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the wonders of strange flight

and the resulting firey doom

Created on 2007-10-29 19:14:12 (#14138572), last updated 2007-10-31

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1 Journal Entry, 2 Tags, 0 Memories, 0 Virtual Gifts, 15 Userpics

Basic Info

Name:	Stork
Location:	(states/regions/territories)

Bio

Player Name: Sakki
Email Address: lordoftheiphail@gmail.com
AIM Screen Name: snakesonacondor

Character Name: Stork
Series: Storm Hawks
Age: 16

Physical Description: An awkward young man, Stork is tall, lanky, and long. Despite being only sixteen, he's already passed the six-foot mark, standing at a high 6' 3" - when he stands upright. A lack of anything resembling posture makes him look several inches shorter, and the fact that he's constantly crouched under something to work on it makes his height even less readily apparent. His torso, limbs, fingers, neck, and even his face are all a little longer than usual, giving him that awkward and lanky appearance that, surprisingly, doesn't carry through to the way he moves - he's long since gotten used to his unusually extended body, and uses it to his advantage. (After all, longer arms and fingers mean you can reach further into the machine to extract whatever's blocking the pipe ... ) Along with his body being long and lanky, it's also scrawny - there's almost zero body fat on him, and the muscle that can be seen is wiry and thin.

He has black hair that is cut short in the back and left long in the front, often covering the right half of his face and generally getting in the way. It also has the tendency to spike up in the back when he doesn't smooth it down (which is most of the time). His ears are a little higher-set and slightly pointed, but it's nothing more than an interesting genetic deformation and is hardly noticable, and the left is pierced twice in the upper cartilege. His eyes are somewhat narrow, and the irises are an unusual shade of yellow-gold. His skin is also a little bit unusual - it's either so pale it's gone beyond the point of white or is another genetic anomaly, but the fact remains that his skin has an unusual and probably unhealthy greenish tint.

When it comes to clothing, Stork tends to wear the simplest things he can find. Sleeveless shirts, long pants, simple shoes ... really, there's hardly anything noticable or unique about his clothing - when he's inside and being casual. When he's working, he wears no small amount of protective gear, most of it fashioned by him personally and more ridiculous than useful. (There are people who have seen him wearing a pot upside-down on his head in an attempt to protect his skull from flying shrapnel.) And when he ventures outside, he typically wears several layers, topped by a long coat with a high collar that he may or may not believe protects his neck from attacks and a pair of boots on his feet that are several sizes too large for him, tied firmly around his lower legs and stuffed at the toes.

Personality: Pessimism and paranoia come naturally to Stork, as does a very well-hidden love for adventure. For the most part, when someone meets Stork for the first time, what they see is a jumpy young man who can find terror, death, destruction, and doom in every corner of a room and on every object imaginable. It's difficult for him to focus on the positive side of things simply because the negative ones are so much more obvious (or, sometimes, less - and less is more!) and dangerous. He takes some sadistic delight in detailing various manners of death to those who don't realize the apparent danger, although a lot of that danger is spurred on by his ever-growing and constant paranoia.

And on that subject: Stork is the most paranoid person anyone is ever likely to meet. He'll blow any situation totally out of proportion, can see danger where there isn't any, focuses on the darker side of everything, and has somehow managed to obtain the knowledge of every disease known to man, whether it's been cured or fallen out of existence or otherwise and worries about whether or not he or anyone around him has it. This, along with his near-obsession with death, has lead him to be pretty damned morbid. It doesn't help that he tends to be sarcastic when he thinks other people are being stupid/idiots/missing the obvious; people have tended to avoid dealing with him because he comes off as being rude, although they more often don't deal with him because of how incredibly strange he is.

In summary, Stork is hyper-paranoid, obsessive-compulsive, germophobic, hypochondriatic, incredibly pessimistic, somewhat delusional, and fairly morbid with a tiny sadistic touch - but he isn't a bad guy. He still has acquaintances and a few fair-weather friends, although most of them are merchants that buy his airships or blueprints. He can be decent and will help out someone who's in dire need, but his fear of injury, sickness, or death drives him to seclude himself from most of the rest of the world. Unless, of course, it comes to his airships and gadgets.

As for his love of adventure ... when it comes to dangerous situations, Stork does everything he can to try and avoid them. However, if this becomes impossible, he'll literally lunge at the danger face-first, trying to surprise it long enough for him to get away. And when it comes to flying his airships? Let's just say that the faster he can go, the more excited he gets. Speed is one of the few things that can make him truly happy (the others relating to his airships as well).

