groundrules: (Default)
let's set d o w n some ([personal profile] groundrules) wrote2021-01-08 03:30 pm
Entry tags:

applications


APPLICATIONS


Eastbound is primarily an invite-only game — each existing player can currently invite up to one person per month, or get in touch about further invites. Existing players can hold two characters in game. A third character can be applied, if players can prove they have met activity requirements for two consecutive months with their existing two characters and have stayed engaged with the game. If you don't have an invite, somehow stumbled upon this neck of the woods, and you’d like to stay, drop the mod journal a line — we'll try to figure it out.

As of Oct. 1, cast/game caps are off. Please note, as of Dec. 1, Eastbound only has 3-4 months of gameplay left.


WHAT CHARACTERS CAN BE APPLIED?

YES: canon and original characters, if they have a solid and consistent personality and background. Characters brought in after they've died are a-okay. For characters taken from a time point just as they're in the process of dying, please read below on meeting medical requirements.

NO (at this time): real people, original characters set in a canon environment, characters from canons or canon instalments that have been released for less than one month, characters with imported development from other games (CRAU), alternate universe, or gender-swapped versions of canon characters.

Children or characters with very specific medical/magical/environment needs: appable, but please make a note of how your character will ICly meet their requirements and stay alive. Likewise, if you are applying for a character taken just as they're dying, provide a suggestion for how they can be kept alive on arrival (this might be easier in some app cycles than others). You can bend the world a little to make miracles happen (ex: a substitute for the medication your character needs to survive can be found for a high price at certain apothecaries, etc.)

Characters that were dropped or swept by activity checks: yes, but they’ll come back without their previous memories, if they are applied in by a different player.


APPLICATION FORM & INSTRUCTIONS

EXISTING / RETURNING PLAYERS



NEW PLAYERS



APPLICATIONS CLOSED


NAVIGATION MENU

foxable: (Default)

Emmet "Fox" Martin | OC - Impetus Universe

[personal profile] foxable 2021-05-09 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)
PLAYER NAME: Britt
CONTACT: daestwen at gmail dot com
INVITE STATUS: you know me, i'm ya boi

CHARACTER: Emmet "Fox" Martin
CANON: OC / Impetus Universe
CANON POINT: Summer 2014

BACKGROUND: wFox is from an urban fantasy setting set in the recent past in Toronto, Ontario. Magic exists alongside tech in this universe, openly and historically. Magic theory is generally kept tightly guarded in family lines, clans, sects or gangs, and sharing magic between groups is extremely frowned upon in the mildest cases. In the most severe, assassinations have taken place.

The city of Toronto's magic culture is segregated by neighbourhood, each district being the 'territory' of one particular group. These match to real-world neighbourhoods such as Chinatown, the Annex, Little Italy, the Distillery District, etc. Fox belongs to the gang that runs the neighbourhood of Queen West, a group of mages that came together not out of blood line but necessity, most of them without any living family. The oldest mages are textile mages that are willing to take on apprentices, and were since folded into the gang. Compared to other magical sects within the city, Queen West is one of the most open and multicultural, though with a definite counter-culture / street culture vibe. For this reason they aren't considered to have powerful magic on their own.

Their most powerful mage, and the one who has made the biggest name for the sect, is the elusive and ephemeral Fox.

Born Emmet Martin in a mixed-race family, he lost his paramedic father to a workplace accident soon after he was born, and his mother died when he was 8. His "aunt" - a gentle tiny woman who was actually his mom's best friend - adopted him. She was a mage aligned with Cabbage Town and taught him a bunch of herb and plant based magic.

Because of all this, even though he was an exceptionally bright kid, he never managed to do well in school, mostly due to absenteeism. He lived most of his teenage years out of the library system where he self taught himself any public access magic he could find.

He started running with the Queen West gang when he was 15 as he finally found a place he seemed to fit in, and was taught textile magic then, as well as getting his fist magical tattoo. This was when he started going by fox, mostly for doing magic graffiti, but slowly he began to use the pseudonym for all his endeavours.

At 16 his aunt was put into the long term care home, but he was old enough that he was allowed to make his own way. Fox began a deliberate search for ways to study other sects magic at this time to incorporate into his own, whether through bribery or seduction or theft. With a generally charming demeanour, it wasn't hard to convince people to teach him low-level day to day magic, but the greater his ambitions rose the more difficult it was to access the spells he was interested in. He just refused to stop.

By 18 he was already considered the best mage in the clan, and by 20 all the other clans had heard of him too, under the name Fox. No one outside Queen West really knew who he was, except that he was somehow learning magic from families that had long kept their abilities secret and bound to the family.

By 22 “Fox” was a household name in Magic circles, but usually said with disdain. He is actively considered a thief and many sects have put out rewards for information on him, or illegal bounties. Queen West treats him as their golden canon - his ability is great enough to be able to use him as an effective deterrent to people encroaching on their territory. He shows up to competitions mostly to wipe the floor with someone and take off. In reality there are many individuals who like him and teach him magic but are unwilling to publicly acknowledge their connection. He encourages this - it keeps them safer anyway.

In 2011 he met Bai Mingyu - “Gabriel Bai”. Wounded from an escape that went awry, Mingyu patched Fox up and they forged a fast friendship, though Fox kept to his fleeting nature and was gone by the next morning. For the next several months, the two of them played a back and forth game of public appearances: Mingyu through the pervasive channels of the media and celebrity, and Fox through escalating stunts and magic graffiti throughout the city. They met again during the Toronto International Film Festival, where Fox magic bombed the premiere gala just to impress Mingyu who he knew would be there.

The next several months saw them getting closer and closer, even as Mingyu was supposedly dating a woman named Rushi, which led Fox to pretend to date his best friend Jade in order to convince them to go on double dates. Finally, in 2012, The two idiots managed to get together and Fox slowly grew into the idea of having a stable home and a stable family, though it took him a long time to actually be able to admit as much.

By the Summer of 2014, Fox had introduced Mingyu to his Aunt, given him his real name, and even felt like he was settling in for the long haul. Unfortunately, a person appeared in front of him while he was working one day, covered in traces of his own magic - it turned out that a future version of him had managed to write someone out of the timeline completely while he was trying to change it. Mortified and confused, Fox has been working desperately to try to put this person back into the timeline, while attempting to figure out exactly how and why a future version of himself was trying to rewrite the past. In doing so, he starts studying Mingyu's mother's magic in order to try to predict the future, but it has a flaw - or, really, time itself has a flaw. As there are multiple possible branches of time, and knowing the possible futures can create even more possible branches of time, it is more a method of guesswork than foresight. What he has learned is that in their future, something terrible either happens to Mingyu, or to him, and a future version of him from a timeline where something terrible happened to Mingyu is trying to ensure that it doesn't come to pass.

Knowing that Future Fox is fucking up the timeline and potentially making things worse, Fox is doing his best to learn time magic in order to clean up after "himself" and make sure that the entire time space continuum doesn't get completely wrecked by his own future hubris.


ABILITIES | POWERS:

Magic in the Impetus universe is complex and wide ranging in both its basis and use. Most commonly it mimics what is possible with very advanced technology - facilitating anything from lighting a fire, to generating water or creating a wide-range blast. The deadly and city-levelling magic that was created in WWII has since been destroyed, so harmful spells typically have destructive capabilities along the lines of a gun, or a grenade, and developing deadly magic is illegal. Most spells require components to complete, and the better the components, the more effective the spell. Components are "better" when they are something that took a lot of time, or a lot of labour, to complete. So a leaf from a tree has some magic power but is fairly weak, whereas a diamond (millions of years of compression) or specially made paper (weeks of human labour) are much more effective. Blood can also be used as a component, but it weakens the user, it highly illegal, and Fox is strictly against its use.

While Fox is competent in a wide range of magical branches, his specialty is enchanting objects, places, or tattoos. He is very adept in stealth magic - the ability to pass unseen or unnoticed, though "true invisibility" doesn't quite exist. Light can be bent around the form, but he still exists in that space, so he tends to use magic that instead makes people ignore him even when they see him. His other specialties include light magic (illusions, etc), protection magic (either causing damage to be deflected onto something else, or strong enough components to absorb a certain amount, or combining this with stealth magic to get people and spells to avoid a certain place), support 'buff' magic (he makes a wicked caffeine-like bay leaf), transfiguration and elemental magic.

As a pacifist, he does study destructive magic, but only to help him build better protection spells against its use. He is strictly against killing people with magic, and would much rather avoid a fight than use damage-based magic. (This, I'm hoping, will be a fairly good nerf for him in game, or offer options for him to be misused by NPCs later if interesting).

Recently he's been teaching himself foresight magic, which sees snippets of possible futures. The further the future, the harder to see and the less likely it is to come to pass (as seeing it obviously alters it). It is worth noting that time works like quantum theory in the Impetus Universe, so timelines can diverge and converge and it's all kind of all over the place so it's hardly an exact science. That said, he's also been trying to teach himself time magic, which includes effecting time in a small area around him (creating enclosed time loops), and has been trying (but not succeeding, so far) in being able to cross from one timeline to another. This is very dangerous magic, as it can potentially alter time to the point where entire people, places, cultures and species disappear. He is fairly certain that Future Fox somehow managed to create a workable spell (hence the displaced person his doorstep), but he has not been able yet to do so himself.

PERSONALITY: CURIOSITY AND DRIVE: Fox's primary motivation always boils down to his insatiable curiosity. There is nothing more interesting in the world to him than discovering new methods of magic, or new ways to combine old ones. He is easily bored, requiring constant stimulation, and because of his obsession with magic, that stimulation better be magic related or it won't hold his interest for very long. He's very passionate about his interests, happy to launch into a TED talk about them at a moments notice. He is constantly moving, unable to sit still unless he's deep in his work and has his mind fully occupied. Because of his intense obsession, he isn't able to hold down a regular job most of the time, because it would limit his ability to research new things to his heart's content. Instead, he tends to make money through selling enchanted objects, but even these are few and far between. He is, in reputation, the Banksy of the magic world.

HIGH INT, LOW WIS: Fox is incredibly smart, living up to his moniker by being "too clever by half". He is able to decode and unravel some of the most complicated arcane texts, bringing a savant's understanding even to documents that people have been trying to learn for centuries. However, his incredible capability in this avenue comes at a cost. He's basically useless at everything else. When it comes to reading people, it's guesswork at best, and basic things like feeding himself tend to get forgotten completely. He can build a magic array capable of renovating the inside of a building, and yet keeps burning the bottom out of his kettle out whenever he tries to boil water. He has difficulty seeing ulterior motives, or indeed much underneath the surface of what someone is saying, unless he knows them very very well. He has no real sense of tact, and will simply say what's on his mind rather than consider whether or not something he is saying is rude. That being said, he's generally of a cheerful demeanor, and tends not to think ill of people, so at least he's usually well-meaning.

IDEALISM AND NAIVETY: Fox is incredibly idealistic, with a strong moral sense - even if his morals don't necessarily line up with the rest of the world's. He believes that magic should be open access, that everyone should be able to learn and grow regardless of bloodline or belief, and that is part of why he goes out of his way to learn as much magic from as many avenues as possible, so he can then teach it to others. Or he would, if he would stop doing the searching first. He believes that all humans are inherently good, and this colours his entire view of the world, even and especially when he is proven directly wrong. It isn't that he hasn't seen the ugly side of humanity, or been the target of racism, aggression and derision. But he believes that the ugliness of humanity comes from ignorance, and that if only he could help enlighten everyone, those problems would also fade into obscurity. He thinks, essentially, that given the time and resources he could save the world from itself. But this is mostly just a coping mechanism for himself to stave off what would otherwise deeply depress and upset him, by deciding it doesn't matter as eventually he'll be able to fix it.

FRIENDLY AND LONELY: Fox loves people and loves making 'friends', but he keeps very few close ones. This isn't done on purpose, but rather his intense personality and obsession have a tendency to have people keep him at arm's length. Essentially, he's hilarious for a party or an evening out, but after seven days being around him he can get very wearying. This is something he is extremely attuned to, and he's always careful not to 'outstay his welcome'. He spends most of his life couch surfing, and he rotates through his gang and his friends about every 3-4 days, though sometimes he'll find a hook up at a club just to have a new place to sleep for the night. He has absolutely no body shame and treats sex as both an activity and a currency to get what he wants and needs, whether that be magic or a meal.

SAMPLE: TDM, Open RP Post

INVENTORY:
1. 1 set of enchanted clothing, including jacket, t-shirt, undershirt, pants, socks, and shoes. Clothing are all enchanted to be changed in small ways every day, as well as be self-cleaning and to smell like lemon balm and the air just after it snows.
2. 1 enchanted jade bracelet which makes the wearer extremely hard to notice/pay attention to. Acts a sort of stealth system where people just don't notice you.
3. 1 ancient Nokia flip phone, enchanted to not require batteries, and to work with any service system without him paying for it. Only allows voice and text.
4. 1 enchanted set of black jet earrings. If he taps them, they work like a noise cancelling headphones and silence the rest of the world around him.
5. 1 black hoodie with white patterns on the cuffs of the sleeves that is enchanted to cast the face in impenetrable shadow when the hood is pulled up. Two little lights the colours of the wearer's eyes can be seen.

NOTES: Uhhh... I don't think so. If you need me to nerf stuff, just let me know, but things like transfiguration and other high-reward spells require time and money, and he's also too stupid to do things like make gold. He would get bored after approximately one piece and wander off.
corvis: (Default)

gilbert nightray | pandora hearts

[personal profile] corvis 2021-05-12 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
PLAYER NAME: seiko
CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] bladeworks
INVITE STATUS: I was recruited by Lone Sheep!

CHARACTER: Gilbert Nightray
CANON: Pandora Hearts
CANON POINT: Retrace 64

BACKGROUND: Gilbert Nightray @ Pandora Hearts Wiki

ABILITIES | POWERS:
    skills:
      Marksmanship: Gilbert carries two revolvers that's he learned to use quite well.
      Basic(?) Hand-to-Hand: He at least seems to know how to punch someone. :|a
      Abnormal Pain/Injury Tolerance: Although Gilbert can be killed like any other human, he does have an abnormal resistance to being killed by regular attacks (aka: single sword swipes since that seems to be the only thing the mangaka cares to show). It's not superhuman, however, as he's perfectly capable of being killed if the onslaught is continued, however, it is worth noting that he's just a little more rugged than the average human.
      CHAIN: Rᴀᴠᴇɴ: Raven is Gilbert's chain, once contracted "legally" through Pandora's development of the usage of an item called a "Blood Mirror", but now re-contracted the proper (and only) way as a Baskerville is allowed. This means he has mark of an "illegal contractor" on his chest, but it lacks the clock hand that would normally rotate until coming full circle. Although he rarely ever uses Raven other than as a seal on B-Rabbit's power to prevent it from overwhelming Oz, in Retrace 55, he fully summons Raven in order to protect Xerxes Break from two of the Baskervilles. As suggested by its name, Raven is in the form an enormous eyeless ... raven :|a. It's known as one of the five Black-Winged Chains and is considered one of the strongest Chains known. Randomly, on an aesthetic note, whenever Raven uses its powers it leaves behind an array of black feathers.


    Raven's known abilities partially paraphrased from the wiki link above.
      # Illusions: Raven is able to create copies of huge birdlike eyes in the darkness that surrounds it, serving for imitation purposes of its victims. It's unknown if Raven can actually see through these eyes (as the Chain technically has no eyes itself) but that is probably the last thought through someone's mind who is unlucky enough to encounter this technique. Since it surrounds its victims with these illusions it also seems to have the ability to blend in and become one with the darkness it creates, making it impossible to identify the chain itself.

      # Teleportation: Raven has the ability to teleport individuals including both its contractor and others.

      # Sealing Powers: As mentioned in different points of this application, a technique that Raven is able to give its contractor is the ability to seal other contractor's chain's powers. He only performs this on Oz to prevent B-Rabbit and its powers from overwhelming Oz's body due to him being an illegal contractor, so it's unknown if this ability can also be performed on a legal contractor and their chain.

      # Pathway to the Abyss: As one of the Five Blackwinged Chains, Raven has the ability to open the pathway between Gilbert's world and that of the abyss. This is the main reason for Gilbert wanting to contract with Raven, intent on using this power to rescue Oz from the Abyss.

      # Offensive: Raven is able to produce blue flames as an offensive attack. Raven can also produce fire in general (his loose feathers left behind will burn anyone they touch without the chain present). Basically, it can burn through about anything.


    PERSONALITY:
    "I'VE GAINED A LOT DURING THE PAST FIFTEEN YEARS... ...AND I HAVE NO INTENTIONS TO GIVE THEM UP."


      As a fourteen-year-old we are introduced to Gilbert as a rather shy but kind individual. A bit of a cry-baby terrified by cats, he is completely and utterly devoted to his master, Oz Vessalius. Torn between the idea of being best friends with Oz (which he feels he doesn't deserve) and his servant, Gilbert is often lamenting or fretting over decisions and situations that clash the two in his mind.

      Gilbert's life as a child revolves around Oz and his personality and actions reflect this, breaking barriers in his character every so often for the young master. Even in his mold as a simple and kind child, the two of them treasure each other's presence and need little else in their lives until they're torn apart by Oz's banishment to the Abyss.

      Ten years later, in the current setting, Gilbert has gone through quite a bit that has cracked and remodeled his personality from his time as a child. In order to reach the possibility of getting Oz back into his life, he's willing to get his hands dirty within the shadows of the Nightray Household and their duties within the Four Dukedoms. He acts cold and distant, even towards Oz when the boy initially wakes up after being returned from the Abyss. However, we see that most of it is a facade, especially with Oz. Once the truth of his identity is revealed to Oz and he admits to wanting to still serve the Vessalius heir despite now being part of the Nightray Household, his cold and distant attitude becomes extremely protective (maybe even overprotective). He can be harsh with the other but it's out of care and concern, worried about Oz's (unchanged) outlook on things (particularly of himself) and how oblivious he seems to be on what fate ultimately has in store for him.

      At times, Gilbert can still be seen as his fourteen-year-old self, crying easily when drunk and calling Oz "Young Master" (for the most part, despite being his servant, he simply calls Oz "Oz" when addressing him, although refers to him as "my master" from time to time when discussing him with others, such as Alice). For Oz, it's an extra comfort to know that deep down Gilbert is still the same person he knew before being dropped into the Abyss. Despite ten years of trials and hardships, Gilbert has still managed to retain a part of himself that even he himself thought that he had lost as being familiar to Oz. Yet, Gilbert is still caring and kind, often acting as an older brother of sorts to both Oz and even Alice, the latter with whom he has an odd relationship with. Oz thinks that Gilbert has a soft spot for her, but it's currently unknown if it's true. It's known that he has a strong desire to kill her at one point in order to save Oz from the fate of being an illegal contractor.

      Gilbert holds a great amount of respect for his younger brother, Vincent Nightray, particularly because of his brother being extremely talented. Vincent's ability to surpass Gilbert's skills with a revolver that had taken him years in a matter of months is of particular highlight. It's also clear he cares for his younger brother, although to what level is unknown, particularly with recent chapters having them on opposing sides. However, when the two were much much younger (before Gilbert ever met Oz), it's shown that while Gilbert knew his life would be easier without Vincent if he had just left him alone to fend for himself, Gilbert was never able to do so.

      Now older, he also harbors an intense hatred for Zai Vessalius, Oz's father. It extends past the point of hatred, really, and also crosses into blatant disrespect for the Vessalius Household leader. He goes as far to shoot at the other when he makes an appearance before Oz, warning Zai to stay away from the boy. If not for Xerxes Break's intervention, the confrontation would have erupted into a battle between their chains (Zai's being Gryphon and Gilbert's being Raven). Zai well aware of Gilbert's desire to rid Oz of the person who has caused him the most pain. For Gilbert, it's also to rid himself of the man who is responsible for him losing Oz in the first place.


      Oz often teases Gilbert still, and Gilbert is easily riled up as a result. He also has a history of engaging in bickering (and sometimes physical) arguments with Alice, the two often disagreeing and fighting over their opinions while insulting each other. Oz never takes sides when it happens, often appearing oblivious, which just fuels the fire between the two of them (and more often than not it's for Oz's attention they fight).

      Gilbert, even as an adult, never gets over his fear of cats. This is revealed when Oz and Gilbert enter the realm of Chesire to go after Alice and Break, who have already been "captured" (or more like Break used Alice as bait to lure out Chesire for his own intentions).
      "Gil, what now? ...Huh?!"
      "Cat... I didn't know it was a cat..."
      "...Don't tell me that your cat phobia hasn't been cured? ...HEY, WAKE UP." - Oᴢ ᴀɴᴅ Gɪʟʙᴇʀᴛ, Rᴇᴛʀᴀᴄᴇ 16, Pᴀɢᴇ 10

      As part of the Nightray family, Gilbert actually does hold some affection towards his youngest brother, Elliot Nightray, who is a pureblood Nightray, unlike he and Vincent. Vincent mentions in later chapters after a certain event happens that he thanks Elliot for being there otherwise Gilbert would never have ever been able to smile in the Nightray Household.

      Random facts include he is an amazing cook and, according to Xerxes Break, that he took up smoking because he idolizes Oscar Vessalius. Rufus Barma mentions that although he attempted to quit smoking eight times, he failed. The hat he always wears with his default outfit was given to him by Ada Vessalius and is very precious to him. It's important enough that when Oz loses it in the city, Gilbert drags both Oz and Alice to search for it. When it's found to be in the hands of some street thugs, Oz decides on them all having an arm-wrestling match for who has rightful possession of the hat.


      SAMPLE: Distraught.

      It was a good way to describe him, what with the back of his hand over his forehead staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling to the room he'd been placed in. In the dim lighting there wasn't much to look at to begin with, but the dire situation only made things worse. Everywhere he looked around him he saw things that weren't there—faces of people that weren't around. ...Oz...

      The words from the mouths of others in the same situation (and had been longer... longer than he would have liked to know this sort of thing could be going on for) played over and over within his mind, pressing and pushing against the barriers of believability. The explanation was to the point of being ludicrous, there being absolutely no way that he could have been where he was before only to end up where he was now. Even being swallowed by Raven's darkness provided little comfort in shedding light on what had happened— this place was impossibly foreign, no matter how he tried to look at it. He can't think of anything except a few small patches of places he could hyper-focus on and convince himself he has seen something similar in his lifetime.

      Which meant... what? What was he supposed to believe, supposed to suddenly accept here as facts? (—he didn't even know anyone here! They could just as well all being lying as they could be telling the truth—) That he'd been transported through time again (space, too, that wasn't connected to the Abyss? (-or was it?-) Somehow fallen into the abyss and emerged at a later date that rendered any familiarities completely gone?

      (—no no no almost anything but that, Oz couldn't be gone, couldn't be out of his reach and if he'd gone through time via the abyss there would be no way of getting back—)?

      He didn't want to think of it as a possibility. That only left him with one other explanation and that was another world; but that sounded more ridiculous and less likely than falling through time (again), didn't it?

