SURROUNDED BY MACHINES.
A young self-taught programmer. Good with magic, less so with people — in hir deeply humble opinion at least. Sie wishes to solve the mystery of the Fornax Train's unusual stagnation to prove hir competence and know-how to the cloistered world of professional programmers.
NAME: DALISAY CAPILA ISIP
TRAIN TITLE: CUMULONIMBUS
PRONOUNS: SIE/HIR, THEY/THEM
AGE: 19
ETHNICITY: AFRO-FILIPINO
PRIOR RESIDENCE: THE PHILIPPINES
IDENTITY: AROSPEC BI BIGENDER
TRAIN ENTRY DATE: JAN 19 2112
"discussion of the easterlies"
PROJECTION
HISTORY
early life
Sie was born in Lucena on October 27, 2092. From a young age sie became fascinated with the Worldwide Train Network, which lightly set into motion their later longterm interest in magical programming. Circa age twelve, sie started teaching hirself programming through a combination of online resources and eventually, frequent programming classes. Sie became a prudent apprentice quickly, studying under the guidance of various accomplished instructors — due to hir dedication and seriousness, sie was often given advanced assignments, and often presented hir superiors with additional projects completely independently. Investments in studying magic ongoing, sie also developed a loose interest in environmental sciences and particularly meteorology, eventually adopting rainstorms as hir motif outright.
pre fornax
Though sie loosely kept up with news of The Fornax Project since its very conception — it was big both in the world of locomotives AND magic itself, very hard for hir to miss! — sie only really sank deep into trying to understand it by 2106, when sie was sixteen and when the train’s disappearance had become victim to zeitgeist controversy. It was at this time that sie started scouring Tessellis for obscure information about the project, alongside coding hir own smaller, assumed simulations of the Fornax Train and its inner workings. This would be an on-and-off venture for the next few years, with hir persistence on figuring out the truth only turning more viscous with time as the world around hir continued to forget about Fornax, ironically enough. By December of 2111, Dalisay decided that without any upcoming interference, the people on the train would be lost to Fornax forever, entirely due to negligence — thus cementing a completely avoidable ethical failure that could jeopardise all future use of magic. This was reason enough to convince hir to martyr hirself as the train’s new repairman. Spending a few extra days scrubbing Tessellis for additional information, sie concluded hir estimations were as accurate as could plausibly be, yet further driving hir confidence. By January of 2112, sie left for the Fornax Train.
on fornax
Take a look at the plot summary, perhaps.
post fornax
In the Perfect Ending, sie does gain hir wish for renown upon returning to Earth — sie is saught out by multiple magical institutions, some of which are exceptionally secretive and ‘underground’. Sie elects to join one of these in the stead of the much more prestigious government-owned companies that contact hir, among them the company that led the Fornax Project itself. Sie finds this offer both repulsive and hilarious, going on to support a global org aiming to make magic accessible to the masses and deprive publicity of any baseless fearmongering campaigns about it. Although sie keeps to hirself, hir name has made a splash in the programming community, and sie’s often contacted for interviews to comment on controversial developments in the industry. Hir opinions are often treated with widespread respect, especially by those aforementioned companies that are lost and gravelling for opportunities to regain the public’s trust.
PERSONALITY
Versatile, thoughtful and forgiving. — Detached, isolated, insincere.
Most people meeting hir for the first time tend to express a similar kind of grievence: sie seems too absent, too dazed, too pellucid, not “vivid” enough to be a decent conversation partner. This is a half-controlled, half-involuntary predisposition — sie often truly does not have much to say to others exterally, often contending with the notion that hir casual thoughts are worth voicing or “bothering others” with. At the same time, sie often plays on hir quietness in conversation when sie needs to buy hirself time, has to look serious, or any other situation where hir typical emotionless demeanour would come in handy. It’s not that sie guards or even limits hir emotions — sie’s happy to demonstrate hir propensity for easy humor and disgust quite easily, and honestly, ESPECIALLY negative emotions. Sie doesn’t entomb hir feelings to please others, and will freely debate with or act snide towards people who counter hir, lest it be dangerous to. Moreover, sie’s quick to jump into conversations with witty nonsequiturs or brief, surprising sentiments intentionally meant to make people laugh or catch them off guard. It’s perhaps hir usual sense of apathy towards “etiquette” and its necessity that propels this easygoing carelessness about pinpricking the speech of others — sie usually just means things offhandedly and presumes this to be clear to others, though it’s sometimes misconstrued as a detour or cruel interruption and held against hir. Sie’s not too self-conscious about this, nor most things — sie has a passive “people can think what they think about me” view of the world and will typically just shrug hir shoulders at people trying to pick a bone with hir about hir attitude. In a usual context, sie’s fairly emotive and clear-cut about hir feelings… sie’s just picky about finding the right time to act serious.
In spite of the spiky potential present in hir demeanour, these sentiments tend to be very surface-level and easy come, easy go. Sie rarely forms any serious complaints about people, let alone lets hirself voice them — sie has a very strict rule about avoiding overassumptions, complimenting hir own vision of hirself in the eyes of others. Basically, “I do not judge others, so others should not judge me.” Most of hir grievences tend to be trivial, in-the-moment trifles that sie can push aside or at the very least let go of once the situation’s concluded. For example, sie’s easily frustrated by people who meander and ramble incessantly, though at most sie’ll just make a sarcastic comment or two urging them to get to the point — and that’ll only happen once sie’s gotten truly irate and impatient. One of hir greatest strengths IS hir restraint, after all. The only times sie ever gets truly vitriolic tend to be when someone distinctly treats hir terribly with little remorse, or otherwise insults hir on a personal level… Early on a lot of the train residents handwaving hir claims of programming proficiency did piss hir off and it took hir a while to truly pay attention to the people with the most vocal doubts, such as Beatrix who’s dismissive of most things magical, or Demeter who didn’t want to immediately commit to fanciful ideals of change.
