The Wake Application, March 2016

[deadster_awake]

Personal Information
Name: Dragoness Eclectic
Age: Past the half-century mark.
Personal Journal: dragoness-e
Email / AIM / MSN/ Plurk: deadend@republicofnewhome.org / DragonEclectic
Current Character(s): None current, but Dead End is a re-app of a character I played before and dropped.

Character Information
Character Name: Dead End
Fandom: Transformers G1 Cartoon
Source: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Dead_End_(G1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_End_(Transformers)

Specifically, this is the G1 Cartoon Dead End.

Character History: (should be at least three paragraphs)
[Note:you've seen the part in brackets before; it's in the WakeWiki]

[ Sometime in 1986, Megatron got in a snit over his evil Decepticon jets being made fools of by a bunch of Autobot cars, and decided to build his own team of evil Decepticon cars. To this end, he sent Soundwave's two juvenile delinquents, Rumble and Frenzy, on a car-collecting tour for raw materials. Based on the fact that they mostly brought back European sports cars and race cars, they apparently went on a tour of Europe on Megatron's expense account. Where else are you going to find a Porsche 928 being used as a bank robbers' getaway car?]

[Megatron and the Constructicons rebuilt the cars into drone Transformers, then took them to Cybertron to get them issued personalities by Vector Sigma, the mysterious, pre-Cybertronian "super-computer" that brings Transformers to life. So were created the Stunticons, of which Dead End is a member. Vector Sigma gave Megatron exactly what he asked for in personalities*, which resulted in all the Stunticons being psychotic in one variation or another. (Vector Sigma either has a nasty sense of humor, or had an oversupply of defective personalities to use in filling careless specifications). See the G1 episodes "Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1" and "Key to Vector Sigma, Part 2". Dead End's psychosis seems to be clinical depression (see personality notes below).]

[-----
* "Make them hate the Autobots and all that they stand for"
-----]

[After that, the Stunticons' main employment seemed to be (a) commit crimes as cars, making the humans think the Autobots had turned on them, and (b) "combine to form... MENASOR!" (just in time to spoil one of their demolition derbies). Yes, the Stunticons were a combiner-team: they could re-assemble together as a really gigantic single robot with a bad temper even for a Decepticon and whose appearance meant the Autobots would haul out their opposing combiner team of jets that assembled into a really gigantic single robot whose main purpose was to whale on Menasor a lot. Dead End considered this entire career pretty pointless.]

[Fast forward twenty years, aka "Transformers: the Movie (1986)" aka "The movie that traumatized every small child that hero-worshipped Optimus Prime". It's a rather alternate 2005, the Decepticons are winning--they've pushed the Autobots off Cybertron, though the Autobots hold two moon-bases and have Autobot City on Earth and are preparing to re-invade Cybertron from the twin moons. One botched raid by Megatron later, Optimus Prime is dead, Megatron is apparently dead, half the jets are gone, Starscream is in charge (!!)--wait, Starscream has just been vaporized by this Galvatron dude, and oh by the way, there's a GIANT TRANSFORMING PLANET coming to eat Cybertron!]

[Dead End is right; they're all doomed. What do you mean, all the Stunticons survived?]

Nautilus: First Wave

At that point, Dead End Woke for the first time. He ended up in the Western District, swore allegiance to TFA Megatron, lived in a garage next to the cemetary, and made friends with Aya Brea, Leslie Vernon, Smaug the Dragon, Sunstreaker, Wheeljack, William Jesse the preacher, Lt Rip Van Winkle, and various other strange people. He was acquainted with all of his fellow Cybertronians at the time, and didn't consider any to be enemies--Megatron had ordered a truce, and hating people was pointless anyway. He disliked Graham Spector for the latter's habit of dismantling vehicles belonging to friends and the assault on Sideswipe.

In the course of his time in Nautilus, Dead End revisted his home universe twice; he got to witness the starving time on Charr, and the restoration of Galvatron and the exile of Blitzwing. Preparatory to the fight against Isis, he brought back the personalities of his four teammates, copied while combined as Menasor, so that he could borrow their skills and special powers. He and Sunstreaker had a road rage death duel that killed both of them; on returning from death, they found that they had earned each other's respect.

In Nautilus itself, he joined in the fight against Isis, fighting hideous monsters in Kalliste and facing down Isis herself. He choked during the final confrontation and the alternate personality of Motormaster took over. Motormaster helped bring down Isis, and then rampaged around Nautilus for a few weeks being Motormaster (i.e., punishing Dead End by hurting his friends) until the combined Bending of a team of Wakened forced his vile, violent personality to subside and that of one of the other Stunticons to take over. Eventually Dead End reverted to himself, though he would let the other personalities strengthen him for specific purposes--on a tight leash of control. He'd learned not to let Motormaster get loose again.

Weary after the fight against Isis and the madness of having all the Stunticons trapped in his head, he succumbed to his own depressive tendencies and slipped back into Sleep for some time... until his home universe became too unendurable once more.

