Application to the Station

[technohippie]

Player Info:

Name: Lan
Age: old
Contact: PLURK: hellglass; AIM: OcularDoomsday
Player Journal: hellglass

Character Info:

Full Name: Quinn Xavier Hatch
Called By: Quinn
Age: 23
Please describe your OC's universe of origin:
It's modern day, much like our own in terms of technology, culture, etc. There is, however, people with all kinds of super powers referred to as "magic" a lot of the times. It's an uncommon inborn talent than occurs in family trees, usually of an elemental origin (fire, water, etc.), but many others exist as well. Those who reach the peak of their powers will become ageless, though no one can be sure when they may reach this point in their life. The earliest recorded age is 10. Quinn, although he doesn't know it, is only two years from this point. Mages, as they're called, are looked on with some fear and suspicion from the rest of society, for good reason. They can be quite dangerous, and mages seem to live dangerous lives indulging in their talents. For example, people throwing fireballs all over the place aren't immune to their own fireballs. So while it's possible for them to live hundred and hundreds of years, most don't make it that far. Those that usually live underground and away from society - it's hard to explain how they've lived that long.

Description: Quinn stands at a giant 6'8" tall, but only weighs in at about 170 pounds. A big lanky bean pole of a guy, his shoulder-length blonde hair is always messily tied back in a ponytail, and wears ever-present (prescription) sunglasses. He tends to dress always in t-shirts, jeans and sandals. He's a chain smoker and almost always has one hanging from his mouth. His attitude can be gleaned from his lazy, slouched posture.

History:
Quinn was born in Charlotte, NC, USA. He's the second-most important person in the Hatch family, next to the patriarch of the family, his “grandfather” Eugene (he's actually more like his great-great-great grandfather, a long-lived earth mage). Quinn's technomancy is a rare thing in the world of mages, and thanks to that and his hacking abilities, his family gets away with whatever they want. Money is laundered, police records are wiped and no trail is left behind. His family is hardly big-time criminals, but like most mages, tend to get themselves into trouble whether they try to or not. It also helps fixing the records of the mages in the family living longer-than-normal life spans. He's an indispensable member of the family, is quite powerful at his craft, and hasn't even hit his peak of power at this point (he will by age 25). He's also quite often sent off to as a liaison for his family, if only to get him up and away from computers once in awhile. He's often sent out on “missions”, whether it be talking with other mages, loaning out his technomancer skills, tracking down magical artifacts, etc. He's good at negotiating, knows many other mages from many other families, and is knowledgeable on magical artifacts. Thanks to this, and his general attitude, he's a bit infamous amongst mage society, especially in the US on the east coast. However, Quinn aside, the Hatches – the largest family of mages in the US - has a terrible reputation amongst mage society for being a bunch of over-powered, uneducated hillbillies. The sad part about this is that it's generally true. Most of the Hatch family is made up of exactly that – dumb and goofy fire/elemental mages make up their bulk. They're a close-knit family though, very supportive and will defend one another to the end. The current most powerful person in the family is not Eugene anymore, but Quinn's cousins Jaris and Micky, who rank pretty close in power. Quinn is an only child, but is close with his plethora of cousins in his large family, especially Jaris and Micky. His parents are decent people but sort of fit the Hatch stereotype – his father is a fire mage, his mother a shadow mage. He lives in a large apartment in Charlotte alone, cluttered with mechanical and computer parts.

Personality:
Upon meeting Quinn, the first thing people notice about him is that he's really damned tall. He stands 6'8”, towering over the rest of his family by, on average, almost a foot, since the men in his family tend to be 5'8” or under. He's skinny though, and tends to slouch. He has the fair skin, blonde hair and blue eyes that is typical in his family. He speaks with a slight Southern accent. His hair is straight, messy and generally pulled back in a short ponytail. He's almost always wearing his sunglasses, a cigarette jutting from the corner of his mouth, and he's never one for dressing well, even in formal occasions. He tends to wear old t-shirts and jeans, with sandals or beaten-up sneakers.

