cracksmostly | OOC: I Just Like It Here On This Infopost Bandwagon

No new characters for me this time around, but I like infoposts and lack self-restraint ~~which also extends to how many times I'll probably end up editing this post~~. So!

Merrill (

cracksmostly), sophomore
Dragon Age 2, pre-canon

Oh, honey, no.

Hails from Thedas, like not_every_mage, goodforsix, and seeks_truth, but doesn't share a timeline with any of them.

Is an elf, complete with pointy ears and a visibly-slighter-than-human build. Also big, big eyes.

A Dalish elf, specifically, which in Dragon Age means she's part of one of the nomadic clans who tend to live in rural areas and try to reclaim the old elven history and culture. ~~As far as they know anyway, la la la DAI spoiler cough.~~

Was never subjected to captivity in the Circle because the templars tend to leave the Dalish alone, which still makes her an apostate mage like not_every_mage.

Her magic is more nature-based, though: hitting people with rocks or encasing them in stone, getting the plants to turn against them, that sort of thing. Someday she will be able to do a creepy, creepy thing that involves hurting people with their own blood but that day is a ways off.

Does not have the vallaslin facial tattoos from her icons yet; that's a mark of adulthood.

Her accent sounds Welsh, because she's voiced by Eve Myles, and she tends to be soft-spoken with a quirky cadence to her speech. Also, prone to babbling.

Is very sweet, very naive, very scatterbrained, very lacking in good judgment sometimes, and very prone to getting lost on a regular basis.

And by "lost" I mean "while going to and from places she needs to be on a regular basis," as well as "can end up wandering into, and getting shut in, a wardrobe." Not one that leads to Narnia though.

Will someday end up BFFs with goodforsix, butting heads with not_every_mage on a frequent basis, and a supporting character in a book that seeks_truth not-even-a-little-bit secretly fangirls. her versions of them, that is.

Will also end up making a deal with a demon and practicing blood magic someday, because almost everyone in DA2 rolls a natural 1 on wisdom checks. Does not do that yet, though if asked she'd say that in theory she doesn't see anything wrong with blood magic.

The blood magic was part of her project to restore an ancient elven mirror known as an eluvian. She won't get her hands on one until DA: Origins canon rolls around, but thanks to a conversation with ofthe_wilds over the big reunion weekend her interest in them is already piqued. Oops.

If you want a rambling and semi-coherent canon rundown with a little more detail about Thedosian elves, see her previous infopost with the caveat that HA HA it's a little bit jossed by the DA: Inquisition Trespasser DLC now.See, unbeknownst to the Dalish, they're not quite right about a lot of aspects of ancient elven culture. Most notably, their pantheon of gods was actually a group of extremely powerful mages who actually had a kind of despotic grip on Elvhenan and ended up at war with one another until one of them, Fen'Harel (considered the trickster god), created a barrier that separated magic from the physical world and was also the real reason the elves lost their immortality.

. . . though all of this is according to Fen'Harel, so. Grain of salt.

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya (

goforthe_optics), junior
Mass Effect, just after the opening sequence of Mass Effect 2

I had to stop myself from including every GIF from Citadel. Do you know how hard that was?

Is a quarian, an alien species known for their mechanical proficiency, their extremely weak immune systems, their ability to scrounge up 200-year-old technology and make it work, and their role in inadvertently (sort of) unleashing an illegal species of artificial intelligences on the galaxy.

So yes, she's stuck in the suit and the mask basically all the time. Five minutes without it and she could end up with half a dozen different respiratory infections.

Apparently has various cybernetic implants, but they're never specified in canon.

Has three fingers/toes on each appendage, as quarians do.

Is in Fandom on her Pilgrimage, hoping to find something valuable to bring back to the quarians' Migrant Fleet because that cache of information on aforementioned species of AIs that Shepard found would have been perfect, but Shepard said it was classified information and wouldn't give her a copy.

Because before Fandom, she was jumping around the galaxy with Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy, trying to stop an apocalypse-level invasion by extragalactic synthetic life forms. Which is to say colossal mechanical cephalopods.

