cavedin | application // city of sin

APPLICATION

PLAYER
↠ Name: Candy
↠ Age: 26
↠ Characters Played: n/a

CHARACTER
↠ Name: Kieren Walker
↠ Canon: In the Flesh
↠ Journal: http://cavedin.dreamwidth.org/
↠ Age: 18

↠ Appearance: Kieren is a tall boy with light blonde hair, a skinny frame and very large eyes. As one of the undead, his skin is a pale, mottled grey, his lips are ashen and his eyes are white. He has a deceptively frail appearance. He still bares the scars on his wrists from when he'd committed suicide, and there is a small hole at the back of his neck in which he must inject neurotryptiline daily.

↠ Reference/History: http://intheflesh.wikia.com/wiki/Kieren_Walker

↠ Personality: Kieren is generally a shy and introverted person, who has struggled with depression and feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem for most of his life. As the series evolves so does he, gradually shedding the part of himself that wants to hide and fade into the background. Though he appears frail and is easily overcome by his emotions, he has internal strength that grows with each day he spends as one of the undead in a world that hates and fears them.

Depression is an inexorable part of Kieren's life, before and after his resurrection. After the boy he loved, Rick Macy, died in Afghanistan, Kieren retreated so far into himself that he committed suicide. After his resurrection he is forced to come to terms with his decision and the impact it had on his family, as well as his own complicated relationship with himself. He is quick to follow the rules set upon him by the government, wearing foundation and contact lenses to appear more human. When he applies them, he covers up the mirror in the bathroom with a towel so he doesn't have to look at his natural features, showing how initially uncomfortable he is with his condition as a PDS (Partially Deceased Syndrome) sufferer.

Kieren has a witty way of speaking and is often sarcastic, though rarely mean-spirited. He cares deeply for people, and is often shown comforting others--for example, his sister Jem and Rick's mother after her son's death. He has a strong sense of empathy, which informs his reluctance to actively fight against the people oppressing him and people like him, for fear of causing anyone harm. He is also very artistic; his paintings cover his family's house, and they're all portraits of his loved ones.

As Kieren learns more and more about how poorly PDS sufferers are treated in his hometown, Roarton, he begins to slowly reject the restrictions put upon them. When Rick returns from the dead, Kieren witnesses the way Rick's father virulently denies his son's PDS and encourage him to enact violence against other PDS sufferers, including Kieren. Eventually Rick refuses his father's demands, and in turn his father murders him. Rick's death once again spirals Kieren into depression, and he once again contemplates suicide. With the help of his mother he comes to the decision that he wants to keep living, despite how difficult it is to exist as a PDS sufferer in Roarton, which shows how strong Kieren really is and how he is willing to heal.

Kieren suffers crushing guilt over his actions when he was rabid, particularly his killing and eating of a young woman named Lisa. Another step he takes towards healing is when he decides to visit Lisa's parents and confess his deeds, serving as another example of the strength of character that he possesses. Despite this, he still suffers from crippling self-doubt, and makes plans to leave the country which are later derailed when his citizenship is revoked.

Though he isn't quick to anger, Kieren tends to lash out strongly when provoked. He confronts Rick's father Bill after he finds Rick's corpse, berating him for murdering his son and stabbing the murder weapon into the couch cushion beside him. While working in a pub, Gary (a former member of the HVF, an organization that had previously been put in place to hunt zombies) begins insulting him and using slurs against him. Kieren responds at first by telling him to leave, and eventually becomes provoked enough to shove him. When having lunch with his family, Gary begins to recount a story about the zombies he'd killed when on patrol as a member of the HVF. In response, Kieren recounts in vivid detail the people he'd torn apart and eaten when he'd been rabid. When his father shouts at him to stop, Kieren announces that it's 'bullshit' that Gary and Jem can talk about killing PDS sufferers freely without consequence and storms out of the house. Later in the series Kieren is falsely accused of releasing a pair of rabid PDS sufferers from the hospital, and is told to record a confession. Instead, Kieren shouts that he didn't do it and throws the recorder to the ground.

