Futuristic 𝘝𝘌𝘐𝘓 𝘖𝘍 * 𝘐𝘎𝘕𝘖𝘙𝘈𝘕𝘊𝘌 — the sheets

[demonology]

​

THE INTERVIEWS.

— ° —​

The applications for this rp will be slightly different. Rather than give you a specific form, I just need you to give me some information and answer some questions to get a feel for your take on a role/original character.

GUIDELINES
— almost all the lore is available HERE. It is suggested you give it a once-over and then use Control+F to find concepts related to your role of choice and dig into those.
— Each character comes from a province. All information on the provinces are HERE. You do not have to read all of this. All of the roles have a predetermined home province. Please see their “Statistics” section for more info.
— Generally, the “Statistics” section of the roles has lore information that is vital.
— All characters are 25+, preferably 26-31 and no older than 33. I’m a bit flexible on this, but they are intended to be old enough to already have a Master’s degree, if that makes sense.
— realistic face claims or descriptions. The FCs provided are simply because I’m extra. You're welcome to use them but you can also use your own. If you are struggling to find a FC and don't like the pre-set one, I have lists of alt FCs so feel free to ask for suggestions!

THE FORM​

STATISTICS:
— Character Name
— Age
— Pronouns/Gender
— Sexuality
— Faceclaim/Written Description
— Role (If you are writing an original character, please indicate that here and provide both a Title (Vice or Virtue) for your character’s role + their specialty. The interest check has more info on the guidelines for this.)

DEVELOPMENT:
— Motives 𖥔 Please answer any of the following in any format you like (i.e. in-character, as bullet points, short answer, etc): What are your character's motivations, past and present? If there is a change between them, what caused that change? How are these motivations aligned with how they perceive the world and themself and how are they at odds?

— Background 𖥔 This is an area to explore your character in any way you deem fitting. You could focus on the specifics of their life, provide an overview of it, explore their motivations, desires, etc. You can do this in any form you'd like (a "traditional" bio, a timeline, as bullet points, a short summary, etc.)

— Areas of Analysis 𖥔 This section is an opportunity for you to give me aspects of your character that you would like to see get explored in the game. These could be elements to their past, their ambition towards a certain goal, a theme about your character you wish to explore, points of inspiration behind your character, etc. This does not have to be comprehensive nor are you tied to any of the ideas you provide. Again, you can do this in any format.

EXTRAS:
— Anything supplementary, such as Pinterest boards, headcanons, playlists, etc. This is completely optional!

---

APPLICATIONS CLOSE FEBRUARY 5th!​

 

[zara3447]

• .
• .
• .
• .

• 04

  03

  02

  general

  fintan

  full name

  Fintan Corentine

  age

  26

  gender

  Male (he/him)

  sexuality

  Complicated.

  date of birth

  August 14

  place of birth

  Hartland

  PRUDENCE — the crucible

  miracle.

  The Miracle of Holy Flame
  
  

  status.

  Progeny. Test Subject
  
  

  abilities.

  You have the ability to start fire within people's bodies and any natural object. He is able to start a fire in anything within sight range, and control the fires which originate from his Miracle.
  
  

  limitations.

  Summoning of the Holy Flame takes a physical toll on him. It used to be in the form of burnt fingertips and blistered palms, fitting scars for the boy cupping fire in his hands. With these new cybernetic limbs, the heat has a tendency to melt systems and circuits. Needless to say, he is one of Apathy's most frequent visitors, much to his displeasure.
  
• 04

  03

  visage

  01

  fintan

  ht

  5'11

  hair

  Golden blond, bright as spun metal in the light. Very fine, silky texture with a slight wave. It's usually left long; he doesn't bother cutting it until it's past shoulder-length.

  eyes

  Darker, almost brackish blue that slides into near-green or near-black depending on the light. Perpetually narrowed with a sardonic, knowing look, and just as perpetually ringed with tired, red-violet shadows.

  body

  Lack of caring and a mile-wile self-destructive streak have turned a slender, graceful boy into a scrawny, knife-sharp young man. The grace is still there, lingering in the edges of his movements and the unconsciously artful posing of his limbs at rest, as if pious poise were a lesson sunken into his bones. Consciously though, he adopt a manner of moving through the world that is liquid, languid, almost offensively casual, wholly irreverent of personal boundaries.

  mods

  There are the standard modifications of every VRTU test subject of course, like the SCV port and the cybernetic limbs. But when the researchers approached him with the offer of more, more tech, more mods, to let their scalpels and lasers dissect the unsightly humanity out of him and replace sullied skin with something better, something cold and chrome and untouchable, he bared his teeth in a laughing wolf-grin and told them to "do it." The end result is a patchwork machine, more metal than man from the neck down, riddled with wiring flaws and complications. He will assure you that this is still an improvement.

  fc

  River Phoenix
• 04

  psyche

  02

  01

  fintan

  • fillersss
  • .

  • vices & virtues

    misc

    vices

    Happiness is not found at the bottom of a bottle, but if he keeps trying, perhaps he'll find some measure of relief. Or maybe he'll simply be too numb to register the sensation of existing inside his own skin, which is an equally acceptable escape. Too much is just the right amount of anything. Self preservation jumped ship a long time ago, in an attempt to make room for sanity to stay.

    virtues

    Recklessness is another form of bravery. He's a good sort of teammate to have, even if that's the kind that usually has a short shelf life. He rarely stops to calculate the cost to himself before he acts, and it definitely never occurs to him to run and save his own skin. Life has taught him to take a beating, to grit his teeth and get through it, to do what needs to be done. Somehow, that's translated to an uneasy knife's edge between survival and self-destruction. Good thing he has excellent balance.
  • vices & virtues

    misc

    motives

    
    One one hand, he has agree to be a (more or less) human weapon for a government and an Empire that has treated him in a manner that should deserve very little of his goodwill. But on the other, those lies of purpose from a higher authority have always gone down his throat easy. He is an amalgamation of pasts and parts, devoted child and desperate youth and wary, guilt-wracked man. Despite everything he's done—or perhaps because of it—he is extremely eager for any chance to do good. And if it means surrendering his self and his soul to help end these wars? Take it, then. He's been wielded as a weapon all his life, for causes blatantly more evil than this. What is one more master to answer to?
    
    

    fears

    
    CONFINEMENT: Fin is a body in eternal motion, uncomfortable with stillness, terrified of a return to captivity. Stay in one place too long, and it feels like the walls are closing in, like the Chain is draping around his neck again, the inescapable looming specter of Godiva's hand waiting to sweep His wayward son back into the fold. What manifests occasionally as bouts of what appears like claustrophobia is actually the need to remind himself that he's not still trapped in the hell of someone else's making, with no option but to clench his teeth and endure.
    
    DAMNATION: He's afraid that for everything he's done as a loaded gun in the Church's callous hands, somewhere between walking that line of bending and breaking, he's gone too far past redemption. That he was born to flame, and will die in flame, and there's no amount of good he can do that will be enough to justify the evil he's done. (If a sulfur and brimstone eternity sounds like religious indoctrination to you, you'd be right! Not all brainwashing is so easily shrugged off, even by people who should know better.)
    
    TOUCH: This one's a series of tricky, shifting lines. Where they lie on any given day, he isn't even sure himself until an innocuous hand has tripped them. There are better days and worse days, days when falling asleep to the pressure of an arm around his waist is a comfort, and days when he's dry heaving in the washroom of a shitty Hellenic nightclub, the chiming cry of choir bells echoing in his ears.
    
    

    analysis

    
    I would love to explore the development of his relationships with the other members of the team, how their motivations and convictions would influence and sway his own troubled grasp of morality. The struggle to make choices for himself, to feel like it matters, when all his life he's been someone else's weapon. Coming to terms with his past, balancing victimhood and blame, and finding some vengeance for the child he once was. Or maybe, some forgiveness.
    

  psyche

  Fin is a man nearly impossible to get a firm grasp on, a master of evasions and redirections. Lies mixed with truth, honesty in unexpected moments to get away with deception when it matters most. Open with affection, contemptuous of the invisible lines that mark personal space, as if he is stepping too close in a silent challenge for them to push him away. He's capable of laughing charm and wicked humor, the brightest thing in the room until suddenly he's not, suddenly he's gone, a cool draft marking that he's drifted away again. Brilliant, fickle, hungry for distraction, the ever-twisting façade is a slippery armor, dripping off of him nearly as quickly as he paints it on.
  
  Ribs cracked open, soul laid bare, Fin is a tender heart too big for his body. Everything he's seen and everything he's endured has only scarred it, not toughened it. The world is cruel, and he's bitter with the knowing of it. He still cries too easily, cares too much, wants to believe in promises made with good intentions. Maybe it says something about his innate goodness, that he has a wildfire temper and all that napalm rage, but the only person he's ever wanted to hurt—without provocation first—was himself. Or maybe that just makes him a fool.
  
  It's easy to hurt him once, harder to hurt him twice. Maybe it's because he's so starved for love, for redemption, for some sense of belonging that he just keeps opening himself up to be stomped back down again. Faith, guilt, and resentment are so twisted up inside of him that he cannot sort out where one starts and another ends. It's only compounded by the constant reminders of a God he cannot dismiss as false. Who do you turn all that hatred on? When all you have lost and all you have gained in life comes from the same source? The easiest target is yourself. But he has more than enough hatred to go around, so the Holy Chain can have some of his loathing too.
  
• history

  03

  02

  01

  fintan

  character name

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  character name

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  character name

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  coded by natasha

  blessed, burning boy

  (TW: Fire, religious trauma, vague allusions to child abuse and assault if you read between the lines—including Catholic church style extreme ickiness, substance abuse)
  
  Whether it is a consequence of youth or some sort of subconscious remnant of self-preservation, Fin doesn't remember much of life before the Sacré Coeur. Early childhood is a mess of tangled threads and unexpected calcifications, prodding at sinkholes, losing time inside his own head. Sometimes, it feels like he hardly lived a life at all before the Institute's altar-wine choir-song candle-light at all. But he must have, because there are scattered moments that linger like snapshots in his memory:
  
  The great black skeleton of a house, charred bones clawing into a red dawn sky, the unrecognizable ruin of a familiar thing.
  
