Welcome to Gaia! ::

[table of contents]

Hobbies:
Video Games: If asked, Berlin will tell you that his favorite type of game is “Yes.” He can be choosier than that, but he’ll try almost everything once, especially fantasy games. Streams are frequently dedicated to Pokémon games, roguelike games, FromSoft games, and the Fallout series. MMORPGs aren’t so much his thing, but he loves other games that are meant to be played with others, like Mario Party, Super Smash Bros., and fighting games. His Youtube channel also hosts lots of deep dive lore videos alongside stream highlight compilations and let’s plays.

My Little Pony: Specifically, Berlin enjoys customizing his own ponies. The cartoons and the lore are great, but there’s something special about stitching new hair into the plastic, redoing a paint job, maybe even designing a little outfit for his new Pony. While he sometimes takes commissions, Berlin prefers making custom Ponies for people as gifts and having the only monetization be from streaming his process.

Fanfiction: Primarily, Berlin is a reader and he’s open to a lot of different fandoms, ships, genres, and tropes. The uniting trait in the fics he likes best is that most of them are some kind of deliberately ******** up and edgy. When he gets in the mood to write, most of his stories start with him getting a weird little idea and asking himself “Hey, wouldn’t it be ******** up if I did that to this character.” The fics he loves most and most enjoys writing will make a reader wonder whether the author is okay or not. His most frequently used tag on AO3 is “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” and he’s very proud of that.

Occult and Esoterica: Berlin likes weird things, and from a pretty early age, he has understood that most people consider anything to do with magic, demons, folkloric and/or mythological monsters and non-human beings, etc. to be incredibly weird. Motivating him to read anything but fiction is incredibly difficult outside of research for lore-dives……unless it’s some weird occult s**t, in which case he wants it, he needs it, what’s the ISBN number again. He is often found at different esoterica and New Age shops around town, looking for new trinkets and/or books, and he regularly works aspects of these studies into his fanfiction.

Exploring Destiny City: Despite having a very online job and being “chronically online” in many ways, Berlin does genuinely enjoy going outside and touching some grass, so to speak. He’s eager to go check out little local shops or restaurants he hasn’t been to before, wander around areas of town he doesn’t know very well just to see what he finds, or show up for the opening of new places even if he doesn’t think he’ll like the places themselves very much. It probably doesn’t hurt that he always has his phone with him and thus, a lot of his adventures end up becoming social media “content” of some kind.


Virtues:
Enthusiastic: Berlin is a go-getter and a spitfire, easy to get invested in something and very good at motivating himself to pursue his interests. When he’s excited about something, he goes full throttle about it. Challenging things especially get him going and if he doesn’t feel challenged, he will find a way to make things more challenging for himself. If at first you don’t succeed, that’s just an opportunity for you to figure out a new strategy until something works.

Outgoing: To paraphrase Ariel, Berlin wants to be where the people are. Very social and fond of being around people, he can strike up a conversation with pretty much anyone. You have ten fingers? He has ten fingers! You should be his friend! Oh, you lost one of your fingers in an accident? That’s okay, Berlin doesn’t actually think finger counts are a good metric for basing a friendship and he has decided that he likes your vibe. He’ll still be your friend. What sorts of things do you like? Please tell him all about yourself and your interests, new friend!!

Imaginative: If you ask him, Berlin is a dreamer, and that’s a pretty fair assessment. He was the sort of kid who would follow the rules in a “color by numbers” activity but use the wrong colors, so the cute picture wound up with green bunnies eating black carrots on magenta grass. Yes, he hears what you’re saying about his idea being unrealistic, but “the box” that you want Berlin to think inside of is no concern to him. Frankly, asking him to limit his thoughts like that means you need more whimsy in your life.

Supportive/Encouraging: Hey, bestie, are you feeling down on yourself? Well, Berlin thinks that you shouldn’t, and he’s here with a fully illustrated PowerPoint about all the reasons why you’re awesome. Do you want advice? Uh, he can’t promise that his will be the exact right idea that you need, but his heart is in it and he’ll give you his best effort! Do you need to hear about that coworker you don’t like is a b***h who isn’t as cool and smart and fun as you? Well, here’s your favorite coffee order and Berlin is 100% ready to dish on why your workplace nemesis sucks and you are so much better than them in every way.


