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2 yrs ago
Current I've been on this stupid site for an entire decade now and it's been fantastic, thank you all so much
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3 yrs ago
Nine years seems a lot longer than it feels.
4 yrs ago
Ninety-nine bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles on the wall
4 likes
6 yrs ago
Biting Spider Writing
9 yrs ago
They will look for him from the white tower...but he will not return, from mountains or from sea...
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@Taka
Unfortunate, since IIRC Excalibur is like, super-mondo-mega locked because it would absurdly obscene and is also locked in the plot vault, I'm guessing.

BUT ALSO IT'S TAKA LET'SGO
Frankly if there was a stat that could be less than one that's what CC's Resonance would be.
And I follow with Thing 2. Likewise, let me know if it's a catastrophe.


In Lem's Stash 9 mos ago Forum: Test Forum
Cecilia 'CC' Sinclair



23 Years Old • Female

Basic Information

Appearance (Before Awakening) CC is rather tall for a woman. At 5'10", she was always glad she could meet her brother's eyes level instead of having to look up at him. She has fair skin spattered with freckles, and had a long mane of gleaming coppery-red hair that she was immensely proud of. Her face is sharp and angular, set with eyes that were a deep, expressive brown, and often wears a smug smirk, because that's frankly just the person she is. She had slender arms, ending in delicate hands with slim, dexterous fingers, all the better to hold a brush. All that said, she's not weak, she has tight, wiry muscles. But of course, she's not a body-builder or anything. Just...not soft.

Most of her clothing has some kind of paint stain somewhere on it, ranging from little specks along a hem to an enormous neon-blue splash across almost the entire front of a white tanktop that she kept because frankly she thinks it looks cool. She has a slender athletic build, and has a tendency to bounce her knees or tap her feet. She's fond of makeup, treating it as an extension of her art and herself as a living canvas.

She carries herself with a bouncy, energetic stride, like she's listening to a nonexistent playlist, and had a habit of snapping her fingers to the beat, whether 'the beat' even existed or not.

Appearance (After Awakening) CC has had one of the more obvious changes in her Awakening. To start, her copper hair brightened into a vivid flame-red, and her brown eyes ignited into an unnatural searing orange. When she's exerting herself, and her heat is rising, they blaze with their own firelight.

But, debatably more noticeably: both of her arms--on her left, from the elbow down, on her right, the entire arm up to the shoulder--have gained the appearance and texture of black stone, running with cracks and veins of bright red light. Like cooling lava. They glow in low light and have their own heat. Not hot enough to give you blisters upon touch, but more than hot enough to be uncomfortable. Like touching the hood of a black car in hundred-degree weather.

Even for her, actually.

It makes things like showering a constant trial, and sometimes she still puts a hand on her hip and is rewarded for her reflex with that sharp burning discomfort. She dresses more sparsely than she used to. Even long-sleeve shirts are often uncomfortably warm for her now; she lives firmly in the "tanktops or tee shirts and shorts when it's ten degrees outside" area. She's still a fan of makeup, but not being able to comfortably touch her face has certainly made it more difficult. She occasionally still tries to snap her fingers, but being made of stone puts a dent in that for sure. Unfortunately, without these hands she probably wouldn't even be able to hold Lævateinn.

She's also not as tall as her brother anymore, and she is not happy about it.


Awakening Details

Vision: She was just putting the finishing touch on a painting she'd worked on for weeks, just the last few rays of light from the clouds left. Tongue sticking out in concentration, she brought the brush up one last time...

"Oh my, this is unusual. How did you get here?"

What? Huh? Where was she? What was going on? The feeling of sun on her face and grass beneath her bare feet, breezes tickling her back with her hair, the crisp clean smell of the air, the soft susurration of the lakeshore softly lapping...

And the impossibly gorgeous woman who was standing before her. She stared back, utterly bewildered. Part of her wanted to answer: 'I don't know!' But somehow speaking to her like that felt against all the laws of nature. So instead, she turned to the person that was somehow standing next to her.

"Cade, what the hell is going on?"