Sie’s also rather haughty about being recognised as important and wise… A lot of how sie views hir early onset of studying programming sits under a lens of “I’ve spent my childhood incubating my skills to achieve great things in the world, people should heed me well for my efforts!” Thus people specifically treating hir like a clueless child or, worse, some kind of phony, tends to grate hir most terrribly. In general sie has this rough outline of self-consciousness that sie doesn’t really attend to unless sie’s directly confronted with people bringing hir weaknesses, real or imagined, to light… Upon being told sie’s subpar, sie’ll get rather antsy, albeit subduedly so, to prove the initial speaker’s presumption wrong. Though sie usually treats such subtleties with the usual flippancy sie’s fluent in, the need to defend hirself in front of an active naysayer does get to hir sometimes. Mostly whenever sie can’t simply “walk away” from people sie finds annoying, which tends to be hir usual way of dealing with things…
Hir flightiness is fairly interesting in general — sie maintains a rather “deprived” attitude of limiting hir own anxieties and fears by simply not letting them get to hir. Sie tends to just relax hirself by deliberately ignoring negative feelings, which sie feels interfere with the things sie wants to do more often than not. Though sie’s got a good instinct for whether or not something is risky, sie tends to usually just head back and overprepare before jumping into said risky business, or intentionally dismiss those doubts in the name of satiating hir own curiosity. This does lead to hir overestimating hirself at times, in the end having to depend on raw adrenaline to finish what sie’s started.
Though hir arc is naturally more subtle and gradual than everyone else’s, it is present! Most of it deals with hir becoming progressively keener on relying on others, befriending people without having to feel “useful” or “justified” in conversing with them, learning to measure hir feelings and make balanced judgements on how to interpret and deal with them… It’s a mixture of hir getting some slack for hir occasional dismissive air, and being presented with kindness in areas where sie’s never really receieved that before. And so sie just becomes a much more confident, patient individual.
RELATIONSHIPS
mazin
Hir connection with Mazin is more strangled than it looks… Though they’re both magnetised to one another at first sight over their shared ambition for attention and recognition, and though it’s enough to construct the foundation of their relationship, there’s little trenchant relatability beyond that. Most of Mazin’s praise for hir is simply a mechanic for flattery to keep hir “in line” with his plans, and contrastly Dalisay’s distrust of him only grows with time. Not that sie was overly impressed with his stuffy form of autoconduction, nor the flippant manner with which he always refers to magic. Once sie’s made a witness to his treament of Peixin, hir respect for him completely nosedives and sie treats him charitably solely for the sake of smooth sycophancy.
somsak
Considering hir place as the second-youngest person on the train, Dalisay finds Somsak somewhat embarrassing. Hir permanent principle of presenting hirself as a competent and wise person far beyond hir own internal age kind of falters against Somsak’s much more “earnest” insistence on acting like a smug little shithead of a kid. It tarnishes hir image a little bit. Though sie’s not too bothered by his attitude — and indeed he’s made hir laugh more than a handful of times — sie does bristle a bit when sie has to be around him in public with others, especially when he’s liable to interjections and non-sequitur jokes that interrupt the flow of hir professional, curt style of discussion. It never stretches out beyond him just being “a mild annoyance” though, thankfully.
demeter
Initially Dalisay admires Demeter quite a lot. Their brooding comportament packed with their frequent silence, constant internal introspection and loose, wavy way of speaking just comes off as very smooth and casual. In other words, Dalisay envies their cool, detached air and wishes to mimic it haha. This mystique fades with time, however… Particularly around the time sie learns of their ongoing grieving over Míra, which makes hir regard chronic “dullness” with far less gravitas than before, in turn angling hirself toward a much more outspoken and vivid attitude from thenceforth. Demeter encourages this, and in turn, finds the will to stumble out of their shell for once. They both reflect each other’s ill tendencies, therefore bringing awareness of that gloom to the original bearer and encouraging an unravelling of it out of their system. It’s nice.
ulises
These two formed a good connection very early on, in part due to their shared interest in magic. It’s a little one-sided, funnily enough with Ulises often depending on Dalisay to reveal information and lead discussions. A lot of respect’s thrown hir way, and sie does like to revel in. Additionally, though a little taken aback by Ulises’ off-beat sense of humor at first, Dalisay soon adjusted to it and found it fun to bounce off of. Sie also just appreciates per sensibility for humor and levity, finding it important in the face of enclosure within Fornax.
For a short period of time, when Ulises limits viable points of traversal within the Octants, sie becomes a bit colder toward per due to feeling belittled. Once sie discovers Ulises’ conflicted feelings on keeping the train hidden, hir respect returns and waxes — though unaware of it at first, sie does sympathise with the idea of preserving the Octants and discouraging further exploration into other dimensions, and sie grows more and more supportive with time. Somewhat uniquely, this stays consistent between most endings. That is to say, though Dalisay’s preferences are often vague, they are not vaccuumed completely; the ethical, theoretical side of programming is something that becomes poignant to Dalisay upon conversing with Ulises and sie tries to compromise with per perhaps most efficiently out of all train residents, regardless of the “plan” sie’s made to tread forward.
sabri
Sie’s fond of Sabri’s silence, Sabri’s fond of hir silence. Not much goes on between them and that’s the exact way the both of them like it. Though she doesn’t extend her mouth much, Sabri does make it abundantly clear that she trusts Dalisay to make good choices and remain responsible — she doesn’t feel the need to interject against or lecture hir practically ever. Nor does she ever “talk down” to hir or mask details for sensitivity’s sake, never making a big deal out of treating hir as mature and refined. Dalisay appreciates this a lot, and returns the favor by consistently remaining relatively serious and disciplined in her presence.
