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Mar. 6th, 2019 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merbOUT OF CHARACTER:
Name/Handle: Li
Contact: @sojourney.plurk | Discord: Sphinx#5619
Other characters: N/A
DF Alum: No
Reserve: N/A
IN-CHARACTER:
Character name: Stork
Character journal: @merb
Series name: Storm Hawks @ Wikipedia
Canon notes: Post series, after they've crossed through the portal to the Far Side.
Species: Merb
Age: 23
Arrival Condition: Uninjured and healthy!
History: Stork @ Storm Hawks Wiki | Merbs @ Storm Hawks Wiki
Personality: The first thing that people notice about Stork is his paranoia and pessimism, which is a trademark of the Merb species due to the environment on their home terra; Stork is canonically described as being "pretty typical" for a Merb, behaviour-wise. On top of the usual fatalistic attitude that Merbs possess, Stork is also especially pathophobic (has the fear of diseases and contagions), and he constantly predicts the worst possible outcome of every situation, even when pessimism seems the most far-fetched result. He states that he "believes in pretty much everything", even when it comes to creatures, diseases, and threats that could be real or imagined -- and as a result, tries to plan for every situation.
Stork lives in essentially a constant state of stress, whether it be due to the Condor's constant need for upkeep and repair, the team's frequent encounters -- both on missions and unintentional -- with Cyclonians, and from dangerous places and creatures they often meet on their travels. Unlike the other squad members, he's almost never shown away from the bridge, and given his jumpy reactions, it's likely that he doesn't relax very often (the one time we do see him taking some downtime, he chooses to read on the bridge) and is likely something of an insomniac. One of his inventions is a trance helmet, which literally induces an unconscious sleep state that's only broken when the helmet is removed. For him to need something so drastic in order to relax -- and he actually refers to it as his "happy place" -- is very telling as to his average mental state.
Stork has quite a dark sense of humour. He once remarks to Piper that he wouldn't mind seeing Cyclonia's dungeons, and that the grim, creepy underside of their terra was "kind of homey". His cynicism is often mocking and sarcastic but expressed in a very dry way, though he seems to recognize this and use it to his advantage when interacting with his teammates. Stork enjoys doom poetry and tries to share it with the others from time to time, which is usually rebuffed most soundly by his teammates. He reads books with titles like "1001 Terrible Afflictions And The Hopeless Means Of Fighting Them". It's a bit of a contradiction because Stork, while being extremely defeatist and pessimistic (his catchphrase is "we're doomed" and is used often), does not generally fall into the category of morbid, wanting to avoid death at all costs. He doesn't like death, he just assumes it's always right around the corner.
Because his home terra is only mentioned in passing and his interactions with other Merbs are limited to a single episode, it's difficult to gauge how Stork feels about his people. He mentions that he escaped to the Wastelands when the Cyclonians invaded Merbia where he found and rebuilt the Condor, but even without the carrier's crystal key, he still rebuilt all the skimmers on board to prime working order, which means he could have left the Wastelands at any point… yet he didn't. Instead he chose to stay in a place where, in his own words, danger lurked at literally every turn and he was completely cut off from anyone, both ally and enemy. Since in the episode "Scout's Honour", we see that Merbian society is not disrupted enough for the state to miss noting that he's due for his yearly volunteer duty, and the Merb children who arrive certainly don't appear to be suffering under Cyclonian rule, it makes more sense that Stork has personal reasons for never showing interest in going back to his home terra beyond his attachment to the Condor.
This might lead to the conclusion that Stork is a coward, and as such might make him seem unreliable and thus not a welcome member of his squadron. Yet the difference is in between being cowardly versus being a coward. Stork is fearful, but he proves himself loyal to his squad and his ship over and over. When he's held hostage by the Murk Raiders (pirates) who threaten his life for leverage against Finn, he tells his teammate not to give them what they want because it will put a terra's population in jeopardy. In their first meeting, when the Condor looks as though it will crash into the Wastelands again and he's told it's "not worth it" and to "bail out", he refuses and says that "this pilot goes down with his ship!".
