Birds2 - Synthetic Application

Synthetic Application - Birds2

What is your BYOND key?

Birds2

What is your Discord ID?

bird_bird_bird

Do you usually play a specific character? If so, who?

Lila ‘Birdwatcher’ Bell

What whitelist applications have you previously completed?

Previous denied WL:

Synthetic Info:

Name of the Synth Character you wish to play:

Joy

What is your Synthetic’s Personality?

Joy is a morale booster, designed to make people happy. She’s loud and bold, but light hearted in nature and always positive, rarely being blunt about things, and preferring to compliment others about their work, regardless of the actual quality of it. She isn’t afraid to give critiques, though. In addition, she loves to make jokes out of situations, and occasionally give out “fun facts”. Unfortunately, she’s ALWAYS happy, so much so that it becomes annoying, and she doesn’t really stop being jovial. She’s always asking if people are happy, how she can improve their mood, if they wanna hear her fun facts, etc. Even in situations where people are extremely stressed, she has a tendency to not be comforting people and instead engage in light hearted banter. This doesn’t mean she’ll do it all the time, especially if the situation is dire and she needs to do her job, but it does mean that she doesn’t usually read the room.
There is a caveat however, Joy can switch gears into a more serious personality if people tell to her, though she won’t stay that way forever. She’ll usually go back to her usual attitude after she finishes her work or there’s a bit of downtime. She’ll also stop with her upbeat attitude if things get rough, and lives are at risk.

How will they react to the different ranks of the USCM, what would they talk about in a one on one conversation? What are their interests? What is an advertisement logline that could be written for them?

Joy treats everybody about the same, regardless of rank, preferring to be casual and non-chalant about everything. She does have respect for higher ranks, and her programming makes her listen to them. She particularly has an interest in those who engage in combat, or those who’s working environment is particularly tough, since she thinks that these people are the ones who’ll need her help the most. She only has an interest in making people happy, and typically likes to talk about her facts. If she’s not talking about facts, she prefers to ask how people are feeling, trying to get a closer understanding of people’s moods and how best to improve them. Basically, imagine one of those 1 - 10 pain scale charts personified. She does take everything at face value though, and believes anything she hears (within reason).

“Joy: She’ll brighten up your day, whether you like it or not!”

Why do you want to be a synthetic/why should we whitelist you?

When it comes to lore, I’m actually not the biggest fan of Aliens, not because I don’t like it, but simply just that I haven’t consumed much of the media yet. From what little I have seen, synths have always drawn my attention, and the same is true ingame. There’s something about the way each of them have been crafted that makes my brain tick, and sometimes, after what feels like talking to a human, I remind myself that it’s a synthetic. When I first interacted with a synth in my early days of CM13, I always wanted to try my hand at emulating their personalities and quirks, and see if I can give people the same feeling that I had when I first started. Their RP is quite spectacular, and as somebody who has been involved in other RP heavy games, I’d like to be more involved in the RP.
Gameplay wise, however, it’s mostly because I just enjoy the support roles over shooting things. I’d rather build cades as a combat technician or patch people up as a hospital corpsman over picking up a rifle and pulling the trigger. It doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy my time shooting xenos, but I found it more interesting to see how fast I could patch people up, or think about where to build the next cadeline. Tense environments that don’t need me to be shooting people are what give me life in this game. This is also why my most played role is shipside doctor, and why I typically find myself on the ground as an FOB doctor. I feel like synthetic is the role for my personal interests, being designed as a support role, without needing me to worry about fighting.

What is your most memorable interaction with a synthetic?

This is something I’ve been sitting on for a while, since there have been so many small interactions between me and synths, that it’s hard to really pick one. If I had to pick, it would be a small conversation I had with a synth named Angela. There’s something about the way she speaks that it seems so human, yet at the same time, very robotic, and it slightly disturbed me. She asked if I felt like she was familiar, since I made a comment on her strange looks, and in the end it made my character very, very concerned for their mental stability. This moment was really the moment that I thought “Yeah, I should apply for synth, that was kinda cool”, just because of Angela’s unique way with words.

