phantasmods | APPLICATIONS

APPLICATIONS

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IC Information

Character name: Viral
Character canon: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann via Lockdown CRAU
Canon point: After Simon and Nia's wedding but pre-far future epilogue/after escaping to deadland's new void.
Physical Description: Extremely tall (6'4) with long and somewhat weathered-looking pale blond hair, Viral is quite human-looking for a beastman... Which is a low bar when you have things like "a barely anthro armadillo," "a guy with a chicken head" and "fourteen furry pink orbs with limbs" running around. Still, he has a generally human face, with one slit-pupiled eye and some really impressive shark teeth, and a generally human body, aside from the fact that his arms are lightly furred and ridiculously large from the forearms down, concluding in sharply clawed, oversized hands. Viral always has his bangs hanging messily over one side of his face (we never see what's underneath, it's just presumed that he lost that eye) though he's pulled most of the rest of his hair into a ponytail since shortly after his arrival in deadland.
About the Character: wikiwiki - TLDR Viral starts out as the first named antagonist, gets his butt kicked back and forth several times, has a blackrom crush on the decoy protagonist, gets turned immortal to serve as a ~storyteller~ about the Spiral King's victory over the human resistance, the human resistance wins. Cut to seven years later, where Viral is a fugitive using a mech to fight for the right of humans to remain in their familiar belowground cities, he gets arrested, winds up in the same prison as the protagonist, and eventually winds up joining the team in the prison break and fighting with the rest of everyone to save the earth.

Original character about first -

"Abrasive" and "loud" are likely to be the first words that come to mind when talking about Viral- he has strong, often derisive opinions about most everything, and unless you're his commanding officer, he doesn't bother to keep them to himself. He doesn't particularly care about making friends, especially with humans - in fact, an enemy is just as good, if they give him a challenge.

That doesn't mean that he's stupid, however. In fact, just the opposite - under the abrasive layers, Viral is very much intelligent, a competent commander and one of the only characters who can keep up relatively well with the particular kind of physics-breaking nonsense that his universe is prone to and actually understand it (though Leeron's particular way of doing so goes over his head for comedy value the same as it does for everyone else).

He's just short-tempered. And stubborn. And pretty much always down to fight. While he has some respect for intelligence and the intellectual, he has the most respect for people who are going out and doing, and, especially, when that doing is fighting. Prove yourself a worthy opponent and, regardless of whatever else he thinks of you, you'll have at least some of the small measure of respect Viral gives to people who aren't his appointed superiors.

And he definitely does have respect for those appointed superiors - Viral is a part of an absolute authority military and it shows. To his superiors he'll cringe and even outright beg to be given another chance when he fails, even to the point of putting up with physical abuse from Adiane. He'll accept almost any order without complain if it comes from a superior.

Almost any order, because Viral won't do things that go against his high sense of honor and justice. He refuses to involve what he sees as bystanders in his fights (and is perhaps a little bit sexist about it, at least when it comes to humans, but that's honestly par for the course in TTGL and We're Going To Ignore It), notably refusing to strike Simon down when Cytomander is using Yoko as a hostage.

And it's that sense of honor, no doubt, that leads to him eventually becoming what is effectively the last rebel against the human government as run by Rossiu. Viral doesn't even like humans - but at the series midpoint, he's already willing to fight on the behalf of those who refuse to leave their below-ground homes and come to the surface. It is simply the right thing to do, and while Viral's sense of right and wrong is a little off-kilter and more than a little harsh compared to the average human, it is also incredibly strong.

Finally, while it is a difficult process to get him to take you seriously and acknowledge you... Once you've earned Viral's respect, he's something of a dog with a bad bone. He consistently hyper-focuses on the enemies who have his respect (first Kamina, then Simon) and generally tends to ignore everyone else, even once he's fighting side-by-side with Team Dai-Gurren. He doesn't let go of that respect and the connections formed on the field of battle, even to the bitter end.

