Miranda Cinderpointe
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-- Miranda
A pink-haired young woman plagued with anxiety most of her life – fueled in no part thanks to her high levels of ESP – but is currently one of the best to help the very world she hides from. Miranda is a potent Psychic (or Psionic if one prefers) who was trained to control her powers and would have become even more potent if events hadn't taken a turn. Her long pink hair contrasts with her blue eyes, usually half-lidded in concern as few things escape her notice.
Table of ContentsBackstory
-- Miranda, on the saying "Ignorance Is Bliss"
Miranda’s psychic abilities and her anxiety disorders arose at about the same time (her parents disagreed about which started first, “chicken or the egg” style) when she was a young child and unfortunately they fed into one another; her feeling something through her ESP or telepathy that others rarely acknowledged or flat out denied made her anxious and slightly paranoid that she was imagining things and her anxieties were only fed by the things she noticed through her ESP or when accidentally reading minds that she had never thought of before. The resulting anxiety attacks and panic attacks were hard for her parents to deal with – and they got particularly destructive once her telekinesis kicked in. At a loss, her parents sent her away to a school witnessed on an advertisement for those with innate abilities like hers. She was grouped with other psychics in a class called The Thinktank; Miranda was trained to better control her powers as well and finally made acquaintances that somewhat understood her troubles – two of them becoming her best friends. It was through her focus and training that she discovered a more unique aspect to her psionics while trying to shield others from one of her freakouts – an application that earned her the codename of “Panic Room” among a few other monikers. Unfortunately, events caused the school to be shut down before more progress was made – as far as Miranda knew, the school became physically less safe to stay in on top of funding being pulled by a mysterious benefactor. To make things worse, she didn’t have a home to return to. Her anxiety wasn’t quite as under control as her parents wanted – at least not as under control as her powers were and her parents wouldn’t take her back after her last panic attack as a child ruined the house. With money given to her by one of her best friends, Yari, before he disappeared, teenage Miranda was able to gain a place to live but also quickly became a shut-in for quite a few factors – she hadn’t quite gotten used to dealing with most people outside of her teachers and friends, her parents’ rejection hit her more than she gave away and the paranoid fear that whatever caused the school to be suddenly forced to shut down was part of a grander plot to get all the students, including her, and use them for sinister ends.
When the money was running low, she reached out in small ways to make sure she could still have money to live – at first with gigs she hated like working in bars but soon settled into finding more solitary positions as well as working as a ghostwriter as an off-shoot of one of her coping measures. Miranda had no intention of using her powers in any big noticeable ways…a promise to herself that was quickly tested as she still had the will to do good and “change the world” as her old teachers hoped. She would end up making two new devoted friends through those endeavors who in turn helped her break more and more out of her shell and taught her other ways to cope. Even the reason she became a published author was due to said friends and a misunderstanding and submitting something without her knowledge) but she’s still concerned enough about conspiring forces that she still avoids widely broadcasting her psychic abilities – her anxiety and thinking about her old classmates won’t let her relax. Even if all her other concerns are all in her head as she’s frequently told, as long as there’s a chance a threat did purposefully separate her from her old friends and if it's one she can’t stop if they came after her, her other fears and minor concerns feel legitimized within its shadow…
The Volatile HeartsMiranda’s first published work not as a ghost writer was called “The Volatile Hearts”, a work she hadn't intended to publish. She had used some short stories she wrote for herself to vent and noticed an unconsciously repeated name – MJ Lucia. Miranda experimented with making an in-universe written work by her, but as she continued, it ended up more Miranda's own work than anything MJ Lucia would write in-character, but the latter’s name was still listed as the author on the first page.
The story starred two opposite sex twins who were afflicted with an eldritch condition – it not only caused occasional irregularities in their heartbeats, but an elevated heart rate would negatively affect them and their environment in various ways. This disruption is ill-timed as they both recently met someone that made them question the previous trajectory of their love lives on top of the twins’ relationship with their mother.
After a bit of research, some disasters and a lot of reluctance, they pursue their latest love interests in the hopes that sharing the affliction of their titular hearts and a period of getting through it together would cure them and their briefly affected love interests. These attempts test their new relationships, but in the end, the male twin and his girlfriend survive, but the female twin refuses to put the gentle man that she loves through it and calls off the ritual, suffering through the condition alone until her death. The book ends with the male twin naming their first child after his sister’s memory.
