Alexandria Lee Parker

This is a character that was inspired by a dream I had involving me, Zurg and my grandmother (don't ask). As such, I personally regard her as a crack avatar--a combination crack character and author avatar (or self-insert, if you prefer that term)--and tend to use her more as an outlet for my stranger story ideas than anything. I might play her in rps here, though. Maybe. If you guys don't mind, that is.

Name: Alexandria Lee Parker
Nicknames: Alex, Certified Ninja (called that by her old friends)
Age: 19
Height/Weight: 5' 9", 131 lbs.
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Marital Status: Single and uninterested
DOB: 15 September 1992
Birth Place: Massachusetts, United States of America, Earth
Current Residence: Planet Z
Occupation: Stowaway
Social Class: Middle
Economic Class: Middle
Alignment: Neutral/Borderline good

Physical Description: Euro-American with tanned skin from being out in the sun most of her life, blue eyes, oval face, long brown hair with barely visible natural red highlights that she usually has pulled back in a ponytail near the base of her skull. Long of leg and pretty much flat of chest; she has some curves, mostly around her hips, but they're easy to hide under clothing. She used to wear jeans, running shoes, a gray long-sleeved shirt, and a black turtle-neck vest zipped all the way up to hide the pinkish-white scars on her neck; now, however, she's forced to wear an old-looking jumpsuit of a muted purple color that bears Zurg's insignia on the left side of its chest. She also used to have a whistle on a cord around her neck that she been given back home for if she was ever in trouble, as well as a simple ring made out of obsidian that she got in a souvenir shop in Montana, but they were both confiscated after she got thrown in the dungeon.

Abilities and Aptitudes:
--The number of outdoor activities that she enjoyed back home kept her physically fit, and gave her ample practice for her survival skills. This has become very handy for her new "job" on Planet Z.
--After several years of conscious effort, moving around silently has become a deeply ingrained habit, allowing her to sneak up on unobservant people without even trying. She has a tendency to visibly cringe if she accidentally makes a loud noise.

Hobbies and Talents:
--Outdoor activities, such as hiking and camping trips
--Wants to learn to play the violin
--Knows American Sign Language and is currently teaching the more curious brain pods

Weaknesses:
--An accident when she was nine caused severe damage to her throat, rendering her mute. She learned American Sign Language to overcome her communication barrier, but now that she is in a galaxy where ASL doesn't exist, she is forced to carry around a pad of paper and a pencil to communicate or, barring that, resort to pointing, whistling and exaggerated body language.
--The same accident also damaged her wind pipe. While it has managed to heal relatively well, she can still fall into serious coughing fits if she exerts herself too hard or breathes in anything that irritates the scar tissue.
--She has severe arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and a slight case of acrophobia (fear of heights)
--Before being brought here from her original world, she had never heard of BLoSC. She recognizes Buzz, Zurg and the LGMs due to having seen the Toy Story movies...and that's it. Everything else is completely new to her, and she can be easily lost or overwhelmed by her surroundings. She doesn't like looking dumb, however (people already have the tendency to underestimate her intelligence due to her inability to speak), so she tries to hide her confusion behind a mask of indifference or idle curiosity.

Personal Facts
Greatest Friends: Back home, her siblings and cousins; here, some of the brain pods
Other Friends: Back home, her school mates; here, the grubs and the more indifferent brain pods
Rivals: none, neither here nor back home
Enemies: Back home, none; here, the closest thing to that would be Zurg, and that would be more along the lines of "trying not to antagonize him into incinerating her."
Known Relatives:
All of her biological family is back in her home universe.
Likes: Natural environments, most animals, ancient cultures, outdoor activities, sneaking up on and spooking her friends
Dislikes: SPIDERS (anything the size of a quarter and larger will have her freaking out and trying to GTFO of there), high places with no obvious protective measures against falling, smog and other air-borne pollutants/irritants, large crowds (very hard to find whoever she's with if she loses them), people thinking she's stupid because she's mute (though she will reluctantly use that to her advantage if she needs to)

Personality: When you first meet her, Alex tends to be shy and withdrawn at best and seemingly apathetic at worst. Her communication barrier makes her very reluctant to start conversations herself, which means people wishing to get to know her must come to her, not the other way around. At parties and large gatherings, she tends to be on the edge of the crowd or in the corner--not wallowing in self-pity and loneliness, mind you, but merely observing and listening to everything that is going on around her, since she can't actively take part most of the time.
As she gets to know you, however, she starts opening up, becoming warmer in her behaviour towards you. She'll become more willing to offer her help, though said help, like herself, tends to be more passive than active (a shoulder to cry on, an ear to rant to, a soundboard to bounce ideas off of, etc).
Since coming here, however, the unfamiliarity of her new environment and her lack of knowledge, as well as her status as a prisoner, cause her to withdraw more into herself, and form an emotional wall in an attempt to protect herself.

Backstory: (Here is where things start to get a little...interesting...so please, bear with me)
Alexandria Lee Parker was born in Massachusetts, though you could say she was raised all over. Her family loved taking road trips to other parts of North America, especially to national parks and ruins to learn about their environment and history. The only reason they had a house in New England was so the kids could have steady school experiences and social lives to balance out the more unpredictable parts of their experiences on the road.
While there have been plenty of incidents while growing up, the most significant one to Alex happened when she was nine. She, her siblings and some visiting cousins were exploring an old abandoned house in the woods behind their home over the weekend. While on the second floor, Alex stepped onto an especially rotten part of the floor, which gave way and caused her to fall into the kitchen. Along with a broken arm and several cracked ribs, some large wooden splinters had gotten jammed into her throat, ripping up her voice box and windpipe. She was touch and go in the ER for a few weeks, but eventually managed to pull through, albeit with irreparable damage to her voice box and slight complications with her windpipe.
The next ten years were spent adapting to being mute and continuing her education, all while still going on the road trips. After graduating from high school, her family decided to take her on one more trip before she headed off to college.
In the middle of their trip, a sudden temporal/spacial anomaly opened up out of nowhere. Due to her proximity to the anomaly, Alex had the misfortune to get sucked in, ending up on Planet Z. It turns out Zurg had refused to learn most of his lessons from letting Evilyear into the galaxy, and was performing more tests with the device designed to open anomalies into other realities. Alex's arrival caused the test to be deemed a success, and she was quickly taken to the dungeon for interrogation about her universe. Her muteness, however, along with her absolute terror in being in this kind of situation, made her answers less than satisfactory for Zurg, who decided to put her to some "actual use."
This came about in the form of her becoming a keeper for a nightmare zoo. She currently spends much of her time feeding and cleaning after the monsters that Zurg and the brainpods create, while trying not to get eaten or otherwise killed in the process. What little time off she has is spent either with the brainpods also responsible for the monsters or in her cell.

Other:
--Being from our world, Alex is more familiar with our own swear words than the euphemisms the people in the Galactic Alliance use. While she makes a conscious effort to use the local lingo when communicating, she still habitually uses our words in her thoughts (more of a heads up if I ever use her in the rps than anything; language might get involved).
--She is a Pagan who observes the Kemetic (Ancient Egyptian) holidays and rituals, though her current situation leaves her with little to no time to actually practice her religion.
--She currently identifies as heteroromantic asexual.