JJ Doe

The Spirits Within

Prisk said @EveryoneI don't know what your methods are, but I usually plan my posts by writing small notes and ideas in my phone, or whatever, of things that I want to cover in a post—makes it easier and faster to write the damn thing when I get around to it!

I actually have a notebook dedicated to writing down ideas. It's a complete mess at first glance though :P ...It's a vomit of... stuff.

The Spirits Within

At first, he could hear nothing. He knew he dreamt about something, but whatever dream he had faded away into the abyss. His mind was still submerged somewhere between unconsciousness and consciousness when he felt something pull him towards the real world. Kimberly was starting to wake up. The last thing Kimberly vaguely recalled thinking about was where “that noise” was coming from, before slowly opening his eyes.

Kimberly Rene “Fuzzy” Faye woke up in one of the many dorm rooms at Oakridge Military Academy. He spent the first few minutes of the brand new day staring blankly at the dimly lit room. There was nothing particularly interesting to be looking at, but his body refused to do anything else. When his brain was finally awake enough to do actual thinking, it started wondering why it was still kind of dark. To find the answer of this question, Kimberly’s neck gathered all of its strength to slightly turn the head towards the clock. “This is as far we can go”, the muscles of the neck seem to say, “go on without us.” The task was then passed on to the eyes. They locked onto their target. “No… No it could not be. It’s impossible!” …Why am I awake at 6 in the morning after graduation? “No! Wait, false alarm,” the eyes focused on the clock harder, “it’s 5 in the morning.” Oh. Phew. And here I thought I had gone completely mad. Good. More sleep for me then. Goodnight. Kimberly prepared himself for a second bedtime rest and would have succeeded had he done so a few seconds earlier. But no. It was too late. Somewhere off in the distance, he heard “that noise”. He thought that maybe it was the last few survivors of last night’s party still partying. Or perhaps no one alive had the strength to turn off the stereo. Either would have been possible, but Kimberly was wrong. The faint noise started to get louder with each passing second. Eventually it became loud enough for Kimberly to realize that the noise was actually samba music. Batucada, to be more exact.

Then, after slamming the door open, a mob of singing samba dancers came flooding in, doing what they did best: dance and smile like they meant it. One by one, the performers danced their way further into Kimberly’s room, steadily taking over every free space the not-so-big room had to offer. That’s when he realized this was just one of those moments. Kimberly groaned as he hid himself under the blanket. “You know they’re not going to leave, Kim,” he heard his roommate say. Not that Kimberly needed the reminder. The dark blue mountain on the bed sighed in defeat. Soon after, a mop with a human’s body emerged from the cover and disabled the alarm clock. He didn’t even know why he bothered with the thing: these “people” always woke Kimberly up as early as possible. Kimberly looked up to see that some of the dancers moved onto the furniture, allowing even more dancers into the crowded room. His roommate was sitting on the last dancer free furniture, next to the bed, staring at Kimberly. He smiled, “morning Kim.”

---

Kimberly quickly regretted heading for the shower. Why did he do that? He was going to do manual labor outside that involved dirt. He should have taken a bath after the job was done. More importantly, he was forced to shower in front of an audience. They may not be “real”, but they were real enough for any stripper to blush. Kimberly was cornered into the bathroom wall, surrounded by constantly smiling, never blinking dancers who continued to face toward Kimberly’s direction. When Kimberly stayed in the shower a little too long for their liking, the performers started to zero in on the giant. Some even managed to get into the shower with him. Not only were constantly smiling, never blinking dancers watching Kimberly every move, but now, Kimberly could not look anywhere without seeing them, except for the ceiling---… wait, he lied. NOW Kimberly had people dancing on the ceiling as well. Though they did not say sing it, Kimberly thought they were upset that he was getting water on him while they died of thrust outside. I doubt you would want to hydrate yourself with hot water guys. Kimberly turned off the water and managed to squeeze pass the dancers to get to the medicine cabinet. He ingested his well-needed medication, brushed his teeth, got dressed, and left the room with gardening tools, all while attempting to ignore his elaborate musical hallucination.

Kimberly passed by the cafeteria kitchen on his way out. Although the cafeteria was not technically opened just yet, the kitchen staff worked diligently on preparing breakfast for the students and teachers of Oakridge Academy. The staff looked surprised that Kimberly came early, but once they saw his attire, they knew where he was heading. Kimberly paid for his bento, which waited to be picked up by him everyday, and went on his merry way. He could have simply eaten at the cafeteria if he wanted to, but that tended to create unwanted attention.

