Congratulations JJ, you have been accepted for the role of ROBYN KANE with the face claim CHLOE BENNET! This was an incredibly difficult decision for us, but JJ, the tone of your Robyn is what ultimately won us over. It is so perfect to what we had in mind when we wrote her. And not to mention the details of worldbuilding and of Robyn’s life poured throughout--do I dare say your application is perfect? Congratulations! We are so happy to have you.
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THE AUTHOR BASIC INFO: JJ, 21, they/them/theirs
IN CHARACTER CHARACTER YOU’RE APPLYING FOR: Robyn Kane AGE AND GENDER IDENTIFICATION: 27, intersex + female identifying, she/her/hers GENESIS: Organic SPECIAL SKILLS: Cleaning, Climbing, Parkour, Spatial Memory & Analysis. FACE CLAIM: Chloe Bennet, Karen Fukuhara, Stella Maeve
IN DEPTH
ANALYSIS: I think rose-colored and strong of heart define Robyn best!
STRENGTHS:
COURAGEOUS: No person is fearless, as much as everyone would like to be. In general, Robyn demonstrates less aversion to physical threats than the average person, though this change wasn’t made overnight. What differentiates her from most is her drive to work and overcome - another meter, another dive into the deep. If doing the right thing means jumping headfirst into something that terrifies her, she’s likely to steel herself down and move forward. Her heart had always been stronger than the forces that palpitate it, and willpower alone often allows her to stay upright.
HARD-WORKING: Bruised hands, aching legs, and rows of sparkling fifty-floor buildings always meant Robyn could go home with her chin held high. Slacking Wash Captains were met with veiled slights and ignored words in conversation, and she, as was customary for her line work, earned her seat at happy hour by shadowing superiors and helping greener kids finish their tasks without pay. Working the tough grind was always the baseline of expectation, and that’s why much of Robyn’s satisfaction stems from going above and beyond tasks, taking additional responsibility, and finding ways to make herself useful - often without being asked. She prides herself on her aptitude and ability to endure.
EMPATHETIC: Care is a landscape that, while confusing to Robyn, has always been navigated without force. Comfort comes in hand squeezed and consistent, reliable company, but sometimes she gets so overwhelmed by her fondness for others she’s left wildly distraught. In these instances, she’s often compelled to gift miscellaneous pieces of garbage - chalk…candy wrappers…useless items she compulsively passes or leaves outside someone’s door with “from Robyn” scribbled next to them. She’s not sure exactly where this habit stems from, but it’s her way of saying, “oh, you, you you! I’m so, so happy you inhabit this planet too!”
STRONG OF HEART: No matter how many times hardship strikes, Robyn always finds a way to spring back. Her heart, as with most people’s, changes shape with every rough occurrence, but she loves fearlessly and endlessly despite pain. Her hope can spring back after anything, and is characterized by boundless stamina and capacity for good. She believes fiercely in the kind potential of humanity, and even if the world isn’t as kind a place as she’d like it to be, with enough work from enough people, knows it can get there.
WINSOME: Chivalry, kindness, and relentless positivity make for a personality that, in Robyn’s case, often comes off as just the right blend of charming. Holding doors open, admitting fault, and remembering names come as second nature to her, and her zest for life comes through in starry eyes and enthusiastic nods of agreement. Sure, she’s never going to overcome people with class or genius knowledge, but she’s genuine and approachable, and sometimes, that’s all a person really needs to be.
DEVELOPMENT AREAS:
MEDDLESOME: Other people’s problems leave Robyn sleepless more often or not. She tosses above her covers when she senses even the slightest hint of conflict, turns when she sees a drop in energy in someone she cares about. She has a way of unsolicitedly inserting herself into conflicts and can become somewhat of a nuisance until they’re resolved. This becomes especially problematic when the conflict is heavy, or when she projects a problem that doesn’t exist upon people.
ROSE-COLORED: So firmly does Robyn believe in humanity’s goodness that she becomes starry-eyed in her conception of everyone’s morality. She believes even the worst can change with enough tangible support and cheerleading, though this isn’t always the case. She’s taken advantage of easily because of this, and blames herself when things go wrong. Sometimes, investing so much in people only leads to heartbreak, and for those who give chance after chance, it will time after time.
NEEDY: While somewhat capable of keeping herself up by herself, Robyn’s likely to withdraw without enough outward compliments or affection. Her lip droops, her self-esteem withers, and her outlook towards the day can become fairly morose. If she doesn’t feel useful, her motivation rapidly loses steam. Sometimes people will have to fake a problem to get her back up again, though something as simple as a dropped pen or misplaced item will often do the trick.
