Post by Ed Hauser on Jun 1, 2012 10:30:16 GMT -5
✓►PLAYER◄
Username: Empire.
Preferred method of contact: AIM. This'd be doldrumdays, though I will warn you if you add me to a buddy list--I do make a lot of updates!
How did you find us: Linked by Solar.
Codeword: Agnomen.
✓►CHARACTER◄
Name: Edward Hauser.
Nicknames: Ed, Eddie, Brick, sometimes Brick House/Haus. That one kind of got annoying.
Date of birth/age: July 18th. 29.
Gender: Male.
Sexuality: Straight.
Job: Arena football player part time (offensive lineman), and he works at a grocery store the rest of it. Arena league doesn't pay the bills--that'd fall to produce.
Degrees/Permits: Bachelor's in kinesiology. Does it come in handy anywhere? Not really!
Languages Spoken: He knows about ten words in German, if that counts.
Human or shifter: Shifter.
Appearance:
(PB is Jon Bernthal.)
Being 6'6" and weighing in at 252 lbs, Ed is by no means a small man. He can pack a punch when needed, though he would generally prefer not to. Both his hair and his eyes are brown, and he keeps hair buzzed close to his head for convenience. No bad hair days, no having to brush anything in the morning--all well and good as far as his opinion. He's got fairly unremarkable features that probably wouldn't stick out in a crowd, with a nose that's been broken a few times and ears that stick out a bit too far from his head, in his opinion. He doesn't generally wear very dressy clothing, instead preferring to just toss on whatever just so happens to be comfortable and get on out the door. Ed doesn't have a lot of noticeable scars, but he does have a few now-regretted tattoos, these being your run-of-the mill crisscrossing barbed wire lines across his right bicep, a few tribal patterns on his left shoulderblade, and a small Chinese symbol located on his right side that he thinks says 'strength'. (Spoiler: It actually says 'orange'. He isn't aware of this, and doesn't exactly want to be.) Generally, he keeps himself perhaps on the less groomed side of cleanliness, often forgetting to shave and winding up with some serious five-o-clock shadow until he remembers.
Since contracting versi, he's gotten a few little additional things that he would honestly rather not have. He has very small, hooked suckers on his fingers, which facilitates the use of some rather tough gloves a decent portion of the time so as to not accidentally hurt people. His arms are also a bit long when compared to the rest of him, though that is one of the less-noticeable parts. All things considered, he's fairly normal, though his eyes are a bit disconcerting somehow.
Personality:
Ed is a pretty chill guy, to start off with. It's not particularly hard to get him riled up, but he's very quick to calm himself back down and shrug whatever got to him off like an old jacket. He really doesn't have a whole lot of drive for a lot of things that aren't his sport, and is scatterbrained as anything (though the next person to joke about that being from football will likely get a smack to the back of the head) most of the time. He does seem to manage to batten down the hatches when he's tired, oddly enough. Ed is perhaps a bit more bitter now that shifter-hate's been quite obviously directed at him, and he's really just sick of that in general. He tries to keep the fact that he's a shifter under wraps as best he can, though that's sort of a lost cause at this point. Still, if he doesn't know you very well, you're not likely in the least to be told that he's one until much later on. He doesn't like keeping a lot of secrets, but that's one he feels is mandatory, unfortunately.
It's very easy to start up a competition with him, and he will do everything short of cheating to win when you've fired him up. He's got good sportsmanship and does like helping people, and if you've gotten him on your side, you can call him at pretty much any time other than before a game and he will come and help you out however he can. He's loyal, though he does have a bit of a problem with keeping secrets--he doesn't really feel that they're needed, in most cases. Unless you have a really good reason, he's probably raise an eyebrow at you, simply because...why's that a secret, just do what you want. Ed is an open person with not a lot of sense of personal space, though he will quite willingly back off if he's managed to irritate you. He can be confrontational on bad days, but will generally just respect whatever's happening and go with the flow. Altogether, he's not a very high-strung person, and he does best in places where he's comfortable. He's not entirely used to being in any kind of spotlight (that's not to say arena football really has any spotlights) just yet, preferring to work behind the scenes where possible. He very rarely takes credit for his success, instead just shuffling it off to somebody else and watching approvingly from the sidelines.
Ed is a decent sort of person, with a high respect for anyone working for a living and a strong emphasis placed on earning your own keep. He can definitely be a bit anal about that sometimes, but he does mean well, most of the time. If you've managed to get on his bad side, he'll either just not talk to you until he's forgotten whatever pissed him off, or he'll confront you about it in an attempt to put the water under the bridge. He doesn't enjoy being mad at people, being that it just gets in the way of doing things that are actually productive, but there are some times when that's entirely unavoidable, much to his chagrin.
