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Application for LifeAftr
Nov. 17th, 2017 10:58 amPlayer Information
Name: Azazel
Age: 20
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
azazelbunny
Current characters: Mercy, Gobbet.
Character Information
Name: Chris Baer
Series: The Long Dark
Appearance: Glenn Villeneuve from Life Below Zero
Age: 32
Canon Point: After his death on top of Timberwolf Mountain
Canon History:
Context Links:
The Apocalypse pt. 1
The Apocalypse pt. 2
Mystery Lake
Pleasant Valley
Timberwolf Mountain
Bear attacks in the long dark
Before the snowy apocalypse, Chris lived a fairly unique life. Growing up in an upper middle class family in southern Ontario, Canada, he had access to decent education and ample financial support for his hobbies (which included archery as a sport and woodworking). Truth be told, he faced very little struggle or adversity in his childhood and grew up in a fairly sheltered environment. It was an uneventful and peaceful time in his life.
Ultimately, this would be the source of his craving for adventure. He wanted to experience the world "as it was meant to be experienced". He sought to be held responsible for his actions and wished for consequence and danger. Inspired by survival-oriented TV shows, Chris sought out training as a bush pilot at a young age - only 20 years old. With financial backing from his parents he was able to buy his own plane and a small station in the northern wilderness of Canada, allowing him to start his own business by the time he was 23.
Several years passed in which he balanced the pursuit of his growing hobby as a woodworker and his job as a bush pilot, relying on his artwork to get him through the slow seasons of his job. One of his frequent clients, a doctor by the name Maria Thomas, would eventually become his wife and they would have a child after 5 years of marriage. As a family they would take frequent vacations into the wilderness and even bought property in a remote location almost completely off-the-grid. Chris was effectively living his dream.
This self-sustaining lifestyle would become a vital necessity when the Canadian economy collapsed completely. His parents suffered significant losses financially to the point of losing their house and most of their assets. They would move in with Chris and his family only a year after the crisis. Chris's immediate family suffered very little as they a) had a large amount of money stored away and b) relied on their own resources for most of their living needs. With a large garden, goats, solar power, water stills, and wood-burning heat, they rarely made supply trips to the more populated areas anyway.
Then, the apocalypse came. It was quiet and unusual - a flare of bright lights in the sky, a nationwide blizzard that lasted for weeks. This electromagnetic storm swept over most of North America, plunging the areas into an ice age. Electricity ceased working, wildlife became hostile and unusually bold, and many people died outright simply from being so ill-prepared for such a catastrophe. Chris was flying his plane at the time of the first storm. The blizzard knocked him out of the sky, all of his equipment failing simultaneously due to the flux of magnetic energy in the atmosphere, and he crashed down in an area known as Mystery Lake.
Mystery Lake was a campground that was closed for the season and thus devoid of any kind of help. During the crash, Chris suffered several broken bones and lacerations, which he was forced to treat himself. Holing up in the abandoned camp's main office, he waited out the initial blizzard by carefully rationing the stored canned goods and bundling up with as many blankets and coats as he could find. It took him a week to heal enough to explore the area, just about the time it took for the blizzard to pass.
Chris became intimately familiar with Mystery Lake, surviving off of his bushcraft knowledge and salvaged gear from his plane crash plus whatever he could scavenge from the campsite itself. After about a month, the area began to run dry of game and fish and wolves began to move in, forcing him to pack up and head for a new location.
Following a map found in the camp office, Chris headed out towards a small homesteading area known as Pleasant Valley, hoping to find civilization and a way back to his wife and child. He instead found an extremely aggressive bear, which began a two-week long period of hide and seek as he traversed the terrain. On several occasions, he shot at and wounded the bear, only for it to escape and return at a later date. Though he ultimately managed to kill the bear, Chris suffered serious injury during one of their encounters and was forced to stay in Pleasant Valley for an extra week to recover.
During his time in Pleasant Valley, he found no living residents - though he stumbled across more than one corpse in the frozen wasteland the area had become. In one of the houses he squatted in, he found reference to a local "mountain man" living to the North on Timberwolf Mountain. Figuring that if anyone had survived the apocalypse, it would be a wilderness survival expert, he set out as soon as he could to find the man in question. He found only a deserted shack and a mysterious plume of smoke in the distance.
