[Q] Hvergelmir Page of the Cosmos [crit/stamp]

[Shazari]

[This quest has two parts: a revision to an existing civilian profile, and an upgrade quest to a knight.]

They say the skies of Lebanon are burning
Those mighty cedars bleedin' in the heat
They're showing pictures on the television
Women and children dying in the street

And we're still at it in our own place
Still tryin' to reach the future through the past
Still tryin' to carve tomorrow from a tombstone

But hey, don't listen to me!

This wasn't meant to be no sad song.
We've heard too much of that before
Right now I only want to be with you
‘Til the morning dew comes falling

 

[Shazari]

Name: Landscape Sutton

Nickname: Laney, Elaine

Age: 19

Birthday: March 15

Sign: Pisces

Gemstone: Aquamarine

Blood Type: AB

Fav. Food: Anything with peanut butter on it. Vegetables dipped in peanut butter, gummi bears dipped in peanut butter, fluffernutters, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She really likes peanut butter. (Note: smooth, not chunky. Chunky peanut butter is the devil's work.)

Hated Food: Bubblegum. She has never learned to blow a bubble, and she gets perturbed by the constant urge to swallow something after she's been chewing it. She also chews gum like a cow with cud.

School: None — although once a student at the ill-fated Barren Pines College, following her year-long coma, Laney declined to return to school. She has never completed her high school diploma.

*

And I wanna take you to the island
Trace your footprints in the sand
And in the evening when the sun goes down
We'll make love to the sound of the ocean

They're raising banners over by the markets
Whitewashing slogans on our shipyard walls
Witchdoctors praying for a mighty showdown
No way our holy flag is gonna fall

*

Hobbies:

Bearing Gifts — I saw this Human Centipede t-shirt and I thought of you — I just had to get it for you! This necklace just really seemed like your kind of thing. That ringtone was just so you! Laney loves giving gifts, and usually starts her shopping for birthday and Christmas gifts months in advance. She keeps a small moleskine with her where, among other things, she jots down any gift ideas that come to her, so she can follow up on them later. Not all of her gifts are always spot-on to what the recipient might want, but what she lacks in accuracy she makes up for thanks to the law of averages: if she gives enough gifts, some are bound to hit the mark eventually. (Except perhaps for the Human Centipede t-shirt. Lord knows what she was thinking.)

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway — Laney is a tremendous musical theatre buff. From DVDs to mp3s to local theatre shows to trips to New York City, if she can manage it, she’ll be there and she’ll get ahold of the merchandise. Laney is a somewhat annoying repository of showtunes and their lyrics, and rather melodramatically tends to feel that lyrics can serve as deeply appropriate commentary on serious situations. She has season sponsorships to Destiny City’s local theatre companies, and attempts to see every show at least twice. (This eats up most of her finances, and as a result she has a rather limited wardrobe for her age.) Although she’s never said as much, and has never auditioned for a show, her quietly nurtured dream is to perform onstage.

Gotta find my corner of the sky — Following her year-long coma, Laney has begun to come to terms with her dissatisfaction with her old life and her strained relationship with her parents, whose distantness and unsupportive behavior she finds increasingly intolerable. Her way of rebelling -- and of acknowledging the fact that she's never felt a real sense of self, or of her own wants in life -- is by becoming decidedly unambitious and a disappointment to her family. She's refused to return to school and finish her high school degree, and instead spends her time searching for something to believe in, something to make her own and feel fulfilled by. [A/N: Becoming a knight (if she does) will not fill this hole; it's not a momentary, short-term hobby.] Some of Laney's time is spent job-hunting, searching for jobs she can manage to get and hold onto and not want to back out of. The rest is often spent loafing around the city or wandering aimlessly -- while she puts forth a very positive, upbeat demeanor, she's a perpetually dissatisfied individual with a wanderlust born out of a need to keep trying something new until she finds what she's looking for -- whatever that is. She doesn't know what she's looking for, but she does know she can't stand to keep going on not finding it.

Virtues:

Focused — More than a bit neurotic about disappointing her loved ones, Laney takes devotion to near-fanatical extents. When she's given a task, she will defeat that task if she has to rip out her own hair and strangle the task with it. She's not easily distracted, and can sit in one place reading or do the same repetitive task for hours. (She can also, of course, become lost for an afternoon reading TVTropes.) She is not a half-hearted human being -- the only time she appears to be half-hearted about something is when, as noted below, she's being passive-aggressively avoidant.

Affectionate — Apparently perpetually affection-starved, once Laney is classified as a friend of yours, she loves you. She obsesses over learning your interests and giving the perfect gifts. She will want to hug you every time she sees you. She will remember your birthday and pay you lots of attention.