  A metal-shod hand settling so heavily atop his shoulder, its weight pushing him down, down into the earth.
  
  A woman's tear-stricken face, cornsilk hair clinging to sodden cheeks. Her delicate features already twisted into a mourning mask, as if 'school' was another word for 'losing.'
  
  And all his words—"Mama I'm sorry, please, I didn't mean to, please!"—as empty forgiveness—"Fin, Fintan, my little lion cub, I love you so much. But I need you to be my good boy now, and let the fire go"—begged of ash and stone.
  
  It is true that the nature of fire is to be a greedy, restless thing, never satisfied unless it is consuming. It is equally true that you cannot give a child flames at their fingertips, and expect nothing to be burned. By the time he is grown, they will have called this power of his by a hundred names. Miracle. Blessing. A Gesture of Godiva. Proof of His Hand on Earth.
  
  What Fin knows is that this power is a lesson, a test, a warning. That his God is a knowing God, but He is not a kind one. That each time he summons flame, it is like brushing divinity with stinging fingertips, the closest he'll ever come to holiness. That this is a manifestation and embodiment of his soul. That it is his fate, to be a matchstick alight at both ends, circumstance and self racing each other to devour him.
  
  Someday, one will eat him alive.

  children of the holy chain

  For the next twelve years of his life, the Sacré Coeur Institute for Elysblessed Education is the totality of his universe. Morning prayers and afternoon lessons, where they taught him history, taught him faith, taught him to hold his head up around the other children to bow his head before men of God.
  
  And then there are the lessons they do not put into his schoolbooks, but he learns nonetheless. Learns them quickly, because they are the most important ones of all. That he might have fire and temper and the heart of a lion, but they have steel and chains. That he will heel, that he will obey, or they will tear the teeth out from his bleeding, slavering mouth.
  
  It is not in his nature to go easily, to go quietly, especially at first. They teach him submission with carrot and stick, praise and bruises, faith like a strangling wire ever-tightening around his throat. It is not long before he knows his place: as a weapon in his masters' hands, to keep the other children awed, to keep them complacent.. and when necessary, to keep them scared. He and them, they are not the same, will never be the same, separated by the cruel touch of divinity. There had been one mayfly instant where he had thought it could be different, had thought it was, only to be left clutching the shreds of his too-big heart in trembling fists, tangled amongst the scarlet strands. This is what comes of yearning. This is what comes of hope.
  
  Years pass, and children come and go, a changing cast of faces he makes less and less effort to recognize. It never stops the hurting entirely, but it is easier to bear, this way. The jealousy, the resentment, the bitter desperation of being trapped in a long tunnel with only a flickering light at the end. He has become an expert in survival, shackled in place by the veneration of his title, of the fire in his veins. Bide your time, bite your tongue, swallow down the blood. For all that they have done to him, he will be damned if he lets them win.
  
  He marks down every night until eighteen with savage satisfaction, forcing himself on through the moments of wavering by sheer, stubborn determination. Bend, kneel, just don't break. Let them reshape you in their crucible, let them make you an idol, a juror, a monster, as long as you walk out on the other side. Lose the battle, win the war.
  
  And one day, finally, he does.

  self-destruction as a last-ditch salvation

  This, then, is the test of the caged creature: are you a wild thing chained, or a wild thing tamed? Twelve years of being a wolf de-fanged, forced to heel like a hound. When the chain comes off, he finds that he still has his feet. And so he runs.
  
  Through cities, through personas, through lives. Long nights and open roads, cities passing in blurred postal codes. The guilt of everything he's done, everything he's been made to be, is a drowning gulf ever waiting to open beneath his feet. But shame and hate only feed the gasoline heat of how terribly fucking angry he is at the world, and how achingly desperate he is for any sort of escape. For a long time, he is no more than a thing of appetite, a broken Midas with a gunpowder touch, everything in his vicinity a victim of the blast radius. It is his first real taste of freedom; he gulps it down until it chokes him, too starved to chew.
  
  His early twenties are a study in messy, exquisite self-destruction, drugs and drinks and the escape he does not find in someone else's hands and lips. He carries his past like a precarious wound, barely closed, like if he breathes wrong, if he jars it, the skin will break—let me show you, beautiful boy, how holiness hurts sometimes—and he will be that bleeding boy all over again, kneeling on the altar, heart throbbing against clenched teeth, trying to crawl out. During the rare moments of lucidity, when the limits of his body or his wallet force him to come up for air, he wonders who he is trying to punish: the memory of their ghosts, or the child he once was.
  
  He is twenty-four, going on twenty-five when the very institution that cut his knees out from under him calls him to court to be a scapegoat for his captor's crimes. You hereby stand accused of aiding and abetting multiple counts of abuse and neglect against the Institution's victims. The judge's words fall on his ears like blows, crumpling his ribs into matchstick splinters, stabbing into his organs, until he's a breath away from vomiting black bitterness at the sheer injustice of this merciless system, this unholy Empire. Look at me, he wants to scream, wants to sob, wants to set this entire damn building ablaze until they listen, you want a victim? You're looking at one! But Courage has turned his back, justice answers not to truth but to power, and for all his venerated status, Fintan Corentine is nobody and nothing to the might of the Holy Chain.
  
  Bystander comes as an olive branch with another pair of shackles attached, a set of conditions that any sane person would think twice before agreeing to. You will be a machine for the Empire, an experiment of wires and gears, your body no longer your own. It unsettles the entire courtroom, how vehemently he pounces on the offer.

left

 

[Athens]

Neglect

# WATCH

# LISTEN

♡coded by uxie♡

Here I Go Again

Whitesnake

NEGLECT

B

asics.

name

fawn alecta ariso

nicknames

doc

age

28 | Nov 21st

role

neglect

sexual orientation

pansexual

gender

cis-female

home province

espiritu

legal status

human

religion

raised religious; now agnostic

occupation

VRTU researcher

V

RTU.

title

ANALYST 𖥔 You are a programmer for VRTU credited for developing the diagnostic programming of the EEG Nanobots; a system that is capable of monitoring the biometrics of Test Subjects and repairing injuries within organs. Over time you’ve learned how to read the emotions and body language of others.

resume

Academic and well-funded researcher of modern medicine at Umarian University [UEU]. Joined Project VRTU due to the promise of relocating their family to Espiritú.

key terms

☆EEG Nanobots ☆Vitals ☆Espiritu ☆UEU ☆Body language

concept

YOU TURN YOUR FACE FROM GOD AND THE DOOR CLOSES BEHIND. Resentment. It oozed from every pore in your body almost as thick and cloying as the medicine you were forced to down as a child. A sickly child, you were, but never without. Every moment of pain and misery was a lesson to be grateful; be grateful that you could afford to get treatment, that you had a home in a country such as Espiritú, and food in your belly —even if it turned to bile each night.

Each day, your mother prayed over you and you’d tuck your face away. If a god existed, and made you this way, you’d die before you’d ask for their mercy.

There was no miracle that healed the sickness in your very blood. Only long nights, tearful mornings, and a cycling blur of faces that never looked you in the eye. And then one day, you ached a little less, the tears dried up, and you’re cage switched from the walls of a hospital to something less sterile.

As your strength grew, so did your anger. At nothing. At everything.

You’ve never had a place to call home. The walls that surrounded you each night held the chill of a tomb, not the warmth of a family. While you haunted the halls of your house each night, your parents worked away in factories to pay off the debts they owed… To keep you alive.

Every bridge they’d made burned in their plight to save their only child.

An ungrateful wretch who scorned their gods and refused to look them in the eye to reckon with the shells their parents had become.

There are moments where you’d look at smiling photos and contemplate the kind of people your parents were, but the thought leaves a bitterness in your heart that you have no right to feel.


They’d lost themselves saving you.


But you’ve been lost for much longer…


The fervor in which you dove into your studies was merely an investment in paying back the Herculean debt you owed. And to choke back the miasma of guilt and resentment that smothered the love you knew you once felt so strongly for them.

You were top of a class, a prodigy in every right. But that attitude… Your standoffish on top of your frail constitution made you a hard pill to swallow. So pitiful, but nothing special… When UDA rejected you, the words echoed with the bitterness of truth. A reminder that you were lost, a body without a true soul or form.

All you’ve known is anger. The kind that lives inside your flesh, burning away anything that could attest to your humanity. You are a shell with no true purpose. A pail searching for water with no hand to hold you.

And no way to guide yourself to the purpose you were meant to fulfill. To the person you were meant to be.

V

isage.

Fawn is tall and imposing, standing at exactly 6 foot with a wiry body composition. It’s always been very difficult for her to hold weight on her bones, but with age and a fitness routine her figure now looks more lean and healthy than the frailness it once held. Her eyes are a chocolate brown, and virtually indistinguishable despite one being replaced with a cybernetic eye after an incident.

Mods

cybernetic eye, trial eeg nanobots

Distingusing Features

A pale, thick scar running the length of her leg

Faceclaim

lex scott davis

P

ersona.

Fawn is not a nice woman. She’s brusque and prefers her own solitude to the comfort of others. She never willingly discloses personal information (even if it’s harmless), and if you don’t ask, she won’t tell. She holds grudges and resentment in the crevices of her heart and her need for validation has led her to view her accomplishments as a direct measure of her worth.

Still, she holds a kind of sway over others that leads you to believe that she she knows what she’s talking about. Because if she didn’t, she wouldn’t have said anything at all. It’s a mix of her emotionally intelligence, unexpected humor, and her prowess as an academic and self-declared problem solver that leads people to trust her even when her demeanor does her a disadvantage.

The woman’s presence has a tendency to make others uncomfortable with how she looms like a disgruntled teacher waiting for you to slip so she can express her seething disappointment in your abilities. She doesn’t say much, but when she is, there’s more expletives than necessary tossed in and a radiating energy as if she’s itching for a fight.

