Coppola Fantoche

"I like people for all of their changing surprises, the thoughts in their heads, the warmth that changes to cold and the cold that changes to warmth... for being human. The rawness of being human delights me."

- C. Joybell C.

Coppola Fantoche [they/them] is a 2015-introduced character and all around enigma. They are destined to be the next Coppélia from the ballet of the same name and the next Olympia from ''The Tales of Hoffmann. ''They are currently attending their Third Year (otherwise known as Yearbook Year) at Ever After High.

Personality
If you name a robot stereotype, there's a large chance Coppola fulfills it. Coppéliuses (Coppéli?) may be talented craftsmen, but they rarely ever seem to have creativity when it comes to personalities. Not that they could control it this time, of course.

So. Inability to express emotion? Check. Hilarious obliviousness to societal norms? Check. Almost biting candor? Check. Indeed, it seems as if the witch who constructed this sentience read a TV Tropes page and decided to make a Coppélius's life hell. Pshaw. Witches and their passive aggressiveness.

Coppola is probably an incredibly awful individual to have around. And it's not even because they're malicious, they're just. A very robot-y robot. Their lack of enthusiasm and constant monotone makes it difficult for others, especially shyer ones, to hold a conversation. They don't speak unless curious about something or prompted to, and when they do, they tend to have the worst timings and word choices.

They have absolutely no filter, in the sense that they will remark on underlying subtext, point out things that do not need to be pointed out, Coppola. In fact, people often compare them to Cedar Wood, though the latter is undoubtedly the more preferred of the two, making up for it with her sunny disposition and generous apologies. Coppola says what they want and makes the air awkward.

When a robot, do as the robots do. Though Coppola is not exactly a robot, they have that lack of empathy and sympathy that comes with being a rust bucket. There's no good part here. At least you can't get confused about the difference between empathy and sympathy if you have neither.

There are admirable traits in Coppola, though. Since they don't need to sleep, they're often undertaking repair jobs around the school or making useful little trinkets for other people. If you ask them for some sort of device, they'll try to whip it up for you. Coppola is meticulous, and physically able to turn their focus on and off to any particular object. They're probably one of the best people to work with on a group project because they're so diligent all the time.

Some of their less savory traits also can be helpful. For example, their brutal honesty allows them to point out logical flaws in plans, or when people are insincere. They don't let emotions influence their actions, and so aren't prone to frustration and anger. You can count on them to always be composed, to bring a little bit of order to calamity.

It's in their nature to be questioning, and you can expect them to be constantly asking questions about the matter at hand, or even completely unrelated subjects. Copp, for the lack of a better word, enjoys learning things, though they're usually useless, or worse, incorrect. This sort of curiosity is highly discouraged, as their destiny confines them to a single room. Coppola is dissatisfied with the idea of staying there forever, but acknowledges that as they were built for a purpose, they should respect the wishes of their creator. They're self-aware in that way.

Overall, they're just difficult, always asking seemingly random questions, and harmless.

Appearance
Coppola's appearance is never really constant, due to the nature of their existence as a spirit possessing an inanimate object. Their lack of self-awareness carries over to depth perception, and they're prone to breaking off bits and pieces of their vessel. As such, Coppola requires multiple vessels, all made in the image of a doll. Many of them are actually inventions by the previous generations of Coppéliuses, and thus not that practical, but whatever.

Metalhead
This is the form Copp most often resides in. Contrary to its name, this vessel composes mostly of bone china and other delicate tableware materials. It's a little more than 5 feet tall, and the entire outside surface of the body is bone china, while the outside of the head is porcelain. Ball joints in their arms and hands allow Copp a degree of mobility, though many will agree that their movement still looks stiff and unnatural. The small key on the back of their neck needs to be wound up, or else they are unable to move.

Metalhead was modeled to be incredibly beautiful. Whether it fulfilled that goal or not... is a little hard to say. As lovely and eurocentric-beauty-standard-conforming as it is, their face is so obviously unnatural. Their skin is freezing and sanded smooth to the touch, pale as snow with perfectly placed spots of powder pink blush as if to convince someone of just how living they are. Nose tiny, eyebrows slim, lips pursed in a perpetual neutral pout and carefully painted coral.

They have glass inset eyes, each iris a gear, the left silver and the right bronze. They rotate when information is being processed, though, Metalhead is unable to blink. Delicate bronze eyelashes have been rooted around them, most prominent are the bottom lashes. Their hooded lids are dusted with a shimmery warm brown. Thankfully, their face bears perfect resemblance to a human's, and skips over the uncanny valley.

Metalhead's "hair" is actually composed of strips of metal, heated up and bent into whatever style desired. Although, it's not completely permanent. It's kind of like a wig, but each wig is attached to the scalp. You can detach the hair (and scalp), and replace it with an another one, if you wish. Copp does so for important events where looking their best is needed, as their Coppélius instructed them. They're a mixture of gold, bronze, and copper, and are medium in length. They usually wear it styled in an intricate updo with a few romantic tendrils left in the front.

There's definitely some mechanical shenanigans going on below the surface. When Copp moves, you can always hear soft creaks and whirring, like low murmuring. Even when they're not moving, little clicks and puffs of air can be heard. Silence is not Metalhead's strong suit. However, to people who have been around this vessel long enough, these little noises are comfortably familiar.

Metalhead has panels built into it, and Copp is able to open these panels to clean the dust and whatnot from the fans, or fix broken down parts by probing a screwdriver into it and wiggling it about.

Voice-wise, because Copp needs to communicate, the sound gets funneled out from speakers hidden in their ears, as they can't open their mouth. Or rather, they lack a mouth. It's a little creepy, like watching a ventriloquist, and most people prefer not to look at Metalhead's face straight on.

It's actually a miracle that they can speak anyway. Metalhead's "voice" is created by the combination of a couple different sounds, all manipulated by magic to resemble a voice. It's a little creepy, but undoubtedly fascinating. So there's: the hum of springs when they're pulled and released, the clear, bright piano-like metal on metal, and little miscellaneous click, creaks, and whirs. And of course, all echoed through their vocal cords (read: a bunch of metal wires stretched to form a funnel).

All of these sounds are manipulated by the Blue Fairy's magic to sound like they're actually saying something. However, they has a tendency to pause a lot while speaking, reiterate words a lot, along with occasional stutters due to malfunctions. This results into a very... interesting finished product.


 * insert one of those stats polygons you know the ones. with like agility, scariness, communication, fragility as the stats on them.

Ribbonface
Ribbonface is one scary lad. To begin with, Ribbonface lacks a lot of the things that make Metalhead a lot easier to stomach. Metalhead's petite stature becomes about 7 feet tall, Metalhead's human resemblance becomes a lot less... human. Also, Ribbonface doesn't have a mouth??

Right so. The body is extremely tall, but the proportions are off. It's gotten taller, but not wider. Ribbonface's limbs are scary thin and look as if they could be snapped at any moment. They are also porcelain and ball jointed, though its legs are actually clay, painted the same color as the rest of the body. That is to say, white. Metalhead suffers from excess coloration, and Ribbonface is the exact opposite; blindingly sterile white.

The limbs and torso are all hollow, and unlike Metalhead, don't contain any machinery. The legs are also built in a way that insulate the insides really well; the walls of the legs are hollow themselves. Thus, you can treat a leg as a thermos and fill it with soup.

Ribbonface has on a wig, although it's never been taken off. It's probably glued on. The hair is short and soft, cut in a bowl cut sort of style and colored honey pink.

Ribbonface's face appears to be cloth stretched over a structure of some sort, forming a flat disk that resembles a mask. The only details on this mask are two eye holes cut into the cloth. A ribbon runs invisible stitches across each eye hole, extending from the corners of the eyes. It lies on top of the wig, and ties in a bow at the back. The "eyes" can "blink", which occurs through the ribbons automatically tightening and loosening. When the ribbons are tightened, the stitches close, making the "eyes" close. And when they're slack, the "eyes" open again.

This vessel is the quietest; there aren't any speakers placed on the body, so Copp can't talk. Furthermore, the lack of machinery means there aren't any weird machine noises. And movement, while stiff, can occur quickly, which is more than I can say for Metalhead and Glassheart. With a little elbow grease, one can detach and attach any part with ease. Including the head, which happens way too often for other people's comfort.
 * stats polygon again

Glassheart
Glassheart is one of the more recently constructed vessels. It is absolutely the worst vessel in terms of practicality, but its appearance is just as breathtaking. In a rather morbid way, I suppose.
 * indecipherable nonsense below
 * transparent glass body, glowing neon machinery inside. machinery is for heating up, and blueish. aquarium lookin'
 * pApEr SkIn AnD gLaSs BoNeS
 * cool voice, sounds like tinkling glass and glass being smashed.
 * a lot more fluid in movement (though still slow), moves because the heated glass melts and reforms quickly.
 * so, blueish neon heat machinery and glass that is either clear or orangey clear. wow cool

Like its name suggests, Glassheart is mainly composed of glass. The entirety of its outer surface is glass, enchanted to be durable and crystal clear. One can see through the glass to the "skeleton" underneath, a high-tech replica of the actual human skeleton. The metal "bones", now sleek inorganic shapes, are so black they're almost blue. Thin tubes run complicated paths across the skeleton, glowing cool blue and purple.

The face is remniscent of Roman statues,

A cool feature of Glassheart is that there's some sort of magnetic connection that allows its broken glass to return to the model. It makes it much less of a pain when bumping into something.

