We The Lost Application

[cahooted]

Player Name: LP
Preferred Pronouns?: she/her
Player Contact: caffettiera
Other characters in play? N/A

Character Name: Flynn Carsen
Canon: The Librarian
Game Transplant: Snowblind
Original App: Here
Game Summary:

Snowblind is a plot-centered panfandom psychological horror game, focused on isolation, survival and exploration. Characters are pulled into the city of Norfinbury, a snowy, post-apocalyptic village of the future, covered in eternal snow. They struggle to find food, clothes and shelter, all the while working together to explore the town and uncover its many mysteries. Nights must be spent indoors to survive the harsh elements or monsters traversing the town, so-called "anomalies". However, death is non-permanent; instead, characters are mysteriously brought back to life a few days later with temporary "death losses", which can range from missing senses to lost memories or the inability to feel or perceive certain things. Over time, characters also suffer increasingly from exposure effects such as paranoia, sickness or mania.

City wide events range from body horror to psychological ordeals while characters struggle to solve the town's puzzles and learn its history. Over time, they learn that there have been thousands of years of "cycles", with people being brought into the city by the Administrator, a quantum computer. In the end, they manage to find the machine that can send them back to their homeworlds and a way to corrupt the system, hopefully ensuring that no one ever gets pulled into the snowy hellhole again.

How long was your character in Game: About six months ICly (Days 276 to 447); about 1,5 years OOCly (September 2017-January 2019)

History of Character in their Game:

Arrival

Flynn arrives in Norfinbury on Day 276 with a positive attitude, confident that the incident, like most of his adventures, will resolve itself rather quickly. He seeks out the network, debating this strange new world and gets into playful as well as flustered arguments with people, exposing himself as a good-natured but socially awkward nerd. His attitude remains very open and approachable; whenever he talks on the network, he uses video by default, rarely hiding his face or his reactions from view. To the network, he presents himself as an ordinary librarian but people take note that he seems quick on the uptake and strangely unbothered by being magically whisked away to another place. He quickly bonds with people and, safe from being picked on a little, manages to stay on good terms with most characters.

Afterwards, he sets out to explore and heads for the museum, thinking that he might be able to learn more about Norfinbury by studying the art there. At the museum, he meets the character Jared Rhys who shares supplies with him and gives him his first insights into the isolationist and harsh conditions of the city. Flynn's general outlook remains positive but the unforgiving weather as well as witnessing people getting hurt (or hurting each other) via the network shocks him and throws him off-balance early on.


Day 282-289: Hieroglyph Holiday

When the death price of another character, Gregory House, leaves him in the state of mind of an eleven-year-old child, Flynn agrees to travel with him. He and Jared Rhys meet up again to look after House and try to distract him from Vicodin withdrawal. Flynn is gentle and supportive but also very naive about everything; while Rhys tries to handle the delicate situation Flynn remains oblivious to signs of child abuse House is exhibiting. He and House bond a little more when Flynn teaches him hieroglyphs.

Flynn also has a long conversation with a character named Ecks who inquires about his intentions regarding Dr. House; they debate the morals of looking after another person just because it's the right thing to do; in turn, Flynn tries to understand the way her homeworld and moral compass functions. It's the beginning of a common pattern for Flynn whenever he interacts with other characters; asking a million questions about their homeworlds while keeping a bit more reserved about his own background.

When House returns back to normal, he lashes out at the characters who took care of him. It prompts Flynn to leave the group and explore on his own. Rhys asks him to travel together but despite feeling lonely, Flynn turns him down, making half-hearted promises about maybe meeting up later.


Day 283-endgame: Two idiot boys

Early into the game Flynn quickly bonds with the character of Peter Quill/Star-Lord; both are very emotional and share a certain naivete, both have a tendency to babble and wildly jump between subjects, and both have an escapist way to perceive the world through popular culture which makes for easy conversation. When Flynn learns that Peter was forced by a city event to kill several people (Day 283) he randomly decides to call him up, offering an ear to bend. A few days later Peter calls Flynn up in turn when he's suffering from cabin fever (strong hallucinations that force characters to flee a house when they dwell in one place for too long). It prompts Flynn to abandon his current puzzle, choosing Peter over the need to explore, and he heads out to find him.

It's the beginning of a beautiful friendship (or so they'd embarrassingly quote) with regular talks on both the network and private inboxes; Flynn often ends up listening to Peter's problems, supports him after his various deaths and offers (bad) advice. They grow very close over the course of the game but also regularly clash over differing morals, Peter's irresponsible jock attitude and Flynn's obstinate tendency to be a know-it-all. It's a long, difficult learning experience for Flynn, who starts out with a very idealized, literary idea about friendship, but is increasingly confronted with the struggles and the amount of work a real friendship actually needs.


