ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ᴏғ ᴀ ʟɪᴏɴ

neverbreaks — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:12:29 GMT

The Character Expression Meme
Character: Jules Grumley
Journal: neverbreaks
RPG: multiversal & museboxes

.happy.	.sad.	.angry.	.scared.

.disgusted.	.surprised.	.flirty.	.sexual.

.confused.	.shy.	.playful.	.rage.

.hurt.	.guilty.	.bored.	.laughing.

.sarcastic.	.tired.	.wtf.	.pride.

.sympathy.	.evil.	.innocent.	.in love.

YOUR	FOUR	FAVORITE	ICONS

WANT TO DO IT TOO?
Snag yourself the coding here.

ᴍᴇᴍᴇ • sᴜʀᴠᴇʏ → ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴋɴᴏᴡ

neverbreaks — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 05:05:04 GMT

Body and Appearance

1. Describe the character's height and build. Is she heavyset, thin, short, rangy?
Jules is 5'6", maybe a little taller. She's pretty light, maybe inclined to be underweight at times. (In Baedal she is currently a little underweight just because of not looking after herself right.) She strong, but not really muscular, more just toned.

2. How old is she?
27 in Baedal.
28 in current storyline time, getting closer to 29.

3. Describe her posture. Does she carry herself well or does she slouch?
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4. How is her health? Is she fit or out of shape? Any illnesses or conditions? Any physical disabilities?
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5. How does she move? Is she clumsy, graceful, tense, fluid?
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6. How attractive is this character physically? How does she perceive herself in the mirror?
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7. Describe her complexion. Dark, light, clear, scarred?
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8. Describe her hair: color, texture, style.
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9. What color are her eyes?
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10. Does the character have any other noteworthy features?
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11. What are her chief tension centers?
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12. What is the character's wardrobe like? Casual, dressy, utilitarian? Bright colors, pastels, neutrals? Is it varied, or does she have six of the same suit?
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13. Do her clothes fit well? Does she seem comfortable in them?
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14. Does she dress the same on the job as she does in her free time? If not, what are the differences?
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15. You knew it was coming: Boxers, briefs or commando?
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Speech

1. What does this character's voice sound like? High-pitched, deep, hoarse?
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2. How does she normally speak? Loud, soft, fast, evenly? Does she talk easily, or does she hesitate?
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3. Does the character have a distinct accent or dialect? Any individual quirks of pronunciation? Any, like, you know, verbal tics?
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4. What language/s does she speak, and with how much fluency?
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5. Does she switch languages or dialects in certain situations?
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6. Is she a good impromptu speaker, or does she have to think about her words?
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7. Is she eloquent or inarticulate? Under what circumstances might this change?
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Mental and Emotional

1. How intelligent is this character? Is she book-smart or street-smart?
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2. Does she think on her feet, or does she need time to deliberate?
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3. Describe the character's thought process. Is she more logical, or more intuitive? Idealistic or practical?
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4. What kind of education has the character had?
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5. What are her areas of expertise? What, if anything, is she interested in learning more about?
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6. Is she an introvert or an extrovert?
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7. Describe the character's temperament. Is she even-tempered or does she have mood swings? Cheerful or melancholy? Laid-back or driven?
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8. How does she respond to new people or situations? Is she suspicious, relaxed, timid, enthusiastic?
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9. Is she more likely to act, or to react?
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10. Which is her default: fight or flight?
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11. Describe the character's sense of humor. Does she appreciate jokes? Puns? Gallows humor? Bathroom humor? Pranks?
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12. Does the character have any diagnosable mental disorders? If yes, how does she deal with them?
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13. What moments in this character's life have defined her as a person?
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14. What does she fear?
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15. What are her hopes or aspirations?
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16. What is something she doesn't want anyone to find out about her?
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Relationships

1. Describe this character's relationship with her parents.
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2. Does the character have any siblings? What is/was their relationship like?
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3. Are there other blood relatives to whom she is close? Are there ones she can't stand?
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4. Are there other, unrelated people whom she considers part of her family? What are her relationships with them?
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5. Who is/was the character's best friend? How did they meet?
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6. Does she have other close friends?
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7. Does she make friends easily, or does she have trouble getting along with people?
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8. Which does she consider more important: family or friends?
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9. Is the character single, married, divorced, widowed? Has she been married more than once?
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10. Is she currently in a romantic relationship with someone other than a spouse?
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11. Who was her first crush? Who is her latest?
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12. What does she look for in a romantic partner?
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13. Does the character have children? Grandchildren? If yes, how does she relate to them? If no, does she want any?
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14. Does she have any rivals or enemies?
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15. What is the character's sexual orientation? Where does she fall on the Kinsey scale?
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16. How does she feel about sex? How important is it to her?
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17. What are her turn-ons? Turn-offs? Weird bedroom habits?
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Beliefs

1. Do you know your character's astrological (zodiac of choice) sign? How well does she fit type?
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2. Is this character religious, spiritual, both, or neither? How important are these elements in her life?
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3. Does this character have a personal code of morals or ethics? If so, how did that begin? What would it take to compromise it?
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4. How does she regard beliefs that differ from hers? Is she tolerant, intolerant, curious, indifferent?
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5. What prejudices does she hold? Are they irrational or does she have a good reason for them?
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Daily Life

1. What is the character's financial situation? Is she rich, poor, comfortable, in debt?
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2. What is her social status? Has this changed over time, and if so, how has the change affected her?
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3. Where does she live? House, apartment, trailer? Is her home her castle or just a place to crash? What condition is it in? Does she share it with others?
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4. Besides the basic necessities, what does she spend her money on?
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5. What does she do for a living? Is she good at it? Does she enjoy it, or would she rather be doing something else?
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6. What are her interests or hobbies? How does she spend her free time?
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7. What are her eating habits? Does she skip meals, eat out, drink alcohol, avoid certain foods?
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Associations

Which of the following do you associate with the character, or which is her favorite:

1. Color?
2. Smell?
3. Time of day?
4. Season?
5. Book?
6. Music?
7. Place?
8. Substance?
9. Plant?
10. Animal?

END
Get the HTML here so you can do it yourself.

ᴍᴇᴍᴇ • sᴏᴜɴᴅᴛʀᴀᴄᴋ → ʀᴇʟᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴍᴜsɪᴄ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡʜᴏʟᴇ sʜᴇʙᴀɴɢ

neverbreaks — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:51:05 GMT

Eisley • My Lovely → Youtube

Why do you wait for me? And how do you wait for me?

