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tushanshu
Player Information:
Name: Froda
Age: Over 18
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frodabaggins
Game Cast: Arthur | Inception |![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aloadeddie
Shepard | Mass Effect |cmdreffingshepard
Character Information:
Name: Rae "Sunshine" Seddon
Canon: Sunshine (novel)
Canon Point: End of the novel, when she leaves with Constantine.
Age: 25
Reference: Sunshine wiki page
Setting: Sunshine takes place in an alternate (though in many ways parallel) universe to our own. It has roughly the same level of technology as the late 20th/early 21st century present-day world, including stuff like cars, computers (called "comboxes") and the internet (called the "globenet"). It also seems to have even some of the same pop culture as our world - at least, the older stuff. Bram Stoker's Dracula gets name dropped multiple times. Furthermore, there's some kind of international government, called a "Global Council", of which the head is known as the President. Other than that, we don't know anything about the politics or government of this world.
What it also has, however, is magic, and supernatural creatures galore.
OTHERS: "Other" is a catch-all term for any non-human supernatural creatures. They fall into roughly three categories: weres, demons, and the darkest Others, vampires. Weres (like werewolves, or were-raccoons, or were-rats) and vampires (also sometimes colloquially called "suckers") are pretty self-explanatory: weres are the ones that change into animals every full moon, while vampires are undead humans who exist for centuries and prey on human blood to survive. "Demon" is a rather broad, catch-all term for basically every other kind of supernatural being, from angels to peris. They also seem to be by far the most common, since they can exist and interbreed with humans (thus creating "part-bloods"). Some weres and demons are pretty nasty, but just as many are perfectly harmless and want nothing more than to live in peace within the human population. Only the vampires stand completely apart - considered universally evil, the natural predator of humans, and, some would argue, also steadily taking over the world.
Vampires in the world of Sunshine do not wear capes or sleep in coffins or graveyards; nor do they sparkle. They are grey, skinny, ugly, inhuman predators that smell funny (they smell of blood, but also something else which is neither "animal, vegetable, or mineral"). They can move with complete silence, and faster than the human eye can track. They have superhuman strength, and looking them directly in the eyes will lead a human to fall under their psychic powers of manipulation and coercion. A human "under the dark" will ask - beg the vampire to bite them. Their voices are strange and alien (and a master vampire may be able to drive humans insane simply by the sound of his or her voice), and it's also difficult for humans to tell male from female vampires.
The only real weakness vampires have is sunlight - sunlight is utterly deadly to them. A young vampire only needs to avoid direct sunlight, but the older the vamp, the weaker they are. The oldest vampires can't go outside at all, because the merest hint of reflected moonlight will incinerate them (remembering that moonlight is only reflected sunlight). The only known exception to this age rule is Constantine, the vampire Rae befriends. He claims that there are "different ways of being" a vampire, though exactly why or how this happens is never explained. But he can handle being outside in moonlight, even running around at twilight, despite being at least 300-400 years old. Many people believe that the only reason vampires don't effectively rule the world (via the global economy, natch) is because of their weakness to sunlight.
There are legal restrictions against all Others - though it's only illegal (technically) to be a vampire. Weres and demons - even partblood demons - all officially have to register with the government so they can be kept track of, though of course there are ways around this, either by accident or on purpose. In some ways, the registry is just straight-up discrimination, although it does have some good reasoning behind it - for instance, certain demon genes, when mixed with human magic-handling genes, almost invariably cause a child born with the mix to be criminally insane. Which brings us to:
MAGIC: Humanity has some defense against all these supernatural forces, in the form of magic handling. Not all humans can do magic, and of those who can, only a small fraction are really powerful. Still, every human with half a brain does things like keep their homes and persons warded against evil (especially vampires). Wardcrafting is a booming business, though the creation of physical wards is only one sort of magic possible (and also appears to be the most commonly practiced, with organized orders and apprentice structures). Other types of magic include transmuting - the ability to change an object into another object (such as a flower into a feather, or a jack knife into a key), as well as more complicated and mystical things, like traveling to what Rae calls "nowheresville" - a kind of psychic Otherspace that's outside of the physical world, that allows fast travel and where Others such as vampires seem to at least partially exist. All magic handlers have an "element" which is their primary affinity and from which they draw their power - we are told that for most, it's one of the "big four" - air, water, fire or earth. For Rae, however, her affinity is sunlight. This also leads to a counteraffinity - a magic handler with an affinity for water, for instance, is particularly adept at putting out fires. Rae's "counteraffinity" is possibly darkness, or perhaps vampires themselves. Furthermore, human beings who steep themselves in magic can live very extended lifespans, though this seems to vary on the person. So magic is there, and it's (mostly) genetic, which means that certain families sometimes rise to prominence as "magic handling families" - presumably this also comes with a lot of political and economic power, at least as long as the family is prominent. The Blaises are one such in this universe - Rae is the daughter of Onyx Blaise, a mysterious man who, it is rumored, may have actually been a "sorcerer" (a particularly powerful and, rumor has it, dark sort of magic handler). Whatever he was, he was powerful, and prominent, as were all the Blaises - at least, before the wars.
