Atrophy — Roleplayer Guild

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"What? Do you have a question or something?"
[  18     |     5’2”     |     Greek-Polish     |     She/Her     |     105 lbs ]

[Doubt]

   APPEARANCE       

”Is it normal to spend so much time in front of a mirror to end up looking this blasé?"

Rita’s mother has the body of a Greek goddess; Rita, unfortunately, takes after her father. Her brown eyes, already sunken and small to begin with, are bloodshot from a lack of sleep and an overabundance of allergies. Her fairly full lips only manage to form meager smiles on the occasion, her gap teeth that she hates always kept hidden from public in all but the most genuine of reactions. Her dark brown hair is straight and oily no matter what she does to it, with bangs that cover her thick eyebrows and the aftermath of a brutal battle with acne on her forehead from her adolescence. Her nose slants ever so slightly to the left from when she broke it, and there is a small scar underneath her chin from when she once fell off of her bike and clipped the corner of a brick. Her skin tone is fairly light, but her Greek roots do allow for her to get a rather wicked tan if she tries.

She’s a petite girl with a straight, modest build. Rita’s in fairly decent shape due to her constantly biking around town when she can, and she’d die before she admits it but she’s really proud of how her butt looks in jeans. Her clothes fit her very well, but her style is fairly conservative and has been described by one of her peers as “dad-esque”—collared shirts and cardigans paired with jeans and roughed-up white sneakers. The most risque she has ever been seen in public is capris and a polo with all but the bottom button unbuttoned. She almost never takes off the black “I <3 NY” bracelet that she wears on her right wrist, and she’s particularly fond of using vibrant hair scrunchies to contrast the drab, neutral tones of her outfits. 

Rita manages to make herself always appear to be uncomfortable regardless of where she is, prone to unwarranted flinches and shrunken shoulders. Her face defaults to a pensive and distant stare, although one can truly tell when she is actually in deep thought by how intensely she is sucking in her lip. Her voice is quiet and tight, as if the act of speaking is a chore in it of itself, and an obvious Texan accent betrays her as not being a local.

    PSYCHOLOGY       

”How obvious is it that I’m hopeless?"

MAIN GOAL  ⫻ Let’s not pretend that Rita is more heroic than she actually is: the girl wants nothing more to survive and move back home. Turns out Texas isn’t the worst state in the union.

PHILOSOPHY  ⫻ Life is chaos and coincidence, and the only way to get through it is to swim with the river and pray that it doesn’t rush her over a waterfall and smash her against some jagged rocks. There’s no certainty that what is true today will be tomorrow, and that sucks.

SECRETS  ⫻ She keeps a journal and regularly writes poems. Somehow this deepy embarrasses her. Oh, and Rita is short for Margarita—and there’s no question about it, she was named for the drink. Her biggest secret is her Abstraction for it’s her only defense against this nightmare, and she can’t let others strip it from her.

DESIRES  ⫻ In one of her more bitter moments she’d say that all she wants is to meet someone who isn’t a backbiting, selfish son of a bitch, but really she’s more looking to be accepted above anything else. 

SEXUALITY  ⫻ The few relationships she has had with boys always left her feeling more drained and defeated than anything. Still, she’s pretty certain that she is heterosexual, because her friendships with girls have typically made her feel even worse.

FEARS  ⫻ Besides the Glutton? She actually fears the other Awakened more than anything else. Scott was manipulated by the Glutton, but he was used like a hammer. What’s to say the Glutton isn’t now using one in a subtle way?

REPUTATION  ⫻ She’s the anxious, quiet girl prone to outbursts, and she fears that the others view her as a weak link. 

PET PEEVES  ⫻ Lying is a big one, but she truly can’t stand people talking behind another’s back. Part of it is because she feels guilty for being associated with something she disagrees with, and part of it is because she fears that they must be talking about her when she is away. She has ruined more than a few budding friendships by directly confronting people about the nasty things they have said about someone in front of the person that they had been bad mouthing.

QUIRKS  ⫻ Rita has a bad case of the fidgets. She’s a knee shaker, a toe tapper, a finger drummer, a pen clicker, a coin weaver, a hair curler, and just about anything else that can keep her hands and feet busy.

   BACKSTORY      

”Ready to be let down?"

Dear (New) Diary,

How does a girl born in a small town in Shithole, Texas end up moving to the even smaller town of Bumfuck, Montana? Well, the short answer is she’s taking a forty-four hour long Greyhound ride to attend Grand Ridge. That’s where the girl is at right now; stuck in the aisle seat next to a man with the world’s smallest bladder and the thirstiest mouth. The long answer is people. Three people, actually. Old Diary knew all about these people, but we don’t talk to Old Diary anymore. Old Diary is dead to me. We only have eyes for New Diary.

