Because I couldn't think of a better name for the thread. I really need a better username. Plus, my Dreamwidth collection of characters (even though I haven't written on Dreamwidth yet) is called Theotrics (ha). Warning: wall of text, potential rambling, spoilers. My (new!) avatar icon was created by Aestrix! Thank you very much, Aestrix.
It would appear that doing a character thread is a thing that people do. I had spare time. Here follow the results. Spoilers abound (even for some characters that haven't been introduced or even instantiated yet).
CHARACTERS Theo (or "Thea") Icons
White Male: Common
White Female: Common
Personality & Methods
In summary: He is typically male, he wants the ability to change things but doesn't do much if he's in a nice world, and he's also by default oblivious to magic. He turns out quite differently if female, or if he's shoved in a horrible situation (see 'Tyler'), though precisely how and to what extent varies rather dramatically depending on the details.
Long-form, Theo
He wants to improve things, but can get caught up in the little things. He prefers to not have to fix things. How much effort he puts into fixing things depends on how terrible the universe is. If he were, e.g., dumped into a world with slavery, he'd almost certainly do a thing to try to stop/slow it. If he's in a typical, boring, modern world, he's not particularly motivated to do much of anything, so he just studies maths or languages or something.
His powers often allow him to change things, or himself. His template (and the whole 'Theospectrum') is repelled from scenarios where they are unable to affect things, but it's possible it can happen anyway (example: dropped into Terraria). If the power can look 'awesome' while he uses it, that's a pro. If a 'change' power is infeasible, something such as superspeed or improved reactions is likely the next bet, although 'duplication' and powers that link him to other bits of the Theospectrum are also favored. Has a bit of a "snowflake" requirement – if his power can make him be unique in some way (personalized powers are one way for this, as is 'first of a species' and such), that is greatly preferable to a very 'samey' power.
His template is slightly attracted (template-attractor-wise) to the ability to growl. Typically comes with the ability to hiss and also a better vocal range than usual. Also to vampires. If he can be bitten by one without it being too unlikely, it will likely happen.
He has a bit of a shtick about macho-ness. It's more internalized, and also kinda chopped down, by the time he's about 17~17½, but at about 15~16 (the age he is in Cardcaptor Sakura-verse, for example), it's pretty obvious when he's confronted with having to do something he sees as "not masculine" (although he doesn't tend to phrase it that way). He doesn't care if other people (males) want to seem less masculine. It doesn't apply to being homosexual (at all). It does not apply to all conventional things, because he is (for example) okay with wearing pink.
Does not react well to homophobia. Typically will not appear in a place where society is very homophobic. Is typically homosexual or bisexual leaning to a greater preference for males.
If rules are there, he'll probably follow them just on principle of them being rules, unless they're obviously terrible or they're in the way of him doing something he considers important.
Plus, Theo has a blind spot to magic. He's very, very oblivious (as in, "oh, of course they're just barbecue forks; freak accident") up until he finds out about magic (at approximately 16~19 years old, can vary). Even if he's magic. Especially if he's magic.
Thea is, by default, way more effective and motivated than Theo. I am currently unsure to what extent Thea and Theo are the same template. They were, or I've considered them to be so for a while, but I worked out what Thea would be like after about a month of writing and she hasn't deviated from there much, but I'm not sure that's actually how a female-Theo would turn out, so it's possible they are not the same template. (I would at least consider them to be part of the same group of templates, like with Tyler, but this is probably a weird usage and I'm not sure.)
Thea
Rather similar to Theo in lots of ways (on account of being sort-of a shared template), Thea is more strongly motivated to fix things as a default. This is usually due to vague patriarchal history of a world, so if you end up with a matriarchal society, you likely get a Thea-type ("Ego-type") personality in a male body.
She often considers the problems around her to be hers, and sometimes has difficulty stepping back from them or accepting that they're not hers. Likely has her head twisted into an ugly knot over this, though typically seems to handle herself well anyway.
Other Theospectrums This section is likely a spoiler. Information has not been wholly explained in a box yet, but I have spoken about it with various people.
Theo has a goal-driven mindset that he can slip into, currently nicknamed Goalie (though this seems to be sticking as a name). Goalie is typically not as good at social things because he's mainly just observed things and not actually interacted much with things. Does not care about gender much (but pronouns default to 'he' for ease of use).
