Quinn looked down at her feet as Besca spoke, and against all odds, that warmth flared up again. Just a guttering ember of it, a fading ash of what it had been; but there nonetheless. And at the same time, a very, very familiar sensation began to build in her throat as well: the lump that inevitably presaged tears. Besca crouched in front of her then, and she met her equally singular eye, desperately scanning it for anything like anger or annoyance or frustration and finding...nothing. Nothing at all. Maybe tension, but she was under a lot of stress, and it was buried deep down anyway.
No, the emotions that Quinn saw were...
Caring. Warmth. Concern.
Love.
Dahlia squeezed her shoulder. She closed her eye. They weren't mad at her. Again. No matter how many things she ruined--the duel, the treaty, the attempt to mend the treaty, Hovvi--they just...weren't. The lump in her throat grew thicker. She knew full well that she was about to cry, could feel and see the water starting to swell in her eye, no matter how much she tried to hold them back, to keep some level of composure.
"...Why? Why are you both so...nice to..."
But that attempt was futile, and the sentence went unsaid as she surrendered to the tears. And when they spilled it was like a floodgate; unlike the usual hiccupping sobs, this was a desperate keening wail. In a way that might've been hauntingly familiar, she threw herself into Besca, wrapping around her like a life raft at sea with an eerie echo:
Quinn's strange dissociative fugue start slowly abated, and she found herself leaning her head towards Besca's hand, cupping it between her cheek and her shoulder. The tears still ran from her eye, of course, but her hands loosened, then dropped. It only took a few minutes, a far cry from what it had been like before, when she'd been new to the Aerie and it would take half an hour to stop this kind of freakout; but it was still long enough for her eye to be puffy, red, and sore with tears cried and uncried.
I know it sounds like I’m upset but I promise I’m not. Not with you, anyway. That's what Besca had said, right? A few moments after that, Quinn spoke again. Her voice was still shaky and trembling like a leaf caught in a hurricane, but it was stronger, more audible, not so filled with the overwhelming self loathing that had screamed through her whisper. "R--really?" And then her mind caught up more with what Besca had said, and she felt the faintest echo of a smile spread across her face like cold honey.
"You...really think I did the right thing?" Her mind fled back to the looks on the newscasters' faces, at the sudden and deafening silence. So more quietly this time, "...It doesn't feel like it." Then a moment later, "Would your life be better if didn't do all of this stuff?"
The conversation played back in Quinn's head again, and her body slowly froze over into a shell of lead and ice.
Even as Besca gently rested her forehead on top of Quinn's own crown, she sat still and silent as an ice sculpture in front of the now-blank screen, unable to take back the words that she'd said.
"I feel like you know why that probably wasn’t the best thing to say, so, lets just…take a moment. Lets just take a moment."
She's mad at me.
The thought blindsided Quinn, sending her reeling like being punched. Her breath caught, her eye shot wide. Why had she done that? Why had she done that? Why had she done that? She--she should've--she KNEW--
After that, Dahlia and Besca faded into a strange kind of obscurity above her; she could still nominally hear them and process what they were saying, but felt kind of...separated. Dissociated from it all, like she wasn't really here and she was just daydreaming what was happening. Besca was mad at her. Besca was mad at her, and Dahlia was mad at her too, she could feel it. She'd ruined things. AGAIN. Still she sat there, staring unseeing into the screen, eye wide and scared.
For the first time in weeks, months, she found her hands moving to clutch at her upper arms, felt the nails digging in through the coat. Hot shame welled up in her eye, then began to drip down her face as she silently shook. Her voice, when she tried to speak, was...well, wasn't. It was a thin, reedy, dead thing, almost inaudible but for the fact that the room was now pin-drop silent. An anguished whisper.
Once again, there was that warm feeling, sourced both from her and the presence inside her. She really had done something to be proud of, she knew that. But then...
Then she frowned. Not hard, really, not a great deal of anger or frustration. Just...confusion and consternation, and a desire to amend an error. "I--thanks, really, I'm proud of what I did and I definitely never could've done it without my--without the rest of RISC. But...I didn't. Didn't do it all on my own, I mean."
