Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2012 19:16:26 GMT -6
||| BRAEBURN |||
#Name; Braeburn
#Age Group ; Young Adult
#Gender ; Male
#Species; Earth Pony
#Cutie Mark ; A single red apple.
#Occupation ; Farmer and workhorse at Appleoosa Orchards.
#Powers and Abilities ; Braeburn is one tough pony, and anypony who'd tell you different is a liar. The workhorse has strong muscles from bucking apple trees, pulling wagons, plowing fields, and everything else it takes to run a farm. He's also skilled in handling a rope, tracking, and desert survival. Though he doesn't like to admit it, he's also a pretty decent shot when it comes to throwing pies or fruit. His true talent though is finding the best land to grow apples on.
#Physique ; Braeburn is a tall and muscular pony with a solid build. He's bigger than his cousin Applejack, but not as big as Big Macintosh.
#Mane and fur color and style ; Braeburn's fur is a warm light gold color. His wavy mane and tale are orange in color with amber highlights. He keeps his tail at a medium length so it doesn't touch the ground, and keeps his mane long enough to touch his shoulders. He doesn't style it at all other than running a brush through it in the morning.
#Eye color ; Bright green
#Other appearance details (optional) ; Braeburn wears a brown vest along with a large brown hat that has a dark band around it. The hat is almost a necessity under the hot Appleoosan sun, keeping the sun from getting in his eyes and providing himself with a little shade. Being a very simple pony, his interpretation of getting dressed up is to add a bolo-tie around his neck. Working outside all the time in a dry climate like Appleoosa is a dirty job, and its common for him to have a bit of dust stuck on him that's too stubborn to be shaken off.
#A more thorough description (optional) ;Feel free to use this area to describe your character in a more paragraph format if you have any additional details about the character's appearance you feel does not fit in any of the areas above.
#Personality ;
Braeburn is a reliable and hardworking pony with a friendly streak as wide as the desert. The enthusiastic apple farmer is the type of pony who is more than happy to welcome new faces to his town and give them a tour, or even give his hat to someone in need. If its something he can do, he'll be willing to find some time somewhere to lend a hoof. If you happen to be a friend of Braeburn he'd give a shot at doing the impossible for you, and for family he'd drop whatever he was doing to help out. Braeburn puts his family at the top of his priorities list. Any of the Apples, and even the Oranges, know that he'll come galloping along at the word help.
While Braeburn loves his entire family that's spread throughout Equestria, he's especially close to cousins his own age. He grew up without any siblings, so he treats his cousins like brothers and sisters. This means that he'd bend over backwards for them, but it also means he's a mite bit competitive with them. He is well aware of how proud his family can be at times, and takes a bit of pleasure in being able to get them riled up. Some might think ill of him for wanting to compete with his cousins all the time, but to him is a bonding experience. He doesn't mean any harm, its just a way to spend some quality time having fun.
The Appleoosan farmer is no stranger to hard work, running an orchard is serious business, but unlike his cousin Applejack, he knows when to ask for help or take a break. The arid climate he's used to living in can be mighty unforgiving on those who push themselves too hard. Even with climate hazards, Braeburn gives his all to make sure Appleoosa is a success. He's responsible for the apple orchard where they get most of their food from, and his greatest fear is not being successful with it. He started the orchard, its his responsibility to make sure everyone in Appleoosa gets fed. If he fails at his job, it means the town wouldn't be able to thrive, and everypony would have to find someplace else to live. Its hard to get Braeburn down, but a sure fire way to do it is to get him worrying about Appleoosa.
Lastly, Braeburn was raised to be a gentlecolt at all times. Unless he's addressing family you can expect him to be tipping his hat to ladies and saying miss, ma'am, sir, and the like. Just because he's a workin' pony that can be rough and tumble with the best of them doesn't mean he has to forget his manners. He tries to treat everyone with a bit of respect and fairness, because thats the way he'd like to be treated by others. Braeburn could probably be cleaned up pretty nicely to fit in with upper Manehattanites such as his Uncle and Aunt Orange, but it wouldn't last terribly long.
#History ;
Braeburn was an only child born and raised in Dodge. Even though its primarily cherry country, there is still a small field of apple trees, and where there's apple trees there is someone from the Apple Family to tend them. The orchard there was small compared to what the rest of the family was accustomed to, but the climate wasn't the friendliest. Dodge was an arid climate settled where a desert met a forest. It wasn't the most ideal condition, the work was harder, but they were grateful for what they had.
