wrote you, told you.

[reidme]

The Rundown

MUSE NAME: Reid, Alex(andra)
GROUP/SOLO: Rania
MUSE JOURNAL: reidme
MUSE IM: # fundamental reiding
MUSE TWITTER: thisgoodshh

AGE: March 5th, 1989; 27
RESIDENT OR IMMIGRANT: Immigrant
OCCUPATION: Apprentice at Tattoo Temple

RACE: Demigod
PARENT: Father; Thoth; Egypt
ABILITY: Ink manipulation (major), paper manipulation (minor).

In Detail

HISTORY

Alex was born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas- not a glamorous place to say the least. It was nice enough, though. Her mother taught at the local middle school, and her father worked for the newspaper as an underwriter. She had a lot of time alone at home, which she spent drawing, reading, and sometimes, if she thought about it hard enough she swore she could make her drawings move on the page. She'd been working on a drawing of Link, and her mother caught her making his hair shift as though it was being moved by the wind. She was only seven years old, but the world as she knew it came crashing down around her.

Her mother had spent a year after college in Egypt, to learn about the culture and the history, when she'd met a scholar. They'd had a whirlwind romance until her mother had needed to return stateside, and two months later, she found out she was pregnant. She confided the truth in the man she'd just started dating, and he decided to stay by her side and help raise her child. Your real father was... not of this world, her mother said. His true name was Thoth. Alex struggled to pronounce it a few times, but the more her mother told her, the more questions she asked, the more things made sense. Like the encouraging whispers she sometimes heard when she was studying and home alone, the presence of an American white ibis now and then on her way to and from school. But you must keep your power hidden. Practice it only in your room.

Alex did as her mother asked, didn't question it when self-defense classes began just a few months later. She studied hard but practiced her power every day as well- tested her limits and discovered a related power just prior to starting middle school. She could control paper with her mind- sort of. She could tell it was weaker than her other ability, but it was still something to keep hidden, even if she really did think that the bullies at school needed to be taught a lesson, she could hear her father's whisper when the moon shone in through her bedroom window. It will all work out in the end. Thoth had never led her astray.

She was overjoyed when, on a field trip to Kansas City, her class visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She'd never had the chance to see any Egyptian artifacts with her own eyes, before, and she spent as much time as she could skimming over the hieroglyphics Thoth had helped her learn, her eyes alight. She felt closer to him then than she ever had before. She would continue her research into ancient Egypt on her own time, though some of her time was still being devoted to video games. Some of it, especially as puberty began, was spent turning boys down. She wasn't interested in what they had to offer- she knew even then that what attracted her to someone was a fierce intellect, not looks or charm. She dated two people throughout her time in high school, a guy who was on the debate team, and a girl who possessed a similar mindset to her own. She told neither one about her true lineage nor her abilities, heeded her mother's warning from her youth. Which worked out for the best, because they both broke her heart regardless.

When the time came to pick a college from all the ones that had sent acceptance letters her way, she decided on Queens College in New York, with a major in Egyptology and a minor in fine art. Being so far away from her family was jarring, even if Thoth still communicated with her when he could. She threw herself into her studies, and while she made friends here or there, she wasn't concerned with relationships. Time flew by, and she got almost used to spending holidays alone in the dorm building, to calling her parents on the weekends to tell them what she'd learned that week. Before she knew it, she was graduating, but she breathed a sigh of relief when she wasn't named valedictorian. What would she even say in a speech to people she hardly knew?

With college over, she returned to Lawrence, only... it didn't feel quite the same. Something was... off. She trawled to the depths of the internet for information for others like her, learned that the nearest 'node' was dying out. I can't stay, Ma, she explained tearfully, clutching her mother's hands. I'm sorry.

Don't be sorry. Go. Be great.

She moved out to San Francisco, where the node seemed more stable, and she started to settle in, to put down roots. She got a job at a bar, and saved up for her first tattoo- Thoth's symbol, on the nape of her neck. She hit it off with the employees there, ended up taking on a second job as desk clerk- answered calls, made appointments, helped set clients up with the right artist for what they had in mind. This, she thought, was something she could picture herself doing for the rest of her life. Getting into the apprentice program was difficult- her art needed to be at the right level. So she took classes and spent most of her free time drawing, her practice with her abilities falling to the side for the first time since she was young.

She didn't pay this much mind until she couldn't hear Thoth's whispers on the moonlight any more, and she began to feel weaker and weaker. She hadn't realized, at first, what was going on- she'd felt the symptoms all at once when getting back to her hometown. A search of the same forums as before led her to the conclusion that the nearest node to her new home was fading, too. Many pointed to Hong Kong as the place to be, given the changes that were being made to the immigration policy. Alex did her research before submitting a portfolio to a number of tattoo parlors in Hong Kong, and while she waited to hear back, she worked to save up money for that kind of move, started to study Cantonese as well.

