Name: Chicklet Age: Adult Time Zone: EST/EDT Email: DWlogs@writeme.com Other Contact Info: Plurk: ChickletLARP Prefered method of contact: PM the journal or poke me on Plurk. Current Characters at Tramitem: None Reserve:Tada!
Character Information
Full Name: Ashildr/Me/Lady Me/Mayor Me Nicknames: See above. She prefers to go by Me Canon: Doctor Who PB: Maisie Williams - original actress for the role. Journal: Memories_of_me 4th Walling: I am fine with it, but ideally I would love to plot it out first. Canon Point: CRAU. From Canon, her canon point is right after dropping Clara off (so about 5 minutes after the last time we see her in the show/a year after,. depending on your POV). She spent three or four years in Wake.
Personality: Me is cold and distant, by choice and effort. She has been made immortal. The Doctor said that she was immortal, not indestructible, and yet she had seen the end of existence. The last Immortal left, save for a time traveler she knew would come to her at the end. And he did. The problem for her was that she had the lifespan of an immortal, but the memory of a mortal. Given how memory is so individual, when Me lost the names and fasces of those she had loved, she remembered the pain of losing them, rather than the joy of loving them. After she lost her children to plague, she had vowed no more children. As she lost her last spouse, she vowed no more romance. When Clara died, the Doctor was her only friend. She tried so hard not to make more. She tried so hard to stay distant and aloof. In canon she mostly succeeded. (Head canon worked with other players in Wake had her in a weird pseudo-friendship with the Master/Missy and River Song.) In Wake there were a few places those walls almost broke. River, Missy, nearly Nine, Chat Noir and... Link. Link came the closest to breaking the isolation around her, because he accepted everything she said about how he was going to die. And because he respected her choices about herself. Well, some of them.
Me is a character with walls around her heart, around herself. But like so many with such walls, they hide a venerability within. She knows she is fragile. She knows that part of her is desperate for connection, for friends and family and love. But she's been struck down by that so many times that she no longer trusts herself or her desires.
Under all that ice and isolation is a girl who once upon a time was creative and sensitive. Who gave her life for the people she loved, died a hero. That death was taken from her, but hints of Ashildr - the girl she had once been - remained. In canon it is shown in how she sees endings as beautiful. How she keeps her journals. In Wake it was in flashes and Storms that brought Ashildr to the fore. Ashildr we see only briefly in the series as herself, but we see hints of who she was in seeing how she changes in canon as they meet her again and again. We see the loving girl who would do anything for the people around her. Who is has to take a stand against injustice and cruelty. Even if it is stupid, even if it is dangerous.
The thing is, in all forms Ashildr/Me has always been brave. There has always been a core of strength to her. What that strength is turned towards changes but it is always there. As Ashildr, when she someone slaughtered the others of her village, she challenged them. When she realized that her challenge would lead to everyone else dying she was desperate to fix things, to save them.
This could also be linked to a deep seated self hatred we see from her very first moments. When we first meet Ashildr, she is concerned that everyone in the group that had gone out had returned, because she had been so sure that they'd all died and it was her fault. She's even told by someone who knew her well that if something had happened, he was sure she'd find a way to blame herself for it. And then of course, she did put them all in danger. She was instrumental in saving them in the end, which should have been a beautiful end to her character arc, by her estimation. As she would later say about Clara's death, it was noble and beautiful; and then it was stolen away from her. This could be behind a lot of her holding onto pain rather than joy.
CR-AU: While in Wake, Me progressed in two directions at once. She continued on the trajectory that we see in the show, with her withdrawing more and more from everyone. However, the events in the game kept reminding her of who she used to be, kept bringing her back to Ashildr. More, there were a great many people in the game who were intent on drawing her out and befriending her. While most failed some managed to get into the cracks in her walls. While she and River agreed that neither fully trusted the other, they both enjoyed getting together for wine and tea to gripe against the Doctor. One thing they could agree on was that Ten, as he had become after being changed by the City of Change (Nautilus, where the game takes place) was no longer who they knew, and they would meet to gripe about him. She tried to forge a friendship with Nine. Three actually got in under her guard some. And Link from the Legend of Zelda series did the best job of it, by constantly pestering her in all the right ways. In the end, when she was leaving the game, she actually gifted him the Quantum Shade that she had actually recreated.
In the game, characters gained a power called Bending (Bending reality to suit you), and anyone in game could learn it, even if they had no powers in cannon. Just as Me spoke in The Woman Who Lived about enough practice making you the best there ever was, Me threw herself into learning Bending. She would often go out into the woods with her bow and Bend arrows on the fly to practice both archery and Bending at once. She would, of course, never admit that she chose the spiders as target practice because they were known to prey upon her fellow Wakened (other player characters).
That was Me as a whole in the game. She would find ways to help others without ever admitting that was what she was doing. Her frustrations with Ten really stemmed from the same. She was trying to lie to him to trick him into protecting himself, throwing away her own morals and the beauty of Clara's sacrifice if that was the cost of protecting her best friend. Her issues with Rose are a long story, and actually mostly separate from her issues with Ten, except for Ten's instance on choosing Rose over the universe.