Internally, Fawn is a cracking kaleidoscope of emotions. She’s a lonely girl parading as an adult. And has been through so much that her mind tends to rewrite and trade moments to make them easier to bear. She doesn’t view herself as special and feels like most things in her life happened by chance.

She’s one of millions of expendable people in her world. The difference is that the gaze upon her holds more weight.

Motives

To prove that she can, Caring for her parents, Trial testing of the treatments that can virtually remove symptoms of her illness,

Fears

Being a failure, Being condemned by the hellenic fanatics, The truth, Illness, Being perceived, Being released from VRTU

Skills

Boxing, Sewing, Basic Medical Knowledge, Coding, Language Interpretation, Reading body language

H

istory.

milestones

CHILDHOOD: ☆
Diagnosed with a blood disorder and a bone disorder in leg ☆ Spent most of childhood in a leg brace & a wheelchair until old enough for surgery ☆Frequent visits to the hospital from pain crisis and complications
☆ Longterm stays were very common and very expensive ☆ Learned about treatments from doctors because it gave her something to do ☆ Started Homeschooling after being held back a year due to attendance ☆ Mother was laid off from job due to demands of caring for Fawn ☆ Got surgery on leg before middle school ☆ Family savings begins to dwindle as they switch to a one-income household

She was lonely and in pain.

TEENAGE YEARS: ☆ Lots of blood transfusions and medications ☆ Parents relocated from Espiritu to Hellenic to work in a company town for the company her father used to work in ☆ Attended public education system ☆ Disliked by teachers and classmates due to home province and (former) status ☆ Learned to fight back literally and figuratively ☆ Frequently alone at home, but doesn’t mind ☆ Got mixed up with the locals ☆ Closer to the street urchins and kids on the run than her classmates ☆ First introduction to progenys was a kid in her neighborhood that she befriended ☆ Graduated top of her class

ADULTHOOD: ☆ REJECTED from UDA (Universite De Apollonio) ☆ Accepted by UEU ☆ Went intensively into studying medical technology and treatments after a relapse in her health ☆ Went to grad school to further her studies and to develop an idea she had ☆ Espiritu technology and medicinal advancements was a huge influence in her research ☆ The most stable and tested version of the EEG nanobots is used by Fawn ☆ She refuses to sell her research until she’s certain it’s perfect

g

allery.

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[mindthekat]

Corruption

Head Programmer of Project VRTU, having developed the Control Framework, which allows for complete control of the Test Subjects' cyborg forms. Because of this, she is able to exert her will over any Test Subject. (Abuse of this ability will not be tolerated and any writer will be consulted before this is done).

full name

andromeda liu

age

twenty eight

gender

nonbinary (they/she)

sexuality

pansexual

occupation

academic

Birthday

May 1

ANDIE

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Voicemail from mama

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Calendar: Meeting in 30 minutes

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baba: Call us when you can

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Calendar: Project due

Personality

Beneath a cool and calculated exterior lies a rebel’s heart. Each day is an exercise in tempering a fire within them that ebbs and flows but never dies. While she talks like a Noble, she carries herself like she comes from hard work. To the untrained eye, they’re prickly and rigid. To a practiced one, however, she’s a ticking time bomb. A collection of anxieties tightly wound like a coil ready to spring at any moment. Her charisma is taught, something that feels unnatural on her tongue. Too practiced, too formulaic. Convincing enough if one looks no further than quick wit and a sharp tongue.

Biography

Beginnings​

She enters the world, not with a cry, but with silence, against a backdrop of tattered cloth and the smell of wood burning in the hearth. A rough cotton cloth wipes her delicate skin clean and she still doesn’t cry. Not when she is laid against her mothers chest. Not when she is pulled away for the first time. Not when her fathers stubble brushes against her soft and warm cheek. The young parents marvel over the miracle of a child who doesn’t cry that first night when they rest their heads and expect to be awoken through the night. Beside them, in a makeshift cradle, the child whimpers alone.

Closed Mouths Don’t Get Fed​

She is six years old the first time she learns that she must shout to be heard. She shoves her silence into a box that she buries beneath a floorboard in the room she shares with her parents. The voices around her amalgamate into one living, breathing, voice of resistance. There are scraps of cardboard and paper scattered across the table she’s sat at and her stomach rolls with nausea she’s grown to associate with long bouts of hunger. The voices nearly drown out the protest in her stomach until she feels her head and ears begin to ring. It isn’t until the table in front of her goes silent and five sets of eyes turn to her that she realizes she’s screaming. The sound seems to cut through the tension in the room like a knife. The sound of her small, shrill scream is what rattles in her own ears and mind. She’s pointing at the bread in the middle of the table, just out of her reach. It’s no longer warm but when it’s placed in front of her and brought to her mouth, something seems to settle in place within her.

Monsters Walk Amongst Us​

“WORKERS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS”

She sits atop her father’s shoulders, her still-small hands gripping a crude sign made with her broken crayons on the back of an old fruit box. She has a scarf tied around her like a cape to protect her against the harsh wind and bitter cold. Her fingers still tremble but the energy of the crowd around her warms her blood. It’s difficult to make out all of their chants but she’s practiced some of them at home and like she’s reading from cue cards, her little voice booms along with the crowd when she recognizes some of the phrases. Her mother’s eyes flick to her occasionally, something like pride swimming in her gaze. It warms her even more than the crowd. When the crowd gets sprayed with foul-smelling liquid, she’s yanked from her perch upon the top of the world and pulled to her fathers chest while he shoulders his way out of the chaos.

It’s a long ways home on foot but she breathes in the scent of sweat and dirt from the mines on her fathers clothes and it soothes her to sleep. When the three of them cross the threshold of their small home, cradled by two equally modest buildings, her feet suddenly meet the rickety floor and her mothers rough hands are inspecting her face for any signs of injury or contact with the chemicals sprayed into the protest. She pries open her daughter’s eyes, pulls up her sleeves to check her arms and eventually seems content with what she doesn’t seem to find.

“My darling, my love. We are the only ones who can keep us safe. We can only rely on each other.” The words don’t sink in that night but they cling to the young girl like a leech. She turns the words over in her mind late at night when the sound of her parents’ breath shallows out into a rhythm she’s grown used to. While they sleep, she ponders all the monsters she will have to run from.

A Lesson In Yearning​

The first time she learns that education is a privilege and not a right, she is watching a boy around her age through a smudged window, the sounds of dozens of sewing machines running around her drilling through her ears. She sits in the window well with her tailbone half hanging off but her knees pulled to her chest. The boy has a backpack slung over his back but carries a stack of books in his arms and wears the logo of a school in the city across his chest. A sense of yearning pulls at her heart, not for the first time.
“Mama” the girl calls loudly over the sound of the machine between her and her mother. Warm eyes dart to her face. “When will I get to go to school?”

A few women look up from their machines and their glances bounce between the young girl and her mother, a difficult to place emotion written all over their faces.

“Oh my little star…” Her mother starts, her voice thick with pity, a disappointment that feels foreign to the child’s ears. Not for her daughter but for her. “One day…one day you’ll be the best student there ever was. You’ll be top of your class.”

The next day, her mother comes home from work with a book. The spine is cracking and the pages are well worn but it’s hers.

Knowledge Becomes Power​

One book turns into a whole shelf. The girl teaches herself to read, slowly but surely. Under the soft light of candles burning to their base, she learns the language of the people in power and she murmurs their propaganda as she lies awake at night. Once as a small child, she heard their pleas with the people they choke with chains of bureaucracy but the smell of poison was even thicker than their apathy. She begins to know the meaning of the ideals they preach. As she learns the language of her enemy, so too she learns the language of resentment. They preach peace while she goes hungry. They preach order while she shivers between her parents who squeeze her between them for warmth in the dead of winter. They preach innovation while she wraps her father’s hands when he comes home with dirt embedded into his wounds for the thousandth time. They preach the value of hard work while she works the knots out of her mother’s back from hunching over a sewing machine day in and day out. She watches them in their fancy suits with their perfectly done hair and perfectly groomed mustaches and she learns the language of power out of spite, counting down the days until she can rip it out from under them.

Any Means Necessary​

She doesn’t ask where the money comes from when she’s enrolled in school. Her stomach churns with guilt the moment she walks through the doors in her brand new uniform. It hangs loosely on her wiry frame and she develops a nervous tic of playing with the hem of the skirt that kisses her knees. Her hair is freshly cut into sharp lines that accentuate the sharpness of her jaw and there are few hints of the bright red that lurks on the bottom layer unless she tucks it behind her ears. Cliques seem to have already formed, despite the year just beginning, and she eats alone that first day. She eats alone every other day after that. It’s easy to notice what she lives without when the other kids around her flaunt what they have. At first, the grief over losing what she’s never had stings like salt in a fresh wound but eventually she learns to ignore the ache. It begins to fuel her, just like the fancy men in their fancy suits once did. She weaves her grief into a tapestry of longing she’s carried her whole life and she tells herself she will do whatever it takes to make sure none of these brats will ever see her fail. By any means necessary.

The People United
There are years where her weeks consist of studying and homework and tending to the needs of her parents as their bodies age well beyond their years and her weekends consist of conspiring against the Empire. She finds her place on picket lines just as well as she finds her place in a classroom. The Union movement gains traction in Rass in ebbs and flows but by the time she approaches the thin line between youth and adulthood, the protests pick up once more and she is no longer a small child on her father’s shoulders. She is on the front lines with a scarf tied around her face and a megaphone to her mouth. She holds her fist in the air and puts her body between Peacekeepers and her parents who no longer fight on the front lines anymore because she can. She doesn’t even register the baton swinging towards her until it’s cracking over her delicate wrist. She doesn’t scream, though it claws its way up her throat anyways.