Back in his own universe, he continued as part of the Stunticons--unappreciated by Galvatron as a team of skilled automotive terrorists, but only desired for their ability to combine and form Menasor. He and the rest of the Stunticons were infected by the Hate Plague, but survived. Eventually, they wound up under the command of Sixshot (Headmasters cartoon), Galvatron fell, and Scorponok was hailed the new Decepticon leader. At this point, Dead End Woke up again.

Nautilus: Second Wave

What came back from Sleep was far more than the Stunticon Dead End had been, though he had not yet grasped that fact. For over a decade, at the behest of various Decepticon leaders, the Stunticon team had been repeatedly merged to form Menasor, for prolonged periods. Separations had been come more and more problematic; echoes of each one's personality bled over into his teammates. Eventually, had Dead End remained Asleep, all five Stunticons would have blended permanently to become one of the legendary "Demon Generals" of the Decepticons: Menasor [loosely based on Transformers:Victory and wild extrapolation].

In Nautilus, Dead End had those personality echoes as well, but he gradually assimilated them rather than being submerged by them. His consciousness was still his, but his personality--was becoming a variant of Menasor. He was well on the way towards fully integrating Wildrider and Drag Strip, a change most obvious when in his human form as Mori Finite. (As a human, he did not have the hard-wired circuitry enforcing his personality as Dead End--and twenty-something testosterone encouraged all the immature, impulsive aspects of their personalities). One mark of that integration was that he no longer switched to their voices when channeling aspects of their personalities.

Breakdown and Motormaster's integration was progressing, though it was more subtle. Breakdown's paranoia surfaced whenever Dead End felt vulnerable, such as when a reality storm stripped him of his powers. He started to acquire Breakdown's dislike of being watched by Nautilus' ever-present cameras, as well. Motormaster's integration was... less subtle, as Motormaster's nature tends to dominate Dead End's personality, rather than being subsumed by it. Dead End still sometimes switched to Motormaster's voice when he was channeling the Stunticon leader's brutal rage, malice and power--but Motormaster's lust for dominance was being modified into a more Megatron-like desire to command and lead through power.

In the end, Dead End was becoming Menasor--but in Nautilus, he was becoming the Menasor that Megatron really wanted: intelligent, integrated, in full control of his emotions. Unable to bear losing himself completely in Menasor, but seeing no way out, Dead End fell back Asleep.

Nautilus: Third Wave

Once again, Dead End is back. This time, he's himself, not proto-Menasor. It's complicated, but the personality fusion has proceeded far enough back home that "Dead End" is effectively dead, and only Waking Dead End retains his true personality. Stubborn as always, Dead End's spirit has rejected change to Menasor and returned to his roots.

Character Personality: (should include age, maturity.)

From Dead End's DW/Marvel profile: "Sullen and fatalistic; Dead End sees little reason to continue the Aotobot-Decepticon War since all Transformers will eventually become inoperative anyway, even though it might take tens of thousands of years. Yet he spends more time keeping himself unmarred and shiny than any of his fellow Stunticons, an irony not lost upon Motormaster, who speculates that Dead wants to at least make sure he leaves a pretty wreck when he dies. This vanity leads to a lot of teasing and derision directed toward Dead End, which makes him feel worse. The only thing that can lift his spirits is blasting Autobots in battle, despite what he says about the pointlessness of it all. It seems he's too busy trying to save own life to get depressed about the possibility of losing it."

My Dead End is a depressive; he varies from mildly apathetic with a sardonic sense of humor to black funks where he has to be beaten to get him to do more than sit and stare at the opposite wall. If even that works. Except when he's in a black funk, he's quite vain about his appearance and manners; he affects the persona of an aristocratic, bored dilletante. Life is pointless, it's just marking time until you die, and we're all going to die soon, but one might as well look good while you do it... and enjoy a few sensual pleasures. He's very much the mopey-gothboi.

I followed the Dreamwave write-up originally and wrote him as the most intelligent of the Stunticons, though his tech spec only rates his Int at 6. I see him as very intelligent, but hobbled by his depression and apathy. His diversions are all ones that appeal to his intellect: reading, music, conversations with people as intelligent as he is.

He's a member of the Stunticon team, and his primary loyalty is to his team--his brothers, as he sees them. Without them, he tends to feel adrift and lost, and very likely to fall into a funk. At the moment, he's been a piece of Menasor far too often and for far too long; he needs to learn how to function as an individual without 4 other voices in his head once again. During his original time in Nautilus, he'd started to latch on to the other misfits and madmen as his "teammates", and carried out his non-physical function as a Stunticon team member--he was the one who stabilized the others.

He is also a Decepticon, but as a depressed fatalist, he really sees no point in the War and Decepticon/Autobot is no more than a label that says who is less or more likely to shoot at him and who should be shot at--if a superior officer is around to insist on it. He has no philosophical or emotional investment in the War or his faction.

He's a skilled and courageous warrior--when he can be motivated to fight. His brothers (or other people he cares about) depending on him or in danger are among the things that will motivate him to fight. When he does fight, he's cool and precise and would be very deadly if he had more powerful weapons.

