STE application

[protectress]

OOC Information:

Name: Suu

Are you over 15? Oh god, yes.

Contact: Plurk; my plurk is letspositivethinking


IC Information:

Name: Preincarnation: Kanan Mistyre // Reincarnation: Kayla "Kay" Mistral

Canon: Original Character

Age: 25

Preincarnation Appearance: Kanan was of moderate height, roughly 5'4", with chestnut-brown, chaotically wavy hair kept long and usually in a braid. She was usually fair-skinned, with freckles that she had tried for years to get rid of before giving up, and gray eyes. She kept fit, but tended towards curviness even with regular exercise (as mandated by the Corporation); that being said she had very little hang-ups regarding her physical appearance and often dressed in flattering clothing. Her face is very expressive, and though she's not exceptionally attractive, there is a certain charm to her expressions.

Any differences: As Kay, she keeps her hair cut short (mostly because of the fact that leaving it down makes it look like she's being eaten by Chewbacca and pulling it back gives her headaches). She wears reading glasses in the present day. Most other physical appearances are the same.

Preincarnated History:
Context: Kanan's world is a world not unlike 2013-era Earth, except instead of countries, the world is a series of cities scattered around the world and the majority of conflict is because of corporate warfare-- generally less violent than international warfare, at least on paper, but causing a strong sense of 'us vs. them' in regions of the world. Kanan is from the southeast, a section of the world powered and controlled by The Corporation, for which she is a tech security officer. The other two companies are Madison Company, ruling the north-east to the middle of the globe, and Densho Power Company, in the west; the operations they run are not all that different, making the conflict between them more of a concern about monopolization and economic competition than anything else.

As a result of some questionable practices involving radioactive material and the countryside, each section of the world-- including the oceans-- have been infested with mutated creatures, creatively called "monsters". As a form of defense against the monsters, a number of third-party companies have created NRG-- small devices, generally disguised as accessories, that use batteries (created by the Corporation, Madison, and Densho, of course!) to allow the wearer to functionally use what's basically "magic".

As humans have been living in close proximity with the offshoots of this particular radiation (though not in such high doses as the waste discarded into the countryside), their bodies have developed unique energy signatures that dictate how the NRG reacts to them and what outputs they are capable of. Some people can only use specific forms of output-- heat-conductive offensive (...basically "Fire"), molecule-slowing defensive (a telekinetic shield), etc., and with further and extended use of NRG, strong will, or with more high-powered NRG, the strength of those outputs can be increased. Kanan's NRG Signature is a moderately strong Molecule-slowing offensive (second-level Ice) and a relatively weak healing-regenerative (a basic heal). With very extended use of the NRG, there is also evidence of an ability to use a much weaker form of the output without necessarily wearing it; Kanan has had her own since she was 9 and rarely takes it off, and so has developed this ability.

Added clarification re: NRGs and abilities:

A typical basic-level talent can do things like freezing a glass of already-cool water-- dropping a temperature about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, in general is the extent of a basic-level. Each level from there on expands another 50 degrees, so Kanan, a Level 2, can drop any temperature about 100 degrees from what it was. There are 5 recognized levels of classification in her world, so the strongest users of molecular-deceleration would be able to drop a temperature about 250 degrees, to give a gauge of where she stands in relation to the strongest users. Range-wise, she can use this ability from about 50 feet away, with the distance growing by 25 feet each Level.

Healing-wise, she's a Level 1-- she's capable of healing moderate flesh wounds and easing pain at that level; any wound that doesn't need more than ten stitches is probably something she can work with (keeping in mind that obviously wounds can't be classified as well as can temperature ranges and the like), and pain on the level of a moderate to severe non-migraine headache can be entirely blocked. Ranges across the Level boards for healing are limited to within-touch distances, and in situations wherein pain is needing to be blocked, the time limit for effects is about four hours for a Level 1, 8 hours for a Level 2, 16 for 3, 32 for 4, and there is no limit for level 5s. It doesn't work on diseases or poisons, but it can limit whatever symptoms fall into 'wounds' (like coughing can irritate/tear the lining of the throat) or 'pain' (like... you know, headaches and stuff.)

