Application to metaheroes Copy

[contocricket]

Player —

Player Name: Cybra
Pronouns: She/Her
Are you over 18? Yes
Contact: Journal DMs or cybrarp
Current Characters: Six (Generator Rex)
Who Invited You?: Current Player

Character —

Character Name: Archie Hopper/Jiminy Cricket
Character Canon: Once Upon a Time
Character Age: Never officially confirmed but biologically in his thirties. Chronologically, at least 100.
Canon Point: Immediately after the First Curse was broken at the end of Season 1
Link to History: History on the OUAT wiki

Inventory: His umbrella and his cellphone

Powers —

Skills:

Medical and Mental Health Training

Thanks to his Cursed memories, Archie has a medical degree from Stanforth and is a licensed psychiatrist in Storybrooke. Technically, the piece of paper is fake after having been created by the Curse with his false memories, but he still has the memories of going through medical school and keeps up with the latest techniques to help his friends and neighbors.

This means that Archie is able to typically get at least some idea of someone's current psychological issues not long after meeting them. He might make a joke about someone coming in to get treatment, but typically he keeps these diagnoses to himself out of respect for someone's privacy if they're not interested in coming to him to work on them. (There is a permissions post for it here which also includes physical health given the medical aspects of a psychiatry degree.)

However, he will hand out an unsolicited "session" if he feels that standing idly by and watching someone damage themselves or their relationships is unacceptable. One example is later on when Mary Margaret refused to let anyone else take care of baby Neal despite how much stress it puts on her. This was due to the trauma of having to give Emma up just after she'd been born to protect her from the First Curse so she could grow up to save them all. Archie very deliberately confronts Mary Margaret about the problem, forcing her to see what she's doing to herself and helping her be able to start moving on from that old trauma, laying the groundwork for a healthier relationship with her new son.

While Archie typically tries to use these skills for good, he has on occasion used his ability to psychologically-analyze someone quickly to try and use it to change their minds to his advantage. For example, much later on when he was captured by the Evil Queen (the dark version of Regina who was separated from her by the Jekyll and Hyde potion) and Zelena, he used these abilities to attempt to talk Zelena into letting him go, actually making her pause for a moment before she realized what he was doing.

Good Physical Stamina

While Archie does own a car and can drive it, typically Archie walks everywhere with Pongo on a leash. This means he doesn't get winded that much if he has to be on his feet for a while.

Advanced Thievery and Conning Techniques

In his real life as Jiminy and in his Cursed memories, Archie grew up as a thief thanks to his parents who were also thieves and con artists. This means that Archie is well-trained in various thievery techniques. He's also well-versed in conning techniques due to having participated in many of their cons since he was a child.

Even more importantly, he's good at them. His skills as a thief in particular were so good that his parents hired him out to Rumpelstiltskin to collect various personal objects and their owners' names which Rumpelstiltskin could then use against the original owners.

However, Archie's strong sense of right and wrong despite his upbringing makes him disinclined to use these skills unless he has no other choice. Even then, he'd still feel guilty for using them.

Superpowers:

Pongo

Pongo is Archie's pet Dalmatian that he's had ever since he arrived in Storybrooke. However, Pongo is incredibly smart for a dog, arguably as smart as a human. (Some would argue even smarter given that he doesn't talk.) Given that Pongo is allowed to stay in the office when Archie has patients, Archie likely had him trained as a therapy dog in both their Cursed memories.

Other than far-above-average canine intellect, Pongo's only other "special ability" is his keen sense of smell. Pongo was able to sniff out where Archie and Henry were trapped in the collapsed mine after the failed attempt to blast it open. Later on, he was able to sniff out that something was wrong with Regina when it was actually her mother, Cora, in magical disguise.

The Blue Fairy's Spell/"We Are Both"

Archie is both Archie Hopper and Jiminy Cricket. When he fell through the latest Confluence, he was physically altered to mesh both identities together even if he has only begun to mentally wrestle with how to blend them.

When Jiminy wished to be able to help the newly-orphaned Geppetto, The Blue Fairy granted him the form of a cricket with various magical abilities that the Confluence has altered to suit its needs:

• Merged Form - Though Archie remains mostly human on this side of the Confluence, his physical form has been altered to blend aspects of his cricket form into it. His skin has a slightly "too smooth" feel to it due to having just enough chitin in it to smooth it out and prevent callouses or blisters. However, the most noticeable change is the pair of human-scaled cricket wings growing out from between his shoulder blades.