Flaws:
Selectively Enthusiastic: If Berlin decides he doesn’t care about something, it is incredibly difficult to make him care about it. Getting him to take care of things he has ruled Are Not Worth His Time is at best an excruciating chore, and at worst, impossible. Even if the thing in question is in his own best interests to handle, he will blow you off, blatantly fail to listen to you about it, and procrastinate until the last possible minute. He may also “forget” something you told him because he didn’t want to deal with it.

Lacks Boundaries: Berlin doesn’t respect people’s boundaries and acts like having any is a crime against him personally. He wants to know everybody’s business, so he will ask you questions that you don’t want to answer, pressure you to tell him what he wants to know, follow you places after being expressly asked not to do that, etc. He acts like oversharing in kind should somehow make up for this, but it doesn’t. Mostly, this makes people wonder why he’s telling them such upsetting stories as if they should be funny and silly.

Needy for Validation: Berlin considers most ideas he has about himself are null and void until somebody else agrees with him. In addition to him being generally needy, this makes him sensitive to others’ opinions and eager to change his behaviors, even if he struggles to fit into their boxes (see: literally any time when anybody asks him to respect their boundaries). Maybe he didn’t think he was doing too much, but chat says he is, so he’s going to dial it back now.

Self-Loathing: Underneath the perky, upbeat façade and ostensibly unapologetic weird little freak behavior, Berlin doesn’t like himself very much. Negative feedback gets taken to heart in ways that are difficult to shake because he already agrees with it. He prioritizes others’ needs because he feels like his own aren’t that important. He puts himself in situations where he can reasonably expect that he will get hurt because it’s easier to deal with externally induced pain than feeling like garbage for no apparent reason other than “Berlin exists as a person and kinda hates this about himself.”

• Calvin Tempest: Father, 62 (b. January 5th, 1962). Corporate attorney.
  
  
• Cecily Tempest: Mother, 54 (b. October 17th, 1970). Socialite.
  
  
• Charlotte Tempest: Big sister, 31 (b. August 13th, 1993). Tax attorney. Her name is the one on the lease for the townhouse where she, Berlin, and Chelsea all live. She is also the sister who hounds Berlin to file his taxes every year, even though he doesn’t want to and hates having to focus on it.
  
  
• Chelsea Tempest: Twin sister, 24 (b. December 1st, 2000).
  
  
• Cheyenne Salem Tempest: Baby non-binary sibling (they/them), 17 (b. November 13th, 2007). Student at Romano’s Constitutional Haven. Enrolled as Cheyenne, even though this is their deadname, because their parents haven’t allowed them to change it yet. Considering the way Calvin and Cecily have been handling the whole “Mom, Dad, I’m nonbinary” thing (TL;DR: badly), there is a not-insignificant chance that they’ll never willingly let Salem change their name, including using different ways of pressuring Salem out of doing so once they turn 18.

In addition to his human family, Berlin also has several pet bunnies, who are regular guest stars on his streams and in his assorted pieces of social media content.

• Arcade Gannon: named after Berlin’s favorite companion from Fallout: New Vegas. A Champagne d’Argent, so he’s pretty big, with luxurious silver fur. Litter-mates with Nashandra. Arcade is a passive-aggressive king. He and Nashandra were Berlin’s first bunnies, but Arcade bonded with Berlin before his sister did. He understands this to mean that he has senior status among the herd and behaves accordingly, such as by inviting himself up into Berlin’s bed (which he always gets away with).
  
  
• Ceaseless Discharge: Named after the Dark Souls boss with the worst name ever. Litter-mates with Doribull and Gwyndolin. Red-eyed white English Angora. She’s mischievous but she’s also affectionate and snuggly, so Berlin forgives her.
  
  
  • ……Berlin calls her “Dizzy.” He knows her name is terrible. Please just call her “Dizzy,” he swears it’s okay.
    
    
  • She named herself on a stream, where Berlin wrote down the names of different Dark Souls characters on 3”x5” note-cards: Artorias, Chaos Witch Queelag, Scorpioness Najka, Lorian, Lothric, Seath the Scaleless, Darkstalker Kaathe, Slave Knight Gael, The Duke’s Dear Freja, Crossbreed Priscilla, and……Ceaseless Discharge. He then put little treats out on the cards and let Dizzy choose which one to eat.
    
