AWAKE AMONG THE DEAD

A figure skater with a minor intrigue in magical code and phenomena. Thon’s often seen Fornaxgazing by thon’s lonesome. If not surveying the skies, thon’s usually pacing around other passengers, challenging them with odd riddles and potential debates. In spite of thon's playfulness, thon is decently elusive about thonself, with few knowing about thon's aim to return the train to Earth.

NAME: FREYA VICTORIA OKOYE

TRAIN TITLE: BRAVURA

PRONOUNS: THON/SHE/CO

AGE: 24

ETHNICITY: KOREAN AND IGBO

PRIOR RESIDENCE: ENGLAND

IDENTITY: TRANSFEM NONBINARY LESBIAN

TRAIN ENTRY DATE: MARCH 25 2110

"will a golden heart do?"

PROJECTION

HISTORY

early life

Thon was born in Wrexham on May 22nd of 2087, coupled with thons twin Brook. As a second generation immigrant, Freya mostly kept to thonself throughout thons childhood, often occupying thonself with very 'busy' extracurriculars to stay out of people’s ways. Perhaps the most longstanding of these was thon’s burgeoning interest in figure skating. Thon was quite content just dedicating thonself to thons craft, a devotion that started to shed off thon’s fears about being seen as odd or weird by random people. Why dwell on anxious catastrophising about sidestepping social norms when thon had all kinds of techniques to practice and refine?
By the time thon was 14, thons family had relocated to London, which certainly did make thons life feel far busier. Though thon didn't immediately grow gregarious, thon developed a greater intrigue in socialising. Perhaps not the idealised way — for this was mainly expressed through aimless peoplewatching — it was still a drive to follow along.
Around the age of 15, thon developed a fixation on music, in particular rock and metal genres — something lifted from thon’s mother, who had an eclectic taste in music. Thon started practicing playing guitar, though grew dissatisfied with the simplicity of the instrument. Switching to drums, thon grew more confident in thons inner musical inventory, becoming adept at improvisation and complex fills. Thon’d eventually cross paths with a Tessellis friend who ended up living quite close by, somehow — Lacey. Xe properly played guitar, and spurred thon to accompany xem in a journey of musical hardship. In other words, the two started a little band. Lacey rounded up some more instrumentgoer friends, who scheduled consistent practice sessions, and so things kicked off. Through this, Freya finally found thonself among a circle of genuine friends after years and years of meek solitude. Thanks to this arrangement thon finally felt secure enough to start considering thonself "a girl of sorts", something met exceptionally supportively by thons family.
On the figure skating side of things, thons efforts were still ongoing. Thon became involved with a theater on ice troupe, which was exciting, if a little hard to juggle with thons commitment to the band. Thon ended up sort of stumbling through thons final years of high school — not too important considering thon had always planned for a career in the 'trained' arts. Moreover, thon’s family was right behind thon. Conflicted about whether to fall deeper into studies, and whether it was even worth it, thon decided to simply put thons all into the band — a very "if I can’t satisfy myself, I might as well satisfy the people around me" sort of move. It was around this time that thon and Lacey started dating, also, which further took Freya’s mind off difficult choices.

