Aw yeah I'm so excited dude.

I'm sorry for that, but hey, just trying to do my part where the whole shit-posting thing is concerned. Also, this probably is a really dumb question but it's been awhile since I was in a public RP on here: would you prefer if we posted our CS' here before putting them in the actual topic for them? Or is that not necessary for this?

Chris Pratt is always so happy I can't ever tell if he's sarcastic or not. I'm assuming he is genuinely just happy, mostly because no-one can be that sarcastic for 24/7/365/???

<Snipped quote by The Scotsman>

Honestly though XD He's such a sweet person.

On a more serious note: once we do start, what kind of things should these children bring with them? I'm guessing somethings will be provided for them, but is there anything extra that might be useful?

@The Scotsman I am here. ^.^

I'm here as well, working on my character sheet as we speak. I tried to do some digging on what the NFS gives their Firewatchers for equipment but I could not find anything useful. Although I would assume that basic survival gear would be a no brainer.

So here is what I got for a character sheet. How did I do? Keep in mind it's been nearly two years since I've participated in anything similar to this so I'm knocking a lot of rust off.

Name: Lori Gosse

Age: 19

Gender: Female

Appearance:

Lori [+]

Lori has a thin but fit build, with her musculature putting most men her age to shame. She also prefers to dress practically, with most of her clothing being mens. So she wears long sleeve button down shirts, flannel jackets, blue jeans, and boots. Anything else just wouldn't be her style.

From: St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania

Likes:
Being outdoors. Lori spends the entirety of her free time outside whether she’s getting into trouble or minding her own business Lori is always doing something out of the house.

Reading history books. Even though Lori never really cared for school she did take a liking to history from the stories her grandmother told her. Now Lori always carries a book with her when she’s out and about. To her knowledge is just as important as physical strength. For if you don’t know where you came from, how can you ever hope to know who you’ll become?

Helping out where she can. Lori garnered a reputation in school for being the girl you didn’t cross. If she seen someone being bullied in school she would stand up to the bully, and throw punches if she had to. She was always the one to stand up for the little guy even if it meant that she got a bloodied lip out of the ordeal. Even if she barely knew someone she would go to bat for them, or comfort them if they needed it.

Manual Labour. A strange thing for someone her age to like but Lori loves to work. She was raised on the idea that a woman can work just as hard as a man and because of that she never strayed away from tough work. If she tries to hang around and be lazy she gets fidgety, so she constantly has to be doing something constructive. Even when she sleeps she rolls around in an attempt to fall out of bed and get back to work.

Dislikes:

Her mother. Lori’s mother had always been abusive towards her. She was ashamed that her daughter turned out to be a tomboy. So much so that she had taken to beating Lori and verbally abusing her every chance she could.

Other women. A fear brought on entirely by the abuse from her mother. Lori now slow to trust other women and prefers to stay around men whom she feels safer around.

Letting other people down. Lori has an irrational fear of disappointing people or doing something wrong. To the point that she sometimes is afraid to do something for fear of upsetting someone or inconveniencing them. So while she can be very outgoing she can also be very shy around people she doesn't know because she doesn't know how they'll feel around her.

Gunshots. Or loud noises in general are enough to send Lori into a panic. Even something as common as people yelling for her have been enough to cause Lori to have an emotional breakdown and hide. A fear more than likely brought on by the trauma common with child abuse.

Being alone. Lori has a phobia of being alone. When she sleeps at night she either lays up against something or hugs her pillow in an attempt to stave off her anxiety. Even when she's awake if she's alone she has to keep her mind focused on work otherwise her anxiety will get the best of her and she'll start to have an emotional breakdown.

Skills: Lori has an exceptionable fluency in high german a language taught to her by her grandparents. Also with the amount of time Lori has spent outdoors and working she has acquired a well toned physique and a high level of endurance. Both of which turned her into an even harder worker. She has no problem splitting firewood until her hands bleed or scrubbing a barn floor until you could eat off of it. But don't let her hard exterior fool you into thinking that she's nothing but good looks and bad jokes. At the end of the day Lori loves people. At first she might seem a little awkward and out of place, but after you give her some time to warm up to you she turns into a real laid back person that would do anything for you. She thrives on social interaction, it's one of the few things in her life that helps her cope with her anxiety besides working.

Other: Lori had an 'accident' when she was 16. Leaving her with a permanent limp and greatly affecting her ability to walk for long distances and run. Something she concealed from the Forestry Service when she volunteered for the position in Oregon. She wasn't about to miss an opportunity to get away from home and possibly find herself some peace.

