Zachary Finch

=Zachary= name Zachary Finch age 24 birthday July 2nd, 1986 height 5'10" weight 146 lbs. hair black eyes brown canon original (Incarnations) family mother (Gigi), father (Terrence), cousins (Abe Starling and Markham Rouke), unnamed aunts and uncles abilities sexuality heterosexual. kinks fade to black. lives at the Victoria player DJ played-by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (circa 500 Days of Summer) journal eternityunseen threads can be found here. constructive criticism over yonder.
 * generalized empathy (sense the emotions of the people in the area)
 * postcognition/precognition (seeing the past or future with aid of the person's belonging)
 * fate alteration (dangerous, never been attempted)
 * plays piano, guitar and violin

=history= A long, long time ago, the Moirae, the personifications of Fate, were born. Records are unclear on who parented them, but the fact remains that they existed. For untold generations, they carried out their duties: Clotho wove the thread and began new lives, Lachesis measured the thread and decided a person's destiny, and Atropos cut the thread and ended their life. Then, slowly at first, the gods began to fade. Their powers were left to the wilds of nature as humankind found different religions and strength in themselves. The Moirae, too, began to fade. However, they knew that with the demise of their rational thought, the fate of the world and its people would be completely unguided. And so they created the Incarnations to escape their own demise. It's not cheating Fate if you are the one to decide it, right?

Zachary was born to a fairly normal family, the Finches, in 1986. His father was a fashion designer, and his mother stayed at home (and shopped - a lot). He grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, with his cousinbrothers, Abe and Markham, with whom they shared their birth year. For the most part, Zachary lived an uneventful life. He went to school, he hung out with friends, he drew and played music.

As he grew, he was aware of the knowledge that he would eventually lose his sight to Fate, but ignored the warnings. Abe was the first to Connect, losing his voice and gaining a strangely whimsical attitude when he was only twelve years old. Markham lost his hearing at sixteen, turning reckless and protective. When they were all eighteen, the three brothers moved away from their parents and rented an apartment together. That was when it happened for Zachary. He lost his sight, and temporarily closed himself off from the world until he forced himself to see the bright side of the situation.

While Abe and Markham went on to gain degrees at college, Zachary was satisfied without and went into writing cheap little musical jingles when he didn't feel like mooching off of his brothers. Six years after they all finally came together as Incarnations, something finally shook them from their quaint little life near the beginning of July, 2010.

Atropos' shears had become dull, and death no longer came to the world. Her power became unstable, with her unable to do the one thing she was meant to. Though it affected all of them to some degree, Markham felt it the worst; he became more reckless, violent, and even suicidal in the face of Atropos' helplessness. Abe and Zachary were left to their attempts at locating the source of... whatever it was.

Then, one day, Zachary found it. (Cue Bete Noire.)

world
Modern-day Earth, 2010. Things are about what you'd expect, if you overlook the fact that the age of the gods truly existed and leftovers of the era still linger in the world today. Though almost every god has faded from sentience into becoming a force of nature, the Moirae were unable to afford letting their duties slip into the fingers of a mindless entity. Their fade was inevitable, and yet they worked out a solution: humans who would share their souls, connect with them on the most basic, intrinsic level, through whom they could siphon consciousness from. These Incarnations were free to live their lives until the previous Incarnation passed away; their only escape from their contract is to die. (This does not necessarily mean they are born Connected, but that they are born with the Fate to eventually come into their destiny. It's fairly common for there to be two Incarnations for the same Fate at the same time, but only one can ever be Connected.) In exchange for the connection and as a symbol of ownership, a sense would be stripped from them: for Clotho, speech; for Lachesis, sight; and for Atropos, hearing.

Although they have since faded from their proper roles, cults exist to worship the disappeared pantheon. Those with extreme amounts of faith are allowed to channel infinitesimally small fractions of their power - these people are chosen ones, and extremely dangerous, both because of their power and their fanatical fervor in their patriot. Mysteriously, no one who worships the Moirae has ever received any sort of power. Many assume the cause of this to be that the Fates cannot be swayed by mere mortal means.

Mythical creatures still exist, hiding from humans and cowering out of fear, having lost the protection and power of the gods along with the rest of the world. Most are imperceptible to the regular human, allowing them to retain their place in stories and legends.

=personality= To all appearances, Zachary Finch is a very happy-go-lucky guy. While he is able to be serious and think realistically if the situation warrants it, his optimism wins out more often than not. Why is this? Because the ability to feel all life unfolding around him has given him a unique perspective: anger, sadness, anxiety, any negative emotion you can think of, none of it stands up to the simple force of happiness. There's nothing like it. Yet people wrap themselves up in their misery and block out their opportunities to let the dark melt away. Zachary, however, has learned from others' mistakes and rarely allows himself to miss the chance. In this same vein, he feels exasperation at people in general for letting life pass them by. Condescension works its way in from time to time, as well.

