Entry tags:
DS Application (updated)
{Accepted}
ABOUT YOU
Name: Crow
Are you 18 or over?: Yes
Other characters played: Meja (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
runeskin) and Raven (featherdream)
CHARACTER
Name: Gayle Ru Conner. But she hates her name (Gayle was the name of a hated relative, a maternal aunt -- also, it's plain) so she's gone by Octavo for a very long time, when not at work. She only goes by her real name when she absolutely has to, and even then she usually just goes by "Miss Conner."
Canon: Original
Age: 26
History: Octavo's childhood problems, namely her bullying of other children, went largely unnoticed due to the absence of her parents in her life. Her mother was an executive in a movie company, her father a storyboard artist with late hours. Even though her acting out did very little (other than traumatize fellow classmates), she continued it anyway, because that was how life was up to that point. But her bullying was caught when she was in the second grade, after she went after a little girl who screamed for the teacher immediately. The teachers, who had long been suspicious, complained to Octavo's parents (she had other problems, too, like paying attention in class). Her mother's response was to hire several tutors to get her past a few troublesome grades, and Octavo grew used to not having to deal with other people. She also, at the suggestion of her father, began to learn a musical instrument (the viola), because he claimed it would round out her education. She discovered that playing it, usually for hours at a time, made her feel less frustrated with her life -- and herself. She was only beginning to notice her problems, however.
Her tutors noticed, due to the direct nature of their work, that Octavo wasn't quite like other children. She was having behavioral problems that her teachers hadn't addressed. She cared little for rules, or structure, and paid absolutely no respect to her tutors, treating them like the children that she could bully. One particularly tenacious (and broke) tutor stayed, but the others quit -- telling her parents that she needed a therapist. Her mother was offended, because she didn't spend enough time with Octavo to know that they were right. She and Octavo's father made a trip every weekend, somewhere special, whenever they could, but those trips began to happen less and less as Octavo grew older. And then, when Octavo was thirteen, her father died. Her mother was beside herself, requiring grief counseling because of an already unstable nature. But Octavo felt absolutely nothing for his death -- only confusion when people asked how she was "handling" it.
That was about the time that her tutoring stopped, and she was put back in public school. Octavo hadn't dealt with other children directly in many years (just children who were kids of her mother's friends), and she was, at first, unprepared for the bullying and taunting that was aimed her way. She was good at making friends, but couldn't maintain the friendships and couldn't understand what other children were getting out of them. In the end her extreme frustration meant that any kid who tried to bully her ended up with her fist, or foot, in their face. She spewed advanced adult language at anyone who objected to this, and used blackmailing to keep it away from teachers. Within a year every kid at her school was scared of her, and she had dirt on all of them in a special notebook she kept at home.
Her teachers, unaware of what was going on (she'd decided not to make the same mistakes this time), were extremely pleased by her work, but her grades weren't that good. Octavo had a brilliant mind, but couldn't ever apply it long enough to make it go anywhere. She aced classes but only did the minimum amount of work required. Her teachers wrote letters to her mother -- praise mingled with pleas that she obviously needed testing for a few disorders -- but her mother was so disconnected from her life that all Octavo got from her was spending money and a roof above her head.
Octavo, for her part, spent those years mostly on the computer, thriving in an online environment. She didn't have to lie at all. She could be as mean as she wanted, and all they could do was ban her from a specific website. And she was good at the technology, and programming, though she would later drop the skill as "unnecessary." But for those years, she forged and hacked her way through, pulling pranks that people attributed to jokesters much older. She was helped by the fact that her mother was wealthy and could afford to get her the best in the latest computer gear, as though this would buy her daughter's affections. Octavo had already realized that she didn't love her mother like other daughters loved theirs. She didn't love anyone at all, and couldn't no matter how hard she tried.
Upon graduating high school, she went directly into college and put herself at the mercy of counselors to help her determine where she should spend her energies. Most of them were adamant that she go into the sciences and realize her potential. But to Octavo, that smacked of caring about other people and how the future would unfold. So, in rebellion, she declared her major as Accounting/Business. (Her mother was simply relieved that she hadn't chosen an Art major.) Her flippant, eccentric nature was quick to win her admirers among her peers, not that she noticed -- at first. She made permanent contacts in college, people who wanted to succeed at any price. One of those was a man named Christopher Pike who, like her, had no natural empathy for other people. They were quick to bond over this fact, though the arrangement was more political than friendships usually are.