Though one event that reverted Me to Ashildr for a week had her and Ten being a student and teacher, and getting along quite well. Because of shenanigans, they wound up painting a mural together with every face the Doctor ever showed on Earth and any before Ten that had never made it to anywhere Me could have met him. After the Storm, trying to make peace, they worked together to recreate the mural.
Me also has game memories from a Storm (Many storms were temporary AU events) where she and the Master traveled extensively, which will also mess interestingly with regains; as Wake Me knows that the memories are false, if we get a Master player and they are interested, she can get those memories back as a regain without that context.
Basically Wake Me has a new fashion style, and a whole mess of conflicting memories that will mix with her faded canon memories to make an interesting soup of regains, especially once Bending and her healing are added back to the mix.
Physical description: A young woman who stopped aging in her early teens that uses clothing and makeup to look like a young adult. Medium long dark hair. She looks human.
Meta Powers From Canon: She heals almost impossibly fast, making her nearly impossible to kill. (She recovers from plague too swiftly to be killed by that as well.) She has also stopped aging, but her memory is human limited memory.
CRAU: Bending - using will power, imagination, focus, and power Bending can create nearly anything that isn't alive, can in rare cases create things with a limited life or even simpler life forms that are fully alive. Bending can be used against someone else, but in the game there was a system for checks for contested Bending. Since that won't be in this game, should she regain this ability I will plot with other players OOC and discuss before she tries anything against another PC.
History: Ashley lost her mother when she was too young to remember her. Her father wanted to escape the memories and give his daughter a better life and her best chance, so he packed them up and moved them to America when Ashley was so young that she can't really remember where she was born and spent her earliest years. But in America they were the poor foreigners, her father spoke very little English. She quickly had to step up to try and communicate for them both. But she was a little kid, she could only do so much. And she knew it. So whenever she couldn't make things better she blamed herself. Her father wound up finding another group of immigrants and they became friends, even though most of them couldn't speak to each other other than in a handful of broken English words. Ashley went from feeling responsible for him to responsible for all of them. Trying to fix things for them all, she found someone willing to loan her the money that they needed to all get a large house to share. She was maybe twelve or thirteen then. She was doing her best. None of the adults in her life other than her teachers at school spoke enough English, and she didn't speak much of anything else anymore. So she fell into a bad situation. The man she borrowed from came to collect sooner than she expected. She had thought that she could have gotten her father and the others into better jobs if they had better clothes and a better home and better food. She failed, and they all wound up in a lot of trouble with the mob. Convinced that she was just making everything else by being there, she ran away from home. Ran away from everything.
After a while she was picked up by child protective services. They tried to bring her back home, but she was so certain that going back would make things worse her her father and their found family that she refused to tell anyone where she was from. A different lie every week, the only things that were the same were that she was an immigrant and that she was sixteen. The first was true, and the second being so constantly said in every lie, it was eventually believed. She thought that if she kept lying about what country she was from, not only couldn't they find her father, but they couldn't deport her. She never understood until she was actually an adult that it was because her case worker saw something in her and was using every legal trick she knew to help this poor kid she was sure was an orphan rather than a runaway.
Ashely was in the system for a while, bounced all around. She was afraid her age lie would be caught when they put her in school, because she wasn't anywhere near the High School level yet, but they kept dumping her in ESL classes that were pleased if she could do the bare minimum. Since studying every night gave her an excuse to not get close to any of her foster families she took it, working hard until bed every night studying, trying to learn enough to actually pull off this ruse of being sixteen. And what the case worker had seen in her was actually in her. She was bright and creative, she had so much potential. And she used it. She was valedictorian when she graduated High School, which might have been a greater achievement, except that she realized that the school she was in that point had her in as their diversity statistic and had some of the worst test scores in the county.
She realized as she got closer to graduation that once the birthday the Case Worker had assigned her - since she lied about that constantly - came, she'd be 18 in their eyes. She'd be out of the system. Thankfully her well written essay about her life as an immigrant orphan, while being mostly fiction, while combined with her grades, being able to use her as a diversity statistic, and her art got her enough of a scholarship that she could attend Queensborough Community College on a full ride. She worked hard on her studies and her art and managed to transfer to Queens College in her second year on a studio art scholarship. She got part time jobs while she was in school, working in various offices on campus, which meant she had flexible hours to work around her classes, and that she could often study on the job. She had a small apartment, but she practically lived in her studio on campus, working as late as security allowed each term. Thanks to LASARs she had to take classes outside her major and found another love. Thanks to her Case Worker thinking she needed a hobby that would give her a physical outlet that was more athletic than art, she had started taking archery classes when she first entered the system, and that was a constant from all her various foster homes, every weekend she went to whatever the closest archery range was and killed a few hours working with the long bow, the short bow, and the recurve. So when she had to take a class in the athletics department, instead of just taking health sciences like most of her classmates, she tried out for the women's fencing team, guessing it would be as much fun as archery. And it was. It wasn't the dramatic flailing around she expected from television, but there was an art to it. A precision. It was like archery in how important form was at all times. She loved it. College was the best time of her life.
