|| - Personality - ||

Dicro is known for being friendly and easy to get along with, in part due to his open-mindedness. He's willing to give anyone a chance and gives away trust easily without worrying too much about the consequences. As such he often gives off the impression of being naive or foolish, but he's actually pretty calculating and paranoid. The truth of the matter is that he just likes new people and opening up the way to exciting new experiences. He has little sense of self-preservation, so unless someone he cares about might be negatively affected by his actions he tends to act impulsively and with utter nonchalance.

This is something he tends to feel conflicted about; internally he's very adventurous and likes to get into trouble, but he's also extremely self-conscious and is afraid of upsetting the people around him. He doesn't want anyone to think of him as immoral and he certainly doesn't want to get anyone hurt or put them into danger. He worries a lot about people not liking him and will do whatever it takes to please others and gain their favor whether they really deserve it or not.

He has a low sense of self-worth due to a combination of mental illness and the events of the Competition. He tries his hardest to cover it up - he doesn't want to alienate/worry his friends or drive off new people - but anyone who knows him well knows he doesn't have the healthiest mindset. He worries about being a burden to others and Spades unintentionally left the idea that he's doomed to hurt others and fuck up everything in his mind. His biggest priority is making sure everyone likes him all the time, no matter how much it exhausts him, and the older he gets the more he's beginning to realize he can't please everyone. The very thought terrifies him.

As such, Dicro's ultimate weakness is conflict. He completely shrinks away from it and has no idea how to deal with it or cope afterward. If it's an option, he'll run away from it or freeze up entirely until it goes away. He doesn't have any issue with fighting and killing people, but get upset with him for disagreeing with you or make him pick a side and he'll probably die on the spot. In hopes of avoiding conflict Dicro tries to avoid responsibility or positions of leadership. He wants to come in 4th place, not 1st. He'll more than happily settle for vice president. He wants to have enough power to open up opportunities and observe from high places, but he doesn't want to be in charge and suddenly have people rely on him or look to him as an influence. He doesn't want to do something wrong and turn everyone against him.

Despite his problems he still manages to come off as upbeat and amicable, if a little too willing to help others to the detriment of himself. His experiences in the Competition and in the subconscious world have gotten him used to violence and surreal things that shouldn't be possible, so even in situations that would break most people he's still level-headed and casual. He's still easily surprised though and often comically overreacts to anything unexpected or embarrassing. In particular it takes very little to get him incredibly flustered and nervous. If he's interested in someone all they need to do is say something nice about him to get him to turn red. Likely due to his innate desire to not give a shit and just have fun, Dicro tends to be particularly attracted to people who, well, don't give a shit and just have fun.

Tends to shape himself based on who he's currently around. He knows when to be serious, he knows when to be reserved, and he knows when to loosen up. Around people he's comfortable with he's extroverted, relatively open, and surprisingly sarcastic. The amount of sarcasm he uses around you is generally a good indicator of how much he trusts you, and eventually you reach the point where it's all just puns and memes. God help you.

|| - Backstory - ||

Dicro lived a pretty ordinary life for a while, though he always had a strange feeling that something wasn't right. People seemed to fade from his life and he couldn't seem to bring himself to care, his dreams grew in lucidity every day, his body was becoming increasingly lifeless, and he swore he kept seeing his face outside of his reflection.

Once he turned 15 he suddenly was whisked away to a magical land where he was told he was a Marionettiste - a person who could claim the soul of another and use their body in addition to having some other neat related powers - and then thrust back into his ordinary life. By now his anatomy was full Tested, and shortly afterward his family vanished entirely, leaving him with rapidly-fading memories he couldn't care to try and save no matter how hard he tried.

Continuing to attend school out of habit and in an attempt to find others like him, he soon met a man who claimed to be him but also a member of a group of almighty beings who exist beyond Entirety known as Them. Not having a hard time taking his "Mirror" at face value, he learned about the Competition - an event where everyone in the Test Reality (the world in which he lived in) was meant to kill each other in order to become one of Them - and that there were others like him that just hadn't "woken up" yet, so to speak.

Keeping in contact with his Mirror - a man who abandoned Dicro's name long ago and instead called himself Spades - and a number of Them, Dicro decided to keep living his ordinary life since the Competition's start date was undefined but likely not for another few years. He ran into a girl named Fray who had also awakened as a Tested and wound up becoming her babysitter. Around this time he became aware of a woman named Halyn who took in Tested like himself, but he didn't feel the need to seek her out.

Within a year or two Halyn decided to confront him herself, adopting both Dicro and Fray into her "alliance" with a little persuasion and approval from Spades. He decided to start working on his Marionettiste skills, claiming Fray as his Marionette with her permission and quickly discovering he could use her subconscious to travel to the subconsciouses of others with a little work. Not fearing death thanks to Spades being in charge of death in the Test Reality, he dove into the world of subconscious exploration wholeheartedly and without any sense of self-preservation.

