Dillon Cole || Scorpion Shard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
orderfromchaos) wrote2013-03-04 09:11 pm
orderfromchaos) wrote2013-03-04 09:11 pm
Dillon Cole Your Powers Are Too Complicated
Dillon Cole is from an obscure YA series, Star Shards by Neal Shusterman, which follows the basic plot of 'A bunch of teenagers have superpowers, shenanigans ensue'. In this case, however, all of the shards have seriously vast powers than they can't entirely control. They're basically gods, and Dillon's powers are the strongest and most fundamental, in terms of how they interact with the universe. So here's a great big TLDR perms post where I try to explain everything he can do.
What he is:
If your character has any ability to see or sense souls/true nature/energy or anything of that sort, Dillon is, literally, (most of) a reincarnated star several times the size of Earth's sun. He has an incredible amount of power crushed into his little human form. He's not quite the entire star, however: five smaller pieces of his soul splintered away when the star went nova, and became the souls of other people. Anybody with a reason to is free to pick up on any/all of this. If your character can see his power in a visual way, it reads a bright, burning green.
What he can see:
Canonically, Dillon can learn a great deal about a person just by observing them. It's not a psychic power - he can simply read the rhythm of a person's breath, the dips in their voice, a thousand minute and ordinary details, and his ability can use that to effortlessly deduce everything from the precise nature of childhood trauma to what sort of car someone drives. It doesn't happen all at once, and more detailed/deeply buried things are only apparent if he is actually paying attention/trying to figure them out, but over the course of an ordinary conversation he could pick up quite a lot. Because this is based on his external senses, it can work over the network for video posts, and to a lesser extent for voice posts. Limiting his range of vision will mostly cut him off from this ability. This ability is not perfect - sometimes he will make a close but incorrect guess/deduction/miss a vital detail. It's also not instantaneous; he generally learns more over time, as he observes more reactions. It's curtailed somewhat on the barge, such that he mostly has to be focusing on deliberately using it to pick up more than basic surface things.
In addition to the past, he can also see the pattern of future possibilities surrounding a person, but only when he's specifically looking for it/concentrating on it, but he doesn't do very often in canon and will almost never do it on the barge, because 1) obviously we don't know what will happen, and 2) the barge itself is immune to his senses and so are all events, which means he can't really see farther than two weeks anyway.
Dillon is not especially tactful, but he's pretty good at keeping things he sees between himself and the person in question, so he won't spread characters' secrets around the barge, but he does have a habit of poking people about them. He's in control now of how deeply he looks at a person, and isn't constantly scouring people - he had way too much of that when he couldn't control it, and it was both heartbreaking and exhausting - but he still has a supernaturally insightful intuition for reactions/habits/body language.
What he CAN'T see:
Anyone who is literally soulless shows up blank for him. The pattern just doesn't cohere for him without that spark there. He can't read his own future pattern, and sometimes he can be very blind to the patterns closely surrounding him. Dillon also couldn't read anything from the Vectors, creatures of pure spirit from another dimension who took human hosts. If your character has powers that should obscure them, or is something altogether different from human, then Dillon probably won't get much out of them. If they're different but similar - humanoid aliens, people with powers that make them more than human but were raised on earth with human culture, humans from a culture/planet he's totally unfamiliar with, etc - then he can probably get some information, but less and with more effort than normal, and he may not understand the context of what he perceives.
What he does when he doesn't carefully control it:
Dillon reverses entropy, the fundamental decay of the universe, the law that says that things become more chaotic unless energy is added. Around him, that's not true anymore. Under his influence, random things will produce very ordered results. Everything will become neat and whole, returning to an earlier, pre-deterioration state, minus any pieces that are missing. (Peeling paint, for example, will seem completely fresh - except for the chips of it that are gone, that he can't replace.) People feel rejuvenated, refreshed, full of energy, because for a short time the inexorable process of aging is suspended. Messy things will be neat, worn or wrinkled clothes will become new and pressed. Wounds heal a little more quickly, even if he isn't deliberately healing them.
