Inana Borso-Nkize

Inana Borso-Nkize Feb 28, 2016 17:01:53 GMT -5

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Post by rotmouth on Feb 28, 2016 17:01:53 GMT -5

((BIG OL WIP, things are destined to change. WARNINGS FOR CURRENT/POTENTIAL FUTURE MENTION OF: neglect, suicidal thoughts, drug abuse/addiction, alcohol abuse, kinda not really graphic description of injury. if anyone winds up thinking i should mark anything else please feel free to let me know!!
i'll make the coding nice and pretty one day))

[/b] Inana Borso-Nkize

Age & Date of Birth: 24 years old, December 19th

Gender: Mostly feminine (intersex, camab)

Orientation: Demiromantic polysexual, maybe? Leans towards people who aren't masculine identifying. Polyamorous?

Class: Slums

Occupation: Retail worker, employee at a hole-in-the-wall clothing store (“guaranteed no moth holes or your next shirt is three percent off!”)

Affiliation: Civilian

Genetic Modifications:

-Cobra splicing, inherited from both parents - most similar to a chinese cobra. Due to the cheap “shortcuts” her parents took in procuring the hormones for their chemical therapy treatments, the quality of their treatment was poor and insufficient, and she carries unusual side effects as a result; teeth are needlelike, small, and brittle, several have been chipped or lost completely, making her slightly forked tongue sit awkwardly within the empty spaces; underformed fangs once refused to properly collapse when her mouth was closed, and they’ve since been removed, leaving two fleshy protrusions where her canines would be; tiny indentations on either side of her upper lip vaguely resemble what could best be described as heat sensory pits, though they provide no function aside from giving dirt and grime an extra place to set up camp; enlarged irises accompany quite poor vision (also in part from Light magic use,) which she combats with the ~~cutest~~ most ridiculous damn glasses (scopo warning maybe) you’ve ever seen; and the smatterings of scales flecking her skin sometimes itch something terrible, heralding the arrival what she’s come to refer to as “Full-Body Dandruff Hell,” a process lasting multiple days in which dead skin peels away in sheets and plaques not dissimilar to the aftermath wrought by a nasty sunburn. The only aspects of her inheritance that she cares for are her gut’s higher tolerance to unprepared foods and her ability to go several days without feeling hunger or needing to eat - the longer she goes, however, the more sluggish she gets. Does carry a heightened sense of smell, and can over time begin to identify others based on their scent/pheromones - takes a while of knowing someone to really start relating a scent with a face, but once she's familiar with it, can probably pick up on it from around thirty feet away (though she'd usually much rather smell whatever perfume she's put on her scarf, especially with the overarching unpleasantness that comes with the olfactory footprint of herself and many others in the slums.) ((more mundane things that're a result of this splice are listed in the extra info below))

-Saved up and spent almost more money than she had at the time to get an augmentation to turn her saliva green, at the prompting of her “friends.” The backalley procedure's effects wound up lasting and not causing her any harm, but she spent a couple weeks spitting out pus and salivary stones that looked radioactive. Now deeply embarrassed by her terrible decision and weird spit.

-One lung along with a few ribs and muscles on her right side are composed of a patchwork of organic and synthetic tissue. Got stabbed by someone using acid magic while closing up shop once. It sucked. Her grafts kept rejecting, so she splurged (read: spent several months’ paychecks on her physical necessities) and payed for nice, shiny, inorganic replacements. Additionally has the same treatment along some of her lower body (some skin/muscular tissue, a lil of her intestines and other organy bits, parts of the pelvis and leg bones.) None of this replacement material provides her with any additional benefits, but just keeps her innards ticking somewhat normally.

Unique Tech:

-Left transfemoral and right transtibial prosthetics, both are old, ill fitting, and relatively cheap. Frequent jams in the components sometimes make walking difficult, but money and anxiety keep her from getting them adjusted. Has what’re essentially stun guns fitted into the left foot and knee for self defense. These can each discharge twice before having to recharge, physical contact is required for them to do their job. Intended purely to be used in the event of an attack, they can't cause any sort of permanent or truly dangerous damage under normal circumstances. She has to be able to reach a button on the thigh in order to turn them on, and while engaged they make an obnoxious clicking noise that would alert any able to hear them.

