Zachary ; il promenade application
PLAYER
✧ NAME: DJ
✧ LJ USERNAME: agentgreenway
✧ CONTACT (E-MAIL, AIM, PLURK): eevee{@}ptd.net / psitaniums / biomagnet
✧ CURRENT CHARACTERS PLAYED AT PROMENADE: N/A
If possible, please screen this comment after review of the application. I would rather not have my contact information posted so publicly.
WARNING
Mentions of attempted suicide within this application. Please read ahead at your own risk.
CHARACTER
✧ NAME: Zachary Finch (eternityunseen)
✧ SERIES: Original character/Greek mythology
✧ HISTORY: A long, long time ago, the Moirae, the personifications of Fate, were born. Records are unclear on who parented them, but the fact remains that they existed. For untold generations, they carried out their duties: Clotho wove the thread and began new lives, Lachesis measured the thread and decided a person's destiny, and Atropos cut the thread and ended their life. Then, slowly at first, the gods began to fade. Their powers were left to the wilds of nature as humankind found different religions and strength in themselves. The Moirae, too, began to fade. However, they knew that with the demise of their rational thought, the fate of the world and its people would be completely unguided. And so they created the Incarnations to escape their own demise. It's not cheating Fate if you are the one to decide it, right?
Zachary was born to a fairly normal family, the Finches, on July 2nd, 1986. His father was a fashion designer, and his mother stayed at home (and shopped - a lot). He grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, with his cousins (except that they were all much closer than that and called each other brothers from the very beginning), Abe and Markham, with whom they shared their birth year. Abe and Markham were the same as Zachary: destined for a full connection with their Fate at some point in their life to maintain their existences. For the most part, Zachary lived uneventfully. He went to school, he hung out with friends. At five years old, he discovered the piano and his absolute joy for playing and learning music. At nine, he took up guitar. He also took up drawing with Abe's help - he was good at it, but nowhere near as skilled as his older brother. Despite this, he never tried to learn how to cook in Markham's footsteps. Zachary and kitchen implements never exactly got along.
As he grew, he was aware of the knowledge that he would eventually lose his sight to Fate, but ignored the warnings. Abe was the first to Connect, losing his voice and gaining a strangely whimsical yet upbeat attitude when he was only twelve years old. Markham lost his hearing at sixteen, turning reckless and protective. When they were around eighteen, the three brothers moved away from their parents and rented an apartment together. After driving out to check out college options one weekend, Zachary Connected as well. He lost his sight, and control of the car, crashing it on a stretch of empty highway - he and Abe were fine, but it was a fairly traumatic experience to start his tenure as a proper Incarnation. For several months after, he closed himself off from the world in a kneejerk reaction to the Connection he hadn't expected to come so soon. It was during this time that he took up violin as a means of self-distraction. Eventually, he had an epiphany about his attitude and began to look on the bright side of things. The realist became the optimist.
While Abe and Markham went on to gain degrees at college, Zachary finished high school. Within the last few months of his senior year, he began to date a girl and eventually broke it off when he realized she was only using the blind guy for pity points with the rest of the school and truly had no interest in him - that incident was enough to temper his trust in people, especially those who seem fixated on his blindness. After graduating, Zachary was satisfied without a college degree and went into writing cheap little musical jingles when he didn't feel like mooching off of his brothers. Six years after they all finally came together as Incarnations, something finally shook them from their quaint little life near the beginning of July, 2010, when they were all about 24 years old.
Atropos' shears had become dull, and death no longer came to the world. Her power became unstable, with her unable to do the one thing she was meant to. (Unknown to the brothers, a particularly misguided cultist had prayed to the power of his god to forestall the death of a loved one. It worked, but at the cost of forestalling the death of everyone.) Though it affected all of them to some degree, Markham felt it the worst: he became more reckless, violent, and even attempted suicide in the face of Atropos' helplessness. Abe and Zachary were left trying to locate the source of... whatever it was as they dealt with their brother driving himself deeper into madness. Their searches turned up extremely little for quite a long time, and that was the current situation before Zachary laid himself down to rest and awoke somewhere completely unexpected.
✦ WORLD SUPPLEMENT: Modern-day Earth, 2010. Things are about what you'd expect, if you overlook the fact that the age of the gods truly existed and leftovers of the era still linger in the world today. Though almost every god has faded from sentience into becoming a force of nature, the Moirae were unable to afford letting their duties slip into the fingers of a mindless entity. Their fade was inevitable, and yet they worked out a solution: humans who would share their souls, connect with them on the most basic, intrinsic level, through whom they could siphon consciousness from. These Incarnations were free to live their lives until the previous Incarnation passed away; their only escape from their contract is to die. (This does not necessarily mean they are born Connected, but that they are born with the Fate to eventually come into their destiny. It's fairly common for there to be two Incarnations for the same Fate at the same time, but only one can ever be Connected.) In exchange for the connection and as a symbol of ownership, a sense would be stripped from them: for Clotho, speech; for Lachesis, sight; and for Atropos, hearing.