pre fornax

Throughout thons late teens, though thon didn’t abandon musical nor glacial ambitions, thon started setting aside time for exploration. Particularly of the "investigating odd mysteries" variety! Thon would often go on impromptu investigations throughout Wales, at first only for day’s trips to creepy decrepit areas and eventually elongated week’s long trips to strange forests and fields and ruins, sometimes without giving thons friends and family even the slightest of a heads up about thons whereabouts. This habit of arbitrary wandering and attachment to obscurities was honestly mostly compelled by the ravenous accrue of a desire to "do something important and impressive that thon fully commanded"… Put bluntly thon’s frustrations about never accomplishing anything started boiling to the point of thon considering things like the band and thons figure skating team complete 'false evidences' of thon’s talent, due to them having been spurred or overseen by other more knowledgeable people. Thons descent into risky expeditions was a way for thon to exercise thons independence and capability, and… despite the dangers, thon indeed remained sharp and careful, never really facing harm or injury even on thons prelonged trips. The more profound concern to be had was over thon’s evasiveness about thons whereabouts and schedule — thon liked to leave thons close ones in the dark about both, finding it a way to assert thons distance and make thons travels seem cool and mysterious even if, in truth, nothing really arose out of them… and this did spark up some ultimately unvoiced concern for thon, often. There was also natural difficulty caused by thons flakiness on behalf of thons commitments, for of course scheduled shows couldn’t go on without thon. Though thon did thons best to keep thons private investigations separate from both skating and the band, only going on long travels during preordained breaks, thon would sometimes mess up thons timing or things wouldn’t go to plan or all kinds of other mishaps that still read as "terrible excuses".
Luckily for thon, although perhaps in a complicated way, a natural rift in the whole band friend group grew just due to certain people finding greener pastures beyond music or moving real far away to the point of consistent rehearsals and performances becoming unviable. Thon sort of slipped away under the shadows of other people’s "more serious" reasons to leave the band, claiming thon also had 'better commitments'. One of these eventual vacancies was actually Lacey, who wished to leave the country for the sake of studying music 'properly' at university — the two quickly established a long-distance arrangement, but his departure was sort of the final nail in the coffin for Freya’s "old life". A much needed one, honestly! Through burying this part of thons life, thon developed a better flexibility for letting go of things and taking chances — thus also soon departing from thons skating team and deciding thon would move to England, perhaps a little haphazardly. Thon justified it to thons family by way of viewing such a big move as an opportunity for change and personal growth, a very plain new leaf turn… and within a few weeks, thon departed to London.
It was here where thon grew involved with a much more casual skating association, which left thon with more time to both voyage around and, now, properly recount thons journeys on self-made Tessellis blog. It was around this time that thon grew interested in magical programming, and this actually melded together with thons explorative habits quite well — thon found a niche of odd magical phenomena to explore, and so thon expanded thon’s travels to a worldwide scope, having this complex about wanting to be the first to properly document strange happenings and offer reasonable explanations for them. This new foreign study was heavily aided by online guides and resources for learning programming and its rules — thon closely followed the writings of classic Subwoofer user Quicksilver, for one — and grew absurdly competent, especially with the consideration of thon lacking any kind of professional experience. Enough so that thon dabbled in building some simple decorative objects utilising magic, such as strange iridescent jewellery, extremely electronic sounding chimes, etc. Regardless, thons primary concern was keeping thons eyes on new discoveries about magic and odd phenomena that could be explained by through worldly mishaps in code. Thon was notably good at pointing out random light and heat 'spots' that arose out of 'magical leeching', an extremely experimental concept that took years and years to achieve genuine veneration in academic circles.
Though thon actually did make a few minor fresh discoveries, thon’s blog still remained fairly underground and there were often more esteemed publications that, although did things far later than thon, explained happenings more thoroughly and "professionally" to the general programmersphere. Thon was in no danger of burnout or giving up on thons own documentation, if only spurred by bitterness and nothing else, but thon’s feelings of subparness burned on.
One night thon revisited an old magical occurance thon’d bookmarked many months back — The Fornax Project itself, initially something thon just viewed as a silly series of bad organisation that was simply overblown and sensationalised. There was an arbitrary new wave of rumors surfacing, particularly due to a 'leak' of names of passengers being passed around and scrutinised. Freya didn’t pay that particular detail much mind, instead just revitalising an interest in examining the project and its apparant failures. After conducting some simple research, and finding out that tickets were still available and that entry was still permitted, somehow, well… Thon had made a name for thonself in the sphere of magical paranormalness, and didn’t have much else going on in thons life. Another trip to nowhere wouldn’t hurt, most likely.
Thankfully thon did take some precautions, and did relay thons full intent to both Lacey and thons parents — thon actually spent a lot of time preparing some keepsakes and supplies, just in case Fornax was deceptive. Though at first these felt like pleasantries just to soften the blow of a complete disappearance to thons family, eventually thon’s apathy and aimlessness were decaptitated by genuine excitement for a full-blown serious investigation. Thon brushed up on some useful coding, saved and printed some magical guides, further arranged some 'protective' trinkets to keep thonself safe, and… actually looked into some speculation done by others, noting down some proposed solutions to 'fix' the train in case thon could actually use them. Though thon mostly just wished to weave thonself onto Fornax to find out what was afoot, thon did think of potentially being the one to unravel and repair the train as quite the bonus, and ended up feigning a lot of optimism.
On March 25 of 2110, thon left for Fornax.

on fornax

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post fornax

PERSONALITY

Perceptive, imaginative, whimsical. — Pretentious, facetious, self-righteous.

RELATIONSHIPS

olzhas

isel

dalisay

mazin

somsak

demeter

ulises

sabri

peixin

marjolaine

beatrix

valerie

faris

lusine

míra

cas

The ghost thon’s closest to. Very receptive to thons queries, attentive to thons mood and generally affectionate towards thon. When thon first met her, thon had presumed her name was short for “Cassiopeia” which she’d taken a shine to and fully accepted as an inverted nickname of sorts. Though their relationship is heavily clouded by the pressure of desperate interdimensional communication, they still manage to burrow into compact moments of sincere joy, occasionally conveyed through brief conversations on existential truths such as fate, adoration, luck, art… Very abstract debate prompts that they often end up polishing each other’s views on. Freya very much wishes thon could just… have her right at her side, down below in the material plane. The sky’s good enough, thon supposes. A second shade of their relationship arises from the aforementioned desperate interdimensional communication. Although they both make a conscious effort to keep one another’s “humanity” and fragile pliability in their current circumstances in mind, they sometimes push against one another on accident. On Freya’s side of things, thon often idolises Cas’ noble sacrifice and her whole projected revenge quest to the point of exaggerating it in thons own mind — thus losing a bit of sincerity in the quest to romanticise and idealise everything into convoluted, ornate mythos, as is not uncommon with thon.