• Flight - Because of the human-scaled cricket wings on his back, Archie is able to fly and hover like an insect does. This does have the trade-off that unlike bird wings which could catch thermals and allow him to remain aloft for longer and farther, Archie has to keep his wings beating at all times to remain in the air which can get rather tiring.


• Improved Jumping/Leaping Ability - Like a cricket, Archie is able to jump quite far and high. Though not on a similar scale as a cricket's jump, Archie would have quite the successful career in basketball if he ever thought about it. As it is, this largely helps him with taking off to fly without the need for a running start.


• Lack of Aging - Jiminy was originally changed in his thirties, and the life of a cricket is not a long one. To compensate, Blue's spell specified that he would live however many years Geppetto had need of him which is why he was still alive when Geppetto was an old man and made Pinocchio. When he arrived in Storybrooke and was turned back into a human, he hadn't aged a day, most likely due to the spell.


• Limited Regeneration - Crickets are very low on the food chain, and to ensure that he would live however long Geppetto would need him, the spell kept Jiminy alive. The Confluence has done similarly, granting him a limited regenerative ability which can save his life or fix his wings.

Limitations:
As stated above, Archie's regenerative ability is rather limited. Archie can still be injured or become ill, but if he were to die, the altered version of Blue's spell would kick in and restore him to life. This is incredibly unpleasant since it feels like being killed in reverse. The only other time it kicks in is to regrow his wings if they're ripped off which is usually the only way to properly heal them. However, this can also be incredibly unpleasant, and Archie really would rather avoid using his regenerative abilities whenever possible.

Other than that, Archie is very much human with very human limitations.

Personality —

What were your character's most formative experiences?:

A Life of Crime

Jiminy lived his entire young life and a good chunk of his adulthood (in both his real and Cursed memories) doing things that he didn't want to do. His family were thieves even though they made more than enough to get by putting on puppet shows. His parents enjoyed swindling others for the fun of it, not caring about if the money they just conned from someone was supposed to go to necessities like food or rent.

The entire time he was browbeaten and emotionally abused by them, taught that he would never get by in the wide world outside their wagon. That he needed to stay and take care of them, improving his skills as a thief and con artist to do just that when all he wanted was to do good.

His skills became so good that his parents "rented" him out on occasion to Rumpelstiltskin himself. Typically, his jobs for the imp were to steal objects and bring them plus the names of the owners to Rumpelstiltskin.

Murder Most Foul

Needless to say, over time Jiminy came to resent his parents. It didn't go unnoticed by Rumpelstiltskin who gave him a vial of poison which would turn them into puppets, effectively killing them. Rumpelstiltskin would then take the puppets as payment. Though initially hesitant to do so, Jiminy took the vial.

After swindling yet another young couple with "Elf Tonic" for a plague that didn't exist, Jiminy got his parents to drink the vial. However, it didn't work because his father had pickpocketed the vial off of Jiminy and had given that to the young couple. When he ran back to their cottage to save them, Jiminy found he was too late and a young boy who'd shown him the first bit of kindness had now been orphaned.

A Living Conscience

Stewing in guilt, feeling trapped in his life, Jiminy wished on The Blue Fairy's star to be able to help the little boy he'd wronged. Blue granted his wish, turning him into a cricket in the process.

Jiminy would spend the next several decades guiding first Geppetto and then Pinocchio. He also became a trusted advisor to Queen Snow White. He did his best to encourage others not to give in to their dark sides though he never revealed his past to anyone, the only ones knowing the truth being Blue, Rumpelstiltskin, Geppetto, and (very likely) Pinocchio.

The First Curse

Despite Snow's coronation and wedding her True Love, the Evil Queen, Regina, had vowed to steal away everyone's happy endings. Rumpelstiltskin foresaw that Snow's unborn daughter, Emma, would return in twenty-eight years' time to save them all. With no idea how soon the Curse would fall upon them, plans were hurriedly put into place.