I'm feeling alone without you here in my arms,
I'm lost and alone without you here by my side

Ellie Goulding • Starry Eyed → Youtube

Let go for anyone, take me in, and throw out my heart and get a new one

Florence + the Machine • Rabbit Heart → Youtube

I look around but I can´t find you, if only I could see your face
Instead of rushing towards the skyline, I wish that I could just be brave

I must become a lion hearted girl, ready for a fight

Florence + the Machine • Shake It Out → Youtube

And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't
So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road
And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope
It's a shot in the dark and right at my throat
Cause looking for heaven, for the devil in me

Gotye • Hearts A Mess → Youtube

Your heart’s a mess, you won’t admit to it
It makes no sense, but I’m desperate to connect
And you, you can’t live like this

The Grates • Carve Your Name → Youtube

You can close your mind but then you just ain't trying

Carve your name into my heart, better than a tattoo or a photograph

Illy feat. Owl Eyes • It Can Wait → Youtube

Happiness is fine but it's momentary, a momentary lapse of reality,
Reality is fine, but for the moment it can wait, i'm addicted to the chase of my happiness

Kimbra • Good Intent → Youtube

She broke your bones, now you're lying in the dirt
The shadow of a hunter under your torture
It's not enough to say, it's not what's in your heart

Mazzy Star • Fade Into You → Youtube

You put your hands into your head, and then its smiles cover your heart

Persephone's Bees • Nice Day → Youtube

It doesn't matter if you're going mad, it doesn't matter that this place is so so sad

Poe • Junkie → Youtube

I know how wear the costume, I know how to wear the mask

Sally Seltmann • On The Borderline → Youtube

I have to strengthen up my little heart, find my own way,
Light my torch, and sparkle my own spark
When I wake up in the morning I feel very numb, but I'm gonna get through

Tracy Chapman • The Promise → Youtube

Remembering your touch, your kiss, your warm embrace
I'll find my way back to you, if you'll be waiting

Vermillion Lies • Boneyard → Youtube

I'll be far from home, I'll be without light
I'll be all the things that come out and scare you at night

I'll take off all my skin just to let you in
You'll see my big black mess, my aching emptiness

ᴀᴘᴘʟɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ • ᴍᴜʟᴛɪᴠᴇʀsᴀʟ

neverbreaks — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 02:18:41 GMT

Out of Character Information
Name: Bella
Username: bamboozle
Are you over the age of eighteen? Y
Current characters in Baedal: n/a

In Character Information
Basics
Character Name: Jules Grumley
Username: neverbreaks
Fandom: original
Played By: Sophia Bush
Icon: here!

~~Canon Character Section~~

4. Original Character Section
Here are just a few terms that are going to come up in the sections below, to try and make things a bit less confusing:

Monster: Creatures that descended on Earth from above the sky. They look like hideous goo until they take over a human body, which they can abandon at will, leaving it totally desecrated. They're very powerful, hard to kill, and live to indulge their desires with little idea of morality or conscience. Monsters consume human flesh and have a whole wealth of possible powers. There aren't many ways to kill them.

Devil: The enemies of monsters that came up from beneath the ground. Their powers are not near so varied as monsters, but they do have the ability to trap them, and an affinity with fire. They have the ability to toy with human emotion and warp weakness to the seven sins.

Hybrid: A mix of human and monster, most often born from the forced union between a male monster and a human woman. They are hated by most, finding place with neither human nor monster. They have some of the monsters' abilities and can have personal specialities, but are tied to their physical body. They often struggle with the conflict of monster and human natures. (Unlike devils, monsters and sulfur slaves, they can't detect the difference between humans, hybrids and monsters in sight. They can detect devils and sulfur slaves by something of a gut reaction.)

Sulfur Slave: Human beings that have made a contract with the Devil King to grant them powers to defend and fight against the monsters and hybrids in exchange for their soul. They share the devil ability of trapping and burning monsters and hybrids, but can't effect human weakness the way devils can. They are much weaker to temptation and sin.

Physical Description:
Twenty-seven years old, Caucasian female. Jules is part monster, but you couldn't tell from outside appearances. The monster part is strictly internal, save for the occasions when she has to draw on its strength or channel its violence for the sake of keeping herself sane the rest of the time. Basically: she looks human.

Jules has long, brown hair and dark eyes, and stands at about 5'6". She's strong, but you wouldn't necessarily guess it to look at her. Despite the somewhat gruesome, harsh nature of her world, Jules tends to appear as smiley and bright as she can. Admittedly, sometimes that isn't very much, but when she can manage it she is very out there and chipper, even over-eager. There's a lot of energy in how she moves.

She also has quite a few scars, courtesy of attacks and fights, but none on her face. The majority of them are small, pale marks that mostly wouldn't be noticeable. There are some nasty scratches, but nothing of particular note save for a pretty new burn scar from a sulfur slave over her right shoulder, by the junction with her neck. It looks a bit like a partial handprint, with the fingertips wrapping over her shoulder.

When she's having a monster-state moment, then she's rather more scary. Her eyes become darker, her mouth becomes far too wide, revealing a nasty set of teeth that you'd swear aren't there the rest of the time.

Sexuality:
Monsters are carnal creatures, frequently acting on their desires with little consideration for the consequences. Their first priority is their pleasure and their satisfaction, and to hell with everyone else. Violence and lust go hand in hand for monsters, equally stimulating sources of pleasure.

Jules is the daughter of a hybrid and a human, so her thirst for violence and human flesh is diminished. Maybe it's because she channels the desires of that inner monster into lust, or maybe she's simply a sexual person in her own right, regardless of her blood - she doesn't know and doesn't think about it. Jules simply thrives from physical contact, and sex is something that's tied to pleasure and comfort, a means to feel better. She doesn't need it to survive, and she prefers sex in a committed relationship to just random flings, but she does enjoy it, even if it's only a temporary reprieve before everything catches up.

Jules has been romantically and sexually involved with both men and women, with no particular preference. When she was younger she slept with a few different people, both for fun and for the comfort of contact. For roughly eighteen months she had been involved with a woman called Emilia, who she's still very deeply in love with .

World Information:

❝ they came from above ❞

Once, the world was indistinguishable from our own. It was the kind of place where bad things happened, yeah, but generally monsters weren't something you had to worry about popping out from underneath your bed. Maybe you did, maybe you were scared of the dark, but there wasn't anything out to get you.

In the manner of all necessary set-ups for a post-apocalyptic world, though, things changed. The skies started to tear, and from these holes in the skies countless monsters descended on the earth.
Things changed too fast for people to really comprehend, they changed in ways no one was prepared for, and when humans couldn't adapt fast enough and responded to a supernatural terror the way they might react to something more familiar, they just lined themselves up for destruction. War didn't work, there was no way to fight back, and as the monsters fed on humans and claimed their skin to walk among them, it wasn't safe to trust anyone. Human beings were forced to scatter – and if having them all in one spot was fun, having them live vulnerable lives alone and in small groups made them even more exciting toys, like a cat prowling after a particular stupid, clumsy mouse.

There were the devils, as well, that had kept a lower profile through the human dominance of Earth, claiming their playthings as they wished, but never being so overt as when the monsters announced their arrival. They benefitted from the carnage, collecting human souls, but they didn't particularly like the monsters. Eventually they, too, would be caught against one another, fighting over their human toys.

In time, humans would try to solicit help from the devils, but it came at a heavy cost, humans having to forfeit their souls to serve the devils at their will in return for powers that allowed them to fight the monsters. One could argue it cost them a portion of their humanity, but for many it was a sacrifice worth making to protect themselves and the people they cared about.

Jules lives in the world a while after the arrival of monsters; her father is half monster, and he was in his early twenties when Jules was born. She's never known a world without this chaos, and neither have her parents, but they're still the first generations. They still have heard stories of things from before, might see evidence of what human civilisation used to be like. In this world, they are targeted if people find out what they are and have the very understandable human reaction of fear, whether it comes in the form of flight or fight.

Despite that, they've tried to carve out a place for themselves and justify their existence as something not entirely bleak. The world doesn't have order or laws anymore, but maybe it's not just sulfur slaves who can act as guardians and executors, but hybrids as well.

In this world, Jules isn't a major player. She's just another person, unassuming, who's trying to survive. She isn't trying to support rebellions like some, and she hasn't driven herself to become a monster to seek vengeance. She's just trying to live and do the best she can, hurting as few people as possible in the meantime and protecting the people close to her.