He has a reputation among the Decepticons who know him for his skewed risk analysis routines; ask him to give a tactical assessment of a situation, and Dead End will figure out the worst possible way it can go wrong and inform you that's what's going to happen. He's convinced that he'll die in every single battle he enters, and he's been pleasantly surprised every time so far. He knows this unnatural streak of luck can't last, though, and next time will be It. This fatalism is the source of his courage: he knows he's going to die, so whether it's now or the next minute doesn't matter. He just hopes it won't be too painful.

He's not as young as he used to be, but is still young as Transformers go, having been built about thirty years before his Awakening. Thanks to both his time in Nautilus and the brutal conditions on Charr and under Galvatron, he has an adult level of maturity... with quirks, thanks to Megatron's specifications to Vector Sigma when he had the Stunticons brought to life. Dead End's 'quirk' is his depression, fatalism and apathy. Thanks to events in Nautilus, he no longer believes that he is incapable of hope or joy. He just doesn't see any reason to hope or anything to be joyful about these days.

At first, when he returns to Nautilus, he'll be uncertain and confused--his memories
of his former time were thought to be dreams. His memories will come back, like the memories of a vivid dream revisted in reality, though I expect he will have to work Bending up from scratch. He'll also be a bit messed up--he's been part of Menasor far too much, and tends to think of himself as just a unit of the Stunticons, rather than an individual with his own hopes and fears. He needs to find himself again.

Appearance:

Robot mode: Canonical G1 Cartoon appearance--a very large**, rather blocky robot, he has wheels on his shoulders and ankles, and wears a purple visor and orangish facemask. I play the visor and mask as removable, to reveal violet optics and the rather handsome, if dour face of the Dreamwave version of Dead End. He rarely removes them, and they conceal his expressions almost completely; only his voice and overall body language convey his emotions.

**Dead End is actually small as full-grown Transformers go. He's the size of comparable car-Transformers such as Jazz or Prowl; not nearly as big as Starscream or Megatron.

Alt mode: Dark Red Porsche 928S with very dark tinted windows. (Illegally dark in most states). Like this, only darker:



Powers:

From profile: "In car mode, Dead End can reach speeds of up to 220 mph. He emanates a radar signal that allows him to detect the movements of any vehicle or robot within a 200-mile radius, and he can use it to mentally map the surrounding terrain as well. He's adept at using this ability to lead enemy Autobots into traps- such as dead ends! In robot mode, he carries a compressor-air gun, which can let out a blast of air that packs a 40,000 psi punch, enough to splinter a grove of oak trees. He combines with his fellow Stunticons to form the giant robot, Menasor."

i.e. he's a fast car, he has an aircraft/spaceship-grade active sensor array with real-time mapping capabilities, he carries a super-high-pressure air concussion rifle, and has been shown in the cartoon to mount a couple of blasters or lasers in car mode.

Samples
[I wrote new samples]

Network:

A camera turns on, revealing the red sky of the West before rotating downwards to
focus on the face of rather large robot. A purple visor and dull yellow-orange battle-mask hide all expression. He stares into the camera for a long moment, then a mellow,
vaguely aristocratic British voice speaks.

"Can anyone tell me who still lives in the West? What happened to Leslie and Nathan and Pyramid Head and..." his voice trails off, then rises "and LORD MEGATRON??"

Third Person:


Well. The garage was still standing; that was something. The grimy brownstone building looked abandoned for years; the windows that weren't broken were covered with dirt and cobwebs. The old padlock on the garage doors was rusted solid.

Dead End seized the rusty padlock in one hand and snapped it with a twist of his massive metal hand. The broken fragments fell to the ground with a dull 'clink', 'clink'. Much louder was the screech of rusty metal on rusty metal as Dead End lifted the garage door with a single heave of his servos--

A flurry of hair legs and bloated body jumped square onto him, and Dead End found himself wrestling with a startled, irritated giant spider. "Oh, bother!" After a brief struggle, he cracked the thing hard enough across its cephalothorax to stun it, and tossed it out in the street. Some things in the West remained the same.

The maroon, black and silver robot shook his head and heaved open the other two doors, admitting light. Shadows filled the back corners of the garage, yielding reluctantly to the ruddy light. Spiderwebs and the dried, cocooned corpses of small creatures filled the former repair bays, as did several more shy giant spiders. Chitin-covered legs waved and the spiderwebs heaved as the spiders crawled up into the lift racks and away from the intruding light.

"Oh, bother," Dead End said again. There was a lot of cleaning to be done. He considered where to start, and wondered--why was his garage such a mess? Where was Leslie's Prius, and why hadn't Leslie kept things tidy? Were there no more Decepticon cars that needed a place to do maintenance? Or any other cars, for that matter? Or whoever it was that he'd allowed to use the space for maintaining that oddly-named vehicle--what was it? Ah, yes, "Knightmare Frame".

Why did the area look so abandoned? Was everyone he knew gone? Or had no one known that there was a perfectly good garage here available for use? Perhaps--Dead End glanced up at the empty facade, violet optics glowing softly--he ought to put up a sign. "Dead End's Garage", with a Decepticon logo. "Open to friends". Yes, he would do that.

After he evicted the annoyingly persistent spiders.

----- (DEAD) END -----