You do not know

ataraxion Character Profile

2015-08-15T06:08:55Z

( oh god )

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adjusted profile css 8/12/15

2015-08-12T16:29:58Z

( x2 oh god )

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profile thing original code via fullmoon

2015-08-09T00:09:38Z

( oh god )

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cr chart, floppy attempt #1

2015-07-29T05:06:26Z

The red and green metric bars mean something but I'm not completely sure what. I wouldn't get too worried about it.

Sorry to everyone who's missing, I think I might actually give up now.

ALSO IT'S WORTH NOTING SOME OF THESE WORDS ARE NSFW

( I AM MISSING LIKE A MILLION PEOPLE )

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[ataraxion MAY MODPLOT] Drabbles

2015-05-26T02:50:04Z

The following drabbles are available to depict memory swap content! Please let me know if your character will access any of these (and which ones).

I.

Most kids out of Enclave 869 were smaller than normal, but William was short even so. This meant he could fit inside the walls, between the dark bulk of interlocking machines, where the bone-deep buzz of atmospheric filtration could cut through the two dull discomforts that constantly ground at him: hunger and trying to grow. Here, he found cracks leading outside.

Despite the sour air, the view was splendid. Hovercars that had both headlights coasted by, and twenty-meter holographs venerated the Chief Executive Officer, soda, chemical sterilization, and sonic showers.

Often, he fell asleep to dream vividly of eating eggs.

II. cw sexual assault, violence

The dealer’s eyes scared him, but it wasn’t until he saw the splotched lymph nodes that William understood he would die, slowly, virally, a death having nothing to do with the first punch he took, cracked wrist, or the three casual gut kicks after that.

“Stop looking.”

William wanted to. But locked up with fear rather than understanding, he kept face-up. Stared through his good eye, and the man’s cock failed him.

He went home unpaid, but clean. Isidor was shaking with craving, too weak to fight, so William held him. He sang through bloody snot to quiet the guilt.

III.

“State your name.”

“William Tsang.” His scalp electrodes itched. He wanted his cell. Or the aptitude tests, which had at least been in Chinese. Though his English was inexplicably better, the expanded architecture of his fluency, his mind, overwhelmed him.

“State its name.”

“Lighthead.” Ancient laughter rolled inside his head. “Transl-- uh... ‘Baldie.’”

“Is it malicious?”

“No.”

“Describe it.”

Guangtou felt all things and nothing. He was vaster than any unitary measure of space invented, yet his grip left William unbruised; not even dust needed excuse his passage. He liked death, polka-dots, travel, and flowers. “He's,” William said. Indescribable, “nice.”

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Canon Update Draft

2015-05-15T03:59:42Z

C A N O N U P D A T E
Your Name: Chinatown
Character Name: William Tsang
Character Journal: dogbane

New Canon Point: +4 years to original application canon point
Reference: After three further years of training, William achieved his medical license-- or the Blackstone equivalent, passing on solid grades if not excellent marks. He fostered strong relationships with his peers. That is, the rest of the disreputable lot of convicts trying to use their supernatural passengers as a get out of jail for a price card. Despite the ease of banter, hazing rituals, and punctuating moments of drama (alpha male, dating within the program, competition), most of them were understandably inclined to maintain some underlying emotional distance and he was one of them.

His relationship with his handler, Jedidiah, was slightly more troubled. The American war hero, with a supernatural companion of his own, projected something of his dead son onto William. Naturally, William didn't really know what to do with this information so he defaulted to failing at emotional intimacy. And also fail to take Jedidiah's advice, which had been: Don't go. You're not cut out for this shit. William most certainly wasn't. However, he sort of boggled in confusion, perceiving efforts to escape his military obligation as tremendous risk at the mercy of the hands of men-- which was more frightening to him than risk at the mercy of space. He went anyway.