Abilities/Strengths/Weaponry: Stork is a mechanical genius. He can write up the blueprints for, build, and successfully pilot almost anything. He also loves tinkering with smaller gadgets, most of them designed for his own protection - although a good number of them never see the light of day, and plenty are completely useless. Still, his ability to build beyond the realm of what most people consider useful or possible has gained him a minor reputation among traders for having unique, ahead-of-the-times crafts and objects.

Despite typically drawing up blueprints and selling them without building a craft or building a craft to direct specfications, Stork does have two airships that he has never shared the blueprints of: the Crane, and the Condor. The Crane is his larger airship and is constantly in-progress, having never actually been used for anything aside from test runs. He's constantly altering it, trying to find better ways to keep it aloft so that one day, he might be able to use it to transport major objects (entire boats or smaller airships) across the Sanzu. The Condor, on the other hand, is Stork's precious, precious baby. Built like all his other ships from scratch, the Condor is a much smaller airship that can hold four people safely at most and maybe ten if he really wants to get dangerous. Stork has crafted the Condor to be THE top-of-the-line airship (in his eyes, of course), well-built and capably armed for protection against any danger. He's poured his heart and soul into building the Condor and will fight tooth and nail to protect it. It can blaze through the sky at speeds exceeding 500mph, although it tends to come to a screeching halt and slam into the water after too long. Regardless, the Condor can both sail through the air and across the water, and it's Stork's pride and joy - he uses it whenever he has to cross to another island to trade.

He also builds basic weaponry, and tends to carry at least two guns with him at all times (well-hidden) for protection. And a wrench. His specialization is airships, though.

Weaknesses: Stork's crippling paranoia is one of his greatest weaknesses, as is his fear of pretty much everything. It doesn't take much to get him to cower under the nearest rock, and if faced with danger, he'll flee before fighting. And when it does come down to fighting, even his gadgets, guns, and tooth-and-nail fighting generally don't get him anywhere - he relies more on surprise and traps rather than outright battle. While he does have some physical strength thanks to his constantly working on airships, he knows almost nothing about hand-to-hand combat, and therefore can't use that strength effectively.

Stork is so focused on not being struck down by disease or doom or death that he forgets to do simple things (eating, drinking, and sleeping come to mind), rendering him useless on occasions when he passes out from hunger or fatigue. And while he does realize his mechanical prowess and takes great pride and joy in it, it doesn't take all that much for someone to tear his self-esteem into pieces and send him cowering under his bed or snap him into silence. Stork also tends to avoid problems that he doesn't know how to solve by withdrawing into his work.

When it comes to dealing with other people, Stork is something of a gigantic social failure, which may be why he has so few island acquaintances.

History: Stork - and anyone who meets him or knows him - thinks he was born on Tartarus to poor parents, since he was raised there and has spent his entire life there. The truth, however, is somewhat different: he was actually born on one of the ships of the Twili fleet, the Merb. Not a particularly special child, he was treated as all Twili children are, tattooed with an initial teal-green layer not long after his birth, and again shortly after his first birthday. However, he was never given the black tattoos typical of the Twili, as the Merb was caught, along with the rest of the Twili fleet, in a very large storm which ripped the ship from the fleet and destroyed it utterly. It was assumed that there were no survivors, but the infant Stork was somehow set adrift on wreckage - likely his real mother's final act. He wound up on the coast of Tartarus and was found by a young woman looking for wild vegetables - she had lost her own child not long ago, and finding no other living people on the shore, took him home, where she and her husband quickly adopted the strange green boy as their own son.

Stork now lived with a poor mother and father who barely scraped up enough to live on. His father was a worker in the shipyards of Illyria, and his mother raised a small garden in the unfertile soil, although the results were often better than expected, and her recipes for the meat of the turtle-drake were actually somewhat well-known in the city. Still, it was hard to make ends meet sometimes, and so by the time he would walk, Stork was doing everything he could to help his father at the docks. It was there that he picked up his first knowledge of ships, and his interested was piqued; when he learned about airships, his future was practically sealed. Being a young boy who couldn't do much heavy lifting, his father's supervisors sometimes allowed him into their "offices" and showed him the blueprints for their ships and the lists of trading routes, amused at the boy's enthusiasm.

When he drew up his first blueprint of a ship at age five, his father brought it to his co-workers and supervisors. When they discovered, as he had, that it was not only a viable blueprint, but actually a somewhat advanced version of a current ship they were making, their interest was sparked. By the time he was six, Stork was learning how to build ships as well as airships, and every time he got his hands on a book or other piece of writing that had any kind of instructional value, his abilities leaped up a notch. It was clear to everyone who knew him that Stork was a growing genius with a possible future on the Southern islands - but for now, he was still a child, and had to be put to work to make money for his family.