I don't think you have to worry, you seem to have this down pat already! Lori is accepted, can't wait to see her post! Better CS than mine. If you've ever been in one of my threads though, you'll know how much I abhor CS'. This is probably the longest CS I've made in years. There's absolutely nothing beneficial that comes out of them that isn't taken from the writing itself.

I work until 5pm GMT, but after that I'll start on the first IC post to kick us off. I'm also thinking about having a Skype group if you guys were up for that? I've found it helps the longevity of these kinds of stories by allowing the writers to become friendly, and if in a writing slump, everyone else can help with ideas etc. Good for widespread, easy to find alerts about not managing a post for the next whole or something like that too.

Sorry for my radio silence, been working on a CS and got sick of how long it was taking me, haha. It's kind of 'bare bones' but I hope it'll do. I used to write ungodly long ones but I've started to feel like the more detailed a CS is, the more it limits character growth, so I hope this is acceptable. And as for a Skype group, I'm totally down for that!

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Name: Rebecca Morris

Age: 18

Gender: Female

Appearance:

• Physique: Rebecca is fit, but not much more than that - she still has struggles with carrying particularly heavy textbooks and other such similar items, and her constitution is consequently about average, if not a bit on the weaker side. She fits the classic definition of an ectomorph quite well - save that she's not very tall at all - and because of this, she doesn't gain weight (fat or muscle) very easily at all, and she has a relatively fragile bone structure. As a result of her body type, her pain tolerance and threshold are very low, although she's adept at moving quickly when she needs to and she's more flexible than the average person. She's slightly long legged, and has a column shaped body type. Her facial features are slightly angular but smooth, and her cheeks and chin are slightly rounded, and she has a relatively high forehead.

• Height: 5'3"

• Hair: Rebecca's hair is a warm, sunny strawberry blonde color, with natural pale, blondish red highlights. It's very full-looking, fine, and smooth in terms of texture, and is very soft and silky to the touch. She keeps it cut exactly at shoulder length, and generally wears it down, although for convenience's sake she's taken to putting it back in a low ponytail in recent days. She takes good care of it too, although she doesn't put much effort at all into its appearance aside from washing it and brushing it out daily.

• Eyes: Her irises are a warm, light honey brown in color, with a slightly darker brown ring around the edges. They usually have a somewhat guarded and uncertain look to them, as she doesn't trust others easily and is very particular about whom she actually allows herself to express her feelings around.

• Skin: Rebecca's skin is a relatively light peach color, with slightly rosy undertones. It is generally quite soft, but her hands are somewhat calloused from the years in which she's done quite a bit of menial housework for her family. She has no freckles, but she sunburns rather easily.

• Scars/Markings/Etc.: She has no scars worthy of note. Because of her upbringing, and because she's never had the desire to, she has no tattoos, and she doesn't have pierced ears.

• Clothing Description: Rebecca has no style of her own, as her clothes are generally quite old fashioned and cover just about every inch of skin that there's possible to cover, making it not very practical for the outdoors. However, as she has very little money of her own and was never allowed to wear 'men's clothes', she's made do with what she has, and plans to attempt to alter some of her clothing to make it more practical for the outdoors when she gets to the tower.

From: Grouse Creek, Utah

Likes:

- Photography: Above all else, Rebecca adores photography, and, though her family does not like her enthusiasm for it, the first time she ever fought them over anything was her ability to engage in this hobby. She was first introduced to it through a class in school she took just to get a mandatory elective out of the way, and fell in love with the process and her ability to capture certain moments in nature. Rebecca also became pretty close to her photography teacher, who helped her improve the proportions of her photos and helped her gain an almost instinctual knowledge of how long an exposure time any shot in any given light would need. Also knowing her home situation, this teacher also gave her a camera of her own near the end of the year, the model being a Pentax SF-X, the first AF SLR with built-in auto flash. While she hasn't been able to develop any pictures she's taken with it since school ended, most of them occurring on her 'road trip' to Oregon, she looks forward to setting up a temporary dark room of sorts inside or near the tower.

- Reading: Considering the opposition she's often been presented with when trying to read much beyond a couple select classics and the Holy Book itself, Rebecca will read just about anything she comes across, but especially likes nonfiction, as she loves to learn, even if it's not what's expected or wanted of her. Biology has always been a particular interest of hers, even though she did not do particularly well in the class at her school, as plants, animals, and humans never seemed more complicated yet simplified at the same time, and the more she learned on the subject, it raised quite a few questions in her mind about the validity of putting the teachings of religion over the findings of science. With her family, she hasn't been able to read much on the subject aside from a school book, however, so she's made do with reading through old philosophers' speeches and teachings, and recently finished Plato's Symposium.