Although they have since faded from their proper roles, cults exist to worship the disappeared pantheon. Those with extreme amounts of faith are allowed to channel infinitesimally small fractions of their power - these people are chosen ones, and extremely dangerous, both because of their power and their fanatical fervor in their patriot. Mysteriously, no one who worships the Moirae has ever received any sort of power. Many assume the cause of this to be that the Fates cannot be swayed by mere mortal means.
Mythical creatures still exist, hiding from humans and cowering out of fear, having lost the protection and power of the gods along with the rest of the world. Most are imperceptible to the regular human, allowing them to retain their place in stories and legends.
✧ TIMELINE: The end of July, a few days after Markham's suicide attempt.
✧ PERSONALITY: If anyone was asked to describe Zachary Finch, they would likely choose one of two options: "optimist" or "pain in the ass". On the surface, he is a very satisfied person; with his life, his career, his (few) friends. He'll often be the listening ear if someone needs it, or the joking distraction if you would rather. One of the main philosophies in his life is that those who drown themselves in their misery are missing out on Life, and he really doesn't have a whole lot of tolerance for people who can't look on the bright side of things. He wasn't always like this. Before he went blind at the age of 18, Zachary was much closer to a normal person for his age: sarcastic, a challenger of authority, and just a little bit impatient. Connecting with Lachesis left him in a very difficult rut for several months, not only dealing with the idea that his new blindness would now last until the end of his life but that, in some way, he was doing all of this to himself. He simmered, quietly angry and bitter, until resignation finally settled in and he realized something. Moping around was doing nothing for him, and when he could feel the city around him experiencing its own happiness amongst all the rest of the bad, it was easy to see that he was being an idiot about it. There were still things he could do, things he still had (like his music, though he had lost his art) and as long as he could still feel happiness, he should feel happiness.
All of that isn't to say he's incapable of being serious, however. His core belief is that, more often than not, people take things more poorly than they should and really need to lighten up; a legitimately serious situation merits an equally serious response. Most of this joviality presents itself in jokes, jabs and teasing, no matter who he's talking to. Poking at the bee's nest is something of a hobby when he can get away with it, although he never really intends to hurt anyone with his words so much as annoy the shit out of them. Why? Because it's fun, and even better if the person on the other end has humor enough to join in with him. If they don't, then chances are he'll still be able to work off their grumpiness. Despite his lack of differentiation between friend or foe on many occasion, Zachary does in fact realize when he has a friend whom he hasn't driven off and is really rather quite loyal to them. It's hard to see under the teasing that doesn't change and his complexes around his blindness, but it's there.
It isn't that Zachary doesn't understand why people might be upset or angry or anything of the sort. In fact, he's hyper-aware of such feelings thanks to constantly being surrounding by such a multitude of them in his own home. He simply realizes that the good emotions are better and doesn't give in. His will is strong and his propensity for angst is hidden under his (genuine) outer shell of contentment. His life isn't going to suddenly turn into rainbows, sunshine and sight, so he might as well enjoy it for what it is.
On the flipside of this cheery demeanor, Zachary harbors a core of bitterness and confusion. He doesn't want to be blind, even if he has accepted it as fact, and is angry at Lachesis for making him this way which leads into him trying to deny the feelings as hating Lachesis is the same as hating himself, and he honestly doesn't know what to do with that. (He also realizes that she probably already knows all this already and it just makes everything worse. Sometimes, this can lead to him losing a handle on the emotions and... well, exploding.) It's easier to pretend the feelings don't exist - he trusts Lachesis and the other Fates, knows their plans are greater than what he already understands, and to pair that trust with the feelings of betrayal only makes things more complicated and puts him in a position he doesn't care to analyze. His blindness, as he sees it (hurr hurr), is something that keeps him from doing a great many things and is difficult to compensate for; even if he's a talkative person, he would rather not try to form deeply emotional attachments and doesn't speak of himself all that much. No matter how deeply ingrained his identity as part of Lachesis is, he isn't willing to divulge that secret to anyone as a matter of personal safety and sanity. No one outside his brothers would understand and if any cultists caught wind of such power, they would be in definite trouble for it.
Lachesis herself is, more or less, something of a non-entity. She's capable of being anything and resigns herself to being nothing. True neutrality is what allows her to decide events in peoples' lives, whether for good or ill. They need to happen in accordance with the plans she and her sisters create and there's nothing wrong with that. As a goddess, she is emotionally distant to those whose lives she controls... or used to be. For centuries, she's shared her soul with her Incarnations in order to save her own existence. In this time, she's come to understand humans, though still not quite comprehend them. To say she feels compassion for them would be inaccurate, but that she may be capable of attachment and interest is quite likely. Through the years, her only real interaction with humans have been her Incarnations; as a part of her, she feels responsible for them and, while their lives begin and end much the same as any other human life, favors them in that they're guided to finding their life's true calling to almost make up for all that she asks of them. As Zachary is her current Incarnation, she's inclined to react like him more than any of her previous Incarnations. Although they have all left their specific marks on her soul and personality, as soon as they died, the humanity associated with these marks faded and were absorbed into Lachesis' lack of.
