» PLAYER INFORMATION Player NAME: Jean Current AGE: 21 Player TIME ZONE: EST Personal JOURNAL: vendingmachine IM & SERVICE: AIM: vendingmachinedd Player PLURK: cakejustice Current CHARACTERS: Sollux Captor
» CHARACTER INFORMATION Character NAME: Lowell Orwin Character JOB: As Temporal Engineer, he'd be the one in charge of the Transporter's hardware, making sure it runs properly and probably being That Guy Who Pushes The Button when people are going out on missions.
Character HISTORY: Lowell was born in England twenty five years ago, or well, Exsillium as it is now. His family originally descended (some 300 or so years ago) from Scotland, but were exiled to Exsilium in the year 3012. They were the lucky ones. The Orwin family, during the initial rebellion, had split in two directions. Lowell's great-great-great parents had chosen to accept being exiled to Exsilium for the sake of preserving their lives. The rest… well. "They may take out lives, but they'll never take our freedom" is a cliched, but accurate summary of what happened to the rest of the Orwin family. Lowell's surviving ancestors, despite their "betrayal" by not fighting their exile, were still proud Scots. They were determined to keep their culture alive and thus have kept the tradition of teaching their children (and their children's children, etc) to speak the Scottish language and when speaking English, to do so with a Scottish accent rather than the traditional English one. This is a bit of a sticking point though, because wow what a weird accent, and sometimes Lowell will speak in a English accent to fit in better. His younger and older sisters (he, being the awkward and only male middle child) however have no problem with constantly using their Scottish accent regardless of the circumstances. However, Lowell lacks the courage that they possess, and he knows it.
Getting a good education was also really important to Lowell's parents, and so his parents pushed him and his sisters hard to learn as much as he could. And while many subjects of high paying jobs didn't catch his interest- engineering did. He's very intelligent, despite the meager schooling he's acquired due to Exsilium's lack of resources, and his sisters, Blair (older) and Matilda (younger) did similarly well. Lowell was known as a bit of a troublemaker as a kid for snooping or getting into things he shouldn't have, due to his curiosity. It was during a bout of his curiosity when he was eight that lead him to get into trouble with a group of older boys who saw fit to essentially beat the shit out of him to teach him to keep his nose out of everything. It worked the first time, Lowell going home and sneaking up to his room to try and fix his face as best he could without his parents finding out. It took some effort, but he managed to get through the experience without further incident.
The problem started when said gang of older boys decided they liked beating up kids who didn't squeal on them. It took to the fourth time for someone to actually interfere. Another older boy named Maxwell had noticed the third time Lowell was being beat up, but hadn't done anything at first. It wasn't until the gang of boys had threatened Lowell's books that he had actually given them a reaction; those books were expensive and ones in relatively good condition were hard to find. They had started to tear out the pages, and Lowell flipped out, swinging fists wildly and aimlessly, punching a boy in the stomach hard enough for him to drop the book. That's when all things went to hell, and Maxwell stepped in. From that day on, the two boys developed a friendship that would reach bro status.
The two are from very different worlds. Maxwell was more like the other boys in their age group who was more willing to try and steal things from the local stores to see if he could get away with it, a behavior that Lowell would rather keep away from. But something in Maxwell inspired him to consider Lowell like a little brother and to thus be his protector. The two would hang out most days, Lowell often with some small booklet to study while they were hanging out, and partially to help educate Maxwell. The latter had dropped out of school years ago in favor of getting a job, more out of necessity than to not learn. They were balanced with each other, Maxwell there to protect Lowell physically, and Lowell there to hear out Maxwell when no one would, because of his difficulty controlling his emotions.
As Lowell aged, his grades and initiative (lol) to learn engineering and physics had him noticed by an engineer in the Initiative Organization who had been looking for new recruits. Lowell agreed instantly, hoping the paycheck would help his family. While not exactly struggling, before his acquiring of a job with the Initiative, he has always been rather dead weight on the family. Blair had excelled at management positions, and is a property manager of several high renting buildings of which their parents now live, and was carrying most of the family's paychecks with her job. Matilda was very into music, but unfortunately that isn't a well paying job in an Exile community, and so she's been bouncing from job to job for a while, as had Lowell until the Initiative's offer.
