Tokay Woman
DHN.001 - トッケイウーマン
AKA Caesura Harp - シーズラ・ハープ
“Ugh, I wish I didn't have time for this.”
Good Point - Never Late
Bad Point - Angry, Biting
Like - Compassion
Dislike - Meetings, Citrus
4’10” (147.32 cm)
A(n initially) non-combat robot built by Dr. Taylor Harp. Designed based after the tokay gecko, Gekko gecko (yes, laugh it up). She’s a dedicated timekeeper and statistician rather than a construction worker, acting as more of an upper management robot.
Tokay’s systems are built from Flash Man’s, reverse engineered, giving her time stopping powers (Flash Freeze). It is not 100% a copy of that technology, though, and both systems run on a separate ‘clock’ (so to say), so neither could cancel out the others time stop, or be able to perceive the other when the others’ power is in use. Tokay also has a little extra ‘juice’ in the form of an unusual, otherworldly artifact discovered by Dr. Harp…
Despite being of a time-stop variety, the Flash Freeze visually takes on the appearance of an ice attack (due to stopped objects taking on a shiny, shimmering, icy cyan tone), though there is no cold associated with it directly. Tokay’s orange markings glow cyan blue when the system is active. Though the attack does not ‘generate’ cold, due to the unusual nature of the artifact used to power the time stop, Tokay herself will get very cold when using Flash Freeze, rather than heating up. Her sensory systems are designed with this in mind, so she can shrug it off.
Tokay was originally designed to stop accidents from happening, and still does from time to time, but it was discovered that her powers had advantages with more tedious, managerial jobs, resulting in her being reassigned. This made her quite irate.
Her primary job involves paperwork. …Lots, and lots of paperwork. However, there are limitations; electronics that transmit data over networks don’t function properly in her time stopped ‘bubble’. If she needs to look up anything, it either needs to be on physical media, or on a hard disk fully within her functional time stop range.
Her superiors tend to boast about her efficacy, saying the work she finishes in days would take entire departments many weeks to do. She does not appreciate the praise, as she never asked for the job. However, with that praise comes a paycheck equivalent to the amount of work she does (since the computers in her bubble record the actual time spent), which goes back to Dr. Harp in order to support not only her own maintenance, but the quality of life of her siblings. For them, she endures the indignity and mind-numbing tedium.
When she’s not on the job (which only takes moments of real time despite taking hours and HOURS of her own), she actually likes to do a bit of vigilante work (to make up for the mind-numbing number crunching garbage she normally has to deal with), using her time stopping powers. However, while Flash Freeze can function over longer periods of time in low-stress situations than, say, the Time Stopper, it uses significantly more energy when used in combat situations. Often times, Tokay will have to selectively unstop portions of the robots she’s fighting in order to redirect their momentum, or deal damage. However, she’s become very good at it.
Tokay has a habit of taking a little too much of her frustration out on her opponents while hunting in this way, and it is not uncommon for her to go a little overboard butchering the robots she apprehends, though they normally do not ‘suffer’ much due to the nature of her time stop powers. She rarely does this to self-aware robots - usually just dangerous rogue robots running simpler AI - but will not hesitate if pushed to the brink of her patience…
To give herself an edge, she went behind the back of Dr. Harp to get equipped with ice weaponry, specifically an ice spear that can separate into two smaller ice blades, one significantly longer than the other, to resemble clock hands. These unnamed weapons can be rearranged into other forms for combat variety, and can be used to direct Flash Freeze to only affect single targets, allowing its effective energy capacity to be extended in combat scenarios. Single targets frozen this way take on a lightly fluorescent cyan hue, with a brighter glowing ‘outline’ along their contours.
They can also be time-frozen in mid-air when thrown, and recalled along their original trajectory to act almost like delayed boomerangs, both separately and when combined. She cannot use them as platforms when they’re frozen in the air like this, as they will immediately unfreeze when she grabs them, but others can use them as platforms if need be. They can also ‘freeze’ water to create platforms that she or others can use.
Similar to Slash Girl, Tokay has a ‘failsafe’ of sorts, but for a very different purpose and to very different ends. Located in the cavity the Flash Freeze is installed, it will hard shut-off the device the second it reaches its energy capacity. While it can be used past that, the consequences are unpleasant; it starts draining Tokay’s ‘life’ in the form of her actual total time in existence, rather than just energy reserves, second for second. While this would seem inconsequential to a robot that could technically live forever, the sensation of having one’s time alive sucked out of them is not only incredibly painful, but creates a unique sense of existential dread… so it’s best that shutoff not be… damaged.
Tokay appears to never sleep, but that’s because she activates Flash Freeze while recharging/sleeping. It uses an unbelievable amount of energy and technically increases the time she takes recharging by 3x, but appears to take mere seconds. She uses the excuse that charging time stop equipment simply takes that much energy, without revealing that she’s powering it on company time/energy while in use. It’s a small revenge for what they make her do.