Stork prefers to avoid conflict, often choosing to stay with the Condor while the rest of the squad goes on missions, although he shows more initiative in the latter part of the series. The Condor is where he feels safest, having rigged it with countless booby traps throughout the series that have taken out many intruders who get aboard. This is Stork's element, and even when facing multiple or powerful opponents (the Raptors, or Master Cyclonis herself), his attitude can be cocky and assured. ("They found a way on board! Oh, this is really bad news... for them.") He's proud of what he builds, and recognition of it goes a long way with him. Stork is happiest with a wrench and spare parts; giving him some useless old piece of metal junk for him to tinker with is the nicest thing a person could do for him (short of leaving him alone). Stork is intelligent and having his preparedness rewarded is a balm to him, though he's not exactly modest about having his inventions turn out to be useful.
He is insanely protective of the Condor, referring to it as "his" ship constantly, and calling it "baby" and "beloved" on multiple occasions. He literally knows the carrier inside and out, its history, specs, and capability better than any other. When the Condor was eaten by the Leviathan, he goes into a state of "Sky Shock" where he moves through parodies of the stages of accepting death. In the episode "Dude, Where's My Condor" when the carrier is traded away while he's unconscious, he wakes up and completely freaks out about it, shrilly demanding to know "how could you trade away our home?!". When the ship is in danger, he often acts uncharacteristically brave in its defense, such as getting in the Colonel's face and shouting "then maybe you ought to try saving it!" when the rest of the squad are wary of angering the Colonel. Anytime the Condor is referred to as "just a ship", he gets irrationally angry and defensive about it. Despite his frequent complaining about the state of the carrier, he loves being its pilot. When the Condor was destroyed, he even went so far as to hunt down the Raptors on Terra Bogaton and dispatch them with very un-Stork-like ruthlessness. Facing the Raptor leader Repton, he even says he doesn't care that he's about to die since he no longer has the Condor. (Repton inadvertently reminds him he can rebuild it, giving Stork a belated epiphany and causing him to want to live again.) So there are limits that he can be pushed to, with the right circumstances, and those instances while few and far between, actually show Stork as someone not to be underestimated.
As protective as Stork is of the Condor, he is equally so of his teammates. Although he remarks at the beginning of the series that he's only with the Storm Hawks "until something better comes along", it's obvious that he doesn't mean this. A large factor of this is likely the age difference -- at the beginning of the series, Stork is already in his early 20's, while the rest of the squad are all 14. It's not a stretch to assume that he feels protective of the rest of his squad, a trait that is demonstrated in the series when his home terra sends him three Sky Scout children as part of his yearly volunteering dues, and while on a dangerous terra, Stork does his best to keep his charges from danger. Stork relies emotionally on his teammates as much as they do on him for his skills and knowledge, and they genuinely care about his well being. When the Condor's peculiarities cause him extreme stress, they're gentle and accommodating, even to his most panicked reactions where he's literally on the verge of having a complete meltdown. This is ultimately the best kind of environment for him, as the squad seems to know when to push him ("Stork, I know this may not be the best time for you, but we have impending doom at 11 o'clock!") and when to give him some space ("Don't worry buddy, when you wake up from your trance helmet, you won't even recognize the ship, it'll be like new… promise.")
His relationship with the individual Storm Hawks on the whole is good, despite his token frequent griping about their missions and some of their habits. He respects Aerrow greatly as their leader, obeying commands from him in battle strategy and tactics. Aerrow is also shown to be extraordinarily compassionate toward Stork's unique disposition, reassuring him when he's in the midst of a panic attack. Piper is his intellectual equivalent, although for crystal mastery more than mechanical, and as the ship's navigator, he works with her most often, and she's also the team member who most frequently stays behind on missions, next to himself. (She also makes excellent sandcakes, which are Stork's favourite snack.) He has a friendly rivalry with Finn, as the sharpshooter is the first to break his precious constructions or get them into trouble because of his rebellious streak. Despite this, Stork and Finn are actually shown to work well together. He is on good terms with Junko, being the other non-human on the team, and with Radarr, Stork is shown to be fairly positive, so long as Radarr isn't getting into his things.
