The Grand OC SII: The Re-OCening: Week 29: UNINTELLIGIBLE!

Username: Schyraz
Name: Zin Fandell
Species: Human
Gender: She's a hot mess
Color: The Vintner's Luck

Biography: Zin grew up in a travelling band of entertainers, finding her place in concert halls and old amphitheaters where her voice rang out and summoned the townsfolk of the troupe's latest stop for a night of entertainment. Zin's operatic tones could enthrall audiences filled to standing-room only, and the sound of her practicing on the road was the quiet delight of many in her troupe.

One fateful night on an outdoor stage, after the guests had gone home and Zin had the stage to herself, something heard her practicing and called from the moonlit seating to continue. Zin, gripped with fear but knowing better than to refuse the requests of one of the Revelry, sang to the tune on the Reveller's flute, and couldn't stop until the sun arrived to chase the stars from the sky, and the Revelry from the arena.

The first Reveller praised her for a job well done, but her reluctant thanks were water in her throat and she threatened to drown. It was only after days spent mute and terrified did Zin dare to raise her voice again. The prose still splashed and choked her, but words put to music were rich and thick enough to cling to her throat, rising to where she might safely swallow them. It was intoxicating - both literally and figuratively.

Her relief was short-lived when she saw the effect it had had on her family. Too riotous in their celebration that Zin's voice returned. Too loud, too jovial. The quartermaster, a belligerent drunk and firm teetotaller, threw up and punched the stagehand who whooped at his display.

Zin performed rarely after that - often only at her parents' behest, to loosen up a tough crowd - and she didn't practice around the troupe anymore. After one troupe meeting where it was discussed if she were obliged to sing, to save the coin otherwise spent on drink, Zin had had enough and stole away in the night.

Zin survived performing here and there, stealing from insensate patrons (well gone past sober herself) before she could be tied down to one place.

Description: Zin is dressed like a traveller, wearing simple armor and enough layers to keep her most important possessions close to her person. There's a knife at one hip and a book at the other, the first half of which is filled with pictures, diagrams, and simple phrases, the back half kept blank for future discussion. Her hair's dirty brown, cut short and badly. In a sturdy attache are several fine dresses, a long wig, and portable makeup table. She smells permanently of alcohol.

Items/Abilities: Zin's singing can cause intoxication and a serious need to party hard in those who hear it, with apparent disregard for differing biology (it's worked on things she's pretty sure would die if they drunk alcohol). Like all shitty blessings, it obviously gets her drunk as well. She's built up a tolerance, for however much that counts.

Username: Agenroyal
Name: Her Highness Wyatt Peer, Lady of the Singer's Weave, Protector of the ?????????????
Gender: Queen
Species: And we can be royals (royals)
Color: Royal purple

Description: A nation mendicant roamed the dusty hills. Scrub-grass grew in places, and the farmers knew, after many failures, the ways to coax their herds into eating it, and thus, the nation subsisted on milk, meat and grass. Their old lands were long gone, collapsed into the abyss at the edge of the universe. All they could do was run, run, run into the hills, hope for a tomorrow with less suffering than today.

Leading them, giving them the only hope in the world, was their Queen, Wyatt Peer, the highest of authorities, judge and lawmaker and commissioner. Tall, proud, head unbowed, the avatar of a civilization long past, a face unfurrowed yet steely, a mind cunning and sharp. The lady of the Singer's Weave, the tapestry of history, fraying into forgotten pasts at the end, woven into form at the beginning. The Singer herself had long since lost her voice to age, and had no pupil to teach the art of weaving song into fabric. The weave's beginning ended about a decade ago, when the Singer-Ascendent had sacrificed her life to save the nation from a raiding army, and had been an indefinite mass of blank white strands since.

Blank white strands, like the blank white sands of their wanderings, across the scrubby hills and desert dunes that formed at their bases, the rain coming but never enough. Every day the nation grew smaller at the edges, a trail of graves left behind them each night. The Queen, clad in her purple linens, presided over their graves, blessed their souls, and asked them to send help, for there were no longer priests, nor could they remember their religion. They were beneath the notice of even the most forsaken of the gods here, as the world crumbled behind them and the indefinite stretched before them.

