Name
Enebish Tarkhan (Тархангийн Энэбиш, T. Enebish)
Country of Origin
Mongolia
Birthdate
??-??-1979
Profession
Central Asian History consultant, Contortion Coach
Disability
Ususally wheelchair bound, unspecified spinal injury
Enebish Tarkhan was one of many Mongolian Contortionists that made an impact on the international stage when the communist state collapsed in Mongolia. She was one of the youngest.
However, her back gave out at a very early age – something which sent a lot of performers back home. Instead, she opted to pursue a Canadian education, and eventually Citizenship – possibly at the cost of her own recovery, with all the stress both put her through. While she can walk for short periods, she’s frequently rolling around in a wheelchair to manage her back inflammation.
Currently, she is a part-time contortion coach ( at Momentum Dance//Move ) – that is, she can’t attract enough students, Mongolian or Otherwise, to justify doing it full time, or officially having her own studio. Her frequent use of a wheelchair doesn’t build confidence when introduced to parents.
She also works part time – well, usually paid, sometimes not, depending on the grant money – as a expert in the Department of Asian Studies at the same University she got her Masters Degree (In not Asian Studies. Business? Arts?).
This is where she came into contact with a mask that, when worn, somehow allows her to interact with literature – narratives. What this actually means will take some experimentation first… Maybe on that ‘Contortion literature’ her students ask about? Which seems to be a lot of zero-clue fanfic. So she’s going to clean up this BS that apparently does not naturally disappear from the internet.
The extent of this Dragon Mask’s power just may be a little too much for her to handle mentally.
Name
Trina Havoc
Country of Origin
Canada
Profession
Mechanical Engineer
Trina Havoc has a wide and varied life of – no that’s a lie she hardly ever gets into her own back yard.
A Mechanical Engineer by profession, she hops between 6 month gigs because, as soon as the potential coworkers expect her to be personable rather than professional, she always manages to rub people the wrong way.
Really, it’s good enough that her work requires her to be on-site most of the time, or she’d never get out of her house and away from her android, [Rose]. Who had to learn good manners and maintenance more though deduction than example.
As it is, Trina now has a android at home – who’s AI she started training back in hich school, over two decades ago – who is trying to soften up her rough edges.
Name
[Pending]
Nickname
[Rose], as named by Trina in earlier stage of development
Country of Origin
Canada, USA, China, Taiwan…
While Trina was training the AI, Rose seemed like a perfectly acceptable name. But that was before Trina had even started college. Years later, when she felt she was finally ready to commit the ai to an appropriate chassis, assigning a gendered name seemed less appropriate.
That is, [Rose] is still called “Rose”, until [Rose] specifies a name and pronouns to use. Which [Rose] seems to be in no rush to do.
It doesn’t matter that [Rose]’s bust is clearly modded after a woman’s. It could be considered a placholder – really, a lot could still be considered that. If [Rose] isn’t wearing a wig, her Velcro looks enough like a buzz cut. Her face isn’t really articulated enough to make expressions – well. at least there’s a bit around her eyes. Her mouth is always in that pucker.
At least [Rose] has done a lot of body language study since [Rose] has come online.
Due to a lack of “chub”, [Rose]’s articulated limbs, while being anatomically proportional, look too long. The fingers are certainly longer than they should be. [Rose] also prefers to walk en pointe – or as Trina would call it, in a digitigrade stance.
While exact analogues don’t make sense, [Rose] averages out to about 20 years old on a human developmental scale – as she was only loaded into the base chasis 2 years ago, [Rose] is still lacking a lot of socital interaction. And Trina… isn’t really helping with that.
Name
Brita O’Cahan
Nickname
Honeydew
Act Name
Maraschino
Location
Greater Toronto Area, Canada
Age
17
Profession
Student (High school), Contortionist
Disability
Monocular Vision (degenerate, removed after birth)
Brita is a contortionist who has studied under Enebish Tarkhan for years. She has performed professionally – though not full time yet. She still has to finish High school, then get some accounting classes in – maybe an associate’s degree at Community College?
But after that, Maraschino goes full time, international star. She’s gonna be the next Marilyn Monroe, with fewer bones than a chicken nugget.
Her coach… well, seems disoriented lately, and is talking to Brita like she’s a stranger, but they’re going to work through it.
~
Brita has a prosthetic eye which she tends to take out for training sessions (It stays in her head until it does not – better to be safe than have to go searching) – and another one she puts in for her Maraschino act (along with a matching contact lens), used to further disconcerting effect.
It is unusual, though, for a contortionist to be so insistent on having only a single character or act.
