character information

[necromoemicon]

CHARACTER INFORMATION

In the beginning, there was darkness. And coldness. And boredom. She remembers that clearly, because the arrival—the landing—the moment she noticed this little corner of Creation, it dazzled her. There's a lot to be said about what she may or may not of done, about who may or may not have been at her side, about cataclysms and worlds born anew and the desperate, bitter stitches of borrowed patches of reality she may or may not have scarred the cosmos with. There's a lot to say, many legends to tell, but most of them are in a language long since forgotten by man. ...most men, at least, and trying to decode it, she has learned, has an effect not unlike painting a sealed room with gasoline upon the average human mind.

But that's okay. Whatever she may or may not have been once upon a time, in this day and age she is Tomoe Nishio, an eighteen year old high school senior. ...mostly.

Before she was reborn as Tomoe, she spent the vast majority of recent history (which is to say, a few billion years, give or take) sleeping so as not to upset the delicate balance of the fragile human-oriented ecosystem that was cultivating up above. She limited herself; she would stir only when the faithful and their prayers and offerings needed to be addressed, though eventually it occurred to her that she might need to be more discerning about what prayers she answered, after her cultists tried to divine her wishes based on the ambitions of priests she had apathetically supported.

So, when a prayer goes out, addressed to all and any who might listen—

Please. A child, any child, healthy and ours, please, please...

—she answers it. She is old, and she can feel something stirring in the heart of humanity, something cold and bold, something coated in righteousness and pragmatism but bloody and racing like giddy greed just beneath. She is old, and she knows better, so she binds herself in flesh and bone before they can even dream of trying. She thinks it will be a simple, quiet life, cut off from her self-proclaimed followers and their keening cries for her aid and dangerous attentions. And it seems simple, it truly does, up until her first real 'play' at a 'daycare,' where an earthquake shakes the little building apart and half the beach is swallowed up by a freak tsunami. Half the parents in attendance are briefly comatose, the children kept safe by their own fleeting, limitless ignorance. They wake up soon after, and it's ruled as a particularly bad case of shock from the sudden disaster.

But Tomoe knows better. She just doesn't know why, until later that month, when she finds out her mother has started up a blog, featuring Tomoe's growth and 'cuteness'. It's idolatry, plain and simple, spread out across a vast digital sea spanning the entire planet. It's also a boon and a burden, and the reason why, at the tender age of four, Tomoe becomes a selective mute. A murmur here and there doesn't stain the sanity of her friends and family, so she muddles through until high school, where she is quickly ushered into the fast-growing world of social media. Within a month, her popularity skyrockets, and so do the powers returned to her.

It isn't until one of her followers tacks on '#blessed' to a retweet that she understands she has amassed actual fǫ̸̸̀l̛҉̷̨̀l̵̸̢̢o̕͞w̸̡̡͘ȩ̡̕͢r̴̨s̷̛. And then she finds herself even more surprised, because... she finds she actually likes these mortals, compared to the ones that clutched at her before. This new generation is rife with people who close themselves off, who submerge themselves in dreams and paint over bitterness and self-loathing with dazzling things and new thrills, without leaving the safety of their own homes.

She spends her second year of high school immersing herself in the Hikikomori-NEET subculture she has been tethered to, and carefully metes out her aid, gradually growing more comfortable with her online persona and divulging pictures that gain 'likes' and get passed around at a rate that would make the old-school evangelists weep. An underappreciated manga series avoids the axe long enough to get an OVA. Two of her followers fall in love at a ritu... no, at an 'offline meet-up' she coordinates. She orchestrates the financial ruin of three lolita complex pandering anime series before they get past the storyboard stage.

She also gains employment at a maid cafe despite—or maybe because of—her silence, under the name of 'Moe'. She likes the skirts, and her power skyrockets again, to a point that is startling. Maid power, she finds, is fearsome in this strange new incarnation of the earth. She is aware of the way tides are turning, of the way hidden plots unravel and mutate, of the way old faces find new skins and drift about.

But most days, Tomoe Nishio smiles, and immerses herself in a world of kindhearted lies and dreams.