Ashely was aware, though that there wasn't much of a financial future for a studio artist, and hadn't known what to do about the future. She studied other fields when she could, but her major took up so much time, because she had to keep her scholarship, that she couldn't throw herself into nursing or law or anything else that could have guaranteed that she would be set for life. Thankfully her caseworker, who had remained friends with her despite her many attempts to keep her distance, had an idea. She followed up on it and it worked. She was given a job in the Art Department. Not as a teacher, since she couldn't get that kind of a job with a B.A. not at QC. She worked there part time her last year and was made full time when she graduated. The department head encouraged her to apply for the NYU graduate studio art program. She tried, and didn't get it, but she was fine. She started a second BA oart time, in education, so that she could in the future teach.
When she earned enough she did try to go home, once. To find her father, to repay the debts and appologize. For everything. But she couldn't find him. Couldn't find any of them. Strangers lived in the house they had bought, and she found out that the man she had borrowed from had been arrested the year before for various crimes.
But seeing the old neighborhood she grew up in, she felt something shift. She went back to her case worker and spoke to her at length, then changed her major to social work. She couldn't save her father and his found family. So she was going to try to save other children before they got in over their heads as badly as she had... And she was sure of one thing. Any kid she found? She'd take them to the archery range straight away, and she wouldn't let them push her away.
Personality: (Even after all this time, Ashley tries to keep people at a distance. She keeps her relationships as superficial as she can, because even though her adult brain tells her that she isn't actually going to cause people to die or suffer just because she is near, it is still a fear lodged deep in her mind that she cannot shake. It is also one of her biggest concerns about her chosen career. But she didn't ruin her social worker turned friend, Karla, so she figured if she was that involved, but not more, it should be fine. Right? Right...?
That said, there are a few other traits, more positive ones, that she's kept from childhood. One is her art, and another is that she constantly tries to give back, and to give to those who do not have. From when she was a little kid cleaning up the playground and using the trash to make toys for the kids who didn't have any, to her time as a teenager trying to keep her foster families safe by avoiding them and volunteering for every clean up and art community project at whatever high school she was in, to her working so hard to become a case worker in the future... she is constantly trying to give. Some of it is guilt, guilt that she couldn't do more, guilt for that feeling like she is some harbinger of doom., and guilt that she never found her father. Half the time she's sure he's dead, the other half the time she's sure he's out there suffering somewhere and she just didn't look hard enough. That he was still waiting for her. And that drives her harder to give to those she can help. She keeps prepackaged foods like granola bars and pop tarts in her backpack at all times to give to the homeless and hungry she sees every day.
With her art, she still works at it, and every now and again she sells a piece at an art showing at the school, or on an Etsy shop online. But as much as she loves it, and even with her having been good enough to get a scholarship, she can't make a living off of it. But since she made the choice that her art was now more for her than for her future, she has become okay with that. She mostly works in colored pencils to sketch these days, but that is mostly because it is an inexpensive and portable medium. Her small studio apartment is more studio than apartment and is already too full of small clay statues and painted canvases. She could save up and afford a bigger place, but she is saving up... in case she ever finds her father again. Anyway, a bigger place would just tempt her to have more people in her life, and that was dangerous. For them. So she spent most of her time during the week on campus, either at work, in classes, hanging around the quad sketching, in the library, or in the athletics department, practicing her fencing when allowed. Saturdays are for archery - she helps out with the new students in exchange for range time. Sundays she meets up with Karla for coffee/tea and catch up. Usually the rest of her time is spent in Manhattan, at the various museums or at shows, soaking up the culture.
She loves learning. That is something that developed in high school when she had to push so hard to catch up with the age they thought she was. She wants to learn everything the can. She has daydreamed about nearly every career ever, but she understands the difference between an expert and a jack of all trades. She's practical. She knows she can't learn everything well enough to be good enough at it. So she reads on subjects that interests her, but keeps her focus to her art, her fencing, her archery, and her major.
Basically she is kind without seeing it. She thinks she's always either just doing "what anyone would do" or is making up for something, even when she's going above and beyond. For all she tries to keep people at a distance, she is constantly thinking about them and how to make things better for them.
She is at her happiest when she is doing art or archery. She is, thankfully, healthy enough not to feel guilty about doing those things for herself. So she gives herself that much self care. And physically she is healthy. She takes care of herself. She is good at saving money, and trading work for services, so that when she does have to buy something, she has the freedom to take her time and make sure she gets something that will last or will be exactly what she needs, rather than rushing for whatever she can afford. So while her apartment doesn't have a lot in it, what it has is all durable and good quality. So she doesn't have a bed frame, she didn't see the point, she does have a very good mattress. She understands that if she isn't in good shape she can't help anyone else and do what she has to throughout the day. She does have one seemingly frivolous procession though. She owns a gorgeous hand carved recurve bow. She traded with a fellow student in her final year of studio art. She painted a mural in every room of the new apartment he was moving into and he carved her a bow. It is her treasure and her bow case is the best she could buy. She painted it herself. She only gets to use it the once a week she goes to the range, but she loves the perfect feel of it in her hand. She loves the golden and silver strands woven into the jet black bowstring like stars and suns in the sky.
If asked, Ashley wouldn't say she was happy, but wouldn't admit to having anything to complain about either. If asked she wouldn't say she was particularly good, but didn't see herself as evil, either. She would tell you that she's just a person. Just one more face among the many in New York, just one note in the song, just one thread in the tapestry....
Physical description: Same as canon, just dressed more casually and in more colors, and with softer expressions.
Your Characters 'Event Memory'?2:55- 3:55 The memory is less than a minute by far, but the episode dragged it out for drama.
Written:
She stood at a widow staring out at the mostly empty street beyond. From her angle she could see what looked like a peddler's cart on the cobbles. A single Raven rested atop it. She could see a girl. Her friend. She knew there were other people there, but the memory was too brief, she didn't see them. She knew another was her friend. She thought one would hate her. But her mind at the time wasn't focused on that, so Ashely doesn't know who or why. She knows the woman. Clara. Her friend. She knew she was somehow being brave.
The raven lifted off of the cart with a cry, and flew towards the woman. She watched the bird fly into the woman's stomach and vanish. She saw the woman who seemed to be in pain. for some reason she was just watching, knew everyone was just watching. For some reason she was sure someone would do something stupid, but again the memory didn't give her enough to know who or why.
The woman shuddered, arms spread wide. Dark mist issued from her mouth. Somehow she knew it was the bird. Or because of the bird. The the woman, her friend... Clara....? fell to the cobbles. Dead. And when the memory faded, Ashley would find herself with her other self's last thought of the memory, that the death had been brave and noble... and beautiful.
Anything else? Because of CRAU, she is a mix of real memories and fake memories. And a lot of her real memories, because of canon, she's lost. I am looking forward to confusing the snot out of her, honestly.
Also, she has one ability that I couldn't figure out where to put in, because it is not magical, it is not a power, and it isn't something she's worked hard at and focused on. She is really good at acting. This showed in her back story when she finally convinced them she was 16, and is used to keep most people from realizing how shallow she's keeping their friendship, even when they think they're getting close. What wasn't mentioned even that much is that at part of it, she is really good at changing her voice and posture so that with the right change of clothes, hair, and makeup, she can fool most people who know her - again see that they know her only superficially anyway, and at a Halloween party with masks, even Karla can't pick her out in a crowd.
So as to not force you to read the whole things again, replies to the revision requests will be here where possible.
< TEXT HERE The Earth AU omits a number of important details. For example, it never mentions what Ashley's birth country is or what non-English language she and her father speak. It also doesn't mention how old Ashley is in actuality during the time she is lying about her age. Nor does the AU age listed for her at the moment she enters the game match the timeline of events. And the AU history does not explain what job she was able to obtain in a major university’s Art Department as an undergrad. We ask that these details be added. >
I was attempting to be succinct, so I may have missed stuff in trying to keep under the word limit. I appologize. I will attempt to clarify/expand here without being overly wordy.
Birth country I had omitted since she was so young she doesn't really remember it, but she is from Norway. Her father probably spoke Nynorsk. But Ashley has lost most of her first language and speaks primarily English. When she was claiming to be sixteen she was thirteen.
You may well be right that I goofed on the math of her real age. It was a long AU and it was developing as I wrote and I missed fixing that. I think a real age of 21 or 22 is closer to where she should be?
I said she worked in the office, I guess that I was just leaning too much into what I know from having worked in a college office as an undergrad. Basically she is a mix of a secretary and an assistant. I figure she was riding a desk and talking to students who came in to figure out if they needed to speak to a professor, if so who, or if it was a question she could answer with her database.
< The memory selected is for a different character than the one you’re app-ing. The Event memory can only be something your character experienced. (When we watched the clip, we did not see your character at all.) >
Okay so on that, if you go back to the start of the clip you will see that she was present. She was watching this happen and very connected to it because that was one of her two best friends, and the death was kind of sort of her fault. She is inside the building that the older man stepped out of to watch. She talks about the death later, so we know she observes it. I apologize that it was confusing, I was again, trying not to exceed limits, so context got lost. I am not as good at the short form as I would like to be.
< We would like you to explain what mechanisms Wake had in place to limit the game settings’ meta powers. Then we can determine if they are still in effect or not. >
Here is a link to word of Mod on Bending and limitations.
< The Earth AU needs to be plausible for the setting of our game which is modern Earth. There are a number of events in this AU that do not meet this criteria. The Earth AU seems engineered to maximize negative drama. The AU needs to be revised to be more plausible.
If you would prefer a detailed list of what we think makes the Earth AU implausible and too dramatic, you may contact the Mods. >
I will do so, so that I know what to fix. Thank you. I will admit to not knowing what the problem is with a negative and dramatic backstory, however. (as you can see by my other app as well.)
Thank you for giving me the chance to revise both apps. I will respond to Elphaba's/Ethel's separately, though will only bother the mod contact link once for both.
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memories_of_me) wrote2020-06-13 08:20 pm
1/3
Age: Adult
Time Zone: EST/EDT
Email: DWlogs@writeme.com
Other Contact Info: Plurk: ChickletLARP
Prefered method of contact: PM the journal or poke me on Plurk.
Current Characters at Tramitem: None
Reserve: Tada!
Nicknames: See above. She prefers to go by Me
Canon: Doctor Who
PB: Maisie Williams - original actress for the role.
Journal: Memories_of_me
4th Walling: I am fine with it, but ideally I would love to plot it out first.
Canon Point: CRAU. From Canon, her canon point is right after dropping Clara off (so about 5 minutes after the last time we see her in the show/a year after,. depending on your POV). She spent three or four years in Wake.
Personality: Me is cold and distant, by choice and effort. She has been made immortal. The Doctor said that she was immortal, not indestructible, and yet she had seen the end of existence. The last Immortal left, save for a time traveler she knew would come to her at the end. And he did. The problem for her was that she had the lifespan of an immortal, but the memory of a mortal. Given how memory is so individual, when Me lost the names and fasces of those she had loved, she remembered the pain of losing them, rather than the joy of loving them. After she lost her children to plague, she had vowed no more children. As she lost her last spouse, she vowed no more romance. When Clara died, the Doctor was her only friend. She tried so hard not to make more. She tried so hard to stay distant and aloof. In canon she mostly succeeded. (Head canon worked with other players in Wake had her in a weird pseudo-friendship with the Master/Missy and River Song.) In Wake there were a few places those walls almost broke. River, Missy, nearly Nine, Chat Noir and... Link. Link came the closest to breaking the isolation around her, because he accepted everything she said about how he was going to die. And because he respected her choices about herself. Well, some of them.
Me is a character with walls around her heart, around herself. But like so many with such walls, they hide a venerability within. She knows she is fragile. She knows that part of her is desperate for connection, for friends and family and love. But she's been struck down by that so many times that she no longer trusts herself or her desires.
Under all that ice and isolation is a girl who once upon a time was creative and sensitive. Who gave her life for the people she loved, died a hero. That death was taken from her, but hints of Ashildr - the girl she had once been - remained. In canon it is shown in how she sees endings as beautiful. How she keeps her journals. In Wake it was in flashes and Storms that brought Ashildr to the fore. Ashildr we see only briefly in the series as herself, but we see hints of who she was in seeing how she changes in canon as they meet her again and again. We see the loving girl who would do anything for the people around her. Who is has to take a stand against injustice and cruelty. Even if it is stupid, even if it is dangerous.
The thing is, in all forms Ashildr/Me has always been brave. There has always been a core of strength to her. What that strength is turned towards changes but it is always there. As Ashildr, when she someone slaughtered the others of her village, she challenged them. When she realized that her challenge would lead to everyone else dying she was desperate to fix things, to save them.
This could also be linked to a deep seated self hatred we see from her very first moments. When we first meet Ashildr, she is concerned that everyone in the group that had gone out had returned, because she had been so sure that they'd all died and it was her fault. She's even told by someone who knew her well that if something had happened, he was sure she'd find a way to blame herself for it. And then of course, she did put them all in danger. She was instrumental in saving them in the end, which should have been a beautiful end to her character arc, by her estimation. As she would later say about Clara's death, it was noble and beautiful; and then it was stolen away from her. This could be behind a lot of her holding onto pain rather than joy.
CR-AU: While in Wake, Me progressed in two directions at once. She continued on the trajectory that we see in the show, with her withdrawing more and more from everyone. However, the events in the game kept reminding her of who she used to be, kept bringing her back to Ashildr. More, there were a great many people in the game who were intent on drawing her out and befriending her. While most failed some managed to get into the cracks in her walls. While she and River agreed that neither fully trusted the other, they both enjoyed getting together for wine and tea to gripe against the Doctor. One thing they could agree on was that Ten, as he had become after being changed by the City of Change (Nautilus, where the game takes place) was no longer who they knew, and they would meet to gripe about him. She tried to forge a friendship with Nine. Three actually got in under her guard some. And Link from the Legend of Zelda series did the best job of it, by constantly pestering her in all the right ways. In the end, when she was leaving the game, she actually gifted him the Quantum Shade that she had actually recreated.
In the game, characters gained a power called Bending (Bending reality to suit you), and anyone in game could learn it, even if they had no powers in cannon. Just as Me spoke in The Woman Who Lived about enough practice making you the best there ever was, Me threw herself into learning Bending. She would often go out into the woods with her bow and Bend arrows on the fly to practice both archery and Bending at once. She would, of course, never admit that she chose the spiders as target practice because they were known to prey upon her fellow Wakened (other player characters).
That was Me as a whole in the game. She would find ways to help others without ever admitting that was what she was doing. Her frustrations with Ten really stemmed from the same. She was trying to lie to him to trick him into protecting himself, throwing away her own morals and the beauty of Clara's sacrifice if that was the cost of protecting her best friend. Her issues with Rose are a long story, and actually mostly separate from her issues with Ten, except for Ten's instance on choosing Rose over the universe.