Deployment was actually pretty good for awhile. Waking from a year's cryosleep, he wound up stationed on planet BX-0044 the solar system adjacent to Earth to facilitate the health and transport of a mining colony. His ragtag squad of fellow Blackstone recruits proved reliable in the field, and the locals, the veterans, the other military sectors figured out pretty quick that he was one of those redshirts to ignore. He fell into the routine easily. Naturally, William began to assume that Jedidiah had underestimated him. Guangtou thought it was free and beautiful and lovely, if somewhat less thrillingly violent a situation than either of them had expected to necessitate calling superpowered military out there. He explained that reality on Earth was thick with spirits, and the power in that was cloyed and oily from millennia of use. Out here, in space, the vicissitudes of human paranoia, isolation, and the unchanneled raw energies of sheer nothing gave creatures like himself more to work with. He was older than anything William had a name for, but this for him was new: the possibility of evolution.

Even William knew enough to be worried about this, a little. Fortunately, though, Guangtou and the rest of his squad's passengers were creatures that either ranked low in the scope of power, or were of a low-key and long-view type. Anyway, nothing freakish happened for months, despite William's ambient unease. Nothing happened right up until the solar storm warning hit the planet.

Evacuation was havoc. They stowed as much of the precious fuel quota as they could, fled off the planet's surface like a cloud of gnats, the timing of their escape only a horrifyingly narrow margin ahead of the first wave of white-hot, incinerating winds. The contingent plotted their way to an asteroid belt located on the far side of BX-0044, using the planet's own gravity well to slingshoot around, and then the planet's own mass to block the worst of the sun. It was a sound plan; even a sure plan.

Pirates were waiting. Their leader was Jason Momoa because Hell yeah this is my own world I can do what I want! although he called himself Kyklos at the time, and was in the company of an avatar creature that had spawned dozens of myths of dragons. The timing was incredible, impossible, and that was the point. Unlike Guangtou and the others, Kyklos' dragon had accessed higher reaches of influence mediated by the man's consciousness. Like the 'deal with the Devil' of old, Kyklos had asked for a run of powerful success to last ten years, in exchange for pieces of something akin to his soul. Unlike other canons which we've recently RPed about, however, this was not a neat and tidy, canine-assisted amputation of goodness and spirit. Instead, in William's world, losing one's 'soul' was simply one more effect in the convergence of fates that led to success; it descended like madness and bad luck, flavored to whatever variety of victory the humans chose. Kyklos had chosen piracy, which meant carnage and spoils. When he took the fuel merchantry ship, he took a solid 2% of the Earth's total energy economy hostage, so great was the bounty stored on the enormous vessel. This was the ultimate victory in a long line of gory successes and of course the cumulative effects of bloodshed fed into an awful, corrupting hubris, a sense of fate that was as much true as self-fulfilling prophesy. At the time, Kyklos was barely kept in check by his lieutenant, Neha, whose companion was a strange creature of rebirth, feathered like a phoenix with a vampire's thirst for blood.

The Blackstone kids and other military personnel chose to fight, because I'm writing this and I shall have my battles. Dozens of two-men fighter craft were lost on both sides, either swept up solar heat or destroyed by Kyklos and his lieutenant, who were literally flying around space in armored suits the likes of which none of William's. Most of them were killed by the time they surrendered, and Kyklos would have finished them all. Fortunately, Neha stopped him. They let the merchants and combat personnel off with as many supplies as it'd take them to get in comms range of the nearest military outpost, and took a few useful sorts for themselves. As their last doctor had gotten spectacularly decapitated two raids ago, William turned out to be a keeper. It suited them just as well that he'd spent his whole time hiding in the Medical Bay, miniaturized and covering his head with his hands. In other words, he seemed manageable.

You will be pleased to hear that William ingratiated himself quite quickly with the pirates, despite initial distrust (you know, William having watched them slaughter a few of his people, they feeling uncertain about placing their gangrenous lives in his hands as a consequence). He saved a couple lives on day one, was fitting of earlier amputees with robotic prosthetics by day three, and proving himself tolerant of catastrophic amounts of liquor by day five ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ look it's adaptive sometimes. It helps that William has exceptionally poor ability to judge other people on the basis of moral conduct! Anyhow, it was a few months before Neha sauntered up one night after mess and kissed him against the bulkhead, her hand pressed up on the wall near his head, kind of romantic, as if she had been waiting to corner him after his debutante presentation. He liked her, so maybe it was romantic, a little. He went to bed with her a few times after that, sometimes with Jason Momoa too because gratuitous threesomes are awesome.

