youth
Oxford, England; 1862
Christ Church is in uproar. One of the daughters of the Dean has been missing for almost two days, and the panic over her whereabouts has infected everyone. She was last seen with her sister, who claims that she was reading a book, and didn't hear her move - when she looked up, she was gone. Everywhere they can think of has been searched, with no sign of the missing girl - but around sunset that night, she arrives home, perfectly unharmed, if a little upset. When asked where she was, she replies with two words;
"Somewhere beautiful,"
Six years later, when the girl's memories have started to fade, it happens once more. The cry for the area to be searched goes up once more, and it is four days this time before she returns. Like before, she comes back at sunset, unharmed, and more than a little upset this time. When asked where she was, she replies "Somewhere different," and the memories of this place do not fade as easily this time.
As she gets older, she thinks more and more on this place, and eventually, it's all she thinks of. Her family think she is going insane as she babbles on about it, and send her away into the countryside, to the small town of Shalebridge nearby. She is taken into an asylum, but one for orphaned children - embarrassed by their daughter's mental decline, her family claim she is travelling the world, and has said she may never return.
The asylum breaks the girl's mind for real, because the type of people in there drive her insane by themselves. All the girl wants is to get back to the place she belongs, and over the course of the week, she plots. She plots, and then she waits, because she'll never get back if the timing isn't right.
Six months after she is incarcerated, a fire breaks out and destroys Shalebridge Asylum for Orphaned Children. Everyone inside perishes, and her body is never recovered - it was as if she became part of the smoke that choked many to death. It is said that she has escaped and is on the loose, but although there are false sighting of an animalistic madwoman, interest dies and she is forgotten about.
In the other world, she is in her element. It's the life she's wanted since she was ten years old - and incredibly, she gets bored. Being insane means everything is perfectly normal, and everything that once enchanted her seems boring and mundane. So she changes it - bit by bit, she changes it, and over the course of a few years in her world, she claims it all to herself, and changes it to suit her, so she has complete control over everything, and everyone. The world of her imagination is a fearsome place, and at the end of her war, she spends a few years enjoying her surroundings. And then the revelation strikes her; she is getting old. What was the point in her war, if all she'll do is get old and die, leaving it open to anyone who could want to claim it - or even worse, change it?
And again, her mind turns to plotting. In her world, she can do anything. She can bring people in, or fling them out. She can let them live or die. She has total control over their souls, so long as they're in her realm, and souls are what she needs.
By the time she's finished plotting, and everything is set up, it's 19th August, 2009; and she is ready to put her plan in action. It won't be hard for her; she can explore the mind of anyone in her land, and human minds are easily manipulated as long as you know what buttons to push and what to tell them. With an army of Shadows at her disposal, and an illusion cast over her land to make it seem like any humans dream come true, she's almost positive that it won't be that hard to get them there and kill them.
Unfortunately, under the illusion of her city, in the bits that are in reality a wasteland, a resistance is rising; people who want things to go back to the way they used to be. They call themselves the Golden, to represent what used to be the type of place their land used to be - because it's not hers, by right, it's theirs. They know of the plan, and while the initial idea was to stop it as soon as possible, they now see a way to get her back through the people she's going to bring down into their world. She only needs four is what they've heard - but so do they. Another war is starting, and the fate of it depends on four people.
Four people who have no idea that world even exists.
Shalebridge, England; 2009
Shalebridge is a small town in the countryside of England, the type of place where not much ever happens. The winter are pretty much Baltic, and you can't go outside unless you're wrapped in six layers of fire, but the summers in Shalebridge are the best days of the year, where it's never too warm, but the temperature is always high enough for people to enjoy their summer, no matter what.
It's the type of town where everything gets around everyone - big enough not to know everybody's names, but small enough to be friendly with everyone. It's not an exciting place, but for those looking for peace and quiet, it's perfect. On August 9th, posters suddenly went up for a travelling carnival; Summer Youth Carnival, in Shalebridge for one week, one stop only, coming soon. They showed up a few days after, and by the 17th, it was set up and perfect.
To the delight of every teenager and child in the town, it was free entry. If you wanted to buy anything in there, such as food and souvenirs, you'd need to bring money, but no tickets were required, there were no hands to be stamped, no bracelets to wear; for that week, you could come and go as you pleased. No-one seemed to know who was running it, though; while local people volunteered to run the rides and manage the lines, the people who did all the work just seemed to be shadows, barely there and never seen.