Despite the harder labor needed to run the orchard, its size meant that his particular part of the Apple clan could make more free time than some others. This meant that whenever another part of the family needed help Braeburn got to go visit some relatives. If they had to go by train, it guaranteed a visit to Ponyville to go see Granny Smith either on their way to their destination or on the way back. It was one of the good things about Dodge, you had to pass through Ponyville to get anywhere else by train. While not at the same time, it was on one of these trips that Braeburn got his competitive streak amongst his cousins, and his cutie mark.
While he was never picked on as a young colt, the subject of the size of his family's orchard did some up a few times. No harm was ever meant, but it still bothered him. Why should the size of the land he worked matter on what was expected of him? Sure other families had bigger orchards, but they also had bigger families, and a nicer climate to work in. Braeburn's way of showing how could he could be turned into competing with his cousins. Who could get the most apples to fall in a single buck, who could buck the most trees, or fill the most barrels with apples. At the time it wasn't about winning or losing, but that he could keep up. Now its more of a game intended to have fun.
The story on how Braeburn got his cutie mark isn't that exciting of one. He had no inner dilemma, or suddenly found he was particularly good at something he had never attempted before, nor did it come as some giant epiphany. It happened in Los Pegasus where his family had been asked to help some relatives who were planning on buying a plot of land and expand their business from Applewood. They spent one very long day going from one piece of property to the next. Each piece of land looked fair, but none of them very noteworthy. It wasn't until late in the day when they came to a poor looking piece of land that was overgrown with weeds and had a half collapsed barn did a very bored Braeburn get excited. Everyone was going to give up on the land, but the little colt dashed out into the field. Turns out running out unexpectedly into tall grass and disappearing is a GREAT way to get the attention of adults by the way.
Braeburn's gut was telling him something, other than he was hungry. He'd been to other farms across equestria and seen how each one fared. He had seen how they were all different, how they were all similar, and heard how the adults talked about what was good and bad about their land. It hadn't been a conscious effort, but he was able to apply all of that knowledge he unknowingly soaked up into one thing. Braeburn discovered he had an eye for land. Yes the piece of land they were looking at didn't look good, but everything wrong with it was easily fixable, or apart of work that would have be done anyways. To put it as he did "Jus' 'cause the top of the pie is burnt don't mean the fillin' an' rest of the crust is. It jus' means ya gotta pick off the top, an' top it off with some whipped cream. No one ever notices when Auntie Apple Brown Betty does it. "
The adults ended up giving him some odd looks about the analogy, but had to agree with his assessment of the land. Later that year at the Apple Family Reunion though he got a few laughs and a very minor scolding when he pointed to a table of desserts and exclaimed "See ah told ya so!" That's when he learned what an inside joke was, and that having to explain it to others why it was funny made it not funny anymore. He also learned you get shushed a lot when it involves an older family member.
Since then life was pretty mundane for Breaburn until the last three years. His family's orchard hadn't been doing particularly well. Dodge had grown rapidly, their orchard was struggling to meet demand, and the land they could expand onto would need a lot of work to be fertile enough for their needs. What made things look dim was the fact that trees needed time to grow. If they bought the extra land, put all the time and effort to get it to their standards, they'd still have to wait years for the seeds to grow into apple producing trees. In hindsight they could have gotten started a lot sooner on this plan, but they hadn't anticipated a sudden increase in the population and amount of visitors to Dodge.
The final thing to happen to their business involved the cherry orchards Dodge was becoming known for. Someone had figured out how to make a cherry cola drink, and because of that their cider season wasn't as profitable as they had hoped. It was a tough blow to his family, but it wasn't like things were hopeless. Braeburn's parents ended up leaving to go help out other relatives, while Braeburn himself stayed behind. He was all grown up, and as he saw it, it was time he started takin' care of himself. As fate would have it, he hadn't been the only pony feeling the growing pains of Dodge. It was a growing town that was beginning to grow too fast to accommodate everypony.
