Timbre
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Timbre in Founder's Falls | |
| Timbre | |
| Player: @Gossamer Blush | |
| Origin: | Mutation |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Confidential |
| Security Level: | Confidential |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Catherine Anne Bridwell |
| Known Aliases: | Cat, Tam, Tammy |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 16 |
| Height: | 5'5" |
| Weight: | 118 |
| Eye Color: | Green |
| Hair Color: | Pale Blonde |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Student at PCFCA |
| Place of Birth: | New York, New York. |
| Base of Operations: | New York City |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Thomas Bridwell (Father), Elizabeth Bridwell (Mother), Joshua Bridwell (Brother) |
| Known Powers | |
| Psionic manipulation of sound | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Dance, Gymnastics, Mathematics, Flirting. | |
| Equipment | |
| Long Bow Cadet Uniform, Tricorder | |
| No additional information available. | |
Timbre: the quality of a musical note or sound that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices or musical instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that mediate the perception of timbre include spectrum and envelope. Timbre is also known in psychoacoustics as sound quality or sound color.
For example, timbre is what, with a little practice, people use to distinguish the saxophone from the trumpet in a jazz group, even if both instruments are playing notes at the same pitch and amplitude. Timbre has been called "the psychoacoustician's multidimensional wastebasket category" as it can denote many apparently unrelated aspects of a sound.
Contents |
What You See
A sassy cant of the hip and a knowing smile on the lips, Timbre is the picture of adolescent awareness. Somewhere between head cheerleader and teacher's pet, she somehow stands in a no man's land where, inexplicably, you can't hate her. Just nice enough without being cloying, just impish enough to tip her hand and show the sharp wits she owns, Timbre would seem unreal in a normal school.
What You Don't
Timbre, however, does not attend a normal school - and her time at Paragon City Freedom Corps Academy has been less about finding the best flipping dismount from the pyramid and more about finding how various frequencies of sound interface with biological, and, inorganic material.
Timbre is what you get when an overachieving mother decides to raise her daughter in her own image, when that girl would otherwise be happy enough sitting in the den with all the spotted boys of the Gaming Club painting lead miniatures. Throwing in mutant powers was almost a footnote to the passage of excellence laid out before her, meticulously planned and plotted out by a well-meaning but pressure-driven mother[1].
Who You Know
Timbre is a student at the Paragon City Freedom Corps Academy whose studies focus on the developing of her powers. Here, she has a number of friends and compatriots, with whom she shares study circles and after-school sports activities.
Timbre does not necessarily get along well with everyone [2]. Of particular note is Rachel Loomis, a fellow student who resents Timbre, to the point of competition and animosity. Unfortunately no one is quite sure why, except perhaps the girls in question who adamantly refuse to even mention the other in conversation.
Where You've Been
Lift me up through the tops of the trees,
and I'll sleep till the morning,
come to live in the glorious dream,
let me sleep till the morning
I'm thinking of drinking the entire sea
Where fishes make wishes and swim into me,
There is no place other that I'd rather be,
Oh what a beautiful dream
- - Elf power, Beautiful Dream
Some Other Beginning's End
Timbre's entire life has been about maintaining masks; hiding one thing from another while moving behind the curtains to get what she wants. With this kind of upbringing, it's a surprise that she's so honest and sincere, prone to bending the truth to get what she wants, but never, as she says, about anything important.
Timbre was born Catherine Bridwell in New York City, New York, to Elizabeth Bridwell, a trust fund baby socialite and Thomas Bridwell, a litigator. With a pedigree like this, it is no doubt that her life was going to be one of success. Her mother, however, was an over-achiever, one whose accomplishments had only been to pave the way for the next set of accomplishments - her daughter.
One Of Us
Timbre grew up a healthy, happy, cheerful girl. A minor case of rickets were corrected when she was young; her teeth were pre-emptively straightened during primary school, and a number of skin treatments were taken up to give the girl that perfectly smooth skin she has, and some UV protection no less. Nothing was too good for Timbre - she ate a finely designed diet, attended gym with her mother to keep fit, and before she was ten, knew all the names of her mothers' friends' husbands' businesses. A cute trick from a precocious young child, of course.
It was when Timbre at one point made a remarkably insightful reference to the nature of those companies, and how one fed off the others' failures - at the dinner table - that Elizabeth realised the horrible truth. Her daughter was not just pretty - she was smart, too.
This terrible genetic malaise was allowed to continue for a few years, in the hopes it would fade; but Timbre became wittier and cleverer, a more brightly shining jewel amongst those who could notice her, and withdrew from popular circles to instead focus on painting, music, poetry and sculpture, areas that let her fuel some kind of creative and expressive drive within her.
