ilsa Higa (an empath psychologist) and Akira Date (an easy-going Kamen Rider) in the process. She and Date even danced together, though it was in an entirely platonic and friendly fashion. Dakki even made a new rival-friend in Dynamo, a 'reploid' with incredible fighting skills and an ego the size of the moon.
June brought more strange and unpleasant things. Mayfield was once again tampering with everyone's memories, possibly as a distraction while other plans were set into motion. Dakki was made to believe that she had been working for the Illuminus, rather than the Guardians, and comported herself in a cold and downright unpleasant fashion. She was downright awful to every friend that she had made, and only vaguely aware of what had happened afterwards. She and Gatt compared notes as best they could when they were both in their right minds, and perhaps unconsiously uncovered more about Coral's past and future, and the real consequences of the things they were fighting back in the Gurhal system. July was very much unpleasant as well. Mayfield's reality was growing more and more faulty, and something within the system was obviously trying to reach out to the citizens. A carnival appeared, with rusty rides and questionable vendor food, and a fun house that acted as a warped and deranged passageway to a prototype Mayfield. Dakki herself was unable to make it all the way through, but several of her friends were lost in there despite her best efforts to protect them. She took this failure quite hard, both to protect those that she cared for and to help first-hand with freeing everyone.
August brought more instability to Mayfield. It was becoming plainly obvious that she and Gatt had guessed correctly when they presumed that the town was a large VR Space. The drones were malfunctioning and reality was even more faulty than usual. A "ghost" in Mayfield's code unlocked a way into helping Annie the Librarian remember who she truly was. Tokens of her life before Mayfield were hidden in pocket-simulations, and the residents ventured into them to retrieve them. Dakki was intent on investigating along with her friends and allies... and that's When Aurica was un-droned. Their relationship went through a rocky, uncomfortable first few days as Aurica didn't recognize her 'mother' in this strange new body, and so many serious things were happening at the same time. Aurica trailed her, Garviel, and Dynamo into one of the most dangerous pocket-simulations thus far, a nuclear wasteland not unlike the one imposed upon the town at Thanksgiving. Things didn't go well. Aurica died while attempting to escape with Garviel, and Dakki and Dynamo were both badly injured while caught in the final bombing and collapse of the miniature simulation. She lost the function of her left eye and audio sensors. A Decepticon 'doctor' still in a human guise, Knock Out, performed repairs on the both of them, but with limited supplies she couldn't be brought back up to factory-standard functionality. Still, she was thankful, even after all of the horror. Aurica was back, and the little 'family' was reunited. Her maternal feelings for her Mayfield daughter only grew stronger, and Aurica began to refer to her as 'mom' in kind.
Even amidst this hope, Mayfield's situation only grew bleaker. It was revealed that there would be no escape from the town, as there was no way to return home. The residents were all data copies of their real selves, taken to populate Mayfield with real people, so that Zemeckis, the administrator and absolute ruler of the place, could prove that his "town" was perfect. But Annie the Librarian had successfully remembered who she really was, and used her administrative expertise to begin work on a way to free the captive residents. But Zemeckis had merged himself with Mayfield's code and was absolutely mad, and was having none of it. He forcibly brainwashed everyone. He deleted anyone who resisted. But he couldn't hold out forever, not with resistance from the residents and not with Annie and The Postman working against him. And not with Mrs. Johnson, another original resident, intending to step in and usurp his position as absolute ruler of the simulation. Mayfield rapidly descended into chaos and violence, with every possible horror that Mayfield had in its databanks unleashed upon the streets. Dakki traded in her CAST body for her memories of her true self, and then set out with her remaining weapons to fight and keep others safe.
When everything seemed at its worst, Annie used the last of her influence to open a way out for the residents. Dakki fled with the other members of her household in a hastily-obtained car, cruising down the highway and hanging out the windows shooting at the various violent and warped drones that tried to stop them. And when the drones finally faded away, and Mayfield was far, far behind them, something new opened up. Something better, a half-finished town where all of the escapees could rebuild. They had all been granted the same powers of creation that only the administrators once had. Perhaps they couldn't go home, but they could live somewhere better. They could make the most of what they had been given, and they could try to live happily with each other. And Dakki did just that in the aftermath, building a nice farmhouse with Gatt and Aurica. She had always dreamed of having a farm out in the countryside when she finally retired from being a Guardian, and this was just that sort of thing happening much earlier.
