A Death in Summer ❧ An Advanced Roleplay discussion

______________________________________

 Dᴀɴᴇ DᴇHᴀᴀɴ ᴀs Jᴀᴍᴇs Pʀᴇsᴛᴏɴ
 _________________

James was nineteen years of age when he died and his form has not been altered. He is a soul at the moment but because of his life experience, he is advanced enough to be a guide. He is a heterosexual heteroromantic which means he is attracted to the opposite sex and he is single. James also has a scar on the left side of his face which is a sign what happened in his past.

He was the boy that everyone admired.
 ______________________

James was a rebel, he didn't listen to rules and often lived on the edge. Which often got him into trouble with the cops. Most would consider him dangerous and cold. He also has a mysterious side to him that can make anyone go crazy.

He is very sarcastic and usually will make fun of people who are crying. As mean as it sounds, it is hard for him to pity someone else. In fact, he doesn't cry much and it is hard to know if he even cares. But he will be quick to react and tell you something, if he trusts you. Most don't know this but the actual way he got here was doing something heroic and unselfish.

So, on that note, I doubt you will find out the deeper side to him...unless...well....never mind. That is for you to find out.

 It is obvious why he is here.
 ______________________

When he was younger, his father beat him and his mother did nothing about it. As he got older, people started to question his wounds and he was so afraid at the time, that he refused to tell anyone. But one night, cops were sent to his house. His father heard the lights and his temper spiked. James heard his loud footsteps and angry voice coming up the stairs. James dropped everything and opened the window. As he did though his father smashed through the door. James was about to jump until his father grabbed his sweater hood and threw him against the wall against glass. The cops came up and pulled him off but the poor kid appeared to be half dead.

James was never the same after that. Even though they took him to an orphanage, he never recovered from the mess that forever destroyed his mind. As kids teased him, no one could help him. He ran away and began living on the streets. If they brought him back, he would always find a way to escape. He began smoking when he was just a young teen and often got himself into gang fights. But there was one thing that made him comfortable about being in a gang. They were there for him when no one else was. As he grew, he got into a lot of trouble with the law. As he went in and out of jail, one officer took a special liking to him.

At first, James didn't like Officer Lambert. But as time grew, they surprisingly became closer. Apparently, Lambert saw something in him, something that could change. However, once his gang found he was talking to a cop, they became angry with him and almost killed him. James at first blamed everything on the officer but Lambert never gave up. James was out in a dangerous spot but Lambert was following. When James spotted him, you could tell how pissed he would be. "What the hell do you want? Stop following me damn it!" James turned around but Lambert grabbed his arm. "James! Listen to me! I care. That is why I am following you. I care." "If you cared, you would leave me alone." Lambert's eyes became colder. "James-" before he could finish gun shots broke out. "Get down!" James shouted to Lambert. But the gang was to big and they were surrounded in no time even as they fought back. They grabbed James and then Lambert. "Well, well James. I am glad you are able to witness the most exciting part of your life. Your precious cop's death." The gun loaded but James broke loose and jumped onto the shooter and the gun sounded off. James was shot in the heart. "JAMES!" As that happened, the sound of cop cars were in the distance. They started to run but Lambert was so in shock that he didn't even chase after them. Instead, he was on his knees holding the lifeless body of James.

James woke up in a funny place. Purg as most called it. He has only been here a week but lets just say for him it feels longer. How he got here? He doesn't know. How he died? Doesn't remember. That is why he is here. To learn his fate.

(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)]

Wren — or Reilly, as she prefers to be called by her last name — is a young woman who does nothing but build a fortress around her. In a place she doesn’t know where she doesn’t know anyone, it’s the most secure self-defense mechanism. She’s clever, enough to know when to hurt and when to slowly torture with words or a knife. But she’s vulnerable when her past is mentioned; she doesn’t know how to brush it off. She can cover up her vulnerabilities, but that makes people assume that she actually can handle herself on her own. Even if she forces herself, Wren knows that that isn’t true. She has always been dependent on her other people in her life. If she is in pain, she needs to have someone near her — or even better yet, have another human touching her. She had never been, has never been, and still isn’t able to suffer isolation. It is her greatest fear; it grows worse as she tries to force herself to deal with it. But when she is in a place she does not recognize — that she had never imagined could exist — her anxiety increases tenfold. Reilly, at nature, is a very messy person; she may look pretty, but her hair will be a mess unless someone else wants to fix it for her, which she would never mind (actually, she would prefer it). Her fingers and wrists always hurt when she tries to wrestle her thick hair into a bun. But at the very least, she knows how to tie her own shoelaces. Wren is also neither a cold nor warm person. In her past, she had been warm — warm as life could make her. But now, she is neutral to everything around her. Don’t get attached. Don’t get used to this place. You are getting out.

