Scorched Application

[crossbowtracker]

Out of Character Information

player name: Sage
player journal: pocketsage
playing here: Gellert Grindelwald thegreatergood
where did you find us? Already here!
are you 16 years of age or older?: Older!

In Character Information

character name: Daryl Dixon
Fandom: The Walking Dead
Timeline: End of Season 2
character's age: Late 30's

powers, skills, pets and equipment:

Daryl is human but he's tough and knows how to survive in desperate and dangerous situations. He's good in a fight and can deal with a lot of physical discomfort and pain. He's highly skilled with weapons - in particular the crossbow. He's also a brilliant tracker and can see many things that others miss.

He always has his crossbow and a large hunting knife on him so will be bringing those in.

Non canon addition: His naural tracking and observational abilities will be complimented by enhanced senses, including environmental (making him even more alert to sounds, sights, etc) and being able to sense people's emotions.

canon history:
Daryl at The Walking Dead Wiki
General Wiki Entry (less detail)

personality:

At first implied to be a hot-headed, prejudiced redneck like his older brother Merle, Daryl has developed over the series and been revealed to have more depth than at first glance. Daryl can be volatile but he'll often be found sitting back and observing or listening unless something provokes him. He can be coarse because of his upbringing but his heart is in the right place and his compassion will show through under certain circumstances. He will risk his life for others if he thinks it's the right thing to do.

Daryl has shown a strength and determination throughout the series. From the start he was understandably upset when members of the group of survivors (in particular Rick, who handcuffed Merle to a pipe and T-Dog, who lost the key) left his older brother alone in the city. He and a couple of the others go back for Merle and when they find only a hand, Daryl is again upset but then carefully collects the hand and doesn't lose faith that his brother is still alive out there somewhere. He later repeats this faith when Carol's daughter is lost in the woods and he spends many episodes searching for her. Even when Carol gives up on the idea that her daughter Sophie is alive, Daryl continues to believe she is. Although he does get upset at Carol first, he apologises soon afterwards and reassures her. This is a bit of a pattern with him - but he usually can reign in his potential aggression. Only taking it out on the walkers - the zombies - which he can dispatch with swift and brutal accuracy (later keeping some ears as a sort of hunting trophy) and on a young man who attacked the group and then was captured by them, who Daryl at one point intimidates and tortures for information. The latter happens when he has most distanced himself emotionally from the main group, but he's still working in his own way to help them.

He will shy away from affection and he likes his personal space, likely to go off in the woods alone to hunt on occasion. He can be something of a loner, dealing with his problems himself. It has been implied that he was left alone to fend for himself often as a child, due to a neglectful, drunken father and a brother often in juvenile detention or prison. Daryl has coped by himself and is not used to others caring about him. When Carol thanks him for trying to find Sophie and gives him a kiss on the forehead, Daryl flinches and old scars on his body are telling of either an abusive childhood or a boyhood spend roaming the woods and getting into dangerous situations, like when he was lost for nine days himself and had to find his own way back home. He survived then and continues to be resourceful in any situation.

While he has learned to generally get along with a diverse group of people, his upbringing that has been drilled into him shows most prominently in a scene when he is alone and hallucinates seeing his brother. Merle taunts him with jibes questioning his manhood and toughness and Daryl's insecurity is shown by this; in the way his subconscious pictures Merle being both encouraging and insulting at the same time. But this does prompt Daryl to pick himself up - after a terrible fall and accidental arrow to the side - fighting off some stray walkers with that very same arrow and hauling himself up a sheer, slippery cliff of overgrown trees and vegetation. Making it back to the group he then also gets clipped in the side of the head by a bullet shot by Andrea, one of the group who has mistaken him for a walker.

This leads to another side of Daryl. He doesn't appear to hold grudges. He realises that Andrea was just protecting the group and isn't angry at her for nearly killing him - even if he does add, only half jokingly, that: "You shoot me again you best pray I'm dead". He'll take the knocks but won't be walked over completely. He also doesn't bring up the fact later that the leader of the group, Rick, was the one who handcuffed Merle leading him to be left behind at the start, instead growing to think of Rick as an honourable man.

He does, however, have his limits and his upbringing appears to have made him somewhat emotionally undeveloped. Not only in the way he doesn't respond well to affection or people caring about him but in the way that, when he's been disappointed, he tends to shut down and retreat within himself. This happens when Sophia is finally discovered as a walker and he afterwards refuses to look for others and keeps to himself for a time, responding in a rough and upset way again when Carol tries to talk to him. Even so he comes around again, rejoining the group to help out as before. Despite his bouts of barely restrained fury, likely born of frustration, he can also be very level-headed and ends up as current leader Rick's right hand man after Rick's best friend Shane proves to become increasingly unstable. Some of his calmness in certain situations may be bourne of the way he has to 'process' information, as he once said. It may take him a moment of quiet refelection to figure things out, but he isn't slow on the uptake, as such. He just seems to regulate things and sort them in his head - once he is over any initial upset. This may partly be due to a shutting down of emotions from a bad childhood but it works for him at this moment; a coping mechanism that has kept him going and he's proven himself more than capable in many stressful situations time and time again.

While he did have a prejudiced upbringing - as evidence by Merle's sexism and racial hatred - Daryl has remarkably saved members of the group who are not of the same race and generally treats the women respectfully, even if he keeps most at a distance. Hints of prejudices do show through on occasion, however they are not nearly as extreme as Merle's remarks. It's likely that Daryl is a better man out from under his older brother's shadow and influence. His compassion is later shown - not only with his repeated search for Sophia and the reassuring way he recounts a story to keep Carol's spirits alive - but when another of their group is mortally wounded by a walker and, when others hesitate, Daryl puts him out his his pain and misery before he can turn into one of the zombies. This also shows something of his practical thinking, not letting too many emotions get in the way of what must be done.

With his survivalist skills, Daryl is far from squeamish and will do whatever it takes to survive. Without hesitation he will kill zombies/walkers with all manner of weapons without delay, hunt and eat raw squirrels and even cut open a walker just to see if it had eaten Sophia - while Rick looks on with a sickened expression. He's used to roughing it in the wilderness and such things rarely faze him. Physical things he can take but again, he has emotional insecurities and thinks of himself as not good enough - or not as good as certain others in the group and he thinks that his opinion won't count. Carol has to tell him that he is just as good as them and even so he defers to Rick as he perhaps would defer to Merle, not being a leader-type himself. Although he is actually more a loner than a follower, he will take orders when it suits him and if he respects the person.

why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting?

Daryl is a hunter, tracker and all around survivalist, whether by himself or in a group. Even though he has some emotional growing up to do he is strong and remarkably good at coping and adapting and this would be an interesting environment to drop him into.

Writing Samples

Network Post Sample:

[There's a long silence as Daryl squints at the controls of the Forge, then he just stares for a while as if either figuring out what the buttons mean or deciding what he should say.]

So it's been a month and I gotta say I'm still not comfortable with this thing. You can hear me, right? Guessin' y'all can as people talked on here before...

[He looks to the side, there's another long pause.]

I ain't seen one walker here yet but that don't mean they can't happen here. Feel like I should give a warnin' 'cause there sure are a lot of other dangerous things here.

If you see people comin' back from the dead, best idea'd be to run then go arm yerself.


Bonus: Sample intro/network post & threads (as Daryl isn't very chatty in a large chunk of text)


Third Person Sample:

A sample log (not started by Daryl but a longish thread to show an example log writing)

Anything else?

More samples:

Scorched Box post
Dear Mun post