Player Name: Danielle
Preferred Pronouns?: She/Her
Player Contact: ddsapphire | danielle#6871
Other characters in play? N/A

Character Name: Quark Tenmyouji
Canon: Zero Escape
Game Transplant: Snowblind
Original App: here
Game Summary: The city of Norfinbury, Alaska, is dead. The watchful computer at its center, however, lives on. Knowing no better than to follow its programming, it brings in a new group of citizens, only for them to ultimately perish as they succumb to the harshness and horrors sported by the irradiated environment. This cycle repeats itself, countless times, until a group arrives that is finally able to uncover the mysterious past that led to the death of the city and its fallout...and ultimately, painstakingly, put an end to it all at last. Facing monsters of their darkest imaginings, suffering through death and painstaking revivals, the dark memories of mentally addled cultists, these survivalists pulled the plug on this macabre system, and ultimately, those who remained were given the chance to leave to a better world.

How long was your character in Game: Day 13 to Day 447 (IC) | July 2015 - January 2019 (OOC)
History of Character in their Game:

The Beginning

As it would be for anyone, and especially any child, waking up in an unfamiliar, eternally-snowing wasteland was a shock to Quark's system. His immediate response, however, was not to cry or scream or panic, but to hunker down and get serious. His grandpa had raised him to be able to care for himself, so he immediately began to study his environment and prepare. Staying quiet, he used most of his energy in finding resources for himself and learning the behaviors of the other individuals who were posting to the Network. It wasn’t until he became possessed by the spirit of former resident and Network-building revolutionary Shelley Derricks that this strategy ceased to work for him any longer. Having to face what happened to him and what it meant for his survival and the survival of those around him, he threw himself headfirst into investigating, determined to help discover the town’s mysteries by any means possible.

These efforts were met with ups and downs. For every success there were ten more dead-ends. Ultimately, though, and usually with the combined efforts of others, he was able to accomplish a few notable tasks: finding the Sparrow app, which allowed him a not insignificant hacking ability. This app would prove to be the cause of many discoveries and later injuries, but it was through the use of this app and the guidance of other technologically proficient individuals that allowed them to uncover the records that indicated they were far from the first to have been brought into Norfinbury by the Admin. These triumphs (and resulting horror in regards to these unpleasant discoveries) opened the door for him to grow close to several important individuals.

After his initial focus on self-preservation, Quark was initially approached by and began traveling with Enoch and Clayton Epps. Overall, he enjoyed their company, and found no particular reason to complain about following along in their ventures. It’s when they had a chance meeting with Dr. Gregory House that everything ultimately changed. Having already interacted with House as Shelley, Quark was grateful, if nervous, for the chance to clear the air from that aggressive and uncharacteristic introduction. At the same time, the meetup was an excuse for House to drop off Frisk in the care of more able-bodied adults, and so began a period of time in which Quark felt the most comfortable in his newfound relationships—a general sense that he belonged to a community. There was a lot ahead of them to discover, and he kept with larger groups for safety.

Leaving Enoch’s care, Quark traveled alone with Frisk to meet up with Sans, a friend from their home. What should have been a delightful reunion quickly lost all sense of joy when a series of disturbing events took Frisk’s life and changed Quark’s overall view of his situation. In a mind-altered state, Quark revered to a version of himself that was currently undergoing the suicidal impact of the Radical-6 virus that he had been unknowingly infected with before he arrived in Norfinbury. Through this event, he saw glimpses of his future, and countless other futures, from his home where he ultimately ended up dead. Feeling hopeless, he turned back toward his growing relationship with House, who most closely reminded him of his grandfather. House gave him the task to steal Vicodin from Clayton, so while waiting for Frisk’s revival, he left Sans to see this through.

Ultimately getting caught in the attempted theft, Quark fled and ran into Steve Rogers, who would help him reunite with his young friend. Along the way, however, they encountered monsters that resembled important individuals from their personal lives. Quark’s, of course, was his grandfather, and upon the destruction of this warped anomaly, he lost a very important memory of the man: a reconciliation they had over Quark having discovered his adoption and being led to believe by another local child that he had only been taken in to provide labor for the elderly man. Losing this memory sparked a cynical resentment inside of him that would only grow further over time.

A major sticking point would be the clash that followed after his reunion with House. The timing of this meetup coincided with the results of a recent conflict and altercation he had had with Rhys and Angel; Beckett had followed after House to make good on a threat to get him back for his blackmail, and upon arrival wasted no time in assaulting the man. Quark, of course, tried to intervene, but was easily overpowered and barricaded into the house’s restroom. From there, as he listened to House suffering, he contacted the Network in a panic, afraid and feeling helpless to assist in any means. As Rhys and Angel taunted House and lauded Beckett, Quark developed an easy resentment for all three of them. These feelings would boil inside of him, the initial catalyst of an onslaught of feelings of desperation and uselessness that would spark a great deal of the actions that would later cause him only further suffering.

The Turn

Moving steadily on past 100 days in Norfinbury and things began to go from bad to worse…much, much, unimaginably worse. Finally being greeted by a familiar face, Quark was relieved (if anxious) to meet up with Luna when she arrived in the town…but unfortunately, a series of misfortunes, deaths, and an event that teleported them to opposite sides of the hazardous landscape kept them from ever truly being able to meet up or travel together for prolonged periods of time. During this time, Quark experienced his first death, which left him devoid of the ability to move his legs, and had to rely on the charity of others, predominantly Dr. John Watson, to survive. These setbacks damaged his confidence, and his fear and despair were easier to manage when he channeled them into frustration and productivity.

Whisked away by Robert Miller along with several others to undergo a set of Emergency Repairs for the Admin that general appeared to the trapped individuals and spectators aboveground as little more than mental and physical torture, Quark here experienced electrocution and had one of his fingers severed from his hand. Later, during another event, an anomaly encounter left him nearly blinded, and even more severely, an attempt at hacking into a system too advanced for his tablet to process caused the machine to explode. Shrapnel decimated his face and left him with a split eye that needed to be removed. One by one, many of the people closest to him died and never returned: Frisk and their family, Kesara Freemon, who had been both a friend and a rival to him, competing with his helpful nature as often as she worked beside him, Luna, Phi and Dio, who also appeared for a brief time from his world, Steve, Clayton, and so, so many others. People he’d traveled with, people he’d trusted, who he’d laughed with and depended on.

For a while, Quark tried to combat his feelings of emptiness by throwing himself further into work. He presented as much of a carefree youthfulness as he could manage, volunteering to run supplies for anyone who needed it or to look into places that he may have been the only one currently small enough to venture into. Even though the advanced poisoning of the town’s environment made him prone to attacking his companions, even though advanced exposure made him fluctuate between depressive, isolating, and obsessive tendencies, and an increasing pain and illness wracked his body, he carried on. Everyone else was carrying on. He still had some people left who cared for him, and who he cared for in return, and he didn’t plan on ever letting them down.

In a moment of disturbing triumph, Quark was able to crawl into a space where he discovered Jia Xu’s mummified remains. Oddly, she appeared to still be breathing as he retrieved from her the SD card that contained footage of her brutal killing. Ultimately, these hardships and sorely earned victories combined did little to prepare or bolster them all for the event that would break even the strongest amongst them. In Noisy Black characters were kidnapped and whisked away into a tower where they were sorted into two groups: the caged sinners and the brainwashed acolytes. Quark, being among the acolytes, spent his time split between being completely devoid of morality—a merciless tormentor who had no qualms in breaking his assigned sinners: Castiel and Beckett, into pieces—and a sickened, self-hating wreck who could remember each clear detail of what he had done…and perhaps even taken pleasure in. Though he suffered no physical pain through this event, it left his sense of self temporarily shattered.

Quark began to wonder if he deserved to live. If maybe there was a reason every variation of history he’s been faced with gave him evidence to believe that a higher power wanted him buried. He saw himself as a twisted, reprehensible boy unable to be loved or held in genuine esteem by others. Being murdered by John Watson, who he’d come to trust dearly, was a deep, dark blow to his ability to trust, and being told by House in an attempt of breaking his brainwashing that he loved him left him wondering how much of a lie it was. After all, House was always saying that everybody lies. But he wanted it to be real, and was too afraid to address it and know for sure. Losing Luna for the final time took him to a low point that he felt he’d never recover from…and then Diana and Junpei came along.

Diana, a woman from a different point in time in his world, a woman who resembled Luna greatly, took him in in her stead and in their traumatized solidarity did their best to pick up each other’s pieces. The progress she was making took another bump in the road when Junpei Tenmyouji, a version of his grandfather from Diana’s place in time, appeared. It didn’t take long for Quark to realize who it was he was talking to, and although Junpei didn’t initially believe the connection Quark claimed they had, couldn’t deny the personal information that Quark was able to present as proof. It was an opportunity that should have righted a lot of wrongs that had begun to develop in Quark’s mental development.

Unfortunately, Junpei was much different from the grandfather he remembered. And even more unfortunately, there was still something he was missing that made a seed of doubt stick inside of him. That maybe this man was someone he never really knew at all, and who wasn’t capable of truly caring about him. Still, even feeling unwanted, Quark loved him. So when Junpei died repeatedly through different causes, it left him hollow. He wondered when he’d be alone again. He wondered if Diana would die, too. It was easier to try and separate himself from his feelings to avoid getting hurt more, so that’s what he began to do. Or try to do, at least. Being so young, he’d often osculate between different reactions to his surrounded circumstances, from optimism to snide remarks…but it all came together as a concerning trend. The clever, upbeat little boy that had come into Norfinbury had almost completely withdrawn within himself. There was barely anything left of him from those days—now nearly a full year ago.

The Final Act

In the final hundred or so days left of their confinement in Norfinbury, whether intentionally or unintentionally, Quark had got it into his head that they were never going to leave. Being so young, a single year was an impressive stretch of time to have experienced, and without realizing it, due in part to his reluctance to go home and a general worry that he wouldn’t be welcomed elsewhere, Quark had started to view Norfinbury as his new home. Surviving here was simply all that was left. And he’d do it, unable and unwilling to truly die, even if he was the last one that remained. For a time, new discoveries had all but stopped as everyone struggled simply to deal with the blow to their ranks and their collective confidence.

Eventually, however…eventually, they found it: they found the bunker. At last, this seemed to be it. This was the exit. Or, at least, the final stage of what would ultimately lead them to the exit. Quark and Diana, who by this point were often travelling on their own without Junpei, joined many of the others to pool their efforts into a final dash toward Town Hall. The bunker, unfortunately hazardous, caused many deaths along the way, but ultimately, in the end, facing a final slew of anomalies that seemed to be versions of the very residents themselves, they pathed a way together. And so, that way, in the end, a piece of Quark that he thought he’d lost, a piece of hope, returned. Although he wanted desperately to be able to make a future with Diana, and although Junpei was the closest thing to a guardian he now had, he ultimately decided to take up on an (somewhat casually mentioned) offer to follow House into his version of Earth: a version that had never experienced the apocalypse.

There’s a part of Quark that regrets not returning home. With his absence, that version of history would surely end in tragedy for his grandfather, for Luna, for everyone involved. But there would be more futures…a future somewhere where everyone lived. Even a future where he was never born, because the tragedy he was born into would have never occurred. So he decided, despite his growing cynicism and oft-ignored traumatic stress, to reach for a better life for himself.

How did they change from their canon personality wise (Please explain what caused it to happen?):

As a whole, Quark is a friendly and personable young boy. He has problems with a somewhat short temper and a foul mouth that he received from a guardian that lacked certain sensibilities where it came to child rearing, but overall knows to be polite and open. He's clever, a remarkably bright child, and it could be argued that if his circumstances were different, he'd be destined for a bright future. Unfortunately, living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland limits the career pool to a certain extent. Still, not knowing much beyond the love he has for his grandfather and the faith he has in himself and their bond, he looks forward to testing his limits. He's been raised as a survivalist, and takes such matters with an optimistic seriousness.

So, naturally, at first, being thrust into a wholly new world, while horrifying in many respects and new in many others, was something that Quark was able to swiftly adapt to. He had experience both in fending for himself (it's what his grandfather had always raised him to be able to do) and in the wariness that comes with being taken against your will into a place that seems determined to try and end you. Slowly, though, and with many bumps in the road, his confidence began to shatter. While he never truly lost his good nature, his optimism shifted into cynicism...in part due to his environment and in part due to the company he often chose to keep.

Where he used to look forward to the things he'd be able to accomplish in the future, he began to resign himself to the reality that he would likely die at a young age and likely never be more than what he could scrape up to fuel himself forward another day. He tries to keep his level head and an approachable attitude, but has grown bitter and angry with his lot. In part, an early event that caused him to lose an important memory from his childhood, where he learned the manner of his adoption from his grandfather, played a big role in encouraging this development resentment.

Another important factor in his development was the repeated exposure to the death of those around him and an event that gave him memories of alternate timelines in the Nonary game in which he died--as well as a clear indication that the timeline he's actually from also leads him to an untimely death. Ever since then, Quark's been afraid to return home to his world, torn between wanting to see his grandfather again and wanting simply to live to see an eleventh birthday. In some instances, dying and seeing death numbed him to the stress of it; when you come back, a part of you simply decides to stop caring about whether or not you're being reckless. In others, however, when all the other children of Norfinbury vanished and never returned, when nearly all of the people he recognized from home seemed gone for good...it started to seem to Quark that maybe as much as it hurt, he was better off alone. Growing attached to anyone only ended in more pain.

How did they change from their canon physically (Please explain what caused it to happen?):

Due to the nature of his own world and the fact that he experienced a death and regeneration not horribly long before the end of the game, Quark isn't as bad off physically as he could be. Having already been living in a version of the apocalypse where resources are limited and the environment is only just beginning to heal, he was already a boy too small and too thin for his age. The undernourishment has become more notable in his features, his clothes hanging a bit more loosely and his eyes a bit more hollow in their sockets. His hair has grown shaggy and wild and matted, and anywhere you can imagine dirt accumulating, it's accumulated. He was already in a habit of wearing several layers for warmth and protection, but now it's become a borderline obsessive habit, carrying on his person as many of his belongings as he can manage. Unconsciously, he has a habit of closing himself off physically as he walks and even simply exists within a space; privacy has become a commodity just as much as isolation has become a constant fear. When you aren't alone, personal space stops existing in a desperate need for warmth and a physical reminder that you haven't lost yourself. At the same time, he always appears alert and jumpy, like he's waiting for the next hammer to fall.

Powers: none
Possessions: The remaining remnants of his convoluted inventory.

Please provide three samples from your previous game, at least one will have to be third person with context:
Sample One: trying to help
Sample Two: recklessness and death loss (cw at top)
Sample Three: a friend returns

Notes: n/a