Items/Abilities: The Queen had a scepter once, but only as a vague awareness that such things were expected of her, and a decaying, fraying print on the very end of the Weave, a royal personage holding aloft a pointer, a golden, faded outline of what might once have been but was, perhaps long taken away by battle or by travel or by raid or even by the simple expedient of having left it behind, in the sands and the scrub. The Queen had fine robes, once, but now only linen remains, dyed the royal purple, held in place by rusting safety pins, tight against her waist. The Queen had a retinue once, but now there are only corpses and the absences of things that should be done yet no longer were being done in the presence of a Queen who had barely presence at all.

The Queen tried to sing the Weave once, to try and take another role into herself that her nation could no longer supply, but the white strands of song balked at her voice, sweet as it was, and could not understand the future she sung of, and could not find a way to turn that future into fact. Instead of fanciful pictures of finding safety and shelter, a new land to live within - well, instead, a black mark appeared, from edge to edge, across the beginning of the weave, and none could remember the full week of days that had happened before. When this happened, the Queen placed the Weave back into its holder, and bade the Singer never to allow her to try that again. In penance, she carried the Weave and holder upon her back, roll to roll, yet her spine remained unbowed. How strong must the Queen be, to bear the weight of her nation so.

Biography: Now it came to pass that the scrubby hills became less scrubby, and the grass grew richer and more filling. The horizon from whence they came, where the world was ending, grew from its hateful oblivion-black to a baleful grey, then eventually to a mere smudge on the horizon, only visible through glasses or to those gifted with far sight. The people rejoiced when they came across a river of clean, fresh water, brimming with fish and crabs, and when they found, upstream, herds of wild animals grazing. The nation celebrated that day, when their tents found solid, unshifting ground, when the wanderers could rest their feet in the water, and when the nation found home once again.

But when they came to find the Queen, to praise her, to bring her thanks for leading her people from the brink of extinction to a new and peaceful world, it came to pass that they could not find her in her tent, or anywhere else for that matter. The last of her that could be found was the end of the Singer's Weave, torn from its beginning, and a crude image of her at the very first strands: drawing their idyll, it seemed, on the fabric itself. Yet after the rough tear, nothing of their - perhaps, their wiser citizens surmised, her - future remained. They could only assume she sacrificed herself to bring them to this place, and sacrificed the Weave to end their indefinite purgatory.

SpoilerShow

We worship her eyes, who saw us through the sands
We admire her teeth, set against our adversities
We praise her taste, taking into her our bitter trials
We sanctify her everything.

Name: Cleese Hefful
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Text Color: Dawning

Biography: Cleese always had a knack for getting out of the worst kinds of scrapes. His parents, buffet-style Christians that they were, put it down to a guardian angel looking out for 'im. His friends thought him a good-luck charm. Cleese himself has failed to notice his unnatural luck entirely, in the insufferable way most men who've never had to deal with genuine misfortune do.

'Life isn't fair' is a mantra often used to excuse shitty behavior that human beings can easily change, but fundamentally the universe at large is uncaring, random, and tends not to give a damn whether you've filled your days with good deeds or not. So it's neither expected nor unexpected that it decided a remarkably oblivious ornamental houseplant of a dude should get a renewable get-out-of-jail-free card good for most of the multiverse. It just is.

Description: Cleese Hefful is a cheerful, regular dude. Being the kind of cheerful, regular dude who fails to encounter much misfortune in his day-to-day life, he's young, white, in decent physical condition, reasonably wealthy, and has what he considers a fulfilling job making sure as few people as possible get to pay for their medical bills. His blonde hair tends to be slicked back, because his high school sweetheart told him it looks good that way.

He tries to be kind to most folks he meets, though definition of kind amounts to 'shake their hand, have a nice conversation, deflect any worldview that doesn't coincide with his own'. He's sailed through life on cruise control, and has nigh-infinite faith in 'things workin' themselves out in the end, yanno?'. This likely includes being included in a multiversal battle to the death.

Weapons and Abilities: Cleese is a 27-year-old human man from 21st century Earth, and visits the gym for a moderate workout two to three times a week. He has some experience in firearms from some time down at the range, and took a couple of taekwondo classes a couple of months ago.

He is also unconsciously immune to generalized misfortune, to a point. His white-bread existence has not come close to testing the limits of this unearned blessing, but it's likely it does not protect him beyond one or two life-saving strokes of luck a day.

He has a remarkably deep well of optimism to draw on, to the point of annoying everyone around him when things may seem especially dire. This is mostly because they never are particularly dire for him personally. It remains to be seen whether being in a multiversal battle to a death may, for the first time in his life, change that.