To a group of fanatics, she was a danger to twins – Emilia's – that could potentially save the world. The only reason they had to believe that these kids might mean salvation was because of the rarity of children being born since the monsters descent, and how especially rare the birth of twins was. They were taken as a sign, and naturally something so rare and precious couldn't be in the presence of a hybrid. Saying she was going to doom the human race wasn't an adequate reflection of her role, by a long shot. If the twins are going to come to the rescue, then her role is more positive – she's protecting them and doing her utmost to preserve something essential for humanity. If they're not, she's just looking after her family. The twins might be special, Jules might know some visionaries, but she's pretty average.

❂ this write up was by myself, but here is some related world info bycandlejack, who originally developed the verse:
➡ we stopped searching for the monsters under our beds when we realized they were inside us
➡ of monsters and devils
➡ those are monsters: original cast
➡ and six years later, the skies turned red: expanded cast

History:
To know about Jules, you need to know a little about her parents. Her father, Walter, was a hybrid; his mother was a human who had been attacked by a monster, Ouroboros. She kept the child that came of that nightmarish assault, even protected him, but both monsters and humans have a dislike for hybrids meant it wasn't an easy life. It was a hostile world, and in some regards, Walter might have been happier without bringing more children into the world that would have to suffer it. His wife, Charlotte, was human – utterly devoted to her husband, regardless of lineage, and desperately wanted a family. Their son Freddie was four when Jules was born (Julia Louise, if you must be technical, but she was always Jules.)

She lived in England (near Oxford, specifically) for much of her life, as protected as she possibly could be given the world. Her parents taught her a lot about what her blood meant, what its repercussions would be, even if she was only quarter-blood. Her parents were idealists, believing in the value of human life, and her father thought it was necessary to hybrids to create a place for themselves in the world that aided humanity, even if they could be so easily considered a blight. Walter's particular ability was telepathy, what he called Truth Reading, so that when he elected his prey to feed the hunger he could select a human for whom the sentence was justified. In contrast with his gravity, Charlotte was always light and enthusiastic, as if that would foster a happier environment for her children. Jules learned the habit from her, so her childhood was a mix of trying to be very eager and enthusiastic, and trying to justify the deaths that allowed her continued grip on humanity (ironic as it was).

For all that, though, hybrids were still hated and treated with suspicion. When Jules was sixteen, just a few years after her Hunger and powers manifested, she was abducted by a sect of humans when she went out to find her prey. She was tortured for days with long needles pushed through her muscles and joints. It was torture for sport and entertainment - “justice” against her kind. Jules tried to explain, but the idea of 'justified' killing of humans by a hybrid didn't really come across as very convincing. The torture continued for days, dragged out by her strength and regeneration. Eventually, she reached a breaking point, but it wasn't what the humans expected; deprived of flesh and violence when the Hunger arose, Jules hit a berserk state and broke free of her bonds, slaughtering and consuming all five of the humans that had attacked her. She never told her family what had happened, just that it took her a long time to find someone that deserved the sentence (something she could determine through contact-empathy, even if she wasn't a 'truth reader' like her father).

After that, the attacks on her family continued, escalating over a couple of years. Eventually, carrying on as best they could. Safety in numbers didn't prove to be successful for them as they attempted to travel the English countryside, and after a while they elected to go separate ways so they could travel faster and more discretely. Walter and Charlotte stayed together, and while Jules was eager to stay with her elder brother to protect him, after a few weeks it became evident they needed split apart, as well.

It was much easier to keep a low profile travelling alone, but Jules never really got used to it. She found comfort here and there, had relationships with the occasional human, slept with a few more, but she never had the liberty of staying anywhere more than a few months, lest the deaths raise suspicion.

She and her family kept in touch via radio communication, but it was never easy, and the contact was extremely limited. Still, it was something, and a reason to keep going.

Her travels would eventually take her to France. When she was there, rumours and whispers lead her towards a secret underground commune, where she was hoping to find shelter and human company. Instead she found carnage, the remains of a community that had been devastated by monsters or hybrids. It was recent, and a guilty sense of obligation drove her to look through for any survivors. She found only one, a woman only a few years older than herself – Emilia Gorski. She had a broken leg and was pregnant, but that love of humans so carefully installed in her forbade her from leaving Emilia behind, and so Jules helped her. They became travelling partners, Jules tending to Em's injuries and protecting her, and Em providing the company Jules missed. She never admitted the truth of what she was to Em. They were travelling buddies, close friends, and Jules had a giant crush on Em which was in no way awkward.

As Em got closer to her when they guessed her due date had to be, Jules managed to get in touch with her parents, and a reunion was agreed. Hospitals weren't a safe place, hardly functioned outside secure cities, and getting to one of those cities was near impossible, given their location. (Quite aside from Jules' hybrid status, which would bar her from entering the city.) Em met Jules parents, Charlotte helped deliver the babies - twins, hooray! - and they stayed there for a little while, although it was only a makeshift situation. The family parted ways again, Walter again insisting that parting ways would be the more secure option.

A little after the twins were born, Jules and Em became romantically involved. Jules had been avoiding the whole hybrid situation, but Em had already harboured suspicions after Jules helped her escape the ruins of the community, and Charlotte let slip, under the impression Em already knew. It made for an Interesting Discussion, but they dealt with it. Things went as smoothly as they could for about a year and a half, before more of the inevitable hideousness of their world struck.

The birth of twins was a rare thing in this new monster-riddled era, and a group obsessed with the coming of twins that would save humanity learned of the two. Word travelled, of course, from sighting in town and when the news arrived, these fanatics heralded it as a sign of salvation. They intercepted them, and with sulfur slaves in their service, Jules was overpowered - she fought with everything she had, but ultimately being taken off-guard by so many sulfur slaves and humans prepared to attack, she was beaten into a bloody pulp over long hours. Perhaps worse than that was the emotional torment that accompanied it, with Jules being told that Emilia had taken advantage of the 'intervention' that would protect her children from exposure to a hybrid. It was an insecurity, and Jules' will caved in as her fear got a grip on her. It was a mess of lies mixed in with enough truth to be convincing and play on her own worries. (In contrast, Emilia was told Jules gave in to the monster.) The leader of the group ordered Jules killed, which some of the younger members took as some kind of sport – it was only through their carelessness that Jules didn't die and managed to get away. (It was a mercy that the sulfur slave at whose hands she suffered most - Levi - was not the one given the task.)

After that, Jules was thoroughly shaken and suffering some considerable injuries. Left to herself, she'd have struggled to get moving again - she'd have done it eventually, but the toll her injuries and the emotional pain could have made things play out for the worse. At it was, she was discovered by a hybrid called Balthazar, who was rather more charitable than stereotypes of their kind might lead most to believe. He helped tend her wounds, and they travelled together for a time. Jules was very much a sad blob of sad sadness during this time, but Balthazar's company, questions, and information he uncovered about the cult would eventually force her to reevaluate and go back to find Em, once she was strong enough. From there she'd return, and when negotiations to see Em didn't work and the group headquarters was evidently more a prison than a refuge, she took more dire action, tearing apart that group until she found Em and the twins.

The point when she arrives in Baedal is before that, however, only a couple of months into the five that she spent with Balthazar. She's recovered from her injuries, but has been beside herself about losing her family and the apparent loathing she was assured Em had for her. Her enthusiasm is muted and she is very sad, but Balthazar has gradually been helping her. I'm taking her from this point because it's a time when she has accepted being away from Emilia and the twins, even if it still hurts her. Taking her from prior to that point would mean playing through a worse patch, and if I were to take her after their reunion she'd have the weight of having killed a lot of humans and sulfur slaves in order to get her family back, and then having to go through the loss of them again.