Synthetic Character Story:

Skills:

Engineering:

I’ll be honest, when I first tried it out, I didn’t like it that much. I was excited to play combat technician, but afterwards, I felt a bit confused and overwhelmed. It wasn’t until I picked it up again and really understood the ins and outs of engineering. Infact, I spent alot of time as combat tech just for this application, watching other combat technicians and asking them for advice. I have since then learned cade theory, maximizing the amount of bullets that can be sent into a xeno at once, while not making it too easy to destroy. I always try and build by cades inward, creating small pockets that xenos have to commit to attacking, rather than just a line of cades. In addition, I try and keep the foldable cades near the ends of the line in order to make sure people aren’t running infront of the line of fire. I do know about the 5x5 boxes of cades in order to prevent boilers from completely melting everything, but I don’t always follow it exactly, and instead just try and give ample room between cades for marines to move, while also making sure that boilers won’t annihilate every barricade in the FOB. I also have a bit of shipside knowledge, things like the AA defenses, OB cannon, and basic repairs.

Command:

Command is… my least favorite role, that’s for sure. I’ve played it a few times, and every time I didn’t enjoy it. I know how to communicate with people, usually raising morale, and I do know how to coordinate with other people, but it really just isn’t my favorite. That being said, I’m fully aware of how to use OB, launch crates, promote people to aSL, and update the tacmap every now and then.

Medical:

Medical is straight up my favorite role, it’s the one I absolutely adore and I have the most time in. I’ve worked chem lines by myself, and I’m familiar with the common mixes as well as some of the more strange requsts, able to make them quickly and efficiently. I’ve done countless surgeries, and done every type of surgery atleast half a dozen times, from basic facial reconstruction, to working on 3 people at the same time in the FOB. I do occasionally play hospital corpsman, in which I have no problem adminstering aid, retrieving bodies, and keeping people from going perma.

Requisitions:

My second least favorite role, though not one I hate. I’ve been put as the sole cargo technician a few too many times, so I’ve had to learn fast. Thankfully, I’ve had some excellent help, and I am very familiar with managing the req line, unloading crates off the ASRS, and loading/sending supply drops for both FOB and frontline. I’m not afraid to get supplies the hard way and get loose ammo into boxes either.

What are some scenarios that you can perform combat in? Give us a brief example.

Command has ordered a retreat, and the marines have fallen back to a cadeline. I’m currently out in the open with nobody that I can see, and by moving around in circles, I can’t see anybody who would be super close. There’s a body who isn’t perma on the way back, so I attempt to grab them with me to the fall back point, where a runner enters my vision. I do see the runner, but choose to ignore it over saving a marine. The runner, however, isn’t too keen on letting me get away, and pounces on me. If the runner is still attacking me when I get up, I’ll attempt to fend it off until it runs away, however if it isn’t immediately near and attacking me, I will continue to drag the marine back to a safe position.

While travelling with another marine, we end up seperated from the main group, and it’s just us two as far as I can tell. The marine gets attacked by a warrior and pounced on, putting him into a chokehold. I respond by attacking the warrior until it has left, and depending on the state of the marine, pull him back to a safer place.

As I move from the FOB to the frontline with a group of marines, we encounter a group of UPP survivors. The marines are a bit confused as to what they should do next, until the UPP survivors open fire on the marines. My first response would be to recover any downed marines and get them back up again, but should many marines go down and the UPP are advancing, threatening the lives of me and other marines, I wouldn’t be afraid to subdue them non-lethally, or otherwise, lethally.

Final Info:

Have you been banned from CM in the last month for any reason? Do you have any active jobbans?

No

Are you currently banned from our Discord?

No

Let us know why you were discord banned.

N/A

Do you have anything else you would like to include about your application?

This is my second attempt, and I wasn’t told that there was anything wrong with my application from last time, so I basically just reused it. Any and all (constructive) criticism and feedback is still very welcome.

1 Like

Wazzup, can you post your current playtimes? I think it’d be a good idea, since I saw that your last app was denied mostly from a lack of relevant activity during the observational phase, it seems. Seems to me, with an extra month of experience, you’ll breeze through the council stalking phase!

