Picky Minch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
twentycoolpoints) wrote2014-09-01 11:41 am
twentycoolpoints) wrote2014-09-01 11:41 am
Application for Outer Divide
[- OOC Information -]
Name: Lampdevil
Do you play any other characters in Outer Divide?: No
[- Character Information -]
Character Name: Picky Minch
Fandom: Mother 2/Earthbound
OU, AU, or CR AU: AU
Canon Point: From after the Mother 2: Harmony winter special, which is about 12-13 years after the end of Earthbound/Mother 2.
Journal:twentycoolpoints
Character History: Picky Minch is the youngest child of the Minch family. His mother Lardna is a neglectful alcoholic, his father Aloysius is an abusive and greedy man, and his older brother Porky is a time-traveling alien-supporting world-threatening child tyrant.
Now, let's back this up a bit...
Once upon a time in Eagleland, a place that resembles nothing so much as an idealized America, a meteor fell from the sky. This meteor crashed just outside of the town of Onett, where Porky, Picky, and their neighbor Ness lived. Kids being kids, they all jumped out of bed, changed out of their jammies, and ran to the impact site. Well, not Picky. Mom and dad were off at an elegant restaurant. Picky was left behind to watch the house while his brother checked out the big deal at the top of the hill. With parents as brutally strict as the Minches, measures needed to be taken to keep from getting in lots of trouble. But alas, the Onett police department already had the meteor barricaded off.
Ness gave up and went home to return to bed, but Porky had been waiting for this chance. When most of the police officers went back to town to deal with some delinquents, he rushed back home to get Picky. Picky had to see this. And Picky did see it, nice and up close with his brother... but this close? It was spooky. It was dark, the meteor was glowing, there were noises in the distance... Porky ran away. Picky remained at the top of the hill, not the least bit scared. Well... maybe a little scared. He was up there alone. And his brother was nowhere to be found. Exhausted, Picky settled himself down near some bushes, and drifted off to sleep.
He was woken up by Porky and his neighbor Ness, who had come looking for him. Picky, relieved and a little exasperated with his brother, got up, brushed himself off, and was ready to return home. But as they passed the strange glowing meteor again, they heard a faint buzzing. A light emerged from the rock, and with it a bee-like creature named Buzz-Buzz. It was from the future, it claimed, a future where something called Giygas had plunged the world into darkness. Three boys and a girl were fated to save the world, and their neighbor Ness was apparently one of them. Big brother Porky expressed shock and horror at the idea. And he hoped that he wasn't one of those boys. He wasn't up for that. Picky held his tongue. This was pretty scary, but... pretty cool, too.
Heroes and non-heroes alike, they headed back down the hill. When almost home, they were intercepted by some sort of silver spaceman, which attacked them. Ness and Buzz-Buzz fought him off bravely. Picky made his best effort to help, throwing punches where he could. Porky mostly kept to the back, muttered anxiously, and did nothing of any use. The way was clear, the evening was saved, and the Minch boys returned safely home... to find their parents waiting for them. Without anything else being said, Porky and Picky were sent up to their rooms and harshly punished by their father. Picky, all fleeting thoughts of heroism and aliens and bees having been beaten out of his head, retreated to bed.
The next days were the same, and yet... not the same. Porky had begun to act strangely, muttering to himself and being withdrawn. He began to miss classes. Then entire days of school. And finally, Porky disappeared from the house entirely. The prospect of being left alone to deal with mom and dad was really scary... at least it eventually became only mom around the house. Dad had gone off to the big city of Fourside to, apparently, go into business with someone Porky knew.
Something wasn't right, but what could one little kid do? The sky over Onett grew dark. Something was very, very wrong. Strange and horrible things from space lurked, creatures sent by that Giygas... and where was Porky? Was Porky safe? Porky really wouldn't have anything to do with this, would he? A little brother's faith could go a long way. It could put up with all kinds of testing. Until when, as the skies cleared and the monsters retreated, the letter that showed up in the mailbox with his brother's handwriting on the front wasn't for him.
It was for Ness. From next door. Ness, the boy who really was a hero. The kid that everyone was saying beat back the monsters and saved everyone. What else could Picky do but deliver it? And the letter wasn't even an explanation or an apology. It was a call-out to Ness, a "come and get me, jerkface" message. What the heck had his brother been doing all this time? He never knew. He never found out. Porky never came home.
AU History: Picky is being played based upon the events in Mother 2: Harmony, a fan comic that sets out to be a canon-consistent exploration of how Mother 2 and Mother 3 are connected. In it, Picky and Tracy are teenagers, Ness is grown up and has started a family of his own, and Porky... well, Porky is still at large, and makes a return.
After the end of story, life in the Minch household remained as miserable as ever. Picky was sure that he'd be facing it alone, but it turned out that he had a friend in his neighbor Tracy. Tracy was Ness's little sister, a girl of his age, and the one person in the entire neighborhood, the entire school, the entire town that would be his friend. They were a nearly inseperable pair. When his mother and father would ignore him or kick him out of the house, Tracy would be there to open the door and invite him over for dinner. When bullies at school would beat him up and toss him in the trash, Tracy would come and pull him out. When Tracy was feeling down, Picky would do something goofy to cheer her up. Their friendship was tested in their senior year of high school, when Tracy found herself suddenly considered attractive and popular after the removal of her braces. Picky didn't take well to all of these new people suddenly hanging off of his best and only friend, especially the cool-but-jerkish Scott. He had a great big jealous fit in the middle of the hallway, and later that evening worked himself into a paranoid froth that Tracy didn't want to be his friend anymore because he wasn't cool enough.