Now that Dillon has control of his powers, he will generally warn people before doing this.
What he can do if he actually puts effort in:
- All the stuff in the previous section? If he concentrates, he can do a lot more of it, a lot faster. He can also bring back the dead and make rivers flow uphill.
- He can manipulate systems to get very ordered results, no matter how improbable. For example, in a game of pool, he can sink all the colored or striped balls in order, followed by the 8-ball, with a single break shot.
- Conversely, he can find fault lines in patterns and destroy the order in a system, setting off elaborate, expanding series of consequences with very simple nudges. He shatters the Hoover Dam to rubble with a pebble tap, at just the right place and rhythm.
- He can do these things to people and their lives/patterns/future systems. Once, he makes one comment to another boy, that triggers him to a short, brutal life of alcoholism and crime, when he otherwise would have gone on to be a successful basketball player. Obviously, it doesn't have to be this huge or ominous. If you want to explore a character's potential but don't know how to make it happen, Dillon is a great Deus Ex Machina for setting off unlikely chains of events.
- He can do this to the pattern of a person's mind as well. With a sentence or two, he can bring a person sharp clarity or deep peace, "as if everything wrong in your life had suddenly fallen into place." Or he can send someone completely off the deep end, mind shattered, marked with one pupil swollen wide and one contracted to a pinprick. This is reversible, but not easily.
I'd never do any of this stuff without getting permission in the specific thread/circumstances, and he's pretty unlikely to do it on the ship, but it's here for the sake of completeness.
If you have ANY questions about how the heck Dillon's powers work, or their limits, or whatever, please ask me! You can leave a comment here, or hit me up on AIM as vibishantheshiny, or on plurk as![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
shipoftheseus.
ACTUAL PERMISSIONS TIME
What he is:
If your character has any ability to see or sense souls/true nature/energy or anything of that sort, Dillon is, literally, (most of) a reincarnated star several times the size of Earth's sun. He has an incredible amount of power crushed into his little human form. He's not quite the entire star, however: five smaller pieces of his soul splintered away when the star went nova, and became the souls of other people. Anybody with a reason to is free to pick up on any/all of this. If your character can see his power in a visual way, it reads a bright, burning green.
What he can see:
Canonically, Dillon can learn a great deal about a person just by observing them. It's not a psychic power - he can simply read the rhythm of a person's breath, the dips in their voice, a thousand minute and ordinary details, and his ability can use that to effortlessly deduce everything from the precise nature of childhood trauma to what sort of car someone drives. It doesn't happen all at once, and more detailed/deeply buried things are only apparent if he is actually paying attention/trying to figure them out, but over the course of an ordinary conversation he could pick up quite a lot. Because this is based on his external senses, it can work over the network for video posts, and to a lesser extent for voice posts. Limiting his range of vision will mostly cut him off from this ability. This ability is not perfect - sometimes he will make a close but incorrect guess/deduction/miss a vital detail. It's also not instantaneous; he generally learns more over time, as he observes more reactions. It's curtailed somewhat on the barge, such that he mostly has to be focusing on deliberately using it to pick up more than basic surface things.
In addition to the past, he can also see the pattern of future possibilities surrounding a person, but only when he's specifically looking for it/concentrating on it, but he doesn't do very often in canon and will almost never do it on the barge, because 1) obviously we don't know what will happen, and 2) the barge itself is immune to his senses and so are all events, which means he can't really see farther than two weeks anyway.
Dillon is not especially tactful, but he's pretty good at keeping things he sees between himself and the person in question, so he won't spread characters' secrets around the barge, but he does have a habit of poking people about them. He's in control now of how deeply he looks at a person, and isn't constantly scouring people - he had way too much of that when he couldn't control it, and it was both heartbreaking and exhausting - but he still has a supernaturally insightful intuition for reactions/habits/body language.