Eventually the Competition began, and he did pretty well. He found himself very desensitized to killing, having spent a significant time getting himself killed in dangerous dreamscapes. Having been thoroughly prepared for the Competition, he was a bit oblivious to the feelings of others toward it which came to bite him later when a member of the alliance, Tintra, broke down and started killing off his friends before Dicro managed to kill her, leaving him alone with too much to think about.

He was killed by a member of Umbra's Alliance - a group of people Halyn's Alliance was pretty close to. To make a long story short, everyone returned to life in the Test Reality and continued living out their lives with some hurt feelings and new bonds.

Things were quickly patched up within Halyn's Alliance, though very haphazardly. Dicro began spending even more time in the subconscious world, not sure how to deal with the new dynamics that had been created amongst them all.

|| - Powers/Abilities - ||

Dicro is a Marionettiste: a being with the ability to claim the souls of others. His sole Marionette is Fray, but he technically is capable of having more Marionettes if he so pleases. Marionettistes are able to create and manipulate strings and chains and, being a Spade-Class Marionettiste, Dicro can also control air. His spade pin turns into a stylized spade of the shovel variety and sometimes a sword, which is pretty handy. Believe it or not, he's actually better with the shovel.

He has a very high pain tolerance due his cartoonish death rate, so even when he physically can't go on his mind is still ready to keep fighting. He usually fights in Fray's body, so he's a little less used to fighting in his own body, though he's trying to correct this.He tends to rely on driving chains through people's faces to succeed since he doesn't have any formal training with his weapons. Not the sort of person you'd hire to kill someone for you, but he'll try his hardest anyway. And probably die. But he's alright with that.

|| - Previous Lives - ||

Dicro's previous lives reside in his subconscious. None of them are technically more than his soul's memories of itself given "physical" form, but they can be interacted with as though they were real nonetheless.

Frenzael Bon Moel: A mysterious being who existed for almost as long as Entirety has. Supposedly conquered Entirety once before returning themself to the reincarnation cycle and discourages Dicro from conquering it again.

Perita Lachesis: An ethereal woman known for, to put it bluntly, fucking like half of Entirety. Boy golly did she do a lot of fucking. Charming, welcoming, and gently teasing, it's not hard to see why so many people sought her out. I really cannot emphasize the sheer amount of fucking she did

Glaucio Deseronto: A powerful demon always seeking out new friends and enemies alike. Sometimes frenemies! Those were his favorites. Got involved with a girl named Dulce-Malois Fandango before eloping with the demon she was contracted to. She's been searching for him ever since, completely unaware that he's reincarnated several times since.

Essery Revelin: A girl who wandered dreamy landscapes with her twin brother, Emery, perpetually unaware that she was trapped in a world abandoned by its gods. She gleefully spun through cycles of broken time again and again until one broke her instead (into pieces, I mean) and kept her that way.

Ouray Nerau: Something like a bounty hunter and a member of a bloodline cursed to hold the demon Khazael. Which they were cool with! They loved strange and dangerous things. Was enemies (well, really more like friends) with Zhirael and regularly fought him alongside an angel named LaPlata Costina and a man named Langer Raton. After Langer's disappearance they had several children with LaPlata and then made a contract with Zhirael to keep them from going to either Heaven or Hell upon their death, hoping instead to find somewhere more exciting.

Cosimo Gualtier: A disgruntled man with ambition who sought money and power and instead wound up getting bitten by some asshole vampire right when he was making a name for himself. Suddenly unable to face daylight, cross water, or enjoy garlic bread, Cosimo's dubiously legal empire began to crumble. He fled from vampire hunters (and debt collectors) into the arms of Blood King Langelotte Haemondias. It didn't take long for Cosimo to weasel his way into the Blood King's entourage, eventually managing to become his right-hand man before attempting to overthrow him. Unfortunately for Cosimo, the title of Blood King is not one easily usurped.

Dianthe Katriel: An ordinary high school girl. She had an ordinary family, got ordinarily grades, and overall just lived an ordinary life. She hated it. Bitter and cynical, Dianthe spent most of her short life in a fog of apathy and self-loathing she never spoke of, hoping that someday something magical would happen and whisk her away and make everything better. By her 15th birthday she was still as trapped as she had always been and killed herself by jumping off of the roof of her school, not long before she would have been her soul's first life to become a Marionettiste.

|| - Writing Featured In (Newest to Oldest) - ||

Never Have I Ever...
The Voting Game
Sympathetic Resonance
Toxicology Report
rosen sillage
Subconscious Travel Logs