Open-minded — Both a tolerant and curious person by nature, Laney is not just any kind of friend, but in particular, a very accepting one. Everyone is welcome at her table who wants to be there; she loves you, warts and all. The only sort of person she doesn’t like is a person who doesn’t like her: getting a negative reaction from a new acquaintance often causes her to shut down quickly. Otherwise, she’s a curious person, interested in broadening her horizons, and is inclined to think the best of the things that interest people she cares about. If you’re into categorizing hermit crab shells, then it must be a pretty neat thing to do! As a result, she is capable of bravery where new experiences are concerned. Bolstered by the presence of a friend, she’s not easily daunted by things.

Flaws:

Cannot Cope, Going to Mordor -- When things go Laney's way, she's on cloud nine. But when they don't, she prepares with hysterical anguish to quit the internet forever. She doesn't handle her problems in the mature, responsible way of an adult -- she hides from them, gives people the silent treatment, and sobs into her pillow and eats Ben & Jerry's. Bolstered by the support of a friend, as noted before, she may be dauntless; but cut by the words of an enemy, she is quick to falter, frequently lapsing into passive-aggressive, broody silence or hysterical sobs (in either case, immaturely). She struggles frequently with feelings of anxiety and bitterness, and can’t seem to find a functional outlet for them.

We're Friends, Right? Right? Let's Always Be Together! -- Clingy, clingy, clingy. Laney is dependent, and smothering, and please don't ever leave her! This kind of neediness is definitely not the attractive, charming kind -- it's the kind that's oppressive and tiring to be the focus of, and can get in the way particularly if you're trying to get Laney to split up with you for any reason. She has some very bad social skills, and chief among these, she has absolutely no concept of personal space. If she says she loves your hair, then it's guaranteed that she is already touching your hair. She also has a tendency to run at the mouth, often offering Too Much Information, and though often she can tell when this is happening, sometimes she doesn’t know how to stop herself mid-sentence or wrap up a thought quickly. She can see the train leaving the station, but she can’t usually stop it.

Enabler -- Of course it’s a great idea, Laney thinks all your ideas are great ideas! Laney is rather easily swayed, aside from which, she’s generally of the opinion that loving someone means supporting them nigh-unconditionally. However far-fetched someone’s ideas or however uncouth their interests, Laney will try to be encouraging, even if she feels it’s a terrible thing to try to do. You should definitely try it, no doubt. You have to try — it’s better to go down shadowboxing than be Casey At the Bat, isn’t it? Of course it is. She’s the sort of person who won’t stop a friend or a stranger from burning their own eyebrows off. She would rather enable someone else’s bad or foolish behavior than speak out in dissent and risk disappointing them by being perceived as ‘too contrary.’ (Her own contrariness is, instead, deeply passive-aggressive: she’ll immaturely disappear or avoid things she doesn’t want to do, or fall stonily silent in conversations she doesn’t want to have, rather than say she doesn’t want to take part.)

*

Up here we sacrifice our children
To feed the worn-out dreams of yesterday
And teach them dying will lead us into glory

But hey, don't listen to me!
This wasn't meant to be no sad song.
We've heard too much of that before
Right now I only want to be here with you
‘Til the morning dew comes falling

*

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Eyes: Wide, almond-shaped eyes, with bright golden irises. Prone to staring.

Hair: Near-white, in a low-saturation frost tone, Laney’s hair is loosely curly and apt to tighter curls at the tips. It currently hangs near to waist-length. In her civilian life, she wears the top half pulled up and clipped behind her head, with the bottom half left loose. Her face is framed by a pair of shorter twists of hair that have been pulled free of her hairdo. As a knight, her hair is elaborately upswept, piled lightly into twists at the top of her head. It’s loosed to one side in the front, providing some sense of long, sideswept bangs to the left side of her face.

Face: Pink-peach toned skin, heart-shaped face, round nose, high cheekbones, medium-full lips. Her face is rather average, but not unattractive — just not ravishingly beautiful in any particular way.

Clothes: Laney favors hipster fashion in the style of Amy Pond — baggy, oversized shirts, miniskirts and leggings or hose. She wears comfortable, sturdy shoes for walking, usually high-top Doc Marten’s boots, and likes light jackets and scarves.  