But William never got used to the raids. Watching tiny bodies blow out of the depressurized hull, ragdolling into the void of space; coming aboard to find death by chemical fire, or the children of a colony cowering in terror under Kyklos' mountainous shadow, listening to the pirates themselves about that score, someday, that will mean picking their final docking, either on Earth or in one of the major colonies, quitting the life, starting something different with a small store or a whore having an affordable contract to buy out. As terrified as they were, Kyklos' charisma and luck were intoxicating; they were the most wealthy, notorious crew in the galaxy. The whole thing made William queasy, probably in part because he had a newcomer's perspective; in part because Guangtou was increasingly concerned about the astral presence of the swollen dragon, which he deigned to explain, a little, in terms as comprehensible as he could. William and Guangtou watched the pirates win four raids, and each was riskier, more dangerous, more unimaginably incredible than the next, until finally Kyklos' deal with his devil expired.

Though not before he decided to take a warship, the Durga, which is an awesome name. The mission was suicide, a fact that Neha, the handful of other possessed pirates, and even William were hasty to point out, but the forty other crewmembers were unprotected from Kyklos' thrall and there wasn't much of a democracy in the first place. They were within visual range of the warship by the time Neha and William, the phoenix and Guangtou, came up with a desperate plan: to overpower Kyklos. They made deals, too.

Because William is merely William, he didn't think to ask for anything grand and (not unwisely) feared the price, anyway; he only wanted to save as many people as possible and get his ass home ASAP. Guangtou accepted these terms, and the transaction of power took place in an obscure little pocket of space and time that had neither sky nor ground, not light nor mass, and felt like hours for William. He came back clearer in mind and perhaps less human, certainly more powerful and, oddly, a few inches taller. He and Neha came back with godbodies, alternate forms. His was little more than a hulking golem, hard to kill and very strong, but funnily slow; she literally had wings.

Havoc ensued aboard the pirate ship. In the end, Neha and William managed to haul Kyklos out into the fighter bay, dozens of walls burst and breached along the way. By then, Kyklos had scales etched in laser-bright light, his body burning brightly at the core of something vaster and more terrible than William had ever thought a human could become. Neha had become something else too; something fletched in blood and very hungry. They clashed. William detonated a grenade that sucked them both out of the airlock.

It killed neither Neha nor Kyklos. They were bound for greater, more epic, operatic destinies.

In the meantime, William being little more than a shitty D-list redshirt in the grand scheme of things, had dumped 80% of the pirate ship's breathable oxygen into the void of space. Additionally, most of its critical systems and defensive/offensive craft were permanently offline. He (but mostly the lack of other options) convinced the surviving crew to get into cryostasis, to minimize the toll on the ship's remaining resources. Panic and mild hypoxia symptoms set in in the intervening hour, before everyone was stowed.

And alone on a slow-dying ship, William reverted to his godbody form. On Guangtou's recommendation, he sent out an astral projection now and again, but hit on nothing but empty space. Perhaps he cut a strange figure, a brutal and terrifying-looking golem of a creature made of stone and metal stooped over a computer, typing on a tiny keyboard with his huge jointed fingers, or cleaning cryochamber windows with a little pink sponge, sealing leaks with stubby human-sized equipment whenever he could, but the weeks passed and then the months. He ceased to concern himself with the distinction between what looked strange and what was normal; what was likely and what was impossible; being human and being less; who was Guangtou and he as William.

But it wasn't until he pulled the plug on the first cryochamber, conserving the dwindling remnants of the ship's power, that the first real part of him died. By then, he had already been alone for six months.

It turned out, that not all souls are lost in spectacular battle.

How will this affect your character? This doesn't have to be an entirely new personality section, but we need a fairly detailed overview of how your character changes, if at all, during the jump forward. Any new powers or abilities your character may have gained should also be listed here.