The first person was the mother. The girl lived with the mother in 3C of Sunshine Apartments, and for as long as she can remember the girl and the mother hated each other. The mother resented the girl—if it wasn’t for her, she could land herself a good man and get out of Shithole. The girl resented the mother—if it wasn’t for her, she wouldn’t have been born in Shithole. They could’ve called it even there, but then that’d require one of them to admitting that they were at fault. Plus, the girl felt that the crimes of the mother greatly outway the crimes of not being polite to the strange men that would claim to be the mother’s friend and then break her heart a week later. See, the girl was brutally teased by the boys who told her that they had seen her mom’s tits last weekend, which was obviously untrue in fifth grade but come highschool and fake IDs to get inside the strip club it had a chance to be accurate. Girls were even worse. They’d say, “Your mom is so pretty”, which meant “So why aren’t you?”

But, worst of all, the mother did not want the girl, she just wanted her freedom. Every year she asked “So, when are ya moving out?”and every year it became clearer that the question was not tongue-in-cheek.

But the father was perhaps worse than the mother. He was fun and kind, and the girl would spend weekends with him in Corpus Christi where they’d go to the beach or ride bikes. He’d buy her ridiculously expensive gifts for her birthday and for Christmas, and every summer they’d go travel together for a week. New York City was her favorite trip. It was also her last trip with him. When the girl was fifteen he gave her the best present somebody can possibly give someone—the truth. He had been married for the last eight years and had another daughter of seven, and now he felt like she was old enough to understand why it was impossible for her to permanently live with him.

I’m sure you already guessed it, New Diary, but the girl wasn't. She still isn’t. She doubts she’d every be old enough to understand that. But, even if she couldn’t understand it, she did know what he was saying: he didn’t want the girl, he just wanted a buddy.

Then there was her friend, not boyfriend. She wanted not boyfriend to be her boyfriend for years, but the girl was too stupid to say anything until senior year. After not boyfriend had been dating her best friend for a year. At prom. In front of everyone. While drunk. It was harrowing how embarrassing the entire thing was, and the girl ran out of the prom. Now, in the movie version of this story the not boyfriend would chase after her and admit that he liked her too and then they would kiss and the credits would roll and we’d assume everything worked out. In the real life version the not boyfriend did chase after her, and he admitted he liked her, and they did kiss, and then the credits did not roll and she screwed him, and then he didn’t talk to her the next day at school. And her best friend did not talk to her at the next day of school. And her best friend’s friends did not talk to her at the next day of school.

Eventually the girl heard through the grapevine that not boyfriend didn’t want the girl; he just wanted a girl before he went to college, and she was clearly more willing to put out than the one he had.

So the girl figured, hell, if they don’t want me in Texas, then I don’t want them either. She didn’t pick Grand Ridge because it was prestigious or because of its a good school to study to become an actuary, but because it was a forty-four hour bus ride from home. The girl struck herself a deal with a private room for the summer on Airbnb and hopped on a bus the week after she graduated. She was even invited by her future roommate to go on a camping trip with some other students. So, screw it, it’s time to shed her wallflower petals and turn a new leaf. 

She really hopes this isn’t going to be some hazing bullshit. 

Sincerely,

A girl named Margarita

P.S. thirty times. He went to the bathroom thirty times in forty-four hours

Since writing that life hasn’t gone so great for Rita. Her chance at reinventing herself was screwed when a student decided to go all Jason Voorhees during a camp trip. She awakened and soon realized her Abstraction after getting in an argument with Claire at school, before she practiced and learned the limitations of her ability with her only friend, Martin. Since then she has kept in the background and stayed with the group out of fear of Scott Reese, although she began to use her Abstraction more and more to peel the truth out of the others. Everything came to a head when they went to the abandoned school, and when she fled from the Glutton she got in a confrontation with Billy—saved only by the interference of Rien.

   SKILLS & TALENTS      

”Should I put these on my résumé?"

Sewing  ⫻ Rita can’t afford to purchase new clothes, so being able to patch up old outfits and properly fit thrift shop hauls is essential.

 Cycling ⫻ She rides her bike almost every single day. Mostly it’s out of necessity—she doesn’t have a car—but she enjoys the exercise and finds it fun to ride. She even knows a few minor tricks that only result in her eating asphalt one out of every four times.

   ABSTRACTION       

"Can I ask you something?"

SIGIL & LOCATION  ⫻ Four black lines circle the fingers on her left hand and then travel down her palm before terminating at the bend in her arm. 

ABSTRACTION  ⫻ Question Master, the ability to compel someone to tell the truth (and other fun things) by simply asking a question.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION  ⫻Question Master allows Rita to expel her doubt about others. Whenever she is in a conversation with someone that person is compelled to answer any of the questions she asks with what they believe to be the truth. This is not an ability she can will on or off: every single question she asks forces the answerer to give the truth if they heard her. The ability can only be focused on one individual at a time, directed through her maintaining eye contact on the target—so people around the corner who hear the question don’t feel obligated to chime in too. If she wants to let someone answer uninfluenced, she could always just avoid looking at them.

Her questions can range from narrow to broad, but the more specific or direct ones tend to wield better results as a person is compelled only to answer the question, not to compulsively tell the truth about every single thing they are keeping a secret. For example, asking if someone was lying would only get them to say yes or no, while asking what someone was lying about would get them to divulge a bit more information. Furthermore, asking someone about everything they lied about would result in them going down a laundry list of how far back they could remember. So, it’s best to be thoughtful in her probing.