The pain shoots up her arm and she wades through white-hot fury and panic to think, just for a second. Her eyes dart to the crowd that begins to disperse and she uses the momentum of the downswing of her arm to wind it back up and straight for the Peacekeeper’s head. She hears the sickening crack of the hard plastic megaphone against their helmet and knows something has shattered. Not enough to reach anything vital but hopefully enough to stun. She doesn’t wait long enough to find out before shoving her parents away with the crowd and using her body like a shield. This is what she’s prepared for. It’s her time now. She catches sight of journalists in the distance, the flash on their cameras firing rapidly amidst the chaos. She knows the seconds following are precious and she has just enough of an opening to launch herself onto the steps, climbing over limbs that try to grasp at her but she’s too quick, too agile. In a matter of moments, she stands tall atop the stairs and reaches into her pocket for the flag she and her mother have been working on in every spare second they’ve had.

THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED

It waves above her head, red block letters sewn onto muslin cloth. There’s a brief moment where she feels invincible, weightless. Where she tastes power and forgets she’s ever gone hungry. Her eyes lock onto a camera in the distance and she holds the banner just a touch higher and she freezes in time for just a moment longer. Like most things, freedom doesn’t last. A Peacekeeper grasps her injured wrist and twists until she curls in on herself and they gain the advantage. She drops the banner as they bring both of her arms behind her back and she doesn’t give them the satisfaction of cursing or crying out with pain but she scans the crowd again one last time before she’s ripped away and finds her parents pushing through people to get to her. With the last bit of resistance she can’t muster while being forced to submit to her oppressor, she screams for them to run.

© pasta

 

[ReverseTex]

Click Tabs

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• 
  

  SURNAME:

  Kilgore

  
  

  GIVEN NAME:

  Fitzgerald "Fitz"

  
  

  GENDER:

  Male

  
  

  AGE:

  28

  
  

  BIRTHDATE:

  03/02/969

  
  

  BIRTHPLACE:

  Unknown- Suspects Hellenic

  
  
  

  SEXUALITY:

  Bisexual
• MOTIVES:
  

  
  Past- Fitz saw the world and his position in it through the veil of ignorance; the original position if you will. Why was he given the power of life when he didn't understand his own? Growing up on the streets of Daft solidified his belief in survival of the fittest. In his mind, the world didn't answer to any higher power like Godiva if children were left dying on the street from hunger or violence. But that didn't make him hopeless, he clung to the dream that one day he could rise from his status to become someone great. He just needed help. Once he met the king of thieves, his mentorship began to shape his attitudes as he matured. Having support allowed Fitz to blossom and truly make a name for himself in the criminal underworld. He began to grow out of the veil of ignorance as he learned how to rise above the average man. He began to value power and money, seeing the opportunities they provided once you acquired them.
  
  Present- As a result of the sell-out with the king of thieves, Fitz adopted a more guarded attitude than when he was a child. He leans into his self-reliant nature at LUDA, which helps him excel in his studies. His natural charisma and energy also lend a hand in how others perceive him, a trait he's actively aware he has. Now, Fitz realizes the only way out is up, and will do anything to achieve his goals.
  
  World View- Fitz generally has a nihilistic attitude towards the world. He believes the freedom that lies at the top of society ultimately negates the sins it took to get there. But in search of that, everything and anyone in between is likely out to get you. If you can find people you trust, it's best to be in charge so you can protect them.

  
  BIOGRAPHY:
  

  
  

  • Lil' Orphan Fitz
    • Fitz has no real concept of his birth family. The only thing he had was his name, Fitzgerald, which he knew from a rather old book that was left in his name at the orphanage. As a boy he used to wonder about them, hoping that someday they'd find him and scoop him back up. But they never did. Like many in Daft, Fitz resorted to crime at an early age to maintain enough coin to scrape by. Pickpocketing, scams, and other petty thefts kept him fed in his earlier years; but the orphanage lost funding when he turned 13. Now homeless, Fitz lived in a cardboard box in the back alleys with other teenagers. He tried to keep up his criminal activity but eventually relented to the fact he needed a real job. The day he decided to sign a labor contract, fate had other plans...
  • Welcome to the Show
    • On his way to the factory district, Fitz passed by an extravagantly dressed man on the street. It was clear he had money, so he figured one last pickpocket wouldn't hurt. However, he was sorely wrong. The man caught on instantly, using this opportunity to test the boy, which resulted in him getting caught. The man, who he later came to know as the Dante Kilgore, dragged the boy back to his club by the wrist and sat him down. He explained every misstep Fitz took and how pathetic of a boy he was. In that moment, Fitz never felt smaller in his life. However, Dante took note of this, seeing a version of himself in the boy, and decided to roll the dice on this orphan. The two made a deal: Dante would provide six months of housing and specialized education, in return, Fitz would have to earn his keep by stealing a prized item. If he failed, Dante would put out a bounty for his head. His wardship with Dante offered Fitz a new outlook and way to traverse life. He honed his thievery as well as built up his character and charisma. His powers also became active during this time, a skill Dante immediately saw use for. By the end of it, he practically was a mini Dante! Alas, the time came to prove his worth to his father-figure. He was tasked with infiltrating the (insert name) family to steal (insert item). To do this, Dante notified the Holy Chain of a potential Progeny, to grant Fitz a wardship with the family. On top of this, this is where he met Folly for the first time. The two boys found comfort in each other's past and began to forge a deep bond. Some could call it brotherly, which hurt Fitz to think about his task at hand. But the time came and despite the comfort and normalcy he found with the Furth family, his loyalty to Dante prevailed.
  • The Invisible Man
    • After his time spent in the Furth home and his successful robbery, Dante officially took Fitz under his wing. After the heat died down after the robbery, Dante promised to keep the Holy Chain away from him so long as the boy did what he was told and kept providing. Dante in turn opted to educate the boy on his own, stalling the Holy Chain's interference as long as he could. Fitz slowly began to rise to the ranks in the criminal underworld under a pseudonym, "The Invisible Man," due to his mask and ornate glasses he wore to hide his identity from the church. His persona started to yield him an online following, as many teens and young adults would follow his heists and movements around the city. If he wasn't involved in illicit affairs for Dante, it wasn't farfetched to find the Invisible Man amongst his people in clubs and parties. As he matured, Dante began to teach him how to manage clubs and behind-the-scenes work in his industry. Moreover, Dante also began to take in more youth like Fitz in hopes that another diamond in the rough would appear. But as time went on and Fitz grew older, he began to see the cracks in Dante's facade. The two started to disagree, often resulting in violent brawls or threats to expose Fitz. Every time, he bowed back down, in fear that his mentor would betray him. Until he did.
  • Et Tu, Brute?
    • Around the age of 25, Fitz had generated enough notoriety in the criminal world to rival Dante's. If he wanted to, he could easily have killed the man and taken his empire. He had the support of Dante's grunt men as well as his celebrity status in the city as the Invisible Man. But he didn't want that fate, he still saw better for himself. Dante saw otherwise. He grew paranoid of Fitz, afraid that with the support of his men and the city, he could easily oust the older man. So, Dante set up a suicide mission for Fitz, he tasked him with infiltrating the Academy Awards. Deluded by his growing celebrity status and faith in Dante, Fitz accepted the job without a second thought. But little did he know that Dante had notified the Holy Chain of who would be behind the mask, which resulted in his immediate capture at the event.
  • New World
    • At this point, Fitz's former life lay in ruins. The Holy Chain was furious that he had slipped through the cracks for as long as he did following the fallout with the Furth family. He was somehow 25, still human, and had no formal education. They were also surprised his abilities had grown as well without any formal research. No matter, the Elyblessed schools would have to make up for lost time. The cybernetic process was more strenuous as an adult, making his transition even more difficult. Thankfully he was book-smart enough to stay on level. Now years later, fully settled into his new life, Fitz is ready to rebuild his former glory.

  
  

  
  

  NOTE:

  There is no concrete evidence of her accepted past
• 
  

  MIRACLE:

  Life Manipulation

  
  

  LIKES:

  The media, debauchery, adrenaline rushes

  
  

  DISLIKES:

  optimists, peacekeepers, being afraid, boring people

  
  

  HOBBIES:

  reading, keeping up with celebrity gossip, kleptomania for fun

  
  
  

  FUN FACT:

  Fitz has a little box under his bed of various trinkets he's stolen - also has his heirloom copy of The Great Gatsby in it.
• SONGS:
  

  not strong enough- boygenius, de selby 2- hozier,

  
  QUIRKS:
  

  Loves to dance, is surprisingly very organized, will grab his arm when nervous

  
  AREAS OF ANALYSIS:
  

  
  

  • Who are his bio parents? With his Miracle, I think making his lineage from an agricultural province might be soul-cleansing for him. Help him reconnect with nature vs his nurture.
  • Dante Kilgore could reappear. Interesting man if there was a bounty on him.
  • Fitz's struggle with liberalism vs nihilism
  • Once relationships develop, could be interesting to play with his ego versus his soul. Similar to his past with Folly, how does he deal with two options when one will help him and hurt someone he loves, or, help someone else but hurt him.

  
  

Art by bobatae

 

[celadon.]

• .
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• .

• 04

  03

  02

  general

  benik

  full name

  Benik Moses Furth

  age

  29

  gender

  Male

  sexuality

  Heteroromantic

  date of birth

  18-11-968

  place of birth

  Central Egress

  FOLLY — The Boy King

  motives.

  A theory of personhood I would hold as true is that every instance of you is a permanent visitor. To now. You are everything you have ever been and will be all the time. So I will write it like this. Benik wants to be as near to the rulers of the world as he could be capable. He wants to be exemplary in the matter of all things, to be a true intellect. He wants everyone to be glad to see him. He wants to see the heretics strung up in public with black fleas all around their eyes and mouths. He wants a jock physique. He wants to not be so... impeded by needs, by wants. He wants his rivals disgraced. He wants to stop laughing so much. He wants sex to feel like victory or flying and to finish early.
  
  

  areas of analysis.

  Some questions. Does he really know what it is to be loyal? In relation to the world, how well exactly does he perform being a man? He memorizes history as it is being lost – will this make him an enemy to all he loves? Could he still adore a goddess if he can't adore himself? What is ultimately greater, his need to be found or his need for vengeance? Could fear be a useful sensation for him? How much can one think about death before it becomes a yearning? Is evil a death of the self, or can it choose itself away?
  