Though one event that reverted Me to Ashildr for a week had her and Ten being a student and teacher, and getting along quite well. Because of shenanigans, they wound up painting a mural together with every face the Doctor ever showed on Earth and any before Ten that had never made it to anywhere Me could have met him. After the Storm, trying to make peace, they worked together to recreate the mural.
Me also has game memories from a Storm (Many storms were temporary AU events) where she and the Master traveled extensively, which will also mess interestingly with regains; as Wake Me knows that the memories are false, if we get a Master player and they are interested, she can get those memories back as a regain without that context.
Basically Wake Me has a new fashion style, and a whole mess of conflicting memories that will mix with her faded canon memories to make an interesting soup of regains, especially once Bending and her healing are added back to the mix.
Physical description: A young woman who stopped aging in her early teens that uses clothing and makeup to look like a young adult. Medium long dark hair. She looks human.
Meta Powers From Canon: She heals almost impossibly fast, making her nearly impossible to kill. (She recovers from plague too swiftly to be killed by that as well.) She has also stopped aging, but her memory is human limited memory.
CRAU: Bending - using will power, imagination, focus, and power Bending can create nearly anything that isn't alive, can in rare cases create things with a limited life or even simpler life forms that are fully alive. Bending can be used against someone else, but in the game there was a system for checks for contested Bending. Since that won't be in this game, should she regain this ability I will plot with other players OOC and discuss before she tries anything against another PC.
Notable/Unique Needs: Not really.
2/3
Earth AU Age: 19
History: Ashley lost her mother when she was too young to remember her. Her father wanted to escape the memories and give his daughter a better life and her best chance, so he packed them up and moved them to America when Ashley was so young that she can't really remember where she was born and spent her earliest years. But in America they were the poor foreigners, her father spoke very little English. She quickly had to step up to try and communicate for them both. But she was a little kid, she could only do so much. And she knew it. So whenever she couldn't make things better she blamed herself. Her father wound up finding another group of immigrants and they became friends, even though most of them couldn't speak to each other other than in a handful of broken English words. Ashley went from feeling responsible for him to responsible for all of them. Trying to fix things for them all, she found someone willing to loan her the money that they needed to all get a large house to share. She was maybe twelve or thirteen then. She was doing her best. None of the adults in her life other than her teachers at school spoke enough English, and she didn't speak much of anything else anymore. So she fell into a bad situation. The man she borrowed from came to collect sooner than she expected. She had thought that she could have gotten her father and the others into better jobs if they had better clothes and a better home and better food. She failed, and they all wound up in a lot of trouble with the mob. Convinced that she was just making everything else by being there, she ran away from home. Ran away from everything.
After a while she was picked up by child protective services. They tried to bring her back home, but she was so certain that going back would make things worse her her father and their found family that she refused to tell anyone where she was from. A different lie every week, the only things that were the same were that she was an immigrant and that she was sixteen. The first was true, and the second being so constantly said in every lie, it was eventually believed. She thought that if she kept lying about what country she was from, not only couldn't they find her father, but they couldn't deport her. She never understood until she was actually an adult that it was because her case worker saw something in her and was using every legal trick she knew to help this poor kid she was sure was an orphan rather than a runaway.
Ashely was in the system for a while, bounced all around. She was afraid her age lie would be caught when they put her in school, because she wasn't anywhere near the High School level yet, but they kept dumping her in ESL classes that were pleased if she could do the bare minimum. Since studying every night gave her an excuse to not get close to any of her foster families she took it, working hard until bed every night studying, trying to learn enough to actually pull off this ruse of being sixteen. And what the case worker had seen in her was actually in her. She was bright and creative, she had so much potential. And she used it. She was valedictorian when she graduated High School, which might have been a greater achievement, except that she realized that the school she was in that point had her in as their diversity statistic and had some of the worst test scores in the county.
She realized as she got closer to graduation that once the birthday the Case Worker had assigned her - since she lied about that constantly - came, she'd be 18 in their eyes. She'd be out of the system. Thankfully her well written essay about her life as an immigrant orphan, while being mostly fiction, while combined with her grades, being able to use her as a diversity statistic, and her art got her enough of a scholarship that she could attend Queensborough Community College on a full ride. She worked hard on her studies and her art and managed to transfer to Queens College in her second year on a studio art scholarship. She got part time jobs while she was in school, working in various offices on campus, which meant she had flexible hours to work around her classes, and that she could often study on the job. She had a small apartment, but she practically lived in her studio on campus, working as late as security allowed each term. Thanks to LASARs she had to take classes outside her major and found another love. Thanks to her Case Worker thinking she needed a hobby that would give her a physical outlet that was more athletic than art, she had started taking archery classes when she first entered the system, and that was a constant from all her various foster homes, every weekend she went to whatever the closest archery range was and killed a few hours working with the long bow, the short bow, and the recurve. So when she had to take a class in the athletics department, instead of just taking health sciences like most of her classmates, she tried out for the women's fencing team, guessing it would be as much fun as archery. And it was. It wasn't the dramatic flailing around she expected from television, but there was an art to it. A precision. It was like archery in how important form was at all times. She loved it. College was the best time of her life.
