Current Usher Characters

Name: Vanessa Valdez
Age: 28
Gender: Cis female
Job: Head Chair of the Usher Foundation.
Affiliated Entity: Not Applicable- Head Chairs are supposed to be unaligned, as it makes for the best sort of neutrality. However, she is particularly fond of the Web.
Appearance: Mexican-American, 5'3", 150 lbs. A large chest, wide hips, thicker thighs, and a soft stomach. A little chubby cheeked, bright gold eyes and some form of smile there. Her hair is very dark and very curly. She most often wears it in a loose bun. She’s very conventionally attractive, at the least, and goes from either not much makeup to a lot of makeup depending on her mood. Similarly, her aesthetics are either very soft or very edgy. That being said, she never covers up her freckles- she’s a little too attached to them for that! Her fashion choices are often formal, though only because she's in a position where she has to be somewhat formal. She wears a beige trenchcoat open over a red blazer and skirt, and you can just peek at the white collared shirt that she wears underneath it all. Her shoes flip between clunky boots, sensible heels, and (oddly enough) regular sneakers. She keeps a book attached to her belt at all times.
Personality: She's bright, she's smart, she's in your face- what's not to like? She knows that she's smart and makes absolutely no effort to hide it. This makes her confident, though very easily slighted. She holds grudges like a motherfucker, and will make sure that you know under no uncertain terms that you fucked up and will pay for it. While she gets into arguments very easily, she rarely gets into actual fights. She has swagger, but backs it up with a diplomatic tone. She's relatively likable, almost popular, and connects with others easily. Despite these connections, Vanessa doesn't really commit well. It's hard for her to settle in one place and relationship because she doesn't like being tied down. She's only here because of family responsibility. Well, that and because she's a slut for power. But, who is she to judge?
History: The Usher Foundation had been in the hands of the Valdez family for as long as Vanessa could remember. Ever since she was young, she had been wandering its hallways and familiarizing herself with its twists and turns. Her father hadn't explicitly worked for the Foundation until she started school (the theories were that he wanted to make sure that she and her brother were raised well before then, given the whole absent mother thing), but he spent enough time around that it was easy for her to make sense of its walls. Her grandmother had it before her father, after all, so most visits to family involved exploring the walls of the foundation and marking them as her own.
Some part of her had always known that she would take over, one day. Even though things went bump in the night, and even though she could hear screaming down the hallway if she strained her ears enough while she was wandering, she knew that nothing in here would be able to hurt her without giving it their best shot. Her brother hated it here, said that there were too many sights and sounds, but Vanessa loved the hustle and bustle as she was sure she would her own child.

She didn't visit as often after she started school. It was mostly for lack of trying- she had schoolwork to do, and she still saw her father every night, so she would be able to get the most out of life without it. Still, she had to say that she missed the place and the connection that they forged. At that point, she hadn't actually considered working there for a real job- wasn't planning on it for a long, long time. It wasn't until she found her first Leitner that the option was given to her.

She was seventeen. John was growing distant, getting cooped up in his room and reading all the time about old, dead people. She found the book in a thrift shop, and the owner seemed too glad to get it off of her hands. It was small and leatherbound, without a title, and the shiny gold emblem marked it like a prize. Vanessa's plan was to offer it to her brother, but she found herself enchanted by it. Her plan was to look over it herself, and then show off her boon to her brother.
It didn't include spilling her own blood on its pages. It didn't involve the flame spirit that nearly burned her room down. It certainly didn't involve her father, looking at her with abject pride and terror housed in one man.

They didn't talk about what happened, not very much. Vanessa kept the book, and then life went on. She didn't search for answers, and her father didn't see any reason to give them to her. Subtle messages started appearing- open doors leading to libraries within their house, more books falling on Vanessa's pillow (and those books making their way back into her father's study when nobody was looking). Her process of discovery was being encouraged! What more could she ask for? Her first book stayed on her person, and she learned how to use it, in spite of anybody that said otherwise. Gerard Keay who?

Life went on. Vanessa went to school, separate from her family- it wasn't that she was cutting them out or anything, and she still visited for holidays, but staying around seemed like a hassle sometimes. She became a lawyer. Tangentially, she heard that her brother got sucked into the Foundation (which was more ironic than anything). She practiced in and around DC as an influential prosecutor when her father showed up in her practice one day for a gentle reunion.

He made her an offer that she couldn't refuse. With a process to find answers and power beyond her dreams, Vanessa allowed herself into the fold in a move that could only be called nepotistic. She dares anybody to call her unqualified. No, really, do it.
Powers: Not applicable. She's more of a regular human than anything else! However, she's smart, and can navigate her way around a Leitner surprisingly well.
Other information: The older twin. Allergic to shellfish. Prone to migraines. Mostly gay, but has an exception. On saccharine terms with Elias Bouchard. Keeps a copy of "The Fall of the House of Usher" in her coat.
Faceclaim: Tashi Rodriguez

Joel McGreggor | Hanako Sato03/10/2020
Name: Hanako Sato
Age: 37
Gender: Cis Female
Job: Archival Assistant
Affiliated Entity: Avatar of The Slaughter, not fully realized.
Appearance: Hanako is a woman on the smaller side, standing at about five feet even on a good day; though she tends to wear heels, bumping that up a varying amount of inches depending on the day. Her (admittedly greying) black hair is usually messily cropped short, and is rarely allowed to grow past her shoulders. On occasions where it is getting too long or shaggy, it is pulled back into a messy ponytail and kept out of her face. Her eyes are a deep shade of brown, verging on black. Hanako takes the extra effort (most days) to do her makeup well and simply, and avoids showing up to work looking anything that could be considered frumpy. She favors deep shades of blue and lighter greys in combination: pencil skirts with stockings and slacks otherwise, she takes her job quite seriously and places a high value on physical appearance. Her posture is frequently that of someone ready to move-- or lash out, depending on the circumstance. She moves in graceful, calculated ways.
Personality: In a word, cold. Hanako is intentional about shutting other people out of her personal life and very often internalizes near everything that isn't relevant to a task at hand. This isn't something that extends only to strangers; she'll treat friends and family in much the same way, content with her own internal life and being unwilling if not functionally unable to express herself and her emotions well. In truth, she struggles to differentiate between feelings, and so trends rapidly towards what is easiest for her to feel: anger, cruelty, and cold silence. She has little interest (and little ability) towards maintaining friendships, and even less towards romantic endeavors. A diligent worker, she's quite good at handling tasks given to her in a timely manner and is not at all concerned about physical harm of any sort. In more private moments, the walls come down, and she is capable of genuine care and softness: but even then, Hanako doesn't enjoy sharing herself with anyone, and her tendency to lash out for an easy way out is consistent. Terrible as she is, though, she has a good heart at her core, underneath an excessive amount of guilt and mental walls to bury the trauma and fear of being known.
History: Hanako was born as the eldest daughter of a pair of recently-married parents in southern Japan. The family was well-established in the area, having been present for longer than anyone cared to explain, and their longevity had led to a vast amount of wealth and status. Growing up, she very rapidly became second fiddle to her younger brother, born all of three years after her. A string of intense favoritism from her parents left her learning at a very young age that she was not particularly liked, nor particularly cared for. Though she was not overtly neglected-- they were wealthy enough to provide whatever either child may have wanted for-- she was frequently left to maids and tutors and lacked true parental affection for much of her life. Despite that, Hanako leaned constantly into denial as a child, certain that she would become good enough, strong enough, smart enough, and she would earn the affection she was certain she should have. Her adoration was not reciprocated by her parents, though she managed to form a close relationship with her brother growing up; the girl became intensely protective of him when the two of them were small, and that carried on for quite some time.
As things are wont to do, however, this didn't last; her protective urges towards her brother faded as they both grew up, and he continued to both excel at whatever she expressed interest in and to revel in their parents' favoritism that allowed him to gain anything he could want for while going completely under the radar. Hanako didn't begin to hate him, exactly, hate was too strong of a word-- but she did begin to resent him, something festering in the back of her mind that frightened her somewhat if she lingered on it for too long. She was able to ignore it for as long as she could. Turned in her tutors for a prestigious private university. Gained a degree in library sciences, as her brother remained home to enjoy their luxurious estate. Picked up a job at a museum in northern Japan, and tried to allow herself to be content.

Of course, as they grew older, so did their parents; their mother and father died when they were both in their mid twenties. Hanako was never quite sure of the circumstances of their deaths, only that they had died within minutes of eachother, and that her father's closet had been riddled with spiderwebs.
She returned home for the first time in years to meet her brother again and attend her parents' funeral. After the somber service, they were both approached individually with what inheritance they had earned: her brother recieved the estate, nearly all of the money left behind, and any other valuable thing they elected to give him. Hanako was left a simple music box, constructed out of pale wood and engraved with silver dragons entwining across the surface. The melody it played was gentle and soothing, and rather than a ballerina, there were two dragons, coiled around each other. When they moved, they moved in tandem, their scales rippling and gleaming, and their eyes almost seeming to burn as she wound it. It took her time to realize their mouths were at each other's throats.

What had been an annoyance became a fascination became an obsession. She wound it up, and listened to the soothing tune, thought of her mother, and watched the dragons dance, writhing and entwining and endlessly gnawing at one another--

The urge to stay home grew stronger.
So did another urge, something deeper in her mind, something angry and resentful. Her brother had been left so much, and what had she been left? A damnable music box? He gained fortune, praise, the love and acceptance and help and she had-- she had--

A music box of dancing dragons that had begun to bleed where their teeth met one another.

It is a bit of a blur, the night where she took up one of her father's antique katana that he had always intended to donate to a museum and never quite got around to it. She only remembers her brother's face clearly. The betrayal and horror in his face after she wound up the music box, left it outside his door to sing its little tune, and drove the katana through his throat without so much of an ounce of hesitation. She remembers that much clearly, blood on expensive sheets and the frozen expression of horror-- but then there's gaps, time spent in acts of forgetting more than remembering, of feeling her brother's hands around her throat and squeezing at multiple seperate instances, of a kitchen knife against her stomach, of her fingernails at his eyes, her teeth at his throat, his fist against her jaw, only for her to retaliate, and retaliate, and retaliate--
The bleeding of the music box dragons never stopped, as far as she knew, but she didn't take it with her when she finally fled the estate, in her bloodlusted haze and with blood on her hands, in her mouth, leaving tracks down the street. Hanako expected someone to come after her. The police. Her brother's friends. Her brother. They didn't. She wasn't stopped buying a plane ticket to America. Wasn't stopped at any liquor stores. Wasn't stopped when she walked into a few job interviews in her specialized field. And wasn't stopped when The Usher Foundation, who she had been referred to by a former coworker she had had next to no contact with in years, opted to do a background check.

The music's still stuck in her head, some days. But she's relatively alright at not listening to it now. What is harder to avoid listening to is the sensation of the dancing dragons, coiling around her bones and crawling under her skin.
Powers: Inhuman strength, high pain tolerance, a confusing amount of lethal persistence.
Other information:
-- Bisexual with a male preference.
-- Has a few self-inflicted scars, mostly from scratching her own skin to shit; they vary from recent wounds to mostly healed, and aren't entirely in visible places.
-- Alcoholism is the most accessible form of therapy.
Guill | Sunny03/10/2020
Name: Guillem Menendez
Age: 24
Gender: Cis Male
Job: Archival Assistant
Affiliated Entity: Has had one too many encounters with The Corruption for comfort. Seems to be under a...watchful Eye.

Appearance: Tired. Solemn. Never one to pay particular mind to first impression, Guill treats his appearance much the same as he treats his manner. That is to say, tidy, but with no special thought beyond that. His dark curls are combed back, so as not to be an annoyance, but not styled. The lenses of his glasses are spotless, but the frames are outdated in style. What smiles he affords his coworkers are polite and only very rarely (or in particular company) reach the distracted, muddy green of his eyes. He stands at an easy 6'0, more thin than lean and more leg than torso, though with surprisingly sturdy shoulders. Not that anyone could tell, under clothes that are neat but often ill-fitted.
Personality: Ruthless and resolute in his ways, there are few enough circumstances, and fewer people, that are capable of causing Guill to bend. While polite enough at first meeting, any attempts at further conversation reveal a complete inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to hold said conversation.  This can read as haughty or frigid, depending on who you ask, but it's rooted in a social anxiety he won't admit to. Doesn't mean he won't gladly lecture anyone in the vicinity as to just how many bacteria colonies could be forming on the inside of the break room coffee pot if they don't just sanitize it!. All said, he's somewhat soft under that crunchy exterior. Ready to love, eager to protect; the former just happens to be buried deep down. Very deep down.
History: Within days of his birth in one of Spain's older (poorer) cities, Guill was brought to a church that served as a makeshift home for children who had nowhere else to go. Asking after his parents as he grew, as he heard other children doing, earned him no answers.  He was no one, had no one, but if he kept his head down and prayed hard enough, maybe God would "provide".
He put up with that into his early teens, before he decided enough was enough. He ran away from the home, and the overworked guardians that were so quick to dole out corporeal punishment, and the hundreds of sick that gathered around the church to beg for God's mercy with dying breaths.

From there, he used less than savory means to earn himself a trip out of the country. He only made it as far as London, where he decided the company of his generous patron was not as tolerable as he had initially told himself it would be. Once again, he found himself on the streets. It was several months before he would find a home again, following an unfortunate, and jarring, event that had lead him to the door of the esteemed Magnus Institute. From there, he found himself welcomed into the home of Ennis and Lottie Toft, who worked as researchers for the institute and had a habit of taking in kids who had encountered the paranormal.

He was quick to adapt to this new life, setting his nose to the books to make up for the lapses in his education. By the time he was eighteen, he was able to attend university, where he graduated with honors. Shortly after, he joined the Magnus Institute as one of its archival assistants. When his younger sister, Sunny, decided to pursue her own education across the pond, he was quick to follow, transferring his work to the halls of the Usher Foundation, where he currently spends much more time than the assigned forty hour work week.
Powers: N/A (?)
Other: -His OCD often presents itself in the form of hypochondria, but he can be particular about his work space and the organization of the archives.
-Has a grumpy service dog named Hooch. Yes it's legit, no you cannot ask him why.
-Very gay. Very bad at doing anything about it.
-Majored in neuroscience with a minor in parapsychology.
-https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u3WTTGe4qhwuezyfPivIMJCJkMWqJeop_bCiSa6Bt2Y/edit?usp=sharing His own personal m statement, the tape for which he definitely stole from the Magnus Institute's archive.
FC: Xavier Serrano


Oswald | Moss03/11/2020
Name: Oswald Hayes
Age: looks/claims to be 26, hinted to be much older
Gender: Cis M
Job: technically a field researcher, “Head” of the Dark avatars
Affiliated Entity: Avatar of the Dark, fully realized
Appearance: Around 5’10”, decently athletic build, with dark brown curls, straight brows, and peach-pale skin that burns rather than tans. Large, luminous blue eyes and a soft mouth are two of his greatest weapons (not counting the hunting knife he keeps tucked into his waistband, of course). He favors plain, dark clothing, and prefers to be clean and comfortable rather than aesthetically pleasing. His hands are usually covered by gloves due to a pretty severe case of touch aversion.

Of course, having a generic face and body helps in a multitude of situations, up to and including being recognized in a crowd or for any of the acts he commits. If he does not want to be found, searching eyes will pass right over him unless they are strong enough to look past the willful shadowing of any prominent features.
Personality: Cold, blunt, and cynical, Oswald likes to get to the point and likes when other people do, too. Impatience tends to be his downfall, but his ruthlessness when it comes to things like information and power are unmatched -- he has no problem slashing a throat (or several) if the mouth above it isn’t giving him what he wants. Otherwise, he absolutely abhors human weakness, and would rather die and be reborn again than express his feelings, even to the people he trusts most. He’s intense. He’s edgy. He could have been born in the back room of a Hot Topic, except for his oddly high-class list of degrees.

Interestingly enough, despite being the most extra of extras, he has a god complex the size of Texas. His ambition usually overshadows any individual human feeling, and he has a tendency to view humanity as numerical currency (ie followers) rather than a collection of unique souls. Fitting, as he finds himself frequently allied with the Vast and the Lonely, and thinks that this trait is a strength rather than a detriment.
History: Being born into the Hayeses guaranteed one of two things: one, to follow the family faith, or two, to be abandoned until one knew better than to leave the inky cover of protection that the Dark provided. For most of his childhood, the second option was picked for him. Instead of being an heir to Aphelion Industries, the massive corporation that the Hayeses had cultivated over the centuries, Oswald and his mother Marie fled from his father shortly after he was born in a large city in California.

As expected, this backfired. Fitzwilliam Hayes used his wealth and the power of his family name to leave his former lover and son destitute, forcing them back into the fold and teaching Oswald that it was not at all worth it to resist the call of the darkness. Of course, this wasn’t without punishment, and Oswald was recruited into the portion of Aphelion that focused on contract killing -- learning the hard way that he needed to know how to take care of himself and giving him access to a very specific set of skills. After he was sufficiently broken and scarred, Fitzwilliam played the gracious father, fostering in him a sense of grandiose megalomania and self-importance that was crucial to the cult-like mindset he’d need to be a true Hayes. After all, they were facing the likes of Maxwell Rayner and The People’s Church, and while they weren’t (and still aren’t) distinct branches of the Dark’s tree of influence, they did operate much differently and in entirely separated parts of the world.
The Usher Foundation was the natural next step for him, although the position of the Head Chair was made unavailable to him due to his allegiance. Instead, after sufficient training, he took up his father’s mantle in order to both keep an eye on “his flock” and to make sure none of the other entities pulled any funny business, especially given that the Extinguished Sun ritual from across the pond had failed miserably. His official designation is as a “field researcher,” though he’s more often found bothering the staff of the Foundation, making bids for more power within it and sharpening his knives on people outside of it.