      Gilbert supposed he would eventually have to ask, eventually have to find out through information exactly which, if either, was the case. Eventually, he would have to trust someone's story.

      ( Anything, he could handle anything as long as there was a shot in the dark that he could return to the time he had been in—the world he'd been in if necessary——in order to remain by his master's side. If that was possible, even the slightest bit so, Gilbert could persevere. That included trusting people he had no idea about.)

      But, for now, he was left to his lonely thoughts, trying to make sense of words and descriptions he didn't remember. They'd found him at sea, and judging from the chill that still rattled through down to the core of his bones, he didn't doubt that that was what happened. He remembered coughing up water, choking on it and gasping for the very air around him before everything blurred back into blackness (—but before that, he remembered someone—). With a lack of explanation of what he had been doing out there, the ship occupants had announced he must have had amnesia.

      Nothing could have been further from the truth, because Gilbert remembered everything and he knew he remembered everything that there was to remember and yet still nothing made sense...!

      He was pulled from his thoughts at the sound of someone entering his vicinity Gilbert slowly lowered his gaze to make eye contact with the individual who was now present. Did they know something? Or were they simply letting curiosity get the best of them?

      Gilbert stared a moment longer in complete silence, waiting for the other to say something before he closed his own eyes and shifted his head away and off to the side. It wasn't clear if spite over being bothered again (there was someone else at some point, too, or was this the same person?) or frustration at the entire situation provoked his actions. There was, after all, quite a bit to be irritated about.

      If any of the others that were part of this strange... group... or whatever wanted to say something, then so be it, but Gilbert was currently in no mood to be the conversation starter. His head was still swimming—no pun intended.


    INVENTORY:
      Two revolvers (fully loaded) [I'm honestly not sure if he's carrying two at the canon point he's being taken from, though, so if he can only bring one, that's okay, too.], a half-full cigarette case, and his Chain (Raven). Am totally ready to work with mod to properly keep Raven from pulling anything overpowered and etc.

    NOTES: I THINK... I'm good.
Edited (Sorry fitting into one comment more time consuming than I thought x_x) 2021-05-12 01:59 (UTC)
quia: DNT. (Default)

ery ( original character )

[personal profile] quia 2021-05-21 12:49 am (UTC)(link)
- reapp of Eryfel
- bringing her in as new
Edited 2021-05-21 00:51 (UTC)
lancifolium: (pic#14925035)

lily evans (wizarding world) 1/2

[personal profile] lancifolium 2021-06-02 03:59 pm (UTC)(link)
PLAYER NAME: Chel
CONTACT: PM
INVITE STATUS: the ol' modly green light

CHARACTER: Lily Evans
CANON: The Wizarding World
CANON POINT: Immediately after stepping off the Hogwarts Express for the last time at the end of seventh year, 1978.

BACKGROUND:
Born to unmagical parents in an even less magical place, Lily Evans began trailing after her older sister Petunia just as soon as she figured out how to walk. In a working-class town like Cokeworth, there wasn’t much to do beyond whatever it was Petunia was doing and so the Evans sisters kept to themselves, becoming a fixture at myriad woodland tea parties and the reading room of their local library, where Lily swiftly gained a love for just about any book she got her hands on.

Some of her earliest memories were of sending blades of grass propelling across the lawn, watching as they lifted off from between her fingers with just a thought’s worth of effort. When she was four and fell down the stairs and every lightbulb in the house stopped working - it was something of a bizarre coincidence for Harold and June Evans who had no idea that it was very common for young witches and wizards to unwittingly use magic in times of great duress.

It was the boy from Spinner’s End that spelled doom for the contentment between the girls from Cokeworth. Well, him and the way Petunia reacted when Lily finally gathered enough courage to share with her some of the inexplicably strange things she could do. Where Petunia was grounded, Lily was idealistic, though she tried her best to tamp down her more fanciful notions for the sake of sparing herself Petunia’s dismissal.

She had believed that the flowers would be the thing to impress her older sister and prove to her that not everything unusual was wrong. To her dismay, (but not to her surprise) the moment Lily showed Petunia the way she could make the delicate wildflowers that grew around their home lift off her palm and hover spinning in the air, her older sister recoiled in anger and called her a freak.

Severus Snape, the odd boy in the shabby clothes from the poorer part of town didn’t think Lily was a freak at all, in fact, he thought quite the contrary. In her friendship with Severus Lily found someone she didn’t need to pretend around. Whether he agreed with them or not, she could share every odd thought and the strange new things she found herself able to do without fear of dismissal, or worse - rejection. It was the boy from Spinner’s End who first told Lily about Hogwarts - about who she was, and what she was capable of becoming once her acceptance letter came.

The moment that it did, nothing was ever the same with Petunia - something that still hurts if she lets herself dwell - and things changed with her parents as well. Harold and June Evans had never thought themselves the sort of people who’d have something as uncanny as a witch in the family, and they couldn’t have been happier. The praise and excitement her parents lavished on her only made the resentment and disdain her sister had for her worse, and by the time it came for Lily to begin her first year of school she couldn’t wait to leave.

For Lily, attending Hogwarts was akin to being handed the moons of Barsoom and the Pyramid of Cheops on a silver platter. Every story she had adored that Petunia turned her nose up and deemed ridiculous was suddenly validated as the world revealed itself to be more full of wonder than she had imagined it actually could be.

The moment she received her schedule of classes on that first day of school, nothing could stop Lily Evans. The life of a witch, of a member of magical society, meant paths she didn’t believe existed, were open to her, and the world couldn’t go back to being the same size it was.

School was not without its pitfalls, and though she did brilliantly in her classes - showing the kind of enthusiasm and cleverness that makes for the sort of pupil that kept their professors on their toes - there was a division among the student body she hadn’t been aware of before her arrival. For those coming from magical families, the rift between Pure Blooded wizards, whose lineage showed exclusively magical folk, and everyone else had existed, peripherally for some, and far more vividly for others. For Lily it was a new concept that Severus was quick to enlighten her on, having surrounded himself with people who had a lot to say on the matter.

That festering rift in magical society made itself apparent in subtle ways at first; Horace Slughorn, one of Lily’s favorite professors making passing remarks about how her talent for Potions could make a person forget she wasn’t pure-blooded, the gaggle of miscreants Severus chose to associate with making sniggering remarks under their breath whenever she, or another student lacking their desired pedigree passed by became more and more common as the years went by.

The whole thing seemed foolish - she was as capable as anyone else among her fellow students, and while a good portion of her peers felt the same way as she did, that unsettlingly adamant swath of those who felt differently grew more brazen and more sinister in their actions as time passed. It wasn’t uncommon for fights or pranks to leave students injured or ashamed as two sides of a silly debate, inflamed with all the bluster being young can galvanize a person with entered what felt like a perpetual tug-of-war to Lily.

Those who elected to be overt, either in their prejudices or the revulsion being exposed to said prejudices can evoke in a person, weren’t above humiliating other students, and while the fondness Lily’s professors had for her helped keep her spared from such cruelties, Severus could not say the same for himself. Even though she didn’t agree with a goodly portion of Severus’s new fascinations, Lily stuck by her friend, much to the chagrin and ridicule of some of the students in her house. One student in her year, James Potter, seemed particularly disdainful of the friendship Lily and Severus had and invested more time than Lily wished he would in disparaging Severus and trying to catch her eye. Not one for the appeal of arrogance, and disgusted by the way James and members of his inner circle pranked first and asked questions later, she was swift to add rebuffing him to the laundry list of tasks she filled her days with.

There was something to be said for having a family that was removed from wizarding society. During the school year Lily stayed engrossed in the classes she was taking, devouring books in the library, and finding quiet private spaces to practice the magic she was learning in class (along with more advanced magic, some devised by Severus himself, like The Muffliato Charm). When she was back in Cokeworth, however, Lily could be just another girl home for the summer holiday.

Away from Hogwarts, there was still contention though at home it came from Petunia and the small cluster of mean girls she cultivated while her younger sister was away at school. For the sake of avoiding the inevitable spat, Lily was usually locked in her room with stacks of fantasy novels and the occasional trashy romance, accompanied by the stack of records she couldn’t wait to return home from school to play (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars a particular favorite, but then what girl her age wasn’t daydreaming about being Lady Stardust?). There were enough diversions that Lily could forget about the mounting tension back at school, and affecting the wizarding world at large.

Until she couldn’t, until her oldest friend turned on her, blurting out hurtful, hateful things that people who care about one another have no business saying to each other. He had been humiliated by James and his clique spectacularly, and while Lily empathized deeply with how much pain the years of bullying brought Severus, she could no longer pretend that the terrible things he himself was spouting were a meaningless way for him to vent, and just a product of the people he surrounded himself with. He had left her with no choice but to believe that he meant everything he said, and the pain of losing her best friend hovered over her like a stormcloud for the next two years.

Lily found herself easily caught up in the side that chose dissent against blood purism. As her time as a student wound down to a close, she spent less time with herself, and more time involved with those in the student body who believed that regardless of magical lineage, everyone deserved to be treated the same.

Once, she believed that after Hogwarts the world would be hers to explore and learn from - wanting nothing more than apprenticeships in exotic locales with the authors of the books she spent every term borrowing from the school’s tremendous library, but the world around her was too close to the brink of war to hide behind a book anymore.

In her last year of school, she became Head Girl which bore all the prestige someone who had worked as tirelessly as Lily had craved and the unfortunate caveat of having to deal with that year’s Head Boy - James Potter. It took months of amiable cajoling to get her to regard him with anything but brusqueness, something James had gotten used to receiving from Lily. Enough evenings spent making rounds together gave him the chance to turn that dry disregard into conversation, and eventually, a few dates as her final year at school came to an end, with the promise to write, and maybe see one another over the summer.

This was a period of great change for Lily Evans and wizarding society on the whole. Voldemort - the figurehead of the purist movement was on the brink of declaring war on the rest of magical society, while whispers of a mounting resistance movement resounded with Lily. She only wished setting down all those other dreams in favor of doing the right thing didn’t have to be quite so painful.

ABILITIES | POWERS: Lily has been a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the last seven years and ended her academic career as Head Girl and among the top students. She has a particularly strong grasp on:

Potions: Described as subtle science, Potion making is the study of combining ingredients in a cauldron to create elixirs that must be consumed for their effects to be felt. Potions can be made for a multitude of reasons such as healing or doing someone harm, changing one's appearance, and inducing sleep among others.

Charms: The magical discipline focused on making objects adapt properties they would not normally have. Summoning an object from across a room, unlocking or locking a door, and causing a person to be unable to make noise are among the Charms students learn at Hogwarts. Due to Charms being a discipline that serves as something of an umbrella for spells that do not fit into other areas, and for the sake of brevity, a more comprehensive explanation of Charms including a list can be found here.

Transfiguration: The area of magic concerned with taking something and changing it into something else, Transfiguration is among the more complicated, and difficult areas of magic to learn. Using Transfiguration, a witch can change things, both inanimate and live into other things, some examples of this include changing rats into water goblets, disguising a person as a bone, or a chair, or changing the features of a person or animal's body (ie, elongating the ears into rabbit ears, or changing the color of someone's hair).

Beyond these subjects, Lily has also studied Divination, Herbology, and Arithmancy, and while knowledgeable on these subjects, does not possess the natural flair for them as strongly as she does for the ones detailed above.

Apart from magic Lily's abilities are limited but as a teenage girl in the late 1970s, she is absolutely terrific at rollerskating.
sergeant_slick: A gun is being held to the back of Slick's neck, and he's sneering in defiance. (Default)

Sergeant Slick | Star Wars

[personal profile] sergeant_slick 2021-06-02 10:52 pm (UTC)(link)
PLAYER NAME: Spider
CONTACT: Plurk @ [plurk.com profile] PaleAntiquarian, Discord @ CellarSpider#9984, personal journal @ [personal profile] cellarspider
INVITE STATUS: Nudged towards the game by Britt, player of Lee Chang ([personal profile] jeoha).

CHARACTER: Slick
CANON: Star Wars (The Clone Wars)
CANON POINT: The end of The Clone Wars Season 1, Episode 16: The Hidden Enemy

BACKGROUND: Clonetroopers were a made-to-order miracle for the Republic, providing a bulwark against the droid armies of the Separatist movement. Commanded by Jedi on the battlefield, they were instilled with a sense of loyalty and a desire to excel at the job they were made for.

And they were also genetically altered to age at double-speed, conditioned from artificial birth to never question their lot in life, and sent to die in numbers uncounted under the command of a religious order that had no military experience. Clones were slaves, watched over by telepathic overseers. Their self-expression was limited to a few sad little displays of personal autonomy: Choosing a hairstyle. Tattoos. A name.

The sergeant that called himself Slick seemed a model soldier, well-liked by others and effective in carrying out his duties. But secretly, he hated it all. He wanted freedom, and nobody else around him agreed or even understood the concept. And so, desperate to escape, he reached out to the Separatists.

Asaj Ventress offered him money in exchange for information, but that wasn't his priority. He wanted freedom, and she promised that could happen. Whether she ever intended to live up to that promise is unclear, but Slick started feeding information to the Separatists via disguised transmissions, and spying on his Jedi generals.

After the Separatists used Slick's intel to out-maneuver a Republic ambush on the planet Christophsis, it became clear to the Jedi that they had a spy in their midst. They left to seek information behind enemy lines, while clone officers Rex and Cody stayed on-base to investigate. Slick overheard their plans via an open commlink and passed the information to Ventress, but the officers noticed the eavesdropping and were soon able to deduce that the spy they were hunting was a clone like them.

Rex and Cody traced Slick's transmissions back to his unit's barracks, where they questioned the soldiers in his unit. Slick attempted to implicate one of his men, but accidentally let slip information he shouldn't have known in the process. His cover blown, he attacked the others and fled. He tried and failed to kill the officers by sabotaging the base's gunships, and eventually found his way into the vents of the command center.

Rex and Cody baited him out, eventually overpowering him and placing him in handcuffs, taking him to the Jedi upon their return to base. Slick railed against them, but nothing more could be done. He was taken away and never seen again.

ABILITIES | POWERS: Slick was trained from birth to be a soldier, and has a knack for fighting dirty and hand-to-hand combat, fending off Rex and Cody in a two-on-one fight until he was baited into a bad position. His metabolism likely runs a little faster than standard humans, due to his double-speed aging. This may mean he heals a little faster than average, but also needs more food.

PERSONALITY: Each episode of The Clone Wars starts with a moral. Slick's feature episode begins with "Truth enlightens the mind, but won't always bring happiness to your heart." While this seems to have been intended by the writers as alluding to the feelings of others regarding Slick's actions, it is very appropriate for Slick himself. He looked beyond his loyalty conditioning, and what he saw drove him to commit terrible acts.

Slick is deviant from the clone trooper norm, and he hid it well. A gift for lying or a desire for self expression wasn't unheard of among clones, but few took these traits to his extent. All clones are conditioned by genetic manipulation and nine or ten years of propaganda before they're sent out as fully-grown soldiers, who've known nothing else in their life. In this context, Slick's behavior is exceptional.

While he was uncommonly skilled at manipulation and subterfuge for a clone, this is a relative statement. Slick made some grave errors and likely would've been caught earlier if the idea of a clone traitor wasn't so unthinkable. If he ends up lying to someone who doesn't have that context, he'll likely be found out.

In the clone army, Slick seemed to be trusted by others in his chain of command, and was a quick thinker. But he considered their lives to be an unconscionable act of Republic hypocrisy, and fighting for that was dishonorable.

His actions hurt and killed other clones, something he justified as part of his struggle for freedom. Not just for himself, but all clones, which was worth sacrificing for. He professed to love his brothers, and blamed the Jedi for their enslavement. They used supernatural powers and authority to enforce an unjust system, and he hated them for it.

When cornered, Slick fights dirty, and will not hesitate to take actions that could maim or kill others, no matter who they are. Much of his actions appear to have been driven by desperation, which left him open to manipulation by Ventress and willing to do the unthinkable. Despite his lack of restraint, he's not especially strategic about it--when pressed on his beliefs, he may be prone to outbursts or lose focus on important details of his surroundings. This was ultimately what got him captured.

SAMPLE: An Eastbound voice test for Slick can be found here!

INVENTORY: Standard clonetrooper armor, no helmet, no guns, no utility belt. Boots can be magnetized and contain a "grav-field alternator" which the wiki does not explain beyond permitting greater stability, most likely in low- and zero-G operations.

NOTES: No notes! Slick needs no special accommodations, and he's not a copy of anyone. Well, at least not in a way that matters for the game.
royal_venant: (Default)

Regulus Black | Harry Potter

[personal profile] royal_venant 2021-06-02 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
PLAYER NAME: Ryah
CONTACT: plurk: whoiamwithoutyou | discord: whoiamwithoutyou#4048 | email: whoiamwithoutyou83@gmail.com
INVITE STATUS: Chel invited me
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: I heard about it through Chel

CHARACTER: Regulus Arcturus Black
CANON: Harry Potter
CANON POINT: Post death

BACKGROUND: Walburga Black was a most unkind woman. Orion Black, her husband, distant and emotionally cold himself, did not care so long as she directed her attentions on anything but him. Their arrangement worked fine for them; however, it wreaked havoc on their two sons, Sirius and Regulus.

Regulus Black was born July 23rd, 1961 and, like his brother before him, was immediately placed in the care of the house-elves for looking after. And because of that, they, fortunately, did not die in infancy. Such was the (minimal) affection Walburga had for her children. Regulus grew up knowing who his parents were, his connection to them, what deference he had to pay to each, but caring more for the welfare of the house-elves than for either of his parents.

For as long as young Regulus could remember, he was attached to his brother, but squarely in Sirius’ shadow. Sirius was loud, whereas Regulus was quiet, and while Sirius was brave and bold, Regulus was reserved and acquiescing. Naturally, Regulus thought Sirius, by virtue of being older and so much more outgoing, was wise and worthy of his admiration. And so, Regulus followed his brother’s lead during their youth before Hogwarts. When Sirius thought up wild and impossible things to do, Regulus would comply with his brother’s ideas and wishes with surprising alacrity and innovation. Their playtime became their sanctuary from their mother’s anger and their father’s indifference.

Their relationship, however, wasn't without problems. It was easy for anyone to see Walburga favored her youngest son. And Orion did nothing to stop his wife's favoritism. Perhaps it was because Sirius was much like a firebrand, burning hot always and ready to ignite. And Regulus, on the other hand, was passive and still; but when in motion, accommodating, following the path of least resistance, like water. Regulus found it unnecessary to fight against their parents or the tutors their parents hired to teach them a basic education before Hogwarts (reading, writing, mathematics, the French language, and proper pureblood etiquette). Because the adults always won. Always. Or perhaps Regulus won Walburga's favor because he was just so much more malleable than Sirius. Regulus was quicker to tell his parents what they wanted to hear, quicker to learn when to not say anything at all. It was easier for him to not fight, than it was to fight, like his brother did.

That isn’t to say Walburga didn’t abuse Regulus, too, but her treatment towards her younger son was undeniably less severe than her treatment towards Sirius. Regulus was clearly the Golden Child, even if, when Walburga went off, anyone in her path would be her victim. Either way, Walburga was so apparent in this behavior (and Orion so absent and distant as a father) the boys noticed – how could Sirius not notice? And the effect of this disparity tended to pop up from time to time in the form of arguments and fights between the brothers. Though the boys usually made up quickly, as they needed an ally in that house. It was foolish to give that up for long. They had no one else but each other.

And so things went until they were old enough to go to Hogwarts, school of magic.

When Sirius went away to Hogwarts, he was sorted into the "wrong" house - Gryffindor. At that time, Regulus had few qualms about where his brother went, simply because, well, it was Sirius, his brother. The sorting was surprising, for sure. And ostensibly, Regulus understood that Slytherin was the better - or required – house. But at that age, Regulus simply accepted that his older brother was in a different house. And at first, he found the idiotic way his mother carried on about how this tarnished the family name to be entertaining, something he only relayed to his brother through the scant few letters exchanged that year.

But the novelty of Walburga’s indignation wore off relatively quickly when it became apparent to Regulus that he would now bear the brunt of her rage and abuse at every encounter while Sirius was away. It wasn’t until Sirius was gone that Regulus saw how much having Sirius around mitigated the threat of Walburga. Her cruelty was too much for one little boy to handle on his own, and Regulus found himself giving in more and more to his mother’s ways. Walburga had tried her hardest to instill in her boys the rightness of blood purity, but while Sirius had been around it was as if her teachings fell on deaf ears. Alone, however, Regulus crumbled. He learned quickly that if he just stayed quiet when his mother was in a rage, or if he just said what she wanted to hear, the quicker it was over.

Interestingly enough, during this same period that Regulus began to be indoctrinated with purist ideology, he also started developing an interesting kind of empathy. Before now, the house-elves were just the "help" that he and Sirius ignored because they got in the way of play time or seemed to be extensions of their parents. But Regulus started noticing them now. It was an organic development, difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when the relationship between Regulus and the house-elves shifted, but slowly, that year, Regulus learned that if he was kind to the house-elves, they were kind to him in turn. And as he helped buffer them against his mother, in the small ways a ten year old could, they did the same for him, in the small ways house-elves could. With his father distant and cold as ever, Regulus' only allies during this period were the house-elves.

When Sirius came back for the summer holiday, Walburga made a point of showing even more favoritism to Regulus. And by then, Regulus had started parroting things their parents would say. Here, the fissures in the brothers’ relationship started spreading. Sirius would tell Regulus off for saying despicable things, but Regulus didn't understand why because he was just saying what everyone in their family was saying. And for the first time, Regulus was jealous of Sirius – Sirius had had all these adventures with new friends, and he talked about them constantly. It seemed as if there was no room in Sirius’ life for Regulus anymore.

That summer was awkward for the two brothers, who knew things had changed between them but they just didn’t know why, or how to fix it.

That fall, the two brothers left for Hogwarts, stepping forward onto different paths.

The whole trip from the Hogsmeade station to the school was one stressful ordeal after the other for Regulus. School, while it was said to be amazing, was still far away from "home," and Regulus had never been away from his family before. Hagrid was huge and looming, and not nearly as endearing to Regulus as he was to Sirius. Once inside the Great Hall, Regulus tried to catch his brother’s eye and wave, but Sirius was too engrossed in what James was saying to look. This only disheartened Regulus more. When the hat was placed on his head, he had a choice: please his terrifying mother or his fast-becoming-distant brother. Regulus chose to mollify the scarier of the two and took his seat on the opposite side of the Hall from his brother, at the Slytherin House table. Regulus mouthed a silent apology, but Sirius, who was now finally paying attention, understood the act to be one of treason and silently declared war.

Walburga was delighted at Regulus’ sorting and took full advantage of the situation, redoubling her efforts to raise at least one "good" son. She sent Howlers to the "disappointment" and treats and encouragement to the son she was proud of. This just made things worse between the brothers. There was no patching things between the brothers now.