Rank: Functionally a 1st Rank, technically half of a 2nd Rank (more on that later).
Summoned Weapon(s)
  • Lævateinn - Norse Myth
Lore & Power

Origin Story: Lævateinn is a weapon shrouded by mystery and the long passage of time. Many interpretations have come and gone. Including the sword of the fire giant Surtr.

And it is clear that is where CC's Lævateinn finds its origin. A great blade wreathed in impossibly hot flame, raised at the gods to herald the end of all things.
Relative Strength: 7 - Well-known enough to have infiltrated pop culture and the collective consciousness, but it's no Mjolnir.
Manifestation: Lævateinn is an enormous greatsword longer than CC is tall with a hilt of size to match. The blade is as red as her new hair, and the great hilt and guard are the black of volcanic basalt. It glows brightly with a violent light and can be set aflame at a thought (sometimes. More on that later).
Attributes
  • Might: 5 - It's a huge fuckoff fire sword. Each strike would already be a volcanic eruption, even if it didn't improve her physical strength by a large amount. But because it did she'll obliterate anything you point her at.
  • Agility: 1 - But that's only if she can hit it. CC never meant to be a hero, so she's entirely untrained in combat; and she has a very large weapon, so quick maneuvering is something that she really has to get the hang of.
  • Endurance: 2 - This requires a bit more explanation. 2 is the level for purely her physical endurance, as a distance runner (though of course running and swordplay require very different muscle groups). But most of the time--that is to say, unless she's fighting alongside Cade who can thermoregulate her--she sits squarely at a 1. The limit on her combat isn't usually physical exhaustion, but heat. With a body that was never adapted to wield Lævateinn until it suddenly dropped in on her, it builds up heat quickly, and she can't manage exertion AND its heat for too long before she starts suffering from heat symptoms, rapidly escalating from heavy sweating to heat stroke if she doesn't manage it properly.
  • Presence: 4 - Overconfident and cocky though she may be, her outgoing nature and extroversion collide to give her a kind of magnetic personality, even if she can be obnoxious at times. Her 'heroic ideal' may be atrophied, as she never intended to be one; but even so, she has an undeniable force of personality. And she's headstrong and stubborn, so even without a strong heroic ideal, her willpower is undeniably strong.
  • Instinct: 2 - Not to belabor a point, but she never intended to be a hero, and so her training in any kind of combat is nonexistent. She's saved from a 1 purely because she's fairly quick-witted and observant to begin with, so with any luck she'll get better here before too long, she's a quick learner.
  • Resonance: 1 - Cecilia was never meant to wield Lævateinn, and it knows. Consequently, their connection is tenuous and unstable at times; like, for example, lighting on fire without her actually meaning it to. It reacts strongly to her emotions, and it will remain as such until she earns its metaphorical trust. The is also the source of her inability to properly modulate her temperature while in combat.


Guild Information

Guild Assessment Result: [placeholder]
Affiliation: Cecilia doesn't care much for the guilds at all. But Cade does, and she cares a great deal for Cade. So she's loyal to the Guilds strictly by proxy.


Background

Personality: CC has a very particular personality that people usually either love or hate (or hate to love). She's overconfident and cocky, and a smirk is a constant fixture on her face. But she's also highly social, very extroverted and outgoing. She makes friends easily, even if sometimes she can have some trouble keeping them for any length of time. She has a blindingly bright smile, even if a lot of the time it's rooted in being way too confident and probably being punished for it in some way.

That being said, all the easy (and obnoxious) confidence of CC's outward personality can't fully get in the way of a major cardinal piece of her: she is kind. Fitting a bit into the jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold archetype, as much as she'll preen, or poke fun at other people in a way that some might find mean-spirited, if she finds someone in need, she'll still put herself out to help them. This isn't helped by something that her brother has cautioned her about endlessly: she is trusting to a fault. Suspicion isn't something that plays heavy on her mind when she's meeting anybody for the first time, partially born from that sheer confidence. It has definitely gotten her into trouble before, but it's still just as present.