Octavo graduated easily and with honors, now that she was fully applying herself (as best she could), and then went to Boston University for a second degree in Business. This was mostly so that she could get away from her mother, and everything familiar that was making her feel more and more stifled and out of control. That's what she thought, anyway. Halfway through her degree, she had a falling-out with a roommate and ended up smashing them over the head with a metal bar in a fit of rage. The wound ended up being fatal within a few minutes, and Octavo had to dispose of the body (it was never, to her relief, found). Her anger felt much better afterward, more easily controlled; she began to crave the feeling that taking a life had given her, a sense of complete power. She already had a pattern of going out and finding new people to do less than moral things with, so occasionally the evening would just end a little worse for them than it did for her. The police, and press, labeled these as the work of a serial killer, giving her the nickname of the Bleak Killer. She always sterilized the bodies as best as possible, kept them a few days, put new marks on them, made them truly look like a decimated corpse before she dropped them. Her signature was cutting a gash in their lower lip. The police thought long and hard about why someone would do that, but in truth, Octavo just thought it made them look "used and pretty," and that was as much thought as she put into it.
About the time 'she' was becoming truly famous in Massachusetts, her degree wrapped up and she packed up to return to California. She was as alien and distant to her mother as ever, and stayed just long enough at home to get a job and move out. Octavo went to work for a law firm named Wilkinson & Schmidt, as one of their accountants, a job which didn't pay much at first. But Octavo had a knack for knowing how to suck up in the right ways, and how to make others look bad without personally incriminating them. Within a year she was the #2 accountant. And that wasn't everything -- she cashed in her chips with her college contacts. They all had need for a person who was good with numbers, who could wriggle them out of bad situations, and some of them were prepared to pay handsomely for it. (The others who couldn't were, more or less, immediately discarded.)
Within two years, Octavo had a very nice home and could pay other people to keep it clean and stocked. She had enough money that nothing was really a problem anymore, and if she needed more she could just put out her feelers for people who needed someone lacking morals. Her killing started again, too, though it took a while for her to feel the same impatient urges. Now that she had a proper home base equipped with sound-proofing, she could afford to keep them alive longer, and her neighbors -- all wealthy and uncaring about each other -- never asked any questions. She was careful not to use any of her methods from Boston, and disposed of the bodies much more carefully.
Troubled by appearing too suspiciously quiet, Octavo got herself a few dogs. She had always despised animals, and had killed several when she'd been a child, but thought that having them would make her seem more normal still. Pleasantly, she discovered that she quite liked having the big fuzzy oafs around, as they put people off their guard and made them think of her as a happy and normal "animal person." They also didn't mind when she gave them fleshy "scraps" that were troublesome to dispose of. She named them after the three Fates of Greek mythology: Clotho (a German Shepherd), Lachesis (a Rottweiler) and Atropos (a Norwegian Elkhound). But she also hired someone to take care of them -- feed them, take them out on walks -- when she didn't want to, so that she wouldn't feel weighed down by their presence.
Point in canon: Octavo has just entered a two-week vacation from work, which she's definitely going to need. There's someone tied up in her basement, almost dead but not quite. She has her viola strapped to her back in its slim case, intent to go outside and play for a bit to blow off excess steam (she wants her victim to live a bit longer), when she notices something off about the cabinet in the corner -- and opens it, to see the Window. After that, it's just curiosity, and the guy strapped to her table will definitely be dead by the time she gets back.
Window Location: Her basement (the one more or less outfitted for containing and hurting people). Specifically, in a cupboard that belonged to the home's previous owners, shoved into a corner and not given a second thought until Octavo opens it.
Universe: Octavo's Earth is completely normal. No magic. The year is 2012. It's just like the Earth all we players come from, with the singular exception of there being one more city in California than there is: Calvaria, which was settled by Germans who came looking for gold and ran out of money. It's a three-hour drive from LA, out in the desert. Its most notable landmark is the German Heritage Festival in October.
Abilities: Octavo is a normal human with no supernatural or magical abilities (as none exist in her world).
Mental: She has a borderline genius-level IQ, a knack for calculations and numbers, and a good mind for remembering details (which helps in appearing 'normal'). She tends to be full of bonus bits of trivia that she picked up when she was bored, some of them quite morbid. Also on the more morbid front, she has advanced knowledge of human anatomy, and is well-versed in torture methods (which includes how to keep people alive when they're going through extreme pain). She's also a very good liar.
Physical: She's a bit stronger than she looks, which has helped her overpower and out-smart her victims. She has very good hand-eye coordination, which helps with one of her hobbies (gaming; she's an avid fan). So far she's resisted the urge to buy a gun, not wanting to look even remotely suspicious on a cold sweep of her personal habits, but she does know how to fire one from trips to a shooting range, and is a fairly decent shot.
