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Your name is PTHORA OBELUS, and you are DEAD. At least, that’s what everyone believes. Two sweeps ago the imperial drones came to your hive in the middle of the day, intent on CULLING you for what were believed to be CRIMES AGAINST THE EMPIRE. Since when has being an INCREDIBLY GIFTED COMPUTER PROGRAMMER AND HACKER been a crime against the empire? Well, apparently since someone you once considered to be your BEST FRIEND decided that he would rather save his own skin by EXAGGERATING THE NEGATIVE DETAILS about what you’re capable of when he REPORTED YOU to the authorities. You were just a harmless hacker! Sure, maybe you had some fun hacking into imperial databases and bumping names from the drones’ PAIL HARVESTING list when you knew they weren’t yet ready to make their offerings, but that’s NOT REALLY BAD. That’s heroic, even!
Now, however, you are truly a fugitive. 9 sweeps old, without any quadrants, PARALYZED FROM THE WAIST DOWN and presumed dead, you’re nothing but cull bait if the empire realizes that you’re there. So you conceal your location and you use your ability to ASTRAL PROJECT to keep yourself safe by spying on others and regularly monitoring the imperial NETWORK.
Your trolltag was once spuriousAccuser and you used +o +ype w|+h a /o+ of symbo/s /|ke these. However, after THE INCIDENT, you hijack other trols’ curently unocupied usernames and rarely use any sort of quirk unles you’re removing unecesary double leters out of spite. You also stick to simple statements and don’t use comas.
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Symbol:
Obelus, commonly known as the division sign.
Age: 9 sweeps
Height: 5’ 7"
Blood Colour: Vermilion Reddish Orange/Orangey Red [#BD4208]
Name Pronunciation: THOR-ah Oh-BELL-us
Type of Troll: Psiionic lowblood
Name Origins: The Obelus was originally used to indicate, in writing, passages or portions of testimony that were believed to be erroneous, or ‘corrupt.’ ‘Pthora’ comes from 'phthora,’ a Greek word meaning 'destruction, decay or corruption,’ but it specifically conveys the 'ravaging of the body through disease, decay, and death.’
Trolltag Origins: 'Spurious’ is yet ANOTHER word that means 'corrupt,’ and since the obelus symbol was originally used to point-out false passages, I thought that 'Accuser’ made a lot of sense and had a good ring to it.
Lusus: A maned she-wolf [deceased].
Lusus Relationship: Pthora’s lusus was an attentive guardian, but also very focused on raising her 'pup’ to be independent and self-sufficient. Maned wolves are a famously solitary form of canid, and they tend to cross paths only when they need to mate. She saw no reason to raise Pthora to be any different. When the drones came for her charge, Maned Mom did her best to defend her and was quite literally ripped to shreds. Pthora largely credits her own survival to her lusus’ intervention.
Hive Location: Pthora’s original hive was a modestly sized, but pleasant little cottage befitting a lowblood of her caste, and it was filled with computers and wiring that she had managed to tame into some semblance of neatness, largely because of Aequus’ influence as her friend and red crush. However, that hive and everything that wasn’t in her sylladex was destroyed by the drones, and now Pthora lives in a cave that houses the massive skeleton of the menacing lusus that once lived inside. Since she no longer has a recouperacoon [and has not had one since the drones attacked], she sleeps primarily on a heap of old blankets and, when she isn’t traveling, tends to have persistent nightmares. Although Pthora always enjoyed wolf apples thanks to her lusus’ influence, she has taken to purposefully eating slightly unripe ones on occasion, since the poisonous qualities of the unripe fruit have an effect not unlike exposure to sopor and can afford her at least one good day’s rest without bad dreams.
Interests: Computer programming, hacking, defending the rights of lowblooded women.
Dislikes: Aequus Gemowe
Strengths: Pthora is especially gifted with computer programming in the conventional sense, but she also has psionic abilities as a lowblood that allow her to program and hack even more effectively. She’s capable of high-level astral-projecting, and she specializes in projecting her consciousness through electrical networks and, in a very 'physical’ sense, wading through firewalls and peeking at hidden information. She can use her astral projection to watch others, or appear before people if she sees fit, and her astral projection has the appearance of a ghost [though her visible eye is pitch black rather than white, indicating that she is still alive]. She can also slip into other troll’s minds and fiddle with the electrical impulses in their brains. Most individuals can only be forced to feel phantom sensations, but willing or weak-willed individuals can be 'possessed’ to a certain degree.
Weapon/Strife Specibus: Electrical manipulation via the use of her astral projecting abilities is her only weapon, currently. Before the incident, she USED to use a screwdriverKind with surprising effectiveness.
Sylladex Type/How to Extract Items: A standard Encryption Modus [like the one used by Karkat], that she hacks into in order to obtain her belongings.
Typing Quirks: Removal of all double letters in a sentence, i.e. 'litle’ or 'sily.’
►IF SHE PLAYED SGRUB:
Title: Witch of Mind
Planet: Land of Bone and Circuitry
Dreamer Of: Prospit
Trickster: Broken Conversation Heart
►ANCESTOR:
THE CRITICAL ERRORIST / SOZORA
OBELUS
Her title actually refers to her job description as an instrument of the Empire’s official ‘legal’ system. She worked closely alongside The Equalist and other legislacerators, using her hacking and surveillance [via relatively low-level astral projection] skills to assist in the gathering of evidence of crimes and the capture or eradication of criminals who defied the laws of Her Imperious Condescention. She found great enjoyment in her work, condemning members of any and all caste for their crimes and putting them to the chopping block, and although she was among the lowest of the low-blooded, her loyalty to the empire and usefulness as a Critical Errorist [a profession largely populated by yellowbloods] earned her a certain measure of safety and comfort for the duration of her comparatively brief lifespan. Due to her ability to disconnect her essence from her body through astral projection, Sozora has been able to maintain an undamaged sense of sentience and self since her death, and wanders about as a particularly solid ghost to this day.
Influence From Ancestor: Like Pthora, her Ancestor was capable of astral projection. She died while her soul was apart from her body, and where trolls as a species are known to carry on as ghosts with varying degrees of sentience, the Critical Errorist became a highly sentient entity capable of interacting with other 'travelers’ and maintaining a nearly identical resemblance to her literal form. As such, Pthora has run across her Ancestor during her travels, and the two have continued to cross paths and interact for some time now. They are, however, VERY different in their temperament and in how they view the empire, and their immense differences have led to an extremely distant relationship between the two.
SOUNDTRACK:
►Hurt Me by The Jezabels: One of the songs that contributed to Pthora’s creation. It speaks to her one-time love for Aequus, and I appreciate the suggestion that part of her knew that he was going to wrong her even though it happened anyway.
►Belispeak by Purity Ring: This song makes me think of Pthora and her ancestor, but also of Pthora and Anna’s character Phobii. The over-all style and feel of Purity Ring’s music is very evocative of Phobii and Pthora, if you ask me.
►Fineshrine by Purity Ring: Makes me think of Pthora and Phobii, though it would really heavily romanticize the care and gentility with which Pthora possesses Phobii.
►Leave My Body by Florence and the Machine: It’s perfect.
▷I Hate Love by Garbage: Absolutely Pthora’s themesong, and also my headcanon voice for her.
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