PERMISSIONS

• PHYSICAL AFFECTION: While a somewhat reserved and traditional girl to her peers, Tomoe is in actuality very open to kinship and casual affection. She is also a terrible sleep-cuddler, so if she dozes off near you she will 1000% end up tangled up with you by the time she wakes up.

• PHYSICAL VIOLENCE: You can try, but it really might not end well. While her body is fragile, the damage she can unleash can be... notable.

• INJURIES/DEATH: I'd prefer anything beyond minor/moderate injury to be hashed out between us beforehand.

• RELATIONSHIPS: The internet currently assumes she's dating someone. In actuality, she has a very fluid view of relationships, and is open-minded when it comes to finding more 'consorts,' even if they aren't eldritch members of her family/pantheon. She doesn't quite love people the same way a human would, and her ideas of what human relationships should be like are based on her own observations of the people she has met. Dating her would be fun, cute, and probably an open relationship unless you have some major spiritual/magical weight to toss around.

• SMUT: She's physically eighteen, so sure. Hit me up beforehand and we'll hash out just how much if any Elder God traits get involved with the affair.

POWERS AND KNOWLEDGE

• POWERS:
☆ If she uses her voice for too long, her essence leaks into it and it can destroy items, cause natural disasters, and degrade human sanity.
☆ She can manifest aspects of her True Form, including wings and claws, at a price.
☆ She has a spiritual radar sense, allowing her to pinpoint supernatural beings and Awakened humans; she does this by tapping into the Dream World most Elder Gods have some connection to, but it takes careful concentration not to fry her human brain.
☆ Her power level is supplemented by the faith of her believers. She has a ridiculous amount of followers on social media, which she was surprised to find has the same effect.
☆ Doesn't actually need to breath, though her human body will take a toll for it later.
☆ Can heal herself through intense, almost death-like napping.

• WEAKNESSES:
☆ Members of her own pantheon aren't affected by her voice or the sight of her True Form at all.
☆ Gods and other powerful supernaturals only take damage over prolonged or particularly intense exposure to her voice or seeing aspects of her True Form.
☆ She is habitually inclined not to make a spectacle of herself, supernaturally.

• LIMITATIONS:
☆ The human vessel of 'Tomoe' was never supposed to contain as much power as she has now, because she didn't go into this incarnation thinking she would have the backing of any worshippers.
☆ While she can level cities and kill mobs of people if the whim takes her, it takes a big toll on her.
☆ Using her voice to disrupt the natural order for more than thirty minutes at a time without at least an hour of resting silence in between gives her a sore throat bad enough that she can't use her voice for at least a day afterwards.
☆ Utilizing her powers for murder or active combat can rough her body up enough to put her in the hospital for days or even weeks, depending how far she goes.
☆ Manifesting miniature parts of her True Form such as wings or claws (but not tendrils) may leave her with enduring muscle aches for a few days.
☆ Her own interest; most of the time, she's totally content to simply go through the motions of humanity.

• KNOWN THINGS: To most humans, Tomoe is simply a lovely, quiet, calm young woman. She is kind and helpful, and has a huge social media following. Most Awakened humans may feel a frisson of something from her when she isn't using any power, but it will be an unnameable, vague feeling of apprehension at most.

• DISCOVERABLE SECRETS: It might take some finagling, but your character can discover that Tomoe is in fact a God(dess). She probably won't divulge her true name or which pantheon she's from, unless you are also a supernatural being, but with extensive research into forbidden and forgotten ancient tomes and stone carvings, an Awakened human could possibly figure it out, with a lot of clues. Also all these weird cults she has had over the aeons, the fact that she has ex-wives(?) and children, technically, and other assorted tidbits.

• ADDITIONAL NOTES: Tomoe is technically getting stronger with every 'like' and new follower, but it's a very slow, microscopically incremental gain. She's coasting at the highest power-level she's been at in a long, long time, but the only way to actually utilize all of that power directly would be to shuck off her mortal coil, which would sever the connection to those followers and put her back at square one: a death-like slumber until her original cultists decide to make a concentrated effort to wake her up again.