Misc Skills: Can play the viola very well (pretty much the only skill she still maintains from when her father was still alive).
Possessions: A hunting (Bowie) knife in a dark leather sheath, inscribed with the number 8. Her Blackberry and wallet. Casual clothing. A pack of cigarettes that can't run out (courtesy offrenchfortwelve) and a lighter. Her MP3 player. Her viola and bow, in a slim case that was strapped to her back.
Personality: Octavo is, on some levels, defined by her antisocial personality disorder (a sociopath, by modern culture). Whereas she used to struggle with it, and feel confusion about not "fitting in" the way everyone else did, she more or less completely embraces it now -- though she's forced to hide it at every turn. It changed her into a completely convincing liar from a very early age; a very good actor able to mimic the emotions normal people would feel on a day-to-day basis (empathy, guilt). Lying is something that she enjoys. She likes how it affects other people. She likes how she can trick people without a lick of suspicion, inwardly watching their reactions with fierce glee. Like most of the things she enjoys, it has to do with power.
She does struggle somewhat with a surplus of anger and frustration that can explode outward with little to no warning, which is where her more unsavory activities help. There are other fixes that aren't as long-lasting that she indulges in -- video games, drinking, listening to music, playing her viola, and being sexually active. The latter is a completely superficial way to feel empowered, as she feels nothing for the people she chooses other than being attracted to them physically. But if the person in question is attractive and claims to feel something for her, she doesn't necessarily push them away. If anything, having them feel something for her furthers the empowerment. Though, naturally, she dumps them as soon as the rush ceases to be entertaining, and gives them no further thought.
People are curious, but ultimately troublesome, oddities for Octavo. She only forms "friendships" to people who will prove useful to her in the future. Everyone else is disregarded, even if she has to put up with them on a daily basis -- even to the point of never bothering to remember their name. As she feels absolutely no guilt or remorse for such behavior, any ruffled feelings she inspires are also disregarded. With a shrug, even. She doesn't have time for bleeding hearts unless those bleeding hearts will offer her financial stability, or entertainment, in the future. Overly-emotional people are things to be ignored, or things to be tormented. Children she can't relate to at all, and she finds their inability to care for themselves pathetic -- in part because she took care of herself when she was their age, but also because she thinks of them as tiny adults. And an adult who can't take care of themselves is the lowest thing she could consider.
Octavo's chief desires in life are to be comfortable and happy, two things that are different for her than for most people, as previously mentioned (they both require breaking the law; for her, rules were made to be broken). If she can't get either, she will be an extremely unhappy camper until the situation is rectified. Due to her low tolerance for frustration, her mood swings can be sometimes abrupt. She usually tries to disguise these feelings from others, shrugging off their occasional concern, because explanations are warranted, and the last thing she wants to do is sit somewhere and discuss her feelings. In her mind, it's weak and is reminiscent of chick flicks. She's more than capable of figuring herself out, in her mind, and so she no longer relies on any sort of therapy -- for a while, now, which is why she turned to hurting others to relieve her own frustrations. No one was around to explain that it wasn't "okay" for her to feel that way, and no one could confront her about it. Not that it would have helped. It had been a long time coming.
Octavo's main reasons for hiding her true self stem from her early, bullying days, when she was more free with her feelings and actually told people about them -- the young kids she was tormenting, but it was better than nothing. Someone knew what was going on. A boy she was attracted to (physically, but that's what she thought love was, back then) cornered her and accused her of hitting a girl he liked, which had been true. Octavo admitted to it, telling him that the girl was too weak for him; she wasn't strong and smart, like Octavo was. Gobsmacked, the boy called her "eight kinds of crazy" and went to go tell on her to a teacher. Octavo pinned him down, kicked him, and called him weak, too. She also threatened to tell the teachers that he and the girl had been doing inappropriate things, going into obscene detail. They hadn't, but he was afraid that her details would convince the teachers (and his parents) that she was right, so he agreed to keep quiet. After that, Octavo never told anyone about her feelings, and formed a strange attachment to the number 8 -- it was where her "name" would come from, many years later.
Octavo's craving of comfort and happiness goes hand in hand with her craving of power. She doesn't have quite the craving that a psychopath would have, their MO being all about power, but it's close. Much of her life has been spent in the shadow of someone else -- her parents, her peers -- and much of it has been spent craving attention. Killing, and torturing, other human beings gives her the greatest rush of attention and power that she has ever felt. And being that she finds other people tolerable, at best, and can't empathize with them, she has no "moral" qualms with her little hobby. Cutting them open, if anything, makes it easier to see them as living and disgusting creatures, a reaffirmation of what's in her mind. It convinces her that her cut-off mindset isn't so "eight kinds of crazy."
