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databurst application
Nov. 20th, 2020 10:27 am PLAYER INFORMATION
Player Name: Solstice
Over 18?: Y
Preferred Contact: darkersolstice#9463/darkersolstice on plurk
Other Characters: NA
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Coda Sinneslöschen
Canon: OC (Changeling: the Lost RPG)
Canon Point: Irrelevant, OC
Age: 24-ish (depending on how one accounts for Narnia time effects. Has experienced significantly more time)
Reference: Before their name was Coda, before they were relevant to anything at all, their name was Terry, and they were a lonely kid raised in Portland, Oregon. Fascinated by arcade games and computers, they spent more time at the local arcade alone, trying out all the games, than with friends. In 1981, they were 16 years old, when a new machine was put into the local arcade, a game called Polybius. The game later suffered a bad reputation--it supposedly hypnotized children, or brainwashed them. This was a cover story invented later to cover up the truth: Polybius was a portal to Arcadia, the realm of the True Fae.
Humans have been kidnapped by Fae for millennia; folklore contains countless tales of people who've wandered into a fairy ring and never come home again, or children being kidnapped and replaced with pale imitations of themselves. So it was for Terry, kidnapped into the realm of a fae who styled himself as a mad scientist, who sequestered those he took into different labs and experiments. Terry (who the mad fae renamed Coda), he chose as an assistant, almost an AI within the infrastructure of the labs, helping to design spaces to keep the other subjects in, prisons and mazes that would make both Escher and Piranesi proud (or perhaps horrified).
Eventually, though, Coda was able to do something their Keeper didn't ever expect: they created a maze that kept him occupied long enough for them to escape and return to the real world. The problem was that after so long in the land of the Fae, they were no longer fully human; something of the cold white hallways of the labs lingered on them, rendering them a changeling.
(This was not the only problem; the fact that the year was 2016 when they escaped, after having been taken in 1981 led to a definite sense of culture shock.)
As they settled into the real world (choosing to live in Chicago so the uncanny valley of a future-Portland wouldn't be something to deal with), they eventually got a job in environmental design for a small video game company. The spaces they'd made Over There, in the realm of the mad scientist Fae's labs, were often an inspiration for winding impossible spaces in games, and when they weren't working on something for a game company, they were often noodling around making smaller 3D spaces that were almost meditations on feeling trapped.
Unfortunately, in early 2019, a friend of theirs named Davey discovered some of these very personal meditations, and published them online, thinking he was doing them a favor by garnering exposure for their work. Really, it was like having their personal diary published online. Coda withdrew from public life and became pretty much a hermit...up until being pulled into the Svelte simulation.
Personality: While Coda remembers being a bright teenager with a keen mind and a passion for puzzles, the person who came out of the labs and escaped into the 'real world' is very different. They're brilliant, obsessive and fragile.
Being taken by the fae is a traumatic event, and it's one that's left Coda emotionally scarred. The problem with this is that due to the specific nature of their durance has left them somewhat disconnected from their human nature in general and emotions specifically. They try to take an analytical approach to problems, dealing with other people's emotions from an angle of "if I input X, I receive Y" logic instead of actually engaging them on an emotional level.
Another aspect of this is a sort of self-neglect; they treat their body like an inorganic machine, often forgetting to eat, sleep, or cut themself a little slack. They easily get frustrated by moments of malfunction in their own internal systems. Glitches or effects from outside, they're willing to be patient with, but the limitations of organic life, not so much. Their gender identity (or rather their lack thereof) is tied to this; they feel completely disconnected from their assigned gender at birth, and all others.
That said, they're intelligent, if not brilliant, with more creativity than any mere machine will ever have. The mazes and prisons they created in the labs have become an enduring obsession to this day, driving their work as a video game environmental designer and spilling into their more personal work (which is now kept more securely encrypted and never shared, in the aftermath of Davey revealing their work to the world).