As she shares Zachary's need for secrecy of her identity in order to protect themselves, Lachesis is likely to take up a false name (or Zachary's) when she manifests. Speaking of manifesting: being pulled from her perch of power and most of her consciousness deposited into Zachary's mind is going to be something of a shock. It shouldn't happen. Interacting so directly with her Incarnations is not something she ever planned to do, much less take over their lives. In a case like this, she doesn't have much choice, and-now armed with the capacity for Zachary's human emotions-she'll find herself curious. Curious about what happened, curious about her surroundings, curious about the people. Her grace in a situation will give her an advantage over the personally close-minded view Zachary takes with himself. She is, after all, a Fate and knows exactly how to look at the bigger picture beyond even herself.
Even without the control of her rightful position, Lachesis will remain in control of herself. If someone dares challenge that, they will be met with an icy rebuff and uncaring words. Her neutrality remains intact and, much like Zachary, even if she were to make friends with anyone, they wouldn't be given any special treatment. This doesn't mean she wouldn't be willing to act if the situation calls for it, whether the action is to help or to hinder, simply that she will be the one to decide what action she takes. Good causes are more likely to get her attention (possibly with Zachary to blame, as he is inherently good in spirit) although evil ones will still be within her consideration. If nothing else, if she feels the evil necessary, she won't lift a finger to stop it. On that note: she abhors murder, the act of taking the life of another person without permission from the Fates. Cases of manslaughter or self-defense are within her allowances, which some might describe as karma, yet to kill someone in cold blood is inexcusable.
✧ ABILITIES/POWERS: First and foremost, Zachary is the Incarnation of the Fate Lachesis, the one who spins the thread of life, sitting between beginning and end. What this means is that he has a share of her power and an intrinsic understanding of the nature of Fate, good and evil. Hell if he could explain it to someone else with words, though. Being Lachesis' Incarnation comes with the downside as being 'branded' as hers with blindness. Nothing is physically wrong with his eyes and it remains a medical mystery to anyone who's had the chance to examine him; it's more like an extremely powerful curse than anything.
Zachary's skills lie firmly in the realm of threads and strings. On the mundane scale, he is quite proficient with musical instruments: piano, guitar and violin. He knows sign language and boasts ambidexterity. As a result of his blindness, his remaining senses have become much more sensitive. On the mystical, his Connection to Lachesis affords him several nice abilities, all different facets of the same thing: perceiving the life threads of those around him. Without doing anything, Zachary is able to feel a veritable ocean of emotions surrounding him at all times - never overwhelming, but constantly there and impossible to distinguish one person's emotions from another. Mass-empathy, more or less. If he had something belonging to another person, he could easily be able to read their past by using it as an anchor to locate their thread and look back on it; the same applies for looking forward, but as the future has yet to be determined, this creates a great strain on him and isn't always correct. (Note that he hasn't actually tried it before because even he knows it's a stupid idea.) Even more than that is the theoretical ability to alter someone's life thread. This would be incredibly difficult with his human will versus that of Lachesis' (or whatever governs peoples' Fates in Promenade... presumably the people themselves, as they're dictating their own dreams?) and something akin to sacrilege. His neutral nature means this power will likely never come into play and is only mentioned here for the sake of completion.
Lachesis, by virtue of being a Fate, has all of the same abilities I mentioned for Zachary, but perfected control over them. She doesn't need to have something of a person's to read their past and can, with some concentration, pick out whose emotions are whose among the sea. Regarding her abilities to look forward or alter someone's Fates, her essence as a True Neutral (although slowly corrupted by the human influence that is Zachary) makes these courses of action so ridiculously unlikely, it would probably only happen if someone mind-controlled her or the mods would like to mess with it for some type of official plot. Like I mentioned before, it's unlikely Lachesis will be the one spinning everyone's Fates in the city and, if this is true, it would give her some difficulty with her god-modey powers and test her control. She is a goddess, but being plucked from her proper reality with no indication is enough to make her stumble. If necessary, she is able to take away Zachary's blindness, only when she is in control.
✧ TIME OF ARRIVAL: DO I HAVE TO PICK Day. Leaving him with only hearing in an unfamiliar, silent town at night would make for a difficult intro, TENEKA or not.
✧ MASK DESIGN: Colombo Musica Sinfonia Black (img, img, img)
✧ PLACE OF SOLACE: ... uh. get back to you on this one.
SAMPLES
✧ FIRST PERSON: a post from last year in another game. (I could have used later posts, but he's gone through some serious character development in that game and I figured a "purer" sample would be better.) I would not mind writing an additional sample with Lachesis' presence if required.