The walk down the hallways was like a parade: the dancer’s movement became more energetic, more imaginary people joined in on the singing, and the music that literally came from nowhere started to speed up its tempo. It was more than obvious the performers were unable to contain their excitement. “Don’t worry… I’ll get there…” Two undergraduates, unfortunate enough to have been walking in the halls at that time, jumped to the side in fear when Kimberly suddenly mumbled something. The giant blushed faintly and continued to walk towards the doors. He had failed to notice the younger students walking when his hallucinations used up most of his senses. Poor things. Of course no sane person saw or heard what Kimberly experienced. He was going to have to expect some new rumors about him for the next few days.

---

He should have expected to see the imaginary carnival when he finally reached the school’s garden. Yet there he was, standing there, watching the non-existent attraction play out before him. It rained imaginary confetti, extravagant parade cars of various shapes and sizes scattered around the school grounds served as a stage for a number of imaginary performers, and thousand of imaginary beings danced and sang in perfect unison. From how they the show went on, Kimberly could tell this morning musical was at its climax. The performers gave it their all and when the show came to an end, they all posed for Kimberly.

An awkward silence passed between Kimberly and the imaginary entertainers. The performer’s creepy smiles never disappeared from their faces, but their body movements indicated that they were not sure what to do next. They were waiting for Kimberly’s response. After double-checking that there were no real people around to catch him in the act, Kimberly finally applauded. The imaginary performers’ plastered smile shined brightly more than ever as they bowed to the only audience they were ever going to have. When their heads rose up, their eyes twinkled with anticipation, a hope that their show was enough to appease their gardener.

For the first time that day, Kimberly took a good look at the damage the graduation party had actually done to the school garden. Messy… was an understatement. The garden looked like it was hit by a natural disaster. A warzone even. Garbage was all over the place; a number of plants were trampled on or were pulled completely out of the dirt only to be tossed aside; pools of vomit were spotted in certain areas; traces of urine dripped off some of the plants; some trees had broken branches; and a number of drunken bodies were found dead asleep across the campus.

Kimberly sighed and turned his attention back to where the army of imaginary entertainers was standing. This time, however, there were no performers in sight. Whether the medication had finally decided to kick in or his brain was just tired of making things up, Kimberly knew not, but the fictitious carnival vanished from existence and was replaced with reality. It was the world normal people saw… with an added bonus of spirits that hovered in the air silently. “You know… what would be great?” Kimberly smiled at the spirits as he rolled up his sleeves. “For more people to think that Kim is even crazier by dancing to music that they can’t hear?” Kimberly’s “roommate” appeared out of nowhere only to disappear once again. Kimberly could feel the confusion emitting off of the spirits. Sarcasm was not exactly a spirit’s strong suit. Kimberly rephrased his roommate’s statement, “to listen… to some music while I work…” The spirit of sound was more than happy to oblige to the request.

---

Despite working on the gardens for the entirety of the morning, and even getting assistance from the official gardeners and janitors of the academy, Kimberly was nowhere near completing his garden-cleaning quest when the school’s intercom summoned Kimberly and his friends. For some odd reason he never thought that the announcement was about the Special Warfare and Reconnaissance Group. In fact, Kimberly guessed that Roy had seriously messed something up last night that the old gang was called in for interrogation. He felt slightly guilty for making such assumptions about Roy, but then again, it was Royce “Punk---… Puck” Guyvers. No one could blame Kimberly for thinking Roy did something stupid… right?

“Sure, Kimberly.”

The Spirits Within

Ozerath said Hey JJ, how would you feel about Thael and Fuzzy/Kimbo being bros? Like, heterosexual life partners level bro?

If you can love a smile like this:

Then sure!

The Spirits Within

Blackwell said I am excite.

I third that.

My post will most likely be after Wednesday EST (possibly Friday), because I have a group project on heart disease due this week.

*Sees the rule on Meta-Roleplaying*... Oh wait excuse me. Let me try that again. *Clears throat*

........Third it.

.....
.......
..........
.............*Looks lost in thought for a few seconds* Oh yeah...

Got a group project to do..... Maybe Wednesday..... yeah.... that sounds good.... wait.... maybe Friday is better. Yeah. *Looks up at group* Friday....I think I'll be able to post after Friday EST.

The Spirits Within — character sheets

Name: Kimberly Rene “Fuzzy” Faye
Birthday: July 19th
Height: 1.99m

Kimberly

Appearance: Kimberly's appearance had always daunted those around him. Maybe it was his hollow dark eyes that observed the world with an intense glare so powerful that it might as well have the ability to disintegrate people with a simple glance. It might have been because his facial muscle was as flexible as granite, usually showing no other expression other than grouchy and a homicidal smile. Or maybe it was just because he was a giant. Something about him made little children cry, women take out their pepper spray, and keep the emergency line busy with calls pertaining to a suspicious individual. Kimberly has been questioned by the authorities, numerous times, on the basis that he looked like a(n): gang member, escaped criminal, terrorist, serial killer, and wild beast. Not many believed he was innocent on all counts.