Dalisay generally finds her manner of speech very easy to follow and is often interested in the talkarounds she concocts regarding her plants, in spite of hir general disinterest in biology, especially that of plants. Sie thinks of her deceptive simplicity and matter-of-factness as extremely comfortable.
freya
Freya is probably the closest thing Dalisay has to a proper friend on Fornax. Being somewhat older than hir, sie doesn’t have to handwave any shame about seeming juvenile around thon like in Somsak’s case. Although Freya’s frequent manner of japes revolves around playing glib, Dalisay’s usually pretty good at detecting thons insincerity and playing off of it, often truly finding thons odd comedic proposals exceptionally funny. For the record, not much else makes hir audibly laugh. Sharing an interest in magical programming with thon also bears plenty of interpersonal fruit — especially considering Freya’s leaner knowledge of the medium, which often leaves Dalisay in the perfect spot to elaborate and thus show off hir prowess to someone else who truly gets it. Although thon can be somewhat exhausting at times, sie appreciates thons flightyness and energy, finding thon a dependable person to bounce ideas off of and just… generally talk to when sie needs a break from all hir investigating.
Thon’s also genuinely just the most trustworthy resource sie has on most Fornax matters, or at the very least the most accessible one. Sie notably lacks a lot of shame and apprehension when around Freya, always willing to break conversations in half to ask thon about odd phenomena or potential intel thon may have on other people. And more casually… sie feels like sie can just bring up any random thing to thon, and thon’ll wholly and fully entertain it without question.
olzhas
Initially, sie wasn’t too fond of eir entire air. Sie thought of em as far too secretive and condescending, and as a result often replied to eir queries bluntly or utilised hir inventory of clairvoyance-related knowledge to thread hir way into eir thoughts and either mock em or purposefully trigger shutdowns of eir telepathy. For a long while sie basically only stuck around Olzhas because e was the first real clairvoyant sie’d ever seen and sie wanted to try and verify hir research and also just… rationalise how the spell worked in a practical context. Simply put, sie viewed Olzhas as a gateway for hir own eventual attainment of clairvoyance.
Following hir discovery of Olzhas and Isel’s complex relationship, combined with the subsequent investigation into Marjolaine’s facsimiles and therefore Sezim, Dalisay does start to regret hir harsh attitude towards em. Though they never really discuss this outright, both of them are aware of one another’s scorn for belittlement, and consequently mellow out in sychronicity, overall becoming much more attentive to each other’s moods and more willing to brazenly talk things out. They’re both very stoic, silent types and still refuse to break out of these shells even upon getting to know one another better. That being said, neither really feel the need to: they end up with this unspoken, immaterial link between them that conveys complete mutual respect and support. They can very easily just urge each other out of nervous thought due to having a similar briskness — in a way, they act as constant anchors to each other without deploying much effort. It’s comfortable for the both of them.
isel
In all earnestness sie was originally quite fearful of Isel — Olzhas’ reports of him implicating him to be some kind of unforgivable criminal and his initial attempts at intimidation did not bode for a good introduction. Upon warming up to him and getting used to his odd theatrical inflections, sie came to regard his eccentricites as comforting and his general presence equally so. Sie ends up valuing his support a lot, in spite of some of the “wisdom” he dispenses being a bit skewed or disproportionate.
Hir respect for Isel really only grows with time, as he grows increasingly protective of Dalisay, which at first sie rescinds as “not flattering”. Sie changes hir tune once dangers on the train grow with the advent of Mazin’s explosive plan being revealed — sie finds Cassiopeia as an entire sect very welcoming and confidable, Isel honestly most of all, due to his distance from all the clairvoyant business spiting his complete and utter trust in the other two. Dalisay just deems his confidence in both himself and others very uplifting and, to be perfectly honest, enviable.
peixin
Generally sympathetic to its plight, if a little shocked at the treatment its received since stepping on Fornax. Sie frequently tries to diffuse difficult situations between it and Mazin, often volunteering to do work in its stead or simply interrupting conversations where he predominantly scolds it. Though they have this established subtle solidarity between themselves under Mazin’s unjust ruling, the pressure really gives them no time to ever truly bond until postmortem events. It was mostly just a trench warfare alliance more than anything else… although Dalisay’s always been painfully curious about its history and existence, specifically remissing all the vision-related business.
