ooc information
NAME: Trace
DO YOU PLAY ANYONE ELSE IN OUTER DIVIDE? one (1) Commander Shepard

character information
CHARACTER NAME: Chloe Sullivan. Alternatively, 'Watchtower'.
FANDOM: Smallville
AU/OU: OU
CANON-POINT: After 'Roulette', 9x05.
JOURNAL: facilitating
ICON: here

APPEARANCE:

While her sense of style changes drastically from season to season, her general appearance doesn't. In one word, Chloe's bright–short, bright blonde hair, vibrant green eyes, and a smile like you've never seen. She's small, especially when compared to such people as Clark and Oliver, but she has a presence about her that almost makes you forget her size. And while she used to dress in low-cut tank tops in wild prints and patterns, lately she's taken to pleated pants, ornate blouses, and blazers or hacking jackets (a term which, considering her profession, amuses me to no end) with the occasional flair for green leather.

HISTORY: Smallville (a link to her personal wiki, smallville itself is fuckall-huge.)

PAST-GAME HISTORY: N/A

PERSONALITY:

"There have been so many times when my curiosity has gotten the best of me. Maybe this is just who I am." Information. Throughout all of canon, information has been a key element in the life of Chloe Sullivan. Through all four years of high school and two at Metropolis University to follow, she was sure her name in lights would read, 'Chloe Sullivan, Intrepid Reporter'. Even when she was fired and that dream went down the tube, Chloe still found her calling on the information highway in a high-security penthouse commonly known as Watchtower. Read as: The biggest fucking computer system you've ever seen in your life. Putting it bluntly, she has the insatiable need to know pretty much everything ever, at least as far as current events and general secrets are concerned. It's one of her greatest strengths and her most fatal flaws, but no matter which way you spin it, this thirst for truth and knowledge shapes who she becomes up through her canon-point and for the rest of her life. Her area of expertise used to be limited to the general goings-ons of their small town of Smallville (which was weird enough on its own, thanks much), but they've upgraded to big-city Metropolis and nowadays Clark plus Oliver and Company (I had to say it, I'm sorry) come to her for pretty much everything they'd need. She's spectacular with technology, so what she doesn't know, she'll damn sure find out faster than you can say "okay, thanks anyway". On the flip side of that, it means that she doesn't handle secrets well. She keeps them to the grave once she knows them (unless Clark asks, sometimes he can get them out of her, though even that's on thin ice lately), but she can't stand to be shut out, lied to, or kept in the dark. If you try to hide something from her, she will find out. It's nothing against you, I swear, she just... has to know. She'll casually glean information off of the people you know, she'll have her computers scan the entire network for even a single time when you mentioned the secret un-filtered... Odds are, she will seriously violate your privacy. Clark's her best friend, but before she knew his Kryptonian secret, she poked around in all of the sensitive parts of his life without his knowledge, even going so far as to dig through the circumstances surrounding his mysterious adoption, a touchy topic for Clark. And while she may have learned much in the art of subtlety since then, her technological reach is more invasive than ever, and nobody's truly safe. She doesn't do it to be cruel, she does it because she's fueled by the truth, and if something doesn't seem right she has to find out why. She feels like Watchtower and what it stands for is above the necessity for secrets, enough so that it almost doesn't register in her mind that she might legitimately be invading something personal. All in all, she's made a life of knowing everything about everybody while nobody knows a damn thing about her. Watchtower has enemies, plenty of them. People trying to track her down or shut her down or just start up some kind of computer-hacker game of Chicken, but not a single one has taken her down yet. Why is that? Because the key to that, much like many things in life, is having the right information.	"This is where I belong. Watchtower is officially online." From the first week of her freshman year at Smallville High when she helped Clark save innocent people from the likes of freak-of-the-week Jeremy Creek and his electric vengeance, Chloe's life has been dedicated to uncovering truth, but also to protecting others. Though for the first few years, she was little more than a civilian herself, time after time she stuck her neck out on the line for Clark, for Lois or Lana, or for any number of other people whose lives she's put above hers. She protects people. Protects strangers, protects friends, protects young Superman, Clark Kent himself, through intense amounts of time and effort and the very literal application of blood, sweat, and tears. That's what Watchtower stands for. It stands for protection. Even before her world crumbled around her, Chloe spent hours and hours each day dedicating all of her energy, all of her resources, all of everything she had to the preservation of innocent lives. The term 'blood, sweat, and tears' is incredibly applicable right now. Very few knew Watchtower even existed, in Metropolis, and for a very good reason. The city had many heroes, from the Red-Blue Blur to Green Arrow to Black Canary, Cyborg, Aquaman, and Impulse. Vigilantes, that's what the media called them, but there's no doubt that they were heroes, saving dozens of lives or more each night from the things in this world that no one else is able or willing to stop. And every single one of them reported back to 'home base'. To the central communications hub and observation tower known as Watchtower. She was their hacker, their strategist, their eyes in the sky. In essence, she was their heart. That's Chloe's purpose more than anything–protect people. Everyone. Whether it's the people she cares about or some meteor-infected stranger, it doesn't matter. Especially with her loved ones, she protects them at all costs at any given time, even if she has to sacrifice herself to do it. That's where her need for information kicks in; that's how she protects people. She's not the strongest or the fastest but her surveillance and her data-banks have saved the day a hideous number of times. While Watchtower has tightened its net to focus much more exclusively on Oliver and the super-team lately, she's always been very strongly drawn to helping the meteor-infected. Protecting them, helping them understand that they aren't freaks or monsters. Hell, she even had a support group going back in early season eight. But when it comes down to it, she's met and catalogued over 200 meteor freaks since high school and hasn't really managed to save a single one. And that kills her a little inside. "327. That's how many of the meteor-infected I've profiled since ninth grade, and do you know how many I've actually saved? None. Sometimes the damsel in distress isn't the one that needs saving, Clark."