Under the leadership of the town's newest Member of Parliament, Maxine Martin, PDS sufferers are forced to do menial labor and revoke their citizenship--which the ULA members, including Kieren's best friend Amy and love interest Simon, strike back against. Kieren wavers in his decision to comply with either party, still at odds with his own condition and a harboring a naive belief that PDS sufferers will eventually be treated fairly. He seems to want to find a middle ground, somewhere between the rampant hatred and discrimination PDS sufferers face and the extreme anarchist views of the ULA. One night he sees a fellow PDS sufferer turn rabid after missing a dose of neurotryptiline, and witnesses the way the man is treated when he is taken to the treatment center. This, along with the false accusation later leveled against him, really causes Kieren to start to reconsider his own assimilation into society. He finally starts to go without his makeup and contacts, which causes his family to doubt his recovery and turn against him. It occurs to him that he'd never been truly accepted and never will be, and finally begins to come to terms with who he really is.

Kieren's strength once again shows itself when he is forcibly drugged with Blue Oblivion, a substance that causes a zombie to revert to their rabid state for a short time while under its influence. There are no recorded cases of someone actively fighting off the drug's effects, but Kieren manages to do so to prevent himself from harming his father. This event, along with the death of his best friend Amy, really pushes Kieren's development as a character. He finally removes the towel he keeps over the mirror and looks at his own reflection--without makeup and contacts--for a long time. He decides he doesn't want to leave Roarton after all, and says that Amy once asked him how far he'd have to go to be okay with himself. He responds at last by deciding he's all right where he is--in his hometown and in his own skin, however partially deceased it may be.

↠ Powers: As a zombie Kieren lacks physical sensation and thus cannot experience the pain or blood loss of injury (though if injured he will not heal), and the only way he can be killed is if his brain is damaged. He also doesn't age, and doesn't need to eat or drink. In order to mentally function as a human being he needs to inject a drug called neurotryptiline; without it he'll revert to his rabid condition as a zombie that hungers for human flesh.

↠ Reason for Playing This Character: There is a lot about Kieren that begs exploring--his complex emotional state before and after death, and the way he copes with the environments he is put in. It'll be interesting to see the way he handles a world that doesn't treat the undead with suspicion and hatred. There also is the question of his medication and how he'll have to find a viable substitute to keep himself from turning rabid.

↠ What is Your Character's Sin: Gluttony. Kieren is a zombie and spent the first portion of his undead existence in a rabid state in which he'd consume the brains of others. Now that he is treated he doesn't eat at all, but the memories of his past and the people he killed and consumed weigh heavily upon him as his greatest sin.

SAMPLES

↠ First Person: http://themusecube.dreamwidth.org/15220.html?style=site

↠ Third Person: (warning for gory imagery)

Even before the Rising Kieren hadn't been accepted by the people around him, so it wasn't much of a surprise when he found himself regarding the City's citizens with no small amount of suspicion. He kept to himself, exploring when he could, always on guard--there was no telling if or when he'd hear a cry of 'rotter!' and the click of a pistol aimed in his direction, even if this place didn't seem to have any idea what the Rising was at all--walking the streets alone, hidden in a large grey hoodie as he often was.

There wasn't any anti-PDS sentiment anywhere, though-- No hateful graffiti scrawled along the walls, no signs pointing to where they were and weren't allowed, no PDS sufferers grudgingly performing menial tasks with bright orange bibs over their clothes. Instead, there were shops with lavish goods everywhere he turned, some of the likes of which he'd never seen before in either life, and enough restaurants than one city district could possibly have room for. He didn't get anything but a curious glance now and then as he explored, and he began to definitively expect that he hadn't simply left England, but had entered some other world altogether.

Even so, he didn't feel welcome or relaxed at all. He only had enough neurotryptiline on him to last him a day or two, after all-- And once he turned rabid and started attacking people, he imagined he'd be facing much harsher judgment from the people around him. He'd be hollow again, ravenous, mindless except for the one instinct that told him to kill and eat, to rip and tear and devour. He'd be empty and craving, consumed by hunger that couldn't be sated no matter how many brains he stuffed into his mouth.

As for now, though, he was simply another passerby, if a little disconnected--wandering past the shops and restaurants with little interest except for the occasional display of artwork, making little to no eye contact with anyone around him.

It was almost normal, even though he knew it was anything but. He didn't get to have a 'normal' anymore.