Epilogually, they end up staying in contact with one another, maintaining a throrough friendship and bonding over similar affections such as those for electronic music, strange decrepit technology and the eternal ennui of life.
marjolaine
The predominant reason Dalisay really pays attention to her is because of the Facsimiles Interface and not much else — in fact sie’s actually quite uncomfortable around her, often having to sidestep awkward impromptu questions or otherwise overcompensate in conversation by rambling on and on to keep her ‘busy’ and therefore distracted from her pervading sense of misery. There are a handful of moments where sie’s been genuinely intrigued by a topic she’s brought up, and sie IS very sympathetic toward her isolation, though part of hir is a little cynical, thinking of Marjolaine’s dejection as predominantly self-inflicted and easily circumventable. Sie tries hir best to be polite regardless.
beatrix
In spite of Beatrix’s walnut-y exterior and haughty countenance, Dalisay was actually immediately drawn to him and his boldness especially after encountering much floatier presences like Olzhas and Marjolaine. Though at first a little contemptful of his tendency toward snide remarks and overdone spite, sie soon got used to the facetious and metaphorical nature of his jargon, learning to take it all with a spoonful of salt. That aside, sie does find Beatrix quite reasonable after mustering just a bit of patience for him, and additionally thinks of SOME of his ideas relating to bettering the train environment and standardising its social systems are quite dandy. That being said, sie hardly excuses his pretentiousness, often finding his writing far too fanciful and disliking his general manner of conversing with others. He’s the kind of person that sie overlays a large blanket of respect upon, albeit with some reservations — sie often just lets him run his mouth instead of trying to argue with him, thus guaranteeing miniscule potential for stirring his arrogance and therefore the smoothest possible conversational flow.
valerie
Exceeding hir own early expectations, sie quite enjoys hanging around Valerie, especially while she’s in the midst of arranging new slices of couture. In hir opinion, she boasts a perfect mix of conversational allure and awareness of when to let a moment rest, never being too exhausting. If anything hir only complaint about Val is her tendency to self-deprecate and put overly harsh words in other people’s mouths, though sie tries to reassure her as best as sie can to inch her away from the habit. Sie’s pretty sympathetic to her creative plights, mostly analogising them to hir own programming roadblocks in hir mind. Kind of helps that Valerie likes inquiring about those kinds of things right back at hir.
Her vampirism is also a relatively common conversation point, with Dalisay often finding it interesting to compare to the things sie knows about clairvoyance — though not AS interesting, perhaps, sie does find Valerie’s latent telepathic abilities interesting and often needles her about it. Thankfully, much to Valerie’s bemusement.
faris
Yet another very quiet mind. Not that that’s ever a complaint coming from Dalisay. Though they started off on shaky ground — with Faris afraid of Dalisay making everything worse — once sie explained hir resolution to help him get off the train, or at the very least resuscitate his lycantrophy, he’s been less reticient. Dalisay often sheds any pretence of sarcasm or scorn around him, mostly to avoid making him antsy. Sie’s fond of his soft-spoken nature and has no need to rile his feathers… Sie also finds his lycanthropy cool, naturally.
lusine
Sie honestly really looks up to Lusine, and wishes sie could just talk to it regularly… Learning about the circumstances of its death kind of enlightened Dalisay to Mazin’s cruelty and made hir more wary of him. Outside of that, though, sie finds its perspective on magic extremely interesting and often trusts its judgement instinctively.
míra
Thinks of Míra as striking and bombastic. Overly so. Though there’s often sprinkles of truth in what she relays to Dalisay, sie often has to sift through pointless caustic insult and exagerration to make use of them. Hir inclinations for ‘quick work’ and blunt conversation don’t really grant Míra’s caustic prattling much levity. That being said she’s the ghost most keen on complaining and spilling important details all over the place. So for better and for worse, she’s a frequent contact. Sie probably wouldn’t converse with her if sie didn’t have to.
cas
A very fuzzy connection. Most of what sie knows of Cas actually comes secondhanded from Freya, who’s preened a very luxurious image of her, stressing on the tale of her sacrifice and her boundless love for everyone on the train. It would be mean to be a contrarian here.
lanuola
Even more distant. Sie’s naturally intrigued by the idea of a dead clairvoyant scattered within a whole dimension that dictates universal code, though doesn’t pay this much mind on account of the dim accounts sie’s received of him.
thuyết
Mostly just a collection of mournful dues and scrappy paper notes in hir mind’s eye. Sie’s quite interested in what sie’s learned of fir unorthodox architectural use of object-pullers and train room furnishing tools, though hir investment only ever really remains surface-levelled as a result of everyone else’s apprehensive regard of fir.
omar
Good dispenser for facts about trains, which Dalisay really isn’t the most interested in. He spends quite a bit of time circling around Marjolaine’s room, at least compared to the other ghosts, but he’s flighty and quick to depart once contacted. Thus not much dialogue is spared between them.
APPEARANCE
FACE: Vaguely-rounded square shape, with prominent forehead. Flat, broad nose. Thick eyebrows. Hir left eye is underdeveloped, though the lid is fully formed — thus it appears permanently shut. Often bears very coarse, clustered spots of acne, alongside darker inflammatory spots. Ears are pierced. Usually wears blue or white piercings, the most distinct being a dangly blue earring in the shape of a raindrop.
HAIR: Type 4C. Deep black. Dyed off the roots into a progressively lighter grey, overall crafting the appearance of clouds. The front portion of hir hair is tied into two symmetrical braids, let loose at the very bottom to form puffs. Also divided twoways at the back, being tied into loose big ponytails that reach hir waist.
BODY: Roughly 5’1. Fat with a rectangular overall shape. Acne continues to be prominent around hir shoulders and arms, though that’s hardly ever even seen due to hir fondness for layering.
MAIN OUTFIT: Wears rainbow-framed goggles, with one lens modified to contain a retractable spike that resembles a lightning rod. Sie usually keeps these unworn and resting on hir forehead. Dons a plush blue aviator scarf, coiled around hir neck in this maelstrom-type curling manner. A loose pink-and-purple boilersuit forms the centerpiece of hir outfit — with the upper portion being magenta, and the latter end descending into puffy indigo pants with deeper-colored pockets at the knees. The upper portion also contains an angular blue line across the chest, culminating in a blue patch of a raindrop. This shape also features at the back of hir 'suit. It also has peachy fur at the neck and shortsleeves. Sie wears longsleeved plain black undershirt under this. Sie wears two belts, the lower of the two further connecting to various portable bags. These, along with the buckle of the upper belt, feature various golden silhouettes of weather iconography. Wears blocky yellow rainboots with jagged, square-ish soles. These match in color with hir gloves — fingerless only at the thumb, with a raindrop shape cut exposing some upperpalm skin.
