April Caouette (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tempingainteasy) wrote2022-08-27 04:08 pm
tempingainteasy) wrote2022-08-27 04:08 pm
Entry tags:
Come Sail Away App
PLAYER
Name: Rexila
Age: 30ish
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
rexboxone, ask for discord
Permission Post: Here
Reserve: N/A
CHARACTER
Name: April Caouette
True Name: a blurry photo of a bedroom in a French country home, pointed at an open window; to the right of the window is a smear that looks like a human face.
Canon: Original, set around 2022
Age: 196, give or take. Appears to be ambiguously twenty-something.
History:
Full profile here, but in brief:
Something like April existed, with other beings, as long as humans could create images that looked like real things, specifically as long as these early artists attempted to portray real things but landed off-target enough to be uncomfortable to look at.
April, as a being with a sense of intent and individuality, existed from a little before the first photograph was successfully developed. The failure turned out... wrong, and April attached to that feeling of revulsion, of almost-recognizing something.
And while photography was a booming success, April posed as a photographer, taking many pictures of many people in their portrait studio and feeding from the discomfort and distress and other things the people holding their photos were left with.
Not every photograph, of course, but enough to sustain themselves on the awareness and unease their work created.
Times changed, photography became a cleaner, less-specialized process, and they moved into more modern roles for film development, before trying to change careers entirely. They’d seen the results of people clinging to the past and old legacies before, of course.
At this time, there were also organizations springing up to study the spiritual and supernatural. April thought they were being clever, killing two birds with one stone by insinuating themselves into the Mackenzie King Institute of Paranormal Studies. If someone’s taking a magnifying glass to the world of the unknown and uncanny, she figured it’d best to be behind that lens, or too close to be in focus, plus they’d get to feel out a new way to make people uncomfortable. And if they find evidence of themselves in the archives, then they can just fix that.
They infiltrated as a temp from an agency, originally for archiving photos, and then branching into different departments, filing, data entry, inventory...
Only they’ve found themselves stuck there, in a repurposed safety bunker, bouncing from assignment to assignment on a temp worker’s wage and benefits, which is to say minimum and nada. Sure, the supernatural feeding is fine, yeah, it’s something to do, but dear god, is it worth answering so many e-mails?
Powers/Abilities:
this is long buckle up. tl;dr they make cursed photos, sometimes you could swear you saw them before, they’re hard to remember in detail unless you’re really trying/have an ability to see the supernatural and/or they want to be seen (but the more they run into you, the more they have to put effort into being forgotten), you kill them the way you’d kill a photograph.
April can manipulate any photo they are in or that they take, and generally is aware of when something is trying to capture their image. Usually they're just out of focus if they show up at all, but if they're putting their mind to it for feeding/entertainment purposes, they can change how the picture developments. This ranges from blurring faces, to making something uncanny like an AI generated portrait, to subtle adjustments to a person's picture that will make them doubt their self-image. That kind of thing.
April can also just straight make her face look like it does in the pictures, if they want a quick and cheap scare. They technically can alter photo for non horrific purposes, if fake IDs mattered here they could help you with that too, probably.
Visually, April themselves is indistinct. They can give off a feeling of familiarity to people talking to them, that feeling that you know this person from somewhere but you've forgotten their name. They're hard to describe, and trying to focus in on what you remember them looking like just makes those features slip away more.
April can force some of their features to be more prominent and memorable, mainly to get a point across (specifically, how mad they are that you haven't submitted your expenses yet, or didn't properly sign out that cursed item, or are trying to book a meeting when there's no spaces left). Similarly, if it occurs to someone to concentrate hard enough, they might notice that April's face isn't as there and clear as their mind says it totally is.
It is not recommended to try seeing her real face clearly.
Also people never remember her name, but according to April that's as much being a temp as it is being an ambiguous identity creature.
April sustains themselves on the fear, unease, and paranoia of humans (or similarly sentient creatures, monsters are not exempt from the foodchain). They can eat ‘normal’ food too, but April gets little if any nutritional value from it.
Finally, April is more like photo paper than flesh. That means they don’t bleed when cut (but if people are expecting blood, they’ll likely see that anyway) and killing them requires fire, cleaning chemicals rubbed directly onto them, or turning them into confetti. Destroy them like you’d destroy sensitive photographs, essentially.
