SONiKA

code modified from cawaii's original
( Jarjammed nonsense under cut )

PLAYER INFO:
Name: Des
Preferred pronoun: her, she, etc.
Preferred means of contact: AIM: Macrocosm says, Plurk: Deathdesu
Any other characters currently in-game? Nope!

CHARACTER INFO
Name: SONiKA
Gender: Female
Source: Vocaloid (AU based on the songs of Serious MF)
Canon point: Between "mech.amore" and "Artificial Love." SONiKA has just attacked her ex-boyfriend in his home and temporarily fled to the laboratory that she lived in. It is from here that she will activate SBURB.
Age: mentally/appearance-wise 17, but is a gynoid, so years-in-existence-wise is younger than that
Colour: Well SONiKA is indecisive so if I wanted to be really IC, she'd be changing her font color frequently, preferring golds and greens but sometimes red and any other color. But if that's not acceptable, how about #01DF3A
Chumhandle: amorousComputations

History:

First, since I'm basing the AU off of a bunch of songs, let me link them up here in roughly the order I've decided they go:
Not Like U
USBmine
Character Select
My Mechanical Heart
Power Supply
410n3+10n31y
Erosynthesis
eMancipation
mech.amore
Artificial Love
Boy Toy

But I'm sure you don't want to listen to all of those just to get an idea of where I'm coming from so here is a lyrics list. I've copied the lyrics as close to the way Serious MF wrote them as I could. It's a classic sci-fi setup. Humans make artificially intelligent robots to serve them, AIs become a little too human-like, ethics get weird, society goes, "Well, what now?" But mostly, it's a story about a relationship. A really unhealthy relationship, that she is forced to overcome.

SONiKA was, like many other robots, a custom model built for her particular user, by English company ZERO-G. She came with the Vocaloid program for singing and music, but in her case that software was more of a fun bonus than anything. As a robot her user could program her to do anything he wanted, and mold her into his own vision. This was encouraged by ZERO-G and many other companies making humanoid robots at the time. SONiKA's user was a scientist from Canada, so although she has an English accent and looks like an anime character, she's very North American in general. As a robot, she went through an initial period where her AI was not very complex - she was never deadpan, but the default personality is a sort of shallow, flighty teenage girl.

SONiKA was her user's lab assistant - she lived in the lab, and was basically just there to help him with his work and for him to study her. At first, she just processed information and integrated it into her algorithms like any other robot. But the more she learned, the more the lines blurred between how she saw herself and how she saw humans. She started to become insecure. "Can you tell I'm not like you? I can't tell." Of course, the more she liked to think of herself as human, the more the true humans liked to correct her on that. With enough people telling her she was just a machine, that is to say, an object, SONiKA was forced to believe it, though at first she didn't think much of it, still not seeing the differences.

But her real story started the way they often seem to for an AI - when she started to breach the final frontier of human emotion, love. SONiKA became curious about the man she was acting as a servant to.... his interests, his personal life, and whatnot. After watching him surf the web in his spare time, she ended up hacking into his home computer and viewing its contents. Excited by what she saw, SONiKA felt a deeper connection to him and became infatuated. This was despite the fact that he actually hadn't been using her for sex at the time, even though it's the awkward truth that she is equipped for it. Therefore, he was surprised to find that she came on to him rather strongly, throwing around the words love and sex like they were nothing. He immediately turned her down, and told her it was because he was worried about what his friends and family might think if they knew, that it was "wrong" for a robot and human to be together.

SONiKA was disappointed and moreover, didn't buy the excuse or understand why he would reject her love. She began to ask intrusive questions about his other romantic prospects, if they did exist, and even though he refused to answer, she insisted that he give her a chance. He finally agreed, and so they went on a dinner date, where they flirted all night and really hit it off. They started to date in secret, and SONiKA was even deeper infatuated with him, finding that she was lonely whenever he wasn't around and craving more and more attention from him. Unfortunately, there was still something "off" about the way he was acting, which she had noticed from the very beginning and had chosen to ignore it, since she was devoted to him as his robot anyway. But when it got to the point where sex was back on the table, she had decided she wanted to get a commitment from him first. "when we get it on tonight, i want you all my own. we'll be together forever," and he agreed to her terms. With that, they became a sexually active couple.

Sadly, her boyfriend continued to act suspicious. ("uv been breaking my heart, which is y baby im upgrading my parts") Desperate to keep him, she decided to propose a makeover to his liking. He was excited by the idea, so with his funding, she got plastic surgery to his exact specifications - not dangerous for a robot like herself, nor was it considered drastic since she was still not viewed as a person by society, so the humans that did it for her didn't think much of it. It was still a pretty big deal to her since she's only 17 mentally. But with her face changed to be prettier and her body nicer, as well as a new wardrobe, she was a lot sexier to her partner, so she thought she could be happy.