Though the shack he found there was in disrepair and devoid of life, it was next to a lake and near a forest full of potential firewood. The area would sustain him as he recovered from his travels and prepared to face the challenge of climbing the mountain itself to investigate the plume of smoke at its peak. Fully outfitted and theoretically ready to reach the summit, Chris set out on what would be the final stretch of his journey.
The mountain posed many threats in the form of aggressive wildlife that shredded his clothing, harsh weather that left him with frostbitten hands, and difficult to navigate terrain that led him astray multiple times on the way up. He would unfortunately never reach the top, dying with a whisper on the mountainside to starvation and hypothermia.
Canon Personality: Above all, Chris is the kind of person who craves adventure, perhaps due to his living such a sheltered life as a child. He always sought out opportunities to test his limits - be it through his bushcraft training, flight training, or moving off the grid to be more self-sustaining. Crashing in Mystery Lake and climbing Timberwolf Mountain were events he thoroughly enjoyed, despite the danger and physical pain involved in both. He viewed them as challenges, adding to his story in life and filling a need for consequences. One wrong move in the wilderness and you're dead. He loved being held accountable for his actions by mother nature herself.
Generally kind-hearted, he always felt kind of bad killing animals to survive. Though he recognized it a necessity and didn't let his guilt stop him from surviving, he did always seek to make it as painless and quick as possible. Even the aggressive wolves and bears he encountered bore no ill will from him. After all, they were just trying to survive too. This slight guilt also applied to looting and squatting in homes that were left vacant by the apocalypse. While he tried to take only what he needed, it was always in his nature to worry that the families would return one day and find their things missing.
One of the more interesting personality traits Chris discovered after the crash was his willingness to put his old life behind him and live completely alone. While he was initially recovering, it barely crossed his mind that he should search for survivors and a way back to his family. It was once his resources began to dwindle and he had to move on that he thought "maybe I should do something about this whole being stranded in the wilderness thing". He had thought he loved his family deeply and valued them above all else, but was quickly beginning to realize his true nature as somewhat selfish. He was enjoying himself. Why should he burden himself with two more mouths to feed? Furthermore, what if they didn't even survive the initial storm? Why waste time searching for them? Instead of dwelling on this, he chose to accept it and move on with survival, even if it meant he would never see his family again.
Danger never dissuaded Chris from doing what needed to be done. Tackling a wolf that's patrolling your makeshift front yard with just a knife? No problem. Chopping firewood in the middle of a blizzard? Had to be done. Ice fishing in below zero temperatures? A man's gotta eat. It's always been a bizzare conflict of a will to survive at all costs and a reckless disregard for his own safety. He would survive this apocalypse or die trying. That was all there was to it.
Honestly, over all, Chris just wants to experience the thrill of being at constant risk of death. He chose to make an easy life difficult, just for fun. He decided to climb a mountain to investigate a plume of smoke that he had no logical need to investigate past being curious. He learned to fly a plane in dangerous weather out of all the jobs he could have picked - again, just for the thrill of it.
On a more personal level, Chris is a cheerful fellow with a good sense of humor about life. He's a whistle-while-you-work kind of lively person. In the face of danger, he is equal parts excited to overcome the challenge and optimistic about the outcome. He never shies away from hard work, believing that struggle builds character.
Personality Shifts: N/A (True silent protag)
Abilities:
Bushcraft - This includes the following skillset:
- Food Foraging
- Trapping and Hunting Game
- Water Gathering and Purification
- Shelter Building
- Fire Building
Decorative Woodworking - Whilst not particularly practical, Chris can make beautiful carvings with a knife and a piece of wood. It's one of his favorite ways to pass time.
Piloting and Maintenance of Bush Planes - While it's not likely to be useful out here, he does know how to do it.
Inventory: Chris would have had so much stuff on him at the time of his death that I think it would be unfair to bring it all. Therefor, I'm going to say his backpack didn't make it through with him and he only has the things strapped to his body or in his pockets.
Clothing:
- Cotton plaid shirt
- wool longjohns
- cargo pants
- trail boots
- wool socks
- old-fashioned parka
- rabbitskin mittens
- wool toque
- wool scarf
Equipment:
- x1 Hatchet
- x1 Hunting Knife
- x1 firestriker (13 uses left)
Sample
Q&A:
Do you care about others, or would you rather let them fend for themselves?
