Name: Kathryn Age: 29 Contact Info:YawningDodo or PM Other Characters: Ecks
Character Information
Name: Dug Canon:Up (Pixar) Age: Unknown (likely between three and five years old) Gender: Male Canon Point: Immediately post-movie Background:Disney Wiki Dug is one of a veritable army of dogs kept by an adventurer named Charles Muntz. Like the rest of his pack, Dug was born and raised in a place called Paradise Falls in the wilds of Venezuela. Muntz is a Captain Ahab figure, having spent decades attempting to hunt down a rare bird in order to restore his own reputation, to the point of having lost all contact with the outside world (and, uh, reason). As such, the dogs who serve as his servants, airship crew, and hunters all share his purpose of capturing The Bird -- and as such, all of Muntz's current generation of dogs have never known any life outside the jungle and their shared quest.
While pursuing The Bird on a solo mission (actually, Alpha, the leader of the dog pack, sent Dug off to get him out of the way), Dug encounters an old man named Carl and a young boy named Russell who are lost among the tepuis and hauling a house suspended in the air by helium balloons, followed by the very Bird Muntz has been hunting. Dug soon changes his allegiance and helps the pair protect The Bird (now named Kevin) from Muntz, ultimately helping to save the lives of all three and put an end to Muntz's terrorization of the local bird population.
Inventory: Dug's only possession is a brown leather collar outfitted with various electronics. It was invented by Muntz and is used primarily to interpret the wearer's brain waves into human speech (it comes out sounding like a radio transmission). The collar has several knobs that control its settings (it can be set to languages other than English and voices other than the default; canonically this includes Japanese and a voice with a stereotypical western American accent). The collar also has a small screen that can normally be used as a video communication device, which Dug is normally able to activate despite his lack of hands. Finally, the collar also contains a tracking device.
Due to the fact that none of the dogs in the film ever remove their collars, it is unclear from canon whether Dug's collar would work for anyone else who wore it, or if it is attuned specifically to him.
Personality:
It won't be a big surprise to anyone who knows anything about golden retrievers that Dug is a very friendly, outgoing sort of dog. He's playful, energetic, highly distractible, and more than a little bit stupid, though when he sets himself to a mission he gains somewhat more focus and at least tries to see things through. He's motivated almost solely by an intense desire to be liked and loved, though other, more immediate personal desires (for things like, say, a thrown tennis ball) can override his mind at a moment's notice. He's of average intelligence for a dog (arguably higher, given that he can speak and read), but he is very much a dog with a dog's priorities, attitude, and point of view on the world.
Dug's actions are typically based on what he thinks others want from him (and what will convince them to like him), to the exclusion of any other ambition of his own other than the occasional need for immediate gratification. He takes commands well (or as well as he can given his lack of intelligence), and is unlikely to question even nonsensical commands when he is convinced that following the orders he is given will result in affection. Dug also talks up his own abilities ("I am a great tracker!") partly from wanting to assure others that he is good and useful and partly from innocent delusion.
Dug is on some level aware that his own pack does not like him (he explicitly tells Alpha, their leader, that he intends to bring The Bird back so that Alpha will like him). At the same time, however, Dug is remarkably resilient against most indicators that his presence is unwanted at any given time -- though he's generally easy to cow when shouted or snapped out, Dug almost always immediately rebounds and carries on his platitudes and offers of help as if any anger directed his way must have been only a momentary mistake. Only in the most extreme of cases will Dug really register the full displeasure of another, and even then he is much more likely to continue to lurk about in wait for an opportunity to make up with the person he's displeased than to accept that he isn't wanted and move on.
Underneath his airhead exterior, Dug is surprisingly well educated for a dog; it simply does not often occur to him to apply what knowledge he possesses until someone else asks a related question. Like the rest of Muntz's dogs, Dug has been trained both in terms of being able to take commands and in terms of having the knowledge necessary to navigate the jungle and hunt down Muntz's great white whale giant rainbow bird. For instance, Dug knows as a matter of course that The Bird (named Kevin by Carl's young traveling companion, Russell) is a female tending a nest of chicks. He spends an entire afternoon and night with Carl and Russell, listening to the two of them use masculine pronouns for the bird, without it ever once occurring to him to correct them. Instead, Dug finally shares that information only when the humans ask why Kevin is gathering food on Carl's roof, and it does not seem to occur to him at all that what he is saying is a startling revelation to either of them.