VOODOO WARS: When Rae was ten years old, the Voodoo Wars began. They "weren't actually about Voodoo," she tells us, but they were about "a lot of bad stuff". There's not a lot of detail about what actually happened during this period of time (roughly from the time Rae was 10 to when she was 15), or even specifics about what (or who) caused them. They were devastating, however, that much is for sure. The human population was severely diminished, and we know there are places where "nothing will ever grow again". Presumably the vampires were a primary antagonist in these wars, and they led to the creation of "bad spots" as well - these simply seem to be places where people can't enter unless they want to be driven insane with fear. The official story on the wars appears to be that the humans "won" albeit at huge cost of life, though some SOF agents in the novel seem to take a much more pessimistic view of things.
SPECIAL OTHER FORCES: aka "SOF" is the law enforcement agency tasked with dealing with anything to do with the Others. Technically, only humans are supposed to be in SOF, not even part-bloods are allowed, but, as Rae finds out, there are actually a lot of part-bloods in SOF, and faking the blood test seems relatively common. These part-bloods help registry dodgers, assist in getting weres the drugs necessary to stop their monthly change, and, of course, do their best to try and curb the vampire threat, because as many believe, if it wasn't for the vampires, the other Other groups wouldn't face nearly as much discrimination as they do.
NEW ARCADIA: The city in which the novel takes place, it's Rae's home and home to Charlie's Coffeehouse, her workplace, run by her mother and stepfather, where she is the head baker. New Arcadia is, by real world standards, probably at best a small or medium-sized city, a few hundred thousand, tops. But it is one of the more important cities in the country, simply by dint of the fact that it was left mostly intact after the end of the Voodoo Wars. It's also home to an internationally important Other Museum, also mostly only significant because it still existed by the time the wars were over. We are never told exactly where New Arcadia is, but presumably it's somewhere in North America, and it seems to have a temperate climate, with hot summers and cold winters.
Personality:
Appearance: The only thing close to a physical description we get of Rae in the book is from Pat, one of the SOF officers and a regular at Charlie's, when he describes her as "...middling tall, skinny, weird-looking hair because it will have just been let out of being tied up in a scarf for working in a restaurant and [she] never comb[s] it, wearing a fierce look." The vagueness of it leaves something to be desired when choosing a PB, so for now I'm using Teresa Palmer, primarily from the film Warm Bodies because she more or less fits my mental image and that movie is similar in both content and tone to Sunshine, which helps to find suitable facial expressions. Here is a reference image. Other than that, we also know she has a couple of scars on her breastbone, one a sort of thin crescent from a knife wound she received several months ago, and one which criss-crosses it and looks like a chain or fine necklace of some kind was hanging around her neck and got permanently burned into her skin (which is exactly what happened). In clothing, she prefers bright colors and tries to avoid black, which she claims makes her "look like death".
Abilities: The full extent of Rae's magical abilities isn't known even to her, but here is what she does know she can do for sure:
Sunlight: Sunlight is the element from which she draws her power and in direct sunlight, she seems to be able to do just about anything she sets her mind to, without exhausting herself. Sunlight is what she uses to regenerate and "recharge" both her body and her magical power.
Transmuting: The first and only thing which she was actually taught by her grandmother - the ability to change objects into other objects. The denser the object, the tougher it is to change, so a feather is much easier to change than a rock, for instance. Furthermore, objects which have been worked by human hands are more difficult than objects which are "natural", so a cut and polished gem is tougher to change than an uncut gem. Worked metal is the most difficult, but Rae can change it without any difficulty given enough direct sunlight.