LOCKDOWN CRAU STUFF:

Waking up in Fayflower was probably the most confusing experience of his life - surrounded by humans (and human-looking people who claimed not to be human, and Connor), surrounded by a human society, and without anything to fight. Viral pretty much immediately established himself as a relative outsider, a potentially-violent oddity, and a troublemaker. He took the rule that said that "students" were allowed to investigate however they pleased to its logical extreme.

This, of course, led directly to the first 'Monday Adventure' that resulted in an incidence of 'hijacking.' Viral was ringleader to a group that went over the wall that surrounded the school grounds, with the intention of exploring if not escaping. It went... badly, due to the mental distortions caused by going beyond the safety of the wall. A significant portion of the group went berserk, while the rest felt something about themselves twist, seeing allies as enemies and enemies as allies. Viral was in the latter group - which was actually a good thing for the sake of getting everyone back safely, because at this point, without any memories of canon, Viral still low-key considered all of the humans in the group 'enemies.' Thus, under the effect of the hijacking, they were 'allies,' and he handled several of the most extreme cases of berserking (most notably the Servant Alexander, the most dangerous of the lot) without much interference from the staff before casually climbing back over the wall as though nothing was wrong.

That moment both confused him and weighed on his mind over the next handful of weeks, and while he didn't exactly make friends with anyone, he was at least willing to talk to the humans he was now surrounded by. In particular, he bonded with Hank and Rebecca - the other 'adults' of the group - over the absurdity of the activities the administration was giving them as 'ice breakers.' It also helped that Rebecca helped him with meals in the second week (as the cafeteria's human food was... not meeting the beastman dietary requirements).

By the time the second Friday rolled around, Viral was less suspicious and at least getting used to humans, even if 'liking' them was still largely off the table. And then Yoosung Kim - a boy who had arrived late to Fayflower and one of Viral's next-door neighbors in the dorms - turned up dead. Viral helped in the investigation that eventually pinned down Jean Grantaire as the murder, and found he had an extreme distaste for the man's methods. Not his methods of killing, mind - for the way he acted when cornered, still trying to pretend as though a lack of technically condemning evidence mattered when everyone else in the group had been ruled out. Viral still loathes Grantaire, not so much for being a murderer but for being so utterly dishonorable when he was found out.

But that trial was a turning point, and not just because the dead Yoosung was the first person Viral referred to by name. It solidified how twisted Fayflower was, and left him willing to at least work with the humans to bring them down. It also revealed that at least one of the administration, Vivienne, was on their side in secret, as she ruined her 'Megumi' guise in trying to stop Grantaire's execution.

And then the first memory regain happened. While Viral had already figured out that their memories were modified, what he got was a memory of working with humans, not as people who happened to be stuck in the same situation the way they were in Fayflower, but as a respected partner, a co-pilot in Gurren Lagann's lower seat. Removed of context, it was baffling, and the confusion only grew as that week's motive of hallucinating one's important people gave him only hallucinations of humans - Simon, who he recognized from that single memory, and Kamina, who he didn't.

But while Viral was largely unaffected by the visions, others were not. In desperation, a boy named Henry tried to attack the worst of the known administrators, Oswald. Viral tried to stop Henry, and in the process slammed the boy's head into the floor hard enough to kill him.

That trial did not last especially long. Viral humored the administration for a while before admitting to the crime and explaining the circumstances. The group as a whole, but especially Rebecca, was horrified that they would have to execute him for an accident, but such is the way of things in murderschool. After some inspiring words, another execution - one that he had specifically told Vivienne to not risk herself interfering with.

And then to deadland, with all those memories back in their proper places - compared to his troublemaking on the living side, Viral largely kept to himself after working things out with Henry. It wasn't until first Hank, then Connor arrived in the dead simulation - the latter not even a victim of the murder-trial-execution cycle - that he began to reach out and interact again, eventually organizing an information sharing meeting of the same sort as the living regularly had. This meeting was cut short by the livings' simulation seance, which the dead were able to interact with. In particular, Viral tried to reassure Rebecca and keep her spirits up - an attempt that wouldn't prove to be worth much, when the actions of the administration led to her being hijacked near the wall and dying the next day.