Her greatest problem with appearing "normal" to others is the fact that so much of her personality is so fully ingrained. She disregards rules and cannot feel guilt, and so sometimes she steps right into a bad situation without realizing it. Octavo often, these days, approaches situations cautiously and sifts through them, looking for warning signs that she can find intellectually. This makes her appear aloof and distant to others, even as she tries to cultivate a reputation as a fun and not particularly smart "party girl" -- especially among coworkers, whose relationships are necessary to maintain. Coworkers, after all, are one of the first places police go if they feel suspicious. So she maintains her warm persona with them, even though she finds her fellow accountants lower and less gifted than dirt.
Thread Sample: Here.
Prose Sample: She was fully aware that the art gallery opening was a complete necessity to attend, her boss (well, bosses boss) having pulled its ass out of the legal fire several months before. And now, on a show of good faith, she and a number of her fellow law firm employees had been asked to attend. It was a strange mix of people that they'd invited, though. There was Lisa, from her department (oh joy, the coworker I hate the most), and Mike, who was an up-and-coming lawyer in the firm, and Sal -- weird old partner Sal Wilkinson, who always looked like a corpse jokingly done up in a tuxedo. She'd seen Edda, somewhere, too, at the start of the evening, and she'd thought that that old creature lived at the firm.
"Gayle," someone said, behind her, and she swallowed a shudder at her given name.
"Lisa!" She put a grin on her face and kissed her coworkers' cheek. "How's your sister doing? Baby still good?"
"Fine, fine." Lisa Norris beamed at her. Lisa, for some reason, had always liked Octavo, even on the bad days when she couldn't put all of her effort into pretending to like other people. "Did you get the picture I sent you?"
Octavo nodded. "Yup. She's a rosy one." It'd taken all of her effort, for that morning, not to text back, What marinade are you putting on that steak?
"Mari's really doing well as a mom. So, uh, how are things with you?" Lisa wasn't good at segues, and swallowed nervously. "Are you still seeing that blond, tall gentleman?"
She couldn't even remember the individual that Lisa was talking about. Nevertheless, she replied, "Oh, we had our differences, unfortunately. Why, did you want his number?" She grinned, quirking her lips in the way others recognized as 'joking.'
Lisa turned scarlet, on cue. "No! He wasn't really my type."
She was lying. It took one to recognize one. But still, Octavo had no idea who she was talking about, and odds were bad that she'd bothered to save his phone number. So she just shrugged.
"Have it your way."
"Although, if you could..."
Ah, so there it was. Lisa, the transparent wonder. "I'll see if I can dig it up," she lied. She'd make up some story about losing it, tomorrow morning when both of them were at work. But she'd bring muffins, and Lisa's favorite type of coffee, and they'd just laugh the whole thing off. Lisa's dating life had been in overdrive ever since her sister's baby had been born. It was probably some female thing, an instinct, that Octavo didn't have. Nor did she really want to.
"Thanks, Gayle, you're the best."
She swallowed another cringe.
"Anytime." Please just go away, before you use all of my patience up for the night... "I'm going to go say a word to Sal, do the old 'in charge of people and important' rounds..." She made it sound tired and joking, like someone who hadn't climbed tooth and nail to the top -- or near enough, anyway. She wasn't old enough to be head of Accounting. Not yet.
"Oh, oh, sure!" Lisa pats her on the shoulder. She swallows a scream. "I'll talk to you later."
Octavo scoots away, grabbing an elegant glass of champagne from a waiter and downing the thing in one pull. There. Good. Now she could talk to the old man without wanting to throttle him. Well, maybe.
Plans: Go to work for the Company, do some accounting? And probably do some other shady things. Hide her little hobby back home. Make contacts. Be rude.
Notes: Octavo isn't going to do any of her serial killer schtick in the Observatory, or other worlds. At first, anyway, we'll see where things go. She's going to err on the side of caution, especially since she doesn't know how this all pans out. But that will make her returns home necessary, in order to blow off the steam that she accumulates.
DÆMON
Name: Set
Sex: Male
Form: Devil's Flower Mantis
Additional notes: Set exactly resembles the DFM in that picture.
Why this form: The DFM mimics flowers to lure, and disguise itself among, prey -- just as Octavo feigns being normal (well, close enough) to put others at ease. They are also solitary creatures who, just like her, only interact with others of their kind when requiring baser urges. Their disguise also helps them avoid predators, just as Octavo's "normal" facade keeps the authorities from suspecting her.
