bullets, books, and burdens
You can't run forever, so draw your sword and fight.
Character profile and RP hooks for Victoria Castellus on FFXIV's Balmung server.
OVERVIEW
PERSONAL DETAILS
NAME: Victoria Castellus
AGE: 22.
GENDER: Female.
RACE: Half-Garlean, half-Midlander hyur.
PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES
HAIR: Sandy blonde, cropped neatly short.
EYES: Grey-blue.
HEIGHT: 5'11".
BUILD: Slender, with slim hips, narrow shoulders, and a very respectable amount of lean, visibly defined muscle from riding and swordsmanship.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
She could almost be anyone.
Almost one of the many nameless, faceless, indistinguishable laborers clocking in and out of a busy manufactory. A smelter en route to the furnace, or one of the metalworkers headed to the foundry. Perhaps one of the welders, taking a quick break before once again donning the mask and gloves and picking up the torch. Maybe just the janitor sent to mop up a spill.Almost another anonymous tradesman in a slightly rumpled work shirt and steel-toe boots. It's a little bit strange not to roll one's sleeves up near the heat of the forges, true, and she might have buttoned two buttons too many, but everyone has their little idiosyncracies. The surprisingly well-made fingerless gloves could just be another. Just little things, really. Almost normal.Almost, but not quite.Some people blend into the background by preference. Others simply find themselves pushed out of the spotlight. Victoria strives for it in the same instinctive way a lizard changes color.Despite her best efforts, she does not succeed.Like an ermine with a half-molted coat, she's not wholly in sync with her surroundings. She's too tense, too vigilant. Too not-fully-hyuran with her hawkish features and lean frame. Too pale for someone who claims to have spent much time in Thanalan. Too polite when she apologizes in a distinctly accented voice.But the scarring stands out more than anything else.Victoria is spattered with patchy, mostly-faded burn scars. Patches on her forehead, patches on her cheeks, patches on her neck. Patches on her torso. Patches on her arms. A faint speckling over her hands and fingers.
Besides the burns, she sports more than a few healed slices and gashes; one scar carves through her right eyebrow, above the outer corner of her eye. A thinner scar runs across the bridge of her nose. Another nicks the right side of her upper lip. There are more scattered sparsely over the rest of her body.Whatever savaged her so badly has also taken off the top of her left ear.
PERSONALITY
Despite any effort she might make to conceal it, Victoria tends to come across as habitually, involuntarily tense. Wariness seems to be her default state; it's as though she's forever weighed down by dread at the idea of being caught by surprise. Her apparent inability to relax suggests that she treats every environment as a potentially hostile one.Actually conversing with her does nothing to dispel that impression. While she's polite and articulate (if more than a little awkward), she avoids offering her opinion, and every other word out of her mouth is either mercilessly self-deprecating or an apology. Victoria is so sorry so often that she practically radiates remorse for her mere existence. Conflict is usually something she concedes in the face of or avoids entirely.In defiance of her earnest attempts to render herself as palatable as possible, she has an unfortunate tendency to let her mouth get ahead of her brain. It shows itself in hasty clarifications of whatever she's said, in questions that pop out before she has the chance to coat them in meek courtesy, and most amusingly in occasional flashes of deadpan wit.There's a formidable intellect there, lurking just beneath the surface. When she musters the nerve to speak up, Victoria is well-spoken and clearly educated. Her general awkwardness and reluctance to assert herself can't mask or undermine that. Neither can the way she quickly reins herself back in whenever she expresses enthusiasm or passion for anything.Maybe there's a spine there, too.After all, she can only be pushed so far; when it really matters, she's capable of standing her ground. There's steel in her, deep down. It just doesn't show itself until it has to. Combat brings that out in her clearly enough; it shows in the discipline and cool-headed efficiency she displays under fire. She'll bend, and if needs be she'll bend far.
But she won't break.Still, those moments are the exception, rather than the norm. Outside of a crisis, she's ultimately ill at ease and overly vigilant. If she can't stay armed or work with her back against cover, she struggles (and inevitably fails) to hide intense and visible discomfort. She'll avoid certain things, deflect certain questions, and become agitated or lash out if pressed hard enough in the right places.Or at least, that was the case before Anima bayed its coming and bade its unknowing worshipers rise, and before the sky began to burn.In Garlemald, she is much less keen on hiding. There's something burning in her, guttered to embers too long in the back of her brain and finally flaring up. Whether on foot or in the saddle, she's finally using the voice and presence that she was so long denied - and that she so long denied herself.But there's a bitterness there too, under the determination.Perhaps she's aware that she's too Garlean for those outside the former Empire, and not Garlean enough for those within.
PUBLIC HOOKS
Victoria is (technically) currently employed as the assistant supervisor of the Bellworks Manufacturing Company's research and development department. She spends a fair amount of her day ducking in and out of various workshops in order to coordinate engineers and craftsmen, handle logistical problems, and assist in setting up whatever stress tests or experiments are on the docket. Despite her ostensible authority, she's not the type to barricade herself in the office and issue decrees; it's just not in her nature. You're more likely to find her acting as an extra set of hands in any way she's able to, from building scaffolding to welding the joints on pipework.
Another, unwritten responsibility: ensuring that her boss manages to put things in writing, consume more than just coffee, and actually show up to meetings.