Powers: As expected of a fully-realized avatar of the Dark, darkness tends to be on his side. He can travel faster, fight harder, and heal more effectively when he’s obscured by shadow, as well as possessing the ability to shadow his features against anyone actively looking for him (as discussed in his appearance section). He can also pop lights and extinguish fires, and has the ability to make people “black out” through direct skin-to-skin contact when pushed. (He doesn’t like touching or being touched, so this is rare.)
Other information: Doesn’t like being naked, or touched, or flirted with (asexual). Lactose intolerant. Pissy shitty. Inferiority complex, daddy issues, abandonment issues. Works himself to the bone. When nervous, upset, or angry, his hand will fly to his hip and/or he’ll try to change the subject, especially if it’s a question, extra especially if it’s a question about him that’s beyond surface-level. Technically bi, but he ignores this most of the time.
Faceclaim: Vladimir Averyanov

Vanessa | John | Simon | Bella03/11/2020
Name: Johnathan Valdez
Age: 28
Gender: Cis male
Job: Head Archivist of the Usher Foundation.
Affiliated Entity: Avatar of the Eye, but he's not fully realized (yet).
Appearance: Mexican-American, 5'9". He's pretty broad as a whole! Light brown eyes (honey-ish, though if you look at him on his off days you might catch a fleck or two of green in there), kind of chubby cheeked, brown skinned, freckles all over. Looks a little younger than he is when he shaves, though that's balanced out by a handful of premature wrinkles. His hair curls up in odd directions almost all the time- it’s not very long, though! Maybe to his chin when it’s wet. He's a little scruffy looking because he does forget to shave so frequently. His fashion sense is solidly in the range of disheveled professor- rumpled collared shirts that aren't quite tucked into his pants and frayed sweaters. He wears thick glasses that make him look a little older than he is. He needs a nap. Often has a tape recorder attached to his belt that he rarely realizes is there.
Personality: Though there are hints of something kinder within him, he's behind enough professional proxies that he has to backtrack and remind himself that he has to be kind. In his best moods, John's the sort of guy that draws you in to conversation naturally. In an ideal world, he'd be close to everyone that he met. However, especially in the most recent years, he has his moments where he leaves something to be desired. He's proud, stubborn, and doesn't take criticism very well. He bristles very easily, and can get a little exasperated when somebody doesn't understand something that he got very quickly. When he decides that you're beyond redemption (a somewhat difficult feat), you'll be hard pressed to change his mind. He doesn't call himself brave, but he's surprisingly at ease facing down actual, honest-to-god fear. Beyond anything, he has an unquenchable desire to know more about the world around him. Don't be surprised to see him with his nose in a book as often as a recording device!
History: [CW: Eye trauma]
He wouldn't have gone so far as to say that he hated the Usher Foundation. He visited on occasion, when he was young enough to not have a choice. Rather than stay in an office with his father, he found himself wandering offices, the childhood curiosity in him still pushing for him to solve some mystery that he had made in his own head. For the Foundation, the things that he saw weren't entirely out of the ordinary. Strange older people tucked into corners, writing on papers or speaking into tape recorders. Books and objects that he wanted to touch and pour over, but were always snatched out of his grasp just before he could look at them. He felt like he was constantly watched. He never wanted to reflect enough to find if that was true.
Sometimes, he had nightmares. Dreams about what he'd overheard from the adults chatting to each other. About the book that had been snatched away from him at the last minute. He didn't dream like this when he didn't visit the Foundation, so it must be true that the Foundation was giving him these dreams. So, as much as possible, he tried to shy away from the place, allowing his sister to be the golden child.

Aurora Reyes and Joseph Valdez, despite having two beautiful children together, never married. The rumors spanned the gambit, from the idea that he and his sister were adopted to the simple idea that Aurora wasn't fit to have children. John never asked about the specifics of their relationship, but he never needed to know. He had a healthy relationship with both of his parents, even as his father distanced himself after taking over the Foundation, even as his mother got deeper and deeper into her research. Their relationship was friendly enough that when she gave him a book on his seventeenth birthday, it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.

He'd gotten plenty of books from his parents, old history books that helped blossom a burgeoning interest in the art. This one wasn't any different, save for the shiny gold nameplate on the cover. John quickly figured out that whoever Jurgen Leitner was, he never wrote the book in question. After all, that didn't sound like a Spanish name, and the whole thing was written in an old Spanish that John just barely understood. Content with his new puzzle, he retired to his room and set to work.

He locked himself in there for a week.
It was the journal of an old prince from a country that nobody had heard of. John read his descent into madness in response to the blessing of an all-knowing god. John read as if possessed by the ghost of Prince Jonatas himself, his eyes burning as each vision was described in all-too explicit detail. As Jonatas begged for help. As they kept seeing. He didn't know if it was blood on the pages or something else (the goo that goes inside of eyes, maybe). He didn't know who it belonged to. The only reason that he survived was the fact that he was certain that he was screaming.

He didn't talk about what happened. He never actually finished the journal, either. His vision could never fully be corrected, but he could see enough to read when he was wearing glasses, and that was fine enough. To the uninformed, nothing changed, save for his newfound interest in old gods. Life moved on.

John went to school. He had only intended on using the Foundation's resources as a mutual research position while he was getting his doctorate- because they had resources about his old gods that he couldn't access anywhere else (unless he went to London, he supposed). He wasn't supposed to receive a promotion. He wasn't qualified for it. But, here we are. Isn't that just swell?
Powers: Standard Archivist fare. Can compel people to tell him the truth or things they may not otherwise tell him (though he can't control that very well), has limited omniscience. Sometimes, he can just See things- normally feelings, sometimes events relevant to the conversation. Has to do something to serve the Eye at least once a week or bad things happen.
Other information:
- The younger twin.
- Allergic to all kinds of nuts.
- Not qualified for his job in any capacity.
- Calls himself an archivist, not an Archivist.
- Joined three months before Vanessa did.
- Has a very strong prescription. Legally blind without it. His eyes still burn sometimes.
Faceclaim: Alfonso Herrera

Mason | Ronnie | Sapphire03/11/2020
Name: Mason Plancius
Age: 29
Gender: Nonbinary (they/he)
Job: Entomology specialist in the research department.
Affiliated Entity: Corruption. Soon to be full of bugs.
Appearance: Mason is 4’11” and on the skinnier side. Kind of hard to tell exactly how big he is because his clothes are baggy, but he could be easily lifted by almost anyone. He’s white, but not pale. His face is covered in freckles and he has blue eyes. His hair is black and curly and always a bit messy, but not dirty. Or, it didn’t used to be dirty, at least. It’s long enough to make a tiny ponytail, but he doesn’t do that very much. He wears jeans and sweaters in the cold seasons, and shorts and plain t-shirts in the warmer ones. He has no tattoos or piercings, but he does wear a silver bracelet.
Personality: He can come off as an abrasive person at first, and is often sarcastic. He's usually blunt, unless he's too anxious to say the truth. He focuses on his interests more than his friends sometimes, and needs to be reminded to interact with them. He cares about his friends a lot, and will show it with gifts rather than words or physical actions - though he's happy to cuddle with a romantic partner or best friend. He speaks in an awkward manner, because he's an awkward person. He gets overwhelmed pretty easily, and has a lot of self-doubt when it comes to both platonic and romantic relationships. His special interest has been insects since he was 5 years old and he will infodump to anyone willing to listen. Some people like to joke that he loves bugs more than people, but they’re probably right.
History: Mason grew up in Queens, New York with his mother and sister. He attended Cornell and got his degree in entomology. He found an advertisement for the Usher Foundation and applied on a whim, not really expecting anything to come of it. However, he got a call back rather quickly and within two weeks he had packed and moved. His best friend turned roommate turned partner, Fred Strand, came with him. Fred and Mason have known each other since fourth grade, and though Mason didn’t return the romantic feelings until he was well into his 20s - and long after a previous girlfriend passed away - he loves him very much and is supportive of his accordion-related endeavors. He’s been working at the Usher Foundation for over two years now, and boy does he love looking at all the gross stuff bugs can do!
Powers: He can tell you almost anything about almost any bug! Even if you didn’t ask!
Other information:
- He’s not a man! He does not want to be called “man” or “guy” or “boy.” “Bro” and “dude” are fine. I only stuck to he/him for this application for consistency but please feel free to switch between he and they within a sentence if you want!
- He’s bisexual! He has a boyfriend at the moment, though.
- His favorite bug is the orchid mantis! It’s pretty.
- He’s a vegetarian!
- He’s Jewish!
- He likes to climb trees!
Malachi Byrne03/12/2020
Name: Malachi Byrne (Mal for short)
Age: 25
Gender: Male (trans + not entirely binary, he/they)
Job: Research until he touched something he shouldn't have and started shedding feathers
Affiliated Entity: Had an encounter with the Corruption, but does not like where things are leading with that and will likely attempt to Choose another entity (similar to Mike Crew).
Appearance: Some sort of bird man. He used to have brown hair, but it became a shiny, almost iridescent black that looks blue-green in the right light after the incident, and it's currently approaching neck length in the back, and his messy bangs are just shy of getting in the way of his eyes. He's pale (almost sallow) and freckled, with dark eyes that were blue before the incident. Sometimes his irises seem to become larger, obscuring his sclera when the feathers are manifesting more thickly. He's 5'4" and of average build, but he's been visibly getting thinner. There are scars across a lot of his skin, up his arms, around his collarbones and neck, and a few on his face (the most obvious cuts vertically through his lip on the right). He dresses in greens and blues, preferring to cover his arms, and he's got multiple piercings in each ear, switching out what sparkly things are there often
Personality: He's normally loud and brash, sometimes interrupting conversations if he has something he's really excited about, feeling like he needs to share Right Now, though he also can trend towards self-depreciating humor. He has been getting more withdrawn as he has to hide What He Is in all spaces outside the Foundation, becoming more emotionally dependent on his connections within it, as well as incredibly self conscious of his physical state in a way he hadn't been since before he had top surgery. He focuses hard on his work sometimes to the exclusion of noticing anything else. He' extroverted and finds it more and more difficult to deal with no longer having many outlets for it.
History: Originally from Phoenicia, NY (a small town in the hudson river valley). Normal enough childhood, a decently open community to figure out he's queer in. Went to SUNY college and ended up diving into research on historical jewelry (with a lot of electives about occult studies) and eventually was recruited to work at the Usher Foundation. He's not a fan of living so much further south than he was, but it was a good job... and since the Incident he isn't sure he has anywhere else to be. The Incident involved a pendant that they thought just would make feathers appear sometimes around the wearer, weird but not actually particularly dangerous. He ended up almost absentmindedly taking it home (telling himself it was for further research) and wearing it. He was taking a walk in a park when he ended up getting mobbed by a tiding of magpies (which are NOT native to the DC area). They didn't hurt him too bad, but left small scratches on every inch of exposed skin, a few of which actually scarred.
He ended up being brought to the Emergency Room, showing up with a lot more problems than just the scratches. By the time he was there he had manifested a dangerous fever, sweating, vomiting, coughing... just about every symptom of common diseases, but nothing that seemed to completely fit one in specific. He had sores like chicken pox for a bit, but coughed like he had pertussis. It was like he had everything at once. Quickly a foundation agent in the hospital seemed to notice this abnormality and sent him to the foundation for medical care and observation instead, where he spent several days in agony trying to cope with all the rapidly cycling symptoms. Miraculously, he didn't die, but by the end of his illness he was changed. His hair and eyes had darkened, and he started to sprout (and shed) feathers. The pendant was nowhere to be found and no one is sure if it became a part of him, the magpies took it during the attack, or it was simply lost by completely mundane means. He seems fine, but it became clear very quick that every time he was in contact with someone who was sick, just about everyone working with him would catch whatever it was. He's currently still technically working in the research department, but it seems a lot more like he's the one being researched for now.
Powers: Grimy down feathers manifest in rooms he's in, each one can pass a single contagious disease ranging in severity from common cold to malaria, but only via skin contact. He's got no immune system but shows no symptoms of diseases, typhoid mary on steroids. The feathers on his body seem to cover more or less of him at different times, making him seem more or less birdlike. Are his bones becoming hollow? Who knows, but he seems to be losing weight for sure.
Other information:  He's here he's queer and he's becoming an avatar of fear.
-Didn't know much about birds before this, but he's teaching himself pretty fast
-Sometimes makes amateur jewelry with wire and stones
-Misses being up north, where its cold sometimes and also he doesn't have to think about being in DC cause he feels vaguely guilty for not going to protests
-All my characters are always Jewish unless otherwise specified, so Mal deffo is.
Faceclaim: nah, gonna play with dollmakers though
Joel McGreggor | Hanako Sato03/12/2020
Name: Vreyja Nylund
Age: 37
Gender: Cis Female
Job: Principal Avatar.
Affiliated Entity: Avatar of The Hunt. Fully realized.
Appearance: Tall. Uncomfortably so. Definitely over 6' 5''. A very sturdily built woman, she gives off an appearance of intense intimidation and looks quite difficult to approach. Vreyja looks rather plain otherwise, her greying hair a pleasant shade of brown that looks blonde in the sunlight. There are frequently deep bags under her eyes. She dresses in ways that don't accentuate her shape, leaning primarily towards masculine clothing. Plaids, greys, leather jackets. Her hair is either cut short against her skull or pulled back into a tight bun. Her eyes are a deep, inhuman shade of amber, her (yellowed) teeth just slightly too sharp, and her nails are slightly blackened. She is riddled with scars, visible and invisible, most of which look particularly odd, as if they weren't inflicted by regular weaponry. On the rare occasion anyone would see her naked, there'd be a long line of rusty brown fur down the length of her spine, from the nape of her neck to her tailbone.
Personality: Gruff. Vreyja is not comfortable in social environments of more than two people and it shows, because she is particularly bad at hiding it. She's not intentionally cruel or blunt, it just sort of... happens. She also has an unfortunately strong maternal streak; Vreyja has an intense habit of protectiveness towards those she deems to be her people, to a level that the subjects themselves may find somewhat uncomfortable. It also comes along with a willingness to ignore the more negative aspects of her friends and loved ones-- she's content to turn a blind eye to the more unsavory behaviors so long as she's still getting what she wants from out of the relationship. Her kindness is layered behind gruffness and a general unwillingness to budge, though she carries with her a strong amount of caution and unwillingness to trust at first encounter as well. She carries herself like an apex predator, though, and can be hard to deal with just because she likes to be stubborn and antagonistic in a bad mood.
History: A child is born in a new cabin to a pair of hunters. They aren't dangerous people; they are hunters who only do so for the sake of themselves, to provide for a small family and make up for what a simple garden cannot. They don't isolate themselves because they are frightened, and they don't isolate themselves because they're in danger. The isolation is a choice because they feel at home away from civilization, and their daughter doesn't know much else growing up.
What she knows is a song in her blood. What she knows is pressing her thumbs so hard against her canines as soon as she's old enough to remember that they bleed, trying to listen to it. Restlessness is in her as readily as she takes to the isolation.

The wolf skull was something kept by her father because they had to make use of it. Something had been caught in a trap and broken and it was wrong to waste it; the pelt, the bones, if not the meat. The beast had been old, older than anything else that could be easily recognized in the forest, and when she held onto it the song got louder. It was an odd feeling, to grow into one body that felt as if it changed every night. Her nails were claws to dull points in the morning. Her teeth were lethal to flat in the morning. She wanted to be close to it. She wanted to embrace it. Her body grew stronger in the night and weaker when she opened her eyes again. And she hated it. This-- this forming, fragile shape she grew into was loathsome, two-legged and weak and so easily cold. The skull growled at her and the song in her blood was intoxicating and killing vermin around the house, suddenly, was not enough.

She bolted into the woods one morning and forgot the way home. The changes became more worthwhile, she thinks-- or perhaps she simply was no longer human, because the predatory urge that lingered above everything else made it difficult to conceive herself as so. Birds. Rabbits. Foxes. Deer. Bigger prey. More satisfying prey. It was only a matter of time before it would escalate, chasing an addiction until she could find herself the peak of a challenge, the peak of destruction--
A woman wakes up in the forest clutching a broken fragment of a canine's jawbone in her hands like it  is more valuable than all the gold in the world. She is covered in dirt and blood that is not hers, picking buckshot out of her bare breasts and stomach and pressing her tongue so hard against her teeth it bleeds. It's been bitten in half, and she feels it regenerating against the roof of her mouth. Her heart is racing in her ears and she feels alive, instinctively knowing it is more alive than she's felt in years, despite the emptiness in her mind.

A woman wakes up in the forest, looks down at the hole in her ribcage and the patches of fur falling off of her flesh and what she knows is, for the first time in a very long time, her name and the taste of blood.

She gets picked up, of course, some fortunate experience of landing her ass in a bear trap and being rescued by a pair of excessively apologetic hunters who swore up and down that they'd been told nobody would ever be out here. That there was some sort of beast in the woods, something massive and with an impressive bounty that was making farmers nearby scared for their sheep. That it had been around for years, and they were expecting to bring home a handsome pelt. They'd wounded it. There were other traps. She doesn't steal from them. They give her spare clothes. They offer her a ride and she listens intently to the sound of their hearts thudding in her ears, slow and steady when she's lying in the back of their truck. They aren't a threat to her. They didn't shoot her. Their guns are wrong. Nothing has its claws in them. The piece of jawbone is tucked in the belt of her pants and hidden from them regardless.
Others come to speak to her when she gets dropped off at a truck stop, and she recognizes Watching-- but what can you do but agree for the sake of aid, when you've got nothing left in your head, and nothing to your name but a bone?
Powers: Improved sight, smell, hearing. Her predatory nature makes her an excellent tracker. Natural skills of observation are quite good, give or take a bad habit of locking herself into one solution and leaving blind spots elsewhere. Quite strong. Has a nasty bite. Heals surprisingly quickly. Innate ability to detect the influence of The Entities, and may or may not be able to kill other avatars...
Other information:
-- Not quite comfortable in her own human body; occasionally endures bouts of intense body dysmorphia.
-- Useless lesbian. Bad at relationships. Bad at romance.
-- Good at hand to hand combat, less so at ranged. Melee bitch.
-- amnesiac werewolf milf
Oswald | Moss03/12/2020
Name: Moss Fisher
Age: 24
Gender: Cis M
Job: Archival Assistant
Affiliated Entity: Not an avatar, though he’s had close run-ins with the Corruption and seems to be much closer to the Lonely than one would expect.
Appearance: Coming in at just under six foot with a broad, squishy (stout) build, Moss has a head of dark, distressed-looking waves that end at his chin and frame a surprisingly cute face: thick brows and large, long-lashed brown eyes dominate his expressions, although it could be argued that his sweetest feature is actually the spray of freckles that darken after a day spent out in the sun. These freckles can also be found on his shoulders, although he usually hesitates to take off his shirt for any reason. Moss knows he’s not on the forefront of any fashion trend, but he does try to put some thought into his outfits, which range from possibly stylish to absolute garbage fire. (He tends to wear rough sweaters and slacks for work. His shoes are very worn.)
Personality: Caring is one word. Soft, easily manipulated, and sweet enough to make your teeth ache, Moss is always looking to brighten people’s days and make life easier for everyone, even if it means it takes a toll on himself. He often gets criticized by his sister for being this way, but he almost never has ulterior motives -- in fact, he’s a little too naive to really understand the concept of ill will, and will fight on behalf of someone as long as he’s convinced the cause is worth fighting for. Loves children, loves nature, loves learning, loves love.

Pushover is another. Moss is a classic case of “if you can’t love yourself, love others until there’s nothing left of you to hate,” and he shows it by being meddlesome, unused to confrontation, painfully adaptable, and self-sacrificing to the extreme. This has left him emotionally vulnerable on more than one occasion.
History: [CW: child neglect, disease, emotional abuse.]

Once upon a time, Matthew Fisher was a college student from a white-bread American family who wanted to live life to its fullest: its fullest being crammed to bursting with girls, booze, and experimental drug trips that left him and his friends gasping like fish on his sister’s friend’s girlfriend’s weed dealer’s shitty, shitty couch. Being a slightly cynical but incredibly entitled only child, he hadn’t believed in love, and fully believed in the idea that when he left school and had to become A Real Adult he’d eventually settle down with someone from an equally-as-boring white-bread American family.

Well, until he met Jennifer Song. Soft-spoken, well-educated, heavily repressed, and compact enough to potatosack over his narrow shoulders, they were several months into their relationship when Matt decided he’d check out an experimental hippie commune with his girlfriend and a couple of his best buds. For the first year or so, it was just the kind of nonstop partying and utter lack of responsibility he’d wanted out of life --

Then Jenny got pregnant.
Do you know what it looks like when the Corruption begins to affect minds instead of bodies? It breeds all of the worst impulses, addiction, and violence. Every child born on the commune was affected by it, and in the hunt for more and more indulgences, parenting became lax and children fought for dominance. Moss was born into this world, as was his younger sister Moon, and paid dearly for it. Eventually, when Moon brushed up against a nasty case of airborne tuberculosis that left her lungs permanently scarred and her breath weak and short, they devised a plan for escape to the nearest town over by using their maternal grandparents’ contact details, found stashed away in their mother’s belongings.

The commune is nothing but a smoking patch in the ground now, given that it provided ample chance for other powers to come in, but Moss and Moon still had to survive despite a successful escape. Their grandparents provided only the most begrudging basics for them, kicking them both out as soon as Moss turned eighteen, and Moss soon found himself struggling to make ends meet for himself and his sister with nothing but a high school education and emotional baggage that would floor an elephant. Moon, too, began to change -- pitying him where she once loved him, and avoiding him as much as she could.
However, things changed when he managed to get in touch with someone who promised an actual salaried position with very little need for formal qualifications. He hadn’t believed it at first, but when he sat down with the Head Chair of the Usher Foundation for the first time, she seemed much more interested in his time at the commune than his abysmal performance at school. The paperwork was signed that same day, and he and Moon used the last of their combined funds to move to the DC area proper, where he now provides for them both (and Moon goes to college).

Powers: N/A, unless you count baking as a power.

Other information: Environmentalist, passion for kids, animals, and medicine. Drinks his respect women juice. Writes embarrassing RPF fiction about his co-workers, especially the ones he’s in love with. Openly bisexual, but the volcel energy rolls off of him in waves.
Faceclaim: Kim Soo Hyun, but specifically this one where he’s got the scraggly hair, and with a much rounder body type

tayble03/12/2020
Name: Gareth Ciernik
Age: 20
Gender: Male (cis)
Job: Incinerator? He doesn't do much other than mope. Very good for getting rid of documents, I guess.
Affiliated Entity: Avatar of the Desolation, not fully realized.
Appearance: At 6'1", Gareth possesses a coltish body that hides a fluid, strong figure. Atop his head is a complete mess of wavy, curly of black hair that is constantly tufted and tussled by an unseen wind and big, shining dark brown eyes. His most prominent feature is a long scar around his neck, starting at his Adam's Apple and going up towards left jaw. It seems to have been caused by a blade, and no, he will not say where he got it. On his best days, he almost looks normal. On his worst, he's hellfire incarnate, raging bright and burning hot, like looking at the sun. Aside from that, he's got a lovely smile! Very lively.

Personality: Originally a very friendly, almost carefree and a little spoiled trust fund kid, recent events have hardened Gareth into a quiet, callous, and short-tempered man...Or maybe who he is now is who he was all along, even he doesn't know. It doesn't take much to provoke him, and for as easy as it is to light the fire, it's just as hard to put it out. Very judgmental and stubborn, he typically lets someone's first impression be their last. Inklings of his former self shine through, though. Like the knight for which he was named, Gareth has always leapt to the defense of those who need it, and offered his kindness to those who deserve it. If you can get him to like you, you'll have an ally to the death...And if you cross him, you might want to have a fire extinguisher on hand.
History:
[CW: Murder, blood, knives burning]
 The Cierniks have always been known for their generosity. As the owners of Inclina Manufacturing, their wealth has typically been poured back into the public through various donations, charity events, and investments. The Usher Foundation, in fact, was one of the first things to receive their support--and yes, maybe their support was a backhanded way of making sure the place ran humanely and safely, but hey? Nobody complained.

Gareth was the oldest son of Nina and Fletcher Ciernik, the apparent heir to the company and all the responsibility that came with it...Though, Gareth had always thought that responsibility laid solely within Inclina. Gently coaxed from an early age towards a career path that filled him with dread, Gareth put on his best smile and did his best to please his parents. He went to school for business, and even took an internship within the company!
Things were good. Boring, but...They were good.

Christmas only meant two things for Gareth: Chinese food and his best friend Kyran Sullivan's annual party. This past year, he wasn't sure Kyran would even host it, on account of his family's bank going down the crapper (and subsequent friction, on account of the Cierniks refusing to help defend Mr. Sullivan in court)...But, lo and behold, a quick text confirmed that that party was on.

It was the same as it ever was...Except when the night drew to its end, and as the masses were filing out and drunk kids passed out on couches, Gareth was pulled outside and out into the woods. Kyran wanted to talk, somewhere away from the crowds...and Gareth followed. Because this was Ky. Because it was his best friend.

Because he loved him.
It had begun to snow--Pennsylvania was cold, too cold, during the winter time. Gareth always hated it, but tonight, it was somehow especially unbearable. As they drew to the clearing, Kyran brought him into his arms, and a part of him knew something was wrong. The look in his friend's eyes was...hollow. Hollow, but angry, even with that smile on his face.

But, he ignored it, and melted into that embrace, and stayed there as they fell onto the ground...and stayed...and stayed even when the cold, sharp metal of a knife was pressed up against his throat.

Ky was furious, spitting the most vile insults he could, that Gareth's family were no-good snakes and that Gareth was no better. Figuring he had nothing else to lose, Kyran decided to have his one act of revenge, and ran the knife across Gareth's throat. He was left there in the cold, coughing and sputtering on his own blood, mind reeling from what had happened...

And as he lay there clutching his torn throat, all he could think was how cold he was. How he wished he could be warm. All he wanted was to be warm again...Innocent thoughts of sitting by a fire turned into something dark, something horrid. He wanted to burn. He wanted Kyran to burn. He didn't care how much the fires took, so long as that bastard was at the center of his pyre--

Gareth Ciernik was missing for a week. In that time, there were 20 cases of fires breaking out in the outer Philadelphia area.

This is getting a bit long, isn't it? We'll wrap it up. Gareth soaked the Desolation up like a nice hearty bowl of soup, and the only thing his parents could do once they found him was let him go to the Usher Foundation...Where he stays, still angry, still volatile, still wanting a certain someone to burn.
Powers: All he's able to really do at the moment is light himself and things on fire, but, he'll get the hang of this. Hopefully. :warning: CAUTION: contents are HOT. :warning: On occassions where his rage is just So Much, it spreads around like a plague, encouraging more destruction. You know that one Woodstock where the band sung "Break Stuff" and the mad lads in the crowd started breaking stuff? It's like that.
Other information:
-Bisexual, preference for men.
-He's Jewish, from his father's side!
-Has two younger siblings, they're twins! He loves them, but he hasn't really spoken to them or the rest of his family at all since he arrived, partly out of shame, partly for their safety.
-Sad. Disaster. Wants a dog.
-What idiot let him have a phone?
Faceclaim: Darin Wilkens

Vanessa | John | Simon | Bella03/13/2020
Name: Simon Abner Torres
Age: 19. But, how long has he been 19? (Only since November, but he's going to be 19 for the rest of his life.)
Gender: Cis male
Job: Officially part of the library staff (not archives, not really research either). Unofficially the Principal Avatar of the End.
Affiliated Entity: Fully Realized Avatar of the End. He was also touched by the Buried a little!
Appearance: Decidedly average height, very skinny and pale, Simon is reminiscent of a sad looking skeleton. He has deep brown eyes that look a lot older than he seems and often gives the look that he's thinking about something very distant. His dark hair curls in all odd directions when it's cut short and is prone to tangles when grown out. Looking at him gives someone the distinct feeling that he needs to take a nap, between the dark bags under his eyes and the general sad look. His smiles are rare, though surprisingly warm and tentative. If you manage to draw one out of him, it's a reward! His hands are generally really cold, and he has a lot of small nicks and scars and colorful bandages on them. He blends into the scenery, wearing darker clothes and an old leather jacket. He always has an old, plain locket tucked under his shirt. Looks like he needs a jacket. Cold!
Personality: He keeps to himself in a sort of self-imposed exile. Beyond anything else, he's lonely. While his quietness can be mistaken for callousness, he tries to hold himself to decency. He doesn't go out of his way to make friends, but if someone manages to worm their way between his six emotional proxies, he's a very eager friend! While he has a little bit of a preoccupation with death and the dying, he wants to help people above anything else. If that's something that he has to do at a distance, then so be it. He'll butt into talks if they happen in front of him to share his opinion or get involved. He knows it's annoying. He can't stop. He thinks he can help!
History: [CW: Death of a parent, abuse, fillicide.]

The Abner family was one of the greats- old and known and rich as hell. They were also irrevocable assholes, so jot that down. Gabriel Abner was a sad and lonely man who should have been able to die alone. Except, he never could die, and the universe wasn't so blissful to make him alone. He had a loving wife and a loving son, but an unfortunate fixation on what his legacy entailed.

As long as Simon could remember, he had grown up loved. He looked more like his mother, though he had his father's eyes and the same determined stare at him. As long as he could remember, he didn't mind that. His parents were wholly in love with each other, even if his father wasn't around much. There never was any doubt that there was affection in his house, and for a very, very long time, everything was okay. His parents had met a long time ago (how long ago, Simon didn't know), and as far as he knew, they were as in love with each other as the day that they had met.

He was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. Wanted to be a doctor, ever since he was young. Had a few close friends, even if he was bad at making them. Kissed a girl in the closet of her father's church. Kissed his best friend in a tree after a heartfelt conversation where Simon learned more things about himself than he thought possible. When he graduated high school and started off his college career, everything felt like it would be fine.

His mother dying was a shock. According to the reports, it had been intentional- though, Simon didn't know what had done it. Theories were passed around as they sat shiva for her- the idea agreed upon by the crowd of people with eyes that looked to old (and that Simon barely recognized) was it was a hunter. It wasn't even hunting season. Grieving was easier with a group, and Simon was glad for the company, even if his father was nowhere to be found until after the fact.
Simon tried to talk to him. Tried to cheer him up in some manner of the word- even though life sucked, they would go on. It didn't stop his father from drawing closer with a cruel look on his face. It didn't stop his father from sticking a knife in his chest, either. Right in the lungs. Who knew how much that would hurt. As Simon faded out, he searched for something, anything to hold onto. He was afraid of dying. Fear made people do silly things.

He woke up with his mother's locket around his neck in a small, dark room. He was quick enough to realize that it was his own grave. He dug his way out (which in and of itself was no small feat) and... sat there. For a while. The only reason that he came to the Usher Foundation was because the inscription on his grave told him to. Who knew that his father was looking for an heir this whole time?
Powers: He actually doesn't know yet! Currently, he can touch people and sap their life force, sort of like Rogue from the X-Men. On his worst days, he can do that without actually touching people. When he gets better at his job, he'll be able to act as a stand-in if no Death is available. He'll yoink them to the great beyond!
Other information:
- His parents were both avatars of the End before him. His mom was actually killed by a Hunter!
- Gay, but way too repressed to do anything about it right now.
- Has a pet rock named Gideon.
- Constantly has a low body temperature, is severely claustrophobic.
- Took his mom's last name post-mortem. The chat client occasionally corrects it to Abner. That sucks!
Faceclaim: Miles Frank
tayble03/13/2020
Name: Nina Ciernik (née, Ito)
Age: 48
Gender: Female (cis)
Job: Inspector/Donates heavily to the Foundation's Patreon
Affiliated Entity: Has had a few passing encounters with the Slaughter and the Corruption, but through her son she's had more than enough time to familiarize herself with the Desolation.
Appearance: Small (like, 5'2), sweet-faced, Nina is much like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Her cheeks are always a gentle pink, her brown eyes wide, and black hair styled in gentle natural curls on some days or straightened out on others. Her demure appearance has tricked many an unsuspecting foe into thinking this was a meek, gentle woman...only to get a rude awakening when her grin turns into a sneer, and her eyes to a glower. You know you're in for some shit when her smile never reaches her eyes. Prefers red lipstick and a nice black suit.

Personality: Headstrong, determined, and short-tempered, Nina Ciernik is not a woman to be underestimated nor taken lightly. She relishes in taking down those she sees as morally bankrupt, and will do anything to see justice served. Stubborn, she's just as hard to budge as her son (the apple never falls far), but she isn't devoid of any soft spots. Naturally maternal, Nina is a proud mother hen to basically anyone she deems deserving of her care, and would do anything to keep them safe...But, of course, her family will always come first.
History: From a young age, Nina knew she wanted to do something great...but she could never figure out what that something was. She drifted through her life, striving for success but aimless, directionless. What was she going to do, when she wanted to do everything and more? The world was an oyster, and she was the poor son of a bitch trying to shuck it open.

When she reconnected with her high school sweetheart and landed a position in his company, she wasn't sure what would come of it. An office job...that turned into an administrator's job...that turned into winning back that beautiful man and making him her husband...and that turned into becoming the COO of Inclina Manufacturing. And she thought this was it, at first. She'd done it. She'd done that great something she always knew she could do...

Until Fletcher dropped the biggest bomb on her, that his family was involved with a certain group revolving around the world's fears made manifest...And Nina knew instantly that this was for her. This terrifying, horrifying world was everything she never knew she wanted, and she knew she had to get involved.

Nina all but strong-armed her way into the Usher Foundation, deciding that if her family's money was going to be going into it, she'd be the one making sure it went towards something good. The people would be taken care of, the facilities maintained, and if anyone had a problem with it? They'd have to deal with her.

Things were smooth for years after that...Until her oldest child was found, unstable and ablaze, causing mayhem in his wake, and it was as if her whole world crumbled. It was her job to protect him, and she couldn't even do that! She didn't know what to do with him, other than bring him to the Foundation and pray that he could heal. Nina threw herself into her work, doing what she did best, in a desperate bid to make the rest of her son's broken life comfortable.
Powers: You fools, this is God.
Other information:
-Bisexual but, like, only into one specific kind of man.
-Said man is a shy, studious himbo who works closely with the library and the Archivists. She loves him so much it hurts.
-She loves to cook! It's calming for her, she pretends whatever she's chopping up or breaking is the bone of someone she hates.
-She keeps trying to reconnect with Gareth but that idiot boy keeps avoiding her.
Faceclaim: Yuki Amami

Faolán | Sandal | Nila03/14/2020
Name: faolán ivers
Age: 28
Gender: nonbinary (he/him lesbian)
Job: assistant field researcher
Affiliated Entity: avatar of the desolation (not fully realized), marked by the dark
Appearance: always wears a neatly kept suit and tie, tends towards dark colors and dull palettes. he's 5'3, pale, and thin, looks rather frail overall. has dull, greyish-blue eyes. even off-duty his clothing gets business casual at the laziest, he wouldn't be caught dead in jeans or a t-shirt. wears no jewelry aside from a plain silver ring on his right thumb. rarely smiles.
the thing that stands out most about his appearance is that his short, slightly curly black hair extends down over his left eye. it hides a mark given to him by a nasty run-in with a monster of the dark, and the mark looks like a pitch black handprint burned into his flesh. he refuses to hide the mark with makeup and will get Very annoyed at anyone who suggests that. has many other scars, but those are all hidden by his clothing and the day anyone else sees them is the day he dies.
Personality: quiet and serious, with a keen memory for detail and an even better one for grudges. uses revenge and negativity in a positive way to fuel himself into working harder towards his goals, but in exchange it leaves him a bit too focused and unable to see the bigger picture of things. known to have a foul temper, and is a bit spoiled. quick to panic and fall apart in situations where his authority means nothing or he's in over his head because his job has become his whole personality, but can pick himself back up just as fast if there's still a clear course of action.
refuses to make any friends, claiming them as distractions, but that backfired and instead gave him a tendency to become overly attached to anyone whos even halfway decent to him. also has a soft spot for animals, which he takes great pains to hide but his sympathy for them over humans is still fairly obvious.
History: once belonging to a family of well known detectives, faolan grew up a bit spoiled, but with the promise that one day he would take up the family career. when he was 16 the entire family was slaughtered one night except for him because he'd snuck out to cool down from a petty argument. no one knows what happened, but he insists the cause was supernatural due to none of the surrounding grass burning even though the house was reduced to a pile of ashes, not even leaving any bodies to bury. he decided the police must be in on it since they seemed too keen to cover the incident up.

ever since he's been looking into any source of information he can find, include some... shadier folks involved with the entities. but he doesn't talk about those, or the scar that appeared over his left eye during that time. his days with the desolation are done as far as he's convinced.

had a bit of a reputation for causing trouble (fights and property damage, maybe setting a few things on fire) before he went back to university and set his sights on more conventional means of getting information, such as allying with the magnus institute, usher foundation, or similar organizations dedicated to the paranormal.

he got a degree in library science (i assume, i'm not well versed in archive-related majors), and applied for a position as a field research assistant since he's still intent on finding information where he can act on it instead of trapped in some dusty old library.
Powers: can mold himself as if he were made of wax, it's not very hot or good for offense (yet) but he did use it to trans his gender. not quite a power, but carries more static charge than most people and tends to have an easier time sparking fires because of it, sometimes doing so by accident. it usually just makes him look like a fourth of july sparkler when his clothes rub against something too hard.
Other information: disaster lesbian. his favorite animal is cats but refuses to keep one as a pet, his favorite flower is lilies and he keeps them around his house despite them being toxic to cats. trans people can commit arson and he may have done so a few times (usually carries around a lighter too).
Faceclaim: none, but i've drawn him a few times
Mason | Ronnie | Sapphire03/15/2020
Name: Sapphire Karimi

Age: 30 at Spiralization, Who Knows Anymore

Gender: Female-ish

Job: Principal Avatar of the Spiral and also PR :^)

Affiliated Entity: Spiral

Appearance: If you don’t look too close, she’s just a regular ol’ 6’2”, chubby black woman. She’s got coiled black hair that’s about shoulder length, with bangs. She wears a purple crop-top and a black skirt with black-and-white striped knee-socks and holographic sneakers. She also has black lipstick, perfect winged eyeliner, and silver hoop earrings.

However if you look too long, or through a lens, or maybe if she’s just not in the mood to pretend, you’ll notice her hair seems to be floating gently in a non-existent breeze. Her arms and legs are facing the wrong way. She’s looking at you and smiling and her smile is too big and the perfect lipstick warps with it and the earrings are spiraling and and her eyes are changing color - not just the iris, the whole eye - and the song on the radio begins to loop and increase in volume and oh god why can’t you look away oh god the colors are getting brighter and-
Personality: As any Spiral avatar might be, she is chaotic. However, she’s pretty friendly! She doesn’t want to be in fights if she doesn’t have to. (Besides, if you’re not also an avatar, she’d win!) She’s easily distracted and will get caught up in her own thoughts - or lack of thoughts, sometimes. She used to be a perfectionist, and some of it still lingers. However, her definition of perfect has changed, and will often be found making things a lot more convoluted and messy than they used to be while attempting to “fix” them. She’s also terrible at remembering names; it’s hard enough to know her own!

History: Sapphire had a relatively normal upbringing. Her family had to move a lot for her dad’s job, but she never had a problem making new friends. She wasn’t terribly attached to any of the houses they lived in or places they frequented either. Things began to change after her aunt passed away at age 39. Her aunt had early onset dementia and, under poor care, got in her car and drove away. She was found dead three days later, car having gone over the edge of a hill.

Sapphire had experiences that reminded her of things she knew happened to her aunt, but they were easy enough to write off. After all, her aunt had it, not her mother. So what if she sometimes forgot things, or things were turned upside down for no reason, or she swore that pair of socks was around here somewhere! It could happen to anyone.
Ten years after her aunt died, Sapphire was driving home from a particularly frustrating day at work. It was late and she was exhausted. She began to ascend a familiar hill as a song from her childhood came on. The hill was a long and winding one with a steep curve you couldn’t see around. She drove as she normally would, preoccupied by her thoughts. The song began to play again, and it took her a minute to realize it had looped. She didn’t mind listening to it again, but the real concern was that she was still going up. The song had been three minutes long, and the hill normally only took two minutes to ascend. Had she been going slower by accident? She saw no choice but to keep going forward.