Ashely was aware, though that there wasn't much of a financial future for a studio artist, and hadn't known what to do about the future. She studied other fields when she could, but her major took up so much time, because she had to keep her scholarship, that she couldn't throw herself into nursing or law or anything else that could have guaranteed that she would be set for life. Thankfully her caseworker, who had remained friends with her despite her many attempts to keep her distance, had an idea. She followed up on it and it worked. She was given a job in the Art Department. Not as a teacher, since she couldn't get that kind of a job with a B.A. not at QC. She worked there part time her last year and was made full time when she graduated. The department head encouraged her to apply for the NYU graduate studio art program. She tried, and didn't get it, but she was fine. She started a second BA oart time, in education, so that she could in the future teach.
When she earned enough she did try to go home, once. To find her father, to repay the debts and appologize. For everything. But she couldn't find him. Couldn't find any of them. Strangers lived in the house they had bought, and she found out that the man she had borrowed from had been arrested the year before for various crimes.
But seeing the old neighborhood she grew up in, she felt something shift. She went back to her case worker and spoke to her at length, then changed her major to social work. She couldn't save her father and his found family. So she was going to try to save other children before they got in over their heads as badly as she had... And she was sure of one thing. Any kid she found? She'd take them to the archery range straight away, and she wouldn't let them push her away.
Personality: (Even after all this time, Ashley tries to keep people at a distance. She keeps her relationships as superficial as she can, because even though her adult brain tells her that she isn't actually going to cause people to die or suffer just because she is near, it is still a fear lodged deep in her mind that she cannot shake. It is also one of her biggest concerns about her chosen career. But she didn't ruin her social worker turned friend, Karla, so she figured if she was that involved, but not more, it should be fine. Right? Right...?
That said, there are a few other traits, more positive ones, that she's kept from childhood. One is her art, and another is that she constantly tries to give back, and to give to those who do not have. From when she was a little kid cleaning up the playground and using the trash to make toys for the kids who didn't have any, to her time as a teenager trying to keep her foster families safe by avoiding them and volunteering for every clean up and art community project at whatever high school she was in, to her working so hard to become a case worker in the future... she is constantly trying to give. Some of it is guilt, guilt that she couldn't do more, guilt for that feeling like she is some harbinger of doom., and guilt that she never found her father. Half the time she's sure he's dead, the other half the time she's sure he's out there suffering somewhere and she just didn't look hard enough. That he was still waiting for her. And that drives her harder to give to those she can help. She keeps prepackaged foods like granola bars and pop tarts in her backpack at all times to give to the homeless and hungry she sees every day.
With her art, she still works at it, and every now and again she sells a piece at an art showing at the school, or on an Etsy shop online. But as much as she loves it, and even with her having been good enough to get a scholarship, she can't make a living off of it. But since she made the choice that her art was now more for her than for her future, she has become okay with that. She mostly works in colored pencils to sketch these days, but that is mostly because it is an inexpensive and portable medium. Her small studio apartment is more studio than apartment and is already too full of small clay statues and painted canvases. She could save up and afford a bigger place, but she is saving up... in case she ever finds her father again. Anyway, a bigger place would just tempt her to have more people in her life, and that was dangerous. For them. So she spent most of her time during the week on campus, either at work, in classes, hanging around the quad sketching, in the library, or in the athletics department, practicing her fencing when allowed. Saturdays are for archery - she helps out with the new students in exchange for range time. Sundays she meets up with Karla for coffee/tea and catch up. Usually the rest of her time is spent in Manhattan, at the various museums or at shows, soaking up the culture.
She loves learning. That is something that developed in high school when she had to push so hard to catch up with the age they thought she was. She wants to learn everything the can. She has daydreamed about nearly every career ever, but she understands the difference between an expert and a jack of all trades. She's practical. She knows she can't learn everything well enough to be good enough at it. So she reads on subjects that interests her, but keeps her focus to her art, her fencing, her archery, and her major.
Basically she is kind without seeing it. She thinks she's always either just doing "what anyone would do" or is making up for something, even when she's going above and beyond. For all she tries to keep people at a distance, she is constantly thinking about them and how to make things better for them.
She is at her happiest when she is doing art or archery. She is, thankfully, healthy enough not to feel guilty about doing those things for herself. So she gives herself that much self care. And physically she is healthy. She takes care of herself. She is good at saving money, and trading work for services, so that when she does have to buy something, she has the freedom to take her time and make sure she gets something that will last or will be exactly what she needs, rather than rushing for whatever she can afford. So while her apartment doesn't have a lot in it, what it has is all durable and good quality. So she doesn't have a bed frame, she didn't see the point, she does have a very good mattress. She understands that if she isn't in good shape she can't help anyone else and do what she has to throughout the day. She does have one seemingly frivolous procession though. She owns a gorgeous hand carved recurve bow. She traded with a fellow student in her final year of studio art. She painted a mural in every room of the new apartment he was moving into and he carved her a bow. It is her treasure and her bow case is the best she could buy. She painted it herself. She only gets to use it the once a week she goes to the range, but she loves the perfect feel of it in her hand. She loves the golden and silver strands woven into the jet black bowstring like stars and suns in the sky.