Personality

In some ways, William's development in 'canon' will parallel his experiences aboard the Tranquility. Having survived a fair amount of traumatic violence, he has learned to be more competent, marginally calmer, more proactive in times of crisis, sooner than give in to squeaky panic. Living among different sorts of people (pirates, mutants, wizards, military, whatever) will have reified his fundamental feelings of responsibility toward people, protecting life, doing no harm. In other words, he's still more or less a 'nice person' in the normal ways, finds purpose in helping out, and kind of good at it.

Major changes from Ataraxion occur with the final events of his added canon history, because the 'collection of debt,' at the expense of his 'soul' has a numbing effect on him. Mind you, he's still able to cuss and care and hug pandas, and many of the effects of prolonged isolation will dissipate once he's back in talking company for awhile. However, he is now much more capable of disengaging emotionally from situations that once would have tormented him, be it guilt, terror, infatuation, or rage. You can think of this as psychological dissociation from trauma, but that doesn't really cover the extent of it.

Rather, because normal psychology and supernatural fate are wedded together in his world, William has technically begun to 'merge' with Guangtou. He slips into the 'long view' easily now. By long view, I mean he looks at things in terms of centuries or millennia, the heartbeats of planets rather than months of human lives. It's made him more patient, more appreciative of discrete and immediate human experiences (the taste of a strawberry, the feel of good shoes), less desperate to change, escape, or even redeem himself. Although William is still predisposed toward depression, it now has the pretty melancholy flavor of you-know-who in the Age of Ultron movie making lyrical observations about the precious~ brevity~ of human life, rather than William's erstwhile dramatic emo alcoholic sadness.

THAT SOUNDS STUPIDly abstract CHINA ok so I mean like. He still very loves Heather and is a little in love with Remus and will look at your butt no matter who you are, and he will make penis cakes and unwanted omelettes and drinks if you like. But he's got different goggles on now. The possibility of death, even Heather's death, isn't worth screaming over unless screaming has a real and practical purpose in staving it off; being alone forever is a basic and acceptable condition of human experience, no longer a freezing undertow to spend all of one's time panickily fighting. Also the beauty of your ass is also in that its beauty is temporary: susceptible to ageing, getting pureed by Shadow, etc. He's more chill.

Yet on some secret, subterranean level, William continues to struggle and decide on a daily basis between being human and being a demon. The peace isn't perfect yet! It's not even really peace, and old strains of habitual cowardice are certainly at play driving him to maintain this equilibrium, tangled up with (understandable) aversion to the painful way he was before. However, ostensibly and from day-to-day, he will appear to have settled in in himself. To throw back to Guangtou's old themes of Buddhism, he's less attached now to the material world and ergo no longer suffers as much.

Other new features: more violent where necessary, spacing out/daydreaming more often-- but about minute and lovely details regarding the present rather than the future or past, less anxiety, less alcohol/substance dependency.

Skills

Medicine: Real and proper medical doctor now! No particular specialty, although he is trained in basic trauma surgery (it won't look pretty but it'll get done) (please don't let him cut your brain tho), pathology, installation and use of space-age equipment like complex prosthetics, and a little bit of cybernetics.

Combat: Having gotten through basic training and maintained his certifications for the duration of his military stint, William is a better shot now. He's still, however, not a good shot, especially when it comes to moving targets. His sense of tactics is better now, in that he can stay out of harm's way-- and out of his allies' way-- much more reliably.

Powers

Note that William has all his old powers! However, in addition to those and his various problems with 'recon syndrome,' he will additionally acquire the following.

Sleep Immunity: William does not sleep or dream at all, unless anesthetized, rendered unconscious (he can dream then), or settle in a stasis pod. He certainly can tire, but this tends to be on a muscular or respiratory level, requiring a bit of a sit-down and relaxation. He can't even sleep unassisted if he really really wants to. However, under the influence of anesthesia/trauma/stasis, he sleeps and dreams quite normally. This does not affect his other life-support type needs-- he still needs to eat, etc.

Enhanced Regeneration: William's healing powers are better and faster now! Upon receiving any injury, he experiences a one-second 'flash' period of more enhanced regeneration. Superficial cuts disappear on a blink of an eye, but bullets simply seal up inside him while some bleeding continues internally. In code system terms, his healing acts as a layer of armor, blocking some of the damage taken in a given moment. For the purposes of killing him, you just need to do it super fast and brutal (e.g., decapitation, head shot, removal of/catastrophic damage to critical organs). He can voluntarily stop this regeneration effect, such as for the purposes of surgery, tactical self-injury, etc.