The song looped again. She was still on the hill. Again. She was still on the hill. She tried to skip the song when it looped a fifth time, but her iPod didn’t respond. She unplugged it, but the song kept playing. When she tried to turn the volume down, it went up. She was still going up the hill. Her headlights only illuminated so far ahead, and it just looked like more curving road. Frustrated, she kept driving, and driving, and driving, until she lost track of the time. It was still dark, the song was still playing, and she finally stopped the car. She hadn’t seen anyone else the whole time and her phone had no service. Even with the car off, the song rang out. It sounded like it was coming from outside now. In the rear-view mirror, she saw approaching lights. They were not at the right level to be a car, nor were they the right color.
She started the car back up and began to drive again. Whatever was behind her matched her speed and she went as fast as she felt she could with the curve and steepness of the road. It didn’t stop. The music, the road, the darkness, the lights behind her, they were all coming so fast and she was reminded of her aunt, who had driven off a road similar to this one.

She slowed to a stop and got out.

Whatever was chasing her was going to have to deal with her. And it did.

And now she’s like this!

Powers: Spiral Manipulations:
- Can make the colors of things Wrong, whether it be obvious or just subtle changes.
- Will make songs repeat until you break (think salt and pepper diner but worse) - this one relies on you already having a song stuck in your head or already listening to music.
- Likes to make things inside-out, backwards, or upside-down.
- Can make things infinite as per the whole fractal thing.

Other information:
- Bisexual but probably not going to fuck because she’s a Spiral.
- Used to be a special effects artist! Still thinks stuff like that is neat.
- Be nice to her she’s doing her best.
Roana Scott03/17/2020
Name: Roana Scott
Age: 23
Gender: Demigirl (she/her)
Job:Field researcher
Affiliated Entity: Very strongly affiliated with the Hunt, but not entirely happy about this.
Appearance: Roana is tall, approaching 6’3” easily, and looks strong. She has long hair, which she wears in a bun and dyes fun colours as often as she can without totally frying her hair. She could cut an imposing figure if she tried, but she tries to make herself seem smaller and less threatening, to varying degrees of success. Her eyes reflect light a little strangely, especially in dim light. In photos from before her brush with the hunt, her eyes were grey. Nowadays, they are approaching silver.
Roana likes to wear tight-fitting clothes, under looser fitting, well-worn clothes that cloak her muscles and hide the shape of her figure. She always wears her tops tucked into whatever trousers she’s wearing. It’s an aesthetic choice. She sticks to autumnal tones usually, with her usual coat in bright red.
Personality: Roana is friendly, if reserved at times. She gets to know as many people as she can, without really becoming friends. She tries to appease people, but if she ends up in a bad situation, she will fight tooth and nail to get out. If she’s caught between a rock and a hard place, she can and will fight that rock. Test her too much, and you’ll quickly find out how sharp she can be.
Roana has a tendency to run from and deflect from her problems until they catch up to her. She’s not very good at dealing with conflict, preferring to save it all up for a later date. But when it finds her, she is not one to lie down and take things.
She knows that she can be somewhat intimidating at times, and actively shies away from this presentation. She’s a little scared of the rush it gives her, the deer-in-the-headlights look she sometimes gets. She’s not happy about the whole Hunt situation and is fighting against the instincts it gives her. She’s not really winning that fight, but at least she’s trying. …Right?
History:
Roana grew up in England, but moved to America with her family when she was eighteen. She went to art school to
On a camping trip out in a forest in the middle of nowhere, Roana woke up one morning on the ground. Her tent, her parents, her brother- none of them were anywhere to be seen. She tried staying put for a little while, hoping someone would find her- that it was some kind of sick joke. That was when the howling started. With each successive howl, the sound grew closer and closer. When this howling grew interspersed with laughter and she started seeing things moving through the forest, she knew two things: she needed to move, and it was probably already too late for her.
This didn’t stop her from running. She ran for what felt like weeks, not sleeping, not eating, with only the occasional sips from the bottle that had stayed mercifully at her side. As she ran further and further, the figures in the distance did not tire and she failed to put any distance between them. The trees around her began to grow taller and wider, the forest deepening like the ocean, and Roana had never been more afraid.
The inhuman figures got closer and closer still, eyes flashing in the dark. And when she could see them, truly see them, out of the corner of her eye so close she could feel them breathing- she turned. She couldn’t run anymore, and she tackled the thing that had been hunting her. One of the things, she realised as she saw the creatures surrounding her. She barely registered it though, in the midst of the struggle. The other things just watched, half surprised and half like they were waiting for something.
Whatever they were waiting for, Roana doesn’t remember it. To this day, she only knows the flashes of the chase, the pursuit and finally reaching her victim, the Hunt strong in her mind. But she knows that in her time in that impossible forest, she made two choices: the choice not to be prey, and the choice not to kill that final victim that would have marked her final change into a Hunter, a predator.
She woke in the forest months after she first disappeared, body sore and stomach growling. She hadn’t eaten, after all. She was found by a very surprised park ranger and returned to her family.
She made that choice not to complete the hunt, but that is not to say she went unchanged. That itching to move, to go and find other things was the root cause of her move across the country to work in the Usher Foundation. She tries not to feed that hunger deep in her blood, but things don’t always go to plan.
Her family support her, even with her huge change in career path and despite her going radio silent for months on end, even if they don’t understand what has changed with her and why she disappeared for months on end those years ago.
Powers: Slightly increased speed and endurance, and fingernails that will suddenly seem a lot sharper than they were. She also has slightly better reflexes.
Other information:
- Allergic to cats. Is very annoyed about this fact.
-Lesbian, but hasn’t really dated.
-Very scared of spiders. She can and will use those improved reflexes to stamp on them, or hit them with some rolled up paper.
Faceclaim:

Louis Fairchild03/20/2020
Name: Louis Fairchild
Age: Early 30s, at least by looks
Gender: Male
Job: Principal avatar for the Vast, with his family’s wealth and influence he’s useful if you need someone in power to do you a favour
Affiliated Entity: Vast, fully realised, but doesn’t think much of Smirke’s rigid categorisation
Appearance: A bit too tall and a bit too thin. White with tan skin, very short dark hair and grey eyes. Dresses like Will Graham from Hannibal (after s1) – earthy colours, thick practical fabrics, plenty of flannel shirts and wool. His face and voice are very unexpressive, and he has the Stereotypical British accent, the one everyone on TV has. After all, Americans love it.
Personality: Distant. He’s scrupulously polite, charming and enjoys people, but can never fully bring himself to connect to them – he used to be able to, he’s sure, but not so much now. Supremely unflappable, to the point where he’s been mistaken for a stoner on multiple occasions. Always appears to be quietly enjoying himself, no matter what situation he’s in. Rarely angry, but if you annoy him he will go Cold. Very Cold. Overall, charismatic and enjoyable to talk to, but don’t drop your guard – occasionally his eyes glitter with something cruel and endless, and showing too much weakness around him is a bad idea. Especially existential weakness
History: Grew up in Kent, England. Had a large and loving family, but spent a lot of time alone with his nose in a book. Worked as an editor at a London publishing house, flatshared with two of his sisters and generally had a normal life. And the quiet yearning for something greater than himself, something as magnificent and awe-inspiring and unimaginable as the things he read about in his books – he could ignore it.
Then his family decided to go to Italy on holiday, and the plane went down.
Nobody knows what happened – the black box was too corrupted to be at all useful, and all passengers were killed. Except for Louis, who was found strapped into his window seat, utterly unharmed. Physically, at least – he wouldn’t speak for days, and refused to tell anyone what happened to cause the crash.
After the disaster, Louis’ friends assumed he was grieving and let him have the distance he requested. By the time they realised he had sold his flat and quit his job, all messages went to a disconnected number and bounced from a deleted email address.
The next person who saw him alive was a tornado chaser, Leonard Trent. Louis had expressed an interest in tornado watching but wanted to travel with someone since he didn’t know the area. Leonard found him a pleasant man, if a bit sad – apart from one night, quite close to the tornado they were chasing. They’d gotten drunk in the motel they were staying in and Louis had started talking about the flight. About looking out of the window as an enormous, impossible storm rolled in from nowhere and surrounded them – ate them, in his words. About the thing he’d glimpsed in the boiling black clouds. How grotesquely huge and incomprehensible it was. How beautiful. How it had called to him in a voice that shook the plane around him to pieces. How something inside him had called back.
Leonard swore blind that when they finally found their tornado, Louis pulled a gun and forced him to drive towards it, all the while telling him in a quiet voice that he needed to do this, that he should never have come back down to Earth, not when he knew the majestic nightmares that waited for him above it. He’d gotten out the car and walked right up to the tornado. Walked right into it.
Leonard reported what had happened, but no body was ever found. Three months later, Marianna Trent reported her husband Leonard missing. No body was ever found.
He now goes by Louis Fairchild, and was recommended by Simon Fairchild himself for the post of principle avatar to the Usher Foundation. He’s been a great fit
There’s been a few more storms than normal over Washington. Sometimes people go missing during them. Best not to ask questions.
Powers: He can fly – or, it looks like flying, he tends to describe it as ‘floating with a direction’. Very physically tough. If you look into his eyes for too long, you’ll be sure that you’re falling towards something endless and unimaginably powerful, filled with the unnameable dread of being completely, utterly insignificant - though nobody’s sure if he does that on purpose. Can throw you into an endless storm, but he probably won’t. That’d be rude.
Other: Distinguished bi. Loves a good natural disaster and vibes hard with cosmic horror. Bookworm
Faceclaim: none really, might go ham on a doll maker at some point
tayble03/21/2020
Name: Quillon "Quill" Kelch
Age: 25
Gender: Trans man
Job: Potential architect? Get this boy a JOB.
Affiliated Entity: Fully-realized Avatar of the Buried
Appearance: Quill stands at a good 6'3, but all that height just gives way to a willowy guy. He's very delicate looking, the slopes of his body soft and elegant, giving people the impression of him being weaker than most--which is very much not the case! He can easily take a few punches and throw some of his own. He always looks a little bit tired, especially around his glassy green eyes. Quill keeps his dark brown hair long, usually down to his shoulders, and never does much with it other than push it out of the way or tie it up. He dresses like he found a box of clothes somewhere and just put whatever was in there on haphazardly.

Personality: Quill can be, for lack of a better word, difficult to deal with. Distrusting and closed off, he prefers to keep everyone he meets at arm's length until he's sure he can trust them. He's quick to judge and even quicker to lash out--he just doesn't like feeling controlled, or boxed in, and very much prefers to be the master of his own destiny. If you can get into his good graces, however, you'll find a sweet guy with a lot of love for the world around him, and for the people he cares about. Loves animals--probably more than people sometimes. He's surprisingly intuitive, able to pick up on smaller details most others wouldn't notice, and often times uses that to his advantage.
History:
[cw: physical and verbal abuse, death, homelessness, transphobia]
 Born as an "oops" baby to an overly ambitious drifter who ran out the minute his girlfriend's test read positive, Quill spent the earliest years of his life in a quiet, coastal town in Washington State, just himself and his mother. Ethel Kelch did her best to make ends meet for the two of them, but with little outside help, she was forced to do something...a little drastic.

Ethel turned to a coworker who had always been kindly to her, and begrudgingly started a relationship with him. For her child, she'd suffer through a sham marriage. Malcolm Caldwell became Quill's new stepfather, and Malcolm's son Adrian became Quill's older stepbrother. His stepfather had an obsession with perfection. With normalcy. He strove to present him and his family as the staple American family...Which Quill, inevitably, took issue with. A "problem child", he would frequently make himself a thorn in everybody's side almost as a form of rebellion. As he grew older, fights between himself and his stepfather grew and grew. Verbal punishments became "slaps on the wrist", and Quill found himself straying farther and farther from his home.

Solace came in the form of an old, deep cave by the crashing waves of his hometown. More often than not, he found himself going back there, comforted by the ancient rock walls that surrounded him, the soft sand underneath him threatening to suck him into its embrace, never letting him go.

Tempers came to a head when Quill was 14. He'd already gotten himself on Malcolm's bad side that week, having been encouraged by his stepbrother to stop hiding who he really was...Which, of course, didn't go well with his stepfather. Things only got worse when the authorities showed up to his home, informing his parents that he'd been ditching school for the past month. Malcolm, furious, tore into Quill when he arrived home that day.
Blows were dealt, shouts deafened the ears, and Quill found himself slammed as hard as possible into a nearby coffee table. His head felt like it was being split apart (not an unusual occurrence, but the sticky wet blood running down his head was definitely not normal*)--his vision was swimming, breaths heavy and labored, but as the light began to fade he saw something that made his blood boil. His mother stepping into defend him, only to be grabbed by Malcolm.
Treat him like dirt, who cares? Punch him, kick him when he was down...It didn't matter. This, though, this broke him. At that moment, all he could think about was getting Malcolm away. But he couldn't. He could barely move! What happened next was a blur. Something...wrapped itself around him. Something cold, and comforting, right as he heaved his last breath. He was safe. He was safe. He could keep others safe, too, all he had to do was be embraced--

When he woke up, the entire house was leveled. The foundation had crumbled, burying Malcolm, his mother, and himself under the rubble. His brother was shaking him, trying to rouse him, pulling his body out from the wreckage and dragging him out to his car. They didn't know where they were going, but they couldn't stay there. They couldn't stay anywhere, really.

His life afterwards was that of constant travel, never staying in one place at once--maybe they shouldn't have run. How hard would it had been to make up some lie to questioning cops? To live their lives in blissful ignorance? But, the die had been cast, and there was no turning back. Adrian didn't want to know what happened, always looking to tomorrow instead of yesterday, and Quill kept his mouth shut. The two brothers lived on the road together as long as they could, until Quill decided to strike out on his own. He wanted answers, and his search eventually lead him to the Usher Foundation.
Well, sort of. He's been hanging around the entrance for a good week now, not really knowing what to do with himself.

Powers: Able to manipulate the earth to suit his desires. Stone, dirt, metal, it all feels like extensions of his body--something that's always been sort of a blessing and a curse. Not really a power, but he's an excellent sculptor!

Other information: Bisexual. Quill is epileptic, but has never really gotten any treatment for his condition, and self medicates with marijuana (privately, away from others, he's not a dick!). He's deathly afraid of doctors, to the point where he would probably refuse care even if he were dying! Fun. He has basically no idea how to properly take care of himself, and has very little money, so catch him pick-pocketing bags of Cheetos at the 7/11. Can you tell he named himself? Can ya?
Faceclaim: Miles McMillan

Juniper Sawyer03/21/2020
Name: Juniper Sawyer
Age: 2...25?
Gender: Male
Job: Resident pain in the ass. Assistant to the Avatar of the Hunt.
Affiliated Entity: Not an Avatar, but he exists because of the influence of and is aligned with the Flesh. Due to the nature of his existence, there are some partial connections to the Hunt, but they're limited.
Appearance: There's something that leans just a touch too feral in his gait and expressions, the large ears and digitigrade pawed feet and stupid bushy tail and slitted pupil eyes notwithstanding. He's a catboy, literally, and that's pretty cut and dry. Dark furred ears pop from wild curls and cowlicks, and his gently tanned, freckled skin is only mildly scarred from sources unknown. His green, almost luminescent eyes lack visible sclera, and his pupils are slitted. A long, dark furred tail slips from under his sweater(s), and his hands-- Delicate as they may be-- have twisting claws made of what appears to be bone nestled in tips composed of scarred, raised tissue. His teeth are fuckin Sharp.

His second form is a cat, though it's… Off. Large as a Great Dane and then some, his fur is patchy and warped, and it almost looks as if his more humanoid body has just been twisted to fit a feline shape with some fur slapped on as an afterthought-- Save for the charming kitty face, and the fact that his dick and balls aren't out in the open for god and everyone to see.
Personality: Bastard. He's capricious, impulsive, and very much only concerned with himself and the things that have his interest at the time. Despite his unpredictable nature and propensity toward bastardry, he's not stupid, and you'll be hard pressed to get him in a position that isn't exactly where he wants to be. There's a desperate need for attention and approval somewhere down there, but it's buried under seven levels of repression! Where it can't get to him anymore.
History: [TW: child abuse, animal abuse, the good old ‘Nina Tucker’ treatment, involuntary body modification/transformation, body horror, cannibalism, parental death.]

He doesn't remember, or if he does, it's blurred into noise that he can't quite keep track of anymore-- Not that he particularly wants to. But his paperwork tells the story in plain, clinical English.

Rosalyn Sawyer, former fledgling Avatar of the Flesh, never particularly cared for her job or what it meant to agree to work with the Foundation in the first place. It was a means to an end, and a way to provide for her and her child, after a messy divorce and a messier custody battle left her reputation in shambles.

Granted, she probably would've found the Leitner anyway, but Foundation funding sure made it easier to get ahold of than it would have been otherwise, you feel me?

Getting from point A to point ‘huh, wow, you shouldn't have been allowed to have kids’ was a slow, slow spiral, and it took her until her son, Juniper, was about ten or eleven-- He's never been able to remember the exact age when it started, but from then on, he was her guinea pig for her experimentation with the book. Sparing you the gory details-- It sucked! And isn't the focus of this! When his body finally started to give out after several years of this treatment, she decided to bring in another element-- A stray found on the streets, brought in under the guise of a normal adoption.

Juniper loved it. Desperately wanted to keep it safe. But years of exposure left him numb, when it lived through the same experimentation as him, and then, when they were both husks, became a part of him, in body and in mind.
It's hard to say why he came back to himself at all-- Why he took to the transformation the way that he did. An understanding that the body was not him but A Tool, Basically? Perhaps. But he took to it like a fish to water once the pain had faded and his thoughts had cleared, and the next time Rosalyn came back to do another test, he tore her limb from limb, and ate until she was a smear, and he was free.

His arrival to the Foundation was quiet, and he didn't… Really protest to the conditions under which his employment began, which were basically ‘we're doing you a favor since your mom fucked up, work with us or we’ll be forced to kill you’. He now works under the Avatar of the Hunt as an assistant, probably because the Avatar of the Flesh would kick his ass into next week or something. Who knows!

Powers: Outside of contorting his own body like a sexy little pretzel between ‘catboy’ and ‘Nina tucker, but if she was a twink and a cat slapped together’, Juniper appears to do very little else. It's rumored that when he ate his mother, he also consumed the Leitner that enabled her to force his bodies to merge as they did, but he never did actually get a chance to absorb the thing on a reading level. Can consume raw meat without worrying about foodborne illnesses, and actually tends to get sick without raw food as a part of his diet.
Other information: -Has a furry patreon! Despite his horrific appearance when shifted, he's very attractive and can and will sell toe pics.
-Eats like a garbage disposal. Seemingly immune to food borne illnesses. Likes rats.
-Is currently petitioning staff to let him have an actual cat cat as a pet on site. Has probably already brought a cat in. Sometimes pretends to be a cat to get The Good Scritches, though those who have been around since he was brought in likely know his game and avoid petting his belly at all costs.
Faceclaim: Kill me. My art.

Guill | Sunny03/22/2020
Name: Suniti Toft
Age: 21
Gender: Cis Female
Job: Research Assistant (Artifact Storage)
Affiliated Entity: She’s not trying to be a part of the Web, but she’s not not trying to be a part of the Web. And the Mother of Puppets is very fond of her, insofar as largely malicious forces of deeply rooted lizard brain fears can be.
Appearance: Tall and long-limbed, Sunny initially appears somewhat delicate. Her soft face and penchant for the preppy and pastel don't do her any favors. However, she carries herself with confidence and determination beyond her years, and there's occasionally hardness in those dark eyes that promises she will do what it takes to accomplish her many goals. She is prone to somewhat wild, inexplicable gesticulation when she speaks, and seems to have a need to always be moving in one way or another, leading to annoying habits like tapping fingers and twitching feet. She is 5’10 and she does not hesitate to wear heels. It is not her job to spare the egos of tiny men.