GENERAL FASHION STYLE: Focused on comfort and practicality first and foremost. Most of hir outfits feature various layers, and are usually long-sleeved — sie avoids showing off hir arms or legs much. Frequently uses drape-y jackets, scarves and capes as accessories. Enjoys soft, thick textures. Fond of things like buttons, patches, pockets and indents, usually finding them relaxing to fiddle with.
Usually quite plain in the realm of patterns, preferring to organise outfits via big blocks of color. At most sie likes two-toned abstract patterns that aren’t too specific. Despite the simplicity of hir overall style, a particular quirk of hir outfits are bright colors — usually bright purples and pinks, naturally.
POSTURE AND MOVEMENT: Honestly just very casual. Sie’s got a flimsy sense of balance and depth perception but sie can usually catch hirself easily and play it off as random gestures. Usually prefers 'seeking' out the environment around hir with one hand via long sweeping motions, keeping the other close to hir body — this is partially due to hir limited sight. Another effect is jerky back-and-forth head movements, often done in quick succession of one another, which is especially evident when sie’s talking to a lot of people at once… Sie enjoys staring intensely at whoever sie’s talking to, and any time sie changes address, hir head will bob around to hit hir target as quickly as possible.
Stilted posture, often leaning in a bit too much. Typically moves at a slow pace, tending to slide hir feet around like a dragged puppet. Uncomfortable with running or moving hir entire body quickly in general, both due to resulting disorientation and strain.
VOICE: A key word is 'sinking' — both in terms of volume, where sie’s extremely soft-spoken and quiet, and in terms of enunciation, with hir sentences often tapering off into mumbling or noncommittal noises. Plenty of vocal fry and crackling… Sie has a very 'groan-y' way of talking. Regular tone is around mid-pitch, but that’s hardly distinguishable due to the aforementioned. Speech is overall very blunt-sounding, particularly with rough sounds like g and d’s, whilst simultaneously being very rounded and airy with vowels — sie’s very clear with things sie wants people to know, at least. Sie basically just sounds very tired and as a result, is dedicated to being as communicatively clear and efficient as sie can be.
Hir accent floats around Average English, a result of hir very Tessellis-based upbringing and the resulting international connections.
ENVIRONMENT
train room
Left overall ambiguous within the narrative, with only a few odd details specified. Located at the edge of Winter, close to the very tail of the train. Likely not an overly large nor overly alcoved space; about the size of a modest apartment with one or two rooms. Well-insulated and warm nearly all the time. Walls are lightly ‘ridged’ much like a weather-beaten rock surface, for the sake of aiding hir ambulation and sense of direction. Lighting is bright and brazen, and arises from a plain mount-light embedded in the ceiling. Sie has a little shelf area for sorting through trinkets and acquistions, a particular one being reserved for hir programming manuals.
frequented areas
All of them, more or less. Sie IS Fornax’s new carrier pigeon after all.
TRIVIA
☀︎ Sie’s intentionally very mechanical and ‘cold’ about the projects sie codes, wishing to avoid complicated attachment to disposable or eventually-decrepit registries. This goes double for projects that occupy physical space. Therefore ever since sie was 15, sie took to labelling hir codes with a complicated identifier system consisting of two parts: a prefix which would label the type of project, somewhat arbitrarily judged and always based on names of clouds, and a suffix with a three digit code, which went up regardless of the type. For example, hir toolbox’s identifier is “Stratus—109” since it’s the 109th major thing sie’s coded since sie set up the system, with the “Stratus” portion picked to invoke the idea of thick opacity, presence and thus luck in the project being overwhelmingly unignorable. In spite of hirself and hir traditions, Stratus-109 has receieved a more humane nickname — Pictor, named after the constellation as a compliment to the Fornax Project. Also because its ability to mimic the object-pullers and summon things at random “felt like a blank canvas being filled up with visible innards” and because, according to hir rationale, “It’s easier to say than Stratus-109 when introducing it.”.
☀ ︎Sie’s practically desired a magical body mod since they were first made available and so concurrently, since sie was a teen. This was hir very detriment, though, with all the ‘interesting’ permanent spells (such as any Phantasm Collection ones) requiring 20 years of age at minumum for application. This is especially tragic for hir because sie’s been very keen on attaining Clairvoyance for years, and laments the fact that sie missed the boat on the more ‘experimental’ early versions which would’ve been far stronger than anything sie can find nowadays. Though sie does eventually gain it, this grievence remains.
☀ ︎Sie has peripheral neuropathy and as a result, both episodic weakness in hir limbs and extensive heat/circulation dysregulation. Hir overly plush and warm outfit aids in staving off the latter somewhat. For the former, sie has a routine of small effortless stretches that sie rotates every now and then.
☀︎ Additionally, sie is also hyperflexible, fixatedly so in the hands. Hir thumbs and fingers can bend backwards with ease, which sie likes to nonchalatantly demonstrate whilst talking to people to freak them out mid-conversation.
☀︎ Sie also has bothersome intermittent tinnitus.