While the start of school was a bit rocky, navigating a new relationship with his brother and all, Regulus soon found his place amongst his Housemates. He caught the eye of Professor Slughorn right away, due far more to his lineage than his disappointing potions abilities. But it was enough to be inducted into the Slugclub. (Later, Regulus would prove his scholastic aptitude in other subjects and thus maintain his place in Slughorn’s honored group.) Naturally curious, he thought most of his classes were intriguing. He found the kitchens right away and made friends and allies with the House-elves, thus always having a safe haven at school, and plenty of treats on his plate at mealtimes, or even in between. In his second year, Narcissa (who, previous to now, had a reputation to maintain and couldn’t take him on sooner due to his First Year newness) took her young, promising cousin under her wing and proudly showed him off to all the “right” people. This chilly closeness would last the remainder of Regulus’ life and would endear Cissa to Regulus as his favorite family member. He also, as the years progressed, formed friendships with his house-mates his age - Barty Crouch Jr. and Evan Rosier. And also with Severus Snape, even though the other boy was a year older. Theirs was a relationship that perhaps started due to their mutual dislike of Sirius.

It wasn’t long before Regulus was rather popular in his own right. Most subjects were a breeze for him, save for the ones he didn’t care about, primarily potions and divination being among the latter category. He was a rising star in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. He earned very respectable scores in Charms, Transfiguration, and Astronomy. One could say he had an uncanny ability in the Dark Arts, or the defense of them, as they were taught in Hogwarts. And he really enjoyed Care of Magical Creatures (which his mother forced him to drop after O.W.L.s because it wasn't necessary for his already proscribed life after Hogwarts). He tried out for and made the Quidditch team his third year, landing the position of Seeker. No need to lie, Sirius did get the better looks, but Regulus wasn't far behind and he had a smile that was disarming. He was a member of one of the most pureblood, richest magical families in all of England, and that bolstered a charisma all its own. He learned to move with the ease of privilege. The further he fell into his social circle, the easier it was to start espousing the rhetoric and propaganda that Slytherins, and outside of school, the Death Eaters, were infamous for. There were pureblood wizards, and then there was everyone else. And Regulus was the poster child for all things magically pure. A certain notoriety was bestowed upon him, and he readily accepted the mantle. He lapped up the attention and bought into the ideology without reservation. It was all but official that he would one day join that special organization of those trying to return witches and wizards to their rightful place in the world. His mother was so proud.

Regulus never really got into trouble at school. This was due primarily because of his mother - even in Howler form she was terrifying. A few of those from her in his first year and Regulus learned to be cunningly subtle about rule breaking. One didn't need to be bombastic in their adventures outside the lines of right and wrong. This was where he learned the power of decpetion and decite. If his mother never knew what he was doing, she couldn't chastise him for it. Regulus also never really felt compelled to be an outright bully, like some others in Slytherin House. Sure, once in a while he'd pick on a student, to keep up appearances, or - more usually - because the other student annoyed him in that moment (this is, essentially high school, after all). But a pattern of being openly hostile and cruel wasn't his brand. Thanks to his mother, Regulus understood the importance of subtlety a little more clearly than others in his house. And he'd learned by now that position was power. He tended more towards using his popularity and high societal status as a weapon or a largesse: cross him and he could ruin you, gain his favor and he could make you. And he'd much rather liked people owing him favors than be the one handing out punishments. Honey attracts more flies than vinegar, as the saying goes, and it was much easier, not as exhausting. Though of course, with him, there was a purist taint to his generosity, he clearly favored others who fit in with the movement more than anyone else at school. The Hogwarts house-elves were one glaring exception to this rule, though usually no one noticed his kindness towards the elves because usually no one noticed the elves to begin with.

His brother’s leaving Grimmauld Place hit Regulus hard. Regulus was 14, almost 15 that summer. He and Sirius had not gotten along for four years at that point; their views on the world had drastically diverged from the innocent playtime of boys in the back garden. But Sirius was still his brother, had still endured in that house with him. Now Regulus was completely alone. And Regulus resented Sirius for leaving him there. The last conversation they ever had, rife with insults and pointed jabs, was the day before Sirius left. After that, they might have hexed or jinxed each other at school, they might have shouted insults at each other, but they weren’t, thanks to a burn on a tapestry, "brothers" anymore.
conjurechaos: (glassware)

Yennefer of Vengerberg | Netflix Presents The Witcher

[personal profile] conjurechaos 2021-06-05 04:25 am (UTC)(link)
PLAYER NAME: Molly 
CONTACT: plurk: mollypocket
INVITE STATUS: Lovingly nudged by a modly~~

CHARACTER:  Yennefer of Vengerberg
CANON: Netflix Presents The Witcher
CANON POINT: After setting fire to the Nilfgaardian forces at the battle of Sodden Hill in the final episode of season 1.

BACKGROUND: I fake so real, I am beyond fake. And someday, you will ache like I ache

ABILITIES | POWERS: Yennefer of Vengerberg is a powerful and clever sorceress of the Continent. The way that magic works, it exists all around in untapped, untamed forms that is called chaos. She can draw power from the elements (fire, wind, water, air) and redistribute it to her design. This can be physically taxing in large capacity like.... laying waste to a huge field of enemies by channeling all the fire from their onslaught right back at them. After such an attack, Yennefer passes out when there is no more fire to expel or draw from. The system hinges on give and take. Spells, charms and hexes will only last as the duration of what energy is placed into it, that energy being concentration, emotion, actual sapped essence of life. Some spells are channeled through incantations like Elder Speech and undone with another word or gesture to release.

Her specific specialty is making portals which will likely be out of commission at long distances in game because she would have to have an idea of where she is and where she wants to go. There are many tragic portal accidents that give them a bad reputation in canon and being such a prideful woman, she would not want to go perpetuating that stigma.
 
Studying at Aretuza Academy of Magic gave Yennefer a grasp of potions and chemistry. The institution's purpose was to make sorceresses to aid kings, queens and lords of the realm for the betterment of their people. She can make narcotics, medicines and fertility remedies pulled from experiences. On a visit back to her old alma mater, she got some of the young novices high by mixing herbs and showing them colors they've never seen. She helped a May-December couple get their groove back in exchange for coinage. Her healing abilities were also used by the Witcher to heal his djinn hexed friend Jaskier.

There is a metal that exists on the Continent that is abstracted from meteor pieces. It's called demetrium. Many humans and those not friendly to magic users have fashioned powders, shackles and weapons out of it. Yennefer cannot properly cast spells if she is shackled. 

PERSONALITY: Yennefer has the face of a beautiful young woman but the heart and mind of an eighty year old. Age has made her even more stubborn and shrewd than the pig farmer's hunchbacked daughter that tried to still do manual labor. She could do the work! She just had to try harder. Once her mind is made up, she is going to pursue her desire to the fullest. That was how she became a powerful sorceress, through perseverance and constant effort. She didn't stop there. Finding work in court to be unsatisfactory. Pouring over tomes and spells at Aretuza had given her hopes of serving the realm in royal courts among lords and ladies, of helping people in need as she had been and becoming important, valuable through that. What she got instead was a chance to hide royal affairs, menace enemies and have her sound advice ignored. She chose to abandon being a court mage than to waste her time and talents.
 
Her own stubbornness has also been a hindrance. She was so ready to give up her fertility as to be made over with magic, to be beautiful that she didn't consider what it would mean to her later in life. Believing that Jaskier was the master of the djinn she was willing to risk her life if it meant a chance to be able to harness it's strength to restore her. If it wasn't for the blasted Witcher, perhaps she would have died. Yennefer is willing to compromise her comfort if it means getting her way. She will happily play doting, lady-like and flirty to an annoying knight if it means that he will gift her with money and resources. 

Starting life with a physical disability while living in poverty as well as having to be quiet about her quarter-elf heritage left her feeling alone, unwanted and insignificant. Ambition alone had brought her notoriety which was not satisfying. Restoring her fertility has been a quest to make herself whole, to restore her chance to create life. Magic, her use of it, is just restructuring what is already there. Nothing she made herself. Having a child would at least be a way to ensure a legacy beyond her suffering, family and love. Her fondest wish is to be important to someone, she confessed this much to Geralt during their rendezvous during the dragon hunt. The choice of words, importance is vital because it isn't just love, and from what she knows of it love has been a fleeting emotion. She loved her family and thought they loved her to be sold to the archmistress Tissaia de Vries.
  
SAMPLE: lilac and gooseberries, bitter and sweet
 
INVENTORY: 
1 Impractical battle dress made of rope
2 necklace with an obsidian stone 
NOTES: Let's make some magic!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO?
May I please have a plot-light intro to get the hang of things?
rumorate: (16)

allison hargreeves | the umbrella academy (show)

[personal profile] rumorate 2021-07-01 12:05 am (UTC)(link)
PLAYER NAME: Emily
CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] iluvroadrunner6 | iluvroadrunner6#1178 | [personal profile] iluvroadrunner6 | iluvroadrunner6@gmail.com
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Sheep sent me.

CHARACTER: Allison Hargreeves
CANON: The Umbrella Academy (show)
CANON POINT: End of S2, before they arrive back in 2019

BACKGROUND: A wiki page

ABILITIES | POWERS:
In terms of abilities, Allison is trained in various forms of combat, as part of her growing up in the Umbrella Academy. As a child with an active power, she was conditioned to be a superhero by her father and still can handle herself pretty well in a fight. She also is a professional actress, so she is both very charismatic and a good liar.

However, for her actual powers, this is where things get dicey. Allison can somewhat bend reality to her whim. All she has to do is say the words “I heard a rumor…” and supply the way she wants to alter reality. For example, “I heard a rumor you punched yourself in the face” which subsequently led to her brother punching himself in the face. These are very mature siblings. That being said, there are hints that Allison could do more with her abilities. Should she choose to unleash them fully, she could even go so far as to blow some minds, literally. For shorthand’s sake, this ability will be referred to as “rumoring.”

Allison rarely likes to go around rumoring people unless absolutely necessary (there will be a permission post and what not), and I as a player, have no intention of breaking the game. Obviously she cannot rumor herself home, but if you’d also like to add NPC immunity or something similar, I’m totally fine with that! Just let me know.


PERSONALITY:
Allison may be the most well-adjusted of the Hargreeves children. But in all honestly, that’s a very low bar to clear.

Given that they were all raised by the same neglectful, hard-line father, Allison competed for her father’s attention, pushed herself to the limit and became the best little soldier she could be. That she came out of it with even a modicum of emotional intelligence is to be commended. Allison is one of the few members of the Hargreeves to form positive connections with the outside world and attempts to reason with their siblings and try to connect with them on an emotional level to mixed results. She is the one most likely to call them on their bullshit effectively, as well as look out for them to the best of her ability when she’s around.

That being said, Allison has not completely escaped her father’s damage, and has her own flaws and missteps for the way she deals with people. Initially narcissistic to a fault, Allison has a tendency to make things about her, be selfish about what she wants, and lie, both to other people and to herself. She constructs the life and relationships she wants for herself in her mind, pretends that things are okay, even when they’re not, and occasionally tries to force things that aren’t earned. And a lot of it comes down to her power.

The third in Reginald Hargreeves collection of superpowered children, Allison’s power, allows her to shape her world to her whim, and give her the attention she felt she deserved. When what you want is as few as five words away, earning things or building genuine relationships doesn’t come easily. Allison is all about instant gratification, even when she’s not being a superhero, having rumored her way to the heights of Hollywood. In the end, Hollywood, like most things for Allison, was about attention, wanting to be the focus of any room—something her father was never willing to give her. As she grew older, however, she saw the cracks in veneer she’s created for herself, and used her powers to where she lost her daughter and needed to attend family therapy in order to be part of her life.

It doesn’t help matters that from a young age, Reginald Hargreeves steered her to use her power to do away with things that were inconvenient. She’s the one responsible for making Vanya believe she didn’t have powers, as Reginald instructed Allison to rumor Vanya in order to keep her extremely powerful abilities at bay. This came back to bite her later, and particularly damaged her relationship with Vanya, when it came out that she had powers all along. Vanya lashed out at her sister, cutting her throat before Allison could use her powers on her again and nearly killed her. Still, Allison is self-aware enough that she recognized that this is something her hands aren’t clean in. While their brothers attempted to lock Vanya up, treat her like a weapon or something to be stopped, Allison was trying to save her, defending her sister’s actions, and wanting her to be free. She’s also the one who stopped Vanya without killing her, by blowing out one of her eardrums to affect the way she processes sound.

(This also…subsequently caused the end of the world, but she saved her sister. That counts for something, right?)

These powers haven’t shaped all of her relationships, though. Even though Luther is her brother, his attention and affection she’s never had to rumor. While it doesn’t seem like Allison cares for Luther as much as Luther clearly cares for Allison (she’s married other people twice), she’s never spurred or dismissed his advances, basking in how he cares for her. She likes how Luther makes her feel, and it’s one of the few real, genuine relationships she’s had, even if it’s never progressed to a physical level.

In some ways, however, it took losing her powers to learn how to make a life for herself. After landing in 1961, with no voice and no resources, Allison built a life from the ground up, making real friends, falling in love in a real way, and finally having something that wasn’t tainted by her ability to mess with reality. In some ways, what she built was still a lie—she didn’t tell any of them about her abilities, where (or when) she came from and how she got there, but in the end, she eventually came clean, and became even closer to her husband.

However, living in Texas in the 1960s as a black woman was not an easy feat, and when her voice returned, there were certain moments where she used her powers to her advantage. Allison has a lot of justified anger at the situation she, her friends and husband dealt with under segregation, and there are moments where she lashes out and occasionally goes too far. For example, after showing off her abilities for her husband, she forced a racist white diner owner to scald himself with hot coffee in retaliation for the brutality she and her husband had received a few days earlier, and Ray had to stop her before she went even further than that. There can be a coldness to her when you’ve crossed her, and he’s not afraid to do what it takes to protect the people she loves.

When Allison arrives in the game, she will have just left behind her husband amicably, as he still has more work to do in the sixties, while Allison needs to get back to her daughter. She and her family are on a united front (for once), and while she is sad to leave her life behind, if they stayed where they are, they’d keep triggering the Apocalypse, so it’s really for the best. Also, she can’t test her new resolve for things that are real if she doesn’t go back to her biggest temptations. She’s going to be very much less than pleased to not be home, but with Five and Vanya there, she will stick with her siblings to find a way home and the rest of their family. So she won’t buck too much.

For now, anyway.


SAMPLE: Some musebox shenanigans.

INVENTORY:
  • A picture of her daughter, Claire
  • A copy of From Earth to Moon by Jules Verne
  • A golden heart locket with A+L engraved in the front, given to her by Luther


  • NOTES: N/A!

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot heavy is fine by me! Throw me in the deep end.
    softheartedshizun: (pic#14182109)

    Shen Qingqiu | Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

    [personal profile] softheartedshizun 2021-07-18 12:47 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Nica
    CONTACT: [profile] kuraikun
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Modly Green Light

    CHARACTER: Shen Qingqiu (Shen Yuan)
    CANON: Scum Villain's Self-Saving System
    CANON POINT: Before waking up in the Heavenly Demon Mosoleum.

    BACKGROUND: Wiki Link

    ABILITIES | POWERS:
    As a Golden Core Cultivator there are a lot of vague abilities that come with the genre, that includes extended life span, aging slowly, increased strength, speed, martial arts prowess and spell work. I will list some of the skills he uses that are easier to group up.

    Flying Sword: Using Xiu Ya his spiritual sword, he can fly, technically he can use any spiritual sword to fly with. Though, he will not actually have his sword with him unless he can later regain it.

    Talismans: Depending on what is written on them the effect can change, they can explode, dispel, shield, and seal. Shen Qingqiu as a scholar specializes in this and spell work. He also has the ability to duplicate a talisman when in his hands from one to a stack without writing more out. With the right materials, he can make his own.

    Martial Arts: As a sword cultivator he is adept with a sword, though he is not as skilled as others who specialize in sword combat, the margin of difference is only noticeable when considering specialties. Otherwise, he is good at both sword and hand-to-hand combat as well as defensive combat primarily using a fan. (Any paper fan will do.)

    Qi Infusing: He can infuse objects with qi and control them. He is most notable for doing this with bamboo leaves and using them like razor darts, and on his bamboo fan, which he reinforces and can use as a weapon including blocking swords without them breaking. He can also use qi to conjure strong wind. These techniques he uses the most since he is a defensive fighter.

    PERSONALITY:
    Shen Yuan in his original life was a bit of an internet troll, or, a rather prolific novel reviewer that was found on every well-known web novel site and review site. Specifically, he was over-invested in Proud Immortal Demon Way, constantly raging about it and its bad writing, while still buying access to new chapters, and every physical print copy (at least 20). This sort of self-inflicted masochism stays with him through transmigration.

    Despite his constant internal panic, rage, sarcasm, and roasting, he is fairly good at keeping a straight face outwardly. Though, he is not necessarily as good at keeping up the image as he thinks he is. It’s quite obvious to those who come to know him and are around him frequently to know how he feels, as he wears his sadness, kindness and worries pretty openly. He tries to hide some of his feelings through reprimands and scolding, but it is never in a real heartfelt way. He really had a soft heart.

    As a second-generation child and an internet denison Shen Yuan is rather aware of tropes and has a few specific interests. He likes monsters and fights, he is overly aware of novel plot tropes, and he has a soft spot for “moe”. Specifically the type for a young obedient person that you want to protect and keep pure. He is weak to crying and sad faces, and he will internally squeal at pretty and earnest characters that try their best. This is one of the things that makes him weak to Luo Binghe when he first meets him and makes him even more distraught when later he is forced to betray him. You could say he is someone that has a lot of feelings, but keeps them to himself for the most part.

    Shen Yuan is incredibly bad at reading other people's emotions and intentions. He’s pretty oblivious of their feelings unless it’s pushed into his face in an obvious way. Some of this is because as a reader of Proud Immortal Demon Way he is assuming things will be exactly like the book, some of it is because in his original life he really didn’t interact with people other than his family and his social skills are a bit low. This leads to a lot of misunderstandings. It also doesn’t help that his answer to problems is to run away from them for the most part. He also has a bad habit of sacrificing himself to the despair of those who love him.

    Ideally, Shen Yuan wants to live an idle life where he doesn’t have to do much and is taken care of. Despite this though, he will take care of things that need to be taken care of, and when he sees innocent people in pain or hardship he will go a step above and beyond to help them without thinking of his own safety. But, he would never call himself an altruistic person, or a person who is particularly nice. He thinks he is much harsher than he really is. He would consider himself practical.

    Generally, he has a personality that simply accepts the things that happen to him without too much argument, his main goal is to stay alive, and as a nerd he won't argue with the situation in front of him. He will never be a person to say "this is impossible!" when it is clearly happening. In this way he is pretty pragmatic. He does have a bit of a disassociation problem brought on by dying and ending up in a fictional world, where things that are beyond "normal" are treated the way one would fiction. He has read many transmigration and isekai novels, so he uses that as a basis of expectation.

    SAMPLE:
    Sample 1
    Sample 2>
    Sample 3

    INVENTORY: Burial clothes.

    NOTES: Shen Qingqiu suffers from a poison called Without a Cure, this is mostly a plot convenient type poison that only flares up to handicap him and make it so he can't just fight his way out of things. It works by stopping the flow of his qi and eventually causing death. How long it needs to be dealt with after a flair-up is ambiguous, but it's fair to say enough to time that he's not going to die within an hour. (Probably a few days or so.) The treatment is pushing Qi through his body and usually taking a medicine. There should be characters that can help him with this problem if willing, and it isn't a constant thing that really needs to be monitored.

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? I'm up for either, but I would love a relevant situation intro?
    Edited 2021-07-18 12:47 (UTC)
    thesuspense: (pinkie promise)

    Xue Yang | Mo Dao Zu Shi

    [personal profile] thesuspense 2021-07-26 01:07 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Rei
    CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] reineke
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: ruxi (she has great hair btw)

    CHARACTER: Xue Yang
    CANON: Mo Dao Zu Shi
    CANON POINT: end of Yi City arc – his death

    BACKGROUND: Here’s the history section on the wiki.

    ABILITIES | POWERS: As per the wiki. Also they didn’t write it in there for some unforgivable reason, but he can carve apple bunnies. He can probably carve other things too. He is so talented.

    PERSONALITY: When it comes to Xue Yang’s personality, the word ‘childish’ comes to mind, which has to very firmly be pried away from the usual implication of ‘innocent’ that tends to go hand in hand. Xue Yang is childish in so far as that he perceives the world in his own, self-centred way, both unwilling and seemingly incapable of straying away from that twisted and often delusional viewpoint. However, that does not excuse his actions, as while it is debatable how much it sinks in until the moment they happen, he is aware of consequences, he simply elects not to care about them.

    Even his virtues, such as they are, can be traced back to his unique disposition. It is less that he is brave and more that fear does not appear to register with him. Similarly, he seems unbothered by pain, at least as a momentary reaction. He is very willing to indulge in it if he can score some pity.

    In spite of not belonging to any cultivation clan and growing up on the streets as a delinquent, Xue Yang has managed to persevere and reach a relatively high cultivation level as well as, even more significantly, mastering demonic cultivation in a way no one other than its founder has. This might be fuelling his contempt towards virtually everyone else, especially cultivators that would be considered above him in status. This perception of himself seems to be somewhat fragile, at least insofar as that he is quite sensitive towards any actual or imagined slight, any inkling that someone might be looking down on him.

    His love for sweets of all sorts – pastries, candy, etc. – goes beyond a simple character quirk, as the indulgence in sweets symbolises the freedom and luxury he has earned by becoming as powerful and being as ruthless as he had to.

    As a small child, he was naïve and trusting – at least by his own account – and in a very twisted way, that naivety hasn’t truly left him. Only instead of believing the world to be good, he has come to consider it, and everyone in it, evil, which probably enables him to consider any and all of his actions, however twisted they might be, as justified. He expects the worst of the world and proves himself right frequently, lashing out to show the unfairness of the world to others. Finally, when encountering something – or someone – who messes with that perception, he is thrown for a loop.

    This someone is Xiao Xingchen, a rogue cultivator who has come down from the mountain to haunt him. After their initial meeting, Xue Yang thought of him as self-righteous, pretentious, and sanctimonious, so over the course of years, he makes it a goal to undo all of that. Ultimately, it can be said, that he does succeed to his own chagrin, although obviously the debt other people had to pay for this absurd idea of revenge was far more tragic. Still, while it is obvious that Xue Yang does care about Xiao Xingchen as much as he possibly can, even if in a terrible way, it never seems to sink in. Throughout his life, up until his death, he displays a severe lack of awareness of his own emotions, at least any other than anger and a surface level cheer and teasing disposition. How much pain he must have felt over his attachment to Xiao Xingchen comes out in his actions, looking at the massacres committed in his name as well as how insulting he finds it that his plan actually worked to split Song Lan from him. Arguably, he loves Xiao Xingchen more than anything, but he has neither the awareness nor the emotional tools to deal with this in any other way than total ruin.

