False Prophet

Thought Conglomerate

A Letter Written by a Porcelain Doll Has Been Slipped Under Your Door

It’s my first night home in over a year.
There’s a boy asleep in my bed.
He’s kinda weird, but I owe him my life.
He said he needed me for something,
But I didn’t really understand what…
So I hugged him and told him to go sleep.

And now there’s a boy asleep in my bed.
And I’m resting my head on his shoulder-
And I’m terrified because we’re at my house.
And not five hours earlier we killed a guy.
And we were on the news the day before-
And…and…and I hate my old room!

Unlike my dorm, the walls are pretty bare.
The curtains need a wash, and the wardrobe…
It’s full of dust and old picture frames.
I can’t see them well from here in the gloom.
I think that’s a good thing, or I might cry.
I’m not the same boy in those photos anymore.

Since moving out, I’ve grown into a person.
My own person. My own, awful person.
The type that pisses off billionaires, and stuff-
Or helps schizophrenic detectives blow up cars.
Or shoots aggressive teacher assistants in the face-
How did I even get here? A really bad tinder date.

It was with the same, weirdly cute guy.
The one asleep in my bed. Like a rock.
He told me to meet him at some weird bar.
He chatted about his dead sister with me…
Three of his friends were there. I’m not too sure.
And now they’re also mine. They're the best.

My old friend group did the normal college kid stuff.
We went to parties. We started a band. It sucked.
We had several questionable relationships-
Me especially, and that’s why they all left me.
Screw them, though. I don’t even know why I cared.
None of them cared about me, I was just pretty.

We killed a vampire today, it’s complicated.
It was mostly the work of Val and James.
Val is cool, she could probably suplex me.
James is…he’s the one laying next to me.
Aside from his weird, tragic backstory,
I really don’t know him that well. He’s…James.

Every time I think I get a little close to him.
Something changes, or something goes wrong.
But I think I still like him- or I want to, anyway.
I don’t really know why. He hunts monsters.
Meanwhile I play guitar, and I cry a lot.
But hey, I sort of helped him kill a vampire.

I wonder how the others are doing. Can they sleep?
I took them to the guest room. It felt weird there.
This whole place is weird, but I think they’ll live.
Bink especially. She’s probably the nicest of us all.
I kinda wish I could be more like her. Happier?
We ordered pizza together once. That was fun.

I mean a few hours later, we learned that James….
Val said he got sent to hell, so we slept in a church.
We found him at his apartment the next morning.
He was okay, life went on. Had a failed second date.
Now there’s a lich, so we are sleeping at my church.
I hate it here. I’m starting to think it’s a cult.

Coming here was a really bad idea.
A no-good, awful, and stupid thing to do.
Dumbest idea in the history of ideas ever.
But hey, for once it wasn’t my idea!
Seeing that my brain is a stupid-idea-machine.
What are my parents going to do with me?

---

I don't know how to feel about you
And quite frankly I don't know what I am feeling
But
I think…it's a good thing. Or at least some of it is good.

I like having you here, even if we're not doing anything. I...I kind of like attention

I just wish things weren't so stressful- and I'm one to talk, you must feel awful about everything. And like, I can't really imagine what you're feeling- so I don't know how to respond?

Sorry.

God, sorry I keep making this about me
Um
But anyway. It'd be nice to just…do things normally

Maybe that's just wishful thinking because every other day, shit keeps happening.
And it's a lot.
But probably mostly for you…?

Every time I'm around you I feel like I-
I dunno, I think I get you, but then something happens and that changes.
Maybe I'm stupid, or something

But I wanna get to know you. In a normal way
And vice versa.
Is that what you even want?

Heavy sigh
But if you ever just wanna fool around
That's what I'm best at…
. . .
That's why you contacted me in the first place, right?

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also apologies for being annoying, but is there a character limit? And/or can significant NPCs become playable characters?

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i think people who have lost things, or otherwise experience painful side effects from their powers might enjoy just...standing near Ted. He won't mind (just please don't touch him)

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Bruce would love Ted's games.

@Gisk

billy has good taste, then

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Saw this in another thread and because I'm annoying, what are some character fun facts? I'll go first

Teddy Garbage

Ted's taste in music is...interesting. He mostly enjoys ambient stuff (think Disparition), but Jukebox the Ghost and Radical Face are some personal favorites of his. Anything with hints of surrealism catch his interest.

His games often follow the style of David Szymanski and Davey Wreden. They aren't much for graphics, but immersion-wise they can be very heavy. He is a horror enthusiast, and his work has no issue showing that. Obscure, European Folklore and Christian Theology are heavy themes (along with a heavy dose of surrealism), though often used to mock/criticize organized religion and other aspects of society.

Ted is an atheist, but he still believes in ghosts/spirits.

Like his inspirations, Ted uses the Unity engine and/or Source for his works. He started out by making games as mods for Source games.