His unkempt long wavy hair, initially grown in attempt to make himself invisible and less threatening, has been Kimberly's trademark; the reason why he would come to be known as “Fuzzy”. Now that he is capable of growing facial hair, Kimberly has a beard that his equally as long and untamed as his scalp hair, further cementing the name “Fuzzy”. Fortunately or unfortunately for him, Kimberly's family tend to play with his hair so often that it is not rare to find Kimberly walking around with braided hair and beard ornamented with hair clips and ribbons.

Ever since he joined the academy, Kimberly has maintained a muscular body so that he would be better equipped to protect and support his friends and remaining family members from the brutal world.

As for attire, Kimberly has never been picky. He would wear just about anything as long as he was comfortable in them: even if the clothing did not actually match or look good on him.

Personality: Despite the stoic-henchman looking appearance, Kimberly himself is a kindhearted innocuous gentleman who has trouble expressing himself. For those who have no idea what kind of person Kimberly is, he may appear phlegmatic or even impassive, but he is far from both. He is more loquacious in his mind than he is in reality and he is much more emotional than his face allows him to be. Mild emotions only appear like Kimberly feels nothing. Extreme emotions make Kimberly look like he is about to cast a curse on someone or has severe constipation. Any positive emotions make Kimberly present that infamous homicidal smile of his. Kimberly rarely gets angry, but once he is enraged, it is difficult to calm him down. If he ever hurts someone, Kimberly always ends up regretting what he had done, regardless of how justified it may have been.

Kimberly is honest, loyal, and values his friends and family more than anything in the world. He is usually cautious, but can be credulous when it comes to his friends and family: a trait he attained ever since Samuel believed Kimberly when no one else believed Kimberly's father was innocent of the murders.

While having a talent for sports, Kimberly is the most skilled as an artist. Influenced by his mother's side of the family, Kimberly loves nature and various realms of art. When there was still plenty of uncontaminated nature to spare, Kimberly would take walks or simply stare at the scenery as a pass time. Kimberly's current dream is to resurrect green parks so that his daughter and her children would be able to play in it like he did when he was younger.

Though Kimberly would claim that he is over the traumatic events of his childhood, ever since the suicide of his mother, Kimberly has been suffering from chronic hallucinatory psychosis. Symptoms include various sensory hallucinations, the most prominent symptom being auditory hallucinations, which can be either a harmless or terrifying experience for Kimberly. Kimberly is usually aware if what he experiences is a hallucination or not, but occasionally he cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination. Kimberly often hallucinates about a man named "Ghost", a cynical and sarcastic individual who does not always share the same opinion as Kimberly.

Biography: Kimberly was born as the only child between Lee Faye, an ex-convict, and Joyce Evette Appleberry, a photographer. Though they were not financially wealthy, the Faye family lived peacefully for the first three years of Kimberly's life. That was, until Kimberly's father was arrested for murders that he did not commit. For two years, Lee and Joyce tried to prove Lee's innocence. For two years Joyce and Kimberly were harassed by the media and those who were convinced Lee was the culprit. For two years they fought and failed. When Kimberly was five, Lee Faye was executed. A few days later, out of a moment's despair, Joyce committed suicide. She had attempted to take her son with her, but Kimberly survived the whole ordeal.

Kimberly was sent to live with his heterodox grandparents, “Mrs.” Clair Appleberry and Mrs. Michaela Appleberry, in Helston. “Mrs.” Clair Appleberry, Kimberly's biological grandfather, actively worked as a botanist while her wife Michaela ran a coffeehouse. Moving to Helston was supposed to be the new beginning that Kimberly desperately needed, but unfortunately for him, everyone in Helston knew Kimberly as the son of a murder. Wherever he went, Kimberly was greeted with cold stares and whispers that he pretended not to hear. Rumors were what people knew of Kimberly. No one got close to him more than necessary and Kimberly kept his distance away from others. It would have stayed like this for the rest of Kimberly's life if he had not met Samuel. Samuel opened the world for Kimberly: he would go places he would never go to, do things he would have never done alone, and become friends with those who would have been simply acquaintances. Samuel's death devastated Kimberly, but like the others, he managed to move on.