They didn't stop the invasion, exactly, but they at least forced the Reapers to reschedule.

Her physiology is based on dextro-amino acids, so she can't actually eat human food.

Is an excellent engineer and computer hacker, and also a pretty good shot with pistols and shotguns.

Could probably build you something spaceworthy out of pieces from the junkyard (hi, Rey) if she had enough element zero.

Knows a much older version of fewerexplosions.

Knew a younger version of not_a_whiner, but, well . . .

Comes from a version of her universe where (female) Shepard romanced Liara and Ashley Williams survived Virmire because I am a monster and now you know how all my playthroughs go. (Except I always let Tali have the geth data.)

Is generally pretty sociable and upbeat, loves dancing and soapy romance movies, and has a tendency to ramble when she's nervous.

And her more detailed, or at least more video-and-GIF-laden, infopost is here.

Euphrasie "Cosette" Fauchelevent (

wildandbrave), junior
Les Misérables, the Victor Hugo novel, AKA The Brick

Well, her hair almost looks brown here . . .

Is from Paris in 1829.

Has brown hair, which my meager Photoshop skills may or may not have managed to convey properly in her icons.

Is super, super nice, just wants to make everyone happy, but will not hesitate to let you know if she thinks you're being dumb.

Is honestly a talking animal sidekick short of being a Disney princess. Like . . . seriously.

Was going to a convent school run by an extremely ascetic, strict order before Fandom. Is 300% okay with not having to live that super-sheltered life any more.

Has no idea her adoptive father is an escaped convict, or that his name is really Jean Valjean; as far as she knows he's Ultime Fauchelevent.

Whom she adores to no end, but she still hasn't mentioned how she's dating doesnotkneel because she knows her father's emotional attachment to her is super dependent. (Honestly, it's canon, Jean Valjean basically died of grief after Cosette got married and moved out. It was a long, protracted process, but that's what happened.)

Had a rough, abusive childhood with the Thénardiers before Valjean rescued her from that. She's largely healed from that, and isn't bitter about it. Isn't likely to volunteer this information anyway.

Plays piano and has a pretty good singing voice.

Once she figures out that she's actually pretty hot, she will absolutely use that to her advantage.

Is still really a gigantic nerd.

Éponine Thénardier (

filleauloup), townie
Les Misérables, also The Brick

Probably the closest the 2012 musical movie comes to matching her book description.

Is from Paris in 1832, but from a different reality than Cosette.

Was spoiled by her parents until they lost everything, after which point her father had no compunctions about pimping out his daughters and turning them into petty criminals besides, or physically abusing them.

Which is why she sounds like someone who had a fairly lengthy habit of drinking a lot of hard liquor.

And also looks like someone who suffered years of malnourishment.

And has a few noticeably missing teeth.

Has a habit of humming or singing to herself frequently, and sometimes rambling out loud in a sort of half-stream of consciousness monologue.

Prefers to laugh and act like she doesn't care about things that really upset her, but sometimes it's pretty obvious.

Has a very deep-seated conviction that she's irredeemably evil, courtesy of the morality of her era.

Was badly wounded at the Rue de la Chanvrerie barricade in the June Rebellion of 1832, but unlike in canon, she survived and somehow managed to stumble into Fandom. (The June Rebellion is real. The Rue de la Chanvrerie barricade is not.)

Got shot after having a last-second change of heart about luring Marius to the barricade so he'd die rather than end up with Cosette. It's not nearly as love-triangle-y as the musical makes it out to be, though. It's a lot more messed-up dysfunctional.

Works at the post office.

Lives in the abandoned warehouse district, in a smaller warehouse that she's managed to turn into a pretty comfortable place by now, even if she did use blackmail to get the utilities working.

Has a pretty shaky grasp of morality, though she's getting better about it; she tries to be a decent person but doesn't always know how to go about doing that since she wasn't ever taught how.

Is on (mostly handwavey because pinging myself's not as much fun as it used to be NOT DIRTY) mostly cordial, if awkward, terms with Cosette these days, though she pretends not to be.