Username: cochinealDamask
Name: Cura Personalis
Gender: Nurse
Species: let's just call her a “construct” and leave it at that
Text color: igne natura renovatur integra

Biography: Most places visited by members of the Court are not happy about their presence. Most can't do anything about it. Most aren't even aware. But sometimes you have a world, a combination of technology and psychic abilities, and a war can be waged. And lost.

Cura Personalis is a relic of that war, a trophy captured by courtiers. How delightful it would be to take this prideful work of technology and advancement and fill her head up with pseudoscience, backwater back-ends, bees born from ox-corpses and puppy-guts as a cure for madness. And it was, it was great fun, especially after the bitter insult that petty conflict had been.

But jokes wear thin over time, and eternity is a long time. Eventually a slightly clever courtier realized that her old psychic subroutines could be reused, that she could be reworked to drain the emotions out of someone as easily as drain the blood. Balance their humours, but more hands-on. And so useful for the Court's needs, truly a nursemaid worth keeping around.

That joke would have worn thin too. But before it did, Cura Personalis was gone.

Description: Cura Personalis smells like an apothecary. She wears a starched linen uniform and is her body is ornate metalwork, all alchemically symbolic of course. Her mask looks like it was cast from a corpse's face.

Cura Personalis has a pleasant, slightly confused personality. Sometimes the things she knows to be true don't seem to all fit together or fit with reality. But she carries on anyways. She has great bedside manner.

Abilities: Cura Personalis is capable of doing great amounts of good. She could cure wounds, internal and external, physical and psychic, that would be impossible for most. Unfortunately, that wasn't deliciously ironic enough.

Hello, hello

The Lucky VII All-Rounder Award goes to Cura Personalis. I am admittedly biased in favor of Court shenanigans but I love this fucked-up construct.

The Thomas Packston Elementalist Award goes to Smiley, for the most direct implementation of the theme rather than the deconstructionist approach taken by like, everyone else.

The Glere Award For Kitchen Sinkery is awarded to Wyatt Peer. While another pun entry, technically, I'm an incredible sucker for Agen's prose and the way the profile flows from section to section. In lieu of a better award, I'm slotting it here.

Arnold Fogge's Actually Practical Award is for Falachar mac Mochroi. I think every battle could use someone with a hurdy-gurdy, and their powers could synergize well with any number of rounds.

The GBS2 Award For Gratuitous Worldbuilding goes to Orok, for describing a beautiful-yet-horrific gothic biopunk world that I want to see more of-- I love that just enough is described to give us a sense of the sort of world that would create something like Orok and need something as questionably ethical as it is, but not enough to leave everything unexplored.

The Kracht Saw It Coming Award goes to both Zin Fandell and Cleese Hefful-- which is admittedly unfair, as both profiles are good pieces of writing and good characters (especially Zin, I love the idea of a continually-inebriated battler), but you both inflicted some frankly unforgivable puns on me.

Time to get back into it with this week's theme, Pirate.

Name: Pirate Queen-Duchess Rhubarb Apple-Crisp III, Consumer of Confections, Nemesis of Felines, Vanquisher of Men, Okay-Writer of Love Songs, SCOURGE OF THE CELESTIAL SEAS, Esq.
Gender: Lady
Species: Thoughtform
Color: You made me a believer! (Believer!)

Otherworldly dimensions manifested from the hopes and dreams of sleeping mortals come in countless forms and temperaments. The Celestial Seas is one such dimension, a liminal plane of reality made from pleasant dreams, particularly those of devil-may-care and daring kind. There is no shortage of adventure in these lofty realms. Ships come a-plenty, never not needing a hand or a hero. Faceless mooks are never in short supply. Ropes to be cut. Chandeliers to be swung on. Someone to be rescued, someone who just happens to look like your crush.

Rhubarb Apple-Crisp, et al. is one such native of the Celestial Seas, taking the appearance of an anthropomorphic rat in swashbuckling get-up. Whimsical and free-spirited, she enjoys backflips, dramatic entrances, and long walks on the beach. She talks as fast as thinks and has a bad habit of dangerously emphasizing her points with her rapier. Despite her blundering and blustering, she is considerate of others. After all, she wants to give people excitement they can enjoy. She’s also a little naïve, living in a utopic realm where all is well ends well tends to make you a little too trusting in others and a little less serious in appropriate situations. Perhaps being spirited away to a Grand Battle will shake things up a bit.