Maybe it's the months of fending for myself in the wilderness, but I think everyone could do with a little self-reliance. It's not that I don't care at all. Quite the contrary, I want people to better themselves, to have the chance to experience themselves in their most raw and primal state. It brings out the true nature of a person.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to strive for the moral high ground? If so, how difficult was it?
I think I've been there, but I kind of failed to hit the high ground. See, I probably should have tried to get in touch with or search for my family when I first crashed. I probably should have worried about them. But the truth is, they would have weighed me down if I found them. I made peace with my decision, even though I miss them from time to time.
Is it difficult for you to get along with people? Why or why not?
To be honest with myself, yes. Nobody wants to admit they're antisocial, but I really don't see eye to eye with a lot of society's standards and that puts a damper on public relations. A lot of the decisions I've made will seem unusual, morally grey, or even objectively bad to others. I'm comfortable with that, though. I do what I need to do, even if others disagree.
Who is the most important person (or persons) in your life, and why?
This might make me sound a little selfish, but the most important person in my life is me. When it comes down to it, I'm all I've got. I've been through a lot in the past few months and learned that, in the words of an author I really can't remember the name of, "no matter where you go, there you are".
Do you prefer spending time with many people, a few friends, or by yourself?
Definitely prefer solitude. You learn a lot about yourself in silence. Actually, God, it's been three months since I heard another voice. Can you imagine that? How jarring it is to hear someone speak after all that time? Can't say I miss it, honestly. The tranquility of it was really refreshing.
How well do you think you perform under pressure?
Excellently. Under pressure is where I shine, really. It's also where I want to be. I love the thrill of it, the way it makes you drop the social act we all put on and be real for a minute.
What kind of impression do you think you give to others?
I'm probably that weird nature guy who spends too much time alone in his house. You know the type - always making their own stuff, growing their own food, taking hikes, owns a walking stick with fancy bone chimes on it. Came with the territory of being a bush pilot, honestly. Everyone expected me to be that way and I delivered.
Name: Azazel
Age: 20
Contact:
Current characters: Mercy, Gobbet.
Character Information
Name: Chris Baer
Series: The Long Dark
Appearance: Glenn Villeneuve from Life Below Zero
Age: 32
Canon Point: After his death on top of Timberwolf Mountain
Canon History:
Context Links:
The Apocalypse pt. 1
The Apocalypse pt. 2
Mystery Lake
Pleasant Valley
Timberwolf Mountain
Bear attacks in the long dark
Before the snowy apocalypse, Chris lived a fairly unique life. Growing up in an upper middle class family in southern Ontario, Canada, he had access to decent education and ample financial support for his hobbies (which included archery as a sport and woodworking). Truth be told, he faced very little struggle or adversity in his childhood and grew up in a fairly sheltered environment. It was an uneventful and peaceful time in his life.
Ultimately, this would be the source of his craving for adventure. He wanted to experience the world "as it was meant to be experienced". He sought to be held responsible for his actions and wished for consequence and danger. Inspired by survival-oriented TV shows, Chris sought out training as a bush pilot at a young age - only 20 years old. With financial backing from his parents he was able to buy his own plane and a small station in the northern wilderness of Canada, allowing him to start his own business by the time he was 23.
Several years passed in which he balanced the pursuit of his growing hobby as a woodworker and his job as a bush pilot, relying on his artwork to get him through the slow seasons of his job. One of his frequent clients, a doctor by the name Maria Thomas, would eventually become his wife and they would have a child after 5 years of marriage. As a family they would take frequent vacations into the wilderness and even bought property in a remote location almost completely off-the-grid. Chris was effectively living his dream.
This self-sustaining lifestyle would become a vital necessity when the Canadian economy collapsed completely. His parents suffered significant losses financially to the point of losing their house and most of their assets. They would move in with Chris and his family only a year after the crisis. Chris's immediate family suffered very little as they a) had a large amount of money stored away and b) relied on their own resources for most of their living needs. With a large garden, goats, solar power, water stills, and wood-burning heat, they rarely made supply trips to the more populated areas anyway.