Ted is first and foremost a writer, as it was what got him interested in creating. Many of his creative writing assignments in high school ranged from brow-raising to phone calls home. He was never obscene or offensive, he just has a very dark taste in media. He keeps a dream journal on his phone.

He collects bones sometimes. Doesn't do anything with them, he just things they're kind of neat. He would never hurt an animal, so all bones are scavenged from roadkill or the wild. It's quite interesting to him, as he used to have a deep fear for the macabre as a youngster.

Ted has a pet cat- technically a family pet. It's his best friend. Because of his nonchalance and sometimes obvious dislike for people, he is surprisingly caring.

Perhaps on the more obvious side, Ted mumbles and speaks to himself all the time. No, he's not usually communicating to his hallucinations. It's more of an odd habit that helps him focus, as his own thoughts tend to get muddled up in his head.

He still continued the tradition of wearing clunky headphones or earbuds. He despises bluetooth for no discernable reason other than "slow" and "imagine having to charge your earbuds". He kind of has a point?

Ted has gotten lost in the woods many times as a kid. Sometimes he still does. He's...fine. Not dead yet-

In his personal opinion, lighthouses are rad as fuck.

His nickname "Redac" stems from his online pseudonym, which is also a pun on his actual name. redacTED

Do not call him "Teddy". It's just Ted...unless you're his "ex" from college. It's complicated.

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@False Prophet

Looking good, just a few things. The OC you used is very cool, but would you have any real world representations for your character you could use in place? I’d also suggest using a power aesthetic photo in place of the room, but hyperlinking the room somewhere else on the sheet, such as the life at Ritman section.

@Salsa Verde

No. I draw my characters or use picrews (used the latter due to time constraints). To me using real life faceclaims is weird. Also, Ted has Poliosis, it is almost impossible to find anybody who looks like him because of it. I can and will draw him more, but now is not the time as I have work to finish. I can write physical descriptions if needed, anyway.

I don't know how to edit the image to another location, as the sheet is a jumble of spaghetti code. Regardless, his "super power" has the aesthetic of a brick wall. I thought the image that I put together sort of explained who he was a person better. If you wanna mess with it, by all means, but I'm worried half to death that it'll come to life and suck my brain out of my skull

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Man, this is a sweaty sausage party so far, are we getting any more bitches besides me and @fledermaus?

@Prisk

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The formatting may be a bit goofy because of the images, but I can't be bothered-

Redac, Ted

█ Theodore “Redac” Gallagher

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▼ PERSONAL DETAILS ► Age - Twenty-four ► Gender - Cisgender Male ► Sexuality - Queer ► Nickname - Ted, Redac ► Occupation - Freelance and Independent Software Developer ► Qualifications - Graduate of Ritman Associate's in Software Engineering, Southern Maine Community College ► Residence - Delton, Maine ▼ PHYSICALITY ► Scars - Ted is not the most careful person. Most of his scars are results of negligence or they're self-inflicted. He has a complicated relationship with his physical body, and he has tried to mutilate it on multiple occasions. His scars are mostly faded and hidden away, though. ► Tattoos - Couldn't be bothered. ► Piercings - Pierced ears that he gave himself during his college years. ► Style - Like almost everything else, Ted couldn't be bothered with his appearance. So long as his clothes don't smell too bad, he'll put it on. Style means nothing to him, so he wears the dullest things he can find. His wardrobe has a preference for comfort over style, and muted colors. Due to his abnormally tall height (6'3) and being built like a bus ticket, most of what he has is rather ill-fitting. He irons nothing, usually covers himself in a baggy hoodie, cuts his hair, and only owns two pairs of shoes. Ted only crawls out of his room to do laundry bi-monthly. He looks disheveled on a good day. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

