" A COBOL programmer's husband asks, "Honey can you go to the store and get some milk. And if they have eggs, get a dozen." After twenty minutes she returns and flops 12 bags of milk on the table. He looks at her curiously, "Honey, why did you do that?" She responds flatly, "They had eggs." "
BASICS
RETIRE INFO: Adopt
NAME: Cobol
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/her/hers
ORIENTATION: Bisexual
BIRTHDATE: Late Summer 2744
AGE: 24 Turns as of Early Fall 2768
LOCATION: Fort Weyr
OCCUPATION: Rider
WING: Daylight Wing
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Brown
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5’9”, slim
PLAY-BY: Karly McNeil
FULL APPEARANCE:
Cobol is tall and rather on the slim side, with few curves. Her face is oval-shaped, with a pointed chin and a narrow, sharp nose. Her eyes are dark brown, set close and not especially deep beneath her brows. She has light brown hair that falls in soft waves to around her mid-back, though she keeps it in a bun when she flies with Tsoth.
She tends to not care overmuch about her appearance, and usually defaults to wearing whatever happens to be convenient and clean at any given time.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Cobol is surprisingly quick to learn. She has a good memory, and can easily parrot back things she’s seen, read, or heard. However, she has a strong tendency to take things far, far too literally. If she’s told to “scrub the floors until they shine”, she’ll honestly attempt to do so until someone actually instructs her to stop. If she’s asked to clean a fish, she just might attempt to wash it with soap the first time she tries if not given further, more explicit instructions.
She’s hard-working and obedient, and when assigned a task will work ceaselessly to completion--whatever it is that she thinks completion is. Lexical ambiguity frustrates her, and she’ll often ask for clarification, but when she isn’t aware of ambiguity she’ll happily set off working on the literal meaning. She’s much happier following than leading, and doesn’t like being given too much responsibility. She’s aware of how often she makes mistakes, and is worried she’ll make more, but rarely manages to actually avoid them.
She has a love of rigidity and order, and while she doesn't care about change in society, she has a hard time adjusting to change in her own life. She's a rule-follower to the end, and will often insist that those around her stick strictly to established procedure as well. This can sometimes lead to conflict with Tsoth, who sometimes likes to try new things just for the sake of learning what it's like, while Cobol isn't especially fond of adventures unless she's assured she'll get to sleep safely in her own bed that night.
She’s not the most social person, though she doesn’t really go out of her way to avoid others. She just doesn’t always see the need to start talking to people, especially those she doesn’t know. When she is directly addressed, she’s friendly, mostly. She can be somewhat non-communicative and quiet when things are going well, though when something is going wrong she tends to complain. A lot. In great detail. Sometimes loudly. In fact, she generally deals poorly with adversity, and when things start going really wrong, can even start throwing her hands in the air and pacing in circles lamenting how terrible everything is in her panic.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Fallon, Father
Annbol, Mother
Algol, Older Brother
Fortran of White Forsk, Older Brother
Iirtran, Younger Brother
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Hahahahahaha, no.
BIRTHPLACE: Fort Hold
HISTORY:
The third of four children, Cobol was always just overlooked enough to stay out of any serious trouble. The blame for any sibling shenanigans always fell on the older two, and most of the coddling was reserved for her younger brother, though as the only girl she occasionally got extra attention from her mother, who wanted to dress her in pretty clothes. Cobol didn’t particularly care about clothes either way, but she tolerated it.
Still, she had a good life. Fort was protected enough by the neighboring Weyr that the effects of the war were largely far away, things that happened to other people but not to them. Her family learned quickly to give her very, very specific instructions for chores, as anything less specific tended to result in the wrong thing happening. Her mother one day found her very carefully gluing sand to one of the heddles that “needed to be sanded”.
It was obvious from fairly early on that she wasn’t especially likely to apprentice anywhere at all, since very few masters would have the patience to deal with her, so it was determined that she’d stay and help her mother, even as her siblings began their own apprenticeships.
However, there was a surprise in store: when she was sixteen, she was Searched, despite all of her suggestions that maybe the dragon had made a mistake in choosing her. She was taken to the Weyr and there learned to be a Candidate despite all her misgivings. She wasn’t very good at that either, and it took her some time to adjust to the differences in daily routine, let alone all the other changes that came with living at a Weyr. And yet, around a Turn and a half later, a green came practically prancing up to her.
Cobol! I had my suspicions, but I am glad that I could actually find you. You certainly are the one I have been waiting for. I'm your Tsoth, and I have so many things to ask you.
The next two Turns were to be a whirlwind of activity and exhaustion. Tsoth had to be cared for, raised, and taught. Her questions also had to be answered, and there were plenty of them. Cobol, meanwhile, attempted to adjust yet again to a change in her life, and worried for her family back at the Hold, for the news coming from there was grim. Evander had all but cut off communication, and while Fortran was able to travel freely (apparently even Evander had misgivings about isolating the Harper Hall), she heard nothing from the rest of her siblings.
So it was quite the surprise when, one winter afternoon, her brother showed up with a white wherlet who declared that he was named ‘Forsk’. That had Cobol laughing in stitches for a while, and prompted an endless barrage of questions from her green as to why a single word could be so funny.
The pair managed to safely graduate to the Wings, somewhat to Cobol’s surprise, and they joined the ranks of Daylight Wing.
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