Typically, Goalie is a mode/mindset that Theo automatically slips into when over his head (in a combat scenario) or overwhelmed (by new and confusing information). Theo doesn't realize that he's currently not really Theo – he just thinks that he's acting weird for some reason. Goalie doesn't realize it either, but notices that he's more 'effective' than usual and has some difficulty thinking about how to act 'normally'.
Goalie typically has not developed his own social instincts and therefore tries to emulate Theo. He's a good actor, can guess at typical human responses, is good at repeating previous ways Theo has acted, but is not great at working out how Theo responds in an as-yet-unseen scenario (hence him acting weirdly in the hospital scene in Book of the Moon). Goalie could do a near-perfect Theo in a less bizarre scenario.
He crops up less in Theas because they tend to be overall more effective and resilient.
Goalie, if developed without a Theo, can turn out slightly evil. Alternatively, if Theo has his empathy removed (such as by becoming a Buffyverse vampire), he turns out as a rather amoral Goalie. Think something like 'psychological experiments for the sake of learning'.
A blend of Theo and Goalie (where the personalities are actually merged instead of acting symbiotically), is metacausally named 'Tyler' or 'Taylor' (or in-world equivalent with a similar name scheme). So far has resulted when Victoria (Theo's mom) is killed in front of him at a relatively young age (7~9) which causes Theo's development to change, or alternatively when Theo has been cloned/duplicated (Book of the Moon, Proximal).
Is usually more effective and motivated than Theo, although sometimes turns out more Goalie than others and might want to destroy a government just for the sake of change. Usually does not do things such as that, and usually when he does do things such as that it's because he's reeling from some event (such as suddenly coming into existence, especially if his head is messed with).
Often acts like an older brother with respect to Theo. Cares very little about individual sacrifices so long as it improves the long term enough to be worth the effort. Cares little about his own self except as it helps to improve the long term, is willing to sacrifice himself if necessary to have some long-term improvement. Is willing to commit crimes to get what he aims for, but doesn't do it lightly. If there is a low police presence, is more likely to commit these crimes because he's less likely to be found out.
William is, unsurprisingly enough, Theo's dad. He typically stays out of the way of the magic things because he typically doesn't know about them, and typically raises Theo alone after Victoria leaves (or dies or such). Is willing to help out with magical things if brought into the loop, is not terrible at being logical and such.
Victoria is Theo's mom. She is typically very enthusiastic about her job, typically ends up as some CEO high-up in some sort of major company (details are not specified, am not yet decided on these things). She marries William, gets pregnant, realizes that she's really not sure she can actually raise a child because it's so far out of her comfort zone and what about her job, ends up leaving relatively early on to allow William ot look after Theo alone because she's not able to do as she should and she expects it'd be better if she were out of the picture.
Typically helps out with income and stuff (not that they typically need it). Visits occasionally (or has Theo visit her, though this sometimes results in 'I'm really sorry but I have to get to work so um have fun looking after yourself'). Is actually rather good at things when she's set on a task, is rather sane and rational about how she does things, but can definitely panic.
She sometimes dies when Theo is young, and if this is in some traumatic event in which Theo takes part (e.g. is in the car when it crashes), can mess Theo up (see Theospectrums).
Ev (Evelyn / Everett) Icons
White Male: Common
White Female: Common
Asian Male: Common
Asian Female: Common
Personality & Methods
Typically female, she's good at understanding people, sorting out social situations, navigating the hazards of high-school, and being effective at a variety things. Also has a bit of a mean streak, and if she's in a bad mood and you push her, she will snap. How bad the fallout from the snap depends on her mood, how much you're a deserving target, and how much she cares that the fallout might be visible to others.
Long-form
She is typically female. As a guy, she'd (he'd) still be comfortable in their own skin but they'd probably be 'passively' male ("it's just a thing about me"), as opposed to aggressively (stereotypically) male ("I'm actually really into sports, plus I'm really athletic, oh, and I know nothing about emotions"), unless presenting that as a front would make her (him) greatly more effective in her (his) goals.