Dug regularly fails to anticipate any surprise or distress a person might feel at any of the things he has to say -- or, indeed, at the fact that he speaks at all. He has been a talking dog among talking dogs all his life, so he has little reason to suppose that his own existence might be alarming to the average human. So, too, he has little reason to suppose that others do not already know everything that he knows, which is a second reason he often fails to be forthcoming with new information. Instead, Dug usually narrates his own part in whatever is happening in the moment ("I am jumping on you, bird!"), so that anything useful he might say tends to get lost in a sea of the world's most useless exposition. He speaks in a very deliberate, almost laborious fashion, and repeats himself often. Most of what Dug says is a stream of consciousness, if a sluggish one, and he possesses little to no brain to mouth collar filter.
For all that he desperately wants to get along with everyone he meets, Dug can be utterly oblivious to the feelings and needs of others. When, for instance, Carl expresses distress over being attacked by Muntz ("I finally meet my childhood hero and he's trying to kill us. What a joke."), Dug completely misses the context and bitterness of the remark and instead seizes upon the mention of jokes to tell a joke of his own. Notably, too, Dug is aware that Kevin is a nesting female who needs to get back to her chicks from the start, but still attempts to take her prisoner and take her to Muntz. Whether it does not occur to him that Muntz will not allow Kevin to go to her babies once she's captured, or whether Dug simply doesn't care about Kevin's family, the fact of the matter is that Dug doesn't feel any compunctions about taking Kevin prisoner until he joins up with Carl and Russell and their mission to return Kevin home becomes his mission as well. This kind of obliviousness or callousness isn't true absolutely across the board; Dug is capable of understanding his own wrongdoings and feeling guilt over them, he shows concern for lost strangers, and he does his best to comfort his friends when he understands that things have gone badly. He simply does not always catch on to the cues that would tell him when others are unhappy or when the situation has become dire.
While it is undeniable that Dug would prefer to live in a world in which all who know him love him, he is not above picking favorites, nor above picking sides in a conflict. Though Dug usually responds to anger and violence with quiet submission (or, when it comes to displays of anger from Kevin, complete non-reaction), he's willing and able to engage in acts of violence when pushed to his limits (notably, he bites Muntz in an attempt to defend Carl). He can occasionally be brave and clever in moments of crisis, but his spur of the moment plans are as likely to fail as to succeed (as, for instance, when he attempts to turn back the pack of dogs as they chase Carl and Russell only for the dogs to charge right past him).
Speaking of choosing sides, Dug is not an especially loyal dog. Loving a new person immediately upon meeting them can be considered sweet, certainly, but it is worth considering that it takes Dug less than one afternoon to decide that he loves Carl "like he is my master." Considering that Dug must have been raised by Muntz, his readiness to accept Carl with the same level of allegiance almost immediately after meeting him indicates that Dug's affection is perhaps a little too easily transferred. Granted, it is difficult to say how hands-on Muntz would have been with any individual dog and granted, Dug was an outcast within Muntz's dog pack and had good reason to seek out a new "pack" in their place. However, at the time Dug first began referring to Carl as "Master," Carl had yet to show Dug any kind of affection or approval whatsoever, making it clear that this was not a case of Dug finding someone kinder than Muntz and latching on to a new source of affection. He was, instead, latching on to a new person simply because he was new. To be fair, Dug's affection and loyalty for Carl (and Russell, by extension) are deepened throughout the course of the story as he does gain the humans' acceptance and affection, but it is not a stretch to expect that Dug will continue to form new connections that seem to him to be just as meaningful. His love is far from an exclusive love, for better or for worse.
Flavor Abilities: Dug has the ability to speak English through his collar, which has a little red lightbulb that lights up whenever he "talks." The language (or accent) setting can be changed by twisting a knob on the collar; Dug would likely be capable of changing the settings more or less at random by scratching at his collar with a hind foot if he so chose, but he lacks the dexterity needed to actually select a specific setting and would be unable to direct anyone else in how to select a language except by trial and error. My assumption is that the collar includes settings for most major European and Asian languages. The communicator and tracking device functions of his collar will be nullified.