Powers:
The more general abilities that come with her hybrid heritage are:

• enhanced strength & endurance
• accelerated healing
• enhanced speed & reflexes
• resilience against exhaustion and sickness
• sometimes an extremely creepy voice in INTENSE BATTLE TIMES

Their skin is warmer to the touch than that of a human. Additionally, most monsters and some hybrids have particular abilities. Jules' is contact-based emotional manipulation and empathy, to a degree where she can try to judge if a person is 'good' or 'bad' - which isn't always easy. She can't read specific thoughts, but she can definitely pick up their emotions loud and clear, and dark, dangerous things within them, be it bad things they've done in the past, motivations or a squiggly demon. This ability allows her to read and warp emotions as she sees fit, but she needs physical contact to be able to read or manipulate anything.

Monster blood is a pretty messed up thing, and while having it does grant powers there are also significant downsides.

• need to consume human flesh
• need for violence
• risk of losing yourself to the monster

It's not simply the need for flesh, but the violence of the act to quell the monster part of them. If a hybrid tries to deny their monster part, then they get very sick and weak, sometimes hallucinate - they may even go berserk and temporarily lose control of themselves, causing more damage than would have occurred otherwise. Jules need is massively watered down from the monsters and, indeed, most hybrids; monsters eat people all the time, and more concentrated hybrids may need to eat people once a month, Jules 'only' needs to have them three or four times a year. Where she can, she will attack and eat another hybrid where possible, but given that there aren't really other hybrids in-game, that will be difficult.

Despite being somewhat badass, she's helpless in the face of felines - allergies really suck.

Note: Given that her powers are pretty god-moddy, there would naturally be no use of them without player permission and discussion.

Additionally, Jules eating people wouldn't just be something that happened out of the blue, but another matter for discussion and plotting, or simply the handy use of NPCs, if that were okay with the mods. ( I have made a tentative post here for her powers and people-eating, but if there is anything the mods would like added to revised, I'll gladly adjust it.)

Talents/Abilities::
Fighting, really, but aside from that and the power of optimism(!!!) she doesn't really have any talents of particular note. Driving speedily, doing some repairs on her van here and there, and she might take to decorating things when she has the opportunity because pretty things are nice and kind of soothing, but she's not a master at any of these things. If anything, her great talent is butchering the French language with the worst accent of all time.
That said, at her particular canon point she's pretty amazing at looking out windows and sighing, though. Utter pro, seriously.

Personality:
Jules' life has been a struggle with the duality of her monster and human natures, the desire to assert one over the other.

Perhaps the thing that has shaped her more than anything has been the determination of her family, the ideals of her parents and her protectiveness towards her older brother. Her mother, Charlotte, is an idealist and a romantic despite everything. She believes in the power of love and humanity. Her desire for her children was that their blood did not need to define them, but their bonds to the people that cared for them. Her father was much more stern, with a strict believe in justice and the role that hybrids could play to both protect and punish humanity. Charlotte's zealousness was something Jules was dependent on, and she learned to mirror her mother's desperate enthusiasm and optimism. Trying to be upbeat and bring positive energy into everything is hard, the kind of pressure that isn't necessarily healthy for a child to latch onto. Trying to be positive despite the weight of the monster within was doubly difficult, especially with the value of life and love of humanity that Jules developed, and the stern ideology of judgment her father endorsed.

Basically, Jules tries to be positive as much as she can, to be upbeat and optimistic and make people happy, because their world is grim and dark enough. It needs more laughter. At the same time as she's forcing herself into as constant a state of good cheer as she can, she struggles with what she has to do and the reality of the monster. She despises herself and thinks it's hypocritical of all of them, to claim to love humans and then have to do what they do; she doesn't always see eye to eye with her father's ideals, but she prefers to avoid the conflict of saying so, and she's yet to think of a better option. Even if they target the old, the dangerous, people who are a threat to others, even if it “only” three or four people a year verses the ten or twelve more other hybrids need to survive, the fact remains that they are choosing to save their lives over those of others. It's important to note that Jules might be sweet, fun to be around and genuinely care about people, but that doesn't make her inherently good. That said, she isn't purely bad either. If she can, she tries to attack other hybrids, which can sate the craving for human flesh because of their physiology still being so much more similar to a human than that of a monster. However, finding other hybrids to attack and eat can be hard, given that a hybrid can't automatically tell human, hybrids and monsters apart - and because other hybrids could well be more powerful than her and kill her much more easily.

While the strength and abilities that come with being a hybrid might theoretically allow her to be less afraid than others who are more vulnerable, such as humans, Jules does have a lot of fears, both for herself and others. In her own opinion, Jules isn't always brave on her own; she doesn't hold herself in high regard, on that count. She does feel like she has to atone for what she does, though, so when the situation arises she can step in to protect people she perceives as innocent, and when the people she cares about are endangered she'll take things on full-force. When it's just her she's more nervous, in no small part because of the risk of losing herself to her monster side, and because while she doesn't want to die, fighting for herself given all the things that she has done is hard. (That said, if things really got dangerous and it looked like her life was in danger, she would fight back. She has things to live for, when it comes down to it.) Past the general fears of horrifying death (be it from monsters, devils, sulfur slaves, other hybrids or humans) Jules is terrified of needles, syringes, anything of that nature, stemming from a violent encounter with some humans and a sulfur slave when she was a teenager. Talking about them makes her uncomfortable, pictures of them throw her off, seeing them and being around them is not a good thing.

When she was younger the most important person in her life was her brother. Although he is the elder of the two, Jules was always stronger than him, and Freddie's awkwardness and tendency to have his head in the clouds or bury himself in books meant he wasn't brilliantly aware of the world around him or its inherent dangers. Eventually he became more independent, and in time Jules found someone else to take first place in her life; one human by the name of Emilia. They met when Jules rescued her, after discovering her trapped after a devastating raid on the community where she was living.

Emilia and her two children are Jules' chosen family, even if things aren't always easy. Jules would do just about anything for Em, even if she has made some bad calls in regards to their relationship before (especially not telling Em about being a hybrid). Jules is far from perfect and makes a lot of mistakes. Even though she sometimes gives in to insecurities, she does find her bravery and try to make up for them, and even pushes herself to try and be heroic.

( I have written a totally tl;dr elaboration of her father's ideals and her coping method with the whole monster/hybrid thing that is over here but didn't put it all in here because it's kind of stupidly long and in need of severe editing. )

Object: Just a polaroid of herself with her family, if that's okay? It's useful from the point of view of helping her cope and is really just sentimental.

Reason for playing: Jules is a character I developed to explore the idea of conflict between how she presents herself and what she feels she must be, and the feelings under the surface. In a way, she's kind of meant to be a study of all the different kinds of mistakes you can make and the conflict they can churn up. She puts so much energy and effort into being upbeat, but her own fears and the dangers that come inherently with her heritage have the potential for very interesting development and character relations. While she has flaws, Jules is also meant to be a likeable character – when she's at her best she's fun and cheery, even if she goes overboard sometimes. Despite being a fun person and good friend, though, she is a hybrid and does require human flesh to survive. She feels guilt for it, but she does kill others for her own benefit, and who is to say that the code of justice her father presses her and her brother to follow is right? There's a lot of gray area to play with and dilemmas about whether she really is good or not that I think could be fun both for introspection and exploring with other player characters.

Bringing her to a pan-fandom game opens a whole world of potential interactions and dynamics to play off, given the scope of existing fandoms and other peoples' original characters.

Gods: I think Eliandre would probably the deity that would take the most interest in Jules, because death and judgement are two huge factors in her life, both in terms of the peril and judgment directed her way in her world, and what she doles out. She could be deemed a hunter, in a sense, in that she has to hunt human being/hybrids to prey on that fall into the type that she can try to justify killing.

