Post by Autumn Armstrong on Apr 16, 2014 18:27:41 GMT -5
Basics
Name: Autumn Armstrong
Nicknames: Aurie
Age: 17
Birthday: September 22
Grade: Junior
Power: Object Dollification & Animation
Autumn has the power to combine and reshape inanimate objects into dolls, or rather into human-like or animal-like figures, and then animate them like a marionette puppeteer. To do this, she extend her hands toward the object(s) she wishes to manipulate. Strings materialize from her fingertips and lash to the object(s), and she then swiftly gestures like she's sewing, shaping the object(s) into whatever figure she wills it. The time for a doll to be made depends on what she has in mind and how easy it is to create one out of the material provided. The strings that materialize cannot be cut, tangled, or even touched, and links her hands to her created figure like a puppet. She is able to control the puppet with the swift movements of her hands and fingers. The strings ignore the laws of physics as Autumn is not limited to having to stand above the doll like a normal puppeteer, nor is the string’s length consistent but remains straightened no matter how far or close the puppet gets to her.
If given an hour she could create a whole army or a giant. If a person is unconscious or paralyzed, she can animate them as well until they awaken. She is, however, against using other living things for fighting her own battle. There are also many limits to her power. The first one is that she depends on enough material being nearby to create a fightable figure, if there’s nothing to manipulate she’s pretty powerless. Second, she has to have the time to form a doll to be effective in battle. Having the time to create an army or giant during a fight is impossible. The most she had been able to create during a fight has been four. She’d have to have the figures pre-made. Autumn can attach strings to normal objects, but that would be like a puppeteer trying to animate a prop. If the object doesn’t have arms and legs, wings or tentacles, the most she can do is levitate and swing it. Third, she has to be able to have some focus on what she’s animating, creating a limit on how many things she can sufficiently animate at once. While most people would only be able to focus on one or two things at a time, Autumn’s multi-focused attention comes in handy for her. And lastly, she’s somewhat vulnerable as she’s animating. If she’s taken out or distracted her dolls will stop moving. At Ashford, she’s learned to be swift and defensive but her close combat skills are still zero. She’s better suited for long ranged fighting.
Member Group: Prefect
Canon or not: None
Appearance: Autumn stands at 5’5”, just slightly above average. Most would probably consider her weight to look between skinny and average. She’s on the thin side, but wouldn't be describe as frail or scrawny--she has an adequate layer of meat on her bones. Autumn's chest reign is quite large, but she's less mature in the pelvis reign. She only has a moderate hip to waist ratio. She also has very small small feet, and long slim fingers, which some may call 'piano fingers.'
Autumn has medium-small eyes with big irises that color transitions between hazel and gold depending on the lighting. Gold eyes is somewhat of a defining feature of the Armstrong family. Her light brown skin makes this gold tint stand out further. Autumn’s white hair symbolizes her marionette strings. Her hair reaches the top of her thighs and is naturally pin straight, like strings, but because she sleeps in braided pigtails it is normally a little wavy. She does this purposely to create volume and fluff as Autumn admires soft hair--soft things in general. She also commonly wears her hair half down, and half up, in a very high pony tail.
Autumn's outfits are generally feminine, elegant, conservative, and expensive looking--made of material that look high quality. The are handmade looking items in her wardrobe, however, that stand out. She has quite a few Creole--Aztec--Exotic looking clothes that were made by her Trinidadian grandmother. Most of her days in Ashford are, of course, in her school uniform. Autumn wears hers with the white overcoat mostly buttoned up, only allowing the top of her red office shirt too be visible. She also wears matching red thigh-length tights and white flats with black toes and rims.
Personality
[/p][/ul]Likes:
Dislikes:
Fears:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Goals:
Overall Personality:
There are three main layers to Autumn’s personality.
Cultured. Well-mannered. Aristocratic. Artistic. Talented.
This is how Autumn looks to the public eye. Head erect and shoulders back when walking, hands resting together when she stands, looking you straight in the eye when you speak to her -She has good posture and manners. Most onlookers can guess she’s been schooled in proper etiquette. These things come naturally to her, where she does not really realize she’s doing it. When addressed by a higher up, she will always greet them with a bow-like nod and use their last name. Autumn doesn’t act like a prefect, she's not authoritative and treats everyone in the same polite manner (except those her are much younger than her). Most teens don’t pay attention to politics or modern art, so though she is a prefect, has art pieces in museums, and is the daughter of the Armstrong family, Autumn is better known in the school as the girl whose artwork decorates the art room. She took many extra curricula, including art, growing up and is naturally good with her hands. She’s had both the training and the natural talented when it comes to art.
Absent-minded. Vague. Whimsical. Odd.