The Blind cannot sense that she is making them answer her truthfully. However, they are fully aware of the words coming out of their mouths after they finish telling the truth. If they had intended to tell the truth than no harm no foul, but if they had intended to lie then they completely think that they just had a pretty harrowing slip of the tongue. This means that is rare for someone to sit down with Rita and air out all of their dirty laundry. After all, people tend to try to duck out of conversations pretty quickly once it gets awkward.

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN  ⫻ She puts the master part into Question Master. Rita’s questions take on a much stronger influence in regards to the Blind. They become suggestions that people are compelled to follow, although just because she suggests someone does something it does not necessarily mean that they will succeed in whatever the act is. She still has to say it in a question like, “Why don’t you give me twenty dollars?” for it to take effect, but the action does not have to be immediate. For example, she could ask someone if they would leave town next Saturday and they would have to. Once a suggestion is fulfilled the person is no longer compelled to follow it, so to use the previous example the moment they left town on that Saturday they could just as well immediately head right back into it.

LIMITS  ⫻ Rita's abstraction suffers from two obvious limits; sound and eye contact. If nobody can hear her, they are immune. Same goes for those who aren't making eye contact with her. Rita's abstraction is interesting when it comes to other Awakened, they are resistant to it, but not completely immune. An Awakened that is unaware of her abstraction may find themselves unintentionally answering her questions, but they feel a psychic pull in their skull telling them that something is wrong. If they find out her Abstraction, then they'll be able to resist her abstraction.

WEAKNESSES  ⫻ Rita's abstraction, not the strongest, has a peculiar weakness; she finds it difficult to lie herself. She unconsciously tells the truth even when it's foolish to do so, unless she tries extremely hard to lie - even then it comes out strained and forced.

Rita has inherited Charlie's Hope Infusion.

   OTHER      

"Seriously, aren’t you tired of asking questions?"

thorns

 by r.v.

roses are red,
violets are blue.
actually no,
that’s not quiet true,
roses can be red,
but also white and pink and orange,
while violets are just violet,
obviously.

i guess like everything else,
they lied about that, too.

Martin Cromwell (deceased)
Tuyen Thị Đoàn

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"It can’t get no worse, man."
[ Age 21     |     6’3"     |     Norwegian-Welsh      |     He/Him     |     150 lbs ]

Serenity

   APPEARANCE       

"Your mom thinks I’m handsome. And she’s makes a fantastic breakfast, too, champ."

Billy looks like he could be attractive if he put in the effort, but he never felt the need to really go out of his way to look good. He’s tall, with lanky limbs like a basketball player, but has the athletic build of someone who has never lifted a dumbbell in their life. His dark blonde hair is cut in a popular short on sides, long on top style and kept messy. Not in the “spent fifteen minutes trying to look like I got out of bed” messy, but the “yeah, I just actually got out of bed and thought this would work” messy. His eyes are blue and have the glossy look to them of someone who is perpetually having an allergic reaction, stoned, or both. His skin is lightly tanned and blemished with moles, but it is in good condition. He’s trying (and failing) to pull off a wispy beard. There’s a large tattoo that says “Shrug Life” in thick , cursive script spanning between his shoulder blades, and a little triforce on his left wrist.

His clothes fit him loosely, and he dresses almost exclusively in schlocky, ironic tees and khaki shorts or blue jeans. Tan, worn down work boots are his go to pair of kicks. When it gets colder he busts out the heavy flannels and the trapper hat, but to see him in an actual winter coat is a rarity. He wears a thick pair of black glasses that he’d be next to blind without—the idea of something going into his eyes spooks him, so contacts and lasik are a no-go. He’s the kind of guy that carries around a messenger bag. It’s made of blue canvas, littered with patches and stickers from bands he hasn’t seen live, and the butt of many jokes.

Billy’s tall but he slouches so much that nobody would ever describe him as such. He moves to the beat of his own drum, which happens to never be playing anything faster than a funeral dirge. His lack of a sense of urgency carries through to his deep voice. It is slow and clear, so he’s easy to understand, but it has that stereotypical stoner vibe to it as well, man.

    PSYCHOLOGY       

”Bro, I’m totally good in the brain department. Maybe it’s everyone else that is crazy, though. Or what if we were all the figment of some crazy guy’s imagination. Now that would be crazy, dog."

MAIN GOAL  ⫻ Billy wanted to become a critic, but with the world potentially going to hell why not just embrace the chaos and have a little fun with it? Everyone is so uptight; as long as he lives it doesn’t matter to him. 

PHILOSOPHY  ⫻ Life is tough, but ultimately it is good. Things aren’t always as bad as they seem, and with every door that closes a window opens. So relax, indulge yourself a bit, have some fun while you’re young, and know that people can bounce back from just damn near anything. There’s nothing more narcissistic than being a worrier.

SECRETS  ⫻ Billy’s a coward; if he puts someone before himself, it’s only because others are watching. 

DESIRES  ⫻ The suburban dream was a nice want, but seems impossible now. He’ll settle on instant gratification now that the world has been turned upside down. 

SEXUALITY  ⫻ Heterosexual, but Candyland has more game than he does.

FEARS  ⫻ Pain, or rather, acknowledging things that are painful. Better to be deluded than disenchanted. 