Misc
Other: I am prepared to bribe my way in with cookies and fine quality chocolates.

ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ ɪɴғᴏʀᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ

neverbreaks — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 01:34:58 GMT

Pʟᴀʏᴇʀ Iɴғᴏʀᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
ɴᴀᴍᴇ Bella • bamboozle

Cʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ Iɴғᴏʀᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
ɴᴀᴍᴇ Jules Grumley
ғᴀɴᴅᴏᴍ Original

Cʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ Iɴғᴏʀᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ II
ʙɪʀᴛʜᴅᴀʏ 27th July ♌ leo
ᴀɢᴇ / ᴀᴘᴘᴇᴀʀᴀɴᴄᴇ

Twenty-seven years old, Caucasian female. Jules is part monster, but you couldn't tell from outside appearances. The monster part is strictly internal, save for the occasions when she has to draw on its strength or channel its violence for the sake of keeping herself sane the rest of the time. Basically: she looks human.

Jules has long, brown hair and dark eyes, and stands at about 5'6". She's strong, but you wouldn't necessarily guess it to look at her. Despite the somewhat gruesome, harsh nature of her world, Jules tends to appear as smiley and bright as she can. Admittedly, sometimes that isn't very much, but when she can manage it she is very out there and chipper, even over-eager. There's a lot of energy in how she moves.

She also has quite a few scars, courtesy of attacks and fights, but none on her face. The majority of them are small, pale marks that mostly wouldn't be noticeable. There are some nasty scratches, but nothing of particular note save for a pretty new burn scar from a sulfur slave over her right shoulder, by the junction with her neck. It looks a bit like a partial handprint, with the fingertips wrapping over her shoulder.

When she's having a monster-state moment, then she's rather more scary. Her eyes become darker, her mouth becomes far too wide, revealing a nasty set of teeth that you'd swear aren't there the rest of the time.

Her PB is Sophia Bush.

ʜɪsᴛᴏʀʏ
Original character, see below. That said, I will just chuck in a tiny summary of some terms that will come up through different sections of the app here:

Monster: Creatures that look that hideous goo until they take over a human body, which they can abandon at will. They're very powerful, hard to kill, and live to indulge their desires with little idea of morality or conscience. Monsters consume human flesh and have a whole wealth of possible powers. There aren't many ways to kill them.

Devil: The enemies of monsters that came up from beneath the ground. Their powers are not near so varied as monsters, but they do have the ability to trap them, and an affinity with fire. They have the ability to toy with human emotion and warp weakness to the seven sins.

Hybrid: A mix of human and monster, most often born from the forced union between a male monster and a human woman. They are hated by most, finding place with neither human nor monster. They have some of a monsters abilities and can have personal specialities, but are tied to their physical body. They often struggle with the conflict of monster and human natures. (Unlike devils, monsters and sulfur slaves, they can't detect the difference between humans, hybrids and monsters in sight. They can detect devils and sulfur slaves by something of a gut reaction.)

Sulfur Slave: Human beings that have made a contract with the Devil King to grant them powers to defend and fight against the monsters and hybrids in exchange for their soul. They share the devil ability of trapping and burning monsters and hybrids, but can't effect human weakness the way devils can. They are much weaker to temptation and sin.

ᴘᴇʀsᴏɴᴀʟɪᴛʏ
Jules' life has been a struggle with the duality of her monster and human natures, the desire to assert one over the other.

Perhaps the thing that has shaped her more than anything has been the determination of her family, the ideals of her parents and her protectiveness towards her older brother. Her mother, Charlotte, is an idealist and a romantic despite everything. She believes in the power of love and humanity. Her desire for her children was that their blood did not need to define them, but their bonds to the people that cared for them. Her father was much more stern, with a strict believe in justice and the role that hybrids could play to both protect and punish humanity. Charlotte's zealousness was something Jules was dependent on, and she learned to mirror her mother's desperate enthusiasm and optimism. Trying to be upbeat and bring positive energy into everything is hard, the kind of pressure that isn't necessarily healthy for a child to latch onto. Trying to be positive despite the weight of the monster within was doubly difficult, especially with the value of life and love of humanity that Jules developed, and the stern ideology of judgment her father endorsed.

Basically, Jules tries to be positive as much as she can, to be upbeat and optimistic and make people happy, because their world is grim and dark enough. It needs more laughter. At the same time as she's forcing herself into as constant a state of good cheer as she can, she struggles with what she has to do and the reality of the monster. She despises herself and thinks it's hypocritical of all of them, to claim to love humans and then have to do what they do; she doesn't always see eye to eye with her father's ideals, but she prefers to avoid the conflict of saying so, and she's yet to think of a better option. Even if they target the old, the dangerous, people who are a threat to others, even if it “only” three or four people a year verses the ten or twelve more other hybrids need to survive, the fact remains that they are choosing to save their lives over those of others. It's important to note that Jules might be sweet, fun to be around and genuinely care about people, but that doesn't make her inherently good. That said, she isn't purely bad either. If she can, she tries to attack other hybrids, which can sate the craving for human flesh because of their physiology still being so much more similar to a human than that of a monster. However, finding other hybrids to attack and eat can be hard, given that a hybrid can't automatically tell human, hybrids and monsters apart - and because other hybrids could well be more powerful than her and kill her much more easily.

While the strength and abilities that come with being a hybrid might theoretically allow her to be less afraid than others who are more vulnerable, such as humans, Jules does have a lot of fears, both for herself and others. In her own opinion, Jules isn't always brave on her own; she doesn't hold herself in high regard, on that count. She does feel like she has to atone for what she does, though, so when the situation arises she can step in to protect people she perceives as innocent, and when the people she cares about are endangered she'll take things on full-force. When it's just her she's more nervous, in no small part because of the risk of losing herself to her monster side, and because while she doesn't want to die, fighting for herself given all the things that she has done is hard. (That said, if things really got dangerous and it looked like her life was in danger, she would fight back. She has things to live for, when it comes down to it.) Past the general fears of horrifying death (be it from monsters, devils, sulfur slaves, other hybrids or humans) Jules is terrified of needles, syringes, anything of that nature, stemming from a violent encounter with some humans and a sulfur slave when she was a teenager. Talking about them makes her uncomfortable, pictures of them throw her off, seeing them and being around them is not a good thing.)

When she was younger the most important person in her life was her brother. Although he is the elder of the two, Jules was always stronger than him, and Freddie's awkwardness and tendency to have his head in the clouds or bury himself in books meant he wasn't brilliantly aware of the world around him or its inherent dangers. Eventually he became more independent, and in time Jules found someone else to take first place in her life; one human by the name of Emilia. They met when Jules rescued her, after discovering her trapped after a devastating raid on the community where she was living.

Emilia and her two children are Jules' chosen family, even if things aren't always easy. Jules would do just about anything for Em, even if she has made some bad calls in regards to their relationship before (especially not telling Em about being a hybrid). Jules is far from perfect and makes a lot of mistakes. Even though she sometimes gives in to insecurities, she does find her bravery and try to make up for her them, and even pushes herself to try and be heroic.

sᴇxᴜᴀʟ ᴘʀᴇғᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇs / ᴏʀɪᴇɴᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
Monsters are carnal creatures, frequently acting on their desires with little consideration for the consequences. Their first is for their pleasure and their satisfaction, and to hell with everyone else. Violence and lust go hand in hand for monsters, equally stimulating sources of pleasure.