How did they change from their canon personality wise (Please explain what caused it to happen?): Dakki had once been a bit more closed off to making friends. But in Mayfield, anyone that you met could vanish at any time, never to be seen again. With such an enormous reminder that her time with anyone and everyone was limited, she made an effort to be almost excessively open and friendly and helpful. Not everyone accepted her offers of friendship, but many did, and she hasn't come to regret this new approach to others just yet.
Her six months as a human have given her a different perspective on herself and on others, as well. While she once viewed humans with a sort of curiosity, and wondered if being human was better somehow than being CAST, she now firmly believes that CASTs are the superior lifeform. She won't say as much aloud. That's rude and more than a bit like the nasty CAST supremacist stuff that she rejected back on Parum. But humans have such unstable emotions, and unreliable bodies, that she could never get fully comfortable as one. Their senses felt stronger, but not anywhere near as comfortably precise as her CAST ones. They didn't heal as quickly, and they needed so much more food and rest to maintain themselves. She likes humans just fine, but has absolutely no desire to be one. That said, the horomone-addled crush that she had while still human has significantly influenced the way she approaches relationships and romance. She has felt the same kinds of things, if not to the same chaotic degree, about her friend Dynamo. Without having those human sensations for reference, she might have spent even longer being clueless as to what to do about him.
Mayfield has also fully eased Dakki back into the role of caretaker, rather than the one being cared for. While it started with Aurica, she found herself frequently in the position of fussing over her new friends. Whether fighting off threats to their lives or plying them with sandwiches and scarves, Dakki rediscovered how much she liked being able to be helpful and generous towards others. And on the subject of sandwiches... Dakki has learned to cook. While before her expertise was mostly focused on nutritionally-balanced smoothies, now she can prepare an assortment of 1950s style foods. Her cooking isn't great, but it's not completely terrible, either.
Far too many events in Mayfield had caused her to lose control of herself and attack others. While it had been a theoretical fear of hers, once she and her team had learned the eventual fate of "Red Ring" Rico, Mayfield made the full horror of it plain. She hates zombies viciously, and fears having her body hijacked again. She's very particular about who she allows to do system repair work on her, and had even asked her friend Quinn to help her improve her internal security in the aftermath of Mayfield. She wishes very, very strongly to always remain herself.
Dakki had been somewhat religious by CAST standards, but her time away from home had strengthened her faith in the Holy Light to the point that she'd likely be regularly attending Communion of Gurhal services back home. She attended church every Sunday, mostly for Aurica's benefit, and is both fascinated and respectful of the Christianity that was demonstrated there.
How did they change from their canon physically (Please explain what caused it to happen?): While Dakki sustained considerable damage in the last few months of Mayfield's existance, when granted the powers of construction in the new place, she used them to repair herself. While her armor is still pockmarked and worn-looking, her body is assembly-line pristine.
Powers: Not strictly a power, but... Dakki is a CAST, an artificial humanoid composed of synthetics and pseudo-organic substances. CASTs can grow stronger over time and can be healed by methods that would work on living creatures. They are capable of eating food and breathing air, and can go for extended periods of time without sleep. Most have various forms of onboard networking and processing, and some are more visually robotic than others. In Dakki's case, her head has several antenna/microphone protrusions, and her eyes are glassy and obviously artificial. Her skin is also seamed in several places, and her skin tone is a pale lavender.
Weapons/Items-type powers - Photonic Weapons - Coralian and Gurhalian physics are a little off from regular ones, in that "photons" can be used for a variety of useful effects. One of these is the creation of photonic weaponry, where a small photon reactor charges or forms a weapon's surface. These glowing particles react to and amplify the power of the user's soul, and can be quite dangerous when swung around carelessly. Essentially? LASER SWORDS! And laser guns and laser daggers and laser rifles and laser whips and laser wands and...
Dakki's weapons are as follows:
"Masamunera" A-Rank Photon Saber - A one-handed sword with a green energy blade. Neutral element.
"Double Saber" A-Rank Photon double saber - A double-ended weapon, held in the middle, with energy blades at either end. Ice element.
"Deathmaker" A-Rank twin handguns - Balance-linked twin handguns that fire bullets of photonic energy. Light element.
