Application | Empatheias

[erythrocytes]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Jade
Contact: PM, gmail: drinksteapots@gmail.com, or drinksteapots
Age: 21+
Current Characters: n/a


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Red Blood Cell (AE-3803)
Age: Never stated in canon, but a RBC's lifespan is up to 100-120 days. Given her canon point, she's probably around 30 days? The character herself looks to be in her early 20s.
Canon: Cells at Work
Canon Point: Post Chapter Ten ("The Circulatory System")

Background:
Here is a wiki link, but it's very sparse. Here's a little bit more background:

Cells at Work is a manga/anime based on the human body that anthropomorphizes various cells. Needless to say, it takes liberty with its visual metaphors to showcase the various processes that make the body alive: a sneeze is depicted as a rocket blasting off, an abrasion is shown to be a catastrophic explosion to the metropolis of the epidermis, and bacteria are drawn as grotesque, monster-of-the-week type villains. Nevertheless the canon does try to be informative towards its audience, and for the most part the anthropomorphized cells behave like their actual counterparts.

Red blood cells are formed in the red bone marrow of the skeleton. Vascular, nutrient-hungry, and quite active, these nurseries house the process of hematopoiesis, or the generation of blood. The hematopoietic stem cells continuously divide to create and replace more blood cells. These cells, called progenitor cells, can then further differentiate into more specific cells, and those cells do the same until they finally become a unique type of blood cell. In Cells at Work, the aforementioned nursery is a literal nursery in the red bone marrow. Red blood cells-- the people, this time-- are literally created by the progenitor stem cells. From there each one is sorted and selected to become a type of cell through the process of differentiation. It should be noted that each cell is referred to by what they are; for instance, all macrophages can be called "Macrophage" (or Ms. Macrophage, etc), even when they are different people. The distinction between two individuals of the same type of cell is found as a reference number. For Red Blood Cell, this distinction is AE-3803, and she will answer to both that number and simply "Red Blood Cell". This means that for her time back in this nursery, Red Blood Cell is an erythroblast, and she is referred to as "Erythroblast" or "AE-3803".

The young Erythroblast-- that is, Red Blood Cell-- trains with the other erythroblasts in the nursery as directed by the macrophages. They are given carts to push along practice version of the veins and arteries and told to beware of the evil bacteria and viruses that might eat them. AE-3803 isn't the best at her training, as she often becomes lost and passes out in her attempts to find her way. Still, she continues to have a lot of heart and perseverance, and she views mature red blood cells as inspiring. She wants to grow up and become a great red blood cell just like them! Always delivering oxygen and nutrients, ensuring that the cells are well fed and supplied, knowing every which way of the capillaries and vasculature-- that's her dream, and she is nothing if not a hard working. Additionally, AE-3803 actually first meets the second main character, White Blood Cell (back then known as Myleocyte), of the series during her time in the nursery, although she won't remember him later on. Their first meeting is hectic and involving bacteria, which basically becomes the norm for any interaction with Red Blood Cell.

AE-3803 's luck and her penchant for becoming lost doesn't change even as she matures into a proper erythrocyte, and many of the events she witnesses become the basis for the course of the story. If she happens to be near the epidermis, you can count on something bad happening at the epidermis. If she's taking a leisurely stroll down by the stomach, there's going to be an incident there. If she's lost along the strata of the muscles, there are going to be problems. It's not that she causes these ailments to happen, she simply has that bad of luck. From the canon point she's taken from, Red Blood Cell has with pathogens such as pneumococcus, pseudomonas aeruginosa, influenza, vibrio parahaemolyticus, and anisakis. She's witnessed many of her kin fall to both infection and injury, and she herself has come close to hemolysis numerous times. Fortunately, the immune system is there to help her out.

Red Blood Cell encounters White Blood Cell during one attack from a streptococcus pneumoniae on the body, and from there the series begins. The whole cycle of Red Blood Cell-finding-trouble-and-White-Blood-Cell-getting-her-out-of-it becomes a sort of basis for multiple plots for the series. As it turns out, however, her exposure to these incidents makes her one of the cells who are actually more knowledgeable and experienced in the human body. Little by little AE-3803 is introduced to other immune cells, pathogens, and the various processes that combat the pathogens, both internally and externally. As she begins to learn more of the complex and mysterious intricacies of how the immune system works, and she also learns how she plays a role in it all.

In short, Cells at Work depicts the human body both a machine and a sprawling metropolis. Cells are specialized to the point that they only have one job. But together all the cells have the goal of keeping the body they inhabit alive to the best of their ability. They may not know what sort of outside stimulus causes the frequent terrible, mass-destruction, and death of their brethren through bleeding or disease, but they will all continue to fight for life. Red Blood Cell may be only one of 37 trillion cells, but she believes that her duty is just as significant as any other's. If the body has a chance of life, she will fight for it no matter what.

Personality:

Red Blood Cell is a bit of a ditz. Okay, a lot of a ditz. When she is first introduced to the audience, she's depicted as clumsy, disorganized, and someone who has trouble finding her way about the veins and arteries of the body. Yes, that's right-- she's a red blood cell that will mistakenly try to enter a vein instead of an artery or turn the corner looking for the lungs only to end up in the kidneys. She's short sighted in the sense that when she has a job to do, she will try to focus on that and only that. To be sure Red Blood Cell tries to make up for her shortcomings. She studies! She writes notes! She brings a map with her to be resourceful! So she's not completely a lost cause. But with her face buried in a map she won't see that some capillaries are "under construction" and become lost due to a detour, and that note she so painstakingly wrote before? It's going to be gone the moment she enters an area of high pressures and congestion such as the great vessels. Unfortunately Red Blood Cell makes an attempt to become more efficient at her job, her poor luck tends to work against her. Even so, Red Blood Cell would continue to perform her duty of circulation until she herself succumbs to a malady.

