folkmore application

[lenivyous]

★ Character Information ★

Character Name: Dylan Lenivy
Character Age: 19
Character Species: Werewolf. For the most part he presents as a completely ordinary human. With a full moon, though, his skin explodes off of his body and reveals a hideous creature with a slightly elongated snout, sharp fangs, claws and an altered humanoid shape -- legs, arms and spine better suited to run on all fours.
Current Health: Dylan is currently missing his entire left hand. This will, however, heal after his first werewolf transformation.
Outfit: A blood stained old band T-shirt, a pair of dirty, ripped pants and a simple pair of slip on sneakers.

Character Canon: The Quarry
Link to History: A general game synopsis

And to add to this for Dylan specifically, Dylan has a history of coming to the camp when he was younger and took an interest in the radio room. Chris Hackett allowed him to clean it up throughout the years and when he comes to work as a counselor, he takes care of the morning announcements plus plays music for the kids and tweens. Using his knowledge of radio on the night things go to shit, he and Ryan head to the radio hut to call for help and Dylan gets attacked there. You're given the option in game to either cut off his hand to stop the infection from spreading or not. For my Dylan, I am saying he will have lost his hand initially. However, at a later point in game when opening a car door, he will have gotten attacked and bitten by a werewolf Emma, thus infecting him with the werewolf curse.
Canon Point: Chapter 9, post scrapyard. Dylan and Kaitlyn have successfully survived Caleb's attack and are heading back to the lodge.
Canon Iteration: Original canon
Canon Iteration Explanation: N/A

★ Folkmore Roles & Attributes ★

Skills:
- knowledge and enjoyment for technology and electronics. Building and repairing tech is a hobby
- knowledge of radio and broadcasting
- surprisingly intelligent. Dylan intended to major in Quantum Physics in college
- can throw together a pretty stellar playlist
Canon Abilities:
Transformation: Once a month, Dylan will transform into a werewolf. This is involuntary and once changed, he will lose all sense of self and control. Driven by hunger, anything with a pulse is fair game. In this form, and even slightly before he turns, he has enhanced scent, sight and hearing. As a wolf creature, he's much stronger and faster with a bite force strong enough to sever limbs. There will be a few warning signs before transformation. Dylan will start to feel feverish and look unwell. When his eyes turn yellow there's little time left in lucidity before a massive blood explosion unleashes the beast underneath his skin. In this form, he can potentially infect others with the curse through a bite. Although this part might not work the same in Folkmore and will always be open for discussion.

Regeneration/Healing: The infection gives Dylan enhanced healing. Wounds will repair themselves quickly and he can even regenerate severed limbs. When in his werewolf form, this is amplified tenfold -- allowing him to take massive damage and as long as it's not with silver, he can heal almost immediately.

Weaknesses: Silver is an extreme weakness for werewolves. Just getting shot by a silver bullet will be enough to kill them no matter where it lands, but a silver knife can do the trick as well. Any silver object will burn them, and while it's not clear whether this happens the same way when the moon isn't full, I'm choosing to say it's a weakness as long as he's infected.

Werewolves in The Quarry also seem to hate water. Whenever they've been submerged, they react very similar to how a cat reacts to the bath. It's not entirely clear whether this burns them or not, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it does. I'm also going to take liberties and say it's only being submerged in water that causes them to react this way since toward the latter part of the game, the werewolves seem to be out in the rain with little issue. Again, it's not very clear whether this is an all the time thing or just a full moon thing, so I'll say all the time BUT Dylan's still able to shower, haha.
Role: Familiar
Role Qualities/Attributes: Dylan's animal transformation will, of course, be a wolf! But of the fluffy and adorable variety rather than the gross, hairless blood monster that vaguely is kinda like a wolf if you squint hard enough. Once he learns more about controlling his familiar transformation, this will help him to eventually be able to control the curse itself a little better. And over time, his moon-based transformations will take more of the shape of his familiar form.
Role Reasoning: Dylan isn't really a leader. He's more the right-hand man party member who is there to pump up the leader with advice or give his insight. From what we see of him in game, even though he barely knows most of his fellow coworkers, he is willing to sacrifice himself so more capable people can live. And although he complains quite a bit, he's eager to help and feel useful to someone. Dylan is fiercely loyal and this is something I'd love to play around with as a familiar. Getting to be the moral support to someone's leader -- whether myth or legend. He's not going to judge someone for having less than stellar morality. After all, he didn't mind standing behind Laura when she was basically championing to kill the camp leader he'd known for years. Basically what it all boils down to is like the wolf pup inside, Dylan is just there to be a good, good loyal boy, haha

