Post by ASPEN on Nov 3, 2014 20:04:08 GMT
GENERAL
Name: Aspen
Age: 4 : human years
Breed: crossbreed : golden retriever x chow
Group: stray
RELATIONS
Mate: n/a
Offspring: n/a
Pack: n/a
DETAILS
Voice: generally low for a female, but warm and smooth
Scent: earthy, with a hint of floral
Peeves: the heat, being alone, mud, thunderstorms
Fancies: others, autumn, red, sunny days
APPEARANCE
Aspen is a mix of golden retriever and chow, and it shows in her thick, honey-colored fur. If she was well taken care of, it would be soft to the touch, but because of her time on the street it is often matted around her ears, tail, and belly. She does take time to try and keep her fur in reasonably clean condition, but it is not uncommon for sticks or leaves to be left in it for days at a time until she realizes they are there.
Her face tends to have the classic retriever look, with smooth, short fur around her long snout and a gently sloping forehead. Her eyes are very expressive and are colored a golden brown. Her ancestry is revealed when she opens her mouth, as her pink tongue has a blotch of blue on it.
She takes more after the chow side when it comes to body type, and she tends to be stocky in comparison to her lithe retriever ancestors. Her chest is a bit on the wider side, and it leads to firmly planted and generally thicker legs. Her tail is extremely fluffy and very matted, curling up only slightly.
Normally, if she was in healthy condition, Aspen would weigh about 55 pounds. However, due to her life on the street, she is underweight, weighing only about 45. Her skinniness is largely covered up by her thick fur, and it makes her seem better off than she is. In reality, she often struggles to find food.
DETAILS
Voice: generally low for a female, but warm and smooth
Scent: earthy, with a hint of floral
Peeves: the heat, being alone, mud, thunderstorms
Fancies: others, autumn, red, sunny days
APPEARANCE
Aspen is a mix of golden retriever and chow, and it shows in her thick, honey-colored fur. If she was well taken care of, it would be soft to the touch, but because of her time on the street it is often matted around her ears, tail, and belly. She does take time to try and keep her fur in reasonably clean condition, but it is not uncommon for sticks or leaves to be left in it for days at a time until she realizes they are there.
Her face tends to have the classic retriever look, with smooth, short fur around her long snout and a gently sloping forehead. Her eyes are very expressive and are colored a golden brown. Her ancestry is revealed when she opens her mouth, as her pink tongue has a blotch of blue on it.
She takes more after the chow side when it comes to body type, and she tends to be stocky in comparison to her lithe retriever ancestors. Her chest is a bit on the wider side, and it leads to firmly planted and generally thicker legs. Her tail is extremely fluffy and very matted, curling up only slightly.
Normally, if she was in healthy condition, Aspen would weigh about 55 pounds. However, due to her life on the street, she is underweight, weighing only about 45. Her skinniness is largely covered up by her thick fur, and it makes her seem better off than she is. In reality, she often struggles to find food.
PERSONALITY
Naive
Aspen is generally very naive, as she tends to try and see the best in everyone. This has led her to trust some she shouldn't have, and as such she is often getting the short of the stick. Numerous times she had been taken advantage of, and it has caused her to lose many a meal. Her naivety tends to come from her rather emotional personality, and every time someone takes advantage of her, she takes it hard. She can be a bit melodramatic at times, moping around by herself until another dog passes that is willing to show a bit of kindness. Deep down, she knows she can only blame herself, but she can't help but think that each new mutt will be different from the last.
Gentle
Aspen has a very gentle and submissive personality, one that makes it hard living on the streets. She tends to do whatever she can in order to avoid a fight. She avoids entering other dogs' territories, and it leads her to living on the worst bits of land. That being said, if she finds someone who weak or injured, she will not hesitate to look after or baby them. When she is being motherly, she can be quite stern. In fact, the extent to which she will confront another takes the form of scolding.
Lonely
Aspen is the kind who hates to be by herself. She will attach herself to anyone who will show her a bit of kindness, and it can be very annoying. Even if someone is abusive towards her, she will still follow them, albeit at a distance with hopes that they will forgive her for whatever wrong she has committed.
Loyal
If you befriend Aspen, you will be making one of the best friends (or followers) anyone could hope for. She will not hesitate to follow or do whatever her friend asks her to do. She is loyal to the point where it is unhealthy for herself. She will wholeheartedly dedicate herself to whatever or whomever she has begun to idolize. In fact, she tends to romanticize to the point of excessiveness, and she often finds herself daydreaming, waking up to realize she no longer remembers where is is.
Insightful
Despite her tendency to overlook other's faults, Aspen tends to thoughtful when it comes to others. She is very good at knowing what others are feeling or what mood they are in, even if they try to hide it from her. This also means she knows when others are lying to her. However, she is never inclined to believe ill of others. If she senses someone is being deceitful, she will often believe it must be because they don't want to hurt her in some way.
Self-Degrading
While she might look up to others, Aspen doesn't think very highly of herself. She tends to blame herself whenever things go wrong, and she has very low self-esteem. She tends to secretly acknowledge her own naivety, but is often too timid or scared to try and correct her behavior. Instead, she tends to hope or over-romanticize what the future will bring. She is often scolding herself mentally for everything, and sometimes she will even voice her criticisms outloud.
HISTORY
Aspen was not always a stray. Originally, she was born into a warm home on a farm on the outskirts of Shorebridge. Both her father, a chow and her mother, a golden retriever, lived there with her. She was born into a large litter of six, and she was constantly surrounded by her siblings. She loved those days of playing. Eventually, they were all taken out of the house, one by one, by other humans.
A very tall man came and took Aspen. Life at first wasn't so bad. She always had food, and he was always willing to play with her. However, she was difficult to train. She tended to be so timid sometimes that she would have accidents inside the house, which caused a lot of frustrations for her owner. Everytime he found out, he got angry, which only made her more nervous. Then, of course, she got older. By the time she was nearly two, she wasn't quite so cute any more. Her owner didn't want anything to do with her. She would follow him around, always pressing against his leg or trying to crawl into his lap. It would frustrate and annoy him, and she would get locked up in the bathroom, where she would whine and scratch trying to get out. All she wanted to do was be around him.
Eventually though, he couldn't take it. He had a female human that would come over sometimes and she would complain about the smell and the dander. She would whisper ideas into her owner's head. One day, he took her on a trip out to the country, and Aspen thought she was going to go back to that warm home where her father and mother were. Instead, he took her to some field, took off her collar, and left her there.
The first few weeks were a struggle. At first, she would just pace around the place where he left her, trying to ignore the hunger in her belly. Then, when she was forced to try and find food, she strayed farther, barely managing to find some road kill. It wasn't until she started to wander back towards the direction of Shorebridge did she realize what had happened. She was all alone. Of course, she couldn't help but blame herself. After-all, she was the one that did all those wrong things and made him so angry in the first place.
While she tried to find her way back she met many different dogs. Some were nicer, and they would hang around her for a week or two until she got too annoying and they would slink off in the middle of the night. Some were mean, and they would bully her, taking whatever food she had.
Always though, no matter what, she welcomed the company.
Now, at four, she has been a stray for two years. It was rough at first, but she learned how to scavenge. She even gained some skills in killing for her food, though most of her sustenance came from whatever she could scrounge up out of the human's trash. She made her way back into Shorebridge, though she never stray too far into the town. Instead, she kept to back alleys and small suburbs.
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OUT OF CHARACTER
Alias: ursamajor
Gender: female
RP experience: 5 years
Hobbies: reading, writing, knitting, and drawing
How you found us: general web surfing
Other: first character