When she’d died, she had been a free spirit. She loved to run in the morning and at night, when there was hardly anyone around — or at least anyone who would notice her. She liked to be invisible when the place around her was very, very alive — walking through the city when the lights are all out or taking a stroll in the neighborhood just when the dawn was peeking at the world.

↱ “Why don’t you and I… strike a little deal?” ↲

Her death was not admirable. It was absolutely pointless. It probably caused her family pain because she’d been close with them. Her boyfriend, whom she had been going out with for just three months, was driving her home when a drunk driver barreled into them. Wren had died instantly, her organs crushed and irreparably shaken. She had even been wearing her seat belt, and the two hadn’t even been talking; as they always had, they’d been drinking in each other’s presence, taking comfort in it. It had been quiet, pleasant. She was only ever so quiet around him because that was her true self: silence.

There hadn’t been anything scarring in her childhood or past. She had been an average B student, an only child with many friends — none of whom she told her problems, which led them to assume that she had a perfect life (this is why she usually keeps her own problems to herself. She'd only told her boyfriend some of her secrets, and only some). Her family was not rich. Well, they are now — they are rich in sorrows and pain and memories that they probably don't want anymore. What she would give to just have one more fight with her family, just to hear their voices — she'd rather have a fight than a reunion of tears. Anger was Wren's outlet, one of the few she had. She misses her family most of all right now.

Wren has more than too many regrets. She hadn’t even had a say in her death, just like almost all the others who have ever died. She hadn’t even said good-bye to her boyfriend, the closest person to her at that time, let alone her family or anyone else.

Regret and anger roils in the deepest part of Reilly’s heart. She wants revenge; she knows that life isn’t fair, so she won’t stick by the rules — or her principles — anymore.

She was a free spirit before. Now, she's a tiger prowling in her very large glass cage, watchful and reckless.

(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)]

If you don’t know this woman, call her Liane. If you do, call her Emma. If you’ve gotten her respect, you can call her Emmy. All other morons call her Sauveterre. If you go out of order, you’re going to piss her off — because if there’s anything Liane despises with all her heart, it’s getting not enough respect that she thinks she deserves.

The complicated haze around Liane is that she was never quite openly admired or respected. The few who did had all of her gratitude and all her warmth — and all of her trust. That’s why it is so rare to see her trusting someone else with work or sensibility and least of all, with her heart. It is because there were so few people — whom she can never speak to again, now that she was forever separated from them. She wants — and deludes herself into thinking that she needs — others’ respect and admiration in order to accept herself. This is one of her most terrible flaws, one of the biggest reasons she never became great. She’s narcissistic and so damn confident on the outside; she also believes in herself enough to make others roll their eyes at her sudden self-compliments. But that’s not it; people don’t see that there’s sadness in her teasing smile or laugh. She has trouble keeping her self-confidence at such an insanely high level when no one else supports her. It’s not as if she’s invincible — and it most certainly is not that she loves herself. She loves certain parts of herself, yes, but does she love Liane Emelia Sauveterre? No. And she thinks that she never will.

Liane’s parents had divorced. Same old story to everyone, right? But not to Liane. She knows that divorces are so common, it happens everywhere. But it had happened when she was thirteen. Thirteen. “What a lucky number,” she would say. She had been dealing with other children trying to harass her and who shoved her in the hallways. She could deal with that on her own — she was Liane, for heaven’s sake, she didn’t need pepper spray when she had two hands — but not when her most stable foundation started to crack. She hadn’t seen it coming, not at all. She never stayed home for long, and she almost never paid attention to the relationship between her parents. Her parents were the type to kiss each other when they came home, and she was averse to romantic relationships. She just was; she wasn’t even used to seeing it because she thought it was embarrassing and always looked away. She never paid attention to the frown on her father’s face when he returned to his room or the grimace on her mother’s face when she returned to her work at the table (she was a lawyer). She’d hardly paid attention to the discord between her parents, like an oblivious little girl who was senseless, stupid, blind. Liane had been so preoccupied with her life; she went outside to the library or to the café to do her homework. If her parents weren’t home, she didn’t want to be there in the quiet. She knew how to go outside, and she loved noise. Two of Liane’s greatest lovers: chaos and books. Very contradictory, one would suppose, considering reading is a quiet hobby, but that is how Liane is. Liane also hung out with friends very often, and she took almost all honors classes. She wasn’t an idiot, and she didn’t like to procrastinate — she never did it for long, because she is a creature of habit, routine. She is slightly obsessive with routine, even, although it isn’t very obvious; she tries to keep that hidden because it might be seen as a weakness.

