Zane Vincent Played by: Watervoir
Commitment: Hobbyist
Basics Full Name: Zane Vincent
Alias: Black Hat
In the Great City of Valhalla, ‘Black Hat’ is the name associated with the leader of the notorious underground computer network known to the public simply as The Underground. Little, if anything at all, is known about this individual, but the group had not stirred enough trouble yet to incite a thorough investigation. Zane believed getting a hat from the local dollar store would be a great touch to his aspiring infamy and he wears it everywhere he goes, but if anyone were to really ask him about this particular accessory, he’d merely shrug and claim that he wears it because the Black Hat is his childhood hero.
In regular use, “Black Hat” is a security informatics term applied to computer criminals.
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Nationality: hails from a city by the name of Valhalla in a post-apocalyptic America
Ethnicity: Human; Caucasian
Concept Archetype: An
ordinary high school student by day and
hacker by night. He is most likely to serve as
mission control.
Tag Line: Boy genius and ringmaster of an underground computer network.
Description: In a post-apocalyptic society where a violent game show provides as the bread and circuses for the masses, Zane became an expert on computers at a young age and certain events led him to inherit The Underground, a criminal computer network. In this world where the plot is centered on the happenings within the grand city of Valhalla, Zane is an experienced computer scientist and hacker and will be allied with the underground rebel movement.
Appearance Hair: Dyed jet black; his normal hair colour's brown; he has bangs that can cover his eyes if not swept away; the back of his haircut ends off at the shoulders
Eyes: Cobalt blue
Skin: Fair
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 145 lbs.
Build: Slender
Distinguishing Features: None.
Description: Dresses smart casual. A black top hat is his signature accessory. He has an array of prized possessions, among them being: his cell phone, MP3 player, credit card, driver's license, (chain) wallet, ID, (the) top hat, Bicycle cards, and a laptop. He can often be found with a lollipop or some sort of sweet in his mouth.
Personality Likes: 1) His black top hat: it's symbolic of his role as leader of his virtual group, but if anyone asked, he'd claim that he's simply a fan boy of the leader of the underground group.
2) His, and just about any, material possessions: laptop, phone, cards, sweets, etc.
3) Meaningful relationships that don't hurt too bad
4) Baseballs: they've always held a special place in his heart ever since he’d solved one of his (then) biggest problems in school with one of them. Nowadays, he’d simply troll the offender over the anonymity of the net.
5) His brother, Kyler
6) Computers
Dislikes: 1) His father: while it's not an outright hatred, he believes it's his fault that his mother died. But it might be that Zane just needed someone to blame.
2) ICSS: because it contributed to the circumstances leading to his mother’s death. Although admittedly he is curious of what it's like to be under its influence
3) Bitter food, spicy food
4) Questions about his parents
5) Anyone who tries to control him
Hopes:1) To never see his father ever again, and if they do meet up, to get the chance to beat the s**t out of him.
2) To uncover the government’s secrets. No one ever takes him seriously, though. He doesn’t himself half the time.
Fears:1) To be unquestionably identified as the Black Hat.
Habits/Quirks:1) drums on things when bored
2) double checks locked doors
3) uses mundane items as toys
Alignment: Neutral Good
Description: Zane is not the type to readily accept authority based on tradition, rank, or title. To him, respect must be earned and success is the ultimate meter of value. He doesn’t work well with adults, for example, who wish to impose authority/superiority on him. On the flip side, he also doesn’t like those who seem deadest on considering themselves inferior/incapable. In turn, he can be rather demanding in his expectations, but only because he wants to motivate others to achieve an adequate level of success in his eyes. He has strong confidence in his ability and talents and is prepared to lead if no one else seems up to the task, or if he sees a major weakness in the current leadership.
Zane is not the most socially adept individual. He’s not the type to wear his heart on his sleeve and had the tendency to skip over what he considers to be irrational social rituals, like engaging in idle chatter, bowing to higher-ups, or even giving a simple hello. Thus, at times, he can seem cold, reserved and unresponsive, especially if he is preoccupied or don’t know what to say. He is usually better in a working situation than in a recreational one; he’s not good at making small talk, but have him be informally teaching a friend or engaging in some significant discussion, and his tongue would be smooth.
