OOC
GAME: With Wolves
DESCRIPTION: Paranormal Biblical OC game.
DATE: July 2008
PB: Scarlett Johansson
JOURNAL: fiduciary
CONCEPT: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, MY GIRLFRIEND LIVIA'S A VAMPIRE?" Aka, v2.0 of my modern version of Bram Stoker's Lucy Westenra. The ditzy bisexual blonde bumbling around and hooking up with the older female vampire = apparently one of my very favourite concepts ever. Who knew?
IC
Name: Caroline Lucy West
Alias(es): "Caroline" as a formal name to most strangers and acquaintances, but she'll ask closer friends to call her "Lucy".
Race: Good old regular human.
Apparent age: Somewhere in her early twenties.
Actual age: 20 / March 1 1988
Nationality: American
Occupation: Photography student, aspiring journalist, paranormal researcher.
Location: London, England
Sexuality: Who knows. Seriously.
Appearance: With a surprisingly curvaceous hourglass-figure on the frame of a skinny blonde, Lucy is undoubtedly good looking. Light eyes and pale blonde hair have always made her seem somewhat child-like, a teensy bit angelic, and it matches her wide-eyed, brightly optimistic nature well. She dresses modestly enough, however, and it's only in her unabashed behaviour that one would realise she's at all aware of her own attractiveness—though her features are a bit narrow and pointed, and she's always complained about her nose to anyone who'll listen.
Hair: Blonde.
Eyes: Blue.
First Impression: Cheerful, upbeat, semi-hysterical and all-ridiculous.
Personality: A woman of a delicate nature and even more delicate sensibilities, Lucy's personality is a strange mixture of old-fashioned conventions and loose morals. She has some fairly ancient expectations of life and chivalry, and a sense of romance possibly more attuned to bodice-ripping novels than reality—this might be the basic reason behind her interests in both art and the paranormal. She is always searching for something more idealistic and more romantic, and doffing her rose-tinted glasses more often than might be healthy.
At first glance, Lucy doesn't seem like one of the brightest crayons in the box—and plainly put, she isn't. Not exactly. She was never one for book-smarts and academics; instead, she was the pretty blonde ingratiating herself with the awkward geeks in order to get quality tutoring for free. She might not be the best student, and she immediately trips over herself if you bring up maths or politics, but Lucy does exhibit a viciously keen social intelligence, honed from years of being one of the most stereotypically popular girls in her grade.
She can efficiently suss out everyday social situations, but the angelic and demonic sphere is a whole new ballgame to her. It's not something she really knows how to deal with. There's an almost child-like fragility to her and, consequently, she always needs someone to shelter behind. She is mischievous and playful, but she has almost no conception of subtlety and deception. The girl pretty much cannot lie.
Lucy feigns the appropriate amount of humility, but is actually quite aware of her flaws and strengths, and monopolises on the latter as much as possible. She passes herself off as all wide-eyed innocence and naïvité, but the act belies a much different, more flagrantly sexual personality. The girl carries herself with coquettish confidence in social situations, along with an actual, genuine honesty which usually ensures her a good handful of friends. The woman is free-spirited, quick to trust, easy to manipulate, and easy to sway—dangerously, Lucy blunders right into things and possesses a tendency to get where she doesn't belong. After careening headfirst into her mistakes, she'll often needs people's help to get out again. A good thing her open and guileless personality engenders easy friendship, eh?
Lucy is somewhat airheaded, flighty, and honestly a bit of a slut; she's had jocks trailing after her for years, and has most of them wrapped around her finger, thanks-very-much in part to her horror power. She worked out very quickly that boys liked her better when she paid attention to them, and particularly when there's some cleavage in the bargain.
Likes: Art, design, scrapbooks. Photography, especially lomography, old cameras and polaroids. Pretty dresses and fruity drinks and guilty-pleasure icecream.
Dislikes: Mormons. Losing a roll of film, for whatever reason. Slasher flicks. Studying. Stuffy textbooks, though "stuffy" is entirely relative, considering her love for some of her aunt's old texts.
Skills: Good with a pencil, even better with a camera. Quick on her feet. Very, very good at playing the 'damsel in distress' card.
Limitations: Good stamina, but very weak physically; you won't find her punching people out anytime soon. Anemic since birth, which means sometimes becoming weak and breathless upon physical exertion. Which means Lucy had to quit cheer squad. Yes, she's still nursing a grudge over that.