Of course, what might be their most useful traits in this setting is that they're reliable and a little bit jaded.
Coda would never call themself a "mom friend", but they are the one in a friend group most likely to have hand sanitizer, an eyeglass screwdriver, a flashlight and a bottle of water in their messenger bag--though their fae magic means if they need a field microscope, they can also have that in their bag. They spent their first year or two upon returning to the real world learning practical skills (mostly from YouTube videos), and will likely approach Svelte in a similar manner, picking up useful habits, skills and knowledge that applies to this world. They give sensible (if perhaps overly rational) advice when others; they're quick to recommend that friends seek professional mental health care if they're in distress (though would be the last person to accept that advice, themself).
Part of this is that this is their third time adjusting to a fundamentally new reality. Emerging in 2016, a lot of what they had known in 1981 (what parts they hadn't forgotten while away) simply didn't apply. There's a sort of resilience that comes from this; the weird shit they encounter doesn't faze them as much as it otherwise might. That said, there's also a sort of impatience with people who are in denial of the situation and an utter lack of compassion for the obviously soulless NPCs. Anyone who's not 'caught up' or 'on their level' may find Coda's response a little cold or callous.
Under stress, Coda has a habit of overworking and trying to become even more rational and less emotional. This can and will lead to breakdowns when, for example, they spend multiple days working on calculations for something and forget to eat or sleep. They struggle strongly against anyone pointing out how much of a hypocrite they are, ensuring others are taken care of...but not accepting the same for themself.
Abilities:
Technical Skill: Coda's day job is as an environmental designer for video games, and this will likely lead to some ability to affect the environment of the Svelte simulation. They're probably not going to be able to do much with NPCs, but definitely have the coding skills to shape the setting.
In addition, Coda's fae nature means they've taken on a few innate changes to their physiology and have learned certain magical tricks.
(Note for any other Changeling: the Lost players, Contracts are being pulled from CtL2e core; also note that I'm cutting/nerfing out pledge mechanics from Coda's abilities because you try explaining that shit in depth to a non-changeling player.)
Seeming: Elemental - limited telekinetic control of their associated element (electricity, in Coda's case)
Contracts
Discreet Summons: Coda can reach into a bag, a drawer or other container and pull out a small object. If the object is a tool, it has basic functionality. It disappears, however, when no one is paying attention to it anymore, and having the item doesn't confer any special knowledge of how to use it.
Light-Shy: At will, Coda can fade from conscious notice. This is a psychic effect, as they suddenly become beneath notice to everyone around; thus, this does not work against cameras and other mindless forms of detection. You tell me if it works on NPCs.
Dance of the Toys Coda can cause a mechanical object (must have moving parts; something like a door counts, a pipe lying on the ground will not) to do its function at a distance. This contract won't move an object beyond of its usual range of motion; while the trigger of a gun can pull and fire, this Contract will not allow it to jump up on its own or float to aim.
Touch of Wrath: By touching an object and threatening it verbally, they can damage it structurally, causing it to cease functioning and possibly to break down completely.
Elemental Fury: Coda's one true piece of combat magic. Coda can create an area-of-effect storm of electricity that extends outward over a large area. Unfortunately, the magic cannot distinguish between friend and foe, so everyone in the area (save Coda themself) will be hurt by lightning lashing out against them.
Personal Effects: Messenger bag with various sundry mundane "useful items" (things like a multitool, mini-rolls of duct tape, Sharpies, menstrual supplies, etc.), laptop (with carrying case), 3 goblin fruits (otherworldly fruits that can help with healing physical injuries), a bag of winds (an item enchanted with changeling magic that contains a chill winter wind that Coda can release and gather back up)
Prized Possession: The album Turn of a Friendly Card by the Alan Parsons Project, on vinyl. This album was a Christmas present the year before they were taken, and they had it on repeat most of that year.
