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OOC

Handle: Kim
Contact: **
aproclivity

Over 18? ** Yep!
Characters Played: N/A

THE CHARACTER

Character Name: Alex Reagan
Series: The Black Tapes Podcast
Canon Point: Post 212 (The Axis Mundae)
Character Age: 34ish.
Background: Alex Reagan is a Canadian born journalist who went to the University of Vancouver before heading to Seattle to work at Pacific Northwest Stories (which is kinda like NPR). After working as a segment producer for several years with her friend Nic Silver, Alex broached the idea of doing a podcast on people doing interesting jobs. The first job they were going to focus on was one of paranormal investigator, but while interviewing different paranormal investigators one name kept popping up: Dr. Richard Strand of the Strand Institute, a paranormal investigator who is a rational skeptic(™) and who seeks to disprove all instances of anything paranormal.

After badgering Strand into an interview, Alex stumbles across some black VHS cassette cases, and Strand informs her that those are the cases he can’t scientifically disprove. Yet. From then on, Alex’s podcast takes the form of focusing on the Strand Institute and their “enigmatic founder Dr. Richard Strand” and the videos that he shows her. At first, the videos appear to have no connection, but as we come more entrenched in the shows mythos, the narrative stretches to demons, shadow figures hunting children, ancient religious cults, murders with upside down faces, Dr. Strand’s missing and presumed dead wife Coralee, physics, sacred geometry, murderous music and whether or not Alex’s own show has somehow brought about the end of the word in a demonic apocalypse. Oops.

Personality:One of the things at the very core of Alex’s personality is her determination. It’s shown over and over again in the series, right from the theme that has Strand’s“returning one of 11 phone calls from someone named Alex Reagan.” That’s one of the first things that you need to know about her and how that leads into her persistence. The two go hand and hand, and while more often than not, they can be traits that are valuable to her both as a person as well as a reporter, they can often lead her down a path to destruction. When she wants something (especially along the lines of a story) Alex rarely takes no for an answer, even when cooler heads prevail on her to do so. In that way, Alex is often the epitome of the “Person No! Person YES.” meme. Even those eleven phone calls of Alex’s come after multiple people have told her that Strand isn’t going to talk to her, including his assistants and publishers.

When she is on the trail of a story, especially one Alex is personally involved in (like the Black Tapes) everything other than that is tangential. Things that should be important to her like journalism ethics, Strand’s personal life and even the law go right out of the window especially if she thinks someone is hiding something from her. To be fair, Strand is shady af in this area and that's where most of her lapsing ethics come from, but as she grows more involved her personal and professional curiosity grows into something that becomes an obsession. As Alex herself says, “I feel like the black tapes paranormal train is going to leave with or without me and I deserve to be on it.” However, in many ways, Alex’s determination also makes her like an earnest puppy with a bone. Her enthusiasm for things can be entirely contagious at times, and her determination comes from a place of that. Determination and perseverance make her jump into things feet first and recorder out, even when cooler heads prevail. She is determined to understand what is going on around her, and to seek not only her truths but the truths of people around her.

A large part of Alex’s seeking truth comes from an intense curiosity. Her podcast is first meant to be about interesting jobs done by interesting people because these are things that she is curious about. The fact that Alex’s favorite adjective seems to be “enigmatic” definitely points to things that she wants to understand. Indeed, the reason that Alex lies to get back into Strand’s equipment cabinet to see those black tape cases are because she is curious about them, and of course what they mean to him. Often, however, Alex’s curiosity comes with a large side of curiosity killing the cat; it tends to drive her mental and to do things that she otherwise might not do like record Strand and Amalia without their permission, and more than that, even when she said that she wouldn’t. Her curiosity can sometimes come with a sense of entitlement, especially when it comes to the show and to Strand’s personal life. Digging into his personal life becomes something that Alex can’t seem to help but do, probably because she often feels like he’s withholding information, manipulating her or outright lying to her. Alex hates being lied to in no uncertain terms, because she sees this as a betrayal of the opposite ways that they both have of searching for truth.

Alex’s curiosity also tends to lean more to the side of belief and she often acts as a sort of Mulder to Strand’s Scully. As her intellect and heart start to put things together, she starts to believe in this world of demons and cults and shadow figures though she tries very hard to cling to Strand’s assurances that what she's actually seeing is “apophenia” (the notion of putting together random instances and seeing connects where there aren't any). Her power of belief in the world is so strong that Alex starts to lose her ability to sleep which makes her obsessive tendencies even worse. While it is possible that within the world of her canon there is something supernatural involved with her lack of sleep until the show takes an actual stand one way or another, I'm going to say that it's probably anxiety that this stuff is real and that it might be after her now because of her association with Richard Strand.

This anxiety and her sleep problems have the distinct possibility of becoming worse in game if she is not reassured that she doesn't cause the end of the world because in canon, Simon Reese assures her that yep, she did cause it and that it’s coming and that her lack of sleep and seeing things in the dark and her dreams are all a herald of her being infected by it before anyone else is thanks to her listening to all parts of the evil symphony first. (Yep I know how that sounds.)

Part of the reason that people tend to connect with Alex other than through her persistence is through her empathy. In fact I would go so far as to say that the closest thing that Alex has to a super power is her empathy. This empathy makes people want to trust her (honestly even when they shouldn't) so she can get people who otherwise wouldn't open up about people or experiences that they've had. Her charm goes hand and hand with this and it's one of the ways that she gets people like law enforcement to open up files and cases and give her access to things that she really shouldn't have access too. It’s important to note that despite how many lapses Alex may have in her professional ethics, she rarely, if ever, attempts to manipulate people into giving her information. Indeed, sometimes when she would be better served to lie (or at least to withhold information, like when she’s speaking to John Uvela at Urraca Mesa about the fallen totems) she doesn’t.

Powers/Abilities: Intelligence, empathy and an uncanny ability to make people trust her and open up.
Power Nerfs (if applicable):N/A.

Inventory: She comes from the studio so basically, she’s just got her cellphone in her pocket.
Incentives: Alex wants reassurances that her family, friends and coworkers are all alright, as well the reassurance that the darkness that claimed her world wasn’t her fault because of the Mysterium being played on the show.

SAMPLES

Thread with a canonmate and TDM