[Shazari]

And I wanna take you to the island
Trace your footprints in the sand
And in the evening when there’s no one around
We'll make love to the sound of the ocean

Now I know us plain folks don't see all the story
And I know this peace and love's just copping out
And I guess these young boys dying in the ditches
Is just what being free is all about

And how this twisted wreckage down on main street
Will bring us all together in the end
And we'll go marching down the road to freedom
Freedom

 

[Shazari]

Knight Title: Hvergelmir Page of the Cosmos

Challenge: "Not all those who wander are lost.”

Uniform:
Dress -- A simple white dress, fitted, falling to the floor and pooling around Hvergelmir's ankles. With about a foot of extra fabric at the hem than is necessary, her dress is rather combat-impractical, and usually has to be bunched up and carried if she's planning on moving about at all, much less running. The bottom three feet of the dress bleed from white gradually into a star-spangled medium blue, as though fading down into the night sky and a thousand faint stars. The dress is sleeveless, and bordered at the top with molded gold detailing and filigree. At the center of the gold detailing on her dress is a round gold disc, with the Cosmos star symbol etched at its center.
Shoes -- Although not often visible due to the hem-length of her dress, Hvergelmir wears starry dark blue flats with gold detailing.
Accessories -- Hvergelmir wears a few gold bracelets on each arm, and a worked golden clasp at the back of her head that keeps her hair piled atop her head, but otherwise sports no additional adornments.

Weapon --

Page: A simple but not unattractive distaff of gold-painted wood, wound about with soft, unspun wool. The wool seems to have a crystalline sparkle to it.
Spell - N/A.

Squire: A distaff and spindle of gold-painted wood, connected by wool in the process of being wound into thread.
Spell - Weaving the Fabric of the Universe: Hvergelmir spins out thread from her distaff onto her spindle; anyone within ten feet of her during her spell will experience what appears to be the fabric of the universe trying to weave itself compactly down into your line of sight. This is like viewing your entire environment reflected in the concave side of a spoon, or wearing beer goggles: while you can still perceive the environment around you, everything’s a bit warped and out of whack in your eyes. The distortion mainly causes stumbling and mild vertigo. Its effects are indiscriminately applied -- allies and bystanders are equally penalized if they come within her ten-foot radius. (Only Hvergelmir herself can see normally.) The effect lasts for up to thirty seconds total per battle, or as long as Hvergelmir can maintain focus, keep spinning her thread, and channel her magic. The easiest way to overcome the spell's effects on you is to simply step out of the impact zone. The second easiest way is to disrupt Hvergelmir from spinning her thread.

Knight: The most beautiful distaff in the world? An ornate carved distaff and spindle, made of gold-painted wood, with the wool now nearly fully spun onto the spindle in tidy thread.
Spell - Eternity in a Grain of Sand: A stronger version of the same squire-level spell — at this stage, anyone within ten feet of Hvergelmir while she spellcasts will now find themselves more completely disoriented — your vision has now bugged out so badly that everything seems warped as though you’re viewing it through a glass sphere. Your vision is attempting to warp itself around the whole universe, and project that all onto your retinal wall, including things that are directly behind you and things that are on the other side of the globe and things that are beyond the expanse of the galaxy — what you see is a sort of strange, shifting kaleidoscopic nonsense, everything at once, but compressed into impossible, unimaginably tiny pixels, and all wrapped around itself. At this level, you’re generally unable to make any visual sense of your surroundings. (Dizziness and stumbling are dependent upon how well your character reacts to blindness/visual overload.) Your other senses still remain intact. The effect lasts for up to thirty seconds total per battle, or as long as Hvergelmir can maintain focus, keep spinning her thread, and channel her magic. The easiest way to overcome the spell's effects on you is to simply step out of the impact zone. The second easiest way is to disrupt Hvergelmir from spinning her thread.  

[Shazari]

Freedom . . . ?

Wonder: Hvergelmir, "the Roaring Cauldron."

In the beginning, before the world of men and gods existed, the wellspring Hvergelmir, deep in the frozen wastes of Niflheim, gave rise to eleven rivers known as the Élivágar. Over a long period of time, water of the Élivágar ran across Niflheim and poured into the northern part of Ginnungagap. The water froze, forming vast sheets of ice in the void. Hot air from Muspell melted some of the ice, creating a zone of meltwater amid the ice and snow. Here life began, and the first living thing was a frost giant.

 

[Shazari]

Streamlined some of her virtues/flaws for better balance. Please feel free to offer crit if you wish!

Since this is a civilian who's been in play for a while, her hobbies/virtues/flaws are fairly locked into the character she's grown into so far, so feedback that involves picking different character traits may not be very workable, but if any of them read unclearly, that would be helpful to know and I could try and re-tidy them up!

For the Knight side of her profile, things are more open-ended -- feel free to suggest crit or ask questions. <3