From Sailor Moon Flash!
| Shang | |
|---|---|
| |
| Profile | |
| Name: | Tacey Graham |
| Birthday: | |
| Age: | |
| Affiliation: | Elementals, JDE |
| Powers: | Metal |
| Player: | Ping |
Contents |
The Basics
Name: Tacey Graham. Both names are English. Tacey means "silent, calm" and Graham means "dweller at the grey enclosure."
Position: Shang, Metal Elemental & Head of Technological Security for JDE
Appearance: Tacey has the makings to be a lovely, perhaps even a beautiful woman. If she put a little effort into her appearance, she'd manage to draw quite a bit of attention.
Unfortunately, drawing attention goes entirely against Tacey's creedo, and she feels she has no reason to make herself look good. Long long sleeves and loose clothes hide her slim figure, as well as much of her mocha-colored skin, which has few childhood or teenage blemishes blotting it. Her tendency to slouch hides her height of 5'5", making her seem a few inches shorter. She never wears heels, and she rarely bothers dressing up more than wearing loose khakis and a long-sleeved pullover to work; since she doesn't really deal with people, they let her get away with it. Her hair, a bright, jungle-green color, is usually somewhat messy and pulled back into a ponytail or bun at the nape of her neck. She usually doesn't even brush it in the morning; she does that at night before she showers, to make sure it doesn't tangle into an untameable mess of dreadlocks. Let loose and combed out, it's still somewhat of a mess, but curls tend to do that. The curls fall to her shoulder blades.
A touch of lipstick to her wide, full lips would be all they needed to bring some attention, but Tacey doesn't wear make-up of any sort. Her lashes are long, and her brows are well-shaped, and her eyes are the same bright color as her hair, but she tends to keep her head lowered on work or a book, so people rarely get to see them. If someone were to take notice of her, they could see that she is, in fact, quite pretty, but Tacey prefers it when people don't notice her, and works to keep it that way. If she could work from home and avoid others entirely, she would.
http://www.tektek.org/avatar/19717409
Age/Birthday/Astrological Whatnot: Twenty-five; Virgo/Taurus/Virgo ; September 9th. Intelligent, stubborn, perfectionist.
Mundane Life
Friends and Family: Leola Graham - (Deceased) Leola would have survived fabulously in a medieval court system: she worked her way up by being sweet as pie on the outside, and using every bit of information to her advantage that she could. She taught her daughter that everyone in the world operated as she did, so Tacey might as well get used to it and learn to survive that way. Outwardly charming and sociable, she was inwardly scornful of most people, though she did have a weakness for her husband and daughter.
Mason Graham - (Deceased) A techie to the core, Mason taught his daughter most of what he knew about machinery and engineering, and always supported her studies in science and computers with whatever resources he could dig up. Working at a university, he managed to dig up quite a few. Absent-minded professor type but kindly.ht
Usual Daily Routine:
Background: Tacey was born in Launceston, Tasmania where her parents met and worked. The family home was an old ranch-farmhouse outside the city limits of Longfourd.
While she lived in an old farmhouse, her parents were definitely not farmers. Her father was an engineer, working in Research and Development at the University of Tasmania, while her mother was a professor in Japanese language, literature, and culture. While the old farmhouse was in decent repair, the barn was ancient and Mason, her father, only ever bothered to keep up his workshops: the shed and the basement.
Leola, Tacey's mother, was never too fond of their home, and never invited people to see it, so she had no problems with letting most of it go to waste. The house she kept clean and bothered Mason about repairing, but she cared about little else. She'd met Mason while doing graduate work and had been attracted to him simply because he was completely unlike anyone she usually associated with. Leola was part of a rather elitist crowd, and the mild-mannered Mason fascinated her. She'd never met anyone who was doing something because he genuinely enjoyed it, and not because of the money, or prestige, and parental expectations.
Mason, of course, was dazzled. Leola was a beautiful, intelligent woman who was obviously going places in the world. No one like that had ever been interested in him before. He fancied himself in love with her. Leola thought she might love him, too, and hell, she wasn't likely to find another decent man. They were married the July after Leola finished her graduate studies and earned her master's degree.
Surprisingly, the marriage lasted, but this was mainly because of Mason's mild-mannered nature. He was easy to deceive, and never dreamed that his wife, even his beautiful and ambitious wife, could be anything but loyal to him... Despite late work nights and unexpected expenses, and a variety of other tell-tale signs. Leola had her own reasons for staying around Mason. She was fond of him, though much the way someone is fond of a pet rabbit or cat, and he interfered little.. He supplemented her income, and he was useful at certain social occasions, where the older board members liked to see a family and career woman. And he never interfered with her charm or seduction tactics with the younger men.
