cerealia application;

[pixelacious]

Applicant Info

◎ Name: Lucy
◎ Journal: fleeting
◎ Contact: lucylovespluto

Character Info

◎ Character's Name: AndrAIa. Yes, the AI is meant to be capitalized.
◎ Character's Canon: ReBoot.
◎ Character's Age: Early 20s more or less; sprites count time rather differently from humans (a second is a day or so) and AndrAIa was compiled more quickly than she should have been since game time > non-game time but that's about the estimate.
◎ Canon Point: Post "Number 7" and pre "The Episode With No Name".
◎ Background/History:

Here! Since a fair amount of that only makes sense in context, a brief ReBoot explanation: the series is basically about your computer. Yes, yours. The data that lives within the computer systems in the forms of sprites (AndrAIa is one of these, but a game sprite) and binomes and viruses and so on. I'm going to reference games a few times - this refers to the games a User (the computer owner, in other words, who is kind of like a god as far as everyone in the computer is concerned) plays. A User playing games drops huge shimmery purple game cubes into sectors of system cities, and if the User wins, that sector is entirely decimated and any sprites/binomes caught in the game are nullified (turned into nulls, which are energy-sucking slugs). Because of this, there are usually people who go into the games to fight them and make sure the User doesn't win. These sprites and binomes can "ReBoot" by double clicking their icon (little pins everyone wears) once inside the game, which basically makes them into game sprites. AndrAIa has this ability as well, but actually started out as a game sprite and later escaped to Mainframe (where all the main characters live). AndrAIa's icon can go from game sprite mode - which allows her to travel with games rather than being nullified at a loss - to normal mode, which allows her to stay behind from games (or be nullified but why would she do that).

◎ Is the character a hacker and/or do they have a sixth-sense? Not specifically, but given her canon (everyone lives in a computer...) AndrAIa actually does have hacking knowledge and skills! It's sort of a requisite to learn that sort of thing, and her schooling even involved "ancient languages" which are old coding languages. AndrAIa isn't any Mouse (the best hacker in ReBoot) but she seems able to navigate general coding and computer things without much trouble, handling repairs and locating errors and etc. Basically she's better than the average person since it's so normal to know coding shit in ReBoot, but ace hacking characters will trump her every time.

◎ Personality:

"I cannot go against my code". This is something said by many different characters in ReBoot in a variety of ways: I can't go against my function, my programming, my directive. It is true of all the characters. They are what they were coded to be. In AndrAIa's case, her format is that of a game sprite. There are five different types of game sprites according to the ReBoot world rules: aggressives, who only attack the User and ignore sprites and binomes who enter the game; defensives, who block or delay anything that comes their way regardless of whether it is User or otherwise; chaotics, which destroy anything that moves, User or otherwise; passives, which help by revealing information about games; and artificial intelligences. Artificial intelligence game sprites are programmed to alter and adapt to changes made by the user's ability and tactics, and generally can display characteristics of all the other types in pursuit of their prime function. AndrAIa's function upon creation in the Treasure of Atlantis game from which she originated was to stop the User from getting said treasure at all costs. Since the user has fifteen lives every time they play, she was obviously coded to kill and was focused on that goal in her appearance.

AndrAIa does end up going against her code to a degree, however - except not quite. As someone who adapts by nature, learning and changing, it isn't surprising that AndrAIa is not quite as rigid as some of the other characters in how she goes about things. She leaves her game - as a backup copy, uploading her data to Enzo's icon and hoping it works. This was not at all something she was programmed to do, and it has nothing to do with her function or her parameters. It is instead something she did because she was curious about the world outside her game cube that she knew so little about, and because Enzo was her first real friend. She reveals much later on in the series that it was "love at first sight" and frequently says that her place is at his side, not really caring about the details beyond that. Even when she tells others that Matrix is looking for his home and that his place is there, AndrAIa specifies after that her place is with him rather than saying she also wants to find home for her own sake. If Enzo wanted to wander the games forever, AndrAIa would probably be perfectly all right with that. She does care about the other Mainframers dearly, but Enzo's the only one she can't imagine her life without and AndrAIa has never minded what they happen to be doing so long as they're together (or if she has she will argue about it and they'll usually get over it fairly quickly).