He didn't really understand fully what he was signing up for, didn't know that working for some "top secret organization" was also going to involve time and space travel, and that he'd be working on a huge project that crossed multidimensional borders. The woman that had recruited him (Dr. Sarah Rose) eventually became his mentor, and he started working for the Initiative about 3310, only two years before the Transport program kicked off. All he really knew at the time was that the Initiative had plans to use time travel to change the past. Originally he had some doubts, that too much altering to the past could mess up the future, but as a low level assistant, he didn't have much of a voice in the outcome anyway. Eventually he rose through the ranks to a high level assistant, and despite his lack of leadership skills or ability to keep his head in panic situations, he knows the transporter machine inside and out.
As for Lowell's friendship with Maxwell, every day for years the two would spend every day together, but as time progressed, Lowell wound up ignoring Maxwell unintentionally. It'd start with small things. He'd get so wrapped up in his work that he'd forget that they made plans to hang out, and then he'd forget birthdays, and then he'd just not speak to Maxwell for months on end. They still spoke somewhat often, but given the nature of the Initiative's secrecy and intensive work, Lowell hasn't really spoken much to too him for the past few years.
It was only a short while before Black Code was issued that Lowell was sent up to the moon base to assure that the machine up there was in perfect working order. It was his first big "you're doing this on your own" mission, and he did well. He was pretty confident with himself, and had been arranging his trip back to the Initiative headquarters when the Black Code was issued. And well, he's been up there since. Quietly panicking. The whole time.
Several times he has sent out messages to his family, has even spoken to them via video communicator a few times, and the whole time unable to tell them why he was getting choked up every time they spoke. Lowell sent out similar attempts to communicate with Maxwell, after realizing that his sudden disappearance and lack of contact would have worried the other, but has not received any reply. He chalked it up to Maxwell being unable to find a communication device that worked, but the real answer is that while currently unknown to Lowell, Maxwell died in the bombing incident that happened a few months ago. It's for the best right now, the HR department decided, that he doesn't find out too soon anyway. While all citizens of Exsilium are expected to die in Black Code, and then later revived due to the work of the Transports, deaths that occur before the Black Code event aren't guaranteed to be brought back to life. And that kind of information would lead to Lowell's potential instability and jeopardize the mission. So keeping it on the down low is pretty important.
Character PERSONALITY: Lowell is not used to being "in charge" of anything. He is the middle child in his immediate family and while he looks up to the head engineer like an idol, he is an assistant engineer at best. Suddenly being one of the last guys left, and somewhat in charge of fixing the situation that killed them all off? PANIC MODE, INITIATED.
It was a matter of coincidence that he was picked to be one of the chosen Initiative employees to survive Black Code. He had already been up on the moon base for a week, and his already deep knowledge of the transporter made him ideal for the job, despite his… anxiety issues and inability to remain cool under pressure. His reaction when first told of the Black Code situation was to violently stutter that he couldn't, and then once told of the significance that he, as an individual in the best position to do it, should do it, he numbly agreed. Once the transmission feed went off, he proceeded to punch the nearest available chair, tried to calm down by repeating to himself "I can do it", and then started to wildly throw his fists into the air and jump up and down in frustration. This only lasted a few minutes, thankfully, but he's had momentary breakdowns over the past week while waiting for the Initiative to give the orders to start teleporting people onto the Moon Base. He hasn't fully "lost it" yet but… when he loses it, he really loses it.
It isn't that he's so easily pushed to the edge. Lowell is typically a more relaxed individual, when huge pressures aren't coming down on him. Maxwell definitely helped in Lowell's education of "how to have fun and not be so uptight all the time" because that used to be a real issue for him. It took some timely reeducation that involved one late night graffiti, two skipping of school, and seven prank phone calls for Lowell to really enjoy just being a kid for a short while. Luckily, that stuck with him ever since, despite his workaholic tendencies. He likes to have fun like most people, although notably AFTER work has been fully completed for the day. He has a tendency to like some really ancient music (called "Fuchsia Floyd" or something), and is overall a pretty average guy with some major stress issues. It's a bit of surprise to him that he hasn't started going grey prematurely with how much he gets worried as of late.