Dug also possesses all the survival advantages (and disadvantages) of a large, non-anthropomorphic dog. His hearing and sense of smell are much more keen than those of a human, he can run faster than a human, and his fur protects him from the cold better than bare human skin. However, by the same token Dug will struggle to do many things a human character might take for granted: he cannot grab and carry things except in his mouth (or if he manages to struggle into the straps of a backpack), opening doors will require significant effort if he doesn't have assistance from someone with hands, he will not be able to climb ladders or reach objects high up, it will be difficult for him to don clothing to keep himself warm or to carry extra supplies, and he is colorblind. He will be able to use the tablet to communicate by video, but will almost certainly never be capable of typing (he can at least read, though probably not very well).
Suitability: Dug will face hardships in this game that will be utterly alien to him -- first and foremost, he's probably never been cold in his life. While Dug is used to dealing with dogs that do not like him, the level of interpersonal drama that happens on a regular basis in Norfinbury will be baffling to him. He'll be terrified of many of the staples of the setting, such as the anomalies.
That being said, Dug is likely to be fairly competent at survival. I anticipate that he will latch on to one or more people early on and rarely spend much time alone. He'll likely function as emotional support (and/or comic relief) for the people with whom he associates, though now and then he might actually prove useful, too, with his canine senses. Despite the circumstances, Dug will remain friendly and outgoing and will likely spread his streams of consciousness all over the network.
Corpse Party prompt: We are rescuing you! We are taking you inside and rescuing you right now!
[This is the most important thing Dug has done in days and days, he is sure. He's not actually all that much help for carrying the person he and his friend found in the snow, but he tries to make up for it in sheer enthusiasm for the task, bounding along through the snow and dashing ahead to jump against the door of the house and knock it open. There's a lot of bustling about as everyone gets inside, and then as soon as the person in the blanket is set down Dug is jumping on them, pawing at the blanket.]
I am going to keep you warm now. My name is Dug, and you are --
[He cuts off abruptly as the blanket falls away to reveal a motionless face blackened by the cold. Dug's ears fold down tight against his head and he lets out a high pitched whine. Tail tucked, he backs off of the body, still whimpering as the voice from his collar speaks in a horrified whisper.]
Dug | Up | no reserve (includes spoilers for the entire film)
Name: Kathryn
Age: 29
Contact Info:
Other Characters: Ecks
Character Information
Name: Dug
Canon: Up (Pixar)
Age: Unknown (likely between three and five years old)
Gender: Male
Canon Point: Immediately post-movie
Background: Disney Wiki
Dug is one of a veritable army of dogs kept by an adventurer named Charles Muntz. Like the rest of his pack, Dug was born and raised in a place called Paradise Falls in the wilds of Venezuela. Muntz is a Captain Ahab figure, having spent decades attempting to hunt down a rare bird in order to restore his own reputation, to the point of having lost all contact with the outside world (and, uh, reason). As such, the dogs who serve as his servants, airship crew, and hunters all share his purpose of capturing The Bird -- and as such, all of Muntz's current generation of dogs have never known any life outside the jungle and their shared quest.
While pursuing The Bird on a solo mission (actually, Alpha, the leader of the dog pack, sent Dug off to get him out of the way), Dug encounters an old man named Carl and a young boy named Russell who are lost among the tepuis and hauling a house suspended in the air by helium balloons, followed by the very Bird Muntz has been hunting. Dug soon changes his allegiance and helps the pair protect The Bird (now named Kevin) from Muntz, ultimately helping to save the lives of all three and put an end to Muntz's terrorization of the local bird population.
Inventory:
Dug's only possession is a brown leather collar outfitted with various electronics. It was invented by Muntz and is used primarily to interpret the wearer's brain waves into human speech (it comes out sounding like a radio transmission). The collar has several knobs that control its settings (it can be set to languages other than English and voices other than the default; canonically this includes Japanese and a voice with a stereotypical western American accent). The collar also has a small screen that can normally be used as a video communication device, which Dug is normally able to activate despite his lack of hands. Finally, the collar also contains a tracking device.
Due to the fact that none of the dogs in the film ever remove their collars, it is unclear from canon whether Dug's collar would work for anyone else who wore it, or if it is attuned specifically to him.