With this outlook on life, he is quite the opposite from a depressed disabled. His opinion on the matter is that he might be missing out on things in the visual world, but he has his memories and isn't any less himself for it. If his sight had to be taken to fulfill Fate, then he would just live without - he still had four other senses to work with, after all.

... of course, he's only fooling himself.

Underneath the tough, sunshiny exterior is a kind, but frighteningly bitter young man. His tie to Lachesis is inextricable and impossible to reverse; his eventual blindness had always been a given, yet he tried to run from the truth and never quite prepared himself for it actually happening. After first experiencing his connection to life, and realizing the happiness that he, too, had been missing out on, he tried to bury his frustration, bitterness and pain and allow himself to experience the happiness that the rest of the world insisted on missing out on. It worked, to an extent. While he still feels the anger at his position, his fear of rejecting Lachesis, part of himself, keeps him from ever voicing or properly acknowledging the opinion.

On a different note entirely, Zachary's relationship with his cousins, Abe and Markham, is one nearing emotional dependence. They're so close, in fact, that they call each other brothers and live together. As the current Incarnations of the Moirae, they share a secret knowledge that the rest of the world is oblivious to, which only strengthens their closeness.

=powers= Copy/pasted from Zachary's application, hopefully to be rewritten later on. Being the Incarnation of Lachesis, Zachary has the ability to feel Life around him as Lachesis measures them. What this means is that he has a very general ability for empathy, able to gauge the mood of an area but never an individual. It isn't at all overpowering to him mentally, but it is all encompassing.

He is also able to use postcognition, looking back at the thread already spun in a person's life (and has the capacity for precognition), by obtaining something of theirs and twisting it around his fingers or arms. The precognition is only theoretical, since it means exerting his own influence on Lachesis herself to look ahead. Similarly theoretical is the ability to alter someone's Fate by completely hijacking Lachesis (and pending player-permission). Such a thing would leave noticeable trauma and he barely dares to think about trying it; it isn't his place to alter Fate.

Having the soul of a goddess allows him to perceive supernatural entities or phenomena, as far and few between as they are. And while not as notable as his goddess-given powers, Zachary's four remaining senses are heightened in compensation for his lack of sight, and he learned ASL as a child for the sake of Abe and Markham.

In-game: Zachary wished that he could know the layout of the city better during a time when wishes really did come true. This means he has a magical GPS/Mapquest of the city in his head, for all of your are-we-there-yet needs. Handy!

=people= Idk, there are people he knows here. Edit a name in if you'd like to see a blurb.

bete noire

 * Aimery: Apparently from eight hundred years ago? Interesting guy to talk to, seems to have a weird mix of childlike curiosity about the current times and a pretty positive outlook on things, considering.
 * Greg: Greg let Zachary take a trip on his motorcycle with him, which earned him some instant cool points. Aside from that, he's incredibly cynical, but also amused. It's a toss-up on whether they'll get along or turn into some sort of antagonistic friendship.
 * Momiji: A kid he's spoken to, that also plays violin. They are totally music buddies.
 * Mr. Weasley: His name is hilarious for being Minister of Culture, and Zachary doesn't intend to let him forget it.
 * Naoto: Some kid he first helped guide away from the flesh-eating butterflies, then spoke to in person the next morning. Very no-nonsense, which only amuses him more.
 * Rachel: Nice girl that Zachary has met up with once or twice, definitely on the helpful side. He promised to play her a song sometime, once he gets an instrument to call his own.
 * Sookie: Very nice girl, whom he actually works with at Furor's. Sometimes. She had wings when they first met, but he's pretty sure they're gone now. She seems to have some weird stuff going on in her own life, even back home, which is sort of comforting in its own weird way.

atlanta

 * Abe: Oldest of the three cousins, though he regularly acts like the youngest. Incarnation of Clotho, and mute as a result. He was twelve when he Incarnated. A graphics designer, and complete, utter geek, Zachary owes his repertoire of video game music knowledge to Abe.
 * Markham: Younger of the three cousins, though he fancies himself as the oldest. Incarnation of Atropos, and deaf as a result. He was sixteen when he Incarnated. A cook, and definitely a scowly man more often than not, especially now that death is gone. Might be the reason Zachary was drawn into Bete Noire, hoping to find a way to fix Markham's sanity.
 * Terrence: Zachary's dad. Lead designer of the fairly-popular label Fashionably Finch, and the one who helped Zachary figure out how to organize his wardrobe after he went blind. Their relationship is close but average, although Terrence is somehow the touchy feely parent while still being the more stoic one. He enjoys using nicknames.
 * Gigi: Zachary's mother. Short for Virginia. Emotional and empathetic, but perhaps a little disconnected from things. A stay at home wife, she's especially taken with the sport of shopping and making sure her home is in on the latest trends. Probably responsible for most of her son's eccentricities (including the trolling).