As his appearance lets on, Quinn is sort of lazy. Despite all his intelligence, power, and importance to his family, he'd rather just do whatever HE wants. Mostly, that involves sleeping, playing video games, hitting up clubs, getting laid and smoking pot. Such a model citizen, this boy. But he doesn't generally protest when his family calls on him. After all, magic is fun, he gets to travel, and using his abilities affords him all the money he could ever want to do whatever he wants with. If his family sends him off to talk to some people in another city, he'll always pencil in some time for some slacking off.

Also thanks to his position, he's got an inflated ego. He knows he's good at what he does, and how smart he is, and isn't ashamed to tell it, especially if he's trying to impress someone. He loves machines of all kinds, and will never waste the opportunity to use his powers on them. Around “mundane” people, he might try to write off what he does if he thinks they won't understand it. But even that doesn't usually stop him, which often gets him in a lot of trouble. Of course, computers and machines are his first love. He keeps a lot of them, old and new, and he tends to horde machinery and parts. He likes to search antique shops and online auctions for old and interesting devices. He tries to show these off to friends and family, but, well, they don't really share his passion. Some folks just don't understand his love! :| He even talks to machines as he works with them, since he can “understand” them, and you can often find him cooing at a machine he's taking apart (“It's okay, baby, relax. I'll fix you and you'll be good as new in no time!”). Naturally this all stems from the affect his magical specialty has on his personality. Besides that, other hobbies of his include video games and movies, which he'll be glad to talk your ear off about if given the chance. He especially loves big, dumb action movies. The more explosions, the better. He also loves going to concerts for almost any kind of music, collect s a lot of music equipment - speakers and turntables and stuff for DJing. He sometimes moonlights as a DJ with friends in clubs or at events, or helps Micky, an aspiring musician, set up small gigs. And he's never without a tool kit of some kind on him, whether it be a case he's carrying or just a complicated Swiss Army knife. He's always prepared.

Quinn did attend high school and college, mostly without incident. He'd get detention for slacking off and skipping class often. His grades were mediocre despite being smart enough, he just didn't bother doing his work. He didn't really bother with clubs or sports either. He attended NC State University and graduated last year with a bachelor's in Computer Science. His family, especially Eugene , try to encourage him on to further education, but he couldn't be bothered. The only reason he went to college in the first place was to get away from home and experience college life. He got amazing grades in college, helped in part by his, well, rampant cheating. Sure, he *could* have worked to get those grades, but why bother when using technomancy is so much easier?

Most of the Hatches come into their powers at a young age, and Quinn was no exception. His powers manifested when he was about 8, and it was hard for his family to teach him since technomancers are few and far between. They did manage to find a tutor or two, but thankfully Quinn was bright and talented enough to quickly figure out his abilities on his own. He also ended up traveling with his parents on different magic-related errands, whether it be for negotiations, swapping knowledge, trading artifacts, whatever. He loved traveling, so he kept up doing this for his family on his own starting in high school, turning him into the Hatch family unofficial diplomat. He does a good job, usually quickly, so he can go and enjoy his vacations. His family doesn't mind sending him off either, since they worry about him spending too much time alone locked up with computers and work. When he's not doing that, he's using his technomancy skills to screw with all sorts of computer records relating to his family. For example, Eugene may be over 300 years old, but no records today reflect this.

Quinn's never had a steady significant other for many reasons. His self-absorbed personality, forwardness and ego tend to turn people off, or he loses interest in them after awhile. Not to say he's never gotten attached, and he's had his heart broken a few times. He goes after men and women equally, a trait that makes a lot of his Southern family uncomfortable. Of course he doesn't care about that. He'll also shamelessly hit on practically anyone, and the more severe their reaction, the better. Watching someone squirm is way too fun. And if they don't? Even better.

