Edensphere Application
AU (Alternate Universe) Character Application
PLAYER INFO
NAME: (You, the player) Joysweeper
LJ: (Your personal LJ) joysweeper
AGE: (How old YOU are. Not the character's age.) 20
CURRENT CHARACTERS, if any: (Please list as 'Character/Edensphere Name', if any...) Wedge Antilles / Rogue
CHARACTER INFO
CHARACTER NAME: (Who you're applying for) Juhani
SERIES: (Where your character is from) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR)
PERSONALITY: (What your character is like, brief description)
Juhani's something of a loner - she forms few serious attachments, but those are very deep and enduring. Cathar are said to be solitary. Despite that, she’s more a follower than a leader.
She struggles with her temper - Revan's influence and the example of the Jedi helped a lot with that, and she is fiercely determined to stay in the light, but her anger is still there. Otherwise she tends to be very reserved. She will fight against injustice and such quite happily, but in many cases this is less because she personally wants to right wrongs, more because she is a Jedi and knows this is a Jedi thing. For example, while she does not hesitate to defend someone who can't fight back, particularly women and children, she's less at ease with more complex situations and the aftermath - comforting grieving people and such. She does, however, admire people who do that.
Typically she’s somewhat shy and fairly nonconfrontational. While she can be talkative, mostly this happens when someone draws her out and into talking. She can be coaxed into impassioned rants at such times. There was a point when she was a perfectionist; it’s passed, but she still likes to do things “right”.
And she hates Mandalorians, which will transfer to a lesser extent to anyone with full-body armor or anyone talking about fighting being honorable in and of itself. Her feelings about humans are more mixed - she was persecuted extensively by them, but some of the best people she ever knew were human.
She tends to be a little more relaxed around women.
APPEARANCE
Juhani is humanoid, and in most ways she is very humanlike. I won’t go into that much, but she can wear human clothing, eat human food, speak human languages, et cetera.
She looks like she does in the icons - pointed ears, wide yellow eyes with dark eyelids, stripes, a ponytail made of dreadlocks.
Most of her body is covered in a very fine fur - think thick peach fuzz. It’s mostly a nearly-transparent blonde, darker but still wispy over her markings. At any distance but very close, she doesn’t appear furred. In places it’s thicker and more visible, but she tends to dress too conservatively for it to show.
She’s got thick, slightly pointed nails rather than claws, her teeth are a bit sharper and more pointed than in humans, and her tongue is slightly flattened. Her core temperature is a few degrees higher than human normal.
When she’s calm her voice is soft, accented with what scans as Russian.
TIMELINE: (From which point of the story you are taking your character) Some time post-endgame - maybe about a year and a half after.
CANON+AU BACKGROUND: (Character history, both canon and AU character synopsis, summarized to the point provided in the timeline)
When Juhani was very little, her homeworld was attacked by the Mandalorians, who started a genocide and enslaved those they did not kill. She and her parents fled to Taris, a cityworld, and were unable to leave.
Taris discriminated pretty severely against nonhumans, relegating them to slums, persecuting them, charging more for food than they would humans. Juhani hated Taris, but still called it home and felt things could have been worse. And they got worse.
Some years later the Mandalorians took Taris but didn't start a genocide, since it was mostly a human planet. Instead they occupied it, and a Mandalorian who had been crippled fighting Cathar found Juhani's father, goaded him into a fight, and killed him. Juhani and her mother got away, but something about her mother had died too, and she wasn't able to feed both of them. Juhani's mother turned to the Exchange for money, gave most of her food to her daughter, and wasted away. One day she collapsed where she worked. Juhani sat by her bed for days. There was no money for a doctor.
Her mother's debts were then passed to her, and Juhani was taken as a slave. "Bound like a beast and treated as such", she says once. This was the worst period of her life. Eventually she was put up for auction, and the Mandalorian who killed her father made it known that he intended to buy her.
Before he could take her, the Jedi came, driving the Mandalorians off Taris and saving Juhani. She had idolized them, and they seemed like everything she'd dreamed of - powerful, idealistic people who could not stand injustice and made the world better by being there, who eagerly talked about going to fight the Mandalorians. One of them found that she was Force-Sensitive and told her that she could become a Jedi too.