Let's take a moment to further discuss Enzo Matrix, since he's going to be mentioned a lot in the application given that AndrAIa and Enzo have been pretty much inseparable since they were about elevenish, even before they got lost in the games. Enzo is very incredibly important to AndrAIa's growth and development. He's the pivot point on which her life changed completely, her best friend, her lover - Enzo is far and away her most important relationship and the one that receives the most focus in-canon. He was the first person she ever met from outside of the Treasure of Atlantis and her first actual friend. Up until she met him, AndrAIa's life was truly nothing but fighting the User and time and again attempting to foil the User at beating her game. There was no other purpose to her existence. Becoming Enzo's friend and leaving her game with him opened up her world a thousandfold, and AndrAIa has not actually left his side for more than a few hours since (...human hours, not sprite hours, SPRITE HOURS ARE PROBABLY YEARS OR SOMETHING). She was his partner for fighting games before they were lost in them.

After they were lost in the games, having fought a game they could not win and being forced to change to AI mode in order to survive, AndrAIa never abandoned Enzo. They grew up together and remained a unit after years (again, human) existing side-by-side. While the two do argue at times, it's clear that they do respect one another. AndrAIa says as much when someone mentions they're not together any longer after they have an argument - AndrAIa simply corrects them and says that she and Matrix have love and respect, and while they've argued before it's not going to keep them apart. While they do work as a unit fairly often - and neither seems to stray that far, which is undoubtedly because for a long time they were only able to rely on one another and losing track of one another and getting separated would have been Bad - they're also perfectly capable of working independently and seem to trust one another implicitly. While there is frequent rescuing of one another, Enzo and AndrAIa have known one another long enough to be able to gauge when the other does or does not need help, and they are very much their own people with their own (occasionally conflicting) ideas of how to go about things. The important thing I'm trying to note is that while Enzo is the most important person in her life, AndrAIa doesn't allow him to dictate what she does (though she is fine with placing his goal to get to Mainframe as their goal) and he doesn't let her dictate what he does, although she can often calm him down. AndrAIa would sacrifice herself every time if it came to a choice between her and Matrix - she shoves him through a portal she can't get to herself and takes his place being beamed up to the big bad, later on - and his goals and thoughts are important to her, but they don't entirely define her. She cares about what he cares about because she loves him, that's all.

There's more that can be gleaned from AndrAIa leaving everything she knew for Enzo than "man, does she adore that dork". For one thing, AndrAIa is an incredibly curious being (which is not always a good thing by any means - she gets bitten by a web creature for dumbly going over to touch a shiny egg pod because she wondered what it was, for example). Perhaps it has to do with being a necessity to adapting - she can't adapt if she doesn't think about what is needed to do so - but there are few things AndrAIa isn't interested in learning, and she seems to learn very quickly. How much she has adapted from when she first appeared in canon to her current canon point is readily evident. As a child, AndrAIa was overly formal and literal. She had been sheltered in her game in strange ways - she was not naive in the ways of violence, but AndrAIa did not know much of the outside world and had to learn on the go. These days, it would be nearly impossible to tell she had originally come from a game where she had little contact with others, as AndrAIa has adapted to the world she escaped to. She is friendly, talkative, and much more casual than she once was. And still she learns and adapts to new situations, her programming shining through in that way throughout her canon appearances. AndrAIa rarely has to be told how to do things more than once, however, and sometimes not even then - she surprises Bob once by finding her way to the cockpit of a giant mecha (............really) without requiring his instructions in the least, for example. Her intelligence is shown in other ways, too - AndrAIa impresses Enzo with her knowledge of NPC enemy attack algorithms, and is very, very creative about how she fights when she has to.