What he CAN'T see:
Anyone who is literally soulless shows up blank for him. The pattern just doesn't cohere for him without that spark there. He can't read his own future pattern, and sometimes he can be very blind to the patterns closely surrounding him. Dillon also couldn't read anything from the Vectors, creatures of pure spirit from another dimension who took human hosts. If your character has powers that should obscure them, or is something altogether different from human, then Dillon probably won't get much out of them. If they're different but similar - humanoid aliens, people with powers that make them more than human but were raised on earth with human culture, humans from a culture/planet he's totally unfamiliar with, etc - then he can probably get some information, but less and with more effort than normal, and he may not understand the context of what he perceives.
What he does when he doesn't carefully control it:
Dillon reverses entropy, the fundamental decay of the universe, the law that says that things become more chaotic unless energy is added. Around him, that's not true anymore. Under his influence, random things will produce very ordered results. Everything will become neat and whole, returning to an earlier, pre-deterioration state, minus any pieces that are missing. (Peeling paint, for example, will seem completely fresh - except for the chips of it that are gone, that he can't replace.) People feel rejuvenated, refreshed, full of energy, because for a short time the inexorable process of aging is suspended. Messy things will be neat, worn or wrinkled clothes will become new and pressed. Wounds heal a little more quickly, even if he isn't deliberately healing them.
Now that Dillon has control of his powers, he will generally warn people before doing this.
What he can do if he actually puts effort in:
- All the stuff in the previous section? If he concentrates, he can do a lot more of it, a lot faster. He can also bring back the dead and make rivers flow uphill.
- He can manipulate systems to get very ordered results, no matter how improbable. For example, in a game of pool, he can sink all the colored or striped balls in order, followed by the 8-ball, with a single break shot.
- Conversely, he can find fault lines in patterns and destroy the order in a system, setting off elaborate, expanding series of consequences with very simple nudges. He shatters the Hoover Dam to rubble with a pebble tap, at just the right place and rhythm.
- He can do these things to people and their lives/patterns/future systems. Once, he makes one comment to another boy, that triggers him to a short, brutal life of alcoholism and crime, when he otherwise would have gone on to be a successful basketball player. Obviously, it doesn't have to be this huge or ominous. If you want to explore a character's potential but don't know how to make it happen, Dillon is a great Deus Ex Machina for setting off unlikely chains of events.
- He can do this to the pattern of a person's mind as well. With a sentence or two, he can bring a person sharp clarity or deep peace, "as if everything wrong in your life had suddenly fallen into place." Or he can send someone completely off the deep end, mind shattered, marked with one pupil swollen wide and one contracted to a pinprick. This is reversible, but not easily.
I'd never do any of this stuff without getting permission in the specific thread/circumstances, and he's pretty unlikely to do it on the ship, but it's here for the sake of completeness.
If you have ANY questions about how the heck Dillon's powers work, or their limits, or whatever, please ask me! You can leave a comment here, or hit me up on AIM as vibishantheshiny, or on plurk as
ACTUAL PERMISSIONS TIME
no subject
Race: Ahahaha. Mutant, initially, and now - bonded with a primal force of the universe.
World Information: Earth, with extra weird shit.
How much can he know about your character? Jean was human+ for most of her life, so I think he could still get a lot out of observing her.
What kind of effects would your character feel from his ordering/neatening/rejuvenating presence? Now THIS is an interesting question, because the Phoenix Force is an embodiment of life, of passion, which can get very chaotic and messy. There might be - some sort of friction, some dissonance?
no subject
Race: Human
World Information: Normal everyday Earth; early 2010s
How much can he know about your character? Anything you want him to pick up is fine with me!
What kind of effects would your character feel from his ordering/neatening/rejuvenating presence? Her mind and emotions are very disordered, so it sounds like being around him might help her sort this out a bit! Not completely or perfectly, but just a little more easily than she would normally.
no subject
Username:
Basics Human with a helping of benign weather and natural disasters.
Do you think Dillon's energy correlates closely enough with magic that someone who sees magic would notice it? I think that considering Tris's powerset, she might have a better chance at either seeing or sensing star energy than most other sorts of non-magical power.