Jules is the daughter of a hybrid and a human, so her thirst for violence and human flesh is dimished. Maybe it's because she channels the desires of that inner monster into lust, or maybe she's simply a sexual person in her own right, regardless of her blood - she doesn't know and doesn't think about it. Jules simply thrives from physical contact, and sex is something that's tied to pleasure and comfort, a means to feel better. She doesn't need it to survive, and she prefers sex in a committed relationship to just random flings, but she does enjoy it and it can make her feel better, even if it's only a temporary reprieve before everything catches up.

Jules has been romantically and sexually involved with both men and women, with no particular preference. When she was younger she slept with a few different people, both for fun and for the comfort of contact. For roughly eighteen months so had been involved with a woman called Emilia, who she's still very deeply in love with, and who was the only person she's been involved with during that time. Considering her feelings for Emilia she's not likely to hop into bed with anyone, but in Em's absence and because of sheer desperation and loneliness, not to mention the influence of the city, it could happen.

ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀs
The more general abilities that come with her hybrid heritage are:

• enhanced strength & endurance
• accelerated healing
• enhanced speed & reflexes
• resilience against exhaustion and sickness

Their skin is warmer to the touch than that of a human. Additionally, most monsters and some hybrids have particular abilities. Jules' is contact-based emotional manipulation and empathy, to a degree where she can try to judge if a person is 'good' or 'bad' - which isn't always easy. She can't read specific thoughts, but she can definitely pick up their emotions loud and clear, and dark, dangerous things within them, be it bad things they've done in the past, motivations or a squiggly demon. This ability allows her to read and warp emotions as she sees fit, but she needs physical contact to be able to read or manipulate anything.

Monster blood is a pretty messed up thing, and while having it does grant powers there are also significant downsides.

• need to consume human flesh
• need for violence
• risk of losing yourself to the monster

It's not simply the need for flesh, but the violence of the act to quell the monster part of them. If a hybrid tries to deny their monster part, then they get very sick and weak, sometimes hallucinate - they may even go berserk and temporarily lose control of themselves, causing more damage than would have occurred otherwise. Jules need is massively watered down from the monsters and, indeed, most hybrids; monsters eat people all the time, and more concentrated hybrids may need to eat people once a month, Jules 'only' needs to have them three or four times a year. Where she can, she will attack and eat another hybrid where possible, but given that there aren't really other hybrids in-game, that will be difficult.

Despite being somewhat badass, she's helpless in the face of felines - allergies really suck.

Note: Given that her powers are pretty god-moddy, there would naturally be no use of them without player permission and discussion.

Additionally, Jules eating people wouldn't just be something that happened out of the blue, but another matter for discussion and plotting, or simply the handy use of NPCs, if that were okay with the mods. ( have made a tentative post here for her powers and people-eating, but if there is anything the mods would like added to revised, I'll gladly adjust it.)

I realise the balancing act she has is important, and won't just be doing things on whims. If the mods have any requests or suggestions regarding her I'm more than happy to take them on board.

ʀᴇᴀsᴏɴs ғᴏʀ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ
Jules is a character I developed to explore the idea of conflict between how she presents herself and what she feels she must be, and the feelings under the surface. In a way, she's kind of meant to be a study of all the different kinds of mistakes you can make and the conflict they can churn up. She puts so much energy and effort into being upbeat, but her own fears and the dangers that come inherently with her heritage have the potential for very interesting development and character relations. While she has flaws, Jules is also meant to be a likeable character - she's fun and cheery, even if she goes overboard sometimes. Despite being a fun person and good friend, though, she is a hybrid and does require human flesh to survive. She feels guilt for it, but she does kill others for her own benefit, and who is to say that the code of justice her father presses her and her brother to follow is right? There's a lot of gray area to play with and dilemmas about whether she really is good or not that I think could be fun both for introspection and exploring with other player characters.

Bringing her to a pan-fandom game opens a whole world of potential interactions and dynamics to play off, given the massive scope of existing fandoms and other peoples original characters.

Oʀɪɢɪɴᴀʟ Cʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ Sᴜᴘᴘʟᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ
ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ʜɪsᴛᴏʀʏ

❝ they came from above ❞
In the quiet of the night, the sky tore open one day and from the holes in the skies, monsters began to descend from above upon Earth. Hungry creatures they were, feeding upon humans, devouring their flesh, their souls. At first, people did not understand what was going. Was it God's final wrath? Were it beings from another planet? But then they realized that the monsters under their beds, the monsters in the closet, in the basement, under the stairs, in the dark, the creatures children so wisely told adults about, were very real. Nobody listened to the children before. Leave the lights on, they would say, or the boogieman will catch you. Nobody believed until they were eaten and then, it was too late. People were afraid of sitting in the dark in front of a computer, they were afraid to hear a sound because if they looked over their shoulders, a drool driping monster could be waiting there. People were afraid of closing their eyes while they took a shower because they could be there when they opened them, behind the shower curtain.

As real as the belief of people, some would say the only way to defeat them was to stop believing in them - but how can you do so, when that you are afraid of is so very real?

So the only possibility was war and so soldier marched against something nobody quite understood how to get rid of. Then civilians picked up their rifles and their lanterns and their courage, their baseball bats and their crowbars and marched as well, hoping that maybe, just maybe, monsters could be defeated by union.

But that was an utopic thought; monsters were quite happy to see so many people together, so much flesh, so much blood. So many skins to enjoy, to mutilate, to devour.

The Devil in its sulfur throne rejoiced.

As Earth slowly turned into wasteland, humans began to lose hope. Governments destroyed, countries nothing more than empty landscapes. The despair filled the hearts of humans as monsters continued to be vomited upon Earth.

Years later, one very silly man decided to turn to the Devil and begged it to give him the strength to fight against monsters. The Devil said yes, of course. It would give the man the power necessary to defeat the monsters that wore the skins of humans. But in exchange, his soul would be Hell's forever, condemned to be a slave of the sulfer for eternity. Soon, those that were foolish enough, that had no hope left, began to make the Contract with the Devil in exchange for their souls. No turning back from that horrible faith, but the power granted upon them, the power to protect their families, their loved ones, was sometimes too much of a temptation to turn away from.

As monster began to die, big momma Calathea from above, the Mother Monster that had vomited her children upon Earth, began to get fed up with the Devil's antics. She did not like what she saw and her wrath took the lives of the sulfur slaves, making sure their souls would not reach the Sulfur King. She bore sons strong enough to take down entire countries and her daughters grew barren so that no hybrid would come from their womb. Those that escaped her anger kept their mouth tightly shut so that they would live.

The Devil did not enjoy Calathea's actions and as if to punish her from depriving Hell from the souls that rightfully belonged to it, he sent his own children, anger exploding into venomous bees, spitting acid and bile from its mouth. The monsters grew more powerful each passing day and began to see Earth as a comfortable ground for them, terrorizing humans, killing sulfur slaves, hating the Devil's children.

The children from human and monsters, those that escaped Calathea's killing spree, began to align to either monsters or humans, though most kept in neutral ground so that they would not get involved in the war. Humans continued to war against monsters and devils and sulfur slaves began to build cities to be guarded by them, keeping human life inside safely away from monsters.

Some humans were not happy with the arrangements. Revolution began as a hush-hush, but the word spread throughout the world. Rebellion formed underground, exclusive to humans as any other could be a threat to their secrecy - sulfur slaves to the Devil and hybrids to the Mother Monster - albeit some branches would ally themselves with hybrids. But with the revolution came more difficulties and humans began to turn to faith and the prophet, Sebastien, speaking through charades that fed the hope of those that needed, told a story of humans conquering the Earth back - or so the true believers say.

Six years after Mother Monster descended upon Earth, she and the Devil disappeared. A well kept secret, however; neither humans nor hybrids nor sulfur slaves know. The Devil's children know of the Sulfur King and the monsters of Calathea. They don't know why or how, where did they go, if they will ever come back, but it's a information they do not disclose.