She let a long, heavy breath go as she remembered back to the feeling of being down there all alone, and how certain she was that she was about to die. "I would've--wouldn't have made it back at all if it was just me. I was actually saved by, uhhh..." She pitched her head up towards the ceiling, trying to remember the ESC pilot's full name and coming up blank.
"...an ESC pilot, I think her name was something...Dace? Or Dame?" She shook her head, frustrating at the fact she couldn't remember; it had been such a fraught situation, after all. "I don't remember fully. She gave her callsign as Firebrand, though. She shockdropped between us right when I was going to--" She snapped her finger. "Dane! That's what her name was, Axan Dane! She..." She trailed off.
She would've gone on, she really would've. But only then did she realize that the newscasters' faces had changed. Not a lot; but definitely noticeable. And as she ran again over what she'd said, she realized that she had just--in this political climate--handed the credit for saving her, and so possibly the credit for helping Casoban, to...a Euseran.
And she did say something. Something sharp and sudden the instant the question was asked.
"What?"
It wasn't asked with any kind of vehemence or outrage; nothing in her tone spoke of anything resembling anger, or anything of the sort. No, all Quinn's voice carried was innocent, dumb confusion. She blinked a few times, trying to parse out the question, to see if there was any way she possibly could've misinterpreted it and finding nothing. Only a few seconds later did she come to grips with what he'd actually asked, and she cocked her head. "What?" She repeated. "No, of course not. Why would she ever do that?" A beat passed and she went through things in her head again, shaking her head. "Casoban might not like her because of her association with me, but...what would she ever have to gain from that?"
And though Quinn still held on to that confident conviction--it was unshaken--a sticky black dread was slowly building up inside her, coupled with an ember of anger that sparked more than it should've. She could take people calling her awful and evil and in league with Helburke, it would be awful but it was what it was. But Dahlia had never given less than a hundred percent, and the idea that people were starting to blame her for someone else dying...Quinn just found it abhorrent.
She shook her head again, the bemused look on her face turning to a guarded concern. "I'm sorry, it just...doesn't make any sense to me. She's just not the kind of person who would ever do something like that."
Quinn gulped heavily as she sat down and stared at the blank screen, trying to calm herself down. Last time she'd been on the air had been the disastrous interview with Mona, and she had a gut feeling that a real news network would be harder to deal with than just a talk show. But she tried to swallow that fear, sit up tall, and look like she was far more confident than she was. One breath. Two breaths. Three--
"Oh!"
The last breath left her in a sharp whoosh, and taken aback, she felt that old panic rising. But somehow, miraculously, she held on to the end of the question. And by the time the newscaster got there...
The panic was gone.
Or, not gone, not exactly. It was still very much there. She could still feel it bubbling inside of her, clawing at her stomach, reaching to find a way out. But somehow it felt so much less frightening, so much weaker. Toothless.
And, looking at the camera, Quinn felt that same conviction she'd felt just before the duel, the one that had changed the name from RS-4 to Ablaze. That conviction to light up the world, to make sure everyone in it could rally under her light. And for the first time...she felt like she'd really met that conviction.
The panic and fear just couldn't make it past that wall. So this time when she spoke, her voice wasn't a charade like it had been on Mona's, but nor was it trembling and quavering like it so often seemed to. It was crackled with stress, filled with an unbreakable anxiety, and far beneath it lay hidden a deep, deep undercurrent of seething resentment. It wasn't a clean voice. It wasn't a neat voice.
But it was her voice.
"Won't deny it scares me. The way they just kind of show up, it reminds me of..." She swallowed, but took a deep breath and bulled on past the sudden flash of trepidation. "Hovvi, you know? And then after the duel, everything just happened so fast. It's terrifying." She took a long, slow breath, then set her jaw as she looked the newscaster in the digital eye. "But I've got a duty. I have a job to do. And I know that Casoban doesn't like me, but..." She shook her head slowly, and oh-so-lightly closed her eye. "Just because they don't like me doesn't mean we aren't allies, and it doesn't mean I'm not going to give it my all."