She wants to get her hooks into everyone and everything, and have leverage, and be the center of everything. She's okay if people don't think she's the center of everything, so long as there's at least some sort of awareness that she is the one you come to if you want something done, or you want a stamp of approval, or you want to get a message to someone in such a way that they will get (understand) it. (In a nice way.) If you plan on doing anything socially major, she'd like there to be a background awareness that you will go check in with her to make sure it's acceptable first. She wants you to ask her for input on things, or else she will provide commentary anyway, and you will take it, and listen to it, and internalize and incorporate it, because it's honestly good input and you like her and she's proven to be good in the past. (Unless she just doesn't care about the topic, in which case she'll be kinda polite but basically give "I don't care" as her response.)
She is a nice person, honestly, if you get past all the layers, but she can definitely be blunt, or bitchy, or rude. (She usually isn't. It's not typically in her interests to do so.)
If she's in a bad mood, and you're what she considers a "deserving target", meaning a bad person, in her opinion, she will probably say something mean. She's really good at getting good, solid information about a person and their core personality, their interests, desires, etc., despite what façade they might show the rest of the world, and will therefore judge you 'accurately', plus she's not usually a terrible person, so she'll do it in line with how a lot of other people would, so the "deserving targets" are almost always at least more deserving than the ones she designates "not deserving". She'll probably say something concise, something rude, something specifically designed to hurt you and take you down a peg. And because she's good at knowing people, their actual personality, and modelling how they would react to things and their potential responses to things, it will (almost certainly) hurt.
Of course, if she's in an even worse mood, and you're convenient because you're a "deserving target" (or even a "hated target"), she might do more than just take you down a peg by insulting you. If she's in a really bad mood, and she really doesn't like you, she might decide to psychologically profile you a bit more accurately, and model and test out some ways to properly damage you and your ego, and employ a few of these methods. Depending on just how bad a mood it is, and how much she hates you, she might actually attempt to destroy you. And it's not just a heat-of-the-moment thing. If she decides she wants to get rid of you (and/or your personality and/or whatever thing you're doing that she considers so terrible), she will start a campaign to crush you. She might do it from the side-lines but she'd probably take a more active role in things. If it's really, really bad, she might honestly drive someone to the stage where they need psychiatric help. She's not usually that bad, and she almost certainly never actually does this, but it's a thing that could happen.
Her backstory therefore sometimes involves a scenario where she attacked someone like this at an earlier stage in her life, and she took it too far, and kinda destroyed someone's will to do… anything, and thereby (a lot of) their personality. She'd realise after she'd done it that it was a terrible thing, and why, and she'd attempt to fix it, but she would have still done it. (She'd probably attempt to rebuild the person's personality through some sort of psychological conditioning, into a personality that's more appealing to her / in line with her goals.)
(This is in fact her Wormverse trigger, at least where she's appeared as "Ripple".)
Ev's parents
The mother is not particularly developed.
The father is called Byron. Shine (one of the heroes in Potential) is a Byron. Icons: Shine
Rachel (or Laurence/Lance) Icons
White Female: Common
White Male: Common
Personality & Methods
She's not as ruthless as Ev, and she's not as oblivious as Theo. She's good at prioritizing things, thinking things through properly (unless they've been instilled into her for all her life with no obvious reason for her to glare at them), and overall being very strong-willed with good conviction in her ideas. Plus she likes to make other people happy, and she's really rather selfless when she's in the right mood, but some days she just needs time to herself where she doesn't have to expend effort doing things.
Long-form
She is not as ruthless as Ev or Victoria. She seems like she will get what she wants, but she can use cutesy means to attain it, or can put on a bit of a face/show. (Not much, though. Not as much as Ev.) She will brute-force through a system if necessary.
She is self-aware, mostly self-confident, will destroy a system if necessary, and is rather strongly attached to her morals. These morals are typically not pinned to a morality system (instead just 'what sounds right'), but it would not be difficult to convince her to switch to a more rigid system, one that she decides she agrees with.
She sometimes needs to decompress, and will spend a day in front of the TV / on netflix / watching cute romcoms, eating ice cream, not being super sad but also not wanting to talk to people or expend any effort on anything difficult. She might decide to bake something. She’ll be back to being fine really soon, and will continue her progress on her way to things. Also, if she's forced to do stuff this day, she might be kinda rude or snappish and then feel guilty and realize it’s not people’s fault, or alternatively she'll just feel and look drained.
Maya (or Martin) Icons
White Female: Common (same as Jess), Alternate (for a Maya without a Jess, sometime)
Asian Male: Common
Personality
Somewhat like Jess. Sometimes (often?) appears as Jess's sister or clone or double. Is more nerdy and generally interested in math and science and such, tries to make herself understood properly, often slips into speaking habits like her sister (or shares them; involves lots of use of 'like' and sometimes having difficulty explaining herself accurately).