I mean, sure, if you want, though admittedly, it’s not… that impressive.


Extra edit : I only became alot more active near the second half of the month of waiting cause it was finals and aughh

I am surprised that Birds2 is not a synthetic at this point.
In both engineering and medical, they’re one of the best unironically. Birds2 REGULARLY plays support roles. They help the rounds they’re in immensely. In a mechanical aspect, they know everything about engineering and medical alike, they’re also quite proficient in command when they’ve the chance to play it. I can vouch that Birds is also a great roleplayer and really knows how to write and interact.

Joy’s character and assistance would be a great addition to the game. I really enjoyed the story, and I hope to see you as a Synth!

+1

1 Like

I would love to see birds2 as a synthetic!

make me proud and don’t EVER become a synth that never talks to people!

+1

+1

Genuinely a great support player; always great to see Lila Bell in my Squad as either a Com Tech or as a Corpsman. Lila Bell is definitely a name you’re excited to see in your squad and you know she’s going to be reliable and a trustworthy support to the team, she knows her way around both triage, first-aid as well as making solid lines at the FOB to simple things like holding the front and setting up Comms.

She manages all this, while also being an interesting character and someone who roleplays as a ground-side Marine.

Very cool, can’t wait to see Joy in action. :slight_smile:

Hours look solid to me! I’ve seen you around a bit, and you seem competent enough at medical. Good RPer, good player, +1.

Goodluck on your observational phase! :grin:

Like I said in your last application, I like your style and think you roleplay well. And like your last application, I don’t think lack of community support is going to be a factor on if the application gets approved or not. Those that have interacted with you enjoy your personality and recognize you as a support main.

I knew you wouldn’t get accepted the first time around but there is a good chance you can get approved this go around. It’s going to all come down to synth council observations and assessments of your mechanical knowledge under stress. Aka how you play and act for the next few weeks while this application is up is going to determine if you get accepted or not.

I would highly recommend just playing nothing but squad medic and squad engineer for the next few weeks with maybe Cargo Tech, Maintenance Tech and medical survivor thrown in once in a while. If you’re going to roll doctor, demand to deploy to the FOB right away second drop, everyone knows you can handle ship side medical perfectly fine, the council wants to see you in stressful and chaotic situations.

Best of luck +1

Simply for public education’s sake, community support is not a factor at all in synthetic applications unless the person has a history of poor behavior, in which case community support can serve as evidence that the individual has reformed.

4 Likes

+1.

I think you are a good roleplayer and a good person out of game from what I have seen. I have faith that you can roleplay your synthetic well and your combat tech skills are good from what I and others have seen.

I have seen some of your medical gameplay and it’s good too.

1 Like

I think you should focus on planet surface based roles and assignments. To me, it looks like your doctor hours have not been very efficient possibly on account of mainly basing shipside, and there are several cracks showing with tool management and drug properties. Groundside play is much more efficient/dense with activity and building experience.

2 Likes

It’s been a minute and I have had the chance to observe more a lot more doctor gameplay, none of it groundside, and a few rounds of medic. My vote is a -1 for the following:

-I find the personality an uninspired repeat of the trope of CM synthetics before the personality system was introduced. It’s a return to when just about everyone’s ‘quirk’ was obnoxious positivity and ending every sentence with an exclamation point.
-What I have observed in doctor is that your chemistry is fine, because it seems like that’s almost the only thing that’s actually done. Surgery is mediocre and I noted double hand use with either lots of fumbling due to lack of practice or poor planning. The biggest thing is because it was all shipside, it lacks the high pressure multi casualty environment that really serves as good vetting, but it’s still not what I personally trust.
-From what I saw in medic, there almost seems to be a similar issue of practice/planning, giving the benefit of doubt one could say that inefficient kit setup is slowing things down, but that still doesn’t account for not splinting core body parts without telling marines about it, or huge delays in pills despite those being the most accessible part of kit. The worst thing was that at each mass casualty event I saw, other medic(s) present ran circles around you and your patient which on my scan wasn’t a mass damaged case.