And during that time, the true prophet, a simple man from Canada, came out of his hideout to see just what is going on...

❂ write up by candlejack

➡ we stopped searching for the monsters under our beds when we realized they were inside us
➡ of monsters and devils
➡ those are monsters: original cast
➡ and six years later, the skies turned red: expanded cast

ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ ʜɪsᴛᴏʀʏ
To know about Jules, you need to know a little about her parents. Her father, Walter, was a hybrid; his mother was a human who had been attacked by a monster, Ouroboros. She kept the child that came of that nightmarish assault, even protected him, but both monsters and humans have a dislike for hybrids meant it wasn't an easy life. It was a hostile world, and in some regards, Walter might have been happier without bringing more children into the world that would have to suffer it. His wife, Charlotte, was human – utterly devoted to her husband, regardless of lineage, and desperately wanted a family. Their son Freddie was four when Jules was born (Julia Louise, if you must be technical, but she was always Jules.)

She lived in England (near Oxford, specifically) for much of her life, as protected as she possibly could be given the world. Her parents taught her a lot about what her blood meant, what its repercussions would be, even if she was only quarter-blood. Her parents were idealists, believing in the value of human life, and her father thought it was necessary to hybrids to create a place for themselves in the world that aided humanity, even if they could be so easily considered a blight. Walter's particular ability was telepathy, what he called Truth Reading, so that when he elected his prey to feed the hunger he could select a human for whom the sentence was justified. In contrast with his gravity, Charlotte was always light and enthusiastic, as if that would foster a happier environment for her children. Jules learned the habit from her, so her childhood was a mix of trying to be very eager and enthusiastic, and trying to justify the deaths that allowed her continued grip on humanity (ironic as it was).

For all that, though, hybrids were still hated and treated with suspicion. When Jules was sixteen, just a few years after her Hunger and powers manifested, she was abducted by a sect of humans when she went out to find her prey. She was tortured for days with long needles pushed through her muscles and joints. It was torture for sport and entertainment - “justice” against her kind. Jules tried to explain, but the idea of 'justified' killing of humans by a hybrid didn't really come across as very convincing. The torture continued for days, dragged out by her strength and regeneration. Eventually, she reached a breaking point, but it wasn't what the humans expected; deprived of flesh and violence when the Hunger arose, Jules hit a berserk state and broke free of her bonds, slaughtering and consuming all five of the humans that had attacked her. She never told her family what had happened, just that it took her a long time to find someone that deserved the sentence (something she could determine through contact-empathy, even if she wasn't a 'truth reader' like her father).

After that, the attacks on her family continued, escalating over a couple of years. Eventually, carrying on as best they could. Safety in numbers didn't prove to be successful for them as they attempted to travel the English countryside, and after a while they elected to go separate ways so they could travel faster and more discretely. Walter and Charlotte stayed together, and while Jules was eager to stay with her elder brother to protect him, after a few weeks it became evident they needed split apart, as well.

It was much easier to keep a low profile travelling alone, but Jules never really got used to it. She found comfort here and there, had relationships with the occasional human, slept with a few more, but she never had the liberty of staying anywhere more than a few months, lest the deaths raise suspicion.

She and her family kept in touch via radio communication, but it was never easy, and the contact was extremely limited. Still, it was something, and a reason to keep going.

Her travels would eventually take her to France. When she was there, rumours and whispers lead her towards a secret underground commune, where she was hoping to find shelter and human company. Instead she found carnage, the remains of a community that had been devastated by monsters or hybrids. It was recent, and a guilty sense of obligation drove her to look through for any survivors. She found only one, a woman only a few years older than herself – Emilia Gorski. She had a broken leg and was pregnant, but that love of humans so carefully installed in her forbade her from leaving Emilia behind, and so Jules helped her. They became travelling partners, Jules tending to Em's injuries and protecting her, and Em providing the company Jules missed. She never admitted the truth of what she was to Em. They were travelling buddies, close friends, and Jules had a giant crush on Em which was in no way awkward.

As Em got closer to her when they guessed her due date had to be, Jules managed to get in touch with her parents, and a reunion was agreed. Hospitals weren't a safe place, hardly functioned outside secure cities, and getting to one of those cities was near impossible, given their location. (Quite aside from Jules' hybrid status, which would bar her from entering the city.) Em met Jules parents, Charlotte helped deliver the babies - twins, hooray! - and they stayed there for a little while, although it was only a makeshift situation. The family parted ways again, Walter again insisting that parting ways would be the more secure option.

A little after the twins were born, Jules and Em became romantically involved. Jules had been avoiding the whole hybrid situation, but Em had already harboured suspicions after Jules helped her escape the ruins of the community, and Charlotte let slip, under the impression Em already knew. It made for an Interesting Discussion, but they dealt with it. Things went as smoothly as they could for about a year and a half, before more of the inevitable hideousness of their world struck.

The birth of twins was a rare thing in this new monster-riddled era, and a group obsessed with the coming of twins that would save humanity learned of the two. Word travelled, of course, from sighting in town and when the news arrived, these fanatics heralded it as a sign of salvation. They intercepted them, and with sulfur slaves in their service, Jules was overpowered - she fought with everything she had, but ultimately being taken off-guard by so many sulfur slaves and humans prepared to attack, she was beaten into a bloody pulp over long hours. Perhaps worse than that was the emotional torment that accompanied it, with Jules being told that Emilia had taken advantage of the 'intervention' that would protect her children from exposure to a hybrid. It was an insecurity, and Jules' will caved in as her fear got a grip on her. It was a mess of lies mixed in with enough truth to be convincing and play on her own worries. (In contrast, Emilia was told Jules gave in to the monster.) The leader of the group ordered Jules killed, which some of the younger members took as some kind of sport – it was only through their carelessness that Jules didn't die and managed to get away. (It was a mercy that the sulfur slave at whose hands she suffered most - Levi - was not the one given the task.)

After that, Jules was thoroughly shaken and suffering some considerable injuries. Left to herself, she'd have struggled to get moving again - she'd have done it eventually, but the toll her injuries and the emotional pain could have made things play out for the worse. At it was, she was discovered by a hybrid called Balthazar, who was rather more charitable than stereotypes of their kind might lead most to believe. He helped tend her wounds, and they travelled together for a time. Jules was very much a sad blob of sad sadness during this time, but Balthazar's company, questions, and information he uncovered about the cult would eventually force her to reevaluate and go back to find Em, once she was strong enough. From there she'd return, and when negotiations to see Em didn't work and the group headquarters was evidently more a prison than a refuge, she took more dire action, tearing apart that group until she found Em and the twins.

The point when she arrives in game is before that, however, only a couple of months into the five that she spent with Balthazar. She's recovered from her injuries, but has been beside herself about losing her family, so her enthusiasm is muted and she is very sad, despite all the help given her.

sᴘᴇᴄɪғɪᴄ ᴅᴀᴛᴇs

• 28th June; rescues Emilia from the Catacombs
• 27th July; Jules' 26th birthday
• 29th October; the twins are born (Matthias and Chloe)

• 11th January; Jules & Em become romantically involved
• 5th May; Emilia's 29th birthday
• 27th July; Jules' 27th birthday
• 29th October; twins' first birthday

• 10th January; almost one year anniversary; rings exchanged
• 5th May; Emilia's 30th birthday
• 22nd May; intercepted and captured by the cult; Jules & Em separated
• 22nd - 29th May; Jules tortured for information, hatred of hybrids, and punishment for her ties to The Bringer
• 31st May; Jules' 'body' found by Balthazar
• June - November; Balthazar helps Jules with her injuries, her considerable emotional damage and is generally a bro
• 27th July; Jules' 28th birthday
• 5th November; rescue 2.0; Jules tears through the cult and unleashes unholy terror on anyone who doesn't simply flee, and retrieves Em & the twins

• 16th April; Arrival in Amiens
• SOMETIME IN JUNE/JULY?; Izaak born

Tʜᴇ Dɪᴠɪᴅᴇ: Hᴜᴍᴀɴɪᴛʏ & Mᴏɴsᴛʀᴏsɪᴛʏ

neverbreaks — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 08:40:12 GMT

Apologies for going on about hybrids and Jules' parents, here, but it is important to understand what she was surrounded with when she was younger, because her parents played a crucial role in shaping how she coped.