ABOUT YOU
Name: Crow
Are you 18 or over?: Yes
Other characters played: Meja (
runeskin) and Raven (featherdream)CHARACTER
Name: Gayle Ru Conner. But she hates her name (Gayle was the name of a hated relative, a maternal aunt -- also, it's plain) so she's gone by Octavo for a very long time, when not at work. She only goes by her real name when she absolutely has to, and even then she usually just goes by "Miss Conner."
Canon: Original
Age: 26
History: Octavo's childhood problems, namely her bullying of other children, went largely unnoticed due to the absence of her parents in her life. Her mother was an executive in a movie company, her father a storyboard artist with late hours. Even though her acting out did very little (other than traumatize fellow classmates), she continued it anyway, because that was how life was up to that point. But her bullying was caught when she was in the second grade, after she went after a little girl who screamed for the teacher immediately. The teachers, who had long been suspicious, complained to Octavo's parents (she had other problems, too, like paying attention in class). Her mother's response was to hire several tutors to get her past a few troublesome grades, and Octavo grew used to not having to deal with other people. She also, at the suggestion of her father, began to learn a musical instrument (the viola), because he claimed it would round out her education. She discovered that playing it, usually for hours at a time, made her feel less frustrated with her life -- and herself. She was only beginning to notice her problems, however.
Her tutors noticed, due to the direct nature of their work, that Octavo wasn't quite like other children. She was having behavioral problems that her teachers hadn't addressed. She cared little for rules, or structure, and paid absolutely no respect to her tutors, treating them like the children that she could bully. One particularly tenacious (and broke) tutor stayed, but the others quit -- telling her parents that she needed a therapist. Her mother was offended, because she didn't spend enough time with Octavo to know that they were right. She and Octavo's father made a trip every weekend, somewhere special, whenever they could, but those trips began to happen less and less as Octavo grew older. And then, when Octavo was thirteen, her father died. Her mother was beside herself, requiring grief counseling because of an already unstable nature. But Octavo felt absolutely nothing for his death -- only confusion when people asked how she was "handling" it.
That was about the time that her tutoring stopped, and she was put back in public school. Octavo hadn't dealt with other children directly in many years (just children who were kids of her mother's friends), and she was, at first, unprepared for the bullying and taunting that was aimed her way. She was good at making friends, but couldn't maintain the friendships and couldn't understand what other children were getting out of them. In the end her extreme frustration meant that any kid who tried to bully her ended up with her fist, or foot, in their face. She spewed advanced adult language at anyone who objected to this, and used blackmailing to keep it away from teachers. Within a year every kid at her school was scared of her, and she had dirt on all of them in a special notebook she kept at home.
Her teachers, unaware of what was going on (she'd decided not to make the same mistakes this time), were extremely pleased by her work, but her grades weren't that good. Octavo had a brilliant mind, but couldn't ever apply it long enough to make it go anywhere. She aced classes but only did the minimum amount of work required. Her teachers wrote letters to her mother -- praise mingled with pleas that she obviously needed testing for a few disorders -- but her mother was so disconnected from her life that all Octavo got from her was spending money and a roof above her head.
Octavo, for her part, spent those years mostly on the computer, thriving in an online environment. She didn't have to lie at all. She could be as mean as she wanted, and all they could do was ban her from a specific website. And she was good at the technology, and programming, though she would later drop the skill as "unnecessary." But for those years, she forged and hacked her way through, pulling pranks that people attributed to jokesters much older. She was helped by the fact that her mother was wealthy and could afford to get her the best in the latest computer gear, as though this would buy her daughter's affections. Octavo had already realized that she didn't love her mother like other daughters loved theirs. She didn't love anyone at all, and couldn't no matter how hard she tried.
Upon graduating high school, she went directly into college and put herself at the mercy of counselors to help her determine where she should spend her energies. Most of them were adamant that she go into the sciences and realize her potential. But to Octavo, that smacked of caring about other people and how the future would unfold. So, in rebellion, she declared her major as Accounting/Business. (Her mother was simply relieved that she hadn't chosen an Art major.) Her flippant, eccentric nature was quick to win her admirers among her peers, not that she noticed -- at first. She made permanent contacts in college, people who wanted to succeed at any price. One of those was a man named Christopher Pike who, like her, had no natural empathy for other people. They were quick to bond over this fact, though the arrangement was more political than friendships usually are.