When they left, problems came rushing back in, but now Juhani had a dream and a drive. She worked until she had enough money to go to the Enclave on Dantooine, where Master Quatra took her as Padawan. She kept her distance from most of the other Jedi trainees and had trouble finding peace with herself, balancing her turmoil with the Jedi way. She had two close friends. Dak Vesser shared her doubts and eventually told her that he planned to leave the Order, and that he'd fallen for her - they should leave together. She refused and told him that she didn't feel the same for him, so she stayed behind. Her other friend, Belaya, had more of a romantic friendship with her. They spent nights together under the stars.
When Quatra deemed her ready for the Trials that would lead to her becoming a Knight, soon after Taris was bombarded from orbit, she decided to test Juhani in a particular way. She goaded her Padawan during a lightsaber duel until Juhani lost her temper and attacked her, then feigned death. Horrified, Juhani fled into the wilds and an ancient meditation grove, where she dwelled on her guilt and rage, tainting the grove and eventually influencing the local kath hounds to become more aggressive.
While she was out there, the mindwiped Darth Revan was brought to Dantooine by Bastila and was put through some trials of her own. One of the last of these was to go out into the wilds, "cleanse" the grove, and stop whatever was driving the kath hounds mad. Revan found Juhani, fought her to the point of stalemate, and then talked to her. Using the Jedi code and sincerely saying that Juhani was strong and beautiful and could be forgiven, she broke Juhani from the Dark Side and convinced her to return peacefully to the Enclave.
There, Juhani found that Quatra wasn't dead and the whole thing had been a ploy to teach her humility - even one who strives to follow the Code could fall. What's more, falling to the Dark Side and being brought back had been the pivotal part of her Trials. Not long after that, Juhani became a Jedi Knight, just in time to join Revan on the quest to find the Star Forge.
Various things happened then which won't be detailed. But over the ensuing months she grew close to Revan, sharing her past, once lashing out at her because of Revan's role in the destruction of Taris, soon becoming contrite. While on Korriban she saw Dak Vesser again and persuaded him to leave the Sith Academy; he saddened her and reminded her of what she had been in the grove. When the events of the Leviathan occurred and it was revealed who Revan was, Juhani threw her full support behind the former Sith Lord, not doubting her for an instant.
During the quest, they encountered Xor again, the Mandalorian who killed her father and bought her. With Revan there, Juhani was able to restrain herself and let him go. Barely. Later he ambushed the party and was killed; Juhani only regretted that he did not die by her hand and could not experience anything like the pain he had caused.
At the Rakatan Temple on Lehon, Juhani accompanied Revan through it and in a confrontation with a Dark Jedi that Revan was very close to. The Dark Jedi tried to tempt Revan. Revan eventually rejected the Dark Side, and Juhani confessed to coming to care for Revan, a sentiment that Revan returned. They made it to the Star Forge, killed Darth Malak, and ended the current Sith threat.
Some months after that, Revan's memories started to return. She left known space, telling her companions to wait for her and prepare for some new evil.
AU details: Revan is a woman, bi, and has polygamous tendencies. Juhani's teacher, Quatra, was a Bothan taught by someone who was taught by Kreia, and Quatra also taught Malak. The Jedi who saved her on Taris was Revan, but a Revan who wore a full mask and had a somewhat different voice, since her throat was damaged and rebuilt during the Wars. This, and the difference in the way the old Revan and the new one stood and acted, were how Juhani didn't instantly recognize her.
Juhani was a toddler when her family fled Cathar, about fifteen or sixteen when the Jedi came. By the point I’m taking her from, she’s in her early/mid twenties.
Post-endgame, she and the rest of the crew of the Ebon Hawk, those who couldn’t duck out of this, anyway, were sent on a whirlwind morale-raising propaganda tour across the Republic. She was deeply uncomfortable with this sort of attention - just about everyone was - but the Jedi Masters and New Republic brass seemed to think it was a good idea. After that, crewmembers mostly went their separate ways, staying in contact but not being nearly as close, coming and going. The droids stayed with them the whole time, but Mission, Zaalbar, Jolee, and Canderous didn’t.
Juhani, Bastila, and Carth - the three who were closest to Revan - also found themselves the closest to each other, which was itself somewhat uncomfortable. Not that there was ever a foursome, though Revan teased about it. Jealousy issues came up and were worked out. Revan loved all of them, and was very persuasive.