✧ THIRD PERSON: [ reusing samples because I am a lazyass - this one was requested as seeing how he would appear into another game, which is why it ends as it does. again, additional samples with Lachesis can be provided if necessary. ]
"Gooood morning, Atlanta! Today is July the 31st and the time is nine o'clock! Boy, is it beautiful. Better get your kids outside, Mom, because..."
Zachary groaned, reaching over to smack the alarm off just as the station's jingle began to play. Why, oh, why had he made it so high-pitched? Sure, the execs liked it, heck, even Zachary liked it at first, but after hearing it every morning for the past two months, he was quickly becoming sick of it. Routinely, he would poke and prod at the notes in his mind and try to rearrange or alter them to make something better.
His eyes were open. He could feel the sun on his face, so Abe must have been in already to open the blinds. He didn't really know why either of his brothers bothered to close them, since he was the only one who slept in this particular room, but he appreciated the effort, if not the action itself. Yawning, he stretched his legs out and finished kicking the sheets off the bed. He would fix them later tonight, hopefully after he had finally reenvisioned the radio jingle into something he would be satisfied with. Hey, who knew? Maybe he would pitch the new jingle to the company and try to make some extra money off it, too.
Standing, he felt his way along the wall to the closet, retrieved the clothes he had set out the night before, and set them out to change into. All part of his routine. The quiet sounds of the morning coming from the main room told him that Markham (who made as much noise as you might expect as someone didn't know they were making it) was still asleep, although Abe had already begun the day. He gave a quick tug or two at his blankets to pull them onto the bed, then snatched his cane from where it hung around his doorknob and went to greet the woken one.
"Morning."
Tap-tap went the pen against the counter. Abe's return greeting. Zachary offered a smile, assuming Abe to be looking in his direction for the moment, and sat at the kitchen bar.
"Breakfast ready?"
Without warning, Abe grabbed his hand. He twitched his fingers, then opened his palm for the other. The closed pen was placed against it and Abe dragged it back and forth in a straight line. Zachary frowned. "Why not?" Another line; another negative. "No... food?" he guessed. A circle. Zachary rolled his eyes, even if he felt the effect had been diminished since he couldn't see where he was rolling them to. "Fine, okay. You got any money?" Tap, tap, tap. "What's that supposed to mean? Actually-" he pulled his hand away, giving Abe a superior look now that the other couldn't argue, "-just give me some cash, and I'll be right back."
Sounds from down the hall. He tilted his head toward the room hear them better, and could tell Abe had shifted, noticing Markham's awakening, too. Attention turned toward Abe, he emphasized, "Right back." He heard Abe sigh, then shift around while retrieving his wallet. The paper money crinkled under Abe's touch as he presumably folded it before setting it on the counter. Zachary followed the sound and snatched up the ten dollar bill after a little searching. Hopping off the stool, he gave a salute to empty space and moved to the door with practiced ease.
He was out in the hall, making his way to the elevator, when he heard Markham's slurred, "Morning..." as the door swung shut behind him. Silently, he apologized to Abe for leaving him alone with Markham. Hopefully, today wouldn't be such a bad one for their brother, but such days were getting farther apart, only a few weeks after death had lost its power. He was happy that Markham still recognized them, even during his fits, and hoped he wouldn't sink further into the insanity before they could right what had gone wrong. (And they would find what had gone wrong.)
Ding.
The elevator was moving behind the doors, stopped at the floor above him, and he felt for the down-button while unfolding his cane.
Ding.
The doors trundled open, and he stepped inside, keeping himself to the edge in case someone else was still inside the car with him. He let his hand graze over the buttons, feeling for the first floor, and pushed at it before stepping back. He and his brothers lived on the sixth floor, so it never took too long to reach the first from there. He couldn't hear anyone else breathing, meaning he was alone, yet he still stepped back. Holding his cane against himself to keep it out of the way, he simply listened to elevator music on the way down.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. He took a step forward before he fully realized that there had been no ding, and promptly caught his foot on-something and crashed into the ground. His cane jarred itself from his hand, rolled away, and the smell of smoke and pollution assaulted his nose. The sounds of the city were right beside him, the feel of concrete under his hands, heart beating wildly in his chest. He knew couldn't be outside, so...
"... What the hell?"
✧ ORIGINAL CHARACTER QUESTION: His first reaction is panic. His cousinbrothers aren't there, his Connection feels wrong and his lack of eyesight makes him a sitting duck, at the mercy of anyone to take advantage. His powers will help keep him calm by letting him channel the less-intense emotions in the city; he'll look into whatever information he can, discover if there's anything he can do to leave. When that turns out to be a bust, he'll begin to wonder why, what purpose it all has. Adaption will be absolutely no problem for this emotional chameleon. Whatever he's feeling on the inside can be shuffled around to focus on the better aspects to keep from going crazy. ... then Lachesis will begin to awake and he may have to deal with the fact that maybe she just doesn't have a clue, either.