"You're the best friend and ally I could have had, Chloe. You're stronger than anyone I know, when you're fighting for the rest of us. The truth is, you saved me more than I could have ever saved you." If there's one thing to be said for Chloe, it's that once she's dedicated herself to keeping you safe, there is nothing on or off this world that'll get in her way. Growing up with a very small immediate family, she's (consciously or unconsciously) latched onto her friends as family instead. Over the years (and especially in the wake of recent events), she's learned to be a lot more selective of who she lets herself care about, but once she cares about someone, they're a part of her indefinitely. She's intensely loyal, and that's what fuels it. Jimmy, Davis, Oliver, and even Clark have gone through incredibly dark times, and while she doesn't always manage to pull them out of it, she's never quite been able to give up hope. On top of this, she's probably the single most trustworthy person you can find. Between her friends, her allies, and the meteor-infected who've trusted her with their lives, she keeps secrets like a vault. She's known Clark's secret since late in high school, and even through the show's end (seven years later), she doesn't tell a single soul. In fact, she puts her life on the line on an almost daily basis to protect said secret. This has gotten her in trouble with people like Lana, who was like a sister to Chloe for so long and who was appalled that Chloe wouldn't trust her with whatever Clark was hiding, or with Jimmy, Chloe's own husband (at the time) who always felt that she and Clark were hiding something. But while Clark's her best friend, if someone flat-out trusts her with a secret and keeping that secret isn't killing anyone, even he won't be able to get it out of her. When it comes down to it, no matter how cold or jaded she may get, Chloe Sullivan loves people. Oh god does she love people, reaching out to them, talking to them. Even if someone wrongs her, she can never stay mad for long. The only time she can resist the urge to help someone in need is if it directly inhibits her ability to jump to Clark or Oliver's aid if need be. And it's not just that she likes to do this–Chloe's first natural reflex is to comfort, to assist. Davis Bloome was a prime example, both the way they met (he was a paramedic for a literal train wreck and she'd jumped into the rubble to help a girl who couldn't seem to breathe) and the way her first reaction to his worries was a reassuring 'of course you're not a monster' sort of answer. Chloe's incredibly good at giving advice (even if she rarely follows it herself), whether it's how Clark should handle the latest overpowered baddie or how Lois should get the guy. It's half in the delivery–she's always so calm and collected about it, like she knows what she's talking about–and half in the fact that when she does open her mouth, to advise someone, she's always right. And she rarely softens the truth either, especially with people like Clark or Oliver who she more-or-less works with on a daily basis. If an idea is stupid and going to get them killed, she'll say so with no holds barred. It's better to be blunt than to risk lives (which seems like a running theme, as far as Chloe's concerned). Up until lately, it's been a safe statement to say that Chloe is always smiling. She wears happiness or even just plain contentment on her face with a grin, and even when things are going downhill (read as: the last few months of her life) she's got specific (albeit less enthusiastic) smiles for 'I'm sorry', 'I'm fine, I swear', 'You don't scare me' and other such generally-negative emotions. As long as she has a handle on the situation, whether the others in the scene realize she does or not, she can keep a good game-face on. A lot of the time it's when she stops smiling that you know something's really up, because if it were only a minor difficulty she would have brushed it off and smiled right through it.	"You learned well from Lex. When you don't get your way, you just... threaten. This isn't my first tour of duty on the Luthor battlefield so you're gonna have to come at me with a lot more firepower." Growing up as Clark's normal best friend, his techie, and his damage control has really shaped her life. The danger and tension that involves on a daily basis quickly pulled her into the Major Leagues (metaphorically) whether she liked it or not. And Chloe Sullivan is meeting this challenge head-on. For years now, she's played technological Chicken with the likes of the National Defense Bureau and more, but it's one thing to be fearless through a computer screen, and another to be able to walk up to a truly powerful individual like Lex Luthor or Tess Mercer and be completely unintimidated. Maybe she's jaded, after years of Clark saving her from an obscene number of horrible situations, but Clark's not such a dependable life-raft anymore and Chloe's definitely not drowning. She's stepped up to the plate, become more cunning and cut-throat by the day, and she's already killed a man to protect Clark's secret (which is huge–Clark would never be able to see her the same, if he knew). That's the role she's taken, though, as Watchtower, or even just as Clark's best friend. She does the dirty work, whatever it takes to keep Clark and the rest of the city safe, and she does it without hesitation. She did the same for Davis, when he was alive. For the first 75% of the time that she knew him, he was equal parts monster and victim, and she drifted altogether too far into moral greys for him. Sheltered him despite his crimes, hid bodies for him, washed innocent blood off of her hands for him, and once she realized she couldn't save him, she ran away with him to protect both his life and Clark's. She did everything she could, everything nobody else could do. But the more she crosses moral lines to protect the people she cares about, the more secrets she has to keep. And it's putting a rift between her and everyone she has left. "The true test of believing in someone is knowing their lies are there to protect you." All of that being said, especially since she's set up Watchtower, she's been very secretive about what she's doing. She runs tech for Oliver's covert missions, only 10% of which Clark ever hears about, and she's got worms in a good number of government databases. It's not even necessarily that the information is entirely secret, a lot of the time. Especially not from someone like Oliver, who both accepts and understands Chloe's responsibility to walk the wrong side of the line every so often. Really, it all comes down to two primary factors. 