A broad smile came to her face, and her eye popped open. "I'm a pilot because I want to protect people. So that's what I'm gonna do."
Full Name - 秋山春陽 - Akiyama Haruhi Age - 20 Gender - Femme Occupation - Farmer and produce seller
-
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Sun In Her Pocket Haruhi is a cheerful, bouncy young woman who still maintains the brilliant verve of childhood. Forever positive and filled with irrepressible energy, she won't let anything bring her down, no matter how much dirt she's covered, in or how sore her arms are. Raining on planting day? She'll make a game of it. Asahi feeling under the weather that day? She takes it as a challenge! Crop yield wasn't great? It'll be better next time!
Feet In The Ground That constant energy she's got running through her has put forth the impression on occasion that she's an irresponsible or flighty person, but that could not be further from the truth. In reality, Haruhi takes a great deal of pride in her work, and she's actually a rather self-reliant and dependable person; a hard worker, up before dawn and ready to put in the work until there's no more work that needs doing. Although, it does also lends her a sense of bullheaded stubbornness that's entrenched deeply within her.
Head In The Clouds All that being said, she's couldn't be called a hundred percent grounded, because she's absolutely got an imaginative streak a mile wide. As a kid she imagined herself as a spirit, fashioning herself crowns of wildflowers that she found off in the fields and woods and brandishing her legendary stick. She snuck into everywhere from the blacksmith's to the shrine, got herself anywhere and everywhere she could find. And though she no longer imagines herself as a valley spirit, that imagination, creativity, and curiosity has followed her to this day.
S K I L L S E T
I've Got That Farmer's Grit! Haruhi is a daughter of farmers, and of course from birth a farmer herself. A farmer who does her own work! Consequently, she is both much tougher and much stronger than most people tend to expect from a 20 year old woman. She's won her fair share of arm wrestles against people who underestimate her, and she's able to take quite a bit of work and strain to her muscles before giving up. In addition, she has many pieces of her skillset derived from a farmer; she knows what soil is good to plant in, knows how to handle animals--she rides Asahi bareback all the time--knows what weather is coming by the color of the sky, and many other skills besides.
I Ain't Need No Signs! And she takes fierce pride in that hard-won strength! She absolutely refuses the use of any Signs, no matter what! Taught from a young age to take responsibility for herself and do her own work, she stubbornly refuses to even learn any, even those that would help her grow and harvest. She tills her own field, plants her own seed, reaps her own harvest, and lets the turn of the seasons dictate it all.
Good Ol' Fashioned Gumption! Haruhi is a tenacious girl, chock full of stick-to-it-iveness and ingenuity. Because she doesn't use Signs, she's become extremely resourceful in ways that other people typically aren't. She knows what to use as fertilizer, how to fix a head back onto an axe, what stones are useful for starting a fire and which are good for sharpening tools, and so on and so forth. After all, if she's self-reliant enough to not use magic, then she'd better actually be able to rely on herself, right?
Physical Description
As soon as you look at Haruhi, you know that she lives up to her name, spring sunshine: quite short at 157cm, blonde-haired, tan-skinned from working hard out under the hot sun, and almost always bearing a bright and chipper smile. She isn't exactly what you would typically call a cool beauty; she isn't nearly stately or demure enough for that. What she does have, though, is a strong and striking sense of exuberance about her that seems to light up whatever room she walks into, and even when she isn't smiling, it always somehow seems like her wide warm purple eyes are doing it for her.
The skin on her tough hands is hard and callused from rubbing against tools, and that of her feet is the same from hours in her heavy workboots. Completing the picture is her musculature. She's a farmer, after all, and she has been for pretty much her whole life. That tanned skin lies taut over a physique of hard muscle, bought and paid for with hours upon hours of hard farm labor.