Strengths:
Physically, Ed is tough. He can definitely take a beating, though his healing rate is the same as any regular person, and is pretty good at rolling with the punches. He's strong, determined, and not likely to back down from a challenge, instead charging right on in to deal with it. He prefers to tackle his problems head-on (sometimes literally, in extreme cases) and get them sorted out as quickly as possible, so as to not drag things out. Ed's resilient, adaptable, and patient, easily capable of waiting things out or swapping to a new plan at a moment's notice.
Ed is a social person, finding it easy to mingle with groups of your average folk. He's good at judging social situations, and will often intervene before things go somewhere unpleasant with whatever needed to defuse the situation.
Weaknesses:
While he does well in the physical department, Ed isn't necessarily the greatest at the more intellectual things. It's almost remarkably easy to confuse him, which will lead to him being embarrassed and then just messing up more, and the cycle begins again. He's more a man for the simpler things in life, and trying to get him to socialize with anybody that's on the higher end of the socioeconomic spectrum will invariably end in absolute disaster. Manipulating him is about as easy as taking candy from a baby, though he will definitely not like you for it--just say that you need some help with something, and then proceed to get him to do whatever it is you want doing. When he catches on, you're going to have some trouble on your hands, that's for sure.
He can be a bit paranoid, though with fairly decent reason--shifter hate isn't exactly a thing that can be dismissed as a few radicals. At times, he is definitely overprotective of his friends, almost to the point of being smothering. This can definitely cause some grating, which will likely lead to him getting snapped at.
It also isn't that hard to burn him out by means of competition--just keep putting forth the least effort possible and watch as he crashes and burns in the end. To top it off, he's gullible when it comes to his friends, and any little excuse or story will likely be accepted as truth without a lot of questions, so long as it seems legit. Stories about fighting Darth Vader used as a reason for why you didn't show up for coffee or something will be noticed.
History:
A Miami native, Ed has never once lived anywhere else. His childhood was spent on the beaches, and everything past that was spent in the city. His parents were average middle-class folk, with his father being a resource manager for a big-name aeronautics company and his mother working for a local bakery. He has one younger sister named Alicia, and the two are not particularly close anymore. His grandparents on his father's side are German, and do not really speak the best English--as a result, Ed learned a bit of German when he was younger, though pretty much all of that's gone ahead and flown right out the window. He wasn't surprised.
Up until high school, his life really wasn't that exciting. He did what kids do and played outside a lot, winding up getting himself into some kind of trouble with the local wildlife at least twice a month. His growth spurts started early, and it was very clear that young Edward was going to be the tallest out of the family. He sure did turn out to be, as his dad always used to say! This growth spurt was what got him to try out for football, and he took to the sport like a fish to water, starting out in middle school and going all the way through his schooling. He wanted nothing more than to play with the pros, to hit that sweet spot in his game and prove that he could do it. Ed was more than aware that his chances were almost sickeningly low--he accepted this and tried anyway. Though he was a bit disappointed when he didn't manage to make pro, he quickly swapped targets and became an arena football player instead. He is very certain that it was one of the best decisions he's made.
In college, he didn't get to put quite as much emphasis on sports as he'd like, leaving him riding the bench for a good bit. His grades were simply average, and he really had no idea what he was in there for until one of his coaches suggested he go into the field of physical education. He picked kinesiology out of that, and just barely managed to scrape out of that with a bachelor's degree. Ed really has no idea how that happened, and it's still a mystery to him. He wouldn't be surprised if one of his coaches had bullied his professors into letting him pass.
After graduating, he milled about for a few months, winding up having to reassess his plans when he didn't get to go pro. He got a job at a restaurant first, and used the money from that to help him stay secure enough to be able to keep doing what he loved. When he did get accepted for the arena league, he exchanged his waiter job for one at a grocery store with better hours and pay, and didn't look back. Everything seemed to be going pretty alright until he got versi, at which point things just got weird.
To be perfectly honest, Ed had almost been expecting to catch versi. He had never had really good luck when it came to avoiding illness anyway, and he figured it would just be something he could get over as soon as possible and move on. He caught it fairly early, though everything seemed normal until a while later. His first shift was in the hallway of the family house, being that his mother had demanded he come back home so she could nurse him back to health. It was during this time that Ed was really glad of his father's chlorine allergy, as that stupid saltwater pool that nobody ever used in their backyard was finally given a purpose. No, it wasn't comfortable, and he would rather not repeat the experience.