Relay (or Anthony, Akien) Icons
White Male: Common
Personality
The name comes from his instance in Potential, my superhero world. He has extremely long-range telepathy, he can hold large numbers of conversations at once – parallel processing increases accordingly (though it's mainly limited to communication and he finds it somewhat hard to do complicated other things with large numbers of conversations ongoing). He really likes talking to people, he really wants to learn to communicate as unambiguously as possible, he dislikes various injustices and inequalities, and he's somewhat a blend between Ev and Rachel and Thea. In his original instance (as Relay in Potential), he appeared Formed (without a childhood, at the age of approximately 21~25, knowing some specific general knowledge about the world and languages and at the site of a natural or supernatural disaster). He is unhappy about missing all the opportunities to communicate and form networks growing up, and kinda wishes he could live the highschool life just to see what it was like.
MORE LIKE NPCs
Includes Matt, Jess, Sam (Solidity), Owen (Façade), Lisa (Aura), Spark, Chance, Eval, Range.
Personality
Like people to smile. Is somewhat rational sometimes. Is sometimes very stupid. He's kinda difficult to describe. Does not have a great deal of detail to his personality yet, often looks like a black box in my head, doesn't have a particularly developed backstory. Usually appears bi (yes, my male characters do all seem to like guys).
Personality
Is a bit of a gossip. She's somewhat like Jessica from Twilight (despite me thinking of the personality and the name separately, I think?), but tends to be slightly nicer. She definitely works in class and makes sure she gets good grades, but she's not a dedicated straight-A student.
Personality
Usually comes in NPC-female. She's not the type to scream, she's the type to go through a traumatic scenario and be extremely afraid but do the relatively smart thing – or at least the thing that's drilled into you as the thing to do in such a situation. (She'll know where the fire assembly points are, she'll know some first aid, she might notice someone's collapsed and shout at people to move out the way and start doing CPR and point someone out to dial 911.)
Personality
Quite quiet. Doesn't like telling lies, is typically drawn to lie-detecting powers or powers that allow him to see through illusions (or similar). Is quite happy to do a quiet job or stand in the background and feed someone information telepathically, keeping himself out of the way.
Lisa Personality
She likes to be able to talk to people on their level. She'll try to go into something social-care or into some mentoring role or maybe teaching high school students – probably more like 'head of year' or 'deputy head of school' if she can angle it that way, but can be found in institutions that deal with kids (think Youth Guard, from Worm, or some such).
Spark Personality
He likes to make people feel like they're being listened to. He'll pay attention, he'll try chatting to make you come out of your shell, he'll be a sort of a gossip and he'll know a lot of small details about a lot of people and a lot of things and sometimes make himself a bit of a joke if it'll make you more relaxed.
Chance Personality
He is sort of… shiny? Not in the 'glowfic' glowy way, but for some reason 'shiny' applies as an adjective. He likes to smile, he wants to be the Cool Young Adult who's a role model for all the kids, could totally go run some summer camp, is charming but possibly considered a bit childish – not much, just enough that it's noticeable.
Eval Personality
Eval is quite quiet and to the point. Does not like to dawdle. Does not much see the point in talking while doing things, would like to get things done with and send you a brief text letting you know the results at some point in the future. Does not really respect boundaries properly.
Range Personality
Rather similar to Chance, except – he's sandy blond, he flies real fast and lives in California and if he's non-magical he'd definitely be the type to surf. He can wear an orange superhero costume with a lightning bolt on it and take pride in knowing how stereotypically heroic he is, totally unironically.
SETTINGS
Spoilers for each setting are available if requested.
Lapis
A joint effort with Moriwen. Google Doc link. In summary: vampires.
Proximal
Mostly spoiler-free summary.
The setting is called Proximal.
There are three species, all humanoid. Rhune(s) are taller, with cat-style colorful eyes (amber, blue, purple). Luna tend to be shorter, have vibrant hair colors (such as purple, lime green), and look on average more androgynous. Thamar(i) are more physical, bulky, and have dark stripe marks on their arms and upper body.