Line Shield - Similar to photonic weapons, line shields are transparent armor composed of photonic energy. They are weightless, and manifest as glowing lines along a person's body or clothes. Dakki's is yellow, which signifies lightning elemental, giving her resistance to lightning and electric attacks but a vulnerability to ground and earth elemental damage. Hers was custom-crafted by a friend, and it is S-Rank in quality. Line shields provide a buffer against aggressive contact, and can occasionally entirely deflect a hit.
Possessions: The above weapons, a slightly dented cast iron frying pan, several 50s cookbooks annotated in her handwriting, a collection of children's picture encyclopedias, a large knitting bag (full of needles, yarn, and unfinished projects), an assortment of 50s style women's clothing, a selection of Avon-style 50s makeup (barely touched), astonishingly scant non-50s bikini swimwear, nanoceran armor, several form-fitting bodysuits, a small case of Gurhalian healing items (4 Dimate, 2 Trimate, 5 Antimate, 1 Moon Atomizer, the empty shell of a Star Atomizer), an 'orgel' handcrafted music box, a Gurhalian audio system, and a jewelry box containing a bit of 50s jewelery (pearls, brooches, clip-on earings) and a single Cell Medal.
Please provide three samples from your previous game, at least one will have to be third person with context:
Sample One: Catering to the Masses - preparing for prom
Sample Two: Tending to Aurica in the aftermath of awful things
Sample Three: Dakki and Dynamo attempting to escape an arial bombardment
Notes: The original Mayfield application for Dakki was written without Dakki herself having much chance to be voice tested. Her personality as told in the personality section is mostly accurate to how she's currently played, but if I had to tell it all over again, I'd do it differently.
Preferred Pronouns?: female ones (she, her, etc)
Player Contact: AIM: geenacorbell (infrequently used) | Plurk:
Other characters in play? Natalie Waters, Kain Highwind
Character Name: Dakki Sigal
Canon: Phantasy Star Online/Universe (OC)
Game Transplant: Mayfield
Original App: Here
Game Summary: Mayfield was a "jamjar" style game, set in a pseudo-1950s America. It was designed to be the "perfect" town full of "perfect" residents, and beings from all across the multiverse were snatched away from their homes, sorted into families, and forced to live there. But the town was far from perfect. The people in charge were strange and corrupt, and the reality of the town was flimsy and dangerous. Injury and death were commonplace, and death was impermanent.
The town was eventually revealed to be a computer simulation, and the residents were simply data copies of their original selves. The game ended with the overthrow of the administrators, the collapse of the town proper, and an escape of sorts to a "Better Place", an incomplete town that the characters were free to build and maintain as they desired.
How long was your character in Game: 1 year, 5 months (August 2011 to game close, December 2012)
History of Character in their Game: After a long day out on a routine clean-up mission, Dakki returned to her apartment and went into sleep mode. When she awoke she found herself in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar house, and human. Next to her was Falk Gatt, in a similar state of humanization. Disturbed and confused, the two rose and began to explore this strange, alien town that they had found themselves in. It was apparently in a country called "America", on a planet called "Earth". The houses were all the same, in neat and tidy little rows. The sky was blue, the weather was warm, and the vapid, smiling children in the household and the neighbors in the streets all declared that it was "the happiest little town in the good ol' US of A."
It took less than 24 hours for the pair to realize that the happy face the town presented was a lie. The milk delivered to the house was poisoned and spiked with razor blades, and Dakki nearly died from drinking it. When Gatt dumped the next day's milk delivery down the sink, a maligant force within the town "droned" him and made him attack Dakki. And so it went for a full week, until the "event" finished, the milk-related mayhem abated, and the town settled itself into its usual state of dormant wrongness. The pair had been given a crash course in how Mayfield worked, and resolved to find a way out and to keep as many others safe and secure as possible.
The town had also seen fit to make them into parents. The house contained two drone children upon their arrival, but shortly afterwards one of them was replaced with a real girl by the name of Aurica Nestmile. While most Mayfield residents didn't take the arbitrary family assignments seriously, Aurica did. She immediately took to calling Dakki "mama" and Gatt "papa". It was awkward at first. Gatt may have been an appropriate age to be the girl's father, but Dakki certainly wasn't. But Aurica was quiet, and timid, and fragile, and very much in need of a loving family to take care of her. If it would make the girl happy, then Dakki was happy to play the part of the girl's caretaker. What was first just playing along and making nice became a surprisingly cozy and pleasant household. Things became even nicer when Chen, a friendly nekomata, was placed into the household as the pet.