Also, supernatural beings that feed on essence, life force, whatever you want to call it, or just plain eat other monsters will have an easy time killing April. (Again, monsters are not exempt from the foodchain.)
Inventory: Purse with a smartphone, charger, wallet, government ID (blurry picture, placeholder information), work ID (no picture, just a name), key fobs (unlabelled), pens in varying colours with varying grips, kleenexes, napkins with the Tim Hortons logo (circa 1994) on them, small metal water bottle (half-full), small notepad, various discount cards, Laura Secord Ice Cream punchcard (nearly full), small can of bug spray, small can of bear spray, small makeup mirror, two sticks of chapstick (one unopened), keys, sanitary napkins, small bottle of hand sanitizer, disposable camera, small digital camera, informational pamphlet on the Diefenbunker.
Job History:
Operations Clerk
William Lyon Mackenzie King Institute of Paranormal Research
Via [UNDEFINED] employment agency
1994-present
Responsibilities:
-Various file organization duties as needed
-Answering questions from the public
-Creating service request tickets to address concerns from the public
-Transferring incoming calls to the appropriate department
-Welcoming, receiving, and directing visitors
-Handling, entering, and filing confidential information
-Opening the office at the start of the day and locking it down at the end of the day
Additional Skills:
-Performing job duties without attracting scrutiny
-Obscuring nature from trained professionals
-Identifying other inhuman entities and safely engaging with or avoiding them
-Identifying and handling potentially dangerous paranormal objects.
-Reliably navigating an inconsistent structure.
-See previous position for applicable skills
Data Clerk
Communications and Electronics Branch, Canada Armed Forces
1990-1994
Responsibilities:
-Safe handling of film and other delicate image records for archival
-Preparing images and documents for archival
-Recording, classifying, filing incoming reports and documentation of classified encounters
-Following precise guidelines for handling dangerous objects and materials
-Following precise guidelines to keep the institute safe from external influence and infiltration
-Handling of confidential, sensitive information with discretion
Additional Skills:
-Avoiding detection from highly trained professionals
-Ability-assisted social engineering to infiltrate federal institution
-Attentive to information about other inhuman entities
-Careful use of abilities to avoid detection on imaging equipment
-Snooping without being caugh
Film Development Technician
Various locations
???-1989
Responsibilities:
-Quick and timely development of customer film rolls following proper processes
-Polite and attentive response to customers
-Correctly sorting, stamping, dating, and labeling developed photo packages for customers
Additional Skills:
-Modifying photos during the development process to alter subject appearances or add elements to images
-Use of discretion and design to determine when to make an alteration detectable
-Hiding in plain sight of upset customers or investigators
Portrait photographer
Various locations, independent
18??-19??
Responsibilities:
-Faithfully capturing images of clients
-Properly maintaining studio and photography equipment
-Use of development chemicals to produce quality photographs
-Fulfiling client requests in-studio or on location.
-Transporting delicate and heavy equipment
Additional Skills:
-Alteration of developed or developing images to produce unease and horror from clients
-Careful selection of clientele for feeding purposes based on psychological criteria
-Changing business location swiftly and without remaining evidence.
Suppressions:
Rage: They are aggressively professional when doing the job on, say, a phone call, or e-mail, or speaking to a member of the public, and they think they’re very controlled but ha ha no get them started and they are actually BIG MAD at anything, from a petty slight from That One Coworker to actively wanting revenge on the current department head for restructuring the staff in an inconvenient way. They think they are good at suppressing this, they are very much not.
Duelling wants: April both wants recognition for their work in the office, because they’ve done some damn good work for this ungrateful institute, but they also do not want to be the focus of attention. They like talking to people when they think they won’t be remembered or sought out after, but avoid longterm (or medium-turn, honestly) ‘friendship’ with the exception of a small group of coworkers they’ve let in. This is something they grapple with constantly, but deny it and say they totally prefer the low-commitment anonymity of their existence.
Doubt: April has this vague unease about coming into work sometimes, easily explained to themselves as not looking forward to another slow day of bullshit, but deeper down is actually about if this ‘career shift’ was a good idea at all to begin with, and if they’ve maybe lost something in themselves by making that change. An artist “getting a real job”, if you will. They made this change to survive, but was surviving worth what they are becoming? A cog in a bureaucratic machine? Doomed to rarely see the natural light of day - or night - again? Would it have really been so bad to be a cheap creepypasta subreddit creature if it meant getting to travel again, go to new places, haunt new people?