The Norfinbury E-Library

On Day 284, Flynn announces the E-Library on the network, an idea that developed from a book exchange with Gabriel Gray. Flynn starts taking pictures of books and magazines he comes across during his travels, collects them in rudimentary digital versions which he then makes available to the town and asks others to share theirs, too. It's his first big show on the network and he meets more people over it; among others he gets to fanboy over Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, who offers his casebook for the library. People also troll him mercilessly about the abundance of porn available in the city and demand to know how he wants to incorporate that into the library. Flynn gets very flustered about it, cementing his hopeless nerd status among his fellow snobos once and for all.


A taste of his own medicine

On Day 289, Will Graham, an FBI profiler, arrives in the city. They talk; Graham catches Flynn by surprise by asking him how he is so 'jaded' after having only been in this place for two weeks. Flynn admits that he struggles with people getting hurt and being unable to make sense of his place. It's a harmless enough conversation but Flynn soon feels attacked when Graham starts profiling him. Flynn perceives it as very similar to how he could read people back home before the city nerfed that ability away from him. He gets very defensive and makes a big deal out of Graham's actually not very invasive leaps. The conversation ends on a tense note; they never quite see eye to eye after that which is mainly due to Flynn's intense jealousy and the way he feels threatened by the man's abilities.


Would You Rather

On Day 290 the snobos try to distract themselves with a little question game. Flynn gets some interesting insights into his fellow snobos' lives. He is very taken by Ginger Hale, the woman that posted the game, and makes a babbling fool of himself once again. He and John Watson play for a while and Flynn loses some of his boyish idealization, starting to perceive him and other 'fictional' characters more as real people. Harley Quinn confides in him that Watson gave her a secret code word if she ever has to get away from the Joker, who also dwells in the city. Flynn offers to give her one, too, and they settle on the word LIMERICK.


EVENT: Imaginary Time (Day 292-295)

Imaginary Time is Flynn's first big game event and introduction to the larger horrors of Norfinbury. Over the course of it, the concept of time and its perception by characters is significantly altered.

On Day 292 Flynn meets up with Peter Quill and John Watson. John looks after an injured Peter and Flynn decides to help him take care of him. John is suffering quietly with the two manchildren debating 80s movies and Celine Dion. The event starts the next day with everyone having nightmares about their home worlds and what happened because of their absence. Flynn's dream shows him that the Library doesn't need him anymore; he has been replaced by a new Librarian and his mother died because he wasn't there to protect her. The fear of the Library choosing a new Librarian stays with him all the way through endgame.

The second part of the event has characters believe that they have been trapped in Norfinbury for a very long time. Flynn, being a regular human, thinks he's been in the city for about 20+ years. From all this (perceived) time, he has turned into a very grumpy old man who sticks to himself. He's worn down by the city, gruff and harsh, but ultimately very sad underneath. He has an on-and-off thing with Ginger Hale and grows quite close to Gabriel Gray who sort of looks out for him. Meanwhile Peter, who thinks he has lived in Norfinbury for centuries, has turned into a callous jerk who thinks of himself as better than humans and finds humor in needlessly cruel things like the death of other characters. Flynn hates what his friend has turned into but also blames himself for not being able to stop it. When Peter makes a network comment asking for death videos of characters for his personal amusement, Flynn angrily calls him out on it. Peter comes after him and they fight; Flynn ends up beating an already injured Peter with a crowbar.

On Day 295, Imaginary Time ends and Flynn is mortified by the harsh, violent person he turned into. From this point on, his sense of security is damaged; he no longer thinks he will get out of the city anytime soon. He freaks out a lot more and is quick to explode at characters who make callous remarks on the network (especially on other characters' obituaries) or suggest dangerous experiments to solve puzzles. He has another fight with Will Graham, accusing him of being manipulative towards traumatized people. The profiler counters that Flynn thinks people to be feeble minded, that he doesn't believe anyone is as clever as he is and that he is guided by hubris. Flynn wildly argues against it but the accusation sticks with him.


Day 296-300

After the event, Flynn tries to focus more on the puzzles the town throws at them. On a brainstorming announcement from Gregory House they debate the significance of the number 27 which was found in one of the houses; Flynn agrees to head out there and check it out.