Tacey, unfortunately, was another calculation on Leola's part. She needed a child after a few years to keep up the family woman appearance. Mason was thrilled to hear of the upcoming child. Leola pretended to be, of course, but she had little time for the baby after Tacey arrived. Most of Tacey's early life was spent with a baby-sitter (who frequently changed, since Leola trusted few people) or with her father. She did develop a fondness for the girl, though, as it became obvious that she was taking after her father. Tacey, quite frankly, was intimidated by her pretty, busy mother.
Leola, perhaps because of the fondness developed by Tacey's developing personality, worried about the girl. She saw it as something of a miracle that Mason was as well-off as he was. (Though some who knew Mrs. Graham better than he might debate that point.) She doubted Tacey would be that lucky; she was of the opinion that women especially had to make their own luck.
So Leola sat down a five-year-old Tacey and explained the way the world worked to her. Leola likely had a paranoia complex herself: telling a five-year-old that the world is out to get her and that you had to do whatever you could to get ahead, and damned be the rest was not a usual pep talk. However, Leola made enough enemies with her approach that it was justified; there were a great many women, and a few men, quite set against her. Leola warned young Tacey that women were especially not to be trusted. Men were easily led and fooled, but women were the real enemies.
Tacey was a bit young to believe this sort of thing; she smiled and nodded and pretended to understand to please her mother. Throughout elementary school, these sort of talks were repeated. Leola was determined that her daughter would not be a downtrodden individual.
School only reinforced Leola's viewpoint. Tacey, to be honest, was different. She was fascinated by her father's work, and didn't care about pretty things or coloring or sports. She didn't fit in with the girls and she wasn't even a real tomboy. She was a computer geek and a science nerd, and that type always has a rather difficult time in school. Tacey spent much of her young life feeling bad and uneasy about the state of the world. Her mother's words started to make sense: after all, weren't all the girls at school making fun of her? A number of the boys, too. But she still couldn't care enough about her appearance to try to change that around. She let Leola dress her up a few times, but it usually came home in ruins, and most of the time she was simply teased more. Leola's taste was a bit.. adult for an elementary school student.
Mason might have been the voice of reason in the family.. But just as he trusted his wife to remain loyal to him, he trusted her to raise their daughter well. Tacey couldn't stand to talk about how bad things were at school with him, or what her mother told her; she didn't like seeing her father upset. Mason was her port in the storm; he'd patiently explain things to her, no matter what question he asked, and he constantly showed her his experiments, and he taught her how to use a computer. Tacey adored her father; as long as he was there, Leola's views could never quite catch hold.. Her father wasn't self-serving, so how could everyone in the world be like that?
Until Mason died when Tacey was eleven. It was a simple car accident; the weather was bad, and it was a five car pile-up; several people died in the crash. But for Tacey, it affirmed everything her mother had told her and then some. Her only safe haven was gone, completely. No kind and just God would do that to her, Tacey was positive of that. That meant there was no God, or if He existed, he was no better than the rest of the world. And the world was out to get her, if it had taken away her father from her.
Even her mother became alarmed at the change in her: Tacey withdrew entirely. Where once she'd been upset by words from her classmates (especially as they developed into puberty, and gained interest in the opposite sex, while she remained in lab-clothes and messy, tied-back hair, peering at experiments), she now responded with suspicious looks or cutting sarcasm. She finally began to adopt her mother's motto: Get them before they get you.
Except Leola adopted it in a different manner from Tacey; she was for making herself look good above others. Tacey decided to wound others before they wounded her. Not physically; Tacey went for emotional wounds, as her classmates had always wounded her. After several conferences, Leola decided to withdraw her daughter from school, hoping that a rest and a close eye would improve the situation.
What might've helped was therapy, but that thought didn't even occur to Leola. Tacey was perfectly fine with leaving school and learning from home. She naturally wasn't much of a social person, and her years in public school had cemented that. She did most of her studies on her own, though she learned Japanese when her mother taught it to her, in an effort to get closer to her daughter. It didn't succeed, though Tacey became fluent in speech, and fairly decent at reading and writing the language.
Her paranoia only increased as Leola began dating again. Leola wasn't the type of woman to remain single (or, indeed, tied to one man) and Tacey saw it as trying to replace her father. She withdrew to her computer and her father's old basement lab. She caught a great many colds down in that basement, and it was a second bedroom to her. She taught herself about computers, buying books on the subject and searching web-sites, as well as experimentation. Her mother gave her free range on money; Leola wasn't good at the concept of discipline, and by this point, her daughter had become an alien to her.