His father was initially hostile in regards to his son's accidental shift, but he quickly realized that he definitely wasn't helping matters and got as over it as he could be. His mother was briefly hysterical, though it wasn't because her eldest child was a squid--it was because there was a squid on her carpet, she just cleaned that. She wound up being at least tolerant, though not entirely supportive. She does help out when needed. The one family member that did not manage to deal with it was Alicia, who reacted with disgust and hate. Ed hadn't been expecting that at all from her, and it did wound him deeply. As time passed, he mostly went from being hurt to confused and exasperated, while she learned to show her disapproval of her brother's unwanted condition in more subtle ways. Unfortunately for her, he doesn't always pick up on these.
Ed has managed to get his shifting pretty well under control, simply because he doesn't want to die. A squid on land in Miami heat? That really wouldn't last long, and it would be unlikely anyone would assist. After all, he's a shifter, not to mention a pretty dang big squid. He rarely shifts now, usually only allowing himself a bit of squid-swim time in the ocean after a win. His other form still unnerves him a bit, and he's working to get over that as best he can.
✓►SHIFTER◄
Species: Humboldt Squid, Dosidicus gigas.
Group: Cephalopod.
Conservation status: Data deficient, really. I've found enough that suggests that it's not endangered, though.
Appearance:
He's actually about six feet four inches long as a squid. He can't help but wonder where those missing two inches actually went.
Abilities:
He has excellent underwater vision, but can't really see so well anymore outside of it. As a result, he wears contacts now, but generally just wears glasses at home.
Aside from that, he's a particularly good swimmer now, but he does have some trouble swapping back to being on land. Shifting is also incredibly disorienting to him, partially because of oh god why so many limbs. It takes him a bit to get his bearings either way, though it's a bit easier to recover when shifting back to human form.
His physical abilities haven't really been augmented by his shifter status, though he's just the slightest bit stronger than he was before. His blood is slightly blue-tinted, and that confuses him, though it doesn't do a lot other than get weird looks when he's hurt himself. Hooray for squids and Ed not doing any research.
Finally, he can spit ink. No, it's not useful, and he honestly finds it nasty.
Username: Empire.
Preferred method of contact: AIM. This'd be doldrumdays, though I will warn you if you add me to a buddy list--I do make a lot of updates!
How did you find us: Linked by Solar.
Codeword: Agnomen.
✓►CHARACTER◄
Name: Edward Hauser.
Nicknames: Ed, Eddie, Brick, sometimes Brick House/Haus. That one kind of got annoying.
Date of birth/age: July 18th. 29.
Gender: Male.
Sexuality: Straight.
Job: Arena football player part time (offensive lineman), and he works at a grocery store the rest of it. Arena league doesn't pay the bills--that'd fall to produce.
Degrees/Permits: Bachelor's in kinesiology. Does it come in handy anywhere? Not really!
Languages Spoken: He knows about ten words in German, if that counts.
Human or shifter: Shifter.
Appearance:
(PB is Jon Bernthal.)
Being 6'6" and weighing in at 252 lbs, Ed is by no means a small man. He can pack a punch when needed, though he would generally prefer not to. Both his hair and his eyes are brown, and he keeps hair buzzed close to his head for convenience. No bad hair days, no having to brush anything in the morning--all well and good as far as his opinion. He's got fairly unremarkable features that probably wouldn't stick out in a crowd, with a nose that's been broken a few times and ears that stick out a bit too far from his head, in his opinion. He doesn't generally wear very dressy clothing, instead preferring to just toss on whatever just so happens to be comfortable and get on out the door. Ed doesn't have a lot of noticeable scars, but he does have a few now-regretted tattoos, these being your run-of-the mill crisscrossing barbed wire lines across his right bicep, a few tribal patterns on his left shoulderblade, and a small Chinese symbol located on his right side that he thinks says 'strength'. (Spoiler: It actually says 'orange'. He isn't aware of this, and doesn't exactly want to be.) Generally, he keeps himself perhaps on the less groomed side of cleanliness, often forgetting to shave and winding up with some serious five-o-clock shadow until he remembers.
Since contracting versi, he's gotten a few little additional things that he would honestly rather not have. He has very small, hooked suckers on his fingers, which facilitates the use of some rather tough gloves a decent portion of the time so as to not accidentally hurt people. His arms are also a bit long when compared to the rest of him, though that is one of the less-noticeable parts. All things considered, he's fairly normal, though his eyes are a bit disconcerting somehow.