For his other healing powers, all their previous limits apply (memory loss in recovery of brain tissue, touch required for healing others, etc.), except that the times required have been cut in half. For example, he can heal a soft tissue bullet wound in a hour, and stop a fatal bleed-out from a single arterial damage site within seconds although the damage won't be totally healed in that span.

Astral Projection: Whereas once upon a time he could only go walking through people's dreams, William is now able to project himself out into the physical world as well. To do this, he must physically enter a focused, trance-like state, but the separation from his corporeal body is even starker.

This projection appears as a duplicate of himself. It is visible but translucent-looking like a hologram, a ready clue for most witnesses that no one tangible or real is there. He is only properly capable of perceiving and being perceived, verbally, visually, etc. Generally, the projection can only move around at the speed of a normal human. However, with a great expenditure of effort, sustainable only for half an hour, he can send it out at two hundred miles per hour. It can go through walls, but doing so frequently causes directional disorientation, which can prove problematic for finding its way back to his body. There is no established range limitation for his astral projection, but common sense dictates he doesn't stray too far or very long.

This is because William's body becomes a major liability during the use of this power. If it is moved, he will be disembodied indefinitely. Alternatively, if his body is destroyed, the projection will fizzle out and permanently disappear in the course of exactly one day.

The astral projection's one liability (outside those produced by the deleterious psychological effects of the Tranquility or whatever) is fire. It can not cross through fire, and can be effectively trapped in a two-dimensional circle of flames.

Notably, this is combinable with his other powers. For example, if he shrinks down then projects himself astrally, he could hide about and make a reasonable spy. Likewise, when he is in 'Godbody' (see below), his body is much better-protected and harder to move, but it's also considerably harder to hide.

Godbody: ~~Note, this power cannot be utilized with Duplication.~~

William's 'godbody' is basically a big, heavy, roughly humanoid machine, made of stone, ceramic, wood, and metal (you're welcome Erik). It resembles a suit of Tang dynasty Chinese armor, with a few alien-looking cultural deviations and obviously inhuman properties, including stone aspects and a visibly empty helmet. It has no face, and its voice comes out in airy droning.

The godbody stands at 12 feet tall unlESS we're still sticking to that old height limit THEN OK just 8 feet, but broad as a quarterback. It's extremely dense, because its arms, head, and torso are filled with clockwork and mechanisms working together to maximize his speed and agility through mechanical advantage despite that he actually operates on very little input power. As a result, William's build is very strong, capable of lifting 2.5 tons (a passenger vehicle) and crush some stuff. He can move as quickly as a trained human combatant at anything within his reach. However, his highest speed walking unassisted tops out at 8 miles per hour. Some kids can outrun him. He also cannot jump or swim. At all.

With assistance, however, he can move faster! His mid-section is hollow, and large enough to fit a small person or some luggage in, but putting fire in there instead enables his internal steam engine so he can chug around faster (~40MPH). Any -kinesis-type powers that work on metal, stone, etc., can be used to increase his speed. Manipulation of air pressure or wind can similarly puff him up and get things going. Such a -kinetic also may claim steering rights. He will also be able to leap at whatever rates work best for story, if enough fuel/heat is input-- usually limited to only 10 yards or so at a time, but going out to Hulk-like miles of distance for rare stunts combined with other characters' powers (i.e., 1x per modplot scene).

Unassisted, he is incapable of speech although he can perceive as normal (and without organs as foci). However, if anybody makes him a mask-- no matter how crude-- and places it on his head, they can 'activate' it as part of his form by painting on eyes after its installation. After that, he is able to talk. His voice and capacity for language (or animal sounds) may be directly affected by the shape of the mask, such as if you put on a wolf one or a childish-looking one.

As a thematic note that probably no one cares about but oh well: this form is specifically written to stay within the limits of his original shapeshifting abilities, in terms of technological complexity. No one has ever built a machine like this, but it's extraordinarily crude.