Desperate to do anything to become cool, he ran to Frank, a former thug and generally cool guy, and begged to be trained in the ways of coolness. After intensive courses in wall-leaning, toothpick-chewing, "the look", and dare-taking (the latter involving eating a rancid burger, which factored heavily into Picky's vegetarianism) he gained Frank's approval. Also a synthetic leather jacket and a motorcycle. (Well. That's what Picky claims. The rest of the story gets even wackier from here and the authors claim that he might have been embelishing the tale a tiny bit.) Now at his very coolest, he rides that bike right on into the school, right in time to scare an overly handsy Scott away from Tracy. He gives Scott "the look", which sends him cringing away clear into the girl's bathroom where the girls in said bathrom proceed to clobber him. Picky and Tracy ride off into the sunset, their friendship reaffirmed, and Picky acutely aware that he needs to go the DMV to get a license for that motorcycle.
After graduation, while on a trip to Fiveton to take a tour of Fiveton University, things started to go strangely wrong again. There was a rift in the fabric of reality that destroyed a local ice cream shop, and Picky and Tracy barely escaped safely. They found Lydia Kylen in the rubble, a time-traveling girl from the far, far future. She had come through the rift with her father, but something in the time stream had disrupted their journey and knocked them off course from their destination. Something menacing and spider-shaped.
Matters soon began to escalate. Due to influence from the rift, inanimate objects started coming to life, and animals began to become violent. Prince Kang, the son of King Poo (one of Ness's companions on his big journey) teleported in with the intent of helping out. Tracy's headaches began to manifest as PSI powers, which she used to help battle the strange monsters. Jeff, another one of Ness's old companions, gifted some equipment of his to Picky so he could help fight, too. (Included with this equipment was a bazooka. Just putting that out there.) Lydia had awesome future tech to fight with. And so the four of them battled on, eventually taking down the One-Headed Cerberus that was controlling the animals and leading the odd rift-creatures.
And then, after a moment to catch their breath, along came Porky.
Emerging from the time rift in an enormous spider-like mech came Picky's big brother, aged and warped but as childishly cruel as ever. He had come for Lydia, for he wanted to take the ability to travel freely through time from her. The regular time stream had begun to reject him, sealing off all of the possible places that he could go to amuse himself. A part of Gigyas was still in him, it seemed, and reality itself was rejecting him. Only one final place was left, and he didn't want to take that last trip just yet. This was his last chance to continue to skip through time, treating the inhabitants of each era like toys for the sake of his own amusement. And then, finally, to destroy the whole universe when it ceased to amuse him. He hadn't expected to return to this time, but now that he was here? He extended the invitation to Picky to join him.
Picky was flabbergasted. And for a moment, just a moment, considered the offer. Porky had been gone for 12 years, leaving him alone with a miserable family. He could, perhaps, finally be someone big, do something awesome... but not if it mean destroying the universe. He refused the offer, attacking Porky. What had this awful world given him, Porky asked? What was he fighting for? Picky declared that the world had given him a friend. Tracy was the shining bright spot in a life that might have otherwise been unbearable, and absolutely worth fighting for. And driven by that knowledge he rushed Porky's mech, scrambled atop it, and disabled its shield generator. And then the fight was truly on.
The four managed to destroy Porky's mech. However, inside of it was another mechanism, an armored and weaponized life support system for Porky's aged and decrepit body. The tide of battle seemed prepared to turn, even when Ness showed up to throw his bat into the battle. Porky continued to make wild offers to his little brother, to offer to let him be the general of his forces, but Picky continued to refuse. As far as Picky was concerned, this Gigyas-posessed monster was NOT his brother, and he would not be convinced otherwise. Ness and Tracy co-ordinated their attacks, Picky let loose once again with his bazooka, and that damaged Porky long enough for the time rift to start sucking him back in. Along with a good portion of the gathered animals, some of the surrounding people, and Dr. Andonuts, Jeff's father. And then it sealed shut, leaving Lydia and her father stranded in this time.
The rest was relatively easily sorted out. Lydia and her father remained in Fiveton, with Mr. Kylen coming to teach at the university alongside Jeff Andonuts. Tracy and Picky returned to Onett, with the intentions of enrolling in Fiveton University come the fall. Kang teleported himself home. Ness also teleported himself home, as his wife Paula had gone into labor. And in the end, Picky and Tracy affirmed that no matter what happened, no matter what the future might bring, they would always be friends.