CORNY: Spending too much time with a fake hero can make anyone feel like they’re stuck in a bad cartoon. “Keep you chin up, hero,” “a team who cleans together, dreams together,” and “evil never wins” are only a few phrases folks who hang around Robyn tend to experience daily, and she seems blissfully unaware of her tendency towards the cliche. Sometimes, it’s hard to see past the stock imagery of her, especially as a co-worker, and this can lead to people to perceiving her as a joke or a simpleton.
SOMEWHAT OF A HUSTLER: While not always conscious of the fact, Robyn has a way of soaking up or compelling people to give her their resources. She’ll charm people into giving her a snack or buying her a drink, but the expended credits pile up before most people know. It’s good to cut her off after a while, as she’s likely to drain more than few pockets if not.
BIOGRAPHY:
TW: Guns, hospitals. blood, death
Robyn Kane dreamed of mangoes.
Sweet, sap-fleshed fruits she could describe in such vivid detail you could feel their gold-yellow dripping down your throat. They had, Atticus rationalized, been her mother’s last meal request; three mangoes, halved, (pits still in, please!) cubed at about one inch in diameter. Such a tremendous yearning this must’ve been that it found its way to her daughter, who in turn ate up washers and packing peanuts, swallowed down marbles and screws in her futile pursuit of sweetness. “Normal toddler behavior,” articles on his armlet read. “Just whack ‘em hard on the back if you see ‘em gulping away anything important.” Of course, Atticus never whacked Robyn, but the idea of normality washed relief over the father. “Still,” a voice nagged, often late, often red-eyed on the pull-out couch of their rusted apartment. “What could be said of the planets?”
Well, for one, they were huge! Vast, sweeping expanses Robyn dreamed up with forests high as the SungX building and deserts red as the setting sun. Sands that stung in sporadic blizzards. Skybirds who soared over archipelagos in triangular formations, fighting fish over seafoam, their hunger a constant, bitter pang. Such were the untrekked settings that congregated heroes to Robyn’s stories, that in turn congregated ruddy-faced factory cleaning kids, their stinking mops forgotten, around her during their glorious hour of lunch break. “Pew pew pew!” Robyn would say, her small voice teeming with life, “and then the heroes and the villains became best friends, and no one’s mom had to die, and the planets weren’t lonely for anyone, anymore. I accept tips via my dad’s credit account or in mangoes. The end.” And then, in the same tidy fashion as always, everyone would pack up and get back to scrubbing floors.
The crowds dwindled after parents caught word. Scrap metal never fell far from the ship, people said, and everyone and their android knew that Kane kid was going to turn out bad. That monster - Clemence Kane’s - child had those same foxlike eyes, lips the same raw swath of ochre…a gaze that flickered time to time with the same strange, insatiable hunger. “Stay away from that Kane kid,” workers warned, their fingers shaking, their grey uniforms all the same. Fathers cursed and flicked cigarette butts. Mothers pulled their children to the other side of the litter-caked road. And so the crowd on the back steps of nutripowder factory, which had once overflowed like steel wool from a storm cloud, shrunk to the size of one lonely droplet.
Robyn kept herself steady by looking upwards. She’d work hard, she’d be so helpful they’d all have to come around. Tears found it harder to squeeze by when her face was lifted towards the ceiling, and muscle memory kept her mouth pulled into the same sweet, little grin. At lunch, alone with her flavorless mix of powder, though, her lips would tremble - until her eyes caught sight of the strange heroes who, day in and day out, would flip and fly above her city.
Wash Captains. That’s what her dad said when she asked him. And they weren’t villain fighters - they were actually cleaners like both of them were. Still, hearing their hoots and howls as they tumbled from building to building, their washbots flocking behind them like rafts of ducklings, sent a rush up her little spine. The Captains grew into her new idols, another reason for her to dream. And every day during break, she’d make it further up the walls of her own building, brave a further jump from height to height. All until one day, she plucked up the courage to follow her heroes, trying to keep up, but finding herself slipping behind.
“Talia, you’ve got a tail!” A Captain signaled for the group to slow down. The lot of them, adults between their early twenties and late forties, decelerated to a pace that wouldn’t endanger the kid, though they did this surreptitiously enough that the twelve-year-old thought she was catching up.
“What’s your name, speedster?” The youngest one, Talia, asked.
“I’m Robyn Kane!”
“Well, you’ve got guts coming up here. I like that.” The rest of the group didn’t shiver or scowl, instead, they just shared a kind, collective laugh. “What’s good?” “Nice to meet you, Robyn,” voices chorused. And when they darted off to work on their respective building groups, Talia gestured for Robyn to follow her. She stopped at the edge of a metallic skyscraper, her washbots swarming to wipe the windows of the behemoth adjacent. From dawn until dusk, she let Robyn shadow her, explaining what a Wash Captain’s duties were, the test it to become one, and difficulties the job brought with it. Long hours, limited work lifespan, days without rest…the ability to problem solve and stay cool under pressure was paramount. But if you were the right kind of person, you’d find family here like no other. And Robyn hoped, hoped, hoped that with enough effort, when the year’s test came around, she’d be ready to join them.