  
• 04

  03

  visage

  01

  benik

  ht

  5'11".

  wt

  160.

  hair

  Closely cropped. He has never had a problem with his scalp ever in his life. He uses shampoos and soaps the price of gold.

  eyes

  Big and shining, like two planets. You might think you can see the world in them, or history, or something. Sometimes they get so dark it's like they've filled with blood.

  body

  Only photogenic, like the rest of him. Muscles he works on, sweating and biting his lips and all that, but are only for show, not for strength. He stands with his head high and imperial, declaring: abreast of anybody, I belong and am free to belong.

  mods

  Pierced ears.

  fc

  Lucien Laviscount.
• 04

  persona

  02

  01

  benik

  • fillersss
  • .

  • likes & dislikes

    misc

    likes

    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse mauris sem, consectetur vel ultrices quis, tincidunt quis magna. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Sed facilisis ante mollis finibus hendrerit. Sed vestibulum egestas elit, id rutrum eros tincidunt dapibus. Nulla iaculis malesuada mattis. Nunc vulputate quam elit, et semper odio rhoncus ac. Nulla porttitor libero nec feugiat elementum.

    dislikes

    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse mauris sem, consectetur vel ultrices quis, tincidunt quis magna. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Sed facilisis ante mollis finibus hendrerit. Sed vestibulum egestas elit, id rutrum eros tincidunt dapibus. Nulla iaculis malesuada mattis. Nunc vulputate quam elit, et semper odio rhoncus ac. Nulla porttitor libero nec feugiat elementum.
  • likes & dislikes

    misc

    hobbies

    
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    habits

    
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    fears

    
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    headcanons

    
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse mauris sem, consectetur vel ultrices quis, tincidunt quis magna. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos.
    

  personality

  Benik acts as a man of values would. He's convinced himself that he's the last honourable man in a world of liars and betrayers – that everything he does, he does in large part to defend an integrity unbeknownst to anyone else. He believes that a lot of conspiracies are being formed against him.
  
  Benik grins with his good face, teeth out, and presents himself as a noble idealist, the young king of cybertech personable enough to walk beside the lowly, offering open hands to the disaster-struck, the scoundrels. People want to be outsmarted while you pull them toward something. (Learn to be a follower so you can learn how to steal. Learn how to steal so you can learn to be a genius.) He grasps what other people need to hear, then produces it for them. Or he catches you in a verbal trap. He'd do a credible job as an ambassador to a foreign land. Though that would mean he'd have to admit to a little less of an ego.
  
  He won't have that.
  
  Benik is a man of systems – law, faith, and opinion. Everyone he doesn't like is lesser, a waste, and it changes, or as he would say it: people reveal themselves. The grammar of his daily life is set around finding people out. And they can never help it. He is of such importance that those around him are diminished in their ability to lie or make accusations. He regularly rewrites his past, mostly artfully, to better advance whatever view he needs people to have of him. You might have already guessed this but he does not have a lot of empathy. Though some nights, usually his worst ones, he wishes on a star that he ever did.
  
  That he could care for others the way he thinks they care for each other. And sometimes it's granted, though, usually, in a way that feels very sinister and almost world-rocking to him, so he blocks it out again. Rarely after dropping a few tears, but not never.
  
  He doesn't blow up. He keeps himself stable. He bases much of his self-worth on his appearance, and he's less a seducer than his handsomeness and charm would make you think. He loves the serious things about life and not much else. He fronts like he's content to just live life alone, building up and up to the sun, self-glorifying holy bullshit, but he needs attention and people around him as much as he needs power.
• history

  03

  02

  01

  benik

  f. ayad

  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Etiam in semper risus. Morbi porttitor metus in velit hendrerit, ac ultricies mauris pretium. Aenean sagittis magna non lorem dignissim, in posuere tellus tincidunt. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Aliquam in consequat libero. Mauris non gravida felis. Sed erat augue, mattis eu fringilla nec, porttitor eu est. Vestibulum vestibulum diam vitae lorem efficitur luctus. Pellentesque sed fermentum dolor. Curabitur sodales arcu sapien, porta mollis sapien vulputate a. Maecenas eu augue vitae tortor molestie scelerisque. Suspendisse quis egestas lacus.

  a. liu

  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Etiam in semper risus. Morbi porttitor metus in velit hendrerit, ac ultricies mauris pretium. Aenean sagittis magna non lorem dignissim, in posuere tellus tincidunt. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Aliquam in consequat libero. Mauris non gravida felis. Sed erat augue, mattis eu fringilla nec, porttitor eu est. Vestibulum vestibulum diam vitae lorem efficitur luctus. Pellentesque sed fermentum dolor. Curabitur sodales arcu sapien, porta mollis sapien vulputate a. Maecenas eu augue vitae tortor molestie scelerisque. Suspendisse quis egestas lacus.

  b. van de aarde

  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Etiam in semper risus. Morbi porttitor metus in velit hendrerit, ac ultricies mauris pretium. Aenean sagittis magna non lorem dignissim, in posuere tellus tincidunt. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Aliquam in consequat libero. Mauris non gravida felis. Sed erat augue, mattis eu fringilla nec, porttitor eu est. Vestibulum vestibulum diam vitae lorem efficitur luctus. Pellentesque sed fermentum dolor. Curabitur sodales arcu sapien, porta mollis sapien vulputate a. Maecenas eu augue vitae tortor molestie scelerisque. Suspendisse quis egestas lacus.

  coded by natasha

  the moon upon a stick

  976 was a year of bad harvest in the south plains.
  
  Also that year, a little boy lost his parents in Portalié. Taken from him. As if plucked from the world by some great deciding hand. A bomb in the government archives of Espiritu's second-largest library. They took his photo and put it in the newspaper. Later, he wandered away from the hospital, into an unfamiliar city for hours before dark. It was a time, a year, of less-things-done, of more-said, of a dark self-aware opportunism. The social cartoonists drew about it. Young Benik saw them.
  
  It was Seneca Grayson's wife Juno who first presented the possibility of adopting the boy. Their younger cousin's child. They were in need of some cushioning between them and the public – recent leaks to the media had resulted in a less comfortable PR situation than the one they were used to. Here was the perfect band-aid. A seven-year-old with an ill look on his face.
  
  So they took him into their splendid Alley and gave him maybe two weeks of flowers at most. And then they, unknowable and ungenerous, left him to his own isolation. With nannies and satin bedspreads and only his own sources of thought. Entertain yourself was what they didn't say, but didn't have to.
  
  And sure, there were times here and there. Events where he was needed – or where his idleness would be exposed before Godiva, and older women half-praying in the stalls would sigh sadly at him. But most of Benik's childhood was just learning manners, learning how to see, then how to look, questioning what would happen if he ate this mushroom cap or that one. Would they come to the side of his bed? Would they run a caring hand around his pillow-fallen hair? Or what?
  
  They never gave him that. Though they gave him just enough to cloud his mind with ideas of greatness.
  

  just to see what is

  It really got to the boy. The wealth. He let it all happen to him, contesting nothing. He ate all the rules and he spat out all identity with his life before. Those people he hardly thought of, what they said to him, how they smelled. All gone. Now it was perfume and firebreathers and Godiva and school. He didn't say much. He wasn't afforded much dignity. Other boys would try and snatch the teeth from his head.
  
  Then Courage came to the house. Courage dared to get his attention. Courage listened to him as if he were a person, rather than a subject. It took a very, very long time but his act – haughty, stubborn about everything – almost went away. For a moment, Benik almost dared to let something else in.
  
  Then Courage was gone. So was something key to what made the Graysons so special, what kept their pockets lined, what made the Minister of Education such a big man. Courage had taken it. Everyone saw the two as being of a kind so they dug holes in the boy that was left and looked for answers. The world got much smaller. The boy got rid of the things in him that could be abused or made fun with. He made himself as dry as he could. He clothed himself in the worldliness of a favoured party guest. He became a man and he became like a bust in the hall. He became something people thought they could know.

  your fast ballooning head

  He went to LUDA and spun this new idea of himself. He met many antsy scientists eager to place their trust in the wrong person. He thought he would talk back to a professor one day, and he met Corruption that way. They had secrets to give each other, and cigarettes, because Benik still smoked then, and he knew her enough to brush the hair behind her ear. But he had other things to love and father. Maybe that was something she'd always known.
  
  His involvement in Project VRTU was so well-timed it had the air of something preordained. Wonderfully precise of Her to give this to him. His life now: he stays up at night and plans things and gets stars in his eyes about the war. All he's ever wanted to do. He knows they're watching, but it means little. There's no one skin and bones for him to fail.

left

 

[Cindertide]

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• 04

  03

  02

  Intro

  Bastion

  full name

  Feniks "Bastion" van de Aarde

  age

  26

  gender

  Nonbinary (they/she)

  sexuality

  Panromantic Lesbian

  date of birth

  12 - 22

  place of birth

  Hartland

  Apathy : Bastion van de Aarde

  Motives.

  Bastion's motivations are drastically different depending on the period of their life. The child at Sacré Coeur wanted nothing more than survival and community. The Knight gorged themself on propaganda and burned with religious fervor. The Veteran is scarred by the systematic destruction of their blood family. She craves peace but settles for denial: to be placated but never content.
  
  She's a stranger in her own skin where both lives are painful. While Feniks abandoned their family, Bastion led the wolves to their door. In their mind, they've ruined their only path to happiness, to reconciliation with their family, despite their crimes. For the second time in her life, her options are die a Van de Aarde or live as something else.
  
  Today, Bastion dedicates themself wholeheartedly to their work in medicine and cybernetics with Project VRTU. Eager to protect as many as they've ruined, Bastion serves a people much more than a god. The lapse of faith follows their clan's sentencings: a secret that they hold tight to their chest.
  
  

  Background & Occupation.

  A WIP. 3 of 5 chapters are posted in the final tab. The backstory itself is 99% done, it's just a matter of writing it down!
  
  

  Areas of Analysis.

  I absolutely don't expect all of these to be touched on given the amount, these are just options!
  