The batteries for an NRG are the spark that starts the reaction; as such, the wavelength carries the actual effect and a standard NRG battery, assuming only two uses a day, will last for about 3 or 4 years (much like a watch battery). Both long periods of non-use and too much use will drain the battery faster, though. Most people will find some excuse for using the NRG-- cooling a drink, things like that-- to avoid draining the battery. Even Kanan, as she got older, used it for little things, just in case.

History: Kanan was born in Corporation territory to slightly older parents who already had two sons. Her father was a security officer for the Corporation, and her mother-- once a mildly-famous local entertainer-- was a homemaker; following her pregnancy with Kanan she grew sickly and rarely left her bed, so Kanan's brothers, Arc (six years older) and Luc (two years older) were her more constant companions for her early life. Her mother attempted to spoil her daughter as best she could in the ways she knew best: Kanan never lacked for dolls or dresses, and her mother always organized tea parties with her little girl. The problem was, Kanan may have never lacked them but that was mostly because she was less than interested in having them. She instead idolized her father, watching him clean his gun and press his uniform; she always begged to follow him to work and often had to be distracted by games of chase with her brothers.

When Kanan turned 8, her mother's health finally failed, and she passed away. Her father grieved for a while but did not stop working-- the Corporation was what fed and clothed his children, and his wife had been ailing for some time. At the same time, he recognized that as his children grew older he couldn't watch and protect them all the time, especially given the travel his job sometimes entailed; Arc was fourteen and already apprenticed to a company doctor, learning what would be his trade. Luc was ten and had an alarming tendency to take the television apart, and his little sister was only a helper in these situations. Both were too young for apprenticeship, but still in the general schooling provided to children of company employees; after school, they were latchkey kids. This fostered a certain sense of independence in both of his younger children, particularly his daughter; he had her mother's favorite bracelet installed with an NRG once she was nine, just in case there were any infestations in the city itself.

6 years later, that became something to be grateful for. Kanan had been apprenticed to a woman in TechSec at 13, and had proven to have a particular talent for the field, picking up the trade quickly, as if she were made for it. She was in the offices, monitoring the network access for any corporate spy attacks, when the klaxons went off. A local nest of Monsters had grown large enough to need more food, and had decided that the small town that their particular center of operations was in was now a hunting ground. All employees were called to defense positions, and Kanan was no exception, even at her young age. Issued and licensed to carry an energy bow, she worked her way down to her particular defensive position, guarding the hospital as the injured were brought in. It was there that the Monster Queen struck. Kanan watched a number of her colleagues and kids she had grown up with die in that attack, and panicking she hid in a half-closed cupboard.

When her eldest brother's broken, bloodied body fell before her, in an attempt to distract the Queen from tearing the cupboard apart, she began screaming. She came to a few hours later, having activated her NRG. Her emotional response, as well as her extended wear of the bracelet it was on and her natural affinity, had literally frozen the Queen solid in the room. Security dispatched the Monster, but Kanan was forever scarred-- not as badly as Arc, who had survived the attack but would be crippled for the rest of his life, but she went from confident, bright girl to growing into a neurotic, guilt-ridden, nervous woman who did her very best to not take any risks at all when she didn't know what would happen. This made TechSec a good fit for her, still, but when not in the offices, she rarely left her apartment without reason, preferring not to risk the possible consequences of going out and anything happening.

She lived out her life as best she could, never quite making strong social connections except over very long periods of time. Her brothers checked up on her as often as they could, and she valued family over all else; she saw her eldest brother married and with children, Luc become the top of his field in mechanics, and eventually she settled down and married, herself. The rest of her life was uneventful-- no kids, and the marriage didn't work out and ended in divorce after six years, but she worked until her retirement and was known not only for her prodigious skill, but for her work ethic. She never used her NRG again, except for mild heals and to chill her drinks.

Her story wasn't very interesting. Not everyone can be a hero.