Vampire parasol: Possibly the most esoteric and startling trick Rae can manage, she is capable of shielding a vampire from direct sunlight so they can walk around in the day. Constantine, a master vampire who is at least 300 years old, is totally shocked by this ability, so it's probably safe to say that Rae is about the only person in the world who can do it. This pretty much requires physical contact (or contact with an object infused with her sunlight-enhanced power), and she can only do it with one vampire at a time.
Vampire immunity: It's uncertain whether this comes directly from her magic, or if some of it has to do with her bond with Constantine, but Con is pretty sure that she cannot be turned into a vampire. She can still be killed by one, but she is mostly immune to being turned, as well as immune to the power of their eyes and voices - she cannot be swayed by them the way most humans can.
Vampire slaying: She has killed vampires with a- a butter knife, b- her jack knife, and c- her bare hands, none of which are theoretically possible for a human to do. Given enough built-up power of sunlight, though, Rae can and has done it.
Seeing in the dark: This is not one of her innate magical powers, but a side-effect of Con healing her poisoned wound by sharing with her the blood of a deer he'd killed - she can now see in the dark, and in shadows. But it's a weird kind of seeing, which also gives her some insight into things like whether a person she's talking to is an Other, or a magic-handler.
Psychic link/nowheresville: She can track vampires, and this is accomplished in a couple of different ways. Primarily, she can sit in front of a combox and, simply by looking at com mails, psychically pick up which ones were written by vampires and use them to track them. It's relatively imprecise, but she's getting better at it. This can also lead to trips through nowheresville, the Other space which is mostly not a place humans are supposed to go.
She also has a direct psychic link/bond with Constantine, but that's unique to him.
Oh, and she's like, the best baker ever.
Beyond this stuff, though, she's a human being, subject to all the usual physical limitations and weaknesses of a human (she can't run fast, she has no super strength, she needs to sleep and eat, she's subject to injury, etc). Furthermore, most of this stuff, she's still figuring out so it's often pretty hit-and-miss.
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Name: Froda
Age: Over 18
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Game Cast: Arthur | Inception |
aloadeddieShepard | Mass Effect |
cmdreffingshepardCharacter Information:
Name: Rae "Sunshine" Seddon
Canon: Sunshine (novel)
Canon Point: End of the novel, when she leaves with Constantine.
Age: 25
Reference: Sunshine wiki page
Setting: Sunshine takes place in an alternate (though in many ways parallel) universe to our own. It has roughly the same level of technology as the late 20th/early 21st century present-day world, including stuff like cars, computers (called "comboxes") and the internet (called the "globenet"). It also seems to have even some of the same pop culture as our world - at least, the older stuff. Bram Stoker's Dracula gets name dropped multiple times. Furthermore, there's some kind of international government, called a "Global Council", of which the head is known as the President. Other than that, we don't know anything about the politics or government of this world.
What it also has, however, is magic, and supernatural creatures galore.
OTHERS: "Other" is a catch-all term for any non-human supernatural creatures. They fall into roughly three categories: weres, demons, and the darkest Others, vampires. Weres (like werewolves, or were-raccoons, or were-rats) and vampires (also sometimes colloquially called "suckers") are pretty self-explanatory: weres are the ones that change into animals every full moon, while vampires are undead humans who exist for centuries and prey on human blood to survive. "Demon" is a rather broad, catch-all term for basically every other kind of supernatural being, from angels to peris. They also seem to be by far the most common, since they can exist and interbreed with humans (thus creating "part-bloods"). Some weres and demons are pretty nasty, but just as many are perfectly harmless and want nothing more than to live in peace within the human population. Only the vampires stand completely apart - considered universally evil, the natural predator of humans, and, some would argue, also steadily taking over the world.
Vampires in the world of Sunshine do not wear capes or sleep in coffins or graveyards; nor do they sparkle. They are grey, skinny, ugly, inhuman predators that smell funny (they smell of blood, but also something else which is neither "animal, vegetable, or mineral"). They can move with complete silence, and faster than the human eye can track. They have superhuman strength, and looking them directly in the eyes will lead a human to fall under their psychic powers of manipulation and coercion. A human "under the dark" will ask - beg the vampire to bite them. Their voices are strange and alien (and a master vampire may be able to drive humans insane simply by the sound of his or her voice), and it's also difficult for humans to tell male from female vampires.