When her parents had divorced, Liane had been torn between living with her father or with her mother. She loved both equally. She may have talked to her mother more frequently, but she depended on her father more because her mother worked more than her father did. While her mother was a lawyer, her father was a university professor. He had just a little bit more time for Liane. She loved both. So she stayed with her father for one year and moved in with her mother for one summer. After she did this once, she decided to stay with her mother. She knew that her mother was stressed, but her mother was also the type not to depend on other people. Her father also already had a girlfriend, who pained Liane to see, even though the woman had done nothing wrong. In fact, she’d hugged Liane, given her presents. She had liked Liane. But Liane… Liane hadn’t liked her, no matter how much she didn’t want to admit it. So, Liane went to live with her mother, who was practically drowning herself in work so she could support Liane in school and in college. Liane started taking up part-time jobs to help her mother. They narrowly avoided getting into a financial crisis, especially when her mother’s family started helping out. Her mother had rejected her ex-husband’s offer to chip in; she didn’t want to be associated with him anymore. Later, it was explained to Liane why they had divorced: apparently, they’d been unhappy with each other for a very long time, both having personalities that clashed. But Liane’s mother had already been pregnant with her first and only child, so they had continued, stubborn, foolish, ignorant.

Liane had died because she’d been murdered. There had been a serial killer in Los Angeles, and Liane had been one of the unknowing victims who had been stabbed to death. She didn’t know what happened to that serial killer, if he had ever been caught; she only remembered his face, his famous face. He had been grinning at her, his hand above her face, dripping her own blood on her cheeks. She'd seen red when she died. She'd seen black.

She had nightmares now. She can never forget the tiniest details of that summer day. She just wanted to go home, to hug her mother. If she couldn’t be alive again, she just wanted to hug her mother one last time. She wanted to see her father and his girlfriend, happy. If possible, she wanted to see her mother happy, but she knew how slim the chances were, when her mother had loved Liane so much. Even if they weren’t as close as some other mothers and daughters were, they were the closest they could be under the circumstances.

Liane does not want to return to Los Angeles. She does want to see her family, but after that, she wants to move somewhere far away — the other side of the States, maybe France with her aunt and maternal grandfather. She keeps hoping that maybe, just maybe she’ll return. But deep down, she knows.

The dead can never return.

Meredith — “Mer’s fine” — is not one to keep to herself. She will always be around other people, and she’s the type to flirt with even her friends. She is also the type to have on-off relationships and not care about other people’s judgment. However, she doesn’t “look” the type — as in, she wears casual, normal graphic T-shirts and jeans. She also wears dresses from time to time, but they’re always longer than mid-thigh. She is also very proud of her hair, a subject for ridicule by her friends, but she plays along smoothly (“After all, I have better hair than they do.”) She’s playful by nature, deceptive at heart. She likes to play mind games and feed some half-truths to get some fun. She likes to see other people beating themselves up over something they hadn’t done, and one of her favorite hobbies is guilt-tripping, which she is too good at — for a reason. Meridith does not, in any way, look like an innocent girl, and she is good at pretending to be one, but she doesn’t like to pretend to be one, because she knows she isn’t. She also really loves to laugh and smile because they’re relieving, and they help her forget where she is for a little moment. She knows she shouldn’t let her guard down, she knows that, but can’t she let her guard down just for a little while?

She wants to be acknowledged by everyone. She needs to be. She cannot be ignored, she will not suffer that feeling. She doesn’t care if everything else is chaos — she loves trouble — but the one thing she needs in control is that she will never be ignored. If she is ignored, she feels insignificant. If she feels insignificant, her thoughts will stray. Then she’ll remember. She’ll remember what is always lurking at the back of her mind, eating away at whatever is left at her defenses. She’ll remember her past.

Why is she so good at making others feel guilty? you might ask. Why does she enjoy it? That all ties in to Meridith’s history. She was abandoned by teenage parents at a hospital when she was five. She knows who her biological parents are, but she pretends that they don’t exist. She isn’t ashamed of her history — or so she tells herself. But that’s not true — of course she’s embarrassed of parents who didn’t know and didn’t want to be her parents; of course she’s embarrassed that they abandoned her, didn’t see her worth the effort of raising her. Then she was taken into foster homes — several and many. It’s not a surprise that Meridith is difficult, a rebel. But the Lewises had been the ones who’d taken her in for the longest — the first time she stepped foot in their house, she was fourteen. She’d warmed up to them and her new older brother and younger brother, one in college and the other still in middle school. She’d grown to love all of them. And then she had an accident. She was usually so careful with cars when crossing the street; she always looked both ways, she always sped up when crossing. She always paid attention. But a truck had been speeding — very, very fast — at her while she was crossing, and she was carrying grocery bags. She had been on an errand for her family; it had been her turn to buy groceries. They were a little heavy, nothing that she couldn’t handle, but she couldn’t run with so many bags pulling at her arms. She later learned right before she died — she’d heard voices yelling — that the truck driver had been a thief. The last thing she remembers is her hand in a death grip, ironically; her father had been chanting to her, “Stay, Mer. Stay.” She’d heard a lot of different voices in that room, but her father’s had stood out the most, being the closest to her. She hadn’t even had a chance to smile before she left. It was unfair, how she had never told her true family — which she had finally found, finally realized that it could happen, that she could have a family — that she loved them. She had never said it, when all of them had said it to her at least a hundred times.