Lowell doesn't really tend to get close to people, outside of his family and Maxwell. As a boy who spent most of his time studying, friends weren't too high on the list of concerns, and considering the often depressing hobbies of boys his age (wandering into the borderlands, poking at dead things with sticks, experimenting with UE drugs…) he doesn't feel like he's missed anything. Technology soon became his good friend, and probably the closest he'll get to ever having an intimate relationship with someone. The level he cares for his tech and the tech that his job now employs him to take care of ascends that of any actual person.
» SAMPLES First PERSON or Third PERSON:
...Hi.
[Lowell starts, squinting a bit at the camera propped up in front of him, precariously perched on a stack of binders and papers to be at the right heigh for him to broadcast from without holding it.]
I'm the assista-… Head, now. Head Temporal Engineer.
[He doesn't realize- and won't realize until after he's made the post, that he forgot to mention his name. He adjusts his tie briefly, takes a deep, slightly shaky sigh, and then steps aside from the camera frame to show the large and loud, humming Transport Pads.]
And this, as most of you are familiar with, is the Transport Pads. Also known as, your way out of here. No offense to Hydroponics, but food growth is slow and not enough to sustain three-hundred-plus people for an extended amount of time right now. And I know that… It's going to be hard to stay up here all the time. So you're going to want to use this baby to get out of here as much as possible. Which is … fine. But there's rules. One, you need to get your time and location cleared by the time specialists and programmers. Two, going anywhere takes up a lot of power. You f-
[He stops himself, like he's trying not to swear on video, but then sighs harshly again, and continues.]
You fuck it up, and you're putting the rest of us here without power for however long it takes for me to cool down the engines again. Which makes me exactly one hundred percent less inclined to let you go anywhere ever again. We're clear, yeah? Please don't make me repeat this again. I don't like public speaking.
[And with that, Lowell brings a hand to shut off the feed… and misses, pushing the camera off the perch of papers and binders, knocking it onto the floor and… still recording. Lowell curses and runs over to the camera and the last picture is his deeply concerned face as he finally turns off the video. Be grateful, because the next minute consisted of Lowell gently stroking his communicator and shushing it, promising the communicator he'd not do that again.]
» ADDITIONAL NOTES FIXED SOME STUFF IN THE ORIGINAL APP but i will go into more on the personality section if it seems lacking to you guys.
as i keep editing this...
Player NAME: Jean
Current AGE: 21
Player TIME ZONE: EST
Personal JOURNAL: vendingmachine
IM & SERVICE: AIM: vendingmachinedd
Player PLURK: cakejustice
Current CHARACTERS: Sollux Captor
» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Lowell Orwin
Character JOB: As Temporal Engineer, he'd be the one in charge of the Transporter's hardware, making sure it runs properly and probably being That Guy Who Pushes The Button when people are going out on missions.
Character HISTORY: Lowell was born in England twenty five years ago, or well, Exsillium as it is now. His family originally descended (some 300 or so years ago) from Scotland, but were exiled to Exsilium in the year 3012. They were the lucky ones. The Orwin family, during the initial rebellion, had split in two directions. Lowell's great-great-great parents had chosen to accept being exiled to Exsilium for the sake of preserving their lives. The rest… well. "They may take out lives, but they'll never take our freedom" is a cliched, but accurate summary of what happened to the rest of the Orwin family. Lowell's surviving ancestors, despite their "betrayal" by not fighting their exile, were still proud Scots. They were determined to keep their culture alive and thus have kept the tradition of teaching their children (and their children's children, etc) to speak the Scottish language and when speaking English, to do so with a Scottish accent rather than the traditional English one. This is a bit of a sticking point though, because wow what a weird accent, and sometimes Lowell will speak in a English accent to fit in better. His younger and older sisters (he, being the awkward and only male middle child) however have no problem with constantly using their Scottish accent regardless of the circumstances. However, Lowell lacks the courage that they possess, and he knows it.
Getting a good education was also really important to Lowell's parents, and so his parents pushed him and his sisters hard to learn as much as he could. And while many subjects of high paying jobs didn't catch his interest- engineering did. He's very intelligent, despite the meager schooling he's acquired due to Exsilium's lack of resources, and his sisters, Blair (older) and Matilda (younger) did similarly well. Lowell was known as a bit of a troublemaker as a kid for snooping or getting into things he shouldn't have, due to his curiosity. It was during a bout of his curiosity when he was eight that lead him to get into trouble with a group of older boys who saw fit to essentially beat the shit out of him to teach him to keep his nose out of everything. It worked the first time, Lowell going home and sneaking up to his room to try and fix his face as best he could without his parents finding out. It took some effort, but he managed to get through the experience without further incident.