The only real weakness vampires have is sunlight - sunlight is utterly deadly to them. A young vampire only needs to avoid direct sunlight, but the older the vamp, the weaker they are. The oldest vampires can't go outside at all, because the merest hint of reflected moonlight will incinerate them (remembering that moonlight is only reflected sunlight). The only known exception to this age rule is Constantine, the vampire Rae befriends. He claims that there are "different ways of being" a vampire, though exactly why or how this happens is never explained. But he can handle being outside in moonlight, even running around at twilight, despite being at least 300-400 years old. Many people believe that the only reason vampires don't effectively rule the world (via the global economy, natch) is because of their weakness to sunlight.
There are legal restrictions against all Others - though it's only illegal (technically) to be a vampire. Weres and demons - even partblood demons - all officially have to register with the government so they can be kept track of, though of course there are ways around this, either by accident or on purpose. In some ways, the registry is just straight-up discrimination, although it does have some good reasoning behind it - for instance, certain demon genes, when mixed with human magic-handling genes, almost invariably cause a child born with the mix to be criminally insane. Which brings us to:
MAGIC: Humanity has some defense against all these supernatural forces, in the form of magic handling. Not all humans can do magic, and of those who can, only a small fraction are really powerful. Still, every human with half a brain does things like keep their homes and persons warded against evil (especially vampires). Wardcrafting is a booming business, though the creation of physical wards is only one sort of magic possible (and also appears to be the most commonly practiced, with organized orders and apprentice structures). Other types of magic include transmuting - the ability to change an object into another object (such as a flower into a feather, or a jack knife into a key), as well as more complicated and mystical things, like traveling to what Rae calls "nowheresville" - a kind of psychic Otherspace that's outside of the physical world, that allows fast travel and where Others such as vampires seem to at least partially exist. All magic handlers have an "element" which is their primary affinity and from which they draw their power - we are told that for most, it's one of the "big four" - air, water, fire or earth. For Rae, however, her affinity is sunlight. This also leads to a counteraffinity - a magic handler with an affinity for water, for instance, is particularly adept at putting out fires. Rae's "counteraffinity" is possibly darkness, or perhaps vampires themselves. Furthermore, human beings who steep themselves in magic can live very extended lifespans, though this seems to vary on the person. So magic is there, and it's (mostly) genetic, which means that certain families sometimes rise to prominence as "magic handling families" - presumably this also comes with a lot of political and economic power, at least as long as the family is prominent. The Blaises are one such in this universe - Rae is the daughter of Onyx Blaise, a mysterious man who, it is rumored, may have actually been a "sorcerer" (a particularly powerful and, rumor has it, dark sort of magic handler). Whatever he was, he was powerful, and prominent, as were all the Blaises - at least, before the wars.
VOODOO WARS: When Rae was ten years old, the Voodoo Wars began. They "weren't actually about Voodoo," she tells us, but they were about "a lot of bad stuff". There's not a lot of detail about what actually happened during this period of time (roughly from the time Rae was 10 to when she was 15), or even specifics about what (or who) caused them. They were devastating, however, that much is for sure. The human population was severely diminished, and we know there are places where "nothing will ever grow again". Presumably the vampires were a primary antagonist in these wars, and they led to the creation of "bad spots" as well - these simply seem to be places where people can't enter unless they want to be driven insane with fear. The official story on the wars appears to be that the humans "won" albeit at huge cost of life, though some SOF agents in the novel seem to take a much more pessimistic view of things.
SPECIAL OTHER FORCES: aka "SOF" is the law enforcement agency tasked with dealing with anything to do with the Others. Technically, only humans are supposed to be in SOF, not even part-bloods are allowed, but, as Rae finds out, there are actually a lot of part-bloods in SOF, and faking the blood test seems relatively common. These part-bloods help registry dodgers, assist in getting weres the drugs necessary to stop their monthly change, and, of course, do their best to try and curb the vampire threat, because as many believe, if it wasn't for the vampires, the other Other groups wouldn't face nearly as much discrimination as they do.