For another thing, AndrAIa is really, really brave. She had absolutely no idea what would happen when she loaded her data into Enzo's icon and won the game for him that first time. Even if it worked, she only had hazy ideas of what life outside the game was like; she only had Enzo's (extremely exaggerated and sort of mixed up) stories to go upon. She had to know that even if it did work she would effectively be giving up her entire life and home, since there was no way to know if she would ever see her game again and there would be no way to return unless it randomly dropped again. Even so, AndrAIa took the risk without wasting any time second-guessing herself. She's frequently shown to have that same calm, steady bravery in other situations. Whenever any threat appeared directed at Enzo when they were children, AndrAIa tended to step in front of him. These days AndrAIa rarely has to do that as much (Enzo is basically a brute force giant and can generally handle anything that threatens him) but she always acts in order to protect him even if it's to her own detriment. It's instinct and choice combined. Whenever any risk is put in front of her, she's willing to take it to accomplish her goals, and one of her goals is and always has been that Enzo remains safe. AndrAIa even takes the risk as a child of returning to a game with an untested upgraded icon on herself, stopping Mouse (an adult hacker with an equally untested icon that was meant to allow her to enter and leave games like the usual sprites) from going and saying that it was better only one of them were to bear the risk - and that as a game sprite she was the better choice, as she could survive if trapped in a game.

While she is brave, AndrAIa isn't fearless. She does know fear. She tends to act in spite of her fear, but she's shown standing as a child with her arm-arrow-thing pointing at Megabyte when he threatens Enzo, standing firm even though her arm shakes. She does call out for help when she's terrified, immediately shouting for Enzo when she's bitten by a web creature. AndrAIa's fear tends to be in relation to other people, admittedly - she rarely seems to indicate any fear for her own well-being (and indeed is almost casual about it sometimes, save for the incident with the web creature) but she shows more concern and fear for others, particularly Enzo. In truth, her ability to empathize and sympathize with others has grown a great deal since she was a child. While AndrAIa isn't opposed to taking people out when necessary, she has refined her idea of "necessary" and often acts as the voice of reason with Matrix, who has conversely loosened up his idea of "necessary" (or tightened it into "most things require violence").

AndrAIa can be a little aggressive, still, but she is honestly rather level-headed. While Enzo once disapproved of the methods AndrAIa would use to accomplish her goals, they have somewhat reversed positions there, too. Enzo is and always has been interested in helping people and systems - however, he sometimes loses sight of that these days. AndrAIa had never had any interest in that at first, and saw no reason not to abandon a binome who was being recalcitrant early on in her acquaintance with Enzo. But after years with him, AndrAIa says their prime directive is helping others, and she is never willing to leave someone who requires assistance - nor does she allow Enzo do do so. It's almost ironic, when AndrAIa once suggested completely abandoning an uncooperative binome until Enzo said they had to rescue him - and she then just paralyzed the poor guy with her paralytic nails and dragged him along since, uh, that was "rescuing", right? AndrAIa's methodology actually has not really improved. She is still willing to knock people out for their own good, and will furthermore flirt with them if she thinks that will help her accomplish her goals, but at least her end goal is generally a good one. She's also much more willing than Matrix to listen to alternative routes and to consider and occasionally take them, so there is that. Still, she retains her ability to be pretty cut throat when she has to be - that's part of how they survived in the games, after all.

◎ Powers/Abilities: AndrAIa is a game sprite, programmed to fight the User in an underwater game where the User tries to reach the Lost Treasure of Atlantis and she tries to brutally murder them before they can do that. She therefore has a number of abilities to help her in this goal:

• AndrAIa can breathe underwater. She's basically part mermaid - her skin is coral-looking (white and orange, marbled) for camouflage, and she even has fish scales up and down her spine and the backs of her arms, in addition to arm-fins that she can extend. They're apparently capable of deflecting gunshots, which is nifty.

• Her hearing is incredibly acute; she can hear things that only dogs ought to be able to hear, able to register any number of frequencies. She can also hear things from much further away than average people. This apparently helped her to navigate the ocean world she once inhabited much more easily.

• Her nails are able to be extended into sharp claws. More than that, she can shoot them at people (they instantly grow back after she does, because AndrAIa runs on GAME LOGIC). The nails inject a paralytic into people - it knocks them straight out when she punctures skin with the nails. Interestingly enough this is not always the case when used on things that are not people - she stabs a sea creature with her nails later in the canon and merely subdues it to the point where she controls it for a ride. This presumably only works on water-dwelling monsters.