The carnival promises to end it's week with a bang, with the biggest firework display and the best entertainment Shalebridge has ever seen. Four friends are determined to see this no matter what, but the end is just a distraction, so no-one will notice four people missing; because everything in this world has a price, and the price for this display will be payed.
It'll be payed with youth.
rules
it starts off deceptively nice, doesn't it? anyway, i only have a few rules, because i'm not planning on this being a huge rp; there are TEN and ONLY TEN places. yes, you heard me. and i swear to god, if your application is rejected, and you post in the rp, i'm coming after you with a molotov cocktail. you do not want to be chased by me trying to shove a petrol bomb down your throat - trust me. if i open up too many spots, it'll become one big muddle of characters, and we won't know who's active and who's not and it will all get confusing. if i feel that we'd do better with a smaller number of players, based on the way people who join this write, and their skill, i'll cut some of the characters.
now on to the actual rules. i want this to be a literate rp; i know we all make the odd mistake at times, but for god's sake, it's not that hard to be grammatically correct, there is a thing called spell check, and there are differences between "their" "there" and "they're". when people mix those up, it makes me wanna smack 'em upside the head with a dictionary. so please, please, please, be literate. i'm also going to say this will be a semi-literate rp, meaning at least 200-300 words per post. any less than that, maybe you should check out a different rp. seeing as there are only ten, or less, characters besides an npc who i'll be controlling behind the scenes, and i demand an even gender ratio in all my rps, this means there will be five male spots and five female spots. no more, no less. the characters will all be in their late teens, except for shadows and golden, so age them accordingly.
seeing as this is taking place in a small, relatively peaceful town, there can be minor dramas in their past, but nothing too major, and nothing too despicable; like their dad's raping them, or their parents being crack addicts and forcing them to live with them. it's a small town; these things would get around quickly, so they wouldn't have had to suffer. keep that in mind. oh, for those taking on golden and shadows? you pretty much have free reign over them; turn them into whatever you like, it doesn't have to be human! but please, do not make them all-powerful, unkillable, amazingly good looking so that everyone loves them - you get what i'm saying here? on that note, i'm assuming you all know about the dreaded mary-sues/anti-sues - if you don't, maybe this isn't the roleplay for you. if you do, though, well, you know about how they're a massive no-no in the roleplay world, right? goooood. the last thing we ask is you be as committed as you can. i understand schools are have started back, and that means you might not be able to get on because of that, or whatever job you have, or just real life rearing it's ugly head - but please, even if you can't post every day, try and post every one to three days, please?
and this is where the rules end.
characters
st.jimmy // noah jonathan armstrong // male
saveyou // erin courtney nesser // female
ylanne // marwan afifi zahir // male
megacya // cassandra willow prewitt // female
open // open // male shadow -- leader
open // open // female shadow
open // open // male shadow
open // open // female golden -- leader
open // open // male golden
open // open // female golden
character skeleton
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[center][size=400][font=violation][color=#57816d]sign-up[/color][/font][/size]
[size=110][font=Sylfaen][b]name,,[/b]
first, middle, last
PICTURE HERE IF YOU HAVE ONE
[b]age,,[/b]
between sixteen and seventeen
[b]personality,,[/b]
tell us about your characters past; their parents, whether they have any siblings, what school life was like for them, who their best friends are, anything you feel like sharing goes in here, but it must be filled out and do not say "will come out in the rp"
[b]biography,,[/b]
tell us about your characters past; their parents, whether they have any siblings, what school life was like for them, who their best friends are, anything you feel like sharing goes in here, but it must be filled out and do not say "will come out in the rp"
[b]appearance,,[/b]
i don't care if you've shown us a photo or not - you're going to write a description of how your character looks as well. a picture is worth a thousand words, but it doesn't capture everything, so that's what this bit is for.[/font][/size][/center]
name,,
Erin Courtney Nesser
age,,
sixteen and a half
personality,,
Erin is a girl who lives with three things; her head in the clouds, music in her ears, and a camera in her hands. Around new people, Erin can be shy, giving only smiles, the odd word or two, and over time, she gradually warms to them, becoming slightly more talkative and energetic as the days go by, until she's bouncing next to you and you're her best friend. Eccentric is a good word to describe her, and even though that can scare some people off, Erin never seems hostile; while not constantly optimistic, she just seems to send out waves that tell people she's friendly, and that she'd enjoy their company, and it makes her a very likeable person.