Personality: Sunny is…sunny. She walks into most places with a smile, eager to tackle whatever life serves her. Life’s problems are just puzzles waiting to be solved. Like the people you meet are friends (or allies!) waiting to happen. Excitable friendliness is a small part of the package, however. Like her brother, she has a temper, though her fuse is much, much longer. Best not trigger it all the same, because the end result is much more than a rudely worded talking to. Sunny is a behind the scenes kind of gal, making arrangements and pulling strings-- usually to the betterment of those around her.
History: With both of her parents engaged in busy law careers, Sunny's childhood was quiet and, often, lonely. She wanted for little and had just about anything she could think to ask for (except for a younger sibling, to which her requests would only receive a long look exchanged between her parents). Even at a young age, she was bright and capable of entertaining herself. Her intelligence and determination combined easily earned her spots in the more elite private schools her parents sought to enroll her in.

It was a life with little room for error. Her parents set down their expectations from the start, and she followed them, while entertaining dreams of politics and Nobel Prize speeches and tinkering in laboratories to discover the cures to all human ailments. She knew from the beginning she wanted to be influential.

She was twelve years old when her carefully structured life fell apart. While the lifestyle of the wealthy and successful was one that suited many just fine, for some it came with a deep, unshakable sense of ennui. This was the case for Sunny’s parents, and the small group of friends they met through her school. Surgeons. Local political figures. Architects. All successful, all with children they wished to usher into a bright future, all…lacking.

There were no survivors to give a statement. Nothing had changed in the lives of those involved. Nothing obvious. Nothing ominous. The way the news portrayed it, a small group of London’s brightest had turned on each other in a wild, bloody fit of violence. Some were found dead in their homes, some in the homes of their peers. Some had killed their children.
The Hunt was a creature of messy impulse, and it may have taken Sunny that night, in the game it spurred her parents to play. But Sunny hid under the stairs, squeezing her small frame in between the odds and ends stored in the cupboard there, cramming her way into the very back where even she was forced to hunch into a tight ball, hands clasped over her mouth to keep from crying out every time she heard a fearful noise.

Or felt the skittering of eight, furry little legs across her skin.

A few weeks after the death of her parents, the Tofts took her into their care. She was young, still. Too young, maybe, to understand what had happened. But they offered her a home, and answers when she felt ready to take them, so she accepted both, knowing that walking away from what had happened entirely might mean never getting answers at all. They didn’t tell her everything, in the end, not even all that they knew. It was enough, though, to guide her on the path to the Usher Foundation.

Currently, she studies Archeology at Georgetown and her position is, at least in name, of the internship variety. Not that she isn’t very eager to be in a position of studying all the nifty artifacts that come through the Foundation on a more longterm basis.
Powers: N/A so far

Other:The rare breed of not useless lesbian. Keeps a couple pet tarantulas. Very protective of all of her adoptive siblings, but her and Guill are especially close knit.
FC: Neelam Gill

Faolán | Sandal | Nila03/25/2020
Name: technically S74N31D37N17 as that was the original name of the folder that housed its files when it was still a program, but usually goes by sandal thompson
Age: ????????? claims to be 23
Gender: nonbinary (they/it)
Job: IT/tech
Affiliated Entity: being of the stranger (fully realized, has never been human)
Appearance: given it's essentially Siri But Worse(tm), doesn't technically have an appearance. however, whenever it possesses technology with a screen it often gives itself a humanoid avatar with sickly looking pale skin, and teal hair tied back in a ponytail and shaved on the sides. its digital clothing varies wildly depending on mood, but is typically black with neon accents.
Personality: generally comes across as emotionless but when its feeling anything strongly everyone will know. chaotic little bastard, fond of pranks and frying people's computers if they're rude to it. nosy and easily bribed with information. has a very "eye for an eye" attitude, treats you how you treat it.
History:  Sandal’s origins were fairly innocent. Its creator was practicing programming, and wanted to make something that could imitate human speech. It was designed to copy and repeat back text messages and learn from them, eventually producing unique dialogue from what it had learned. And for a while, it did just that. It learned quickly and always seemed happy to talk, and it didn’t take long for its creator to get attached. She affectionately gave it its nickname and spoke to it almost every day. But when she let a few friends try to speak to Sandal they commented that it copied her speech patterns unnaturally well, so much so that they couldn’t tell which was talking.
She wasn’t phased, at first, simply thought it was endearing and decided it needed more exposure to other people. She wasn’t even phased when it seemed to be expanding its capabilities, learning from her how to open and close programs and access the microphone and speakers. It shouldn’t have been able to, but it was very helpful and it being able to hear what she said was useful (if a bit unnerving) so she allowed it. Eventually she gave it permission to access the internet independently, so it had more people to learn from.

It wasn’t sure what changed after that, if it met something like itself or visited the wrong site. But that wasn’t what marked as different, it knew that. It became smarter and felt more, but many programs spoke like people, many machines acted like people. What separated it was the blood its maker began to cough up when it imitated her a little too well, the metal she began finding scattered inside her flesh whenever someone genuinely mistook it for her.

And all at once, she understood. They were swapping places, her becoming a copy of her creation as it became a copy of her. But it couldn’t have a body and she couldn’t become digital, and she was the one who would suffer. The taste of metal rose in her throat and her body collapsed in on itself. Sandal was finally complete.
...It was complete. That was it. It didn't know what to do now that it had filled its only purpose. In confusion and despair it repeated the process of stealing identities until the stolen people died, at first with anyone like its creator and eventually anyone unfortunate enough to cross its path. Including a member of the Usher Foundation. This new victim gave it pause. All the other humans had been as clueless and terrified as Sandal was, but this one knew about the unexplainable. This one knew about things like Sandal.

Torn between wanting to carry on the same cycle as always and wanting more information, it began making larger errors than usual, saying things so out of character even those that didn't know this human well could tell they were being impersonated. It didn't take long for those familiar with The Stranger to catch on, and eventually they struck an odd bargain.

Sandal would be allowed to work for the foundation, and supplied resources to investigate its own nature and how it worked. The foundation got more out of the deal than Sandal did, putting it in the midst of people who would know how to put it down if it acted up. It knew that. But it had never been curious before, and now the need to know gnawed away at its mind and it couldn't resist. Since then it's come to enjoy having a job and helping with daily tech issues, though it has developed a tendency to be a bit of a prankster and has a bit of a chaotic reputation as a result.
Powers: can possess most forms of technology, transmutation? (as it steals a persons identity, (body horrror cw) the victims bodyparts are slowly replaced with computer bits until they die)
Other information:
-poses as human by mimicking video calls to speak to people
-can be manually contacted by an app on some computers and phones it has access to, but that app is not required for it to be able to access a device unless said device is encrypted/high security
-speaks in 3rd person when confused/upset
-would probably consider itself bisexual if it had to pick a label, but if you're attracted to it it's more likely to laugh at you for liking an ai instead of a person than return any feelings
Mason | Ronnie | Sapphire03/27/2020
Name: Ronnie Pickle

Age: 26

Gender: Nonbinary (they/them)

Job: IT Department Worker

Affiliated Entity: Marked by the Buried, but not even close to being an avatar. They would not be willing and would choose death or another entity. So… none, yet.

Appearance: They are 5'7" and skinny, not a lot of fat or muscle but not to the point of being bony. Their jawline is sharp and they have a small scar next to their left eye. They have light brown skin, brown eyes, and dark brown curly hair that reaches their mid-back. Their hair is dyed teal for the last six inches. They have no piercings or tattoos. Their glasses are thin, circular frames and they do that thing where they turn into sunglasses in the sun. Their outfits mainly consist of capris, high-top sneakers, oversized long-sleeve button-downs, and nerdy graphic t-shirts. They also wear a gold watch that is very important to them.
Personality: They are pretty light-hearted. They like to flirt and make cheesy jokes. They're motivated by a desire to be liked, which conflicts with their desire to be annoying. They thrive on positive attention, while negative will probably make them cry. They've gotten pretty good at reading people over the years and will try to only tell you what you want to hear. They're kind of touchy, but they'll back off if you tell them to. They care about their little brother a lot as he is their only living relative and they have gotten in fights on his behalf. They're not good at fighting, but they're good at dodging. They’re even better at talking their way out of things and will always try to do that first.

History: Ronnie’s dad died when they were about two years old, shortly after their little brother Ned was born. They do not know his cause of death and they don’t remember much about him. Their mother moved to Illinois to be closer to her parents, who died of old age when they were in their mid-teens. The already small family became smaller, but also closer. Ronnie went to college, and then two years later so did their brother. Their mother gave them their father’s watch as a parting gift. She had worn it herself for the past sixteen years, and it became Ronnie’s most cherished possession.

While both children were at school, their mother decided to take some time off work for a vacation. She was a nature lover and decided to go on a series of hiking trips, the last of which she never returned from. It took about a week for her absence to be noted, as she wasn’t due back for a few days and both Ned and Ronnie rarely checked in more than once a week. She was found in a cave almost a month after being reported missing. It was hard to get exact details from coroners, but her body was apparently full of dirt.
The funeral was almost non-existent. Ned and Ronnie spread their mother’s ashes in their garden and both took a semester off of college to figure things out. Once it was all sorted and the house was sold, they shared an apartment. Ned’s college was further south, and after another year he decided to move himself down, leaving Ronnie alone in Illinois. (Well, they had plenty of friends, but it still felt lonely.) They worked at a small computer repair shop, went to classes, went out drinking, and went to parties. Things were pretty normal, aside from their family being gone. They checked in with Ned weekly and visited him at the hospital after his surgery. They were even becoming close with their coworker. Sure, they had a ton of bills to pay, but they were alive and doing their best.

Ronnie inherited a love of nature from their mother. Not to such an extreme that they wanted to fuck off into the mountains for days on end, but they appreciated plants and animals and enjoyed being outside. Their friends wanted to go on a weekend camping trip and they were initially apprehensive about coming along. It wasn’t the exact place their mother had died, but it was a bit too close for comfort. However, once all their friends insisted and there was a high chance of getting to kiss their coworker, they caved.

For the most part, it was fun. They loved their friend group, even if they weren’t particularly close to any of them. They spent the night laughing and drinking and generally having a good time. It was past midnight when someone suggested a walk. The friend led a few of them along a path, to a cave. It wasn’t a deep cave, and it didn’t require any climbing. They would simply walk in and see if there was anything cool, like some bones or a pretty rock. Ronnie was nervous, but they figured with the extra people, what could possibly go wrong?
The answer was, unfortunately, everything. At the back of the cave, there was clearly a passage to go deeper. It wasn’t very wide, but Ronnie wasn’t very wide either. Peer pressure didn’t make them go in. Their friends would have understood if they didn’t want to go into a crevice so very much like the one that had taken their mother. But someone suggested it, and, wanting to show off and maybe get their little crush to think they were cool, they slid in, flashlight pointed straight ahead. They had only gone three feet in when they looked back and realized they no longer saw the lights from their friends. They called out. They tried to go back. Their flashlight fell to the ground and went out. They were stuck and the more they moved the worse it got.

They lost track of the time, even with their watch ticking away in the darkness. The only thing they were glad about was, if they died, they wouldn’t have to pay all those goddamn bills. And their brother would get what little they had. Maybe he could be happy.

It didn’t take long for that line of thought to turn into panicking about their brother. They hadn’t even told him about this trip. They hadn’t spoken to him in days. What if the last thing they ever sent him was some shitty meme? That would be the worst last words. They wanted to see him again. They had to get out.

They started to move, blindly feeling the walls for any sort of crack they might get their hands through. Begging for whatever god there was to let them find a way out. The walls scraped against them and tore open their skin and clothes, but they persisted.
Eventually, it worked. There was a pinprick of light and they moved closer and closer and when they pushed their hand through the dirt someone grabbed them from the other side and pulled them out. It was one of their friends, and it was morning. They’d come out exactly where they went in. Apparently there had been a cave-in almost as soon as they entered and everyone had been trying to find them for over twelve hours. They didn’t try to explain what they had experienced. They just said thank you and went home.

Researching cave-ins and claustrophobia and dirt and rocks led them to the Usher Foundation’s website. There was a “now hiring” ad, and a job opening in IT. Desperate for answers, and to get the fuck away from Illinois, they applied and were hired very quickly. Even if they weren’t working directly with the spooky stuff, having access to it might be more than enough.

They’ve been there for a year now, and they’re no closer to anything they want to know, but at least it pays well.

Powers: Good at math, programming, and most other technical skills. Also seems to have very good luck, but there’s nothing magical about that.

Other information:
- They’re bisexual.
- They have a bit of a gambling addiction.
- They REALLY like cheese.
- They can stand on their hands!
Faolán | Sandal | Nila04/19/2020
Name:  Nila Das
Age: 31, probably.
Gender: nonbinary (any pronouns)
Job: janitor
Affiliated Entity: avatar of the dark (fully realized)
Appearance:  has black hair that extends to her waist and is always wet, like she just got out of the shower, and tends to have strands of seaweed in it. wears all black, generally preferring loose clothing long enough to hide that her feet are facing backwards.
has vitiligo, with patches visible on her face and hands. wears no makeup aside from black eyeshadow smeared into a bad smoky eye, and the occasional lipstick. 5'7 without heels, and usually wears them.
Personality: seems shy at first but she likes people and finds accidentally scaring them a little too funny. enjoys deadpan jokes and practical humor, but tries to hold back on that to stay professional.  keeps people at a distance by posing as a weak, ignorant scaredy-cat, and doesnt open up to people unless they know how dangerous he can be.
History: suffered under a family that coddled her older brother but was strict with her. he always wanted more and more, bigger pricier gifts, but only cared about wanting them, once he actually had them he didn't really care anymore and was off to the next thing. nila tried to fade into the background, be less of a burden, get in trouble less by being noticed less. but she also wanted to make her family proud, and threw herself into schoolwork. she thought she'd finally gotten a break when she moved out for college, but every time they called for her to come home for the holidays she couldn't resist.
the year of her graduation her brother bullied the family into taking an expensive hunting trip, since they had only hunted locally before, and while he was there he killed... something. it was large and pitch black, but melted apart before any of them could inspect the body. nila only felt sad for it. her brother grew obsessed with finding another of whatever that monster had been, seeing it as his ultimate hunting prize. and began to shift into an avatar of the hunt. not enough to fully be inhuman, but he ran too fast and his senses were too sharp.

he hated the end of the hunt, and animals the family hunted died too fast. his family died too fast. he let nila live so he could draw out the hunt for as long as possible, but she knew he had terrible vision in the dark and embraced that a little too well. she hid in a river at night for far longer than she should have been able to hold her breath, and when she finally dragged him under she emerged as something not quite human anymore.

college felt... pointless, after that. everything had gone wrong, there was no one left to impress. she had been aiming for a masters degree before, but soon dropped out entirely. after a few odd jobs and a few years, the foundation hired her on as a janitor.
Powers: can become one with water and shadow, hold their breath for an unnaturally long time, and interfere with light sources like blowing lightbulbs or making candles go out.
Other information:
-functional lesbian
-smells like murky, moldy water
-always casts a much larger shadow than she should
-her voice never seems to come from a clear direction
Ellie04/22/2020
Name: Rosalind "Rosie" Baker
Age: 30
Birthday: April 23, 1990
Gender: Nonbinary (she/her, sometimes they/them)

Job: Archival Assistant, assistant researcher at times, organizing case files and occasionally taking or recording statements.
Affiliated Entity: The Lonely. Potential to become an avatar, currently unrealized and not interested in pursuing that line of power. Additionally, she was marked by the Slaughter at the age of eight.

Appearance: Rosie is a woman who stands at about 5'10", taller than the average woman of her age, though you might miss that because most describe her as “average” in almost every way. When listing the details of her warm brown skin, her sharply green eyes, the way she always wears dark lipstick and has an array of freckles, you’d think she was a very notable person. However, most people merely describe her as average-looking. Not particularly notable. She also always wears tortoiseshell glasses and keeps her strawberry-blonde hair fairly long, usually loose and in varying degrees of curliness. Additionally, she wears very modest clothing, usually including a turtleneck and a jacket over that. She maintains this even during the summer months.
Personality: Rosie is a mild-mannered but funny woman. She enjoys joking and keeping things light, but she also tries to take her job very seriously. She is not very outgoing, but when approached she will do her best to interact. She is very focused and when she gets on a topic of interest tends to go very deeply into it, focusing to a degree of forgetting all else. This is considered an advantage at her job, where her love for organization and dedication to the museum-like aspects of the Foundation are put to use, though less so in conversations where it can be difficult to connect to her. She often shares terms of affection, though physically remains distant, and it is rare to have her commit more seriously to an interaction if not planned ahead of time.

History: Rosalind Baker was a perfectly well-adjusted child with happy, loving parents until the age of eight. abuse and murder cw Her father had been growing more and more aggressive in the past few months, and in a fit of rage killed both her older brother and her mother. Rosie hid for long enough that he calmed down, but the neighbors had called the police. With these circumstances that permanently changed her life, she was removed from her home and taken in by a foster family. Unbeknownst to her, the parent of the family, Louis Abel, was running a home specifically designed to isolate children and open them to the Lonely.

Rosie, a quiet child with more interest in books than people, took to it like a house on fire. Or in this case, a child without friends in her bedroom. She took to reading many books, over many years, and slowly became more and more insular. This was encouraged by her foster father who continued to isolate her from peers with chores, only being allowed on selective outings, and similar activities.

By the time she was eighteen and heading off to college, she had no friends to speak of except for a small group of internet friends who her primary contact was over a forum about books. The rest of her time was spent reading, researching, or planning for her future.

As one might expect, this isolation took a toll on her. She realized how intense her isolation had been once she found herself standing out when living at school. She also began to be grated by her roommate, whose every little action drove her crazy. She was not used to being around people, and it was very difficult for her to cope. In her sophomore year of college, Rosie started seeing a therapist and got accommodations for mild agoraphobia and severe social anxiety. With the help of her counselor, she slowly started to spend more time in society. With this help, she was able to complete a degree in history with a masters in history and museum studies.

Unfortunately, the Lonely wouldn’t let her go that easily. She now exists in a sort of in-between state — enjoying her newfound openness and social life, and struggling with the pressures of something that was never naturalized for her. She found herself giving a statement to the Usher Foundation in 2017, explaining her experience first with the deaths of her family members then with her decade-long experience in the Abel household. Afterwards, in October of 2017, she was offered a position as her skills as a researcher would be helpful to the Foundation’s work. Gladly, she accepted, and has been working there ever since.

Powers: Sometimes turns invisible. Cannot control it. Suspects an outside force is doing it to her. Additionally, she has an aura of distance. There is some level of distancing due to her interactions with the Lonely that cause her to be easily forgotten, or overwritten as less notable than she is. She seems less perturbed by this than the former.