The last major piece of her personality is her relationship with her creativity. For those who only know her as a bit of a massive pain in the ass, it can be a bit of a shock the first time they see her buckle down on one of her pieces: in a vast departure from her cockiness, she is serious about her art. If she wasn't, she probably wouldn't have gone to school for it. The constant haze of heat that surrounds her hands mean that it's difficult for her to get close to the canvas without ruining the oil paint that she most often uses, and of her Awakening, that's the part that bothers her the most. She spent four years studying how to paint, and now her whole life's been turned upside down without even being able to paint in the style she knows. It's always been an important outlet for her negative feelings, and having it suddenly locked off really isn't good for her mental health.

History:

The Sinclair family was never the best off.

Living in corporate hell as they did, their decision to have even one child was one they came to after extended deliberation. What they did not expect was for their one child to become two. Their money was already tight; after all, it wasn't like there was generous maternity or paternity leave. But against advice, they chose to keep both children. They'd make it work somehow.

And they did, for a while. Cecilia and Cade didn't have a childhood of plenty by any means, but they didn't go hungry or have to skip schooling to work as kids. It was during this time--when two paychecks kept life stable for the twins--that CC first saw her mom painting. It was a passion of their mother's, but with the two of them, she'd been forced to almost give it up. But she still found time, once every blue moon, to pull out her watercolors and spend a few precious minutes with her art.

Well, until she couldn't anymore.

After their dad walked out on them following his layoff and constant arguments with their mom, CC's comfortable life shattered. In the ensuing maelstrom of missed rent and financial ruin, CC grabbed one thing, half out of impulse and half out of a desire to go back: the watercolor palette. She was an emotional wreck during their series of moves in and out of shelters. But CC had always known what Cade was thinking, and she saw how much pressure he put on himself, even if he was just kid like her. And her mom was stretching herself so thin she barely had time to do anything at all outside of working and sleeping. So she decided right then and there that she wasn't going to be someone that they had to just...take care of. She was going to be someone who could take care of herself so they didn't need to. She wasn't gonna cry, ever.

It was a childish promise that she inevitably would never be able to keep. She wasn't like Cade. She was awful at hiding any of her emotions, wore what she was feeling on her sleeve more often than not. She definitely cried, and not infrequently. But that stubborn insistence gave her enough of a foothold on emotional stability that she could get through school. It let her spend her time at home with Cade waiting for their mom to come home. It let her poke fun at her brother now and then, because she could feel some of the fun burning out of him and the thought scared her more than she ever let him know. The two of them were almost always together; at school, at home, in the same bunk bed, on the weekend, they were like each others' shadows.

By the time the twins were in high school, life had gotten a little easier for them. Working their asses off meant that their mom could finally take a well-deserved rest after raising two teenagers on her own. Things had reached a kind of stability. She took her schooling as seriously as she could. But Cade always outstripped her in grades, because at night, after her part time job, when he studied, she would take that same palette of watercolors out and paint. Night after night, even when only a fragment of pigment was left in each cup. Then she took the plunge to take some of the money that she'd earned, go out one day, and buy some brushes and a set of cheap oil paints. Her grades...really didn't improve. At all. But her art did. She blossomed, really starting to develop her own style and come into her own as a painter. And her obsession with painting didn't go unnoticed. When the final year of high school came and she dared to apply to art school...

Well, she definitely cried when she told her family she'd gotten a full ride.

She also cried when she learned that Cade had gotten a grant to go to school too. She hadn't let him know, obviously, nor their mom; but the idea of leaving both of them to go live off on her own scared the hell out of her. She'd never not, of course; she knew that her mom had wanted to study art when she was younger, and was determined to be the artist that she never could. But it didn't make it any less scary. So Cade being there with her would make her feel so much better.

The second she got the chance, she buckled down and applied herself like she'd never applied herself before. Flew forward in ever class; her childhood had given a work ethic that some of the other students there could only dream of. Now that she was finally free to spread her wings, she lunged forward at every chance. She did feel bad, though; because she was focusing so hard on her studies, Cade didn't have time to. After all, someone needed to keep the place they lived functional. It was a constant guilt that dug little fishhooks into her skin. But, she rationalized, as soon as she graduated and started working as an artist proper, she could start really making some actual money and pay Cade back for all he'd done.