Once you begin interacting with Autumn, you begin to realize that her neat posture does not come with that typical sophisticated or snobbish personality .. It’s sometimes hard to have a proper conversation with her, not because she’s unfriendly, but because her communication skills are off. Her comments are sometimes vague in meaning, and she has the habit of rambling on about artistic interpretations. Autumn sometimes misunderstands the meaning behind what other people are saying, too. If there's a possibility of a misunderstand, she's going to misunderstand. It’s like her mental processing is wired differently. When interacting with Autumn, you know she and you are having two completely different experiences. Her eyes look dazed like they’re somewhere else, even when she looks at you. She's lost in her imaginative thoughts. She doesn’t have normal reactions to certain situations, often staying unusually calm like she doesn't perceive something is threatening or grotesque. Because of this, it’s easy to think that Autumn is an airhead stuck in her strange, artistic, dreamy world.
Pacifist. Thoughtful. Reflective. Philosophical.
It’s true that Autumn is always drowned in thoughts to the point where part of her is absent, but these thoughts are both imaginative and down-to-earth. There's logic to her madness. Autumn pays attention to everything. She tries to consider things through as many point of views as she can. Unless she’s working on something, it takes something significant for her to focus on one thing. She might have a form of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). People that get to know Autumn can realize she’s actually an insightful girl. Not just in a creative way, but logically. This logical and artistic way of thinking causes her to be unconventional--it has to make sense or it's invalid. She has many philosophical beliefs. For example, she believes the source of war is within the corrupt nature of man. This means that the individual and government, which is essentially a group of ruling individuals, are both responsible. In a democratic nation, authority is given to both the government and governed, so for corruption in law to end, the ethics of at least one must be fixed. That would be going to the true root of the problem. Because of thinking like this, Autumn sees the current feud between the Prefects and the Battle Front unproductive.
History
Family Members/guardians:
Father: Lucas Armstrong
Mother: Sophia Armstrong
Brother: Quinn Armstrong
Grandmother: Ananke Hearne
History:
Is life shaped by fate or freewill? As a child, it was obvious to Autumn that freewill wins. You can make choices, you have the power to turn left or right. It’s not something an outside force predetermines for you. If you went up to your teacher and said you didn’t do your homework because fate had stirred you away from it, there was no chance that would pass for an excuse. So why did adults debate over it so much when everyone seemed to know the answer? Autumn came to the conclusion that it was because there is no real foolproof way to prove it, since you can only live once. It’s not like someone could rewind his life and prove he can make different choices. Autumn grew up, however, to learn there were other reasons the debate still reigned. It wasn’t a black or white question. Life has its limitations.
“What if Barbie and Optimus Prime got married.”
“No!”
Autumn stared at Quinn, somewhat perplexed at his reaction. “Well…” Her large childish eyes drooped down to their bottom corners as she gave it thought. It was true the damsel in distress and then get hitched scenario is done a lot.
“Then Barbie saves Optimus Prime and they become best friends,” she asked without a question mark.
“Never!!” Quinn barked.
Both of the children’s heads turned to the door that had begun to creek. The white translucent strings that outstretched and scattered all about the room from the girl's thin fingers dematerialized. Within that second all the standing toys, including a Barbie and eight-inch Optimus Prime, dropped to the floor.
“Hey, you’re being very loud Quinn. Be nice to your little sister,” their mother lectured as she fully opened the door. She looked at the ten year old Autumn that was standing on the bed with her hands in front of her. Mrs. Armstrong raised an eyebrow, the girl always seemed to be in that position when she came in. She waved it off, “Dinner’s ready, clean up now, alright?” Both Quinn and Autumn responded with a harmonized “’kay” as their mother left the room.
Autumn had found out about her powers at an early age, age eight. At this time, she only knew she could produce these magical strings and animate toys. She and her brother was the only one who knew about it. Their playtime was like a Toy Story come to life. They kept it secret not because they considered the possibility of Autumn powers being exploited or condemned by the public, but for a simple reason: they knew it was strange. Autumn sometimes got bullied for her strange speech and thinking patterns. Her brother often got in trouble for aggressively standing up for her. He was her best friend. Quinn was two years older, but Autumn would look out for him too, in different ways, like she was the older sister. They also thought it better to not tell their parents about Autumn’s powers. Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong held up a standard against them more forcefully than the average parents. They became visibly sour at any oddities in their children’s behavior. When it was brought to their attention that Autumn might have ADHD, they refused to hear it or allow her to take the test to confirm it.
“I… don’t… want it brown…” Autumn cried between hiccups, into her balled up fists.
“But it’s going to look so pretty. Don’t you want to look like mommy?”
“Her nose is running,” Mr. Armstrong informed his wife and grabbed a nearby tissue. He brought it to Autumn’s face and tried to sooth her, “But now that it’s a more neutral color, you won’t get teased anymore.”