Six months later Picky, Tracy, and the rest of the crew that met in Fiveton found themselves taking a trip to Winters. College was going well enough, even if Picky had already switched his major from philosophy to political science, but it was nice to have some time off. They settled into their cabin at the resort, but Picky's jealousy issues soon flared back up when a Cheddish fellow named Sven came along and started aggressively hitting on Tracy. She didn't appreciate his advances, but tried to downplay the whole thing. It all reminded Picky far too much of that time in high school, and he began to fear someone trying to get between him and Tracy again.
Sven continued to be overly familiar and friendly to everyone, but mostly to women and especially to Tracy. When he butted in and joined them in the hot tub at the resort's spa, Picky quickly grew fed up and fled to go do something else, leaving Tracy and Kang behind where both were too polite and awkward to excuse themselves in a similar fashion. They wound up getting regaled with Sven's 'folk tales' for two hours. Tracy was livid that Picky had abandoned her to that, shouted at Picky, and then went to drag a very overheated Kang back to the cabin. Before he could even properly process whether he had been a jerk or not, Sven came along and gave Picky a warning to stay away from Tracy before he, too, vanished into the night. If he hadn't disliked the guy before, he certainly disliked him now.
Things seemed somewhat smoothed over the next day, and everyone went to take skiing lessons. Alas, Sven turned out to be their instructor. Not a very sinister thing on the surface, until the novice skis that Sven specifically gave Picky snapped and sent him plowing into a tree. Tracy was there to heal him with PSI power. His pride being the only thing left bruised, he broke away from the others, stomped after Sven, and called him on what was obviously an attempt to try and get him out of the way so he could get to Tracy. It was then that Sven dropped the daffy accent and assaulted Picky, tying him up and throwing him on a ski lift. He taunted Picky, saying that he could never stop him from making Tracy fall in love with and that she'd never be happy with a wimpy guy like him around. In a moment of honesty with himself, Picky countered that he'd be fine with Tracy finding a good guy, someone she really liked. But not a shifty, evil creep like him. As nice as revelation as it was, it had no effect on Sven's plans. Picky was launched up the mountain on the ski lift, with the intention of leaving him there to rotate up and down the mountain all day.
Sven's self-serving plans continued, with him trying to offer private ski lessons in an effort to get Tracy alone. She was profoundly unsettled by the guy and just wanted to leave, which he had no intention of letting her do. After some unwanted grabbing on his part, she slapped him, and he revealed his true self to her. He was an alien mook, a leftover from Gigyas's invasion. Lydia and Kang came rushing in, ready to help her fight him off, for he had aggressive and unpleasant intent now. Sven-the-mook was very powerful, though, and able to spawn more ice monsters than the three could handle. When things were looking bleak, Picky came sailing down the mountain on a spare ski, plowing it into an ice monster. (It turns out that being scrawny makes it easier to get out of ropes.) Picky sprang eagerly into the fight... and Sven used his weird alien powers to diamondize Picky, solidifying him into crystal. It took the intervention of Paula and her own immense PSI powers and the remaining three's tenacity to bring Sven down. With his PSI drained and his alien rear severely kicked, the mook began to weep. He hadn't been a very good mook, and back when Gigyas had a base up in Winters, he had wound up getting demoted to janitor. Still, he took his job seriously. When the rest of Gigyas's troops were dispatched by the original chosen four, he found himself alone and unsure of what to do with himself. With nothing left but the idea of revenge, when he found out that Ness's sister was coming to vacation in Winters, he hatched a plan to kidnap her. But he got one look at her and fell in love, and thus his nefarious plans were slightly altered. Tracy was exasperated and displeased with Sven, but she also felt sorry for him. His story was a sad one. And it really did seem that all Sven wanted was friends. So she invited him back to Onett to celebrate the upcoming holidays. Picky was not at all pleased to hear this after Ness de-diamondized him. But what could he do? He and Tracy were still the best of friends, and now they all had another friend. Sort of.
Personality: Picky is a lanky and unassuming looking young man. He kind of blends in with crowds, and he wears his clothing baggy and his hair shaggy. He doesn't purposely try to be a loner, and does want to befriend other people. But it was just always hard to make friends when your family has a town-wide reputation for being terrible. Porky's reputation for being a pain had begun to rub off on him, and he could see no way to counter it. By the time that Porky was long gone, it was too late. The mold had been cast and the expectation that Picky Minch was lousy and uncool was just a matter of undeniable fact. In high school, he had given up on anyone other than Tracy being his friend. In college and beyond, after the wild adventure that he went on, he's starting to realize that there are people out there that'll give him a chance, if he just bothers to reach out.
He's a fairly decent young man, as far as young men go. He's kind and loyal to the friends that he does make, and cares for them deeply. He'll defend those he cares about from threats and danger... even if the threats and danger are something that's all in his head. Friendship is a very big deal for Picky, and he's prone to anxiety about losing the friendship of those he cares about. He's also prone to jealousy when he feels that someone may be trying to take his place in the lives of his friends. He can become quite mean and irrational at times like these, and he may say or do things that could genuinely damage his relationships with others. Having had so little friendship growing up, he clings tightly to whatever he currently has.