The world is a bit past Earth in tech level, with cities tending to be taller, more compact, and more standard in aesthetic. The main region that’s been focused on so far, Rhunya (in the country of Kerune), has a socialist-ish government with a focus on public transparency and community participation.
Another property of the world is “lumen”, a substance that can be magically produced by the local species. (Verbs: ‘to lume’, ‘luming’ – pronounced ‘loom’ and ‘looming’.) It appears as a mostly-intangible blob of semiopaque light, apparently unaffected by gravity, as directed by the person creating it. It’s not locally considered magic, but rather a very explicable (if not necessarily explained) property that can be manipulated by sapient creatures. It does not appear to manifest in the wild.
Individuals’ skill at producing and manipulating lumen varies, both generally by species and more specifically by individual – they’re able to color it and shape it at will, with it being more readily manipulable in a region closer to them and progressively harder further away, and the hierarchy is generally such that Luna are the most skilled, Rhunes are middling, and Thamari struggle the most with it.
Rhunes also have slightly pointed ears, with better hearing, and their cat-like eyes provide them with better night vision, and (though this might not fit with cat vision) their near-field fine-detail vision is slightly worse, as is their ability to finely distinguish colors. They are inclined (both culturally and innately) towards running and other athletics, and would find it distressing to be prevented from doing so for a prolonged period of time.
Luna (the word is the same for both singular and plural) have a much wider variety in hair color, but it’s almost universally vibrant. They tend to have epicanthic folds, and would often (in glowfic) have East Asian facecasts. The androgyny is not universal, but there tends to be more ambiguity, and it’s culturally weird to ask the gender of a Luna (though it is typically offered if courting occurs).
Thamari tend to be more muscular, with a history of farming animals and working on the plains. Their stripes vary in prevalence, but tend to be few and large over the shoulders, then trailing down the upper arms and back, though some members of the species find them to be more like a sleeve or whole-body tattoo.
The species have integrated successfully over the past few hundred years – there have been times of conflict, including the standard history of witch-hunts, persecution against those who have mental illnesses, and idiotic disagreements between different countries, but they’ve improved more recently and have never had much in the way of war. Homophobia has also never been much of a thing, and sexism mostly only insofar as the species differ in physical capability (ability to bear children, etc.), with most ongoing in the Thamari species and little in the others. Racism is mostly not a thing, and is very not tolerated, and even in the regions that were historically just one species there’s now a good spread of members of the different populations (albeit with a skew towards Thamari as they’re generally more numerous). Hybrids, while possible, are not very common – though probably disproportionately represented in glowfic – and the traits they inherit from the parent species varies.
A joint effort with Pedro, based on Lapis vampires and their bloodlust. Spoilery topic about it. In summary: vampires, (somewhat?) loosely based off Lapis vampires, with a weird thing called "Sway".
MO
A very vague mechanism thing that involves mirrors! Has been made slightly less vague, is now a world instead of just an interdimensional transport method (the transport method is currently known as 'shiny and vertigo', because you look at something shiny, notice something 'off' about it, then have a moment of vertigo and find yourself elsewhere).
Has been described as the child of Night Vale and The Cave of Unpleasant Surprises (thanks, atheistcanuck). Typically you arrive there via 'shiny and vertigo', your building/room with you (optional – it usually disappears when you leave and turn your back for too long). Typically arrive (so far, in the two boxes it's appeared in) at the border between a forest and a city (sudden forest, sudden skyscrapers; a very weird divide) and various weird things occur.
Magic does in fact exist here, but it's mainly weird objects that turn out to be magical and activate when you tap them / open them / eat them or such, and may typically (but not always) be indicated by the fact they glow. Geography is not typically constant, it is not opposed to invisible portals in mid-air, and it is also not opposed to mysteriously giving you daemons or having non-Euclidean architecture.
Basically, it is a relatively varied world that is useful for confusing characters, and does not have any clear logic behind its actions.
It does in fact prefer some people to others.
Potential
Superhero world!
People started getting powers ~2013. They have something weird happen – glowing, getting struck by lightning, mysterious water appearing near them, something like that – and then they have a superpower (this is 'Turning'). Disasters started increasing in frequency when this started, and some supernatural disasters started occurring (such as people in an area starting to hallucinate and attack each other).