The problem started when said gang of older boys decided they liked beating up kids who didn't squeal on them. It took to the fourth time for someone to actually interfere. Another older boy named Maxwell had noticed the third time Lowell was being beat up, but hadn't done anything at first. It wasn't until the gang of boys had threatened Lowell's books that he had actually given them a reaction; those books were expensive and ones in relatively good condition were hard to find. They had started to tear out the pages, and Lowell flipped out, swinging fists wildly and aimlessly, punching a boy in the stomach hard enough for him to drop the book. That's when all things went to hell, and Maxwell stepped in. From that day on, the two boys developed a friendship that would reach bro status.
The two are from very different worlds. Maxwell was more like the other boys in their age group who was more willing to try and steal things from the local stores to see if he could get away with it, a behavior that Lowell would rather keep away from. But something in Maxwell inspired him to consider Lowell like a little brother and to thus be his protector. The two would hang out most days, Lowell often with some small booklet to study while they were hanging out, and partially to help educate Maxwell. The latter had dropped out of school years ago in favor of getting a job, more out of necessity than to not learn. They were balanced with each other, Maxwell there to protect Lowell physically, and Lowell there to hear out Maxwell when no one would, because of his difficulty controlling his emotions.
As Lowell aged, his grades and initiative (lol) to learn engineering and physics had him noticed by an engineer in the Initiative Organization who had been looking for new recruits. Lowell agreed instantly, hoping the paycheck would help his family. While not exactly struggling, before his acquiring of a job with the Initiative, he has always been rather dead weight on the family. Blair had excelled at management positions, and is a property manager of several high renting buildings of which their parents now live, and was carrying most of the family's paychecks with her job. Matilda was very into music, but unfortunately that isn't a well paying job in an Exile community, and so she's been bouncing from job to job for a while, as had Lowell until the Initiative's offer.
He didn't really understand fully what he was signing up for, didn't know that working for some "top secret organization" was also going to involve time and space travel, and that he'd be working on a huge project that crossed multidimensional borders. The woman that had recruited him (Dr. Sarah Rose) eventually became his mentor, and he started working for the Initiative about 3310, only two years before the Transport program kicked off. All he really knew at the time was that the Initiative had plans to use time travel to change the past. Originally he had some doubts, that too much altering to the past could mess up the future, but as a low level assistant, he didn't have much of a voice in the outcome anyway. Eventually he rose through the ranks to a high level assistant, and despite his lack of leadership skills or ability to keep his head in panic situations, he knows the transporter machine inside and out.
As for Lowell's friendship with Maxwell, every day for years the two would spend every day together, but as time progressed, Lowell wound up ignoring Maxwell unintentionally. It'd start with small things. He'd get so wrapped up in his work that he'd forget that they made plans to hang out, and then he'd forget birthdays, and then he'd just not speak to Maxwell for months on end. They still spoke somewhat often, but given the nature of the Initiative's secrecy and intensive work, Lowell hasn't really spoken much to too him for the past few years.
It was only a short while before Black Code was issued that Lowell was sent up to the moon base to assure that the machine up there was in perfect working order. It was his first big "you're doing this on your own" mission, and he did well. He was pretty confident with himself, and had been arranging his trip back to the Initiative headquarters when the Black Code was issued. And well, he's been up there since. Quietly panicking. The whole time.
Several times he has sent out messages to his family, has even spoken to them via video communicator a few times, and the whole time unable to tell them why he was getting choked up every time they spoke. Lowell sent out similar attempts to communicate with Maxwell, after realizing that his sudden disappearance and lack of contact would have worried the other, but has not received any reply. He chalked it up to Maxwell being unable to find a communication device that worked, but the real answer is that while currently unknown to Lowell, Maxwell died in the bombing incident that happened a few months ago. It's for the best right now, the HR department decided, that he doesn't find out too soon anyway. While all citizens of Exsilium are expected to die in Black Code, and then later revived due to the work of the Transports, deaths that occur before the Black Code event aren't guaranteed to be brought back to life. And that kind of information would lead to Lowell's potential instability and jeopardize the mission. So keeping it on the down low is pretty important.