Picky is vegetarian, which is one part from eating a really bad burger and ten parts having sympathy for animals and not wanting to harm them. It's something that he's only undertaken for a year and a half, and he's still working out how to get the sort of nutrition that he really needs. With most of his meals having been at Tracy's house, or as part of his college meal plan, Picky has barely learned to cook. He can make instant packaged foods and has one really good chili recipe, but he's otherwise hopeless and is going to need someone to teach him how to do this vegetarian thing properly before he does his already sort of scrawny and fragile self some damage. It's not something that he intends on giving up on, as the principle of the matter means too much to him. He'll hesitate to seriously harm animals in any fashion, and he adores fuzzy critters of all sorts.
Picky still wants to be a "cool hero" like Ness, just like he did when he was a kid. And while the stuff he did while fighting to save Fiveton and fend of Porky was pretty cool, he's sure he's got a ways to go yet until he's really cool. For as much as he tries to act strong, and look stylish in his synthetic leather jacket, he's kind of a dork. He has goofy ideas, tells dumb jokes, can't make a Halloween costume to save his life, and has a chronic inability to put on any weight or muscle. He might have once been self-conscious about these things, but over time he's come to be somewhat more comfortable in his own skin. His friends like him just fine, after all. He doesn't need to pretend to be something that he's not... but he certainly can build towards becoming the best darned Picky Minch possible. He'll stand up for what's right, whether armed with a tiny pocketknife or a great big bazooka. Even if it means he has to take some lumps in the process. He sees himself as someone that's survived some serious stuff, and surely he can manage it again.
Beyond all this hero stuff, Picky still hasn't figured out where he wants his real life to go. He hasn't settled on a college major, and isn't completely sure what he's actually going to do for a living. He likes taking stuff apart and putting it back together, even if he's generally bad at it. He likes following questionable tutorial videos from the Internet. He likes video games. None of these things are something that he can base a career on, he's pretty sure, so he's been trying to follow the apparently sure-fire path of getting a cerebral degree of some sort and letting the rest sort itself out. He's a hard worker even if he's not always the most clueful, and gets a lot of his grades through effort and hard work rather than innate intelligence.
His family is still a sticking point and a delicate issue. For years, a part of him held out hope that his brother Porky would come home, and maybe he wouldn't be so bad of a person, and maybe things could become better in the Minch household. Abusive and neglectful parents were no picnic, but it was somehow easier to deal with when there was a brother at your side. But over the years, little resentments began to grow. Porky was always the favorite son, and mom and dad made no secret of this. Picky never quite fit into his awful family. Porky did. And when Porky returned, more monster than brother, Picky's hopes that they could ever be proper brothers again were completely crushed. He hates his brother now, hates what his absence did to him and hates what he's become and hates what he represents.
His relations with his parents are similarly poor. He has the barest amount of contact possible with his mother and father. They were abusive and neglectful, and Picky still bears the marks of their poor parenting. While he can be relaxed around people of his own age, he tenses up around authority, instinctively expecting the worst. Being used to hopping to it or getting hit, stimulus that reminds him of his father's punishments is liable to send him cringing, curling into himself, and darting away from the situation. He refuses to drink, because of the awful way both of his parents handled alcohol. He absolutely doesn't want to become like either of them. He'd cut them both out of his life entirely if they weren't bankrolling the better part of his college education. Some of the pressure to get a "smart" degree comes from them, if just so he can do it to spite them. His father alternately pushed him towards a fancy field like political science or psychology, then dismissed him as unable to ever succeed at such a thing. He firmly intends to have an incredible life, far away from them. He wants to prove them wrong and he wants to prove his own worth in the world at large. How, exactly, he'll do it, he's not sure... but he wants to, and that has to count for something.
Powers/Abilities: Picky is a regular human being, with regular human limitations. He has experience in riding motorcycles, along with a very basic idea of how to fire a bazooka. He has some small talent in tinkering with machinery, but is far better at taking things apart than successfully putting them back together.
Possessions: Clothes, leather jacket, motorcycle keys, wallet with money/ID cards/Debit card/etc, cheddar army knife, a semi-functional cellphone, Nintendo DS Lite, small case with several game cards. (Would it also be possible for him to have his motorcycle in storage, too?)
Arrival: I'd like for Picky to wake up on the ship.
[- Writing Samples -]
Network Sample:
[The young man on the video feed still seems to be working out for himself if he actually managed to get things set up properly. There's a long period of leaning in and thoughtful frowning, before he finally sits back, coughs, and grabs a piece of paper from out of frame.]
So, uh... hi everyone? The name's Picky. I'm new here. And I am really having a hard time finding a job. It's... not something I've had to actually go and do before.
[He holds up that piece of paper and waves it around a little, demonstratively.]
I've been working on a resume! I totally aced these back in social studies. Uh, but back in social studies I could kind of write whatever I wanted, like... experience-wise. And skill-wise. And stuff.
[There's a pause while he rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck. One might also think that he's not making eye contact with the camera anymore, but his bangs are so shaggy that he really wasn't making any in the first place.]
So I had a paper route for all of three weeks before they let me go for... uh, reasons. And I was going to start a delivery job right before I woke up here. So those're something. But... how the heck do you put on your resume that you and your friends saved a city from a time-travelling tyrant? Because we totally did that!
[He glances down at the paper, frowning.]
That goes under the "skills" section as "can work well on a team", right?