Then, the apocalypse came. It was quiet and unusual - a flare of bright lights in the sky, a nationwide blizzard that lasted for weeks. This electromagnetic storm swept over most of North America, plunging the areas into an ice age. Electricity ceased working, wildlife became hostile and unusually bold, and many people died outright simply from being so ill-prepared for such a catastrophe. Chris was flying his plane at the time of the first storm. The blizzard knocked him out of the sky, all of his equipment failing simultaneously due to the flux of magnetic energy in the atmosphere, and he crashed down in an area known as Mystery Lake.
Mystery Lake was a campground that was closed for the season and thus devoid of any kind of help. During the crash, Chris suffered several broken bones and lacerations, which he was forced to treat himself. Holing up in the abandoned camp's main office, he waited out the initial blizzard by carefully rationing the stored canned goods and bundling up with as many blankets and coats as he could find. It took him a week to heal enough to explore the area, just about the time it took for the blizzard to pass.
Chris became intimately familiar with Mystery Lake, surviving off of his bushcraft knowledge and salvaged gear from his plane crash plus whatever he could scavenge from the campsite itself. After about a month, the area began to run dry of game and fish and wolves began to move in, forcing him to pack up and head for a new location.
Following a map found in the camp office, Chris headed out towards a small homesteading area known as Pleasant Valley, hoping to find civilization and a way back to his wife and child. He instead found an extremely aggressive bear, which began a two-week long period of hide and seek as he traversed the terrain. On several occasions, he shot at and wounded the bear, only for it to escape and return at a later date. Though he ultimately managed to kill the bear, Chris suffered serious injury during one of their encounters and was forced to stay in Pleasant Valley for an extra week to recover.
During his time in Pleasant Valley, he found no living residents - though he stumbled across more than one corpse in the frozen wasteland the area had become. In one of the houses he squatted in, he found reference to a local "mountain man" living to the North on Timberwolf Mountain. Figuring that if anyone had survived the apocalypse, it would be a wilderness survival expert, he set out as soon as he could to find the man in question. He found only a deserted shack and a mysterious plume of smoke in the distance.
Though the shack he found there was in disrepair and devoid of life, it was next to a lake and near a forest full of potential firewood. The area would sustain him as he recovered from his travels and prepared to face the challenge of climbing the mountain itself to investigate the plume of smoke at its peak. Fully outfitted and theoretically ready to reach the summit, Chris set out on what would be the final stretch of his journey.
The mountain posed many threats in the form of aggressive wildlife that shredded his clothing, harsh weather that left him with frostbitten hands, and difficult to navigate terrain that led him astray multiple times on the way up. He would unfortunately never reach the top, dying with a whisper on the mountainside to starvation and hypothermia.
Canon Personality: Above all, Chris is the kind of person who craves adventure, perhaps due to his living such a sheltered life as a child. He always sought out opportunities to test his limits - be it through his bushcraft training, flight training, or moving off the grid to be more self-sustaining. Crashing in Mystery Lake and climbing Timberwolf Mountain were events he thoroughly enjoyed, despite the danger and physical pain involved in both. He viewed them as challenges, adding to his story in life and filling a need for consequences. One wrong move in the wilderness and you're dead. He loved being held accountable for his actions by mother nature herself.
Generally kind-hearted, he always felt kind of bad killing animals to survive. Though he recognized it a necessity and didn't let his guilt stop him from surviving, he did always seek to make it as painless and quick as possible. Even the aggressive wolves and bears he encountered bore no ill will from him. After all, they were just trying to survive too. This slight guilt also applied to looting and squatting in homes that were left vacant by the apocalypse. While he tried to take only what he needed, it was always in his nature to worry that the families would return one day and find their things missing.
One of the more interesting personality traits Chris discovered after the crash was his willingness to put his old life behind him and live completely alone. While he was initially recovering, it barely crossed his mind that he should search for survivors and a way back to his family. It was once his resources began to dwindle and he had to move on that he thought "maybe I should do something about this whole being stranded in the wilderness thing". He had thought he loved his family deeply and valued them above all else, but was quickly beginning to realize his true nature as somewhat selfish. He was enjoying himself. Why should he burden himself with two more mouths to feed? Furthermore, what if they didn't even survive the initial storm? Why waste time searching for them? Instead of dwelling on this, he chose to accept it and move on with survival, even if it meant he would never see his family again.
