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〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Colly
AGE: 19
JOURNAL:

collybear
IM / EMAIL: AIM – Ctimesitsself Email – xellecon@hotmail.com
PLURK: collybear
RETURNING: Yup, already got Garfield Logan,

animalage

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Ripley
CHARACTER AGE: 12
SERIES: Lumberjanes
CHRONOLOGY: End of issue 8
CLASS: Civilian/Hero
HOUSING: Random is good

BACKGROUND:
Presumably Ripley has some sort of home life, since y’know, everyone does but as of where we are in Lumberjanes we know absolutely zip about it. So I’ll skip to the part we know, which also happens to be the good part.

Ripley’s adventure begins when she attends summer camp, but not just any camp. Ripley goes to Miss Quinzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet's Camp for Hardcore Lady Types. It’s a collection of cabins deep in the woods of somewhere, inhabited by hardcore lady types known as the Lumberjanes. For the duration of her stay at the camp Ripley is assigned to Roanoke cabin, along with the other Lumberjanes Jo, April, Mal and Molly, and headed by camp counsellor Jen.

Our first introduction to the kind of mischief these girls get up to is a fight against a pack of fearsome 3 eyed foxes. When brought to the camp director, Rosie, by Jen to explain their late night disappearance their full story is as follows: The girls were out and about (past curfew) when they spotted a bearwoman. Obviously one does not just ignore such a sight, so they followed her into the woods where they were ambushed by the foxes. Though stealth, sheer force and cunning they fought off the foxes and were left with the message “BEWARE THE KITTEN HOLY”. (Jo conveniently left out the part that happened after that where she picked up a golden eye looking thingy.) Then they returned to camp where they were confronted by Jen and brought in front of Rosie. Luckily for the girls breaking curfew seemed to be in the Lumberjane spirit. To the horror of Jen the girls got off without even a warning, in fact they all earned their “Out All Night Badges”.

For their next adventure the girls and their counsellor decided to go canoeing down the river near the camp, which Ripley was disappointed to find out was not home to sharks or whales. However, it turns out it is home to a hydra. After taking a wrong turn the girls’ ended up heading down a waterfall guarded by the hydra. Mal and Molly were the first in trouble and without stopping to think Ripley jumped into the river to try to help them. It did nothing. Instead all the girls, minus Jen, got stuck down river without any canoes and Mal had a little bit drowned. But it’s okay, because apparently Ripley is a master of the “flying kick to the chest” style of CPR.

After resurrecting their drowned friend they started to make their way back to camp. Famished, Ripley pulls a chocolate bar out of her bag which is promptly stolen by a three eyed eagle. But Ripley will not stand for this! She followed the eagle to the top of a tree, from which she noticed a lighthouse and quickly after fell down out of the tree. Into a cave. In true Lumberjane fashion the others follow, and they explore.

The cave turns out to be a weird labyrinth full of living statues and puzzles. Their first task is an arm wrestle against a burly statue, which April easily wins. In the room following that they’re attacked by an eagle headed statue with a scythe. Mal and Ripley tag team this one by Mal throwing Ripley like a baseball at the statue, knocking loose the gem on its chest that acts as a key to the next door. Finally, Jo gets to show off her “Everything Under the Sum” badge by guiding them through a Fibonacci sequence puzzle. At last they come to the final room, the walls of which are decorated with the weirdest phrases which Molly identifies as anagrams. This leads to the revelation that “BEWARE THE KITTEN HOLY” is an anagram too, guiding them to the lighthouse the Ripley had seen. They find a way out and eventually get back to camp, where Rosie assigns them chores for their disappearance this time. Mucking the moose stalls. Ripley is oddly excited by it.

Desperate for some normal camp activity Jen insists that the group go hiking. A simple hike. Nothing crazy. Until the Lumberjanes run into some Bigfoot (Bigfeet? Bigfoots?). Startled by the encounter the girls accidentally roll themselves, Jen included into a patch of poison ivy. Luckily for them, another group of scouts is in the area, to be specific, Scouting Lads from Mr. Theodor Tarquin Reginald Lancelot Herman Crumple’s Camp for Boys. Being the upstanding citizens that they are the Scouting Lads invite the Lumberjanes back to their camp for cookies and chamomile lotion. Once there the girls ask the other scouts to distract Jen (which ends up being a very simple operation) while they sneak off to the lighthouse. They bypassed the Bigfoot guards at the lighthouse with a cookie bribe, supplied by Ripley, and at the top of the tower they discovered a golden bow. They entrusted it to Molly, since she was the only one who had her “Robyn Hood” badge. They returned to the boys’ camp, only to have to make a quick getaway when they learned the Scouting Lads were possessed.