And then, of course, the dumbass had to start getting into vigilantism. The first time he'd come back to their dorm with his face busted up, she'd just about had a heart attack then and there. She wanted more than anything else for him to stop. What if he got hurt? Like, not a black eye hurt, but hurt hurt? But she knew her brother. And he knew that the bonehead wasn't going to stop if she asked. So all she could bring herself to ask was for him to be careful! The idea that he was in danger weighed on her mind constantly. But she still flew through school, graduating summa cum laude with high honors. She did her best to ignore the news every time vigilantism came up, especially after the advent of Awakening. Every time she thought about it, there was a painful squeeze in her chest. It started to leak into her mind when she was working on art, too, now. He was in danger, wasn't he? All the time. She wished she could do something. Wished she could help him somehow--

"Oh my, this is unusual. How did you get here?"

Motivation: She didn't want this. She certainly didn't ask for it. But it happened. And with her boneheaded brother constantly throwing himself at danger, what kind of sister would she be if she didn't use her new big fuckoff fire sword to help?


Optional
Side Roles: (Do you also want to play a supporting character — civilian, journalist, opportunist, etc.?)
Theme Song / Quote: (Just for flavor if you like.)
As for questions, in a lot of media involving stuff like this the weapon or object can be stored in a kind of hammerspace. Does that hold here, or do people have to just keep 'em in a corner?

And also, though it seems that they are, it's worth asking since it's pretty major for my character: are the bodily effects of Awakening permanent, or only when using the weapon?
Oooh, this one is interesting. Count me in, looking at either Hrunting and Nægling, Caladbolg, or Lævateinn.
The long, slow breaths that Quinn was taking as she wended through the crowd were doing a remarkable job in keeping her...well, not exactly calm, she could still feel the fear bubbling just beneath the surface, like a pot of boiling water only barely covered. But calm enough. She could practically feel the eyes boring into her from all sides, and managed to lift her hand in a wave that she hoped didn't look as halfhearted as it felt.

Then she saw a sign for the community center, and some force compelled her to seek it out. Perhaps it was because the Hovvi community center was the first place she ever met Besca, she couldn't be sure. Perhaps it was just because it was a bit more off the main drag, so it wouldn't be quite as crowded. But as she passed behind it, she was met with the welcome sight of Cyril, who urged her into the community center proper--past some crowds of people who were doing who knew what--and into a staff entrance, where Quinn finally felt a bit at ease--

And then Cyril reached out and closed the door behind them.

A sudden sharp intake of breath jolted into Quinn, and with more haste than she'd demonstrated that day--or, debatably, more haste than she'd demonstrated at the CSC as a whole--she jerked back to the door, cracked it ajar, and kicked a doorstop into place just to make sure that it didn't swing closed again. She immediately felt better, and a little foolish. The instinctual horror bubbling beneath her was still there, though it had receded a bit once she was off the street.

Luckily, it didn't seem like it had caused much, other than Cyril flinching out of the way. She took a stabilizing breath, then walked over and tossed herself down into a chair, unwrapping the burger that Sybil slid at her and taking a tentative bite. It was good. Better than CB Dane's, at any rate, and Quinn didn't have much other context for burgers. She left the fries for the siblings, walking over and slinging herself over the arm of the couch Sybil was splayed out on as she ate.

Huh. Strict diets, huh? A little grin came to Quinn's face as she remembered the brief exchange that she'd just had with Dahlia, then gave a little shrug. "Our schedule is stricter. Working out, sparring, simming, mandatory therapy once weekly...I almost feel like I have too much time on my hands here and I don't really know what to do with it." She took another bite, pondering as she chewed, then swallowed. "Food is pretty free, though. We can eat mostly whatever we want, as long as we don't exceed a certain amount of calories. Except a nutrient shake every morning."

