application (maskormenace)

[poreiavian]

(edit credit)
〈 PLAYER INFO 〉


NAME: Marion
AGE: 21+
JOURNAL: unification
IM / EMAIL: I have a discord (Marion#8374) but nothing else.
PLURK: canarycry
RETURNING: Yep. Playing Jotaro Kujo (jojoceanman)

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉

CHARACTER NAME: Loma. Insists upon being called Loma Shade, or "Shade" for short.
CHARACTER AGE: 20-something. Occupies the body of a 16 year old.
SERIES: DC Comics (Young Animal)
CHRONOLOGY: Shade the Changing Girl, End of issue #10
CLASS: Free Spirited Avian.
HOUSING: Anywhere in Maurtia Falls will be fine!

BACKGROUND:

Loma comes from the alien planet Meta, which is a diverse planet made up of many different alien species conglomerated together. After an incident only referred to as the "Cray Expansion" occurred, many of these species left to Meta for a better life. However the main species in charge are the Metans, which look very similar to humans, and they are a cold calculating bunch. Meta society is very bureaucratic, and model citizens are pragmatic, logical and act for the best interests of society and not the individual.

This is important to mention because Loma herself is not a Metan, but an Avian (bird aliens.) Her parents left their home planet for hope of a better life on Meta, but failed some nebulous parenting test. Loma was taken from them, clipped of her wings, and became an orphan among the thousands. Luckily she was adopted by a wealthy Metan couple, whereas most of her kind typically grow up in the system. However she quickly learned that she was different from everyone around her. A free spirit who shunned the letter of the law and was labeled a "trouble" child very early on. She frequently broke the law, went clubbing at night, stole from her adopted parents and had many incident reports under her case file. At some point she even turned to drug use for a while.

Truthfully Loma was always looking for an escape from a life she didn't feel anything for. That first escape came from a 1950s television show Life with Honey. At some point the television show's broadcast signals bounced to Meta, and the planet fell under a short lived Earth craze. Yet for Loma it was more than just a fad. Life with Honey became her impetus for wanting to leave Meta and migrate to Earth.

The second escape came when she began attending a boarding school university, and her literature class was instructed by a guest speaker: Rac Shade. Rac Shade was a poet who spoke of madness and adventures on Earth, and for the first time she was able to put words to the apathy and numbness she felt on Meta. She immersed herself in his poetry, his biography videos, and even wanted to become a Madness agent in the M-Vest program he established (which was unfortunately discontinued.)

It should be noted right now that "Madness" is a cosmic force that Meta has used previously to conquer planets and win wars. The M-Vest is a piece of technology created to harness Madness into a weapon, but even in small doses Madness is toxic. Most people who have used it either died or suffered trauma to their psyche. It is considered to be on the same level as biological and chemical weaponry on Meta, and its use was banned.

One day, after a reading of his poetry, Rac Shade vanished from Meta with the Madness and was never again seen. There was a lot of speculation for his disappearance, but society was happy to move along as if he never existed and wouldn't be missed. Loma was crushed, and became only more determined to leave the planet she felt absolutely no roots in. The problem was a desire with no real means to make true. She went back to her old habits, stealing money and items to fund her collection of Earth-related trinkets. There was no hesitation if it meant she could get a little closer to the planet she dreamed of going to.

At some point she dropped out of university, too jaded by society to fall in line with what it wanted out of her, and began jumping from lover to lover to keep a roof over her head. She met Lepuck, another alien who didn't follow the conventions of Meta, who worked at the Museum of Alien Curiosities. He invited her to the museum's exhibition on Earth, which displayed one item of immense interest to Loma - the original Madness Coat worn by none other than Rac Shade himself. The last functioning M-Vest in existence. Loma convinced Lepuck to get her into the museum after hours, during which she convinced him to open up the case containing the coat. Without hesitation she took the coat, put it on, and used the power of Madness to push her spirit out of her body. Finally she found a way to get to Earth.