☀︎ Although sie never formally took classes for an instrument — hir parents thought it more prudent to focus on preening hir talent for programming in hir youth — sie did teach hirself how to manipulate and compose midis. Although not overly knowledgeable on a particular instrument, sie has a decent amount of music theory knowledge, capable of detecting key well and having a good ear for dissonance.
☀︎ Usually drifting toward instrumental songs, hir favorite genres include acid jazz, industrial metal, and psychedelic funk. In terms of in-universe nonextant music genres, sie’s very fond of psychic metal (long extended progressive-inspired tunes with heavy ‘rattle-y’ metallic percussion).
☀ ︎Hir favorite season is Winter, as a result of hir preference for colder weather and rains. It partially motivates hir decision to keep hir room in the Winter district instead of moving it further up the train.
META
ROLE
The protagonist!!!! Most important person in the world!
Jokes aside, a lot of how sie’s written is specifically supposed to riff on common ideas found in your typical “sci-fi guy” protagonist. Namely hir very blasé and casual view of magic, dovetailed with hir whole child prodigy shtick which just enforces their chill, competent silhouette. I really dislike the whole “woah! expert scientist guy who may or may not wield a gun finds a weird place that threathens him and the story ends with him in the centre of the world being a prophesised messiah or some kind of space colonist and everyone thinks its so cool!” procession and Dalisay kind of sinks in and out of that — sie’s this underdog kid who actually knows EVERYTHING about the situation sie’s dealing with purely due to Paying Attention To Details, sie’s remarkably considerate of the environment sie’s stepped in both in terms of generally respecting people’s wishes and seeking out a compromise that fulfils everyone’s wants AND by hir slowly fraying away from the idea of sensationalising the Octants, hir departure from Fornax being rather impersonal or at the very least moreso focused on the people sie’s met and the connections sie’s made instead of your usual, much more solitary “conquering of the environment” arc… You kind of get it.
Another important aspect of Dalisay’s portrayal is… kind of going against the idea of silent or unemotive protagonists. Most of the narration is written VERY obviously in hir own voice, in a very stream-of-consciousness way that drifts from debating out moral dilemmas and funny jokes and everything inbetween whilst sie observes the world around hir. I think it’s especially blatant in diverging endings — even in the ‘coldest’ most astray ending (Sunrise) where the story’s literally inverted into a tale about Dalisay ignoring all the people on Fornax in pursuit of reaching the control room by brute force and thus careening everyone into a brutal, communal abstract death… there’s moments where sie doubts where sie’s going and outright regrets not being more charitable with social niceties. More subtly you can kind of tell when sie’s conversing with people sie likes based on the amount of detail sie gives either of their spoken words or mannerisms — in-text Ulises has plenty of complete monologues, Demeter’s tone of voice is described with great precision, Freya is given lots of attention in terms of having thons gestures and movements described, meanwhile a lot of Marjolaine’s scenes read in a remarkably flatter way with some details excised, Mazin’s words are retained but his physical presence slowly declines as Dalisay starts only listening to him out of necessity, etc.
There’s also quite a bit of parallelism going on between hir and other characters — something something sie retains every color off the color spectrum, of course sie’s somewhat of an opalescent frankenstein composite of everyone else. To prattle off a brief list: sie’s meant to reflect an inverted version of Mazin in a way, by way of hir openmindedness and emphasis on physical action over words, whilst also sharing his sense of avarice; sie’s meant to contrast with Somsak’s unabashed youthfulness and thus, bring attention to hir own young age despite it being a detail that embarrasses hir; Demeter sees a lot of themself in hir, particularly when it comes to hir drive to prove hirself and hir willingness to step into dangerous situations, which in their case led to their quote unquote ‘downfall’; Ulises’ hands-on experience with magic and code is meant to emphasise Dalisay’s relatively cushy and well-groomed interest in the art; Freya has like a dozen comparable traits that are mostly relevant to thon instead of Dalisay; Olzhas’ clairvoyance forms an obvious bridge between the two but more subtly Olzhas’ insistence on motley assistance parallels Dalisay’s eventual wishes to equalise the train’s conclusion; Marjolaine is an exaggeration of Dalisay’s misantrophic humors and a sort of ‘glimpse’ into a Dalisay much more conjoined to magic and technology; Valerie is an artistic prodigy who simply glazed off a lot of her old talents, sort of bringing in the potential idea of Dalisay’s programming prowess having detrimental and destructive properties with regards to hir wellbeing… Lots to think about.
MOTIFS
main
Predominantly associated with stormy weather — sie has very obvious ties to clouds, lighting and rain, which in a way is meant to hint at hir volatile, versatile nature… Sie can go from being very still and dull to becoming abrasive and ‘electric’ within seconds, though there’s always this regular cloud of fog obstructing hir true emotions. For the sake of avoiding wax poetry revolving around weather puns, I want to summarise this motif briefly as a signifier of Dalisay’s temperamentalness and hir potential to “spark” and revolutionise the situation on the train and more broadly, the way magic is deemed altogether. Moreover hir association with electricity indicates a sort of antiquated, forgotten proficiency (since electricity as a resource has been mostly superseded by the use of magical currents, which are far easier to produce) is both meant to reference the forgotten nature of the Fornax Project, and acts as a beacon signifying hir intelligence and wisdom seemingly stretching ‘beyond hir years’. I think all of this is quite vitally undercut by the canonical reasoning for Dalisay donning such iconography — simply, sie likes the cold, sie follows hir gut, so sie wears tangents to the cold.