Character PERSONALITY:
Lowell is not used to being "in charge" of anything. He is the middle child in his immediate family and while he looks up to the head engineer like an idol, he is an assistant engineer at best. Suddenly being one of the last guys left, and somewhat in charge of fixing the situation that killed them all off? PANIC MODE, INITIATED.
It was a matter of coincidence that he was picked to be one of the chosen Initiative employees to survive Black Code. He had already been up on the moon base for a week, and his already deep knowledge of the transporter made him ideal for the job, despite his… anxiety issues and inability to remain cool under pressure. His reaction when first told of the Black Code situation was to violently stutter that he couldn't, and then once told of the significance that he, as an individual in the best position to do it, should do it, he numbly agreed. Once the transmission feed went off, he proceeded to punch the nearest available chair, tried to calm down by repeating to himself "I can do it", and then started to wildly throw his fists into the air and jump up and down in frustration. This only lasted a few minutes, thankfully, but he's had momentary breakdowns over the past week while waiting for the Initiative to give the orders to start teleporting people onto the Moon Base. He hasn't fully "lost it" yet but… when he loses it, he really loses it.
It isn't that he's so easily pushed to the edge. Lowell is typically a more relaxed individual, when huge pressures aren't coming down on him. Maxwell definitely helped in Lowell's education of "how to have fun and not be so uptight all the time" because that used to be a real issue for him. It took some timely reeducation that involved one late night graffiti, two skipping of school, and seven prank phone calls for Lowell to really enjoy just being a kid for a short while. Luckily, that stuck with him ever since, despite his workaholic tendencies. He likes to have fun like most people, although notably AFTER work has been fully completed for the day. He has a tendency to like some really ancient music (called "Fuchsia Floyd" or something), and is overall a pretty average guy with some major stress issues. It's a bit of surprise to him that he hasn't started going grey prematurely with how much he gets worried as of late.
Lowell doesn't really tend to get close to people, outside of his family and Maxwell. As a boy who spent most of his time studying, friends weren't too high on the list of concerns, and considering the often depressing hobbies of boys his age (wandering into the borderlands, poking at dead things with sticks, experimenting with UE drugs…) he doesn't feel like he's missed anything. Technology soon became his good friend, and probably the closest he'll get to ever having an intimate relationship with someone. The level he cares for his tech and the tech that his job now employs him to take care of ascends that of any actual person.
» SAMPLES
First PERSON or Third PERSON:
...Hi.
[Lowell starts, squinting a bit at the camera propped up in front of him, precariously perched on a stack of binders and papers to be at the right heigh for him to broadcast from without holding it.]
I'm the assista-… Head, now. Head Temporal Engineer.
[He doesn't realize- and won't realize until after he's made the post, that he forgot to mention his name. He adjusts his tie briefly, takes a deep, slightly shaky sigh, and then steps aside from the camera frame to show the large and loud, humming Transport Pads.]
And this, as most of you are familiar with, is the Transport Pads. Also known as, your way out of here. No offense to Hydroponics, but food growth is slow and not enough to sustain three-hundred-plus people for an extended amount of time right now. And I know that… It's going to be hard to stay up here all the time. So you're going to want to use this baby to get out of here as much as possible. Which is … fine. But there's rules. One, you need to get your time and location cleared by the time specialists and programmers. Two, going anywhere takes up a lot of power. You f-
[He stops himself, like he's trying not to swear on video, but then sighs harshly again, and continues.]
You fuck it up, and you're putting the rest of us here without power for however long it takes for me to cool down the engines again. Which makes me exactly one hundred percent less inclined to let you go anywhere ever again. We're clear, yeah? Please don't make me repeat this again. I don't like public speaking.
[And with that, Lowell brings a hand to shut off the feed… and misses, pushing the camera off the perch of papers and binders, knocking it onto the floor and… still recording. Lowell curses and runs over to the camera and the last picture is his deeply concerned face as he finally turns off the video. Be grateful, because the next minute consisted of Lowell gently stroking his communicator and shushing it, promising the communicator he'd not do that again.]
» ADDITIONAL NOTES
FIXED SOME STUFF IN THE ORIGINAL APP but i will go into more on the personality section if it seems lacking to you guys.