REPUTATION  ⫻ Billy is known to be unreliable. There are moments where he helps, but often only after he has dragged his feet and bitched about it for way too long. 

PET PEEVES  ⫻ Pretentiousness. Probably because it makes him realize that, at the end of the day, he’s also an ostentatious jerk.

QUIRKS  ⫻ Billy tends to say dude a lot, bro. Even if that dude is a chick, man. It’s almost as if he’s bad with names, son, and just inserts whatever he feels like, buddy. Also, like his sister, he seems to not know how to shut up, although he is decisively less confrontational than her.

   BACKSTORY      

”Oh, yeah, boss, it was real dark and mysterious. Certainly didn’t spend my entire life in a small town trying not to die from boredom or anything like that."

Billy was born in Farmer Hill, and as far as he cares he’d be fine with dying in Farmer Hill as long as they have fast internet and access to a VPN. His dad runs Lawson’s Body Shop, a car repair place that was open by his grandfather decades ago, while his mom works at a flower shop to get away from the boys in the garage. Billy is the oldest of three. He has a sister, Penny, that is two years younger than him and a brother, Henry, that was five years younger than him. He fought a lot with Penny while they were growing up, and Henry was always the tagalong little brother.

Most of Billy’s youth was spent playing with friends and trying to avoid putting in any effort at school. He was a pretty normal, if geeky, kid, preferring video games and movies over hockey and tag. He didn’t get great grades, but he did good enough to fly under radar. He was one of the first boys to hit his growth spurt, so he was always too tall to be picked on. His love life was nonexistent, but then again so was the case for most of his friends so it was never really a point of concern. He smoked weed for the first time when he was fourteen and kept that shit hidden from his parents for an entire seventy-two hours. When he was sixteen he started helping his dad out at the shop, and when he was seventeen his brother disappeared.

Alright, that last one might be a bit atypical, if not for it being Farmer Hill. The last time anyone saw Henry he was walking home from school. Obviously, his family freaked out, as did he, and the police did their investigation. Henry was never found, and they ruled that he had runaway—the preteen had been getting bullied at school. The Lawson’s hired a private detective to try and find Henry, but all that came their way was zero leads and plenty of bills. Eventually they too, like the rest of the town, moved on. Billy’s mother and father got rid of any pictures of Henry and pretended like he never existed, while Billy, after a grieving period, came to the acceptance that his brother was most likely dead than in hiding. Only Penny was unable to move on, but even she knew not to mention her little brother around her parents.

Due to being tied up in the investigation, Billy entered Grand Ridge a year late to study film, but he quickly fell into the routine college experience of barely going to class, smoking weed, drinking warm PBR, and trying too hard to get laid. For all anyone can tell, he seemed as if the year off had been enough time for him to recuperate. Heavy self-medication helps, too, and Billy almost never starts a day off without a proper wake and bake. Now he’s got one more semester to go before he’s done with the academy, and he intends to go out having fun.

Unfortunately, his intentions were more literal than he had planned. After almost being killed at the sleepaway camp, Billy went back to his old self before witnessing Scott Reese murdering one of their fellow campers back in town. During the Awakened assembly he warned others about this, and tagged along to search Reid’s house with the others. While under assault from Sharon’s bugs he was able to communicate mentally with his sister, Penny, and together they helped the group survive that situation. However, when he witnessed the Glutton at the old school for the first time, Billy gave into his terror, abandoned Rien with the unconscious Maddie that they were saving, and fled into the woods surrounding the school, only to find out that they had been cut off by a living wall. He literally ran into Rita and—as a joke, or so he claimed—suggested that they test the wall with a sacrifice. Rien came along at this time and they suggested trying it with an animal they created, which Billy was all too quick to throw into the wall.

   SKILLS & TALENTS      

"Kid, I got a backup plan if Ebert doesn’t respond to my emails."

Gaming ⫻ There was a period when Billy thought he was going to become a pro gamer. That was when he was thirteen and before his mom took away his system for a year because she got tired of hearing him scream obscenities in the middle of the night. Now he has to live with the small victory of being the Soul Calibur II champion over at Arcade Blues. Bastard only plays Maxi.

Cars ⫻ Repair, specifically. Dad’s a mechanic, so Billy’s been helping him with that kind of thing since he could walk. He’s currently restoring a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit. He’s been  restoring that damn car for the last two years. It doesn’t need as much work as he claims that it does.

   ABSTRACTION       

"Okay baby, it’s naptime."

SIGIL & LOCATION  ⫻ A spiral on his upper right arm.

ABSTRACTION  ⫻ Daydream, the ability to to lull someone into a sleep-like state.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION  ⫻ Billy’s abstraction allows him to finally get other people to stop stressing out so much and take a break. It just happens that his way of getting people to relax is by hypnotizing them and forcing them into a dreamstate while their body (literally) falls unconscious. Billy can cause a person to fall asleep within a 30 meter range, and he can keep them asleep for as long as he is actively focusing on them. If he leaves the range or loses focus his target will groggily wake up a few seconds later. He can only make one person fall asleep at a time, and an intense of enough pain will force them awake.