✧ NAME: DJ
✧ LJ USERNAME: agentgreenway
✧ CONTACT (E-MAIL, AIM, PLURK): eevee{@}ptd.net / psitaniums / biomagnet
✧ CURRENT CHARACTERS PLAYED AT PROMENADE: N/A
If possible, please screen this comment after review of the application. I would rather not have my contact information posted so publicly.
WARNING
Mentions of attempted suicide within this application. Please read ahead at your own risk.
CHARACTER
✧ NAME: Zachary Finch (eternityunseen)
✧ SERIES: Original character/Greek mythology
✧ HISTORY: A long, long time ago, the Moirae, the personifications of Fate, were born. Records are unclear on who parented them, but the fact remains that they existed. For untold generations, they carried out their duties: Clotho wove the thread and began new lives, Lachesis measured the thread and decided a person's destiny, and Atropos cut the thread and ended their life. Then, slowly at first, the gods began to fade. Their powers were left to the wilds of nature as humankind found different religions and strength in themselves. The Moirae, too, began to fade. However, they knew that with the demise of their rational thought, the fate of the world and its people would be completely unguided. And so they created the Incarnations to escape their own demise. It's not cheating Fate if you are the one to decide it, right?
Zachary was born to a fairly normal family, the Finches, on July 2nd, 1986. His father was a fashion designer, and his mother stayed at home (and shopped - a lot). He grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, with his cousins (except that they were all much closer than that and called each other brothers from the very beginning), Abe and Markham, with whom they shared their birth year. Abe and Markham were the same as Zachary: destined for a full connection with their Fate at some point in their life to maintain their existences. For the most part, Zachary lived uneventfully. He went to school, he hung out with friends. At five years old, he discovered the piano and his absolute joy for playing and learning music. At nine, he took up guitar. He also took up drawing with Abe's help - he was good at it, but nowhere near as skilled as his older brother. Despite this, he never tried to learn how to cook in Markham's footsteps. Zachary and kitchen implements never exactly got along.
As he grew, he was aware of the knowledge that he would eventually lose his sight to Fate, but ignored the warnings. Abe was the first to Connect, losing his voice and gaining a strangely whimsical yet upbeat attitude when he was only twelve years old. Markham lost his hearing at sixteen, turning reckless and protective. When they were around eighteen, the three brothers moved away from their parents and rented an apartment together. After driving out to check out college options one weekend, Zachary Connected as well. He lost his sight, and control of the car, crashing it on a stretch of empty highway - he and Abe were fine, but it was a fairly traumatic experience to start his tenure as a proper Incarnation. For several months after, he closed himself off from the world in a kneejerk reaction to the Connection he hadn't expected to come so soon. It was during this time that he took up violin as a means of self-distraction. Eventually, he had an epiphany about his attitude and began to look on the bright side of things. The realist became the optimist.
While Abe and Markham went on to gain degrees at college, Zachary finished high school. Within the last few months of his senior year, he began to date a girl and eventually broke it off when he realized she was only using the blind guy for pity points with the rest of the school and truly had no interest in him - that incident was enough to temper his trust in people, especially those who seem fixated on his blindness. After graduating, Zachary was satisfied without a college degree and went into writing cheap little musical jingles when he didn't feel like mooching off of his brothers. Six years after they all finally came together as Incarnations, something finally shook them from their quaint little life near the beginning of July, 2010, when they were all about 24 years old.
Atropos' shears had become dull, and death no longer came to the world. Her power became unstable, with her unable to do the one thing she was meant to. (Unknown to the brothers, a particularly misguided cultist had prayed to the power of his god to forestall the death of a loved one. It worked, but at the cost of forestalling the death of everyone.) Though it affected all of them to some degree, Markham felt it the worst: he became more reckless, violent, and even attempted suicide in the face of Atropos' helplessness. Abe and Zachary were left trying to locate the source of... whatever it was as they dealt with their brother driving himself deeper into madness. Their searches turned up extremely little for quite a long time, and that was the current situation before Zachary laid himself down to rest and awoke somewhere completely unexpected.
✦ WORLD SUPPLEMENT: Modern-day Earth, 2010. Things are about what you'd expect, if you overlook the fact that the age of the gods truly existed and leftovers of the era still linger in the world today. Though almost every god has faded from sentience into becoming a force of nature, the Moirae were unable to afford letting their duties slip into the fingers of a mindless entity. Their fade was inevitable, and yet they worked out a solution: humans who would share their souls, connect with them on the most basic, intrinsic level, through whom they could siphon consciousness from. These Incarnations were free to live their lives until the previous Incarnation passed away; their only escape from their contract is to die. (This does not necessarily mean they are born Connected, but that they are born with the Fate to eventually come into their destiny. It's fairly common for there to be two Incarnations for the same Fate at the same time, but only one can ever be Connected.) In exchange for the connection and as a symbol of ownership, a sense would be stripped from them: for Clotho, speech; for Lachesis, sight; and for Atropos, hearing.