Upon arriving to Earth, Loma landed in a suburban town where she zeroed in on teenage girl Megan Boyer. Megan was a comatose patient who suffered significant brain damage due to drug use and was living on life support. Days before her parents would decide to pull the cord, Loma pushed Megan's spirit out of her body and took it over. "Megan" had made a miraculous recovery to the shock of everyone who knew her, but really it was just Loma now living in the body of the teenager.

In Megan's body, Loma got her first taste of Earth. How did it go? Pretty awful actually! Turns out Megan wasn't just an average teenage girl. She was a toxic manipulator, who made her "friends" on the swim team so terrified that they went into a panic when they heard she came back to life. People on message boards talked of how she damaged them emotionally, wrote them into her burn books and slandered their social standing. Pretty much the only person who genuinely liked her was her boyfriend, who just didn't know any better. Loma didn't even find out about this herself until a neighborhood teen who went to school with her enlightened her on the situation, after which he began to suspect she wasn't really a human at all.

However Loma didn't care about Megan or her past. While she took Megan's body, she never once made any attempt at pretending to be her. The odd behavior she displayed, as well as her "amnesia", was written off as a side-effect of the brain damage. In addition to all the drama, she also had to go through the experience of living as an entirely different species. The way she saw colors, smelled, moved, even felt was all so different from what she experienced her whole life. The toxic anger Megan carried was still left behind in the shell, and Loma could feel herself being swayed by those emotions into outbursts of anger that felt good to act upon. But it wasn't really her.

While this is going on, three things are happening. First, Loma can now tap into the Madness thanks to Rac Shade's coat. Yet she couldn't always control it. Madness leaked into her emotions, the environment, and even other people began being affected by it through the change of their feelings and minor hallucinations. Second, an agency on Meta was now hunting down her whereabouts on Earth to get back control of the coat. Loma herself would not come to know of this until later on. Third, Megan's spirit was still alive and she wanted her damn body back.

The last tidbit comes to a head when Loma attempts to leave Earth, sick of being mistreated, only to find she can't return home. This attempt to leave may be unsuccessful, but it has the unfortunate side effect of Megan locating where her body is after Loma threw her spirit out into the cosmos. Megan returns to Earth and battles Loma on a spiritual and emotional level to get control of her body again, but Loma refused to concede out of fear that her spirit could vanish into limbo if Megan won. Loma uses the power of Madness to break apart Megan's spirit and is, for the time being, free of the girl's toxic influence on her emotions.

Yet her own personal triumph does not change anything in the school. After she falls victim to a humilitating prank at the school dance, Loma decides to do what she does best: run away. She steals money from Megan's parents and train rides randomly until she stumbles into Gotham City. From there she tours the city, taking in as much as she can over a couple days, before finding out by chance that her favorite Earth band is playing a concert.

When the concert begins, Loma discovers two things: her favorite Earth band got old. She only knew of them through their appearance on Life with Honey, which was over sixty years ago now, and didn't even realize so much time had pass on Earth since they were young. Worse yet, she finds out the starring actress of said show is ill and may not have much time before she passes. This inspires Loma to leave the East Coast and go on a roadtrip to Hollywood, knowing she may only have one chance to meet the woman who played Honey.

On the way there though she runs into the Metans, who are desperately trying to apprehend the M-Vest and are traveling to Earth via the Madness to get it. After they kill a man in a bar who was trying to defend her from them, her rage mixes with the Madness and causes the entire building to explode killing everyone but herself inside. Even with a heavy burden knowing that she caused tragedy, Loma can do nothing but keep moving on to Hollywood in order to find Honey.


PERSONALITY:

If Loma had to be defined in a single word alone, it would be "freedom." Since childhood, Loma has been desperately chasing a dream to be free to do whatever she pleases. Constantly butting against authority, be it her Metan parents or the law itself, she is never the type to fall in line with what others want. In a society that prides itself on collectivism and conformity, Loma sought individuality and was never allowed to express it. Even the simple act of gathering rocks in a park was deemed a misdemeanor. It only encouraged her to keep breaking the rules, especially the ones that seemed stupid to her.