lanuola

thuyết

Probably the most downright enigmatic of all ghosts to thon. Though thon’s got multiple corroborations of her character — coming in from direct conversations with her, Olzhas’ scant recountings of her and her work, overheard snippets of Ulises and Demeter’s praise for her — thon still finds thonself lost in Thuyết’s expansiveness, much like one would lose oneself in an impossibly large house, or something. With regards to pragmatic correspondence, she always seems a little antsy and uptight, at times even annoyed with Freya and her meddling — she’s always rather curt in wordage and limited in jolility. Yet every person thon’s talked to — well, at least Olzhas, mostly just Olzhas, has claimed that Thuyết would’ve been well-impressed by thons curiosity, intellect and good humor. Though thon doesn’t doubt that Thuyết’s simply changed since anyone on the train last saw her (thon’s seen what dwelling inside of Fornax has done to people like Cas already!) thon IS deeply curious about this change of pace. Thuyết seems far from cooperative when it comes to solving this discrepancy, though. Ah well. It’s probably better this way, thon thinks.

omar

Very unimpressed by him. Thon finds him far too distractable and self-sufficing in conversation to ever entertain his presence. Moreover, thon’s heard the flippant way he’s discussed Lusine’s dissolution, alongside his virulent complaints concerning Cas, which… hasn’t done much to brighten Freya’s view of him. He’s mostly just a thorough burr.

APPEARANCE

FACE: Rounded, loosely heart-shaped. Prominent, tall forehead. Eyes have epicanthal folds, and irises are a light hazel-grey in color. Eyebrows are pale but thick, tapering off at the edges facing the ears. Nose is broad and flat, with 'sharp' wide nostrils and a wide bridge. Redness in cheeks, and more rarely the nose, due to prevailing mild rosacea. Ears are pierced, and thon usually wears beady, rounded red earrings.
HAIR: Pale white-blond. Texture is 4c, with the length being around chin-length. Usually wears thons hair in long jumbo box braids, parted into 8 main braids. Thon parts four to the front and four to the back, the former ones being shorter than the latter, a ratio of chest-to-waist usually. As part of thons paradigm, thon usually wraps around hairties resembling hollies around the front two.
BODY: Around 5’3. Fat around the face and upper body, legs are somewhat more muscular. Very light body hair in terms of color, most of it not even visible — thon doesn’t really bother with shaving past the face. Has some scarring at the legs due to figure skating strain.
MAIN OUTFIT: The centerpiece of thon’s paradigm is an oversized furry green coat that turns a lighter shade at its bottom — the collar notably springs out. Big pockets occupy both sides. Thon usually leaves the opening agape, but the coat CAN be closed via three circular red buttons. Underneath thon has a lighter coat more reminiscent of a skating costume — alternating between shades of green to form holly leaf patterns, featuring red borders and ending a bit above the knees. The topmost chest portion and the sleeves are composed of a fishnet-like material, though there’s a dark grey layer beneath to protect thons skin. At the center of the chest is a little pendant-style bow with a ruffle emerging from a bead. Thon also wears a thick black belt with a holly shape imposed at its crux. Beneath, thon wears bicolor ski-style pants with the interior being a deep black, and the exterior being a dark, wine-tone magenta. These are lined on the inside with black fur. Wears boots, which contain sharp holly-shaped pink outlines and various darker dots of red. The top of them is lined with spiky cherry-colored fur. They’re opened up with a zipper, and have a slight heel. A button is present at the back, which causes hidden skating blades to extend forth when pressed.

GENERAL FASHION STYLE: Primarily revolves around layering — most of thons clothes are longsleeved, and thon owns additional long undershirts and leggings and such. Thon has a grand inventory of coats and jackets, mostly of the dense winter variety. Also fond of scarves, gloves, heavy boots and widebrim hats. Thon kind of takes a brunt hit during the summertime, dark membrane-y capes and sunhats being a fixture of the season. Wears skirts infrequently, often preferring having pants underneath them anyway. Thon doesn’t like ones that are too floaty or short, with thons favorites being drapey, blanketlike drags of cloth. Similarly doesn’t like overly confining or rigid materials, preferring to have extensive flexibility for movement.
Most of thons wardrobe contains bright overlaid patterns — often a perfect hypothetical crossroad between tacky Christmas sweaters and cluttered floral prints. Thon’s not as precise about keeping thons signature colors in check as other people may be — thon’ll wear varied palettes, yellow being a frequent favorite. Part of this arises from a lifelong habit of borrowing clothes from other people, solely for fun. A tangent of thons motif that appears quite frequently is leaf patterns, with thon owning multiple shirts and skirts depicting busy arrangements of plant litter. Also will often rein in the berry aspect of thons holly motif via abstract circular patterns.
The basis for most of thon’s fashion lies in honestly very nondiegetic modern clothing — that is too say around late 90s-early 2000s fashion, which is, inworldly, seen as quaint and antiquated.