Powers tend to be Typically Heroic in theme – there is a particular aesthetic – and those who get powers tend to fit a certain sort of personality ("whatever I was before, I'm now a Hero and I need to help people"; specifics vary). Powers tend to be useful for a variety of disaster scenarios and things such as flight or slight invulnerability are rather common (amongst those who turn). After a couple of years, there are probably about a few thousand people with powers.
If more than one person in an area Turns in a short amount of time, it's quite likely there will be a disaster there (one person: high alert; two people: evacuate).
People can also 'Form', which is when they mysteriously appear (rather like Names-Fairyland fairies), except they typically do this mid- or slightly post-disaster (not always – sometimes they appear unrelated to such things). These people also get superhero powers, tend to fit the certain type of personality more strongly, and also end up with relatively powerful powers.
Tenebre
Sort of slightly-medieval world, aesthetic rose up in my head when I was re-reading Sabriel. It has towns that often have large walls, slight magic, dark shadows that roam in the distance and prey on vulnerable creatures or other bizarre things of the night – there are spaces of blurred air, appearing to be heat distortions, and they dissipate during dawn but reappear at dusk and if you're caught by one you'll just gradually slow. A shadow eats the blurry thing and sparks form until it finally wins.
The walls have magic rocks to prevent things from breaking through or climbing over. Some people have minor pyrokinesis, there exist local sorcerers, and to go outside at night is not guaranteed death but is pretty guaranteed perilous. The roads between towns are usable during the day, when the shadows keep to the trees and hide just out of sight, but it might get inconveniently foggy and people might mysteriously go missing.
So. Now, that wall of text (in spoilers) is over. If you want more details, feel free to ask in response here, or message me on Google Hangouts (or PM me to get my contact info), and if you have any comments on my writing style / characters / whatever, also feel free.
Re: Throne's Theatrics
Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:26 pm
by Eva
... Why are you making me want to put a Lioncourt and an Ev at each others' throats.
Why.
Re: Throne's Theatrics
Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 6:28 am
by Throne3d
Eva wrote:... Why are you making me want to put a Lioncourt and an Ev at each others' throats.
Why.
Oops? I'm so... sorry? It might be interesting!
I also totally failed to notice the name clash. I'm doing well so far – two name clashes with two characters! :P
Re: Throne's Theatrics
Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 3:59 pm
by Throne3d
So, I was talking to Pedro and I realized that Ev would really hate Chelsea messing with her opinions of things, but wouldn't necessarily hate Chelsea herself if she got to know her, so long as Ev was able to direct her somehow (or thought she was directing her). If she found out that Chelsea was messing with her opinions, she would try to dig things out of her head (though she might fail).
She's also likely to feel a weird itch if her perceptions of people are being messed with, though she won't necessarily know that's what it means, nor what's affecting them, nor be able to stop it. It probably counts as a weird template-magic because it seems to want to happen even if she's been exposed to the effect all her life (as in Tab's world). It will probably make her irritable and more likely to snap and attack someone.
Angel Theo is squeeing about the fact he exists. He's perpetually happy and excited and slightly high, and my brain is trying to simulate him. It's weird. He likes the idea of being a human, but appeared as an angel some day, and picked the name "Theo Kavanaugh", which makes him a bit of a "humanaboo" (Alicorn's word for it. It's great and probably gives an accurate idea of his personality).
Plus, I have a horrible depressing idea for Theo in Wormverse, but unfortunately it's just depressing, and will irreversibly break a Theo. So, y'know, if you want to depress the community, this might be a fun thing to do. I have a little box for this Theo, too, which is nice and... slightly depressing. Luckily (?) it's been kinda quiet since I thought of how he'd end. Eugh.
Re: Throne's Theatrics
Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 4:53 pm
by Adelene
Depressing how? I might want to fling a Rescue at him, depending.
Re: Throne's Theatrics
Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 5:33 pm
by Throne3d
Adelene wrote:Depressing how? I might want to fling a Rescue at him, depending.
Really quite spoilerish
TL;DR: Slaughterhouse Nine tortures him, he breaks, and because of metacausality reasons and because it seems to be a Theo-ish thing to do, he basically has a crushing realization that he's never gonna escape, not even by suicide, and so his personality just breaks.
