Tyler Tian Huang | 黄泰勒田

I probably should have made one of these ages ago, haha.

Let me know how I'm doing? I know playing a disabled character can be hit or miss, so I guess let me know if I'm doing an okay job with how I'm handling it through him? Or if there's anything else about Tyler or my playstyle that you think could use some work.

Comments are screened, of course!

Name: Tyler Tian Huang
Age: Physically in his mid 20s, mentally slightly older due to timey wimey fairy bullshit.

Seeming: Wizened

Blessing: The Wizened are extraordinarily nimble. The player can spend one point of Glamour to gain the benefit of the 9 again rule on all dice pools involving Dexterity for the rest of the scene. This same nimbleness enables the Wizened to avoid harm in ways other beings can’t imagine. The player can also spend one point of Glamour to add the character’s Wyrd dots to his Dodge total (normally calculated as double Defense), for the rest of the scene. This only applies when the character is dodging (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 156).

Curse: Spite infects the Wizened. It comes out in their appearance, and in their manner. Their appearance, which is rarely attractive, and their general tendency not to be approachable means that the Wizened don’t benefit from the 10 again rule on dice pools involving Presence. For the same reason, while Social Skills aren’t completely barred to them, the Wizened suffer a –2 dice untrained penalty when trying to use a Social Skill in which they have no dots, rather than the usual –1.
Kith: Fatemaker

Shapers of fate's patterns, knowledgeable in the art of talecrafting - and some of these Wizened may have skin like old parchment, with indecipherable words drifting across her papery flesh.

Wyrd: 2/10
Clarity: 7/10
Court: Summer

Contracts:

Animation:

Knowing Touch (●)
[ Wyrd + Crafts ] The character talks to an object or device and learns of any damage it has suffered and the location and nature of all of its weak points. The object also tells her about any hidden spaces or secret compartments within it. To use this clause, the character must handle, examine and talk or whisper to the object or device for at least half a minute.
Catch: The owner of the device asked the changeling to examine it. This catch does not function if the changeling owns the object in question.
Instant Expertise (●●)
[ Wits + Wyrd ] By touching a device and listening to its spirit, the changeling gains an instinctive knowledge of how to use it. This clause allows characters who have no idea how to use a particular device to use it without penalty and also provides characters trained in its use with additional expertise. To use this clause, the character must touch and fiddle with the device for two full turns before using it. This clause can be used on weapons, vehicles, scientific instruments, individual computer programs or any other device or tool. Changelings can even use this to gain bonuses at picking locks or disarming security systems.
Catch: The character has at least 10 minutes to talk with the device to learn the secrets of its use.

Fleeting Summer:

Baleful Sense (●)
[ Wits + Wyrd ] The character senses the greatest source of wrath nearby.
Catch: The character is angry when he invokes this clause.

Contracts of Hearth:

Fickle Fate (●)
The subject of Fickle Fate makes the roll for his next actively attempted instant action, whatever it is, at a –2 dice penalty. Actively attempted actions are those things the character consciously undergoes the effort of doing, not things that occur automatically or reflexively. For example, jumping from a moving car or performing an oratory before the duke would be an actively attempted action, while seeing if wounds force a character into unconsciousness or reflexively resisting some supernatural power would not be.

Merits:

Mantle (Summer Court) (●)
Characters add four dice instead of three when they spend a point of Willpower on a Strength-based roll.
Ambidextrous (●●●)
Your character does not suffer the -2 penalty for using his off-hand in combat or to perform other actions.
Eidetic Memory (●●)
Your character has a near-photographic memory, being able to recall vast amounts of observed detail with astonishing accuracy. You do not normally need to make a roll for your character to remember an obscure fact or past experience, unless he is under stress (such as in combat). Under stress, there is a +2 modifier on any Intelligence + Composure or other Skillbased roll (say, Academics, to remember a fact) for memory recall.
Iron Stamina (●)
Each dot eliminates a negative modifier (on a one-for-one basis) when resisting the effects of fatigue
or injury. Your character can push his body well past the limits of physical endurance when he has to, pressing on in the face of mounting exhaustion or pain. Perhaps he trained himself to go without sleep for days at a time in order to get through college, or a lifetime of sports has taught your character how to play through the pain no matter how bad it gets.
Turn of the Tale
The changeling can, when Talecrafting, spend an additional two points of Glamour on a Talecrafting roll. Doing so ensures that, upon success, the
Changeling does not suffer a Cruel Twist of Fate (though such a twist will still feature in a dramatic failure no matter what).