Mayfield could be a decent enough place, when the administrators weren't tormenting folk and the neighbors were well-behaved. Dakki and Gatt were hardly the only odd imports. The town was full of sentients from all kinds of worlds, ones just as stuck and just as desperate to leave as they were. Dakki was quick to make friends, eager to make friends. It was mostly a practical matter at first. In a hazardous situation, people with the same goals and interests ought to stick together. Making friends wasn't always easy, though even when everyone had the common experience of having been spirited away to somewhere strange. She wound up in a fistfight with Thor (yes, the Norse god) and in a long and meandering over-emotional conversation with Loki (yes, also the Norse god) when the milk was poisoning everyone and making them act strange. Though she hadn't expected anything to come of either of these interactions, she wound up more or less befriending them both once everyone was sober and sane again. Although Thor refused to regard her as a proper warrior because she was a woman, and it frustrated her to no end, she was still doggedly determined to prove herself to him and have a rematch. And Loki was... well, he seemed like the sort of man prone to get himself into horrible trouble, no matter how clever he claimed to be, and Dakki felt determined to keep watch over him.
She had a chance to prove her expertise in combat when Mayfield was overrun by zombies, but did not have the best of luck in doing so. She, Gatt, and Aurica fought to make it to a safehouse set up at the church, but Dakki was bitten and infected partway there. She sent the other two on ahead, then fought zombies as long as she could before her human body succumbed to the infection. Aurica had asked both Garviel Loken (a futuristic space marine) and Ciel (a holy warrior) to find her and bring her some mercy, and they did just that. She awoke the next day, as always happened upon dying in Mayfield, and rejoined the fight with considerably more caution. She almost saved Loki from zombie infection as well, but the situation went somewhat off the rails and she wound up having to chop off his arm. Overall, it was an extremely unpleasant experience for everyone involved, and she was relieved when it ended as abruptly as it had started.
It was around this time that her lack of her proper CAST body truly began to bother her. She couldn't fight the same way. She couldn't resist damage the same way. She didn't feel right, and often found herself ready to burst into tears or getting otherwise upset entirely too quickly. She began anxiously checking the mailbox multiple times a day, as 'regains' arrived on a semi-regular basis. Gatt had already gotten his proper body back, and surely hers wasn't far behind. She certainly tried to not be jealous of him, though it was difficult. But a human body wasn't completely terrible. Since she had a proper sense of taste, her efforts in learning how to cook came along much better than they might otherwise have. And some of these strange, volatile emotions that she was feeling weren't bad ones. She admired Thor, but he frustrated her, and she strove to somehow prove herself to him in a way that soon felt like it was about more than just battle and glory.
Mayfield was also teaching Dakki more about family, and about loss. Having grown so close to Aurica, it was profoundly upsetting when she was permanently droned shortly after Halloween. But she continued to treat the Aurica-shaped shell like family, for she and Gatt had theorized that it was possible that droned people could still remember what happened to them. It was an easy habit to fall into, and if there was even the slightest hope that Aurica was still in there, still able to perceive what was happening... well, it would be wrong to do otherwise. And even the blank drone-responses that Aurica gave were comforting to Dakki on some level. It was good to feel wanted and needed. It felt good to be called 'mother', even if she couldn't quite figure out why.
When Thanksgiving came that year, the town's administrators seemed to perceive the residents as being extremely ungrateful. So they turned the entire town into a bombed-out nuclear wasteland, and left everyone in it to fend for themselves against radiation and mutated cannibals. Dakki had her first chance to properly fight alongside Thor, and as she had been given back some of her photonic weaponry, she put up a much better fight this time around. Still, her human body could only withstand so much combat and radiation exposure. While she had sheltered briefly with other friends, when she was certain that she was about to succumb, she ventured back out into the ruins and sought out Gatt. They had both gone their separate ways to gather supplies early on, but had lost track of each other. When things were at their very worst, they found each other again and both collapsed in the ruins of one of the houses. Both knew that they were likely to die soon, and they did their best to comfort each other. There had never been any doubt that they were friends, but facing such things together was bringing them closer than ever before.