In middle school Kimberly met his future wife, Nancy April Rose (a surprise even to his friends). Nancy entered the same academy as Kimberly, as a mechanic. Being extremely talented, and a few years older than Kimberly, Nancy graduated before Kimberly did. However, she was forced to take maternity leave when she discovered that she was pregnant. After giving birth to a baby girl, Samuela Jolee Faye, Nancy worked as a mechanic for active military troops until she was found dead after a sudden attack by the abominations. Some say Nancy was just unlucky. The creature must have managed to slip deep into the facility without any soldier or security noticing. Some say she was murdered... by a human. Why else would only one mechanic be found dead in the middle of one of the best military facilities humanity had to offer, while everyone else in it were, for the most part, unharmed? Did a creature really breach the security? No one knows.

Since Kimberly's academy training often prevented him from going home, Samuela was usually under the Appleberry's care. Kimberly did try his best to spend time with his family as much as possible. When Kimberly was unable to go home for awhile, the Appleberry's visited the academy with Samuela to check on Kimberly and his friends.

Weapon: Kimberly is proficient in hand-to-hand combat. Since his fighting style requires direct contact with his enemies, during missions, Kimberly is covered in armor specialized for close combat from head to toe.

Limit Break: With his “roar” Kimberly’s limit break allows him to summon forth a spirit or an army of spirits of any organism to attack his enemies or to grant him the ability to transform into a Chimera ---a beast which changes in appearance and abilities based on the combination of various traits of the organisms he summoned. This limit break, unfortunately, has a catch: Kimberly must give up something as payment. The more powerful the foe is or difficult the task is, the higher the value of the payment must be. If he fails to make a satisfying payment, Kimberly will go berserk for a few minutes to a couple of days. Not even his allies are safe from him if this should happen.

Spirits:
Kimberly is naturally attuned to the spirits of (or related to) sound, plants, and animals. It seems that the spirits of sound and animals are not fully under Kimberly's command (yet are permanently bound to him even with the power of the Tree of Life), as such, they are the two spirits that tend to primarily provide passive abilities.

Ability examples

Healing
Element: None.
Effect: Heals injuries (to a greater extent than the previous minor healing)
Description: Kimberly's minor healing that improved after the upgrade bestowed by the Tree of Life. The presence of sunlight (and moon light, which is technically the sunlight reflecting off the moon) still enhances Kimberly’s healing abilities.

Increase Defense
Element: Earth
Effect: Protect and Shell
Description: Increases defense for a few minutes as long as Kimberly and/or his target are touching the earth.

Armor
Element: Earth
Effect: Creates armor and/or shield.
Description: Generates an exoskeleton (armor) around Kimberly —or a shield near the target— from any geological material readily available (this includes cement, metal, glass, gemstones, and even minerals like salt). At its current low level, the armor/shield can only withstand a few damage before disappearing.

"Corrupt" Fungus
Element: Earth & Dark
Effect: Slowly drains target's energy.
Description: Fungi begins to grow on the target. Unless removed, the target’s (physical/mental) energy is slowly drained away. The fungi are fragile and can be easily destroyed.

Bacterium
Element: None.
Effect: Weakens target’s defense and causes Imperil
Description: As mentioned above, this will weaken target’s defense and the target becomes weak to the next element suffered.

Shape-shift
Element: None.
Effect: Shape-shift.
Description: Can shape-shift into any (animal) spirit that resides inside of Kimberly. In the context of a battle, this will assign Kimberly with different attributes and an element, depending on whether or not there is a Guardian/Aggressor near by. During his transformation, Kimberly can create a link with the closest Guardian/Aggressor and if said Guardian/Aggressor allows Kimberly to "borrow" his/her element, then Kim can use that element and ALL of his attacks will be related to the element he borrowed. If he does borrow an element Kimberly will not be able to use any of his own spirits. Creating a link also means that all the damage that the linked Guardian/Aggressor suffers also hurts Kimberly. The more different Kimberly is from the spirit’s previous body, the longer ---and usually more painful--- it takes for him to transform. Considering the complications, it is not the best idea to shape-shift during battle, unless absolutely necessary.

Outside of battle, Kimberly often uses his sound and animal spirits for various tasks. His sound spirits: Enhances his hearing; Makes all sounds Kimberly produce undetectable for a few minutes; and Allows Kimberly to mimic other sounds. Kimberly can momentarily borrow the animal's unique ability, for example, see as well as an eagle, track down smells using the dog spirits, or gaining the agility of a monkey.