If asked, Ashley wouldn't say she was happy, but wouldn't admit to having anything to complain about either. If asked she wouldn't say she was particularly good, but didn't see herself as evil, either. She would tell you that she's just a person. Just one more face among the many in New York, just one note in the song, just one thread in the tapestry....
Physical description: Same as canon, just dressed more casually and in more colors, and with softer expressions.
Your Characters 'Event Memory'? 2:55- 3:55 The memory is less than a minute by far, but the episode dragged it out for drama.
Written:
She stood at a widow staring out at the mostly empty street beyond. From her angle she could see what looked like a peddler's cart on the cobbles. A single Raven rested atop it. She could see a girl. Her friend. She knew there were other people there, but the memory was too brief, she didn't see them. She knew another was her friend. She thought one would hate her. But her mind at the time wasn't focused on that, so Ashely doesn't know who or why. She knows the woman. Clara. Her friend. She knew she was somehow being brave.
The raven lifted off of the cart with a cry, and flew towards the woman. She watched the bird fly into the woman's stomach and vanish. She saw the woman who seemed to be in pain. for some reason she was just watching, knew everyone was just watching. For some reason she was sure someone would do something stupid, but again the memory didn't give her enough to know who or why.
The woman shuddered, arms spread wide. Dark mist issued from her mouth. Somehow she knew it was the bird. Or because of the bird. The the woman, her friend... Clara....? fell to the cobbles. Dead. And when the memory faded, Ashley would find herself with her other self's last thought of the memory, that the death had been brave and noble... and beautiful.
Anything else? Because of CRAU, she is a mix of real memories and fake memories. And a lot of her real memories, because of canon, she's lost. I am looking forward to confusing the snot out of her, honestly.
Also, she has one ability that I couldn't figure out where to put in, because it is not magical, it is not a power, and it isn't something she's worked hard at and focused on. She is really good at acting. This showed in her back story when she finally convinced them she was 16, and is used to keep most people from realizing how shallow she's keeping their friendship, even when they think they're getting close. What wasn't mentioned even that much is that at part of it, she is really good at changing her voice and posture so that with the right change of clothes, hair, and makeup, she can fool most people who know her - again see that they know her only superficially anyway, and at a Halloween party with masks, even Karla can't pick her out in a crowd.
3/3
TDM sample
One of her last threads in the game she is CRAU from
And a sample from her CRAU game with a lot of different people to see how she interacts with others. (This also shows Bending at work, specifically in Get Off My Lawn and the header with the Dragon Tiamaris.)
Revisions/additions
< TEXT HERE The Earth AU omits a number of important details. For example, it never mentions what Ashley's birth country is or what non-English language she and her father speak. It also doesn't mention how old Ashley is in actuality during the time she is lying about her age. Nor does the AU age listed for her at the moment she enters the game match the timeline of events. And the AU history does not explain what job she was able to obtain in a major university’s Art Department as an undergrad. We ask that these details be added. >
I was attempting to be succinct, so I may have missed stuff in trying to keep under the word limit. I appologize. I will attempt to clarify/expand here without being overly wordy.
Birth country I had omitted since she was so young she doesn't really remember it, but she is from Norway. Her father probably spoke Nynorsk. But Ashley has lost most of her first language and speaks primarily English. When she was claiming to be sixteen she was thirteen.
You may well be right that I goofed on the math of her real age. It was a long AU and it was developing as I wrote and I missed fixing that. I think a real age of 21 or 22 is closer to where she should be?
I said she worked in the office, I guess that I was just leaning too much into what I know from having worked in a college office as an undergrad. Basically she is a mix of a secretary and an assistant. I figure she was riding a desk and talking to students who came in to figure out if they needed to speak to a professor, if so who, or if it was a question she could answer with her database.
< The memory selected is for a different character than the one you’re app-ing. The Event memory can only be something your character experienced. (When we watched the clip, we did not see your character at all.) >
Okay so on that, if you go back to the start of the clip you will see that she was present. She was watching this happen and very connected to it because that was one of her two best friends, and the death was kind of sort of her fault. She is inside the building that the older man stepped out of to watch. She talks about the death later, so we know she observes it. I apologize that it was confusing, I was again, trying not to exceed limits, so context got lost. I am not as good at the short form as I would like to be.
< We would like you to explain what mechanisms Wake had in place to limit the game settings’ meta powers. Then we can determine if they are still in effect or not. >
Here is a link to word of Mod on Bending and limitations.
< The Earth AU needs to be plausible for the setting of our game which is modern Earth. There are a number of events in this AU that do not meet this criteria. The Earth AU seems engineered to maximize negative drama. The AU needs to be revised to be more plausible.
If you would prefer a detailed list of what we think makes the Earth AU implausible and too dramatic, you may contact the Mods. >
I will do so, so that I know what to fix. Thank you. I will admit to not knowing what the problem is with a negative and dramatic backstory, however. (as you can see by my other app as well.)
Thank you for giving me the chance to revise both apps. I will respond to Elphaba's/Ethel's separately, though will only bother the mod contact link once for both.