Personality:
It won't be a big surprise to anyone who knows anything about golden retrievers that Dug is a very friendly, outgoing sort of dog. He's playful, energetic, highly distractible, and more than a little bit stupid, though when he sets himself to a mission he gains somewhat more focus and at least tries to see things through. He's motivated almost solely by an intense desire to be liked and loved, though other, more immediate personal desires (for things like, say, a thrown tennis ball) can override his mind at a moment's notice. He's of average intelligence for a dog (arguably higher, given that he can speak and read), but he is very much a dog with a dog's priorities, attitude, and point of view on the world.
Dug's actions are typically based on what he thinks others want from him (and what will convince them to like him), to the exclusion of any other ambition of his own other than the occasional need for immediate gratification. He takes commands well (or as well as he can given his lack of intelligence), and is unlikely to question even nonsensical commands when he is convinced that following the orders he is given will result in affection. Dug also talks up his own abilities ("I am a great tracker!") partly from wanting to assure others that he is good and useful and partly from innocent delusion.
Dug is on some level aware that his own pack does not like him (he explicitly tells Alpha, their leader, that he intends to bring The Bird back so that Alpha will like him). At the same time, however, Dug is remarkably resilient against most indicators that his presence is unwanted at any given time -- though he's generally easy to cow when shouted or snapped out, Dug almost always immediately rebounds and carries on his platitudes and offers of help as if any anger directed his way must have been only a momentary mistake. Only in the most extreme of cases will Dug really register the full displeasure of another, and even then he is much more likely to continue to lurk about in wait for an opportunity to make up with the person he's displeased than to accept that he isn't wanted and move on.
Underneath his airhead exterior, Dug is surprisingly well educated for a dog; it simply does not often occur to him to apply what knowledge he possesses until someone else asks a related question. Like the rest of Muntz's dogs, Dug has been trained both in terms of being able to take commands and in terms of having the knowledge necessary to navigate the jungle and hunt down Muntz's
great white whalegiant rainbow bird. For instance, Dug knows as a matter of course that The Bird (named Kevin by Carl's young traveling companion, Russell) is a female tending a nest of chicks. He spends an entire afternoon and night with Carl and Russell, listening to the two of them use masculine pronouns for the bird, without it ever once occurring to him to correct them. Instead, Dug finally shares that information only when the humans ask why Kevin is gathering food on Carl's roof, and it does not seem to occur to him at all that what he is saying is a startling revelation to either of them.Dug regularly fails to anticipate any surprise or distress a person might feel at any of the things he has to say -- or, indeed, at the fact that he speaks at all. He has been a talking dog among talking dogs all his life, so he has little reason to suppose that his own existence might be alarming to the average human. So, too, he has little reason to suppose that others do not already know everything that he knows, which is a second reason he often fails to be forthcoming with new information. Instead, Dug usually narrates his own part in whatever is happening in the moment ("I am jumping on you, bird!"), so that anything useful he might say tends to get lost in a sea of the world's most useless exposition. He speaks in a very deliberate, almost laborious fashion, and repeats himself often. Most of what Dug says is a stream of consciousness, if a sluggish one, and he possesses little to no brain to
mouthcollar filter.For all that he desperately wants to get along with everyone he meets, Dug can be utterly oblivious to the feelings and needs of others. When, for instance, Carl expresses distress over being attacked by Muntz ("I finally meet my childhood hero and he's trying to kill us. What a joke."), Dug completely misses the context and bitterness of the remark and instead seizes upon the mention of jokes to tell a joke of his own. Notably, too, Dug is aware that Kevin is a nesting female who needs to get back to her chicks from the start, but still attempts to take her prisoner and take her to Muntz. Whether it does not occur to him that Muntz will not allow Kevin to go to her babies once she's captured, or whether Dug simply doesn't care about Kevin's family, the fact of the matter is that Dug doesn't feel any compunctions about taking Kevin prisoner until he joins up with Carl and Russell and their mission to return Kevin home becomes his mission as well. This kind of obliviousness or callousness isn't true absolutely across the board; Dug is capable of understanding his own wrongdoings and feeling guilt over them, he shows concern for lost strangers, and he does his best to comfort his friends when he understands that things have gone badly. He simply does not always catch on to the cues that would tell him when others are unhappy or when the situation has become dire.