Her new best friend, Faline, discovered the manuscript and believed it for a local contest. It wasn't, but before their relationship could come to serious harm, Miranda's piece won with the top prize being publication and a cash prize. It wasn't quite a bestseller, but between the prize and later sales, she earned enough initial money that easily surpassed all of her past low-paying jobs. This solidified her decision to continue as a writer – specifically continuing as MJ Lucia as she didn't feel ready to more transparently advertise as herself (but used the excuse that the pseudonym was “catchier”) – though doing that meant it was harder to use more of her old vent work since MJ was an in-universe character. The pressure to match her past work with a new piece caused a bit of writer's block…up until recently. |
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Personality
I'm aware that...I'm a bit of a mess, but believe me when I say, this is progress compared to my childhood...
She’s nothing if not anxious with a couple of specks of paranoia for flavor. She’s struggled with anxiety since she was a child – something that her psychic powers made much worse; while she is improving and has better natural ways of hiding it and dealing with it (natural since some medications have behaved unpredictably with her powers) it has never gone away as long as her biggest fear remains. One of her coping methods is to break a situation down into storytelling tropes and cliches to make a worrying situation seem typical and less anxiety inducing. Quips spawning from that mindset are unintentional.
Due to her best friends in the Thinktank being the best students in class (a prodigy and a brilliant pre-cog respectively) she sometimes saw herself as not on their level (spoiler: she was in her own specialties) and was just their friend. This does carry forward to the present day with her frequently downplaying her abilities and trying to blend more in the background in general.
Her writing tends to hover around different mixes of romance and types of horror due to the various things her anxiety makes her worry about at any given time. She does desire love and relationships, but after a couple of minds that she read in the past, she worries greatly about not just how such relationships would pan out, but how her mind would react to physical or emotional intimacy – if something would happen to cause her emotions to go a bit rampant and trigger her powers, especially if she or said partner isn’t strong enough to calm her down or stop her. (For similar reasons, she avoids drinking too much alcohol until further notice – though caffeine is less of a concern.) This makes her both happy yet envious and conflicted when hearing about others’ relationships in real life while enjoying them unabashedly in fiction, including her own.
Her worries, fears and habit of being a shut-in hasn't stopped her from trying to be friendly to almost everyone she meets, being incredibly loyal to friends and having an ingrained want to do good. She has a notoriously long fuse due to her more passive nature and her understanding of others’ emotional states. She's more understanding of others' bad moods to an extent, especially when she is aware she wasn't easy to deal with when she was younger. The only thing that seems to actively annoy her to the point she can’t bottle it up is anyone pretending to have psychic powers – she doesn’t like con artists in general, but with how much she and some of her classmates struggled, faking psionics in particular is the greatest mockery to her and they don't know how unglamorous it can be on top of the abuse of trust.
Detailed Appearance Notes
Miranda is a young woman of average height with a fair complexion - though with how often she stays indoors, it appears slight pale. Her long, naturally wavy, blush pink hair comes down to mid-thigh at full length. It'll be tied in a hair bun to start the adventure in an attempt to look professional, but if it comes loose, she'll likely leave it loose or tie it in a loose ponytail rather than take too much time to fix it back when things are too busy. Her blue eyes are usually half-lidded in thought or concern or wide-open when she’s focused. While usually hidden by hair, she has a beauty mark that looks like an inverted triangle visible on the left side of her neck.
She’s wearing a long black hooded puffer jacket, a white turtleneck sweater underneath that and black denim with tights underneath. Her winter boots go up to her ankle and have a 1’ heel.
(Art hopefully coming soon to help descriptions?)
Likes
- Friends
- Her hair
- Reading
- Meditation/yoga
- Peaceful moments
- Horror Movies
- Fanfiction
- Fairytale princesses (guilty pleasure - rumored to be why she keeps her hair so long)
Dislikes
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Fake Psychics
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Con Artists
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Whoever shut down the Thinktank
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Her anxiety about every part of life
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Getting in her own way
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Showing off too much
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Overbearing/cruel bosses
- Trolls/problem starters
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Being physically chased
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Being accused of dyeing her hair
Abilities
I'm not the type to show off, but this is necessary...