Duplication: Note, this power cannot be utilized with Godbody (or any other shapeshifting).

William can make copies of himself. These copies are inevitably very fragile-- injuries that would normally hurt him badly instead will destroy the copy outright; they have no supernatural abilities of their own, and he is generally aware of what they're doing. He tops out at two copies a day, with each expiring at the end of that day. In order to make a copy, he has to smear some of his own blood on a reflective surface (any size), and his own reflection essentially crawls out of that object.

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systemwide Application (cw abuse, exploitive sex industry, narcotic addictions)

2015-03-24T06:24:24Z

UNPLUGGED

OOC

Name: Chinatown
Age: I'm more than a decade over 18 8(
Contact details: pyg
Characters already in Systemwide: Tony Spark (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

BASIC PROFILE

Name: ( Systemwide App: William Tsang )

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Open RP Post

2014-10-19T16:04:20Z

( tag about everything )

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Medical Bay Department

2014-09-22T06:01:22Z

Medical Bay
Science Department

MISSION STATEMENT:
The purpose of Medbay is as diverse in work and function as the facility. The primary duties of staff is to maintain the physical health of the passengers (and crew). Staff may also participate in research into the biological and neurological underpinnings of life aboard the USC Tranquility. The Medbay staff coordinate with other departments and individuals as needed, such as supplying medical kits or training to other passengers or assisting with Xenobiology and Genetics research.

Physically, the bay enhouses the gravity couches that preserve all passengers (and other living creatures) through the Jump process, as well as surgical, prosthetic, life support, decontamination, quarantine, and research equipment. The full scope of its available technologies and resources is here. Nanotechnology extraction units and a nanotechnology management system were found during Jump 34 (OOC: August, 2014).

Protocols:
Though Medbay is chronically under-staffed and trends toward high turnover due to the unpredictable schedule of passenger acquisition and loss, it is largely able to carry out its duties thanks to a system of rotating shifts throughout 'daytime' hours, volunteers (i.e., during crisis), needs (i.e., surgeons are not necessarily always on hand), and automated technology. Medbay staff are generally expected to be on-call through comm devices and have access to any network messages keyed to Medbay filter.

Notably, the day-to-day traffic through the Medbay is fairly low thanks to the health maintenance functions of the nanites. Times of crisis see a spike in activity and volunteers. During such events, injuries present more often than disease. Hallucinations and psychological stress syndromes are common aboard the Tranquility and typically do not respond to any form of intervention.

Succession to Chief Medical Officer is largely informal and loosely based on seniority, familiarity with the facility, and other expertise. Nominations or hierarchy to be established.

MEMBERS:
The full roster of medical staff is here, but staff may optionally use the form below to expand their public profile. Surgeons, generalists, magical healers, EMTs and trainees are all welcome!

PROJECTS & CASE STUDIES:
The Medical department are tasked with the following projects. To submit a case file, please comment with the following form:

OOC:Code credit to forgodssake/Charles Xavier and darkart/Severus Snape

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Archival Research Through Jump Cycle 41

2014-09-20T06:08:26Z

OOC: The following constitutes notes that William Tsang has gathered about the history of the Tranquility, non-passenger personnel, and other resources available on the network. It includes some use of OOC information for player reference/organization's sake, but these are temporal references or inspiration only and can not be considered IC. Other than the greyed marked sections, feel free to consider all of this public IC information.

Non-Passenger Entities

Color-coded by likelihood of having used USC-XX9000-091S to sabotage passengers in stasis with the gravcouch system during/after Jump 34

( Chart of known entities )

Timeline of the Tranquility
Based on public or medical bay encrypted network communication. Includes distress calls, dockings, epidemics (psychological, medical, etc.), unusual physical phenomena (e.g., white doors), and notable breakthroughs in research.

Note: crew, mural, core (white doors/rooms), experiments (biological), hallucinations, singularity, assimilation, smiley

( Summary of events with links to network records )

Other Archival Resources
Sherlock Holmes, circa Jump Cycle 7
Ianto Jones, Jump Cycle 12 and onward (including notes on Alexandria, star system, etc.) -- also Cambitas database under development
Support Department Welcome Utility including a timeline carrying forward Ianto Jones' work following his departure

Constructed by William Tsang with assistance from Severus Snape and Kate Bishop.