Abilities: Stork is a mechanical genius, considered exceptional even among other Merbs, and an accomplished pilot. He was able to rebuild the Condor in the Wastelands by himself, and later builds a complete working skimmer from a pile of parts in just minutes. He has built all kinds of booby traps to protect himself on the Condor, and constructs scores of smaller gadgets for protection from various maladies that end up being useful to the team in other ways. Having been given the task of making sure their carrier ship, the Condor, didn't fall apart, he has learned all sorts of inventive ways to repair and fix the systems on board. While not on the same level as Piper for crystal knowledge, he is skilled enough to build specialized tools and devices for them, and to experiment with their effects.
He has an extraordinary memory and is able to recall nearly anything he's read, like statistics about how often people get sick and die from various things or (seemingly) completely random things, like the Condor's 46-digit registration number on cue. Enhanced memory is likely a racial trait, or at least an adaptively learned one for Merbs, given the constant upheaval on their home Terra, which would make keeping any kind of physical records an exercise in futility. Therefore most, if not all, of Merbian societal structure is verbally based.
Physically, he is extremely agile, and stronger than his gangly form suggests. Piloting the Condor, an older and heavy carrier, is very demanding, and several episodes display Stork literally heaving on the controls to keep the ship on course. In episode 17, Snipe rips the entire roll cage off of Stork's skimmer with one hand before swinging a mace at the merb, but Stork catches it and is able to prevent Snipe from landing the blow, who looks shocked at being stopped. Stork is able to hold his own against Snipe's wrestling for several moments before launching him away with an ejector seat. In episode 49, he's able to dispatch an entire squad of Raptors one by one in stealthy Rambo style (grabbing them and hauling them off quickly enough to escape detection, even though they're significantly larger and heavier than he is) and even goes toe to toe in combat with the Raptor's leader, Repton.
Personal Item: His mechanic's toolkit (non-powered, just assorted tools in it)
Sample: Event top level from @hadriel
Name/Handle: Li
Contact: @sojourney.plurk | Discord: Sphinx#5619
Other characters: N/A
DF Alum: No
Reserve: N/A
IN-CHARACTER:
Character name: Stork
Character journal: @merb
Series name: Storm Hawks @ Wikipedia
Canon notes: Post series, after they've crossed through the portal to the Far Side.
Species: Merb
Age: 23
Arrival Condition: Uninjured and healthy!
History: Stork @ Storm Hawks Wiki | Merbs @ Storm Hawks Wiki
Personality: The first thing that people notice about Stork is his paranoia and pessimism, which is a trademark of the Merb species due to the environment on their home terra; Stork is canonically described as being "pretty typical" for a Merb, behaviour-wise. On top of the usual fatalistic attitude that Merbs possess, Stork is also especially pathophobic (has the fear of diseases and contagions), and he constantly predicts the worst possible outcome of every situation, even when pessimism seems the most far-fetched result. He states that he "believes in pretty much everything", even when it comes to creatures, diseases, and threats that could be real or imagined -- and as a result, tries to plan for every situation.
Stork lives in essentially a constant state of stress, whether it be due to the Condor's constant need for upkeep and repair, the team's frequent encounters -- both on missions and unintentional -- with Cyclonians, and from dangerous places and creatures they often meet on their travels. Unlike the other squad members, he's almost never shown away from the bridge, and given his jumpy reactions, it's likely that he doesn't relax very often (the one time we do see him taking some downtime, he chooses to read on the bridge) and is likely something of an insomniac. One of his inventions is a trance helmet, which literally induces an unconscious sleep state that's only broken when the helmet is removed. For him to need something so drastic in order to relax -- and he actually refers to it as his "happy place" -- is very telling as to his average mental state.