In everyday conversation, Loma looks like a delight. She's eccentric, a flighty cynic and always up for adventure. It's easy to see how she could always get along in most social circles, because she isn't outwardly bad. At heart she's a good person, but lost in her own little world and way. If she wants something, she goes at it with full force and can't be contained. She lacks inhibition, and sometimes that can be a good thing. It's the voice in your head that tells you "hey, maybe you shouldn't do this crazy reckless thing." Either Loma never had it, or she always chose to ignore it.

It was all done in the name of following her nature. Not necessarily the nature of her species, which she claims to never have any connection to, but what she felt was natural for her. Loma prides herself on making choices by instinct and intuition, rather than spending hours toiling over every possibility. Many of her decisions are made right in the moment based on what she wants, and any concern about the consequences come when they're appearing right in her face. She lives for the now in all ways, no matter how many times it may backfire on her. She doesn't believe in changing herself because she likes who she is.

What she doesn't like is feeling numb, which is where her impetus to leave Meta comes from. She's constantly running from apathy and depression, looking for the next adventure to thrill her. It doesn't have to just be stealing, or drug use, but even as escape like television. Life with Honey, a rather corny sitcom from the 1960s (it's essentially equivalent to "I Love Lucy"), was never appealing because of its writing or stories. Loma attached to this show because it was so different from anything she ever saw on Meta, and she loved it because it wasn't from the world she felt a stranger in. She dreamed of being the daughter of the sitcom couple, and even has an imaginary Honey that she asks for advice in present day. To her its a lifeline from an empty life.

Speaking of escapes, it's important to talk about her major obsession with Rac Shade. A Meta native who traveled through the mystical force of Madness, Rac Shade was the first person on the planet who gave Loma a sense of direction. He spoke of feeling everything, and made her realize for the first time how depressed she truly was on Meta. She read all his books, burrowed herself in the telling of his life, and always believed she had a connection to him that no one else had. Never mind that she met him once, and said no more than a couple sentences to him. He became her guiding star, the thing that spoke to her in a way nothing else ever did.

Yet her version of Rac Shade is as imaginary as Honey. She created a man in her head who gave her the path to solve all her problems, and to do it in a quick and easy way. Why deal with the problems you have in your world, when you can leave it behind and go to another one? Loma is quick to create escapes from the hell she considers to be reality, and Earth becomes that to her as well. She adjusts poorly to Earth in the same way anyone would if they thought television sitcoms were an accurate depiction of real life. Poetry speaks to her, but not everything is as beautiful as the written words of a mad man.

When you live in a tv world, in your own dreams and idolization, you begin to distance yourself from what's real. It's because of this that Loma has so many acquaintances, and a string of lovers to sleep with, but has no real friends. She does this purposefully though. If you're always going and relying on yourself, you never have to worry about letting anyone down. You can't break any hearts if you don't get close. In the same way, you can't be heartbroken if you don't give up your heart. Avians were known for flocking together among their own kind, but Loma never once thought of it. She was always a loner, purposefully so, because she felt life is easier when you're by yourself. As she says herself, "who needs friends when you have places to go, music to hear and shiny things to steal."

But it's all bullshit because the truth is Loma longs for belonging. Meta never gave her it, and that's what drove her to put on Rac Shade's M-Vest (fashioned into a coat) and leave for Earth. She tries hard to fit into the high school society that she is thrust into on Earth, even when classmates are cruel to her (and not for anything she did, but for the actions of her host), and only thinks of quitting after she realizes that Earth is not what Life with Honey made it out to be. She's impatient though and her lack of ability to settle down makes her chase after something in the now and not the future. She craves the validation that she never got as a child, to be told that she can feel and live as she wants. Rac Shade and Honey taught her that you can do anything you set your heart too, as long as you're mad enough to do it.