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Adoptables/NPCs

2014-09-07T15:49:26Z

You should probably let me know if you intend to play any of these characters on a game with me, otherwise that will be awkward!

Note on Designing "Avatars"

The supernatural presence in this dystopia is founded on the notion that there is a reason that archetypes have prevailed through all of human mythology. After all, many religions have some similarity in themes, storylines, creature personalities, magics, and roles in the way that the world functions (see: comparative mythology). Here, we take this to mean that no single culture got it right. There are countless incorporeal beings that have thrived on the planet for eons. Each entity appears as a distorted hybrid of at least 2 or 3 mythological etiologies-- precisely because these myths were derived, over-simplified and sometimes inaccurately, from these creatures.

Avatars tend to wind up choosing people who had some genetic ancestry indigenous to the culture where their mythology took root, however long ago. However, this is far from a rule, and given the amount of interracial relations common in the world now, this is only a guideline.

Their personalities are not human, but there is enough individual variability that they might as well be. Most are so old that they experience their human connections with terrifying, inexorable patience and very little sanguinity; in a sense, there simply isn't enough time in a human's existence to develop a real connection. However, those that possess a person have some motivation to do so, whether it's to: help, harm, explore what being human is like, relieve existential ennui, manifest their own inarguable cosmic purpose, or that they hope fate will cross their mortal instrument's path with another avatar in the interest of vengeance.

However, one thing is apparent for all avatars: humanity looks like it's on the edge of extinction.

Note on Designing Powers

Unlike the power sets typically favored by comic books, mythological creatures and figures often have a surprisingly diverse and folky array of powers. Zeus may be typefied by lightning and physical prowess and weather-related drama, but he was also a shapeshifter and could control animals.

Individuals who are possessed are granted abilities associated with their avatar's abilities. These generally manifest as psionic versions of the original magic, but rules may vary depending on the individual's psychology or their avatar's fickle idiosyncrasies. Foci objects or incantations may well be necessary for some to activate their abilities.

( Many faces. )

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Journal

2014-08-18T01:26:56Z

( May play pretend. )

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IC Inbox

2014-04-20T16:04:07Z

CMO » 028 » 073
WILLIAM TSANG

This post is William's IC inbox at ataraxion. You can drop network or action stuff that doesn't quite feel like it fits or warrants a post on the main communities in here.

Posts my range from G to R.

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hmd

2014-02-28T02:36:45Z

Hello this is an HMD for the OC William Tsang. Please feel welcome to use the form below! Comments are neither screened nor anonymous.

If you feel the urgent need to use a sockpuppet for anonymity reasons, I find that sort of tragic and you can explain your rationale in your comment if you want. You should know that I am a fan of constructive criticism and often analyze my own work closely. In fact, let's start off with that--

Problems that I always anticipate:

My voice as a player overwhelming that of the character, mostly in dialogue, sometimes also in narrative
Excessive verbosity which obfuscates my meaning, especially when I'm tired-- I tend to find my language becomes more elliptical as I circle around the approximate region of my meaning and eventually arrive sort of in the general locale? MY WISH IS TO BE CONCISE. See, you can even tell by this comment.
Shying away from characters' more controversial or conflictive characteristics (e.g., racism, rudeness) in the interest of cultivating longer threads/more extensive CR
Too many IC actions in 1 tag
Characterization inconsistency that seems to exceed reasonable human day-to-day inconsistency
Twinking DX
Dream things are really hard for me to write you'll probably see this soon enough, so it's on here for now.
Problematic representations of populations I am not part of i.e., to a significant extent, of course some extrapolation is going to happen.
I'd say deviations from canon, but that is somewhat less applicable here-- nonetheless, if you read his app and think there are experiences or other pieces I could integrate better, I'd love to hear it.

Feedback on these points and anything else would be great! Thank you.

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dream draft #1

2014-02-20T09:28:31Z

Always in the beginning it is unclear whether or not the dream is his or that of another, even to William. (especially.)