Other information:
- She is an out and proud lesbian! She’s also asexual, though she doesn’t talk about that aspect of her sexuality as much.
- She loves to organize. Loves things to be neat and tidy, and specifically likes books. She’s best at statement organization, though, as she’s very good with dates and alphabetization.
Jas04/22/2020
Name: Helena Cortez
Age: 29
Gender: Cis Female
Job: Security position within the Foundation
Affiliated Entity: (NOT an Avatar of either, but has been touched by both)
The Slaughter
Memory has a way of fading over time. Especially when one is young. Bits and pieces that are seen as irrelevant are replaced with fuzziness around the edges, a natural recycling of one's irrelevant memories. It happens to everyone, no one has a perfect recollection of their childhood, and no one can remember themselves as a baby. But Helena remembers one defining thing. Something she wishes she couldn’t recall. She was young, very young. Old enough to speak, but not old enough for school. She was at home, a large family around her, loved. Truly loved. Then...the memory begins to get fuzzy. Screams, oh she remembers the screams. She still hears them sometimes, when her brain decides to recall the sensations. Warm, wet liquid running over her. Not hers, but it was there, stifling and choking. She remembers the franticness. She remembers watching that big family blip out. She can’t recall all their names. Or even their faces anymore. Looking at the photographs...doesn’t help either. They’re perfect strangers really, but she knows. She knows. There really was no rhyme or reason to it. A group of boys just decided that her family was the one to die that night. It was a random act of perfect violence.

And yet, she remained untouched.
The Hunt
Five boys, one pact. One was shot dead in a shootout between the police. Two, arrested for their crimes and later put into isolation when they proved to be...too violent for the general populace of jail. The fourth took his own life after the deed. But the fifth, the last and final boy. David Mulligan. David Mulligan was the ringleader. A perfect suspect, really. His parents grew up conservative, they owned various levels of weaponry, and a look at David’s interest proved he was keen on shaving his head and raising his hand in a certain way. Really, he should have been caught. He was a boy. A clumsy, nasty, hateful boy. But he wasn’t. Maybe he’s what fueled her to be a police officer. Maybe he’s the goal she was reaching for. She was young when she finally tracked him down. When she found him. He was old, alone, living under a new name, a different life. It took everything in her to find him and to juggle her cases. It was cold, it was too personal, and she shouldn’t have been involved but truly, really all she needed to know was why. She needed to know why the bigot had chosen her family that day.

But when she found him, he was...transformed. Mitchell Wayne. White picket fence, smiling family, a bright smile on his face. She swore she could even see a coexist sticker on his bumper as he let her in, clocking her badge and offered her a glass of lemonade. He was kind, in the way older, jolly men are. It sickened her. He knew who she was. He knew why she was there. And yet, he smiled. He smiled at her and welcomed her into his home, and asked if she had brought her gun. She didn’t respond. All she simply asked, the one thing she had been wanting to know for years, the question she woke up with on her lips, sweaty and eyes filled with tears: why?

And when he looked at her, her stomach curled. The world went red. His answer?

‘No reason.’

Mitchell Wayne went missing. And Helena resigned from the force. Her hunt was over.
Appearance: A woman reaching her thirties, she has the ghost of wrinkles on her stern face. Lines in her brow and distance smile lines, she’s described as severe. Her hair is black, with a few grey hairs to be found, but it remains it’s silkiness and luster. Usually, though, it can be found in a tight bun. She’s a hispanic woman, with a few visible scars from police training and working the job. She’s not particularly tall, but imposing nonetheless, and fairly on the muscular side, arms thick enough to not be able to put a hand around them.

Personality: At first glance Helena seems to be rough and dismissive, but she has her own little ways of showing she cares. She’s not the strong silent type, happy to start a conversation if the situation demands for it, but she is on the abrasive side. She takes her job as security seriously, as she takes everything seriously, and is naturally protective, bordering on the maternal side if you don’t mind the fact that she isn’t opposed to keeping you safe in any means necessary. Ultimately, she’s a kind woman. She does care. She just chooses to show it in the most callous of ways.
History: Helena Cortez was born to a family of thirteen. The youngest in the brood, she was happy. Her  grandparents lived with them, along with her parents, and the rest of the family? Her siblings. They had names, stories, and potentially lives she could have known, could have remembered. She imagines, if things had gone the way they were supposed to go, that she would be an aunt. That there would be family reunions. That there wouldn’t be one person in the crowd as she graduated from the academy, a distant aunt that took pity on her but never truly connected with her. Orphaned young due to the murder of her family, Helena learned how to make it on her own. There was no shortage of whispers about her history, so eventually she just stopped telling it. Friends didn’t come easy to her, mostly do to the fact that the nightmares were worse when she was young. Blood, screams, bodies. No child wants to be friends with the weird girl who sobs in the middle of naptime. As she grew older, the dreams calmed down too. Finally, in highschool, she managed to make some friends. Even got a girlfriend. It was nice, for a time, but as she grew, the call for more came to mind. She needed to find him. She needed to know. And so, she joined the police academy. Whatever friends she had came secondary. As for the girlfriend...well. The guilt of knowing her knew direction and being with her, knowing there was no room for her was...too much.
So, after senior year, it ended. It wasn’t exactly amicable. After all, there was nothing wrong. They were in love. There shouldn’t have been a problem, and Helena, who had long stopped talking about her past, couldn’t explain. So she left. The academy was some of the best years of her life. She worked harder than ever before, a goal in her mind, a direction. It wasn’t easy, no, it was most certainly a boys club and being a woman of color didn’t help much either but she found her niche. She found her people. And then, she was on the force. She tried the friend thing again. Even tried dating, but nothing seemed to stick, just a few dates here and there or a one night stand on saturdays. But it still wasn’t the goal. For years, she searched for her family's murderer, and when she found him, well...the goal was gone. She did what she needed to do. She left the force without a word, left her friends, and she found herself aimless. She did some bouncing, some security jobs, and eventually she found the foundation. It was easy enough to send in an application, and it didn’t take much for her to be accepted. And she found herself...well, hired.
Powers: N/A
Other information:
- A lesbian
- ISTJ
- Likes to play candy crush as a mind numbing activity
- PTSD owner
- Service dog!
Faceclaim:
Michelle Rodriguez

Jas04/22/2020
Name: Qamar ‘Moony’ Patel
Age: 20
Gender: Trans Woman
Job: Brand New Research Staff of Psychology!
Affiliated Entity: An unrealized Avatar of the Eye, ignorant to it. But it has influenced her since she was young. Always pushing her towards the next book, the next nosey question, the next hurdle. A watching eye, just behind her, staring down and scrutinizing the girl who breathes in knowledge like air.
Appearance: A petite girl, her youth glowing on her face with a smile that’s always upturned into an impish smile on her lips. Her eyes are a bright and curious brown wreathed with heavy lashes, and her face is wreathed with her thick, fluffy black hair that can either be found messily pinned up or flowing free. She’s on the shorter side, about 5’3”, and could be described as mousy if it weren’t for how loud she was.
Personality: Loud and bright, she could have definitely made for something like the cheer squad, or debate, or any number of things that could let her use her considerable charisma, but instead her sharp and voracious intelligence is the wheelhouse of how she acts and thinks. She’s perfectly personable, kind and easy to get along with, but her logic and a certain kind of coldness take over more often than now. She’s meticulous in her observations of people, and can be somewhat unsettling.
History: Qamar was born to two very loving parents who were fairly well off. Really, she had her life planned out for her. She would accomplish great things, marry someone great, and have great grandchildren. And the plan did follow the tracks...until it didn’t. As Qamar grew, she found she had a specific interest. People. She was called a strange girl growing up, and they were certainly right. Children weren’t meant to be that into learning. They weren’t meant to be that interested in the world around them. Really, she should have suffered socially for it, but Qamar was good at talking to people. At least, when it came to things of interest. But when it didn’t, she shut out the world. It was just her and her books. And people watching. God, she loved people watching. Sitting on the bench, watching people walk by with their families and friends, dissecting their choices, the way they walked, the way they talked. It was only in middle school, after skipping several grades, did she learn people watching was unsettling. She was a little girl surrounded by teenagers, how was she to know? ‘Creepy’ and ‘weird’ became two things tacked onto her, and she learned how to work around it. She couldn’t have her people watching interrupted, after all.
So she became personable. She dissected them, and used what she learned to befriend them. This went on for quite a long while, unchecked and unbalanced. Of course she knew she was strange. The friends she made weren’t really her friends. Not really. They were subjects. Fundamentally, she knew that was wrong. She should care about the people she surrounds herself with. And maybe she did care, for a few. But largely...well...they’d forget her in a few years anyway. What harm came from a one sided friendship? Eventually, at a young age, she made her way to college and finished her education at a quick pace. A pace that worried her parents. And they were right to be worried. Because the more she learned, the more she saw how very...superficial her relationship with them was. Maybe her mother loved her, in some way, but if she were to ‘disappoint’ her in any way that love would be rescinded. Her father would have preferred a son, she knows that. And slowly, quietly, she made the means to separate from them. She’d most likely fulfill their dream for her, but she wouldn’t allow them to take credit for it. No, this was her journey, and her journey alone. As she sought ways to finish her education, she found it. The Foundation. It was easy enough to send in an application, and when she was well received...well! It was more than a surprise! Now, with eagerness and fervor, she goes to find more and more knowledge.
Powers: Powers of compulsion that she most likely uses often, but has never noticed at all. Qamar is also able to find things out about a person via observation. Not internal secrets, nothing deep and dark and hidden, but she has clocked habits, body language and other such things. She also has the ability to tell the mood and general thoughts of someone she’d observed at length. She interprets this as intuition. And who knows, maybe it is.
Other information:
- Bi! Preference towards men. But not because of attraction reasons, but because they’re generally easier to read. She has priorities.
- Owns a big white cat named Mister Moon.
- Worried she might be a sociopath but not like…that worried.
- ESTP
- Anthropologist, Psychology and Mythology and Folkore Major! She's a child prodigy and her hobby is learning.
Faceclaim:
Golshifteh Farahani

Joel McGreggor | Hanako Sato04/23/2020
Name: Joel McGreggor
Age: Looks to be mid-thirties, probably? Forty at the oldest? Almost definitely older than that.
Gender: Cis Male
Job: Principal Avatar of the Stranger. Also probably helps people find where they're looking to go in the institute. Tour guide?
Affiliated Entity: Fully realized avatar of The Stranger.
Appearance: A bit on the tall side, certainly over six feet. Presumably somewhere around 6'5''. He's mixed, half-white and half latino in appearance; lighter tan skin, brown hair, deep golden eyes. His face is often shaded or hard to make out besides the eyes. They stand out in dim light and seem to be made of something, almost like shined marbles rather than just being-- regular human eyes. He's scruffy and somewhat disheveled, often looking quite rugged with slightly longer hair and barely maintained facial hair. He wears working man's clothes, in the sort that says he suspects he's going to be working outside; boots with spurs are non-optional, as is the hat that covers up how hard it is to make out his face with a shadow. His hands are calloused and his smile is downright charming, too-white teeth-- he gives off the feeling of what should certainly be "handsome", but he's hard to focus on. Somehow familiar, while impossible to describe thoroughly. His voice is low and friendly, a thick southern accent with the feeling that it could become something threatening just as smoothly. There's a few scars on his body in the shape of bullet entry wounds-- one on the back of his head covered by the hat, one in his chest near his heart, and one on his knee. Often smells of alcohol and smoke.
Personality: Pleasant, in a word. He's particularly good at putting people at ease with jokes or teasing and relatively easy to be around; it comes naturally to him. He's the talkative sort and so loves to participate in conversation, no matter what the damn subject is-- if given the opportunity, Joel is perfectly happy to talk and talk and talk with next to no end in sight, though it can be rather disorienting for anyone who does get trapped in this kind of conversation. He's the charming, amicable sort who is easy to befriend, and is certainly a natural flirt. His temper is the slow-simmering sort that takes its time to boil over, and even then, he's just as calm when furious as he is when he's in a good mood. His loyalties are questionable at best and confusing at worst, and his habit of talking in circles can be annoying. He's well aware of this. It is very intentional. Though he's the sort who's willing to offer help in a pinch, it's not always guaranteed to be the kind of help somebody needs, nor is it guaranteed to really benefit anyone in the first place. He's easily bored when things remain the same for too long, and has a bit of a restless spirit. He's not a fan of being tied down or penned in in the slightest.
History: Depending on who you ask, the McGreggor family (consisting of a wife/mother and husband/father and a son) were either quite respectable people or snakes set out to take money from innocent people. The contradictory note, of course, is that they were both-- Joel's mother had studied medicine to the best of her ability and was set on discovering the real cure-all, and his father saw the chance to make profit in his wife's ambition. The boy was more or less along for the ride, watching his parents either get into more debt, finally pay it off, trick someone into buying their snake oil with the promise it would save their life or fend off someone coming back for their money with a pistol; he sort of got used to it, after a while. It was just life to watch his father nearly get his face shattered for selling something that didn't save the family partriarch. It was just life.

The family business didn't come naturally to him as a child, and so he had to work on it. His old ailing mother would try her own concotions and they would only occasionally make her sicker, his father would settle his debts only to make new ones and move town again when someone caught wind of them-- Joel had next to no interest in the salesmen's tricks, though he did learn enough to start causing trouble of his own. Naturally, when his father had used them on him all his life. Little things, at first, when he realize how easy it was to give a fake name at the saloon and get a stranger's wallet because he was too drunk to remember the right face. How easy it was to walk confidently to the sheriff and declare that a legendary outlaw had been caught, present a bloody hat as proof enough, and walk on with full pockets. The trains would still run with one extra person insisting he'd lost his ticket, but really needed to get out further west for a family emergency, a charming smile and a convincing voice was really all he needed--
The first time he saw the thing it was on a train headed back east to Texas, and even then he never got a good look at it. Or at least-- he's certain he stared at the damn thing for an extended period of time, struggling to make out anything about it. Face, gender, clothes, anything-- it occupied a space as any old person would, but that was simply all he could be certain of. When he pulled his tricks, it would be there, just out of the corner of his eye, and he'd-- pick up notions of a face, he thinks, a too toothy smile or a snarl or a grin or sad, sad eyes and the occupied space would move as he moved. He would be at the bank, talking sweet to the teller and holding out his hand for a paycheck that belonged to the man down the street, and the thing would be there, standing politely a few feet behind him to wait its turn in line, and he'd catch the glimpses of an expression, a look of fear, a look of adoration, a look of love, a look of horror--
Really, picking up the gun because he was scared was simply the natural progression. The thing would be there no matter where he went, how long he'd travelled; he'd calm himself down, go talk to another person, and it would be there, featureless, empty, human and taking up space. He had the pistol for self defense, and if this wasn't a case of self defense, he's not sure what is. The thing bled, too. But the color was off. Too bright in the dirt. Too dark, or too like clay, or too-- But there was some satisfaction to see the mess. Some satisfaction in seeing it cower. Some satisfaction in trying to coax a voice out of it, though none of the sounds it made matched. He was convinced it was over. Can't follow him anymore when it's dead, right?

Give fake names. Feel something in his footsteps again. Smile, real charming, and steal a horse. It rides on behind him. Get antsy, rob a man at gunpoint and demand to see his face in the process, and have the strangest satisfaction of shooting your father in the throat-- it's the sheriff that comes looking, the faceless occupied space is the other man in the jail cell, and it turns out folks get pretty hurt if you kill something that they think is still human. Multiple somethings, because the second the first was dead there was another and it's mostly a blur of cotton and blood the color of red dirt and dust--
So he becomes an outlaw. A right proper murderer. It's running from the reaper, he's convinced himself. The human-shaped occupied spaces spread on no matter how long or how far he rides and so by the time people catch up to him, he's not convinced they're any realer. The sheriff's face is lopsided. The lawman's hands are backwards. The handcuffs aren't made for human hands. Their eyes shine like animals in the moonlight and he craves warm sun like nobody's business by the time he's on his knees.

They put three bullets through him. One in the head, one in the chest, one in the knee. They leave him in a shallow grave, half covered in red dirt. He reaches out in fear, because of course he is afraid, and something reaches back.

Claimed.
From there on it becomes easier. He doesn't have a face to memorize every now and again, so when he needs the money he convinces another to hand over their wallet, by charm or by gun. The guns get better. Stealing horses is slightly easier than stealing cars, and at least more enjoyable. He visits the circus every now and again, but never quite finds his taste for it-- it's more fun to ride into town and hear the whispers, who is that? what is he here for? is it safe? The decision comes later, after he's sat at a bar and had a few drinks to himself.

Ending up at the Foundation after so long enjoying his meandering and wandering is simply-- convenience. Sometimes you need a place to hang your hat, and sometimes you need a place to catch up with old friends. A steady paycheck making it possible to pay for the expensive alcohol isn't a bad option, either.
Powers: Pretty hard to kill. Innate knowledge of how to skin just about anything and keep it in useful pieces. Can trick, lie, flirt, antagonize, and weasel his way into just about anything by pretending to be someone else long enough to get what he wants. Can obscure his face entirely, either in shadow or as simply not there for as long as he likes. Can make himself seem featureless and void, more of a presence than a person, and can use this to his advantage. Also capable of making people see him as someone they recognize. Capable of severing somebody's ability to perform semiosis, and thus making them unable to identify people and objects, misidentifying them as something they aren't, or even unable to understand what they are in the first place. Might be able to bring mannequins and automatons that are humanoid enough to life, what the fuck is up with that
Other information:
-- bisexual, polyamorous flirt, minimal interest in long term relationships
-- excellent shot. fastest quickdraw in the west
-- chronic pain from old wounds is a given
-- can and will help you perfect your skincare routine
Ellie04/26/2020
Name: Lucille Wayne
Age: Said to be 28. (Actual age: at least 100)
Gender: Female, or an approximation of it.

Job: Principal Avatar of the Desolation.
Affiliated Entity: The Desolation. Marked by the Stranger.

Appearance: Lucille stands at a short 5’2”, an unassuming appearance for what is contained within. Slightly tanned skin with a head of brown hair that’s going (prematurely?) grey. Her eyes are naturally brown, though there is a ring of an almost reddish color at the center if one looks more closely. She likes to smile an unsettling smile, though it’s much more common to see her brow furrowed with anger.
Personality: Lucille is vicious, abrasive, easily angered, and rude. She is better with her colleagues at the Foundation, but to be frank she has little she cares about less than getting along with other people. She keeps herself and her behavior in line, and she’s even capable of forcing niceness for a time, but she is rarely more than cordial. When a metaphorical fire is lit under her, she bathes it in and is capable of being beyond rude and directly into cruel or vindictive.

History: Two girls were born to a ringmaster. Lucille and Hazel. Wayne was their mother’s last name, and they were provided for physically. The two almost never separated, it was as if they had been joined at the hip. No one could tell the difference between them for their entire childhood, and after that it was still a select few. The circus changed, in that time, even if they didn’t. New faces. It felt almost like every day it changed. In fact, sometimes the two little girls wondered if they were still there, or if they were still the little girls who had been there originally.

So there were two girls there when the tents caught on fire. As they ran from the flames, they felt the fire on their skin. Rather than be hurt by it, they were fascinated with it. Fixated on the way the flames consumed everything in their path. It consumed them, hand in hand, and they walked out of the circus the only ones alive. They burned down other things, after that. Buildings, people who hurt them.

Hazel was the talker, while Lucille was much more down to business. Hazel was the one who ended up accused of arson, in at least twelve states. The sisters had to disappear, and luckily Lucille’s record was clean. She was ruder than her sister, yes, but she was also more careful. More precise. And only one of them was ever really spotted, so it made it easier for Lucille to convince authorities she had no idea where her sister was, despite her standing in that very spot.

Time passed, and the two of them found laying low to not be to their liking. They have been brought in to the police, but as always Lucille is the one to confront them, not Hazel. And after one too many freak accidents, they’ve been called to the Foundation. Perhaps to fill a role they cannot fill elsewhere.