Ability Strengths: intelligent (scholarly), works fast, good actor
Weaknesses: impatient & intolerant, materialistic, untrusting, can’t cook
Skills/Special Abilities: computers whiz: specialty is hacking
Background World/Genre: Zane comes from a
post apocalyptic world set in the
distant future. It has a mix of soft
sci-fi and hard sci-fi elements in it, but it does not take place in space (or as far as he's aware). His genre is
action, as much of the story is centered around a game show held in the prominent Neo-Coliseum. The government is an oppressive one, so part of the story too is for the heroes not necessarily to overthrow it, but to find out the secrets it is hiding. Besides that, the main heroes are popular competitors in the Games. Zane is not
the main character, nor is he a competitor of the Games.
As far as the public is concerned, Valhalla is a massive city, situated in the only inhabitable location amidst a wasteland. Walls that grow up to form a dome to envelop the entire small nation protect the denizens from the dangers outside, which include flesh-eating beasts and extreme weather conditions. The city’s main form of entertainment is the game show held every night at the Neo-Coliseum.
Family:Father: George VincentWhen one mentions the Vincents, Zane is the last name that comes to mind. His own reputation is shadowed by his father’s. George Vincent is a brilliant researcher and inventor in the field of neuro-electronics, which as the name suggests involves a combination of neuroscience and electronic engineering. His most celebrated and infamous invention was a machine that allowed for human intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS), a process in which electrical shocks are administered to a certain part of the brain to incite feelings of immense pleasure that are equal to or beyond that gained from taking illicit drugs.
George’s invention contributed to the death of his wife. Shortly thereafter, the government declared ICSS illegal after a portion of the populace began undergoing unauthorized surgeries to implant the electrodes that would land them either death or eternal bliss. The man himself was taken in by the government for ‘protection’, as they had termed it. Zane doesn’t believe it entirely, but he blames the man for what happened to his mother and is more than happy to avoid him for an indeterminate time longer.
Mother: Valiera VincentShe was a fellow researcher, although more in the strands of neuroscience than anything. She was not part of George’s team that gave rise to the ICSS machine, although it was through the project that he had met her. He frequently sought her knowledge on the areas regarding the workings of the brain that he did not understand completely himself, and through their consultations with one another, they grew all the more closer.
Subsequently, a picture-perfect family bloomed from the pair. It didn’t last long. ICSS was pushed into the bowels of society when Zane was at the age of two, and soon Zane often found himself being told that his mother was ‘in her happy place’ when she wasn’t there to attend to him. By the time he was five, his mother was taken away to rehabilitation from addiction to the machines. However, with ICSS being such a new technology that, the authorities lacked the necessary psychologists with the proper know-how or patience to deal with Valiera. His mother was reported dead a few weeks after she had been taken in and it wasn’t until six years later that the kids found out she had committed suicide after negotiating with a few shady individuals for a couple minutes with the pleasure machine. Overdose was uncommon, but possible.
Younger brother: Kyler VincentUnlike Zane, Kyler, age 14, does not have the vivid memories of his mother haunting him, nor does he have his brother’s aloof attitude. Kind and compassionate, Ky is often too immersed in his school activities to really spend time with his only accessible family member. Ky goes to a separate high school than the one Zane attended, a prestigious one that demands for its students to board. The two rarely ever get to see one another, but nevertheless, Zane cares a lot for him and their infrequent moments together are never boring.
History:Zane was born a permanent citizen of Valhalla – citizen because Valhalla welcomed all, and permanent because there were no other cities for hundreds of miles around, if at all, that supported life. Zane is a resident of the city’s innermost ring, an area sanctioned off for the highest of the social classes in the Great City.
Following the death of his mother, he started becoming more immersed in the world of the Neo-Coliseum and the Games , a program he had started watching at the tender age of four and initially had no interest in. Apart from that, little remarkable occurred in his childhood apart from his chucking a baseball in a guy’s face out of anger during his time as a student of Royal Heights Public School, for the third time. It was one of a few suspensions he’d get in his lifetime.
