not_of_the_nora | INFOPOST: Aloy, Lucifer, Jesse, Margo

Right! So! It's been a few years since Aloy's quiet stint as a student at FH, so I think she gets to have a longer one of these. It's just going to be full of incorrect shitposts from Tumblr. I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not. (Everyone else in bullet points.)

Meet Aloy, Despite the Nora, Now Several Years And A Very Grudging Lesson In Friendship Later

When we last left Aloy at Fandom, she was a few months away from getting drawn into the events of her canon: Horizon Zero Dawn, a video game about why rich people are terrible and destroying the planet that is totally not about politics at all by Dutch video game developer Guerrilla.

CANON

Horizon takes place about a thousand years after a rich asshole called Ted Faro created killer robots that fed on biofuel which, predictably, broke free and started eating everything on the planet. As soon as Faro realized what had happened, he made what has to be the only good decision he's ever made: he contacted a brilliant scientist called Elisabet Sobeck and begged her to fix his mistake.

Sobeck quickly realized there was no 'fixing' the issue; by the time they could figure out the shutdown codes for the machines, everyone would be long since dead. So while humanity fruitlessly fought the robots, thinking she was working on a superweapon to save them, she built an AI called GAIA that could spend decades figuring out the shutdown codes – and then rebuild the Earth and bring back all species after the robots were finally gone.

Of course, then Ted Faro threw a massive temper tantrum and killed everyone, erasing the historical archive they'd meant to use to train the newborn humans when they finally reemerged. And so there was no one with the requisite know-how or understanding to do anything when, centuries later, a strange signal cut loose GAIA's component AIs and sent the robot creatures she'd built to rebuild the Earth's biosphere into a frenzy. GAIA did the only thing she could think of doing: she reached out to her long-dead human mother-- and spat a clone of Elisabet Sobeck out into the world as her very last deed.

That clone is Aloy. Unfortunately, Aloy was found by the heavily superstitious mother-worshipping Nora tribe, who took her for something potentially malevolent. As a compromise between several of the elders, one of which did not think she was evil, Aloy was cast out and grew up in the care of another outcast, Rost.

Over the course of Horizon Zero Dawn, Aloy gains a status as a Seeker in the Nora tribe, sets out to uncover what deranged all the robot animals around them, finds out about her background, and stops the runaway HADES component AI from destroying the entire biosphere. Unfortunately, that doesn't fix all of the problems created by the other runaway AIs not functioning as intended; it just buys them time. So in Horizon Forbidden West, the sequel that came out this year, she sets out to find a copy of GAIA who can bind all the rogue AIs to her and thus, stop the Earth's biosphere from collapsing.

She also runs into a bunch of rich immortal assholes, but I'll let my sparkling new canonmate

no_missing_piece do the talking on those guys...

THE GIRL

Ask a Dutch gamer about Aloy, and they will tell you she's the ultimate Dutch heroine. No, seriously, I have asked my countrymen, it's what they say. She's blunt and to-the-point, more invested in getting the job done than in any of the crap around it. She's not an easy person to deal with, not someone who appreciates being called a hero, not someone who wants to waste time on worries when she could be working on a solution.

She's also not great at small talk. Or acknowledging that her friends have emotional needs. Or acknowledging that she has emotional needs.

Mind you, she's better than she used to be. When she was at Fandom, well, her general attitude towards other people was kind of...

… but during Forbidden West, she got a crash course in the Importance of Friendship™ and, in true Aloy fashion, sort of grudgingly maybe kind of accepted that it's a thing she should care about. Possibly.

She also found out she had a sister, or rather, that someone else had also cloned Elisabet Sobeck for their own purposes. (Yes, that would be

no_missing_piece.) So, hey, two for two on chances to learn how to social and stuff.

Beyond all that soft hearted stuff, Aloy is a doer with the same brain genes as one of the smartest people that has ever lived. As such, she's got a very practical kind of genius, choosing to focus on how to put things together in such a way that they can resolve whatever problem she's throwing herself at now.

But unlike Beta, who's very good at all the super-thinky fiddly nerd stuff, Aloy was raised as a warrior and it shows. 'Smack the thing with a spear' is often her first or second instinct.

And she is very good with that spear. And with her bow, which brings both the Elisabet-brain and the warrior-instincts together in a wide variety of trick arrows that do all kinds of fancy things. Also, that spear is wired in such a way that she can override the animalistic machines that roam her world with them. Her latest conquest is a Sunwing, a sort of flying pterodactyl-shaped creature with solar panels for wings, and she'll be bringing it with her.

