Filing those serial numbers off at last.

Who: April Caouette
Pronouns: Uses she/they interchangeably, but responds to anything
What: A being that feeds on the discomfort of those faced with the uncanny valley and doubts about identity. Not exactly a spirit, but definitely not human. an analogue horror jumpscare with a day job
Where: April works at the William Lyon Mackenzie King Institute of Paranormal Studies (or MKIPS), which is located in a partially converted cold war government safety bunker in an undisclosed location in Canada. Or to be specific, they work for a temporary employment agency and are contracted out to the MKIPS as a temporary employee. They've been doing this since about 1990

The MKIPS is a federal institution devoted to cataloguing reports of the strange and supernatural, including the collection of evidence or objects of interest.

Appearance:
They appear to be a young white woman in her mid twenties, short-medium-ish brown hair and eyes that are brown or green or maybe hazel? Probably has freckles, definitely has a mouth, er, is five foot... something?

April's appears to be whatever a person expects when they picture an admin assistant or receptionist or file clerk. Because of their appearance based on assumption and the human brain filling in what isn't there, people find it hard to describe her in ways that don't sound very generic. They'll recognize her when she walks into the office... Or feel like they should, with her name at the tip of their tongues but never clicking.

Physically, April appears human shaped, but they don't bleed when injured, and seem to recover quickly from what should be broken bones. They have more in common with photo paper than with meat. The real threats to their being are fire and acetone or similar print-destroying chemicals. You might have to wipe them down pretty hard to make it stick, but it's not pleasant for them whether it's fatal or not. Ripping big pieces of them off is an inconvenience they can reassemble from eventually; turning them into confetti is another story.

And that's just in the realm of mundane ways to fight them. Other paranormal beings suited for destroying and consuming the essence of others will find April a very, very easy opponent.


Abilities:
April can manipulate any photo they are in or that they take, and generally is aware of when something is trying to capture their image. Usually they're just out of focus if they show up at all, but if they're putting their mind to it for feeding/entertainment purposes, they can change how the picture developments. This ranges from blurring faces, to making something uncanny like an AI generated portrait, to subtle adjustments to a person's picture that will make them doubt their self-image. That kind of thing.
April can also just straight make her face look like it does in the pictures, if they want a quick and cheap scare.

As mentioned in the appearance section, April themselves is indistinct. They can give off a feeling of familiarity to people talking to them, that feeling that you know this person from somewhere but you've forgotten their name, and how terribly rude is that? They're hard to describe, and trying to focus in on what you remember them looking like just makes those features slip away more.

April can force some of their features to be more prominent and memorable, mainly to get a point across (specifically, how mad they are that you haven't submitted your expenses yet, or didn't properly sign out that cursed item, or are trying to book a meeting when there's no spaces left). Similarly, if it occurs to someone to concentrate hard enough, they might notice that April's face isn't as there as their mind says it totally is.

It is not recommended to try seeing her real face clearly.

Also people never remember her name, but according to April that's as much being a temp as it is being an ambiguous identity creature.

Long version:

Image Manipulation/Haunting:
If they are taking pictures or in a picture being taken, they can control how the image comes out. It might come out absolutely normal (you gotta have some negative space in there) or it might come out very, very creepy, or it might come out in a way that targets your specific insecurities- basically, they put a supernatural spin on the photo that can cause feelings of unease, obsession, fear, discomfort, and other unpleasant mental experiences. Technically they can do this with video recordings and film too, but it’s more work for less payoff.
Also they’re able to do this easier with film than with digital imaging, but don’t let it be said that April isn’t the kind of old person who tries to keep up with technology.


Indistinct Face:
The blurry image ability extends to their own appearance; most people think they’re seeing a face, but when trying to recall April’s appearance later, they’ll struggle to come up with something that does not sound like an extremely generic description. People look at April and their mind fills in what they expect an average person to look like, especially for whatever job they’re undercover in. If someone squints real hard and tries to focus in on their face, they might get a solid impression of an eye or part of a nose or a mouth, but never all at once.