She earned her G.E.D. at the age of sixteen and continued her studies.
At the age of eighteen, Tacey decided to go to college. Her mother took hope; perhaps her daughter would re-enter the world as a somewhat normal human being. She'd decided quite some time ago that she no longer cared if Tacey went back to being like Mason; it would be welcome from the alien creature that shared her house. Tacey, of course, had ulterior motives. She wasn't learning much anymore, and she wanted to be able to better understand what she was doing when she created programs that would spread to other computers and harm them, and what all the equipment in her father's lab really did. She'd wanted to go for quite some time, but eighteen was not a noticeable or suspicious age. That was Tacey's tactic this time: if no one noticed her, no one could target her.
She was a rather noticeable figure, but not one that anyone wanted to approach, and Tacey never bothered to learn the difference. She attended classes, and no one commented on the odd assortment of classes she took, not even her counselor. Her counselor disliked the meetings with the silent, glowering girl, and kept them to a minimum. She did well enough in her classes, so there was little reason to bother her, anyway.
Leola let herself be reassured that her daughter was at least in the outside world, and tried to continue with her old life. Another accident occurred, though; Leola and her current boyfriend were on an airplane that crashed on its way to New Zealand, killing most of the occupants: Leola, of course, included.
Tacey, of course, saw it as another attack against her. She had no real fondness for her mother; the woman had said herself that she was only trying to get ahead, and while family had immunity, Tacey couldn't feel much for someone like that. Her financial support had been cut off with Leola's death, though, and that did create a problem for Tacey and her quest for knowledge.
She received the insurance money, which was a help, and she earned an internship in her junior year at a corporation. It sold insurance, but Tacey's internship was in the technology department; basically, she was a glorified computer technician. The main benefit in Tacey's mind (the pay was minimal) was that it gave her access to a powerful computer database.
She'd learned more than most people in her three years; Tacey was very intelligent and her mind was always leaping to answers and bridges that most people had to have mapped out. Tacey began sending out her viruses. It was the best way she knew of to get revenge at the world.
Of course, viruses can go anywhere in the world; that was the beauty of it to Tacey's mind, and the horror of it to most of the world. Tacey might target one place as a beginning, but she never needed to target any more. Of course, as virus protection became more advanced, Tacey had to get more cunning and devious with her inventions.
She graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Tasmania, in Launceston, Tasmania at the age of twenty-two, and landed a job as a computer tech with a nearby company thanks mostly to reccomendations from professors. Tacey continued to launch her viruses against the world, never realizing that at least one person had figured out her pattern, and had marked her out as someone to be watched, for various reasons.
She was watched in many respects; Yu-Huang had connections everywhere, and her personal and professional life were examined without her being aware of it. Tacey was decided to be an ideal candidate for a certain upcoming project... Just not quite yet.
A little while after her twenty-fifth birthday, a third disaster struck. A fire, while she was at work, destroyed her family home and all of her belongings. She found out listening to the news on the way home; without even bothering to go 'home,' Tacey checked into a hotel and spent three days lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
On the third day, in the evening, a knock came on her door. She listened silently without expression to the proposition made to her. Yu-Huang had judged the time was right, and while it wasn't him in person, of course, he still made an offer she couldn't refuse. Besides, Japan couldn't be any worse than where she was, and it was a job and a home... As well as a chance to seek revenge against the world that hated her in an even bigger way than she had been before.
She bought a ticket to Japan the next day and flew out the next afternoon. She moved into one of the suites at JDE, though she regularly scans it for bugs and other paraphenalia. The land of her family home is up for sale, but so far, there haven't been any buyers.
A Little More Specific
Quirks: There's nothing that makes Tacey out to be a bad person, really, though she's not exactly a good one, either. Most ofhper apparent personality comes in from her ailment. Tacey has Paraonoid Personality Disorder, more commonly known as a paranoia complex big enough to engulf North America.
This has colored most of her personality, by far. Tacey believes that the world is out to get her. There are no conditions to this: everyone is out to get her in some way, shape, or form.
She doesn't believe that everyone is out to get her specifically, actually. That young man with the black hair walking down the street opposite of her? She's never seen him before, and he's never seen her; why should he be after her specifically for any reason? Tacey's paranoia is a little more broad. It's based on the idea that everyone on Earth is somewhere in this worldwide pecking order, and they will do anything to move up on it. The only way to do this is to push others down. It's not so much the world is out to get Tacey as the world is out to get the world, and Tacey happens to be a part of it.