POSTURE AND MOVEMENT: A general form of 'floatiness' persists through all of thons motions. Thon’s prone to launching thonself around a room, propelling thonself off of walls, hopping around, spinning arbitrarily, alternating between crouching and wide leaps… It’s as if thon’s engrossed in a constant skating performance… perhaps thon thinks of the world as such. Thon’s often messing with thons hands, either operating complex cat-cradle webs with thons fingers, rubbing and knocking thons knuckles together, scratching at thons nails… Whenever available, which is often considering thons eagerness to summon things, thon’ll also orbit marbles around and do tricks with them — something along the lines of pen or coin spinning, with thon slipping them between thons fingers, rolling them along thons wrist, and more. Thon’s skilled at this stuff.
A common tag of annoyance involves tugging on thons braids, or otherwise tossing them away/wrapping them around thons hand.
On a general level, thon’s very flexible, often leaning down, backwards or at odd angles. Thon’s also got a habit of rotating around whilst walking — it’s not uncommon to see thon leading someone someplace whilst completely walking backwards.
Freya’s got a somewhat unsettling default expression — a practiced full-toothed smile, deliberately exercised to be offputting. Alongside this thon claims a much more practical habit, of the optical variety: thon often widens thons eyes to get better looks at things or people, once again something that may look strange to others. Thon’s well aware of the reactions thon garners from these gestural oddities, often playing them up. Thon’s expressions, otherwise, vary very rarely, much to thons own chagrin — thon’s got a thing of looking far too cheerful in the face even when furious or otherwise upset, leading to people often not taking thon seriously. Thons most distinct natural expression is thons jaw just flying open when surprised, something most people easily interpret right, thankfully.

VOICE: Lies in the mid-deep range of pitch, though this varies heavily — thon’s good at impressions and wrangling thons voice into odd tones and inflections, granting thon some flexibility. Note that thon hasn’t really trained thons voice for the sake of passing — its entirely for mischief and acting’s sake. Indeed, most of thons variation lies in going comically gravelly and booming out of nowhere — thon’s notably great at doing death metal style growls and shows off the ability any time thon can.
Typically, though, thon has a very warm and measured midtone. This may turn more scratchy and crackle-y under the shell of excitement, thon being prone to squeaking, hissing and similar guttural utterances. Pacewise thon is harlequined, knowing when to pause and mince speed for effect, speeding up when excited or trying to invoke fear into others, among similar habits. Volume can vary greatly, though thon often speaks in a subdued drawl, which can easily slip into a proper whisper. Thon’s rarely properly loud unless thons trying to be annoying or cast attention on thonself, as mentioned. Words can easily blur together, and thon often lets consonants evaporate into vowels or turn much 'airier' in general.
Thons accent is mainly influenced by Welsh and MLE, the latter being especially strong. When conversing with strangers, thon instinctively tends to relate back into articulation similar to Received Pronounciation for perceived maximum understandability, though quickly relaxes back into thons natural speech commixture once thon’s gotten to know the person.

ENVIRONMENT

train room

Entryway is sequestered in a small, missable corridor near the Winter-Spring border. Thons proper room, extremities aside, is surprisingly small and humble — more or less a 3-room attic-esque cavern composed of hardened wood and brick. The living room and the bedroom are more or less one, the latter only guarded off by a turnaround in the walls. Thon indulges in soft plush seating, often of rustic, fanciful colors like burgundies and reds. Rugs are also profoundly common, and much more colorful and patterned. Similarly thon has a bunch of soft blankets spread around seats and flooring alike, to make the place "more comfy". A notable setpiece is an old-timey fireplace, which continuously burns. The ceiling features ornate beams, themselves coated in fairy lights and tinsel and similar Christmas-esque ephemera. Most windows are coated with thick, cloudy glass that intentionally makes Fornax appear to be an abstract snowstorm. Thon also owns some paintings done by Isel, and has some odd self-made crafts like paper cranes hanging around. Thon also makes copious use of hanging shelves and wall-dwelling drawers to store random things… Lots of books. Some statuettes. Marbles. Scrolls and letters. All kinds of bizarre things.
Outside of thons living quarters, thon has an impressively large ice skating rink posited in a lowered 'basement' of sorts — by command, it goes on infinitely and continuously generates ice flooring for as far as thon wishes to skate. It also does indeed generate a trailing 'outside' region with walking space and, further off, seats, which is usually what people observing thon utilise to keep up with thon.
Conversely thon has a small upstairs area that mimicks the Fornax balconies in Winter, though it’s a bit larger, sitting on the 'roof' of thons room itself, and also features some seats and tables, culminating in a very picnic-ready appearance… Thon often hangs around here during episodes of utmost boredom, and also whenever thon wishes to be as direct and clear as possible with the ghosts.