Information Most of what's in her app is fair game. OOC communication and heads ups are A+. I'll let you know if anything ever comes up that doesn't work for me.
World Information: A world called Earth, with similar linguistics, flora, fauna, etc. But the geography doesn't match, and there's also magic. No advanced technology, though magic can manage some pretty interesting things.
no subject
also one of his shard bond....people is also a weather worker so he'll just be like YOU ARE NOT MICHAEL BUT /vague affection
no subject
...some of the characters are weirder than others
Basics: sorcerer, which were probably created by evil gods as part of twisted experiments in creating host bodies/just (also) for laughs but that was a long time ago now and the only thing for sure is that using magic stops/slows the aging process in correlation to how much and how long you use it... which might interact with Dillon's abilities.
Information: Sure, though a lot of things a pretty deeply buried and his past does go back several centuries.
World Information: modern Earth + magic and many, many monsters.
Character name and Username: Hope Summers | athingwithfeathers
Basics: mutant, with some sort of connection to a cosmic power.
Information: I'm fine with anything he might pick up; she sort of comes from a very different culture so there's that.
World Information: Earth with mutants and superheroes and general weirdness; she also comes from, like, five different post-Apocalyptic futures
Character name and Username: Stan Pines | guiltocent
Basics: Human
Information: I'm okay with Dillon sensing stuff about him.
World Information: Earth (cartoon version), pretty normal except for the magic and weird creatures.
Character name and Username: Horseriver | hollow_king
Basics: Okay. So. On the one hand, he's human in that he's in a human body. On the other hand, he the conglomerated personalities, memories, and souls of the last hallow king and all his heirs for sixteen generations and the great spirit animal (a horse) that makes him a shaman (though that bit is suppressed by the Admiral). He's sort of the opposite of soulless.
Information: I'm totally okay with Dillon sensing things but I'm not sure how his read would be, considering that he has sixteen generations/four hundred years worth of pasts and the conglomerated personalities mean that he can switch from being one sort of person to another, though generally subtlety, and I have no clue what that would be like for Dillon to deal with.
World Information: The world is Earth like, in terms of nature and people, but Gods are actually a thing and there's magic. He's from sort of fantasy early medieval Germany/Poland.
Character name and Username: Nico | oddswerebad
Basics: Human with special powers. He's classified as a Green which basically means that he has enhanced intelligence. They seem to fall easily into a sort of group think with other Greens but it's unclear if that's actually a thing. The flow of electricity in his mind is much more extreme than a normal human and he can also control it.
Information: I'm okay with Dillon picking up anything.
World Information: Earth; he's from a USA that is working on being a full on dystopia, sometime not that far in the future after a sickness killed most of the kids and gave the ones who survived special powers (this only happened in the US, which has been basically cut off from the rest of the world since then).
no subject
Username:
Basics: creature of pure spirit from another dimension that takes human hosts. i'm so excited for this CR.
Information: i mean
World Information: Good question. Bill's originally from what was probably a dimension of physical beings, and currently from a "nightmare realm" in the primordial chaos between material dimensions. He's been projecting himself into the dreams and visions of humans on (cartoon) Earth for millennia, manipulating them and thereby shaping history towards his eventual goals. then a few days before his canon point he escaped to the physical world and generally corroded the fabric of the multiverse just by partying too hardy. it was great.
no subject
what are you, buddy, what are you up to, what do you eat
Re: ...some of the characters are weirder than others
Horseriver is going to give him such a headache, lmao. How did you even do that???? He will probably just ask this because what is tact. IDK if he could be helpful staving off madness or if he'd only manage to strengthen the dissolved component minds and make the friction between them worse. Could be a terrible experiment???
