 Edy
Loddis
A character background
by Ken Fletcher Edy Loddis is a female lynx furry, but in her attitude, she might remind you of a "female bantam rooster" or "European wildcat". Her family background is French-Canadian (Rain Coast) and Finnish-Pacific Polynesian. She's tough, lean, muscled, but short-- the equivalent of 5 foot tall (1.5 meters). Most people encountering her are left with the impression that she is much larger in size. Her "personal space" is about 10 feet in radius. If you are inside that space, you know that she is there, and that she is aware that you are there. She will be assessing to see if you are going to be useful to the job at hand. [Some observers would find her most attractive side to be about 15 feet away. 8)] She radiates spring-coiled energy. When she does move, it is usually quick --graceful and economic moves, but you notice the quickness first. She was born in 1908. She would be 27 years old in 1935. Edy was born in, and is a citizen of, the Rain Coast. Edy has made the Rain Island Naval Syndicate (RINS) her career. Her families are sailors and fisherfolk active in the boat co-ops of the Rain Coast. As a teenager, her only public notice was as a gymnast for the local high school, and she competed on a regional level. She joined a naval co-op directly out of high school. She was first trained & assigned to specialized forces for landing assaults and boarding parties. Her first specialization was hand-to-hand combat. She is trained to be a dangerous & dirty fighter, even though she is of small body size. When working with the assault boats, she showed background and ability in small boat handling and maintenance, and it was gradually discovered that she had the ability to become a leader in the boat co--ops, both as a boat commander and crew co-op representative (Syndic.) She became an assault boat flotilla commander, and then successfully bid in 1930 for a transfer to a (non-combat) Harbor Flotilla assignment. She was assigned to the RINS Moon Island Naval Base, Spontoon Atoll, in 1932. By 1933, she is chief petty officer in command of the Moon Island utility boat flotilla that works in the Spontoon Island Lagoon. She is a minor local celebrity, considered colorful and skilled at commanding this vital and active fleet of small boats. She's seen on the job and is well known by the Euro and native locals, and is even pointed out to tourists by 1935. Edy Loddis is a navy "petty officer" (higher-ranked sergeant equivalent) who commands a little fleet of small naval utility boats in the Spontoon Island Lagoon for the Rain Island Naval Syndicate (Harbor Transport Flotilla Syndicate). As a female in a 1930s world, the Spontoon Island setting allows her some unique opportunities -- such as a career naval service, and also being a "syndic", the equivalent of an elected labor representative. She can be difficult to work with, and be sharp with her crews - but she is also protective of her crews and their work. She is ethical about supervising their shares, and is willing to fight for their rights - which is why she has usually been re-elected a syndic for the utility boat flotilla through the 30s. In ship-command, she answers to both the Rain Island Naval Syndicate chain of command, and the Spontoon Island Harbor Committee's Harbormaster, and co-ordinates with the Spontoon Water-taxi co-ops. She and her staff assist in Lagoon traffic control under the Spontoon Lagoon Harbor Co-op & Harbormaster. The seaplane utility boats include "crash boats", passenger launches, & small tugs for seaplane traffic. (With traffic authority over the seaplane landing lanes, and private airline utility boats.) They also co-ordinate ferries and freight "lighters" for the Rain Island Naval syndicate. These syndicate boats may be available for hire when off duty. Other small Navy boats may be owned by other syndicates and committees, but the Harbor Transport Flotilla co-ordinates the overall traffic rules for Naval boats. She and her staff have their own flotilla of small navy boats with transport jobs to do, but her staff also work as lagoon traffic cops for the Seaplane Control Tower and assisting the Spontoon Harbormaster's patrol boats. The Harbor Transport Flotilla has to expect all these small specialized boat co-ops to have routines to keep track of their own work.Yet in emergencies, the flotilla staff provides the observation, tracking, and communications to provide a co-ordinated response. Edy has been good at finding and training competent staff. For emergencies, tracking maps & boards are located at several locations on the shores of the lagoon, and in a couple of the larger utility boats that have radios. Edy is very competent, but has a temper and is feisty & aggressive on the job, especially when she is working as a boat commander. She uses elaborate creative cursing as a motivational tool for her comrade sailors. Much of the cussing is in Chinook, Finnish, Spontoonie or other unfamiliar languages -- people usually infer the exact meaning of the cursing from the context. She does manage well and keeps the various boat crews ship-shape. Her superior Navy and Harbor governing committees tend to leave her to manage her own staff and boat co-ops. She is honest about her utility boat work: Naval syndication does allow for some autonomy in the use of assets and facilities when they are "off-duty" - Subcontracting and 'side-jobs' with Naval Syndicate boats are allowed. This is a major source of side-income for the boat crew co-ops, and always has the built-in possibility of neglect of duty and other irregularities. She likes and allows 'wheeling-and-dealing' by her crews (and does it herself) but the various boat co-ops under her staff get their Navy jobs done, and have clean bookkeeping. Her crews have come to accept that she is not going to play at being their 'buddy', but they also have come to appreciate that she is attentive, competent and fair. Her continuing higher education is through the Rain Island Naval Syndicate vocational & general education courses. She is starting to read history as a result of playing 'Custom' in the Spontoon folk-festivals. She knows English, Chinook, intermediate Finnish, some Tillamooka, a little Canadian French, a little Swedish. She is focused and thorough, not subtle. She is socialized & popular, but she has made only a few new close friends after she moved to her Spontoon Island assignment. Her level of command and lack of free-time may be getting in the way of finding close friends. She does not have on-duty or off-duty 'cronies' or a social 'pack'. She seems to be going through a long-term self-assessment of her career. In 1935 she lives in one of the 'Syndic Houses' on the Moon Island Naval base. This is somewhat like a co-op Bachelor Officer's Quarters crossed with a large rooming house. Shared living room, dining room, kitchen, social rooms, & bathrooms. Co-op housekeeping. Syndics each have a couple of small rooms to themselves, usually on the second floor. Socially (and in interior design), a Syndic House co-op is more private than a 'Long-House' co-op. Edy has lived at times in the Long-Houses or rented a hut off-base (but close-by), the few times when she wasn't an elected Syndic. She does not have family on the Spontoon Archipelago. Very occasionally she will visit her extended family on a trip to Rain Island. She does not often take vacations. Off-duty, Edy is respected, but does not have many close local friends. She can be attractive and graceful just by being a strong, quick, competent person. She can be charming, with a gruff edge, for minutes at a time. She is happy to be a loud-mouth if it helps the work get done. She is entertaining from a distance, but can be too much prickly or show claws close-up if you are not helping with the job at hand. Until recently, most of her acquaintances were fellow syndics in her syndic house at the Moon Island base of the Rain Island Naval Syndicate. She is becoming more of a loner, and is only connected in a token way to the usual Moon Island social life, either at the social longhouses or co-op taverns. It may be she wants time alone, because of the celebrity attention to her command job and syndic labor work. She continues daily solo martial-arts exercises, and is in good shape for her age, though she shows her age. Off-duty her hobbies are hiking day-trips, macrame, role-playing 'Spontoonie Custom' (a new interest in 1935), drinking in Casino Island bars, and her version of hot sex (not necessarily in that order.) She prefers males for partners. When she goes to a bar, she does drink socially. She talks; talks boat-handling shoptalk, Harbor politics, Rain Island gossip and news. Opinionated and argumentative, if she feels it is appropriate to the setting. She doesn't usually try to flirt. Even so, if she is at a non-Naval Base bar (off of Moon Island), very occasionally (a couple of times a month?) she will match up with a Euro partner and head out for an evening. Sometimes she can get drunk.With a solo partner, this has been leading towards unusual private athletic competitions. In mixed company, too much to drink means she can get awkwardly flirty, which may eventually include attempts to show off at juggling and small-scale gymnastics and good-natured offers to arm-wrestle. Fortunately enough, this evolves into either solo dance routines, or sleepy-eyed study of beer bubbles. When she gets that drunk in a public place, she is respected enough that she is usually watched over and helped back to a Moon Island water-taxi for an escort to her Syndic house. When she is not bar-hopping, her acquaintances try to steer her back into the social life of the Naval Syndicate longhouses and social co-ops-- which are surprisingly flexible in encouraging community- building social life. When sober and in the social co-op setting, she does make better decisions, and for months at a time has had a safer social life-- through the vanilla sexual matching there, she's made some friends, but no long-term partners. On Spontoon Island, role-playing is a major cultural activity & recreation. One color picture shows Edy dressed as a "Moon Priestess", but this may just be play-acting priestess in a folk festival for the tourists. Maybe. 8) This 'Custom' role-play has become another of Edy's recreations by 1935; she has discovered she enjoys such role-playing, and the interaction with the 'Custom' Spontoonies, and it may become a larger part of her social life. Ken Fletcher February 2008  "The
character, background information, and visual design of 'Edy Loddis'
are released to Public Domain." -- Ken Fletcher
Because Edy Loddis is released to Public Domain, you are free to modify the setting, her background and personality. |