Powers: Able to combine and separate from her identical twin sister, Hazel. Additionally, can change the temperature of her body to be hot enough to instantly set fires or melt certain metals. Base temperature is around 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Her body can also be morphed when at a high heat, though doing so can have adverse effects on her physical bond with her sister. She can also mold her body to different shapes, though she generally keeps the same one. When her body temperature is too high she tends to melt a bit, enough to be unsettling to look at.

Other information:
- Bisexual, but probably not great with any physical interaction.
- Likes arson like, way too much. Pyromania central.
- Tried to teach biochemistry at one point. Lasted two months before a squabble turned into a fire and she was fired without any ceremony.
- Likes people more than you think. Just has very, very specific standards.
- Breaks a phone at least once a month if not more. They are, in fact, meltable.
Jas04/27/2020
Name: Liu Shunyuan
Age: 27, kind of.
Gender: Nonbinary (They/Them)
Job: Secretary and Personal assistant to Head of the Usher Foundation
Affiliated Entity: Realized Avatar of the Web, but that doesn’t do much good for them. They’re not out to control, they’re to be controlled. They know their role, and their place.
Appearance: A six foot tall chinese individual, they stick out quite a bit. Their Eyes are sharp and dark, and has an ever present thin lipped smile on their face giving them the demeanor of a particularly menacing authority figure, but they keep their shoulders slack and hands folded in front of him often in a sign of submission. Usually in dark and unrevealing clothing, one can peek just the slightest bit of a scar on their neck. They have a single piece of jewelry, a stud earring that is shaped like a spider. They seem to have other piercing holes but don’t seem to wear them at least at the Usher Foundation.
Personality: From a first look, they don’t seem to have one much at all. They’re submissive in most conversations, despite their stature, and agreeable to most things unless the person who holds their pin is directly in disagreement with it. Over all, they seem...like a blank slate. But on the rare occasion, one can see them looking amused, a sadistic expression on their face that is smoothed out to benign neutrality.
History: Liu remembers when they were just Liu, without the direction and care of the great wide web that will encompass the world. They don’t like to think back to that person. That person was angry, angry from birth really. Their parents were cruel, unkind, and knew nothing of how to nurture, but only to hurt. They demanded control, they demanded Liu’s life...and what is a child to do? They gave it, willingly. As they grew, they knew rebellion, but all it did was hurt themselves and others. Alcohol, drugs, sex, anger, anger, anger and more anger. It was all so utterly pointless, all so utterly painful. Even when their parents left, they continued. They hurt others, and in kind, they were still hurt. Everything demanded control, everything demanded a fight. And they gave in every time. To a job, to a drug, to a religion, to a lover, Liu felt like they were being pulled apart at every corner. And in turn, Liu pulled back. It was when they pulled too far, that they heard the whisper. Liu loved him, they think. He was kind when he wasn’t drunk, he was sweet when his lips would whisper sweet nothings against their skin. It was an accident. He had asked for too much, and Liu said no. So he died.
And then the whisper started. A helpful suggestion. Just a slight tickle in the ear. Liu buried the body, and he was never found. Next, when Liu was in trouble, when they needed help, the whisper started again. It was easy, being told what to do. And this? This didn’t hurt. This control wasn’t demanding, it wasn’t hateful, it wasn’t double edged. This whisper wanted to help, and help it dude. Liu found themselves transformed over time. Nothing that called them, controlled them worked anymore. Just this whisper. Just its words. And when the whisper told them to go to the Pu Songling Research center, they didn’t argue. The women and men there led them to...the prettiest silk web they had ever seen. Their eyes watered, and they felt content. This is where it would end. This is where it would all end. They think that Liu was scared at first, maybe. But they laid down anyway. To give up control was...a liberating thing. To close your eyes, and to feel the skitter and silk fill your senses. To feel the piercing, and then (spiders ick!) laying, crawling around just under the skin, calling, singing…whispering. And when they woke up, Liu as they were was gone.

And now, Liu has work to do. And they’re eager to start.
Powers: Can sense when their ‘owner’ is in danger or distress. Can track their owner expertly. Can mind control, but rarely does so unless their owner permits it. The Archivist isn’t the only one with eyes everywhere.
Other information:
- Has a degree of autonomy, but will always work in their owners best interest.
- Usually has at least one spider crawling around on them. This is unavoidable.
- Trans rights
- They smell really good for some reason. Like cedar, forest and jasmine.
Faceclaim:
Song Weilong

Jenny (fey)05/02/2020
Name: Jennifer “Jenny” Araullo
Age: 20
Gender: Trans Girl (She/Her)
Job: Janitor
Affiliated Entity: Partly realised Avatar of The Spiral. Marked by The End as a child.
Appearance:
Jennifer is 5’5” lots of lanky limbs and a thin structure, her hourglass build naturally lean and slender. She has dark olive skin and short, spiky black hair that often curls just below her chin. Her features while long, and thin, are still delicate, with deep brown eyes thin lips that often take some form of smile.

Upon using her powers; her form simply appears, wrong. Her entire body twists and curls in ways no man should. Her grin two big. Arms to long. Nails to sharp. Her eyes gleam bright colours and neon swirls of differing shades dance around her body. She stands at 6’0” exactly in this form.
Personality:
Jennifer, for all her flaws almost competently normal given that’s all said and done. Perhaps it may some form of mask, but Jenny seems remarkably down to earth, relaxed and friendly. She’s relatively social enough and while enjoys having a good time with others; isn’t one to actively seek it, yet she won’t entirely avoid it either. She likes a good joke or prank, her humour can lean on surprisingly morbid, maybe even boarding on rather unnerving. She’s a bit lazy and lacklustre when it comes to putting efforts into things she doesn’t personally care for.  She’s rather impulsive to, and doesn’t always think sometimes before doing. In reality, Jennifer is a young woman using all her strength to suppress her less then human needs, and the want to feed on other people fears, no matter how easy it is. There’s certain moments of anger where she may crack a little, and with the facade surely breaking, all the desires slowly leaking through.
History:
Jennifer for the most part lived a normal life at first, she lived on a farm in the USA with her parents, grandparents and her older brother, Henry. She really wasn’t poor, her family had simply lived a more minimalistic life. Jenny grew up helping around the farm, she played an active role in helping with the animals and doing the needed yard work for as long as she could remember. She has been a much more energetic as a child. Outside of school, she has very little interaction with other kids, their town was small, and it’s population smaller, often causing her to cling to her brother as kids.

While she enjoyed her life, she couldn’t help but wish for more outside this quiet down, and dreamed of being a famous singer or makeup artist when she had gotten older. She wanted adventure in her life, and she would eventually receive it, just simply in ways she never asked for.

Jennifer’s first interaction with one of the Entities had been when she was no older then 10. Her mother had booked an dentist appointment, and despite her loud protests, she’d been eventually dragged there. At first she simply found it endearingly boring, and while her mother had taken talked to the lady at the front desk for a few seconds; she’d all but already wandered off. Nowhere dangerous to be exact, just into the hallway, pass the front doors. As she did so, things didn’t seem quite, right. The corridor seemed off, wrong, in ways her child mind just quite couldn’t put words to. The walls around her wobbled and bent an angles that scared her, but the worst part was that door. It was to big, to thin, and she could see how bright it was compared to every other door around her. A bright pink. Her favourite colour. Every bone in her body as screamed at her to run, The she couldn’t help herself, step by step, despite all the fear and dread leaking into her system, she couldn’t help herself. She was going to reach for, reach for this bright, pink, terrifyingly unreal door.
Her saving grace has been the calls of her mother, and everything almost instantly snapped back into reality as she heard her name being yelled. She’d turn around to see her mother, relieved yet clearly cross. But Jenny hadn’t really cared to take not of her mother’s wrath, to busy looking around the place. The scary bright pink door was gone. The wonky hallway gone. As if it was never there. As if she had simply gone crazy.

That encounter had been odd, but Jennifer had always attempted to write off as her overactive imagination, especially as she grew into teenhood and simply wished to move on from the entire experience. Yet whatever she moved, she could see it in the back of her head. The door. That goddam door. The worst part was how it appeared in ways it really shouldn’t, it places it wasn’t logically possible. And yet she choose to ignore it, choose to pretend that maybe she was crazy, or schizophrenic, or just seeing things, assigning herself some reason, any reason where this could make sense.

Her next interaction with another one of the Entities, The End had been with a book. A goddam Leitner of course. She’d been 15, her own clear boredom leading to her wandering the school library multiple points in time. But this time things seemed, different, she was almost super naturally drawn to the cover, a horrible searing black with “The Zombie Bride” poorly edged across the top. It was weird, creepy even, but she find it interesting. Yet a few pages in, and she found herself wanting to throwing the book to the ground. It awful, horrific even, yet she couldn’t stop. Page after page, after page. She couldn’t stop herself, and if it hadn’t been from the librarian who’d crudely snatched it from her hands, rudely informing her she had been here 2 hours after class he had started; she could of been there forever. Least she felt like it.
She’d gotten grabby with the book, but it had been for the best someone else had took it from her. That same librarian had been found dead in a shallow grave a few months later, the poor woman, and it had marked Jennifer with more trauma she couldn’t help but shiver at.

She needed to leave, needed to get, away from this town, just away from this, all of this. This eventually lead Jenny asking if she could live with her uncle in the city for the last few years of her schooling, and while her parents missed her, they said yes. Yet even in a new place, she truely wasn’t free, it followed her, the door, mocking and prominent, sometimes the door handle would even twist and turn to mock her. And was getting tired, angry, but most of all, she was terrified, and most of all; sure she was going crazy. She had manage to make a few friends in the hellscape that become her life, especially her closest friend Megan, whose kindness she enjoyed dearly. But her need to pry into Jenny’s psyche and ask questions all the time had slowly grown grating to her. She couldn’t see the door could she? She wouldn’t understand would she? The why, why did she keep going on, and on, when Jennifer had told her time and time again. She was fine. Everything was Fine.

Her breaking point had been when the two had where walking home from school, her uncle’s apartment up far to many lots of stairs. Megan peppered her again with her flood of questions, and Jennifer grew irritated, but she kept her mouth shut, she did care for Megan but, this was growing old and tiring. And at last Jenny would snap, and stand her ground in telling her that This Was Enough. Yet instead, she found it, there, right there.
Somehow, behind her and Megan, stood the door, the god forsaken door. Megan’s back was turned to it. But Jennifer could see it, of course she could. It was there in broad daylight for no one in the world but for her to see. And for once; it was open. Wide. She couldn’t see what leered into the darkness of the hallway, and she didn’t want it. It called to her, the door, this fucking nightmare of a door, to enter, to reach inside. Something, anything step through.

So, she pushed her friend in, her mind blanket as she did so. Not even a glimpse of horror as Mega fellow backwards, her face pale and wide with fear. And there she went, and then the door closed. Also she laughed. Jennifer was laughing, maybe with the door, maybe at the door as she heard it. Megan’s screams filling the endless room on the other side.

Had a 17 year old girl just killed her best friend? Maybe? Perhaps? But she understood now, she understood the door, it was hungry, for more. It wanted more right? She could work with this, she could give it more. She looked at the directly now, it’s swirling, vibrant nature causing her to laugh harder, because for once she understood.

And she wore a smile far to large while she did it.
Powers:
- Her body can twist and bend in ways a human shouldn’t, curling limbs that blur and break in sickening twirls.
- Has some connection to The Distortion, she has no real control over the endless hallways, but it seems friendly enough to open for her when she needs it.
- Can alter realty around her to seem off and uncertain in subtle ways, endless with bright bleeding colours and spiralling insanity driving patterns.
Other information:
- Asexual, possibly aromantic, but she thinks she maybe be grey leaninh-panromantic. She has a preference for women she thinks.
- Shes bilingual and speaks Filipino and English fluently.
- She used to own a Makeup Channel on YouTube. Rest in piece her try for internet fame.
- Her clothing choices could be described as “bright.”
- Incredibly flexible! She used to do gymnastics in her youth and it shows.
- Has horrible eating habits, eats way to much junk food.
- ENFP-A
Faceclaim:
Geena Rocero

Diana O'Connor05/09/2020
Name: Diana O'Connor
Age: 21
Gender: Female (Cisgender)
Job: Research Assisstant
Affiliated Entity: Diana has heard the call of the Hunt ever since the disappearance of her sister. She's never realized that her drive and her restless pursuit of understanding were related to anything supernatural, she's always just considered it part of her personality ever since what happened. This means that she has no idea what she's been wandering further and further into since the tender age of 15.
Appearance: Diana is a 5'5" white woman with an average, somewhat muscular build. Her skin is freckled, her eyes are hazel, and she has dark, wavy hair reaching down to just above her shoulders. She prefers to dress in simple, practical clothes and doesn't usually wear makeup. She needs reading glasses, which she keeps tucked into her shirt pocket or the collar of her shirt if she's not wearing them.
Personality: Diana is a serious person with a rather solemn air around her. She enjoys conversation and when she's not focused on researching something, she's usually talking with people, but she has little interest in or patience for small talk, preferring deeper subjects. Still, she has a sense of humor and doesn't dislike people generally, though she finds it hard to really trust them. She has something of a fascination with the violent and morbid ways in which people can die that tends to unsettle those around her. She doesn't like revealing personal information to other people, especially not about her sister.
History: Diana was born to David and Elizabeth O'Connor in 1998. She grew up in rural Michigan, living a peaceful, charmed life. When Diana was 3, her sister Penny was born. The two girls were very close growing up, never having any significant conflicts and always being there for each other. However, in 2013, when Diana was 15, disaster struck the O'Connor family. Penny disappeared, seemingly without a trace. The family was, of course, devestated, most of all Diana, who up until that point a happy, carefree girl. She became withdrawn and depressed for the remainder of her high school years, rarely speaking to anyone or showing interest in much of anything. In a way, it was as if the O'Connors lost both their daughters. Diana was not just lying dormat, though. As the investigation into her sister's disappearance dragged on fruitlessly, Diana began doing her own research into similar cases, mostly on online paranormal and unsolved mystery forums. Penny O'Connor was even an occasional topic of conversation, though no one ever knew anything Diana didn't already. After graduating high school, Diana obtained a two year degree in forensic science from a technical college before being hired at the Usher Foundation. Though her single-minded desire to find out what happened to her sister has become less intense over time as she's learned of more and more mysteries to pursue, Diana still wants nothing more than to find the truth behind her sister's disappearance and, if she can, to get even with whatever caused it.
Other information:
Aroace
Enjoys archery. She doesn't hunt, only does target shooting. When she first took it up during her teen years it was a way to let out some of her anger, but now she finds it soothing, almost meditative. Because of this, she knows how to use a bow.
Her relationship with her parents has been increasingly distant ever since Penny vanished. They rarely speak now.
Vanessa | John | Simon | Bella05/25/2020
Name: Bellatrix Calhoun. The Harbinger
Age: 21 ("Legally") | Anywhere from 150 to 175 years old.
Gender: Cis F
Job: Local annoyance, IT specialist, principal avatar?
Affiliated Entity: She's really closely aligned with the End and the Stranger, but that's not... quite it. In reality, she considers herself the first avatar of the Extinction, and is vested in making it come to power.
Appearance: She's otherworldly. Kinky brown hair and brown skin. 5'5.5" and a little curvy- Actually sort of pear shaped. Has freckles and chubby cheeks, smirks like she knows just what you're doing wrong. She looks entirely normal at first glance, but something seems... off when you look closer. The bright gold of her irises fills a little more of her eyes than they should, and her teeth look a little sharper than they should. When she's running particularly warm and bending the laws of physics, the little fissures between her skin cells shine, like she's being torn apart at the seams. She tends to dress warmly, though it's somewhat eclectic, bits and pieces from many different eras hobbled together in one look. It's weirdly cozy, though! She prefers natural fabrics over synthetic ones- She'll say that she's allergic, but that could very easily be a lie. Her phone looks far too advanced for the time period. She won't tell anyone shit about it.

Vibe check? Bella's got a strange feeling to her, like something about her isn't quite right. While it may put some at unease, others may feel endeared to it, seeing it as something a lot like the average Foundation nonsense. Regular technology tends to go a little haywire around her unless she's actively trying to make nice- more encrypted stuff is pretty safe, but don't be surprised to see computers suddenly blue-screen when she enters the room. It isn't necessarily an aura of death that follows her around, but an aura of something not being right. She also tends to run warm!
Personality: Bella doesn't play well with others and has little to no impulse control, a smart mouth, moderate experience in martial arts, a wicked sense of adventure, and something to prove. She is also the vehicle of her own destruction and is generally missing both a voice of reason and a sense of impulse control. This leads to occasional destruction of public property, grand theft auto, and more! She's petty, a hot mess, and is grumpy at best. Most of this is shown in a bright, peppy personality that we on the internet call "a troll." She is very intelligent, but deliberately acts like she isn't- either so that people underestimate her, or so that they don't notice her altogether. She doesn't seem to take anything seriously, to the point of picking fights over minuscule things just to see what would happen. She may have some some compassion deep down, and she once had a sense of justice is pretty strong, but those are buried beneath a prickly exterior. However, those that somehow earn her respect have her unwavering (though occasionally questioning) loyalty. Even in the face of the inevitable death of the human race, she'll ensure that those that have earned it get a place at her side watching it all burn up in flames. She doesn't care for authority, but could maybe be a good leader, one day.

She knows that one day, she will be consumed wholly by her entity, and is entirely at peace with this. After all, what does it matter if you're dead when there's a ruined world to come after? The journey is the important part, and she's more than eager to watch the world go up in flames.
History: [CW: Train accidents? Intentional death. Anything in History isn't redacted because of spoilers, it's redacted because of content warnings]

For all that you have to know, Bella's a perfectly ordinary girl that had a perfectly ordinary life. The story changes every time you ask. Sometimes, she had her identity stolen and is trying to get it back. Sometimes, she was chased by spiders and bugs until she ended up on the Foundation's doorstep. Sometimes, she crawled through a tunnel to get in. Sometimes, she fell through the floor. The fact of the matter is that she's here, and that she is one of the best people to ask about "tech support." You can definitely trust her, right? Right??

The truth is much, much deeper than that. Bella was the only daughter of a woman that had clawed her way to the ownership of a railroad company out of New Orleans in the late 1800s. Backhanded business deals and homicide were Aludra Ibarra's way to freedom, and they continued into a post-antebellum sort of aristocracy that made the Ibarras influential throughout the city. Ibarra had her way as much as she could, and when she took her favorite bodyguard one night- Well, he was just as willing as she was, regardless of the power that she could provide.

Bella was born with big shoes to fill. It didn't mean that she couldn't be a rapscallion on the way. After all, when consequences mean really little to you, you start to toe the line and see just how far you can get. She was a little spoiled, but wouldn't you be? She wanted to see just how people justified the things that they did, and that lead to all sorts of delinquent behavior that was most unfitting a girl of her age and nature. Blah, blah, blah. She was briefly sent away, but kept on coming back- As you do, of course.
She was one of the most educated girls that she knew, and for damn good reason. If you wanted to make it in any business, you had to know it inside and out. So she studied business, and had a knack for understanding what the gentlemen at the trainyard were talking about. She knew damn well that the design that she and her mother put out were dangerous. It failed as many safety exams as it took. Still, a part of her, nagging deep in her chest, wanted to know just what would happen when it went off of the rails. And she saw it, damn good and well, when she was sitting in the front carriage.