frequented areas

Can be found almost everywhere, honestly, except for the Summer district (due to its tighter regulation of Fornax influence, often chagrinning thon) and the control room (for obvious reasons). Part of thon’s schedule revolves around crossing into Spring for the sake of conversing and dining with Olzhas sometime in the afternoon, on a daily basis, and thon similarly tries to be cordial with Isel, more typically visiting ver every other day or so. Aside from the aforementioned Isel visits thon also tends to stick around the control room, seemingly just waiting around for it to miraculously open.
The crux of thons wanderings, though, revolve around the back end of the train in its colder regions. Thon’s a notable Fornaxgazer and thus spends a lot of time trailing around the balconies of Winter and Spring… thon’s notably more direct than someone like Demeter, also, often being brave enough to sit and stand on the railings, dragging thons hands out to the skies, etc. Usually wanders around Spring later in the day when thons more tired, preferring to just slink around the wide windows and lean against them and such, much like a jetlagged passerby observing the departure of some planes.
Thon’s last common location is more obscure — the Evoker room. Though thon indeed starts visiting it far more around the time the Cassiopeia plan kicks in, thon’s always been magnetised to the big orb, spending a lot of time summoning ridiculous big objects just for the sake of it, or 'testing' odd things like the way it feels to submerge ones hands into its surface, other such mindgames… Thon’ll spend upwards of hours just sorting through odd summonings and commanding minute variations of the same things just to see how truly customisable its functionality is. The only person realy grieved by this habit, similarly one of the only people to also utilise the Evoker frequently, is Sabri, who often just has to wait until thon leaves to summon actual things for her garden. She doesn’t quite get thons dedication toward completely massacaring its function, but… she’s made enough peace with it to leave thon alone.

TRIVIA

☀︎ Thon has albinism. Evidently.
☀︎ Though thon isn’t completely blind thon wavers quite close to being low vision, practically only capable of seeing things in detail if they’re extremely close to thons face. This persists even with corrective lenses. Thon has significant astigmatism, nystagmus and double vision, all often made worse in the presence of bright lights. Most of the time thon simply identifies objects and people as vague blurs and silhouettes, most commonly using colors to identify people. Thon will also commonly pretend to mistake people for one another because thon thinks its funny.
☀︎ Thon learned to move around without depending on sight quite well, mostly due to thons early digression into figure skating. If sight isn’t necessarily essential to an action, thon may prefer closing thon’s eyes to prevent strain and simply navigate via other senses.
☀︎ Tangent to the above, this mostly works because the train has a very distinct, limited design that thon knows how to traverse — back on Earth thon did depend on tinted glasses and, whenever heading out to particularly crowded places, a white cane quite heavily. Trainwise, and whenever they’re together, thon also depends on Olzhas quite a bit, as someone who can silently and quickly pass on information about visuals through the whole mindlink thing. Eir descriptions are usually satisfactory enough for thon, though thon likes to be annoying and ask about useless arbitrary details just to waste eir time. It’s a wonderful bit.
☀︎ More contrarily, whenever thon directly needs to look around and identify things by thons lonesome, thon will often widen thons eyes excessively — something that people who aren’t used to thon may get startled by. Over the years thon’s started playing into it, intentionally keeping thons expression very intense and rigid and unblinking. Thon also often accompanies with the overly wide toothy grin thon’s devised to be specifically unsettling.
☀︎ Thon is the only character in CCS to avoid any kind of eye asymmetry/covering entirely, at the very least during the span of the main story. This is a subtle indication toward thon’s willingness to observe the ghosts and more broadly, thon’s loose metafictional awareness… Very literally it’s a visual cue meant to bolster thon as the most directly perceptive character in the story.
☀︎ No more eye notes. Now. Fun fact: Thon LOVES riddles, as a kid thon spent ages learning them in case thon’d ever need to make small talk or act like an elf, or something along those lines. Conversely thon also memorised many a 'alternate answers' to a bunch of obscure riddles just in case thon’d ever need them. Unsurprisingly neither inventories fare much use.
☀︎ Eels are thon’s favorite animal. Thon generally enjoys a good aquatic beast, being fond of many fish and even more eccentric creatures like seals, otters, alligators, so on. Thon’s also well fond of toads and frogs.
☀︎ Marbles are a fixture of thon’s mannerisms, as described prior — beyond just thon’s finger tricks and spins and juggles, thon finds it fun to collect them. This proclivity’s mostly limited to pre-train times — thon believes the novelty of getting unique ones is kind of mucked up by the extensiveness of the object-puller summoning capabilities, and so has altered the habit to just… intermittently summoning marbles only to throw them back into Fornax once thon’s done fiddling with them. Thon’s probably tossed upwards of a hundred or so marbles down some train balconies.
☀︎ Thon’s got a huge sweet tooth, and isn’t particularly picky about thons treats either… Thon actally quite enjoys really strong artificial tastes, literally loves nothing more than a manufactured cherry flavor that sticks in the mouth.
☀︎ Thon’s fluent in English, Welsh, Igbo and Latin; is slightly rusty with French, though is also near-fluent in it; knows some really rough casual Korean just on a heritage speaker level. The Latin was especially learned just to be pretentious, thon initially was taught it in like classes and just kept up with it on thons own accord afterward, finding it too cool to lose skill in. Thon’s also decently competent at conversing in Italian and Spanish, solely because thon nagged Olzhas and Isel into teaching thon up to at least a decent spoken level in both.