1) The fact that the less people know, the less they get involved and slow her down, and 2) Her gradual development of trust issues. Even with the emotional aspects aside, trust is a pretty complex thing, for Chloe. After the keeping of Clark's secret has so thoroughly permeated her life, she's come to associate the label, 'someone I can't trust with Clark's secret' with the more general, 'someone I can't trust at all'. And even separate from that, quite a few people have given her reasons to be incredibly cautious in the past. As Chloe herself puts it, she has a "perpetual knack for getting into lose-lose situations". All manner of meteor freak has wandered into her life, waited for her to offer them help or even just an ear to talk to, then stabbed her in the back. Then there was Davis--her life ended up revolving around him, so strong was her need to find some way to save him, but when she did find a way, he killed the man she loved and then turned on her. Her ability to trust is a casualty of the life she's had to lead, the path she's chosen to walk. It's self-preservation, really. Learned from the eight years she's spent caring too much. "Chloe, I'd prefer that if there were no secrets between us." "Then you're in the wrong business."
"Pride. That's your hubris, your fatal flaw. Your control issues... your grossly disproportionate sense of independence. Too proud to ask for help. That's why you vanished without a trace. Too proud to face that the world moved on without you." Despite everything, despite her loyalty to her friends and the way she's dedicated her life to helping people in need, that doesn't mean she's without serious flaws. Putting it bluntly? Chloe Sullivan is the biggest hypocrite you'll ever meet. Exhibit A: She makes a business of knowing everything about everybody, but as far as her own secrets, her lips are firmly sealed. And god forbid you do a bit of research of your own–it's incredibly fortunate that she's as good at fending off hackers as she is at hacking secure computer systems herself. It's like I said: Trust is complicated, with her. The only one she truly trusted enough to spill her deep dark secrets to was Clark, but by by now the gap her secret morally-grey actions has put between them has been ripped wide open by a recent choice that Chloe can't seen any way besides betrayal, and it's entirely possible that their friendship will never recover. Beyond that, she's definitely got some trust issues in general. But it's strange, oftentimes even good news gets lost in her tendency to keep personal information to herself. In season 8, as an example, it took Clark two weeks to hear that she and Jimmy were engaged. Secrecy is just as deep-set in her mind as the loyalty and determination she's known for, and it tends to separate her from the rest of the world and cuts down her chances of forming any sort of lasting bonds. Exhibit B: She puts her life on the line to protect people she cares about and gets distinctly upset when they leave her out of the loop, but then she turns around and builds a web of lies so they don't know she did it and can't get on her case about risking getting hurt. Chloe's doomed to be the one that everyone always underestimates. Always wants to stay out of danger in case she gets hurt. And she hates it. So she just... doesn't bother with it. Avoids cluing people in that she might be in danger. She's altogether too independent for her own good, really, but for good reason. See, the one thing Chloe is truly afraid of is being left behind. She's an entirely normal woman who's constantly in touch with superfolks and other assorted heroes, and she's painfully aware of how easy it would be for her particular brand of usefulness to become obsolete. This fear has shaped who she is in a big way. She's learned to be smarter, better, faster, and more skilled at all things Watchtower, because in her mind, the second that slips will be the second they decide they don't need her anymore. And at this point, Watchtower is all she has left. Exhibit C: She'll give Clark or Oliver any number of pep-talks, lectures, or kick-starts when they feel like running from their duty as a hero, but then turns around and displays a flight instinct of her own. The minor symptoms of this are the same sort of avoidance that keeps her personal details on the inside--she's afraid to show weakness because she's afraid of being shut out. But now, I'm talking flight in a big way. Chloe can handle any number of doom-bringers or murderers, but when a situation gets a certain sort of emotionally conflicted, her first reflex is to escape. This is best shown after her canon-point, when she gets nervous her budding relationship with Oliver will put him in the line of fire in the goal she's trying to achieve, so instead of addressing the feelings involved in talking him into sitting it out, she disappears altogether. Lets them think she's dead, even, and gives no whereabouts even once they don't. And then later on, once they're more steady in their relationship, she tries to disappear again. Nothing particularly bad happened, but the mistaken thought that she'd been involved in a drunken Vegas-style wedding was too much of the wrong kind of emotion for her to handle. It's what happens when she gets overwhelmed, is the tl;dr of it. Overwhelming her is very hard with physical danger but not nearly so difficult with matters of emotional conflict. Hypocrisy isn't her only downfall, though. She's too proud for anyone's good and entirely overconfident, despite that the latter has come back to bite her in the ass more than once. She's nosy and has no concept of boundaries when it's her own