Attributes

Attributes:
Commando: 15
Ravager: 2
Medic: 8
Sentinel: 8
Synergist: 2

Although Kimberly is capable of transforming into any animal, if in battle, he tends to transform into a(n)…

Animal Attributes

Gray Wolf
Commando: 7
Ravager: 7
Medic: 7
Sentinel: 7
Synergist: 7

Kodiak Bear
Commando: 25
Ravager: 0
Medic: 0
Sentinel: 10
Synergist: 0

Sphynx
Commando: 0
Ravager: 25
Medic: 5
Sentinel: 0
Synergist: 5

Raven
Commando: 5
Ravager: 5
Medic: 11
Sentinel: 3
Synergist: 11

Random Facts

Random Facts:

• Kimberly actually wanted an occupation in either the medical or science field; jobs that he thought would really save or improve people’s lives. Kimberly largely gave up the dream because his childhood friends expressed their desire to join WARG and fight the xenomorphs. He hoped to support them to increase his friend's chances of survival and to contribute to ending the xenomorph threat sooner with few casualties as possible.


• There are very few things in the world that Kimberly doesn’t like to eat (most likely due to the wide range of tastes the animal spirits have ---had in their previous life), the very few being Sweet Dreams’ products. Sweet Dreams is a company notorious for it’s bizarre candy, which Nancy absolutely loved, including Balut ’n Cream with Licorice flavored lollipops. Ghost, on the other hand, doesn’t like really spicy foods or bitter tasting things, but has an extreme sweet tooth. If he had his way, Ghost would eat cake for breakfast, chocolate for lunch, ice-cream for dinner, and wash everything down with honey.


• In the Appleberry/Faye household, Michaela has the highest cooking skills; Clair, while not a bad cook, is better at baking; Kimberly is a moderate cook; the one time Ghost “cooked” something (popped popcorn in a microwave) he managed to burn half the popcorn while simultaneously leaving the remaining kernel unpopped; and the food that Nancy made was legendary: her cooking was so bad that it was thought that it could decimate entire populations. Luckily, the military did not discover the potential of Nancy’s cooking as a weapon.


• Kimberly is flexible enough to be considered an amateur contortionist.


• Although it is not clear whether or not being a member of the Caravan has any causation, Michaela and those of her bloodline tend to have some kind of artistic talent in one form or another. Michaela was and still is a wonderful dancer; Joyce became a photographer; and Kimberly is skilled at drawing and painting. Even Ghost shows signs of great skill with the piano and instruments of the violin family.


• Kimberly and Ghost have different monikers for the group:

Aaron
Kimberly: Aaron
Ghost: Ron

Emily
Kimberly: Emily (sometimes Emi)
Ghost: Mil

Fredrick
Kimberly: Fred
Ghost: Rick

Jynette
Kimberly: Jyn
Ghost: Nettie

Katherine
Kimberly: Kat (sometimes Kitty or Kitty-Kat)
Ghost: Felid

Magdalena
Kimberly: Maggie
Ghost: Lena

Olivia
Kimberly: Olive
Ghost: Vi

Remiel
Kimberly: Remi
Ghost: Rami (sometimes Mercy)

Royce
Kimberly: Royce (sometimes Roy)
Ghost: Puck (sometimes Punk)

Samuel
Kimberly: Sam
Ghost: Samil (sometimes Daemon)

Sofia
Kimberly: Sofie
Ghost: Fea

Thael
Kimberly: Thael
Ghost: Jared

The Spirits Within

I believe it was Katherine, but Blackwell decided that she would stay at the dorms of the academy.

Edit: Which reminds me, the Appleberry's would also love to have more "grandchildren" around them :D

The Spirits Within

Finally! Page has loaded! Is it me or is there are a lot of down time?

The Spirits Within

So, just to be sure, the cast (or potential cast) looks like this, right? Am I missing anyone?

Females: 5
Emily Whitehall
Jynette Karridan
Katherine "Kat" Hardy
Magdalena Abendroth
Olivia Celestine

Males: 6
Aaron "Hothead" Nyles
Fredrick Caine Kang
Jared Thael Conrad
Kimberly Rene "Fuzzy" Faye
Remiel "Remi" Morgenstern
Royce 'Puck' Guyvers

The Spirits Within

I can go either or. Having numbers does give us (or maybe just me) a clear idea of the combat situation (narrative battles can get ambiguous), but on the other hand, it has the potential of becoming very distracting. Possibly to the point that players could loose interest. You should also expect some confusion in the first few battles.

If you do implement numbers, how would you do it with this version of The Spirits Within? Maybe you can write an example of a typical combat (tutorial), instead of simply writing a list of rules, so that we get the feel of it?

The Spirits Within

Actually your description reminds me of a Japanese folk tale, where a (roughly translated) "woman of the heavens" has her cloth stolen by a human man and is unable to fly because of it. The ending varies, but the cloth looks like this: