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Post by Astharyn Ashpath on Aug 10, 2010 1:25:14 GMT -8
 your name | Maddy
your age | Seventeen
contact information | PM, yim or email, in that order, please.
characters | so far, just Astharyn
  full name | Astharyn Ashpath
nicknames & titles | Astha
age | 473
sexuality | omnisexual, but prefers to think of himself as asexual
species | Iphera (plural: Ipheri)
The Ipheri are tangible, gaseous, ghostly creatures with a vaguely humanoid shape. In these forms, they look identical to each other, other than the shapes and colors of their eyes. Their main source of nutrition is the light from the ternary star system (three stars) the planet orbits, using a process similar to photosynthesis. However, they can't harness it until the night, when the light is reflected off of their thirteen moons, because if they go out in the daytime the light will be so harsh that their gaseous forms will catch fire and burn up. They tend to be very long lived, living to be about 1,000 years old before they start to die of natural causes, though many die of external causes before that, and reaching 600 is quite a feat. They are a race of shape shifters, as they evolved a way to survive long enough to be out in the daytime without burning up. When an Iphera shape shifts, it can only shift into another living being that it has knowledge of. An Iphera can only shape shift into one individual of any species.
occupation | UNIT, currently Torchwood
family information |
- FATHER - Irlaen Ironshade [deceased]
Astharyn never got along with his father while he was alive. Being the youngest out of four children, and the youngest out of the three boys, he was always either shoved off to the side or completely ignored. He didn’t feel all too sorry for his father when the older Iphera died, either.
- MOTHER - Caiaran Songfeather [deceased]
Caiaran was the protector and provider, and it was her death that sparked the deep hatred between Tanaïr and Astharyn. Irlaen never meant much to Astharyn, but Caiaran was so dear to his heart
- ELDEST BROTHER - Tanaïr Hatesong
While they were growing up, Astharyn hated Tanaïr, and vice versa. Tanaïr believed that it was Astharyn‘s fault that their parents had died, even though it was his own, and so Tanaïr used Astharyn as a scapegoat and manipulated their father's tribe.
- MIDDLE BROTHER - Tymri Silentstar
Tymri was the quiet one, and never really said much. Astharyn used to talk to him about Tanaïr and the rest of his problems, because Tymri would listen and give advice rather than take his side automatically.
- OLDER SISTER - Lythaen Dawntreader
The oldest out of the siblings, Lythaen was always the one that Astharyn could run to when he was upset or scared. She was more of a mother figure to him than an older sister.
residence | For a while, Astharyn lived near the UNIT compound, mainly to keep up appearances, but since he'd quit UNIT, he's been living in a small apartment near Roald Dahl Plass.
physical description | Astharyn’s true form, his Iphera form, is little more than a vaguely humanoid wisp of white smoke. His hands are a little more defined than some others, and he doesn’t have any discernable feet. The only thing that separates him from the rest of the Ipheri are his eyes. The eyes of an Iphera come in many different shapes, sizes, and colors that one wouldn’t even expect from eyes. They have no iris, no pupil, no white part that shows some arteries if you’re stressed out, just the color. His eyes are relatively normal shaped, by human standards, although they’re quite large, and they are a rather rare, iridescent silver color. He doesn’t like going out in public in this form, because the humans will think he’s a ghost and be scared of him. Sometimes, though, he’ll use it as a prank and purposefully pretend to be ghostly and scare people, but it doesn’t happen too often. Usually only on Halloween or something.
His preferred form, however, and the one he uses most of the time when another form isn’t needed, is his human form. Since he can’t shift into more than one individual of a species, he’s stuck with this form. Standing at about six feet two inches, he is rather tall for his presumed age of twenty two, further accentuated by the fact that he has barely any fat on his body. He’s practically a stick, weighing in at a mere 186 lbs. He can’t really do anything about it, either, as Ipheri don’t need to eat. Instead, Astharyn just needs to walk around during the daytime for about an hour or so, and the photosynthesis-like process will kick into high gear, producing the energy that he needs to get through the rest of the day. His skin seems to be unable to decide whether or not it wants to be tan or pale, leaving him with an almost golden tint to his color.
His irises aren’t the iridescent silver of his Iphera form, but rather a dark chocolate brown. His hair is a slightly lighter brown, with natural highlights and lowlights that really give the spiky, tangled mess some volume. Usually he’ll wear a hat of some kind -- he’s partial to a certain brown one, but he has quite a lot of them. His eyes are a bit small and set slightly wider apart than the average person’s. He has just a bit of facial hair, mainly the moustache and beard with no sideburns, and he has a dimple on his left cheek when he smiles. His eyebrows tend to be quite overactive, showing his emotions more often than even his words. His style is rather odd, but it seems to fit with his eccentric nature. He wears a tan colored coat over a warm and earth tone long sleeved shirt with dark brown slacks and tan shoes.
played by | Andrew Lee Potts
personality |
- falling from the stars
Even though some might think it, Astharyn is not of human origin and is an alien in just about every sense of the word. Since he crash landed on Earth, his mannerisms and ways of going about life have changed significantly, as he has observed the way humans live and incorporated some of their habits into his lifestyle. All he's ever wanted is to be accepted somewhere, and finally, with Torchwood, he's found it. Adaptation is the key to any individual's survival, and Astharyn has adapted quite well to life on Earth. And yet, there are some ways in which he can't possibly change. Most of his reactions to certain situations are different than any human's. His mental processes take a different track, and the train of thought that runs on those tracks is a strange one, in the minds of most humans. As an alien, he can't possibly hope to be fully human. He's too different from any human to even try. Though, sometimes, he isn't sure he wants to.
- i beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
Astharyn, above all, believes in the goodness of people at heart. As a child, his older brother, Tanaïr, hated and mistreated him, and was the one that gave Astharyn the ugly scar on his back. They never got along, and after their parents were killed by a neighboring tribe, Tanaïr seized power and told the public that Astharyn had done it. It had been Tanaïr himself that had orchestrated the entire ordeal, and because of this, Astharyn had to flee his home or be executed for treason. One's experiences shape one's values, and his values were definitely changed by his brother's cruelty. He believes in second chances and fighting injustice. He won't tolerate deceit and trickery. He won't lie to people, even if the truth hurts. And he most definitely won't stand for people taking advantage of others. If he is in a position to do something about it, he will, no questions asked.
- nobody ever said that life was fair now.
Though he disapproves of injustice and cruelty, it doesn't necessarily mean that he believes in fairness. Life isn't fair, he will say. Get over it. Sometimes things happen and you can't do anything about it. People die. Precious things are taken from you. Don't cry about it, as the only thing that tears are good for are wet cheeks, but do your best to come to terms with it. This knowledge has left him skeptical of good things and accepting of the bad, but his optimism lets him believe that everything might just be alright in the end. Life has a karmic way of coming around to bite you, so make the best of what you're given to work with. Aspire to succeed, but don't beat yourself up if you fail. When you fall, get back up and try it again. Sometimes, however, he needs to learn to take his own advice.
- scream at me until my ears bleed
Sometimes, people take advantage of the fact he's a kind and caring guy, fun-loving and eager to help those in need. He can be used as a doormat -- he's merely there to walk all over, as he's quite a bit of a pushover. And when it comes to fighting, he's more of a guy that would choose to fly rather than fight, but if the situation calls for him to intervene, he would -- though a bit hesitantly. His self-esteem has hit an all time low, and he constantly doubts if he's doing a good enough job. He's gotten into the habit of setting his expectations far too high, so high that they're impossible to reach, let alone surpass. And when he fails, as he almost always does, he's likely to torture himself over not doing a good enough job, or letting someone down, when he's really just hurting himself. Even so, his absurdly high expectations make him work that much harder and be a perfectionist about everything he does.
- hollow chocolate promises
Life has quaint little ways to burst your bubble and let you down. Such things like popping into the local sweetshop to purchase a simple Easter treat can be a heartbreaking experience. You pick a chocolate rabbit, wrapped in gold foil, that from the outside, looks as if it's full from inside to out of solid chocolate. And yet, the excitement is short-lived. Unwrap it and take a bite, expecting solid chocolate, and you find that it's hollow. Life is full of little things that get you down, and Astharyn knows this. He tries not to get his hopes up too much, because life can shut you down just as easily as it can build you up. In this way, he balances out his natural optimism with occasional bouts of pessimism, because if your expectations of the situation are worse than what you think could possibly happen, you'll be quite pleasantly surprised when things go down better than you thought they would.
- not all that wander are lost
When Astharyn was forced to flee from Ipheron, he started to drift from place to place, looking for a place to add his thread to the unbelievably massive tapestry of the universe. For over two hundred years, he searched for a place that would welcome him, a place he could feel at home. One would think that he had lost himself among the stars as he searched, the lonely wanderer looking for something in the vastness of space, yet what he was actually doing was quite the opposite. It was only by chance that he'd found Earth and had to stay there; his ship had nearly crashed into the Bristol Channel, and he was almost immediately picked up by UNIT. After UNIT came Torchwood, and now that his wandering days have come to an end, he's learned to value the things he has and take nothing for granted, as he has finally found everything he had been looking for.
- go with all your heart
Along with all of this, Astharyn has a heart of gold. He trusts easily, but knows when not to. As such, he doesn't tend to get into much unintended trouble. At times, however, he can be a real problem. He is a team player, though he also likes to be off by himself. When the urge comes over him, he'd rather just be alone and think about what he's doing and where he's going to go. He doesn't tend to have these impulses very often, but they happen every once in a while. He gets along with people, and he's very social once he gets over his initial shyness. After he gets to know someone, he'll be quite a bit more open with them, instead of short and what some have described as a flippant attitude. He has a high threshold for annoyances and is very patient with everything he's doing or the people he's working with. He can lose himself in his work quite easily, and because of the fact that he doesn't need to sleep more than two or three hours a week, he can stay in the Hub and work for as long as he wants. He's extremely dedicated, and if he starts something, he's going to finish it.
greatest fear | going back to Ipheron and facing his brother again
greatest desire | to fit in on Earth and in the Torchwood team
personal treasure | having friends
biggest secret | he's actually the youngest prince of the Ipheri
best memory | discovering that Earth was quite the place, and that there were people who could help.
worst memory | the dying screams of his parents as they were burned alive in the attack on the palace, and finding out that Tanaïr was the one who had set it up.
history | Born as the youngest of four children, three of them boys, Astharyn's presence seemed unnecessary in the royal household of Ipheron. As such, he was given a borderline excessive amount of free time, when his older brothers and sister had to study. Because he was the baby of the family, he would get more attention than the other children. Lythaen, the eldest sister, and Tymri, the middle brother, were fine with this, but Tanaïr, the eldest brother and the proper heir to the throne, hated Astharyn from an early age. They would fight and hurt each other and Tanaïr wouldn't let up.
Despite this, Astharyn managed to have quite a childhood. Their parents shaped Tanaïr and Tymri into the heirs and left Astharyn to his own devices. Using his time wisely, he traveled around Ipheron and walked among the people rather than the nobility. In doing this, he learned of what the people wanted, as well as what they thought of his father's rule. Though when he went back to tell Tanaïr what he'd heard, his older brother wanted nothing to do with him. They ended up fighting, and neither one escaped unscathed. Tanaïr had scratch marks on his face and neck, and Astharyn had a rather large gash down his back. It had never healed right, and in all of his forms there is some evidence of this, usually in the form of an ugly scar.
Sooner or later, however, the fun had to end. A neighboring Ipheri tribe attacked and burned the palace in the dead of night and assassinated their parents. Only later did Astharyn find out that Tanaïr had planned this with the neighboring tribe to get rid of their parents so he could rule. But with his brother now in the ultimate position of power, Astharyn had no choice but to bite his tongue. Tanaïr immediately started to reform the tribe, and one of his first orders was to blame Astharyn for their parents' murders. Astharyn was then sentenced to death, but managed to escape with one of the old battleships that had been simply rusting away in a scrapyard. He left his home behind and set out into the vast reaches of the universe.
On his trek across space, Astharyn visited many worlds, using his shape shifting abilities to blend in. He watched and waited as time went on, hoping to finally find the place where he could actually fit in rather than just blend in and hide himself. He wandered for almost half of his life, spending two hundred thirty years in the battleship. Eventually, however, it broke down above a small, blue planet called Earth, and he was stuck there indefinitely. He hid the ship well and went to go look for spare parts. In the process, UNIT forces discovered his ship, so when he came back to it, he was immediately taken in and processed as a UNIT soldier.
Astharyn really didn't like the whole military aspect of UNIT, but he lived with it, because one of their promises for his service was that they would work on repairing his ship. In the end, they never really got around to it, with all of the problems that they had to go through around the time that he served. When he asked about it, though, they would tell him that they were working on it and would get it done soon. The battleship is still broken, though he managed to wrestle it out of UNIT hands after he left them. He tried to fix the ship himself for a while, but he could never get it to work. He'd never been that great with Ipheri technology.
After UNIT failed him, he had nowhere else to turn. He'd heard of an organization called Torchwood that specialized in alien technology and such, but he couldn't locate them in time; the 456 had attacked, and the British government had the Torchwood Hub destroyed. Astharyn hung around Cardiff for a while, hoping that someone could help. In the years that he'd stayed on Earth, the human race had grown on him quite a bit, and he was starting to think of Earth as his home. Ipheron was forever out of reach, but Earth was right here, and the humans were friendly (for the most part). He could possibly settle down here.
And then, a rumor. The only survivor of the original Torchwood Three that hadn't deserted was rebuilding it. It had been a year since its destruction, and he was starting to lose hope, but the humans had always surprised him in the past, and they would surprise him now. He joined the Torchwood team, and he gave up his chances of returning to the life of a nomad when he let the team dismantle the battleship and salvage the parts. Currently, he's a field agent, as well as quite a bit of a history nut. Reconnaissance is his specialty, and as a shape shifter, he can blend right in to just about any environment. Perfect for recon missions.
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