  Elements of their Past
  I would enjoy story beats that cover the Van de Aardes', and Gacy as Bastion's financial sponsor and how they're in part indebted to him for his part in making Bastion a hero. Lower on the list is the Headmaster, Jean-Luc Corriveau, for obvious reasons as a big influence for the way Bastion is today, but Bastion is plenty happy to keep the past in the past if allowed. (This contradicts what I just said, but if Fintan is accepted, I personally REALLY want to know more about that trial, even if Bastion doesn't.)
  
  Ambition towards a certain goal
  1. Their primary goal is the success of Project VRTU, preferably as subtlety and painlessly as possible. Their ideals lead them to believe this work will ultimately protect civilians and improve lives. If that comes into question, their loyalty to the program will likely follow. 2. On a personal level, they want to help the younger Van de Aardes, especially the ones held in contracts closest to Gacy or otherwise limiting their personal autonomy. 3. They want to reconnect with Fin and their own childhood, but paradoxically keep it all at arms' length.
  
  Themes
  1. Denial (of your own emotions and trauma), to cope with guilt born from actions both within and without of your control: How do you handle triggers (such as Fintan) when you can't avoid them anymore? 2. Family: How do you cope when you single-handedly destroyed a family that loved you, and what do you do about the children you've damned? How do you react to opportunities to salvage past relationships? 3. Corruption: How do you balance freedom with obligation to a stronger, often less-forgiving patron, and what do you do when that patron asks something morally compromising of you? 4. (This may be more situational depending on the actions of the party) Mercy/Morality: In what situations does the weapons manufacturer prevail over the doctor? When is it necessary to hurt someone to help others? Etc. I could see Bastion falling on either side.
  
  

  Extra.

  Inspiration Board. Bastion' First Letter Home.
  
• 04

  03

  visage

  01

  Bastion

  ht

  5'9.

  wt

  156.

  hair

  Short, dyed black and often slicked back. Overall, well-groomed.

  eyes

  Sky blue in color, with a trained severity.

  body

  Pale skin decorated with dozens of pink and pale scars. Plenty of stretch marks from years of atrophied muscle mass.

  mods

  A pair of cybernetic legs reaching up into her hips: one to remedy her limp, the other to keep up. Although, she still uses her cane in public to keep up appearances.
  
  Bastion is pioneering development of certain artificial organs, primarily lungs, with the eventual goal of mass production. She's prototyping a single, very first artificial lung herself, with Fintan as an enthusiastic second volunteer. In the few months she's had hers installed, its failed twice, leaving her reluctant to do a full replacement.
  
  With her expertise, Bastion maintains her own cybernetics without the use of nanobots or any of the more advanced, confidential VRTU technology.

  fc

  Sofia Steinberg.
• 04

  persona

  02

  01

  Bastion

  • fillersss
  • .

  • likes & dislikes

    misc

    likes

    - For Bastion, most memories of home are bittersweet at best, and as much as she’d like to believe otherwise, bits and pieces of Feniks fall through the cracks. Bastion chooses to believe her Granny-June was innocent when she passed, and keeps her memory alive through home-cooked meals that sit heavy in your stomach and fill the air with a thick bouquet of spices. Bastion is proficient in preparing everything from cornbread to crab cakes to Wayne camp stew.
    
    - She smokes like a chimney, like every Van de Aarde before her, but her current station affords her more opportunities to experiment than anyone before her. Bastion has dabbled in just about every drug on the market at least once. She found her vice in Soapstream for a short time, but quit when it began impeding her work, before discovering her Onyx’s.

    dislikes

    - A product of some of the harshest environments on the continent, both natural and man-made, Bastion has very little sympathy for all things vain: politicians, celebrities and idiots chief among them.
    
    - They acknowledge the strength gained through the agony of their youth - without their Headmaster, they simply would not be where they are today - but can barely tolerate wanton cruelty now. To Bastion, there is a stark difference between sacrifice and sadism and witnessing such injustice, especially against children, is the best way to draw their wrath.
  • likes & dislikes

    misc

    fun facts

    
    - Feniks isn't a dead name. Legally, it is still their first name and you wouldn't be wrong to call them that, but perhaps do so with caution.
    
    - Bastion isn't one for interior design, and the one decoration in their room is a wilted, interwoven and crumbling collection of flowers pressed between thin sheets of glass and arranged in an approximate ring, like a bracelet.
    
    - Bastion has forgiven Corriveau. Not out of generosity or some greater peace, but out of simple acceptance of their success. They know they wouldn’t be who they are today without their abuse; torment that made the trials of Knighthood seem almost juvenile. Revenge is pointless and a waste of their time and efforts. Plus, it would only be punching down.
    
    -->

    hobbies

    
    X
    
    

    habits

    
    - For lack of a better word, Bastion has a bit
    of a cruel streak. After a few drinks, they
    can be found knowingly and willfully
    enabling less-than-advisable behavior
    purely to enjoy the ensuing chaos, all the
    while keeping a healthy distance from the
    fallout themself.
    
    

    fears

    
    X
    
    

  personality

  
  Bastion is blunt and conservative with their words, the foul-mouthed Van de Aarde only comes out in times of sufficient stress which - for someone like Bastion - is rare. They see no reason to entertain idiots and self-inflated fools or soften themself in accordance with their insecurities. Her unwillingness to posture in social circles has earned her a reputation as a hard-ass by those with thinner skin.
  
  They are more free around those they deem of sufficient competence, not status, but their lack of obvious inflection can be difficult to read. Despite their hard exterior, Bastion works best as a part of a team and excels in a support role behind the scenes, far from the social and political drama often found in the limelight.
• history

  03

  02

  01

  Bastion

  Van de Aarde Clan

  Former symbols of Hartland's Pony Express, all now either dead or scattered across the Empire. Feniks' blood family, Bastion's claim to fame, and skeleton in the closet for both.

  Jean-Luc Corriveau

  Headmaster of the Sacré Coeur Institute for Elysblessed Education. Feniks' abuser after she befriended the Progeny, Fintan Corentine. Bastion largely attributes their current resilience to his abuse.

  Colby Blackwood

  Bastion's husband and a childhood friend. They have not spoken in years.

  coded by natasha

  
  

  I - Kindling

  • As the lifeblood of the Pony Express, Van de Aardes might as well be born with reins in their hands and a cigar between their lips. Children in the Van de Aarde clan spawn as fast as rabbits, as tough as weeds and twice as stubborn. It’s said that a Van de Aarde child’s first word is always an expletive. A vulgar but friendly and steadfastly loyal lot, they are considered as close as family to most clans in the Hartland. You befriend a Van de Aarde and trust that you are a friend of the family for life.
  • The Van de Aardes take great pride in their work and do not discriminate in their service. However, they do keep the exact details of their dealings solely among the married adults. This leads some of the more pious folk to spin their yarns about the crass cowboys cavorting with craven cannibals in the spaces between civilization.
  • Despite their work routinely scattering them, the Van de Aardes are an incredibly tight-knit family. There’s no threat in the Hartland that Feniks and the Van de Aardes haven’t lost family to. Each loss is felt keenly and strengthens the ties that bind, even over miles and miles of desert. The Van de Aardes have massive family dinners on the last day of each month and by every god, attendance for blood family was not an option.
  • Oddly enough, Feniks is the only only child in the Van de Aardes, but delineations between sibling and cousin mean very little here, and Feniks grew up adored just the same.
  • Emotion, expression, and free speech are celebrated in all their raw and ugly glory. The only time a Van de Aarde gathering is ever quiet is when it’s called for to honor a passing. The Van de Aarde family motto is “Come and be.” The exact origin is up for debate but the meaning is simple: however you are, that’s how you should be.
  • As the years passed, Feniks grew into their namesake with the Van de Aardes’ signature head of fiery hair and sky blue eyes. The young rider grew up choked with familial love and support, her skills in animal husbandry, marksmanship and survivalism became as natural as breathing. Their Granny-June had a vested interest in getting them in the kitchen. She passed down sacred family recipes to them alone, likely seeing a kindred spirit in their only child status, at least until the Chain came knocking.
  • The rumors of the Van de Aardes’ more heretical dealings had reached the Holy Chain. Given Hartland’s dependence on the Pony Express, the Holy Chain asked for only assurance, rather than complete reform of an entire clan, as a favor to the Province. They came to the Van de Aardes and asked for one child from each mother to take as wards. Feniks was taken that same day, at only 8 years old. With their parents abroad, they didn’t even get to say goodbye. Granny-June helped Feniks pack the best she could and sent them off with a promise to write to her everyday.

  II - Spark

  
  
  

  • Despite their less than warm welcome, Feniks was a Van de Aarde, and that meant life and joy in abundance. The absence of ruckus was the first symptom of culture shock for the little cowboy. Silence was reserved for the dead and sleeping, and Feniks quickly became a veritable jukebox with all the trademarks and household names from their homeland.
  • They sang like a canary for all of twenty minutes before a heavy hand knocked them to the floor. It was the first time an adult had ever laid a hand on them, and it would not be the last.
  • Childhood is full of first times. The first time you make a new friend at a new school. The first time you learn what it means to be a leader. The first time your Granny-June breaks a promise.
  • Feniks met hundreds of people at the Institute, befriending many and antagonizing many more, and the next few years would prove a crucible for that kind child with punishments contradicting their very nature: Be silent. Honor Godiva. Get up. Honor Godiva. Stop crying. Honor Godiva.
  • She found light in one of the Progeny, a boy named Fintan Corentine. For all the trials forced upon them, his joy was infectious. In Fin, she found the spirit of her family. Where others saw the role model, the chosen Progeny, Feniks simply saw the same toothy grins and ear-splitting laughter of a legion of red-haired riders.
  • There was no love lost among most of the faculty of the Sacré Coeur. The Headmaster Jean-Luc Corriveau in particular saw her as a stain: a backwater blight, unworthy of the friendship of one of their favored children. His cruelty towards her was exceptional and innovative, testing the limits of even the Chain’s legal protection. There was no hope of rehabilitation in his actions, he did not act to bend, but to break.
  • Punishments intensified with time. Unconcealable bruises crept across their skin, limps became so pronounced as to require a cane. Innocence was bled from them like venom from a snakebite, without hesitation. Years without bodily autonomy led to insidious thoughts of a permanent release.
  • Childhood is full of last times. The last time you need help getting on your horse. The last time you sing. The last time you hug your Granny-June.
  • There was a choice to make. Die a Van de Aarde or live as something else.