Secondarily, and still connected to the prior, comes the idea of rainbows, color wheels, and similar multicolored iconography. As aforementioned, it’s mainly meant to convey hir propensity for cohering the rest of the cast’s conflicting opinions. It’s also meant to tie hir to to Fornax and its technicolor shifting expanses, signifying hir “command” over (or rather, connection with) the magical environment there that nobody else in the cast really matches, therefore subtly foreshadowing hir success in overturning the Fornax case.
Overall hir motifs were chosen as a way to indicate hir neverending mobility and overall chameleonic nature in comparison to both hir environment and the other people around hir: although the weather’s an abiotic construct it moves and changes around vivaciously, and thus contrasts with the train’s metallic and cold inner atmosphere, alongside the people within it who have grown variably resigned to immobility. Dalisay acts as a change of the tides, the harbinger of cleansing rain, all kinds of other metaphorical epithets you can glean up.
mild associations
Sie has… a lot of those. As a continuation of hir weather themeing, sie subtly retains the sun theme common between Isel, Mazin, Cas, all your favorite characters who quite often end up as roadkill. I’m sure I’ll explain myself over and over again with this but the basic idea of “sun = death” relates to the fact that Fornax gets no natural sunlight, pardoning Ulises’ gateways into the Octants where widespread natural light’s still scarce or at the very least weaker than the earthern Sun. Everyone who ties themselves to the sun is, in a way, attempting to avert their narrative imprisonment, and the world acts accordingly to punish any arrogant transcendence. And of course, there’s more general associations the sun holds outside of CCS jargon: self-centeredness, intellectualism and literal enlightenment, those kinds of matters. The rather small locus of this in Dalisay’s case — limited to an engraving on hir belt buckle — is sort of meant to signify a restrained, albeit still-present arrogance. Hinting at the potential of the Sunrise ending, etc etc. The scale of said motif also ties Dalisay to characters like Freya, Beatrix and Demeter who have adjacent-to-solar motifs and thus “border” on the fragments of death whilst being void of most danger that comes with it — with hir being granted permission by the narrative to do whatever sie wants, often ensuring hir survival. Save for, once again, the Sunrise ending which quite literally presents a much more pompous and self-centered Dalisay. In a way, sie tests the will of the narrative by technically still messing with the control room, albeit solely for the sake of hir own curiosity rather than to save anyone else — thus switching on the defense system of hir sun motif and prompting the narrative to kill hir without remorse. It’s a powerful force!
Sie’s also loosely meant to resemble some kind of engineer which is mostly a consequence of the in-world ‘industrial’ connotation programming has. It’s very straightforward, I’d say — sie’s here to fix things, and sie’s damn well assuring you sie will by dressing like a handyman. Certain aspects of hir outfit were also deliberately meant to harken to aviator fits — such as the way hir scarf’s worn, the goggles and fur embellishments… This is solely because I thought it’d be really funny to have that contextual anachronism present in a story that almost entirely takes place on a big train in a world where planes no longer exist.
Additionally hir trenchant association with lightning is a play on one of CCS’ early considered titles: “Lightning in a Fossil”, playing on both “lightning in a bottle” and “fossil words” to indicate a paradigm shift revolving around something rather dead, i.e Dalisay meddling with Fornax’s code. Typically any kind of common lightning-related saying helped round hir characterisation out, as cliché as it may be!
SUPPLEMENT
☀︎ Has some basis in Razputin Aquato from Psychonauts. Designwise it mostly comes across with the stupid goggles. Storywise, I feel the mutual atmosphere of 'kid protagonist who has to run back and forth solving complex mental problems for adults' resonates quite plainly.
☀︎ Very much based on the etiquette of nonchalant child prodigy characters combined with a personal rumination basically boiling down to "It would be so fucking funny if a character was just some kid who learned HTML through Neopets forums or something and that somehow translated into sufficient finesse to save the world." That very thought led into the whole harkening of CCS’s magic system to web design, actually! Everything vital comes from taking the bit seriously, as always…
☀︎ Also loosely derivative of typical sci-fi protagonists, specifically the pedigree of "extremely intelligent young guy who bears witness to a Weird alternate reality or universal affliction and has to get used to it and eventually master EVERYTHING around him, earning the respect of various strangers" but its very cynical. A completely bitter detournement because that’s an EXTREMELY annoying type of character to me and I wanted to make fun of it. Dalisay’s charm is not taken for granted, sie’s already fully equipped with hir skillset and simply has to adjust to talking to out-of-touch weirdos when sie hirself is already an out-of-touch weirdo, most characters never really "bow down" to hir presence or anything… It’s not a full subversion, it’s not like everyone utterly despises hir guts or anything, but. Yeah. There’s a bit more reality injected into such a gormless, entitled character conception which, in other works, is usually played completely straight.
☀︎ The stupid spike supplanted on hir goggles was fully and unapologetically borrowed from Raven of Guilty Gear fame. I don’t really care for that character, in terms of raw characterisation or design. I like that they put a big metal stick in his head though. Since CCS was meant to be more modern and demystified I just stole that design cue and made it a bit less grotesque by incorporating it into eye coverings instead of just… having a stick go through hir brain. To make it seem like a more intelligent and fanciful design choice, though, I could say it was just my way of incorporating lightning rods into hir design — implements that have enchanted me for years and years. That’d be a lie though. You’ll catch me saying this anyway, probably.