-“Owns” a small robotic companion that she’d guess is some sort of amalgam of whale, bird, and ape. It was left waddling around outside the shop one day and strangely showed no signs of ownership, so after a thorough check for monitoring software the staff decided to co-parent the little spare parts beast. She calls it Lars. They've sniffed through what makes it tick and have been able to pin down some of its intended functions - Lars is programmed to "liberate" and subsequently hide anything it deems a potential weapon, which in the past had lead to the temporary loss of knives, canisters of mace, and, on more than one occasion, this employee's leg. Additionally, at the first sign of aggression or conflict, Lars will emit a high pitched warning tone for a short time (~five seconds) before producing a gaseous lachrymatory agent which causes considerable irritation to mucous membranes and skin. In still conditions, the effects of this gas have a radius of approximately ten to fifteen feet, lessening in relation to the further an individual is from it. This gas can only be administered once before Lars' supply has to be replenished. Lars does not differentiate between strangers and familiar persons when it comes to this defensive mechanism, and the store's employees have been sprayed down before after vocal disagreements. They've debated whether or not they want to keep Lars stocked, but have more or less come to the conclusion that the potential benefits (i.e. not getting stabbed by robbers) outweigh the annoyances. Basically this thing is ugly, steals your shit, and douses you with teargas if you get too rowdy. It does make a good guard dog, though, they suppose (and it follows them around like one, too, since it seems to have been made to equate attention and friendliness with the promise of continued maintenance.) They take turns harbouring it within their rooms in the evening and avoid allowing it to linger around the shopfront, lest it happen to trigger its defenses while the wrong person is watching and get them all in trouble for keeping an "unlicensed weapon."

Appearance: that’s a sack of something, not a pillow. i swear. (it should be tho. she needs a nap)

-Pretty tall, around six foot three. Rather slender, overall “stretched” looking. Scales strewn unsystematically across grey-sienna skin, slightly iridescent black more commonly appearing on her backside and pasty yellow across her front, overall a bit more concentrated along her throat, belly, and inner arms/thighs. Laced with stringy scars, particularly on her lower body, and holds a perpetually haggard air. Walks with a slouch on her best days.

-Dress is usually cheap, plain, and well-worn, even outside of work. Prefers to keep herself covered as well as she can, baggy clothing is preferred to both hide her body shape and avoid irritating patches of thin skin. Almost always wears a peachy, tight, knit circle scarf, which is quite possibly the only article of clothing she owns that she cares enough about to clean thoroughly. Treats herself to her more vibrant and less frayed clothes (all ~three articles of them) if she intends to go out and have a night to herself (which is never.)

-Prosthetics are almost invariably covered by her pant legs, but the leg is a shade too light for her skin tone and the foot is grey. Coating on the leg is somewhat velvety but doesn’t pass for skin in appearance or touch. Around the joints the inner workings are revealed, almost giving the impression of a carapace or doll’s limb. Foot is harder and composed of three panels, doesn’t imitate the shape of a human foot - rather looks bare, as if an outer shell was supposed to be placed but never was. Both have obvious signs of wear.

-Heavy scarring along amputation sites and up both legs, onto the pelvis, back, and stomach, with starkly contrasting silvery mottled sections of synthetic material. Other individual scars here and there, from acting like she was auditioning for Jackass. Faded track marks scattered around. Large, warped patch of skin with synthetic stuff dispersed throughout around the back side of her righthand ribs. A small dent on the right side of her jaw.

-NUIP port at the base of the skull

SPOILER: Click to show

Personality: It’s rare to find an expression on Inana’s face that can’t be fit neatly somewhere between “mildly disinterested” and “maybe a little annoyed, we’re not really sure.” She wears a mask of her own skin at all times, guardedly holding back any indication that she’s intrigued or amused or experiencing pretty much any other emotion, really. Inana is easily read as cold, as she’s never caught giving more than a three or four word response at any given time, and her body language reads like that of a nesting snake - reserved, cautious, and utterly unimpressed with any attempts at contact.