  III - Blaze

  
  

  • In the weeks leading up to their departure, Feniks spent time endearing themself to the right people, the most devout and the most empathetic educators as well as those with children of their own. With the right words and well-timed tears, eventually someone buckled. Feniks received word at dinner that they would be relocated with the Knights of Ares first thing in the morning.
  • The day Feniks left the Sacre Coeur, they did so without warning. The young Van de Aarde decided to shed any attachment to their old life and reinvent themself. The night before, they came to their closest friend with scissors, a stolen bottle of black hair dye, and the intent to say goodbye. In their cowardice, words failed, and when Bastion left, Fintan was abandoned.

  
  

  • Bastion’s experience among the Ares was unorthodox compared to most Knights. Their handicap made the more intensive aspects of their training difficult. Fueled by both fear of being sent back to the Institute and an intense hunger for recognition, they took any and every job they could, taking them to Murnea for a time, a blessedly far-flung city. Eventually, Bastion would find a home among the doctors, medics and surgeons of the Knighthood.
  • In her humble beginnings, she started with the ugly jobs no one wanted and ingratiated herself with more senior staff. What she didn’t learn shadowing them, she learned from their second-hand textbooks. While she was never qualified - or old enough - to be respected by outsiders, she became more than skilled enough to save a life.
  • Despite their best efforts, Bastion found their way onto the medical staff behind more than one true Crusade north of Iris. They were violent and one-sided affairs where the military strength of the Ares made even the most organized resistance seem childish. Bastion and her comrades followed the front line as the first to pick up the pieces on both sides, patching up their Knights and sparing those the Chain deemed holy or profitable enough to live.
  • Years of serving as 'relief' to people they helped subjugate built up like calluses. Bastion became incredibly effective by diluting their patients into numbers: weighing recovery time in terms of medical expenses and heretical sentiments with potential profit. The leashed hatred of a sea of ever-changing strangers had a way of encouraging a sense of detachment, of apathy. When their mandatory service was completed - and despite their exemplary performance - they were highly encouraged to relocate and pursue less taxing work.
  • At 20 years old, following the advice of their superiors, Bastion returned home to enjoy a well-deserved retirement, to the family they were forced to abandon over a decade ago.
  • It wasn’t perfect, and they never fully escaped the nightmares, but it was damn close. Bastion had expected an adjustment period to that Van de Aarde brand of wild enthusiasm, but falling back into that rhythm came so naturally it was like they never left. They basked in the blistering desert heat, the way her legs burned riding horseback and her eyes watered from the wind and the dust, flying across the plains that were truly a part of her blood.
  • The passing of their Granny took with it several secret family recipes, many of which Bastion was able to revive with their return. When their dreams would turn cruel, they’d spend more time in the kitchen than they did sleeping. Through it all, Bastion even found love. It was an a absolute whirlwind romance with another Hartland boy, one Colby Blackwood, she had known growing up, and who belonged to a family the Van de Aardes had known for decades. They were married that same season. For the first time in an age, Bastion’s life was for more than just surviving.

  IV - Hellfire

  Phasellus mattis sodales velit, a consequat orci feugiat et. Phasellus auctor ligula ac felis rhoncus tincidunt. Mauris tempor felis sit amet eros varius, sit amet maximus risus tincidunt. Sed eu mi consequat, aliquet tellus vel, dignissim erat. Sed tincidunt urna arcu, in bibendum diam ullamcorper volutpat. Curabitur bibendum suscipit justo, id rutrum est viverra ac. Vivamus non nulla euismod, imperdiet nibh bibendum, dignissim sem. Duis rutrum ligula nec tempus semper. In euismod id arcu vel luctus. Donec orci nisl, aliquam et lacus nec, suscipit faucibus velit. Proin sodales magna a orci iaculis malesuada. Cras vitae ornare magna.

  V- Rebirth

  Phasellus mattis sodales velit, a consequat orci feugiat et. Phasellus auctor ligula ac felis rhoncus tincidunt. Mauris tempor felis sit amet eros varius, sit amet maximus risus tincidunt. Sed eu mi consequat, aliquet tellus vel, dignissim erat. Sed tincidunt urna arcu, in bibendum diam ullamcorper volutpat. Curabitur bibendum suscipit justo, id rutrum est viverra ac. Vivamus non nulla euismod, imperdiet nibh bibendum, dignissim sem. Duis rutrum ligula nec tempus semper. In euismod id arcu vel luctus. Donec orci nisl, aliquam et lacus nec, suscipit faucibus velit. Proin sodales magna a orci iaculis malesuada. Cras vitae ornare magna.

left

 

[demonology]

Arakiel — oracle

arden papillon — justice.

♡coded by uxie♡

• .
• .
• .
• .

• 04

  03

  02

  Intro

  ARAKIEL

  full name

  Arden Papilion

  age

  27

  gender

  transfemme nonbinary (she/they)

  sexuality

  demisexual

  date of birth

  december 22

  place of birth

  Itera, a village in Mista Glen, Rass

  JUSTICE — the oracle

  Motives.

  
  

  • She will never forget the child who sought to be adored, the teenager who wielded apathy as a weapon against the lack of indifference she felt, or the adult who failed. Their failures at every turn — to love their family as they should’ve, to do the right thing when they should’ve, to succeed against odds that told her from the start that they would fail — they haunt her.
  • To no longer use “the system” as a reasonable concession as to why she cannot accomplish one thing or another; to no longer use propaganda and ingrained ideology as reason enough as to why she’s failed countless times over.
  • An ever-burning desire to see other people’s humanity. She never learned how to turn that part of herself off, just to dim the light or suffocate herself. Because of this, she has a lot of hope when she shouldn’t, and maybe, a part of her seeks to be kind. To love people in a way independent of the reality in which they live. In this way, she refuses to give in to the Empire.
  • Because of their past, it was once very common to see her lash out against those she thought to be less radical, not revolutionary enough. Her approach now, especially given the current circumstances, is to treat the other team members with a conscious empathy, to find nuggets of herself within everyone else because, ultimately, she was just as unseeing, just as apathetic.

  Areas of Analysis.

  
  The effect of dehumanization
  Specifically on a radical who was once a tool of the state. I think this is something really interesting to consider with Ara because her own humanity is something she deems as pithy in comparison to the capital-R Revolution that she has no real, clear means of accomplishing or bringing about. She’s so sacrificial about herself, failing to realize that revolution won’t come by way of Hellfire and gunshower. I think she’s taken “die for the Revolution” to heart in a way that she may not come back from. Simultaneously, in a way she doesn’t see is engineered by the very ideology she seeks to abolish.
  
  Revolutionary Leaders and their place in Movements.
  Arakiel used to be a person who believed in decentralized movements, in the Power of the People as one group, one voice, etc. Movements shouldn’t have leaders, only spearheaders, because otherwise, those leaders are corruptible and can undermine the goals of the people at large. How many times have we seen a revolution, only for a handful of men to march in and proclaim themselves the leaders, the ones more responsible? Arakiel hasn’t wanted to see that happen again, but I think she’s become desperate. Her time in prison and in the Project has shown her, time and again, how futile it is. How divided people are, how little progress is made even with groups like the Watchers. So here’s Ara, promised the opportunity to become a weapon for the state once more. She doesn’t want to be a leader, not really, but what other choice does she have? Unfortunately, she’s begun to see the corrupted wisdom in centralized power, in someone leading the charge, and given all her mistakes, they think this is the only way to redeem themself: a martyr or a leader. Ara will take either, if only it means she is no longer cut off from the methods of change.
  
  Religion
  Arakiel grew up with one goddess, Choma, who was a regional god that her village worshiped. She was a god of memory, heritage, luck, ancestral protection, etc. Enter Godiva: the god forced upon them who represents something monotheistic rather than a spiritual force that better connects oneself to the world. The Mistan, as a cultural group, worship gods that relate to the material and do not believe in a heaven-hell paradigm. From a young age, Ara didn’t believe much in either god until they were old enough to question their Oracle gift, which is unexplainable except by religious means. Which god does one believe? For a long time, Godiva was the chosen one, but I think she would explain now, in the present, that this was an effect of colonization, that she was simply not allowed to practice her worship of Choma. In fact, she was so cut off from her family and her home that they forgot almost entirely of the goddess of memory until she returned home at 17. Yet, even now, they still have a troubled relationship with Choma/Godiva. She believes in the earth, in the physical world, and their Miracle feels so much like a natural extension of that, it's befuddling to consider that something metaphysical is at hand.
  
  Themes
  power and who has the right to it; dehumanization; the divine; what is truth?; love and community; more to come
  

  Extra.

  aesthetics.
  
• 04

  03

  visage

  01

  arakiel

  overall

  Approximately 5'10''. Ebony hair that typically has been cropped short, but now fluffs out at a length she far prefers. A singular mole, her natural Marilyn, dots the corner of the left side of her face. Ara's smile is formed from stark white teeth that have yellowed some with the lack of proper nutrition and toothpaste.

  mods

  Both her eyes and nose were replaced with cybernetics that allow her to change their appearance. For the eyes, this is changing the retinal display. For her nose, she swaps out prosthetics. These cybernetics were not very adept and have since been replaced. The purpose in these prosthetics was to better hide her identity from AI facial recognition. She also has a series of piercings across her face that she swaps out, including eyebrow piercings, industrials in both ears, gauges, piercings on both nostrils, a Marilyn on the side opposite to her natural mole, etc.
  Not really a body mod, but for the same reasons, she is really good at rave makeup that prevents AI recognition lol.
  