Despite all his flaws, Quinn is generally pleasant and nice, confident and cool. He's really laid back, and it's hard to get under his skin. Thanks to this, he tends to get along with most people. If someone is a jerk to him, he's more apt to wave it off or give a snarky comment in return. Stick with him long enough and he'll probably get you into trouble. Upon meeting people, he tries to impress them as best he can. He has a lot of acquaintances, but very few close friends outside of his family. He doesn't harbor many secrets or angst, but he still doesn't open up any deep thoughts or feelings to others. He just assumes they wouldn't be interested. He's so even-tempered that's it hard to make him mad or depressed anyway. About the only time he gets depressed if he gets dumped or rejected by someone he really likes, and he'll brood for a few days before bouncing back. If any of his friends are depressed or need help, he'll do what he can to help them... unless it involves him putting in a whole lot of effort. Thanks to his laziness, he's the master of excuses, so people tend to lose patience with him. In the end, he may be egotistical, lazy, a show-off, prone to a loose sense of morals, but he's not a bad guy...right?

3 Interesting Character Facts:
1. Despite his love of music and DJing skills, Quinn is tone-deaf. He can't hold a tune in a bucket. Can't sing to save his life. Can't play an instrument for anything. One of his younger cousins is an exceptional guitarist, and he promotes the hell out of him - mostly out of being proud of him, but he's a little jealous too.

2. His favorite video games are the Call of Duty series. He loves to get on the XBox headset and give everyone a hard time for the hell of it.

3. He calls almost all women he knows and meets "darlin'", unless they protest it a lot. Even then, he forgets himself and will still slip.

Powers: Quinn is a technomancer, and can commune with machines magically. By focusing on a piece of machinery, anything from toasters to cars to computers. Quinn can “talk” to it, learn how it works, and manipulate it. He can turn machines on or off, reprogram computers, jumpstart a car, mentally weave his way through the internet... there's a lot of possibility. Even if it's something completely foreign to him, give him some time with it and he'll learn everything about how it works. However, this requires a LOT of focus and energy on his part. He's good at it, but it's not an easy thing to do. He also cannot talk to machines if they don't have a power source, like electricity, a battery or an engine. For example, he couldn't talk to a pistol, but he could with an air soft gun as they're battery powered.

Machines tend to have a base personality of "helpful". The more sophisticated it is, the more likely it will have a broader personality. But mostly it all boils down to a simple idea. Machines are created by people (or maybe in this game's case, insert alien race here) to perform a function that will make life easier for people. To that end, machines want nothing more to perform their best and be helpful. Most machines Quinn talk to will want to know if they're doing their job well, or if they have a problem, will ask Quinn to help fix it. Unless there's something very wrong with them, most machines are pleasant and helpful.

Quinn also can't gain any information outside of what the machine itself would know. For example, Quinn can't talk to a computer and find out the last person who used it. The computer can't see who's touching it. However, it can tell him what username was last used to log in, what programs were accessed, and things of that nature.

Special Skills: Thanks to his above skills, even without using his magic, Quinn great with electronics and computers. Hacking, and building electronics are what he loves most. He's also a skilled DJ!

What is your character's comm icon and why? HAL 9000 because MOVIE NERD.

Writing Samples:
Action Tag Sample:
Have some classic Quinn action.

Third Person Prose Sample:
After being trapped in Mayfield for a few weeks, Quinn, who has relied on his magical abilities these last 15 years for practically everything mechanical, is having a hard time adjusting to life without them. While still good with electronics and machines, not being able to “speak” with them is strange, depressing and uncomfortable to him. It's like having a part of your self removed, and it's left him feeling not much like himself. His frustration only mounts when the drone wife gets on his case about needing to fix the car. Normally it would be something he could handle with no trouble at all. Open the hood, see what was wrong using his technomancy, and set out to fix it by getting instructions from the car itself. He could have it done in an hour or two. But at this point, he's on day three of being camped in the garage. There's parts everywhere, even things that have nothing to do with cars. A few books on car maintenance are strewn about as well, but Quinn's never had any patience for books. At this point in his project, he's had to scare off the drone wife a few times from his mission, working like a man possessed to find a solution to whatever the problem may be.

Anyone passing by his house and the open garage doors can hear a man muttering to himself, and if they stop to look, they can see the mess inside. There's a tall, skinny man hunched over an open engine, wrench in hand, who looks sad and confused at what's before him.

"Dangit. Why can't I just..." He cuts himself off with a short sigh. "This shouldn't be this hard...."

Bonus! I've also go a 4th wall opt out open.