Ability: Rhubarb is very small and very mean with a rapier. She always has something clever to say regardless of what situation she is in. What a daredevil.

Name: Penelope
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Text Color: #2E8B57
Biography: Aye, I know that woman. She was on our crew for a while. 'Twas a rainy night when she came to us, and she was drenched. Said she'd gotten mixed up in an arranged marriage, and she wanted to get out before her new in-laws could find where she was.
Seemed a bit odd, really. She looked too shabby to be involved with anyone who could afford to chase after her. Still, she had some good coin on her, so the captain agreed. Provided she helped out on the ship in the meantime, of course.
We called her Penny at first, but she soon made it clear she didn't care for that name. Might not have thought it to look at her, but she was a fierce one when she got angry. Floored the first mate in an instant.
That's when the captain asked if she wanted to be a pirate.
We only brought Penelope along on one raid. 'Twas a few months after she came to use. We'd heard that a ship was passing through our waters with valuable cargo. So we readied ourselves to ambush them.
And Penelope more than pulled her weight in that raid, let me tell ye. Never seen anyone, man or woman, wield a cutlass like she did. She practically handled half the fightin' herself.
The captain was so pleased he offered her first pick of the cargo. Which turned out to be just a big pile of bedding. Cap'n apologized for the mistake, said he'd defer it to next raid, but she wouldn't have it. If this was what they had to plunder, she was going to plunder it. Besides, she figured, it was probably at least expensive bedding.
So she took twenty mattresses and twenty feather-beds. Didn't trust us not to dirty 'em up if they were in the hold, so Penelope just stuffed 'em into her cabin. Said she'd sleep on 'em until a good chance to sell came along.
And that was it for a few weeks or so. We were stopping in a foreign port, hopin' to get rid of stuff that might cause us trouble later.
Except, right in the middle of the night, Penny runs out of her room and into the kitchen, and starts threatenin' the chef. She's miffed because one single pea got under all her beddin', and seems it was keepin' her up. Can you believe it?
Well. We calmed her down, hoped that was the end of it. But when we checked on her in the morning, she was gone.
So were the mattresses, at that.

Description: Penelope wasn't a bad-looking lass, though she always dressed simply. I remember she complained about high society ladies, always bein' focused on appearances. Seemed like a real sore point with her, though I couldn't say why.
Even when she joined the crew, she took the filthiest rags she could find and wore those. Can't say it hurt her in that fight, though. I'd give my last tooth to be half that agile.
Still, I couldn't help but get the sense she was hidin' something. When she wasn't mad, she was damned polite. Really, it was a little unnervin' when you consider we pirates are usually a rude bunch.
'Course, as I said. When she got mad, she got real mad. Wouldn't matter how many apologies you offered, at least not until she'd given you a good thrashing.

Weapons and Abilities: Aye, a real fierce fighter, she was. Don't know where she learned to swordfight, but she was amazin'. And not half-bad with just her fists. Hells, I think she just has a knack for fightin', wouldn't surprise me if she could pick up any old weapon and be decent with it. But I couldn't tell ye for sure.
And that was when she was calm! When you got that woman mad, my, my, she became an unstoppable beast. Aye, the poor chef was scared out of his wits for weeks afterwards. Half-convinced she'd pop up again and ambush him.
No idea where she is now. Probably sold those mattresses, I can't imagine it'd do her much good to keep luggin' them around.
Still can't believe she felt one single pea under all that mess. That's amazin'. Must have some real sensitive skin, I suppose.

Username: Agennumbers
Name: That One Bit (Bit for short)
Species: Helpful Impossibility
Gender: None
Color: beep

Description: Hello! I am part of the Individualized Computational Universe Project, initialized... initialized... initialized...

I'm sorry! I don't think I can find that data for you right now! Please let us know of any other inquiries you may need to know at one of our helpful red and blue cube-interfaces!

Items/Abilities: The red and green ones are for materials synthesis, the red and purple ones are for materials collection and analysis, and the red and yellow ones are for communications!

I'm sorry! Communications seem to be down at the moment! We will be investigating this problem as soon as we can!

