application;

[nonfictional]

User Name/Nick: Chase
User DW:
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: whitespire
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Allan (verticalwall)

Character Name: Alan Wake
Series: Alan Wake
Age: 46
From When?: Post base game, Saga shoots him with the bullet of light. (not the final draft!)

Inmate Justification: Alan has gone through great and terrible lengths to ensure his survival at the expense of hurting others and has done so without too much hesitation, yes, and guilt weighs on him heavily, yes, but there's still a very large part of him that hasn't reckoned what he's done and what that means to others. At his canon point he very much is amenable to change and recognizes he needs to due to the course of the games events, but he's still very much at the base level of those steps. The desire and recognition of who he is and what he's done is there, but nothing has been done due to the rapidity of the situation and the nature of his canon point.

Alan's struggle with the supernatural isn't the only thing that causes his inmate status. On top of the choices he's made to further his own agenda, however noble said agenda is, Alan also has to get a firm grip on some of his core issues: his temper, his desire and constant need to be the only one that can fix things, the frankly wild combo of his ego and self loathing, the impossible double standards he sets for himself and sometimes others, his talent for dismissing (and sometimes reacting negatively) help he could easily accept as well as refusal to consider other people's needs when push comes to shove because he's blinded by how right he is.

Alan (mostly) comes from a good place, but he's got a definite case of White Boy Video Game Protagonist that bleeds into literally everything he does.

Arrival: Against his will. He'll fully assume he just doesn't remember the conversation.

Abilities/Powers:
Re-writing reality - As a parautilitarian, Alan uses the creative art of writing to channel the brunt of his power, and he can rewrite reality to better fit the story he's shaping by changing little parts of other people or things in real life through the power of his manuscripts. There are limitations to this: he needs to be at specific place called Cauldron Lake, he needs to have it fit a set of extremely complicated rules. He cannot make things up without there being a logical reason for it in the story, for example, so he can't do things like writing in jetpacks or just have the evil threat die. He also needs to balance the stakes: the hero he writes about (himself, Saga) needs to be in actual danger to make what he's writing good, and, ultimately, actually work. This will be completely nerf'd and mostly irrelevant since the Barge is in a different location entirely.

Angel Lamp - A simple art deco table lamp with the cord cut, Alan is able to use it as a guiding light. Much like Dumbledore's Illuminator from the Harry Potter series, it has the ability to either take light sources away and into itself, darkening an area, or give light to a place that needs it if there is light stored in it already. While in the Dark Place, this also reveals hidden paths, which won't much matter in the barge. Taking or giving light sources only seems to go work with electricity/light bulbs and not light from fires or other sources.

Healing light - being in a well-lit area soothes Alan more than the average person. While not a magical cure-all, Alan can recover a tiny bit of his health via video game logic--not a whole lot, that goes to painkillers and bandages in his inventory, but enough that if he's on deaths door he can at least not bleed out if he makes it to a safe haven before he falls unconscious!

Imagination: Alan is able to harness his vivid imagination, and combined with a flashlight or other light source he can strengthen the beam. Flashlights can shine a little bit brighter through force of will, and a flare gun can act more like a grenade launcher.

Echoes - As a writer, Alan is able to find inspiration in the most random of places. He has the ability to see and use echoes whenever they appear to him: visions of little snippets of another person's life. This can be anything from an inner monologue to a conversation between two people from any point in their past--all he needs to do is find a little mote of an echo, stand in the right position, and then he can straight up peep and eavesdrop on someone else's life. Because this power really stems from the inspiration and creativity aspects of him--something he needs to do a lot of work on in the barge--I'd like to limit this at first to something like breaches or floods only, where Alan can subconsciously take advantage of reality warping around him to tap into these. As he gets closer to graduation (and finding himself wholly) he'll be able to find them anywhere. This will have a permissions post for it, and be purely opt-in for other players.

Inmate Information: Alan's always gone to great lengths to make sure everything he's passionate about in his craft is perfect. He's a man with a wild and vivid imagination, and that burning desire to keep creatively pushing himself very much bleeds outside to anything he's doing on. It's almost impossible to separate the artist from the art, and that's where a lot of Alan's problems stem from.

In trying to escape the supernatural dimension known as the Dark Place, Alan has written countless twists and tragedies into his horror stories. He re-writes reality with hopes to escape, he puts other people in terrible situations to make the story believable in order to aid him, and it (mostly) works. The biggest example of this is Saga Anderson. In order to have her help him, he changed the course of her life drastically to fit the narrative of a horror story and give her motivation to come to Cauldron Lake: he completely tanked her marriage, destroyed her career and flat out drowned her daughter to fulfill what he believes is good narrative payoff. He's quite literally playing God with other people's lives to better craft the perfect piece of art to escape.

It's important to note that Alan knows people aren't disposable and that he's trying not to treat them as such, but because he gets closer and closer to escaping every time with tangible results right in front of him, it's very easy for Alan to ignore the guilt he feels as he purposefully worsens the entire situation in the next loop, making it darker and darker to get what he wants. This, much like a lot of what Alan does, causes a feedback loop of sorts within himself. He does something because he's sure he's correct, it works, he feels bad about it but since it works he does it again--and on, and on, and on. Other people's tragedies are ultimately mere footnotes to Alan despite the fact that he genuinely does care. He warps reality to be darker and grimmer, affecting person after person, altering nudging them in the right direction to say and do what he wants--what he needs--to further the story and get him out of here, the consequences be damned. As long as the story he's writing is perfect.