People trapped in the daydream actually do have dreams, although they are influenced by their emotions and state of mind—Billy has no control over them. People who are primarily experiencing a positive emotion, such as happy or peaceful, will have nice, pleasant dreams like spending time with loved ones, flying, going to places they’ve always wanted to visit, and so on. Neutral emotions, like boredom, tend to have mundane dreams, like going to school, work, or dreaming that you’re waking up. Negative emotions, like sadness or anger, tend towards more towards extreme dreams or even nightmares, often tortuous or violent in nature.

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN  ⫻ As well as being able to keep one person asleep, Billy is able to channel a dreamscape around himself—anyone that comes within a 3 meter range of his physical body will immediately fall asleep. Once he is no longer in range, they will again awake a few seconds later. 

LIMITS  ⫻ In order to make someone fall asleep, Billy requires active knowledge of where the person is. Which means that he can't just make somebody sneaking up on him fall asleep. It works best when they're in his line of sight, as well. He also cannot make somebody instantly fall asleep - it takes a few minutes (five at most) before they fall asleep. He can only use his abstraction on one person at a time, and the minute he stops using it on them they'll quickly wake up. The Awakened are not immune to his abstraction, but they are resistant - it takes three times as long (fifteen minutes) before they fall asleep. In addition, they'll be immediately made aware of his interference the moment he uses his abstraction on them.

WEAKNESSES  ⫻ Billy also gets induced in a serene state by using his abstraction. He doesn't quite get put to sleep, but he's noticeably slower, and more tired after utilizing his abstraction. Sloth-like would be a good word.

   OTHER      

"Nah, I think we’re good bro."

Definitely not repressing anything in regards to his missing brother. Nope.

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"I’m not going to say that I’m surrounded by idiots, because the idiots wouldn’t understand that the idiots I am referring to are them. That’s what makes them an idiot."
[ Age 20     |     5’7”     |     Norwegian-Welsh          She/Her     |     110 lbs ]

[Disgust]

   APPEARANCE       

“Oh, yeah, it’s totally what’s on the inside that counts. Totally. I mean, because I’m pretty sure it’s DNA that determines how hot someone is, and the entire continuation of the human race is dependent on us being attracted to one another so that we can reproduce. So, yeah, definitely, it’s what’s below the skin that matters. Christ, seriously?"

Penny’s actual appearance is hidden beneath a veil of makeups and creams. Her skin is made a light tan with spray and concealer. Her hair is dyed a lighter blond than her natural color, and waves are constructed with hot curlers and precious hours wasted in front of the mirror. Her eyebrows are meticulously plucked, her lashes are curled, and her blue eyes are lined. Her nose is small, and her lips, thinner than she would wish, are kept glossy and hide a big, Invisalign smile. Her chin is pointed, and her ears are pierced. Penny has a slender build; she’s more like the fields of Kansas than the hills of Montana. She doesn’t really work out much (and it shows). Seemingly her frame is kept small through cigarettes and diet soda serving as meal supplements. Her right arm is a colorful sleeve of flowery tattoos and a bright wand tattoo is on her inner left forearm.

Penny’s outfits varies—her closet is stuffed to the brim with clothing—but she favors colorful, bold dresses  and skirts whenever she can get away with them, often paired with a leather or jean jacket weather permitting. She has another closet dedicated to knee-high boots that cover varies shades of brown, black, and gray. She’s particularly fond of a pair of knock-off Ray Ban aviators and almost never leaves home without them; even at night they can be seen pushed up to the top of her head like a makeshift headband. 

She has a severe case of resting bitch face, and walks as if she is always in a rush. Her voice is high pitched, nearly grating, and somehow always manages to sound as if she is exasperated. She tends to stand askew with her hip jutted out and her arms crossed over her chest, perhaps in some subconscious way to make herself appear more curvy than she is. Also, it should be noted that since the Glutton, she has stopped putting as much effort in dolling herself up.

    PSYCHOLOGY       

"I’m scared. Of course I’m scared. You’d have to be insane not to be scared. That doesn’t mean I’m going to give up on myself or the others."

MAIN GOAL  ⫻ She wants to find out what happened to her little brother, but more than anything she wants to take down the Glutton and protect Farmer’s Hill. 

PHILOSOPHY  ⫻ She thinks Private Joker put it best, “I’m in a world of shit. Yes. But I alive. And I am not afraid.” 

SECRETS  ⫻ Penny has begun to understand why she tries to push everyone away, and wants to stop. 

DESIRES  ⫻ Justice. She cannot accept the fact that Henry, her younger brother, just “ran away”, and she holds a personal grudge against the police in charge of the half-assed investigation. Likewise, she refuses to just let some monster run rampant on her town unchecked. 

SEXUALITY  ⫻ She’s straight and, like most kids raised in extremely Christian families, believes that sex is very naughty and a sin, which is part of the reason why it is so hot. Love, however, is a completely different subject, fitting somewhere in the realms of elves and dragons.

FEARS  ⫻ Apathy. It truly terrifies her at what horrible things can occur when people stop giving a shit, and she prays that she never lets herself become that way. She is also afraid of being too weak to stop the Glutton. 