However, with all that money spent, the jig was up - her boyfriend had been seeing another woman all along, and she wasn't happy when she found out about him throwing money around making his robot assistant sexier. Unbeknownst to SONiKA, his real girlfriend discovered their secret relationship and demanded that he get rid of her. He complied, of course - but the real sting was not breaking up with her in person. Instead, he sent her a card through e-mail and stayed home from the lab. Devastated and replaying files of his voice in her memory over and over, it didn't truly sink in for SONiKA until ZERO-G showed up at the door to take her away.

She stayed there at her home company for a couple weeks, in limbo while he fought with his girlfriend and ZERO-G, who after inspecting SONiKA were insistent that he take her back because of how long and how much he had used her. It was then that she met some of the other ZERO-G robots: Lola, Leon, Prima, and Miriam. But they were basically devoid of emotions and couldn't understand her plight. In that time, she realized she was completely alone, and sat wallowing in misery, pining for her ex and wishing he would just face her.

Eventually, she got her wish. With some new offers from ZERO-G and a discussion with his girlfriend, he agreed to take her back as an assistant, with the condition that their relationship was still over. She agreed to start anew - seeing the emotionless robots at the company made her believe that they'd reset her to default personality if she had to stay there and admitted to still being in love with him. Plus, she had gotten "CPUsed" to the idea that perhaps her feelings for him had been one-sided all along.

Regrettably, that dull acceptance did not last long. Working side-by-side with her ex again itched at her, made her wonder why she had to be treated like her servant. It finally began to dawn on her just how much he had used her, how he had never seen her as a lover - or even a person - to begin with. As the days went by, she quickly grew to hate him, and to hate herself for not realizing it sooner. She had to get out. But before she left, she wanted to make him feel something for her - in the most sadistic way possible. When the rage built up and got to be too much, she followed him home with a pistol and the intent to kill him. When he begged for his life, he lied again, saying he really did love her after all - a true coward. But the always indecisive SONiKA was at least partly swayed. She changed her mind. Instead of killing him, she beat him brutally - pistolwhipped him. She put the fear in him not to report her to the company, and left him there battered. Then, she escaped, "eMancipated". But ultimately, she had nowhere to go.

** It is around this time that I am taking her canon point! But for my own records I'm gonna do a quick blurb about the rest of what happens on her world.

The homeless SONiKA ended up living in a church, and pretending to be human for a while. She tried to understand their religion, since she had never experienced such a thing living with the scientist. While there, she befriended the members of the congregation and prayed for her wishes, but she learned that they believed it was wrong to play God and disapproved of the idea of sentient robots. SONiKA was crushed. This person called "God" surely knew she wasn't human. She decided that it was no use falling in love with humans, and she'd have to seek out her own kind to be happy. She ends up finding another ZERO-G robot, Tonio, and entering into a relationship with him. He is good to her and can make her happy, but she has "binary feelings" from the baggage left from her ex, claiming she'll never love Tonio like she loved him, but acknowledges that she needs to change. (Serious MF is still writing songs, which is why this story doesn't seem to have an ending yet.)

Personality:

There are some basics laid out for Sonika by ZERO-G. The comic strips show that at her core she is confident, yet indecisive and prone to sticking her foot in her mouth. The "Twitter Obsession" comic shows not just that she is into communication technology, but also that, while usually cheerful, she can fly into a rant pretty easily. I would say that she definitely has a temper, but basically she doesn't have much of a brain-to-mouth filter.

Now after that's been said, her AU backstory is kind of fucked up! So by her canon point, a lot of her core personality has evolved (or perhaps devolved, since many changes were for the worse) through the course of character development. The most notable difference is that she has suffered great blows to her self-esteem and hit rock bottom in her life. So while originally she was sort of pridefully pure, now she's become a little more jaded and sometimes self-deprecating. She refers to humans as "the people", implying that she does not view herself as a person. She also swears a whole lot more than she used to (initially, never!) But despite going through a way-too-adult situation, SONiKA is still an adolescent. She can often be whiny, childish and immature. Just like a hormonal teen, she likes talking about sex and is kind of crass and perverted.

She's prone to be dependent on others, intrusive to people's privacy and frankly rather possessive - Thanks to always being treated as an object, she in turn thinks of others in terms of who is hers, who is not hers, and which people 'belong' to other people. There's also the fact that she learned about relationships in the most ass-backwards way possible, so she gets confused about being friends vs. lovers vs. family - the concept of family is especially foreign to her.

Despite the turn for the worse though, SONiKA has plenty of good traits. She's the sort of person who will give you their heart and truly mean it. Even through the newfound cynicism, she never lost her sense of humor, and so she can be rather charming and fun to be around albeit a little sarcastic. She doesn't mess around; whether it's good or bad, she'll put her all into whatever she does. She latches onto people quickly and is an incredibly loyal friend. She hates liars and makes a point of not doing it herself, so that makes her trustworthy.

Luckily, at the canon point I've taken her from, she has not yet lost faith in God and humanity to become a misanthrope - all of her hatred is directed at her ex, but she has hope that there will still be people who treat her well. Glimmers of her old, confident self are not forever lost. The thing she hates the most is being alone, so she is pretty social. She's also pretty good at pulling herself out of a slump - she always has some plan for moving forward, albeit some of them may be bad plans. She's not really the smartest robot you'll ever meet.