For both Cosette and Éponine: while they are both victims of abuse, I won't bring this up in threads unless I clear it with you first.

Tahiri Veila (

weetuskenraider), teacher
Star Wars Legends, mainly The New Jedi Order series

There was newer art but I still can't bring myself to accept she's not a kid any more.

Is a Jedi, and thus comes with the standard Force-powers package: telekinesis, etc.

Though her lightsaber in Fandom is yellow, not blue.

Is no longer canon and I don't want to talk about it, okay, THIS IS VERY HARD FOR ME.

Used to date Jaina's younger brother Anakin, and was pretty emotionally wrecked when he died.

Also dated Ben Skywalker (momslilassassin) while they were both students at FH. Which was kind of weird because Ben is about 15 years younger than her in her actual timeline.

. . . this Tahiri is not from the same timeline as any of them.

~~Has a lot of UST with~~ Is really close to Jaina, both solo_sword and the one from her own reality. (I will never shut up about the failed hot tub proposition when they were teenagers, or that one bit from Fate of the Jedi where you could TOTALLY INFER THEY SHOWERED TOGETHER.)

She's pretty much an honorary member of the Skywalker-Solo family.

Once went on an infiltration mission with Wraith Squadron, where an older version of gavegoodface discovered that he was really good at driving her up the wall and proceeded to do it for the rest of the mission.

Was orphaned at the age of 2 and raised by the Sand People of Tatooine, and therefore speaks fluent Tusken.

Is half Yuuzhan Vong thanks to fun with kidnap, torture, and brainwashing (literally -- Mezhaan Kwaad implanted Yuuzhan Vong braincells in her, as well as memories taken from a Yuuzhan Vong shaper). Which means she also speaks fluent Yuuzhan Vong, and may occasionally talk to you from that culture's perspective.

Was living on a sentient, hyperdrive-equipped planet called Zonama Sekot after graduating from FH, helping the Yuuzhan Vong get reacclimated to life in the GFFA and learning more about that part of her heritage.

Will once again be teaching a class with atreideslioness, despite the brainbreaky realization that she used to be a student in Ghanima's classes.

BECAUSE IT'S STILL LESS BRAINBREAKY THAN YOU TWO, giveherahand AND thatwaslucky.

Kennedy (

brat_inslayage), alum
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, post-canon

. . . look, I spent thirty seconds looking for a GIF here because I can't Google Image search for Kennedy without my head exploding.

Is ignoring comics canon, and still living in Brazil with Willow, attending the University of São Paulo, and training new Slayers.

Is also, with some assistance from icecoldfrost, in the process of starting up a company to hire some of the new Slayers who don't want to be Slayers, so they can support themselves and put their superpowers to use for something other than fighting demons. (This I did actually steal from the comics.)

Is still rich, headstrong, and kind of obnoxious sometimes, but a few years and a few apocalypses and being all responsible and stuff has mellowed her out a little bit.

Shanie (me)

Approximately a minute after the Mass Effect Andromeda trailer went up.

Is still in Los Angeles.

Is all about the gut-wrenching, make-you-sob canons (current obsessions include Fun Home and Hamilton, so yeah).

Is still neurotic about basically everything, including clicking on that unread email to see your reply to that last ping. (Seriously, it's sad.)

Is currently at level 59 in Fallout 4 but hasn't finished the main storyline yet.

May never get around to that because building settlements is weirdly addictive.

Especially if you install a mod that triples the settlement building limit mwahahaha.

CAN'T STOP LISTENING TO HAMILTON. (Maaaaaaaaaaan, the man is non-stop!)

Is still a nerd about languages, Les Misérables, soccer, Olympic recurve archery, and a few other things.

Is coming up on riiiiiiiight about a year of falling down that Bioware hole, THANKS A LOT, seeks_truth.

I may drop threads on you, which I promise is never anything personal; sometimes I get really busy and don't have enough time to come up with pings, and sometimes I just hit a wall and run out of mental bandwidth. Please know that I feel really bad about it when that happens. In fact, I am apologizing in advance for that right now.