Yes, Aloy is going to be flying around the island on a robot dinosaur. I'm sorry, it's her canon, I can't get around that.

THE RETURN TO FANDOM

So Aloy was not a friend-maker when she had her original tour of Fandom. To put it mildly. With some character development behind her, I'm hoping that will change! Either way, though, she's coming to Fandom during a brief quiet spell in her canon post-Horizon Forbidden West. There's another Major Catastrophe She Has To Fix (of course) incoming, but it isn't here yet, and she has this new sister who really needs to learn how to socialize and be a person.

Aloy... is not much of an expert on either of these things. But she knows Fandom can help. She also knows Fandom time runs differently, so it might give her some time to work on some solutions to the absolute clusterfuck coming her world's way. Multitasking: it's her thing.

In a very focused sort of way.

Watch on YouTube

And the rest: Lucifer, Margo, Jesse.

... and me. Hi, I know I haven't been around much lately. Between the pressures of work, much-needed vacations from the internet, and sick and dying chickens, my brain for RP has been shot. I am hoping that the calmer fall ahead of me will change that. But I apologize for my lack of activity with these characters, who I still love dearly.

LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR (my_own_advocate)

comes from the TV show Lucifer. We don't talk about season 6 here, unless you want to hear me screaming with rage.

is the actual Devil! He went on a vacation about ten years ago, wound up in LA, fell in love with a detective, found out his Father made her for him, there was a whole bit of drama, and eventually he decided to vacation from his vacation at Fandom. The rest is history.

has fallen for boat people okteiviakom and betterthanaplan. He's pretty sure neither of them were actually made for them.

lives on their boat, the Cape Rouge, in the harbor of Fandom... most of the time. Sometimes also still lives in his big mansion further down the road.

a well-meaning idiot and recovering asshole who still missteps quite often but is learning. Feel free to smack him on the nose with a newspaper, he needs it.

besides being an immortal angel with pretty white wings he can unfurl and re-furl on a whim, he has the power to draw out people's desires by asking them what it is they desire. Being with Duke has kind of been a crash course in the importance of agency and consent, though, so he doesn't usually do that willy nilly anymore ~~unless it's funny or there's a good reason for it~~.

hosts at the Devil's Nest on Tuesdays and Fridays and now has his own club on the mainland, Astrum, which I will post occasionally on Saturdays and is also open for modding if anyone ever wants a random mainland club that isn't rooted in reality to hang out in.

his original and not terribly up-to-date info post is here

JESSE FADEN (weirderthanthou)

heroine of the deeply bizarre Finnish video game Control and mayor of Fandom

kind of quiet and socially awkward and narratives internally a lot, either to herself or to Polaris, the psychic entity that lives in her head. You're free to notice Polaris if you have that sort of power, but if possible give me a head's up beforehand

is basically a channel for the powers of various objects that have been empowered by the collective imagination of mankind. Which is to say an old cathode-ray TV taught her how to fly. She can also move at great speed and has 'rip chunks of concrete out of the wall and throw them' level telekinesis.

she's also armed with the Service Weapon, a special sort-of-sentient gun that will kill anyone who touches it but her. Please don't touch it.

second redheaded ponytail-lady on the island with severe sexuality confusion and a role as Director of a shadowy government agency called the Federal Bureau of Control that she has succesfully kept under wraps for the past few years because she doesn't think the island would take it well.

you will find her own infopost here

MARGO HANSON (not_a_goddamn_princess)

one part of the awesome ensemble cast of the TV show The Magicians. She is a Magician.

that means she can do all sorts of funky magic stuff by moving her fingers in particular ways; bigger spells also require chanting and/or props. she's not the most powerful Magician in the world, but also not the weakest, and she's very clever

lives in a big house with her best friend/platonic life partner existencemisspent. Do not ever get between them or hurt Eliot in any way, you will not survive it.

is always angry and wears it well. She's the Mean Girl of the story who turns out to have a heart of gold - and understands you can be both at the same time

prides herself on being very scary, very good at getting shit done, and very good at parties, in that order

is also technically High Queen of the magical kingdom of Fillory, which she currently can't reach; currently runs bath-product store Pick Your Poison. Unlike previous owners, does not sell poison (at the moment)