LIFE AT RITMAN In one word? Forgettable. In fact, Ted is sure he couldn't recall most of it if he tried. The gist of it is familiar, though: sheer utter boredom. School days were monotonous, and the people even moreso. He never made any lasting friendships because he had a tendency to freak people out if they spoke to him. He doesn't remember it much, but people were…intimidated by him, to say the least. Ted was never that physically strong or loud, which set him apart from those in the hierarchy of teenage angst- that is to say, he wasn't in the hierarchy in the first place. To most, he was invisible. Quiet Ted, who hung out with nobody. Ever. He steered clear of any niche. The popular kids were too loud, and the nerds were pretentious, but the jocks were too stupid. He couldn't be at the bottom rung if he abandoned the ladder in the first place. Anybody who ever tried to get close to Ted would be met with a blank stare, an odd phrase, and maybe some inappropriate laughter if he was in a good mood. His apathetic behavior is what saved him from being relentlessly bullied. That and his tendency to concern both teachers and students alike with his often macabre fixations (he’s just a horror enthusiast, nothing dangerous). Sure, sometimes people tried to mess with him, but he never stuck around long enough to let them win. He often vanished for days at a time, either skipping or being genuinely sick. He was not oblivious to his strange reputation, and he would often use it to mess with people when he needed something to do. Maybe he’d pass a weird note, perhaps, or maybe a weird email. Didn't matter. It was funny. Nothing seemed to matter to Ted during high school, anyway. Not his grades, not his appearance, not his social life, and not his attendance. He spent any and all of his free time rotting in a chair behind a computer screen with a pair of clunky headphones. PSYCHE Ted lives in his own little world, and it's quite literal. He has a strangely severe case of early-onset schizophrenia. It has and does impact his life greatly, but it's almost all he's ever known. He hasn't gone a day without hallucinating, and not doing so would scare him greatly. This mental "illness" is so ingrained into him, it's become part of how he functions as opposed to a complete hindrance. He loves certain aspects of his psychosis, as it sometimes fills the void of loneliness or sparks his creative process. Living with it is far from easy, though. It used to scare Ted greatly as a child, and sometimes still does. Apathy seems to have helped, or maybe he's just jaded… Some days are better than others, and episodes can be tricky to catch. Despite his inexpressiveness, this can make Ted's mood rather unstable. Sometimes he just needs to sit in bed all day. Or all week. His diagnosis is relatively unknown, as he doesn't talk about himself much. Ted is a little disappointed with himself. He is almost too aware of his limits, and he lets them hold him back. He has given up on the idea of getting a regular college degree in the near future, as getting his Associate's proved to be a much harder task than anticipated. College, even if it was just community, knocked the wind out of him. Sometimes he can't help but feel as if it's because he's stupid. He's still recovering from the stress it put him under. That, and his decision to stop taking medication is what made him move back in with his parents not two years ago. He knows this is mildly embarrassing, but then again he feels that way about most aspects about himself. He can’t drive due to how acute his condition is, or do just about anything else a sufficient adult can… His current goal is focusing on his career as an indie developer for video games- it's what he loves to do. He's always enjoyed telling abstract and terrifying stories. Being a developer and learning to cope without medication are the main concerns, as the side effects were becoming debilitating. As to be expected from somebody like himself, Ted has a reserved- almost avoidant nature. People are messy and usually very scary, so he'd rather stick to the sidelines. Social anxiety, agoraphobia, avoidant personality disorder? Whatever. Labels have come and gone over the years to the point where he doesn't really bother with it anymore. Long story short, he doesn't particularly enjoy people. In fact, he seems to have found solace in his isolated lifestyle. It's not particularly healthy, and he risks falling off the deep end the more he gets stuck in his own head. It's fine really, he's come to terms with the fact that he was robbed of the chance of living a "normal" life. Fuck normal. It's boring…and yet, he can't help but yearn for it late at night. Ted is still human, he still somewhat desires actual relationships with other humans, but he gets in the way of himself. He's cynical, a bit rude, and overall very socially inept. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

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POWER A positive and a negative term of the same value cancel each other out. This is a simple algebraic concept that even Ted can understand. He has become the embodiment of this concept. His abilities allow him to mitigate or downright nullify the powers belonging to those around him. He’s like a leech, taking the energy nearby and neutralizing it, all using his aura of pure, unfiltered buzz-kill to do so. Of course, he isn’t very aware that this is happening and doesn’t really want to bother with it. His sheer force of “No.'' can become so oppressive that it can possibly interfere with more than just superhuman abilities. Nearby electrical devices can malfunction, and there is even potential to dull the emotions of those near to him- subjecting them to the crushing feeling of apathy he lives with on a daily basis. Potentially, his newfound power could assist with relieving him of his hallucinations. This scares Ted, as he has learned to find comfort in the madness. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

- ▼ STRENGTHS ►Ted isn’t much for a fight, despite his gangly and off-putting appearance. By suppressing nearby powers, everybody turns back into what they were before- regular humans. Better regular humans than supercharged maniacs… Though Ted doesn’t know it, he could potentially target specific individuals to shut off their abilities for an extended period of time. It will take lots of focus. His power is very easy to hide, and sometimes he forgets it’s even there. In fact, he’s pretty unaware of its existence at the moment. ▼ WEAKNESSES ►His ability is limited to a specific range, seeing that it emanates off of him almost like radiation. With concentration and practice, the range could possibly increase. As of yet, it is currently limited to anywhere within reaching distance for Ted. His power tends to ebb and flow with his emotions, growing far more debilitating when he is stressed. He cannot control it. Yet. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

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<Snipped quote by False Prophet>

the intention is actually that these people were all part of the same grade, hence the 7 years post-graduation. sorry if that wasn't clear initially! ages are between 24-25 and the roleplay starts mid-june if you want to get specific about birthdays

@nodogs

Oh that works. His age isn't too important, anyway

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I specifically made Ted very reserved in school so people wouldn't have to worry about knowing who the hell he is... He's got a reputation of being a damn weird kid. He's 22 if anybody wants to have been in the same grade as him or close.