application

[misomater]

Out of Character Information

player name: Rue
player journal: vulvas
playing here: Sheva Alomar | alomar
where did you find us? N/A
are you 16 years of age or older?: I am!

In Character Information

character name: Andrew Van de Kamp
fandom: Desperate Housewives
timeline: Post Season 2; immediately after Bree abandons him at the truck-stop with his packed bag and money.
character's age: 17

powers, skills, pets and equipment:

INVENTORY UPON ARRIVAL

1x duffel bag
3x jeans
5x tshirts
7x underwear
7x socks
2x sweaters
$200

CANON POWERS

N/A

POWERS ADDED FOR SCORCHED

In keeping with the spiteful nature of Andrew's personality I'd like to give him the psychic ability to interfere with brainwaves and inflict cranial irritation — anything from a slight headache to a drastically debilitating migraine — to poor unfortunate souls of his choosing. While they certainly won't leave any kind of lasting damage the more severe migraines may cause vomiting, fainting, and pain-induced hallucinations, the like of which will require at the very least a day of bedrest in a darkened room.

canon history:

Desperate Housewives Wiki

personality:

Unfortunately, Andrew Van de Kamp is the textbook definition of a teenage sociopath with a severe superiority complex. He's a signed and sealed product of his mother's obsessive compulsive nature, truth be told, as well as the result of a childhood growing up within the perfectly polished parematers of what many would call the 'American Dream'. Bree worked hard to make 4351 Wisteria Lane every inch the beautiful home she wanted for her family — a home filled with lies, with oppression, not to mention all those equally as beautiful rules — which after a lifetime of suffocation has shaped Andrew into the individual he is today.

Andrew believes all his worldly problems to stem from Bree herself, which isn't actually as inaccurate an analysis as one might assume of a troubled teenager. Her methods of control were severe even from a very young age: Andrew was fed pre-rehearsed lines, stories, and pleasantries to maintain the upkeep of their family face, and was expected to play his part in the act regardless of how he felt about it. There was no room for rebellion or individuality within the Van de Kamp home. Everything had to be done to Bree's impossibly high standards, from parting his hair just so in the morning to making sure his pyjamas were neat enough for him to sleep in, which is clearly no life at all for a suburban child. As the matriarch of the household she was strict — disobedience was met with a stern spanking — and as a child who hated the fact that he wasn't allowed to be a child? Well.

Let's just say that he was punished a lot.

To make up for his painful childhood existence Andrew tailored himself into a highly sought-after extrovert as a teenager, demonstrating all the charisma, cruelty, and immaturity that one would expect of a brat discovering life off the rails. In short? Andrew became a popular bully. He considers himself the Alpha male of social situations — he'll pick on the weak in a heartbeat, as demonstrated at Zack's party, and he doesn't care who he upsets providing it gives himself and his friends a good laugh. Moreover, portraying himself as the edgy, rebellious member of the group was far easier than he'd expected. Drinking alcohol, smoking pot, small acts of vandalism, staging inappropriate pranks on figures of authority ...

Anything that'll wind his mother up, which is incidentally one of his more favoured hobbies now that he's old enough to appreciate the extent to which it frustrates her. He'll lie, cheat, and steal just to provoke a rise from her, make her feel like a failure of a parent, and there's nothing he enjoys more than manipulating her through bad behaviour.

The incident with Juanita Solis truly solidified his place in Bree's mind as a monster. Andrew clearly showed no moral conscience after the hit-and-run that left her in a coma: all he cared about was the fact that some stupid old woman might've ruined his life. After his parents successfully 'lost' the car to protect him he didn't offer them so much as a word of thanks, rather he chose to comment on how relieved he was that he was off the hook. This implies that his regard for human life is minimal at best: he has no empathy, no conscience, and by this point in his life has grown into someone twisted and ugly on the inside.

Soon after the accident (and after discovering that her child was a sociopath) Bree decided that the best place for Andrew was a juvenile correction centre, which in fact ended up solidifying previously unvoiced suspicions he'd been having towards his sexuality. Coming out as gay to his parents was a huge and dangerous step for him — on some level he had such little faith in them that he suspected he'd be kicked out — but instead it simply offered Bree more 'leverage' on her crusade to set him on to the path of righteousness.

The events that followed would damage him past the point of redemption. The moment Bree looked him in the eye and told him he was going to Hell was the moment Andrew broke; the moment he decided that it'd be better to stop loving her before she stopped loving him. It's from that point that his personality became all the more toxic: he used his sexuality as a weapon to hurt her in as many different ways as he could, and in doing so thoroughly abused his boyfriend Justin's love for him by emotionally blackmailing him into doing all sorts of things to help him bring her down. He can turn almost anyhting into a weapon if he dislikes the person enough: even his father's death seemed less a moment of tragedy for Andrew than it was another barb to push underneath Bree's skin.

Perhaps it's the lack of remorse for the terrible things he's done that's the most unsettling part of Andrew's personality. He's manipulative and cruel, he'll use anyone to get his own way, as demonstrated during the sub-story in which he tries to emancipate himself and disappear with his trust fund. He's surprisingly good at keeping on top of his own lies, too, and doesn't seem to care how large a web he spins so long as the end result tilts in his favour, which when paired with his selfish nature makes him a desperately unattractive human being.

why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting?

I feel as though Andrew will handle Scorched well for the simple reason that self-preservation is always his ultimate priority. Despite having no horror or survival background I think he'll adapt well to the challanges faced at Anatole, although there's no doubt that his handling of them will likely end up controversial in more ways than one. He's a cut-throat personality who's willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that everyone around him crumbles before he does, which will undoubtedly lend itself to life as one of the Scorched.

Writing Samples

network post sample:

@ The Scorched Box

third person sample:

Weak morning sunlight trickled in through the crack between the fraying curtains. Andrew Van de Kamp watched, bored with his meagre breakfast, as invisible dust motes glided into the illuminating path of the shaft, sparkling for less than a moment before slipping away into nothingness again. Slipping away into nothingness, just like him, just like the backwater city of Anatole as it sat hidden in its shroud of maddening mist. He didn't miss Wisteria Lane — in fact, he was more than happy to get away — although for all he'd had his grand plans of escape he'd never envisioned his freedom to be quite so grey and bleak.

It was the silence he hated the most. The shabby little kitchen was bare and noiseless: no washing machine spinning, no dishwasher humming, not even the soft buzz of a refrigerator to distract him from his thoughts, and certainly no Justin to help draw his mind away from all the hate he'd let fester deep within his sickly heart. Somehow, it seemed more bearable with Justin around. His presence soothed his anger, smoothed his scheming, gave him something to look forward to after his mom fell asleep ...

Her. No, she wasn't his mother any more. He never needed to think about her again.

Bree Van de Kamp was dead to him.

The wooden feet of the chair scraped against the kitchen floor as he jerked upright and cracked his neck, then his shoulders, before pushing his hands through his tousled blonde locks and side-stepping the table to head back towards the bedroom. He supposed it was a small mercy that he'd taken his tumble through the door still clutching the duffel bag full of clothes she'd left him with at the truck stop: at the very least he didn't have to worry about washing his underpants every Goddamn night.

Still, that didn't mean he didn't give it a good old kick every time he passed it, just because he could, just because it was an innocuous reminder of her that he somehow hadn't managed to burn yet ...

—An all-too familiar smirk crawled across pink lips. Just like that, Andrew knew how he'd be spending his morning.

anything else?