    Other than the immense impact that Xiao Xingchen had on his personal journey, a more steady and less agonising presence is Meng Yao – Jin Guangyao – who was the one to recruit him to the Lanling Jin Clan where he proceeded to become the only junior to show any talent for demonic cultivation. (Possibly bar Mo Xuanyu, but that’s a bit of a confusing mess, so who even knows.) His feelings towards Meng Yao remain steadily the same, he is loyal to him, considers him a friend, admires his talents, even if he doesn’t understand his way of handling things, and he shows his positive feelings towards him by acting under his orders, as well as enacting or at least threatening revenge on his behalf without being told. He seems to defer to his authority ultimately, even if he may still act like a brat about it.

    SAMPLE: with Xiao Xingchen on the TDM
    with Meng Yao for some canon-divergence

    INVENTORY: his sword Jiangzai (降灾, Jiàngzāi), hidden in a modified Qiankun sleeve
    Yin Tiger Tally, used to control a large number of fierce corpses
    some pieces of candy, but not that one piece of candy™ given by Xiao Xingchen
    corpse powder – causes an illness that results in death and the victim turning into a fierce corpse if untreated
    antidote to corpse powder – made into a sweet potion <3
    skull-piercing nails, used to control conscious fierce corpses
    two daggers

    NOTES: Technically he is very dead and slightly limbless at that canon point, but for the purpose of playability, I'd rather he was alive and in possession of all limbs. Apart from that little finger.

    Xiao Xingchen’s player’s approval to come and likely ruin his life a couple more times has been received. Sorry. He’s awful.

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? I don’t know, how related is plot-heavy to the bear? Honestly, I don’t have a preference, I’ll go with the flow and it will probably be terrible, because it’s him. FOLLOW YOUR HEART or, you know, the path of least resistance.
    Edited 2021-07-26 13:07 (UTC)
    fated_dance: (You're looking at me again)

    Zhou Zishu | Word of Honor

    [personal profile] fated_dance 2021-07-28 10:04 am (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: BG
    CONTACT: PM
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Ruxi

    CHARACTER: Zhou Zishu
    CANON: Word of Honor
    CANON POINT: When the Four Seasons Manor is attacked and he goes out to let them capture him.

    BACKGROUND: Wiki page
    'The former leader of The Window of Heaven and the former master of the Four Seasons Manor. Zhang Chengling's master, Qin Huaizhang's disciple.

    He wants freedom to be able to wander around the world. When he became the master of the Four Seasons Manor after his master's death, he was only sixteen years old and did not have the capacity to lead the Four Seasons Manor. To protect them, he took eighty-one sect members with him to form Tian Chuang, The Window of Heaven under his royal cousin Helian Yi, the Crown Prince of Jin. While serving as the leader of Tian Chuang, he helped Helian Yi rise to power by assassinating key figures and concocting schemes and conspiracies to bring down his political rivals. One memorable scheme results in the deaths of many innocent people, including a little girl he and his friends were acquainted with. After the deaths of the rest of the eighty-one members, he becomes disillusioned and wants to regain his freedom, so he chooses to leave The Window of Heaven by using the technique of Seven Orifices and Three Autumns Nails on himself, leaving him with three years left to live. Taking on the alias of Zhou Xu, he meets Wen Kexing.' [taken from this wiki page]

    But as neither are complete, here are major points for the rest of his role through the series:

    Meeting Wen Kexing and Zhang Chengling changed Zishu's plans for the rest of his life, though he did his best to avoid it. Because of them, he was drawn into the conflict Kexing caused to gather the pieces of the Glazed Armor and destroy the Five Lakes Alliance in revenge. He started training Chengling, if reluctantly as he only planned to stay alive for a few years and only wanted to enjoy what time he had left.

    Getting closer and closer to Kexing showed him a life he'd wanted, but never had, and he accepted the other's decision that they were Fated, or soulmates, and no matter what disagreements, fights, or conflicts that separated them, they always found their way back to the other's side.

    Kexing found out Zishu was going to die, and as this was unacceptable, he started hunting for a cure for his 'illness'. This brought them into contact with Ye Baiyi, an immortal martial arts master who knew many techniques. Ye Baiyi agreed to find a way to save Zishu, and left.

    Zishu brought Kexing and Chengling back to his home, the Four Seasons Manor, to rebuild and live out the rest of his life (his plan, at least) while they waited for Yi Baiyi to return with the cure. This cure ended up being in the form of old friends of Zishu's, Jing Beiyuan and Wu Xi. But before they could come and administer it, the Manor was attacked and Zishu was captured and taken back to the Window of Heaven. He managed to wound Prince Jin in such a way he'd live, but would have to stay in bed for the rest of his life or die.

    Zishu was rescued by juniors still loyal to him. As the Four Seasons Manor was burned to the ground, Zishu was brought to an inn owned by Beiyuan and the cure was finally administered. Through various trickery though, Kexing faked his death unbeknownst to Zishu, which resulted in Zishu expelling the seven nails prematurely so he could be at full strength and avenge Kexing before dying.

    Kexing revealed himself to be alive, finished up his revenge. Ghost Valley was attacked and the majority of the sect were killed despite Kexing and Zishu's best efforts. What Zishu did was revealed while Kexing was unconscious, and Zishu went off to the location of the World's Armory to keep the Window of Heaven from gaining access to the knowledge held there. Kexing found out in time to open the door and get the two of them inside before the avalanche wiped out the armies outside.

    Zishu and Kexing looked through the Armory and discovered it was actually a depository of knowledge for farming, though it also held some martial arts secrets, one of which would save Zishu's life. They found this secret and performed the ritual together - though Kexing again held knowledge Zishu didn't, which would have ended with Kexing's death for the sake of maintaining Zishu's. Zishu woke in time and managed to come up with a way for them to share their life force, leaving them both immortal but needing to live in a cold climate and eat only snow and ice.


    ABILITIES | POWERS:
    • Master martial artist

    • Master at disguise: he can disguise himself to the point it's difficult to know when he's in a disguise (this is a sect secret taught to very few outside the Four Seasons Manor)

    • Medicinal skills: Not a master healer, but knowledgeable enough with poisons and venoms to know what can help heal both with herbs

    • As part of his sect's form, he can move without leaving any traces

    • Exceptional hearing: due to canon point, he has no sense of taste or smell, and his sense of touch is diminished. Occasionally he's not able to hear at all over a ringing in his ears, but he has not yet progressed to the point this is permanent.

    • Knowledge and skill with gardening: the man loves flowers okay


    PERSONALITY:
    Zishu is known to be ruthless in achieving his goals as well as calculating. Even those who follow him loyally, he expects only the best. He is a harsh task-master and teacher, but expects the same excellence of himself. He will even unflinchingly take on pain if it’s what he’s demanded of his followers. In order to leave the Window of Heaven, he designed and implemented the Torment of Seven Nails. When he chose to leave, he took them on himself. He takes advantage of any situation, generally able to get anyone to talk to him with just a few words and giving the impression of being close friends.

    He tends to show a tougher love than many, more likely to be a strict taskmaster and expect the best from anyone he teaches or leads. If someone falls down, he tells them to either get back up and keep going, or leave and never come back. Even with his soulmate, Wen Kexing, he expects Kexing to do the best he can. He tends to be right about judging how far he can push someone before they can’t keep going.

    He is a very private person, preferring to keep his feelings to himself. Any pain can be faced, any torment he accepts onto himself. If it's not something he's willing to do to himself, he won't ask it of anyone else. He offers no information unless pressed, or side-steps the questions if not outright ignore them. He’ll willfully take on a disguise and give that information before revealing anything of himself.

    As private and cold as he tends to be, once he lets someone in enough to relax a little, he can be outright playful (if in a somewhat odd way). He shows this side of him by teasing, and he will play tricks on them, bully, and pinch. Growing up he was a kind, playful boy and young man, but when he had to take on the role of Sect Leader of the Four Seasons Manor, he had to grow up fast. He gives the appearance of caring very little (including about himself or money) but if someone is stubborn enough to keep after him, he has trouble holding himself away from them.

    However he is also very protective, even jealous, of those he’s chosen to let in far enough (Kexing, Chengling, Wu Xi, and Beiyuan to name a few still alive at his canon point) he will do anything it takes to keep them safe, even if they don’t agree with his methods or even that it’s even needed. He’d rather face a danger alone, even if that danger means a likely death for himself, than put his precious people in danger. This also extends to him not valuing his own life (also shown in him punishing himself with the Seven Nails) and didn’t want to put Beiyuan and Wu Xi in danger by going to them for healing.

    He is relearning how to appreciate and value his own life, thanks to meeting Wen Kexing and it was clear they were soulmates – he expressed how nice it would be to stand side by side with one’s soulmate.

    SAMPLE: TDM w/Wen Kexing, TDM top level, and a network post from another game (from a SLIGHTLY later canon point but I feel still relevant)

    INVENTORY:
    • 'Baiyi' - is a whip sword that is flexible enough he keeps it wrapped around his waist unless he's actively using it

    • Small money bag with a limited amount of silver pieces

    • Robes he's wearing

    • Small bag of medicinal herbs

    • Bundle of 'drunk like a dream' incense sticks - this scent can make someone sleep peacefully, while in other forms can be potent enough to cause hallucinations


    NOTES: Maybe a freeze on his looming death? Not a cure, he'd still be troubled by the nails and would have to fight the pain most nights. But they wouldn't sap more of his senses away.

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? I'm good with either! Surprise me!
    wenderer: (Default)

    [personal profile] wenderer 2021-07-28 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Beren
    CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] tinuvielberen
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: followed friends' replurks, also given ye olde modly green light
    CHARACTER: Wen Kexing
    CANON: Word of Honor (drama adaptation of Faraway Wanderers by Priest)
    CANON POINT: Crying In The Rain (episode 14)

    BACKGROUND: Zhou Zishu is the head of Prince Jin’s secret police, and after years of a life doing terrible things in the shadows and watching his friends die, he has left the prince’s employ to wander the country and do good deeds, to accumulate merits in heaven. Of course, one cannot simply leave the secret police; in order to get away, Zhou Zishu has had to perform a form of slow suicide, and he’ll die in three years.

    Thus wandering aimlessly, he stumbles into a 14-year-old boy, Zhang Chengling, whose whole family has been murdered. Zhou Zishu is convinced to bring the boy to safety, to a friend of the family. Along the way, he meets Wen Kexing, who is ostensibly also wandering the country aimlessly, accompanied by his disciple Gu Xiang, a pretty girl who is also a ruthless fighter. Despite Zhou Zishu’s best efforts, Wen Kexing insists on traveling with him.

    On this journey, the four of them stumble into a plot involving the major martial arts sects to rediscover the world’s most powerful martial arts technique, strong enough to conquer the world; and the world’s most powerful medical technique, able to heal any ailment and raise the dead. These hidden techniques are as dangerous as they are powerful, and putting the pieces together involves murder, mayhem, and theft.

    ABILITIES | POWERS:

    Martial artist wuxia stuff including:
    - He can manipulate spiritual energy (qi), which is a type of life energy that circulates through the body. It’s a buff for qualities such as speed, stamina, and endurance. Spiritual energy can be manipulated as a weapon or to heal.
    - He’s a gifted swordsman, able to take famous sword styles and effortlessly improvise and improve upon them.
    - In canon, however, he prefers to kill with a fan.
    - He can can suck the life and blood out of a person with a palm strike, leaving their skin grey and withered, resembling a desiccated corpse.
    - He can travel extremely quickly, with his feet hardly touching the ground, leaving no trace. He can also jump long distances, seemingly flying, leaping up to rooftops, or running along treetops.
    - When fighting near water, can make fountains spring up like at the Las Vegas Bellagio.
    - He can sneak up on even high-level martial artists without being noticed.
    - He is able to speak softly yet direct his voice at a distance to a specific target.
    - He has some medical skills, including being able to treat injuries and poisons.
    - His fighting skills are sufficient that he can rule a valley full of the worst martial artist criminals in all of the central plains, holding his top spot for the last eight years; all of his predecessors could hold the top spot for three years at the most, before being assassinated.

    PERSONALITY: A man in search of revenge, finds love instead.

    After killing his way to the top of the Ghost Valley, an enclave of the jianghu’s worst criminals, Wen Kexing sets up an elaborate, intricate plan to exterminate his enemies. Who are his enemies? Everyone. He despises the “righteous” martial arts community for hurting his father and hounding his family from their home, and the Ghost Valley for brutally murdering his parents and everyone in their village, all for the sake of an armory full of hidden martial arts techniques. In their thirst for power, neither righteous cultivators nor Ghosts cared who they harmed, so Wen Kexing is out to kill them all. There are a couple of exceptions: the Tragicomic Ghost, who protected him as a child in the Ghost Valley, and Gu Xiang, whom he adopted and raised. Everyone else is guilty, in Wen Kexing’s eyes, and they all deserve to die.

    Then he meets Zhou Zishu.

    Initially, he’s intrigued by the man’s martial arts techniques, noting them to be unusual and familiar, and also thinks that he might prove to be an unpredictable variable in his plans. But when Zhou Zishu takes on the burden of protecting Zhang Chengling, even though he has no relationship to the boy and nothing to gain, Wen Kexing becomes fascinated by him. He attaches himself to the unwilling and uncooperative Zhou Zishu, never taking “no” for an answer. Zhou Zishu has disguised himself with a mask that hides his true appearance; Wen Kexing also wears a mask of sorts, with an attitude and demeanor that is by turns flirtatious, shameless, and childlike, as he follows Zhou Zishu around. He makes a show of being irritatingly cheerful, talking nonsense and invading people’s personal space in a show of excessive friendliness. He calls himself “Philanthropist Wen,” and insists he’s never harmed anyone, often while wiping (someone else’s) blood from his hands.

    Despite this unpropitious start to a relationship, Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu quickly become close. This is because they’re both achingly lonely. After his parents were killed and he was taken to the Ghost Valley, Wen Kexing feels that he has had to rely entirely on himself. Though he trusts and cares for Gu Xiang, he believes that she doesn’t understand him. After Alluring Ghost misunderstands his motives, he says to himself unhappily, “Those who know me understand my worries; those who don’t, think I have other intentions.” Wen Kexing feels that, despite the fact that he has been deceiving the man nonstop, Zhou Zishu is the only person he’s ever met who understands him; Zhou Zishu feels the same. Very soon, they begin to think of each other as soulmates.

    And then Wen Kexing’s plan to watch the world burn runs into a solid wall of consequences. His plot to spread chaos in the jianghu results, repeatedly, in the death of innocents. Not only that, but his vision of himself as the sole architect of a grand plan is hopelessly flawed: there are other forces behind the scenes, manipulating him the same way he’s been manipulating others. Wen Kexing starts off the series arrogant to the point of hubris. He believes himself to understand every facet of human nature, in all its venality and greed. However, his life experiences are tragically limited, as someone who spent his formative years in the relentlessly brutal environment of the Ghost Valley. Until he meets Zhou Zishu, Wen Kexing has little idea of what it means to be human. Indeed, Gu Xiang tells him, “When [Zhou Zishu] is around, you look more like a person.”

    Wen Kexing actually believes himself to be a monster. When he’s around other evil Ghosts, he gives into this nature completely. He acts to instill fear, by turns laughing or murdering without reason or warning. In Faraway Wanderers, he’s described by other Ghosts as a “downright madman born for killing.” He tempers his behavior around the few Ghosts that he doesn’t despise, although his attitude generally remains severe and often threatening. Around Zhou Zishu and Zhang Chengling, he affects a different persona: flirtatious, flamboyant, and silly. But when they respond to him with sincerity, he doesn’t know what to do. He’s flustered when Zhang Chengling spontaneously hugs him (and he does this often). When Zhou Zishu tells him, basically, that he loves him and wants to spend the rest of his life with him, Wen Kexing can’t respond. When Zhou Zishu correctly guesses Wen Kexing’s true identity and accepts him as his shidi, Wen Kexing responds by—literally—running away. The reason for this is that he believes himself to be unredeemable, and that if Zhou Zishu knew Wen Kexing’s true nature, he’d cast this shidi of his aside.

    Even so, Wen Kexing mourns his lost innocence. Calling himself “Philanthropist Wen,” isn’t only an act, it’s what he wishes he could be. He longs for the life that was taken from him. In a different world, he might have grown up with his family in the Healer Valley, and become a renowned physician. He might have become a person, instead of a monster.

    At his current pull point, Wen Kexing has acknowledged his feelings for Zhou Zishu, but also discovered that his soulmate has only a couple of years to live. The prospect of losing another person he cares about is unbearably painful for him, and he falls apart.

    SAMPLE: here!

    INVENTORY: A large, white fan and a jade xiao

    NOTES: none!

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? plot heavy!

    elfuego: (how the strong man stumbles)

    zuko (avatar: the last airbender)

    [personal profile] elfuego 2021-08-03 12:54 am (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Chel
    CONTACT: pm or plurk
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: I go here.

    CHARACTER: Zuko
    CANON: Avatar: The Last Airbender
    CANON POINT: Season 3, Episode 13 The Firebending Masters, taken directly after the flames from this receed.

    BACKGROUND: Up to the end of the first paragraph under 'Summer 100 AG'

    ABILITIES | POWERS:

    Firebending: Firebenders utilize the power of the breath and the energy inside themselves to create fire. As a firebending master, Zuko can exact complete control over the size, intensity, shape, and direction of both the fire he can create and any fire that already exists. In addition to the manipulation of fire, Zuko can keep himself warm through his breathing, redirect lightning, and heat things by touch. For an incredibly deep dive on Firebending, check here.

    Combat: Zuko is an accomplished swordsman, training from childhood until the time of his banishment with one of his world's most established masters. He is highly versed in bladed weapons, particularly his dual Dao broadswords. With the movements of Firebending being based on Northern Shaolin, even without his bending he is a proficient martial artist and has demonstrated possessing the strength to throw people, and break chains and tables with ease.

    Stealth & Acrobatics: In canon, Zuko demonstrates a tremendous aptitude for getting around while escaping detection. He has used these skills to infiltrate numerous secure locations as well as move through entire cities without drawing notice. He is quick and light on his feet, able to run along the sides of walls, and scale buildings with relative ease.

    PERSONALITY:

    The inner conflict that would become the governing force in Zuko’s life began about as soon as he could walk and talk. From the beginning, Zuko was taught to believe that the Fire Nation was the most advanced civilization in the world and that the war they had been fighting for the last century was their way of sharing that greatness with everyone else.

    As the son of Fire Lord Ozai and the heir to the throne, Zuko rarely saw evidence to suggest that this seemingly fundamental truth he had heard since birth was false. His father, who had become Fire Lord when Zuko was a child, was the embodiment of the wrathful, cunning brutality valued in a Fire Nation leader during a time of seemingly endless war and conquest. Ozai’s taste for power was not a quality that he saw in his son, and while Zuko wanted nothing more than to please him, his father saw the compassionate part of his son’s nature as weakness. In his father’s eyes, Zuko would always come up short.

    His sister, however, was his father’s favorite from the very start. Even as a child Azula was gleeful in her mercilessness, something that aligned perfectly with her father’s warlike ambitions and callousness; that she was a firebending prodigy only cemented her as Ozai’s favorite. Zuko’s relationship with his sister is as complicated as his relationship with nearly everyone he has grown close to. As a child, she was his greatest rival, and her manipulative, inflammatory nature always got the better of him in some way. Her superior skill as a bender, and the ease with which she epitomized the ideals of Fire Nation culture only made him try harder to please his father.

    These two powerful personalities held tremendous influence over Zuko as he grew up, tempered only by the presence of his mother. Ursa was a contrast to Ozai; while the Fire Lord thought the empathy Zuko displayed was undesirable, she nurtured that part of him. When his bending was slow to flourish, Azula leaving him behind in the dust with her natural ability, Ursa praised his willingness to go on and not give up. She was compassionate where his father was distant, a bright spot of caring in a militarized and coldly grand existence where strength was the only thing that seemed to matter. Her disappearance affected him profoundly, forcing him to grow up in a hurry as he was left behind to weather the disdain of his father and the consistent subtle antagonization of his sister, putting up walls where he could and becoming quick to anger when he failed.

    In the end, it was the compassion he worked to ignore inside himself that got him banished. The part of him his mother once supported was what ruined the effort to lead the life he had been born to have. Speaking out of turn in defense of soldiers who were going to be used as a sacrifice unknowingly saw him burned by his father in a duel he refused to fight, and sent away to never return unless he found the Avatar.

    The rage and the shame from this incident were what fueled Zuko for a long time. He had been given definitive proof that he was not the sort of son his father wanted, and he channeled the hurt from that horrible rejection into trying to do the impossible and find someone who had been missing for a hundred years. Even after being humiliated and disfigured, Zuko was not interested in the possibility of failure, all he wanted was to restore his honor and return home.

    Though he had never been so disconnected from the life he was used to leading, his Uncle, a retired (disgraced) general had elected to accompany him. Growing up he had mostly only known Iroh from his letters sent from the various battles he waged and the occasional family holiday, and while the man’s presence was an annoyance at first, Iroh proved to be the teacher Zuko was too angry to realize he needed.

    The persistence his mother commended him for was channeled into restoring him to his rightful place as heir to the throne. Though he failed to realize the value of it at the time, his uncle was equally as tenacious when it came to trying to mentor the young prince. The beginning of their journey across the world in pursuit of the Avatar was marked by little spats between the two - Iroh encouraging calm and rest, and Zuko rebuffing him, too consumed by the pursuit to think of the pleasant cups of tea Iroh always seemed to be encouraging him to have. His anger at his disgrace caused Zuko to be reckless during these early days, often putting not only himself but those around him in danger. He wanted to be the ruthless man his father sought in a son and heir, and his desperation to finally become the person who would fill that role made him volatile and diminutive to everyone around him, his uncle most of all.

    It wasn’t until Zuko and Iroh became fugitives of the Fire Nation, and were forced to live as refugees in the Earth Kingdom, that things began to change for Zuko. After his sister’s reemergence in his life and unsurprising subsequent betrayal, he and his uncle had no choice but to abandon the lives they’d been leading and take to the road.

    The experience of traveling without any of the comforts afforded to a Fire Nation royal was eye-opening. Life as a refugee, going weeks at a time without eating, and begging for coins in the streets were things that Iroh bore without any of the lashing out his nephew did so much of. Humility was a lesson Zuko learned more vividly than he could have ever imagined in his life as the prince. His lack of means derailing his hunt for the Avatar, he was made to confront the reality of the war his homeland waged on the rest of the world.

    While living as one of many people whose lives had been derailed by the war he saw that the lifelong hatred others had for the Fire Nation was justified. This war had thrown the world out of balance and cost thousands of lives. The Fire Nation's victory allowed them to occupy foreign lands and throw dissenters and other benders in prison. They had destroyed whole cultures in their hunger for power, cutting a path of destruction that was felt on a global scale, all in the name of dominance and conquest.