needs that need met, which doubles as a very limited respect for other people. On top of that, she's brilliant bordering on legit genius and she knows it (it's a fact of life, to her, not something to necessarily brag about), and that often leads her to dismiss other people's plans in favor of her own. (Don't get me wrong, her plans are usually excellent, but it's common courtesy not to just assume it's being done your way.) She's terrible at admitting her own mistakes, mostly because she tends to disagree that they were mistakes to start with (usually there's an 'I had to or X would have Y' attached). And while she's incredibly patient on a person-to-person basis, once she's in front of her computers and on the job, she won't even slow down for Clark. On top of that, while she forgives entirely too easily for some wrongs (as an example, a meteor freak trying to kill her), the ones that get under her skin on a more emotional level stick with her for quite a while. And she's one of those people whose bad side you'd very much like to avoid. "Well, you know what, Chloe, you can't have a set of rules for yourself and then a whole another set of rules for everyone else."	"I've been so many things over the years: doe eyed sleuth, intrepid reporter, Watchtower—" "Business suited cyber-savior?" It's at this point in Chloe's canon that she makes her second-to last and ultimately most dramatic lifestyle change. She goes from 'Chloe Sullivan and a room full of computers' to 'Watchtower', and the difference is far more than how you spell it. Where she once had a normal apartment, she now lives in Watchtower full time, and the amount of time she spends at the many computers directly reflects that. She doesn't bother with 'fun', not anymore. Luxuries like movie nights or going out to eat just plain don't hold her interest like they used to. Few things do, besides using her resources to save lives. Save lives, and hopefully someday atone for causing the loss of so many to start with. Really, it's as if Jimmy's death has taken away her right to do anything but help others and find a way to cope. It's a phase--like all tragedies, she eventually gets over this one, lets herself live again--but it's a phase complete with the deepest emotional low she's felt thus far. "That's good. It's good that you're embracing your Kryptonian side. There isn't really anything human left in you." This change in her isn't entirely because of what happened to Jimmy, however. As shown so many times in canon, when Clark makes a move, Chloe's never more than one step behind him. Helping the meteor-infected rather than just investigating them. Moving to Metropolis. Protecting the citizens there. All choices that Clark made, and Chloe's abandonment issues left her determined to keep right up alongside him, no matter how dangerous. Well, here's Clark turning his back on emotion. On Chloe. On Clark Kent himself, even. It's an utter betrayal, that after everything she's sacrificed over the years for him, he's unwilling to give her the one thing she ever really needed badly enough to ask him for, but that's the thing about her: As wounded and bitter as she may be, Clark was her hero once upon a time, and she's looking to him for her choices one last time. Just as she's always compensated to keep up with the superpowers she never really had, now she's compensating for a sort of Kryptonian heritage as well. Read as: If Clark Kent is dead, so is Chloe Sullivan. Clark actually comes out of that phase quicker than Chloe does, which helps pull her back to a sort of emotional stability but doesn't really change who she's become. She is Watchtower now. And there's no going back. "Look, I apologize if I've been a little off my game lately. It's just that, after my divorce, and Brainiac, and now, playing Watchtower to a bunch of needy superheroes, I forget that I need to be all smiles all the time." And that was before Davis and Jimmy killed each other and Clark turned his back on her. The fact that she brought a lot of it on herself doesn't change the fact that the last six or seven months have been one misery after another. It's changed her, in a big way. Her falling-out with Jimmy taught her that no matter who she tries to dedicate her life to, there will never be a point where Clark and saving the world don't come first in a big way. Her duty goes far above and beyond 'settle down and get married', and in a sense, what happened to their marriage drilled into her head more than anything that a normal life for her is just plain impossible. That's part of why she can throw herself so thoroughly into Watchtower--there's no house in the suburbs with a husband and two-point-five kids that she's missing out on. Not unless she gives up on everything she's ever believed in. Jimmy's death itself was the point at which Chloe transitioned from a natural flirt to someone who sees the word 'relationship' and spams flee. That just... it really really isn't a mess she wants to get back into, not when she's still bleeding from the hole Jimmy's death left, and not even after that hole's healed. She's closed herself off from people, from giving them the ability to hurt her, and her life thus far has proven that matters of the heart are the quickest way to pain and misery. And really, what happened with Davis affected her worst of all. Because for the first time, Chloe put her full and unguarded faith in someone, threw her heart into proving their innocence and defending their honor, and they turned out to be the bad guy after all. For the first time, Chloe dedicated everything she had to saving someone, and they turned out to be beyond even her reach. For the first time, she was completely and totally wrong, and innocent people died. Jimmy died. She's directly responsible for Jimmy's death. She'll never show it, but it's shaken her confidence in a big way. She once wore her heart on her sleeve--now it's tucked quietly into a back pocket, where she can ignore it and nobody gets hurt. But all in all, while her quick wit now plays second fiddle to remarks both bitter and razor-edged, she's still the same Chloe Sullivan deep down. She's independent, resourceful, and highly intelligent, and whether or not life's tossed her more than a handful of lemons lately, she still fully intends to use every resource at her disposal to protect both the innocent and the heroes who serve them. "Clark, if there's one lesson I've learned from you, it's that choosing the greater good is never a sacrifice."