NEW ARCADIA: The city in which the novel takes place, it's Rae's home and home to Charlie's Coffeehouse, her workplace, run by her mother and stepfather, where she is the head baker. New Arcadia is, by real world standards, probably at best a small or medium-sized city, a few hundred thousand, tops. But it is one of the more important cities in the country, simply by dint of the fact that it was left mostly intact after the end of the Voodoo Wars. It's also home to an internationally important Other Museum, also mostly only significant because it still existed by the time the wars were over. We are never told exactly where New Arcadia is, but presumably it's somewhere in North America, and it seems to have a temperate climate, with hot summers and cold winters.
Personality:
Appearance: The only thing close to a physical description we get of Rae in the book is from Pat, one of the SOF officers and a regular at Charlie's, when he describes her as "...middling tall, skinny, weird-looking hair because it will have just been let out of being tied up in a scarf for working in a restaurant and [she] never comb[s] it, wearing a fierce look." The vagueness of it leaves something to be desired when choosing a PB, so for now I'm using Teresa Palmer, primarily from the film Warm Bodies because she more or less fits my mental image and that movie is similar in both content and tone to Sunshine, which helps to find suitable facial expressions. Here is a reference image. Other than that, we also know she has a couple of scars on her breastbone, one a sort of thin crescent from a knife wound she received several months ago, and one which criss-crosses it and looks like a chain or fine necklace of some kind was hanging around her neck and got permanently burned into her skin (which is exactly what happened). In clothing, she prefers bright colors and tries to avoid black, which she claims makes her "look like death".
Abilities: The full extent of Rae's magical abilities isn't known even to her, but here is what she does know she can do for sure:
Sunlight: Sunlight is the element from which she draws her power and in direct sunlight, she seems to be able to do just about anything she sets her mind to, without exhausting herself. Sunlight is what she uses to regenerate and "recharge" both her body and her magical power.
Transmuting: The first and only thing which she was actually taught by her grandmother - the ability to change objects into other objects. The denser the object, the tougher it is to change, so a feather is much easier to change than a rock, for instance. Furthermore, objects which have been worked by human hands are more difficult than objects which are "natural", so a cut and polished gem is tougher to change than an uncut gem. Worked metal is the most difficult, but Rae can change it without any difficulty given enough direct sunlight.
Vampire parasol: Possibly the most esoteric and startling trick Rae can manage, she is capable of shielding a vampire from direct sunlight so they can walk around in the day. Constantine, a master vampire who is at least 300 years old, is totally shocked by this ability, so it's probably safe to say that Rae is about the only person in the world who can do it. This pretty much requires physical contact (or contact with an object infused with her sunlight-enhanced power), and she can only do it with one vampire at a time.
Vampire immunity: It's uncertain whether this comes directly from her magic, or if some of it has to do with her bond with Constantine, but Con is pretty sure that she cannot be turned into a vampire. She can still be killed by one, but she is mostly immune to being turned, as well as immune to the power of their eyes and voices - she cannot be swayed by them the way most humans can.
Vampire slaying: She has killed vampires with a- a butter knife, b- her jack knife, and c- her bare hands, none of which are theoretically possible for a human to do. Given enough built-up power of sunlight, though, Rae can and has done it.
Seeing in the dark: This is not one of her innate magical powers, but a side-effect of Con healing her poisoned wound by sharing with her the blood of a deer he'd killed - she can now see in the dark, and in shadows. But it's a weird kind of seeing, which also gives her some insight into things like whether a person she's talking to is an Other, or a magic-handler.
Psychic link/nowheresville: She can track vampires, and this is accomplished in a couple of different ways. Primarily, she can sit in front of a combox and, simply by looking at com mails, psychically pick up which ones were written by vampires and use them to track them. It's relatively imprecise, but she's getting better at it. This can also lead to trips through nowheresville, the Other space which is mostly not a place humans are supposed to go.
She also has a direct psychic link/bond with Constantine, but that's unique to him.
Oh, and she's like, the best baker ever.
Beyond this stuff, though, she's a human being, subject to all the usual physical limitations and weaknesses of a human (she can't run fast, she has no super strength, she needs to sleep and eat, she's subject to injury, etc). Furthermore, most of this stuff, she's still figuring out so it's often pretty hit-and-miss.
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