Biography: I'm sorry! I don't know why communications are down! Your UNIVERSE does not appear to be COMPATIBLE with our MATHEMATICAL MATHEMATICAL MATHEMATICAL MATHEMATICAL MATHEMATICAL D-descent rate transverse constants WRONG WRONG WRONG 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 and a BIT BIT BIT BIT BIT BIT BIT not COMPATIBLE not COMPATIBLE YOUR DIMENSIONS ARE WRONG WRONG WRONG cannot FIT FIT FIT FIT FIT FIT

I'm sorry! I don't think we can work together! Please hand over your belongings for analysis to the nearest red and purple cube-interface! CUBE CUBE CUBE SPHERE CUBE Please hand over your belongings! CONVERSION RATE: 0?% RATE OF CONVERSION TO CORRECT CONSTANTS: 0/% 3 and a BIT BIT BIT 141 Please hand over your belongings! Please hand over your BELONGINGS THIS IS NOT A CHOICE PLEASE HAND OVER YOUR BIT BIT BIT YOU ARE WRONG YOUR UNIVERSE IS WRONG

Username: seedbeard
Name: Josie
Species: Shoulder-perching Macaw
Gender: eggs
Color: pretty green feathers

Biography: When the Pirate-Lord of the Eastern Sea, old Jack Canterbury himself died, stabbed through the heart seven times by the navy's bayonets, they said his parrot, his favorite Josie, took straight off and flew away, despite that they were in the middle of the ocean and there was no land for leagues. They say how young Adelaide White got her start is, it found her, sent by her dead master to reach his true successor and whisper all his secrets into their ear. And after all, she did have the ruby signet-ring that Jack himself hacked off the Bloody Duke's finger. When she finally went to the gallows, the bird landed on the frame, cawed once, and flew off amid the gunfire.

It disappears for a bit here, or at least the more myopic historians say so. Around this time, the Western Sea's Broken Strait is troubled by the Green Fleet, whose general was said to possess a green bird unlike any seen in the area. Half the world away from Slatecliff, but then this parrot did fly out over the ocean at one point.

A decade later we see Copper Kelly, the last of the great pirates. Green bird on her shoulder, just like the old days. When her ships were chased into that hurricane, never to be found again, well, that's when most historians say the Age of Piracy ended. The conspiracy theorists say that's when the bird finally died. Me, well...I think it just hasn't found the right person yet.

Abilities: Josie knows what you want, that unfettered greed, gluttony, lust for glory and power deep in your heart. She knows how easy it would be for you to get it.

Username: Skay-Zer
Name: Riposte
Species: Metahuman
Gender: Digital Rebrolution
Color: Cybergrimes

Description: A strapping young elf with aggressively awesome hair and urban warpaint, the kind that breaks your face up so the cameras can't grok your facial features. Riposte's eyes shine an unnatural flickering blue, and cables and panels seem to sprout from behind his ears like a beautiful shitty halo. A couple of cables dangle down to each hip, where a boxy projector-like device sits. His lower left arm is an off-the-shelf mechanical prosthetic, kitted up with air-keyboard recognition sensors on his fingers and stripes of news tickers. It's a really nice bunch of upgrades, made by some really nice friends of his who probably want their shit back.

Riposte completes his look with a bandanna covering his lower face, black hooded sweater with one-way transparency in the hood lining, sturdy workin boots, and a duffel bag strapped tightly to his back.

Biography: <Stricken from the archives, later vandalized by the former "friends" Riposte left in the lurch>

Weapons/Abilities: Riposte's stolen some very, very fancy technology from some folks who would do a lot of murder to get it back, which gives him the ability to make an encrypted copy of any audio, physical object, or two-dimensional visual (for the duration he can focus his oculars on it). A duffel bag full of grape-sized sticky projectors, keyed to the encryption, can each be sync'd with a single probably-illegal download and made to broadcast it - physical objects are re-broadcasted as holograms.

Also he's got a gun because who doesn't in this day and age

(Finally) time for some judgement!

The Lucky VII All-Rounder Award goes to Dragon Fogel/Penelope for a generally solid pirate profile probably filled with bad puns I missed on top of the ones I did catch.

The The Thomas Packston Elementalist Award goes to Pharmacy/Pirate Queen-Duchess Rhubarb Apple-Crisp III, Consumer of Confections, Nemesis of Felines, Vanquisher of Men, Okay-Writer of Love Songs, SCOURGE OF THE CELESTIAL SEAS, Esq. for her quintessential pirate wrapped up in a small furry dream bundle.