Reincarnated History
Kay was born to a single French-Canadienne immigrant citizen mother, who worked as a nurse and often was working 24 hour shifts just to make ends meet, in a lower-class area of Locke City. She had a half-sister from another father, about three years older than she was, and the three of them lived together in a one-bedroom apartment. Kay chafed at the closeness, though she loved her mother and sister, and as soon as she was placed in school she began to spend most of her time there whenever she could.

Always something of a scrawny kid, she spent a lot of her elementary school years scrapping with friends and playing after school in the streets. She was a good student throughout her school years, pulling As easily and without too much fuss, but it wasn't until she was in high school that she really found her calling; the computer labs and all the trouble she could get into there. After reading everything the local and school libraries had on programming languages, and quietly looking up tutorials on sites like Youtube, Google, and Wikipedia, she began small; little pranks on the librarian. Hacking into the teachers' computers and rerouting their browsers to the Hamster Dance, and then disabling the volume controls on the computers themselves. She never did anything strictly unethical-- never changed grades, never hacked sites maliciously--, which was lucky, because if she had she might have ruined the chance that came up for her in her Junior year, when the Computer Science teacher recognized the lashing out of a girl who was deeply interested in something and was out of ways to follow that path.

She was set to work doing practical things-- figuring out how to defend the computers against tricks like hers, being given intensive tutoring in theory and math. She was recommended to apply for to several colleges, but given her financial status and her family, she decided to go with Locke City University.

She did well there, as well-- not surprising, given how intensely she wanted to know more and do more with computers--, took a job as tech support for a company in the heart of the city, and moved out on her own into a modest apartment in a not-great but cheap neighborhood, but in the third year of her schooling, halfway through the first semester after achieving her Associates degree in computer science, her mother was killed in a drunk driving accident.

She and her sister were devastated, and she ended up taking two years off-- one because she needed it financially after paying the costs of the funeral and cremation, and one because she was afraid of leaving her sister alone and having something happen to her. In the end, though, she realized she'd never be able to live with herself if she didn't finish her schooling, and went back into university after an extended academic hiatus. She turned 25 the month before she got her Bachelor's, and at present time is trying to decide whether she can afford to take out the loans to afford going for her Master's. In the meantime, she's working her tech support job and working as a waitress in a local bar.

First Echo: Kay's first Echo was triggered a year after her return to school, when a school friend of hers, walking her back to her apartment in a none-too-safe area of town, stepped in and was beaten trying to defend her from muggers; she panicked and froze up, hit by a wave of anxiety that felt like more than the situation called for, and the muggers took what they wanted and left her with his beaten form. She recovered enough to call the police, and he made a full recovery, but he never walked her home again-- per her insistence.

For a girl who had previously not been prone to freeze-ups and that kind of blind terror, it was something she had basically never experienced and was far worse than the situation warranted. Frightened Kay tends to lash out, not freeze up, and it was clearly (in her thoughts) a "very, very weird experience". After her mother's death, she was sometimes prone to mild generalized anxiety. Extreme anxiety-- complete with frozen muscles, pounding heart, and tunnel vision-- was not something that she had anytime after the first month after her passing.


Preincarnation Personality: Kanan was a very nervous woman, strongly guilty about her brother's injury, and tended to avoid not only confrontation but any unknown situations. She wasn't agoraphobic-- she actually enjoyed the outdoors-- but she did have mild obsessive-compulsive disorder, with strong senses that if she didn't think through all of the possibilities before she went out without a solid goal, something terrible would happen. That aside, she was sweet, very close to her family and very good with children. She was good at what she did, and dedicated to the cause for the tradition rather than any real love of what she did; her father and his father and his father had all worked for the Corporation, so she felt the need to carry on with it, especially given Arc's inability to work and Luc's non-Corporation job. She had a strong dislike for leaving her home-- whether it be the city or her housing--, and rarely did so. She was also basically incapable of completely opening up to most strangers, which resulted in her failed marriage. She always had a sense that people near her would only end up hurt, so she simply limited the number of people she allowed. It's easier to care for a smaller quantity.