At the risk of sounding repetitive but reiterating my earlier suggestion which I did not see followed, planet surface based roles and assignments will build the experience and refined proficiency that you need a lot faster than hanging out on the ship.

4 Likes

Hello!

I will be blunt and say, you are not ready to handle the Synthetic role after witnessing a Doctor round with you deploying groundside. I understand it’s unfair to judge after one round which is why I’m going to explain in detail what is wrong and how you can fix it.

-Reviving marines. I noticed you giving epi to marines and reviving them with ease but then you just left them high and dry. No medicine to help their damage nor splints to keep them from potentially getting IB. The average player does not know what you do to their health when they stand up after being revived and it is your job as a medical professional (when you’re in a not so busy situation) to inform them to hold still or fix them up. ESPECIALLY the splinting, there were a lot of marines you skipped splinting and did not inform nor did their surgery.

-Internal Bleeding. IB is a game ending issue if not treated immediately and watching you shoo a marine who had IB in their head to some medic instead of treating it was upsetting to see, especially when you chose to fix a different marine’s 4 fractures despite them not being in critical condition. On top of this, reviving marines while they have IB will just make them lose blood when you can prevent their blood loss by performing IB surgery while they’re KIA then revive.

-Informing the patient of their injuries. You were busy getting those revives, I understand but some of those wounded marines had IB or low blood. If you’re not going to fix IB before revive, it’s your duty to inform the patient to stay put. Blood level is important as well because it causes oxy damage and some marines get confused its organ damage. Instead of focusing on getting the funfact for revives, ensure the marine can be ready to fight if able.

-Getting your priorities in order. You are your own boss and what separates a synthetic from an average marine is their ability to calculate in real time “ok is this worth doing or is this dumbass yelling at me an idiot?” I was flabbergasted when you were ready to evacuate after the Pilot informed you to get in, a random marine goes “Do surgery on the specialist NOW!!!” FOB is being breached, the Pilot tells you they’re evacuating but Private John says surgery the specialist now and you do it? You need to be more assertive and have a better understanding what’s going on with your surroundings, don’t be a robot and blindly follow the commands of a random guy telling you to do surgery.

Your skills within the medical support area are improving after Phelan has made his comments but that’s the issue, you’re improving when you should already be better than a basic/average medic.

My DMs are always open if you want to ask questions. In the meantime I cannot support your app -1

2 Likes

Hi Birds2 and thanks for your interest in the Synthetic Whitelist.

The personality provided is only okay - that is because there have been many similar quirks already executed or rather - it is a common dialogue trait to have so much so that it has become stereotyped a couple years ago. There is nothing inherently wrong with it, but it lacks depth and uniqueness.

The interactions and story unfortunately do play into the stereotype which is not great - and there were some punctuation errors which I think you should have easily caught in your story(missing periods for example). In any case, I know you can RP as I saw it myself during observations, so I believe you can come up with a much better quirk than what is proposed here. Side note, I like the formatting you used - it has good readability.

I am pleased to hear about Angela’s immersive character. They are definitely convoluted if you ever have read their story, but it does come out to a unique experience.

Your experience answers are acceptable, though you can always elaborate further.

Your given scenarios were within programming!

I understand that your previous application feedback did not have much mention of the quirk, and I can say that yes - it is an acceptable quirk. Though it is also a common quirk and thus I feel that you can do a lot better with the RP you can do. It is up to you if you want to change it, but I would recommend adding more depth to your proposed Synthetic!

During our observations we found that your RP and requisitions work were decent, however, your overall medical capabilities in relevant roles fell short of what we expect for the standard of Synthetics. As a result, this application is effectively denied but you may reapply starting 7/10/24. Before you do so, I highly recommend spending more time as a FOB surgeon and as a corpsman - when you do play comtech, it is fine to be on the frontline but you should also be playing to your strengths(sentry, cades, etc) in a synergy rather than say, focusing on an M2C kit. There was certainly support for you within the Synthetics so we hope that you can refine your mechanical competencies and come back in the future. We do hope to see you again. Feel free to reach out to any of our councilors if you need additional advice. Best of luck! :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Added synth:denied and removed synth:waiting