Name:
Petunia
Age: 7 Years
Sex: Female
Species: Stitchpunk
Height: 5"
Weight: 1.5lbs
Materials: Cotton/Copper/Wood
Distinguishing
Marks:
'Hair' made
from a trimmed-down yarn tassel sewn to her head. The 'bun' at the top
usually serves as a pincushion for storing her filed-down needle and hatpins.
She's usually
bustling around on some self-imposed cleaning mission, carrying a 'broom'
made from a car antenna and a curtain pull.
Appearance:
Made of white cotton, 623 is assembled in such a way that she appears
to be wearing bloomers. The cloth is tied off right above her feet and
hands and is somewhat poofy, resulting in a pudgy look overall. Carefully
stitched seams in black thread run down her sides, up the back of her
head, and around both shoulders. Her number is embroidered on a scrap
of satin, stitched onto her back just below her neck - it's usually hidden
under the reddish-brown yarn hair which hangs to her mid-back. A carved
wooden toggle is visible on her chest above the tattered burgundy silk
ribbon she wears around her torso, which is tied into a huge bow at the
back. Her hands and feet are made largely of copper, though the tops of
her feet, palms, and her fingertips are covered by wooden shells held
on with brass screws. Her optics seem larger than normal and are rimmed
with brass.
Quirks:
She has
a bit of a stutter which gets noticeably worse if she's upset, and a habit
of adding 'you know?' to the ends of her sentences at random.
623 rarely
gives out her name, something that stems from when she was first found
after the War and given her number. Usually she refers to herself as 'Tunia
because she feels it sounds prettier.
CLEANLINESS
IS NEXT TO GODLINESS. Or possibly a reason for being. If she doesn't have
someone to look after, 623 will see to it SOMEthing is getting tidied
up.
She's inexplicably
drawn to bells, all shapes and sizes, though she does seem to prefer the
smaller and more jingly varieties.
Hidden away,
usually stuffed neatly inside herself, is an old linen handkerchief which
used to belong to her creator. It rarely makes appearances where anyone
else can see, but she tends to use it as a security blanket when feeling
unhappy.
While industrious,
sometimes to a fault, it's worth noting that 623 does have limits. Once
she reaches the limits of her energy, she sometimes simply drops into
a catatonic sleep state.
About:
Not
long before the War, there were odd rumors creeping about of a mysterious
mechanism capable of transferring a human soul into a specially prepared
vessel. Whether one was interested in self-preservation or attaining some
form of immortality, the concept quickly took root, and experimentation
with the process began behind many a closed door.
This news
sparked the interest of one person in particular, an aging engineer
with a more than passing interest in esoteric pursuits and studies of
the arcane. Reaching the end of life but wishing to continue his search
for knowledge, he seized upon this information and built his own soul-transfer
mechanism. But how to test it? The old gentleman's granddaughter, herself
suffering from a terminal illness, volunteered over the engineer's many
protests. Her reasoning, though grim for one so young, was infallible
- she would die in any event, so why not leave behind something that
would benefit others? Together, she and her grandfather spent days preparing
the sturdy doll meant to receive the little girl's soul, using all of
the arcane knowledge the engineer knew to try and facilitate the process.
It worked,
but when the little creature awoke, she remembered nothing at all of
her past. The old gentleman named her Petunia ('Tuney for short), and
kept the doll as something of a pet. Occasionally shown to visitors
as a successful result of the alchemical transfer process, the shy ragdoll
picked up tidbits of her creator's odd lore, as well as the domestic
skills she developed while caring for her 'Papa', until he died in the
midst of the War. Shellshocked and completely unprepared for what lay
in store for her in the ravaged world outside, 'Tuney chose simply to
go to sleep.
She was found and woken up some time later, after the final fighting had
died down, by a group of creatures similar to herself, scavenging and
exploring. They took her in for a time, and gave her a number - 623 -
which she embroidered on a scrap of her creator's old robe and then had
stitched onto her back. The others tried to teach 623 to defend herself,
though she proved to have no aptitude for combat, and eventually left
her with another group of automata. In the years since then she's been
passed from group to group, usually proving too much of a liability for
others to handle for very long. One kind soul bestowed a filed-down pair
of hatpins on her, for self-defense, before 623 set out on her own to
try and find a less nomadic group to take shelter with.
She'd run
across a number of friendly (and not so friendly) stitchpunks along the
way before taking refuge in a tiny tailor's shop on the ground floor of
one of the downtown buildings, not far from the library. Once laid claim
to, the shop became not just haven but project - a way for 623 to ground
herself and her worries - and as a result is rather noticeably...tidy.
She herself lives under the cover of an old tre adle sewing machine toward
the rear of the shop, with a decent view of the interior provided through
a stray bullet-hole 'window'. Scraps of fabric, ribbon or thread she's
unearthed end up in a candy tin hidden under the sewing machine itself,
in the bobbin compartment.
Despite her
childlike air and short stature, 623 is quite a bit more mature than she
seems – she just came to rely on hiding behind the childish appearance
especially since most people seem perfectly willing to assume because
of her size she is one of the very young, though the façade has
started to slip more and more often. Shy and retiring (at least at first),
her preferred tactic when threatened is to simply play dead provided she
can't run, something she's got down to an art. Barring that, she'll just
hide - and she's pretty good at that, too, given her size. Although she
(obviously) can and will fend for herself quite adequately, when she has
someone else to lean on, laziness will sometimes strike. Though shy at
first, it doesn't take long for her to get attached to people, and once
she's comfortable with a group, she can be quite a chatty little thing,
easily convinced (and willing) to help out.
623 also
has a somewhat disturbing tendency to get extra-attached to anyone who
rescues her from something - hazards either real or imagined - and will
come to the point of idolizing that person if allowed. Left unchecked
this could easily lead to her becoming a personal maid quite willingly.
Part of the reason behind this is a belief on her part that she needs
to be needed for something - needs to have a purpose in order to exist.
So what she does is look after others as much as they'll allow her to.
Most don't seem to like being mothered, unfortunately.
Artwork:
Reference
Sheet
Character
Image
Sketch Dumps: 1
2
3
Gift/Request Art:
By Annamage:
1
(detail)
By Hyenacub:
1
By Soup:
1
By Lady-Moth:
1
2
3
4
By Shio:
1
Themes:
Chimes
of Trinity
(Toys
OST) At The Closing Of The Year
-P- (Counting
Crows) Accidentally In Love
Related Characters:
304
Notes:
Voice: Daveigh
Chase
Text Color: IndianRed
Title: The Pet
Purpose: to Take Care Of Us |