★ Personality ★

OPTION 2 QUESTIONS

What experience challenged your character's core beliefs? How did they handle this or change from it?
Finding out werewolves existed absolutely challenged what Dylan knew about the world. Up until that night, he believed he lived in a normal universe, so to speak. But he's also absolutely one to believe in infinite possibilities, so he didn't take this with the level of denial some of his other friends did. He accepted it and was the first to say the explanation of werewolves didn't sound so absurd. Because Dylan is the way he is, he was able to keep a level head through a duration of the night and see solutions to problems that his friends couldn't -- like when he noticed the infection was spreading in one of their friends and suggested they cut off the infected limb. Ryan thought he was nuts, but as it turned out -- his 'crazy suggestion' was the correct way to prevent an infection once bitten.

What is your character's moral code? Do they have one? Why or why not?
Dylan is through and through a good boy. He's only going to toe the line to the extent most teenagers do -- like throwing a party, underage drinking, maybe partaking in some party drugs now and then. But at his core, he wants the people he cares about to be safe and would even throw himself in danger to protect them. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, both physically and emotionally. There are a few dialogue choices that can be made where he hurts someone's feelings/upsets someone and it's clear Dylan feels bad about it. He tries very hard to come across as careless and cool, but deep down Dylan is softer than that and he cares a lot about what people think about him.

That said, though, it's not like Dylan's hands are pristine. Even knowing some of the werewolves around camp could be his friends or someone they know, he will encourage Kaitlyn to shoot them and even suggest a silver bullet. In the immediacy of the moment, and maybe also under the influence of fear, he will not think of the consequences and just want to see himself and his companions with him safe. But if something like this happened, afterward he would feel an immense amount of guilt.

This is primarily headcanon with a teeny bit of facts to back it up, but I personally believe Dylan's good morals come from a healthy, loving upbringing. In canon, he gives one throwaway line about his mom, quoting her as saying 'if you're gonna party, you gotta use protection.' I take this as a small scrap of evidence she loves him and cares for his well-being and as a result of his upbringing, he cares about being the best version of himself he can be.

What does your character feel like they struggle with still? Where could they improve? This could be physically, mentally, emotionally, or otherwise.
Probably Dylan's biggest struggle is his inability to be himself. He has an intense fear of judgement and tends to present himself as someone witty and blase, which he is these things to a certain extent. But he only allows himself to be those things around others because he knows that's what they tend to like -- a carefree guy who's good for a laugh. But there is some hope for him to overcome this. When he talks to the guy he has a crush on at some point, he tells him about some of the things he likes outside of camp which is met by disbelief. After all, Dylan doesn't seem like a science nerd. But Ryan accepts him. And through this acceptance, Dylan learns that it's okay to be himself. The more people who still like him, even when he's not being the comic relief, the more his confidence in finding his identity and owning it will grow.

Is your character capable of forgiveness or will they hold a grudge until they die? Would anything ever make them change their mind?
While Dylan can be petty and argumentative with people at points, especially if they either are mean to him or kind of a douche to someone he likes, I think he's very quick to forgive. There are several dialogue options that allow for him to have some pretty aggressive exchanges, but no matter how these conversations go -- he will still put any differences aside to work with people. He and Kaitlyn both happen to have a crush on the same person, and through the latter half of the game, they are cooperating and protecting one another to the best of their ability. Dylan will especially look out for her through most of their interactions. But to tie into the thing I mentioned about loyalty before, I do think if someone intentionally hurt someone he cared about badly (emotionally OR physically) and there was no excuse for it, he would hold a grudge. Because those are his people, and you just don't fuck with his people!