While it is undeniable that Dug would prefer to live in a world in which all who know him love him, he is not above picking favorites, nor above picking sides in a conflict. Though Dug usually responds to anger and violence with quiet submission (or, when it comes to displays of anger from Kevin, complete non-reaction), he's willing and able to engage in acts of violence when pushed to his limits (notably, he bites Muntz in an attempt to defend Carl). He can occasionally be brave and clever in moments of crisis, but his spur of the moment plans are as likely to fail as to succeed (as, for instance, when he attempts to turn back the pack of dogs as they chase Carl and Russell only for the dogs to charge right past him).
Speaking of choosing sides, Dug is not an especially loyal dog. Loving a new person immediately upon meeting them can be considered sweet, certainly, but it is worth considering that it takes Dug less than one afternoon to decide that he loves Carl "like he is my master." Considering that Dug must have been raised by Muntz, his readiness to accept Carl with the same level of allegiance almost immediately after meeting him indicates that Dug's affection is perhaps a little too easily transferred. Granted, it is difficult to say how hands-on Muntz would have been with any individual dog and granted, Dug was an outcast within Muntz's dog pack and had good reason to seek out a new "pack" in their place. However, at the time Dug first began referring to Carl as "Master," Carl had yet to show Dug any kind of affection or approval whatsoever, making it clear that this was not a case of Dug finding someone kinder than Muntz and latching on to a new source of affection. He was, instead, latching on to a new person simply because he was new. To be fair, Dug's affection and loyalty for Carl (and Russell, by extension) are deepened throughout the course of the story as he does gain the humans' acceptance and affection, but it is not a stretch to expect that Dug will continue to form new connections that seem to him to be just as meaningful. His love is far from an exclusive love, for better or for worse.
Flavor Abilities:
Dug has the ability to speak English through his collar, which has a little red lightbulb that lights up whenever he "talks." The language (or accent) setting can be changed by twisting a knob on the collar; Dug would likely be capable of changing the settings more or less at random by scratching at his collar with a hind foot if he so chose, but he lacks the dexterity needed to actually select a specific setting and would be unable to direct anyone else in how to select a language except by trial and error. My assumption is that the collar includes settings for most major European and Asian languages. The communicator and tracking device functions of his collar will be nullified.
Dug also possesses all the survival advantages (and disadvantages) of a large, non-anthropomorphic dog. His hearing and sense of smell are much more keen than those of a human, he can run faster than a human, and his fur protects him from the cold better than bare human skin. However, by the same token Dug will struggle to do many things a human character might take for granted: he cannot grab and carry things except in his mouth (or if he manages to struggle into the straps of a backpack), opening doors will require significant effort if he doesn't have assistance from someone with hands, he will not be able to climb ladders or reach objects high up, it will be difficult for him to don clothing to keep himself warm or to carry extra supplies, and he is colorblind. He will be able to use the tablet to communicate by video, but will almost certainly never be capable of typing (he can at least read, though probably not very well).
Suitability:
Dug will face hardships in this game that will be utterly alien to him -- first and foremost, he's probably never been cold in his life. While Dug is used to dealing with dogs that do not like him, the level of interpersonal drama that happens on a regular basis in Norfinbury will be baffling to him. He'll be terrified of many of the staples of the setting, such as the anomalies.
That being said, Dug is likely to be fairly competent at survival. I anticipate that he will latch on to one or more people early on and rarely spend much time alone. He'll likely function as emotional support (and/or comic relief) for the people with whom he associates, though now and then he might actually prove useful, too, with his canine senses. Despite the circumstances, Dug will remain friendly and outgoing and will likely spread his streams of consciousness all over the network.
RP Samples:
With Charlie
With Phi
Corpse Party prompt:
We are rescuing you! We are taking you inside and rescuing you right now!
[This is the most important thing Dug has done in days and days, he is sure. He's not actually all that much help for carrying the person he and his friend found in the snow, but he tries to make up for it in sheer enthusiasm for the task, bounding along through the snow and dashing ahead to jump against the door of the house and knock it open. There's a lot of bustling about as everyone gets inside, and then as soon as the person in the blanket is set down Dug is jumping on them, pawing at the blanket.]
I am going to keep you warm now. My name is Dug, and you are --
[He cuts off abruptly as the blanket falls away to reveal a motionless face blackened by the cold. Dug's ears fold down tight against his head and he lets out a high pitched whine. Tail tucked, he backs off of the body, still whimpering as the voice from his collar speaks in a horrified whisper.]
Oh, no. Oh, oh no.