The town was soon restored, but more torment was in store. December came, as did winter, and all of the town's power was cut off. The town's residents were at considerable risk of freezing to death. Dakki traded food and scarves for an enormous coat to keep poor Gatt warm, as the power shortage was also a 'regain' shortage and his CAST body kept changing into a human one. She spent time hunkered down with Thor, Loki, and the other Norse folk, and began to feel more certain that she was feeling something out of the ordinary for him. Having been teaching herself to knit even before this mess happened, she resolved to make him the best possible scarf that she could. Christmas was coming, and it sounded like the sort of holiday that she would enjoy. But optimism only went so far. The town's torment for this holiday season was to give some of the residents dreams that implied that their worlds would have been better off if they had never existed... and to then offer to delete them. Dakki was one of the ones to receive said dream, and one of the ones to agree to deletion. And while she still existed within the town, the memory of her was what was altered. Everyone that knew her perceived her to just be a bad drone copy. It hurt enormously to be rejected by everyone that she cared for, and she withdrew as best she could, knit scarf after scarf, and wondered to herself if this was all another cruel trick. It turned out to be just that, and on Christmas Day the deception was dropped. Presents were granted by the town, and Gatt apologized sincerely for how cold he had been towards her. And then the town gave her precisely what she had wanted. In one of the Christmas packages was a card that gave her back her proper body. The holiday season and the new year were not ones of perfect joy, however. As wonderful as it was to be herself again, other things could still go wrong. Both Thor and Loki were droned in mid-January, and it was only in their absence, after Jormungandr (one of the many Norse folk) explained who they were and the Ragnarok that awaited them all, that she truly understood who she had been trying to befriend. And who she had begun to actually, maybe, possibly love in that strange overreactive human way. Dakki had felt loss before, but never a loss quite like this. Even though she was once again a CAST with well-regulated and even emotions, it threw her for a considerable loop.
Life went on in Mayfield in much the same way as it had before. The residents were certain that they had found a key part of Mayfield's inner workings, and a possible way of freeing themselves. Garviel Loken, well-meaning but wildly off the mark, blew up the uncovered machinery. It turned out to be the 'ressurection machine' that ensured that everyone would come back to life safely after being killed. In response, the town brought even more pain and suffering upon everyone when Mrs. Johnson, one of the most cruel and deranged of the ones in charge, began kidnapping and surgically altering residents in the name of somehow 'fixing' the ressurection problem. Dakki was among them, having had her hands severed and replaced with machine guns, and her circulatory fluid replaced with something that siezed control of her body and made her attack others. Ever willing to help a friend, even in the darkest of times, Garviel once again put Dakki down for the sake of everyone else's safety. In the end, Mrs. Johnson seemed to have accomplished what she wanted, for the dead were once again coming back to life again... but the process was slower and less reliable now.
The next little while was mercifully less stressful. Dakki and Chen found themselves swapping bodies for a few days, which was strange but not harmful. And as April became May, she found herself caught up preparations for a prom. A party was a welcome distraction from all of the grim things, and Dakki was happy to put her new sandwich-making skills to use. She contributed to the food prep, and deepened her friendships with Ilsa Higa (an empath psychologist) and Akira Date (an easy-going Kamen Rider) in the process. She and Date even danced together, though it was in an entirely platonic and friendly fashion. Dakki even made a new rival-friend in Dynamo, a 'reploid' with incredible fighting skills and an ego the size of the moon.
June brought more strange and unpleasant things. Mayfield was once again tampering with everyone's memories, possibly as a distraction while other plans were set into motion. Dakki was made to believe that she had been working for the Illuminus, rather than the Guardians, and comported herself in a cold and downright unpleasant fashion. She was downright awful to every friend that she had made, and only vaguely aware of what had happened afterwards. She and Gatt compared notes as best they could when they were both in their right minds, and perhaps unconsiously uncovered more about Coral's past and future, and the real consequences of the things they were fighting back in the Gurhal system. July was very much unpleasant as well. Mayfield's reality was growing more and more faulty, and something within the system was obviously trying to reach out to the citizens. A carnival appeared, with rusty rides and questionable vendor food, and a fun house that acted as a warped and deranged passageway to a prototype Mayfield. Dakki herself was unable to make it all the way through, but several of her friends were lost in there despite her best efforts to protect them. She took this failure quite hard, both to protect those that she cared for and to help first-hand with freeing everyone.
