ruby city application;

[seasprite]

PLAYER
Name: Lucy
Age: I'm going to be 26 on Sunday!!! But I am 25 as I write this application...
Personal Journal: fleeting
E-mail: ilovelucille89@gmail.com
AIM/MSN/etc: lucylovespluto

CHARACTER
Name: AndrAIa. That's her only name, and yes, the AI is capitalized.
Canon: ReBoot.
Age: It's complicated, since sprites count ages/time different from humans (a "second" is a day basically, for example) but she's somewhere around 11 or 12, apparently and effectively.
Timeline: Immediately after going into the game cube in "Game Over", but before the game fully renders.
If playing another character from the same canon, how will you deal with this?: n/a

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 does 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 she cared for him immediately, and frequently says that her place is at his side, not really caring about the details beyond that. Enzo is very incredibly important to AndrAIa's growth and development. He's the pivot point on which her life changed completely, and her best friend. She's willing to follow him into countless games in order to keep him safe - Mainframe, as well, but Mainframe itself is clearly a lesser concern to AndrAIa than Enzo Matrix - and while as a game sprite who considers herself a warrior AndrAIa fears games less than other people, this still means a great deal in her world.

There's more that can be gleaned from AndrAIa leaving everything she knew for Enzo than "man, she really adores that kid to pieces and would do anything to protect him". For one thing, AndrAIa is an incredibly curious being. 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. Eventually her skill at learning and changing will even lead to the originally overly formal and literal sprite becoming much more casual and at ease with the world outside the games as she ages - though she has yet to reach that point yet in her own life. 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 appears directed at Enzo, AndrAIa tends to step in front of him. Whenever any risk is put in front of her, she's willing to take it to accomplish her goals. AndrAIa even takes the risk 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 with her arm-arrow-thing pointing at Megabyte when he threatens Enzo, standing firm even though her arm shakes. 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) but she shows more concern and fear for others, particularly Enzo. Another of her faults is being way too literal. She will get over that as she ages, but at her current canon point AndrAIa can tend to be a little too serious and literal, and takes many things at face value. She's also almost excessively formal in how she speaks and occasionally how she acts. While she's very familiar with Enzo and frequently will touch his arm or shoulder or hug him or high five him, AndrAIa as a child rarely will display such affectionate and casual touching with anyone else. When she grows older, she can be seen casually touching other people apart from Enzo. For her current age, however, AndrAIa can be rather reserved with other people - though she does not shy away from threatening anyone who happens to be blocking her/Enzo's way within games.

AndrAIa can be a little aggressive. She hilariously turns out to be the more level-headed of the pair when they get older, but while she is certainly still level-headed in general as a child, she's also rather more willing to do things in a less than Guardian-approved manner than the younger Enzo Matrix is. In many ways, his morals and ideals will influence her as she grows - and have influenced her already at her canonpoint, as she is far more likely to stop and assist people at the expense of her own goals/winning than she once was - and she will have to remind him of them someday. For now, 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? She's also obviously more than a little reckless and impulsive, seeing as how she up and abandoned her home game for a boy she just met, and proceeded to throw herself into more games with him after. And...she just generally sort of jumps into things, basically. While AndrAIa does believe she thinks about things, she could possibly stand to consider them a little longer. But she's like eleven and so, welp, that is how things go.

Background:

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).

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.

• 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. 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 Ruby City (unless a rumor war uses her canon, I suppose), 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.

Network/Actionspam Sample: Here!

Prose Log Sample:

AndrAIa doesn't know what to expect from the game cube. No one ever knows what to expect from them, really. Sometimes in the back of her mind she wonders if she will see the Treasure of Atlantis when she opens her eyes after the cube drops. The home she left behind - where her original might still exist. She'd backed up her code onto Enzo's icon so many seconds ago now, but the AndrAIa who had done that had been unable to do anything but watch as she'd sent him to victory in that fateful game. So far, however, she's never opened her eyes to see the depths of the ocean.

Nor has she seen anything quite like this. A train station - so...what sort of game would that be? Automatically she glances to her side. "Enzo, what - " does Glitch say about the game stats, but Enzo isn't there. He normally would have given her an update on things immediately, and AndrAIa realizes suddenly why she'd tensed upon opening her eyes. She can't hear him, nor can she hear Frisket. They've never been dropped far apart in the games; people usually arrive relative to their positions. And she'd been standing directly beside her friends.

AndrAIa doesn't call out again. Instead, she remains on alert, eyes darting around. There are informational posters around, but they don't tell her anything about the goal of the game. There's no helping it: she's going to have to reboot alone. Reaching to her waist and hitting her icon twice, AndrAIa speaks as quietly as possible so as not to draw undue attention to herself. "Reboot!" She waits for the familiar transformation even as she finishes the word.

It's only when nothing happens that AndrAIa begins to feel fear in addition to worry. It might be time to take a closer look at those posters...there's a chance they can give her information as to what might be wrong. The only game she'd think she wouldn't change in would be her home game, and this? This is not Atlantis. She has to find Enzo and Frisket, and then they have to beat this game - whatever it is, rebooted or not.