Octavo graduated easily and with honors, now that she was fully applying herself (as best she could), and then went to Boston University for a second degree in Business. This was mostly so that she could get away from her mother, and everything familiar that was making her feel more and more stifled and out of control. That's what she thought, anyway. Halfway through her degree, she had a falling-out with a roommate and ended up smashing them over the head with a metal bar in a fit of rage. The wound ended up being fatal within a few minutes, and Octavo had to dispose of the body (it was never, to her relief, found). Her anger felt much better afterward, more easily controlled; she began to crave the feeling that taking a life had given her, a sense of complete power. She already had a pattern of going out and finding new people to do less than moral things with, so occasionally the evening would just end a little worse for them than it did for her. The police, and press, labeled these as the work of a serial killer, giving her the nickname of the Bleak Killer. She always sterilized the bodies as best as possible, kept them a few days, put new marks on them, made them truly look like a decimated corpse before she dropped them. Her signature was cutting a gash in their lower lip. The police thought long and hard about why someone would do that, but in truth, Octavo just thought it made them look "used and pretty," and that was as much thought as she put into it.
About the time 'she' was becoming truly famous in Massachusetts, her degree wrapped up and she packed up to return to California. She was as alien and distant to her mother as ever, and stayed just long enough at home to get a job and move out. Octavo went to work for a law firm named Wilkinson & Schmidt, as one of their accountants, a job which didn't pay much at first. But Octavo had a knack for knowing how to suck up in the right ways, and how to make others look bad without personally incriminating them. Within a year she was the #2 accountant. And that wasn't everything -- she cashed in her chips with her college contacts. They all had need for a person who was good with numbers, who could wriggle them out of bad situations, and some of them were prepared to pay handsomely for it. (The others who couldn't were, more or less, immediately discarded.)
Within two years, Octavo had a very nice home and could pay other people to keep it clean and stocked. She had enough money that nothing was really a problem anymore, and if she needed more she could just put out her feelers for people who needed someone lacking morals. Her killing started again, too, though it took a while for her to feel the same impatient urges. Now that she had a proper home base equipped with sound-proofing, she could afford to keep them alive longer, and her neighbors -- all wealthy and uncaring about each other -- never asked any questions. She was careful not to use any of her methods from Boston, and disposed of the bodies much more carefully.
Troubled by appearing too suspiciously quiet, Octavo got herself a few dogs. She had always despised animals, and had killed several when she'd been a child, but thought that having them would make her seem more normal still. Pleasantly, she discovered that she quite liked having the big fuzzy oafs around, as they put people off their guard and made them think of her as a happy and normal "animal person." They also didn't mind when she gave them fleshy "scraps" that were troublesome to dispose of. She named them after the three Fates of Greek mythology: Clotho (a German Shepherd), Lachesis (a Rottweiler) and Atropos (a Norwegian Elkhound). But she also hired someone to take care of them -- feed them, take them out on walks -- when she didn't want to, so that she wouldn't feel weighed down by their presence.
Point in canon: Octavo has just entered a two-week vacation from work, which she's definitely going to need. There's someone tied up in her basement, almost dead but not quite. She has her viola strapped to her back in its slim case, intent to go outside and play for a bit to blow off excess steam (she wants her victim to live a bit longer), when she notices something off about the cabinet in the corner -- and opens it, to see the Window. After that, it's just curiosity, and the guy strapped to her table will definitely be dead by the time she gets back.
Window Location: Her basement (the one more or less outfitted for containing and hurting people). Specifically, in a cupboard that belonged to the home's previous owners, shoved into a corner and not given a second thought until Octavo opens it.
Universe: Octavo's Earth is completely normal. No magic. The year is 2012. It's just like the Earth all we players come from, with the singular exception of there being one more city in California than there is: Calvaria, which was settled by Germans who came looking for gold and ran out of money. It's a three-hour drive from LA, out in the desert. Its most notable landmark is the German Heritage Festival in October.
Abilities: Octavo is a normal human with no supernatural or magical abilities (as none exist in her world).
Mental: She has a borderline genius-level IQ, a knack for calculations and numbers, and a good mind for remembering details (which helps in appearing 'normal'). She tends to be full of bonus bits of trivia that she picked up when she was bored, some of them quite morbid. Also on the more morbid front, she has advanced knowledge of human anatomy, and is well-versed in torture methods (which includes how to keep people alive when they're going through extreme pain). She's also a very good liar.
Physical: She's a bit stronger than she looks, which has helped her overpower and out-smart her victims. She has very good hand-eye coordination, which helps with one of her hobbies (gaming; she's an avid fan). So far she's resisted the urge to buy a gun, not wanting to look even remotely suspicious on a cold sweep of her personal habits, but she does know how to fire one from trips to a shooting range, and is a fairly decent shot.