Finally, she heard back from Tattoo Temple- she'd been accepted, but the apprenticeship wouldn't begin until the next summer. She cringed a bit but told them she'd be there, called her mother to tell her the news. You can't get there sooner? her mother asked.

Ma, we're not made of money.

When her mother sighed and said she was right, she felt a bit bad, but there was nothing to do about it, really. She felt weak, unlike herself, but she devoted herself to
her work and furthering her artist abilities through free weekly life drawing classes at the college campus close to her apartment, and setting up in parks or cafes to work.

Finally, the time came for Alex's move, and her parents drove all the way out to help her get to the airport- it might just be the last time she saw them for a very long while. She hugged her dad, hugged her mother more fiercely. I'll make you proud, Ma. Just you wait. With as many of her belongings packed as would fit into two suitcases, a duffel bag, and a backpack she'd had since high school, she headed into the airport.

The culture shock she'd experienced in New York City had nothing on her first taste of Hong Kong. She was nearly mugged twice, but she got to the apartment someone on the forum had helped her rent out, in a building called Palatial Crest. According to Google Maps, it was relatively close to where she'd be apprenticing, but just being somewhere with a node had her energized. She turned on her favorite music and got to unpacking and moving the few pieces of furniture around, jet-lag be damned.

She settled in quickly while doing her best not to step on anyone's toes in the cultural sense, though she knew she stuck out like a sore thumb, even without the 'aura' or whatever that demigods gave off. She met the crew at Tattoo Temple and hit it off with them right away, and they were the closest friends she'd had in a long time. They help her with her grasp of the language, the lay of the land, the local customs, and they let her dram them around doing some of the utterly touristy things.

Going on her fifth month in Hong Kong, she's starting to feel like her old self. She apprentices at the tattoo shop during the day, and either goes home to play video games (or to practice her abilities) or out to play the part of clueless tourist. Life is good, which is part of what she says in every weekend Skype call home.


PERSONALITY

Alex is- first and foremost- fiercely intelligent, though it's often something she keeps close to her chest, preferring to play her hand differently depending on the situation she's in. She was raised to believe in equality for everyone, for all different types of supernatural beings, and while it's sometimes hard to maintain that outlook in the face of what vampires have to do to survive, for instance, she knows it's also something that Thoth approves of. He was the scribe of the gods, a record keeper, and records needed to be truthful and just.

To most, she comes off as easy-going and on the nerdy side, while still taking some pride in her appearance- she knows the assumptions people make of nerds, and she fights against that every single time she plays a game online and pipes up in voice chat. She's somewhat known in PvP games for hunting down those who have wrongly player-killed a newbie and making their lives hell, just for them to learn their lesson. She also oft plays the role of mediator or peacekeeper with those she knows online, using her experiences dealing with racism and sexism in her personal life to try and appeal to both sides. She's slow to anger, and if her feelings do boil over, she pours them into her art or plays a video game rather than trying to take them out on anyone.

Left to her own devices, she can be prone to fits of melancholy, though she does her best to shake out of it with some upbeat music and working either on her art or her abilities. She hasn't kept up on her self-defense classes, and could likely do with a sparring partner, but she knows enough to shake off someone trying to mug her.



ABILITY

Ink manipulation; major;
Alex was young when she first discovered that she could shift ink around, and she spent a lot of time entertaining herself by making her doodles move. She can only control ink she's in direct contact with, which is why her tattoos mean so much to her, though they fade from her skin when in use. On the back of her neck, she has the symbol of Thoth, her very first, but not one that lends her much power. On the underside of each forearm she has a dagger, unsheathed, each flanked by hieroglyphics that roughly spell out the names of her parents. She can call these daggers to hand; the ink slithers up her skin and into her grasp, solid but only as sharp for as long as she can maintain focus on the thought. On her left bicep, her newest tattoo is that of an ibis. Any of her tattoos made into a three-dimensional object or thing will last for two hours at maximum, at which point the ink seeps back into her skin, looking usually as though it's staining her fingers, and she has to mentally move it back where it belongs. She also can only have two of them in a tangible form at a time. Future tattoos will require forethought on her part, while designing them, on what she wants them to be able to accomplish, but also practice with the tattoo in question, and the ability with that one will be markedly more weak than those of her daggers. Should she draw something and attempt to animate it, the connection is nowhere near as strong- the objects are smaller, more fickle, and can only last fifteen minutes at most.

Paper manipulation; minor;
Alex's abilities as far as paper manipulation go are much weaker than that of her skill with ink. She can fold origami with a thought of the final shape and tapping a finger on the page, but she normally doesn't bother with something so trivial. Her main application of this power is to let loose pages of her sketchbook or notebook and let them encase her arm as a form of small shield, the strength of it limited to her will, but it has held against her own daggers, and could likely protect her from a larger blade with enough source material to reinforce it without becoming too bulky. Other than that, she can make some amazing paper airplanes.