Attributes:

Mental:

Intelligence: ● ● ● ○ ○
Wits: ● ● ● ○ ○
Resolve: ● ● ○ ○ ○

Social:

Presence: ● ● ○ ○ ○
Manipulation: ● ● ○ ○ ○
Composure: ● ● ● ○ ○

Physical:

Strength: ● ● ○ ○ ○
Dexterity: ● ● ● ○ ○
Stamina: ● ○ ○ ○ ○

Abilities:

Mental:

Academics: ● ● ● ● ○ (Masters in Publishing)
Computer: ● ● ● ○ ○
Crafts: ● ● ○ ○ ○
Investigation: ● ● ● ○ ○
Medicine: ● ○ ○ ○ ○
Occult: ● ● ● ● ○ (Myths and fairy tales)
Politics: ● ● ○ ○ ○
Science: ● ○ ○ ○ ○

Social:

Animal Ken: ● ○ ○ ○ ○
Empathy: ● ● ○ ○ ○
Expression: ● ● ● ○ ○
Intimidation: ● ● ○ ○ ○
Persuasion: ● ● ○ ○ ○
Socialize: ● ● ○ ○ ○
Streetwise: ● ○ ○ ○ ○
Subterfuge: ● ● ○ ○ ○

Physical:

Athletics: ● ● ● ● ○
Brawl: ● ○ ○ ○ ○
Drive: ● ● ○ ○ ○
Firearms: ● ○ ○ ○ ○
Larceny: ● ○ ○ ○ ○
Stealth: ● ○ ○ ○ ○
Survival: ● ○ ○ ○ ○
Weaponry: ● ○ ○ ○ ○

Player
Name: Maniette
E-mail: rika(dot)tags[at]gmail(dot)com
Preferred Contact: maniette or PM this journal
Timezone: AEST (GMT+10)
Current Characters in Victory Road: None

Character
Name: Tyler Tian Huang
Series: "Changeling: The Lost" Original Character
Timeline: Three months after escaping Arcadia

Original Character Background: A more extensive and detailed history can be found here, so I'll try and keep it short here!

The World of Darkness tabletop universe is very similar to actual real life modern Earth, complete with all the pop culture references, with some small but major differences: everything has a much higher level of low-grade suck, and magic is real. Specifically in the iteration Changeling: The Lost, this means that Faeries are real, in the traditional Irish sense, and they're kidnapping bastards who grab people for completely random or nonsensical reasons, and keep them in the faerie realm known as Arcadia. This imprisonment, known as their Durance, twists and changes their captives until they eventually get turned into creatures called Changelings; not quite human, but not fully Fae either, able to hide among the former while using the glamorous magic of the latter.

There are six Seemings within Changeling communities; six different categories of recognised forms that their transformations may take. Tyler was turned into a Wizened - known as "subtle and ingenious crafters of Arcadia, the wise and cunning wondermakers". Think of stories about brownies fixing shoes in the dark of night, or faerie butlers that are always exactly where they need to be. Tyler's change was to that of the Kith (a subcategory of Seeming) known as Fatespinners, where he is able to tap into the narrative force that drives stories and forcibly apply it to reality, without being punished by a cruel twist of fate (which is literally a game mechanic).

Tyler's life before he was Taken was about as mundanely normal as a life ever is. The oldest of five siblings, he grew up on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia, with a strong sense of responsibility and maturity - as he was forced to be an adult before his time, and learn four separate languages just to be on par with his peers when he entered primary school.

He took a shine to languages, though, and made English his primary study throughout high school, to the point of pursuing a Bachelor's degree in it, and moving on to a Masters in Publishing. He had actually finished his degree, and was hanging out with his friends at a local theatre club, when the seven of them got snatched up by a Faerie that had enjoyed their performance so much it simply had to keep them.

Tyler wasn't actually part of the troupe - he was only there because his boyfriend was - but he was snatched up all the same, and given the role of Author and Narrator, and made to both write and share stories that he wrote with his friends in specific roles: the Hero (the role his boyfriend, Nick, got trapped in), the Heroine, the Villain, the Monster (his ex-lover), the Old Crone and the Innocent. Alongside writing up these stories - and making sure each and every one was unique, so as not to face the wrath of their capricious Keeper's boredom, he also had to learn how to speak. With his mouth. Which he had to do very quickly, because he got punished severely for saying anything wrong during the show.

It took years of enduring this torture - not just that of his Keeper, but watching the people he cared most about mercilessly, mindlessly kill or fuck or torture each other - and countless stories and cruel punishments, before Tyler finally worked out a way to escape. He used his fate-twisting powers to change the story mid-way, to free himself, his boyfriend and one more friend, Mai - but his boyfriend attacked their Keeper to buy them time to escape, and they couldn't save him before they rushed out of Arcadia, through the soul-ripping Hedge and back into the real world.