Someone Else's Dream
In the end, this twisted fruit had to be clipped from the vine. Elizabeth, intent on ensuring her daughter's prospects for popularity - and therefore happiness itself - were not dimmed, began enlisting young Timbre in a range of school projects designed to promote her from shy, poetic girl, to that most popular and well-loved icon of high school life.
Timbre was signed up to become a cheerleader. What made it worse is that her natural rhythm, her get-along personality, and her naturally athletic frame all meant that she was quite a good cheerleader. She was popular with all the other girls[3], integrated well into routines, and was, generally, a sparkling, popular, happy girl who got her homework done and got good grades. But not, you know, too good.
Little Busters
Timbre’s been keeping secrets for some time now - an adept evader of the truth, she managed to keep her mother from being actively interested in her pursuits by being just normal enough to give her mother no reason to investigate. Where some youth her age would be sneaking looks at dirty websites when given unsupervised internet access, Timbre was investigating astronomy websites, physics stories, science blogs, and soaking up the science and biology that her mother felt inessential to her future happiness.
Throughout this whole time, Timbre engineered for herself a number of forum personas, each disconnected from the others, each to explore different areas. Regardless, her magnetic personality and her charm could not help but play through, and she found herself quickly the queen of many of these social structures.
Gangs And Secrets
Timbre currently attends the Paragon City Freedom Corps Academy.
Only One Queen
At this point in her life, Timbre is very carefully balancing the special studies at the *Institute*, her secret hero activities, and the quietly-increasing mound of Fun Things her mother finds her to do after school. Intent on 'bonding' with her daughter, Catherine schedules shopping trips, day spas, and other 'fun' mother-daughter activities.
Add to this Timbre’ personal tension with Rachel Loomis and she's currently trying to balance her position, keeping all the plates spinning - and as with everything Timbre does, it is a work of art to observe.
What You Do
Awe-inspiring in their spread and diversity, many interpreters in the popular press have cited numerous different explanations for Timbre's powers. Most - such as the respected professional analysts on HeroHow.Com's columns - tend to claim that she's some variety of magus, an individual gifted with magical powers ; including the use of ‘Words of Power’ and various abjuration spells. Or one of many individuals gifted with enhanced vocals chords giving her a ‘sonic scream’. Firebrand69, on HeroHow.Com's forums, however, has proposed an alternate theory, pointing out an interesting and potential unifying theory for her powers. Timbre could be a mutant with the psionic ability to control and adjust both the frequency and amplitude of vibratory patterns. His evidence is as follows;
Video Footage of Timbre assisting a Longbow squad against the Kraken in Perez Park show that while utilizing powers in focused sonic bursts mouth doesn’t move beyond small vocalizations (what would equate to a whisper). Firebrand69 theorizes that she uses these small latent noises to provide ‘fuel’ for her to amplify and recalibrate for use as offensive frequencies. In addition, when forming what he refers to as ‘self proliferating multi-frequency shields’ she uses a similar technique, or, none at all. He cites that even the most eloquent of spells would require some form of verbal or somatic activation.
What You've Heard
Feel free to add your own rumours and hearsays about Timbre here!
"I've never heard a nice thing about Timbre, really. I wouldn't repeat what I'd heard, but really, let's face it - she's mean spirited, imperious, and has a foul mouth. And that's just the start."
- - Rachel Loomis
What You Haven't
- Some have suggested that Timbre’s artistic inclinations and seeking expression were part of her attempting to note the mutant powers she unconsciously knew she had.
- Timbre plays the cello, well.
- Timbre has never played the games, but nonetheless reads strategy sites for Warhammer, Warhammer 50k, and Magic: The Gathering. When Dreamblade went out of business, she bought a large number of boosters and has them hidden under her bed hoping for a chance to play the game sometime.
- Timbre’s favourite song is So Come Back, I Am Waiting, by Okkervill River.
- Timbre’s internet personas are all reasonably active, and include an Iraq War Supply Colonel, a ten year old Japanese supersavant, and a Hellion.
- Timbre does have an older brother, Josh Bridwell, who used to run a small Bistro in Talos Island
- Timbre makes a habit of hanging out at many of the art galleries in Founders Falls when she's able to.
Footnotes
- ↑ Timbre occasionally jests that her mother would have had it no other way.
- ↑ The Institute is much smaller than her last school, meaning that people of different social strata are much more likely to mingle.
- ↑ Timbre was actually so shy and unknown beforehand that most of the cheerleaders she freshly met thought that she had recently transferred to the school. It got to be that other cheerleaders would introduce her as 'the transfer student'.
