forestcovered | Application (WIP)

[cephalopop]

( PLAYER INFORMATION )

Name: Lo
Contact: khajidont
Are you over 17?: Yes
Characters in Forest Covered: n/a

( CHARACTER INFORMATION )

Name/Work Name: Marlin Ayling/"Ernest"
Canon: Original character
Canon Point: During his daughter's second year of high school
AU/CRAU: N
Age:
History: A link to a wiki will suffice, but if the information provided doesn't appear detailed enough, we would appreciate an expanded history that contains enough detail that would help us understand what they have been through. OCs and AU characters will be graded to a harsher standard than characters fresh from a published series -- your application is all we have of your canon, so please make it count!
Personality: We would like a minimum of three paragraphs describing your understanding of your character’s personality; basic things that make them tick, things that motivate them, things that are core to them. You can write as much as necessary to convey what you know of this character and how it portrays them. Please treat us like we are canon-blind (unless we definitely are, in which case--) and be as thorough as you can be.

Debt:

Marlin's wish is for his daughter to have a fair shot at attending medical college. The Ayling family's restaurant pulls enough profit to keep a roof over their heads and afford them a few small luxuries, but Marlin knows the restaurant alone can't fund his ambitious daughter’s next steps.

Even if they had the funds, Marlin knows that the way the rest of the world views Maya may hold her back. It breaks his heart to know his daughter may never achieve her childhood dream, despite how hard she works. She has so much potential to achieve, he knows it...but even at her young age, Maya's eccentric and socially-offbeat nature has already prevented her from being offered the same opportunities as her peers. She doesn't have the same hope of scholarship that they do, even though she could easily compete with them on grounds of skill, intelligence, and devotion to the field.

All Marlin wants is a chance for Maya to show herself and what she can do, and he believes only the Witch can help.


Previous Game Info: n/a

Inventory:

Casual outfit: T-shirt, knee-length shorts, long open sweater, sandals, beaded necklace, hair-tie & earrings.

Wallet: Containing money, credit cards, shopping lists, other normal things found in a wallet. Most important to him are the photos of his family, he'll want to get those back if nothing else.

Keys: A simple bundle of keys for use back home. They have a few goofy charms attached to them.

Business cards: For the restaurant. You never know when you're going to run into a touristing family in want of someplace new to eat! They're pretty useless to have here, though.

Abilities:

Proficient chef: Cooking is Marlin's lifelong passion. In his youth he worked in kitchens across the globe, and after 18 years spent running his own restaurant, he has a formidable amount of experience under his belt. Most of the dishes served by the Ayling restaurant are his own creations, heavily influenced by the traditional foods he loved back in his homeland and given a foreign twist with the inspiration he picked up along his travels. He can prepare hundreds of dishes from memory with excellent attention to detail, and can chop vegetables at a frightful speed that would make anyone more kitchen-shy wince (his deftness with a blade wasn’t earned without a few scars, but mercifully all his fingertips are still intact).

Great memory-recall: It's not only recipes that Marlin can recall with ease, but personal details about friends and patrons alike. He knows all the allergies and intolerances of his marine hybrid regulars — though it's always safest to check — and even remembers smaller preferences like how hard they like their noodles cooked. Because he loves people he really listens when they talk to him. The kind of guy who knows the birthdays of all his daughter's friends, and where his patrons went on holiday last summer (and the two summers before that).

Adept with languages: This won't be a necessary skill in a place where characters' words are automatically translated, but it's worth it to mention that Marlin has a talent for learning languages. He can speak in eight different tongues to varying degrees of fluency, and over his travels has developed a number of strategies to aid in his learning. It's skill that's easily transferable to other systems such as codes. His daughter is learning sign language to help a hearing-impaired friend who sometimes visits the Ayling family home and business, and Marlin has seen fit to begin learning himself, with Maya and Steph's help.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

Strengths:

Easily accepting of others: His experience having lived and worked in many different countries has meant Marlin has gotten to know people of all different cultures, upbringings and values. He’s seen people at their best and worst, and the interactions he’s had over his years of work and travel have instilled in him the belief that all people deserve patience and understanding. There are absolutely people who Marlin finds he doesn’t mesh well with, but he tries his best to approach everyone from a place of respect.