CRAU Premise: NA
SAMPLE
Sample:
TDM with Artemis
TDM with Nick
Player Name: Solstice
Over 18?: Y
Preferred Contact: darkersolstice#9463/darkersolstice on plurk
Other Characters: NA
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Coda Sinneslöschen
Canon: OC (Changeling: the Lost RPG)
Canon Point: Irrelevant, OC
Age: 24-ish (depending on how one accounts for Narnia time effects. Has experienced significantly more time)
Reference: Before their name was Coda, before they were relevant to anything at all, their name was Terry, and they were a lonely kid raised in Portland, Oregon. Fascinated by arcade games and computers, they spent more time at the local arcade alone, trying out all the games, than with friends. In 1981, they were 16 years old, when a new machine was put into the local arcade, a game called Polybius. The game later suffered a bad reputation--it supposedly hypnotized children, or brainwashed them. This was a cover story invented later to cover up the truth: Polybius was a portal to Arcadia, the realm of the True Fae.
Humans have been kidnapped by Fae for millennia; folklore contains countless tales of people who've wandered into a fairy ring and never come home again, or children being kidnapped and replaced with pale imitations of themselves. So it was for Terry, kidnapped into the realm of a fae who styled himself as a mad scientist, who sequestered those he took into different labs and experiments. Terry (who the mad fae renamed Coda), he chose as an assistant, almost an AI within the infrastructure of the labs, helping to design spaces to keep the other subjects in, prisons and mazes that would make both Escher and Piranesi proud (or perhaps horrified).
Eventually, though, Coda was able to do something their Keeper didn't ever expect: they created a maze that kept him occupied long enough for them to escape and return to the real world. The problem was that after so long in the land of the Fae, they were no longer fully human; something of the cold white hallways of the labs lingered on them, rendering them a changeling.
(This was not the only problem; the fact that the year was 2016 when they escaped, after having been taken in 1981 led to a definite sense of culture shock.)
As they settled into the real world (choosing to live in Chicago so the uncanny valley of a future-Portland wouldn't be something to deal with), they eventually got a job in environmental design for a small video game company. The spaces they'd made Over There, in the realm of the mad scientist Fae's labs, were often an inspiration for winding impossible spaces in games, and when they weren't working on something for a game company, they were often noodling around making smaller 3D spaces that were almost meditations on feeling trapped.
Unfortunately, in early 2019, a friend of theirs named Davey discovered some of these very personal meditations, and published them online, thinking he was doing them a favor by garnering exposure for their work. Really, it was like having their personal diary published online. Coda withdrew from public life and became pretty much a hermit...up until being pulled into the Svelte simulation.
Personality: While Coda remembers being a bright teenager with a keen mind and a passion for puzzles, the person who came out of the labs and escaped into the 'real world' is very different. They're brilliant, obsessive and fragile.
Being taken by the fae is a traumatic event, and it's one that's left Coda emotionally scarred. The problem with this is that due to the specific nature of their durance has left them somewhat disconnected from their human nature in general and emotions specifically. They try to take an analytical approach to problems, dealing with other people's emotions from an angle of "if I input X, I receive Y" logic instead of actually engaging them on an emotional level.
Another aspect of this is a sort of self-neglect; they treat their body like an inorganic machine, often forgetting to eat, sleep, or cut themself a little slack. They easily get frustrated by moments of malfunction in their own internal systems. Glitches or effects from outside, they're willing to be patient with, but the limitations of organic life, not so much. Their gender identity (or rather their lack thereof) is tied to this; they feel completely disconnected from their assigned gender at birth, and all others.
That said, they're intelligent, if not brilliant, with more creativity than any mere machine will ever have. The mazes and prisons they created in the labs have become an enduring obsession to this day, driving their work as a video game environmental designer and spilling into their more personal work (which is now kept more securely encrypted and never shared, in the aftermath of Davey revealing their work to the world).
Of course, what might be their most useful traits in this setting is that they're reliable and a little bit jaded.