• Continuing the ridiculous mermaid theme, AndrAIa has starfish in her hair. She can take them off (or snap and have them go to her hands) and then throw them like boomerangs. The starfish have been shown to cut through metal and a lot of other things. ...They also ridiculously seem able to just respawn in her hair if the starfish like, embeds itself in something. Because Game Logic.

• AndrAIa is programmed to be a warrior; she's very good at fighting and has no hesitation when it comes to attacking things. This isn't to say she's always aggressive from the start (she isn't, and tends to have a cool head) but AndrAIa has no issue taking the combative path if necessary. It's also worth noting once again that she was programmed to adapt, and she learns very, very quickly when it comes to defeating the User - or her problems. She's also incredibly athletic.

• Thanks to the quick-learning, she has a variety of less mermaid-y skills: driving most vehicles (flying ones included), hacking, various computer-related and repair-related things, how to use a shit load of weaponry, and so on and so forth. The kinds of things you pick up from playing tons and tons of games which are to you real life.

• Like all computer denizens, AndrAIa has an icon. While it probably won't be relevant in terms of game sprite mode/rebooting in Cerealia given there aren't game cubes, it should be noted that she can change clothes by clicking on her icon, too. Different outfits are "stored" on the icon, and several people change that way throughout the course of the show. It's kind of a dumb ability but she has it.

◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory:

1. Her trident! It can also apparently become a spear. It's sort of folded up into a short little metal bar and she just presses that to extend the ends. You can see it extended here.
2. Her icon.
3. A Zip Board.
4. Her starfish (? Unsure if this counted since it's technically a part of her, but hey).
5. A little digital recorder she uses as a diary. It seems to have a fairly large memory.
6. A second zip board.
7. Also a third zip board because I can't think of anything else but wanted to fill all the slots.

CEREALIA-Specific

◎ Element: Water.
◎ Sense: Sound. AndrAIa's hearing is really good, as I went over in the abilities section, so it is the sense she has the greatest affinity for.
◎ Seven Character Traits: ( Adaptive, Brave, Determined ) | ( Curious, Loyal, Impulsive ) + Independent.

Samples

◎ First-Person Sample: Here on the test drive!

◎ Third-Person Sample:

It's almost laughably easy to pass the first ViViD level. AndrAIa has spent her entire input-output playing games. They have life and death, input and output, from the very moment her code first went life. There have been other things inbetween the games, since she'd sent her code out to Mainframe with Enzo, but there has never been a dearth of playing for her life and continued existence. It's weird not being able to ReBoot, but AndrAIa doesn't actually need the extra skills or equipment in order to win. She doesn't need to be acknowledged as a game sprite by the game itself when she is playing as a User.

There's something inherently wrong with that. A sprite, a game sprite, acting as a User. Is this what a game cube dropping looks like from the outside? Some sprite - human, whatever - putting on a helmet and sitting there, wreaking havoc on any system they beat? AndrAIa can spot a sprite or a binome in a game, though, and she doesn't see anything...alive. Not really. So perhaps it's not the same thing, even if it turns her stomach to play to win in this even so. She's supposed to subvert the User to win the game. That has always been how it goes. Playing as the User to complete all those goals she'd once gotten in the way of...

It's a kick to the head, for sure. Enzo would hate this place, AndrAIa thinks, even as she picks up the helmet for the second time, weighing it and her options, before slipping it on. The thought of Enzo (it's hard not to think about him, when this is the longest they've ever been separated, several seconds - er, days) is a painful one and AndrAIa shoves it away for the moment. If she was "recovered" for her skills, he will be, too. Eventually. Maybe Bob. Mouse. Dot. She's spent a lifetime in the games trying to get back to Mainframe, only to find all...this. None of that bothers her as much as the lack of Enzo, but AndrAIa's spent a lifetime trying to keep her chin up and looking on the bright side, too.

For now, that bright side is "collecting credits". And hey, maybe it's a little weird to go so long without playing a game. It's what she's been made for, even if it feels backwards the way they're playing. When she opens her eyes after putting on the helmet, she's there. Another world. The team she'd agreed to go out with starting to show up. Rolling her shoulders, AndrAIa waits for the mission to start.

◎ Is your character retaining any previous game memories? Nope!