REPUTATION  ⫻ Oh, it’s not really good. Being a jerk to just about anyone tends to make people not view you in the best of lights, oddly enough. Plus, her distrust and straight out contempt of authority figures, not to mention her inability to to leave the disappearances of Farmer Hill alone, has painted a fairly large scarlet letter on her chest. She hopes that the other Awakened can see that she is seriously trying to help stop things, at the very least.

PET PEEVES  ⫻ Fake pleasantries. She cannot wrap the idea around her head why people would offer that they should hang sometime when they hardly even talked in high school, and why bother asking someone how they are doing if what is really meant to be said is that you see that they happened to have gone to the bathroom at the same time as you. 

QUIRKS  ⫻ She’s loquacious. Especially when it comes to talkin’ shit.

   BACKSTORY      

"Aw, geez, I can’t think of a single reason why I act up like this. Golly, if only there was one small, minor event that may have really gotten under my skin and made me really see how useless others could be. I just, I just can’t think of any. Wow. Guess I’m just being too emotional again. How stupid of me."

Detentions and visits to the “Princi-PAL” were a daily routine for Penny in her formative years. The middle child of two working parents, she was the prototypical example of someone starved for attention, and she seeked it in the form of distracting her classmates and disrupting her teachers. In junior high she attached herself to the popular crowd yet never quite carved her way into the circle, becoming the girl who would hear about the parties they had over the weekend the following Monday while sitting with them at lunch. By high school she was determined to finally make her breakthrough, which she would succeed by using expensive clothing, fancy makeup, and acting with disdain towards everything. If experience taught her anything, people were desperate to be liked by those who hated them. 

And it kind of worked for the first two years of high school. She went through all of the motions that she assumed made girls popular: cheerleader, drinking, senior boyfriend, bullying, general bitchiness, etc. She was even able to use her older brother Billy to win her brownie points with the older kids by stealing his actual pot brownies to give out. And then her little brother Henry disappeared, and with it so did the little delusion she was living. That was four years ago. 

She was always close to her little brother, primarily because he was her only real friend pre-high school and she was stuck babysitting him post-ninth grade. They used to walk home together, but at her insistence they were exclusively to walk separate once she entered highschool cause no way could someone adult like her, like, be seen walking with a dweeby kid, gawd. And it was during one of Henry’s lonely walks home that he disappeared, and it was because of this that the police questioned her, and her family blamed her, and her friends whispered about her. What a shit sister, right? Got her own brother killed because she wanted to look cool.

But...she could deal with that. It wasn’t until the police had declared Henry missing with no leads and they, and the town, and her friends, and her family, stopped talking about her missing brother and pretended like everything was hunky dory that things were flipped on their head. Penny couldn’t possibly understand how anyone could be satisfied with the results of the investigation, and the more people told her that she just let it go and move on the more bitter and jaded she grew. By junior year she stopped trying to fit in, becoming too outspoken and volatile to sit with the cool kids anymore, who had grown tired of her one-woman crusade against the incompetence of Henry’s investigation. 

Billy told her one day that she had become an asshole. And she was okay with it. If being one meant that the lazy police in Farmer Hill got put on blast and actually did their job, then good. If being one meant that her parents open their damn eyes, then good. If being one meant that her dumbass brother Billy stopped doing drugs and started asking questions with her, then good. And if being an asshole meant that she alienated everyone in this garbage little town and made them hate her, then great—because she had been wrong. People didn’t give a shit about those that hated them. No, people gave a shit about those that they hated. And if they thought of her, her little brother wouldn’t be too far from their mind.

But she’s still going to school because once she cracks this thing open, she’s getting the hell outta town.
Although, she’s not budging until she takes care of this new nightmare. Once Scott Reese began to kill kids, Penny started a one-woman crusade against him. She honed her Abstraction after the death camp, and often pushed herself to the limits where her body would start to suffer. With Lynette and Aliana, the three continued to test their Abstractions. When she was shown a vision of Scott Reese as he headed to attack more survivors Penny didn’t even bother to think; she immediately went after him in an attempt to stop him and save the others. Her Abstraction proved to be ineffective against him, but Claire and Justin arrived in time to drive him off. She stuck with the group when they went to Reid’s house and was able to communicate with Billy mentally to help guide them through Sharon’s Awakening. She helped the others takedown Scott Reese at the old school, only to realize how powerless she was when they squared off against the Glutton.

   SKILLS & TALENTS      

”Pass isn’t an option for this one, is it? Sure, sure, everyone is a special snowflake, but by the end of the day you’re still being pushed off the street by a snowplow and turned into a pile of dirty snow that will slowly melt in the sun and drain into the sewers to mix with piss and shit. What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t matter that the most impressive thing I’ve ever done with my time was learn how to tie a cherry stem into a knot."

[Arguing]  ⫻ There’s something remarkable about someone that’s so stubborn that they could convince someone that their blue shirt was red just by unrelentingly unleashing a torrent of words their way until they simply breakdown and give up.

[Double-jointed]  ⫻ The useless ability to freak people out by bending joints far beyond where they should bend. Good for winning bets and pretending to be that dead girl from the Ring for Halloween.