Coda would never call themself a "mom friend", but they are the one in a friend group most likely to have hand sanitizer, an eyeglass screwdriver, a flashlight and a bottle of water in their messenger bag--though their fae magic means if they need a field microscope, they can also have that in their bag. They spent their first year or two upon returning to the real world learning practical skills (mostly from YouTube videos), and will likely approach Svelte in a similar manner, picking up useful habits, skills and knowledge that applies to this world. They give sensible (if perhaps overly rational) advice when others; they're quick to recommend that friends seek professional mental health care if they're in distress (though would be the last person to accept that advice, themself).
Part of this is that this is their third time adjusting to a fundamentally new reality. Emerging in 2016, a lot of what they had known in 1981 (what parts they hadn't forgotten while away) simply didn't apply. There's a sort of resilience that comes from this; the weird shit they encounter doesn't faze them as much as it otherwise might. That said, there's also a sort of impatience with people who are in denial of the situation and an utter lack of compassion for the obviously soulless NPCs. Anyone who's not 'caught up' or 'on their level' may find Coda's response a little cold or callous.
Under stress, Coda has a habit of overworking and trying to become even more rational and less emotional. This can and will lead to breakdowns when, for example, they spend multiple days working on calculations for something and forget to eat or sleep. They struggle strongly against anyone pointing out how much of a hypocrite they are, ensuring others are taken care of...but not accepting the same for themself.
Abilities:
Technical Skill: Coda's day job is as an environmental designer for video games, and this will likely lead to some ability to affect the environment of the Svelte simulation. They're probably not going to be able to do much with NPCs, but definitely have the coding skills to shape the setting.
In addition, Coda's fae nature means they've taken on a few innate changes to their physiology and have learned certain magical tricks.
(Note for any other Changeling: the Lost players, Contracts are being pulled from CtL2e core; also note that I'm cutting/nerfing out pledge mechanics from Coda's abilities because you try explaining that shit in depth to a non-changeling player.)
Seeming: Elemental - limited telekinetic control of their associated element (electricity, in Coda's case)
Contracts
Discreet Summons: Coda can reach into a bag, a drawer or other container and pull out a small object. If the object is a tool, it has basic functionality. It disappears, however, when no one is paying attention to it anymore, and having the item doesn't confer any special knowledge of how to use it.
Light-Shy: At will, Coda can fade from conscious notice. This is a psychic effect, as they suddenly become beneath notice to everyone around; thus, this does not work against cameras and other mindless forms of detection. You tell me if it works on NPCs.
Dance of the Toys Coda can cause a mechanical object (must have moving parts; something like a door counts, a pipe lying on the ground will not) to do its function at a distance. This contract won't move an object beyond of its usual range of motion; while the trigger of a gun can pull and fire, this Contract will not allow it to jump up on its own or float to aim.
Touch of Wrath: By touching an object and threatening it verbally, they can damage it structurally, causing it to cease functioning and possibly to break down completely.
Elemental Fury: Coda's one true piece of combat magic. Coda can create an area-of-effect storm of electricity that extends outward over a large area. Unfortunately, the magic cannot distinguish between friend and foe, so everyone in the area (save Coda themself) will be hurt by lightning lashing out against them.
Personal Effects: Messenger bag with various sundry mundane "useful items" (things like a multitool, mini-rolls of duct tape, Sharpies, menstrual supplies, etc.), laptop (with carrying case), 3 goblin fruits (otherworldly fruits that can help with healing physical injuries), a bag of winds (an item enchanted with changeling magic that contains a chill winter wind that Coda can release and gather back up)
Prized Possession: The album Turn of a Friendly Card by the Alan Parsons Project, on vinyl. This album was a Christmas present the year before they were taken, and they had it on repeat most of that year.
CRAU Premise: NA
SAMPLE
Sample:
TDM with Artemis
TDM with Nick