Setbacks were inevitable. Sprained wrists, lack of formal training, exhaustion after back-to-back days at the factory…nothing, though, that could quite prepare her for the sickness. A flu, its origin the lungs of a machine operator, spread through the adults, then the children, then to her. Everyone and their uncle hacked up phlegm for two weeks, their faces pale green from the night sweats, though none fell quite so ill as Robyn Kane. A hospital rush led to injections, led to IV drips, led to peals of hushed conversation, led to the sound of a final lamp smashing outside her door.
“The warden promised they’d treated her!"
"The CD4 count-”
“Fuck the CD4 count!”
“Sir, can you just…”
Robyn shivered. What was her dad talking about with that doctor? Was she going to die? And what had made him so angry? Her eyes had already begun drooping shut when Atticus came back in, though, his face shaking with anger.
“What’s going on, dad?” Robyn tried to roll to face him, but he shushed her.
“You’re going to be okay, kid.” He kissed her head, sitting gently at the side of her hospital bed. Only when he thought she was asleep did a sob leave him, the sound of heartbreak, of betrayal, of an uncertain man.
In truth, the doctors weren’t sure how she’d survived so long. ARHIV - or advanced resistant human immunodeficiency virus - was livable with treatment, but going nearly thirteen years without, especially after being born with it…well, complications usually reared their heads sooner. Still, the NRTIs seemed to be lowering the viral load in her blood, and with the aid of intensive anti flu meds, her immune system managed to struggle through.
“Take your meds,” Dr. Ota said, as Robyn and her dad breathed fresh air for the first time in three weeks. “And remember, any fluids that come out of you are not to be touched by others.”
Atticus wanted Robyn to rest. She was still weak from her bout of illness, but almost a month had gone by without any exam preparation, and she wouldn’t let anything get in the way of her dream. She pushed herself to jump farther, to climb higher, to memorize every protocol in the Washbook. And when test day came, she gave it everything she got. “We’ll call,” her examiner promised, though the stern look on his face was airtight. “We’ve only got room for about three people this year, so don’t get your hopes up too high, okay, kid?” But when the buzz rang out on her armlet that evening, her hopes had already soared through the roof.
“Hello?"
"Hey, is this Robyn?” Talia’s voice drifted in through the speaker.
“Yeah, yeah, this is me, Robyn- Robyn Kane - Kane, Robyn - I-”
“Marks Building, speedster. Tomorrow. 5AM.”
And then the call clicked out, and a teenage squeal woke nearly half of the building.
The job wasn’t all games and glory. Most days, she went home with limbs that threatened to tear off, but how many people could say they ended a shift by skydiving off a building? Magnetic gloves carried her to the very top of the city, reminding her of her smallness, though a hoot from one Wash Captain to another reminded her she was never alone. Skyscrapers rushed together as air gave way to metal under her feet, running upwards and downwards, leaping from one to another with an expert’s grace. This was, save for her, the kind of movement reserved for heroes, and shadowing other Captains to get the hang of more advanced techniques ensured she continued to grow. From this vantage point too came new insight on the city - inequity others more often chose to ignore. Apartment Piles - swaying stacks of low-income housing - were collapsing. At first, it seemed accidental, but then the breadth of the falls seemed more sinister. Factories bought out the land. Overwatchers failed to check the sites. And since a lot of first responders wouldn’t set foot in the rougher neighborhoods, the Captains took it upon themselves to search and rescue.
Such was her transformation from girl to hero. Pulling injured folks from buildings, keeping kids safe…it was this grit and responsibility that matured her. Time with her dad became precious. Happy hours with friends began to mean more. But youth was still youth, after all, and when time brought on an admirer, Robyn’s heart began to palpitate.
There’s was a typical teen meeting - boy watched girl soar from building to building, boy plucked up the courage to wave, girl told him she’d come say hi during her lunch break. And so said boy appeared day after day, wonderstruck in crooked glasses, his hand outstretched to offer a cool bottle of water. A Harbor boy, Deek Jenkins. When they talked, her lies grew from goosebumps to mountains - yes, her mom was nice, yes, she’d eaten a mango, yes, her dad was a world-saving space pilot and, if she disappeared for a few days, it was because she helping him fight off evil. Truth be told, she wanted to keep Deek around. But how could a Harbor boy remain interested if he knew about her dark origins, her sickness, how a job washing windows was the most exciting thing that’d ever happened to her? Instead, she told him about the skybirds, the archipelagos, the burning sands. All while the virus inside her was shifting, overcoming her medications, and threatening to overcome her as well.