They hugged. It was very sweet. It also led to Hank heckling Viral over having a crush, which wound up being a point of significant awkwardness as Viral was forced to admit that - yes, more like a human than a beastman ought to be, he was capable of such feelings. It's awkward, Hank, leave him alone. Still, by the endgame, thanks to Connor's teaching everyone how to Simulation: Become Interface, Viral and Rebecca had reached a happy(ish) medium of "neither of us knows how to talk about this, so we won't, while leaning on each other and holding hands pretty much all the time."

Speaking of Connor, he's at the nexus of the other major characterization development. His open calling-out of Vivienne for making a bunch of AI just to fill her need to be loved... Well, it resonated, not just with Lordgenome's treatment of Nia and his other children, but in his treatment of the beastmen as well. As a result, Viral and Connor bonded over the perspective of being the only nonhumans around, and became fairly close in their own way.

Anyway, a couple weeks after that the simulated school went up in flames for no logical reason and we all had to panic-run to escape into the void, which ends R1 and that's that, so.

Character abilities: Copies these right out of my LD app - In some form of order;

-> The most obvious thing is that Viral has this particular annoying tendency to survive against all odds, even when it comes to things that kill literally everyone else around him (he's the only survivor of Adiane's ship going down, for example, even though many of the other beastmen on board were fish-themed). Even when he'd rather not survive, he tends to. (Except in Lockdown.)

-> This trait eventually leads Lordgenome to turn him immortal (of the 'regenerates from any injury basically immediately' variety), specifically for the purpose of becoming a living historical record - someone who will remember events unto eternity. After Lockdown, his current form doesn't currently possess this ability, but I'm including it here because it's first on my regain checklist and it's eligible for "regaining your old powers" discount.

-> He's a highly skilled mech pilot - he's the only beastman who really keeps pace with Simon's power growth over the middle part of the series. While he does lose near every time (usually due to weapons breaking; in particular, his dual swords shattering is something of a running gag), the fact that Viral can keep up as Simon works his way through the Four Generals and their significantly more powerful mechs is testament to his skill.

-> Similarly, he's extremely skilled at physical combat outside of the pilot's seat. While his signature weapon is a sword shaped somewhat like an extended cleaver, Viral's also adept with a bow (shooting a flying, moving target dead-on in his introduction) and his fists and claws (as seen in the prison sequence). As a general beastman trait, he has superior senses and reflexes to a human.

-> Finally, though he wouldn't openly admit it, it is notable that Viral is the only beastman who gets inducted to Team Dai-Gurren and goes along to fight the Anti-Spirals. While his survivability does play a part, as do his piloting skills, there's various subtle indications that, unlike every other beastman, Viral has a latent ability with Spiral Power, possibly as a result of his immortality modifications. This can be seen from the fact that he uses a Core Drill to escape the Anti-Spiral's mental labyrinth, as well as the fact that he was able to manifest his words in the final battle (as 'suddenly creating mech parts out of nowhere' is one of the surest indicators of Spiral Power in the series). (There's also some meta commentary here about how Spiral Power is specifically tied to evolution and he's the only beastman with any kind of character arc... I'm just saying.)

Inventory: The clothes he's wearing. That's it, really.

Samples: Top-level, and a tag-out.

Thank you and welcome to Phantasmal Rift! The mods will handle all the behind the scenes stuff for you - all you need to do is join

phantasmalrift,

phonetasmal and

phantasmemes, and then head over to the OOC Intro post! You may also wish to join the Discord server if you haven't already! Everything you need to know immediately upon game entry is here at the Welcome Post!

Additionally, if you use a secondary journal for icon space or other purposes, please respond to this comment with it so that we can get it included!

For your participation in the Test Drive, your character also receives the following items of loot;

Truffle Salt: A jar of rock salt, mixed with pieces of real truffle. It's up to you to decide if this does anything at all for the flavour or not.
Life Will, Uh, Find, Uh, A Way: A cute pencil sharpener that looks like a cartoony t-rex ready to let out a roar. You stick your pencil in the t-rex's jaws and let it whirr away. When you take your pencil out, the t-rex lets out a happy little roar.

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