Everyone has their passions. More specifically, everyone has that one passion - the one they're deeply invested in but dare not get too openly excited about for fear of looking weird. Victoria's happens to be theatre. Scan the audience in any production in Limsa or Ul'dah and there's a good chance she'll be there. Conventional drama? She'll be there, keeping up with the plot and appraising the set design, lighting, and practical effects like an expert. Opera? She'll be there too, doing the same, but more often than not also dabbing at her eyes during the particularly emotional bits. It's just deeply affecting! She's not that caught up in it! (She's totally that caught up in it.)
One of Victoria's usual haunts is the firing range at work. If it's inaccessible for whatever reason, she has a tendency to pop up at any that happen to be nearby, or failing that, anywhere she can safely do target practice. Regardless of the specific location, she shows up regularly and frequently, and clearly knows her way around firearms if engaged in conversation.
In Thanalan, Victoria avoided chocobos as a method of transportation; eventually she acquired a massive black warhorse, and now for the most part relies on him to get around. An unusual choice of mount, to be sure, but perhaps better suited for her homeland. Or perhaps there's a madness to her methods, in a way, especially considering she's taken to preferring the gunblade over the rifle.
Oddly, she doesn't seem to show a great deal of energy or enthusiasm when it comes to warfare. She's calm about it. Methodical. Practiced.
Calm, methodical, practiced, and disturbingly accurate.Unless, of course, by some chance things become personal.
Her appetite for the written word might best be described as voracious; if left unoccupied, she's entirely capable of plowing through multiple books per day. Recent popular novels? Particularly interesting technical journals? Dusty volumes on the Autumn War and Ala Mhigan history? Critical analyses of banned Ishgardian literature? The lurid, trashy, utterly tasteless crime thrillers her friend leaves lying around? Devoured indiscriminately, all of them.
As a consequence, she's reasonably well-read and generally up-to-date on literary trends and recent developments in various sciences. In terms of places she lurks in most often, the firing range is a distant second to any available library (and occasionally interesting academic lectures).
More than a little of her reading material delves into theoretical arcane geometry and experiments in the field of aetheric conductivity.
In the rare event that Victoria winds up wearing anything sleeveless, there's a reasonably-sized tattoo on her left shoulder: a rearing pegasus, gold on a red shield, marked with 'XII III' and the words 'Altum et Procul.'
MORE PRIVATE HOOKS
While Victoria makes a valiant effort to blend in, she doesn't quite entirely succeed. As an adult, she's ended up taking strongly after her father, who fits the stereotypical image of the tall, hawkish pureblood Garlean to a T. Their shared physical traits are ithere if you're looking for them.
Anyone stationed at Castrum Oriens a few years ago may or may not recall one shy, painfully awkward legionary in particular.
Anyone who happened to be living in the Fringes at the same time may or may not be able to say the same.
In that vein, Ala Mhigans present during the last few years of the Garlean occupation may find the tattoo on Victoria's shoulder identical to a unit patch on the uniforms of a fair few legionaries.
Those familiar with Imperial military structure and history may recognize the insignia as that of the XIIth Legion's IIIrd Airborne Cohort, complete with said cohort's motto: 'Altum et Procul,' or in the common tongue, 'High and Away.'
Surviving Garleans struggling to survive in the ruins of the Empire may or may not be familiar with someone astride a dark horse, efficiently butchering blasphemies or delivering what supplies there are to spare; but nowadays there are few resources left to scavenge, and more than enough threats to hunt down.
UNLIKELY HOOK
(We would definitely have to discuss first.)
(I really wish carrd would just let me put things under spoiler tags.)
MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE EMPIRE:
Her father is something of a laughingstock in certain Imperial social circles. He's an easy target, considering he managed to ruin his marriage, his standing in polite society, and his promising military career with a torrid affair and accidental bastard.
With a Bozjan-born hyur.
Whoops.
His side of the family remains both indignant and hurt by how he cut contact out of shame.
So does his ex.
(To be fair, he is a flighty, sensitive idiot and she is bitter and cynical and assumed she'd be best left out of the equation.)
Despite his myriad fuckups, Victoria loves her father very much.
OOC INFO
GENERAL RP STUFF:
IC=/=OOC. I am not my character, and my character is not me.
Real life > RP.
21+ only.
Not into ERP. No judgment if you are, it's just not my thing.
Concrete, established lore? Yes. Grey areas where I can extrapolate headcanon? Also yes. Outright breaking it? Eh, no thanks.
For things like established past character relationships, we'd really have to talk it over first. That's not really something I'd plunge into with someone I don't know well.
While I play a Garlean (and one with extremely mixed feelings about Garlemald), I'm not someone who's going to argue OOC that the Empire invading is a Good Thing, Actually. You play a character who does? Awesome! I love a good IC conflict and the RP that can stem from itt.
I can't believe I have to add a disclaimer for that, but I've had people be weird about it so here we are.
This carrd was supposed to be a quick tl;dr, but it kind of got away from me. It's also in desperate need of updating since it's been like two years and we've had more lore.
ABOUT ME:
32/F/probably my couch.
Timezone: EST. I'm usually up pretty late, though.
I have the memory of a goldfish, so if we were going to do stuff and I flaked, odds are it's because I straight-up forgot. Feel free to ping/remind me.
You can reach me ingame on Victoria Castellus (Balmung).
Discord available upon request.
Background art by noro8 @ DeviantArt.