As a unit they took the Ebon Hawk pretty much wherever Revan had to go, preventing incidents and smoothing relations along. Bastila occasionally left to bring her Battle Meditation against the diminished and demoralized Sith forces, Carth sometimes left to be with Dustil and report back to Republic brass, Juhani left to spend some time with Mission and try to track down her two Academy friends.
Juhani helped Mission out regarding a con scheme Mission’s brother was trying to tangle her in. Later she found Dak Vesser again, once, and tried to persuade him to return to the Jedi. He became angry but fled, not resolving the issue. She also had to try and handle Belaya’s feelings of betrayal and anger at herself for feeling betrayed; that business concluded on a better note.
But like the other two, she came back. Ten months after the destruction of the Star Forge, Revan started to become more distant. Still loving, but she became somewhat strange, and would redirect questions about this change. She started to talk about changes to the galaxy, coaxed the three and her former party members into believing that these were good ideas, and eventually gave them tasks, most of which collectively amounted to “Preserve the Republic”.
Juhani was tasked not with establishing or running a new Jedi Enclave, but with helping along one that had just formed on some remote world. Administrative duties and handling conflicts of personality weren’t her strong suit, but she did reasonably well and discovered, in the process, that she enjoyed training Padawans in combat. Revan visited once. On that visit, she’d initially worn a deep hood that completely hid her eyes, only pulling it back at Juhani’s insistence. She told Juhani to wait. Very soon after that, she disappeared. Of the people on the Ebon Hawk’s crew, Juhani was the second-to-last to see her.
On the remote, hidden Enclave, Juhani was somewhat cut off from events in the Republic, but her friends sent her word of things changing, and not for the better.
ABILITIES: (List and descriptions to the best of your ability)
As a Cathar, Juhani is somewhat feline and has superior hearing. She's of her particular subspecies of Cathar, though, which means that she doesn't have long razor-sharp retractable claws. Instead she can move more silently, handle items with more delicacy, and has a bit more endurance.
Juhani is Force Sensitive and has the associated inherent, untrained talents - unusually accurate hunches, intuition, and enhanced reflexes. Training as a Jedi Knight, specifically a Guardian, has expanded on the untrained talents and given her others. She can augment her body through the Force, using it to help oxygenate her blood more efficiently, ease fatigue, ignore pain, and strengthen herself. She's got the standard powers - healing, telekinesis, early warnings, persuasion, sensing deception. As a Guardian, she can make a ten-meter horizontal leap from a running start. She can also influence animals.
Her specialty is lightsaber combat, but she's also good with other melee weapons, and fighting in general. Juhani's very good at combat. It's a "safe" way to express her Cathar nature; she’s not as wild as she used to be, but there’s still a savagery in her that she rarely shows outside of battle. Since she first learned to fight on the streets of Taris’s Undercity, she can revert back to that dirty, unschooled style if it’s called for. Which does involve biting, clawing, and grabbing, yes.
During her fall to the Dark Side she learned a few darker powers - how to slow and confuse, how to cast a weak but excruciatingly painful lightning, and how to choke without touching. She uses these infrequently, usually when desperate. Each of them leaves her with a headache and nasty feeling later, and casting the lightning also leaves her with muscle tremors, minor burns, and singed fur on her hands and arms. Rest takes care of the headache, feelings, and tremors.
She also has the ability to camouflage herself using the Force, becoming - not invisible, no, she shows up on camera. Her Force Camouflage is like Kreia's: she changes people's perceptions so that they just don't notice her. It doesn't work very well on large groups and from a serious distance, and it's ineffective if she attacks or starts running, but combined with more normal stealth she can make herself very hard to spot.
When she’s not wearing clunky footwear, noisy rustling clothing, or deliberately putting her feet down hard, she moves almost silently.
GAME INFO
EDENSPHERE NAME: (What your character will be called in Edensphere) Sylvar
BIRTHDAY LOG: (Would you like to participate in a birthday log? Please include our key phrase from the FAQ before responding with either 'yes' or 'no'--thank you!) Think of the giant squirrels. They think of you, naked. Uh… yes, with conditions.
DREAM: (Describe the dream your character has upon arrival; this counts as a sample RP of how you'd play your character, 3rd person POV)
In front of the Cathar woman, a man lay crumpled, his armor dented in places, coughing blood. He was still talking, teeth bared in a grimace of pain and hatred.