Stork has quite a dark sense of humour. He once remarks to Piper that he wouldn't mind seeing Cyclonia's dungeons, and that the grim, creepy underside of their terra was "kind of homey". His cynicism is often mocking and sarcastic but expressed in a very dry way, though he seems to recognize this and use it to his advantage when interacting with his teammates. Stork enjoys doom poetry and tries to share it with the others from time to time, which is usually rebuffed most soundly by his teammates. He reads books with titles like "1001 Terrible Afflictions And The Hopeless Means Of Fighting Them". It's a bit of a contradiction because Stork, while being extremely defeatist and pessimistic (his catchphrase is "we're doomed" and is used often), does not generally fall into the category of morbid, wanting to avoid death at all costs. He doesn't like death, he just assumes it's always right around the corner.
Because his home terra is only mentioned in passing and his interactions with other Merbs are limited to a single episode, it's difficult to gauge how Stork feels about his people. He mentions that he escaped to the Wastelands when the Cyclonians invaded Merbia where he found and rebuilt the Condor, but even without the carrier's crystal key, he still rebuilt all the skimmers on board to prime working order, which means he could have left the Wastelands at any point… yet he didn't. Instead he chose to stay in a place where, in his own words, danger lurked at literally every turn and he was completely cut off from anyone, both ally and enemy. Since in the episode "Scout's Honour", we see that Merbian society is not disrupted enough for the state to miss noting that he's due for his yearly volunteer duty, and the Merb children who arrive certainly don't appear to be suffering under Cyclonian rule, it makes more sense that Stork has personal reasons for never showing interest in going back to his home terra beyond his attachment to the Condor.
This might lead to the conclusion that Stork is a coward, and as such might make him seem unreliable and thus not a welcome member of his squadron. Yet the difference is in between being cowardly versus being a coward. Stork is fearful, but he proves himself loyal to his squad and his ship over and over. When he's held hostage by the Murk Raiders (pirates) who threaten his life for leverage against Finn, he tells his teammate not to give them what they want because it will put a terra's population in jeopardy. In their first meeting, when the Condor looks as though it will crash into the Wastelands again and he's told it's "not worth it" and to "bail out", he refuses and says that "this pilot goes down with his ship!".
Stork prefers to avoid conflict, often choosing to stay with the Condor while the rest of the squad goes on missions, although he shows more initiative in the latter part of the series. The Condor is where he feels safest, having rigged it with countless booby traps throughout the series that have taken out many intruders who get aboard. This is Stork's element, and even when facing multiple or powerful opponents (the Raptors, or Master Cyclonis herself), his attitude can be cocky and assured. ("They found a way on board! Oh, this is really bad news... for them.") He's proud of what he builds, and recognition of it goes a long way with him. Stork is happiest with a wrench and spare parts; giving him some useless old piece of metal junk for him to tinker with is the nicest thing a person could do for him (short of leaving him alone). Stork is intelligent and having his preparedness rewarded is a balm to him, though he's not exactly modest about having his inventions turn out to be useful.
He is insanely protective of the Condor, referring to it as "his" ship constantly, and calling it "baby" and "beloved" on multiple occasions. He literally knows the carrier inside and out, its history, specs, and capability better than any other. When the Condor was eaten by the Leviathan, he goes into a state of "Sky Shock" where he moves through parodies of the stages of accepting death. In the episode "Dude, Where's My Condor" when the carrier is traded away while he's unconscious, he wakes up and completely freaks out about it, shrilly demanding to know "how could you trade away our home?!". When the ship is in danger, he often acts uncharacteristically brave in its defense, such as getting in the Colonel's face and shouting "then maybe you ought to try saving it!" when the rest of the squad are wary of angering the Colonel. Anytime the Condor is referred to as "just a ship", he gets irrationally angry and defensive about it. Despite his frequent complaining about the state of the carrier, he loves being its pilot. When the Condor was destroyed, he even went so far as to hunt down the Raptors on Terra Bogaton and dispatch them with very un-Stork-like ruthlessness. Facing the Raptor leader Repton, he even says he doesn't care that he's about to die since he no longer has the Condor. (Repton inadvertently reminds him he can rebuild it, giving Stork a belated epiphany and causing him to want to live again.) So there are limits that he can be pushed to, with the right circumstances, and those instances while few and far between, actually show Stork as someone not to be underestimated.