   ABSTRACTION       

"My mom keeps saying that my bad attitude pushes people away. I wonder if she saw this coming."

SIGIL & LOCATION  ⫻ Penny has a symbol appearing to be a pair of handcuffs just beneath where her neck meets her collarbones.

ABSTRACTION  ⫻ Repulsion, the ability to telekinetically force people and things away from her body.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION  ⫻ Penny can force almost anything that enters a five foot radius around her to rapidly move away from her.  Thing reflect back in a straight line from her until the effects of gravity or other interference stops them. This means that if she repulses something that is on the ground, it will only hit things that are level with the ground and the moment it hits something with enough force it will stop. She’s only capable of forcing objects that have a weight equal to or less than twice her weight away from her, so she’ll lose any match of chicken that she plays against a speeding car. 

The velocity and distance at which an object blasts away from her is dependent upon its size; the lighter an object is, the further and faster it travels. Small objects (less than a pound) likes coins, paper clips, pens, and etcetera, act almost like a weak 9mm bullet, traveling fast enough to penetrate skin, clothing, thin walls, doors, and glass. Medium objects (more than a pound, but less than fifty) like computer monitors, baseballs, bricks, and so on only go about 30 meters before quickly succumbing to gravity, and tend to only have enough force to dent metal, knock the wind out of someone, and possibly fracture or break bones. Large objects (more than fifty, less than her peak) like desks, bags of cement, and some people can be sent back 3 meters. The force is about as strong as an incredibly fit person’s push, so it’s largely only effective at moving large things out of her way, bracing doors, or keeping people forced against walls.
 
There isn’t a limit to how many objects she can force away from her at once, but she does have to direct the repulsions. This means that she has to know an object is coming at her or within her range for her to repulse it, and she actively has to focus her mind to push it away. Therefore, she isn’t constantly blowing the dirt and trash at her feet away (unless she consciously decides to), nor is she able to push away an incoming projectile if she doesn’t know that it was fired at her in the first place.

Penny’s Abstraction has a secondary effect that allows her to sense the mass, velocity, and trajectory of any moving object that enters her field of view, even if it were moving faster than her naked eye could see. This gives her enough time to react to incoming objects and determine if her ability can affect it. In a way, it acts as a limited danger sense, however the effect is an information overload that can be detrimental to her mental and physical health. After using it for five minutes she starts to experience splitting migraines, nosebleeds, and vision loss, and if she goes with it on for longer than ten she will start to experience blackouts. If she toggles it off before the five minute mark she can recuperate fairly well, but there is a cool down that is directly correspondent to how long she used it for, meaning that if she was channeling her secondary vision for three minutes she would have to wait three minutes before using it again. Once she goes beyond the five minute mark the cool down greatly compounds, tripling once it hits five and doubling itself every minute after that. 

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN  ⫻ Penny is able to assign an attraction to any object that is also within the presence of the mountain, meaning that objects she repulses will no longer travel in a straight line but instead change their trajectory towards an item or person of her choosing (again, she has to be aware of their presence). The basic limits of her range still apply, and her “heatseekers” are rather dumb—they will try to take the most direct path to the target, regardless of objects in its way. 

LIMITS  ⫻ Repulsion has a much weaker potency on the Awakened, and thus, is much less effective on them. They can easily resist the push, but are not entirely immune to it. In addition, Penny can only manipulate objects that are within five feet of herself, otherwise it's out of her hands. Her Abstraction is completely useless against objects that are grounded, or people with strength-based abilities.

WEAKNESSES  ⫻ The Abstraction is connected with her mind, and causes strain. The usual psychic-nosebleeds, but it can also cause intense headaches, blurred vision, and memory-loss if overused. The Abstraction also requires care, as Penny's ability is automatic, and she can accidentally hit herself (or someone else) if she isn't careful.

   OTHER      

"I think I’m all talked out."

She went out at least once a week looking for any clues in regards to her missing brother.

Character name Opinion
MartinDear Diary— He was my one friend. I miss him. 
ClaireDear Diary—Is it wrong that I don’t feel bad that she is gone?
BillyDear Diary— I don’t know what his intentions are, but I know they are not good. I will never let myself be alone with him ever again. 
PennyDear Diary— She saved me but I do not trust her brother and they have a strange connection. It might be best to avoid her, too.
BritneyDear Diary— I feel like she is trying to see through me, and I know she knows more than she lets on. Whatever I do, I  can’t let her find out about my Abstraction.
TuyenDear Diary— I’m beginning to see a lot of myself in Tuyen. She was friends with Martin; maybe I should try and talk to her more.
 Rien  Dear Diary— Thank You Thank You Thank You!

Character name Opinion
PennyI can’t let her know that Henry is dead; which is gonna be hard now that we can telepathically speak to one another. 
AlianaWhy can’t the Glutton kill an ugly girl?
MartinGuess I don’t have to worry about being nice to him. 
Kimberly WaltonShe's pretty cool for a hipster, and I'm actually kind of obsessed with her show. Plus, who else is gonna supply with cheap, kitschy horror movies?
ClaireMan, I’m gonna miss her. She was totally my best chance at getting laid. 
BritneyIs it weird that we've lived in the same town our entire life and still can't manage to have a conversation without it killing itself with a bullet to the head? I just don't get it, dude.
RitaOh, I forgot about her.
 Rien They’re pretty cool. Hopefully, they don’t misconstrue what they saw...