For some reason, the Slaughterhouse Nine get ahold of him and try to torture him. Maybe he's a regular civilian casualty of an attack, maybe Bonesaw gets her hands on him (I'm not sure this works too well, and I guess she could try to revive him), but for some reason he's being tortured by them, and it's not a quick death. He knows he needs to get away, because he's been primed with knowledge of how they work, embedded into the culture of the world as a whole, and knows he's either going to die or be horribly twisted, and so he'd try to plan how to get away, but he can't, because torture. He'd want to have a breakdown, because that's what Theos are wont to do in scenarios they can't deal with, but he can't because torture. He'd expand his definition of 'getting away' to include 'suicide and death', because he's that desperate, and still see no way to get out, and then he'd have a crushing realization that his life is over, and now all he is is literally a sack of meat to be tortured, and he'd... break. His personality would be gone, and he'd maybe make a few pitiful noises in response to continued torture, but he'd have lost any willpower to do anything, ever again, and would probably die through lack of a desire to continue to live.
It's not really much of a story, and I'd probably want to describe the torture in detail, and his responses to it, so you can get more into his mindset and it's even more crushing for the reader.
It might even be a self-thread thing, if I can come up with enough substance for it. I'm not sure I really want to 'indulge' (not the right word) in such torture, though, and he would be really broken. Somewhat metacausally so. If you tried bringing him back with wishcoins, you'd probably get a weird Theo with no empathy if you didn't specify it properly, or he'd be horrible suicidal, or depressed, and if you somehow stopped that you would probably be generating a personality to inhabit his body, not 'fixing' him. If his world gets Downsided, I'd expect him to find a way to stop being conscious for as long as possible, maybe see if there's some way to actually nullify himself or send him off to a proper oblivion. This would probably be the case unless/until you rolled back his personality to before he broke, in which case you sorta killed the bit of him that broke (not that there was much left anyway). As I said to ErinFlight, "this is how you truly kill a Theo."
I don't think I know much about Rescue, but I'm not sure they'd be much help in fixing him after this scenario, unless they have a way to revert someone's personality to a previous state.
Re: Throne's Theatrics
Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 5:44 pm
by Adelene
.
Yeah, Rescue helps approximately not at all, there. She is unusually likely to encounter him, if he does survive, 'cause someone in a catatonic state like that would end up in an institution and she takes an interest in those, but it'd take something unusual for him to get her attention in particular.
Re: Throne's Theatrics
Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 5:47 pm
by Throne3d
Adelene wrote:
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Yeah, Rescue helps approximately not at all, there. She is unusually likely to encounter him, if he does survive, 'cause someone in a catatonic state like that would end up in an institution and she takes an interest in those, but it'd take something unusual for him to get her attention in particular.
Mm. I'm not totally sure if he'd be actively suicidal, or if he'd just not bother to do anything for the rest of his sad, sad existence, so he might not even get to be in an institution, even if the Slaughterhouse Nine did leave him alone for some reason. I think it might end up being something I self-thread at some point, even though it's horribly depressing, if only because I feel like I'd have good inspiration for it. Eugh.
Re: Throne's Theatrics
Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 5:59 pm
by Adelene
Yeah. I was assuming the 'not bother to do anything' case and then someone finding him. Which Rescue could be the one to do, even; her power makes it relatively easy for her to stay away from the nine, so she'd stay given a halfway decent reason to. In either case I could see her helping him suicide if he asked her to, maybe, but she'd want to talk about it first, which could make for an interesting thread and maybe let you skip some of the more gratuitous bits.
Re: Throne's Theatrics
Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 6:05 pm
by Throne3d
Adelene wrote:Yeah. I was assuming the 'not bother to do anything' case and then someone finding him. Which Rescue could be the one to do, even; her power makes it relatively easy for her to stay away from the nine, so she'd stay given a halfway decent reason to. In either case I could see her helping him suicide if he asked her to, maybe, but she'd want to talk about it first, which could make for an interesting thread and maybe let you skip some of the more gratuitous bits.
The more gratuitously torturous bits, you mean? I mean, while I sorta feel like shying away from it, if I'm gonna have him break, I kinda want to try to force the reader into his mindset as much as I can, and... gratuity would probably be the way I'd go about it. Hm... I don't know? I think, unless Rescue forced him to respond otherwise (somehow), he'd probably try really hard not to have to exist. If he can just while his time away until death by appearing inactive and failing to chew food properly, he'll probably do that, but if they force-feed him or something, he'd probably do that while plotting how to get away as soon as possible.
It could happen, but I think he would have to be forced to be less passively "let me die already" somehow.