☀︎ Sie was the third CCS character designed, in the timefield of December 2021. Initially sie wasn’t even meant to be the protagonist! I was initially intending for a nameless self-insert 'interviewer' protag, though I found that kind of trite and unfulfilling so I just tossed that idea onto Dalisay, who I’d already established in my mind as a child prodigy programmer. I thought the reconciliation of someone who was very learned and esteemed in a coveted line of work whilst also being a very emotionally/socially unfledged person would be both interesting and endearing, and would serve to humanise the at-the-time clinical interview format I had in mind for protagonist-character conversations…
☀︎ Prior to hir taking on the mantle of protagonist, I was actually leaning toward portraying hir as a very distant, mysterious presence who was basically only reachable in conversations concerning train mechanisms. Sie was meant to have this unsettling void surrounding hir personality and ambitions, supposedly clouding a very high-strung, intense intent to bring the train back "no matter the cost". This attitude preserved itself for a few weeks AFTER the protagonist dilemma was resolved, sort of beaching itself into a story climax where Dalisay would throw hirself into Fornax to try and commune with the miscellaneous ghosts in the dimension, persuading them into bringing the train back. This was also back when the crucial twist of the story WAS Fornax’s sentience, although honestly it threaded the line between being ghosts stuck within the dimension or some weird interdimensional godlike cosmic force… Regardless Dalisay would’ve literally died within Fornax to fulfil hir plans, and then would’ve gotten graciously, piteously revived by Fornax upon appealling to the consciousness’ sense of sympathy. It was strange and very bleak, and there was this forced implication that Dalisay still didn’t really CONNECT with anyone living on the train and was sort of manipulating Fornax into reviving hir and thus giving hir a story to tell to the press and whatnot. So sie was a very complicated morally bankrupt character back then, very intentionally but also very awkwardly honestly. World’s evilest 19 year old. Major inspirations for this turn were the Afterman albums by Coheed and the song Undrowned by Everything Everything. You can probably estimate how I wanted to paint hir presence by way of those tunes.
☀︎ After this, I think the most significant musical influence on hir characterisation, at first at the very least, was Moon Colony Bloodbath. Important songs being Surrounded — demonstrating hir lack of sociability and draw toward magic and "machines" — and Sudden Oak Death — demonstrating hir stress upon having all the train residents make demands of hir. For a while I dropped the latter inspiration’s distress point, preferring to have hir appear calm and collected no matter what, though retroactively as of late that’s sort of crept in as an intentional choice that sie hirself is making, and the stress has returned albeit more within the scope of "I REFUSE to feel stressed about my situation and I will insist on trying to appease everyone." Thus paralysis returns, more dramatically than before!
☀︎ Speaking of Moon Colony Bloodbath, the quote about the whole concept of the album did kind of resonate with me and served as a basis for Dalisay’s analyses of Fornax. "This is a song about the organ harvesting colonies on the moon that men and women work on six months out of the year and the other six months they live in total secrecy in locations they’re not allowed to disclose, without family, without friends, without other occupations than giant televisions granted them by the government. I alone seems to be bearing witness to this phenomenon." Though obviously not as dystopic, the whole idea of secrecy and exile did bleed into Fornax’s mystique and the whole "I’m the only witness" attitude certainly did permeate Dalisay!
☀︎ This is very vague, and a sentiment that expands to a lot of other characters, (perhaps in more kaleidoscopic ways) but a lot of how Dalisay conducts hirself and interacts with other characters is very much based off my own sensiblities. Perhaps ones I don’t voice out of "being a human being who does not exist in a fictional vacuum", but Dalisay embodies my tendency toward very blunt, pressuring, unintentionally mean-spirited humor, type of stuff like replying to important demands with nonsequitors that are only funny to hir, making offhanded 'snide' comments that aren’t even sincerely mean but just humorous inversions that sie can’t pass up, asking people very dramatic and difficult questions out of the blue just to see if they say some nonsense… The jester’s autism.
☀︎ Back when I was first workshopping the design I realised the colors of hir boilersuit corresponded to the bi flag completely unintentionally. But it’s why sie’s bi at all!
PLAYLIST
☀︎ WRINKLE — THANK YOU SCIENTIST
☀︎ DUET — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀︎ SMELLS LIKE CONTENT — THE BOOKS
☀︎ MAGENTA MOUNTAIN — KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD
☀︎ ACID RAIN — LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT
☀︎ SKULL POP — GUERILLA TOSS
☀︎ CLUBBED TO DEATH (FROM THE MATRIX)
☀︎ ZERO PHARAOH — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀︎ SUBDIVISIONS — RUSH
☀︎ QUICKSILVER (FROM GUILTY GEAR ISUKA)
☀︎ CUT UP! — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀︎ DETERMINATION — TOBY FOX (FROM UNDERTALE)
☀︎ PARADIGM SHIFT — LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT
☀︎ SWARM — THANK YOU SCIENTIST
☀︎ DESERT OF SONG — BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME
☀︎ I HAVE BEEN FLOATED — THE OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL
☀︎ ROME — RATATAT
☀︎ CAN’T DO — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀︎ SOUL DIVER — THANK YOU SCIENTIST
☀︎ TO THE BLADE — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀︎ MEET AGAIN (FROM GUILTY GEAR X2)
☀︎ LUCIFORMS — THE MARS VOLTA
☀︎ PLAGUE ACCOMMODATIONS — THANK YOU SCIENTIST
☀︎ THE LOOP CLOSES — HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS
☀︎ UNIVERSAL MIND — LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT
☀︎ COALESCENCE — CHRIS CHRISTODOULOU (FROM RISK OF RAIN)
☀︎ FANCY MEAT COMPUTER — MASON LINDROTH, CHUCK SALAMONE (FROM HYLICS 2)
☀︎ NIL BY MOUTH — HAKEN
☀︎ WHEN THE WATER BREAKS — LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT
☀︎ LEAVE THE ENGINE ROOM — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