This one, April has completely managed to rationalize away and suppress, good for them.
Undue Arrogance: hey on the subject April insists they have ‘standards’ which is why they are sacrificing themselves to the bit of being a totally legitimate office worker buddy, you guys. And also where they get the confidence in all of their opinions about supernatural creatures, behaviours, and feeding on humans in whatever form a creature wants to, and so on. When they go on a lecture about the paranormal food chain or what certain infamous cryptids are doing wrong or why whatever creepypasta horror trend is bogus or dumb, they don’t think for a second that they’re arrogant. They think their opinions are well-researched, informed, and correct.
Greatest Fear: Once upon a time, it was a slow extinction of what they were and the kind of fears and emotions they represent, erasure by cultural shift and technological irrelevancy.
Now it’s being a temp in a forever unchanging artificially lit federal building, forever bound and beholden to an uncaring bureaucratic authority. No, they won’t quit and get a new job. (see previous fear)
Greatest Desire: CHANGING THE MCKENZIE KING INSTITUTE’S GODFORSAKEN CONVOLUTED OFFENSIVELY OUT OF DATE ORGANIZATION AND CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM TO THEIR OWN MUCH MORE MODERN, LOGICAL, AND FLEXIBLE SYSTEM, OBEY MY PROPOSAL AND MAKE MY SUPERIOR CHANGES YOU OLD BASTARDS--
Second to that is getting to, at last, not only getting time off but getting... paid time off. And benefits. Do they need them? Does it matter?
Greatest Regret: There was one portrait they took when they were experimenting with other ways to torment people with images, making a perfect image instead of their usual slightly-off fare. The subject of that portrait grew very depressed with that self-image to live up to, and -
Look, it was a very depressing job, and April’s decided that self-esteem like that is off limits because it really sucks to see a human depressed to the point of self-destruction.
Additional Notes:
Given April's 'diet', either there's some weird servings at the buffet, or the existence of Photos At Sea can low-key feed them given how many pictures of passengers are there, and the odds of April showing up in one of them.
Sample:
Top Post in the TDM
Thread
Name: Rexila
Age: 30ish
Contact:
Permission Post: Here
Reserve: N/A
CHARACTER
Name: April Caouette
True Name: a blurry photo of a bedroom in a French country home, pointed at an open window; to the right of the window is a smear that looks like a human face.
Canon: Original, set around 2022
Age: 196, give or take. Appears to be ambiguously twenty-something.
History:
Full profile here, but in brief:
Something like April existed, with other beings, as long as humans could create images that looked like real things, specifically as long as these early artists attempted to portray real things but landed off-target enough to be uncomfortable to look at.
April, as a being with a sense of intent and individuality, existed from a little before the first photograph was successfully developed. The failure turned out... wrong, and April attached to that feeling of revulsion, of almost-recognizing something.
And while photography was a booming success, April posed as a photographer, taking many pictures of many people in their portrait studio and feeding from the discomfort and distress and other things the people holding their photos were left with.
Not every photograph, of course, but enough to sustain themselves on the awareness and unease their work created.
Times changed, photography became a cleaner, less-specialized process, and they moved into more modern roles for film development, before trying to change careers entirely. They’d seen the results of people clinging to the past and old legacies before, of course.
At this time, there were also organizations springing up to study the spiritual and supernatural. April thought they were being clever, killing two birds with one stone by insinuating themselves into the Mackenzie King Institute of Paranormal Studies. If someone’s taking a magnifying glass to the world of the unknown and uncanny, she figured it’d best to be behind that lens, or too close to be in focus, plus they’d get to feel out a new way to make people uncomfortable. And if they find evidence of themselves in the archives, then they can just fix that.
They infiltrated as a temp from an agency, originally for archiving photos, and then branching into different departments, filing, data entry, inventory...
Only they’ve found themselves stuck there, in a repurposed safety bunker, bouncing from assignment to assignment on a temp worker’s wage and benefits, which is to say minimum and nada. Sure, the supernatural feeding is fine, yeah, it’s something to do, but dear god, is it worth answering so many e-mails?