In reality, it isn’t so much indifference driving Inana’s persona as cold, heavy fear. Only recently has Inana allowed herself to hope, for a profitable existence and for satisfaction, and the thought of naively trusting and growing fond of others only to drag herself into the same misery she’s worked tooth and nail to claw out of shakes her to her core. Self-aware enough to recognize her own easily influenced nature, she pulls hard on the reins of any potentially incriminating emotions that might draw attention towards her (as much as she may want it) or plant seeds of fondness within herself or others.

She’s otherwise very slow to accept or even recognize genuine affection, instead pushing any behaviour from others that may be read as friendly out of sight and out of mind, and isn’t entirely sure how the dynamics work within a healthy relationship of any sort. Another person would find it difficult to form a meaningful bond with her as, even after shedding her outward defensiveness, all she feels she can fall back on is the recklessness and impulsivity she lived for up until only a couple years ago. At her core, Inana is hungry for attention and terrified of being forgotten or discarded. It’s taken a long time for her to recognize these aspects of herself and finally attempt to address them, and she’s extremely fragile - the right people could use patience and understanding to build her up towards a healthy life, while others would find her easy to manipulate and use when the right buttons are pushed.

However, if nothing else, she firmly stands by the belief that this political war the Vigilantes are stirring up is more ruinous than the broken system imposed within Novus. After seeing her parents’ individuality eaten away by their cause, and after feeling the impact of her own loneliness, she can’t very well find it in herself to think otherwise. Inana holds bitterness towards those middle class and above for what she perceives as their flagrant disregard for the conditions the lower class live in, but even that can’t truly rival her resentment towards Vigilantism as a whole. She views the movement as a sort of selfish rebellion often undertaken by well-to-do folks with class guilt who don’t understand that their actions breed animosity towards the underprivileged - it would take some doing for her to change her mind and see any potential benefits of it all.
Better to stagnate and nearly starve than risk losing the income of breadcrumbs she currently has.

SPOILER: Click to show

Background: Born to a pair of doting and heavily-modded Vigilantes deeply entwined with the concerns of their cause (Snake Eyes, they'd been, and had fancied themselves the finest-tuned earholes in all of Novus,) Inana had two parents desperately looking to wean themselves from the rough-and-tumble side of Vigilantism and instead spend most of their energy on the young sprout that was their newly established family - having a child would surely make them take their resolution to live a calmer life seriously. But previous obligations called, along with the tempting cries of pressing new engagements, and despite her parents' efforts to settle down, Inana off and on found herself within a brood of kids placed under the wing of a lower class childcare facility. And at the end of every day she spent there, like clockwork or daytime television, they would return exactly when they had promised to that morning. With all three tired from a long day of (two out of three times illegal) shenanigans, they'd order cheap, greasy food and share jokes on the walk home. Finger paintings were hung on the fridge beside encrypted bounties.

As her early years went by, she began to notice the slow increase of the lengths she spent away from home. Hours eventually became days at a time of staying in rooms with too-cheerful trees cast in stained and cracking paint upon the walls, while the conspicuous lack of excessive grease in her diet left a hollow pang in her belly and heart. Days became many days until many days passed into one, two, three weeks without notification. It wasn't an entirely new scenario to her caretakers. Straddling the slums the way they did, it wasn't unheard of for a parent to go on an "extended vacation," even with Novus' monitored reproduction. Devoted facilities were few and far between for forgotten charges, and this wouldn't be the first time they'd looked after one long past the anticipated check-out date. Costly, yes, but life was about adaptation, they told Inana, and everyone would have to make changes in order to make ends meet.

Under the roof of underpayed, overworked staff members who monitored five to six screaming children at any given time, a lonely child with absent parents got little attention. And so over time she observed, and with all children of her age found the same attitude led to a drastic increase in care.

Insubordination.

Whether it was a sharp cry at bed time or a grubby fist slammed against aproned knees, churlish behaviour was always rewarded with a yell or a hush or a “let’s-sit-down-and-talk-about-it” and she wondered why it had taken her into her pre-teen years to catch on to what every other child was clearly already practicing. Being told to quiet down didn't taste quite the same as a bedtime story, but hunger and fussiness do not good bedfellows make.

She started small. Defiantly turning her back when addressed, rolling her eyes, even daring to breathe an unpleasant name in the direction of an elderly woman every now and then, but as she began to wet her feet in the pool of teenage assholery, it was clear that her peers had left her childish pouting in the dust, and just as obvious that her methods were insufficient. So name calling turned to fighting, and fighting to failing classes, and before long it wasn’t just a scramble for a caretaker’s glance but also desperate grasping for any glance at all, from peers, police, men thrice her age.

And as misery loves company, Inana wormed her way into groups of likeminded young people, each silently watching their friends’ faces in hopes of catching reactions to their newest stunt. Outlandish modifications were the ticket to enamored stares and blackmarket magic was passed out like candy. When it came time for what should have been the most important exam in an individual’s life, she found that she couldn’t care less about the results - there was hardly any movement out of the lower class, and who would want a delinquent of her sort, anyway? Self preservation had long since taken a backseat to reckless decisions, and the idea of performing the most shocking feat of any of her ilk yet called like sirensong on the water. Before her actions had entirely registered in her mind, Inana had raced, breathless, to her clique’s meeting point and proudly proclaimed how she’d been dropped into the slums. As her head spun with adrenaline, she waited for the shock to reach their expressions.

After being relocated, however, there wasn’t any more shock to be had. As another faceless and friendless entity in the shapeless masses, sharing a bathroom with even more people she hardly knew, her choices finally began to reveal their weight. Whatever thin curtains she’d placed on her unwellness up until that point crashed and she was left to face the ugliness that they’d been hiding. With no real marketable talents (having been too busy chasing magic highs to look for any) and no strong connections to human beings that would acknowledge her (it was funny, she thought, that she’d entertained the idea of her parents contacting her for the first time in years after hearing about such a bold act of defiance,) whatever shred of actual worth and love Inana held for herself slipped away.

Nursing a magic addiction, she made half-hearted attempts to find odd jobs, but didn’t put up much of a fight as she saw herself fading. Much of her time was spent buzzed on cheap booze or whatever else she could get into her system, and contemplating her life, whether or not there would be any reaction to feed off of if she were to disappear entirely. Her own wellbeing had always been her favorite plaything, but she didn’t find enjoyment in the game any longer. Nights were spent sore, high, and hungry, curled in a cot as she idly schemed ways to forfeit.

At twenty, while working in an ill-kept factory in the lower class, Inana found her views challenged when a mechanical failure devastated the facility and the area immediately around it. A thunderous shaking and the screaming of metal splitting preceded an abrupt and total blackness, after which she awoke with an eerie sense of calm to find her lower body skewered and sandwiched against debris. The embers and smoking insulation melted to her flesh elicited little reaction in her, and the same numbness persisted until she was uncovered by volunteer search members several hours later. Shortly after rousing from a medically induced coma, as she laid and watched nurses change her dressings for the umpteenth time, shock gave way to something real and identifiable - a deep, heavy, cold sensation in her chest speared her through and insistently implanted in her that she was not ready to die.

SPOILER: Click to show

Changing her entire gameplan for life was massively overwhelming, especially with no real considerable income. She anticipated that baby steps would have to be taken (she didn’t have to stop buying Magix yet, but, you know, maybe just twice a week from now on.) It was clumsy and slow and flawed and painful, learning to walk a different path, falling flat on her face, being unsure if she could find the support to pull herself upright and continue trying. Driven more by fear of death than zeal for life, Inana attempted to harden herself and grant time to heal by withdrawing further, afraid of paying too much heed to strangers and being pulled back into the same addictive cycle that she was slowly crawling out of.