People know her story. She has only told one other person about her past, she only opens up to one other person about her past — and she only opens up after she deems someone trustworthy enough — Ha! she’d laugh — or after they follow her around and persist for a very long time. But somehow, other people know her story, whether it was in the papers for a short time or if they heard from her family, her friends, her neighbors. And she used that to her advantage. She obviously would get pity from at least some people. And she always got pity from her foster parents — minus the Lewises — so she had practice. She has enjoyed this little sadistic guilt-tripping for many years, because it was how she defended herself against the world, against reality. She knew how others thought of her, how she was so vulnerable and sad beneath all that snarkiness, that sarcasm. But she wasn’t. She would not let herself, so she wasn’t. And she enjoyed making others feel guilty for things they either deserved to feel guilty for — in which case, she relished every tear that fell down their cheeks — or for things they had no reason to be guilty for because that was Meridith’s outlet. That was how she tried not to think too much. Her sadism helped her ignore her now sorry state of dead but alive.

But what is so ironic and funny about Meridith is that she loves to be manipulative, she is good at being manipulative (and unpredictable), but she can’t manipulate herself. She would probably prefer being able to manipulate herself at well than manipulating others. She wouldn’t have to have to hurt others that way, if she could just control herself. But she has trouble with self-control — a lot of trouble — so she thinks hurting others is the only way for her to maintain control.

Rᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴsʜɪᴘs —
Older brother figure: ( ALESSIA )
Romantic interest: TBD

"You can call me Alex or Jerry. Yeah, Jerry. You know — like Tom and Jerry.”

Alexander is a cheerful boy who can manage very sharp sarcasm when he wants to. If you approach a subject he doesn’t want to talk about, like his family (though he doesn’t mind skimming the surface of his past), he’ll tell you to back off, quite clearly — and very passive-aggressively. Otherwise, he’s an inviting, welcoming person with a warm heart — though most people can tell, upon meeting him for the first time, that something is off-kilter about his warm-hearted presence. Something was lacking in that smile, in that so-convincing wink. Something was gone. It was like that one puzzle piece that a little child could never find in a thousand-piece puzzle. The one piece that mattered so much, that would finish off the puzzle, so that the child could display it, could show it off. It was like his name — how it was so close in pronunciation to “Alexander,” yet in place of the x is an s. An obvious difference.

He loves jokes, he loves puns — especially if a socially awkward person who is uncomfortable or bad with jokes makes the joke in the first place. He’ll definitely appreciate the effort — but he’ll approve of the joke more. However, the irony of this is that he would never, ever in his life want to be a comedian because he knew — he knew that the best comedian was the most depressed. John Belushi, Jim Carrey, Robin Williams.

Like Robin Williams, Alexander Blackburn had committed suicide. That is exactly how Alex would answer someone’s question. He’d talk about comedians, how he never wanted to be one, and then he’d say it straight to the point, out of the blue — he’d committed suicide.

“I can keep going if you want. If you can listen any more.”

Alexander had been one of the boys who seemed more perfect, happier, smarter. He had worked at the library for community service and worked at his taekwondo school for a part-time job. He was the one who was involved. He almost always had an answer for anyone’s questions, and sometimes he considered his words carefully when the situation called for it; other times, he just let his words loose and made people laugh. He had been in all honors classes. He didn’t know what to do with his future life; he excelled in science, but he didn’t want to chase that field. He was one of those people, yes, the ones who are so very skilled at one subject but does not want to hone their talents, increase their potential by tenfold to become someone great. Yes, he is selfish. Alexander is very selfish. Going into the science field, he could save lives, depending on which field he went into; if he wanted to become a doctor, he could save lives directly. But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want any of that, he didn’t want all of that responsibility weighing down on his shoulders. He didn’t want to bear with someone dying because of him. So, he didn’t know what to do. But whenever someone asked, he’d always have a random answer — “a KPOP dancer,” “a writer,” “a lawyer” — and everyone fell for it. And then everyone found out about his random answers. And then people would ask him what he really wanted to do. And he wouldn’t have an answer; he’d falter just for a moment. Then he’d say “I’ll figure it out” with a grin. A grin. Not tears, not anger, not smashing his fists into the walls and tearing photographs and papers. That was all for at home. So, people thought he was fine. That he could handle it, handle the decision on his own.