    Instead of the anger that had fueled the years following his banishment, this forced change of life was greeted with dismay and encroaching despair. Despite Iroh’s unwavering support and mentorship, Zuko decided that he was holding him back, and struck out on his own in a show of shortsightedness and resentment. Thrust into another situation where he would be rejected if the truth about him came out, Zuko lived as a drifter, becoming an empathetic witness to the rawness and hurt of the world.

    When Iroh and Zuko were brought back together again (ironically, also the work of Azula) Zuko surprised his uncle with how receptive he was, at last to the things that Iroh had to teach him. For so long Zuko rejected the way that Iroh was trying to teach him how to bend, using the same anger and hunger for power that galvanized nearly every bender in the Fire Nation. Now, after seeing it firsthand, he was willing to listen as Iroh explained to him that drawing understanding from all the elements, and people from all nations, was vital if he was ever going to be able to face his sister, and become a firebending master.

    Living among regular people for the first time was eye-opening to Zuko, and filled him with a kind of humble peace. In the city of Ba Sing Se, his life could not have been further than the destiny he believed he had been born for. Though working in a tea shop did very little for his people skills, Zuko got to experience something close to peace for the first time and enjoy his uncle’s success instead of diminishing it because it did not do anything to bring them closer to the Avatar.

    When given the chance to pick up the trail of the Avatar again, Zuko was quick to take it, despite a lack of resources, and options. Standing on the brink of rekindling his obsession with restoring his honor in the eyes of his father, Iroh’s pleas that he look inside himself and ask who he was, and what he wanted pulled him back from going down that road again.

    During his time as a refugee, Zuko had been forced to question what his place in this broken world was, hearing Iroh voice aloud the very things he was trying not to ask himself rattled Zuko and made him step away from reigniting his former cause. The inner rift this caused manifested itself physically, leaving him feverish for several days. Zuko drifted in and out of dreams where he was forced to confront the two directions he was being pulled in, urged to fight through it by the sound of his uncle’s voice. When the fever broke, it seemed as though Zuko had managed to work through some of the things haunting him.

    He was almost cheerful, perhaps for the first time since his mother left Zuko was outwardly kind, supporting his uncle enthusiastically when Iroh was given the chance to realize a dream and open a tea shop of his own. After years of relentless pursuit, determined to capture the Avatar and restore his place in the Fire Nation, Zuko appeared to have let it go - and in a lot of ways he had, though that he and his uncle would always have to hide who they were never sat well with him.

    Azula wasn’t done being Zuko’s foil, and after becoming her prisoner he came closer than he ever had been to turn against his family and the Fire Nation. Again, his uncle pleaded with him, but when confronted with these crossroads Zuko chose to follow the familiar road he had always walked, believing it to be the path he was meant for.

    At last, with the world believing the Avatar was dead while he remained unsure, he could return home, like he wanted.

    With his uncle imprisoned for treason, Zuko was left to pick the life he had been waiting to live back up, finally getting the validation from his father he never had. The uncertainty surrounding the Avatar’s fate ate at him, deep down Zuko knew he was alive, and after Ozai was told by Azula it was him who had killed the Avatar the unreset he had been feeling since betraying his uncle began to bloom.

    Not for the first time, being handed what he wanted proved to be a false road. His anger at himself ate at him in a way he hadn’t felt since first being banished and thrust out into the world. He frequently visited his uncle’s prison cell to shout and berate the old man for choosing to stand on the opposite side of this conflict, but even as he said those things, he regretted them, well aware of how hollow and wrong they sounded. When, at last, he was included in a meeting in his father’s war room once again, what should have felt like taking his place in the world felt wrong, and the plan he witnessed his father lay down for his generals made his blood run cold in horror.

    None of this was right, and for the first time, Zuko stopped trying to ignore that.

    Perhaps it was cowardly to wait for an eclipse when firebenders were unable to use their ability without the sun’s energy, but Zuko wanted what he had to say to be heard. Confronting his father for how terrible he had been before laying out his plan - he would beg his uncle for forgiveness, and he would join the Avatar to help defeat Ozai. He had finally seen enough to understand that his honor was never something that his father could take away or restore - that power had always lain with Zuko and he had reached the point where he was ready to use it.

    Adjusting to life as one of the good guys has been something new for Zuko, and the journey is not without growing pains. Each of the people traveling with the Avatar has good reason not to trust him. While this has been a source of frustration, Zuko has come to a point where he owns up to the damage he has done - both as a person and as prince of the Fire Nation and accepts that he has a lot left to learn.

    On the surface, Zuko is quiet and prickly. Not having grown up around healthy relationships or that many good people, Zuko is very slow to warm to others, and his brusque, short-winded way of interacting tends to keep people at a distance, whether intentionally or otherwise. He doesn't laugh often and is very easily read as perpetually grumpy - even in the presence of the people he cares about most in the world.

    Inwardly, Zuko is a principled, honorable person who desperately wants to do the right thing and please those that matter to him. He is someone who understands what it means to make mistakes, and while those mistakes have, at times, threatened to overtake who he is for the sake of getting what it was he believed he needed and wanted, his sense of what’s right is strong enough to pull him off the wrong path.


    SAMPLE: On the TDM

    INVENTORY: The clothes on his back and his swords.

    NOTES: NA

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot heavy
    valeas: (Default)

    emilia di carlo, kingdom of the wicked.

    [personal profile] valeas 2021-08-06 01:30 am (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Elle
    CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] moonstones
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Emily. Then she saw me pressing my face to the window.

    CHARACTER: Emilia di Carlo
    CANON: Kingdom of the Wicked
    CANON POINT: The end of the first book. Wrath is realm-hopping Emilia from Palermo to the Seven Circles, where she is to be queen. B u t something goes wrong and they end up in the frozen citadel of Sa-Hareth instead.

    BACKGROUND: Before there was Man and his Old Religion, there was magic. La Prima Strega — the very first witch — was allegedly the daughter of a demon and a goddess, created as the perfect balance between dark and light. She was the source of power for witches like the di Carlos, and it was said she had a daughter of her own. Known as a star witch, this firstborn daughter was a guardian between realms — a warden for the prison of damnation.

    ... Until she abandoned her duty and married the king of all the damned, that is. La Prima commanded her daughter to give up this throne, and upon refusal, summoned the darkest of magic to remove her daughter's power and curse the devil.

    A blood debt was born.

    The di Carlo twins grew up on tales of this prideful king and his wicked brothers, each the embodiment of the seven deadly sins. Their grandmother bathed them in protection charms and warnings, fearful of the day the Wicked would slip through the hellish gates to take back what was stolen.

    Emilia, an inherent skeptic, never believed these stories. Centuries had passed without any sighting of demon royalty, and certainly there was no proof. These were legends told to young witches, no different than the fairytales mankind crafted for children.

    Then the murders began.

    The Prince of Pride needs to rule alongside a queen witch lest what remains of his power diminishes. His first bride slain, he must find a new bride — and quickly — before all is lost. Someone does not want this wedding to take place, for every witch that accepts Pride's bargain is found dead and with her heart torn out of her chest. Among these victims is Emilia's twin, Vittoria.

    Kingdom of the Wicked, then, is Emilia's journey from a skeptical and hesitant young woman to a ferocious fighter who stops at nothing to protect what she loves. The first book depicts the early stages of some rather lofty goals: prevent future killings, ensure the safety of her world, get to the bottom of what happened the night Vittoria was murdered, and unveil the true culprits so that she may annihilate them.

    There is nothing Emilia will not do to achieve her ends, up to and including: defying her terrifying Sicilian grandmother, summoning a deadly demon prince, magically leashing the demon prince, engaging in psychological warfare with the demon prince's brothers, battling a netherworldly snake, using dark magic for the first time, torturing information out of an enemy, and ultimately accepting the Pride's proposal to become Queen of the Wicked — with a secret agenda of her own.

    It's... fine.

    ABILITIES | POWERS: Note: The magic system for witches is left rather vague in the first book. It's suggested Emilia herself is not aware of the full extent of her power or its origins, a good deal of this power left untapped. There should be more answers when the sequel comes out in early October, in which case I'd make any necessary additions/modifications. Below is what we know so far.

    • Emilia is not human. The descendant of a goddess, she has ties to the divine. It's stated she is harder to kill than most humans, being somewhat stronger and faster than them. She is not invulnerable the way the Wicked seem to be.

    • She is eerily stealthy when she wants to be. Nonna Maria chided her for it when she was younger, and she was even able to surprise Wrath, a demon with absurdly heightened senses. If she wants to move around unheard, she will.

    • She is an excellent cook and has rudimentary knowledge of herbal folk medicine.

    • The witches in her lineage are known as star witches, and Emilia discovered this recently. Some of the Wicked call them shadow witches for their historical ties to demons, but her grandmother insists they are warriors of the light, and upon first meeting Pride, he addressed Emilia as Stella Strega.

    • Witches have a raw connection to the earth and its elements, and are able to channel its powers into their own. These elements react to Emilia at times, whether it's the sea suddenly smashing into rocks or the wind picking up, etc.

    • Due to this special connection, the prime manifestation of a witch's magic is through spellcasting. Emilia's grandmother, Nonna, is a light witch that forbids the use of dark magic in their household. There is magic that gives and magic that takes: some dark spells will require payment, and it's usually a piece of one's self that is lost forever. Emilia is not well-versed in dark magic.

    As above, so below. Throughout the book there is an emphasis on balance: the day La Prima cursed the devil is the day a loophole to that curse was created. Thus, Emilia and Vittoria are part of an ancient prophecy that, if true, can free the devil from his curse. They each wore a horn amulet their whole lives. When put together, it became the Horn of Hades — quite literally, the devil's horns.

    • Wearing one half of the devil's horns granted Emilia abilities that were unique to her, like reading auras that determined someone's nature. She arrives to Eastbound without her amulet, so I've decided that's nothing she'll be able to do for now.

    • The summoning spell that bound Wrath to Emilia accidentally betrothed them, oops. They both sport matching tattoos of double crescent moons and stars, serpents, and wildflowers. Wrath also performed a healing ritual to save Emilia's life; an exchange of power occurred during this ritual that further cemented their bond in ways they are still discovering*.

    *You may be wondering how Emilia will marry Pride if she is already betrothed to Wrath. Great question!

    PERSONALITY: For most of her life, Emilia di Carlo was known as the dutiful and abundantly cautious twin.

    She had reasons to keep to herself, to be fair. Being a witch in 19th-century Palermo meant living in disguise to avoid notice and persecution. Her ancestors were burned at the stake, and vitriolic hate speeches about the evils of her kind were once all too commonplace.

    Reserved and sensible, she favored curling up with a good book over courting danger the way her twin Vittoria did. If not a good book, she was content crafting new recipes in the kitchens of the di Carlo trattoria, Sea & Vine. Gifted with a green thumb, Emilia's dreams once involved saving up enough money to expand their family business, and a garden to make things grow. Her world was small, but it was dear. She loved cooking and she loved her family. Above all else, she loved her twin. They were as close as they were different.

    Stumbling upon Vittoria's desecrated body, then, unquestionably changes Emilia. The trauma and horror of that night is with her throughout the book, in both glaring and subtle ways. It's present in the impulsive behavior that lands her in trouble, the restlessness that keeps her moving, and her intense longing for justice. More importantly, it lives on in the simmering rage that gives her a newfound purpose.

    Where Emilia would choose mercy and understanding before, Vittoria's death catapults her onto the path of vengeance. Her grandmother, Nonna Maria, begs her to find forgiveness and acceptance in her heart — to abandon this 'dark pursuit' before it destroys her, and destroys them.

    Emilia, wrathful and in mourning, refuses to listen. She must, she must, find out who killed Vittoria and why.

    It helps, too, that Emilia is a knowledge-seeker at heart. Kingdom of the Wicked is a murder mystery at its own core, with Emilia as the fledgling detective. She needs to know as much as she needs to avenge. She's constantly thinking, constantly asking questions and piecing evidence together on a time crunch. She absorbs as much information as she possibly can and utilizes it to her advantage. When she has the opportunity to do so, it's clear she prefers to think things through and cover all of her bases to make informed decisions.

    She is motivated, to a frightening degree, by this need to set right an unforgivable wrong. It forces her to step outside of her comfort zones. It introduces her to a world of darker magic. It reveals the vicious and more ruthless parts of herself. It also saves her, in a way, as her anger keeps her standing, keeps her going, where she might otherwise collapse in grief. Wrath warns her that she is ruled by fire, and he isn't wrong. Vengeance is rooted in passion, and Emilia feels deeply: devoted to those she loves, and unforgiving to her enemies.

    That said, she does not deem someone an enemy lightly, and she isn't interested in wanton destruction. Her wrath is aimed exclusively at those she believes deserving of it. Her need to avenge Vittoria is real, but so is her bone-deep sense of justice. She genuinely wants to save innocent lives and prevent future murders. She truly believes that no matter how powerful or wealthy someone is, they should be held accountable for their actions. When she learns about the prophecy and that it may require great sacrifice, she decides without question to protect a world unequipped to handle the carnage a horde of demons would inflict upon it.

    By the time she arrives to Eastbound, Emilia knows the partial truth of what happened to her sister, and that one of the culprits was much closer to home than she anticipated. The sting of this betrayal, alongside what she believes to be Wrath's, leave her mistrusting, anxious, and more determined than ever to finish what has been started.

    TL;DR these two posts do a good job of summarizing what I could not, tbh.

    SAMPLE: TDM top level and tag in.

    INVENTORY: Moon-blessed chalk & two large diamond-encrusted olive branch clips.

    NOTES: N/A though it would be kind of fun if Emilia's horn amulet was somewhere in this world ... to be found later.

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy should it fit with the your plans/scheduling/the TDM! Please feel free to treat Emilia and Wrath as a combo deal too, since they kind of are.
    inferus: (🗡️ 0 0 8)

    wrath | kingdom of the wicked

    [personal profile] inferus 2021-08-06 01:38 am (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Rizzy
    CONTACT: snowed on plurk or PM to this journal
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Sheep extended me an invite, and I heard about it via both Sheep and Emily on my plurk.

    CHARACTER: Wrath
    CANON: Kingdom of the Wicked
    CANON POINT: end of Kingdom of the Wicked

    BACKGROUND:

    - Ancient History: It is all but confirmed within the book that Wrath is an angel that fell (possibly a former angel of Death), but the details of this have not been revealed. Currently, he resides in the Underworld, but it is clear that his realm is weaker than it once was. This most likely has to do with the curse on Pride that Wrath is also wrapped up in. The Wicked Seven are Wrath's brothers: Envy, Lust, Pride, Greed, Gluttony, Sloth. They are all princes of Hell, incredibly powerful demons with their own realms. Their Houses range in power and influence, and they all live by a certain code - promises and oaths are binding.

    - Less Ancient History + Murder Mystery: There was a betrayal. Pride's wife was brutally murdered, and they still don't know who did it. Pride is trapped in the Underworld, unable to leave it as his power weakens. Thus, Wrath is forced to be the one to bring him souls to break the curse. Unfortunately, the witches who choose to sell their souls continue to be murdered. With Pride's power waning, the gates to the Underworld grow weaker and lesser demons are slipping through.

    - The Witch: Wrath made a mistake. He left his dagger behind at a murder scene. Enter Emilia di Carlo. It was her twin that had been killed, and she used his dagger to summon and trap him - it was not just any ritual, but an accidental (and eternal) marriage bond. He spends the next several days as her prisoner.

    - The Witch!!!: Then Emilia di Carlo decides to go after a powerful snake demon from the Underworld. While he gave her warning and hints, he responds as soon as he feels she is in danger. He shows up as she passes out from the venom. Even as she is dying, he makes certain to ask her permission before he does what it takes to save her life. He performs a ritual that requires some sacrifice from them both, but we have yet to learn what it is (Emilia theorizes he gave her some of his power).

    - Truce: They agree to work together if only because their goals align. From this point forward, they attempt to solve the murders and bring vengeance against the one committing them. While they get close to solving the mystery, they are not able to solve it in time to protect more lives. His brothers end up interrupting not once but twice. Wrath protects Emilia from both Lust and another lesser demon that slips through.

    - Envy: Envy appears to be vying for the throne and for the Horn of Hades worn around Emilia's neck. He kidnaps her family, threatens them, and creates doubt in Emilia about Wrath needing only one more soul. He implies it will be Emilia's regardless of Wrath's feelings about her. This causes a fight between Emilia and Wrath that shatters their alliance. He is disembowled by Envy and disappears - seemingly to the Underworld.

    - The Deal: In the end, Emilia makes a deal, agreeing to be Pride's wife, signing her soul away to his House. It is Wrath that comes to collect this soul fully healed, cold and distant (betrayed). Animosity again develops between the two of them as he asks again if this is truly what she wants. She insists it is, takes his hand, and they disappear to the Underworld... or so they thought.

    ABILITIES | POWERS: Wooh. Quick note. He is incredibly powerful as one of the Wicked and most likely Satan. I'm more than happy to decrease his powers as much as needed as not having them work whenever for plot purposes.

    - Sensing dark emotions/enjoying them/increasing them: All of the Wicked can sense any 'dark' emotion someone may be feeling and it is said they feed on it. They can also increase these emotions either on purpose or accidentally simply by existing. Given Wrath's feelings about choice, it is unlikely he will purposefully increase someone's anger, but another character being near him could achieve that (with player permission/desire). in general, this would be listed in a permission post/other players would be informed prior to anything happening.

    - Increasing/decreasing the temperature: He can make a room colder or hotter (He tends toward making it colder, and his body temperature can be unnaturally hot).

    - Causing quakes: He can make the ground/ceiling shake enough that dust falls down from it and cracks appear. He could probably destroy a building if he really tried or if his anger got completely out of his control. This only has happened twice within the books, and both times he was upset.

    - Super strength, super speed: I am planning on decreasing both of these so that there can be stakes for him, but still stronger/faster than the average person and more demon-like in abilities.

    - Invulnerable/immortal: In his canon, he can only be harmed by a demon dagger. He heals almost instantly from anything else. While he will be much tougher to cut into or harm than the average person/mortal, he can now be hurt by other weapons, and he will heal more slowly.

    - Magic: He knows how to perform several witch rituals, and the powers I'm detailing are often described as demon magic.

    - Teleportation: He can teleport across realms aka from the mortal one to the Underworld. I am changing this to teleporting to short distances and leaving him exhausted if he uses it too much. He also cannot take anyone with him except for Emilia due to their bond, but doing so would make her feel like she's on fire... so he won't unless desperate times call for it.

    - Super senses: He can hear/smell/see/taste things and discern information with these super senses, especially when it comes to demons and magic. In canon, he can smell each of his brothers individually. He was licking Emilia's twin's blood to try and understand what happened to her.

    - Blood deals: He can create a blood deal with someone. There are very specific rules about blood deals where he is from. The blood deal would be an exchange of some kind, but given his House is not in existence here, this likely would not be used.

    - Bond w/ Emilia: He has a matching tattoo with Emilia, created when she bonded them together. This has been shown to alert him when she's in danger, and it shows him where she is, as well. It clearly connects the two of them together. When he saved her life through the ritual they were able to share thoughts, memories, and more.

    - Ancient warrior/general: He is incredibly skilled at fighting with weapons - specifically swords and daggers. In addition, he is a skilled tactician known as the General of War, and he could (and has) lead armies in the past.

    - Doesn't need to eat/drink/probably breathe: Slowly doing away with that so he can experience the sensation of hunger and thirst. Welcome to humanity, Satan.

    PERSONALITY:

    - Wrathful but restrained: As his namesake would imply, he harbors a lot of anger, and his anger can be terrifying when unleashed. He is not, however, quick to anger. In fact, he is slow to anger. He is masterful at holding his emotions back and only revealing what he wants to reveal. This is a byproduct of Hell being a place that preys on one's emotions and having brothers who manipulate emotions associated with them. However, when he is angry, it is frightening.

    Still, even when a messenger betrayed him, he stayed his hand and chose mercy after terrifying him. He does not believe in punishment without reason, and he kills only when he has to instead of at a simple slight against him. He is commanding without being loud about it. One quiet word from him carries weight and power without his having to yell to indicate the seriousness with which he means what he says.

    - Good manners: Didn't you know that the devil is a gentleman? But in all seriousness, manners are important to this ancient Prince of Hell. He even stomps down the snow so Emilia won't have to walk through it in high heels. In general, he tends to be formal and make requests more than directing others to do something, and he abides close to strict demon etiquette.

    - Strategist: As the General of War, Wrath is a keen observer when it comes to the weaknesses of others or a battle. He plans out every single one of his moves ahead of time, and he does not (for the most part) act irrationally or without reason. He creates a plan for every potential outcome, like making sure Emilia would have everything she could need to summon him or warding his palace in the mortal realm against any potential danger. He understands human nature simply by being alive as long as he has and making deals with so many of them.

    - The importance of choice/words: Choice is incredibly important to Wrath. He does not take choice away from people. When he offers deals for the Devil's soul, when he makes offers of a blood deal for his own House, he makes certain they are fully informed of the consequences and what it would mean to accept these deals. He always offers that choice, and he has never been shown to be coercive with it. More than that, words have great meaning to him and to the demons of Hell. A word holds so much power (a name even more so), and he sticks to the promises and oaths that he makes. He even says that to him choice is what makes someone the most powerful. Not money, not armies, but having the power to choose.

    - Snarky: Wrath can be snarky. Sometimes he is even capable of joking beyond the restrained exterior, but it can be subtle and easy to miss because of that. He is capable of finding amusement in different situations - not all of which most others would find amusement in (i.e. anger).

    - Conceited/fancy pants: Wrath's entire principle of being is that If he believes he is powerful, he is, and it is enough to give his enemies pause. He radiates power even when he is not trying to impress it on others. It is how he holds himself with confidence, and his belief he is the most lethal thing in any room at any given time. Also, he really loves fancy everything, but especially fancy clothes. In fact, Emilia brings him a shirt, and he refuses to wear it because of the state of it, opting to remain shirtless.

    - Has a Presence/Appears Unnatural: The one time he walks through the streets with Emilia, he attracts a lot of attention without trying to. People either cannot stop staring at him due to how angelic/attractive he is or cannot stop backing away/avoiding him due to the demonic predatory vibe he gives off. Emilia likened it to walking through the market with a panther at her side. He is not good at fitting in, and other characters are likely to notice there's something Off about him.

    SAMPLE:

    -One
    -Two
    -Bonus

    INVENTORY:

    -His leather shoulder holster for his dagger
    -His dagger

    NOTES: None at all.

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot heavy + combined with Emilia if possible
    Edited (plurk name, forgot i changed it) 2021-08-06 01:50 (UTC)
    malicing: (Default)

    Jin Guangyao | The Untamed

    [personal profile] malicing 2021-08-08 03:53 am (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Riddle
    CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] tiger_eyes & madviolinist#5122 on Discord.
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: I heard about it from BG, your Zhou Zishu player.

    CHARACTER: Jin Guangyao
    CANON: The Untamed
    CANON POINT: The night his wife discovers the truth about their marriage.