Around the same time, Flynn starts to suffer from increasing exposure effects. His main effect is Isolation which brings a dislike for larger groups and an unwillingness to share resources. It collides with the arrival of Flynn's canonmate and former Guardian (a sort of bodyguard for the Librarian), Nicole Noone. They used to be a couple but at Flynn's canon point, Nicole already died during a mission. Flynn was indirectly responsible for the accident leading to her death and he feels extreme guilt over it. He is stuck between joy, guilt and grief, unsure how to approach her. Despite him being very cagey with her, they decide to meet up.


EVENT: Decoherence

On Day 300, another game event messes with characters' memories. Characters were able to experience prior game events or travel with people they never met, collecting memories that did not actually happen (or did they??). These "fake" events had a strong impact on Flynn, most notably,

-> Both Peter and Nicole turn into anomalies and attack him.

-> Flynn and another character, Royce Melborn, are dying from radiation sickness. Despite the pain, Flynn drags himself across the room to bring Royce some water. Royce is very confused by it, arguing that people aren't just nice to each other for no reason, but the incident would later help Flynn get away from an anomaly version of Royce that remembered his kindness.

-> Flynn and Bucky Barnes enter each other's dreams. While Flynn's dreamscape is a harmless, tropey action-adventure, Bucky's turns out a lot darker, a time where he still works as the assassin called the Winter Soldier. Flynn witnesses him on a job and, trying to prevent him murdering his marks, ends up getting shot himself. It's his first encounter with death, which he quickly represses after the event; the memory haunts him but he convinces himself that it 'doesn't count' because it is just a memory, so he didn't really die.

-> Similar to Bucky Barnes, Flynn also enters John Watson's dreamscape, which is a nightmarish collection of his worst traumas from both back home as well as his time in Norfinbury. All these very private, awful memories are displayed on screens for Flynn to experience. After the event, Flynn promises John that he will never tell anyone about what he saw. It remains an awkward, unspoken thing between them.

-> Flynn has an encounter with Mycroft Holmes which marks the birth of a gamelong animosity with the man. Mycroft is unwilling to share a house with Flynn after lockdown, trying to force him to leave. Flynn isn't having it and saltily quotes Shakespeare at him. They have a "sword"fight and Mycroft stabs him in the shoulder with his umbrella. Even though it didn't really happen, Flynn holds an eternal grudge over the incident. But it also makes him very perceptive of Mycroft's callousness and an increasing supervillainish behavior over the course of the game. He often calls him out on it and they have regular moral debates over the ways the city changes them.

Flynn comes out very high strung from the Decoherence event and the negative memories he accumulated. His natural excitement and enthusiasm visibly wane; he's running out of energy, starts neglecting the E-Library and is a lot more short-tempered than before.


Decoherence Aftermath

Flynn meets up with Nicole. They start traveling together and soon fall back into the typical routines that shaped their relationship. She's good for Flynn and eventually, they have a very emotional heart-to-heart in which he finally admits to what happened back home. Nicole forgives him and despite Flynn's fear of losing her again, they start dating again.

Being with Nicole grounds Flynn and gives him enough energy to actively explore the city once again. They try their hands at various puzzles and excavate a frozen body but it doesn't hold any answers. On Day 320 Flynn partakes in the city-wide seance where characters try to contact the so-called "data ghosts", signatures of former residents, for answers. However, he finds himself too overwhelmed by the ghosts' collective presence. He manages to single out one of them and learns that the number 27 is a dead end.

A few days later, Harley Quinn uses the limerick codeword, asking for Flynn's help with the Joker. Flynn makes good on his promise and gives her his and Nicole's location so she can travel and be safe with them.


The Cat Debacle

On Day 325, another player character, Bluestar (a talking cat), introduces "SnowClan" to Norfinbury, a tribe that she founded with some other characters. She claims a part of the city as their territory. A lot of people rage, feeling infringed on. Flynn rages, too, but not over the territory issue but the clan-like structure that reminds him too much of the Serpent Brotherhood, an organization he fights back home. He is worried about Peter who is drawn towards Bluestar's leadership persona and starts seeing her as a surrogate mother figure. Flynn, in turn, develops an intense dislike for the way Bluestar treats his friend. Over the next days/weeks, this keeps escalating. Flynn is quite aggressive and very hostile in his responses to her, due to worry but also outright jealousy over his friend.


EVENT: The Pit

On Day 330 characters wake up in a room with a bottomless pit. They don't know how they got there but are inexplicably drawn towards the abyss. Flynn spends most of his time trying to stop other people from jumping but fails on several occasions which leaves him feeling very depressed and powerless.