One may notice “leaking” from the right eye socket. An empty socked doesn’t mean the eye stops producing sleep(mucus\eye bugger’s when day). This looks even worse when she forgets to restock the proper equipment for cleaning the maraschino makeup away from the empty socket – you dont want soap or cleanser in that socket, as much as you dont want it on your eye. Letting the makeup get gross is the safer choice.
Enebish Tarkhan, in her many experiments with the narrative-bending Dragon mask, believes she may have wrote Maraschino into existence.
That is, a former contortionist herself, and now a coach with troubles getting students because she is in a wheelchair, Maraschino was written as an ideal student, a fantasy of where she could have been.
And somehow her own reality was affected. She thinks.
Maraschino is the on-stage persona & and act of Brita “Honeydew” O’Cahan. The outfit is supposed to mimic “Eigengrau” – Not black – The red wig and white face are for contrast. The costume includes it’s own false – prosthetic – right eye. THis would be significatly more expensive then a pair of banded contacts. She’s a rich kid and it’s a great effect, intentionally looking in different directions as her “eyes” move independantly.
Maraschino was written into existence by Enbish, and the muse ariving to play this part further directed by The Dragon, conciously and unconsciously.
Due to incompetence and experimentation, the role was tied in with the real world, as Enbish knows it. The text must not be violated. The context must be observed as possible. The direction should be heeded. Not quite the three rules of robotics, but muses deal with character death all the time.
Beyond that, improvise. And stick with your decisions as long as they don’t conflict.This is how muses evolve narratives.
Muse-as-Brita is not a distinct thing from Brita.
Occasionly Brita doesn’t exist – and humans wouldn’t notice this. The muse withdraws from physicality for a moment, sniffing out a potential scene they caught the scent of. And then Brita exists where she can be involved.
Every human that knows Brita KNOWS Brita, because she constantly plays to the observer. Even the CCTV camera nobody knows when is being monitored. She knows.
Who can say what she gets up to during the unobserved hours. The muse hasn’t found an offstage for this narrative – where maybe she could find another muse, or even the dragon, to discus this role with.
~
Of course, everyone around Muse-as-Brita is another muse in the same situation. Of course they are.
The Dragon Mask is the “central conceit” of the Narrative R1 story.
Enbish found the mask mixed in among a partial collection of Khuree Tsam masks (is anybody rich enough to have all 108 made? of course other masks bay be included by a collector) that supposedly been exported form the country before communism – as part of her assistance at the Asian Studies department.
If she dons the mask with a narrative around – something that the mind has to actively interpret to be observed – She can interact and direct that narrative, and the muses performing it.
A few features include
Muses Only “see” The Dragon in whatever form it manifests. Not who wears the mask. Not that is is a mask. The dragon can join muses offstage, should it choose. It could, theoritically, follow nuses to other narratives – but just how to do so is not innate knowledge.
if she does not directly interact with the muses playing their roles (like, physically), she leaves no trace of The Dragon in the work.
Otherwise she can direct muses supplementary to or in contrast to an author’s wishes.
They can be directed both consciously and subconsciously as long at she’s looking at the narrative through the mask
Like the appearance of the dragon is a subconscious decision. Khuree Tsam and previous performance outfits are mixed into Enbish’s appearance as The Dragon
Whatever counts as the iteration of a narrative gets changed. Like, a printout has much less effect than an internet post.
Muses are present at both creation and retelling of a narrative, and their depictions should help it to evolve. This is their role in the system.
It is extremely possible that the mask was only meant to observe narratives, and the effect of modifying them was unintentional. To see the truth behind the storyteller’s words.
Somewhere in a town subsumed by Toronto….
The third floor of the old mixed use building has 4 apartments. 4 up to code in the 80s appartments. It is serviced by a tiny elevator that takes cool down breaks occasionally and a stair to the second floor.
The second floor became Momentum Dance & Move when the owner was informed how expensive bringing 8 appartments up to 1981 residential code would be. It is now used for small classes & private lessons. Another stop on the elevator, sharing a stairway down.
The first floor was an VCR and electronic repair shop for decades, then became the expansion of The lightly rebranded Momentum Dance//Move in the mid 2000s.Now it’s the place that 4 select parents block the view of mirrors from the road In their warm (or, seasonally, air conditioned) running cars as their little girls learn ballet or somthing. The back mudroom stair/elevator access can be used to completly avoid the front door.
Enbish rents time on the second floor for her contortion coaching – its plenty for the number of students she has managed. She’s a frequent enough face the residents go straight to the stairs when the see her.
Nobody remembers which way the slashes in the name go. Its like after http, though. The posters facing the street don’t all agree though.
Any trophies displayed are the instructor’s – and in limited quantity. The walls and windows are more likely filed with old special event ads.