Mai and Tyler stuck together, even though their methods of recovering from this horrific trauma differed wildly. For all the torment they went through, the outside world had moved on at a different speed - they were only gone for about one year outside. Tyler sought out his own family to check on them, and see whether his absence had gone noticed: but their Keeper, as most Faeries do, had replaced him and his friends with identical, magical clones known as Fetch. Tyler got back to his house and saw his and Nick's Fetch living ordinary, mundane lives: and the sheer rage this bought Tyler lead him to kill them both. Not then and there; he stalked them for months, before he found an opportunity to have Nick's Fetch killed in a car "accident", and at the funeral held for it, was confronted by his own Fetch and got into a fight, which narrowly ended with him murdering his Fetch directly.

He hasn't told anyone else about any of this, and it's about a week later that Arceus decides he'd be a totally great addition to Victory Road.

Personality: Before his Durance, Tyler was an exceptionally driven person. Growing up deaf with the multiple stigmas of disability, race and weight, he's always had a keen awareness of how the world sees him: through lack of accessibility; people trying to coddle him for it; minimal resources; and through how he sees his body type and race represented in the world. He's always felt a need to prove that he's more than what people assume of him, and to be the best at what he can do. Spite is a defining motivational factor in his life - and the sole reason he can do a backflip on command.

This hasn't changed after his Durance. But now the spite runs much, much deeper: what would otherwise be general impatience and an amiable unwillingness to suffer fools before, is now a deep-seated sharpness and zero tolerance policy for people who he can see clearly don't want to put in an effort for him, and Tyler will quite readily leave a conversation if he's annoyed at the person or people involved. His temper is much shorter, and he will openly lash out with violence at people who try and grab or even touch him unexpectedly.

Tyler also has a very tenuous sense of self these days. Thanks to being a favoured plaything of their Keeper, he was admired and adored, and there's a not-insignificant part of him that still loves that attention; but he hates having the spotlight thrust upon him, and tends to react poorly or outright panic under sudden attention. He genuinely thinks he's superior to other people, with who he is and what he's learned, but also has depression and some moderately severe dissociation spells. He has little to no issue with manipulating people to get what he wants, but can just as easily psych himself out of it through overthinking. He is also wracked with survivor's guilt, about leaving four of the people he cares about most to continue being tortured while he and another escaped - as well as losing his boyfriend during their egress. Basically; borderline narcissistic disorder, but anxious and self-aware enough that he's not completely insufferable.

It's not like all of his personality traits are negative ones, though. As mentioned earlier, he is extremely driven, and when he sets his mind on a goal he is utterly unshakeable. And while it takes him a while to actually warm up to people, once he considers them his then he's loyal, quite literally, to the death, and it would take a betrayal of huge magnitude to shake that. He is extremely observational, as much necessity as habit, and is very astute at noticing other people's tics and actions. While his sense of humour is quite dark and cutting, and he has a general unwillingness to pull or soften his blows (literal or otherwise) he does his best not to punch down. He is extremely intelligent, and has developed some obtusely creative ways of looking at reality; but thanks to his Durance he gets extremely anxious, sometimes to the point of panic, about deviating from a set plan, and has lost most of his adaptability when he's gotten settled in.

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Team Rocket!
Starter: Big boy Natu and baby Houndour
Password: Atomic Fireball

Samples
RP Sample: Victory Road TDM sample!

Victory Road Sample:
It's taken a few months, but the small apartment that Tyler shares with Mai finally, in some little way, is actually beginning to feel real. It's been three months and it's still sinking in that they did it. They're safe and free and alive and they got out.

He rolls over in bed, feels the stiff pillowcase against his face, frowns, and opens his eyes - glazed and unfocused as they look, he can see just fine.

He can see that this is not his room.

A noise of pure distress drags from his throat as he throws himself upright, looking around sharply at the small room he's in - single bed, a small desk next to his bed, with some kind of ...phone? It looks like a Blackberry or something, and--

...no way. Those are Pokeballs.

He reaches out for them, and - stops. And stares at his hands. The skin is still sallow and dry, the ugly yellow of parchment, but it's not paper anymore, it's actual skin. His hands, always dripping with ink are-- still stained, but that's it. He's just... human.

He leans forward and takes one of the Pokeballs, and spots the letter as well.

He is human, he is in the Pokemon world, and - apparently - he is in Team Rocket.

What the fuck.