Good at maintaining an even-temper: A saintly level of patience is necessary raising a child like Maya and it does a world of good in Marlin's profession, too. Marlin is a naturally patient, upbeat kind of person who knows how to keep the mood light and the people around him in good spirits. He's level-headed enough to keep his game together even when others are panicking and things are falling apart around him (even when he's inwardly worried himself), which usually helps since other people are influenced by his calm. But that's not to say that he doesn't ever get flustered, of course...

Community-minded: In his youth Marlin enjoyed travelling around, savouring each new place for a few of days to a few months before moving on. Since settling permanently in Fire Bay, however, he's learned the value of being a part of a local community, seeing how it grows and changes and doing what he can to help make it a better place. One of the very reasons for opening his restaurant was because he realised there were no venues through which tourists and locals could get to know one another. He helps out in whatever ways he can to support his neighbours, whether it's taking groceries to somebody left housebound by sickness, or assisting with repairs after a storm damaged another local business. In a game he'd treat his new surroundings the same way, looking out for others and trying to help make things better for everybody.

Streetwise: Marlin may be kindly and may want to trust in everybody, but he's not a fool, either. He keeps a close eye on the wellbeing of both his family and his staff, and is quick to turf-out any troublemakers who may find their way into his business. He's a difficult man to con or steal from, as he's been all around the world and has lived in some rough places. Opportunists have made a mug out of him more times than he'd like to admit, so he's learned the hard way when to keep his guard up. The Ayling household may offer a bed and hospitality to struggling staff or locals, but there are locks on all the bedroom doors and valuables are kept safe.

Weaknesses:

Lonely: Like everyone, Marlin benefits from some quiet time to himself every once in awhile — but so long as he's spending quiet time, he'd rather spend it in the presence of his wife than on his own, and he'll happily sacrifice the quiet part all together if it means spending time with his over-enthusiastic daughter. ...Okay, maybe he's not that big on time to himself after all. Being around his loved ones is much preferable to being on his own, and Marlin begins to feel ill-at-ease if kept away from his family too long. (When Maya goes to college he's definitely going to be that father, the one whose kid has to tell them to stop texting them during lectures, and stop sending care packages because they're cluttering up the living space).

Insecure: Marlin’s calm demeanour may suggest he’s the kind of guy whose worries are always kept in check by his rationality. But he has a number of misgivings about himself that are always buzzing in the back of his head dictating his actions, and they can build enough to trip him up when things go south. Even after 17 years he still has doubts over his ability to be a good father to Maya, whose development has been difficult and unpredictable. He worries constantly about being able to provide for his wife and daughter, and the difficulties they’ve faced as a family — such as almost losing their home and business — hang heavily over his head. It doesn't matter that these events were beyond his control, because even when he can recognise that he still second-guesses whether he made the right choices in handling the situation. Somewhere inside himself he still feels a lingering guilt for the impact Marla's pregnancy had on her health, and that he (in his mind) hadn't been able to do enough to help her.

Has a complex about his age: All things considered, Marlin hasn’t aged as poorly as some people might have given the things he’s lived through. But since he hit 40 and his hairline started to thin, the perceived loss of his youth is nagging in the corner of his mind. He spent the golden years of his youth travelling, and though he loves his life in Fire Bay, the feeling of staying in one place has amplified his perception of the passing of time. The stress of always running around after his family, and the irregular hours he keeps to keep the restaurant running are both taking a toll on his body. Being in his early 40s is hardly having one foot in the grave, but Marlin’s fretting is making him feel much older than he looks.

Sometimes TOO outgoing: Marlin's an extrovert at heart, but while his outgoing nature has won him a number of good friends, not everybody appreciates such a direct approach. Sometimes he can come on too strong and end up driving shy or antisocial people further into themselves instead of opening them up. As a person who loves talking and getting to know people, Marlin can find himself at a loss if left in the presence of someone deeply introverted.

Rarely expresses his worries: Marlin’s always felt he needs to be the cornerstone of his family home. He’s tried always to hold up the spirits of his wife and daughter with his unending positivity and proactive attitude. After all, there’s no sense in letting the bad times get him down when he can be doing something to change their situation himself. Right…? Unfortunately, Marlin’s unwillingness to let himself be weak or share in his worries means he’s raising a daughter who doesn’t feel able to share her own problems, and he ends up getting worn down with the stress of carrying his burdens alone.

( SAMPLE )

Characterization Sample:

TDM thread, aaaaand a bonus TDM thread just for the heck of it.