Log Sample: Top level on the test drive meme and a thread on the test drive meme.
Name: Lampdevil
Do you play any other characters in Outer Divide?: No
[- Character Information -]
Character Name: Picky Minch
Fandom: Mother 2/Earthbound
OU, AU, or CR AU: AU
Canon Point: From after the Mother 2: Harmony winter special, which is about 12-13 years after the end of Earthbound/Mother 2.
Journal:
twentycoolpointsCharacter History: Picky Minch is the youngest child of the Minch family. His mother Lardna is a neglectful alcoholic, his father Aloysius is an abusive and greedy man, and his older brother Porky is a time-traveling alien-supporting world-threatening child tyrant.
Now, let's back this up a bit...
Once upon a time in Eagleland, a place that resembles nothing so much as an idealized America, a meteor fell from the sky. This meteor crashed just outside of the town of Onett, where Porky, Picky, and their neighbor Ness lived. Kids being kids, they all jumped out of bed, changed out of their jammies, and ran to the impact site. Well, not Picky. Mom and dad were off at an elegant restaurant. Picky was left behind to watch the house while his brother checked out the big deal at the top of the hill. With parents as brutally strict as the Minches, measures needed to be taken to keep from getting in lots of trouble. But alas, the Onett police department already had the meteor barricaded off.
Ness gave up and went home to return to bed, but Porky had been waiting for this chance. When most of the police officers went back to town to deal with some delinquents, he rushed back home to get Picky. Picky had to see this. And Picky did see it, nice and up close with his brother... but this close? It was spooky. It was dark, the meteor was glowing, there were noises in the distance... Porky ran away. Picky remained at the top of the hill, not the least bit scared. Well... maybe a little scared. He was up there alone. And his brother was nowhere to be found. Exhausted, Picky settled himself down near some bushes, and drifted off to sleep.
He was woken up by Porky and his neighbor Ness, who had come looking for him. Picky, relieved and a little exasperated with his brother, got up, brushed himself off, and was ready to return home. But as they passed the strange glowing meteor again, they heard a faint buzzing. A light emerged from the rock, and with it a bee-like creature named Buzz-Buzz. It was from the future, it claimed, a future where something called Giygas had plunged the world into darkness. Three boys and a girl were fated to save the world, and their neighbor Ness was apparently one of them. Big brother Porky expressed shock and horror at the idea. And he hoped that he wasn't one of those boys. He wasn't up for that. Picky held his tongue. This was pretty scary, but... pretty cool, too.
Heroes and non-heroes alike, they headed back down the hill. When almost home, they were intercepted by some sort of silver spaceman, which attacked them. Ness and Buzz-Buzz fought him off bravely. Picky made his best effort to help, throwing punches where he could. Porky mostly kept to the back, muttered anxiously, and did nothing of any use. The way was clear, the evening was saved, and the Minch boys returned safely home... to find their parents waiting for them. Without anything else being said, Porky and Picky were sent up to their rooms and harshly punished by their father. Picky, all fleeting thoughts of heroism and aliens and bees having been beaten out of his head, retreated to bed.
The next days were the same, and yet... not the same. Porky had begun to act strangely, muttering to himself and being withdrawn. He began to miss classes. Then entire days of school. And finally, Porky disappeared from the house entirely. The prospect of being left alone to deal with mom and dad was really scary... at least it eventually became only mom around the house. Dad had gone off to the big city of Fourside to, apparently, go into business with someone Porky knew.
Something wasn't right, but what could one little kid do? The sky over Onett grew dark. Something was very, very wrong. Strange and horrible things from space lurked, creatures sent by that Giygas... and where was Porky? Was Porky safe? Porky really wouldn't have anything to do with this, would he? A little brother's faith could go a long way. It could put up with all kinds of testing. Until when, as the skies cleared and the monsters retreated, the letter that showed up in the mailbox with his brother's handwriting on the front wasn't for him.
It was for Ness. From next door. Ness, the boy who really was a hero. The kid that everyone was saying beat back the monsters and saved everyone. What else could Picky do but deliver it? And the letter wasn't even an explanation or an apology. It was a call-out to Ness, a "come and get me, jerkface" message. What the heck had his brother been doing all this time? He never knew. He never found out. Porky never came home.
AU History: Picky is being played based upon the events in Mother 2: Harmony, a fan comic that sets out to be a canon-consistent exploration of how Mother 2 and Mother 3 are connected. In it, Picky and Tracy are teenagers, Ness is grown up and has started a family of his own, and Porky... well, Porky is still at large, and makes a return.
After the end of story, life in the Minch household remained as miserable as ever. Picky was sure that he'd be facing it alone, but it turned out that he had a friend in his neighbor Tracy. Tracy was Ness's little sister, a girl of his age, and the one person in the entire neighborhood, the entire school, the entire town that would be his friend. They were a nearly inseperable pair. When his mother and father would ignore him or kick him out of the house, Tracy would be there to open the door and invite him over for dinner. When bullies at school would beat him up and toss him in the trash, Tracy would come and pull him out. When Tracy was feeling down, Picky would do something goofy to cheer her up. Their friendship was tested in their senior year of high school, when Tracy found herself suddenly considered attractive and popular after the removal of her braces. Picky didn't take well to all of these new people suddenly hanging off of his best and only friend, especially the cool-but-jerkish Scott. He had a great big jealous fit in the middle of the hallway, and later that evening worked himself into a paranoid froth that Tracy didn't want to be his friend anymore because he wasn't cool enough.