She made a face. "They taste like chalk at the best of times. But..." Another bite, bigger this time as she really realized how hungry she was, and then another. The 'but' hung there in the air as she scarfed another good chunk of her burger down, and only once another half of it was gone did she swallow the last bite and finish. "...even if they're pretty gross, I'm still kind of missing them. Mornings feel weird without my chalk drink." She paused again, looking up at the ceiling and frowning lightly as, at Cyril's prompt, she thought back to the pilot of Dragon, and the "strict schedule" that she was holding herself to. She would call her again that night.

And the thought of that call pulled the fear closer to the surface, and she did her best to hide her suddenly tensed muscles and tightened teeth as she fought it back down.

Once she'd forced it back into the box in her head and shaken her head lightly to try to banish the thoughts--nearly-finished burger held half forgotten in her hand--she glanced down at Sybil on the couch beneath her. She hadn't spoken with the older girl much, and she'd nearly forgotten that Casoban put a great emphasis on art, even--perhaps especially--on pilots. Maybe that had something to do with the more lax schedule? Time needed for art? A part of her knew that she was thinking about it to avoid more unpleasant thoughts, but she shoved that part back into the box too. She could deal with it again once she was outside. She was safe here. Safe.

"Can I see one of your paintings, Sybil? It doesn't have to be an apple, I promise."
Shin-ae Yun



Yeah. Safety in numbers sounded good.

She was about to break her silence--which she'd kept for a little while, the entire thing just felt very awkward and she felt very out of her depth--to agree with "Jack" to throw her bike into his trunk and head north. It's not like she really had anywhere better to go, after all. Well, it would maybe be nice to go back California to make sure her parents were okay, but just imagining what the airports and interstates looked like right now was enough to convince her that was a phenomenally bad idea. Even if she wasn't bitten in the panic-stricken airport. So her parents were just--

...Then Kaitlyn interrupted her stupor by offering her a hand, and she took it gratefully, hauling herself to her feet and doing her best to shake off the thoughts. And, as a bonus, she also offered a slightly more convenient way to travel around and carry her bike. Shin-ae gave a soft sound of assent, but shot a quick glance at Jack out of the corner of her eye all the same. He'd offered so kindly to help. It seemed like a shame to tell him "hey I know that you let me ride in your car out of the kindness of your heart even while worried about your daughter, but Kaitlyn's has a bike rack. And in order to come you have to abandon your own car." Still. She had to consider her own safety, and it did look like a fairly beaten-up car. She bit her lip slightly. The answer was obvious. She just...still felt a little bad.

So she limped up to the window where Jack still sat and gave him a smile she hoped wasn't too forced or awkward. "Thank you for the offer, Jack. Really. But I really would rather stick my bike on a rack so it doesn't up too much space. The more you can carry the better, and all that. I'm sorry." A part of her jealously hoped that he would abandon his car to join them, he seemed like a nice man, but she acknowledged that was probably unrealistic.

With that task done, she gave another smile--this one apologetic--before she turned to walk back over toward Kaitlyn, pausing as she did to pick up her violin case and give the woman a fractional nod.

"Lead the way." Another thought crossed her mind: "Unless we want to wait for AJ's parents to pick her up?"
In Lem's Stash 11 mos ago Forum: Test Forum

I R I S C R O N A
I R I S C R O N A

"If you ever feel that you've run out of time, just call my name."
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
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C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
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Hearing the name 'Seraphina Rhys Morozov' can prompt a number of different reactions. Dread, admiration, relief, anger, awe; a well-known fixer and mercenary, she has a storied (and checkered) past, though she almost never talks about it.

In fact, she doesn't seem to talk much at all. She seldom speaks, and though she's undoubtedly listening when you tell her something there's a curious faraway blankness in her eyes. Her apparent emotional range is remarkably flat. Really, it just seems like there's a kind of disconnect from the world present in every part of her mindset, like there's always some level of dissociation within her. Like part of her has been hacked away.

Though a fixer and mercenary, she had been on the payroll of Veritas Technology for an very unusual time until recently. If pushed into speech, she'd tell you in her odd toneless voice that honestly, it was really simple: Veritech just paid way better than anybody else. But she left the life of a corpo fixer behind and became a solo who now seems to take special relish in dealing with corpos.
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