Table of Contents

Buddleia

Network data file: contestant 35586

Name: Buddleia
Age: 30
Origin: UK
Duration: S2 (5 years)
Gender: F
Race: H (?J)

Height: 172cm (5'8“)
Build: Solid
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
File photos:
Humanoid Kittymorph Midget Kittymorph Humanoid

Distinguishing features:
1. Short-sighted when humanoid. Wears spectacles.
2. 2 tattoos on left bicep: hummingbird, tiger.

Improbable features:
None visible.

Improbable abilities:
1. Analysis and manipulation of matter at a microscopic to atomic level.
2. Self-teleportation, one-directional.

Known pets:
Kittybike, “Thunder”. M, black fur, yellow eyes.

Affiliation:
1. ICEE: Member Officer Leader.
2. KIND: Founder.

Introduction / appearance

Buddleia appears very ordinary. She was living an ordinary life, and after a certain amount of upheaval and readjustment, is still a very normal and sensible person most of the time. After the initial few months of wildly fluctuating forms, she has settled down to (mostly) steadily human-shaped. (Occasionally kittymorph, and very rarely midget and zombie.)

Sometimes shy and socially inept, she's nevertheless very affectionate and caring. She loves her friends, and likes to meet new people and make more friends. Usually polite and thoughtful, offering friendly help to anyone. As a human, typically quiet, calm and sensible; as a kittymorph, more playful, less serious, more active and tactile.

Initially heavily built, she is now decently fit and strong after five years running around the Island, swimming, climbing trees and up the mountain, building, and fighting the various monsters who attack you on an afternoon stroll.

She wears ordinary, practical clothes. Some of Sheila's armour when out of the house, and usually boots, trousers and a T-shirt, plus a coat and beanie when mountain-hiking. Her clan badge is typically clipped to a well-armed bandolier, and her backpack usually bulges with various useful supplies:

History

On the Island

Start

Buddleia arrived on the Island just after Christmas '09, and spent a while finding her feet before making friends and finally joining a clan, ICEE. Despite initial shyness, she has spent a lot of time and had a lot of laughs being silly and cuddly and chatty with her new friends.

DK changes

She's been every race in the Museum and a couple more besides, with most Drive-changes depending on recent events - her feelings and friendships, particularly. Most commonly cuddly Kittymorph or cheerful Human, with a few strange episodes of pure cat, frogmorph, Robot in need of reprogramming, as well as the traditional angry Midget, confused Mutant and slow Zombie.

Joker

Joker is the most fun: no glowing eyes or flashy tricks, but a wonderful new sense and ability - she can “see” and manipulate on the micro to nano scale. Cells, molecules, atoms, even electrons: everything is a beautiful intricate pattern to explore and reshape, making and fixing. Stripping wood for a carbon lattice made diamond, extensive cell-shoving split and reformed a leaf blade, squeezing air lets her write in scorch-marks, and punching a lump of metal made it glowing hot. You draw (the molecular structure of) it, she can make it, as long as she can gather the components.

She eventually managed a few short-range teleports, too, mostly controlled.

It's slow, and exhausting; but beautiful, fascinating, and useful.

Friendships

Buddleia counts lots of people as her friends! She loves chatting and playing with practically everyone, and enjoys meeting new people.

Sadly, nearly all of her close friends have either caught the dreaded Fourth Wall Narcolepsy, or drifted away. 9)

Buddleia defaults to asexual. 10) She dated Sloth briefly, and is currently involved with Laurence.

Founding a clan

After having fun with and helping her friends in ICEE build up to a full-size clan with a full-size buff, KIND was founded to help and have fun with even more people!

So far it's pretty quiet. 11) But the buffs are maxed out, and the tower 12) is lovely; we have a full kitchen and bar, beautiful gardens, an adventure playground, and plenty of beds. All welcome: come and visit and play at [14,8], the crossroads between NH/IC/KT!

House

Her house was smashed in the Cataclysm, and again in the Changeover, but is now mostly rebuilt to its full glory! Feel free to explore, visit or nap; or get some food, pick some fruit, borrow a book, have a swim, admire the views etc. It's at [19,6], just inland of that little bay near the southeast corner of the Island.