Although they have since faded from their proper roles, cults exist to worship the disappeared pantheon. Those with extreme amounts of faith are allowed to channel infinitesimally small fractions of their power - these people are chosen ones, and extremely dangerous, both because of their power and their fanatical fervor in their patriot. Mysteriously, no one who worships the Moirae has ever received any sort of power. Many assume the cause of this to be that the Fates cannot be swayed by mere mortal means.
Mythical creatures still exist, hiding from humans and cowering out of fear, having lost the protection and power of the gods along with the rest of the world. Most are imperceptible to the regular human, allowing them to retain their place in stories and legends.
✧ TIMELINE: The end of July, a few days after Markham's suicide attempt.
✧ PERSONALITY: If anyone was asked to describe Zachary Finch, they would likely choose one of two options: "optimist" or "pain in the ass". On the surface, he is a very satisfied person; with his life, his career, his (few) friends. He'll often be the listening ear if someone needs it, or the joking distraction if you would rather. One of the main philosophies in his life is that those who drown themselves in their misery are missing out on Life, and he really doesn't have a whole lot of tolerance for people who can't look on the bright side of things. He wasn't always like this. Before he went blind at the age of 18, Zachary was much closer to a normal person for his age: sarcastic, a challenger of authority, and just a little bit impatient. Connecting with Lachesis left him in a very difficult rut for several months, not only dealing with the idea that his new blindness would now last until the end of his life but that, in some way, he was doing all of this to himself. He simmered, quietly angry and bitter, until resignation finally settled in and he realized something. Moping around was doing nothing for him, and when he could feel the city around him experiencing its own happiness amongst all the rest of the bad, it was easy to see that he was being an idiot about it. There were still things he could do, things he still had (like his music, though he had lost his art) and as long as he could still feel happiness, he should feel happiness.
All of that isn't to say he's incapable of being serious, however. His core belief is that, more often than not, people take things more poorly than they should and really need to lighten up; a legitimately serious situation merits an equally serious response. Most of this joviality presents itself in jokes, jabs and teasing, no matter who he's talking to. Poking at the bee's nest is something of a hobby when he can get away with it, although he never really intends to hurt anyone with his words so much as annoy the shit out of them. Why? Because it's fun, and even better if the person on the other end has humor enough to join in with him. If they don't, then chances are he'll still be able to work off their grumpiness. Despite his lack of differentiation between friend or foe on many occasion, Zachary does in fact realize when he has a friend whom he hasn't driven off and is really rather quite loyal to them. It's hard to see under the teasing that doesn't change and his complexes around his blindness, but it's there.
It isn't that Zachary doesn't understand why people might be upset or angry or anything of the sort. In fact, he's hyper-aware of such feelings thanks to constantly being surrounding by such a multitude of them in his own home. He simply realizes that the good emotions are better and doesn't give in. His will is strong and his propensity for angst is hidden under his (genuine) outer shell of contentment. His life isn't going to suddenly turn into rainbows, sunshine and sight, so he might as well enjoy it for what it is.
On the flipside of this cheery demeanor, Zachary harbors a core of bitterness and confusion. He doesn't want to be blind, even if he has accepted it as fact, and is angry at Lachesis for making him this way which leads into him trying to deny the feelings as hating Lachesis is the same as hating himself, and he honestly doesn't know what to do with that. (He also realizes that she probably already knows all this already and it just makes everything worse. Sometimes, this can lead to him losing a handle on the emotions and... well, exploding.) It's easier to pretend the feelings don't exist - he trusts Lachesis and the other Fates, knows their plans are greater than what he already understands, and to pair that trust with the feelings of betrayal only makes things more complicated and puts him in a position he doesn't care to analyze. His blindness, as he sees it (hurr hurr), is something that keeps him from doing a great many things and is difficult to compensate for; even if he's a talkative person, he would rather not try to form deeply emotional attachments and doesn't speak of himself all that much. No matter how deeply ingrained his identity as part of Lachesis is, he isn't willing to divulge that secret to anyone as a matter of personal safety and sanity. No one outside his brothers would understand and if any cultists caught wind of such power, they would be in definite trouble for it.
Lachesis herself is, more or less, something of a non-entity. She's capable of being anything and resigns herself to being nothing. True neutrality is what allows her to decide events in peoples' lives, whether for good or ill. They need to happen in accordance with the plans she and her sisters create and there's nothing wrong with that. As a goddess, she is emotionally distant to those whose lives she controls... or used to be. For centuries, she's shared her soul with her Incarnations in order to save her own existence. In this time, she's come to understand humans, though still not quite comprehend them. To say she feels compassion for them would be inaccurate, but that she may be capable of attachment and interest is quite likely. Through the years, her only real interaction with humans have been her Incarnations; as a part of her, she feels responsible for them and, while their lives begin and end much the same as any other human life, favors them in that they're guided to finding their life's true calling to almost make up for all that she asks of them. As Zachary is her current Incarnation, she's inclined to react like him more than any of her previous Incarnations. Although they have all left their specific marks on her soul and personality, as soon as they died, the humanity associated with these marks faded and were absorbed into Lachesis' lack of.