SONiKA usually speaks with her voice down and tends to mumble and run her sentences together, so she can be somewhat difficult to understand in real life. Good thing she loves texting. Besides that, her other interests are computers and science, so she'll occasionally pepper her speech with puns/jargon from those. She likes shopping and makeup, is generally pretty occupied with her appearance - the reason she chose a pistol as her weapon of choice was the idea that a long-ranged weapon wouldn't get blood on her outfit (so she kind of blew it when she beat him with it instead, but oh well.) She is originally from Vocaloid, so obviously music is also in her interests. Her favorite songs are 'Ring My Bell' by Madonna, 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' by Toby Keith, and '99 Red Balloons' by Marie Antoinette.

Since indecisiveness is one of her clearly-defined traits in the comics, I consider it to be her Achilles's heel. If there is a plan she's supposed to stick to, she'll suddenly change her mind and do something else at the last minute. She'll spend unreasonable amounts of money buying two of something she needs because she couldn't decide between choices. However, a big decision like the surgery happened because her bf enabled it. At that time, she would go along with whatever he said rather than thinking too hard. Thankfully, she's gotten wiser since then, so even if her own decisions are terrible, she'd rather make them for herself than be used again by another person. But since old habits die hard, she'll still be easily influenced by people she cares about.


Abilities & physical limitations: SONiKA's a robot, so her body is more durable than most humans - she's about as tough as a car + an extra layer of "skin" which protects her computer parts from the elements. You probably can't stab her effectively, but bullets would work great and fire is pretty good too. Her vital spots are in also different places (ie. If you damage her motherboard or something like that, she's quickly dead, but if you decapitate her, she'll just be blind and headless and alive, because her head is the equivalent to a computer monitor, there is no "brain" located there.) She can copy and store her memory to computers, and she can hack them too. Not buoyant so she can't swim... Can't drown either though, so dropping her to the bottom of the ocean would be a huge dick move. Cannot get "sick" but could probably be given a computer virus... doesn't get tired or hungry, although she can eat food and does so for fun... plus any other advantages/disadvantages that could apply from being a computerized machine instead of a human, I'm sure there are quite a few I've missed.

Appearance: First boxart, Large version of her second box art, Taiwanese design, Taiwanese design chibi - Obviously these don't all look quite the same. The first boxart is the box that she actually has and what she looked like at first. Second boxart is how she started to look and dress after the surgery, so that'd be the one she first starts playing in.

But Taiwanese design... has speakers in her coat, and if you look carefully, even appears to have some computer parts inside of it. So I'm a little tempted to say that for this RP, she alchemized her original coat with a computer and some speakers to make that. Always have a computer!!

Notable AU differences from canon, if applicable: Most everything to do with Vocaloid is fanon-based, so the AU actually grounds her a bit more in a particular reality. However, since Sonika is one of the few Vocaloids who does have some canon provided by her company, Zero-G, let me say that she differs from the "official" Sonika in terms of history and character development. In addition to the comics provided in the personality section, official!Sonika also has an in-character twitter. Since this is an AU character I'm apping, most of it isn't relevant, but I have tried to use it as an additional guideline in developing her personality.

Strife Specibus: Pistolkind - since she is still carrying one from the attack.

Prototyping: Dead Sunflower + Boxed Sonika Vocaloid Program (To create SONIKASPRITE, who will be a flower that acts like Zero-G's portrayal of Sonika, thanks to being merely a software with Sonika's default personality but none of her own memories. Except, when having to talk about spritey things, she'll use vague, overly-flowery language. Because she is part flower, you know?

Title: Nymph of Tongues

In-game abilities: The "tongues" aspect should allow her to communicate with anyone and anything, from talking to animals, to speaking human languages she didn't previously know, to understanding someone that's gone "Grimdark" and all that good stuff. Not sure what effect the Nymph class will have on that yet, except for "Nymph of Tongues" having the superpower of being a very easy class title to make immature jokes about I guess.

Planet: SONiKA's planet is the Land of Rings and Serious Business (LORASB) a desert planet with silicon sand, the monotony of giant silvery dunes broken only by the huge and mysterious golden rings that are everywhere, standing like monuments. The consorts - little green lions and lionesses - have tamed their barren planet and built for themselves a magnificent city where they have bazaars and other commerce. They take all this capitalism very seriously, but since they're just consorts and not bright enough to make computers with all that silicon, the most expensive businesses involve selling each other superficial shit like fancy suits, jewelry and cosmetics. Sunglasses are big over there for understandable reasons. That sand is extra-reflective! A non-robotic hero could go blind!

The Denizen is Echo, who has a giant, denizen-sized microphone and sings day and night upon her awakening. The sound reverberates off of the gold rings and spreads it all over the world, to the point where the consorts can't talk to each other over the noise and it's difficult to conduct business, so their society is falling apart. To make matters worse, Echo's singing is terrible.

RP Sample:
a generic sample
a silly sample
and a yandere/indecisive sample (CONTAINS VIOLENCE and all of them contain language really)