On the day of the Raccoon Rodeo Rosie steps out of camp, leaving Jen in charge. In a desperate attempt to avoid any shenanigans Jen cancels the trip to the rodeo and instead keeps all the girls in camp to do crafts, much to most people’s dismay. However, apparently that did nothing to ward off the weird, because next thing you know Molly has unleashed, from the outhouse, a plague of velociraptors upon the camp. There’s a great fight, during while Ripley somehow tames one of the raptors and starts riding it like a horse. Most of the raptors are easily dealt with, but one backed Jo into a corner! Then, out of nowhere the bearwoman appeared to save her! The bearwoman revealed that the raptors where after Jo just in time for Rosie to come back and banish her from the camp. (Juuuust out of sight of the girls of Roanoke cabin, a fellow camper, Diane, picks up the golden doo-dad that Jo had dropped in the raptor battle.)

A little later during a game of capture the flag is when things start to really piece together. The camper Diane reveals herself to actually be the Greek goddess Artemis, in a competition with her twin brother Apollo to gain an amazing power. Artemis uses the game to her advantage to retrieve the golden bow, which is actually hers, from Roanoke cabin, and tricks them into helping her win the competition by promising them an explanation for all the weird stuff that had been happening. Jen joins her campers in the great adventure to help Artemis.

The first thing the goddess asks of them in to steal a crystal from Rosie’s cabin. That all goes over pretty well, and they move on quickly to the next bit. Artemis leads them back to the cave they had encountered earlier, and they head to the farthest room back. Suddenly bugs start flying out of everywhere and attacking the campers! Artemis informs Jo that the only way to stop the attack is for Jo to put the crystal they took on a pedestal in the anagram room; in a desperate attempt to help her friends she does so, but as a consequence, turns to stone. A star map appears in the room from the crystal, and Artemis promises that if Jen reads the star map she’ll tell them how to save Jo, and so Jen reads it. The twins, when the sun and the moon align, at the lighthouse. Then, now having what she wants, Artemis leaves, without telling them how they can help Jo. Luckily, the girls are smart and they are able to use ~*the power of friendship*~ to turn her back.

However, they still have the Artemis problem. Jen saw ahead though, and informs the girls that she had given Artemis the wrong location. They headed Artemis off by heading to the right place, the center of camp, and they made it just in time. As they arrived everything lined up and the power was about to be released. Mal fastballed Ripley into the path of the mystic sky energy, and low and behold, Ripley kinda became a god. She made a few wishes: that Bubbles (Molly’s raccoon) had a funny hat, that Artemis and Apollo couldn’t hurt anyone again, that everyone had a kitten, and finally, that the power didn’t exist. The ethereal light around Ripley disappeared and everything seemed to go back to normal. It was then that Rosie appeared and announced that she had called the twin’s parent, ending the shenanigans once and for all.

(Except not actually.)

PERSONALITY:
Despite being in that awkward tween age, Ripley’s just pretty much a kid, inside and out. It’s more or less her main character trait. She likes piggybacks, and chocolate, and probably has a secret aspiration to be a ninja. But, really there’s a few specific things, most than anything else, that make Ripley such a kid. The first is that most of the time she has more than a little trouble staying focused, like a kid in a candy shop. She rushes through tasks that take sustained attention, or she tries to, like canoeing or making friendship bracelets, and sometimes just stops mid-sentence having noticed something else that’s more interesting. Her distractibility almost makes it seem like she has an extremely short memory span for her emotions, sometimes, but that’s not actually the case. It just so happens that she really easily gets distracted from bad stuff by something good. Second thing, her 100%, complete, total lack of any kind of mental filter of any sort. If she hears or sees something of interest to her she will absolutely comment, even if it is every visible to others as well, AKA pointing out the obvious. Her actions are just as impulsive as well. She obviously doesn’t think things through before she attempts them, she just kind of goes for it and hopes for the best. Sometimes it pays off and she rides a raptor like a horse, other times she ends up falling out of a tree into a cave. Finally, she has a heart so gosh darn pure really only a kid could be like that. She’s an incredibly selfless person in intention and when it comes to danger her only motivation is to keep her friends safe, even if they end up keeping her safe a lot of the time.

Also, I mean come on, she used to powers of a god to conjure kittens. That speaks for itself.

Moving on, Ripley is evidently a very active kid, in more than one way. In the athletic way, she likes to climb on things and people, pole vault, run, fight, be a fastball, and all that other fun outdoors-y stuff. However, she also happened to have a very active personality. I already mentioned that she’s impulsive, but at this point it’s worth mentioning again. She just wants to do stuff. All the time. She would rather be doing something than not. I would say she’s an act, not react person, but honestly she’s more of a react-without-thinking person. When something happens Ripley is often the first to react in fact, even if she doesn’t react well. Like jumping into the river to save her friends from a giant river hydra when obviously she can’t really do anything. Her brain was just telling her she needed to do something, so she did. Her brain wasn’t exactly thinking past that.