Feeling of Familiarity:
This really only affects coworkers, and might not even be a power so much as April’s indistinctness intersecting with social norms, but when April joins a conversation or sits down at the same lunch table, people tend to get that ‘oh god I know this person but I can’t remember their name or when I met them’ feeling. You know, the one where you’re like ‘Oh! Hey! It’s... you!’ and try to hold a conversation without addressing them directly, it’s that feeling. Apparently that guilt is good for exploiting your way into social settings.
This stops working once April is actually a regular somewhere though. The supernatural familiarity, I mean, the name people rarely get right on the first go no matter how long she’s been around.

Anonymity:
In addition to finding it hard to describe April, it can be hard to remember their name, too. April claims this isn’t one of their innate abilities, it’s just how people treat temp workers.

Obligate Phobovore (mostly):
April sustains themselves by feeding on the discomfort and paranoia of those around them when faced with the uncanny valley and doubts about identity. Nowadays, coworkers struggling to remember them and photobombing people after work tends to do the trick. Maybe if they’re desperate they’ll post to a creepypasta board or something but the market there is so saturated and the bar is insultingly low- (fading out rant about technology and ‘kids today’)
That said April can eat normal food, but it’s iffy if they get any nutritional value out of it.

In terms of immortality, they are capable of getting killed! Physically, they can only be completely killed by fire, or a specific mix of cleaning agents you could use to say, wipe an image from a plate. With cleaning chemicals, that might take enough to either douse a significant portion of them, or dedicated rubbing at some vital areas (especially the face). Fire is pretty much instant bad news. They could also conceivably starve to death if they slack off too much. Tearing them into big pieces will just take them a long time to recover from, but put April through a document shredder kills them like it kills sensitive files.

However, when it comes to supernatural entities, things that feed on the intangible like souls or essence or energy, April is as vulnerable as anyone else. Also anything big enough to eat a person given the acid vulnerability, too, but that doesn’t sound as cool.

They can still very much be injured and it very much hurts and they’d very much have a really bad time. They just don’t bleed (though people who expect that might think it’s there), and they take awhile to recover if they’ve been torn up or crumpled up or what-have-you. Water won’t kill them, but they aren’t a huge fan of swimming and take forever to dry out. They have more in common with paper than with meat.

Personality:
Short: Exhausted but still clocking in to work, hates talking about themself, claims to be professional but if given a slight reason will ramble off every opinion they have about office or supernatural politics and will shit talk everyone they don't like. They are very petty, and will hold a long grudge over a small inconvenience.

Interested in continuing to exist, unfazed by the idea of killing, consuming, or traumatizing humans because they and others like them have to do that to live, so it's as morally questionable as eating a slice of toast. Talks about all of the above the same as any 'normal' topics around the water cooler. Complex thought does not exempt humanity from the food web.

And despite it being a cover, sincerely does their 'day job' and WILL hold a grudge if you make their work harder for them. Conversely, if you do something to make their life easier, then they won't mind you. Do it without asking and they are now ride or die for you.

Long version:
April is capable of sounding polite and professional in quick conversations, especially with people outside their current department. Somewhat more successful with the public whenever they're in a front desk position, but there have been times where April went ahead and leaned hard on their anonymity powers to get snappy enough at someone for them to try and report them. Otherwise, they use polite words while sounding exhausted or uninterested in their day-to-day interactions, and if they're really in a bad mood, they settle right into passive aggression.

Their focus while 'on the clock' is entirely on getting the work done, even if it's just the bare minimum required to make life easier for themselves. They love organization, though you wouldn't know it by how angry they seem while classifying, sorting, and filing things. They grapple with not wanting to be seen, noticed, or interacted with, while also wanting someone to finally give them some fucking credit for a big job or actually hear them out when they have a proposal about workflow and organization.

They have a lot of opinions on politics both in the office and between supernatural entities. While they haven't left their post in decades, apparently the reports that come through and the little bit of time off they get is enough to keep up with the gossip. That said, a lot of their strong opinions come from having way too much time to think about them while filing or entering data. They were not like this when they were working in their own portrait studio.