But despite that hard-labor athleticism--or perhaps because of it--when she's not working she's a bit of a klutz, and quite spritely in the way that she moves through the world. Running barefoot, skipping down the road, or laying on long grass staring up at the cloudless blue sky, it would be fair to say that when she's not working she doesn't exactly portray a sense of gravitas, nor really even act her age. And the fact that she's constantly smudged with dirt and mud and sweat from working in the fields doesn't really help matters.
As a rule, she dresses in practical farm clothes, and she takes her beloved straw hat with her EVERYWHERE. Her hair is typically tied up in either a ponytail or a braid to keep it out of her way. Though she has a few pieces of very nice formal attire gifted to her by her best friend Yuki, she doesn't really know when she'd ever wear them, since it's not like she ever goes to formal functions. She doesn't even really know how to put on a proper kimono!
Character Conceptualization
All things considered, Haruhi has had a pretty good life. Born to a pair of successful farmers--Akiyama Akito and Hanako--she grew up with a deep love and appreciation for the outdoors, and as time went on, an equally powerful one taught be her parents: a sense of responsibility for one's actions, and the sweat of one's brow. They were hard workers, and wanted to instill into their rough-and-tumble daughter that she should do the same.
And they succeeded in spectacular fashion! It wasn't long before kiddo Haruhi began to help out in the garden, pulling weeds and snipping beans off of vines. It was looking like she was set up for a wonderful future, despite her propensity to get into everywhere she probably wasn't supposed to go.
Like, say, the Heiseina shrine, where she met a lonely girl who called herself Fuyuko and decided then and there that the two of them would be the best of friends. From the time she was eight and onward, she would go and visit her friend, always bringing her something fun from the outside world; whether a flower crown, or a basket of fresh vegetables and rice that she'd grown and harvested herself.
Speaking of, it would seem her parents underestimated how deep into her heart she took the sweat-of-her-own-brow lesson on self-reliance, because when they discussed her learning some Signs to till her soil and grow her crops faster, she staunchly and immovably refused, no matter how they cajoled or convinced. This was when she first showed both one of her great strengths or her greatest weakness, depending on how you looked at it; that streak of mulish stubbornness. They thought she'd grow out of it, but she never did, insisting on doing all of the work herself.
When she was thirteen, they realized that she really wasn't going to budge, and brought home a strong palomino draft horse from the stables to help plough her field in lieu of magic. Haruhi fell in love with him instantly, naming him Asahi and, with her own hands, building him a paddock outside of the barn so he could stay outside and get exercise when the weather was good.
And so her life has gone on from then, and been a good and simple one. One of earth, and water, and plants, and animals, and nature. She loves everything and wants everyone else to love it too. She loves people, and wants people to love her back. She wants to live a good, simple, peaceful life surrounded by the people and places she loves.
You don't always get what you want.
Other Information
As mentioned, Haruhi has refused to learn any labor-saving Signs, preferring to do the work herself over using magic to do it. Her parents are still alive and happily working on the farm with her, though they gave her a smaller personal plot of land, one that wouldn't be touched by any of the Signs that her parents used themselves.
Full Name - 秋山春陽 - Akiyama Haruhi Age - 20 Gender - Femme Occupation - Farmer and produce seller
-
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Sun In Her Pocket Haruhi is a cheerful, bouncy young woman who still maintains the brilliant verve of childhood. Forever positive and filled with irrepressible energy, she won't let anything bring her down, no matter how much dirt she's covered, in or how sore her arms are. Raining on planting day? She'll make a game of it. Asahi feeling under the weather that day? She takes it as a challenge! Crop yield wasn't great? It'll be better next time!
Feet In The Ground That constant energy she's got running through her has put forth the impression on occasion that she's an irresponsible or flighty person, but that could not be further from the truth. In reality, Haruhi takes a great deal of pride in her work, and she's actually a rather self-reliant and dependable person if things don't go as planned. Although, it does also lends her a sense of bullheaded stubbornness that's entrenched deeply within her.