Powers/Abilities:
this is long buckle up. tl;dr they make cursed photos, sometimes you could swear you saw them before, they’re hard to remember in detail unless you’re really trying/have an ability to see the supernatural and/or they want to be seen (but the more they run into you, the more they have to put effort into being forgotten), you kill them the way you’d kill a photograph.
April can manipulate any photo they are in or that they take, and generally is aware of when something is trying to capture their image. Usually they're just out of focus if they show up at all, but if they're putting their mind to it for feeding/entertainment purposes, they can change how the picture developments. This ranges from blurring faces, to making something uncanny like an AI generated portrait, to subtle adjustments to a person's picture that will make them doubt their self-image. That kind of thing.
April can also just straight make her face look like it does in the pictures, if they want a quick and cheap scare. They technically can alter photo for non horrific purposes, if fake IDs mattered here they could help you with that too, probably.
Visually, April themselves is indistinct. They can give off a feeling of familiarity to people talking to them, that feeling that you know this person from somewhere but you've forgotten their name. They're hard to describe, and trying to focus in on what you remember them looking like just makes those features slip away more.
April can force some of their features to be more prominent and memorable, mainly to get a point across (specifically, how mad they are that you haven't submitted your expenses yet, or didn't properly sign out that cursed item, or are trying to book a meeting when there's no spaces left). Similarly, if it occurs to someone to concentrate hard enough, they might notice that April's face isn't as there and clear as their mind says it totally is.
It is not recommended to try seeing her real face clearly.
Also people never remember her name, but according to April that's as much being a temp as it is being an ambiguous identity creature.
April sustains themselves on the fear, unease, and paranoia of humans (or similarly sentient creatures, monsters are not exempt from the foodchain). They can eat ‘normal’ food too, but April gets little if any nutritional value from it.
Finally, April is more like photo paper than flesh. That means they don’t bleed when cut (but if people are expecting blood, they’ll likely see that anyway) and killing them requires fire, cleaning chemicals rubbed directly onto them, or turning them into confetti. Destroy them like you’d destroy sensitive photographs, essentially.
Also, supernatural beings that feed on essence, life force, whatever you want to call it, or just plain eat other monsters will have an easy time killing April. (Again, monsters are not exempt from the foodchain.)
Inventory: Purse with a smartphone, charger, wallet, government ID (blurry picture, placeholder information), work ID (no picture, just a name), key fobs (unlabelled), pens in varying colours with varying grips, kleenexes, napkins with the Tim Hortons logo (circa 1994) on them, small metal water bottle (half-full), small notepad, various discount cards, Laura Secord Ice Cream punchcard (nearly full), small can of bug spray, small can of bear spray, small makeup mirror, two sticks of chapstick (one unopened), keys, sanitary napkins, small bottle of hand sanitizer, disposable camera, small digital camera, informational pamphlet on the Diefenbunker.
Job History:
Operations Clerk
William Lyon Mackenzie King Institute of Paranormal Research
Via [UNDEFINED] employment agency
1994-present
Responsibilities:
-Various file organization duties as needed
-Answering questions from the public
-Creating service request tickets to address concerns from the public
-Transferring incoming calls to the appropriate department
-Welcoming, receiving, and directing visitors
-Handling, entering, and filing confidential information
-Opening the office at the start of the day and locking it down at the end of the day
Additional Skills:
-Performing job duties without attracting scrutiny
-Obscuring nature from trained professionals
-Identifying other inhuman entities and safely engaging with or avoiding them
-Identifying and handling potentially dangerous paranormal objects.
-Reliably navigating an inconsistent structure.
-See previous position for applicable skills
Data Clerk
Communications and Electronics Branch, Canada Armed Forces
1990-1994
Responsibilities:
-Safe handling of film and other delicate image records for archival
-Preparing images and documents for archival
-Recording, classifying, filing incoming reports and documentation of classified encounters
-Following precise guidelines for handling dangerous objects and materials
-Following precise guidelines to keep the institute safe from external influence and infiltration
-Handling of confidential, sensitive information with discretion
Additional Skills:
-Avoiding detection from highly trained professionals
-Ability-assisted social engineering to infiltrate federal institution
-Attentive to information about other inhuman entities
-Careful use of abilities to avoid detection on imaging equipment
-Snooping without being caugh
Film Development Technician
Various locations
???-1989
Responsibilities:
-Quick and timely development of customer film rolls following proper processes
-Polite and attentive response to customers
-Correctly sorting, stamping, dating, and labeling developed photo packages for customers
Additional Skills:
-Modifying photos during the development process to alter subject appearances or add elements to images
-Use of discretion and design to determine when to make an alteration detectable
-Hiding in plain sight of upset customers or investigators
Portrait photographer
Various locations, independent
18??-19??