Desperate to do anything to become cool, he ran to Frank, a former thug and generally cool guy, and begged to be trained in the ways of coolness. After intensive courses in wall-leaning, toothpick-chewing, "the look", and dare-taking (the latter involving eating a rancid burger, which factored heavily into Picky's vegetarianism) he gained Frank's approval. Also a synthetic leather jacket and a motorcycle. (Well. That's what Picky claims. The rest of the story gets even wackier from here and the authors claim that he might have been embelishing the tale a tiny bit.) Now at his very coolest, he rides that bike right on into the school, right in time to scare an overly handsy Scott away from Tracy. He gives Scott "the look", which sends him cringing away clear into the girl's bathroom where the girls in said bathrom proceed to clobber him. Picky and Tracy ride off into the sunset, their friendship reaffirmed, and Picky acutely aware that he needs to go the DMV to get a license for that motorcycle.
After graduation, while on a trip to Fiveton to take a tour of Fiveton University, things started to go strangely wrong again. There was a rift in the fabric of reality that destroyed a local ice cream shop, and Picky and Tracy barely escaped safely. They found Lydia Kylen in the rubble, a time-traveling girl from the far, far future. She had come through the rift with her father, but something in the time stream had disrupted their journey and knocked them off course from their destination. Something menacing and spider-shaped.
Matters soon began to escalate. Due to influence from the rift, inanimate objects started coming to life, and animals began to become violent. Prince Kang, the son of King Poo (one of Ness's companions on his big journey) teleported in with the intent of helping out. Tracy's headaches began to manifest as PSI powers, which she used to help battle the strange monsters. Jeff, another one of Ness's old companions, gifted some equipment of his to Picky so he could help fight, too. (Included with this equipment was a bazooka. Just putting that out there.) Lydia had awesome future tech to fight with. And so the four of them battled on, eventually taking down the One-Headed Cerberus that was controlling the animals and leading the odd rift-creatures.
And then, after a moment to catch their breath, along came Porky.
Emerging from the time rift in an enormous spider-like mech came Picky's big brother, aged and warped but as childishly cruel as ever. He had come for Lydia, for he wanted to take the ability to travel freely through time from her. The regular time stream had begun to reject him, sealing off all of the possible places that he could go to amuse himself. A part of Gigyas was still in him, it seemed, and reality itself was rejecting him. Only one final place was left, and he didn't want to take that last trip just yet. This was his last chance to continue to skip through time, treating the inhabitants of each era like toys for the sake of his own amusement. And then, finally, to destroy the whole universe when it ceased to amuse him. He hadn't expected to return to this time, but now that he was here? He extended the invitation to Picky to join him.
Picky was flabbergasted. And for a moment, just a moment, considered the offer. Porky had been gone for 12 years, leaving him alone with a miserable family. He could, perhaps, finally be someone big, do something awesome... but not if it mean destroying the universe. He refused the offer, attacking Porky. What had this awful world given him, Porky asked? What was he fighting for? Picky declared that the world had given him a friend. Tracy was the shining bright spot in a life that might have otherwise been unbearable, and absolutely worth fighting for. And driven by that knowledge he rushed Porky's mech, scrambled atop it, and disabled its shield generator. And then the fight was truly on.
The four managed to destroy Porky's mech. However, inside of it was another mechanism, an armored and weaponized life support system for Porky's aged and decrepit body. The tide of battle seemed prepared to turn, even when Ness showed up to throw his bat into the battle. Porky continued to make wild offers to his little brother, to offer to let him be the general of his forces, but Picky continued to refuse. As far as Picky was concerned, this Gigyas-posessed monster was NOT his brother, and he would not be convinced otherwise. Ness and Tracy co-ordinated their attacks, Picky let loose once again with his bazooka, and that damaged Porky long enough for the time rift to start sucking him back in. Along with a good portion of the gathered animals, some of the surrounding people, and Dr. Andonuts, Jeff's father. And then it sealed shut, leaving Lydia and her father stranded in this time.
The rest was relatively easily sorted out. Lydia and her father remained in Fiveton, with Mr. Kylen coming to teach at the university alongside Jeff Andonuts. Tracy and Picky returned to Onett, with the intentions of enrolling in Fiveton University come the fall. Kang teleported himself home. Ness also teleported himself home, as his wife Paula had gone into labor. And in the end, Picky and Tracy affirmed that no matter what happened, no matter what the future might bring, they would always be friends.
Six months later Picky, Tracy, and the rest of the crew that met in Fiveton found themselves taking a trip to Winters. College was going well enough, even if Picky had already switched his major from philosophy to political science, but it was nice to have some time off. They settled into their cabin at the resort, but Picky's jealousy issues soon flared back up when a Cheddish fellow named Sven came along and started aggressively hitting on Tracy. She didn't appreciate his advances, but tried to downplay the whole thing. It all reminded Picky far too much of that time in high school, and he began to fear someone trying to get between him and Tracy again.