That squiggle could be anything. (the reminiscent lock of a lover's hair on the pillow.) (smoke off a homestead burning.) (an enormously narcissistic signature, half of a page.) (a kill order: it might as well have read, Gentlemen, do what you do best. murder them.) (a luminous diagram of stellar parallax.) (sandy rattlesnake walk.) (the long scrape of a dead man's boots dragged through mud, en route to disposal.) (crayola.) (one thread popped from the fishnet.) (god's fingers; the sunlight shafting through mobile water.)

(the neon afterimage over-exposed streakily into one's retinas in that moment that the gravity couch's sedation kicks in, twitches the optic nerve, sends one's vision skating crazy through the bright lights of the medbay before they shut into artificial darkness, you know. the light trails.)

(something else.) (never mind.)

But after that, William is definitely somewhere he has never been. An unfamiliar sentiment pounds on him like a kicked ear, and he watches foreground separate from background. (it's especially weird when people dream smells, but nearly no one dreams without color.) He looks for a familiar face and almost always finds one.

(you're especially fucked if you can't remember one of those.)

William is the inobtrusive figure to the left. (sitting at starbucks, god forbid, or climbing a nearby tree made of purple. perhaps the lateral companion sharing the narrow space of this comfortable coffin.) He looks at the object resolving in their hand. (pistol, vial, half of a CD, blueberry, kidney; perhaps one fine-toothed comb.) William looks pretty calm. He says: "Oh,

"That's lovely."

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Other Influences

2014-02-11T23:44:02Z

( my sweaty little heart )

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visualocity

2014-02-11T23:27:05Z

nsfw for butts

( William, just take your time machine )

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Permissions Post

2014-02-10T22:12:36Z

I Give You Some Permission

[OOC]

Backtagging: Yes, I will go a few RL months!
Threadhopping: What is this.
Fourthwalling: No thank you.
Offensive subjects (elaborate): Yes for most things including violence and social injustice, but I always keep in mind to FTB where necessary. Furthermore, please commit your character to courses of action where you are OOCly prepared for IC consequences. I will do the same!

[IC]

Hugging this character: Y but he might ~~suddenly attempt to have sex~~ unexpectedly and ill-advisedly become attached idk. ( etc )

Give Me Permission Please

Without OOC discussion with another player, I tend to go by PG-13 for most topics and edging into R for violence. If in doubt, ask. Tyvm.

Per his application, William possesses the following dream manipulation ability:

Dream manipulation: William has limited ability to visit the dreams of others. This operates primarily through empathy and will not work on those he has not met and conversed with several times, no matter whether the interaction was favorable or conflict. He has some capacity to change the atmosphere, general trajectory (i.e., subverting a nightmare to a slightly more favorable outcome), and minor details in the dreams that he is visiting.

Note (3/23/14): To make dream RP more fun and productive, I've started to write dream threads where I write tags as another character (e.g., enemy, friends, family from your character's canon). We can then explore more relevant conflicts and ideas. If you want to do this, we OOCly need to discuss how much of the dream William is cognizant of and learns from (his IC knowledge), versus how much is me merely playing a role of noise and coincidence in your character's subconscious (that William will be ICly ignorant of).

Also, I imagine somewhat less interestingly, he is also a healer:

Healing: William is in preternaturally excellent health. He is able to heal himself from most physical illnesses, poisons, and injuries without long-term ill effects or scarring, although he cannot regenerate limbs and destroyed brain tissue will result in cognitive changes. The more severe the injury, the longer it takes to heal; a gunshot may take a few hours to close once the bullet is removed, whereas third degree burns or crush syndrome may take 3 days to recover fully. He can also 'lay hands' on others, allowing them to utilize this ability as well-- and he can 'patch up' severe arterial injury this way, preventing people from bleeding out. However, for more serious injury, the process is exhausting for both parties.

You should consider cashing in on these things! I would highly recommend but not mandate that you utilize this handy response form.

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ataraxion application (tw: sexual content, psychological abuse, gore/violence)

2014-02-08T04:46:45Z

P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Chinatown
OOC Journal: beachland
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope
Email + IM: pyg
Characters Played at Ataraxion: None

C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: ( William Tsang )

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