Shortly after the event Bluestar dies and when Peter starts falling apart over it, Flynn leaves Harley in Nicole's care to go travel with him and Steven Strange.


EVENT: And the Pendulum (Day 338-343)

And the Pendulum is a follow-up event of the Pit. Characters that jumped into the pit end up with strange red markings covering their bodies while unmarked characters become increasingly paranoid about them. They develop an increasing urge to study them; in turn, the marked characters feel a strong urge to share personal things about themselves. However, whenever unmarked characters learn something about a marked character, they make them burn with pain and take a tiny part of their soul.

Fueled by his already prevalent love for learning, Flynn makes a network post and starts asking characters a million questions, driven by an insane need to know more about them. He ends up collecting a lot of soul parts and hurting a great deal of people; he also makes Peter cut himself and collects his blood, thinking it will provide him with answers. Other paranoid characters piggyback his network post to further question and harm the red lined characters.

He's back to normal on Day 343 and horrified by what he did. Stephen tries to get him to stay with him and Peter but Flynn is unable to face them and runs away. On Day 344 he makes a public announcement on the network, apologizing for what he did. He never quite gets over that event and having used learning and knowledge, the most important things in his life, to hurt people. He starts doubting himself and what kind of a person he might be deep down inside.


The Language Database

On Day 364, after a city-wide failure of the translation system which left characters not understanding each other, a character called chaos prompts they should teach each other languages or make a database in case the system fails again. This idea is brought up again in one of John Watson's event rundowns and John pings Flynn, suggesting to maybe tie it into the E-Library. On Day 379 Flynn makes a respective network post and starts working with Alphonse Elric on collecting the data. The task does wonders to lift his crushed spirit and for the first time since the red line debacle, he gets a little enthusiastic about something again.


Buckytravels

Flynn meets up with Bucky Barnes on Day 370 after John Watson asks him to travel with the man for a while to keep him some company. Bucky is very annoyed with this arrangement but Flynn manages to convince him to stay together after all. On Day 380 Flynn gets stuck in a snow slope and is severely injured, breaking his leg and some ribs. Bucky starts carrying him around and they grow closer over it.

On Day 402, Nicole Noone's obituary goes up unexpectedly. Flynn is devastated by her (permanent) death, doubly so because he never learns what happened to her. With her gone, he soon falls back into old patterns, sticking to himself and keeping a lot of pain and hurt inside. His Isolation keeps getting worse. While meeting up with a large group of characters in between Days 407-409, Flynn uses up all the hot water in one of the houses which prompts Mycroft Holmes to seek him out and complain about it. Flynn reacts very aggressively, immediately grabbing his crowbar and warning Mycroft to back off, ready to escalate the situation into violence.


EVENT: Metamorphosis (Day 412-416)

Robert Miller, an AI and antagonistic NPC, creates anomaly copies of player characters that start roaming the town. Flynn's anomaly viciously murders John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes and Peter Quill. Meanwhile the "real" Flynn is in worse and worse shape from his avalanche injuries. He's in constant pain, feverish and gets stuck in a house by himself, unable to travel.

On Day 425, Mycroft Holmes's anomaly finds a very injured Flynn trying to change houses because of cabin fever. The anomaly, made of ice and snow, slowly freezes him to death. It's also capable of freezing moods and Flynn dies a very cold and miserable death, filled with feelings of disappointment, bitterness and loneliness.

Shortly after, John Watson and Sherlock Holmes devise a plan to imprison the character anomalies. While a lot of folks in the city react hostile towards this idea, Flynn is 100% on board, strongly affected by what his own anomaly did to people and the cruel, cold death he recently suffered. He sets out to assist in the anomaly round-up with very little empathy for their copies.


This is the End

On Day 441, Robert Miller contacts the network, telling player characters that it's all over and they are all soon going to die. He also explains that he created the anomalies in order to fulfill the town's 'quota', trying to prevent new people from getting pulled in. Flynn asks for his promise that he will make sure that the cycles will end and Miller gives it to him. Shortly after, Winter, another NPC AI, gives them new hope when she offers her help and a program that can turn their tablets into bombs, allowing them to pass a final door that they were unable to open.

Behind it, they discover the NIMA machine, which allows characters to get rid of the nanomachines inside their bodies (and in turn, restore their powers and get rid of exposure effects). Flynn regains his deductive abilities and loses his lingering Isolation effect. After that, his spirits lift considerably and during their last days in the bunker, he manages to regain some of his old enthusiasm.