Sven continued to be overly familiar and friendly to everyone, but mostly to women and especially to Tracy. When he butted in and joined them in the hot tub at the resort's spa, Picky quickly grew fed up and fled to go do something else, leaving Tracy and Kang behind where both were too polite and awkward to excuse themselves in a similar fashion. They wound up getting regaled with Sven's 'folk tales' for two hours. Tracy was livid that Picky had abandoned her to that, shouted at Picky, and then went to drag a very overheated Kang back to the cabin. Before he could even properly process whether he had been a jerk or not, Sven came along and gave Picky a warning to stay away from Tracy before he, too, vanished into the night. If he hadn't disliked the guy before, he certainly disliked him now.
Things seemed somewhat smoothed over the next day, and everyone went to take skiing lessons. Alas, Sven turned out to be their instructor. Not a very sinister thing on the surface, until the novice skis that Sven specifically gave Picky snapped and sent him plowing into a tree. Tracy was there to heal him with PSI power. His pride being the only thing left bruised, he broke away from the others, stomped after Sven, and called him on what was obviously an attempt to try and get him out of the way so he could get to Tracy. It was then that Sven dropped the daffy accent and assaulted Picky, tying him up and throwing him on a ski lift. He taunted Picky, saying that he could never stop him from making Tracy fall in love with and that she'd never be happy with a wimpy guy like him around. In a moment of honesty with himself, Picky countered that he'd be fine with Tracy finding a good guy, someone she really liked. But not a shifty, evil creep like him. As nice as revelation as it was, it had no effect on Sven's plans. Picky was launched up the mountain on the ski lift, with the intention of leaving him there to rotate up and down the mountain all day.
Sven's self-serving plans continued, with him trying to offer private ski lessons in an effort to get Tracy alone. She was profoundly unsettled by the guy and just wanted to leave, which he had no intention of letting her do. After some unwanted grabbing on his part, she slapped him, and he revealed his true self to her. He was an alien mook, a leftover from Gigyas's invasion. Lydia and Kang came rushing in, ready to help her fight him off, for he had aggressive and unpleasant intent now. Sven-the-mook was very powerful, though, and able to spawn more ice monsters than the three could handle. When things were looking bleak, Picky came sailing down the mountain on a spare ski, plowing it into an ice monster. (It turns out that being scrawny makes it easier to get out of ropes.) Picky sprang eagerly into the fight... and Sven used his weird alien powers to diamondize Picky, solidifying him into crystal. It took the intervention of Paula and her own immense PSI powers and the remaining three's tenacity to bring Sven down. With his PSI drained and his alien rear severely kicked, the mook began to weep. He hadn't been a very good mook, and back when Gigyas had a base up in Winters, he had wound up getting demoted to janitor. Still, he took his job seriously. When the rest of Gigyas's troops were dispatched by the original chosen four, he found himself alone and unsure of what to do with himself. With nothing left but the idea of revenge, when he found out that Ness's sister was coming to vacation in Winters, he hatched a plan to kidnap her. But he got one look at her and fell in love, and thus his nefarious plans were slightly altered. Tracy was exasperated and displeased with Sven, but she also felt sorry for him. His story was a sad one. And it really did seem that all Sven wanted was friends. So she invited him back to Onett to celebrate the upcoming holidays. Picky was not at all pleased to hear this after Ness de-diamondized him. But what could he do? He and Tracy were still the best of friends, and now they all had another friend. Sort of.
Personality: Picky is a lanky and unassuming looking young man. He kind of blends in with crowds, and he wears his clothing baggy and his hair shaggy. He doesn't purposely try to be a loner, and does want to befriend other people. But it was just always hard to make friends when your family has a town-wide reputation for being terrible. Porky's reputation for being a pain had begun to rub off on him, and he could see no way to counter it. By the time that Porky was long gone, it was too late. The mold had been cast and the expectation that Picky Minch was lousy and uncool was just a matter of undeniable fact. In high school, he had given up on anyone other than Tracy being his friend. In college and beyond, after the wild adventure that he went on, he's starting to realize that there are people out there that'll give him a chance, if he just bothers to reach out.
He's a fairly decent young man, as far as young men go. He's kind and loyal to the friends that he does make, and cares for them deeply. He'll defend those he cares about from threats and danger... even if the threats and danger are something that's all in his head. Friendship is a very big deal for Picky, and he's prone to anxiety about losing the friendship of those he cares about. He's also prone to jealousy when he feels that someone may be trying to take his place in the lives of his friends. He can become quite mean and irrational at times like these, and he may say or do things that could genuinely damage his relationships with others. Having had so little friendship growing up, he clings tightly to whatever he currently has.