The only reason Erin doesn't speak much when she first meets people is because she stutters; it's not as bad as it used to be, but it can still get incredibly bad, and talking slowly makes it easier to speak, because it reduces the chance of stuttering. Even so, there'll be times when she'll attempt the word until she's almost crying with the effort, and she still can't get it out, but she's never let any of this affect her personality. Because of the fact she speaks slowly, she often sounds as if she isn't really all there, and sometimes this is true - Erin is quite prone to daydreams, and can slip into them without warning. Most of these are brought on by music.
Erin cannot play an instrument, and she's far from the best singer, but all the same, music is the greatest love of her life, tied with her friends and photography. She doesn't have much of a temper, but when she does get angry, she gets upset about it, and in a situation she doesn't understand, it's quite easy for her to lose her head, and music often helps that - it calms her down easily, and she always carries her iPod with her; it's always on, and playing loudly, but she never has both earphones in, because she likes to listen to her friends talk, thank you very much.
Erin's camera does not accompany her absolutely everywhere, but it does go most places she goes. Photography has been her passion since she was little, thanks to her mum, and even though she will sometimes ask her friends to pose for shoots she spends hours setting up, and then spends more time making them look good for it, most of her shots are spontaneous - photos are stuck all over her bedroom walls with blue tack that she's had developed, or messed about with on her computer. Nearly every single one of these are her friends; most of them spontaneous, and she also has a photo album full of her favourite photos as well.
Erin used to have a habit of biting her nails when she was younger; her parents tried everything to get her to stop, and eventually succeeded when she was thirteen, but because she'd gotten used to having short nails, she can't let them get too long, or get false nails, because she bites them or picks at them until they're back to the "right" size. Another quirk of hers is doing things on impulse; never thinking it through, but just doing it because something tells her to do it, and she obeys without question, because one, it'll be fun, and two, it'll be fun. She's never hurt herself, because she's never had the impulse to do something dangerous, (except when she was eight, when she climbed the tree in her front garden to the top and jumped out of it because she was being a superhero princess) and she only ever does anything that seems fun. Erin's biggest flaw, though, is the fact she's insecure. She's not an incredibly confident person, thanks to her stutter and her accent, and although she's normally very cheerful, there are some days, few and far between, where she's not herself - mostly, on the anniversary of her sister's death.
biography,,
For Eliza Nesser, it started sometime around midnight. September 14th, exactly midnight, and she was woken from her sleep by her first contraction taking hold. She wasted no time in waking her husband, Steven, who in turn wasted no time calling an ambulance, getting his wife into different clothes, grabbing the bag they'd prepared, and leaving their first child, two year old Ian, with his grandparents, before following Eliza's ambulance to the hospital. At 4.13 a.m, Erin Courtney Nesser came into the world, and she came in shrieking.
Erin was the second child of the couple, and a three years later, she would be followed by a sister. Born in Leith, Scotland, Erin lived there for most of her life. At the start, her and her brother were close, but eventually, their bond deteriorated, and they couldn't be in the same room as one another without fighting somehow. Up until just before her fourth birthday, though, everything was good for the little girl. She was bright, and friendly with everyone who she came across. The area she grew up in may not have been the best place to raise two children, but their family was close. Ian and Erin never wanted for anything in their lives, and when her mother found out she was pregnant again, the whole family was excited.
Ilia Rose Nesser was born two and a half months premature, and severely disabled. The older Ilia got, the more obvious her disability was, and it became obvious she was mentally retarded as well. Her mind was stuck in infancy, and she could do nothing by herself. Most of her days were spent in a wheelchair, and she had to constantly be attended by someone, meaning her parents relationship was starting to get strained; taking care of Ilia took up every second of their lives, meaning Ian and Erin were left to their own devices.
Neither knew what was wrong with their sister, but in a way, they blamed themselves - if they had have been better, their sister would be okay. Without their parents around to control them, they began to snipe at each other at first, and over time, it became worse and worse; when Ian was nine and Erin seven, they were fighting each other daily. Things came to a head when Ian deliberately threw his sister down the stairs. Erin smacked her head and passed out - she woke up in hospital. No physical damage had been done to her, but it was noticed that she started to speak with a slight stutter, which got worse over time.