ROLE

Put simply Freya’s major function is working as a mirror to Dalisay; thon’s a hobbyist programmer who’s motivated not by garnering recognition for thons investigations into strange magic phenomena, but rather by the need to satiate thon’s own curiosity… and as the story progresses, and as Dalisay hirself puts aside hir precise vision of 'saving the Fornax Project', Freya starts to centerstage thons own needs for recognition. They do a good old switcheroo in terms of ideals, to put it simply — swapping the reverence between their two main "pulls"; external recognition and internal investment. Freya being initially revered as a ghostly 'hero' figure also marks thon as an invert of Dalisay, with people initially underestimating and discrediting hir… and in the end Freya ends up dismissed upon not living up to the expectations of saviorship placed upon her, and Dalisay ends up earning hir desired respect. And in a sense Freya’s whole need for attention, and the lack of train passengers donating to it, is a secondary impulse when propped against thons want to be revered by the greater world… which is where a simile with Isel takes form — "So long as I achieve respect in the long run and appropriately show off the chips I’ve been holding onto all along, I am fine with being deemed weird by a small subsection of humanity." Also note some similarity between motivation changes within the duos Isel-Olzhas and Dalisay-Freya as juxtapositions in themselves, with Olzhas and Dalisay eventually starting off as extremely 'selfish' and selfserving and concluding their arcs with opening up to people and aiding them, and conversely, Isel and Freya’s laser-precision on doing things for 'the greater good' only to put that vague desire above everything else, including their awareness of others…
In terms of Cassiopeia, Freya’s more or less the glue, or… to organise it theatrically, the 'director' to Isel’s 'coordinator' and Olzhas' 'critic'. The whole backbone of the ideology revolves around thon, with thon being the most proactive about fulfilling it… whilst Isel does a lot of the 'dealings' talk with Dalisay, Freya’s usually running around behind the scenes detangling information and telling everyone else what to do… Thon’s the one who initially compelled Isel into a communicative line of action, noting ver experience with radio and synthesising it with their mutual motivations, and later on thon does a similar thing when coaxing Olzhas into helping thon out with sending a message out through the Evoker using eir clairvoyance. Thon’s attentiveness is very pointed and calculated and thon can flex it extremely well! And Dalisay recognises this and most of hir sympathies and compromises for Cassiopeia lie in finding thon thonself an important, reflexive 'partner' of sorts.
Thon also serves the unique function of operating as an 'anchor' to the ghosts for the majority of the story, especially in comparison to Demeter’s more idle observations of Fornax and Somsak’s complete tangents of breaking into defunct train rooms without even knowing they belonged to the now-deceased. Thon’s the one who can most directly communicate with the dead and is also the one who like… most directly 'knows' them as people. Aside from being able to relay some information from them to Dalisay, this also allows thon to lie 'close to death' without ever really dying. Like, in any ending, ever. Which is important considering how infused death is into everyone else’s narratives… Like contrast thon with Isel’s own near-deathedness being presented as a matter of constant overarching passivity and inaction, with ver own grandest action being willingly throwing verself into Fornax to fully sew together the mantle of death. Thon gives thonself immunity by weaving in and out of nonexistence before thons fears can catch up with thon… I think that’s the best way to describe thon’s ghostly endeavours, and by extension, thons weird extrameta knowledge.