Danger never dissuaded Chris from doing what needed to be done. Tackling a wolf that's patrolling your makeshift front yard with just a knife? No problem. Chopping firewood in the middle of a blizzard? Had to be done. Ice fishing in below zero temperatures? A man's gotta eat. It's always been a bizzare conflict of a will to survive at all costs and a reckless disregard for his own safety. He would survive this apocalypse or die trying. That was all there was to it.
Honestly, over all, Chris just wants to experience the thrill of being at constant risk of death. He chose to make an easy life difficult, just for fun. He decided to climb a mountain to investigate a plume of smoke that he had no logical need to investigate past being curious. He learned to fly a plane in dangerous weather out of all the jobs he could have picked - again, just for the thrill of it.
On a more personal level, Chris is a cheerful fellow with a good sense of humor about life. He's a whistle-while-you-work kind of lively person. In the face of danger, he is equal parts excited to overcome the challenge and optimistic about the outcome. He never shies away from hard work, believing that struggle builds character.
Personality Shifts: N/A (True silent protag)
Abilities:
Bushcraft - This includes the following skillset:
- Food Foraging
- Trapping and Hunting Game
- Water Gathering and Purification
- Shelter Building
- Fire Building
Decorative Woodworking - Whilst not particularly practical, Chris can make beautiful carvings with a knife and a piece of wood. It's one of his favorite ways to pass time.
Piloting and Maintenance of Bush Planes - While it's not likely to be useful out here, he does know how to do it.
Inventory: Chris would have had so much stuff on him at the time of his death that I think it would be unfair to bring it all. Therefor, I'm going to say his backpack didn't make it through with him and he only has the things strapped to his body or in his pockets.
Clothing:
- Cotton plaid shirt
- wool longjohns
- cargo pants
- trail boots
- wool socks
- old-fashioned parka
- rabbitskin mittens
- wool toque
- wool scarf
Equipment:
- x1 Hatchet
- x1 Hunting Knife
- x1 firestriker (13 uses left)
Sample
Q&A:
Do you care about others, or would you rather let them fend for themselves?
Maybe it's the months of fending for myself in the wilderness, but I think everyone could do with a little self-reliance. It's not that I don't care at all. Quite the contrary, I want people to better themselves, to have the chance to experience themselves in their most raw and primal state. It brings out the true nature of a person.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to strive for the moral high ground? If so, how difficult was it?
I think I've been there, but I kind of failed to hit the high ground. See, I probably should have tried to get in touch with or search for my family when I first crashed. I probably should have worried about them. But the truth is, they would have weighed me down if I found them. I made peace with my decision, even though I miss them from time to time.
Is it difficult for you to get along with people? Why or why not?
To be honest with myself, yes. Nobody wants to admit they're antisocial, but I really don't see eye to eye with a lot of society's standards and that puts a damper on public relations. A lot of the decisions I've made will seem unusual, morally grey, or even objectively bad to others. I'm comfortable with that, though. I do what I need to do, even if others disagree.
Who is the most important person (or persons) in your life, and why?
This might make me sound a little selfish, but the most important person in my life is me. When it comes down to it, I'm all I've got. I've been through a lot in the past few months and learned that, in the words of an author I really can't remember the name of, "no matter where you go, there you are".
Do you prefer spending time with many people, a few friends, or by yourself?
Definitely prefer solitude. You learn a lot about yourself in silence. Actually, God, it's been three months since I heard another voice. Can you imagine that? How jarring it is to hear someone speak after all that time? Can't say I miss it, honestly. The tranquility of it was really refreshing.
How well do you think you perform under pressure?
Excellently. Under pressure is where I shine, really. It's also where I want to be. I love the thrill of it, the way it makes you drop the social act we all put on and be real for a minute.
What kind of impression do you think you give to others?
I'm probably that weird nature guy who spends too much time alone in his house. You know the type - always making their own stuff, growing their own food, taking hikes, owns a walking stick with fancy bone chimes on it. Came with the territory of being a bush pilot, honestly. Everyone expected me to be that way and I delivered.