History: Caroline West was primarily a latchkey kid, raised between her parents' hectic workshifts and with whatever affection she could squeeze out of their faltering marriage and steamrolling divorce. With a weak family history behind her, instead she took refuge in a social life, a healthy circle of friends, and some small quirky interests on the side. The teenage identity crisis led to liking her middle name more, pending a childhood fascination with I Love Lucy reruns—she started referring to herself as Lucy, and started spending more of her days with her aunt, who always seemed to find more time for her than her parents managed.
And as it happens, her aunt was an established psychic medium.
Not the horoscopes and tarot kind, though she did peddle in those for fun and profit. But aunt Felicia specialised in proper knowledge of the paranormal, celestial, infernal, and everything in between; though she didn't mean for Lucy to get a hold of her books, it happened nonetheless. Intrigued by the strange new world she'd unearthed, Lucy accepted it with a blasé sort of zen—sure, there was this thing called the ether. Sure, demons existed. Whatever! She was happy to leave this particular world in Felicia's hands, and cut loose from her parents' authority, found refuge in the wild parties and drunken shenanigans of being a first year at university. She became lax in maturity and irresponsible in duty, though ambitious in her goals: she still wanted to become a journalism student, even though she just didn't have what it takes. Her best friend was a good hand at writing and transcribing her thoughts, and always seemed to pave the way for her (somewhat more dim-witted) friend, Lucy. Lucy did, however, continue practicing her photography, never quite realising that that's where her true skills lay.
This empty schedule stayed intact for a while. Free-flying independence at the University of Las Vegas, and then home again to argue with her parents and weasel her way out from their sphere of influence.
This all changed in her third year, when aunt Felicia West died.There was some definite demonic activity involved. Traditional narrative procedure would have had Felicia leaving her entire occult library to her niece; as it happens, she didn't. She also knew that Lucy, in her current state, was by no means prepared to take her fledgling steps into the paranormal world.
That fact didn't stop Lucy. Still grief-stricken, she broke into the library a month after Felicia's funeral to pore through the books one last time before they were to be sold off in junk sales. She took the most informative-looking ones, and thus began her quest to learn as much as she could about this world—partly to honour her aunt, partly to protect herself and her parents from anything like this happening again, and partly just to sate her damn curiosity.
She started practicing communication on the ether. Considering her art- and photography-biased mind, Lucy's thoughts are very much based on visuals; she broadcasts more images than, say, John Constantine does. Calling the "family emergency" card, she also took time off university and went to London on a quset to 'find herself'—actually, it was just an attempt to get closer to Felicia's life. For all the fun she'd been having at university, drinking at parties and sleeping with guys, Lucy felt some sort of deep restlessness that something was not quite right.
So off she went. The young, female, American equivalent of Steve Irwin to the occult. She does not take written notes (her first mistake as an entrepreneuring journalist), but she does do little sketches, doodles, and snaps photographs based on the persons she meets and the paranormal landmarks she's taking in. Lucy carries around an expensive Polaroid camera at all times. She has probably photographed you with it.
Trivia:
- Isn't all that smart on literature, but really likes books following a certain theme, often Gothic romance and the innocent damsel getting whisked off by a tall, dark, brooding man: Northanger Abbey, Jane Eyre, The Phantom of the Opera, Wuthering Heights, Edgar Allan Poe stories, and so on.
- She doesn't like show-off skateboardists all that much, but her last boyfriend was good at doing stunts on a bicycle.
- Believes in ~openmindedness~ but is actually really kind of uninformed. She would practice what she preaches if only she, um, knew what her stances were. Lucy likes Obama, but just because most of her liberal peers seem to.
- Takes inspiration from and does art based on the shit she feels on the ether. Wants to know more about these people—a trait which will probably get her into shit sooner rather than later. She's a quick learner, though; she has to be, the amount of mistakes she makes.
- Her dream is to get into Journalism & Media Studies, but let's be honest, she probably doesn't have the talent or the grades to get into the highly competitive program. Her photography, on the other hand (which probably looks a bit like this), has been steadily improving since high school, and she's pretty awesome at it. She likes snapping candid photos of people when they're off-guard, and posting the results to her blog. (At least, she did until she went on the road to learn more about ghosts and demons and angels and beasties in America and the United Kingdom.)
- Lucy's also, surprisingly enough, a huge fan of A Softer World—people wouldn't have expected it from the blonde with the preppy skirts and the cheerleading prizes on her shelf, but it's a bit of her morbid side creeping in. She may look like sunshine and optimism, but the girl carries an edge of fascination with the grotesque. Again: it's part of what drove her to pursuing such an unconventional change to her very, very conventional lifestyle.
- Believes very, very strongly in gentlemen and chivalry.