MOTIFS

main

Most prominently associated with holly, evidently. The plant’s most distinct assets to me are the fact its an evergreen, the bright red rounded berries and the chipped serrated leaves. To allegorise it, this gets across Freya’s tendencies of dual nicety and sudden cruelty — the fact holly berries are unsafe for consumption is yet another subversion of thons supposed levitous air. Moreover the whole thing about holly leaves being sharp to ward animals off bites kind of applies to how thon utilises thons simple and merry nature to fly under the radar and grant thonself freedom away from prying eyes. The berries also harken to thons association with marbles and orbs — more on that below — and kind of bind thon to those shapes in an organic, raw manner.
Hollies also have obvious connotations with Christmas which was honestly always secondary in my mind to thon overall, despite the color scheme… Maybe there’s something to be said about Jesus and sacrifice and how Cassiopeia parallels that but Christianity is not my strong suit whatsoever. Who knows why.
Combining the holly motif with the past in figure skating, there’s a solid 'winter' motif to be dragged across thon. I feel the most nonaimless way to take it is to harken it to the Winter district of the train, conveying Freya’s subtle 'rule' over part of the train and how thon’s privy to some of its lore and mysticism, seemingly innately. There’s no other character who really has that strong of an association to a season designwise.

mild associations

Through both thons taming of the Evoker, and repetitive mentions of thon summoning, collecting and playing with marbles, thon has a whole motif of orbs. Though it’s easy to link to things like planets or crystal balls and such, the primary aim of these secondary visuals is to subtly indicate thon’s connection to the sun. This in itself is a repetitive motif which, in the text of CCS, represents death and attachment to the Fornax Reality, as can be seen with characters like Mazin, Isel, Cas and Peixin. Freya has a tangent of this visually, straying from the typical rayed suns, meant to show how thons mostly brushing close to death by talking to the ghosts and all, whilst still evading dying thonself. This is set up quite plainly considering thon’s unique state of being able to evade death in EVERY ending.
If anything, the sharp glows or holly leaf edges I draw thon with are the closest to sun rays, and those are still simulacrums of a complete stylised sun. The closest I’ve ever gotten to depicting thon with a proper shape came in the form of drawing thon with a green sun, blurring together the alchemical concept of the green lion eating the sun. To summarise, there’s intentional evasion of death in the way thon’s linked to indirect sun shapes. Smile.
Speaking of alchemical concepts, thon’s loosely connected to that realm of esotericism in my mind. There’s not much to explain here beyond just the view of death, immortality and transformation being similar to thons own flippant regard of those things — with things like the magnum opus representing deep psychlogical and physical change being comparable to dying within the Fornax reality, with death itself not being an ending and instead part of a 'process'. Things like that. Hermeticism is right up thons alley.

SUPPLEMENT

☀︎ Generally inspired by what I refer to as the "vision-bearing ingénue with a god complex" character archetype. As examples I will prod at Clara from Pathologic, Dovewing from Warriors, and potentially Noelle Holiday of Deltarune fame. Although I somewhat subvert it by having thon be far more outright mean and self-aware, simply acting the part of the 'inexperienced young girl' for fun and more seriously, for the sake of maintaining thons own freedom and personal elasticity, that in itself is kind of an eyebrow-raise toward people who view these kinds of characters in a very straightforward, bookcover manner… If all you want to see is a naïve silly girl who simply doesn’t know better because that’s the way of the world you certainly can read into it that way, but if you examine even for a second the difficult terrain said silly girl has to manage, you can jump past the flat-sided reading into a much more rounded narrative about ignorance and limitation and "lack of experience" all crafted from baseless presumption. Sometimes trusting a silly girl can be good for you. That’s the gist of thons arc.
☀︎ All of Cassiopeia operates under the repeatedly-aforementioned awareness of literal drama and theater, kind of with the awareness of one’s precise role in the narrative as though a stock archetype. Freya is perhaps the most misty about it, being very blasé and overconfident, as though having run through the story a dozen times prior…
☀︎ To comment on this more directly though, thons connections to theater mostly lie as a tangent via the whole figure skating thing. It’s important that none of Cassiopeia really occupies the niche of a proper actor on a stage — Freya does theater on ice, sure, but it’s still far more niche and technical than typical acting. Similarly Isel is a radio presenter and at most a solely voice-oriented actor — there’s a strong divide between what ve can do with ver voice and what ve can do with ver body, two completely independent tracks that don’t meld quite right at times, leaving ver as quite the unusual gesturer. In Olzhas’ case it mostly comes down to the harlequin association and eir hobby in dance, reflecting eir kind of backstage, secondary and silent presence within Cassiopeia as a 'show'. To take it further Cas herself is just a professional dancer, even more instrumental. Freya’s whole swipe into a verbal spectacle is thon kind of overdoing thons 'purpose' in the narrative and the dynamic thons a part of. All this to say thon breaks all kinds of rules about thons intended existence. Smile.
☀︎ Albeit somewhat of a behind-the-scenes comment, a lot of how Freya is written is derived from the stylistic and attitudistic traditions of progressive rock and progressive metal. It’s a difficult thing to describe to people outside of the circle but to put it bluntly, thon is pretentious about lame overcomplicated things, and adores allegorisation and metaphor more than anything. Thons inborn prog attitude makes thon strikingly passionate and very very unimpressive. This is vital to consider when thinking about thon. Socially and just in general.
☀︎ The secondary name of "Victoria" is drawn from the character Victoria Page of Metropolis, Pt 2: Scenes from a Memory. The entire meta rationale for it was just me wanting to throw in a prog reference since Metropolis’ themes of displacement in one’s body and also ghosts, like, in general, seem befitting for thon… and considering thon’s backing in prog metal, the textual origin or 'inspiration' for using the name remains the same. :+).
☀ Minor inspiration for the initial drafts of thons design revolve around some KOF characters, namely Kula Diamond and Athena Asamiya. Kula is practically the reason thon's a figure skater in the first place!