✦ Telepathy
Miranda can interact with the minds/consciousness of others – allowing her to read surface thoughts as well as being able to send and receive thoughts via mental communication. The closer she is, the easier it is, but even when nearby, reading deeper thoughts/memories or otherwise performing any deeper mental manipulation on anyone requires deep focus unless their mind is particularly weak.
✦ Extra Sensory Perception (ESP)/Sixth Sense
One of Miranda’s earliest powers, she can sense various things, people or events around her – even things that aren’t perceptible with physical senses – with quite a large range that has grown with age. With focus, she can scan for specific attributes in her range or even remotely view areas to scout ahead, solve problems or find people/objects of interest.
✦ Telekinesis/"Deterrence"
While Miranda can move/hold/physically interact with things with her mind, she excels at a specific application of her telekinesis: forming barriers/force fields. Her classmates called it Deterrence due to how strong her defenses are. Later she translated this into using weaker barriers/energy fields to slow down or speed up whatever passes through it – proving better at that than attempting to bring certain larger objects/attacks to a stop by pure telekinesis. And of course, it increases her offense by physically flinging objects through an acceleration field and making them more dangerous.
✦ Panic Room
Both her greatest trick and a detriment depending on the situation, Miranda’s trademark ability is to form a small black sphere around her and whoever is close to her. If she is indoors and near one of the walls, it’ll instead be square or rectangular, taking up either a portion of the room (or the whole room if it’s small enough). Without any other light sources inside, it will usually be completely dark inside. It’s tougher than her barriers and difficult for anything to get in or out. Anyone who attacks it or was already considered a threat before it is activated is automatically targeted with spikes appearing along the outside and various projectiles launching from its surface. If in its sphere form, Miranda can slightly maneuver it slightly with her telekinesis as well as guide or stop certain attacks. But it’s very much a trump card; Panic Room was created as a space strong enough to contain her younger self’s dangerous outbursts, including her panic attacks (Anxiety Area wasn’t as catchy), so the ability for anyone to sense when inside of it is just as limited as attacks to keep inside and outside separate unless Miranda focuses to “take a peek outside” to know the danger is gone (akin to some real life safe rooms having surveillance systems). It’s also more difficult to deactivate than it is to activate – while this does stop it being deactivated before she’s ready, it is a problem when it automatically activates whenever she is having an anxiety or panic attack, whether she is having telekinetic outbursts or not.
Skills & Stats
Items & Weapons
Telescopic Baton: In her efforts to avoid overly broadcasting her abilities as a psychic, her first mode of defense is an expandable metal baton that snaps to full length with a flick of her wrist. Given to her by one of her first “nice” bosses.
Darts: From her time working in bars, she's kept three steel tipped darts on her in a case – and not just for quick pick-up games. They are primarily a weapon to throw at others to keep them away, but when combined with her telekinetic acceleration, they are potent projectiles with the risk of permanently ruining them by sending them flying at higher speeds than they were made for.
Spinner Ring: A fancy silver ring on her right middle finger that doubles as a subtle fidget toy to have around.
Camcorder: While initially with her on the trip for private video diaries, it will end up being used to document her adventure. She can play back events she may be too mentally distracted to recall, or her eyes just couldn’t perceive. Its battery is magictech-enhanced to last a lot longer than mundane ones.
Memoria Charm: In appearance, it looks like a dull pearl with an inscribed gold ring around it. A manufactured enchanted magical object, when attached to an inanimate object, it will transport said object to a chosen person about five minutes after its owner died as long as A) both object and charm are both intact and attached and B) The chosen person has also touched the Memoria Charm in the past to be set as a destination. This will almost always be stuck to her camcorder if it isn’t destroyed and set for her best friend Faline to receive it – if the Entity or someone else aware of its mechanics doesn’t choose to interfere with said transportation.
✦ General Stats
| ✦ Strengths |
✧ Weaknesses |
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✦ Imperative Strengths
The Thinktank trained Miranda well, so her psychic skills are quite potent, including her Deterrence barriers and fields. Her ESP is her oldest skill and is useful for solving various problems, including finding other psychics. Even without her ESP, Miranda's anxiety has given an unplanned benefit of vigilance and being very aware of changes to her environment when not occupied with a task...or the anxiety itself.
She’s proven very understanding to the concerns of others, easily noticing physical signs of how they are feeling even without her powers - akin to a less professional or complete "cold reading".
Time in bars has blessed Miranda with great hand-eye coordination (see her darts) and makes her quite accurate when throwing things.