After numerous lost jobs, she settled well into her niche at a tiny clothing store in the slums. Inana is frequently tempted to do any number of things to garner attention from those around her, but she also notices a marked difference between the atmosphere within her workplace and the ones she’d adjusted herself to - it doesn’t take outlandish behaviour to get a smile or a laugh or a conversational quip.
She’s finding it difficult to avoid investing in people when faced with genuine kindness and she isn’t really sure what to do.

Extra stuff mostly here for my own goldfish memory

SPOILER: Click to show

Additional pictures! x (warning 4 barbie doll nudity)

    -has a deep rooted fear of fire/smoke, and additionally becomes extremely distressed at the sound or smell of meat sizzling. sprays perfumes on/stuffs potpourri in her scarf before going onto streets with vendors, and constantly smells like sweat got freaky with an incense shop
    -also afraid of anything that towers over her i.e. tall buildings, poles, signs, etc, along with anxiety towards being confined and unable to move around easily or find an exit. able to push it down if she needs to get stuff done, but easily gets overwhelmed if she doesn't have a "safe space" away from everything that she can get to
    -would like to see some of her old caretakers again, but embarrassed of the way she acted as a child and scared that they'd be disappointed in where she is now. really wants to repay their kindness somehow, just isn't sure what to do yet.
    -kind of acknowledges that her parents are probably dead, but doesn't really want to believe it. she isn't sure how she'd feel about seeing them again after so long, anyway, if they did just walk off. wants to meet with them if they're still out there somewhere, though she feels like it wouldn't be some kind of life changing event and would be sorta disappointing. (really though, at this point, if they showed up and tried to win her over, she'd probably fall back into an attention seeking mindset and do anything they asked for the chance of receiving their affection. it wouldn't be healthy at all.)
    -addicted to magic, and trying like hell to work it off. doesn't actively use it anymore, but she's relapsed a couple of times. currently doing better, though!