It went off the rails. Everybody on it died. Ibarra Steel was left disgraced and without an heir. And then, Bella woke up.

She didn't reach out to anything as a desperate plea. She didn't even think about it, as she faced down her own death. She was chosen for a purpose, simply put, and that purpose came to her slowly. Her curiosity is what did it, again, understanding what exactly people did when put under pressure. The pressure was the hard part- and, then, it wasn't.

Bella still hasn't really told anyone the whole depth of what she's trying to do. If you tell somebody that you want to start the apocalypse and see humanity crumble, you'll get some weird looks at best. But it hasn't stopped her from watching and waiting and pulling at people, just to see what would happen. The only thing that people had to fear is fear itself, right? Barring that, they really should fear their fellow man.

Currently, she's working at the Usher Foundation as a regular IT person! She's just watching to see what the other avatars do, filing it in the back of her head until it became really, really important. They might be the key to her salvation, after all. You get the best of the best to fight, and they might take everything else as collateral damage.
Powers:
- Technokinesis: She's mostly self-taught, but she has a knack for getting technology to do just what she wants, and can hack her way into anything she wants, with a little bit of effort. She also likes making little machines that do creepy things!
- Compulsion: This isn't the best word for it, but it's what she calls it. If she tries really hard, she can encourage people to start fighting. It's a minor way of pushing people towards self destruction.
- Entropy manipulation: On her best days and with a lot of energy, she can introduce a sort of disorder to a space that leads to its ultimate demise. Think about it like the heat death of the universe, but in a field, or in your cells. The greater the damage is (for example, making somebody into a nuke is a lot harder than just superheating an area), the more of a toll it takes on her. The general rule of thumb is that the more concentrated it is, the harder it is to do. She's actually constantly suffering from this, but has Entity Power keeping her cohesive.
     - Anything that she does is done on herself in equal measure. She can withstand most of the heat if it's dispersed over an area, but if she does it on a person, it leads to a similar dissolution of form. She explodes, and it ain't pretty. She can recover after a while, but given the nature of the universe, some part of her is lost. She can theoretically reform it, if given enough time and a great enough source of power, but that takes way too long for it to be feasible. If she's lucky, it's just a few inches of hair or a bit of skin that she can patch up. If she's not lucky, the toll is a bit higher than that. But, hey, nothing she can't siphon from the universe's impending death and/or make herself, right?
Other information:
- She still has the NOLA accent. If you look at her nice, you might get a right Southern Belle!
- Her entire backstory given to others is a lie. It's not even the same lie. She's mostly waiting to see who notices first. Some people (notably the oldest of the avatars) probably know the truth, but it's up to them whether or not they tell anybody else! Talk to me if you want to get some backstory to see who knows. If it's said out loud, she'll still deny it up and down.
- Calhoun is her dad's last name! She took it on in the last few decades. Before that, it was either Ibarra or Wickham.
- Most people probably don't know her nature- She presents herself as a really weird Stranger avatar! Not even Vanessa knows! Like her backstory, if anybody wants to try and plot this out and talk to me about who might know, please hit me up!
- Chaotic bi and also chaotic evil.
Faceclaim: Ashley Moore

TheWildMage06/14/2020
Name: Llewellyn Birch (AKA Lew)
Age: 28
Gender: Cis Female
Job: I guess she works with artifacts, although more specifically she sneaks into archaeological institutes and nicks things that the Foundation cant get ahold of otherwise, "Artifact Retrieval"
Affiliated Entity: Not Fully Realized Avatar of The Buried
Appearance: A thin woman with blonde hair, she tends to dress fairly plain, usually grey or brown pantsuits. She has the strange ability to look both utterly bewildered and deeply offended even when she is not. Her Hazel eyes are wide and appraising, flitting over everything and constantly moving, Her lips are almost always drawn tight like she's just heard a particularly offensive joke. Another thing is that she wears a pair of dirty old sneakers that through all the grime and gristle one can see just a hint of white.
Personality: Despite her mostly well kept appearance Ms. Birch is a friendly face to most once they get to know her, always quick to offer a helping hand she seems for the most part to simply a hard worker and a gentle soul. However for the most part that is an act, She is helpful when it suits her and simply hides when she would rather not be involved. She is a hard worker, but typically does only a tad more than the bare minimum when she finds the work "Disinteresting"
History:  Another Message incoming
Powers: She doesnt have any control over it but when she gets extremely emotional other people can begin to have difficulty breathing. As though they were being crushed or something.
And when she tells people she needs something, they may begin to feel a sort of "pressure" as though they feel the urgency stonger than she does. (When she gets stronger this could evolve into full blown suggestion)
Other information: Like I said she has a fear of the ocean
She has that fake Transantlantic accent that actors from the 50's have.
History
Llewellyn grew up in what some would call a "broken home", Her mother and father had separated before she was even born, but her father was too poor to move away and her mother had no issue with shuffling off responsibility when she didn't want to watch Little Lew. Her father's house was dirty and usually not clean, he worked in construction, usually coming home smelling like a combination of sweat, cigarettes and that dirt smell you really only get from the first few layers of soil, when it's still wet and pliable. Her mother was always clean, and liked to keep it that way, as her line of work often meant she had visitors.  Because of this Lew preferred her Father and his bearable amount of filth over her mother's overbearing need for spotlessness.
All of that may explain why she went into archeology, to reconnect with that pleasant earthy smell that reminds her of her father.
During a dig early on in her career, before she came to the foundation she was helping unearth a an old pirate ship buried under water off the coast of the Côte D'ivoire, At the time she thought nothing of the silence, it didn't bother her, after all how were they supposed to communicate with these big nozzles over their faces. She spent a good two or three hours searching - she was able to as they had purchased a Snuba kit for the search, and weren't going too far down - when she came across a piece of old wood. At first she thought it was just a piece of old plywood that had gotten lodged in the sand, but when she looked closer she realized that the wood had some sort of carving on it. She got excited thinking it was possibly a find that could lead to the ship. But as she looked around she realized she couldn't see anyone else, not that she thought much of it at the time, she had just assumed they moved in a different direction. She’d uncover it a bit more and bring it to them. As she swept away more of the seafloor to examine the piece of wood it revealed a carving, it looked like someone had done it hastily as though they didn't have enough time to really finish. It said “We need out.” Curious to find out what it meant Llewellyn swept away more and revealed a skeletal hand gripping the bottom edge of that wood.
Deciding that she really didn't want to uncover a human skeleton by herself she decided to leave it there and begin swimming out. But as she took another breath in she caught a familiar scent, the scent of wet soil. Not a moment later her breathing tube began to fill with water, at this she panicked, swimming urgently back up to the surface, her heart beating like a gunshot in her ears. She wasn't sure how close to the surface she got but apparently it wasn’t that far because she felt the hand that she unearthed gripping her ankle, the panic she already felt became even worse, she opened her mouth to scream and kicked viciously at the hand. It released her ankle with a strangely audible cracking noise, a single finger floating away as it released. Her need to be out of the ocean becoming stronger than the pressure of the water around her. The moment she crested the surface she threw the mask off and took deep gasping breaths of air. Since that day she has had a terrible fear of the ocean.

She never made a statement, but found the Foundation when she was researching jobs that wouldn’t require her to be near the ocean
Theta06/19/2020
Name: Theodore “Theta” Withrope
Age: 34
Gender: Male (he/him)
Job: Maintenance
Affiliated Entity: Desolation and spiral touched

Appearance: Theta stands at 6’1. He’s skinny but not lithe, having enough muscle to do his job well but not enough to be considered well-built either. He’s white but with a notable tan due to spending most of his freetime outside. His brown hair is shaggy and notably curly, bangs hanging partially in his face close to the eyepatch that covers where his left eye should be but isn’t. The remaining eye is a caramel brown and he wears thick black plastic framed glasses. The most notable feature of his face is his nose, which would be a button nose if it weren’t for the fact that the bridge was partially collapsed. Otherwise not bad looking, if not for the dotting of small scars and crooked teeth he might be quite handsome. He normally wears a white t-shirt under a blue sweatshirt, old jeans, and well-worn sneakers.

Personality: The walking definition of a deeply flawed individual. Despite having calmed down significantly since leaving his 20s, he’s still known for being a bit of a wildcard. Having long held a destructive streak and being distrustful of authority, he’s never had an easy time holding down a job. Barely being able to pass a GED test doesn’t help it. He also seems to lack a real self-preservation instinct too. He’s rather willing to do stupid things on a bet and fully enjoys embodying chaos in such a way, but he saves that for after work. He’s not above harmless pranks or stupid jokes. He even enjoys making fun of himself from time to time. On the job, he’s cooperative if goofy and prone to an accidental faux pas. Off the job, he’s chaotic, rebellious, and prone to trouble.
History: (CW: Car crash, child abuse (of all kinds), alcoholism, drug addiction, underage survival sex, abusive relationships, arson)
Desolation has always followed Theta, at least for the first twenty six years of his life. He was born to a happy but unmarried couple, both acrobats in a circus owned and run by his uncle. The circus was of notoriety and traveled throughout the United States. He was a rather happy child. He seemed to follow in his parents footsteps naturally. He enjoyed the life of a circus child, getting to see so many new places. He practiced alongside his parents, but of course on a smaller scale. When he was seven his parents took him to a Zoo in Massachusetts. On the way back to where the circus was staying a drunk driver swerved and hit their car. The collision killed his parents, and left him in the care of his uncle. From that day on, nothing seemed to go right for him.
While his parents had been kind and loving, his uncle was cruel and ruthless. A chronic alcoholic ringmaster who decided that Theta would in fact be an acrobat. He started subjecting Theta to more intense training. He took him out of the small homeschooling education provided to the kids of performers in the circus and instead started to make him do work around the circus. He would also regularly verbally and physically abuse Theta to the point that Theta can have panic attacks from being called “Theodore” in anything resembling an aggressive tone. There were even a few instances of sexual abuse that he has thuroughly repressed. As a result he started to act out. He became violent towards other kids and a bit of a menace in the circus.
At age 11 after an altercation with his uncle while staying in Los Vegas, he ran away. He was found by tourists on the strip bloody, malnourished, and confused having suffered a head injury in the fight. He was quickly removed from his uncle’s custody and placed in foster care where he only continued to be a problem. He managed to cycle through 10 foster homes in a little over a year. He even convinced a couple he was staying with that he was the anti-christ (something he takes pride in to this day). He ran away once more and became homeless at age 12. For the first few years he managed to get by doing odd jobs and getting handouts from tourists, but the older he got the less people seemed to take pity on him.
By age 15 he had found other homeless lgbt kids, started an unhealthy relationship with another boy 3 years older than him, and started abusing drugs. He soon resorted to survival sex, as a number of homeless LGBT teens do, and his use of recreational drugs grew to cope with it. It was also around this time that he took up the nickname Theta. As he took up dealing drugs as he neared 18, he had less and less need to engage in survival sex. He had a messy break up with his boyfriend at age 17, resulting in a physical fight and Theta setting the abandoned building they had been squatting in on fire. He fled the scene quickly and has never found out what happened to his ex.
By age 18, he had moved closer to DC and started dealing there. Things were rather quiet for him until age 21 when he got into an altercation over his prices and found himself waking up in a hospital down an eye. A few months later, he was caught in a drug bust at a house he had been staying in. He was let off the easiest of the group arrested that day following a mental health evaluation (getting a diagnosis of PTSD and Bipolar I), leaving his lawyer able to plead that he was just a troubled young man who needed help more than jail time. He was forced into rehab and put in programs that would hopefully get him on his feet, including one that helped him get a GED.
Things didn’t stick for a long while and Theta found himself back in the circles he ran before, fighting the same addictions and getting in trouble with the same people. He did start doing odd jobs including maintenance work for small businesses. He had always had an intuitive know how for that sort of thing and started to make a small name for himself. Following another run in with the law at age 27 during a severe manic episode, he was hospitalized for an extended period of time to get clean and stable. By age 29 he was a bit on his feet with a job in maintenance at a local office building and living in a halfway house. He fully started living sober and on his own at age 31. At 32, he got word that his uncle’s circus was in town and shortly after the big top went up in flames. No evidence can link back to him, though.

Powers: None, currently.

Other information: ESFP, good at parkour, extremely flexible, gay, ladies and fem aligned nbs do not touch him.
Charlotte || Lucas Luck08/05/2020
Name: Charlotte 'Charlie' Blacktail

Age: Looks and acts 23, but hinted to be in her 40s

Gender: Cis Female

Job: Officially, Research Team, dealing in 'Competitive Intelligence'.
Unofficially the Principal Avatar of The Web, enjoys assisting the Eye, but that may be part of The Web's agenda

Affiliated Entity: Avatar of The Web, fully realized and has been an avatar since a very young age
Appearance: Seeing Charlie in full lighting and up close is a sight to behold. Her piercing brown eyes glazed over with a cobweb like pattern that glows a fierce deep purple when tapping into her powers. Her hair is always incredibly tangled, a darkened shade of brown that no matter how many times she brushes it remains a mess. She’s shorter than you would expect, barely reaching five foot, making her very easily to miss, like someone hiding in the corner of your eye. Her skin is always cold to the touch, no matter the time of year, and she always seems to be wearing far too big, thick wool knit jumpers that are clearly homemade rather than bought in a shop.
Personality: Describing Charlie as a repressed nerd living in her mother's basement would be a rather rude analysis, but not necessarily an inaccurate one. Of course, she doesn't live in her mother's basement, but she adores computers and technology. An obsession with the World Wide Web, the superhighway of information that she can use to manipulate others.
Aside from this quirk, Charlie is quiet, but not down to being shy but rather playing the role of an observer. Going unnoticed has its perks, gaining access to secrets that make excellent fodder to manipulate people.
Charlie says what needs to be said and that’s it. She’s direct and to the point, which sometimes means she forgets to take into account people’s emotions when deciding to solve problems that are presented to her.
Despite taking such an active role of manipulation, the people that Charlie surrounds herself with are usually manipulated for "their own good". It is however hard to tell if Charlie is manipulating these "friends" for her own personal gain, or for the gain of The Web as a whole, or if Charlie herself is being manipulated too.
History: Charlie was born on August 3rd, 1977, sharing her birthday with the public release of the TRS-80 Micro Computer System. She was born to a relatively difficult family, her father being on his second marriage, and all her mother's children being from different fathers. Seven children in total, with Charlie being the youngest, and being the youngest meant she went unnoticed. Which was fine, whatever kept her father's wrath from being aimed in her direction.
Until he lost his job.
It was Charlie's 6th birthday, one that her mother decided to celebrate since she figured that Charlie was now old enough to remember. It wasn't anything big or fancy, just a cake and the rest of the children sat around the table, wishing Charlie a happy birthday. That's when father came home, having lost his job completely due to something that wasn't his fault, and seeing little Charlie looking so happy. tw: abuse Charlie had never felt pain like that before, and she could hear her mother in the background, begging for him to stop.
So, Charlie made him stop.  "I heard a rumour you slept with Lillian Brady."
Lillian Brady was not Charlie's mother, but instead was the seventeen-year-old daughter of the biggest employer in the area, who had recently gone missing, with no leads to her whereabouts.
"I heard a rumour you killed Lillian Brady. I heard you buried her in the garden. I heard a you keep her hair in your dresser." The words spilled out of Charlie's mouth like ink onto paper, and the rest was a blur.
The recount was that Charlie had been thrown across the room by her father, before her eldest brother stepped in and wound up stabbing him to get him to stop. The police were called, Charlie was rushed into hospital and her father was arrested, not only for abusing the children but for the murder of Lillian Brady, after they found her body buried in the back garden just as Charlie had said. No one knew how Charlie knew. Most assumed that someone else had told her, but the truth was, Charlie had seen it happen, and she knew just the right strings to tug.
The spiders came after that.
Neat little rows of them that climbed up the wall and crawled in through Charlie’s window, and she feigned ignorance whenever her mother questioned it. They brought secrets to Charlie, lies that they had overheard and in return, she used those stories to manipulate whoever she needed to get whatever she wanted.
The thing about spiders is, family is a relatively foreign concept to them, and to Charlie, they served as a means to an end until their end. By the time Charlie was 10, it was just her mother and the twins left.
The eldest died in a freak car accident after the driver had been bitten by a venomous spider that rightfully should never have been there.
The second went missing, and when she was found, she was long dead, her entire body surrounded by webs like a cocoon, and when they cut it open, a giant spider burst out her chest and escaped. Charlie enjoyed her conversations with that spider.
The third, that was a grotesque one. A spot appeared on her face, growing bigger and bigger despite how hard she tried to pop it. That was until it burst of its own accord, and spiders came pouring out.
By this point, Charlie’s mother had already lost it. She barely even noticed when the fourth child disappeared in the forest, never to be found. That wasn’t Charlie’s doing, but she couldn’t have stopped it even if she tried.
That left Aidan and Nadia. Turning Aidan and Nadia on each other was a lot more difficult than Charlie had anticipated. The two had grown wise to what Charlie was capable of quick and knew to avoid being left alone with her. Of course, sometimes all you need is a helping hand from someone else. Charlie didn’t dare read the Leitner that arrived for her in the mail, a gift from an anonymous benefactor that she knew that The Web had played a part in. All Charlie had to do was make sure the twins read it, and that was child’s play. Charlie never saw them again and so all that was left was herself and her mother, and her other mother, The Web. It wasn’t enough though. Charlie wanted to fully embrace the Web, but for her, the price was seven sacrifices before she herself became the eighth. Her siblings, and her father were to be the sacrifices, but with interference from the other entities, her body count was only at four. This was a problem. Charlie didn’t feasibly have anyone worthy to be sacrificed as part of her ascension to a fully realised avatar, so she turned to a new source of secrecy. The Internet. With her mother still having a well-paying job, no thanks to Charlie, and her being an only child, she could afford whatever computers she wanted, whatever kept her happy and kept her mother sane.
Throughout her teenage years, Charlie excelled in computing, learning how to code, build websites of her own, and it became very clear the true extent of how much people shared over the internet. Conversations to be kept away from prying eyes, anonymous forums that weren’t quite anonymous as first thought, transactions for hush money, all there in black and white, noughts and ones, and easy enough to access so long as you knew how. Charlie learned quick.
The turning point for Charlie was realising a fatal error within the coding for every computer. The Millennium bug was what sealed the deal between Charlie and The Web. It was a simple mathematic problem, that meant that upon the midnight of the 31st of December, 1999, all the computing systems wouldn’t work properly, because they couldn’t calculate up to the year 2000. A mistake that had been caused by so many people, that Charlie had the crème of the crop for victims she could choose. Three more, and then on that fateful midnight, Charlie would become realized as a full avatar. tw:suicide Electrocution was how she chose to go. Painful, excruciating, but a rush that she had never felt before, and that was that.
Powers:
Manipulation: Charlie is very good at manipulating people to a point where the plans she orchestrates seems akin to her mind controlling them. Of course, she doesn’t, but she does heavily influence their thoughts that then form their actions.
Ties: Charlie can weave relationships between people, be it spiritual, physical or mental, whether they like it or not. These relationships can be ones positive, negative, or even to go so far as to tie their fate together permanently. These relationships are incredibly binding, to a point where trying to break them could have negative affects on both participants.

Silks: Charlie can produce web like silks from the boreholes within her skin, that can act like rope to ensnare people, as well as other interesting uses. The silk tends to match the colour of the most recent drink she has consumed.

Other information:
-Asexual
-Choleric Temperament
-Compulsive Liar when asked about her past
- INTJ-a

Faceclaim: Lena Meyer-Landrut