August brought more instability to Mayfield. It was becoming plainly obvious that she and Gatt had guessed correctly when they presumed that the town was a large VR Space. The drones were malfunctioning and reality was even more faulty than usual. A "ghost" in Mayfield's code unlocked a way into helping Annie the Librarian remember who she truly was. Tokens of her life before Mayfield were hidden in pocket-simulations, and the residents ventured into them to retrieve them. Dakki was intent on investigating along with her friends and allies... and that's When Aurica was un-droned. Their relationship went through a rocky, uncomfortable first few days as Aurica didn't recognize her 'mother' in this strange new body, and so many serious things were happening at the same time. Aurica trailed her, Garviel, and Dynamo into one of the most dangerous pocket-simulations thus far, a nuclear wasteland not unlike the one imposed upon the town at Thanksgiving. Things didn't go well. Aurica died while attempting to escape with Garviel, and Dakki and Dynamo were both badly injured while caught in the final bombing and collapse of the miniature simulation. She lost the function of her left eye and audio sensors. A Decepticon 'doctor' still in a human guise, Knock Out, performed repairs on the both of them, but with limited supplies she couldn't be brought back up to factory-standard functionality. Still, she was thankful, even after all of the horror. Aurica was back, and the little 'family' was reunited. Her maternal feelings for her Mayfield daughter only grew stronger, and Aurica began to refer to her as 'mom' in kind.
Even amidst this hope, Mayfield's situation only grew bleaker. It was revealed that there would be no escape from the town, as there was no way to return home. The residents were all data copies of their real selves, taken to populate Mayfield with real people, so that Zemeckis, the administrator and absolute ruler of the place, could prove that his "town" was perfect. But Annie the Librarian had successfully remembered who she really was, and used her administrative expertise to begin work on a way to free the captive residents. But Zemeckis had merged himself with Mayfield's code and was absolutely mad, and was having none of it. He forcibly brainwashed everyone. He deleted anyone who resisted. But he couldn't hold out forever, not with resistance from the residents and not with Annie and The Postman working against him. And not with Mrs. Johnson, another original resident, intending to step in and usurp his position as absolute ruler of the simulation. Mayfield rapidly descended into chaos and violence, with every possible horror that Mayfield had in its databanks unleashed upon the streets. Dakki traded in her CAST body for her memories of her true self, and then set out with her remaining weapons to fight and keep others safe.
When everything seemed at its worst, Annie used the last of her influence to open a way out for the residents. Dakki fled with the other members of her household in a hastily-obtained car, cruising down the highway and hanging out the windows shooting at the various violent and warped drones that tried to stop them. And when the drones finally faded away, and Mayfield was far, far behind them, something new opened up. Something better, a half-finished town where all of the escapees could rebuild. They had all been granted the same powers of creation that only the administrators once had. Perhaps they couldn't go home, but they could live somewhere better. They could make the most of what they had been given, and they could try to live happily with each other. And Dakki did just that in the aftermath, building a nice farmhouse with Gatt and Aurica. She had always dreamed of having a farm out in the countryside when she finally retired from being a Guardian, and this was just that sort of thing happening much earlier.
How did they change from their canon personality wise (Please explain what caused it to happen?): Dakki had once been a bit more closed off to making friends. But in Mayfield, anyone that you met could vanish at any time, never to be seen again. With such an enormous reminder that her time with anyone and everyone was limited, she made an effort to be almost excessively open and friendly and helpful. Not everyone accepted her offers of friendship, but many did, and she hasn't come to regret this new approach to others just yet.
Her six months as a human have given her a different perspective on herself and on others, as well. While she once viewed humans with a sort of curiosity, and wondered if being human was better somehow than being CAST, she now firmly believes that CASTs are the superior lifeform. She won't say as much aloud. That's rude and more than a bit like the nasty CAST supremacist stuff that she rejected back on Parum. But humans have such unstable emotions, and unreliable bodies, that she could never get fully comfortable as one. Their senses felt stronger, but not anywhere near as comfortably precise as her CAST ones. They didn't heal as quickly, and they needed so much more food and rest to maintain themselves. She likes humans just fine, but has absolutely no desire to be one. That said, the horomone-addled crush that she had while still human has significantly influenced the way she approaches relationships and romance. She has felt the same kinds of things, if not to the same chaotic degree, about her friend Dynamo. Without having those human sensations for reference, she might have spent even longer being clueless as to what to do about him.