Everyone who's met her? Yeah, they're specifically out to get her. Tacey does not trust people. The only people she can really trust are those who are too high above her in the chain of command to notice her. If she moves up in the chain of command, those eyes turn on her instantly, she knows this. She does not just know this, she believes it with every ounce of her being.
So she tries to avoid being noticed. That's one of the ways to be safe: if people don't notice your existence, they don't need to plot against you. She doesn't volunteer, but she doesn't turn down responsibilities and assignments either. Accept them quietly, get them done, and move on is how she operates. To be quite frank, she doesn't really want to move up in the chain of command. It's easier to get things done at a lower level, and Tacey has no patience for bureaucracy and paperwork.
Most people don't want to peer behind the mask, anyway; it's a little off-putting to see a grown woman hunched over math problems and parts of computers, with her hair a mess and pointedly ignoring everyone around her. When people do approach her, they are met with veiled hostility; she wants to know who they are and why they're approaching her, what they want to gain from talking to her? Tacey goes on edge and asks far too many questions of new acquaintances. She'll often ask rather accusatory questions, too, and if she's heard anything about them beforehand... It'll be crafted in somehow in an unflattering way, be sure of that.
Most people give up on her fairly quickly. Pressing further will bring about complete confusion: people aren't supposed to -care- about her. But she's not that easily won over: common sense rallies in her and points out that this is a tactic her mother employed all the time: making friends with the enemy to put him/her off-guard. Tacey will candidly resist any attempt to get to know her by simply being rude and close-mouthed.
People she has to associate with closely and simply cannot ignore, like immediate underlings or bosses, she tends to be rather sarcastic and rude to. It's another way to drive people off, though she tries to stop short of actual offense, since that would defeat the purpose entirely. (She's never held a job for very long except at JDE, and that's only because Yu-Huang has uses for her.) If you piss her off, though, she will make every effort she can to wound you or your ego. It takes quite a lot to piss her off, though; no one's quite managed to do it yet, though it's not terribly difficult to make her snappish.
When it comes to her work, she is efficient and quick, and no interruptions please, thankyouverymuch. Interruptions are likely to be taken as an attack on her or an attempt to distract her and get her scolded. She reacts in a very hostile manner to either of these.
She has no qualms about attacking people; in her universe, it is better to Get Them Before They Get You. She does wait until she has a suspicion someone is after her, but hearing her name or a job of hers mentioned gives her that suspicion; Tacey can imagine no other reason for someone talking about her or her work than for Plotting Purposes.
Tacey without the paranoia complex... She still wouldn't be anyone's choice for Miss Congeniality, but she doesn't set off alarms, either. When Tacey was young, she was always a quiet child. She had all the makings of a bona fide geek, of course, which kept her well out of the way of popularity. Actually, she was closer to becoming an absentminded mad professor than a simple geek.
She was rather like her father in that respect: all "Truth is beauty and beauty is truth" and "this will run seven-point-eight times faster if we tighten these screws" with an absentminded "Say, wouldn't it be interesting to see what would happen if someone let -this- virus loose, in a contained environment, of course, to see the effects of spontaneous combustion in action?" thrown in there. She never would have done anything like that without her illness; she would've been surprised that anyone would really want to; she was simply curious about the effects. If there was a way to do it and, say, wipe out some poor miserable country that everyone hated or to do it and ressurect everyone, no matter what the pain during the process was, she'd probably do it in a heartbeat.
Curiousity is Tacey's real drive: she wants to know how the universe works and why eagles drop tortoises to crack their shells open to eat them, despite the fact that it's far too much effort for a meal. She's a formidable force without her illness, even, but it's much easier to distract the girl when she's not focused on Revenge Against the World at Large. Because while she'll do things just to find out what happens, she can be convinced that the knowledge is not worth the price. When your goal is hurting people, there's really not anything that can throw you off.
She's a bit irritable without the illness, simply because people are always interrupting her train of thought. She's not a very social person either way. But she's not outright hostile when her paranoia's not affecting her; she simply doesn't understand why this person is speaking to her. She comes off sometimes as a snob, because she doesn't like talking to people, and very much as a geek, with all of her books and notebooks and calculators. But with a bit of effort, she will begin talking to people, even enthusiastically.. Provided you don't mind that she's likely to babble on about calculations and her latest science experiments.
Darkest Secret:
Reactions to Sudden Hugs:
Virtues and Vices:
Badassery
Power Sphere: Metal.