That's not to say that she only focuses on, say, delivering oxygen to other cells. When there is something amiss, she listens to her intuition while the other red blood cells call her nosy. When she encounters an issue, she keeps her friends in mind. She does this not because those friends in particular are in danger, but she knows that any potential danger in one part of the body could eventually effect them as well. And while she's proactive when it comes to assisting others or wanting to rectify a situation, but she's not reckless. Red Blood Cell knows that she's not part of the immune system-- that is, she's not a fighter. Her best chance at surviving an attack is to run away, and she knows it. She will go and seek help when she knows she isn't capable of fighting off an infection. At the same time Red Blood Cell will put herself in danger if it means protecting others, and she does this without a second thought even if she is completely terrified.

Red Blood Cell is appreciative of other's hard work and dedication. She first saw these qualities from mature red blood cells back when she was a toddler in the red bone marrow nursery, and she continues to see them portrayed by many other cells around her. Those that have a strong work ethic, those who protect others with their innate talent, and those that use their strength to help others inspire her. She wants to be like those cells, but of course she knows that she won't ever be an actual white blood cell. She's not as strong as the white blood cells, she's not a tank like the macrophages, she's definitely not as vicious and deadly like the natural killer cells. But she is a red blood cell-- a hard working, extremely efficient, incredibly dedicated, and intensely fast red blood cell, and she wants to be the best she can be within her limits simply as a red blood cell. She's satisfied with her place within the body, and she takes great pride in her job and doing her job well (even if she's not the best at it... yet). Red Blood Cell is simple in the sense that she's easily contended; she doesn't ask for much and neither does she expect much. All she wishes to do is to be helpful to others, and in turn, be helpful towards the body as a whole.

It follows that one of her greatest fears is causing inadvertent harm to others. As an erythrocyte, AE-3803's function isn't so sophisticated as to detect that the processes designed to regulate homeostatsis can actually harm the body. Take, for instance, heat stroke: the body will vasodilate its vessels to allow the red blood cells to circulate along the periphery, thereby emitting more heat from the rest of the body. This also causes the blood pressure to drop a bit. When the body cannot cool itself further and the blood continues to pool away from, say, the brain, the body's blood pressure continues to fall. When the brain receives too little blood, the body causes itself to faint. Red Blood Cell understands that she was part of the problem that caused the body harm (in this case syncope), and that her contribution to the problem can't actually be helped. As a cell, she goes where she is directed, and that's that. That doesn't mean she can't feel guilty about it, though.

As a person, Red Blood Cell is friendly and good-natured, determined, cheerful, and courageous. She's easy to get along with, and her friendships tend to develop quickly, if a little one-sided on her part. And yes, she will even gladly be friends with someone even if they are a bit of a jerk. Even though some other cells can have a bit of an abrasive personality, she knows for certain that they are all well-intentioned, and she believes in the best in others. How can she not? They all are on the same side-- they all live in the same body, and they all work to keep that body functioning and alive. She adores the body she inhabits, and although it's constantly being assaulted by illness or injury, she knows that at the end of the day every single cells lives in it, both the mean and the kind ones.

Abilities:
• • • Endurance. She's very, very good at running. And running long-distances at that, all while carrying supplies. The vessels in the body total up to somewhere of 100,000 kilometers. Even if she only travels 500 kilometers of that network, as someone who is only ~7 micrometers tall, that's magnitudes above what should be possible for a normal human.
• • • Athleticism. Red Blood Cell can squeeze into the narrowest of capillaries, and she's quite flexible to boot. She rarely tires, and is rarely seen sitting still.
• • • Speed. She's quick. She has to be, to deliver oxygen to hungry tissues... but also quick to run away form bacteria, so there's that.
• • • Intuitive. She has good instincts to when something is strange or odd. In canon, she is the one cell that alerted the rest of the immune system to a malignant cancer cell.
• • • Coagulation. This is more canon-specific. With the aide of platelets and fibrin, she is able to become a part of a clot. Canon also touches on surface cell proteins for the white blood cells as having extra abilities, so it can be inferred that the red blood cells' surface proteins act in similar ways. However, since the canon doesn't specifically name any protein-power for the red blood cells, she won't be having any for this game. At least not until canon elaborates more on this topic.

Alignment: Thras.
Infection. Illness. Trauma. Disease. These all take a massive toll on the cells of the body even if the organism as a whole might not be aware of all the processes that occur within. But for Red Blood Cell? She lives these maladies day in and day out. She's there at ground zero when an abrasion tears open the skin and bleeds, she's marching with the other cells as the body fights to cool down from the heat, and she's seen the terrible havoc cancer can cause. The sympathetic and parasympathetic systems operate the fight or flight response, that is, courage and fear, and this young Red Blood Cell works in the same way. She flees often because she knows she's not built to fight-- at least not in the traditional way. Her courage comes from taking a stand to help others and to continuing delivering nutrients and oxygen to those that need it most. She will always, always be there to help.

Other:
• • • Red Blood Cell will be human sized when she comes to Emp, and she'll be in a bit of a shock upon first arrival. Still, she'll manage to adjust well enough since her demeanor is generally cheery and optimistic. If anything, she'll be excited and amazed at what life is like outside the human body-- and as human-sized herself!


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉

General Sample: General sample test drive thread!

Emotion Sample: Emotion sample, found in prompts A and B

Questions: