Rad Ray Sunshine

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   <default>Rad Ray Sunshine</default>
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"Rad" Raymond Sunshine is an important Technomancer operating in Ontario.

Personality

Ray is self-admittedly quite antisocial; he claims he "spent" himself of social tendencies in his youth.<ref name=":0">He gave Zed a tight smile. “You’re my favorite apprentice.”

“I’m touched. Is this the moment where you tell me your other students are only students and family, and I’m your only true apprentice?”

“I’ve had four apprentices. You’re the only one of the three remaining who isn’t exhausting to be around.”

“You’re so asocial.”

“I spent myself of most of my ‘social’ in my younger days.”

“Peace, love, beauty, honesty, and fun? Flower power?”

“I’m not quite that old, Zed.” - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.z</ref>

He has a habit of trailing off mid-sentence, on the assumption that anyone worth talking to can finish the thought themselves.<ref>“While we’re on the topic of love…” Raymond said, raising one eyebrow above the red sunglasses. He turned his head slightly toward Brie.

The question was implied, not asked.

“I’ve gotten attached to her.”

“Too attached? You’ve assumed responsibility for her. She’s aware but not awakened. Now, I haven’t seen much of her…”

Raymond trailed off.

He did that a lot. Zed was used to it, but he knew it drove some people crazy, as they waited for the man to finish his thoughts. He didn’t do that, though. He expected anyone keeping up with him to finish his thoughts for him and prove they were paying attention. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.z</ref>

Relationships

Zed

He's closest with the young man, who Ray's stated is his favourite of the four apprentices he's had.<ref name=":0"/><ref name=":2" /> Zed has admitted, in the privacy of his own thoughts, that Ray is stubborn, borderline abusive, and "a mess". He was traumatized by the death of his son, Hector, who rejected his help.<ref>Raymond aborting a conversation wasn’t unusual, especially in recent years. But Zed had to puzzle out why, and in the here and now, he found himself reaching, going over the conversation. What had triggered Raymond shutting down like that?

‘Helping hands to pull her up from the depths.’

Raymond was thinking of darker times. When he’d reached down to pull his son Hector up. His hand had been slapped away. Raymond had never forgiven Hector for that, lending a kind of sadness to his earlier comment about favorite apprentices. Hector, for his part, hadn’t forgiven Raymond, either.

Stubbornness ran in that family. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.z</ref><ref name=":2">Zed floundered for a way of putting the idea to words.
The son? That felt like a slap in the face to Hector, and Zed had always liked Hector.

In any event, He wanted to do right by Raymond. The guy was a mess, and there were times he was borderline abusive, but he was also the first person who had really backed Zed up when he needed it. If tonight went badly, if Zed didn’t come out the other end okay… Raymond would lose it, probably. It would probably even go the way it had with Hector. A decline so slow that people who were in contact with Raymond on a near-daily basis, like Alexander, wouldn’t notice the incremental changes. So subtle that the people who were distant, like his other two apprentices, wouldn’t be able to put it to words.

Before Hector, Rad Ray Sunshine had been bright, effusive, happy, unflappable. But the parent had buried his child and buried a good-sized part of himself with him. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.z</ref>

Hector

Had a loving if distant relationship. Metaphorically moved heaven and earth to find a cure for his son's sickness and was deeply hurt when Hector refused to take the cure.

Faculty

He helps run the Blue Heron Institute, is something of the level head for the group.

Alexander recomended Basil Winter as an apprentice but fired him after it was revealed that he was trying to steal Ray's data.<ref>A few years back, Alexander had recommended Basil as an apprentice for Raymond Sunshine.  A single miscommunication had soiled things, burning not only the bridge back to Raymond Sunshine, but to many others.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref><ref>He’d really hoped this would be his shot at Ray’s information.  Easily several millions were available in that.  He’d slipped up years ago, trying for much the same thing, with a bad turn of phrase tipping Raymond off that the entity in his systems was something Basil knew a little bit about.  The man had dogged that little detail relentlessly, not taking anything vague as an answer until Basil had been forced to confess.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

Reputation

Is respected by the wider community,<ref>[...]Verona looked back, then around.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that even the sourest faces among the adults and kids seemed to change a bit when it came to Raymond.  Softening, or focusing more.

Mrs. Durocher seemed to scare the pants off of people.  With those dark eyes with chewed up meaty things swimming in them, she scared Verona a bit.

But they seemed to respect Raymond. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.5</ref> though the position he's taken has meant he faces stiff competition on taking any more.<ref>To draw on Pale stuff, the guy that set up magic Ebay and an online library for practitioners has five different metaphorical guns held to his head at all times by international powers. Seeing 6/10 of the subreddit's posts be about this magical forum seems like it would impact a lot of perceptions of someone who then goes into the Pactverse or Otherverse. [Edited to add] It's a setting where information is literal power and suspected diabolism is a 'kill them now just to be safe' case, and OMO people are sharing their magic diagrams and joking about demons like it's a punchline. - Wildbow on Reddit.</ref>

He is famous for creating the Atheneum Arrangement, the Black Box, and Gold Garden.<ref>Mr. Raymond Sunshine, creator of the Atheneum Arrangement, the Black Box, and Gold Garden.”- Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.5</ref>

• The Atheneum Arrangement is an online library service.<ref>We can give you access to the Atheneum Arrangement.”
  
  “No idea what that is,” Lucy said.  “Raymond’s thing?”
  
  “Like the library you’ve been using here, it’s a collection of books that virtually every practitioner can expect to have on their shelves.  Easy to acquire, some old or outdated, but… if you want general knowledge, it covers that base well.  There’s also a repository of articles, opinion pieces, scanned records, and photographs, and a ‘wait list’ of other books and pieces that haven’t yet been judged as having merit, and you’d want to be careful with those, because people do put traps and things in there.”- Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.4</ref>
• The Gold Garden is an online market place for magic tools and items, complete with automatic courier service.<ref>Gold Garden was the leading online marketplace for magic items, tools, and components for things such as alchemy or dollmaking.  He wasn’t the only one, but virtually everyone who paid attention and who had reasons to want to do their business securely had recognized that Raymond’s implementation was strongest.  His implementation was secure, his couriers autonomous and efficient.  The only orders that Raymond facilitated that didn’t reach the destination failed to reach their destination because of user error.- Excerpt from Break 1</ref>
• The Black Box is a system designed to warn people of potential threats. Allowing practitioners to mark areas as no go zones and give information on possible dangers. It's expensive to maintain.<ref>The Black Box was different, a warning system for threats and problems.  People recognized the need for it, but they wanted no part of it.  The job was thankless, but necessary.  It cost more than it paid, and demanded its own share of time.  Areas across the world could be marked as no-go zones, traps, or areas where an Other was finding its foothold.  Practitioners could log in and share what they knew, share short-form information.  Something between a travel guide, a weather forecast, and an emergency dispatch system.- Excerpt from Break 1</ref><ref>She exhaled heavily. “I’m in contact with Nicolette. A bit with Zed. Because of the sheer amount of reports we’re getting, the Black Box isn’t really enough. That’s, uh, it’s a system a practitioner called Rad Ray Sunshine made. It keeps track of the more dangerous Others, the places you have to watch out for. No-go zones. It’s also for sharing information.”
  
  “Not enough?” Elizabeth asked.
  
  “The old interface doesn’t work. It marks out areas in red and different colors, and you click one and it gives you an info box and a link to where you can look stuff up. But there’s some dense areas, especially around the cities, where you can’t even click on stuff because there’s so much overlapping.”
  [...]
  “It’s the Black Box. Putting them into the system, they were marked as enemies,” Elizabeth said. “I think they’re rigged. [...] They’re rule-based, instanced bogeymen, they respond primarily to triggers, rituals spread around as urban legends, usually. Say the right words while sitting around a candle with your friends at a sleepover, get murdered, that sort of thing. Except here, based on what they were flowing from, it’s a bit different.” - Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.3</ref>

Appearance

Tall, thin, with his long hair greying a little at the temples. His hair is wavy but generally slicked back.<ref name=":1">The man was tall, with a long head, and he wore crimson-tinted visor sunglasses that were all one piece, with just the notch cut out for the nose, even though it was late evening. It was maybe the last wholly intact vestige of his ‘rad’ former self. His long hair was slicked back close to his scalp, only really getting wavy and ‘free’ at the point where it was past his chin. It was graying at the temples. He had a full beard, a black turtleneck, and a black business coat, all styled to frame a very slim build. His jeans were a modern, slim-fit style, and his shoes appeared to be laceless.

Zed looked over at Brie, who glanced back at him, smiling.

Zed had dipped into the darker aesthetic as well, like Ray had. Black tee, black leather jacket, jeans, hair slicked back in a very different way than Ray had. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.z</ref><ref name=":3">A man with longer, wavy hair he’d partially straightened, with red sunglasses, was sitting on the stairs, talking to a younger girl with a stuffed elephant that was moving its head around.
[...]
“If we must,” the man who had to be Raymond Sunshine said, sighing heavily.  He was holding a laser between his hands for a kid to play with.  The kid looked too young to be attending the school.  Closer to Kerry’s age.  A bunch of other kids of similar age were hanging back, like they were too afraid to approach the scary old guy in black, with the long hair and crimson sunglasses.  Even if the lasers were neat.
[...]
“They are,” Ray said, adjusting his sunglasses.  He shook off the light show, then straightened, standing by Alexander.  Unsmiling, even a bit grim, he gave the kid he’d been playing with a small wave. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.4 </ref> His eyes (when visible) are a striking green.<ref name=":4">Mr. Sunshine was clean-shaven, and took off his sunglasses to hang them on the front pocket of his shirt, a black button-up.  His hair was slicked back, but long, and the part that wasn’t touching his head broke up into wavy zig-zags.  His belt was the most colorful part of his outfit, next to his sunglasses, and it was gray.

It made his eyes stand out.  Very green. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.6</ref>

When he fought the Hungry Choir he had a full beard,<ref name=":1" /> but by the time the BHI term started he'd shaved it off.<ref name=":4" />

Although he used to dress in a distinctively "rad" style, he now favours more modern businesslike attire, with a preference for black. He does however still tend to wear red, old-fashioned wraparound shades.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3" />

Abilities

He created his demesne as a virtual reality space, it ended up being twice the size of the entire world<ref name=":5" />, whilst it's large on the inside elsewhere it only the size of a small room<ref>“I’ve spent more time on my demesne than most,” Ray observed.  “As big as it is in here, it’s only a large room in a building elsewhere.  The scale and versatility of this building are a product of time and power invested.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.7</ref>. He made it as a tool to help him with his work, it contains an analogue of everything in existence.<ref name=":5">Other things lit up.  Buildings without windows or doors, as rough three-dimensional creations.  Advertisements played.  Roads as black as anything, with markers and lines in neon yellow.

The world kept expanding, buildings appearing.  The landscape at the horizon turned upward, then kept going.

“My Demesne.  I created it as a tool.  It became a place with twice the surface area of Earth.  Less populated, but all the same.  Every website, tool, and device has its analogue here.  Locations both mundane and, for example, like the Abyss, have loose analogues here.  Here, if I wish to do my programming, I can do it in five different ways, shaping the corresponding buildings and machinery, using consoles, among other things.”- Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.7</ref>

He has a laser pointer that's powerful enough to cut through trees.<ref>Ray put his hand out to the side.  He clicked the button on the laser pointer.

The invisible beam sheared through about ten trees, toppling them.  They crashed to the ground with a surprising amount of noise, considering the branches and foliage that cushioned their falls.  Dust and pine needles were kicked up.- Excerpt from Break 1</ref>

He has a plethora of summons at his disposal.<ref>He ran other routines.  Figures stepped out from around the corner.  Others he’d found in the digital wilderness.  Brutes, tricksters.- Excerpt from Break 1</ref>

He owns an electric car.<ref>Ray behind them in his own car, some fancy electric car.- Excerpt from False Moves 12.7</ref>

Chronology

After Charles became the new Carmine he left the Blue Heron Institute due to repeatedly getting gainsaid.<ref>Vice-Head Ray got gainsaid like that a few days ago and recovered yesterday.  This morning he was gainsaid again.  He’s leaving.  Has 2.  Can’t work.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.1</ref>

References

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