Personality:
Ed is a pretty chill guy, to start off with. It's not particularly hard to get him riled up, but he's very quick to calm himself back down and shrug whatever got to him off like an old jacket. He really doesn't have a whole lot of drive for a lot of things that aren't his sport, and is scatterbrained as anything (though the next person to joke about that being from football will likely get a smack to the back of the head) most of the time. He does seem to manage to batten down the hatches when he's tired, oddly enough. Ed is perhaps a bit more bitter now that shifter-hate's been quite obviously directed at him, and he's really just sick of that in general. He tries to keep the fact that he's a shifter under wraps as best he can, though that's sort of a lost cause at this point. Still, if he doesn't know you very well, you're not likely in the least to be told that he's one until much later on. He doesn't like keeping a lot of secrets, but that's one he feels is mandatory, unfortunately.
It's very easy to start up a competition with him, and he will do everything short of cheating to win when you've fired him up. He's got good sportsmanship and does like helping people, and if you've gotten him on your side, you can call him at pretty much any time other than before a game and he will come and help you out however he can. He's loyal, though he does have a bit of a problem with keeping secrets--he doesn't really feel that they're needed, in most cases. Unless you have a really good reason, he's probably raise an eyebrow at you, simply because...why's that a secret, just do what you want. Ed is an open person with not a lot of sense of personal space, though he will quite willingly back off if he's managed to irritate you. He can be confrontational on bad days, but will generally just respect whatever's happening and go with the flow. Altogether, he's not a very high-strung person, and he does best in places where he's comfortable. He's not entirely used to being in any kind of spotlight (that's not to say arena football really has any spotlights) just yet, preferring to work behind the scenes where possible. He very rarely takes credit for his success, instead just shuffling it off to somebody else and watching approvingly from the sidelines.
Ed is a decent sort of person, with a high respect for anyone working for a living and a strong emphasis placed on earning your own keep. He can definitely be a bit anal about that sometimes, but he does mean well, most of the time. If you've managed to get on his bad side, he'll either just not talk to you until he's forgotten whatever pissed him off, or he'll confront you about it in an attempt to put the water under the bridge. He doesn't enjoy being mad at people, being that it just gets in the way of doing things that are actually productive, but there are some times when that's entirely unavoidable, much to his chagrin.
Strengths:
Physically, Ed is tough. He can definitely take a beating, though his healing rate is the same as any regular person, and is pretty good at rolling with the punches. He's strong, determined, and not likely to back down from a challenge, instead charging right on in to deal with it. He prefers to tackle his problems head-on (sometimes literally, in extreme cases) and get them sorted out as quickly as possible, so as to not drag things out. Ed's resilient, adaptable, and patient, easily capable of waiting things out or swapping to a new plan at a moment's notice.
Ed is a social person, finding it easy to mingle with groups of your average folk. He's good at judging social situations, and will often intervene before things go somewhere unpleasant with whatever needed to defuse the situation.
Weaknesses:
While he does well in the physical department, Ed isn't necessarily the greatest at the more intellectual things. It's almost remarkably easy to confuse him, which will lead to him being embarrassed and then just messing up more, and the cycle begins again. He's more a man for the simpler things in life, and trying to get him to socialize with anybody that's on the higher end of the socioeconomic spectrum will invariably end in absolute disaster. Manipulating him is about as easy as taking candy from a baby, though he will definitely not like you for it--just say that you need some help with something, and then proceed to get him to do whatever it is you want doing. When he catches on, you're going to have some trouble on your hands, that's for sure.
He can be a bit paranoid, though with fairly decent reason--shifter hate isn't exactly a thing that can be dismissed as a few radicals. At times, he is definitely overprotective of his friends, almost to the point of being smothering. This can definitely cause some grating, which will likely lead to him getting snapped at.
It also isn't that hard to burn him out by means of competition--just keep putting forth the least effort possible and watch as he crashes and burns in the end. To top it off, he's gullible when it comes to his friends, and any little excuse or story will likely be accepted as truth without a lot of questions, so long as it seems legit. Stories about fighting Darth Vader used as a reason for why you didn't show up for coffee or something will be noticed.
