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[thornsofacanthus]

PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER NAME: bii
OVER 18?: more than two times over
PREFERRED CONTACT(S): obiisama
OTHER CHARACTERS: none

CHARACTER INFORMATION

CHARACTER NAME: Charlene “Thorne” Durante
CANON: Mage: the Awakening (World of Darkness franchise)
TIMELINE: early 2022
AGE: 32

REFERENCE: So. Here’s the thing about the World of Darkness. In a lot of ways, it’s pretty much like our own world, only the shitty things are a bit shittier and also there’s a bunch of supernatural creatures running around. There’s also Mages. See, the other thing about the World of Darkness is that the vast majority of people in it are incapable of comprehending the true nature of reality around them. They’re Sleeping as it were and the only people who are truly Awake are the Mages--but being Awakened to the true nature of reality, albeit seen through the lens of their Path, allows Mages the use of phenomenal cosmic powers… just as long as none of the Sleepers catch on.

Anyway! In the summer of ‘89, Luis and Donna Durante (a computer programmer and social worker respectively) had their second child, who they named Charlene, after Luis’ late brother Carlos, who’d died in the AIDS crisis the year before--but then her nine-years-older brother Steven subsequently dubbed her “Charley,” which stuck.

When Charley was five and Steven was fourteen, Luis got offered a job in Silicon Valley and moved the family from their prior home in San Diego to one in Santa Cruz. Around this time Charley was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, but thanks to being well-socialized by her family, she avoided being stuck in special education hell.

She had a fairly normal, if nerdy childhood, and ended up studying literature at university. Due to extenuating circumstances her senior year, she missed applying to grad schools on time and ended up taking a gap year, which stretched into two before she finally made it to grad school overseas.

Near the end of that first gap year, however, Charley Awakened--that is to say, she underwent a long, surreal vision quest that ended with her writing her name on the Watchtower of the Lunargent Thorn, sealing her fate as a mage of the Acanthus Path, under the Shadow Name of “Thorne.”

Shortly thereafter she had to deal with her brother having been replaced by a pod person. Or rather a Fetch, the real Steven having been stolen by the True Fae, which Thorne learned from a local ‘occult detective’ by the name of Gou Tsukuyomi (with ties to the Changeling community.) By the time the real Steven managed to escape, Thorne had been overseas two years and had found herself part of a cabal of fellow mages which included her thesis adviser, Professor Degennes, and her boyfriend, Alain--however she dropped everything to see her brother again.

Thorne spent the next six years finishing her masters and doctorate, then embarking on a furious study of all things arcane, dividing her time between home and abroad. Then in early 2021, Gou contacted her to let her know his “grandson” had escaped the True Fae after ninety years and would need help adjusting--would she like to meet him? Subsequently, Shinobu Tsukuyomi ended up one of her closest friends.

PERSONALITY: (Before we get started here, I want to mention that I’ve played Thorne before in DWRP in both her original Vampire the Masquerade version and a straight-up OC from the Isekai/Online project I’ve been working on with my friend Talia and I’ll be cannibalizing from both former apps for this section.)

Wow, what a giant nerd.

I joke, but honestly, being a nerd is an important facet of Thorne's personality. She loves getting down into the minutiae of things, she truly enjoys research, and she's got a distinct tendency to hyperfocus when it comes to working on projects. And yeah, some of it is the autism but the rest is pure nerdery, baby. She gets fannish about things she enjoys, like manga, anime, tabletop gaming and visual novels.

She’s scary ambitious, which does go hand-in-hand with being a mage but usually not as much with Acanthus mages, who are usually thought of being, well, a bit flighty and eccentric. And yeah, sure, she’s both of those things--but she’s also very determined to find ways to see her projects through, whatever they may be.

She’s extremely clever and very good at coming at problems from odd angles. She’s surprisingly intuitive as well. She’s highly empathetic, but also not all that good at reading other people’s emotional tells sometimes, so that empathy isn’t always displayed or put to use as it should be--although all work at socialization her family did with her can help on occasion

Even in her early thirties, she speaks in basically the same way she did a decade ago, when she first Awakened. She swears casually and unthinkingly and is one of those ridiculous people who uses memespeak in real life. She loves playing with words.

She also has a terrible tendency to ramble and also the assumption that letting people babble-on about their current obsessions while only half-listening to them is part of the social contract--if you do it for them, they’ll do it for you, right? That’s how it’s always worked in her family. (She is not the first person in her family to be on the spectrum, even if she was likely the first to be formally diagnosed.)