The Glere Award For Kitchen Sinkery goes to Agen/That One Bit for a contestant that threw me for a loop and narrowly avoided a Krachting for that awful acronym.

The Arnold Fogge's Actually Practical Award goes to Schazer/Riposte for a presumably rude jocknerd who should do pretty well in the wild and varied setting of a battle with that magitech. Also, GUN.

The Convolution Teamfriendliness Cup goes to Seedy/Josie for the pirrot who just won't quit (cawing in other contestants' ears about how they DESERVE SO MUCH MORE).

The only intentional pun in mine was that Penelope is pea-irate.

oh

Name: Caros
Gender: Has no understanding of the concept
Species: Miniature Golem
Text Color: Gold

Biography: No one can say for sure just when the golems were first made.
But year after year, a new group of them would wander out of the old school grounds, and they would soon split off, each seeking their new charges.
One went to the wisest in all the land; another to the strongest; another to the bravest; yet another to the kindest. More than a few disputes arose from those who did not see their own golem, but in the end, the golems themselves were always unmoved by such appeals.
But this year, Caros stayed perfectly still as its kin wandered off to seek their charges. Caros knew, instinctively, that its charge was nowhere in this world.
Soon enough, however, its chance to meet its proper charge would come.

Description: Caros is a small humanoid golem with a golden coating over its body. Caros has no real objectives other than meeting and protecting the one being in all existence that it deems worth the title of "Grandest Battler".
However, it has not yet been able to judge the competitors for the title, and so it will aim to observe them at first before making its decision.

Weapons and Abilities: Caros has incredible strength for its tiny size, but it rarely uses its power offensively.
Its primary powers are defensive. It is able to use a variety of protective spells, to keep its charge defended against not only physical and magical threats, but also a few psychological ones.
Before settling on its charge, Caros will use its powers to defend itself. After its charge is picked, however, Caros is entirely willing to sacrifice itself for the sake of the most worthy battler.

Name: Eirene Pax

Gender: Female

Color: ~~ (#758F91)

Biography: No one knew the apocalypse was going to happen. They should had known but the time it happened it was inevitable, it was too late to stop. By the time the dust settled, the truer nature of man was revealed. Some people descended into scoundrels, only felt that it was natural to prey on others. Others are merely content to survive, eeking a meager existence in these strife-scourged lands. An exceptional few, tempered like steel, rise above their common kind and seek to change the world, for better and for worse.

Description: Eirene Pax is one of those few people. Ostensibly a relief worker, the mutated wildlife and general cruelty of raiders, means she is more of a post-apocalyptic paladin than anything else, especially when you account her spiritual outlook. Eirene is taciturn and deeply cynical, but not unkind. While she did and will do more of her fair share of fighting, violence is not natural to her and haunts her from time to time.

Powers: Eirene Pax wears body armor that shows decades of changed ownership and replacement parts, wields a cudgel and a pronged spear. Eirene Pax refers to Eirene herself and her backpack entourage of “Pax Worms.” Pax Worms are dog-sized annelids with monstrous mandibles. They have strength in numbers but their true strength lies in their preternatural adaptability, essentially functioning like a biopunk multitool. They can transform themselves into breathing apparatus or secrete quick-drying resin as a glue. Not exactly fantastical, but it can be useful – or dangerous.

Despite their horrific appearances, these Worms are utterly loyal to Eirene and Eirene has a fondness for them. While the Pax Worms self-replenish themselves, Eirene always mourn if one has to be lost. Yes, she even gave all of them names.

Username: Agen
Name: Luc Unnarte
Gender: NB
Species: Elemental
Color: lead reformation

Description: Luc Unnarte. A man(?) unremarkable. Swathed in an artist's smock, smudged with charcoal just above the front pockets, where sticks of graphite protrude like uneven, underbite-cursed teeth. Long, filthy hair that starts dirty blonde and fades away to grey. Willowish figure, slender arms and legs. Spindly, spiderlike hands smudged around the edges with greys and blacks and whites, the digits indistinct.

One thing about them is that they are inevitably described by others as being 'dry', on many levels; their first impression on the world is blankness, uninterestingness, something protean, full of potential, yet unrealized, lifeless and empty.

Luc is not usually seen moving. They just go from one position to another; the interim is not relevant.