However, there are the rare times where someone can actually befriend April, usually by doing something genuinely helpful for them, especially if it wasn't asked for. That puts you in April's good books right away, and if you can keep that spot, you have a faceless friend for the rest of your life. It might be hard to tell at first because they'll still sound pretty grumpy about work, but if you look at how small the number of people they vent to or gossip with is, that'll tell you everything.

Also because they'll get you an extra treat when they do a Timmy's run.

April is casual about their nature as a creature that feeds on people's fears, identity, and discomfort - in that they have no guilt about what they eat and what that does to people... Well, mostly. As far as April is concerned, humans are part of the food chain and always have been, not even just for supernatural beings either. Honestly, it's real self-centered of humans to think that they're exempt from the food chain just because they developed civilizations and what-have-you.

April is also painfully aware that they are not exempt from the food chain either, and would like to exist for as long as they can. They're cautious around beings that are capable of eating or killing them, trying to stay unremarkable and unappetizing enough to be left alone in that sense. It's very rare that they'd risk themselves for someone else.

History
Short: April came into existence when the early photographs on the way to perfecting the process came out wrong enough to be creepy. In the early photography days, they ran a portrait studio or otherwise offered their photography services for hire. Eventually, cameras became more accessible to people, so they moved to film development counters and big box photography studios (think getting your film developed at Costco or your picture taken at a Sears). They eventually catch wind of official organizations investigating the paranormal, and in an attempt to get ahead of things they infiltrated the local branch of it, first as a temp hire to process film evidence, but progressively more and more banal and nondescript jobs in the office machine.

They've been stuck there from the early 90s to present day, and the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, they're too committed to their sunk cost to leave now.

Slightly Longer Timeline:
- Someone fucks up while trying to develop the first photograph, gets creeped out by the development error, and a pack of essence from the uncanny valley notices.
- The camera is invented and patented, and people begin to pay for photographs to be taken of them.
- April (though they called themselves something different then) opens up a portrait studio and begins to fuck with humans.
- This continues until the late 60s, where cameras are common enough to own that running a portrait studio is too much work for the payoff April gets, so they start to branch out, slipping themselves behind photo development counters and commercial portrait photography (think Zellers, Sears, etc).
- April learns through this just how easy it is to slip into a team of humans in a business that treats them as cogs.
- At some point in the late 70s or early 80s, some investigative types come through and interview the staff for a 'case'. They're from some kind of organization pursuing cases of the strange or unnatural. The case was about a creature in a photo, not April's work of course, they're not that sloppy, but it does alert them to the fact that humans may be organizing better about this kind of thing now.

- So, confident with their success infiltrating retail establishments, and seeing a shift in how humans view images of themselves, April decides they're going to kill two birds with one stone by sliding themselves into the workforce of the local federal department investigating the supernatural. They'll get to practice finding other ways to feed on humans over unclear identities, and they'll either be behind the microscope lens, or too close to see clearly.

- This turns out to be a lot easier than you'd think. One part because they're not the only inhuman or human-adjacent being with the idea of running the joint, another part because 90% of government organizations are waaay less observant, competent, or equipped than they'd have you believe.

- The department operates out of an emergency government headquarters bunker from the cold war. It manages to both be bigger than it should be, but also cramped. It also has a lot of out of date files, systems, and so on, and April gets a little caught up in trying to update or reorganize things as they work. They make the mistake of committing themselves to 'doing this right'.

- The bunker is decommissioned in the 90s, which means that the Paranormal investigation side of things changes hands from a more strict, three letter organization to a slower paced bureaucratic inquiry kind of department. Staff is cut, work slows, the work culture stagnates, change is glacial. The William Lyon Mackenzie King Institute of Paranormal Studies is officially created, and April now works in various departments of one of its branches.

- And remains there until present day, bouncing from department to department, growing more resentment towards their supervisors, managers, bosses, and the public, but never giving up the bit that may no longer a bit.