Other Things

 * paper doll


 * rag doll - goddamn creepy

Making Small Robots and Toys
Most of Coppola's interests are shared with their Coppélius. After spending so much time together, Coppola has picked up hobbies not so much out of interest, but out of necessity. To help their dear Coppélius, of course.

Ethics of AI
They got interested after their Coppélius was stressing over it a lot. ha that's ironic

Exploring the World
Some weird magical error occured (boy howdy there sure seem to be a lot of those around these days) and Copp was granted this small smidge of autonomy.

Abilities
Copp generally has no physical limitations. Their vessels are, contrary to their appearance, able to bear a hefty amount of weight. That doesn't it mean there aren't limitations, but they are higher than an average human's. They don't feel pain, which would be a setback had they been human. But since Copp is fully aware of whatever damage occurs to their bodies, they can just power through a lot of tough situations.

Coppola can pick up radio signals and play the audio from their speaker (sometimes). They view the world with with HUDs and filters, so they're able to see everyone' statuses. You now, cool techy robot things. They're also able to go into night vision mode.

While in the Metalhead vessel, the top of Copp's hat is able to swing open and expel steam like a old-timey train. What situation would require this, I do not know.

How The Story Goes
[//www.shomler.com/dance/coppelia/ct.htm http://www.shomler.com/dance/coppelia/ct.htm]

How Does Coppola Fit Into it?
On her 36th birthday, after a night of celebration with her friends, the previous generation's Coppélius stumbled home. Her husband and child were both already asleep, and she joined them. Unbeknownst to her and her family, there were a few suspicious individuals squatting behind the bushes in the front of the house, spying on the keycode.

They donned invisibility cloaks, making their way silently to the the room where the dolls was kept. See, Coppéliuses (Coppéli??) are good at making puppets but not security systems.

After they secured the famed Coppélia doll, they did end up tripping the alarm system, and promptly skedaddled out of there, leaving the family dazed, confused, and most importantly, without a Coppélia.

The Coppélius would spend some time looking for spirits to train to fill the Coppélia role, as it was tradition to have a "living" Coppélia. It was more of the fact that it was easier to swap Franz's and Coppélia's souls than to remove Franz's soul and still have him be living by the end of the story.

Unfortunately most spirits were content with haunting old decrepit castles and thought going to school again seemed too dull. The Fairytale Authorities became warier when the Coppélius tried to introduce them to a potential candidate and the poltergeist dropped tea sets on their heads.

They ended up resorting to a witch to create the spirit from scratch. A weird, obviously disguised person appearing as an "old witch" did the magicking, and she thought it a Sique Pranque to make their lives difficult by making Copp like That. So, instead of getting a docile, pliable spirit who kept their mouth shut and could go through school with little to no trouble, they got Coppola. Yeehaw.

Parallels

 * sigh

Viewpoint on Destiny
Coppola has no qualms with their destiny, and such a fact is readily given if you ask them. As previous Coppélias were reused generation after generation until they were stolen by some delusional lovesick village boy or obsessive tourist, Coppola would face the same fate: sign in the Storybook of Legends, complete their schooling, and go through with iteration after iteration of Coppélia until they disappear to Author-knows-where.

Name
The name Coppola has two meanings and both are Italian. One is "a theatrical woman", adhering to the fact that their story is a ballet. The other is a type of hat (I think?). That's why they wear hats a lot. It also helps that the original main actress of Coppélia was Italian, so my name choice makes sense other than just wanting a name that sounded vaguely like Coppélia.

Fantoche is the French translation for "puppet". It might just be me, but I think it sounds a bit like "phantom". Also it sounds cool. My only requirement for a name.

Here's a surprising revelation I only had recently: Coppola was a name mentioned in Der Sandmann, a short story that inspired Coppélia? Could you believe I only learned of this fact 4 years after creating them?

Class-ic Schedule
They do not have any lunch period scheduled in because they do not eat.

Hextracurricular Activities
tba

Trivia

 * Their birthday, October 1st, is (kinda) World Ballet Day. Also, they're a Libra since it's the only inanimate symbol.
 * The Metalhead Vessel was named as such in a reference to the Black Mirror episode of the same name. The epiosde centers around these creepy robotic guard dogs, and deals with the ethics of AI. It's a nice reference, even though I don't actually watch Black Mirror.
 * not trivia but i need to copy this accented e really often so: é

Quotes
"A Coppélia a-and a Coppélius are not child... not child and p-parent. I-i-it is puppet, and puppeteer."

- swaddled in a mother's cradle, let the cricket-night weigh on your lashes with pitch-black warmth

"... Alright."

- *vine voice* okay

"One s-should seek to n-not use... use such absolute language."

- Merana: "I would never!"