Character name Opinion
BillyHe sucks because he's family. He'd suck if he wasn't family, too, but the fact that I have to deal with him more since we're blood related is the absolute pits.  He sucks even more because he always tries to pretend that things are fine when they aren’t. What a jerk. 
AlianaI wish I had been a better friend to her. 
MartinI’m sorry.
ClaireI can’t believe she was killed. Listen, I know we didn’t get along and, hell, I even hated her because she was a total bitch, but I didn’t want her to die. Jesus Christ, I didn’t want her to die. She was the toughest out of all of us, and the Glutton tore her apart like a ragdoll. 
BritneyWe were friends. We aren’t friends. If she doesn’t start spilling what she knows, then we’ll be enemies. Everybody that has died so far is on her hands because of her fucking secrets. She needs to own up to that.
LynetteKeep this a secret between the two of us, but I really do enjoy spending time with Lynette. Just...it's really nice to meet someone else who doesn't give a shit about what other people think, and if she knew I felt that way I feel like it would weird her out considering, well, it'd be kind of hypocritical right? Not like I'm trying to impress her or anything, it's just that she and Aliana are like the only people in this town that are cool. I feel like when I'm with them that I'm indestructible. God, that sounds lame. 
PaigeIt was weird being appreciated by someone for once. Okay, actually, it was uncomfortable being appreciated by someone for once. Still, if everything wasn’t as crazy as it was, I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better. She seems genuine.
 Justin He’s always there to help whenever there is a fight, but he was Claire’s buddy so we could never really talk. Now that’s she gone...
 Nate For a bumblebutt, he sure is helpful. Just don’t let him know that I think that; he’d probably let it go to his head and get all weirder than he normally is.
Atrophy Member

Meddlesome Kid

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Character name	Opinion
Martin	Dear Diary— He was my one friend. I miss him.
Claire	Dear Diary—Is it wrong that I don’t feel bad that she is gone?
Billy	Dear Diary— I don’t know what his intentions are, but I know they are not good. I will never let myself be alone with him ever again.
Penny	Dear Diary— She saved me but I do not trust her brother and they have a strange connection. It might be best to avoid her, too.
Britney	Dear Diary— I feel like she is trying to see through me, and I know she knows more than she lets on. Whatever I do, I can’t let her find out about my Abstraction.
Tuyen	Dear Diary— I’m beginning to see a lot of myself in Tuyen. She was friends with Martin; maybe I should try and talk to her more.
Rien	Dear Diary— Thank You Thank You Thank You!
Character name	Opinion
Penny	I can’t let her know that Henry is dead; which is gonna be hard now that we can telepathically speak to one another.
Aliana	Why can’t the Glutton kill an ugly girl?
Martin	Guess I don’t have to worry about being nice to him.
Kimberly Walton	She's pretty cool for a hipster, and I'm actually kind of obsessed with her show. Plus, who else is gonna supply with cheap, kitschy horror movies?
Claire	Man, I’m gonna miss her. She was totally my best chance at getting laid.
Britney	Is it weird that we've lived in the same town our entire life and still can't manage to have a conversation without it killing itself with a bullet to the head? I just don't get it, dude.
Rita	Oh, I forgot about her.
Rien	They’re pretty cool. Hopefully, they don’t misconstrue what they saw...
Character name	Opinion
Billy	He sucks because he's family. He'd suck if he wasn't family, too, but the fact that I have to deal with him more since we're blood related is the absolute pits. He sucks even more because he always tries to pretend that things are fine when they aren’t. What a jerk.
Aliana	I wish I had been a better friend to her.
Martin	I’m sorry.
Claire	I can’t believe she was killed. Listen, I know we didn’t get along and, hell, I even hated her because she was a total bitch, but I didn’t want her to die. Jesus Christ, I didn’t want her to die. She was the toughest out of all of us, and the Glutton tore her apart like a ragdoll.
Britney	We were friends. We aren’t friends. If she doesn’t start spilling what she knows, then we’ll be enemies. Everybody that has died so far is on her hands because of her fucking secrets. She needs to own up to that.
Lynette	Keep this a secret between the two of us, but I really do enjoy spending time with Lynette. Just...it's really nice to meet someone else who doesn't give a shit about what other people think, and if she knew I felt that way I feel like it would weird her out considering, well, it'd be kind of hypocritical right? Not like I'm trying to impress her or anything, it's just that she and Aliana are like the only people in this town that are cool. I feel like when I'm with them that I'm indestructible. God, that sounds lame.
Paige	It was weird being appreciated by someone for once. Okay, actually, it was uncomfortable being appreciated by someone for once. Still, if everything wasn’t as crazy as it was, I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better. She seems genuine.
Justin	He’s always there to help whenever there is a fight, but he was Claire’s buddy so we could never really talk. Now that’s she gone...
Nate	For a bumblebutt, he sure is helpful. Just don’t let him know that I think that; he’d probably let it go to his head and get all weirder than he normally is.