As she shares Zachary's need for secrecy of her identity in order to protect themselves, Lachesis is likely to take up a false name (or Zachary's) when she manifests. Speaking of manifesting: being pulled from her perch of power and most of her consciousness deposited into Zachary's mind is going to be something of a shock. It shouldn't happen. Interacting so directly with her Incarnations is not something she ever planned to do, much less take over their lives. In a case like this, she doesn't have much choice, and-now armed with the capacity for Zachary's human emotions-she'll find herself curious. Curious about what happened, curious about her surroundings, curious about the people. Her grace in a situation will give her an advantage over the personally close-minded view Zachary takes with himself. She is, after all, a Fate and knows exactly how to look at the bigger picture beyond even herself.
Even without the control of her rightful position, Lachesis will remain in control of herself. If someone dares challenge that, they will be met with an icy rebuff and uncaring words. Her neutrality remains intact and, much like Zachary, even if she were to make friends with anyone, they wouldn't be given any special treatment. This doesn't mean she wouldn't be willing to act if the situation calls for it, whether the action is to help or to hinder, simply that she will be the one to decide what action she takes. Good causes are more likely to get her attention (possibly with Zachary to blame, as he is inherently good in spirit) although evil ones will still be within her consideration. If nothing else, if she feels the evil necessary, she won't lift a finger to stop it. On that note: she abhors murder, the act of taking the life of another person without permission from the Fates. Cases of manslaughter or self-defense are within her allowances, which some might describe as karma, yet to kill someone in cold blood is inexcusable.
✧ ABILITIES/POWERS: First and foremost, Zachary is the Incarnation of the Fate Lachesis, the one who spins the thread of life, sitting between beginning and end. What this means is that he has a share of her power and an intrinsic understanding of the nature of Fate, good and evil. Hell if he could explain it to someone else with words, though. Being Lachesis' Incarnation comes with the downside as being 'branded' as hers with blindness. Nothing is physically wrong with his eyes and it remains a medical mystery to anyone who's had the chance to examine him; it's more like an extremely powerful curse than anything.
Zachary's skills lie firmly in the realm of threads and strings. On the mundane scale, he is quite proficient with musical instruments: piano, guitar and violin. He knows sign language and boasts ambidexterity. As a result of his blindness, his remaining senses have become much more sensitive. On the mystical, his Connection to Lachesis affords him several nice abilities, all different facets of the same thing: perceiving the life threads of those around him. Without doing anything, Zachary is able to feel a veritable ocean of emotions surrounding him at all times - never overwhelming, but constantly there and impossible to distinguish one person's emotions from another. Mass-empathy, more or less. If he had something belonging to another person, he could easily be able to read their past by using it as an anchor to locate their thread and look back on it; the same applies for looking forward, but as the future has yet to be determined, this creates a great strain on him and isn't always correct. (Note that he hasn't actually tried it before because even he knows it's a stupid idea.) Even more than that is the theoretical ability to alter someone's life thread. This would be incredibly difficult with his human will versus that of Lachesis' (or whatever governs peoples' Fates in Promenade... presumably the people themselves, as they're dictating their own dreams?) and something akin to sacrilege. His neutral nature means this power will likely never come into play and is only mentioned here for the sake of completion.
Lachesis, by virtue of being a Fate, has all of the same abilities I mentioned for Zachary, but perfected control over them. She doesn't need to have something of a person's to read their past and can, with some concentration, pick out whose emotions are whose among the sea. Regarding her abilities to look forward or alter someone's Fates, her essence as a True Neutral (although slowly corrupted by the human influence that is Zachary) makes these courses of action so ridiculously unlikely, it would probably only happen if someone mind-controlled her or the mods would like to mess with it for some type of official plot. Like I mentioned before, it's unlikely Lachesis will be the one spinning everyone's Fates in the city and, if this is true, it would give her some difficulty with her god-modey powers and test her control. She is a goddess, but being plucked from her proper reality with no indication is enough to make her stumble. If necessary, she is able to take away Zachary's blindness, only when she is in control.
✧ TIME OF ARRIVAL: DO I HAVE TO PICK Day. Leaving him with only hearing in an unfamiliar, silent town at night would make for a difficult intro, TENEKA or not.
✧ MASK DESIGN: Colombo Musica Sinfonia Black (img, img, img)
✧ PLACE OF SOLACE: ... uh. get back to you on this one.
SAMPLES
✧ FIRST PERSON: a post from last year in another game. (I could have used later posts, but he's gone through some serious character development in that game and I figured a "purer" sample would be better.) I would not mind writing an additional sample with Lachesis' presence if required.