He reads several people, deducing secrets from them and marveling at how different he perceives them now. But he also reflects on his ability and secretly wonders if it is for better or worse or how his relationship with characters would have turned out differently. He shares the rest of his tea with the people who wait for their NIMA treatments. Peter decides to come back to Flynn's world with him and they step through the portal together.


How did they change from their canon personality wise (Please explain what caused it to happen?)

Flynn is still a good-natured nerd at heart but his heart has definitely been hardened by his Norfinbury experiences. He has developed a protective shell that isn't glaringly obvious because he remains friendly and helpful towards his fellow snobos; but he's a long shot from the wide-eyed, naive and bubbly adventurer from six months prior.

Everything with him has become a little more superficial, a little more guarded; both his empathy as well as his agitation have a slightly sharper undertone to them and remain a little more on the disingenious side, unwilling to pour all of his heart and energy into things anymore. There is a tendency to get annoyed rather than agitated, not in the slightly flustered and boyish way from before, but with a sarcastic, biting touch as he slowly adapts to other character's snark and needling.

Even outside Norfinbury's traumatic events, Flynn has to deal with a lot of serious issues he never encountered before, i.e. drug abuse, self-harm and suicidal ideation. While he manages to hold on to his curios nature, he has become a lot more jaded and less naive about the world than he initially set out with. He has come to accept that other people have differing backgrounds, viewpoints and morals from him and while he still gets angry about that, he's able to see the world more in shades of grey than idealized, heroic black and white.

While he's very open about his emotions and fears early on, he starts holding more and more things in as time progresses. Over time, he accumulates a lot of issues that are simmering under the surface. They make him quick to explode and lash out at unexpected times or bring unrelated issues into an argument. Late in the game there are several instances where people return from death, which used to be a joyful or supportive event; instead it ends in shouting matches and fights on several occasions. His cagedness also causes Flynn to make bad decisions for himself; for example he doesn't ask for help when his injuries get worse, which partly contributes to his later death.

However, Flynn also definitely developed a set of new interpersonal skills. He forged more friendships than ever before in his life and learned that he has to work for them. Over time, his priorities even shift away from exploration and he takes on a more supportive role, helping characters through difficult times. Having to look after Peter with all his impulsive tendencies also causes him to grow up a little and he becomes the more reasonable part of the duo. At the end of the game, he is also aware of his abilities' potential invasive nature and becomes a lot better at reading a room.

Flynn has turned into a quite self-reflective person and questions himself and his character traits a lot more. Some of that is for the better, but most is actually insecurities caused by the trauma of the past months.

How did they change from their canon physically (Please explain what caused it to happen?):

Being rather lanky and on the gangly side to begin with, Flynn looks almost more emaciated from Norfinbury's abysmal nutrition than he actually is. He has a lean runner's built but his clothes fall around him like the rags they are and his collarbones stick out almost comically.

He's very pale, his skin coarser from the harsh weather conditions. His eyes and cheeks are more sunken in and his hair is an unruly, curly mess, sticking out in every possible direction. Flynn did try to keep up with his shaving routine but sports a sloppy seven-day-stubble.

Powers:

Academic knowledge/genius intellect: Flynn holds 22 university degrees (with the movies conveniently omitting how he paid for them, shh), speaks pretty much every language out there and is blessed with Sherlockesque observational skills that allow him to deduce personal information from the people around him.

Photographic memory: Flynn has an extensive photographic memory; among other things he has memorized the Earth in all its geographical aspects, as well as the known universe.

Swordfighting: Flynn is an avid fencer, training regularly with Excalibur and knows a lot of different styles he can readily switch in between.


Possessions:

His Snowblind Inventory

Additional items from home:
Intact reading glasses
A stack of empty notebooks and pens
A selection of his wardrobe, mostly formal shirts and suits, plus one adventuring gear
His working desk
Excalibur - a magically animated sword. It's sentient to a point, mostly acting like an overeager puppy (very comparable to Stephen Strange's Levi)
A jeweled ring
Books
More books
No, really, the rest of the flatbed pick-up truck space is filled with books, tbh


Please provide three samples from your previous game, at least one will have to be third person with context:
Sample One: A very energetic arrival (when he still has a lot of energy left)
Sample Two: A very salty encounter (when Flynn encounters a Peter that reversed into his callous Imaginary Time version due to a death price)
Sample Three: A very cold death (when he gets frozen by Mycroft Holmes' anomaly)

Notes: Not sure if Zephyr is okay with a flying sword tagging along - if not, Cal will keep chilling in his stone at the Library. :)