NICO. AHHH. Dillon is gonna have. Too many feelings.
no subject
C̤̖̥͈̙ͥ̄ͬͩ̒I͍͓͉͌̀̒ͧͫ͌V̹͔͉̙͇͍͈I̙̠͔͍͍̙͙L̲̪̮̮ͯ͂İ̲̖̗͙ͥ͋ͣͯ͆Ż̲̬͙̯̙ͧͨ̇̋A͔̙̲̬̖͍̮ͭ̅̽ͤT̻̘ͤͣ͛̊Ḯ͙̝̉̔O͇ͮ̽N͓̲͇̘̱̼̼̾̑S̟̮̝̓̎.̖̥̬͇̬̱́͒̉͒͗̅NORMAL BAGELS, LIKE A PERSON.
Re: ...some of the characters are weirder than others
Horseriver is so willing to answer because he enjoys sharing how much he hates everything at all times and that's one of the star factors. It would be a great terrible experiment because strengthening the individual souls would make things so much worse but also potentially interesting (the reason he mostly eats them is because if there isn't 'one' that's mostly in charge he'd be even more insane).
Children with powers and terrible lives.
no subject
Username: notrosecolored
Basics He's a mutant. He absorbs 'ambient energy' and cosmic radiation, and turns them into concussive force beams that shoot out his eyes.
Information Go forth and be merry. If you need more info, ask.
World Information: Earth where mutants came reallyclose to being exterminated (low point: 186 mutants left) and lots of dead kids and awful.
Character name Kol miakelson
Username:Original_brat
Basics Kinda dead vampire. Has a soul, though.
Information Nope, feel free to use anything interesting.
World Information: Earth that is, aside from the witches, werewloves, and vampires (which are not well known in general) it's basically 21st century real world.
no subject
Username:
Basics Born human, later became what amounts to a vampire/human hybrid thanks to science. Sanctuary vampires are not undead, however - they're their own species (sanguine vampiris), with basically none of the 'traditional' vampiric weaknesses
Information Sure! He was a fairly-well-known scientific figure before faking his own death, and he's still human enough to not be entirely alien besides.
World Information: Earth, but monsters/supernatural creatures of various sorts/people with unusual abilities exist.
Character name Andred
Username:
Basics Time Lord! Currently on his second regeneration, if Dillon would be able to pick up on that.
Information I'm okay with it, but also Andred is a kind of a hot mess, given that he. sort of ended up pretending to be someone else before his own personality settled after regeneration. He's been working on getting himself straightened out on the Barge, but it's slow going
World Information: Gallifrey! Which I can ramble about if necessary, but basically alien planet that is as close as possible to the center of its galaxy and might also have a temporally-frozen black hole in its core? Because this is A Great Idea.
no subject
OMG GUYS WHAT EVEN IS YOUR PLANET O_O
no subject
no subject
no subject
Username:
Basics Human, but he can see the souls of the dead. Psychic magnetism may be affected by him (as discussed on Odd's permission post).
Information I'm okay with Dillon picking up on it all. Anything in the app is fair game, and anything given in inner monologue within reason.
World Information: Comes from Earth. Around 2013. Angels, demons and ghost etc. are a thing on his Earth.
no subject
Username:
Basics Mutant, a genetic twin of the original Wolverine. Her soul is her own and not a copy; it suffers no degradation on account of being a clone.
Information By all means, pick up on everything! There's a LOT of past trauma in there, and while she's pretty far in her road to recovery/healing, she's still working through a lot of it. Feel free to read her moves while fighting as well.
World Information: Earth, 2016 + mutants and heroes and villains, oh my!
no subject
Username:
Basics Nope. Human here.
Information YOU BET I AM. Pick up anything you want about Ford Pines. Go through his app. Read Journal 3. All of that is yours. I love playing with infomod powers, and I'm really glad these won't be affected by the metal plate in his head, meant to block out external entities.
World Information: It's Earth, but weird Earth where cryptids are real, aliens are real, magic is real, government conspiracies are real, and the world may or may not be run by lizard people but Ronald Reagan was definitely mind-controlled by parties unknown. He's also passed through a ton of different dimensions, some of them almost normal, others truly bizarre and nonsensical.