Gifts, trades, and items of significance

Note: most of these stay at home. 13)

Interests

A lifelong interest in patterns developed into a passion for statistics and cartography; logging Improbabombs, mapping the Factory, compiling the Land Registry of the Island's houses, and indeed mapping the layouts of some of the dwellings themselves. Exploring is fun.

At home, and in quiet times, she enjoys gardening, cooking, reading and other homely pursuits. She likes to make and share tea and cakes. She frequently hums and sings 25) to herself, though is rather quiet apart from that. Like many Islanders, she enjoys tinkering; a technical background, some experience as a robot, the glories of the Scrapyard and the magic of Suzie's kits (along with patient persistence) has given her a fair array of simple-but-practical household machines.

She's also loved learning all her life, everything from natural history to first-aid, biochemistry to languages: a random, varied selection, some of it even useful, even here.

Before the Island

Before being drafted, she was training to do radiation protection - physics, X-ray machines and little monitoring gadgets - and living in Birmingham, UK, with two friends, three cats and a hamster.

Buddleia is not her original name.26) But most people go by strange handles, here. The gate guard told her that there was already somebody here with her name, and she had to chose another - so, with the alarming rustling in the bushes approaching nearer, she panicked and blurted out the name of her favourite flower.

Ah well. Butterfly bushes are nice. As well as lovely flowers, they have strong roots and are quite hard to kill. Not too bad an omen.

Stories

Buddleia has played with many people and had a lot of fun here in four years! Most of her stories and scenes are not on the Enquirer - and most of those that are are from times she wandered through someone else's story 27).

Some scenes are on GoogleDocs, and many were Exported to Html back in the good old days when it was possible. They lurk in a labyrinthine filing system, perhaps some day to be rescued, organised, and put on display as a coherent storyline.

The few scenes which are on the Enquirer:

A fine selection of Footnotes

1)
for making tea and cooking up lunch
2)
not for cigs, just fires
3)
flashlight, to the Americans - not a flaming torch
4)
never know when you might need rainproofing, warming, drying or to sneeze
5)
usually sammiches, cookies/cake, fruit, and a water canteen. A few spices for cooking on the go. Tealeaves, too, of course.
6)
one notebook is full of carefully drawn maps, designs, and several pages of tallies
7)
usually spare punctuation and vowels
8)
anything that triggered the “ooh, shiny” reflex - e.g. a bottle cap, a few scraps of paper, a stone or three, some charcoal, a pretty flower, a walnut shell, a seashell, a piece of string, etc.
9)
She has become more introspective and reclusive of late, which does not exactly help.
10)
She's loving, but most of the time the concept of flirting, dating etc just doesn't register with her.
11)
If anyone is interested in joining, contact me, and let's play together and see how it goes - just bear in mind that we really are a very inactive clan.
12)
while still under reconstruction, of course
13)
She doesn't carry a Bag of Holding, and is a complete failure at storing things in her hat like some Jokers can.
14)
Unmelting ice, always cold. Hard and sharp: useful for cutting food, and for portable refrigeration!
15)
won in a Joker game
16)
traded for a Factory map
17)
it reminds her of her time as a robot
18)
since the trains stopped running, the Card-tel is obsolete, but she can't bear to throw out the cards.
19)
he insisted on exchanging something for a random picnic
20)
unexpected gift
21)
ditto
22)
exchanged for a seashell
23)
as thanks for a mess-kit mug
24)
see below
25)
the soprano line of a piece scored for eight-part harmony sounds rather odd on its own, but rest assured that choirs can make beautiful intricate music when the full ensemble is performing
26)
It's buhd-lee-uh, not buddle-ee-a. Named for one Mr Buddle, a botanist, not Buddha or Leia. Oh, and Boudicca is a different person entirely, often as their names get confused.
27)
and then they were organised enough to log it and upload it
28)
actually it really wasn't a carnival, but it was a lot of fun!
29)
for the full list of scenes in this plotline, see this link.
30)
he who was thewonderllama