“I ended up at the lower city of Taris, and what did I find?” His eyes bored into hers, and he went on, blood and spittle gleaming on his face. “A few of those stinking beasts living there! The male was easy enough to best, but the females were elusive. I didn’t know what happened to them after I killed the male -“ He coughed harshly, breath rattling in his chest, but from his gaze she knew that he meant her. They both knew that he would die soon, and it would not be a pleasant death. But too fast for her.
She wanted to kill him a thousand times, to tear up his corpse and spit into his entrails, to leave the pieces for animals to eat. Even then, he would not have suffered as she had suffered. But she could cause him some fraction of that pain. All it would take would be a moment to reach…
Her rage was so strong that she trembled, aching all over, her vision red at the edges. But as powerful as it was, something was stopping her. She should not. She knew she should not.
Behind the Cathar woman, the woman who had saved her stood unmoving, a mask hiding her face. There was a kind of glow around her, felt rather than seen. “Don’t do it,” she said in a low, soft voice. “Don’t give in.”
“He - he killed my father, he killed my people, he - he treated us like animals, he deserves to die,” the Cathar woman managed to say through a throat that had nearly closed, anguished.
“You are stronger than this,” the masked woman said. She seemed so steady - tense, but calm in a way that the Cathar woman envied even as she was desperately glad of it.
The man coughed and stared up at her with gleaming, pain-wracked eyes. “Give in and embrace your hate. You’re no better than me. You are nothing.”
“I - I -“ She wanted him to regret that taunt, wanted it so badly that she tasted it. Words caught in her throat, and with a gasp she turned to the masked woman, her voice breaking. “Help me, please! Do not let me give in to my anger again!”
“You have a choice,” the masked woman said. Her mask hid her face, but her voice and presence were so rich that it hardly mattered. At core she was calm, but around that core she radiated a kind of loving fear. Fear for the Cathar woman. “There were two great Cathar heroes, a mated pair who fought the darkness together and saved many in the war. Remember?”
“Yes,” the Cathar woman whispered. “Sylvar and Crado. All Cathar know their names. I have told you the story.”
“What does it matter what the lesser, sub-human races call themselves?” the man snarled, but he was seized by a coughing fit and could not continue.
The masked woman pulled her attention back. “Yes, you told me the story. You told me how Crado came to embrace his anger at the galaxy which was not right or fair. In time he changed, and turned on his mate to join the other side.”
“And Sylvar fought him,” the Cathar woman said, caught in the masked woman’s voice. The masked woman’s calm seemed to wrap around her, shielding her from her anger. “She fought him, and she killed him. The war was won, but only at the cost of everything she held dear.”
“And so she walked the path of anger, as her mate had, as deep in the darkness as he had been,” the masked woman said. “But one day her eyes cleared, and she saw what she had become. She fought her anger. And in the end…”
“She turned back. She turned back, and became the greatest of our heroes,” the Cathar woman finished, slowly clasping her hands around each other.
“You have a choice, beloved,” the masked woman told her. “Following Crado is quick, and satisfying. I know this. But following Sylvar is the right thing to do. Don’t give in. I can’t always be here to bring you back.”
Still coughing, the man got out, “Coward! Worm!” Somehow, she did not look at him. She couldn’t look away from the masked woman’s visor.
“I - I - I will follow Sylvar,” the Cathar woman said. She longed for revenge, and the darkness was never far. Even as she said it, she regretted it. Just because it was right didn’t mean that it felt right. “I will not do this. He will die, but not by my hand.”
JOURNAL SAMPLE: (A general idea of what your character's first journal entry would be like after s/he settles into temporary housing. Pretend s/he has already had a birthday log.)
[The first sentence is very slowly written, as if the writer is reluctant. The letters are bit shaky, made by someone who’s unfamiliar with this setup. Letters are compact and squarish - the “tail” of p, for example, is very short.]
My name is now Sylvar of Taris. I must ask.
All who I have seen on this world are human. Are there any who are not? Are there so few because few are born who are not human, or because they are living away from where I am?
And - I must find some place that is quiet. I should be able to meditate even in all this noise, but I fear that I cannot.
ASPIRATIONS: (This is really just for the modstaff's benefit. We want to know if you have anything you'd like to see happen to your character in Edensphere, since that helps us help you with regards to those goals. We want to make this as fun as we can for everyone!)
Nothing currently. I’m sure I’ll let you guys know if I find some.