PLAYLIST

MAIN
☀︎ PROLOGUE: A FAINT APPLAUSE… — THANK YOU SCIENTIST
☀︎ MATRYOSHKA — HACHI
☀︎ FISH BELOW THE ICE — SHRIEKBACK
☀︎ QWERTY FINGER — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀︎ PREHISTORIC PRELUDE — CHARLIE GRIFFITHS
☀︎ NEW MILLENNIUM — DREAM THEATER
☀︎ TV DO TELL — GUERILLA TOSS
☀︎ ONE MILLION MILES AN HOUR, FAST ASLEEP — RX BANDITS
☀︎ WAIT FOR SLEEP — DREAM THEATER
☀︎ I AM S/H(IM)E[R] AS YOU AM S/H(IM)E[R] AS YOU ARE ME AND WE AM I AND I ARE ALL OUR TOGETHER: OUR COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS’ PSYCHOGENIC FUGUE — GIRAFFES? GIRAFFES!
☀︎ AND SHE WAS — TALKING HEADS
☀︎ UNDER ICE — KATE BUSH
☀︎ DEAD MAN’S PARTY — OINGO BOINGO
☀︎ THE SUBLIME FREAK — LIGHTNING BOLT
☀︎ DISAPPOINTED — DEATH GRIPS
☀︎ AGEISPOLIS — APHEX TWIN
☀︎ THE PROVERBIAL BELLOW — BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME
☀︎ WARM HEALER — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀︎ 198D — AT THE DRIVE-IN
☀︎ ICE V — KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD
☀︎ RED GIANT — HAKEN
☀︎ I BELIEVE IT NOW — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀︎ SNAKE OIL BAPTISM — DIABLO SWING ORCHESTRA
☀︎ UNDER A GLASS MOON — DREAM THEATER
☀︎ SNOW — HAKEN
☀︎ ISLANDS — OINGO BOINGO
☀︎ THE MEAT CIRCUS — PETER MCCONNELL (FROM PSYCHONAUTS)
☀︎ I AM AN ANGEL — NOT BLOOD PAINT
☀︎ CHROMOLOGY — THANK YOU SCIENTIST
☀︎ GAMMA KNIFE — KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD
☀︎ PANIC STATION — MUSE
☀︎ SCENE TWO: I. OVERTURE 1928 — DREAM THEATER
☀︎ THE HOLY FILAMENT — MR. BUNGLE
☀︎ BAROMETRIC REIGN — THE JELLY JAM
☀︎ 1985 — HAKEN
☀︎ METROLAND IS BURNING — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀ ︎WEIGHTS — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀︎ EPILOGUE: …AND THE CLEVER DEPART — THANK YOU SCIENTIST
SONGBIRD ENDING
☀︎ SCENE THREE: II. FATAL TRAGEDY — DREAM THEATER
☀︎ DELIRIUM TRIGGER — COHEED AND CAMBRIA
☀︎ DECRESCENDO — RX BANDITS
☀︎ MY KZ, UR BF — EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
☀︎ WHERE’S MY TIME STICK? — CHASE LONG BEACH
☀︎ DARKEST LIGHT — HAKEN
☀︎ VIATOR — JACK STAUBER
☀︎ FREYA — THE SWORD
☀︎ BEAUTIFUL AND TRAGIC — ADAM NEELY, BEN LEVIN, JUSTICE COW
SUN ENDINGS
☀︎ FOAM BORN (A) THE BACKTRACK — BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME
☀︎ EARTHLINGS — HAKEN
☀︎ PERMAFROST — CLOSURE IN MOSCOW
☀︎ METROPOLIS - PART I: "THE MIRACLE AND THE SLEEPER" — DREAM THEATER

EXTERNAL

☀︎ Isel, Olzhas and early Cassiopeia
☀ Handwriting notes
☀ Post-epilogue Cassiopeia
☀ Character voice descriptions
☀ Character name origins
☀ Peixin and their visions