Misc Skills: Can play the viola very well (pretty much the only skill she still maintains from when her father was still alive).
Possessions: A hunting (Bowie) knife in a dark leather sheath, inscribed with the number 8. Her Blackberry and wallet. Casual clothing. A pack of cigarettes that can't run out (courtesy of
frenchfortwelve) and a lighter. Her MP3 player. Her viola and bow, in a slim case that was strapped to her back.Personality: Octavo is, on some levels, defined by her antisocial personality disorder (a sociopath, by modern culture). Whereas she used to struggle with it, and feel confusion about not "fitting in" the way everyone else did, she more or less completely embraces it now -- though she's forced to hide it at every turn. It changed her into a completely convincing liar from a very early age; a very good actor able to mimic the emotions normal people would feel on a day-to-day basis (empathy, guilt). Lying is something that she enjoys. She likes how it affects other people. She likes how she can trick people without a lick of suspicion, inwardly watching their reactions with fierce glee. Like most of the things she enjoys, it has to do with power.
She does struggle somewhat with a surplus of anger and frustration that can explode outward with little to no warning, which is where her more unsavory activities help. There are other fixes that aren't as long-lasting that she indulges in -- video games, drinking, listening to music, playing her viola, and being sexually active. The latter is a completely superficial way to feel empowered, as she feels nothing for the people she chooses other than being attracted to them physically. But if the person in question is attractive and claims to feel something for her, she doesn't necessarily push them away. If anything, having them feel something for her furthers the empowerment. Though, naturally, she dumps them as soon as the rush ceases to be entertaining, and gives them no further thought.
People are curious, but ultimately troublesome, oddities for Octavo. She only forms "friendships" to people who will prove useful to her in the future. Everyone else is disregarded, even if she has to put up with them on a daily basis -- even to the point of never bothering to remember their name. As she feels absolutely no guilt or remorse for such behavior, any ruffled feelings she inspires are also disregarded. With a shrug, even. She doesn't have time for bleeding hearts unless those bleeding hearts will offer her financial stability, or entertainment, in the future. Overly-emotional people are things to be ignored, or things to be tormented. Children she can't relate to at all, and she finds their inability to care for themselves pathetic -- in part because she took care of herself when she was their age, but also because she thinks of them as tiny adults. And an adult who can't take care of themselves is the lowest thing she could consider.
Octavo's chief desires in life are to be comfortable and happy, two things that are different for her than for most people, as previously mentioned (they both require breaking the law; for her, rules were made to be broken). If she can't get either, she will be an extremely unhappy camper until the situation is rectified. Due to her low tolerance for frustration, her mood swings can be sometimes abrupt. She usually tries to disguise these feelings from others, shrugging off their occasional concern, because explanations are warranted, and the last thing she wants to do is sit somewhere and discuss her feelings. In her mind, it's weak and is reminiscent of chick flicks. She's more than capable of figuring herself out, in her mind, and so she no longer relies on any sort of therapy -- for a while, now, which is why she turned to hurting others to relieve her own frustrations. No one was around to explain that it wasn't "okay" for her to feel that way, and no one could confront her about it. Not that it would have helped. It had been a long time coming.
Octavo's main reasons for hiding her true self stem from her early, bullying days, when she was more free with her feelings and actually told people about them -- the young kids she was tormenting, but it was better than nothing. Someone knew what was going on. A boy she was attracted to (physically, but that's what she thought love was, back then) cornered her and accused her of hitting a girl he liked, which had been true. Octavo admitted to it, telling him that the girl was too weak for him; she wasn't strong and smart, like Octavo was. Gobsmacked, the boy called her "eight kinds of crazy" and went to go tell on her to a teacher. Octavo pinned him down, kicked him, and called him weak, too. She also threatened to tell the teachers that he and the girl had been doing inappropriate things, going into obscene detail. They hadn't, but he was afraid that her details would convince the teachers (and his parents) that she was right, so he agreed to keep quiet. After that, Octavo never told anyone about her feelings, and formed a strange attachment to the number 8 -- it was where her "name" would come from, many years later.
Octavo's craving of comfort and happiness goes hand in hand with her craving of power. She doesn't have quite the craving that a psychopath would have, their MO being all about power, but it's close. Much of her life has been spent in the shadow of someone else -- her parents, her peers -- and much of it has been spent craving attention. Killing, and torturing, other human beings gives her the greatest rush of attention and power that she has ever felt. And being that she finds other people tolerable, at best, and can't empathize with them, she has no "moral" qualms with her little hobby. Cutting them open, if anything, makes it easier to see them as living and disgusting creatures, a reaffirmation of what's in her mind. It convinces her that her cut-off mindset isn't so "eight kinds of crazy."