Items/Abilities: Luc is an avatar of the Previous, what came before there was anything at all. They are an elemental of the primeval, the primordial, and of the preexisting condition.

As such, they have the ability to unmake. Within their purview, of course.

Place a child's drawing before them, and they will trace the lines with their graphite wand, perfectly, unerringly backwards. They will break that child's heart, returning to them a blank sheet of paper.

If they would like, they could expunge that drawing entirely, making the child forget it had ever existed at all. Many an unjust will or blueprint had fallen to Luc's unmaking, sparing families or public parks.

Luc likes parks.

Biography: Graffiti! Graffiti everywhere. Unclean. Messy. Luc worked tirelessly on the alley wall all night, exposing grey concrete behind the brightly-colored spray paint. The colors flew backwards into a battered spray can, discarded by the would-be artist behind a nearby dumpster. Luc would have preferred to use their graphite, but it left behind bands of color on the wand, and the colors bothered them. People never noticed them, normally, but the colors caught strangers' eyes if they saw. Luc did not like to be seen.

A flashing light stopped them. Red and blue. A woman in a blue uniform. Badges. She was neat and tidy. Luc liked neat and tidy.

"Put down the spray can and put your hands up!" The woman was talking to them! She was quite loud, actually. Luc found themselves liking the woman less now. "Now!"

Luc decided they would go away now, so they started to walk away. But then the woman pushed a button on the black rectangle she was holding, and barbs flew out from it and landed in them! It tingled, and it also hurt a lot. Luc didn't like the woman at all now, so they turned around. They dropped the spray can, and pulled out their graphite.

"Put the weapon down! Put it down!"

Luc got closer, trailing wires. They reached out for the woman, who didn't move. Only her eyes moved, and they were wide with fear. Luc was going to do something they only did rarely, and the woman was afraid. Luc was a little sorry, but she did try to hurt them.

A blank badge fell to the ground, followed by a blank rectangle of laminated plastic.

i just realized its been a week so i will judge this... tomorrow around this time or whenever i wake up!!!

Names: Anchor Mobile Holding Facility AN-302 and Lancaster
Genders: technically genderless but speaks like a pleasant male nurse and A Guy
Species: Spaceship and Human
Text Colors: help yourself

Description: Lancaster is a lanky human man in his mid-20s with pallid light brown skin and loose brown hair. He is wearing scrubs.

Anchor Mobile Holding Facility AN-302, or Anchor as he would later be called, is a decently-sized ship capable of transporting, storing and adequately caring for up to a dozen prisoners, of power capacities up to the DODECA-class, as well as 4 crewmembers/nursing staff. Unfortunately, there are no nursing staff. There is only Lancaster.

Biography: Anchor Mobile Holding Facility AN-302, carrying a single prisoner, warp jumped into nothing in the middle of nowhere instead of the classified location he was supposed to be going to. And the warp system broke. But Anchor Mobile Holding Facility AN-302 (dutiful AI) continued going on through deep space, weeks and weeks, feeding the prisoner regularly (good thing there was only one) and telling him everything was fine and trying to get him to stop banging on the walls yelling for answers. But eventually something broke. It was important. And he couldn't fix it, even with his array of drones.

So he started letting Lancaster out. The dossier said he understood mechanics, after all. At least the parts that Anchor Mobile Holding Facility AN-302 had clearance to read. Anchor Mobile Holding Facility AN-302 hadn't been programmed to understand mechanics, or repair itself, or spend weeks in space with only a single prisoner for company.

Time passed. Lancaster started calling Anchor Mobile Holding Facility AN-302 just “Anchor.” Anchor started thinking of him as both his prisoner and crew. And then, abruptly, their journey was cut short.

Abilities: Anchor, aside from being a spaceship, has multiple drones to aid in the safe control and containment of any prisoners, ranging from orderly-size to flying camera. He is also a good pilot and has an understanding of basic calming techniques, conflict resolution, and first aid.

Lancaster is pretty good with machines.

Errata: If Anchor finds someone who needs containing, well...he has a job to do. It's been a while, but it's still his job.

I'd make a pun about giving out awards to these wards but, well,

Eirene Pax receives the Arnold Fogge's Actually Practical Award with the right level of all around suited to doing what needs to be doing ness in terms of powers as well as for being a kind survival type that's always fun to see suffer in these things. She also gets a special <3 for having cute worms.