Head In The Clouds All that being said, she's couldn't be called a hundred percent grounded, because she's absolutely got an imaginative streak a mile wide. As a kid she imagined herself as a spirit, fashioning herself crowns of wildflowers that she found off in the fields and woods and brandishing her legendary stick. She snuck into everywhere from the blacksmith's to the shrine, got herself anywhere and everywhere she could find. And though she no longer imagines herself as a valley spirit, that imagination, creativity, and curiosity has followed her to this day.
S K I L L S E T
I've Got That Farmer's Grit! Haruhi is a daughter of farmers, and of course from birth a farmer herself. A farmer who does her own work! Consequently, she is both much tougher and much stronger than most people tend to expect from a 20 year old woman. She's won her fair share of arm wrestles against people who underestimate her, and she's able to take quite a bit of work and strain to her muscles before giving up.
I Ain't Need No Signs! And she takes fierce pride in that hard-won strength! She absolutely refuses the use of any Signs, no matter what! Taught from a young age to take responsibility for herself and do her own work, she stubbornly refuses to even learn any, even those that would help her grow and harvest. She tills her own field, plants her own seed, reaps her own harvest, and lets the turn of the seasons dictate it all.
Good Ol' Fashioned Gumption! Haruhi is a tenacious girl, chock full of stick-to-it-iveness and ingenuity. Because she doesn't use Signs, she's become extremely resourceful in ways that other people typically aren't. She knows what to use as fertilizer, how to fix a head back onto an axe, what stones are useful for starting a fire and which are good for sharpening tools, and so on and so forth. After all, if she's self-reliant enough to not use magic, then she'd better actually be able to rely on herself, right?
Physical Description
As soon as you look at Haruhi, you know that she lives up to her name, spring sunshine: blonde-haired, tan-skinned from working hard out under the hot sun, and almost always bearing a bright and chipper smile. She isn't exactly what you would typically call a cool beauty; she isn't nearly stately or demure enough for that. What she does have, though, is a strong and striking sense of exuberance about her that seems to light up whatever room she walks into, and even when she isn't smiling, it always somehow seems like her wide warm purple eyes are doing it for her.
The skin on her tough hands is hard and callused from rubbing against tools, and that of her feet is the same from hours in her heavy workboots. Completing the picture is her musculature. She's a farmer, after all, and she has been for pretty much her whole life. That tanned skin lies taut over a physique of hard muscle, bought and paid for with hours upon hours of hard farm labor.
But despite that hard-labor athleticism--or perhaps because of it--when she's not working she's a bit of a klutz, and quite spritely in the way that she moves through the world. Running barefoot, skipping down the road, or laying on long grass staring up at the cloudless blue sky, it would be fair to say that when she's not working she doesn't exactly portray a sense of gravitas, nor really even act her age. And the fact that she's constantly smudged with dirt and mud and sweat from working in the fields doesn't really help matters.
As a rule, she dresses in practical farm clothes, and her hair is typically tied up in either a ponytail or a braid to keep it out of her way. Though she has a few pieces of very nice formal attire, she doesn't really know when she'd ever wear them, since it's not like she ever goes to formal functions. She doesn't even really know how to put on a proper kimono!
Character Conceptualization
All things considered, Haruhi has had a pretty good life. Born to a pair of successful farmers--Akiyama Akito and Hanako--she grew up with a deep love and appreciation for the outdoors, and as time went on, an equally powerful one taught be her parents: a sense of responsibility for one's actions, and the sweat of one's brow. They were hard workers, and wanted to instill into their rough-and-tumble daughter that she should do the same.
And they succeeded in spectacular fashion! It wasn't long before kiddo Haruhi began to help out in the garden, pulling weeds and snipping beans off of vines. It was looking like she was set up for a wonderful future, despite her propensity to get into everywhere she probably wasn't supposed to go.
Like, say, the Heiseina shrine, where she met a lonely girl who called herself Fuyuko and decided then and there that the two of them would be the best of friends. From the time she was eight and onward, she would go and visit her friend, always bringing her something fun from the outside world; whether a flower crown, or a basket of fresh vegetables and rice that she'd grown and harvested herself.