At school, Erin was bright enough, and she passed her 11+ with a B1. Secondary school in Scotland, however, was harder for her. Her and her brother were still distant, and the laughing stock of the school because of Ilia. People had seen them out with their mum and their sister, and although all Erin ever faced were whispers, and a variety of taunts over her stutter, which was getting worse and worse, Ian got the worst of the abuse. Erin can still remember watching him in the schoolyard; she had been hiding because of some bullies, who had then cornered her brother, and proceeded to chant at him; "YER SISTER'S A SPASTIC! YER SISTER'S A SPASTIC!"
Erin had no idea how long this had gone on for for Ian, but even then, she couldn't help but wonder if they meant Ilia or her. Knowing how bad Ian was getting it managed to patch up the bond between them when she told him she knew how they felt, and they managed to stick together for a few more years; when Erin was thirteen and Ian fifteen, things came to a head when they were cornered by a more vicious gang of bullies, who would have beaten them up if it weren't for adult interference. Disgusted with the way their children were being treated, Eliza and Steven used all the money they had managed to save to move the family to Shalebridge in England; a quiet village where they hoped the bullying would stop for good.
The most nerve-wracking experiences Erin had ever gone through was starting her new secondary school, where everyone knew everyone, had a different accent, their own slang and their own group of friends, and being seen in public with her sister. Thankfully, no-one said anything offending to her. People in Shalebridge were genuinely nice, and even understood somewhat about her sister. They didn't mind her stutter or her accent, and for the first time in years, Erin found herself relaxing enough to make some friends. It wasn't a large group of friends, only three other people, but Erin felt comfortable with them, and for once, she was happy.
And then Ilia died.
As time progressed, Ilia had just gotten worse and worse, until it got to the point their parents couldn't take care of her - she spent months in a hospital where she eventually died in her sleep. At the funeral, everyone told them how it would be easier for them all, and it was better Ilia didn't have to suffer anymore, but despite the fact she'd never really been bothered with her before, Erin was overwhelmed with grief at losing her little sister. She felt guilty for never taking a interest in her, or trying to make her feel normal, and she retreated into herself a tiny bit, only being saved by her friends - they took her out of herself, and slowly, she was able to somewhat get over the death of her sister. The bond between her and her brother strengthened even more, and Erin found she had an interest in photography - being distracted with cameras, making scrapbooks of her photos, and messing about with them on her computer kept her distracted in the months after her sister's death. Her passion for photography grew, and she decided that was the career she would pursue.
For the last year or so of her life, Erin has been happier than she's ever been. She spends most of her time with her friends, and has built up enough confidence to even start flirting with boys, something she'd never bothered to do before because she was embarrassed about her stutter. The stutter is still there, with every other word she says, but it's slowly getting a little bit better, and she's hopeful that she'll eventually get rid of it, and that she can just live her life normally.
The carnival she's determined to enjoy is going to change everything about the future she's looking forward to; and maybe destroy it entirely.
appearance,,
Erin is a small girl, standing at only 5'3", with pale skin from not going outdoors too much. Erin has a slow metabolism, and doesn't eat much, so she's very thin, but this is just a recent thing - she's been dieting for most of the summer, and has become a vegetarian, which may have helped things. Being somewhat flat-chested has never really helped Erin with boys, but because it's only recently she's started wanting a boyfriend, it never bothered her.
Erin's eyes are a very light electric blue, with green tinges in them. Her hair is a light orange in colour, usually worn loose, with a long fringe she likes to wear in her eyes, even though it means she's constantly pushing it back - she does it so much, it's just part of her life now. Her hair isn't too long, coming to just below her shoulders, which is why she wears it loose, but for any special occasion, she'll wear it up, and with her fringe fixed properly; just because she doesn't care about how she looks normally doesn't mean she'll pass up the chance to dress up.
OOC: Fashion has never appealed much to her, unless it's out shopping for something expensive. She likes vintage clothes, and comfortable shoes, like Converse high-tops, which she'll wear with just about anything. She loves to wear skirts, but has taken to wearing shorts underneath them, just in case anyone gets any ideas (or in case her brother tries to embarrass her). She loves t-shirts and jackets, but nice jumpers and cardigans are good as well, and she has a habit of buying hoodies three sizes too big for her because they're just that warm and comfortable. Jewellery and make-up isn't on her list of priorities; all she wears is a small pair of studs and two blue plastic bracelets she bought for 50p one day.