But he couldn’t. And the stress got to be too much. His parents were very well off — in fact, they were rather rich — but they wanted him to be independent. They would give him some money, and eventually he would inherit a lot of it, with his younger brother. But his mother and father had an idealized Alexander in their minds; they wanted that Alexander to be real, to be theirs, to be him. And he didn’t want to be. He argued with his father one day, then with his mother another night. He thought that he wasn’t enough for them — he doesn’t know that his parents just wanted to help him because they knew that he didn’t know what to do. They thought giving him some guidance, showing him some things that he could and should do instead of what he could want to do was the best way for him to not corner himself. Cornering himself is something that Alexander does a lot, so he can figure out his thoughts, organize them, filter out the unnecessary self-hatred. They didn’t want him to do that. But they ended up exacerbating his self-hatred until it spilled out one day. THIS IS A TRIGGER TOPIC. (view spoiler)[When he was sixteen, it just spilled all out. He started drawing red lines on his arms, up his arms so that no one could see them. When he wore T-shirts, he had to resist the urge so much not to draw on himself again. He never once cut himself. He constantly forced himself to not think too much so as to actually commit suicide, he thought so much that he could bear with it, maybe, if he just kept doing this instead. Maybe one day, it would just all magically stop. But it didn’t. It never did. (hide spoiler)] Alex wasn’t a happy boy at all. Too many expectations came from everyone around him — he had fought to become who he was. He’d been bullied in middle school for being so quiet, for trying to fit in. When he’d moved in eighth grade and been more open about himself, he was bullied less because his self-confidence, his influence over others were more obvious. But then people expected him to always be happy, always be funny, always make others laugh. He was always expected to be someone he was beginning to not be anymore. He had been changing already, but he’d been shoving away the changes so that he could fulfill other people’s expectations. At the same time, his family situation grew worse when he was fifteen, a sophomore. His father was beginning to lash out at his mother physically; he was becoming an alcoholic. His father had been an alcoholic before, when he was in his late twenties, but he’d gotten out of it through therapy. But it was coming all back to the man in a rush; the stress of work as a CEO wasn’t something to be taken lightly. The man’s family, with whom he’d cut off all contact, had also found a way to contact him again. Alexander didn’t know the details, and his mother never told him the details. His father never laid a hand on Alexander, even though he was always close to it. Thankfully, Alex had known some self-defense techniques already, having started taekwondo when he was seven. He knew how to protect himself. But his mother? He didn’t know how to protect his mother. One day, he did, he kept his father back. And his father had turned on him. After several minutes fighting, his father on the floor having lost consciousness, Alex had picked himself up, his entire body riddled with bruises and slick blood, and walked over to his mother. She had told him never to do that again. He hadn’t realized that she didn’t want him to get hurt again — he thought that she didn’t want his help, didn’t want him to protect her — she wanted him away. These events kept accumulating in a black hole until Alex let himself get sucked in. He hanged himself from a ceiling fan.


 


He hates to talk about his past, even if he’s still smiling while talking about it. He’ll tell you that he committed suicide and how he did it — but he won’t tell you why, and he most definitely will not tell you about his family. He might tell you about his friends, but he’ll talk about them as if they were really the best friends he’d ever had. They were not. Contrary to what he might seem, Alex is not one who trusts openly or easily. It’s too dangerous, it leaves him too naked, exposed.

But for now, no one knows about the details of his past. No one thinks that he had an abusive parent; the most they might suspect is that he had too many expectations to follow up on. He also had a little brother to be a perfect model for; he was not a perfectionist, but for his brother, he will be as perfect and trustworthy and reliable as possible. And he was. His little brother never saw what happened between their parents, between his father and Alex. He always steered his brother away, told him to go outside, or they both went outside. Alex would sometimes drop his brother off at a nearby friend’s house, and then he’d return home to deal with his parents. Deal with them. He couldn’t find comfort in either his mother or his father now. He only had to suffer with them.

And that is the grand, happy story of Alexander Jeremy Blackburn, who likes to be called Jerry because he liked that brown mouse who always managed to win, always managed to run away. He wished that he had been able to run away while coming out alive at the other end of the tunnel. He had never even found the light at the tunnel; if he had, it was his brother, and when his brother wasn’t around because he had taken him somewhere safe… that light was snuffed out.

Alex had never liked a girl; he obviously never found the time to relax quite so much and really notice a girl as a girl; he noticed them enough to know when they needed a smile and to make them laugh. He had always built walls around himself, invisible walls that no one had seen or they had ignored.