- Nature: The 'great outdoors' has always fascinated Rebecca, and the colorful varieties of plants and animals that inhabit specific biomes fascinates her. They are also frequently subjects of her photographs, although she's perfectly content to spend a day without taking any photos out in nature. While she doesn't know as much about outdoor survival as she'd like to, she has a good deal of common sense, and figures that there's a lot to it she can learn by firsthand experience.

Dislikes:

- Being Micromanaged: Rebecca abhors being told what she can and cannot do as far as trivialities are concerned, as she is old enough to know many of the things her family banned her from doing are about as harmless as it gets, and she's grown sick of people putting asinine limitations on her to the point of which she's temporarily gone NC with the people who did this to her the most. While she takes instructions relatively well, she's so fed up with people bossing her around that she won't stand for being talked to like a small child or having any privileges 'pulled' by anyone who isn't with law enforcement itself.

- People (in General): In her experience, people tend to be very selfish and hypocritical individuals, and being around them even on an infrequent basis is generally a very draining experience for Rebecca. She is not only a very introverted person, but humanity in general has made her rather jaded, especially thanks to her knowledge of her country's political system as well as the inner machinations of her highly dysfunctional family unit. She has more or less lost faith in humanity in general, and while she was once a lot more generous and selfless, she now generally just keeps to herself. Her ideal job would detail her staying in the tower entirely on her own, but she supposes she can still put a decent amount of distance between herself and everyone else during the day.

- Bodies of Water: Rebecca was never taught to swim. Her parents thought lessons were a waste of money, and she's never even been to a pool in her life. She therefore has a slight fear of them, as she's all too aware of the fact she can't swim.

- Her Own Inexperience: She's acutely aware of just how little she's experienced or 'lived' thanks to the stifling 'protection' of her family, and is ashamed by the lack of knowledge she has about life amongst others. She was never very popular at school, and the friends she had were somewhat horrified by her home situation—and, in turn, she was never allowed to spend time with them outside of school for more than a few hours, as her parents weren't too fond of the people she liked, so she knows little about what typical young adults enjoy, and is about as clueless about pop culture as a typical seventy year old.

Skills: As was mentioned before, she's a very good photographer, and while it may not be a particularly 'useful' skill for others on a practical basis, it is a skill of hers. She's also a very fast learner, and once something is explained to her, she usually gets pretty much instantaneously, not to mention that she's generally pretty good at inferring what she should do in a specific situation, and she's used to improvising a good deal. It's also worth mentioning that she's very aware of her surroundings at almost all times, which is a side effect of sorts of living in slight fear of the people who raised her, and she can stay calm during most crises that she's been presented with over the course of her life, thinking logically and acting quickly to resolve whatever issue had arisen.

Other:

-Background (Brief Version): Rebecca is the second youngest of six children of a highly conservative couple from an equally conservative family, and, practically from the day she was born onwards, tradition, religion, and an aversion to social change were practically beaten into her mind and those of her siblings. She has never been allowed to have a job, and has not ever been given money by her family for anything in her life. The only reason she's in Oregon is because she needed a break from humanity to try and discover her own beliefs and values without anyone else coercing her into their own views. She did not inform her family she was leaving, or where she was going, for that matter.

- Theme Song: Runaway by Ryn Weaver

<Snipped quote by The Scotsman>

I'm not a big fan of character sheets either. I feel like you spend too much time stressing over a character sheet for it to then become irrelevant once you start writing. I know that my character has a lot more going on with her than I posted in her sheet but that's mainly because I didn't want her sheet being a wall of text. Plus omitting character details, at least for me adds a level of organic discovery when a character does something that isn't listed in their sheet but makes sense for them to do.

I'm also game for the Skype group. Anything that we can do to insure that this story carries on for a good while I'm on board with.

@The Scotsman As for the gifs thing:

But no seriously CS' are a pain in the neck and I've gotten to the point in my life where it doesn't really matter; unless details are required I find it's best to just say as much as you need to about a character and then end it so you don't box yourself into a corner. (Which I've done. And it's terrible.) But thanks so much! I'm very much looking forward to this!

Also, concerning the Skype thing, my username is hypenemious, I made it awhile back and it's therefore an entirely different user than the one I have now, haha. Are we going to make a group chat once everyone's accepted the requests and whatnot?

I'd be cool with helping in a collab post, but it's whatever works! I'm really new to those, as I'm actually still working on one presently, but I'm ready and willing to learn, haha.

Dang it I meant to post him here first aaagghhhh >.< Well, if there's anything I need to change let me know I'm so sorry XDDD