    BACKGROUND: The Untamed takes place in ancient China and the land has been divided between various clans or sects. This is a short synopsis I found online concerning Meng Yao:

    "(Also known as) "Lord Lianfang"; Leader of Jin sect (after Jin Guangshan's death); The Chief Cultivator (after Wen Ruohan's death). One of the "Three Zuns" alongside his sworn brothers Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue. He wields the Hensheng sword. (He is) an illegitimate son of Jin Guangshan, he was not recognised at birth and worked as a servant of the Nie Clan, before winning his father's approval to join the Jin Sect after the Sunshot campaign.

    Under his mask of pleasantry, he is ruthless and ambitious, and was ultimately revealed to have killed Nie Mingjue, his father as well as his wife and son. He is close friends and sworn brothers with Lan Xichen, whom he greatly admires due to the latter's respect for him."

    The Jin clan/sect is located in Lanling and Meng Yao is the illegitimate son of Jin Guangshan - the previous leader. His mother was a prostitute and that has been held against him in public and in private all of his life. He used the chaos and paranoia caused by the Wen clan/sect to his advantage, twisting minds and hearts so that friends and family turned against one another. He did so to seek revenge for all the pain he and perhaps his mother suffered. (To add to his shame, he fell in love with a woman who was revealed to be his sister. In order to hide their relation - since he married her anyway - he killed their son. She found out the truth from a letter later on and confronted him before killing herself. Said letter came from one of the prostitutes Meng Yao had hired to tend to his father, Jin Guangshan. Said tending led to Jin Guangshan having a heart attack and being discovered in a very awkward and embarrassing position.)

    Yet, despite all of his loathing, fear and shame, he grew very attached to Lan Xichen - who treated him like a human (not a monster or a servant). Thus when his deeds were revealed, he begged for Xichen's forgiveness and even asked him to die with him.

    Most of Meng Yao's acts are only possible because of his golden core. The golden core is the place cultivators (i.e. those who fight demons/ghosts and protect regular people) derive their power. He subtly changed a spell that was cast through the use of the guqin for example, driving a man mad instead of calming him. He countered the spells of Wei Wuxian, mimicking what the other man had learned to do on his flute.

    Thus, thanks to his tampering, over the fifteen/sixteen years Wei Wuxian had supposedly been dead, he secured himself a place as the Chief Cultivator and Head of the Jin clan/sect.

    ABILITIES | POWERS: Golden Core Powers

    Meng Yao can use a guqin or a flute (or any instrument most likely) to mimic and/or subtly change a person's mood/emotions/well-being. For example a piece meant to calm the mind/senses, in his hands, can cause irritation or outright fury depending on how far he changes the notes. With his photographic memory, he will be able to recall the pieces he memorized in the Cloud Recesses.

    Furthermore he can bring forth a guqin to use in battle and he can banish it just as easily. The strings, in particular, are easy for him to use if he ever needs to take a hostage - and when the strings are part of the guqin, he can perform Chord Assassination. (Chord Assassination is a power that is activated when the strings are strummed; waves of power will be sent at one's enemies and it can take out a line of foes. By "take out" I mean they are knocked down. I would say this can hit six or seven people at most and it can be dodged if one is quick enough. The aforementioned waves are visible to the naked eye - they glow silver. Furthermore, since he will rely on his golden core to produce the spell, he will be limited in how often he can use it. I will say, at his best, he can perhaps strum the guqin (and thus produce the waves) ten times.)

    Lastly, he can suppress the golden cores of others. Suppression of the golden core will only work on those from his world. It means he can temporarily silence/contain/deaden their powers so they are unable to perform spells/make talismans and so forth. However they are still as physically capable of defending themselves as ever. Suppression only effects their magical production.

    Flight

    With the help of his sword, Meng Yao can fly. This is an ability all cultivators learn. The speed of said flight is the same as a large bird would fly - not too fast, but quick enough that, even if there is no wind, the fabric of their robes is pressed to their bodies and their hair is lifted behind them. As for how far he can fly - I would say a couple of miles. He is relying on his golden core to propel him, so eventually he will tire.

    He can float an inch or so off of his feet too and, if he grabs onto another person, he can carry them along. His speed in that scenario is slower than he could achieve on his sword - more of a quick walk than a run.

    Sword

    His sword is perfectly in sync with his golden core, which means it reacts to his will. He can summon it to him in a time of need and repel spells with it if his aim is good enough. (All of that is rather difficult when you are missing an arm, but he will find a way to manage.) The specific spells he can repel are those produced by other golden cores (i.e. spells meant to suppress his power and/or knock him down). I wouldn't think he would be able to defend against spells from other worlds - unless they are, for some reason, perfect mirrors of what he is accustomed to facing.

    PERSONALITY: First and foremost, Meng Yao is, unquestionably, a genius. He has an "eidetic memory" (or photographic memory) which means he can memorize the face, name, title and age of any person after one meeting. Upon meeting them a second time, he can easily recall their likes and dislikes. This ability aided him greatly in being a skilled host. Of course it didn't hurt that he is a damn fine actor too. Meng Yao can cry on cue, shift from panicked to relieved or delighted to sorrowful and none of it is deeper than the muscles of his face.

    It would be understandable to therefore consider him an unreliable and wicked person, however that would be a mistake. Because he is the son of a prostitute and unwanted and unloved by his father (whom he killed embarrassingly), Meng Yao is deeply uncomfortable about himself and his place in the world. He has learned to defend himself with a smile while plotting revenge behind the backs of those who abused him. While it might not be morally correct for him to act as he does, the feelings that he experiences are completely normal. He wants to be respected; he wants to be loved. So much so that it doesn't matter to him that the woman chosen for him to marry is his own sister. He treats her well - besides killing their son - and it seems like he does have true feelings for her. But, like other aspects of his life, he is willing to accept situations and truths that others simply cannot stomach. If he can be happy for even a moment, surely that makes it worthwhile? And that, the desire to be respected, happy and loved, is the true root of his madness. He doesn't - and can't - imagine himself having what he wants any other way.

    The one note of sanity in his existence is Lan Xichen. Around him, Meng Yao is sweet - almost bordering on shy - and willing to do good deeds. Because of him, Cloud Recesses was rebuilt and it was his idea to build towers to watch over the common people so that demons, monsters or ghosts could not attack them without word spreading. He also comforted Xichen after the supposed death of Wei Wuxian and so many of their sect members.

    For the eldest of the Twin Jades, Meng Yao is almost human. Yet that, and his piss poor childhood, doesn't excuse what he has done to achieve his role as the leader of the Lanling Jin. Nor does it excuse the many lives he has taken or been party to taking. He is steeped in blood and completely insane. His acting ability is all that saves him from revealing the truth to the world and, in his madness, he believes himself bright enough - and quick enough - to stave off that revelation indefinitely. But he is only one man and already there is suspicion. No one can save him once his crimes come into the light; no one will want to save him. And that leaves him just as lonely, just as bereft as he was when his mother died and his father rejected him. In reality, Meng Yao hasn't changed his circumstances at all. His accomplishments are built on lies and mad dreams.

    SAMPLE: SAMPLE ONE

    The night is quiet and as he changes into robes that are suitable for lounging, he considers pouring himself a cup of wine. Qin Su should join him, he decides. Though a great, perilous secret hangs between them (and has since the day of their vows), he enjoys her company. Truly there is no one in his life that understands the entirety of what he does to achieve this goal of his. It's better this way, though it is a bit lonely and terrifying as of late. Someone is keeping tabs on him; he can feel it, but he trusts that he is craftier than them.

    Picking up a sheet of paper, he considers what punishment he will dole out to the interloper. Death feels a bit too easy and torture can be so disgustingly messy. He lets the parchment fall back to the table and his lips quirk. No matter what he decides, he will adhere to his one rule: leave no trace behind.

    Except in the case of Nie Mingjue. There and only there, he has left multiple traces, leading whoever follows them into trap after trap. But they will never have all of him. Pieced together, the man could be a danger to them all.

    Walking around his desk to the secret chamber in his rooms, he enters the place where he keeps his spoils. The shelf where Nie Mingjue's head sits, eyes and mouth forced closed, calls to him and he grazes his fingertips along the head's cheek.

    "They can look for years and it won't do them any good. You belong to me."

    All the same, he closes the curtains to shield the head from the world. His knuckles are white as he grips the fabric and he breathes out harshly.

    "I must put you where they will never look."

    His dark gaze darted around the room, searching, his hand poised, ready to grab his sword. While he had time, he had to act. Otherwise he risked the whole thing being undone. Even now, over a decade later, he has to work so hard to protect what he has earned! But that is the price of power. He won't become lax like Guangshan had done.

    The soft voice of Qin Su brings him back to present matters and he leaves the secret room behind, his robes fluttering gracefully in his wake.

    SAMPLE TWO:

    [Guangyao is a cautious man - and for good reason! He doesn't like revealing himself unless absolutely necessary and thus this network message is a bit...delayed. However he is smiling warmly as if all is well.]

    I admit I had not thought to go on campaign again so soon! However the company has made the journey more than worthwhile. [He could be lying and he probably was; he has made a habit out of making just about anyone in his company feel special (even if he couldn't care less about them).] Please forgive my tardiness in introducing myself: I am Jin Guangyao, leader of the Lanling Jin.

    [A role he covets and protects with his wits - and his insanity.]

    Am I familiar to anyone? Even if I'm not, I am happy to assist where help is needed.

    INVENTORY: Hensheng (his sword), a change of robes, his hat, perfume and the Stygian Tiger amulet.

    NOTES: I can't think of anything right off the bat.

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy please. :)
    chaoswitch: (153.  ❚)

    Wanda Maximoff ( mcu ) 1/2

    [personal profile] chaoswitch 2021-08-09 07:32 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Sam
    CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] verities
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: existing player

    CHARACTER: Wanda Maximoff
    CANON: MCU
    CANON POINT: end of Wandavision

    BACKGROUND:
    | SCARLET WITCH WIKIA
    | WANDAVISION WIKI


    ABILITIES | POWERS:
    PSIONICS >> In the universe there are six Infinity Stones that manage the order of the universe. One such stone is the Mind stone. This stone found its way into the scepter of the god Loki, and then finally into the hands of a terrorist organization known as HYDRA. After radicalizing Wanda and her twin brother Pietro’s hatred of Stark and America, HYDRA convinced the twins to allow themselves to exposure to the scepter for experimentation purposes. The twins survived exposure, thus surviving prolonged interactions with the Mind stone. These interactions left Wanda and Pietro with special abilities, making them enhanced people.

    For Wanda, her abilities were that of psionics. ( note: it is later revealed that these abilities were likely inherent to Wanda already, and simply amplified by the Mind stone instead. this suggests why Wanda and her brother were the only two survivors of experimentation. ) Wanda’s psionic abilities include a physical component and a mental one in the form of telepathy.
    PHYISCAL PSIONICS : These abilities tend to be based around Wanda’s telekinetic abilities, though that inherently comes down to energy manipulation. These psionic abilities allow Wanda to do a number of effects including:
    flight - Wanda has the ability to use her telekinesis to give herself the simulation of flight. She cannot fly without her telekinesis, as she simply maneuver herself with the ability.

    energy manipulation - This primarily shows itself in the way Wanda creates “bolts” of energy. She can manipulate energy between or within her hands and shoot the blasts like bolts. This hints at Wanda essentially compressing her telekinetic energy into a forceful mass she can throw.

    telekinesis - Her basic capability, Wanda can lift and move things with this ability. She is also shown to tear things apart, as she pulls them in two different directions. Wanda is shown to be able to maneuver multiple items at a time, all of which can be doing different things, while having a conversation and still maintaining concentration. It is one of her more used and thus more fluid skills at her current point in time.

    force fields - Harnessing her telekinetic energy to manifest it in a more forceful manner, Wanda can manipulate this energy into a force field. This field is strong enough to stop bullets but takes a great deal of concentration for Wanda. She cannot use other abilities while maintaining a force field.

    disintegration - A lesser-known ability, but when Wanda loses control of her pain after the death of her brother, she disintegrates Ultron’s robots with no effort. It seems to take a great deal of chaotic energy to pull off.

    TELEPATHY : Another side of Wanda’s psionic capabilities are her telepathic ones. Wanda is able to feel the emotions of others, read minds, and communicate telepathically. This ability tends to need more focused concentration, as in Wandavision she seems unaware of the distress of the citizens. However, when she does switch her focus to it, Wanda can sense many minds at once.
    mental manipulation - Wanda is able to manipulate minds in two ways: emotional dreams, and outright control. It is shown in Age of Ultron that she can reach a wide populace with her abilities, though it takes focus and time to do so, in order to manipulate their desires to lead. She also has the ability to manipulate the dreams of others, playing on their emotions to make them see visions she chooses. As for control, Wanda is shown to be able to do this when she manipulates the whole town of Westview into acting out stories and plots for her “show.” It is revealed that they are still them underneath, and even aware of her manipulation, but have little to no ability to deviate from Wanda’s control.

    SCARLET WITCH >> Unknown to Wanda previously, Wanda is not simply a psionic user whose abilities came from the Mind stone. Revealed by Agatha, Wanda is a witch and always has been. The Mind stone simply enhanced her natural abilities. As a witch, Wanda not only has the above abilities, but also the ability to cast spells. Currently, many of Wanda’s spells are done intuitively. She simply desires, and the spell manifests somehow. This tends to have its drawbacks, however, as Wanda’s spells can have gaps or errors in them that make them imperfect due to her lack of knowledge in that she was even performing spells and how spells naturally work.

    Not only is Wanda a witch, though. Wanda is a prophesied witch known as the Scarlet Witch. Little is yet known about the Scarlet Witch, but it is revealed it is a witch of great power due to her chaos magic capabilities. This implies how Wanda is able to work so many spells with so little knowledge, as her magic is naturally wild and chaotic. While knowledge would not hinder her abilities, it is not always necessary in her situation. Ultimately, this kind of magic is dangerous. Agatha refers to Wanda as the Harbinger of Chaos, implying that Wanda will one day bring destruction through her magic.

    In the meantime, Wanda has shown the following capabilities due to her magic:
    SPELLCRAFT : Wanda is shown to be able to cast a number of spells. Two important, but more minor spells, include a protection spell and a probability spell.
    probability spell -When Wanda’s home is bombed by a Stark missile, it is revealed that Wanda unknowingly cast a probability spell that made the missile less likely to detonate, saving her and her brother.

    protection spell -Agatha teaches Wanda the runes, unintentionally, to a protection spell as well. These runes when put around a space allow only the witch who set them to be able to cast magic within the space. Wanda is shown to be able to create these runes with her telekinetic abilities in midair.

    REALITY MANIPULATION : There are a large number of spells that happen here, which is what draws Agatha’s attention in the first place. At its core, however, Wanda has the ability to manipulate the reality around her. This allows her to, in conjunction with her mental manipulation, to alter a town into behaving and looking like a whole new reality. This reality moves through decades at a quick pace stylistically, while everyone remains as they are age-wise. The reality imitates a sitcom show, showing just how far Wanda’s manipulation can reach. Some of the following show how her reality manipulation works all together to create these new realities:
    transmutation - the biggest and most common spell type used by Wanda, Wanda uses transmutation to alter the way the world around her looks. She redesigns her living room multiple times, changes the city to fit each decade she establishes, and even alters clothes and makeup of everyone to suit her needs. This happens on a grand scale quite frequently, but most interesting is that this is not an illusion. This ability takes place at a molecular level, meaning the items are forever altered by her.

    conjuration - Another larger spell type Wanda uses is conjuration. She uses this type of spell to manifest rings out of thin air and a collar for her dog Sparky. The most difficult of all, however, is that Wanda creates her husband, Vision, and her children, Tommy and Billy. This type of spell is more intense and more difficult, and it is revealed that Wanda tied the creation of her family into the original reality warping spells she used to make her new home. Once cast, a spell cannot be altered even by the caster, and thus Wanda is unable to correct her mistake. Wanda is uncertain of how to correct this mistake, though, as she made it in the first place, and thus requires more research to create a more stable conjuration. It is likely her smaller conjurations are similar and just as unstable.

    temporal - Wanda has shown an ability to manipulate time. She often rewinds time, though only in short bursts, back to what it was in order to change how it happened. It is shown that those rewound seem to have some awareness that something is off when she does this. It also only affects a specific radius, as those outside the radius are aware that something was changed or didn’t go as planned.

    teleportation - A lesser used spell, but Wanda is shown to make Geraldine/Monica disappear from behind stage and reappear in the Cabinet of Mysteries. Wanda also can make herself teleport small distances.

    manipulations - Some lesser spells include Wanda’s ability to flick lights on and off at will, her ability to manipulate the weather with a rainstorm and gusts of large winds, and an ability to create fire at will. While these mostly fall into conjuration and transmutation, they’re lesser and easier spells for her to cast as well and tend to be more on minor scales than the others.

    MAGICAL ENERGY ABSORPTION : In her battle with Agatha, Wanda learns how to harness the energy from Agatha when fighting. When Agatha throws energy at Wanda, she can take it and absorb it in order to amplify her own abilities.

    ASTRAL PROJECTION : Shown at the end of the series, Wanda is able to move about freely while she projects her Scarlet Witch self in midair studying spellcraft. Wanda seems to have control over both versions of herself, and is able to multitask while doing this.


    SKILLS >> Outside of her abilities and magic, Wanda has natural skills she has come by through either natural talents or training and hard work. These include:
    COMBAT : Wanda is trained for combat both lingo relating to combat and training in hand to hand fighting. Wanda is shown to be a capable fighter.

    SURVEILLANCE : Avengers training also included teaching Wanda how to perform surveillance and reconnaissance. This includes what to look for, how to relay information, and how to use this information. She has a passing capability with this skill.

    GUITARIST : Having spent a lot of time alone in the Avengers base, Wanda is shown to have an acoustic guitar in her bedroom that she likely practices with.

    BILINGUAL : Wanda can speak her native language, Sokovian, as well was fluent English.

    COOKING : Used to making her own meals, Wanda has the ability to cook a decent dinner either by hand or with the aid of her powers.


    RESTRICTIONS - any help on how she might be restricted coming in. I'm thinking maybe a more limited reach in her abilities?


    wooden_one: (Default)

    Chu Wanning | The Husky and His White Cat Shizun

    [personal profile] wooden_one 2021-08-09 11:19 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Orange Crates
    CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] orangeCrates or just PM at this journal
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Nudged towards the game by Beren

    CHARACTER: Chu Wanning
    CANON: The Husky and His White Cat Shizun
    CANON POINT: Chapter 74. The evening before he whisks away Mo Ran when he's accused of murder in TaoHua Yuan

    BACKGROUND: Chu Wanning came into being when a monk, trying to redeem himself, found a piece of YanDi Holy Wood (basically wood from a tree planted by a deity full of spiritual energy), carved it into the shape of his saviour's deceased son and brought it to life with a drop of his own blood. For the first fifteen years of his life, Chu Wanning had been raised in virtual isolation with only the man who created him as a companion and having only went to a populated city once in his life, and left to get a holy weapon.

    He was taught cultivation and other lessons and given a good upbringing so his body and spirit core would grow well. Without knowing it, he was always meant to become a vessel for the monk's saviour's deceased son to inhabit,. Which was the reason for his isolation: he didn't need to know about the outside world since it had been decided that the current Chu Wanning wasn't a real soul and would be replaced by the time he was fifteen.

    Except, when he was fifteen he found a starving child when he and the monk went out to collect spirit stones. Chu Wanning had been told that the world beyond the temple was a utopia and also that he should help others. But if the world was a utopia how could a small child be starving to death? If cultivators were meant to help others then why was his teacher hiding in the monastery while children are dying of starvation?

    He ended up leaving the monastery without permission and traveled around for ten days to see for himself what was happening. When he returned, he'd decided what they should do is leave the monastery because there was a lot they could do to help. The monk disagreed because he didn't want Chu Wanning to leave the monastery and, after a long argument that could not change Chu Wanning's mind, told him that he can leave only if he left behind his spirit core. Which Chu Wanning proceeded to try to cut out only for the monk to stop him in the end before kicking him out of the sect and sending him away.

    At some point, he ends up at another large sect after being saved by the wife of the sect leader where he is treated as a guest. When the sect leader kills his own wife for the sake of a holy weapon, Chu Wanning breaks off from the sect, returns every gift he'd received and never looked back.

    Eventually he ended up at a sect in the lower cultivation realm called Sisheng Peak and became an elder there, eventually taking on three apprentices.

    ABILITIES | POWERS: - cultivation:
    - qinggong: A form of cultivation that increases physical abilities allowing him to jump higher and move faster
    - spells: many of them combat related. Sometimes for stuff like heating tea or drying towels. He can also create haitang flowers with his spiritual energy that can do various things like seek out something, be imbued with simple spells or carry messages.
    - talismans: He can create various talismans that range in use from reversing spells, creating explosions or sealing.
    - barriers: Chu Wanning is well known for being a master of these and can create, identify, repair and take down a variety of different barriers. He can create ones small enough to shield one person from rain or even one large enough to protect a larger area from monsters. The use of these vary from keeping out the cold to sealing the boundary between the mortal realm and hell.

    - Divine Weapons: spirit weapons that Chu Wanning can summon. In addition to using them as weapons, they all have special abilities. Chu Wanning can also borrow spiritual energy from them if he's running low himself.
    - Tianwen: Ability Pan (Judge). A willow branch that can be used as a whip. Its ability is 'Judge', when it is wrapped around a person or creature it forces them to tell the truth as long as the wielder wishes it. It can be resisted but it's painful to do so. It is also the weapon Chu Wanning uses the most. It can also make willow branches come out of the ground to subdue, guard or attack. The two attacks he's seen using are Wan Ren Guan, wherein a multitude of willow branches erupt from the ground and wrap around enemies/whoever and Feng an area of effect attack that takes out everything within a certain radius, imprecise but powerful.
    - Jiuge: Gu Bewitch. A guqin made from the same wood that Chu Wanning was carved from. It shares a special bond with him as a result and he can summon it even if he has no spirit energy left by using his soul's energy...which is a terrible idea. Its ability is 'Bewitch' allowing him to use its music to affect the mental state of others as well as break mind control/hypnosis abilities. He actually only uses this ability to calm people down.
    - Huaisha: Sha Kill. A sword. It shows up very little in the actual series but it's supposed to be stronger than Tianwen. By putting some spiritual energy into the sword he can create a shockwave strong enough to rend the ground. He can also fly on it though he's afraid of heights so that's unlikely to happen.
    I will, of course, have a permission post for both Tianwen and Jiuge and nothing will be done without player permission first. Very little is known about Huaisha but I doubt it's a game breaking sort of weapon...and he doesn't like using it anyway. As the canon is finished I don't think we'll ever really know what it does besides being able to cleave part of the ground (but not like to a godlike degree) so I'll just also play it as just a really powerful sword and not elaborate on its ability. And of course while these mostly always work in canon I am fine with them not working in the game at any moment!

    - building magic tools and mechas: He has an interest in building magic tools, weapons and mechas (no bigger than human sized in canon)

    - Since he's actually made from a block of holy wood, he has a natural affinity for the wood element and also is able to understand wood/plant spirits. Much later on he can summon nearby wood element aligned spirits but at the moment he isn't even aware of his past.