Speaking of, it would seem her parents underestimated how deep into her heart she took the sweat-of-her-own-brow lesson on self-reliance, because when they discussed her learning some Signs to till her soil and grow her crops faster, she staunchly and immovably refused, no matter how they cajoled or convinced. This was when she first showed both one of her great strengths or her greatest weakness, depending on how you looked at it; that streak of mulish stubbornness. They thought she'd grow out of it, but she never did, insisting on doing all of the work herself.
When she was thirteen, they realized that she really wasn't going to budge, and brought home a strong bay draft horse from the stables to help plough her field in lieu of magic. Haruhi fell in love with him instantly, naming him Asahi and, with her own hands, building him a paddock outside of the barn so he could stay outside and get exercise when the weather was good.
And so her life has gone on from then, and been a good and simple one. One of earth, and water, and plants, and animals, and nature. She loves everything and wants everyone else to love it too. She loves people, and wants people to love her back. She wants to live a good, simple, peaceful life surrounded by the people and places she loves.
You don't always get what you want.
Other Information
As mentioned, Haruhi has refused to learn any labor-saving Signs, preferring to do the work herself over using magic to do it. Her parents are still alive and happily working on the farm with her, though they gave her a smaller personal plot of land, one that wouldn't be touched by any of the Signs that her parents used themselves.
Full Name - Quinn Aldis Age - 26 Place of Origin - Portland, Maine Occupation - Police Academy Instructor, formerly a Marine
A V A T A R
Character's Name - Quinnlash Pathos Affiliation - Drox Role - DPS (split between physical and magical) Profession - Bounty Hunter Weapon of Choice - Clockwork Rifle Domains - Fire; Manifestation, Enhancement -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Grump Owing to what happened to her, Quinn generally exists in a state of perpetual grouchiness. she's frustrated with herself and for not being able to serve like she used to, and she channels and focuses it outwards, catching everyone around her in the impatient crossfire.
Overwatch Speaking of crossfire...
Quinn was a member of the military. And not just the military, but a member of the United States Marine Corps. And because of that experience, she is long used to punching through hell to keep both her squadmates and her country safe. Consequently, in a surprise for those that only see the gun-toting grump, she is rather protective of people that she views as under her care, though she wouldn't die in place of you, because that would mean she couldn't protect any more people after that.
Unless you're a kid. Quinn is ungodly protective of kids and would throw her life away for one in a heartbeat.
Quick Thinking As you might have gleaned from the way she thinks about the people in her squad, Quinn thinks heavily in risk vs. reward assessments as a side effect of years of military service. This can sound dehumanizing sometimes; but she really doesn't mean it that way. And on the flip side, that quick plus-or-minus thinking lets her make decisions very quickly. Because she doesn't consider every nuance of a situation before she jumps in--another, perhaps less charitable interpretation would call her 'exceptionally reckless'--she doesn't get bogged down in the ideology, so she can jump in far faster than she otherwise would've let herself be able to.
B E N C H M A R K S
Deadshot Quinn's weapon of choice is a clockwork longrifle. It's nowhere near what she's used to; she's used to something much more technologically advanced. But her skill as a sharpshooter, the one that earned her a place in the Marine Corps, the one that had her brought on to teach marksmanship in a police academy, that brilliant talent for calling her shots and landing them on target--there's nothing that stops that from carrying over. Consequently she is excellent at dealing crit damage, because if she sees where the weak spot is, she can probably hit it.
Keep The Flame Alive Quinn has always been a fiery person, and as it turns out, when she gains access to magic, well, it becomes strikingly literal. She is quiet a skillful pyromancer, dealing a pretty fair deal of damage with her primordial spells. But that's not where the real trick she uses lies. Leveraging not manifestation but enhancement, and enhancing not her, but her gun. She has the ability to channel a vast amount of pyromantic force straight into the chamber of her rifle, storing it and charging it up. She can release the stored power at any moment, and the unleashed bullet blasts off with the force of a meteor. It takes a fair deal of time to charge to that point, and she obviously can't use her gun until it's done; but oh man, if she can get that charge off, she is packing some serious heat.