Tokay does have to go in for basic maintenance repair almost five times more frequently than her siblings because she's literally physically running for hours per every real-time second that she’s on the job. While she's not doing it 24/7, the others - or even the humans - don't really grasp it, and without the ability to experience it, probably never will, as she can only describe what she goes through so many times with people brushing it off as not a big deal for such an advanced robot.
This need for constant repairs despite ‘only having an office job’ gives her a reputation for being ‘fragile’ to others (especially other, non-DHN construction and worker robots), further cementing her typically dour attitude. Nevertheless, she genuinely appreciates anybody willing to show a more active understanding and compassion towards her situation regardless (or in spite) of her cold and bitter demeanor.
In an unusual change, Tokay’s central computer is not located in her head with her sensory equipment, but rather in her back, nested between the Flash Freeze unit’s housing and her ‘backpack’, which serves refrigeration functions. Due to the unusual nature of her time powers, placing her computer and IC chip as close to the artifact as possible keeps her perception stable. It’s also why she has a refrigeration unit in the first place; due to the artifact drawing heat out of the environment when active, it’s best to keep the internal temperatures of her critical components low at all times rather than fluctuating between cold and hot and risking destabilization of wires, contacts, and other fine electronics through temperature-based expansion and contraction. That said, she’s not averse to indulging in external warmth; as long as it’s not so severe that it begins to heat her core components.
Tokay’s ‘face’ rests on a hinge, and instead of a brain case, there is a recess behind her humanoid facial features, which can flip up into her reptilian helmet in such a way that said helmet becomes her face. Her helmet contains high-speed detection optics that can snap shots of sudden movements; normally these are hooked to her Flash Freeze, so she can activate it on moment’s notice, as part of her original job to prevent work accidents. However, those eyes are not terribly good at anything other than motion detection (since the cameras only snap single shots, rather than recording video), so going into helmet-only mode tends to be reserved for high-speed combat against agile foes… or being sufficiently angry that she’s already not seeing straight.
An unusual small detail of her design is her eyes, both on her helmet and face. Those on her helmet have a split pupil, with two ‘halves’ moving independently in the semblance of analogue clock hands. They do not tell time, but can rotate and shift around to imply a direction that they are focusing, or to emote. The eyes on her humanoid face have hourglass-shaped irises/pupils with a faintly glowing blue rim. They rotate once every time she blinks, usually imperceptible, but noticeable as she opens her eyes if she’s blinking deliberately slow.
When wearing business attire that requires her to remove her reptilian ‘helmet’, she will use a temporary cranial dome that hooks into the recessed cavity on the ‘back’ of her head, typically with a ginger wig matching the usual color of her spines.
Like her immediate sister, Reach, Tokay can climb walls, but generally only does so to get places faster, rather than clinging to them for long periods of time to do work. Her finger pads, especially at her fingertips, have a passive adhesion effect akin to light cellophane tape, and she can activate additional electromagnetic adhesion properties in her whole hand for climbing.
Tokay needs to keep occupied; when she has absolutely nothing to do, she finds herself unable to resist 'ticking' away seconds in perfect time, whether by finger/foot-tapping, pen-clicking, etc.
Her name is a layered pun, and the only one among the Harp Numbers where her animal is her primary name rather than the hidden pun.
Tokay (tokkei) gecko is her animal design
Tokei is Japanese for “clock”
Toukei is Japanese for “statistics”
Touketsu means “to freeze” both in a literal and economic sense
Her civilian name, Caesura (pronounced “seizure-uh”), is a mark in musical notation which "denotes a brief, silent pause, during which metrical time is not counted" and is indicated with the symbol 𝄓.
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how’s bg3 going? 👀
It's going so well, I am having a blast!
I just finished my first save last night & I have so many emotions about my Tav/Mardora. She saved the world/stopped The Grand Design, she got everyone a good ending, she was friends with nearly everyone, she has a hot alien wife who loves her. Truly my little dwarven cleric is living the dream; even though I never imagined (& she probably never imagined) she'd fly off into the astral plane to free the githyanki people from Vlaakith's rule with said alien wife. Like...she was supposed to romance Gale & then I accidentally fell into Lae'zel's route & I am a Lae'zel girlie now. Mardora is going to live in my brain forever btw, I am Altered™️.
I have my first Durge/Aerea spiraling through the ups & downs of "I fell from grace but I want it back, corruption arc time, oh no I miss grace I need to claw myself back up." She was supposed to go full corruption arc, she & Astarion were going to make each other worse...and then she accidentally made Shadowheart turn from Shar (yes, I fucking said on accident. I'm stupid sometimes)...and she can't betray her girl bestie's character development! So I guess she & Astarion are gonna pull each other up out of the hole of corruption now since Shadowheart gave her so much to chew on.
I have a silly little tiefling bard (Guemarir) who I think is going to romance Wyll or Halsin, but honestly who even knows. If I can accidentally romance Lae'zel because she steamrolls past any scenes Gale tried to start, then who's to say I won't accidentally romance someone else with my dumb (affectionate) purple twink? Either way, I am hyped & I am having fun!
Maybe one day I'll do an actual evil save without it getting sabotaged by my own "what does this choice do?!" Who tf even knows, but I will probably post about it
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