Autumn sat on a backless chair, her mother stood behind her with brown stained gloves. She was dying Autumn’s hair dark brown using a color rinse for at home jobs. Autumn cooled down a little after her father’s words, though in reality she did not get made fun of as much for her white hair. The majority of her teasing was because she herself was strange. It was only until she got older and looked back at it did she realize her parents’ main reason for dying her hair was because everyone in her family had black to dark brown hair. Even black-haired Quinn would taunt her, saying she was part albino. Her parents colored her hair that day because tomorrow she and her brother would be volunteering in an important event at a soup kitchen. It would be her first day being in contact with the press.
Her father was a governor and her mother was a member of parliament. For four generations the Armstrong family served the US government, those who paid attention to politics knew the name. Lucas Armstrong was presented as a family man. The soup kitchen event was like Autumn’s and Quinn’s debut. From then on they were brought on stage. They stood with their mother on the sidelines when their dad had to make a speech. This would give the image of family support to the public. This was why her parents put importance in face value. Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong raised Autumn and Quinn to be well-bred, pushing them into many extracurricular activities. They were strict and had high expectations. If you got a C on a test you were in trouble. Autumn tolerated it, though her parents expected them to behave like robots she knew she was fortunate because her life had many advantages others did not. She tolerated by thinking of it like the sacrifices royalty had to make for their status. Quinn, however, had a harder time.
He wasn’t a rebellious, easily annoyed, defiant teenager, but his parents treated him like one. He was an average teen boy. He wanted to stay out pass seven pm, get by with Cs and Bs, date any girl without worrying about parental approval, go to parties, dance while wearing a lamp cover like a hat, all that jazz. This led to many arguments. Autumn realized she was lucky. She might have had to squeeze in an arm and cross her legs uncomfortably, but her personality could manage to fit into her parent’s mold. Quinn’s shape just couldn’t, he was more outgoing and impulsive, he would sometimes get Cs even when he studied. Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong named him Quinn because they expected him to also become a member of the government and for the tradition to go to the fifth generation. As soon as Quinn turned eighteen he dropped out of high school and joined the military, even though graduation was not too long a way.
“Come on Aurie, don’t send me off with that look. I’ll be back for holidays.”
Autumn thought for a moment, then created a smile. It was obviously forced, and felt awkward as she talked, “Dad and mom aren’t making you go.”
“They’re not, but I know they want me to, since there’s no way a good college is going to take me,” Quinn replied as he took off his military cap, laid his hands on Autumn’s shoulders, and smiled sadly, “That face is making me feel worse.”
Autumn quickly went back to frowning, “... Suddenly bending… and when the gust hasn’t even passed yet.”
“Because this is also the quickest way out,” Quinn answered. He understood her communication processing better than anyone. She used visuals because she had a harder time using vocabulary to describe what she was saying. Because of Autumn, creative literature was his best subject. Quinn saw that his last comment resonated in her. Her frown disappeared into a straight line and her eyes had sharpened. Quinn hugged Autumn goodbye and whispered to her, “I’m free.”
Quinn leaving was like a warning signal of the many additional changes in her life that were going to come next. It began at an outside event at Jefferson Park. Mr. Armstrong was at the mic answering questions when “helps” were heard nearby. A window cleaning worker from a nearby building had come loose from his hardness and was now holding on for life. Police and fire fighters were called, but things weren’t moving quickly enough. When the hardness came loose even more and the worker fell further, almost losing his grip, Autumn used her powers. She linked to the close by 20 feet statue of Jefferson and made it run to the scene. Though Autumn was making sure it did not step on anybody, people in its path became frantic. Police began to mindlessly shoot at it. Some of the people on stage who saw that Autumn was controlling the moving statue made their distance. By the time the statue got under the dangling worker it was coming apart due to the bullet holes. Autumn was trying to produce more strings to hold it up when she accidentally restructured it, using dollification for the first time. Simultaneously, the brown layer of dye on her hair crumpled off and revealed her white tresses. The statue had spread its arm and caught the falling worker. Things took a while to settle down. Predictably, her heroism was not met very positively. With all the things that happened that day, what Autumn remembered the most were her parents' shocked faces.
Soon after the accident, Autumn was sent to her grandmother’s house to live until things cooled down. A grandmother she never knew she even had. Her name was Ananke Hearne. She lived in a poor neighborhood and fortune telling was her hobby. This was apparently why Mr. Armstrong dropped connections with her. Her home was filled with interesting trinkets and beautiful homemade drapes were hung everywhere. Half of her grandmother’s day was spent at her loom or spinning wheel. When she needed new clothes, her grandmother would make them, explaining Autumn’s many tribal pattern shirts. Despite living in a rich household her whole life, Autumn easily adjusted to this poorer lifestyle. She did, however, experience some culture shock. The limitations of life were present in a different and more dominant way. Example, telling children they could grow up to be whatever they wanted felt like a utter lie.