Mayfield has also fully eased Dakki back into the role of caretaker, rather than the one being cared for. While it started with Aurica, she found herself frequently in the position of fussing over her new friends. Whether fighting off threats to their lives or plying them with sandwiches and scarves, Dakki rediscovered how much she liked being able to be helpful and generous towards others. And on the subject of sandwiches... Dakki has learned to cook. While before her expertise was mostly focused on nutritionally-balanced smoothies, now she can prepare an assortment of 1950s style foods. Her cooking isn't great, but it's not completely terrible, either.
Far too many events in Mayfield had caused her to lose control of herself and attack others. While it had been a theoretical fear of hers, once she and her team had learned the eventual fate of "Red Ring" Rico, Mayfield made the full horror of it plain. She hates zombies viciously, and fears having her body hijacked again. She's very particular about who she allows to do system repair work on her, and had even asked her friend Quinn to help her improve her internal security in the aftermath of Mayfield. She wishes very, very strongly to always remain herself.
Dakki had been somewhat religious by CAST standards, but her time away from home had strengthened her faith in the Holy Light to the point that she'd likely be regularly attending Communion of Gurhal services back home. She attended church every Sunday, mostly for Aurica's benefit, and is both fascinated and respectful of the Christianity that was demonstrated there.
How did they change from their canon physically (Please explain what caused it to happen?): While Dakki sustained considerable damage in the last few months of Mayfield's existance, when granted the powers of construction in the new place, she used them to repair herself. While her armor is still pockmarked and worn-looking, her body is assembly-line pristine.
Powers: Not strictly a power, but... Dakki is a CAST, an artificial humanoid composed of synthetics and pseudo-organic substances. CASTs can grow stronger over time and can be healed by methods that would work on living creatures. They are capable of eating food and breathing air, and can go for extended periods of time without sleep. Most have various forms of onboard networking and processing, and some are more visually robotic than others. In Dakki's case, her head has several antenna/microphone protrusions, and her eyes are glassy and obviously artificial. Her skin is also seamed in several places, and her skin tone is a pale lavender.
Weapons/Items-type powers - Photonic Weapons - Coralian and Gurhalian physics are a little off from regular ones, in that "photons" can be used for a variety of useful effects. One of these is the creation of photonic weaponry, where a small photon reactor charges or forms a weapon's surface. These glowing particles react to and amplify the power of the user's soul, and can be quite dangerous when swung around carelessly. Essentially? LASER SWORDS! And laser guns and laser daggers and laser rifles and laser whips and laser wands and...
Dakki's weapons are as follows:
"Masamunera" A-Rank Photon Saber - A one-handed sword with a green energy blade. Neutral element.
"Double Saber" A-Rank Photon double saber - A double-ended weapon, held in the middle, with energy blades at either end. Ice element.
"Deathmaker" A-Rank twin handguns - Balance-linked twin handguns that fire bullets of photonic energy. Light element.
Line Shield - Similar to photonic weapons, line shields are transparent armor composed of photonic energy. They are weightless, and manifest as glowing lines along a person's body or clothes. Dakki's is yellow, which signifies lightning elemental, giving her resistance to lightning and electric attacks but a vulnerability to ground and earth elemental damage. Hers was custom-crafted by a friend, and it is S-Rank in quality. Line shields provide a buffer against aggressive contact, and can occasionally entirely deflect a hit.
Possessions: The above weapons, a slightly dented cast iron frying pan, several 50s cookbooks annotated in her handwriting, a collection of children's picture encyclopedias, a large knitting bag (full of needles, yarn, and unfinished projects), an assortment of 50s style women's clothing, a selection of Avon-style 50s makeup (barely touched), astonishingly scant non-50s bikini swimwear, nanoceran armor, several form-fitting bodysuits, a small case of Gurhalian healing items (4 Dimate, 2 Trimate, 5 Antimate, 1 Moon Atomizer, the empty shell of a Star Atomizer), an 'orgel' handcrafted music box, a Gurhalian audio system, and a jewelry box containing a bit of 50s jewelery (pearls, brooches, clip-on earings) and a single Cell Medal.
Please provide three samples from your previous game, at least one will have to be third person with context:
Sample One: Catering to the Masses - preparing for prom
Sample Two: Tending to Aurica in the aftermath of awful things
Sample Three: Dakki and Dynamo attempting to escape an arial bombardment
Notes: The original Mayfield application for Dakki was written without Dakki herself having much chance to be voice tested. Her personality as told in the personality section is mostly accurate to how she's currently played, but if I had to tell it all over again, I'd do it differently.