✧ THIRD PERSON: [ reusing samples because I am a lazyass - this one was requested as seeing how he would appear into another game, which is why it ends as it does. again, additional samples with Lachesis can be provided if necessary. ]
"Gooood morning, Atlanta! Today is July the 31st and the time is nine o'clock! Boy, is it beautiful. Better get your kids outside, Mom, because..."
Zachary groaned, reaching over to smack the alarm off just as the station's jingle began to play. Why, oh, why had he made it so high-pitched? Sure, the execs liked it, heck, even Zachary liked it at first, but after hearing it every morning for the past two months, he was quickly becoming sick of it. Routinely, he would poke and prod at the notes in his mind and try to rearrange or alter them to make something better.
His eyes were open. He could feel the sun on his face, so Abe must have been in already to open the blinds. He didn't really know why either of his brothers bothered to close them, since he was the only one who slept in this particular room, but he appreciated the effort, if not the action itself. Yawning, he stretched his legs out and finished kicking the sheets off the bed. He would fix them later tonight, hopefully after he had finally reenvisioned the radio jingle into something he would be satisfied with. Hey, who knew? Maybe he would pitch the new jingle to the company and try to make some extra money off it, too.
Standing, he felt his way along the wall to the closet, retrieved the clothes he had set out the night before, and set them out to change into. All part of his routine. The quiet sounds of the morning coming from the main room told him that Markham (who made as much noise as you might expect as someone didn't know they were making it) was still asleep, although Abe had already begun the day. He gave a quick tug or two at his blankets to pull them onto the bed, then snatched his cane from where it hung around his doorknob and went to greet the woken one.
"Morning."
Tap-tap went the pen against the counter. Abe's return greeting. Zachary offered a smile, assuming Abe to be looking in his direction for the moment, and sat at the kitchen bar.
"Breakfast ready?"
Without warning, Abe grabbed his hand. He twitched his fingers, then opened his palm for the other. The closed pen was placed against it and Abe dragged it back and forth in a straight line. Zachary frowned. "Why not?" Another line; another negative. "No... food?" he guessed. A circle. Zachary rolled his eyes, even if he felt the effect had been diminished since he couldn't see where he was rolling them to. "Fine, okay. You got any money?" Tap, tap, tap. "What's that supposed to mean? Actually-" he pulled his hand away, giving Abe a superior look now that the other couldn't argue, "-just give me some cash, and I'll be right back."
Sounds from down the hall. He tilted his head toward the room hear them better, and could tell Abe had shifted, noticing Markham's awakening, too. Attention turned toward Abe, he emphasized, "Right back." He heard Abe sigh, then shift around while retrieving his wallet. The paper money crinkled under Abe's touch as he presumably folded it before setting it on the counter. Zachary followed the sound and snatched up the ten dollar bill after a little searching. Hopping off the stool, he gave a salute to empty space and moved to the door with practiced ease.
He was out in the hall, making his way to the elevator, when he heard Markham's slurred, "Morning..." as the door swung shut behind him. Silently, he apologized to Abe for leaving him alone with Markham. Hopefully, today wouldn't be such a bad one for their brother, but such days were getting farther apart, only a few weeks after death had lost its power. He was happy that Markham still recognized them, even during his fits, and hoped he wouldn't sink further into the insanity before they could right what had gone wrong. (And they would find what had gone wrong.)
Ding.
The elevator was moving behind the doors, stopped at the floor above him, and he felt for the down-button while unfolding his cane.
Ding.
The doors trundled open, and he stepped inside, keeping himself to the edge in case someone else was still inside the car with him. He let his hand graze over the buttons, feeling for the first floor, and pushed at it before stepping back. He and his brothers lived on the sixth floor, so it never took too long to reach the first from there. He couldn't hear anyone else breathing, meaning he was alone, yet he still stepped back. Holding his cane against himself to keep it out of the way, he simply listened to elevator music on the way down.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. He took a step forward before he fully realized that there had been no ding, and promptly caught his foot on-something and crashed into the ground. His cane jarred itself from his hand, rolled away, and the smell of smoke and pollution assaulted his nose. The sounds of the city were right beside him, the feel of concrete under his hands, heart beating wildly in his chest. He knew couldn't be outside, so...
"... What the hell?"
✧ ORIGINAL CHARACTER QUESTION: His first reaction is panic. His cousinbrothers aren't there, his Connection feels wrong and his lack of eyesight makes him a sitting duck, at the mercy of anyone to take advantage. His powers will help keep him calm by letting him channel the less-intense emotions in the city; he'll look into whatever information he can, discover if there's anything he can do to leave. When that turns out to be a bust, he'll begin to wonder why, what purpose it all has. Adaption will be absolutely no problem for this emotional chameleon. Whatever he's feeling on the inside can be shuffled around to focus on the better aspects to keep from going crazy. ... then Lachesis will begin to awake and he may have to deal with the fact that maybe she just doesn't have a clue, either.