    
  • Honestly, he was hoping for “Crossbreed Priscilla”? He tried to go with that one, even while watching his bunny eat the treat on top of the “Ceaseless Discharge” card……but his stream chat wouldn’t let him get away with that, and thus, Dizzy certainly wound up with a name of all time.
  
  
• Doribull: Technically, named after a ship between the companions from Dragon Age: Inquisition (Dorian Pavus and the Iron Bull). Blue-eyed white English Angora. Litter-mates with Gwyndolin and Dizzy. Very prissy and anxious, especially around new people, but sometimes, this means he acts like the most obnoxious little peacock, trying to fool people into thinking that he isn’t scared.
  
  
  • Like Dizzy, Doribull named himself on stream and in the same way. Berlin laid out cards with all the companions and war-table members from DA:I (Cassandra Pentaghast, Cole, Cullen Rutherford, Dorian Pavus, Josephine Montilyet, Leliana, Sera, Iron Bull, Solas, Thom Rainier, Varric Tethras, and Vivienne de Fer), and let Doribull choose which treats to eat, thus choosing his name.
    
    
  • He picked up the treat from the Iron Bull card without eating it, hopped over to the Dorian Pavus card, dropped the treat, and then ate both of them, so……okay, then?? Berlin guesses that Doribull wants to have both names??
  
  
• Gwyndolin: Named after Dark Sun Gwyndolin from Dark Souls, one of Berlin’s personal favorite examples of FromSoft Sure Doing Some ********’ Gender all over their games. Lilac tortoiseshell English Angora. Litter-mates with Dizzy and Doribull, who did not get to name himself on stream because Berlin had already gotten burned twice. He didn’t want to end up putting out more Dark Souls character names, hoping real hard for his bun-bun to pick “Gwyndolin,” and then end up with this baby calling himself “The Rotten” or “Black Dragon Kalameet” or something.
  
  
• Kim Kitsuragi: Named after the Disco Elysium character. A Blanc de Hotot, white with black markings around his eyes that look like glasses.
  
  
• Luo Bunhe: Named after Luo Binghe from Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, which was Chelsea’s doing, not Berlin’s. He just thought the name was cute and allowed it to stay. A mutt, Bunhe had a Giant Angora father and a Flemish Giant mother, so he is enormous (the largest bun among Berlin’s herd), black, and floofy. He is also extremely clingy, with both Berlin and Arcade, to whom he is essentially mate-bonded, despite the fact that both of them are boy rabbits.
  
  
• Ludwig the Accursed: Named after the infamous first boss of Bloodborne’s DLC pack, The Old Hunters. The second-largest bun in Berlin’s herd, a very fluffy blue-grey Flemish Giant. One of the most frequent stream-interruptors because Ludwig wants snuggles always, all the time. He has tried on multiple occasions to get “hopping up the bunny-stairs into Berlin’s bed” privileges but Arcade refuses to let him up.
  
  
• Nashandra: Named after the penultimate final boss of Dark Souls II, King Vendrick’s treacherous wife, whom Berlin thinks we should honestly forgive because she serves c**t on a monumental scale, alright? Anyway. Nashandra the bunny is a Champagne d’Argent, with more concentrated black surviving in her fur, especially around the face. Like her big brother Arcade, she is regularly passive-aggressive, but she’s not as good at it as he is, so she often ends up resorting to cranky foot-thumpies.
  
  
• Yharnam: Named after the haunting Pthumerian Queen from Bloodborne, mother of the stillborn infant eldritch nightmare god, Mergo. A broken-blue otter pattern English Lop, with the biggest, saddest, sparkliest pleading eyes you have ever seen in your life.

[relationships]

[past life knightly wonder]

[ic inventory]

PERSONAL ITEMS

• Little Meow-Meow Tiara
  
  • Physical Description: A headband-style tiara made of black metal, topped with protrusions shaped like cat ears. The cat ears have inlaid magenta crystals.
    
    
  • Magic: The Meow-Meow Tiara is very cute. While Nekoite wears it, he seems more endearing and less threatening, mostly harmless. This illusion can be seen through, and dissipates completely when combat starts, if Nekoite takes violent action outside of combat, or if Nekoite tries to starseed someone.

[placeheld]