His naughty streak did not end there. During the last couple of days of his junior year at Royal Heights High School, he and some friends rewired the school’s network after a teacher had boasted about his recent handy work on that particular system to be impregnable. However, instead of a suspension, the kids were ordered to learn from their mistakes and Zane had been assigned to teach a programming course that emphasized the practice of computer ethics.
It was also during this time that he learned a few secrets about the government that he shouldn’t have. Through a series of unfortunate events, he and a friend found out that, among other things, government hides the fact that the entire city is underground instead of above it, but Zane doesn’t know why. He only knows that there are consequences to spreading the truth and therefore feigns ignorance of the knowledge of it. This was also the time during which he gained the role as the Black Hat, which is a story for another time.
Today, at age 17, he works a free schedule as a graphics designer among other things. Little would he know that he would soon be meeting his Neo-Coliseum hero Lance Omicron and that a whole new chapter of his life would begin.
Plotline Do you have any goals in mind for your character? These are not necessarily things your character wants but what you want to do with them. Explain: His role in the story will be to serve as the leader of a clandestine virtual network whose goal is to uncover the mysteries of the world around them and the political powers in charge, thus helping to further the main protagonists' plots.
Tableau Write a brief scene introducing your character.It wasn't lost to him how young the teacher looked. For a university, this man looked more like a teaching assistant than any professor, but then again, who was Zane to judge? He was only 17, and here he already was in a post-secondary institution. He wasn't exactly genius material himself, but he had gotten the acceptance, and figured that coming to the university would be to his benefit.
"Hm." It turned out this room was where he was supposed to be all along. Zane took a sneaking glance out the door, half-expecting to see Effie May standing there with a smug broad toothed grin. But there was no one there, so he simply turned back with a defeated sigh to get a hold of his surroundings before the teacher finished and it was his turn for introductions.
A look around the rest of the classroom gave him an array of sights. Apart from the unusually large male-to-female ratio in the room, the most bemusing sights were a roughened cowboy, what appeared to be a gigantic pile of rocks resembling a humanoid, and a girl obsessing over some elaborate paper folding that looked like something
she would have been interested in. Zane was not usually considered "normal" in the settings he usually found himself in, but compared to these guys, he figured that he would probably fit right in.
It did not elude him that several others had a similar sense in fashion as he: a plain tee and jeans. He felt a tugging of his clothes and when he unconsciously brushed a hand against his collar, he found that his shirt was no longer an ordinary tee -- it was no longer a tee at all, having been magically replaced by a white, elbow-length dress shirt and a diagonally silver striped black tie. His top hat, skinny jeans and sneakers (his items of most concern) were still very much on his person, however. Before he could fully digest this out of the blue change in apparel though, there was a moment of silence that begged for his attention.
"Cool." Hooking his thumbs around the belt loops of his jeans, he greeted the silence with a firm stance and a grin. "Name's Zane. Got a little lost on the way, but here I am. I don't come from anywhere but a black cylindrical room of thought, or so I've been told, but the worlds I enter are all the same: happy looking cities equipped with twisted summer camps, post-apocalyptic violent game shows and..." His eyes trailed over the heads of the other students to the scenery rolling beyond the windows. "...this. Anything basically that involves a big ******** mind-screw." A shrug. "She likes to do these things to me. Not sure why. She being the crazy chick everyone calls Watervoir. Have yet to see her face, but I'll find it soon enough. I already know enough to be sure that she's only got a year and a half, maybe two years, of solid role play experience and that she hangs around certain threads in Gaiaonline's Barton Town." A silence for it all to sink in, and for him to consider his next steps to fend himself off against this 'role player'.
"And that's about it for me. Pleasure meeting you all and I hope to get to know everyone better at some point or another." As he began moving in to choose a seat, he wondered how many of these people knew about these supposed beings that controlled their every thought, their every action. There had got to be some way to band together and stop this...
...And the thought was lost. What had he been thinking about again?
Zane wasn't sure, and was suddenly too consumed by the thought of wanting a lollipop to stick in his mouth to care. He took a seat not too far from the front of the classroom, slid out his phone and tried making a text, in spite of the lack of signal bars on the top left of the screen. Vaguely, he registered the teacher fishing for more questions and the arrival of another student, another latecomer like him. Zane had no further questions at the moment, but there was an empty seat to his right that he didn't mind being filled.
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