POWERS/ABILITIES:

While she used to have a meteor-ability in the form of empathic healing strong enough to bring someone back from the dead, this disappeared mid-season-eight and never made a reappearance. At this point, she's pretty much a normal human being. Brilliant and freaky-good with computers, but normal.

POSSESSIONS:

Besides her clothing, a messenger-bag style purse with the following contents: ⇉ One (1) 9 mm Jericho 941 pistol ⇉ One (1) 14" laptop with incredibly strong security system and a bunch of data from home that's pretty much useless here. Comes with charger cord. (unable to connect to the network here, so basically it's just storage) ⇉ One (1) smartphone with advanced recon software (most notably, if set near another cell phone or even occasionally a laptop for long enough, it can clone all data on said device). Comes with charger cord. (like laptop, can't connect to network as things are) ⇉ Two (2) USB flash drives, both 8 gigabytes. ⇉ One (1) mini paper notebook + two (2) ballpoint pens, black. ⇉ One (1) first aid kit (antiseptic, some bandages, a bottle of tylenol for headaches and such, etc. etc.) ⇉ One (1) green Kryptonite rock, sealed in a lead-coated box. ⇉ One (1) set of make-up (general stuff, don't make me list it). ⇉ One (1) wallet with ID, cards, money, etc. ⇉ Three (3) packs of chewing gum, in winterfresh, big red, and green apple.

ARRIVAL: On the ship.

REASON FOR PLAYING:
1. She's incredibly fun to incorporate into various different settings, and I love Outer Divide's.
2. OD's heavy on the fighters--tech support is a must, too, and we've got... what, like one techie?
3. Davis, an incoming canonmate, doesn't fit in many settings but would fit very well in this one.
4. ????
5. ????
6. Profit!

writing samples
FIRST-PERSON:
In a game? One or two.
In Dear Mun? One or two.
There's also all of this, for text-based interactions.


THIRD-PERSON:
Here.