Hybrids are beings typically despised by humans and monsters alike, trusted by no one. They are the lowest of creatures, and many die shortly after birth. Their conception is not, for the most part, consensual, and are almost always born of a human mother and a monster father (female monsters capable of conceiving, aside from the Mother Monster, are extremely rare). If they manage to survive, it's either through luck, or because their mothers loved them and were able to protect them or conceal what they were despite the abomination of what happened to them.

The situation for Jules and her brother is different; they are half-hybrid and half-human, and so they had two role models with strong beliefs, in a better position to protect them and prepare them for the reality of what they were. Walter, their father, was a present and forceful factor in their life

Jules father embraces an ideology where hybrids are the in-between, in a singular position where they can fight and protect. More importantly, even if they love humans, they are apart from them; they are in a position to act as jury and pass judgement in a world where no systems of law exist. That is how Walter justifies their position as beings with moral conscience that have the burden of needing human flesh to survive. Past that, they actually need to indulge that need for violence and eat human flesh in order to retain their sanity and conscience.

This belief is one that Jules' mother follows, as well. She's human, but has given up a life among humans in order to be with the person that she fell in love with despite his monster parentage. While she adores her own kind, she is well aware of the cruelty they are capable of. Jules mother copes with the world around her with a kind of desperate need to be cheerful in the face of everything, always smiling. It kind of fulfils the Stepford Smiler trope, really, but in quite an extreme way. The basic idea of the trope is that no matter how sad and depressed a character might be, they continue with a facade, often making themselves appear shallow or really emotionally disconnected.

In Charlotte's case, she is very damaged by the world's bleakness and violence, but she is utterly invested in the wellbeing of their children and wanted to raise them to accept themselves. A big part of that was supporting Walter's idea that hybrids have a purpose to serve, and that despite the potential for danger with hybrids if they give too much into their monster urges. As a result, Jules was raised to treasure human life and had love and affection lavished on her in a manner quite apart from most hybrids. In a sense, she was very lucky, to have as much stability as she could from having both parents present in her life, loved for what she was - not despite it. She was even taught that she had a purpose and could be useful.

For all that, though, it's not easy to stay in a bubble. She wasn't kept away from humans, either, because Charlotte felt that isolating them from humans conflicted with the love Jules and Freddie needed to develop for them. That exposure meant that she had some friends, but it also meant that she got to learn about the violently negative views people had about hybrids, even if they believed (for a while) her to be human. What bubble Jules might have had was burst from her interactions with people, and yet it did have the effort Charlotte wanted of giving her a window to make friends and start coming to appreciate people for herself.

This is all important to keep in mind, because these factors contributed to how Jules developed her coping mechanisms and how she manages the violent extremes of humanity and the monster urges. It does have to shift and adapt from time to time, depending what kind of situation she's in. Jules does her utmost to veer as far away from the monster as possible; some other hybrids allow themselves to come closer to the monster, with some even deliberately embracing those urges and claiming a new name for themselves as they reject their more human life.

Walter's ideology is, to a degree, a coping method. It's a way to justify what they are and carve a place for herself in the world outside the human perception of hybrids as a danger and menace and the monster view of them as dirty, inferior pests. Jules does have her doubts about the view, but it's still something she clings to. If she can limit her feeding onto to those that are a danger, only attack those that have done irredeemable things (or other hybrids, who might not hold true to those same ideals as herself), then she is making the world a better place instead of being something else people have to fear.

In terms of making sure she remains separate from the monster and it doesn't conquer her, Jules always errs on the side of caution. She doesn't fight if she doesn't have to, so that she doesn't feed its lust for violence. She tries not to get angry or lash out, keeping calm as she can and even going to the same unhealthy extreme of her mother with trying to convince the world and even herself that she's happy, even if she's miserable. (This is not always helpful, because having those negative emotions gnawing away at you is exhausting. ) Trying always to be human, stick to those positive human virtues like love and optimism, generosity, charity, those are her ways of trying to cope and try to preserve her humanity and keep it strong enough that the monster side won't ever have a chance of getting a permanent hold on her. She tries to forget bad things that happen to her, because holding onto them can only make her bitter, stir thoughts of revenge or anger, and that could stir the monster as well. What she does isn't healthy by a long shot because she doesn't allow herself a chance to come to terms with things all the time, but it's a method she's held to for a long time. Being around humans helps her be more human, in her own eyes.

The monster part of her is there, but it's carefully contained, through her own diligence. She feeds, but only to stave off the hunger, never for pleasure. She fights, draws on the monster strength, but only when it's necessary to survive; it is kept on a tight leash, and never indulged. The times when it has presented itself past her control could be counted on one hand with a few digits still free, and her force of will and belief in her own humanity can force the monster back into submission, even if she momentarily loses herself. One occasion when she tried to put off feeding for too long because she didn't want to, an occasion when she was abused and held captive by humans and sulfur slaves as a teenager are the only times she has really bone berserk and been in the depths to that more dangerous side in her psychology. One time when she came close to it through sheer misery and desperation was when Em was taken away and she was manipulated by the sulfur slave Levi, mentally and physically. She was so physically spent, though, that the monster side couldn't assert itself. It was weak. If she hadn't been found by Balthazar after Levi had disposed of her, she might have given into the monster, and that dread is something that she will still be holding close.

Essentially, she functions with the psychological split by doing her utmost to contain the negative side and constantly assert her humanity over it, and tries to cope emotionally (usually not successfully, this girl is wretched about what she is, for all her smiles) by simply masking it and pretending everything is fine as much as possible. The person she is behind the split is someone conflicted by what she wants to be and what she is, but her time with Em (despite severe backsliding at Levi's hands) and Balthazar might have proven more valuable than most of what her father told her. Jules, if she could, would try to destroy any aspect of the monster within her, would probably do anything to achieve that end. Her belief in the hybrids place in the world is limited by her fear of the monster, which is part of her desperate need to control it at every turn. Balthazar has told her before that hybrids have their part to play, and more than being a means to judge humans and fight monsters, hybrids could be the key to helping humans claim the world back for themselves and expel monsters completely. It's something that's going to help her more in time as she has more of a chance to reflect on it, but it is something that helps her come to be more at peace (eventually) and thus keep the monster further at bay than it is in her current state of trying to mask everything.

ᴍᴇᴍᴇ • ᴠɪsᴜᴀʟɪsᴇ → ʀᴇʟᴀᴛᴇᴅ ɪᴍᴀɢᴇs

neverbreaks — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:59:22 GMT

None of these are images by myself, just pretty things I found derping around online. If you see something you'd like credited or removed, let me know and I'll do so asap. Thanks!

visualise;
verb. to form a mental image of; envisage.

NOT SAFE FOR WORK. WARNING FOR BLOOD, GORE, NASTY THINGS AND NUDITY.