Asswhoopery: Scrambled Circuits - Shang can scramble, or even erase computer circuitry, just by being near it, if she doesn't block the ability. It can be blocked by a shield, if you know it's coming, but since there's no physical for this attack.. Basically, the point of it is to confuse and irritate; there's no physical damage created.
Magnetic Appeal - Ever wanted to see a human magnet? Shang can attract or repel metal to her person as she pleases. This is a turn-on, turn-off ability. She can pull metal rafters out of buildings if she focuses enough, and she can just as easily drop them on someone by turning off this ability. Of course, it's rather hard to control, especially in the middle of a city; the objects come towards her, and she has to keep track of exactly what's coming to be able to stop it. She can also attract things to her to act as armor, and she can focus the magnetic beam in one direction, in order to (hopefully) only attract one thing. She can't focus it on one object; just one direction.
The best way to stop this is to distract her or injure her so that she can't concentrate on her power. It is, however, fairly easy to avoid a large metal object coming at you, especially since you can usually see or hear it coming, though it might be harder to avoid a bunch of small ones.
Greatest Weakness:
Summoning: Mr. Roboto - Combine metal and technology, and what do you come up with? Robots, of course. Shang's 'elemental summons' are little robots, about two foot high, that do her bidding. They're more animal-like than humanoid; while they have 'hands,' they move on all fours, and can get up some pretty hefty speeds. A prehensile tail adds to their gripping powers, and the sight sensors on the top of its back, with extra camera attached on its sides, and on the tip of its 'tail.' The tail can move in any direction, and they also come equipped with radar.
They are somewhat intelligent, able to make decisions on their own, but requiring quite a bit of guidance most times. They are most effective if Shang is right there and able to tell them what to do. Speed and mischief are their primary assets; the little robots are best at causing trouble. Tearing up light posts, stealing stop signs, stealing everyone's left shoe... And oh, the fun they could have with the short-skirted sailor fukus... <3 They are not good at moving quietly, though; metal makes noise, and these things are not up for spy missions. A good fire attack will disable them, messing up their systems, and a strong one will take them out entirely. Earth attacks also do well, and a water attack can short them out, if angled right, or if used after another damaging attack. Light and air attacks have little effect on them.
Note. Anyone who sees them and starts singing 'Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto,' or doing the motions, or in any way referencing it.. Will find a half-dozen of these guys sicced on them. Whether you're an ally or enemy.
Connections
Yu-Huang
Tacey doesn't quite mistrust Yu-Huang, per se... It's more that she knows that as soon as she ceases to be useful, she is outta there, so she's going to try her damnedest to stay useful. This means going so far as to be polite and perhaps even volunteer information! (Shocked gasps.) She is still going to try to avoid being called into his presence all that she can.
Ebba
May we present this blank sheet of paper.
Dante
UGH. Nevermind that Tacey thinks ALL people are two-faced like this, Dante is EXACTLY THE SORT OF PERSON WHO SUMS IT ALL UP. If he hits on her even once, we are talking about enemies for all life. (And this is Dante, and she is female, even if she tries NOT to be attractive... Let's just count on Tacey thinking of Dante as The Enemy.)
Trin
She is Out to Get Her. Tacey is just as wary of the shell-shocked Trin as she is of every other being (especially every other woman) on the planet. Trin will be able to bother her just by showing up around her office door; she KNOWS the woman doesn't want to socialize or any of that 'normal' stuff, so what else could she be doing but spying on her or plotting against her?
Lucien
If Lucien can agree to leave Tacey alone, Tacey will be quite happy. There seems to be little about Tacey to attract any sort of attention from Lucien, and Tacey will be ignoring Lucien for all he's worth. Forced to come into contact with him, Tacey will only feel distaste, and extreme annoyance that all the blame is automatically hers. Not that this is any different from anyone else; at least he's up front about what he's doing, instead of hiding it away politely.
Li-Nian
Li-Nian is an annoyance, for sure. Quit hiding your plans behind that shriveling mask; Tacey hates not knowing how a person is out to get her, which will be her view on Li-Nian. Obviously something; if it weren't for that fact that Tacey doesn't cultivate sympathy, she'd be convinced Li-Nian was Against her by taking away sympathy from her. As it is, she figures it's a misguided attempt to do so, and she's going to watch warily to see what her next move is.
Eugene
Tacey will find Eugene.. disturbing. He recreates people. While Tacey is not particularly fond of people as they are, there is still something rather off-key about a man who can reprogram another individual, the same as Tacey reprograms something mechanical.