This is partially due to his own self imposed rules, ones that stem from working creatively as a writer but have either seeped or been present in his life in general. Whatever he does, he fully and completely believes it is the correct course of action. An extreme perfectionist, especially writing wise, Alan has a huge problem with having control of situations. This doesn't manifest in the way that one would typically expect, with a vice-like grip on dictating what other people can and can't do. Instead his perfectionist attitude causes his overly harsh need for control to be aimed almost completely at himself--but he can't actually handle it when it's aimed at himself. Since whenever he does make a snap decision that's entirely instinctual it tends to be correct, it only adds to the pressure he feels. He desperately wants to fix things for himself, to stop Scratch, and since he's clearly the only one who can, if he's not good enough to do it then no one else has a chance in hell so he has to be the best. This is, of course, factually incorrect and has been proven as such.

Alan has had help from multiple people--his wife, Saga, Mr. Door, the Old Gods of Asgard--and has often refused to acknowledge it, even to himself. He's so focused on the burden being something he has to carry alone that he can't see what's right in front of him.

As mentioned above, it's almost impossible to separate Alan from who he is creatively to who he is as a person. His frustrations with his work are practically a part of who he is. The perfectionism (and nature of The Dark Place) very quickly tilts him into having a god complex because of it, especially with the intricacies of looping and re-writing reality. The only thing that keeps it in check is his self loathing--something he unconsciously manifests by putting extra rules upon himself while writing to make his task even harder. The two traits marry each other in a fascinating way that's detrimental to him and everyone around him.

His general temperament is a testament to that: he's a man with a famous temper, after all. Nearly every single incident of his lashing out is carved out of his insecurity and pressure. He's been known to get into fights with paparazzi, throw things, yell and stomp off fairly regularly as he refuses to deal with pent up frustrations that bleed over into the simplest things. He tells it like it is but is the type of person who will immediately start swinging if someone does the same thing to him, and he easily lets his anger get the better of him. While that's been tampered slightly from his canon point, his need to never be in the wrong and the oftentimes overtly critical thoughts and pressure he puts onto himself still guides a lot of him. He will absolutely start unnecessary shit at the first opportunity he gets if he's caught in a mood, almost always due to a creative block since his self worth is almost solely on what he can write and create. He solves problems in a reactionary fashion, but when there's no tangible solution or when he's stuck in a rut, he's going to be miserable and make everyone around him feel just as shitty by making it their problem, too.

While not an alcoholic, it is also important to note that Alan's not a stranger to finding temporarily relief in the immediate: as quick as his anger issues are to flare up during moments of confusion and self-doubt and as fast as he is to punch a paparazzi, he's also not above avoiding his problems with copious amounts of booze, cocaine, and partying. While that chapter of his life is largely behind him, it still very much lingers as something he'll need to address.

Path to Redemption: There's the obvious: Alan has to further acknowledge that the things he's done are extremely messed up, even if he's able to justify it. He needs to actually address every single aspect, too: why does justifying make it okay? How can he reckon with himself as a person for doing it, as well as the people he's hurt? Was it worth it? What does forgiveness mean to him, if he feels like should be forgiven at all?

He needs to address a lot of his issues. Who is he, outside of his work? This is something major for him that's only been exacerbated by his time trying to write story after story in the Dark Place. Alan's identity literally and figuratively is about what his fiction can provide: to fans, to reshape reality, to survive--he's been perpetually unsatisfied when it comes to what his fiction is to him, if he even knows it. He needs to find himself anew and re-shape and sharpen his current views on his creativity, his freedom of expression, and his personal relationship with art.

Balance in general is something that's going to be key for Alan graduating: embracing the light and the dark. He needs to find some sort of medium--he's the type of person to go all out, suffer from burnout, and then instead of following appropriate steps to handle it he just gets irate and lashes out. He's also considerably unhealthy in the expectations he puts on himself and others because of it, to say nothing about his complete and utter lack of work-life balance. Alan is a deeply complicated individual who really does earnestly want to do good and change. He ignores the bad parts of himself so much they bubble up to the surface--or the Dark Place embodies it via shadowy doppelganger entity--and tries to pretend he only has good in him.

A warden who is good at reading people, or can at least see through his self perpetuating bullshit in general, would be ideal. Alan would do well with someone that will hopefully guide him into something a little more productive without tripping his temper, but he absolutely, one hundred percent needs someone who isn't afraid to call him out on his shit regardless. The writer is stubborn and headstrong and is very fast to pull the 'it's the only way' trigger, something that he won't have on the barge but will most likely morph into some sort of blanket excuse.

Alan will also do well with wardens that understand isolation, insanity, creativity or passion for a craft. He's been essentially trapped in a writer's room for 13 years, astral projecting his way around a hell dimension that taunts and tries to kill him at every move to try to escape. He's had several mental breakdowns of varying degrees, to put it mildly--from the classic 'I'm not a real person to begin with' to the aforementioned evil doppelganger--and has been clawing his way out of things for so long he's basically running on diner coffee and spite. Someone that understands that kind of mental personal hell would be fantastic.

Ultimately, Alan needs to find happiness and self fulfillment in what he does while maintaining a decent work life balance and not letting himself get too into his own head. This time it really isn't the end of the world if his latest novel isn't exactly what he wants. Creativity will never stop being a part of him, but it isn't all he is, which is something he hasn't even begun to unravel. He needs to address the dark parts of him, while cruel, are still part of him and also come to terms with the fact that his lighter side isn't perfect either, and that's okay. If he works on this and keeps his self destructive tendencies in check, learns to listen to others more, and actually uses the time on the Barge to self reflect, he's going to have graduation in the bag. Since Alan is actively trying to come to terms with himself, his situation and who he is, the perfect warden would be someone who could help nurture and guide this, not someone who will only tell him what to do or do anything Alan will take as bossing him around. He needs a calm, collected warden with a steady presence so he can get back on his feet and turn into the person he needs to become in order to ascend.

History: link

Sample Network Entry: link

Sample RP: link

Special Notes: None!