She has a tendency to operate from a position of good faith and to presume other people are operating in good faith until proven otherwise. Given that she’s not always the best at outwardly understanding where other people are coming from, she realized that she could either operate with a blanket assumption of good faith or a blanket assumption of bad faith and chose the one that was easier on her heart and mind. This has, however, led her to being fucked over from time to time, most notably by past boyfriends.

She’s a friendly person in general. She likes people, even though she doesn’t understand a lot of them, and just wants to be liked in turn. Thorne has a tendency to make a lot of friendly acquaintances, although she likes to call them just 'friends.' But the truth is that most of these 'friendships' are shallow things based on shared interests and causes and the people who she lets herself get truly close to are much fewer in number--and all the more precious for it.

Thorne has something of a distinct bossy streak, which she channels into being super enthusiastic about things rather than directly barking out orders at people. She’s very inclined to drag people into things for their own good when she can get away with it.

She’s kind or at least she tries very hard to be. She wants to help people, just in general. Her basic, general kindness might be one of her greatest strengths of character and it feeds into so many of her ambitions. Awakening as a Mage was a profoundingly life-altering experience for Thorne--she wants to use her magic to make things better. And she wants more Sleepers to awaken, so she can pass on the tools she’s been given to help them.

The downside to this is that she’s all too ready to take on other people’s burdens from them, even when she’s not really up to shouldering them. Self-care is something that doesn’t always come easy to Thorne and if she doesn’t watch herself--and those around her don’t watch themselves--she can find herself being used by accident.

It’s also led to a hidden tendency towards resentment and bitterness against those she feels used by, which she tries to bury until it all comes out at once--and when Thorne’s long-simmering resentment finally boils over, she can get mean. It’s an odd contrast to her normal demeanor, because usually she’s such a nice girl.

ABILITIES: First of all Thorne is Awakened, which means that she’s aware of the true nature of reality, albeit filtered by the nature of her Path, that of Acanthus. What this basically means is that she gets to use that understanding to play with the world around her, as filtered through the Arcana she has studied over the last ten years.

(The levels of mastery for Arcana go from Initiate -> Apprentice -> Disciple -> Adept -> Master, just so you know.)

To make things easier, I’ll list them here, linking to their wiki pages as a reference as to what exactly you can do with each Arcanum. Anyway, Thorne’s Arcana are as follows:

Time - The gross Arcanum associated with Acanthus. Divination, prophecy, and temporal acceleration/deceleration. Thorne is an Adept in this Arcanum.

Fate - The subtle Arcanum associated with Acanthus. Blessings, curses, destiny, fortune, oaths, and probability. Thorne is a Disciple in this Arcanum.

Mind - The subtle Arcanum associated with Mastigos. Communication, hallucinations, mental projection, mind control, and telepathy. Thorne is an Apprentice in this Arcanum, having learned it from Professor Degennes, a Mastigos.

Space - The gross Arcanum associated with Mastigos. Conjuration, scrying, sympathy, teleportation, and wards. Thorne is an Apprentice in this Arcanum as well, having also learned it from Professor Degennes.

Life - The gross Arcanum associated with Thyrsus. Disease, evolution, healing, metamorphosis, and vigour. Thorne has just achieved Apprentice status in this Arcanum, which she’s been learning from her partner, Alain, a Thyrsus.

Prime - The subtle Arcanum associated with Obrimos. Hallows, illusions, magical imbuement, Mana, resonance, and tass. Thorne has been attempting to study this Arcanum on her own and is merely a lowly Initiate into its mysteries.

Additionally, mages have what is known as a Nimbus--the palpable aura of Supernal power which surrounds their soul and manifests as special effects in their spell-casting. Thorne’s Nimbus is Fey, or as the wiki puts it, Things seem enchanted or pregnant with the possibility of magic.

PERSONAL EFFECTS: A heavy canvas messenger bag labeled ‘bag of holding’ which contains her laptop and charger, her e-reader, her smartphone (and charger) and a shitton of notebooks and pens. There's also various magical tools in a secondary pocket, including a decorative silver knife with the handle wrapped in black and pink silk as her dedicated tool, plus various bits and bobs for most of Arcanum she’s trained in: a pocket watch (Time), a tape measure (Space), a book of crossword puzzles (Mind), and polyhedral dice (Fate), which also come in handy for table-top gaming. Also, there's a portable sewing kit, because having one is important.
PRIZED POSSESSION: Silver and moonstone pendant, shaped like a moon-winged butterfly, given to her by her partner, Alain.

CRAU PREMISE: n/a

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