While Ripley may not be the best Lumberjane in a practical sense, she can’t tie knots or canoe or whatever else, she does obviously try to embody one of the tenants of their oath: “I solemnly swear ~~I am up to no good~~ to do my best. Every day. And in all that I do.” She doesn’t do anything in half measures, she always gives all of herself to what she’s doing. All or nothing, and she never chooses nothing. That becomes pretty apparent when you figure out that despite Ripley’s enthusiasm about animals, she doesn’t know much about them. She just likes them, so she throws her entire being behind liking them. She also faces every task with boundless enthusiasm and a good attitude, even (or maybe especially) when she has no clue what she’s doing or it’s supposed to be a punishment. When the girls are doing crafts instead of going to the raccoon rodeo Ripley doesn’t seem as bummed out as the rest of them. Instead she puts her all into making friendship bracelets, even though they turn out horribly and she’s missing the rodeo. She even treats games and fantasy with as much seriousness and whole heartedness as everything else. …not that she takes much of anything seriously. Ripley’s the type who mourns the loss of a teammate in capture the flag as though they were army buddies in real life. There is simply no distinction to her about what activities require her full being and which don’t; as far as she’s concerned, they all do.

POWER:
Fastball special - Ripley turns into a baseball. Yup. Just a regular baseball, completely inanimate and ordinary. But, while in baseball form Ripley can see observe her external world through all the sensory systems of a human. Basically, as a baseball she doesn’t have a nose, mouth, ears, etcetera but she can still hear, see, smell and feel.

Animal taming- Doesn’t matter how domesticated on not an animal is, if it’s a nonperson animal Ripley can tame it and command it. Only nonpersons though. So her power will not apply to other player characters who are non-humans.

Note: I know some player characters have pets which could be subject to this power, so I will be putting up a permissions post regarding it.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

HELLO HEROPA! I’m a hero now!

This is awesome! I’m gonna get All The Badges for this. [A loud and unmistakable gasp!] I bet I can get my Heroic Hero badge! That’s the last one I need to get the Up-Outstanding Citizen pin. Yeeeees. Jo is gonna be so jealous.

[Ripley looks up and away from the camera, pursing her lips and obviously thinking hard. She isn’t speaking to the network so much anymore, she’s kind of drifted off into her own place.] But I need a Lumberjane leader to sign off on my badge requirements, and Jen’s not here! Noooooooo!! Maybe I could get another leader to do it? Are there even Lumberjanes here? Or Scouting Lads?

[Something jogs her memory of the camera infront of her and she looks back. She widens her eyes and addresses the her audience again.] Stay away from the Scouting Lads! They’ve got zombie brains!

[She’s got another more to say on that though. So she goes silent. But only for a second, coming back with a complete topic change.]

Who wants to go on a hike!? Or make cookies. Except, I don’t know how to make cookies so, I guess who wants to teach me how to make cookies?

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
She was kinda grumpy about this Ripley decided. Kinda pretty grumpy. She was missing part of her summer with the other Lumberjanes, or maybe her whole summer? The military-y folk said it was March! Peggy McIntosh! When did that happen?

She was also kind of grumpy because the solider who was taking her to her new house wasn’t really talkative, or listen-y. All attempts at conversation didn’t really going smoothly, or at all, and with nothing else to do Ripley was starting to get antsy. She tried talking about camp for a bit, suggested that the solider would be perfect to be a counsellor since she was very definitely a Hardcore Lady Type! But from the lack of response she got Ripley assumed the solider disagreed. She was wrong of course. That all-business attitude reminded her of Jo; totally a Hardcore Lady Type. After that she’d tried to undo her seat belt and climb around the back of the car, but she’d gotten some stern words for that so she didn’t try again. But she had to do something. She was so bored. So. Bored.

Ripley hummed loudly and looked around the back seat. The only thing around was the boring looking file the solider had given her earlier, but even that was better than the nothing she was doing now. She opened the file to the first page and skimmed down most of the information. There was a big black and white picture of her, and then a bunch of blah blah Ripley, blah blah, age 12, blah, 4 foot short, blah blah blah….

And then she saw it. In looked like nothing special on the page to be honest. It was the same font, same size, not bolded, not italicized, just sitting there like it was nothing special even though it so definitely was—

“Oh my bell hooks!”, she exclaimed, her voice low and awed, “I’m a fastball.”

FINAL NOTES:
A note for the samples, the Lumberjane girls use the names of feminist writers as exclamations and interjections.

[NAME] Q [BLURB]	[NAME] Q [BLURB]	[NAME] Q [BLURB]
[NAME] Q [BLURB]	[NAME] Q [BLURB]	[NAME] Q [BLURB]
[NAME] Q [BLURB]	[NAME] Q [BLURB]	[NAME] Q [BLURB]
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