(no subject)
player: Kai
personal journal: kaichan
e-mail: kaiyamazaki@gmail.com
AIM: sugarlupus
characters already in-game: n/a
character name: Brian Acker V aka Quentin Dox (or Brainiac 5 aka Querl Dox, in canon)
canon: Legion of Superheroes cartoon
PB: Jesse McCartney
age & date of birth: 16
classes: Math level 5, English 3, Social Studies level 3, Science level 5, Computer Science level 5, Physical Education 2 level 2, Religious Studies level 2, Philosophy level 3, ELECTIVES: Driver's Ed level 3, whatever technopathy... comes under... Internal Abilities? And Languages level 3.
description: Brian is short and on the skinny side for his age, with a slightly unruly mop of blond hair that he at least brushes most of the time, and green-blue eyes. He's a little pale from his tendency to stay indoors working with machines all the time, and sometimes he forgets to take off the anti-static bracelet that he wears when working on computer hardware. He wears t-shirts and jeans or pants usually, so the school uniform wasn't too much of a switch for him, although he tends to lean towards the blue, white and khaki end of it.
history: Brian's father died before he was born, and his mother, Briony Acker 4, abandoned him at birth, leaving him with her relatives and disappearing. She had been trying to awaken her emotions by having a family, as she was highly intelligent but emotionally dead, but apparently felt nothing at Brian's birth, and so left to pursue other avenues of feeling feelings. Brian's relatives were almost as disconnected with the infant as his mother - they took care of him, but they were all scientists, more interested in logic and theory than childcare and emotional connection. It was more like he was staying at a hotel than a family home. They were content to let him study and work on things in the basement, where they'd set up the necessary extra bedroom for him, and were absently pleased with his high grades, if not a little concerned and unsure what to do with someone displaying quite that level of brilliance, especially when it came to machines. As Brian reached his teenage years, it became more obvious, and disturbing to realise, that he was unnaturally good with machines and computers. This only increased the sense of distance between him and his family.
Luckily, for them at least, this is when the school representatives called to offer Brian a place. His family were only too glad to hand him over to what seemed to be a highly capable academic organisation, and stop worrying about him themselves. Brian was a little suspicious, but willing to check it out at least, and since arriving... well, it's better to be somewhere that won't mind his quirks as much as the regular school he was at.
Brian's real name is Quentin Dox, but several centuries ago, his direct ancestor was involved in some shady cult responsible for a large number of murders - nothing is really known about what happened, outside of the family records which are a fiercely kept secret revealing that this ancestor was a dangerous technomancer, thankfully limited by the primitive technology of the time, although there are rumours (that Brian disregards as illogical superstition) that his spirit lives on. The deliberate secrecy around this history is partly because of an old family warning about possession, but most members of the family today agree it's simply a ridiculous set of old stories taken out of proportion, and the secrecy has become more of a precaution against unnecessary embarrassment. Still, out of this came a tradition of assuming the names Brian or Briony, with the appropriate number, for public use rather than their real, family names. This is to protect their identities, presumably from the descendants of those hurt in the dark days of Brian Acker 1's cult, or perhaps from his spirit itself. No-one's quite sure any more, but the tradition has stuck.