True Grit Quinn is--or, well, was--a member of the United States Marine Corps. As you can probably imagine, this came with a host of interesting side effects. But the first and foremost is a matter of mindset: Quinn is used to near-death situations. This kind of life-and-death edge is where she made her career for several years. Consequently, she might be the single least bothered by the glitch (at least, bothered in that fashion) in the entire game. The other major benefit is physique. She might not be in the military anymore, but it hasn't been that long, and there's no way she gave up her exercise regimen. She is extremely strong and fit, much moreso than she looks at first glance.
Can't Run, Can't Hide Quinn's profession in the game, chosen after careful consideration, is that of a bounty hunter, and she is quite good at what she does; as a former sniper, she is capable of sitting motionless in one place for hours at a time, observing the world, and on the flip side, moving quickly and quietly from place to place. It is very hard to get away from her once she's on your tail. The caveat is that she has a strict set of morals for targets that she takes. Monsters of course are always fair game, but if you want her to track down an NPC or other player, you had better have a damn good reason for wanting them dead, or Quinn will laugh in your face and walk away. And maybe kick you in the shin.
Physical Description
Quinn Aldis is a woman of fairly average height, all told; perhaps a little above, maybe in the neighborhood of 5'5". Her pale, watery blue eye is framed by her sharp bangs, the dark gray hair falling a little ways down her back, usually tied in either a braid or a ponytail. Her right eye, the one she lost on her final tour of duty, is replaced with a plain black eyepatch; she refuses to get a glass eye of any kind, insisting that she prefers this, as looking in the mirror and seeing two eyes but only seeing from one seems extremely disturbing. While she's working at the police academy, she's gotten special permission to wear her old military fatigues, attached as she is to them. When not teaching, she tends towards long pants and trim jackets. Her favorite color is yellow, and she has a brown leather coat with bright yellow trimmings that she's very fond of. She always wished she could streak her hair yellow, but the professionalism standards of the military and the academy have rendered that dream impossible. As a result of all that she's dealt with, her face is set in a permanent scowl.
Well, Pariah has no professionalism standards, and upon signing into the game for the first time Quinn was delighted to find that her hair had indeed become streaked with bright yellow, and had grown into a long braid. Less fantastic was the fact that her eyepatch was still present; sometime in the past year or two she'd grown so used to it that it was just kind of a part of her subconscious now, which she's not super happy about, hoping she'd get the use of both eyes again. Her clockwork rifle is carried in a long case on her back that can serve as a bludgeoning weapon all its own. When it's borne in her hands, it looks for all the world like it belongs there, like Quinnlash is the person fated to use it. Her clothing is...similar...ish? Her general attire is a somewhat shredded up coat-cloak, worn over a gray linen shirt. She keeps armor to a minimum for obvious reasons; it would just slow her down. And though she still looks just as grumpy, she is smiling more.
Character Conceptualization
The story of Master Gunnery Sergeant Quinn Aldis, U.S.M.C., begins in a small house outside of Portland, Maine, where a husband and wife lived: Luke and Shannon Louvain.
Quinn's first memories are of smothering attention. Constant, assiduous lovey-dovey-ness layered over and over on her by Shannon; saccharine nigh-obsession. It was so all-encompassing that she didn't even realize that she was being abused. It took a teacher--and CPS worker--noticing some telltale signs of emotional and psychological abuse for things to come to a head. To make a long story short, Shannon and Luke were arrested for child abuse, and Quinn went into the foster system when she was eight years old. She bounced around foster homes for a little while, about a year and a half, before she was fostered for an extended period by an up-and-coming politician named Elizabeth Aldis. And after that extended period...neither of them wanted to let go. Liz applied for official adoption, and Quinn Louvain became Quinn Aldis.
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