-tries to keep mace somewhere on her person at all times
    -carries a few cobra-like mannerisms, unconsciously trying to show her teeth and stand taller when alarmed, enjoying "basking" under warm lights and curling around warm things, feeling a very strong desire to eat large amounts at one time and then sleep off digestion for a day or two. A lot of these aren't particularly practical, though.
    -very much nearsighted, and needs her glasses to make out anything more than a few feet away. everything not immediately in front of her is just a mess of colors. wears coke bottle glasses that are a few years old and don't get her anywhere near 20/20, but at least then the world doesn't look like a Jackson Pollock piece.
    -isn't above catching pests around the shop if she's low on food, can process small animals rapidly and largely through touch, since she doesn't always have her glasses. boils meats if she feels they may carry parasites, but feels compelled to eat things raw. sometimes does, if she's too tired to cook. used to inhale whatever she got without telling anyone else in the building, but lately more and more feels a weird nagging urge to share. she hasn't decided how to feel about this yet. further developments to be seen here on channel fourteen, more news at eleven.
   -now-a-days she saves her money very well, generally, but from time to time feels the desire to put it all into a new, flashy mod or Magix. might lose the will to fight this if something particularly abysmal were to happen.
    -can't readily recall much of when she was injured, occasionally dreams about it or gets hit with strong sensations.
    -puts a good chunk of her money into HRT which isn't officially prescribed and is of dubious quality. more often than not has some abdominal cramping as the chemicals slightly bloat her organs. something will likely hemorrhage down the line if she keeps buying from the same provider but, hey, they're the cheapest and her piss in only pink every now and then, so it can't be that bad.
    -has very little in the way of a chest - she's not sure if it's because of her body type, the way her blackmarket hormones influence her chemistry, a side effect of reptilian genes, or some combination of the three. stuffs her bra to get what minimal cleavage she shows.
    -probably wouldn't know how to react if someone gave her a nickname. hasn't been called "Ina" in a long time.
    -interested in antiques, though it infuriates her that a lot of stuff that's so pretty has no practical value. would still hoard them if she had the money tho
    -some education, probably to a seventh-eight grade level or so. has taken to reading anything she can get her hands on as a way to keep herself busy and stimulated when not working. a quick enough learner, when she puts her mind to it, but has a hard time focusing.
    -trying to pay off money she's borrowed. most of it was used in surgeries or for hormones, but some went towards other forms of self-medication. absolutely believes in paying off your debts, though, and would probably dig herself out from the grave if she died before returning what she owes.
    -doesn't have sensation in some areas of her lower body, but can more or less control her muscles well enough. scars get stiff/dry and she has to massage/moisturize them often, which is exhausting and takes forever. risks parts of her skin popping open if she goes a long time without. occasionally experiences phantom sensations, mostly itching and burning.
    -has found cysts amongst her scars before, typically gets a coworker to try to take care of them. can't find the will to do it herself, though she's surprised that her wounds make her squeamish despite the other nasty stuff she's seen happen to her body.
    -sees no point in trying to retest, at least at this point. wants to build up her knowledge and skills enough to actually stand some sort of chance. scared of failing the test or not succeeding after climbing in rank.
    -always fidgeting with something, can't sit still. would probably benefit from one of those little propeller rings or other fidget toys.
    -slight lisp, her tongue is large and long and fits rather awkwardly within her equally awkward teeth. risks poking it or her cheeks if she closes her mouth or speaks too quickly.
    -sometimes has Lars hibernate on her bed while she sleeps, purely for its warmth of course and not at all for company what
    -unfortunately still drinks pretty often, but tries not to get shitfaced. gotta be ready for work in the morning, hangover or no. can knock back shitty alcohol with no problem and has probably never tasted anything that doesn't smell like a gas station toilet
    -lives literally next door to/in the same building as her workplace, has her own (very small) bedroom, which was most likely at one point a storage closet or something similar, but shares a bathroom and kitchen with a couple coworkers along with a few other tenants of the building. has to holler through the wall every now and then when emergencies occur (read: Lars hides/buries her prostheses in the middle of the night.) comfortable enough with her room being small because she's gotten used to it as her room and feels like it's a safe place, but doesn't take quickly to other enclosed settings
    -quiet even after getting to know people extensively, but in the right situations her old energy can bubble up and make her quite the talker - that's tough for her to reach sober, however. gets chatty when she drinks, and around others starts to lean back on the sort of behaviour she's been trying to break out of (doing weird shit to get attention.) while intoxication can cause her problems around people and with herself, it's ironically one of the only times she's anywhere close to being comfortable with dropping the defensive armour she's raised the last couple years, and the less tense, more conversational side she shows is closer to her actual personality than she'd like to admit. so basically avoids being under the influence around people as much as she can because she doesn't trust herself and others enough to not expect to get fucked over.
    -primarily utilized light and air magic way back when she still used frequently, liked them for their showy effects and the way they enhanced her speed/agility, respectively. always had kinda poor vision, but knows it got substantially worse while using.
-not much body hair, and what she does have is slow growing - on her head, she's never truly cut it and only occasionally trims the tips yet it's still just barely at her mid-back. would be absolutely devastated if she lost it or had to chop it off. hair is very dense and tough, but flexible, almost similar in texture to scales, and feels rather odd under one's fingers. she does get a little bit of stubble on her face and chest, which causes her some degree of dysphoria, but she mostly removes it to dissuade people from using the wrong pronouns and terms for her. eyebrows are a mixture of hair and scales.
-has a neutral, gravelly voice that's pretty monotonous as long as she's on her guard. occasionally stutters, tries to spit words out too quickly in the hopes that she can stop talking sooner. winds up literally biting her own tongue a lot.
-can have a dozen thoughts racing through her head and wind up voicing the most inane one, then immediately afterwards praying to whatever gods that may be to drag her away because who the hell sees that their store was broken into overnight and just says "there's underwear everywhere"
-gets winded quickly because of generally being frail/smoke damage, using shitty air magic probably didn't help either
-both parents had somewhat strong accents - she didn't really pick them up in earnest, but does occasionally slip into a mix of their styles of pronunciation and sentence structuring. it isn't really noticeable to others in day-to-day interactions, and mostly just fades in and out when she's tired or intoxicated or worked up about something. weird syntactical choices are easily more prominent than any actual lilt to her voice, and could probably be caught by someone over time with little effort.

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