Responsibilities:
-Faithfully capturing images of clients
-Properly maintaining studio and photography equipment
-Use of development chemicals to produce quality photographs
-Fulfiling client requests in-studio or on location.
-Transporting delicate and heavy equipment
Additional Skills:
-Alteration of developed or developing images to produce unease and horror from clients
-Careful selection of clientele for feeding purposes based on psychological criteria
-Changing business location swiftly and without remaining evidence.
Suppressions:
Rage: They are aggressively professional when doing the job on, say, a phone call, or e-mail, or speaking to a member of the public, and they think they’re very controlled but ha ha no get them started and they are actually BIG MAD at anything, from a petty slight from That One Coworker to actively wanting revenge on the current department head for restructuring the staff in an inconvenient way. They think they are good at suppressing this, they are very much not.
Duelling wants: April both wants recognition for their work in the office, because they’ve done some damn good work for this ungrateful institute, but they also do not want to be the focus of attention. They like talking to people when they think they won’t be remembered or sought out after, but avoid longterm (or medium-turn, honestly) ‘friendship’ with the exception of a small group of coworkers they’ve let in. This is something they grapple with constantly, but deny it and say they totally prefer the low-commitment anonymity of their existence.
Doubt: April has this vague unease about coming into work sometimes, easily explained to themselves as not looking forward to another slow day of bullshit, but deeper down is actually about if this ‘career shift’ was a good idea at all to begin with, and if they’ve maybe lost something in themselves by making that change. An artist “getting a real job”, if you will. They made this change to survive, but was surviving worth what they are becoming? A cog in a bureaucratic machine? Doomed to rarely see the natural light of day - or night - again? Would it have really been so bad to be a cheap creepypasta subreddit creature if it meant getting to travel again, go to new places, haunt new people?
This one, April has completely managed to rationalize away and suppress, good for them.
Undue Arrogance: hey on the subject April insists they have ‘standards’ which is why they are sacrificing themselves to the bit of being a totally legitimate office worker buddy, you guys. And also where they get the confidence in all of their opinions about supernatural creatures, behaviours, and feeding on humans in whatever form a creature wants to, and so on. When they go on a lecture about the paranormal food chain or what certain infamous cryptids are doing wrong or why whatever creepypasta horror trend is bogus or dumb, they don’t think for a second that they’re arrogant. They think their opinions are well-researched, informed, and correct.
Greatest Fear: Once upon a time, it was a slow extinction of what they were and the kind of fears and emotions they represent, erasure by cultural shift and technological irrelevancy.
Now it’s being a temp in a forever unchanging artificially lit federal building, forever bound and beholden to an uncaring bureaucratic authority. No, they won’t quit and get a new job. (see previous fear)
Greatest Desire: CHANGING THE MCKENZIE KING INSTITUTE’S GODFORSAKEN CONVOLUTED OFFENSIVELY OUT OF DATE ORGANIZATION AND CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM TO THEIR OWN MUCH MORE MODERN, LOGICAL, AND FLEXIBLE SYSTEM, OBEY MY PROPOSAL AND MAKE MY SUPERIOR CHANGES YOU OLD BASTARDS--
Second to that is getting to, at last, not only getting time off but getting... paid time off. And benefits. Do they need them? Does it matter?
Greatest Regret: There was one portrait they took when they were experimenting with other ways to torment people with images, making a perfect image instead of their usual slightly-off fare. The subject of that portrait grew very depressed with that self-image to live up to, and -
Look, it was a very depressing job, and April’s decided that self-esteem like that is off limits because it really sucks to see a human depressed to the point of self-destruction.
Additional Notes:
Given April's 'diet', either there's some weird servings at the buffet, or the existence of Photos At Sea can low-key feed them given how many pictures of passengers are there, and the odds of April showing up in one of them.
Sample:
Top Post in the TDM
Thread