Picky is vegetarian, which is one part from eating a really bad burger and ten parts having sympathy for animals and not wanting to harm them. It's something that he's only undertaken for a year and a half, and he's still working out how to get the sort of nutrition that he really needs. With most of his meals having been at Tracy's house, or as part of his college meal plan, Picky has barely learned to cook. He can make instant packaged foods and has one really good chili recipe, but he's otherwise hopeless and is going to need someone to teach him how to do this vegetarian thing properly before he does his already sort of scrawny and fragile self some damage. It's not something that he intends on giving up on, as the principle of the matter means too much to him. He'll hesitate to seriously harm animals in any fashion, and he adores fuzzy critters of all sorts.
Picky still wants to be a "cool hero" like Ness, just like he did when he was a kid. And while the stuff he did while fighting to save Fiveton and fend of Porky was pretty cool, he's sure he's got a ways to go yet until he's really cool. For as much as he tries to act strong, and look stylish in his synthetic leather jacket, he's kind of a dork. He has goofy ideas, tells dumb jokes, can't make a Halloween costume to save his life, and has a chronic inability to put on any weight or muscle. He might have once been self-conscious about these things, but over time he's come to be somewhat more comfortable in his own skin. His friends like him just fine, after all. He doesn't need to pretend to be something that he's not... but he certainly can build towards becoming the best darned Picky Minch possible. He'll stand up for what's right, whether armed with a tiny pocketknife or a great big bazooka. Even if it means he has to take some lumps in the process. He sees himself as someone that's survived some serious stuff, and surely he can manage it again.
Beyond all this hero stuff, Picky still hasn't figured out where he wants his real life to go. He hasn't settled on a college major, and isn't completely sure what he's actually going to do for a living. He likes taking stuff apart and putting it back together, even if he's generally bad at it. He likes following questionable tutorial videos from the Internet. He likes video games. None of these things are something that he can base a career on, he's pretty sure, so he's been trying to follow the apparently sure-fire path of getting a cerebral degree of some sort and letting the rest sort itself out. He's a hard worker even if he's not always the most clueful, and gets a lot of his grades through effort and hard work rather than innate intelligence.
His family is still a sticking point and a delicate issue. For years, a part of him held out hope that his brother Porky would come home, and maybe he wouldn't be so bad of a person, and maybe things could become better in the Minch household. Abusive and neglectful parents were no picnic, but it was somehow easier to deal with when there was a brother at your side. But over the years, little resentments began to grow. Porky was always the favorite son, and mom and dad made no secret of this. Picky never quite fit into his awful family. Porky did. And when Porky returned, more monster than brother, Picky's hopes that they could ever be proper brothers again were completely crushed. He hates his brother now, hates what his absence did to him and hates what he's become and hates what he represents.
His relations with his parents are similarly poor. He has the barest amount of contact possible with his mother and father. They were abusive and neglectful, and Picky still bears the marks of their poor parenting. While he can be relaxed around people of his own age, he tenses up around authority, instinctively expecting the worst. Being used to hopping to it or getting hit, stimulus that reminds him of his father's punishments is liable to send him cringing, curling into himself, and darting away from the situation. He refuses to drink, because of the awful way both of his parents handled alcohol. He absolutely doesn't want to become like either of them. He'd cut them both out of his life entirely if they weren't bankrolling the better part of his college education. Some of the pressure to get a "smart" degree comes from them, if just so he can do it to spite them. His father alternately pushed him towards a fancy field like political science or psychology, then dismissed him as unable to ever succeed at such a thing. He firmly intends to have an incredible life, far away from them. He wants to prove them wrong and he wants to prove his own worth in the world at large. How, exactly, he'll do it, he's not sure... but he wants to, and that has to count for something.
Powers/Abilities: Picky is a regular human being, with regular human limitations. He has experience in riding motorcycles, along with a very basic idea of how to fire a bazooka. He has some small talent in tinkering with machinery, but is far better at taking things apart than successfully putting them back together.
Possessions: Clothes, leather jacket, motorcycle keys, wallet with money/ID cards/Debit card/etc, cheddar army knife, a semi-functional cellphone, Nintendo DS Lite, small case with several game cards. (Would it also be possible for him to have his motorcycle in storage, too?)
Arrival: I'd like for Picky to wake up on the ship.
[- Writing Samples -]
Network Sample:
[The young man on the video feed still seems to be working out for himself if he actually managed to get things set up properly. There's a long period of leaning in and thoughtful frowning, before he finally sits back, coughs, and grabs a piece of paper from out of frame.]
So, uh... hi everyone? The name's Picky. I'm new here. And I am really having a hard time finding a job. It's... not something I've had to actually go and do before.
[He holds up that piece of paper and waves it around a little, demonstratively.]
I've been working on a resume! I totally aced these back in social studies. Uh, but back in social studies I could kind of write whatever I wanted, like... experience-wise. And skill-wise. And stuff.
[There's a pause while he rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck. One might also think that he's not making eye contact with the camera anymore, but his bangs are so shaggy that he really wasn't making any in the first place.]
So I had a paper route for all of three weeks before they let me go for... uh, reasons. And I was going to start a delivery job right before I woke up here. So those're something. But... how the heck do you put on your resume that you and your friends saved a city from a time-travelling tyrant? Because we totally did that!
[He glances down at the paper, frowning.]
That goes under the "skills" section as "can work well on a team", right?
Log Sample: Top level on the test drive meme and a thread on the test drive meme.