High Seas app

[theaxeeffect]

[Name]: Jamie
[Age]: 28
[Contacts]:
♦ DW: vitani
♦ AIM: N/A
♦ Plurk: Vitani
[Timezone]: PST
[Other Characters]: N/A



[Name]: Astrid Hofferson
[Canon]: How To Train Your Dragon
[Age]: 20
[Gender]: Female
[Canon Point]: After the end of the second film.

[History]:

Here's a wiki entry, but I am happy to elaborate if you'd like.

[Personality]:

Astrid grew up in a village where fighting dragons was a matter of survival, and it was your duty to fight for and protect the people around you as best you can. Watching her relatives give everything for this cause only drove it home, and she became dedicated to being the absolute best Viking she could be. She was very critical of herself, accepting nothing but her best, and also critical of others when it was evident that they either weren't trying or were doing things that endangered the village. This caused her to be generally fairly detached from people, preferring to train on her own and hone her skills rather than socialize. However, she was never deliberately cruel -- while the other young Vikings enjoyed mocking each other (and especially Hiccup), Astrid never took part in that. She can be very short with people and isn't particularly patient, but her criticisms all stem from things she believes someone should be able to improve upon. If she doesn't think they have the potential or willingness to improve, then she just tends to ignore them entirely.

She became angry with Hiccup when he suddenly started to excel at 'fighting' dragons, mostly because he seemed to not be even trying or taking it seriously and would avoid or outright lie to her when she tried to find out how he was doing it. As she had been working hard her whole life to be the best, having it suddenly taken from her by someone who didn't even appear to care that he was doing it was too much for her to swallow. When she finally corners Hiccup and he shows her Toothless and takes her flying, she accepts that she had a limited knowledge about dragons and that there could be a better way. After they find out about the dragon nest and the Red Death, she wants to immediately go to the Chief, because finding it has been the village's goal since the island was first settled, and she's nothing if not a proper Viking. However, when Hiccup indicates that he is willing to risk everything to protect Toothless and stop the fighting between people and dragons, she responds to his determination (it is, after all, a trait she shares) and chooses to help him.

Five years have passed since the first film, and they've had quite an impact on her personality. She's still the same girl -- headstrong, competitive, determined to be the best she can be at everything she tries -- but a lot of the pressure is off, and she's relaxed in response to that. The village is no longer getting attacked every month. She has a dragon as a friend, she gets to compete in dragon races instead of trying to kill them. She gets to have fun. If she experiments with something and fails, it doesn't mean someone is going to get hurt or killed.

She's one of the best leaders and riders, next to Hiccup, and as a result ends up interacting a lot more with her peers than she used to, which has improved her social skills. There's also the fact that she and Hiccup are in a long-term relationship, and are very comfortable with each other both physically and as close confidantes. Her loyalty and desire to protect and provide for her village haven't changed at all, but she now believes that Hiccup's ideas are the best way to do that. She serves as his strongest support and also often his voice of reason -- while Hiccup tends to second-guess himself a great deal and overthink things, Astrid is much more confident... not just in her abilities, but also in his. However, she still tends to be much more direct and aggressive in dealing with a situation than he is. If his attempts to resolve things peacefully fail, then she's ready to use whatever force she needs to in order to get things done.

The events of the second film are fresh in her mind right now, and she will be uneasy about being away from Berk when she is so needed. She is not normally very anxious, but she will worry about not being there to support Hiccup after his losses and to help rebuild and protect the village when there is still a hostile army out there.

[Abilities / Strengths & Weaknesses]:

Most of Astrid's obvious strengths are physical -- she is very active and is determined to keep her skills up, and those skills include fighting and dragon riding. Her style of dragon riding involves quite a bit of acrobatics, and she has excellent balance. She is good with most weapons but is particularly proficient with an axe, and prefers to fight short-range. She doesn't have any particular weaknesses except for being just a regular human without magic/superpowers/etc (though she does lack concern for her own safety... a Viking trait.)

If she gets to bring her dragon, Stormfly, along with her, then the abilities would include flight, fire-breathing, tracking (via scent) and flinging poisonous spines.

[Limited Powers]:

As she doesn't have any superpowers or anything like that, I don't think she needs much limiting... she does have a dragon, and depending on whether or not she'll get to bring her along, then Stormfly's flight will be impeded as necessary. For the sake of this application, I'll just be assuming that they'll randomly run into invisible walls if they try to do something like go between islands.

[Other Important Facts]:

Dragon! Astrid would like to have Stormfly with her, but if the mods would prefer to keep her out of the game, that's fine too. Stormfly does not receive the characterization that Toothless does... she's basically a big dragon-bird-dog.

[Samples]:
♦ Thread: Some recent threads here and a post (w/more threads) here.
♦ Post:

[Written, because talking to a journal is weird, though the ink seems to be running a bit more than normal.]

Okay, I can swim as well as anybody, but I'd still like a little warning before getting knocked into the ocean out of nowhere. Since when has something like an invisible wall existed, anyway? I'd just fly around it, but there's no way to know where it is and this is the third time already.

I think Stormfly's getting upset, too.

[The last sentence is half smudged, as though water was dripped on it and someone tried to blot it dry.]

I guess we'll just stay out of the air until I figure it out. I mean, I am a Viking, it's not like I'm not used to ships.

It's just, why sail anywhere when you can fly there?

...Because you might end up crashing into the water, I guess.