Evelynn Azaertyse
Evelynn sat in her office at Crux Dynamico, staring at the computer screen in front of her as she worked on the latest project for the company. She was a Cybernetic Linguist, the Eivrallan equivalent of a software and robotics engineer, known for her ability to tackle even the most impossible tasks. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she worked, but she couldn't help fidgeting with her hair, a nervous habit she had developed over the years. She was a perfectionist and couldn't stand the thought of making a mistake. She had been working on this project for weeks and was determined to get it right.
Suddenly, her screen flickered and went black. Evelynn's heart skipped a beat and she quickly typed in a series of commands, trying to figure out what had happened. But it was no use — the system was down.
Evelynn sighed in frustration, feeling the familiar pang of insecurity that always accompanied a setback. She got up from her desk and began pacing the room, trying to calm herself down. She couldn't afford to make any mistakes on this project.
As she paced, she couldn't help but feel that familiar pull. She glanced over to her workstation and took a hesitant step towards it. Furrowing her brow, she bit her lower lip and listened intently. People often called Evelynn a genius, but she always felt like a fraud. She wasn't a genius — she just had the ability to "speak" the language of the machines she worked with. It was like they practically told her what was wrong with them. Of course, she didn't actually hear their cries for help audibly. It was more of a deep-seated feeling, an intuition, more than anything.
Glancing around quickly, Evelynn closed the remaining distance between her and her workstation and exhaled loudly. "Okay, fella, let's take a look at you," she said as she wiped her hands on her lab smock and peered into the back of the machine.
As Evelynn was repairing her workstation, Lukius Rischer, the CEO of Crux Dynamico, walked into the lab. "Evelynn, I need to talk to you," he said gravely. "It's about the PALADIN fleets and your interface."
Evelynn's heart sank as she listened to Lukius explain how the shareholders had forced his hand in using her interface to equip the PALADIN fleets with anti-magic technology. She couldn't believe that her work was being used in such a way, and she was disgusted by the thought of disrupting the natural balance of the world.
"But what about the moral implications?" Evelynn asked, her voice shaking with anger. "You may not have done this willingly, but you have the power to stop it!"
Lukius didn't say anything, but the conflict in his eyes was clear. He knew that if he stopped production of the units, it would have consequences, but he couldn't bring himself to reveal the true reason to Evelynn. She would never understand the weight he was carrying, the promise he had made to find a cure for Rampant Numen Fluctuations, the illness that had plagued Eivrallan societies, and him, for years.
Evelynn could see the conflict in his eyes, but she couldn't bring herself to forgive him for this. She knew that trouble was coming; she could feel it in her bones.
Biography
Evelynn is an insecure perfectionist who is the Eivrallan equivalent of a software and robotics engineer. She only has one friend, a media mage she met via her job - she has no other friend or emotional support outside of her workplace. She has an apartment that is usually cluttered with books and is kept meticulously tidy, a coping mechanism she has developed when stressed.
Traits
Quirks
Hobbies
Talents
Mental characteristics
Education
Evelynn was a voracious learner as a youth, always reading and researching. She set up a tent next to the fireplace in the main room of her foster home and would sit there for hours, reading. Occasionally, her foster parents would have to knock the book from her hands to get her to sleep. Due to bouncing around between foster homes, she was homeschooled until the age of ten, when she entered public school. It was there that she became fascinated with languages, and she began learning how to speak a variety of them. She was always the first to volunteer to help translate in the school's foreign language clubs, and she was proficient in seven languages by the time she graduated. Evelynn graduated early at age fourteen and began attending Taedora University, Meshev’s top college for engineering, robotics, and cybernetics. She double majored in robotics and engineering, and she graduated at the top of her class with perfect grades. She began working as an engineering intern at Crux Dynamico at age eighteen and she was promoted to junior engineer two years later. She was promoted to lead linguist one year after that - the youngest in Crux Dynamico's history.
Evelynn is a genius who is extremely sensitive to the nuances of speech and language and brilliant at pattern recognition. She is an avid reader and collector of books. She is known for having an encyclopedic knowledge of classic literature and can quote entire passages of a book on the spot.
Employment
Evelynn works in the robotics department at Crux Dynamico as a cybernetic linguist, the Eivrallan equivalent of a software and robotics engineer. She is uniquely qualified for the job because of her acute perfectionism and by-the-book attitude, and she's the engineer they call on when they need something impossible done. She specializes in language engineering, specifically in the creation of intuitive software user interfaces and the translation of Human languages to machine language.
Evelynn is passionate about her work and takes great pride in her accomplishments. She is particularly proud of the part she played in developing the AI for the company's drones, which are used by the Meshevian military. She is also proud of the part she played in creating the software for the company's recently released PALADIN fleets, which are supposedly the most capable robotic fleets ever made. Evelynn was nominated for a Drake Award for her work on a novel interface for artificial intelligence.
Despite her accomplishments, Evelynn feels a great deal of shame because she caused her employer to lose a year's worth of development time due to an error she made while modeling a software engine while under extreme stress and consequently burned out.
Mental Trauma
Evelynn was traumatized when she found her mother's body in a pool of blood with her father kneeling beside her, cradling her body. Evelynn learned to be independent and fend for herself at a young age; her mother's killer was never caught and her father abandoned Evelynn to pursue them. She was raised in the foster system and shuffled around between several housing projects as she grew up. These traumas caused her to develop a resentment for her lineage, which manifests as an unwillingness to accept her prodigal capabilities as a blood mage. She also developed the belief that she won't have to feel if she's too busy to think, as well as a fear of being responsible for others and failing them. A feeling of incompleteness surrounds her, which she tries to ignore by using work as a shield to avoid people and relationships. However, this is balanced with her love for reading, solving puzzles, and learning new languages. She is fiercely self-reliant so that she never needs to depend on others.
Evelynn is terrified of being rejected or abandoned. This is reflected in her avoidance of romantic relationships and any situation where she would need to be vulnerable or rely on others emotionally. People who are overly friendly or who try to learn too much about her tend to make her feel threatened. Social situations and situations at work where she feels inadequate are all likely to make her feel unsafe or vulnerable. She hides her fear through work and by being fiercely self-reliant. The fear she feels makes her withdraw from others and makes her less trusting of them, both of which have a negative effect on her relationships. She has very few friends and is unwilling to be vulnerable to anyone, even with her one friend. Because of the pain of her father's abandonment, she harbors strong feelings of animosity towards people who harm or abandon their families. She's convinced herself that she is unworthy of love and family and that if her own father could abandon her, then anyone could.
The universe always finds a way to balance itself and a person is nothing more than a collection of their actions. Consequently, a person must be judged by their actions, not their intentions or their words. The end does not justify the means - the means are the ends.
At work, her fear is assuaged by her sense of duty but the fear-induced belief that she is not capable or good enough has eroded her confidence. She skips team-building events and social gatherings, causing friction between herself and her coworkers. Relationships, both romantic and familial, as well as any circumstance requiring her to be emotionally vulnerable or supportive, are major sources of her anxiety.
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