Her greatest problem with appearing "normal" to others is the fact that so much of her personality is so fully ingrained. She disregards rules and cannot feel guilt, and so sometimes she steps right into a bad situation without realizing it. Octavo often, these days, approaches situations cautiously and sifts through them, looking for warning signs that she can find intellectually. This makes her appear aloof and distant to others, even as she tries to cultivate a reputation as a fun and not particularly smart "party girl" -- especially among coworkers, whose relationships are necessary to maintain. Coworkers, after all, are one of the first places police go if they feel suspicious. So she maintains her warm persona with them, even though she finds her fellow accountants lower and less gifted than dirt.
Thread Sample: Here.
Prose Sample: She was fully aware that the art gallery opening was a complete necessity to attend, her boss (well, bosses boss) having pulled its ass out of the legal fire several months before. And now, on a show of good faith, she and a number of her fellow law firm employees had been asked to attend. It was a strange mix of people that they'd invited, though. There was Lisa, from her department (oh joy, the coworker I hate the most), and Mike, who was an up-and-coming lawyer in the firm, and Sal -- weird old partner Sal Wilkinson, who always looked like a corpse jokingly done up in a tuxedo. She'd seen Edda, somewhere, too, at the start of the evening, and she'd thought that that old creature lived at the firm.
"Gayle," someone said, behind her, and she swallowed a shudder at her given name.
"Lisa!" She put a grin on her face and kissed her coworkers' cheek. "How's your sister doing? Baby still good?"
"Fine, fine." Lisa Norris beamed at her. Lisa, for some reason, had always liked Octavo, even on the bad days when she couldn't put all of her effort into pretending to like other people. "Did you get the picture I sent you?"
Octavo nodded. "Yup. She's a rosy one." It'd taken all of her effort, for that morning, not to text back, What marinade are you putting on that steak?
"Mari's really doing well as a mom. So, uh, how are things with you?" Lisa wasn't good at segues, and swallowed nervously. "Are you still seeing that blond, tall gentleman?"
She couldn't even remember the individual that Lisa was talking about. Nevertheless, she replied, "Oh, we had our differences, unfortunately. Why, did you want his number?" She grinned, quirking her lips in the way others recognized as 'joking.'
Lisa turned scarlet, on cue. "No! He wasn't really my type."
She was lying. It took one to recognize one. But still, Octavo had no idea who she was talking about, and odds were bad that she'd bothered to save his phone number. So she just shrugged.
"Have it your way."
"Although, if you could..."
Ah, so there it was. Lisa, the transparent wonder. "I'll see if I can dig it up," she lied. She'd make up some story about losing it, tomorrow morning when both of them were at work. But she'd bring muffins, and Lisa's favorite type of coffee, and they'd just laugh the whole thing off. Lisa's dating life had been in overdrive ever since her sister's baby had been born. It was probably some female thing, an instinct, that Octavo didn't have. Nor did she really want to.
"Thanks, Gayle, you're the best."
She swallowed another cringe.
"Anytime." Please just go away, before you use all of my patience up for the night... "I'm going to go say a word to Sal, do the old 'in charge of people and important' rounds..." She made it sound tired and joking, like someone who hadn't climbed tooth and nail to the top -- or near enough, anyway. She wasn't old enough to be head of Accounting. Not yet.
"Oh, oh, sure!" Lisa pats her on the shoulder. She swallows a scream. "I'll talk to you later."
Octavo scoots away, grabbing an elegant glass of champagne from a waiter and downing the thing in one pull. There. Good. Now she could talk to the old man without wanting to throttle him. Well, maybe.
Plans: Go to work for the Company, do some accounting? And probably do some other shady things. Hide her little hobby back home. Make contacts. Be rude.
Notes: Octavo isn't going to do any of her serial killer schtick in the Observatory, or other worlds. At first, anyway, we'll see where things go. She's going to err on the side of caution, especially since she doesn't know how this all pans out. But that will make her returns home necessary, in order to blow off the steam that she accumulates.
DÆMON
Name: Set
Sex: Male
Form: Devil's Flower Mantis
Additional notes: Set exactly resembles the DFM in that picture.
Why this form: The DFM mimics flowers to lure, and disguise itself among, prey -- just as Octavo feigns being normal (well, close enough) to put others at ease. They are also solitary creatures who, just like her, only interact with others of their kind when requiring baser urges. Their disguise also helps them avoid predators, just as Octavo's "normal" facade keeps the authorities from suspecting her.