Ananke had original ways of doing fortune telling, none of her methods belonging to any culture, yet her predictions were very specific and accurate. The method she relied on the most was one where she used white strings on a loom. As she weaved on it, colors would suddenly start to appear. She would then make predictions of the person’s life by reading the finalized patterns. Ananke gave out predictions for free. The whole neighborhood knew of her and would visit her house. Autumn became somewhat of a secretary.
“You know, before my hair turned gray it was white just like yours. The strings I use on my loom are also just like yours,” her grandmother explained as she worked away on the loom.
“Where do they come from,” Autumn asked not very surprised, displaying the tips of her fingers.
“I don’t know, all I know is that it’s an inheritable thing. In many cultures, strings are associated with fate. The three sisters of fate are probably the most well-known here, you learned about them, right? I was named after their mother.” Ananke stopped for a moment to face Autumn, “History can turn to legend. Legend to myth. Maybe these stories were really based off something.”
“The fates …mated with humans.”
“Maybe. Did they?” Ananke asked, not knowing Autumn was asking a question, “Oh, you mean we might be the products of their children?”
Autumn nodded, “Ananke II.”
Ananke responded with light laughter.
Though their strings were similar, Autumn's was the first in the lineage that mutated into something different from the ability to see the future.
Autumn learned things about her father she never knew. Lucas, her father, was able to climb so high in economic status with the help of his mother’s predictions. He would know to turn left when he should turn left, and not to turn right when he previously would have. Her father’s last name was Hearne before he married her mom. He choose to take on the name Armstrong because it was well-known and because he did not want the media to trace him back to this household. Her father went through a lot to get to where he was today, and he did it by polishing his face value. Ananke admitted that Lucas did not just abandon her, and helped with her finances. She barely had to work and could move out anytime she wanted, but she stayed to help the community with her fortune-telling. But couldn't she still help from a better neighborhood? Autumn did not fully understand what her grandmother's thinking was at the time.
After two months, Autumn’s parents picked her up after things settled, only to send her to Ashford’s boarding school. She actually knew about it before her parent’s did. She, of course, paid attention to news reports and newspapers. The time of the accident, news reports blew up saying she attacked people with the park’s precious statue andmade assumptions of how her father had secretly been against the Ashford government. Now articles were saying it had only been recently that the Armstrong family learned their youngest daughter was special. Right away, it had been planned for Autumn to attend Ashford, but after summer vacation. Proof was shown that she was already registered, the date was before the statue incident. They also finally got an interview with the man she saved, showing she wasn’t attacking people with the statue, but was a hero. All damage control.
Her parents treated Autumn like normal, like nothing big happened, like they were fooling themselves. Autumn wasn’t surprised she was going to Ashford or that her parents didn’t even take the time to ask her. She was prepared to go the moment she linked to that statue while on stage. The day she was to go to the island, she was to make a speech. The speech she, apparently, had planned on making since she and her family found out she was gifted. It was to reinforce to the public that the Armstrong family wasn’t trying to hide her or her abilities from the public. It was the first time she was not just on the sidelines. She felt powerful as she stood behind the podium. She wanted to say to not be afraid of her, that her powers were part of who she was, and that she really thought the Ashford project was a form of oppression. How was it any different than conservation camps? Well, one way it was different was that children were being put in charge of children. Actually worse, teens. And what was going to happen when the population of the island got older and increased? It was just a temporary fix. But, the speech was prewritten, none of it her own words. Even if she had the freewill, Autumn knew speech wasn't her forte. She read from it, telling her audience that she was going to become a prefect, a model student, and represent the quality of the school. She would be the public eye’s example of Ashford’s student population, and show those silly violent rumors about the island were not true. She didn't believe what she was saying.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At Ashford, Autumn learned to better control her powers and ability to form dolls. Her first attempt at trying to form a stuffed animal with her powers turned into Adam-stein. He turned out… creepy looking, but for some reason Autumn thinks he’s cute, and he’s not. She kept in contact with her brother through mail, and sent him Adam-stein so he could get a taste of her new powers. Since being a prefect gave too much power to students and involved controlling people, Autumn did not like the job or do it well. She continued on with it for her parents, but that changed when she got news of her brother. Missing in action. The package that she sent was sent back. It was the tipping point.
Onwards, Autumn completely stopped caring about respecting her parent’s wishes. She began spending all her after school hours working in the art room, ignoring her prefect duties and meetings. If her parents did not have ties with the Ashford government, she probably would have been kicked out long ago. She had gave thought of whether she should drop to neutral, but decided not to. Having higher status meant she had a better chance of creating change.
Behind the Character
Name: Yahya
Chatango Name: iYahya
RP Experience: About 2 years, but 6-ish years ago.
How did you find us: RPG Dictionary
RP Sample: Do I have to? (=.=) Autumn’s history kinda shows it. I really don’t want to… so say no…!