personality: Brian is very smart, but somewhat introverted and, let's be honest, completely socially retarded. His family, or rather the relatives he was unceremoniously dumped on by his mother, were capable enough but mostly absent caretakers, and the other children he attended school with after a few years of science-centred home-schooling ostracised him for his intelligence. He developed both a strong sense of independence and self-reliance, and a sarcastic sense of humour as a defence mechanism. He also has a deep-seated sense of inferiority and insecurity, because his mother must have abandoned him for some reason that boils down to his fault, and after all, his relatives didn't love him either - they never treated him the way other children's parents treated their own children. He is, on a subconscious level at least, constantly seeking approval, especially from people who remind him of his absent mother, and people who are somehow either intelligent or morally upstanding enough to impress themselves on him - he has a bit of a hero fixation, since some of the only recreational reading material he had as a child were comic books. He not only seeks approval from people fitting these criteria, but has a tendency to form crushes on them, since his emotions are that confused and subconsciously fuelled, but he's also highly unlikely to act on any feelings he might develop, assuming them to be irrelevant and almost certainly unrequited. Gender doesn't matter as much as personality in the formation of these feelings, but in the case of falling for women who remind him of his mother, this pretty much consists of being tall and blonde, since that's all he really knows about her - a blurry, infant memory of her leaving the room where his cot was. He has more or less decided that emotions are unnecessary distractions, and attempts to ignore them as much as possible, focusing instead on logic and rational thought, something he clings to even in the face of the impossible. Even psychic powers like his own have to be explainable with science, right?
ability: Technopathy. Brian can communicate with machines, especially computers, as long as he is in physical contact with them. He can sense what's wrong with a malfunctioning machine and how to fix it, although he still has to physically do the repair work himself, and the same for sabotage. He can send his consciousness into a computer, hacking with his mind or cyber-projecting as it were, but this is extremely tiring, and there's a risk of becoming ill if he encounters a computer virus and is unable to defend against it, for example. If the connection is prematurely severed by another party, he falls unconscious, in a mild coma, for several days as his mind recovers.
sample third person narrative:
Brian went over the equations again, the numbers and letters running through his head in a rhythm, not quite musical as they spun in his mind. If it had been music, perhaps he would have been able to pick out the sour note immediately, or perhaps it would have remained as lost in the harmony as this one stubborn stumbling block in his work was lost in the forest of figures. He didn't really need the scrawl of marker pen laid out over the whiteboard on the wall to remind him of the equations, burned into his consciousness far more neatly as they were, but there was something reassuring, almost visceral, about having a tangible, material representation in front of him. Something he could erase and rewrite and leave for others to read, if they could understand it.
He dragged the board eraser in a squeaking line, wiping out a series of numbers and leaving only streaked smudges of ink behind, faint traces that he neatly removed with the corner of the eraser before starting to write in new figures, slightly different, guiding the path in an altered direction to overcome the roadblock and reach his ultimate destination. The marker nib, too, squeaked on the whiteboard's surface, as if protesting minutely, and Brian spent a moment wishing he'd used a computer to write out his work. The quiet hum of the computer fans and the hard drives whirring away were comforting in a way, familiar and constant companions, but even with that familiarity and the preferable way the keys would clack under his fingers rather than squeak like the marker, there was something to be said for sticking to the more old-fashioned methods. Something as undefinable in its appeal as the noise of the computers was in its comfort, and just as undeniable.
in-character quadrium introductory post:
Hello, fellow students and, I presume, those members of the faculty who are monitoring this network for misbehaviour and protecting all of us from being offensively trolled. While I can fully understand the practicalities in such an activity, allow me to keep the following introduction brief, so that no-one runs the risk of becoming overly bored. If further details are desired, of course, you may ask me about them, but I can't promise that I will expand upon anything excessively personal. It would be rather forward for a first post.
My name is Brian Acker V, age sixteen, and freshly enrolled at this establishment. I am interested in computers and computer programming, science, mathematics, robotics and chess. I have had a relatively unremarkable and uninteresting life, as far as I am concerned, and I hardly see how it could be any more interesting to anyone else. Still, the details, such as they are, are as follows. After my father died and my mother left, I lived quietly with my family, attending school and studying, and working on my computers, until became apparent that not only did I possess a superior intellect, but also that I was more than naturally good with computers and other machines. This prompted my recruitment into this fine academy, as it turns out that I am what they call a technopath - not that my family is aware of this, but they had no protests to my transfer here, as it was obviously more suitable to my skills than the school I was previously attending. I doubt they will be visiting, of course, but that is not particularly important.