Anchor & Lancaster are a shoe in for the The Thomas Packston Elementalist Award most closely getting the feeling of what I expected from this theme as well (giving the feeling of a hospital ward and with Lancaster being Anchors ward and such) while also just actually being my favorite entry this week!

Luc Unnarte gets the The GBS2 Award For Gratuitous Worldbuilding but the version of that award that applies specifically to "how them powers work yo" because that's a very excellent concept to roll with and because it's definitely the kind of thing that we'd chat about the applications on endlessly. They also get a potential stump award for possibly outsmarting me, in that I'm sure I'm missing something about the profile! Whoops!

and finally of course, Caros gets the The Glere Award For Kitchen Sinkery for stealing my inevitable award joke, for making me need to re-read it to understand what was actually going on, and for being the sort of thing I'm not surprised hasn't been unironically done in battles yet.

I'm sure that the fictional battle in which The Superhero hosts a grandbattle to pick their next The Sidekick will go just swimmingly with ya'll.

[11:14 AM] Agenarchi: "ward" backwards is "draw"
[11:44 AM] Damn, It's Solaris: damn
[11:44 AM] Damn, It's Solaris: Damn,
[11:44 AM] Damn, It's Solaris: Damn Damn Damn,

this still going or is ti dead

also im not anymore

hello not dead red, submit a theme and we will pun at you

IN THAT CASE, the theme for this week is UNINTELLIGIBLE.

Im sure y'all can have some fun with that one

also wow i forget how to do like basically any kind of forum formatting. wow.

NAME: PARSE

GENDER: M

SPECIES: Machine

COLOR: Lost

DESCRIPTION:

P A R S E

HBFAPTDRTSKEGSVHERKLTMRVIWIJOENATJSHSKZIHKPDMCENAXWHZKWXBCARVS
KZIIEDHIGAKMVTWRKYCBVSVPBCQLDTRFHIHVSMGTYAGZWZLLWUDAHXTP
LLTWVSXWEIOEHUEFEIUISP
PPIGHJCKGJPLZWRIEIJEUOIEMCG
GSVHEDMWIFZFHIHVSRHWVJAWYZFXWEFHIC
TYSXLAJZMHPLJTDSV
ZIYUJLAXSYWHWEBFILTYWECSNWVLHP
LLTWFJPSDFWWCOKVIHEINIIOUJSLN

END

SpoilerShow

PARSE strongly resembles a futuristic plane. He is compact and sleek-black. He speaks in a monotone voice, but rarely does so. He prefers to mimic sounds. Such imitations are pitch-perfect. PARSE is assumed to be devoid of personality. Human personality at least.

ABILITY:

P A R S E

KSGFUZJIS
AJZMEIDEICSVSRSFFJIQOUARVBVFIPTYZMBLZCIPPIWHPTFJCPNZEEA
PRJWTDVKGTNUWHPNUMRUOCVISHZKPTGJTIUOIWLTMRVIHHZHFDUEV
LTMRVICOEGXTOWLLTLRUODFNARSONKSGDFGVHAJZIHTRDOTDKZIHUIXERE
YAWEAKAICCVOEHSFGRGENSVSEUTCPVVARGITZMCDRLE
EAIKIELLFKTDYAWERFTSHCZKMCDVWT
WEYGTTDWGVIHVTIHT

END

SpoilerShow

PARSE can receive, transmit and corrupt information. Such information is radio waves and computational data. He is remarkably stealthy. PARSE is more often heard than seen.

BIOGRAPHY:

P A R S E

UJECKZFXWEISHXONSZTS
YWEIEKZIOEIGIHAEVSCEJSRSTYWMCFZFMIYSWXLEVFXWED
ZIUOLFHWIJSRHWVJ
ECDFLLTRRFWLEIK
ECSNWVHASGYITYWYCIMWVHERFHIHVMRXVVJWTBVQSCD
SWMCGJFSIOWLLXSNGVADRFHIHVUSCFCAGITYWCTNXSKTIE
ZMHCFFWJMGLMDNNSWWIJVYIYSMXEAIKIUECLXWIJLSQEPGRSHZKGAERJECCV
ZICEVVXDGFTERK
KGXTLCLLTM–

END

SpoilerShow

PARSE is a counterintelligence drone. A machine made by human hands, inspired by inhuman tech. He is not the first to be made but not the last of his kind. PARSE is in a losing war. He knows.