Not long after his eighth birthday, tragedy struck - both of his parents were killed by a sudden outbreak of disease in Illyria. Stork was struck with the disease as well, but somehow miraculously survived - this may have something to do with his unusual skin tone - and was shortly thereafter sent to an orphanage in Navarre. The sudden change in his life was what started his downward personality spiral and lead him to be much more pessimistic and, when the very same disease struck again in his orphanage, sparing him entirely this time, his paranoia set in. As he grew older, he latched on to any literature he could find - most of it history, mechanical, and medical texts - and fed his growing desire for knowledge, any knowledge, so long as it informed him of something. And even while he was in the orphanage, he still continued to draw up blueprints and build anything he could manage, although finding the materials was a little difficult sometimes. All of this seclusion lead him to have very few friends as a child, something that barely changed as he grew older.

At twelve, he left the orphanage and made his way to one of the craftsmen in town who worked on airships and begged for an apprenticeship. Initially, he was turned down, but when he presented his blueprints and the few things he'd managed to make, the man took him up on a trial: if Stork didn't prove himself in two months, he was going back to the orphanage. Stork got to work without delay, and by the time the two-month trial was up, he'd produced two blueprints that not only improved on the craftsman's own designs but involved some interesting new theories that, when put to the test, were surprisingly effective. For the next two years, Stork worked under the craftsman, learning the finer nuances of airship-building and perfecting his own art.

Although during those two years, Stork barely had a place to live. His newfound mentor had no room for him, so he tended to sleep outside, hiding in tiny nooks and crannies that were difficult to access. He had no salary as an apprentice, and had to earn money on the side by selling little gadgets he'd crafted or the occasional lucky find on a beach or in the grass somewhere. Though pirate raids were less frequent than they had been in Illyria, they still happened, and on more than one occasion Stork barely managed to escape with his life. It was these two years that cemented his pessimism and dark humor, and when his mentor died of a sudden and almost unexplained illness, his paranoia was set for life.

With a much stronger grip on the world of airships, Stork began selling blueprints in the town. While at first very few people were willing to buy them, a handful of merchants who had once had connections with the now-dead craftsman that took Stork in gave him a chance. Word quickly spread of the effectiveness of the designs, and by the time he was fifteen Stork was able to buy his own small warehouse in Navarre, with enough space to build smaller airships on commission and ships when the need arose. (Of course, this was only possible through extreme saving, and by the time he'd furnished the place with all the proper tools and such, there was almost nothing left for him live on.) He settled there and began his work, and since then has actually been quite happy, despite his constant fear of disease and death and the lack of food and comfort.

Events in his life after the game's start:
(To be written in prose later, when I have coherency.)
- Meets up with fellow mechanics Sokka and Winry. Hooray friends! Has several long discussions with them about mechanical things and is gleeful when they admire his ships.
- Is visited by Jade and both thoroughly traumatized, and enticed. Poor boy doesn't realize Jade now has him marked for future acquisition.
- Wakes up in the middle of the night one night to realize that people are breaking into his warehouse. Shortly discovers that the intruders are, in fact, very short girls, and after being spoken sharply to, allows them to stay the night on the Crane.
- The next morning, speaks with the girls and learns a bit more about them. Midna, a Twili, and Toph, a blind runaway, are his new "friends". Has a discussion with them involving what he is, what Midna is, and being considered a Twili by Midna despite his insistence that he's just a really pale Aegean. Is felt up by Toph, for srs. (thread still in-progress)
- Later the same day, Winry, Tifa, and Reno arrive at his door to take him to dinner. Is very reluctant until Winry insists he go as repayment for the discount he gave her the first time they met. They go out and eat, and Stork is quite twitchy.
- The next morning, goes out to visit Katara's medicine shop with the intent of purchasing things to keep him alive. (thread still in-progress, hasn't actually arrived yet)
- After returning from the shop, realizes that his warehouse has been brokein into again. Busts in to be accosted by two mafia members who restrain him, steal his guns, and ask him questions. When he fails to answer, they punch him several times, effectively rendering him only partially coherent and very traumatized. Axel takes over shortly, resulting in Stork flinging mechanical junk at him; as a result, Axel scratches the Condor. Stork goes nuts and attacks him, fails miserably, and returns to being traumatized and threatened. Then Jade arrives to save the day with Hojo in tow, and eventually reclaims Stork, who goes to gather his things to stay on the Albiore. (thread still in-progress)

This is a puppet journal for