But he refuses to fall deeper into the hole he’d created than he already had. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He regretted leaving his younger brother alone. He regretted not doing enough for his brother before he couldn’t handle it anymore.

Charlie Elsbeth Monroe::Died at 21::Angel-Guide::Female

"We are most alive when we're in love. With the enormity of love I have for you, I can almost feel my heart beating again."

Pre-Death History

Charlotte Charlie Elsbeth Monroe died at the tender age of 21. How, many wonder, did this red headed beauty pass away? Her eyes scream innocence, her naturally occurring soft pout seeming to ask for nothing but kindness, perhaps even friendship. Her life, for the 21 years she spent it, seemed to be as innocent as she.
Charlie grew up in Oxford, England with her mother and father. Her parents were divorced when she was only four years of age, and this was Charlie's first example of the fragility of human bonds. Her father disappeared, only to return occasionally on her birthday. He was there for her fifth, sixth, tenth...fourteenth...and then never again. She resented him immensely for this. What kind of father leaves his only child behind? Of course, she never voiced these thoughts.
She grew up a rather intelligent child, focusing most of her time on reading. Charlie was rarely seen without her nose buried within the depths of an old book. She wasn't much for modern fiction, classics were more her type. She knew from an early age that she wished to attend Oxford University as well. She often went to visit the campus, simply for fun. When she was but a sophomore in high school, she was visiting Oxford one day, when she bumped, quite literally, into someone from her school, a senior, named Timothy.
Timothy was the first boy to ever show interest in the young redhead, so of course she was smitten. He was kind to her, he wanted to attend Oxford much like she did, although obviously not as badly. When she spent her life trying to find her place, Timothy evidently knew his. It wasn't long before the two started going on dates. They never dated, he never asked her to be his girlfriend, but Charlie could hardly tell the difference. Their fling of dates lasted two months before she gave her virginity up to Timothy.
This was the biggest mistake of her living life, or so she believes. After their fantasy night, one where Charlie believed Timothy truly loved her. He was her first 'love,' she dreamed they would get married, they would go to Oxford together and have little Oxford babies and everything would be simply like a fairytale. But this was not so. Word spread rapidly around the school. Everyone knew the little sophomore had given her V-Card up to a senior--and they weren't even in a relationship. She was called every name in the book, and it wasn't long before Timothy stopped talking to her...she felt as if her entire life was falling apart.

But Charlie Monroe is one tough cookie. She came back swinging, hiding behind a facade of maturity and understanding that most of her classmates had no experience of. She walked about as if she owned the place, and she got treated almost as if she did. Things got significantly better the next year, when Timothy was gone. She didn't know if he made it into Oxford or not, and she never bothered finding out. Her ambition and her attitude brought friends towards her. She had a tight circle of girls whom she adored, and she took close care of them. She would block out all negative forces around her, and she acted as if she were invincible.

Charlie did make it into Oxford, something which she and her mother gloriously celebrated. Charlie was so excited to finally leave her high school and no longer need to act as she had for the past three years. She attended the University and for a while, it was everything she had dreamed.
Her major was in English, with a Minor in Communications and Journalism. She adored spending her time reading and analyzing and spending hours upon hours in the library. Everything was going smoothly until her sophomore year, second semester, when she met Dr. Edward Sloan. Dr. Sloan was an English Doctor, her educator for her Theories and Methods course. He was young, approximately 28, and married. He recognized her potential as a writer quite early in the class. They began meeting, just small, simple meetings, at a cafe, in his office, at the library. Everything seemed simple, until it wasn't.
It started with the small brush of his hand against hers, the lock of eyes, the share of a laugh. It was a late Friday night when the problem began. They were tired, it was late, and they had been analyzing text together for hours. Charlie made a rather cheesy, yet witty pun, and their eyes locked. She blinked, and suddenly, their lips were upon each other. It was wrong, and not simply because he was her professor. He was also married.
They tried to keep away from each other, to avoid the electricity which ran between them. But it was impossible. It was as if they were magnets, being pulled towards each other, and they could do nothing but go along with the ride. He professed his love for her, saying he would leave his wife, and they would be together. It seemed like he meant it. But he didn't.
Her junior year was when shit really hit the fan. Charlie was tired of secret meetings and the lies. After all, if he truly wanted to be with her, they should be allowed to be together. She gave Edward the ultimatum, telling him to leave his wife for her, or she would end things between them. It didn't go over well, and they got into a extreme fight. It was a good thing it was far after hours, because their screams echoed the halls. Finally, tired of the ridiculousness of the situation, she told him that either he was going to tell his wife, or she would do it.
They left on terrible terms. Charlie was sobbing, struggling with the knowledge of how fragile a thing love was, how breakable all bonds were. It was late, and it was dark, but she knew the way. It was nice out, so she decided to walk instead of flag a cab, and this was, perhaps, the decision which did her in. She made her way quickly down an alley towards her flat when she felt him grab her, her eyes quickly covered by a gloved hand, and hand which would have been familiar if it weren't covered. She couldn't scream, but she flailed against her attackers strong grasp.
He had planned to do it quickly, to stab her, to have it be done with, but her movement made him drop his knife. So, unsure of what to do, panicking, he snapped her neck and her body dropped, lifeless, to the ground. He ran. He was never caught. And Charlie's body was found, discarded, in a dumpster.

Appearance:

The first most noticeable detail about Charlie Monroe is her hair. Her hair is a burning red. Not what would be coined the hair colour of a "ginger," not a soft orange, but a strong, powerful, natural bloody red. Her nose slopes slightly upwards, like a tiny ski slope and her eyes are rather on the large side, like that of an aquatic being. Her eyes are as blue as smooth sea glass and seemingly always seeking knowledge. If one stares within them long enough, perhaps one will see the depths of her soul. Her skin is a pale, milky white, and she has a soft line of freckles over the bridge of her nose.
(view spoiler)[

(hide spoiler)]

Personality:

Charlie is generally a very caring individual. She feels the deep drive to take care of others at all costs. She also seeks a great love story. She wants love and connections more than nearly anything else. Even after she transitioned over to being a angel, and then a guide, she still sought to prove not all bonds were fragile.
This can create quite the problem for poor Charolette Monroe when it comes to her job as a guide. She often becomes very emotionally attached to the souls she is charged to take care of. It becomes very difficult to see her souls cross over, and would often throw her into deep pits of sorrow, where she would spend days simply roaming Purgatory, weeping. But she keeps helping these poor souls, even though every fiber of her being drivers her to do the opposite.
Her past is a very touchy subject and she often lashes out when questions about her time alive, or about her death, ever comes up. She claims she doesn't remember the actions of her death, but this is false. In truth, she remembers every detail, up to the moment where her neck was snapped and she drew her last breath.
Briefly, if one were questioned upon Charlie's personality, the traits which would most quickly be named would be, in no particular order: caring, stubborn, sad, longing.

"Hot dog or pizza? I think I'm more of a pizza guy.

Arie is a friendly, casual kind of guy. For all you knew, he could be showing you the Harry Potter amusement park, not Purgatory. He can even do the Skittles advertisement in just that annoyingly happy voice. But Arie is hard to place or categorize. He plunges into mood swings like he eats his meals. He changes every day just a little bit; on Monday, he’ll be sad, then the next day, he’ll be angry. The day after that, he’ll be smiling like nothing had ever happened. It’s as if he doesn’t want anyone to identify him as any one thing besides Arie. He doesn’t want to be knowable or understandable. He’d met souls who’d tried to peg him before, and each time, they failed. They always thought he was something different. If he was something different every day now, then they’d always be right. It was a convoluted, difficult way of Arie just wanting to belong somewhere.

The strangest thing with Arie, who is both extroverted and introverted, is that he gets attached to things very easily and too quickly, in some way or another — curiosity, infatuation, awe, admiration, love, hatred. It’s a pain in the ass for him that he’s like this, because he’s a guide and the people he gets attached to — they’re souls. And souls leave. And he stays in Purgatory. There are so many souls every day; he rarely catches a break in heaven, where just maybe he could catch a glimpse of some of the souls who had discovered how they’d died and reached heaven. He could just see them, maybe. But he usually didn’t. And he usually didn’t go up there, because he knew he would try to look for those people — the people who left and went to somewhere better. He made an effort to take up the longer, more difficult assignments because he didn’t want to go back.

He manages two souls: Kali (Corina) and TBA.

Our lust is a lie, but it comes as no surprise
Time after time, it goes right past the line
I do my best to, to make amends with you
But I just can't see the end

So, as soon as he thinks the soul is getting too close to him, Arie puts distance between himself and the soul — he wouldn’t give the soul a name. He wouldn’t. If he did, he would get attached. Some would call Arie primitive that way.

Arie had died at a shooting in university. There had been a bomb threat of some sort at school, but then there was a shooting instead. He despises half-hearted jokes made about this kind of topic, though one wouldn’t know when he laughs over a careless friend shouting that he’d kill him. He knows that some people just do not understand, and he accepts it. He tries to keep himself away from conflicts, even though it’s the last thing he wants to do. He actually really loves fights and loves to encourage them, but he stifles that childish side of him. He is also very selfish, although he doesn’t treat the people he loves as belongings or possessions. He is easy to read but difficult to decipher. One could read his emotions but not his thoughts or opinions. For all the strangers know, he could cry with laughter when truly, deep, deep inside, he wants to tear out your heart and make you eat it. He has terrible thoughts, and he doesn’t want people to know that he does. He especially does not want people to know what they are.