As protective as Stork is of the Condor, he is equally so of his teammates. Although he remarks at the beginning of the series that he's only with the Storm Hawks "until something better comes along", it's obvious that he doesn't mean this. A large factor of this is likely the age difference -- at the beginning of the series, Stork is already in his early 20's, while the rest of the squad are all 14. It's not a stretch to assume that he feels protective of the rest of his squad, a trait that is demonstrated in the series when his home terra sends him three Sky Scout children as part of his yearly volunteering dues, and while on a dangerous terra, Stork does his best to keep his charges from danger. Stork relies emotionally on his teammates as much as they do on him for his skills and knowledge, and they genuinely care about his well being. When the Condor's peculiarities cause him extreme stress, they're gentle and accommodating, even to his most panicked reactions where he's literally on the verge of having a complete meltdown. This is ultimately the best kind of environment for him, as the squad seems to know when to push him ("Stork, I know this may not be the best time for you, but we have impending doom at 11 o'clock!") and when to give him some space ("Don't worry buddy, when you wake up from your trance helmet, you won't even recognize the ship, it'll be like new… promise.")
His relationship with the individual Storm Hawks on the whole is good, despite his token frequent griping about their missions and some of their habits. He respects Aerrow greatly as their leader, obeying commands from him in battle strategy and tactics. Aerrow is also shown to be extraordinarily compassionate toward Stork's unique disposition, reassuring him when he's in the midst of a panic attack. Piper is his intellectual equivalent, although for crystal mastery more than mechanical, and as the ship's navigator, he works with her most often, and she's also the team member who most frequently stays behind on missions, next to himself. (She also makes excellent sandcakes, which are Stork's favourite snack.) He has a friendly rivalry with Finn, as the sharpshooter is the first to break his precious constructions or get them into trouble because of his rebellious streak. Despite this, Stork and Finn are actually shown to work well together. He is on good terms with Junko, being the other non-human on the team, and with Radarr, Stork is shown to be fairly positive, so long as Radarr isn't getting into his things.
Abilities: Stork is a mechanical genius, considered exceptional even among other Merbs, and an accomplished pilot. He was able to rebuild the Condor in the Wastelands by himself, and later builds a complete working skimmer from a pile of parts in just minutes. He has built all kinds of booby traps to protect himself on the Condor, and constructs scores of smaller gadgets for protection from various maladies that end up being useful to the team in other ways. Having been given the task of making sure their carrier ship, the Condor, didn't fall apart, he has learned all sorts of inventive ways to repair and fix the systems on board. While not on the same level as Piper for crystal knowledge, he is skilled enough to build specialized tools and devices for them, and to experiment with their effects.
He has an extraordinary memory and is able to recall nearly anything he's read, like statistics about how often people get sick and die from various things or (seemingly) completely random things, like the Condor's 46-digit registration number on cue. Enhanced memory is likely a racial trait, or at least an adaptively learned one for Merbs, given the constant upheaval on their home Terra, which would make keeping any kind of physical records an exercise in futility. Therefore most, if not all, of Merbian societal structure is verbally based.
Physically, he is extremely agile, and stronger than his gangly form suggests. Piloting the Condor, an older and heavy carrier, is very demanding, and several episodes display Stork literally heaving on the controls to keep the ship on course. In episode 17, Snipe rips the entire roll cage off of Stork's skimmer with one hand before swinging a mace at the merb, but Stork catches it and is able to prevent Snipe from landing the blow, who looks shocked at being stopped. Stork is able to hold his own against Snipe's wrestling for several moments before launching him away with an ejector seat. In episode 49, he's able to dispatch an entire squad of Raptors one by one in stealthy Rambo style (grabbing them and hauling them off quickly enough to escape detection, even though they're significantly larger and heavier than he is) and even goes toe to toe in combat with the Raptor's leader, Repton.
Personal Item: His mechanic's toolkit (non-powered, just assorted tools in it)
Sample: Event top level from @hadriel