Her fighting style (as much as she hates fighting) has been compared to storming a castle with her high defenses and keeping others away with thrown objects and attacks if need be. She’s at her best when focused on defending someone else and not focused on her anxiety, molding her neuroses into a more active defense in that moment.
✧ Imperative Weaknesses
Despite her coping methods, anxiety is frequently not that far away from certain situations making her worry or overthink. While she can usually work through it at certain levels, when it gets too high despite her efforts, it can interfere with her ability to function – sometimes resulting in a full attack if she can’t calm herself down. Those aware of it can purposefully stress her out.
Her understanding nature and long fuse (under most occasions) often means she almost never attacks/takes certain actions first when situations get violent or hectic in the hopes of calming things down first. She also is the type to give opponents mercy as well as not reading minds too deeply outside of necessity, so she can be tricked if the deception isn't an obvious surface thought.
Her ESP is always active, but when overloaded with strong forces or too much happening at once, she has to temporarily shut it down or narrow her range for the safety of her mind - leaving moments her "radar" is down or reduced.
Most of her powers require a bit of focus, so most of her moves can be interrupted with varying amounts of effort. (Her barriers are her most practiced move, so it’s the hardest to disrupt via distraction.)
Between a reoccurring nightmare, her current fear a force is out to abduct her and her former classmates and her stamina not being great in general, Miranda will most likely not spend a lot of time running/flying away if she can help it - with preference to standing her ground or hiding.
If her Panic Room activates, it takes her being sufficiently calm to go through the process of deactivating it – an ingrained safeguard against bringing it down prematurely and hurting others. This unfortunately stops her from what she was previously doing 90% of the time (or from leaving the area if not in sphere mode) unless her task in there with her. The only other way out of it is her passing out or having died. If anyone was too close to her when this happened, they’re stuck in there with her until it deactivates. Panic Room, while very tough isn’t fully impenetrable, so it can eventually be broken into/out of, but forcing it open does briefly debilitate Miranda. All the flaws end up worse if it is automatically activated due to an anxiety attack or a rarer panic attack; she’ll be in no condition to stop the automatic defenses, anyone/anything stuck inside with her may get hit by bursts of telekinetic power and if it’s broken open while still lost in it, the outside is getting hit with the psychic power it was made to contain.
✦ Psychological Stats ✦
| Charisma | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧ | Kindness | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧ |
| Patience | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧ | Intelligence | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧ |
| Confidence | ✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧ | Perception | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧ |
| Discipline | ✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧ | Psych stamina | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧ |
| Courage | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧ | Caution | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧ |
| Honesty | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ | Loyalty | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧ |
| Maturity | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧ | Creativity | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧ |
| Cleanliness | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ | Work ethic | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧ |
✧ Physical Stats ✧
| Physical Strength |
✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧
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Speed |
✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧
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| Psychic Strength |
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧
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Constitution |
✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧
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| Physical Defense |
✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧
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Dexterity |
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧
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| Psychic Defense |
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧*
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Stamina |
✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
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*Her defense techniques are normally an 8 but her Panic Room - essentially a limit break - is closer to 8.5 or 9 .
Usage Notes
Do not claim Miranda as your own character. You are free to make fanart of Miranda as well as ship her in your works, but canonically, it's not so easy. She's free to be harmed or killed in entries (this OCT verse is separate yay) but communicate with me regarding said plans, especially if it's particularly egregious.
Gallery
[main reference image]
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Author's Notes
Miranda is one of a few psychic and psychic-adjacent characters made of a thought-experiment: how mental health would affect a power primarily involving their mind. This Miranda is an alternate version as her first version’s setting wasn’t quite as inundated with magic and interstellar travel. Her codename, Panic Room, some aspects of the titular ability and some of her past mannerisms were inspired by the Theory of a Deadman song of the same name.
Her other themes (list may grow):
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“Love and War” by Wolfgang Gartner
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“Creating Monsters” by Set It Off
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“Sanctuary” by Neoni
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“Hysteria” by KROWW
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“Force Field” by PsoGnar
Her writing habits were inspired by Pokémon’s Shauntel due to her work being a bit spooky at times and most work or activities post her discovery as a published author is usually for inspiration’s sake (if she can help it). Her nearest voice claim would be Sandy Fox – in particular, an occasionally anxious version of Flonne from the Disgaea series or Pokémon Generations’ Courtney.
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