  ❝ ian hendry ━ twenty-two · male · guide ; 1991 - 2013
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
( eddie redmayne ; ♟ meridtih's )

There wasn’t anything about Ian before he entered high school worth talking about. He’d lived in just another apartment on just another street in England. He’d come from a family that wasn’t torn apart, but not knitted closely together either. And he’d plenty of friends, just as the smartest and endearingly dorky boy in class would have had. He’d had dreams too, so many that he could match one to every star in the night sky – and of course he’d tried that, he lived on trying pointless things like that for a while. His dreams included things like a doctorate, being a brilliant scientist and leaving behind a great legacy. Those seemed like the most important things in his life.

In high school, Ian aced every class that he needed to enter Oxford a year early. It wasn’t effortless. He didn’t have magic. He worked his ass off, as Rimmer would have said. He neglected many things, like family and friends. But it was all worth it, he’d told himself, because nothing was more important than the dreams he had. He’d forgotten something he’d known when he was younger – how to appreciate the little things in life. But Oxford changed that.

He had to move into the Oxford University dorms since it wasn’t just a few blocks away like his high school was, it was a few cities away. He left behind his family, which didn’t seem as if they were going to miss him that much. He left behind whatever friends he had who stuck it through his high school phases. And he left behind what comfort he had. Oxford was different from his high school, of course. But it was so different, even the air tasted like it was smarter than you were. And besides the change in schedules and routines, there was the change in people, too. Ian hadn’t thought it would have been that hard to make friends. Sure, he’d forgotten how friendship works after locking his door and devoting everything to his studies back in his high school days, but he’d thought he could pick up his smooth-way-to-make-friends tactic not too late after the semester started. But he’d judged the change wrongly. They were all speaking in English, but it felt like they were all speaking in different languages.

Ian was smart, but not in this way. He pulled himself through university on almost-conversations and an always-never-there roommate for a good three weeks before his roommate decided to reveal himself like a precious secret. His roommate had entered Oxford a year early, just as Ian had, but he’d found his place in the student body sooner than Ian had. “Join me with the NERD,” he’d invited Ian. Apparently, NERD stood for Never Ever Right Department. And the department consisted of five people, including Ian and Rimmer – who used the NERD as an excuse for never coming back to the dorm room early enough to actually meet Ian properly. They were a tiny nerd rescue team that ran on video games, comics, badass documentaries and ice cream. Ian had fit right in.

It wasn’t long before he realized he had more important dreams than obtaining a doctorate so early. And those dreams included the things he already had, like late-night video game competitions, watching badass documentaries over ice cream and Darryl Rimmer, which he still wished for, because they could leave any time. But they hadn’t left Ian. He’d left them. The NERD hadn’t stopped inviting him to their meetings; he’d stopped coming. The NERD hadn’t stopped lending him their comics or video games; he’d stopped taking them. And Darryl Rimmer hadn’t stopped loving him; Ian had stopped saying “I love you, too.”

The end hadn’t come in a car crashing into him, or a bullet in his chest, or a long fall. It was something that slowly ate at him from the inside – cancer. It wasn’t an absolute way to death, he’d heard of people freeing themselves of it. But Ian was different. He was smart, he was brilliant, but he wasn’t strong enough to fight death when it came for him. He couldn’t cure himself with his sheer will. He only bought time with it. But one can struggle in the currents for only so long before losing his grip.

There wasn’t anything to be said at the funeral that the attendees didn’t already know. Ian had been a person of great potential, not just academically, but as a person too. He was smart, there wasn’t any doubt about it, but he hadn’t just kept the benefits of such vast knowledge to himself, he’d shared them. He was kind and had a big heart. He wasn’t strong or aggressive – he was passive-aggressive at most – but he protected the things he loved.

Ian didn’t change much after arriving in Purgatory, he’d just turned more sentimental, and maybe even gentler – if that’s possible. He hadn’t taken long to piece together his life and discover the cause of his death. Ian can remember many faces, but the names of their owners are lost on him. But there are four people he can remember as if he only left them yesterday – the NERD members, Darryl, Richard, Zhuo Yi and Ahmad. After crossing over from Purgatory, Ian didn’t return until another soul arrived in Purgatory. Ian had then become the soul’s guide. And after his first soul crossed over, Ian was left feeling lonelier and with another soul to guide. While watching his souls cross over doesn’t get any less painful every time, Ian doesn’t resent his job as a guide. He loves it, actually, that his knowledge of Purgatory and this stage of their “afterlife” could come in useful and help another soul.

inspired by denver and corina ;;