    - He can drink like a fish and not get drunk

    PERSONALITY: Chu Wanning has a strong sense of right and wrong and his actions are very much guided by his principles. He's definitely an emotional person, but is able to set aside his own desires to do what he thinks is right and won't compromise on it. For example, the monk who raised him had threatened him with ending their relationship as student and teacher if Chu Wanning insisted on leaving, trying to play on the fact that he values bonds. But, in the end, even though it pained him to do so, he accepted the breaking of this bond because he knew he had to do what's right. Beyond that, even if what he knows is right isn't going to be popular or he knows it won't be viewed well, he'll still choose to do what's right. He also doesn't give himself a pass on bad behaviour. For example, when he broke the rules, even though he had a good reason, even though as an elder of the sect he wouldn't normally be punished, even though he was badly wounded, he still insisted on being flogged, going into seclusion and working around the sect. Exactly as a disciple would receive and told the elder in charge that he wasn't allowed to go easy on him. This resolve is also what allows him to get back up and continue even when he's wounded or when he's in despair.

    Chu Wanning is definitely stubborn, but he's also fairly open-minded. On more than one occasion, he's shown a willingness to listen and understand instead of making a judgement based on surface information. Even when dealing with a ghost he wants to know why she was attacking instead of assuming she was malevolent for no reason. When a woman had given them and some refugees trouble though he had every reason to judge her for it, when he'd calmed down he'd tried to ask around and figure out why she acted the way she did instead of writing her off as greedy and petty. He's also willing to accept when people change instead of constantly suspecting them. There are exceptions, of course, but in general, he's not one to make snap judgments and will give others a chance to say their piece or give their point of view first. Or, in some cases, give them that chance after his temper has had a chance to cool.

    While he has a reputation of being aloof and cool, Chu Wanning is actually incredibly kind. He's the sort of person who would save earthworms on a path when it's raining, who would go to great lengths to keep others safe or comfort them. It's this kindness that has drawn some of the most important people in his life to him. His kindness is another aspect of his personality that drives a lot of his decisions and leads him to seek out those who need his help.

    If Chu Wanning isn't driven by his principles or his kindness, the third most likely culprit for his decisions would be his pride. If an action has a possibility of causing him to be embarrassed he won't do it, or will do it in a way so that he will have plausible deniability. Like how when he's caught saving earthworms in the rain he'd insist it was because the earthworms were in his way instead of letting anyone come to the conclusion that he did it out of kindness. His pride also leads him to default to anger whenever he feels embarrassed or exposed in any way, including feelings like sadness, loneliness or fear. It also leads him to a tendency to rely on himself instead of others, even if it's to the detriment of his own well being since it's more important to him to show no weakness than to actually take care of himself.

    Actually, for all that he's highly competent when it comes to matters of cultivation, combat and related topics, he's basically useless when it comes to most life skills. He can't cook. His idea of doing laundry is to swirl his clothes around in water. He will wear yesterday's clothes instead of finding something new to wear. He leaves dangerous weapons lying on his bed instead of cleaning them up and just sleeps on a small corner to avoid them. He also fails at socializing. There are some minor exceptions, but for the most part, if left to his own devices he'll make a mess of his own life. Part of this is just generally being bad at these kinds of things because he's not used to them. Part of it is generally a lack of care towards himself.

    After being betrayed by the man he saw as a father figure for fifteen years Chu Wanning has ended up with very low self-worth. Simply put, he finds it hard to believe anyone could care about him, not when he could be abandoned at the drop of a hat like he had been. It didn't help that many people consider him cold and aloof. Unfeeling. And he's really embraced and internalized that, which only leads to even more self-loathing. At times, it blinds him to what's going on with the people around him and makes it harder for him to connect with others since he's sure they will eventually grow to hate him.

    (Word Count: 909)
    Edited 2021-08-09 23:19 (UTC)
    gladiokinesis: (diegosquarebox13)

    Diego Hargreeves | The Umbrella Academy

    [personal profile] gladiokinesis 2021-08-11 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Katie
    CONTACT: autoclave @ plurk
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: I was nudged here by Emily, and I got mod approval

    CHARACTER: Diego Hargreeves
    CANON: The Umbrella Academy (Netflix Series)
    CANON POINT: End of season 2, but before they leave the farm to go back to 2019

    BACKGROUND:
    wiki background

    ABILITIES | POWERS:

    Trajectory Manipulation: Diego has the ability to control the course of an object he throws, even curving or stopping it. Usually this one of his many knives. At the end of season two we saw this develop so that he can also stop projectiles being aimed at him – in this specific case it was bullets but over time I imagine it could apply to things like arrows and stuff too.

    Overall I think he has one of the less game-breaking powers of the Hargreeves (especially since he lacks the ability to breathe underwater that his comic counterpart had) but if there’s anything I need to adjust, let me know.

    Beyond that he’s also a trained fighter who keeps his body in peak condition and trains all the time. As he brags, his body is a temple. He is especially good at knife throwing. He’s also skilled in martial arts and using a staff.

    PERSONALITY:

    You know the old adage of second place being the first loser?

    Well, that's sort of the story of Diego Hargreeve's life. All of his life he's been No. 2 of the Umbrella Academy, and never good enough for Daddy's love, or even just his approval. Diego has an inferiority complex that gets in his way more often than not. Even when people do love him, he has a hard time trusting it, and an even harder time believing it. He still seems himself as the stuttering little boy who brought his father shame. He wants, more than anything else, to feel like he matters, to feel like he's important. This is part of what drives him to want to save JFK in season two -- if he can save one of the most beloved presidents of all time, well then it surely means he's more than just a No. 2, right? Because of this....Diego often feels like nobody takes him seriously. No one quite believes that he was the one who figured out Vanya was the cause of the end of the world (the second time).


    When most of the Hargreeves children leave the Academy they form lives of their own, and while Diego does that, he also keeps fighting crime too. Five describes him as Batman, but essentially not as impressive. He also works as a janitor. He lives behind a boxing ring. He tries to earn his own keep and not just rely on the family money.

    Diego is also, for lack of a better term, a drama queen. When entering a house he doesn't even test a door at one point before crashing through the glass, much to Five and Allison's amusement. He can be stealthy when he needs to, but his nature is to kind of make a spectacle and gather unwanted attention. This is lamp-shaded in the beginning of the season 2 when Five finds Diego in the mental hospital and when Diego asks how Five found him, his brother just starts reading the article written about his conspiracy theories about JFK's assassination (as they were in the 60s at this point, before it had happened).

    When Diego was a child, he had a stutter and speech impediment that he only got through because of the patience and acceptance he received from his Robot Mom/Nanny. In many ways you could say Diego has a bit of an Oedipal complex -- he's a little too attached to Grace and he despises his father but to be fair -- Reginald is terrible. He treats all of his children awfully in different ways and because of Diego's stutter and less "special" powers it seems as if he looked down on him from day one. Even when they meet in the 60s Reginald has the power to knock Diego down with his words alone, calling him insignificant and pathetic.

    For all of this...Diego still has the capacity to feel very deeply. He may hate his family sometimes because they drive him insane, but he also loves them and would do anything for them. Both of these things can be true at the same time -- and often are when it comes to the Hargreeves. He also is better at expressing his feelings than a lot of his siblings. He expresses sadness, anger, happiness, and a whole gambit of emotions in his words in the way a lot of the rest of them can't. He's also pretty emotionally sensitive, he notices when Klaus is off after he comes back from David's death and sticks by his side as he detoxes. He sits next to Vanya at the end of season two, both of them nursing broken hearts.

    Diego is also...kinda dumb sometimes. Or he doesn't think before speaking might be the better way to put it. Like when they find out Lila (his ex) was one of the other children born on the same day as him and his siblings he has a moment of "we're not blood related though, right?" And everyone stares at him rightfully so because look around you Diego, you're all different races and ethnicities. No, you're not blood related. You didn't fuck your sister, you're fine.

    More than anything, Diego treasures honestly and loyalty. It's hard once you've broken his trust to earn it back -- but it's not impossible. When Vanya shows up with amnesia in season 2 and Diego tells her the last time he saw her he had energy sucked out of him so he has the right to be angry she apologizes. She says if that means something. He puts his knife down and tells her that it does. Yeah, she fucked up, and she can't even remember it, but she apologized. That means sometimes. That's why Lila's series of betrayals hurt so badly. She grew up being manipulated and lied to just like he and his siblings did -- why would she do that to someone else?

    The truth can hurt, sure, but lies hurt more.

    That loyalty can spread past the grave as well, in season one his first love interest, Patch, is killed and he vows for vengeance -- he's ready to stop everything else to get it, to make Cha-Cha pay for killing her. It's not until Five makes him think about whether Patch would want to be remembered that way that he's able to turn away from vengeance. When it seems like his mother-robot might have had a hand in his father's death, and her programming may be deteriorating after 30 years, and so many of them alone, he does what he sees as the humane thing and turns her off, as much as it breaks his heart. When she later...actually dies when the Academy falls he has to be pulled away from the rubble to stop looking for her.

    Diego is careful about who he lefts into his heart, but who he loves? He loves them fiercely. He may hide behind anger and sarcasm and his knives, but deep down he's still that scared little boy who just wants to be loved. He's finally started growing up, but he still has a long way to go.

    Also, sometimes, when he’s really vunerable/hurt, that stutter still comes out. It’s not often, but it matters when it does.

    SAMPLE:

    sample from canon point

    INVENTORY:
    -At least two of his knives, if not more (how many knives is too many knives?), and his little sash thing he wears to stash them in.
    -A staff


    NOTES:

    Not that I think of.

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-Heavy, if possible. It’s not a Diego entrance if he isn’t making a mess of things and Allison and Five do have a bet going.

    Edited 2021-08-11 01:19 (UTC)
    jinzhong: (Smirk // chatvert)

    Jackie Ma | Sleeping Dogs

    [personal profile] jinzhong 2021-08-21 08:57 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Rin
    CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] chatvert

    CHARACTER: Jackie Ma
    CANON: Sleeping Dogs
    CANON POINT: "The Election"

    BACKGROUND: Jackie @ Sleeping Dogs wiki

    ABILITIES | POWERS: Being a low-level triad member, Jackie has no real special abilities of note. He’s a better fighter than you would guess from just looking at him - the result of a rough childhood in Old Prosperity - and he can hotwire vehicles with ease. He’s also pretty good at plotting out heists and doing the legwork to find out when things are going to be unguarded, making him decent spy material.

    Jackie is also bilingual in English and Cantonese, due to growing up in Hong Kong. He peppers his speech with Cantonese words, phrases, and invective; I will be showing translations of italicized Cantonese terms with hovering tooltips. (Though, in some cases? You might not want to know the translations.)

    PERSONALITY:
    • Why wasn't I born a dog??: One of Jackie’s greatest strengths - and ironically, what gets him killed in the end - is his loyalty. Treat him well, and you’ve got a friend for life. He even prioritizes his loyalty to his friends over his loyalty to his triad boss. When Mr. Tong has Wei tortured after finding Jackie’s body, he taunts Wei by recounting Jackie’s intense loyalty to him in the face of torture and his refusal to believe that his best friend is an undercover cop. He can be loyal to a cause or loyal to a group, but the most intense loyalty he can have is loyalty to someone who was kind to him. He gave up on the Sun On Yee after being kidnapped and buried alive, but even after brutal torture, he never gave up on Wei.
    • It's way too real out here: After his initiation into the Sun On Yee, which required killing someone (and in the process saving Wei’s life), Jackie found himself becoming disillusioned with the triad lifestyle. He’s a petty criminal, but he’s not a killer; that one kill gave him nightmares for weeks. As a criminal, he was content with theft and roughing people up and maybe the occasional drug deal, but murder is definitely not his wheelhouse. As his time in the Sun On Yee wore on, Jackie became less and less sure that being in the triad was the kind of life he wanted. It wasn’t bringing him respect and glory, it was bringing him anxiety and bloodshed. That wasn’t what he’d signed up for. Early in the game he speaks of the impending turf war between Winston and Dogeyes as “epic” and “like in the movies”; there’s the suggestion that he’s not equipped to fully deal with the reality of the violence that comes with being a member of the Sun On Yee. He only sees the movie-star glamor and Bruce Lee fight aspects of it before he’s made a full member, not the disaster and death that are part and parcel of life in the triads. Here's some clown makeup for you, Jackie!
    • I clearly didn't get enough attention during my formative years: If Jackie views someone as his superior, he’s eager to please, ready to jump at a command to go rough up some street vendors for extortion money or go fight some enemies moving in on the gang’s turf. Not that he doesn’t have initiative; he comes up with plenty of schemes to steal from Dogeyes’ crew and enacts them without explicit authorization from Winston (but he only goes through with heists when he knows Wei’s got his back). He joined the gang to feel like he belonged to something, since there weren’t a lot of opportunities for a kid from Old Prosperity except crime.
    • Better to be a fuck up than a douchebag: Jackie is tenacious, unwilling to give up even when the chips are down, and persistent in going after what he wants, because ain’t nobody else gonna get it for him. He knows what it’s like to be bullied, so when he can, he stands up for people who are getting beaten down, like his eventual canon girlfriend Jiu Mei...even if that means that the heat has been deflected onto him and he gets a beating as a result. For a gangster, he has a strong sense of honor, principles, and morals. Jackie’s usually pretty cheerful and carefree, ready with a joke (“Do they have internet in America?”) or an insult about someone (usually Dogeyes). He’s also got a mischievous streak and will absolutely do things just to piss his enemies off. Still - he's regarded as the bottom of the totem pole in the Water Street Boys. He doesn't mind, because he belongs to something.
    • I am so nervous all of the time: As his time in the Sun On Yee wore on, Jackie became less and less sure that being in the triad was the kind of life he wanted. It wasn’t bringing him respect and glory, it was bringing him anxiety and bloodshed. That wasn’t what he’d signed up for. Early in the game he speaks of the impending turf war between Winston and Dogeyes as “epic” and “like in the movies”; there’s the suggestion that he’s not equipped to fully deal with the reality of the violence that comes with being a member of the Sun On Yee. He only sees the movie-star glamor and Bruce Lee fight aspects of it when he’s made a full member, not the disaster and death that are part and parcel of life in the triads. That pegs him as an idealistic sort, or as idealistic as someone from Old Prosperity can get. Unfortunately for Jackie, that idealism doesn’t hold up once it’s exposed to reality, and by the time Wei pulls him out of the coffin on Magazine Island, he’s cynical, paranoid, and pessimistic.


    SAMPLE: h/c meme, march 2021

    INVENTORY:
    x1 set of clothing - hoodie, tank top, jeans, socks, underwear, sneakers, counterfeit expensive watch, assorted necklaces and bracelets
    x1 wallet on chain - ID, roughly $750 HKD, picture of Jiu Mei
    x1 mobile phone

    NOTES: He's coming in from his death-point, but since he died pretty violently, he'll just have some of his lighter torture injuries instead (cuts, bruises, a broken rib/finger or two).
    imprudency: (055)

    klaus hargreeves | the umbrella academy

    [personal profile] imprudency 2021-09-19 02:05 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: sey
    CONTACT: cyclical @ plurk or sey#9725 on disco
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Sheep found me on EMP! but also jumped on the TDM

    CHARACTER: Klaus Hargreeves
    CANON: The Umbrella Academy
    CANON POINT: End of season 2, before arriving at the Sparrow Academy

    BACKGROUND: Wiki!

    ABILITIES | POWERS:

    jeepers creepers: Klaus has the ability to commune with the dead. Not only can he see and hear spirits, he can communicate directly to them. In conjunction with this, he can use his ability to conjure them and manifest them into corporeal existence for a limited time. He's still figuring it out, okay? Spirits and ghosts can interact with him on a physical level in some cases. He can also allow spirits to use his body for possession, though he has difficulty regaining control afterwards.

    born again: Klaus also appears to be very, very difficult to kill. He's seen overdosing to the point he has to be resuscitated, as well as visiting the literal afterlife. The implication is that God does not want him there and continues to send him back, though how true that is isn't explicitly stated. Regardless, his abilities do appear, in some cases, to protect him against death. This can be nerfed if need be.

    PERSONALITY:


    To say Klaus is a case study on trauma and poor coping mechanisms is an understatement. Growing up in the Umbrella Academy was difficult for all the Hargreeves children, but Number Four's failure to rise to his own potential was considered by their father one of his "greatest disappointments". Klaus carries this sense of defeat and resignation with him, even though it's often covered by an over the top, flamboyant facade. What he lacks in self confidence and self worth, he makes up for tenfold in dramatics and gaudy narcissism.

    Having been locked in a mausoleum to hone his abilities, Klaus began to develop a fear for his ability and the things he was capable of. Unable to trust his father to console him, or his mother (a robot, who presumably could have been unreliably programmed to tell him anything), Klaus turned to alternative means to battle his fear and block out the spirits that could commune with him. His drug and alcohol abuse numbs his sense and abilities, which fends off most spirits, easing the fear and uncertainty brought on by his childhood. He is a master of self-destruction when it comes to avoiding emotionally difficult situations or the supernatural, and will do anything in his power to take the edge off where he can't cope himself.

    This contributes a great deal to his wild and never say no attitude. He's a man who is constantly moving, everything about him theatrical as he puts on a front, even to those closest to him. He creates who he wants to be, despite his own well being. Despite appearing like he doesn't care about anything, every performative action he takes is deliberate to achieve certain reactions.

    To most in his family, this gives him the facade of being unreliable. Coupled with his ostentation, seemingly care-free, balls-to-the-wall attitude, most members of the Hargreeves family discount him and overlook his opinions, even when he is trying to convey something serious to them. Klaus depends on this unreliability to keep people at arm's length, even those he cares for most. Despite his addiction problems, he is incredibly loyal to his family when they need him, even when he is ignored to cast off as the class clown.

    There's a resilience that comes with his flippant, clown-ish nature however. When the Hargreeves are incorrectly scattered around the 1960s, he manages to create a cushy life for himself, albeit one based off of lies. Being the center of attention and the leader of a cult is the farthest thing from what he really wants, but he's an opportunist at heart, and he won't pass on it. He's an expert con man when he wants to be, able to play a myriad of roles with little regard for the outcome and how it might affect others. While he often strives for personal gain, where his family is concerned he usually has second guesses and pivots.

    Klaus shows a unique determination that can rival most members of the Academy, and is capable of far more than his family expects. When Klaus realizes he has the ability to manifest Ben, he works doggedly to get sober to attempt and hone his abilities, both for his dead brother and to help his family stop the impending apocalypse. He overcomes his fear of his ability to try and master it, and also manages to muscle through all of this while shouldering withdrawal from heavy substance abuse. This is also evident when he tries to muscle his way to Vanya in the FBI headquarters, forcing himself to crawl farther than any of the others, when he could just as easily give up.

    Small spaces and loud, sudden noises are some of the few things that leave visibly rattled. After an unfortunate time traveling stint, he was sent to war in Vietnam and returned after watching his lover die violently on the battlefield. Klaus suffers from mild PTSD, which is often triggered by any loud noise or explosion, where he is often thrown into flashbacks that leave him visibly shaken.

    Despite his difficult past and his even more difficult coping mechanisms, Klaus would do well in a world where the apocalypse wasn't 100% dependent on him or his family, or caused by something stupid they've done. He is a decent human being deep down and cares deeply for those he allows in, even if he might not initially appear so. He has a soft heart, as can be noted with his interactions with his siblings and with Dave. He seems to thrive best in situations where he doesn't always have the pressure of the Academy and his father looming just at his heels.

    SAMPLE:

    one | klaus is canon updated and gets Five up to speed | begins as text moves to prose

    two | a memey/au-ish look into younger klaus

    three | season 2 klaus with action brackets

    INVENTORY: Klaus will arrive in his season two attire with a set of dog tags around his neck. He might also have a flask that is mostly (or completely) empty.

    NOTES:



    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Either works for me! Make his life even more complicated than it already is, it'll be FINE.
    funnylittleclown: (Default)

    Doctor | Doctor Who

    [personal profile] funnylittleclown 2021-09-23 07:08 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Cocorose
    CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] coco_rose Or PM this account
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: I saw a re-plurk and then joined the testdrive - testdrive link 2.

    CHARACTER: The Doctor (2nd)
    CANON: Doctor Who
    CANON POINT: End of The War Games 

    BACKGROUND: Wiki Link

    As the Doctor's history is a bit confusing let me just condense his history into a brief blurb. The Doctor is an alien from Gallifrey called a Time Lord who has escaped the strict structured life of his people in a stolen TARDIS (it looks like a British police box) and now travels through space and time helping out those he comes into contact with.

    ABILITIES | POWERS: 
    • Alien biology - Time Lords have two hearts, a respiratory bypass system (meaning they can hold their breath or stop breathing altogether for an extremely long time - like hibernation), and they are in general more hardy in extreme climates than humans. This does not mean they can not be killed just that it takes more to knock them down than a human.
    • Regeneration - If a Time Lord does die this does not nessacary mean their life is over. Unless their body is completely destroyed this species regenerates itself into a new body when the old one has worn out. In game I intend to avoid this as I would like to play this version of the Doctor and he won't talk about this ability anyway.
    • Telepathy - Time Lords also have natural telepathic abilities. They can transmit their thoughts to others or viewscreens, communicate with each other mentally, and it gives them some resistance to being mind controlled or having his mind read. He never uses this ability to control the minds of others but he has used his skills to break some one else's mind control when a friend's mind was being used.
    • Science - The Doctor is a scientist and tinkerer. He has done everything from building robots to discovering the medical reason for an illness. He is extremely knowledgeable on a wide variety of subjects.
    • Time/World Sense - He can instinctually keep track of time and is shown to be able to tell the oxygen, radiation, and temperature levels of a world without needing to look at any computerized sensors. He can just sense them.

    PERSONALITY:
    When asked most describe this version of the Doctor as childish or even sweet, as Jo Grant (A Third Doctor Companion) did after meeting him in the Three Doctors. And he is! The Second Doctor is much less authoritarian and grumpy than the First Doctor was. He tends to be charming and fun loving. Being very childish he enjoys playing little games and teasing his friends. He exudes a great enthusiasm for exploring, loves a good puzzle and generally adores life. He will often stop in the middle of an adventure to go and play. There always seems to be time to have a little fun along the way! This happy-go-lucky and even childish tendency quite often leaves his friends baffled. In a notable example the Doctor once landed the TARDIS on a beach. Jamie and Victoria, his traveling companions at that time, wanted to know where they were. The Doctor said they were at the beach and that was all that mattered. He then took off down the sand, calling back to his friends to look for a buckets and spades. Jamie wondered if it was to go searching for worms but Victoria understood the Doctor wanted to build sandcastles. Both of his younger friends felt they were too old for that but the Doctor certainly didn't feel he was! Being sweet he does very much care about the feelings of his friends. When Victoria was upset over the death of her father in the Tomb of the Cybermen the Doctor took time away from dealing with deadly robots when they had a safe moment to speak with her about it and let her know it wouldn't always be as painful as it was now. Her feelings were important to him and he tried to do his best to look after her just as he tries to look after everyone.