Blue brought Geppetto a magical tree that could be made into a wardrobe that would transport two people away from the Enchanted Forest to safety. However, Geppetto refused to assist unless Pinocchio was one of the two who would use it. Jiminy tried to talk Geppetto into reconsidering so that the royals could leave and raise their daughter to save them all, but Geppetto leveraged Jiminy's guilt regarding the death of Geppetto's parents against him. When the plan was explained to Snow and her Prince Charming, Blue lied and said that only one person could go through the wardrobe while Jiminy kept silent.

This act would come to be a massive regret since Snow went into labor and gave birth before she could pass through the wardrobe, meaning that Emma was sent away alone. This would be the start of Emma's twenty-eight years of misery starting with being raised in the foster system before trying to make her own way in the world.

Storybrooke, Maine

The Curse transported everyone from the Enchanted Forest to a town called Storybrooke in Maine. This town was completely cut off from the rest of the world, a town where time didn't move forward.

For twenty-eight years, Jiminy lived as Archie Hopper, the town psychiatrist. His Enchanted Forest memories were overwritten with those of an entire lifetime in this World Without Magic. Over the years (though the Curse made it so he and others never noticed just how long it was), Archie counseled many patients, including Mayor Regina Mills's adopted son, Henry. This last patient believed in the Curse when no one else did due to a book given to him by his teacher, Mary Margaret (the Cursed Snow White), which explained everything. So much so that it drove Henry to seek out his birth mother, Emma Swan, who was the daughter of Snow White and Prince James (Prince Charming).

After Emma's arrival, Regina began putting pressure on Archie to break Henry of the "delusion" of the Curse, threatening to ruin him. Archie initially caved to her demands, but after a near-death experience in a collapsed mine, he finally started to stand up for himself for Henry's sake. When Regina threatened him again, he threatened her back, reminding her that if there was a custody battle, he would be called on to testify as the psychiatrist who'd treated Henry.

Up until the Curse broke, Archie continued acting as psychiatrist to the town but also assisting Henry with a Curse he didn't believe in, hoping to help Henry deal with whatever issue was triggering his obsessive need to believe in the Curse. After David's (the Cursed Prince James) wife was murdered, Archie used hypnosis to try and help him remember anything that might be useful...though unintentionally what he got David to remember seemed to further point the finger at Mary Margaret. He would also advise Mr. Gold who feared that the stranger August was his missing son and that the man intended to kill him.

What values, morals, and/or philosophies does your character live by, and how are those beliefs demonstrated? What happens when they have to compromise what they believe in?
Archie firmly believes that no good comes from giving in to one's dark side, something that is reinforced by accidentally killing Geppetto's parents when he'd intended to murder his own. He will do whatever he can, even if it's just being a listening ear, to try and help keep others from straying from the straight and narrow path. This was further reinforced by how Henry nearly got himself killed trying to prove the Curse was real when Archie had allowed Regina's threats to prompt him to shout at the boy and call him "crazy".

What is your character afraid of? How does avoiding or preventing these fears influence their actions and decisions?
Archie is afraid of falling into old habits and becoming the same monster his parents were. In doing so, he arguably overcompensates by trying to help others with their problems whenever he can.

He can also be manipulated by his sense of guilt like Geppetto did back in the Enchanted Forest. It's only on rare occasions that that guilt actually works in his favor to drive him to stand up for himself rather than backing down in an attempt to make amends.

What goals does your character have right now? What do they want, and how do they go about getting it?
Right now, Archie needs to come to terms that his life in Storybrooke was a complete lie despite all of the details in his head saying otherwise. He needs to come to grips with both of his identities -- Dr. Archie Hopper and Jiminy Cricket -- and find a way to reconcile them in his head.

He's planning to get licensed in this world (given that his degree is technically fake) along with getting Pongo officially recognized as a therapy dog so he can open a practice in this new world to make ends meet. In some ways, it's possible that dealing with people with alter-egos might provide him with some insight into his own problem. If nothing else, he believes that perhaps remaining neutral in all this Meta business will help both Metas and non-Metas who come to him for counseling.

Gameplay —

Areas of Interest / Brainstorming:
Archie isn't interested in being a Big Damn Hero. He just wants to talk to people and help them sort through their problems while trying to sort through his own. (Or trying to ignore his own problems. To-may-to, to-mah-to.)

Later on in Once Upon a Time, the villains have an unfortunate habit of kidnapping Archie to torture him for information given that everyone in town goes to spill their secrets to him. That could potentially happen as well in this new world at least once.

Samples:
Test Drive Meme