History:
A Miami native, Ed has never once lived anywhere else. His childhood was spent on the beaches, and everything past that was spent in the city. His parents were average middle-class folk, with his father being a resource manager for a big-name aeronautics company and his mother working for a local bakery. He has one younger sister named Alicia, and the two are not particularly close anymore. His grandparents on his father's side are German, and do not really speak the best English--as a result, Ed learned a bit of German when he was younger, though pretty much all of that's gone ahead and flown right out the window. He wasn't surprised.
Up until high school, his life really wasn't that exciting. He did what kids do and played outside a lot, winding up getting himself into some kind of trouble with the local wildlife at least twice a month. His growth spurts started early, and it was very clear that young Edward was going to be the tallest out of the family. He sure did turn out to be, as his dad always used to say! This growth spurt was what got him to try out for football, and he took to the sport like a fish to water, starting out in middle school and going all the way through his schooling. He wanted nothing more than to play with the pros, to hit that sweet spot in his game and prove that he could do it. Ed was more than aware that his chances were almost sickeningly low--he accepted this and tried anyway. Though he was a bit disappointed when he didn't manage to make pro, he quickly swapped targets and became an arena football player instead. He is very certain that it was one of the best decisions he's made.
In college, he didn't get to put quite as much emphasis on sports as he'd like, leaving him riding the bench for a good bit. His grades were simply average, and he really had no idea what he was in there for until one of his coaches suggested he go into the field of physical education. He picked kinesiology out of that, and just barely managed to scrape out of that with a bachelor's degree. Ed really has no idea how that happened, and it's still a mystery to him. He wouldn't be surprised if one of his coaches had bullied his professors into letting him pass.
After graduating, he milled about for a few months, winding up having to reassess his plans when he didn't get to go pro. He got a job at a restaurant first, and used the money from that to help him stay secure enough to be able to keep doing what he loved. When he did get accepted for the arena league, he exchanged his waiter job for one at a grocery store with better hours and pay, and didn't look back. Everything seemed to be going pretty alright until he got versi, at which point things just got weird.
To be perfectly honest, Ed had almost been expecting to catch versi. He had never had really good luck when it came to avoiding illness anyway, and he figured it would just be something he could get over as soon as possible and move on. He caught it fairly early, though everything seemed normal until a while later. His first shift was in the hallway of the family house, being that his mother had demanded he come back home so she could nurse him back to health. It was during this time that Ed was really glad of his father's chlorine allergy, as that stupid saltwater pool that nobody ever used in their backyard was finally given a purpose. No, it wasn't comfortable, and he would rather not repeat the experience.
His father was initially hostile in regards to his son's accidental shift, but he quickly realized that he definitely wasn't helping matters and got as over it as he could be. His mother was briefly hysterical, though it wasn't because her eldest child was a squid--it was because there was a squid on her carpet, she just cleaned that. She wound up being at least tolerant, though not entirely supportive. She does help out when needed. The one family member that did not manage to deal with it was Alicia, who reacted with disgust and hate. Ed hadn't been expecting that at all from her, and it did wound him deeply. As time passed, he mostly went from being hurt to confused and exasperated, while she learned to show her disapproval of her brother's unwanted condition in more subtle ways. Unfortunately for her, he doesn't always pick up on these.
Ed has managed to get his shifting pretty well under control, simply because he doesn't want to die. A squid on land in Miami heat? That really wouldn't last long, and it would be unlikely anyone would assist. After all, he's a shifter, not to mention a pretty dang big squid. He rarely shifts now, usually only allowing himself a bit of squid-swim time in the ocean after a win. His other form still unnerves him a bit, and he's working to get over that as best he can.
✓►SHIFTER◄
Species: Humboldt Squid, Dosidicus gigas.
Group: Cephalopod.
Conservation status: Data deficient, really. I've found enough that suggests that it's not endangered, though.
Appearance:
He's actually about six feet four inches long as a squid. He can't help but wonder where those missing two inches actually went.
Abilities:
He has excellent underwater vision, but can't really see so well anymore outside of it. As a result, he wears contacts now, but generally just wears glasses at home.
Aside from that, he's a particularly good swimmer now, but he does have some trouble swapping back to being on land. Shifting is also incredibly disorienting to him, partially because of oh god why so many limbs. It takes him a bit to get his bearings either way, though it's a bit easier to recover when shifting back to human form.
His physical abilities haven't really been augmented by his shifter status, though he's just the slightest bit stronger than he was before. His blood is slightly blue-tinted, and that confuses him, though it doesn't do a lot other than get weird looks when he's hurt himself. Hooray for squids and Ed not doing any research.
Finally, he can spit ink. No, it's not useful, and he honestly finds it nasty.