    Although he tends to acts like a bumbling buffoon he is fiendishly clever and often two steps ahead of his competition. He uses the ruse that he is an incompetent clown who doesn't have the slightest idea what he is doing to trick his enemies. By acting the fool he is often able to get the enemy to drop their guard around him and this allows him to find the way to defeat them. In the Web of Fear the Doctor very nearly defeated the Great Intelligence (A Powerful invisible entity made up of thought) by making the entity feel like he had the upper hand and was about to take over the Doctor's mind when in reality it would have been the other way around if Jamie, concerned for the Doctor's safety, hadn't interfered. The Doctor can be a calculating schemer and he will manipulate people, even his dear friends, to see that the greater good is served. In the Evil of the Daleks the Doctor manipulated Jamie into running a test for the Daleks (Ruthless robots who think they are the superior lifeform in the universe) who were trying to discover the 'human factor'. It strains Jamie's trust for the Doctor when it appears he has decided to work for the Daleks, but really it was all a trick and diversion to find a way to manipulate the new 'human factor' Daleks (Daleks who have been given human genes which, oops, make them less ruthless instead of more difficult to defeat as the Daleks wished) into rebelling against the other much more evil intentioned Daleks. His manipulations end up saving himself, Jamie, and dealt a powerful blow against the Daleks.

    The Second Doctor does have a dark side to his usual gentle nature too. Beyond manipulating people he isn't above constructing deadly traps. In the Tomb of the Cybermen, he decided the best way to prevent anyone from attempting to awaken the hibernating Cybermen (cybernetically altered humanoids that wish to make other humanoids into robots like them) again was to rig the door, the hatch to the hibernation chamber, and the control console to electrocute anyone who tried to use them. Not minding at all that a few people would die if it prevented the Cybermen from escaping. And again when Salamander (an evil dictator) tried to impersonate the Doctor and steal a ride in the TARDIS with Jamie and Victoria to escape from the angry mob ready to tear him to shreds. The Doctor arrived in time to prevent this ruse from succeeding and darkly gave a little speech, "We're going to put you outside, Salamander. No friends, no safety, nothing. You'll run, but they'll catch up with you." He knew full well that would lead to Salamander suffering a very brutal death but after all the pain and suffering he had seen this man inflict upon the Earth, its people, and the Doctor's own friends he felt it justified.

    The Doctor always tries to act with the greater good in mind. He knows a few people might die from his actions but he also knows that doing nothing would mean that millions would. Several people died in the Tomb of the Cybermen in the efforts to prevent the Cybermen from escaping and threatening the universe. In the Seeds of Death he actually steered a fleet of Ice Warriors (Ruthless conquerors from Mars) into the sun to prevent them from attacking the Earth. In the Moonbase serial the Doctor said, "There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything we believe in. They must be fought." He feels it is his moral duty to stand against these evils and to protect those in danger from them. In fact this is a belief he holds so strongly that at the end of the War Games he made a great sacrifice for the cause. In order to have all of the kidnapped humans returned to their own proper time streams he contacted the Time Lords. This sealed his fate as he had been on the run from them since the beginning of the series. He had stolen a TARDIS and went about meddling in the affairs of other worlds... both actions which were considered crimes on Gallifrey and the Doctor knew he would be punished for these crimes if he alerted the Time Lords where he was. The Doctor gave up any chance he had of maintaining his freedom in order to save hundreds of others and send them safely back home. So he is sweet and gentle but this clown also has a cunning and ruthless side that is often hidden behind a goofy smile and a childish game.

    SAMPLE: Testdrive Meme Sample

    INVENTORY:
    This version of the Doctor carries a lot of stuff in his pockets. Its all mostly junk but he thinks its important.
    - Yoyo
    - Tacks (Drawing-Pins)
    - Recorder
    - Conkers
    - A bag of glass marbles
    - Needle and thread
    - An old banana skin
    - A pair of magnets on string
    - Tuning fork
    - Sonic Screwdriver (which at this time of its development really only worked to tighten or loosen screws)
    - A roll of sticky tape
    - Scissors
    - A small strand of thin silver wire
    - Bag of candy (He always has either jelly babies or lemon drops)

    NOTES: 
    No special accommodations are needed for this fellow. He will find a way to get on. And I have no additional notes or requests at this time. 

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? I lean plot-heavy but which ever works out best is fine.
    reparo: (Default)

    hermione granger (harry potter)

    [personal profile] reparo 2021-09-26 04:27 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Cella
    CONTACT: shortitude on plurk
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: heard there was a dragon

    CHARACTER: Hermione Granger
    CANON: Harry Potter
    CANON POINT: After the Battle of Hogwarts (like, the next morning, assuming they all went to bed)

    BACKGROUND: the wiki

    ABILITIES | POWERS:
    1. magic
    2. judgement
    3. brains

    PERSONALITY:

    smort. Throughout the novels, Hermione is shown to be a studious, curious, contrary little know-it-all. She tries to be the best in all her classes and overachieves as much as she can and then some, to prove she belongs in the wizarding world.

    big brain, big heart, can’t lose. She may be a nerd, but she has a heart of gold. She does everything she can for her friends: from staying up late researching how to keep Harry alive during the Triwizard Tournament, to staying up late researching how to keep Harry alive while Voldemort rose to power again, to staying up late researching how to keep Harry alive in spite of his slow descent into an evil Advanced Potions book, to staying up late researching how to hunt Horcruxes and keep Harry alive – there is nothing she won’t stay up late to research. She is willing to do anything for the people she loves, even erase their memories of her to keep them safe during a war.

    Likewise, she’s a bit of a social justice warrior looking for a new cause to protest against, from the treatment of children born of non-magical parents, to the treatment of House Elves, to the bullying and abuse of children at the hands of professors. She can be ruthless when she needs to – and she is a bit reckless, and impulsive too. Despite her insistence that being expelled is a fate worse than death in Hogwarts, she often acts like rules only apply if they don’t directly bother her.

    A few examples of that: transfigured a bully reporter into a beetle and kept her in a jar for a while because she was writing outrageous rumours about Hermione and about her friends, lied and directed a professor (if you can call Umbridge that, generously) right into the middle of a centaur conflict to get rid of her, put a literal spell on a classmate to prevent him from getting accepted on a sports team because her other best friend wanted that position, brewed Polyjuice potions when she was thirteen so that she could infiltrate a different House with her friends and spy on Malfoy, punched Malfoy that one time (not a criticism, give her a medal for that one), and of course liberated a dragon. List is inconclusive.

    big hair, big motivations. At the time of arriving in Eastbound, it will have been one day (tops) from the Final Battle ™ at the end of Deathly Hallows (because I crave suffering). Her motivations will be first and foremost to find a way back (so she can take a nap), but she may end up compartmentalizing and not processing the grief she suffered during the war until it’s safe, assuming it ever is. It won’t stop her from paying attention to the shiny new magic, political landscape, and weird people.

    SAMPLE:

    westwhere tdm top level
    hermione tries to find some humour in the worst bird cage ever
    hermione made another mom friend

    INVENTORY: Taken directly after the final battle against Voldemort would leave Hermione wearing some dirty clothes, and using Bellatrix Lestrange’s wand in lieu of her own. Other than that, though, she’s just a poor girl from a poor upper-middle class British family.

    NOTES: Nope.

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy custom intro!
    Edited 2021-09-26 16:29 (UTC)
    chosenfordarkness: (pic#13857409)

    Anakin Skywalker || Star Wars

    [personal profile] chosenfordarkness 2021-09-28 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Frames
    CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] skorozima, skorozima#0655
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Chel!

    CHARACTER: Anakin Skywalker
    CANON: Star Wars
    CANON POINT: Revenge of the Sith, shortly after Anakin confides in Padmé that the Council doesn’t trust him

    BACKGROUND: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Anakin_Skywalker

    ABILITIES | POWERS:
    -lightsaber combat: Anakin is proficient in both Form IV and V of lightsaber combat. Form IV, or Ataru, is the aggressive form of combat that focuses on acrobatics. It could be used to defend against incoming projectiles and efficient against droids. He made some adjustments to the classic form to better suit open spaces and attacking. Form V includes two forms, Shien and Djem So. The first focuses on the utilization of an unconventional reverse grip. Djem So is based on defending with solid blocks and parries, then immediately countering with strong counterattacks and ripostes. It's geared more toward lightsaber-on-lightsaber combat, but also effective against blaster deflection.

    -force techniques: Since childhood, Anakin has shown himself to be adept at using the Force to perceive things about other people. He has shown the use of precognition multiple times, visited by dreams of becoming a Jedi, or the deaths of both his mother and wife.
    He is able to scan his surroundings to feel disturbances in the Force as well as perceive people's emotions by reaching out into it.

    Despite how all of his ships during the clone wars looked, Anakin is an impeccable pilot, skilled in chasing down targets, shaking off-target locks, and out-maneuvering many opponents. His strength in the Force gives him quick reflexes, and his precognition helps him to predict the movements of his targets during fights with pinpoint precision. He once landed half a ship as it was destroyed and breaking up in the atmosphere.

    -telekinesis: Even as a late beginner, Anakin proved he was better at it than his classmates and boasted he was even better than some of the older padawans. He's able to float smaller objects, lift lightsabers in the air and ignite them, and even at one point telekinetically stop two adversaries. He’s extra.

    -mechanics: He boasts the ability to fix anything, and as a child built his own protocol droid out of scraps. Gifted with machinery, he fixed up his speeder for pod racing and after losing his arm to Count Dooku, helped build and design the replacement for his temporary mechno arm. He’s always tinkering with broken droids or machinery and has commented how he doesn’t seem to be at peace unless he’s fixing something.

    PERSONALITY: Despite being born into slavery, Anakin’s mother instilled all the goodness he possesses into him at an early age. When he’s discovered working in a parts shop, he selflessly offers to help the strangers he just met from getting into a skirmish on the street and offers them shelter. His generosity is quickly displayed when he offers to risk his life to enter the pod race in order to help Qui-Gon Jinn get the parts he needs from Watto. After the pod race that wins his freedom, he is separated from his mother to go become a Jedi- something he’d had dreams about throughout his childhood. Being torn away from the only person he has in the world causes a deeply rooted issue with abandonment and clings onto any opportunity to become close to people.

    Confronted with the Jedi Council, he is only met with doubt that he is fit to be one of them and looked down upon for having the emotions he was raised around his whole life. His distrust of the Jedi Council only grows from that moment, even though they inevitably agree to let him train as a final honor to Qui-Gon. His death just adds to his growing abandonment issues. Through his years of training, Anakin grows into a young man his mother would be proud of, even as he fought against the current to get there. Ostracized by his peers for not growing up in the Jedi Temple as the others did, he became angry and combative at worst and cocky in his abilities at best. He surpassed his classmates in talent due to his large Force presence and natural talents that only grew stronger. He didn’t have many friends through his learning years, so his attachment to his Master grows- which is the exact opposite of what the Jedi Order believes in. Obi-Wan looks past his attachments because he’s aware of what it does for Anakin where the Order doesn’t.

    Anakin has never been afraid to speak his mind, in childhood or after, a fact that has gotten him into trouble on almost every occasion. He openly sasses back at adversaries and is vocal about how he believes the world should work despite how it does in reality. While his beliefs are skewed, both by his slave upbringing and his life as a Jedi, he still holds firmly to his belief in the right thing and cares deeply about those he is close to and the lives of people they come across. He is overly cocky in his own skills, earning him the title The Hero With No Fear by the public and his brazen and unorthodox tactics revered on the hollonet.

    His impulsivity and impatience have gotten him into trouble on countless occasions and even caused him to lose one of his arms in a fight against Count Dooku. As a General, his men know any plan of Skywalker’s is going to be unorthodox and reckless, but they’re also aware that he won’t risk their lives without risking his own. His men aren’t just clones to him, they’re individuals who he grows to care for. He’s even willing to risk important strategies to get his men out of dodge or go in and save a soldier or fellow Jedi. He doesn’t care about the risks so long as it saves a life. His selflessness knows no bounds, especially when it comes to those he cares deeply for.

    His Master, his Padawan, and his wife are the three he would unconditionally do anything for, and they’re the relationships he holds most dear. His men also hold a special place in his heart, but they don’t have the same connections to one another. His mother taught him of love when he was a boy, and it’s something he doesn’t let go of. He grew into a man infatuated with Padmé Amidala, already in love with her and blinded by it. Anything he does, he does it for her. They married in secret, Jedi Order be damned, because he couldn’t live without her. His love isn’t without its price. He loves so deeply and intensely that he is an insanely jealous person, even aggressive when Padmé is seen talking to other senators she has a history with- even before they were together. He gets into a fight with Rush Clovis over her, something that strains their marriage during the precarious times of the clone wars. His fall to the Dark Side is also for his love for Padmé and his fear that she would die during childbirth, as seen in his nightmares. He’s willing to embrace that darkness if it means saving her.

    SAMPLE: TDM threads

    INVENTORY:
    -set of jedi robes
    -one extra-billowy cloak with hood
    -his lightsaber
    -really cool robot hand
    -an unlimited amount of sass
    -some ration capsules
    -a99 aquata breather, with up to 2 hours of use

    NOTES:None!

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Honestly, dealer’s choice!
    Edited (oh man oh jeez technology is hard) 2021-09-28 22:54 (UTC)
    in_theworks: (pic#13877380)

    Wrench | WATCH_DOGS

    [personal profile] in_theworks 2021-10-05 06:05 pm (UTC)(link)
    PLAYER NAME: Alishia
    CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] knightinqs | knightinqs#1243
    HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: I'm on the TDM, but Emily originally pushed me in this direction!

    CHARACTER: Wrench (Reginald Blechman)
    CANON: WATCH_DOGS
    CANON POINT: Post-WATCH_DOGS 2

    BACKGROUND:
    • Born Reginald Blechman, it's strongly implied that Wrench had a traumatic childhood, likely centered around bullying or abuse he had to suffer thanks to the port wine stain birthmark over his left eye.

    • Built and took to wearing his trademark mask at some point, to hide that fact, and created the Wrench persona to help cope with his trauma and social anxiety.

    • Taught himself how to hack and started using his powers for laughs, attacking high profile targets only to leave dick jokes in his wake.

    • Eventually caught wind of the hacktivist group, DedSec, and just started showing up at their hackerspaces to build robots, write code and kick ass and take names. While he was initially thought to be an FBI plant, DedSec's higher ups soon realized that he was genuinely on their side and began to trust him. Before too long, he was a part of the inner circle, along with Sitara Dhawan, Horatio Carlin, and Josh Sauchak. Together, they fought crime! Or at least start formulating a plan to stick it to the man, the shady mega-cooperation, Blume.

    • About the time the plan was coming together, they recruited another hacker, Retr0 aka Marcus Holloway, who, over time, became the group's unofficial leader and one of Wrench's closest friends. For awhile, everything seemed to be coming up DedSec, as they all worked together to support Marcus and gather resources to take down Blume. Unfortunately, it turned out that Blume's CTO, Dusan Nemec, had been watching DedSec and manipulating things to make it look like they were honestly making progress, before pulling the rug out from under them.

    • Defeated, DedSec's members took some time to themselves, only to come back together at Marcus's request, to go to Swelter Skelter, a Burning Man-esque event, out in the desert, geared towards hackers and tech-types. There, the group meet Ray Kenney, a former Blume employee-turned-whistleblower with a grudge. He talks his way into DedSec, bringing fresh resources and perspective to the table, and invigorated, DedSec returns home, back on Blume's trail.

    • Everything does not go as smoothly this time. Horatio is kidnapped by one of the local street gangs and killed when he refuses to do work for them. Wrench, meanwhile, is arrested by the FBI and interrogated by them and Dusan, before ultimately being rescued by Marcus, solidifying their relationship.

    • DedSec prevails in the end, however, gathering enough information to take down Dusan, if not all of Blume. Wrench plays his part in the conclusion by hitting a Blume data farm -- literally. He breaks in with several guns, grenades and a rocket launcher, and proceeds to nuke the place. The game ends with the group partying and making plans to carry on with their mission, to stand against the rest of Blume and its cooperate bullshit.

    • Why there is no wiki for this, beyond a whole two paragraphs, I have no idea, but there you go.

    ABILITIES | POWERS: Wrench has no supernatural abilities to speak of, his world basically an analogue for ours. He does, however, have several skills that he's picked up over the course of his career as anarchist and hacktivist, for better or worse, as detailed below.
    Combat Skills: Despite being, well, a beanpole of a kid, Wrench is decent in a fight, favoring heavy melee weapons, like a sledgehammer or crowbar, to give himself some weight. He's a decent shot with a gun, though he prefers the spray and pray method to any sense of dedicated marksmanship, and has been known to carry around flashbang grenades to disorient his enemies. Basically, he's as wild in a fight as he is in everything else he does.
    Demolitions Expert: According to one of his teammates, while Wrench is "good at coding, he's better at breaking things apart" and that much is very true. Not only is Wrench capable of putting together explosives from a bare minimum of supplies, he's also smart enough to be able to do the math to know where to put them for greatest effect. Greatest effect doesn't always mean wanton destruction or bringing down a building without damaging anything else, either -- he once used his know-how to rig up a firework show as a distraction and calling card both, the fireworks coming together to form DedSec's logo. He's just really good with things that go boom, period.
    Genius-level Intellect: For all that he passes himself off as loud, crass and destructive, Wrench is an extremely intelligent man behind the act. He taught himself to hack and build effectively. He memorized the technical manuals for some hospital equipment to better help Marcus with a mission he was on. He's a quick study, if what he's studying is something he's interested in -- really, his apparent ADHD is probably the biggest obstacle to his intelligence -- and that has and probably will continue to serve him in the future.
    Engineering: Wrench, like Tony Stark, can build just about anything in a cave with a box of scraps. His area of expertise, beyond making explosives, however, seems to lie in robotics. He retrofitted a Haum security robot to serve his purposes and, later in his canon, will be responsible for designing the combat robots used by Thomas Rempart to police London. He built the mask he wears. He's also responsible for building and maintaining DedSec's 3D printer and producing most of the plans for it -- even if about half of those plans are a little ridiculous, albeit functional, in nature. You know you want a unicorn dildo gun.
    Freerunning: Wrench is fairly athletic and adept at parkour and freerunning. Really, what else is there to say?
    Hacking: Like the rest of his teammates, Wrench is adept at writing malicious code, malware and the like. He also knows how to exploit ctOS, the City Operating System created by Blume that manages San Francisco's infrastructure, and turn it to his advantage -- his personal ctOS profile, back home, had been defaced to read things like your future boyfriend and fuck you and fuck your mother rather than kicking back any relevant information on him personally, if and when law enforcement should go looking, for example. More practically, he can also use his hacking skills to access anything on a network -- CCTV cameras, traffic lights, bank accounts -- but that likely won't be entirely relevant here.

    PERSONALITY:
    "I CAME, I SAW, I BLEW SHIT UP, I CAME AGAIN!"
    At first glance, exactly what you'd expect from someone whose entire aesthetic seems to rely on leather and spikes -- he's loud and crass, with a fuck you attitude where authority is concerned. Where this started out as a simple persona, designed as a sort of smokescreen to cover his insecurities by being their opposite, he's been acting out like that so long that it's become a genuine part of his personality. Thankfully, despite coming across as a walking dick joke, at worst, or nothing more than the group's muscle, at best, there's more to him that just the persona.

    "BARBARIANS ARE AT THE GATE, READY TO BUST SOME ROMAN HEADS!"
    Wrench has heart, beyond the anarchist front he puts up, genuinely concerned with the fate of little guy -- he wouldn't have stuck around with DedSec as long as he has, if he didn't. That's the good news. The bad news is that, if left to his own devices, his means tend to get a little questionable, sometimes. This is the man that, on a good day, suggested making up a bunch of lies about his world's Scientology analogue, in order to sway people away from them, and on a bad, brought a rocket launcher to a knife fight, when he had to break into a Blume facility on his own. Anything so no one has to go through the same shit he did, growing up, being taken advantage of, bullied and looked down on. Fortunately, in most cases, it's not really hard to talk him out of those violent solutions with a little logic. In the former case, for example, all it took was reminding him that spreading lies would reflect badly on anything DedSec did in the future, if and when it got out that they were liars.

    He can see the value of foresight and tactics, even if they're not the first thing he reaches for as a kneejerk reaction.

    "YOU KNOW THAT SHIT DUSAN SAID? I WOULD NEVER TURN ON YOU."
    Once his loyalty is won, Wrench is unfaltering. He's never had many people in his life willing to tolerate being around him, let alone call themselves his friend, so it's no surprise that he desperately clings to the friendships he has made with reckless abandon. Literally nothing would cause him to turn on the people he genuinely cares about -- not even very real threats to his freedom or his sense of self, as was the case when he was detained by the FBI and Blume. If it's down to a friend or himself, he'll put himself between them and whatever else every single time.

    "ALRIGHT, SO. ARE WE GOING TO WAR FOR THIS?"
    Speaking of his loyalty and his penchant for violent solutions, it probably should be noted that Wrench has an explosive temper. His reaction to an early defeat from Blume was to throw a chair around the hackerspace until someone told him to sit down and shut up, after all. Thankfully, his temper also seems to be short-lived, for the most part, if the fact that, after a heated argument with one of his teammates, they seem to be back on speaking terms after a relatively short time. There are exceptions to this rule, however -- he's not stupid enough to forgive and forget, when someone has repeatedly wronged him, and boy, can he hold a grudge, but the everyday annoyances are expressed hotly and then forgotten about in a matter of minutes.

    "I CAN'T TELL IF SHE THINKS MY MASK IS HOT OR CREEPY."
    Despite everything he does excluding confidence and Getting Shit Done energy, Wrench is a kid and a shy kid, at heart. The few time he's been without his mask to hide behind or had to be genuine about something, it's been awkwardly and with a healthy dose of fear. He's afraid that, if and when people actually see him for who he really is, particularly where his physical appearance is concerned, they'll be turned off and and turn on him. DedSec and Marcus in particular has helped him to realize that he can have a support system, a family, that not everyone is as terrible as the people he grew up with, but there's still that lingering nervousness when it comes to outsiders. It will take some time before he stops being Wrench and lets himself be Reggie around anyone new, that in mind.

    OTHER
    ENTP (The Debater), Slytherin, Aries, Earth Dragon, Sanguine Temperament, Chaotic Good, Canonically Bisexual


    SAMPLE: Here and here.

    INVENTORY:
    • An LED mask that he wears at all times to hide his birthmark and baffle facial recognition software.
    • His cellphone which, while pretty useless in the setting as is, contains DedSec's hacking toolkit. Given the right circumstances and tech level, he can use it to control an area's infrastructure from taking control of cameras to remotely detonating any bombs he's made.

    NOTES: N/A

    IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy, if it's plausible!

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