Loma's desires are not inherently bad, but they are self-destructive. She's always on a collision course with her desire to feel, to escape depression, and be who she is regardless of what anyone tells her. While she's a good person at heart, she will always pick herself over others, and do whatever benefits her in the moment. She doesn't mind emotionally manipulating others to get what she needs, steals when she must, and decides the consequences of her actions can wait until she crosses the bridge. However the bridge is always burning down and on fire, one that she lit before she even stepped foot on it. That's just the kind of person she is. She's always running, always burning others, and knows she's a terrible person for it. Once you invite the madness, it doesn't ever leave. Maybe because she doesn't want it to.


POWER:

MADNESS

What exactly Madness is never gets quite defined, other than it being a cosmic and hard to control force of nature, but its many applications boil down to the power of warping reality. With Madness, Loma has been able to do things such as:

-Make people feel extremely anxious and afraid of her.
-Cause hallucinations of things that aren't there.
-See into the dreams of others.
-Turn a group of seniors into teenagers.
-Channel her rage into dangerous bursts of psychic energy.

These are just a handful of examples. What's more important is Loma is not always in completely control of the Madness. It leaks into her own vision depending on her emotions and it affects others when she doesn't intend it to. In order to not make it too insanely powerful to the point of gamebreaking, I'm limiting Loma's control of Madness under three powers. Essentially "Madness" is just the umbrella term for these three powers that she has.

Stage One: The Emotional

Using Madness, Loma can manipulate a person's emotional spectrum and either tone down or amplify whatever they are feeling in the moment. If someone is content, she can make them full-blown happy. If someone is anxious, she can cause them terror. Conversely, if someone is angry, she can mellow them down into submission. She can't alter an emotion that doesn't already exist in the moment however. So if someone is really upset, the best she can do to help is make them feel less upset. Eliminating the current emotion and replacing it with another isn't in her ability.

Stage Two: The Mental

This power relates to her ability to cause hallucinations. Auditory and visual both, she can influence someone to see things that aren't there. She can use this power to either create singular hallucinations, which only one person experiences on their own, or collective hallucinations that can affect anyone in a certain radius (within a hundred feet of the center lets say.)

As for what the hallucination is? Well it could be a memory that has been warped. A nightmare during the daytime. Your favorite book characters popping out of their pages to life. Whatever it may be, Loma can create it. Of course in this stage, it's all in the targets head. Nothing they see is actually happening to them in the physical world. The strength of the hallucination can also vary, to the point where the target may be fully aware what they're seeing isn't real because it isn't hitting them hard. The hallucinations don't necessarily have to be negative either, as Madness goes all across the spectrum!

For a final note, Loma herself will always be experiencing some sort of hallucination in her vision. Her connection to the Madness is such that it is infused and a part of her passively. The strength of her own constant hallucinations are dependent on her emotions at the time.

Stage Three: The Physical

In its strongest form, the Madness can bring insanity to life in physical manifestation. Powerful psychic blasts, changing people's ages, the hallucinations of nightmare and desire turning real. The only limit is that she cannot make something out of nothing - it's the power to warp and transform, not to create out of thin air.

A good example of the transformation aspect is how Loma can change the appearance of the M-Vest she wears. She can make it look like any article of clothing/accessory she wants. She can wear it as a coat, a bathing suit, a scarf, a gown -- this is just a very small example of the extent the physical transformation of Madness can bring. In larger extents it can be harnessed as a weapon, the way Meta used it before, and cause destruction on large scale. Even when the user may not intend it to.

This is the strongest extent of Madness, and its here where the leaks and loss of full control come into place. It can also cause immense physical damage and mental sickness. Most applications of this power would be used with plotting and permission first, as it could easily affect the entire environment. The only part that wouldn't require permissions is Loma's ability to utilize the Madness as a weapon in creating blasts of psychic energy + her changing what article of clothing the M-Vest takes.

--

So in exchange for all this, Madness as defined here will be her only power. She also can't use Madness to do anything like leave her body, or totally transform it to look like herself. It is her prison, the same way it is in her canon.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉

COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

omitted

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: Testdrive Meme thread

FINAL NOTES: None