  NEW CYBERNETICS: metal plating over their heart and torso; all of their major organs that could be replaced, were; probably has the most modifications because their Miracle needs very little physical material to manifest. They excel and have prior knowledge in guerilla tactics, and many of their modifications have been made with this in mind.
  Left Arm: index finger operates as a pen, middle operates as a lighter, pinkie operates as a lockpick; their wrist has been replaced with a small compartment that stores throwing stars; when loaded, they can shoot out a star with a flick of their wrist; the compartment is reachable by a slit in their synthetic skin, which also creates the pocket for the throwing stars.
  Right Arm: small compartment where pieces of a ghost gun can be stored and taken out; their index finger acts as a hotspot for their retinal display; their knuckle detaches to reveal an ethernet cable.
  Left Leg: thigh contains a compartment which can hold the pieces to an automatic weapon or flammable projectiles. On the interior thigh, a knife can be stored in a pocket of synthetic keratin that they can reach into. Foot can be removed to be activated as a bomb.
  Right Leg: their thigh consists of a small computer tower.
  Left Ear: has been modified so that it can receive and send audio.
  Right eye: in addition to their changing eye’s appearance, they can record footage and have access to the internet via a retinal display. The goal in this is to use it for better espionage.

  fc

  Jari Jones
• 04

  persona

  02

  01

  arakiel

  • fillersss
  • .

  • headcanons

    misc

    
    

    headcanons

    
    — major inspiration from Assata Shakur, Leila Khaled, and Angela Davis. The Watchers are based off of the Black Panther party, university protest methods/orgs like SAFE and PYM, and the George Floyd Square occupation.
    — a gemini
    — "I love you and a little blood won't stop that" — Richard Siken
    — should wear a mouth guard but doesn't
    — she's got like. mom-friend potential
    — a good cook and she enjoys it; knows how to make a meal for hundreds of people on a very small budget
    — loves Rassian raves/flapper culture
    — ambles around the compound
    — kinda has pretty mediocre personal hygiene right now tbh. Occasionally, they get enough energy or self-love to put on a spot of makeup, to spend a few hours rebraiding their hair, etc. but the days get to her sometimes.
    — big napper
    
  • headcanons

    misc

    
    

    habits

    
    widens her eyes when she's tired, tends to suck on their tongue while thinking, has an oral fixation (chews gum, toothpicks, straws, etc).
    

    fears

    
    that the above / below are actually real, more to come.
    

  personality

  
  The years have not been kind to Ara. She is quiet, but not sullen. She is waifish, but not unsteady. There’s much about her unknown, but they are not deliberately secretive. In conversation, they can seem a bit spacey, far away, as though their mind is always on something else. This is a quality inherent to her, unrelated to her years imprisoned or the past year under the scalpel — but it is certainly worsened by both conditions, the lack of sun, the boiling feelings, the helplessness they feel, the ruthless reality that one person is not a revolution make. Who are they without it, though? Without their comrades, their shit-stirring, the community they helped build? Through them is a thrumming thread of emotion that only a woman righteous can have and only a rebel can satiate. But they are shit out of luck, and some days, all they can manage is playing nice in hopes of getting a few rays of sunshine.
• history

  03

  02

  01

  arakiel

  family

  hopefully more info later in the disc server but:
  Hawk, father; deceased
  Alara, mother; deceased
  Brook, eldest brother; current in the Ares as a Bellator Knight
  Orion, second eldest brother; location unknown but believed to be selling soapspirit in a gang in Daft, Rass
  Valley, two years younger than Ara; deceased
  Anhinga, seven years younger than Ara; alive and living with Greta in Rass
  Greta, unrelated; questionably romantic partner; fellow rebel

  coming soon

  coming soon

  character name

  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Etiam in semper risus. Morbi porttitor metus in velit hendrerit, ac ultricies mauris pretium. Aenean sagittis magna non lorem dignissim, in posuere tellus tincidunt. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Aliquam in consequat libero. Mauris non gravida felis. Sed erat augue, mattis eu fringilla nec, porttitor eu est. Vestibulum vestibulum diam vitae lorem efficitur luctus. Pellentesque sed fermentum dolor. Curabitur sodales arcu sapien, porta mollis sapien vulputate a. Maecenas eu augue vitae tortor molestie scelerisque. Suspendisse quis egestas lacus.

  coded by natasha

  
  

  I - overview

  
  

  • Born in the Mista Glen in the village of Itera. Her mother is recognized legally as Sheshona for her grandparents' contribution to the Rassian rehabilitation efforts. Her father was a fisherman. Those of Itera live a provincial life that has been consistently interrupted by the effects of the climate crisis and the Empire’s continued insistence on fossil fuel. The community managed to still live in relative peace, protecting and nurturing the land that was legally theirs. The only time the people of Itera raised their voice or disturbed the peace was when said life, or the lives of their neighboring villages, were threatened. There was a strong resistance within the Glen to any outside governmental interference, and for most of Arden’s early childhood, the Glen proved victorious.
  • From a young age, Arden was drawn to the spotlight. There is a distinct memory of her standing on stage at a rally, reading a poem she wrote about the bees her mother, Alara, keeps in the woods behind their home. The applause, the recognition and pride she felt when her parents were told that she was special. A visionary, is what one neighbor called her.
  • This desire for attention, innate in most children, grew tenfold with the advent of her Miracle. She delighted in helping her family, in knowing who was telling the truth and who wasn’t, in solving civil disputes, etc. She became a real sensation amongst Itera, so when her parents asked her to hide who she was, she refused. She thought it wrong to not tell the truth, and what would she be doing if not lying? When the priests come, against orders by the Itera City Council, she leaps from her house and takes one of them by the hand. She gives him the nature of his soul. Unlucky, she finds one of the few pure of heart, and she smiles when tears are brought to his eyes. When he asks her to come with them, Arden says yes. Yes of course. And she smiles at being called a good child.
  • So here is childhood: being praised, being adored, being adorned in gold and oils and sitting practically atop a throne with a crown. In those early years, the truth is so easy to see. She barely misses her family, who visit on occasion and make vague promises to rescue her. Everytime, Arden tells the priests, hiding away behind the thin walls of the cloisters, exactly what they already know: Arden will never leave them.

  Yet, every night, she pulled from the folds of her mattress the creation myth that her grandmother had once made into a pop-up book. Every fold of the pages was made by the tender, cross-hatched hand that looked no different from her own, from her mother’s. But this homesickness faded away with each Prophecy, with each soul she began to learn better than her own. When the priests filled her with their truths, they went down easy because she was grasping at anything, everything, that would keep her from this gnawing void. When a child has nothing but praise to subsist on, they mistake it for love. And there was only one thing Arden could value more than the truth.
  

  • Years pass and her teens are her first instance of rebellion. Typical things, really, and mostly to do with her desire for normalcy and her growing need for apathy to get her through the day. Death starts to mean something by the time she is fourteen — and each person sent to the rafters is another mark on her soul. How can she be holy? Her parents have stopped visiting and she doesn't know why. Her memories of home are faded. Sometimes it is a distant smell of a food she cannot name. Other times, it is her dreams. They all remind her of what she does not have. At 17, she returns to Itera following news of a hurricane, getting approval for special leave as a PR move by the Holy Chain, who was under fire for a lack of response.
  • It is her weeks of avoiding the Knights in the woods, which she remembers with shocking clarity, that she learns of herself. In the scant hours she catches sleep, the face of every man, woman, person dead because of her, the faces of their presumed families and friends, haunt her. Her mother visits her in a dream. Then, her sister, who she left to die in Itera. Lastly, her father. She wakes and crawls back home, plotting her youngest sister’s escape. She and Anhinga escape to Daft, where they panhandle, they try to find work, and somehow, Ara stumbles across Greta in a club one evening. It is Greta who is Arakiel’s first friend, who provides the sisters with a couch and a living room floor to sleep on. Greta, Ara’s first love. Greta, Ara’s first teacher. It’s Greta who radicalizes her, who gives her literature to read, theory and praxis to build off of. While she moonlights as a bartender at night, during the day, Ara works with Greta at the local free clinic. She learns what it means to be a community, finds some semblance of Itera in the smoggy streets of Daft.
  • So fast forward. Radicalization isn’t a fast process. She’s just begun to understand the world. She feels the catharsis of the truth every time she engages in a protest, puts on a mutual aid event, etc. They’ve begun to build a collection of friends, who later become comrades. She despairs, then she finds heart in the potential solutions they can enact if only they do something. She realizes that simply protesting isn’t enough when she turns 21 and Greta is arrested at a peaceful demonstration. The Watchers are born that same year.
  • A movement isn't made overnight, but all it takes is a spark. With the help of a few friends, they blow up an oil pipeline, and publicly, the Watchers take credit for it. Arakiel’s involvement is not public knowledge.
  • Someone like her doesn't last long, as it well-known. There are several other projects before her capture, though: freeing over 200 prisoners from Brigadoon Prisons in Central Egress, blowing up one of the walls that separates Tai from Espiritú, and even occupying an Elysblessed school long enough that they facilitated the escape of half of the school's students, and a handful more. The Watchers begin to grow into mild infamy across the Empire. They are not acknowledged by any public sources, though they suspect they’re on a most wanted list. The only metric of their fame is by virality on social media, which increases tenfold once it begins to circulate that an Oracle is rumored to work amongst them.
  • Eventually, they gather enough recruits and respect within a Daft neighborhood that they set up a small headquarters. For years, they’ve been providing food to people, rent assistance, even doing patrols to prevent Peacekeepers from taking their family members away for small, civil infractions. Following one of their neighbors being murdered by a Peacekeeper, the Watchers stage a full-on occupation of three blocks in the city, calling it a liberated zone. For once, they catch the attention of national news. It is arguably the height of Ara’s career so far. Then, she is caught one night on patrol. She ends up caught in a shoot-out between her and a Peacekeeper. She takes a bullet for Greta and is captured not long after. She has spent the past three years in prison, awaiting a trial that will never come. Right before she was offered a position on Project VRTU, she was plotting her escape. What caused her to stop was the promise to be made invincible and the potential to become a saint, canonized according to the Prophecy that sent her down this road all those moons ago.
    

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