Time passed. Deek began bringing two water bottles. Robyn always finished the one he brought with a still-thirsty gulp, then gobbled down two, then three, and he was about to bring four when she stopped showing up.
“Check the clinic on Fourth, kid,” the Wash Captain, Talia, who visited in Robyn’s stead offered. So check Deek did.
“Hey,” he greeted, pulling a whole cooler of water bottles to her hospital bed. She uncapped one.
“You’ve found me out, Jenkins.” The twenty-year-old’s lips quirked upward, falling as a hack expelled from her lungs. “I’ve caught an ‘opportunistic infection.’ Tuberculosis. Not fun stuff. And while we’re at it, I’ve got another disease called ARHIV, which my doc just said’ll probably kill me by 35. And my mom-”
“Was a rebel terrorist,” Deek finished for her. “Who killed upwards of a hundred Overwatchers and their associates. She was sentenced to death six months after being turned in by a man named Thomas Martineaux, and would’ve been sentenced immediately had she not been pregnant with you.”
Robyn nodded. “Happy?”
“No.” He paused. “I mean, yes, that you were honest with me.”
“Why’d you hang around then, if you knew?”
Deek shrugged. “I guess I just liked you.”
“I guess I just liked you too.”
Robyn got over her infection. Time went on, work continued, and she was back on the rescue grind. The number of collapses grew, and the public’s anxiety grew with it. Her dad, who’d been promoted to a managing janitor inside the factory, spent time cleaning the inside of apartments despite danger, and three times, buildings collapsed with him in them. Each time, Robyn would hold her breath, her body trembling, her boots pounding miles to find he was okay, but there was never a second to spare for a hug or a word of relief when she got there. Every moment was instead spent pulling people from the wreckage, searching for help, until one day, a shard of glass changed everything.
“Don’t-” Robyn tried, but Talia had already reached in with a cut hand to pull it out. She jerked her leg away at the last minute, preventing contact, but it was in this moment that she realized her own body was a danger, herself a hazard that could be spread on. How could she have been so reckless, so stupid, to endanger everybody? Any time, she could’ve gotten cut. Any day, she could’ve spread her disease. Rescue efforts were abandoned, and happy hours avoided for fear of being seen as a coward. Until Deek Jenkins, again, came to her aid.
A birthday present - the big twenty-five. Robyn was huddled up on the couch, watching a livestream of an apartment collapse from her armlet, when Deek came in.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” She asked, but he just grinned at her, extending a parcel from his hands to hers.
“I, uh, made this.” His eyes sparkled as she unwrapped it, a costume of fine, black material, cape included. “I know the design is kind of corny, but you’ve always been into the hero thing and you’ve seemed so down ever since Talia, um…the fabric’s cut proof. In the case that something gets through, though, there’s a compound on the inside that’ll immediately clot your blood, so people are safe, no spread. And I also wanted to tell you that I-”
“I love it, Deek.” Robyn’s lips rose, then fell as her eyes honed in on her screen. A pair of Overwatchers, their bodies too small to be seen clearly without zooming in, moved in the corner.
A familiar face, familiar gait, familiar everything. Suddenly, it all made sense. She checked her armlet.
“8:30. Pile A7X.” The apartment her dad was suppose to be cleaning. Time to put Deek’s outfit to the test.
The rescue mission was a rush of pure adrenaline. A building scaled, a fire alarm pulled, and hundreds evacuated in the nick of time. She gave no name - a vigilante, in and out before anybody could ask. And now it was time to get to the bottom of the collapses.
She made her way to the factory. Dark, no people or stars to be seen. If she could get into her dad’s office, maybe there’d be a list, some way to predict the next Pile falls. She’d save hundreds of lives, expose a massive conspiracy -and then a dot of red light materialized on her chest.
“Robyn.” Her father’s voice broke the silence. “I can explain-” “Explain what? How you’ve been killing innocent people for years?” All those apartments cleaned, how she thought he’d actually been in danger.
“Rebel suspects, Robyn. They’re killing thousands. Hear me out, I-”
Her eyes hardened. “You’re going to pay for this.”
Atticus’ lip twitched, another Overwatcher making his way beside him.
“We’ll kill her off, Martineaux. Don’t worry about it.” The man raised his mass accelerator, his finger draped on the trigger and then… five shots. A dropped body. But her dad’s weapon had made the blast.
“I’m sorry, Robyn.”
Another rustle. Deek- Deek had followed her. Maybe they could overpower him, find a way out, but Atticus whipped around, firing a shot before the boy could even blink. His body fell, an innocent who’d given his world for her. And then another shot. There was no time to think, no time to process, only dark.
When her eyes opened, they saw earth.
EXTRA MUSE: I have a pinterest board here!
POSSIBLE CHANGES: none!