The solution was one that no pony had expected: Start another settlement. It wasn't the greatest of ideas at the time, but Braeburn volunteered quicker than a jackrabbit after eating a candied carrot. If a bunch of ponies were going to go out into the desert to find a new home, they'd need to get food from somewhere, and Braeburn happened to be an expert in finding the perfect land to grow apples on. Since he had to actually see the land to determine if it was suitable or not, Braeburn was a part of the first group of ponies to set off to find a new place to settle. It also meant missing an Apple Family Reuinion, a fact that he still feels bad about. If he had gone he would have been able to meet Miss Twilight Sparkle, and the rest of cousin Applejack's friends, and lend a hoof in saving Equestria from Nightmare Moon. If he had gone though, Appleoosa wouldn't be where it was today or as in good condition. It'd be some other town like Beetaloosa, or Prickly Pearaloosa, or Parnsipaloosa.
Braeburn feels bad for missing the reunion, but he knows his family understands why he had to do it. Once they had found a spot to settle in Braeburn was able to send out a thick stack of apology letters to everyone to explain his absence. Then came the hurdle of getting apple trees to Appleoosa. It was hard work, but a good number from his home orchard were able to be transplanted from Dodge, and a number of family members sent saplings and young trees that would be able to bear fruit in a season or two. It was cousin Applejack who had decided to show up with a fully grown tree all on her own. She even brought some of her friends along to visit.
The visit however didn't go as smoothly as expected. There had been more trouble with the native buffalo, and cousin Applejack and her friends ended up getting caught up in it as well. Braeburn isn't one to point out shortcomings, but cousin Applejack and her friends did make things worse before they got better. Having him and Little Strongheart meet to talk was a great idea, but its rapidly turned into cousin AJ and Miss Rainbow Dash doing all the talking. Then there was the musical number performed by Miss Pinkie Pie that didn't help the situation either. Eventually peace was made, but there was a lot of property damage, and a lot of thrown pies before a peaceful solution was found.
Currently Braeburn runs the Appleoosa Orchards and is responsible for feeding the entire town. Its a big responsibility, one he sometimes worries about, but he's up to the challenge. He's made an effort to get to know the buffalo and learn from them. They were using the land before them, and they would know more about it than he did. He's also a volunteer deputy for whenever Sheriff Silverstar needs some assistance. Braeburn is a very busy pony, but that's because he wants Appleoosa to succeed so much. Still... it wouldn't be the end of the world if he took a couple of days off in the future to go spend time with some family. One thing is for certain though, he wants to have the Apple Family Reunion in Appleoosa as soon as its feasible. He wants Granny Smith and a bunch of his family to see what he's been doing.The Roleplayer's Corner
#Nickname ; Clutch
#Age ; 25
#Gender ; Male
#How did you find us? ; Late night Googling
#Sample RP ;
Braeburn liked trains. They made a nice clickity-clack sound as they chugged along the rails, and had a mighty loud horn that would let everypony know it was coming. A train was plenty fast, and it could carry heavy loads that would take a full team of strong stallions to pull, and all it needed was some coal for the steam engine. As great of a thing a locomotive was, Braeburn wasn't too thrilled with his current situation with hanging off the side of it. Ponies were meant to ride inside one of the cars, not outside. A lesson Braeburn didn't need to be taught, but was experiencing none the less, and not entirely willingly.
The masked bandit TerriBull and his gang of Bovine Banditos had hijacked the four-o-clock train that was supposed to bring valuable supplies to Appleoosa. When the train had blown through the station without even slowing down he and Sheriff Silverstar had taken off after it at a full gallop. The two originally thought it was a runaway train, and something unfortunate had happened to the conductor, but that notion was dashed when the first pie zipped past their heads. What the two of them had on their hooves was a train robbery where even the train was being stolen! He and the Sheriff had manage to avoid taking a pie to the face long enough to climb onto the caboose and get into the train cars, and that's not too far off from where things currently were.
The Sheriff was pinned down near the rear of the train. Some of the Bovine Banditos had holed up in the dining car where there was a plethora of pastries to throw. Braeburn had volunteered for the dangerous job of out maneuvering the masked marauders and bringing the train to a stop. If he could make it to the engine up front and slam on the brakes, the sudden stop would knock everypony on-board off balance and give the Sheriff an opportunity to spring into action. He had to go along the side of the train, ducking past windows and hoping no one would lean outside to take a look. If he had climbed up on the roof somepony was liable to hear his hoofsteps and then his element of surprise would be lost.
Braeburn made his way along the side of the train cautiously. It wouldn't have required everyone's attention to hold off the Sheriff. He figured there was probably someone acting as a look out somewhere in one of the train cars, another pony tending the engine, and somewhere on the train lurked TerriBull.