On good days, Kanan could be exceptionally social and charming, and she had a good reputation around the office for being someone who could always be talked to, and who knew her job well but didn't hold it above anyone else's head. She was always eager to teach her little tips and tricks, and often her apprentices would go on to become key workers in their particular Centers. But on bad days, she kept mostly to herself and while she was never impolite-- her father had taught her better-- she had a strong mindset of 'asking for help is weak'. She never got her issues looked at or dealt with, because she didn't want to admit she needed the help, and no one in her life (read: her brothers) encouraged it, because they grew up with the same values.

Any differences: Kay is considerably more social and open, and while she is still nervous-- growing up with only one mother who worked constantly and no father figure has made her somewhat hungry for attention, though she doesn't lash out for it but instead strives to achieve as much as she possibly can. Her mother's attitude of offering help to anyone who needed it, brought on by her deep Catholic faith, made her also more willing to seek help, and she spent some time in groups for people grieving the loss of a parent after her mother passed. She has no trouble reaching out for help. She's also a far sight more confident in her skills, because she worked very hard and understood that while hard work may not always pay off monetarily, it felt good to know that she was the best she could be. She's a happier person, and the hard work and core strength of her supports with friends and family have planted in her the seeds to be brave, though she still has to overcome her anxieties stemming from her mother's passing. Unlike Kanan, Kay doesn't consider herself the cause of the suffering of her loved ones, but rather the world; she will eventually be a defender, rather than someone who hides from things that are scary.


Abilities:
- Computer skills and an affinity for electronics in general.
- Item: NRG Bracelet
abilities from item: mild Ice magic (stronger than most of her peers, though still not very strong; used very rarely and only in defense), basic Healing magic (average strength, used uncommonly)


Roleplay Sample – Third Person:


Kay hated this job.

Well, to be more accurate, she hated drunks. She didn't mind the work so much; she'd applied for the job the moment she'd turned 21, because she heard waitresses made good tips and this was the only place that was hiring whose schedule wouldn't conflict with her other two jobs. She found out relatively quickly that the rumors should have been preceded with 'sometimes'; her average night saw her home with about sixty dollars in tips for the entire eight hours, though sometimes a bachelor party would come in and she'd find herself making that much for just that group. The pay wasn't the issue, nor was the management-- her boss was a gruff but kind man, and he always made sure she got home safely after work.

No, it was definitely the drunks. When she'd come back into the bar after the funeral, still puffy-eyed and slightly surly, the owner had taken one look at her and asked her in none-too-gentle of a voice why the hell she was still there. He made it clear that he hadn't expected her to come back-- and to be fair and honest, neither did she. But it was exactly that reason, she guessed, that she had come back-- she needed the money, yes, but more accurately, she needed to know that she had done right by a man who had been so concerned about her that he had gotten angry when she was back before he thought she was ready. She never did anything by halves; what was the point?

Her mother would have demanded, in her gentle but no-nonsense way, that Kay get over herself and go back to working and building up to the future she knew waited for her. You have to do a few things you don't like, to do the things you do, Kay thought, and picked up the phone for Mr. Keller, who needed a cab and had given her his keys earlier in the night. And sometimes you have to do the things that you can when you can't change the things you couldn't prevent.

Roleplay Sample - Network:



[via computer; she has yet to realize the more otherworldly properties of this network.]

Well, this isn't anything like anything I've worked with before. What is this, some kind of private program? Doesn't really explain those numbers any, but at least it's something I get. Sort of.

Though I could really have done without whatever was doing that thing with the numbers in my head at 6am. I had just fallen asleep. Anyway, can anyone explain to me what exactly is going on? Is it one of those... I don't know, subliminal things? I'm pretty sure those aren't exactly possible, but then again, I'm no psychologist. Just your average waitress-cum-IT worker with a Bachelor's. This economy, am I right? Anyway, I'd really appreciate it if someone would tell me what's up with this thing. Otherwise, it's just gonna annoy me all day.

Any Questions?