Nyarlathotep

The Safe Haven - Revival (Closed)

Finals season for me, so I'll be barely present, sorry for the late notice.

The Safe Haven - Revival (Closed)

Levy Leighton

---

Levy poked his phone absentmindedly as the bus murmured along. Its engine made a soothing noise for him, and he was blessed with the ability to not care much about the outdoors one way or another, so he found himself nodding off as the trees and underbrush passed by. He should have felt fine by now, given the several months it had been since his family practically disowned him, but a part of him deliberately kept its distance from the emotions surrounding the rejection. It felt too uncomfortable to think about, so he pulled open another up-and-coming designer's catalog in a new tab and perused, the process of screenshotting favorite outfits automatic by now.

He almost missed the announcement of the ride's approaching end, looking up briefly before the phone consumed his attention again. 20% battery. People he had only encountered briefly around the school. A plethora of unusual powers. And an overwhelming sense of being lost.

He didn't know a thing outside the circle of his ex-friends and family, where vapid chatter about the latest TV show episodes and someone's new hair salon was the peak of excitement. Superficiality was enough for him--well, should have been. Cultivating a sense of belonging in an environment he had always considered as exotic as Antarctica was beyond him and his limited experiences. There was no information in his past to use, nothing to help him figure this out, and he hated--for a moment--that complacent Levy who never bothered learning anything.

"Have you seen the new Greta and Hanse line?" he texted, firing off the message to one of his old friends. But ever since they had heard of his effective exile from their society, no one had responded to anything he said.

The Safe Haven - Revival (Closed)

Levy Leighton

Always proud of his minimally saturated gray-blue eyes, Levy dyed his hair to match, admiring his reflection more than once in most of the mirrors and reflective surfaces he passes. He likes pink, hard contrasts, and crop tops, which he finds in abundance at any place resembling Hollister Co. and BCBGMAXAZRIA. His closet is mostly populated with crop jackets in varsity style sporting pink on one half, black on the other, and white trim accents. Pants stay cozy as white trainers with pink and black accents to match his tops and equally coordinated high-back sneakers.

Aside from the notable appearance of the midriff-baring crop jacket, Levy keeps his hair long and tucked into a baseball cap that he rarely takes off. He knows it gives him awful hat hair and is impossible to coordinate with anything even slightly more formal, but it's a brand-name hat from a limited run that he purchased (slowly, and with much Google Translating and clicking of the 'back' button until he found the right options to checkout) from an exclusive Japanese store online without knowing a thing about what the characters say so he really, really, really wants to show it off even if no one else cares.

Levy is able to create simple melee weapons and random (dumb) shapes/bits from his shadow. His shadow must be of a size that can accommodate something he creates or it simply cannot pass through. He is entirely unable to create remote constructs and must be capable of wielding/using whatever he's pulling from the shadow.

His ability also requires active focus and multitasking thus he cannot summon more than two or three objects at a time unless he wants to risk objects dissipating as he loses concentration. In vein with this, he must always be touching the constructs he makes or they dissipate with or without his concentrated effort. Even summoning a simple wall for protection requires him to keep a hand (or a foot or something) on it to keep it from melting back into his shadow.

The hardness/cutting/damage power of his constructs is slightly above regular steel alloys. As shadow constructs the objects lack certain physical properties like conduction, but force can still break them and Levy would need to summon more.

Summoning in quick succession tires him out rapidly, too, especially if the objects were fairly large weapons or constructs. He has in him, at the moment, perhaps four or five large summons in quick succession before the drain would make it impossible for him to call on more until he's rested.

Levy was always a bit of a vain little bitch ever since he was young and discovered his mother's tacky rhinestone-studded party purse. It lit up his world in more ways than one to finally see the glitz and the glam of fashion and the adoration of those who wished they could look as good, so he fiddled and fussed until he had a unique look and a gym-toned body to show off, preferring, as he grew up, the commonly named 'hipster' look, but minus the beard and smashed avocados.

It helped that his upper middle class parents were comfortable enough to afford a mildly extravagant lifestyle that allowed Levy to dip his toes into a wardrobe half that always cycled into the bins of the nearest Goodwill when new trends arose. The other half he kept for his more personal favorites--outfits he decided he liked enough to last through every mid-range designers' new seasonal lines.

His family tolerated his spending and he loved them for it in kind. It was a lifestyle he took for granted, happy for a friendly family without thinking about much else. Somewhere along the way, he thought the superficial cordiality was unbreakable. Perhaps it cracked him a bit when he realized it was not.

When his powers emerged at 19 and permanently planted some shadow horns on his head (Levy wonders if it's a subconscious thing, but he's never bothered delving deeper), his parents panicked and punted him off to Haven before they could lose face, telling everyone else that they were sending him to boarding school--for a long, long time.

Needless to say, Levy, ever-obsessed with clothing trends and fashion moguls, knows next to nothing about the school other than its general reputation for taking in superpowered people and keeping them out of the public eye.

The Safe Haven - Revival (Closed)

@Raptra Here's my CS! Let me know if it's missing something or needs to be tweaked!

Levy Leighton

Always proud of his minimally saturated gray-blue eyes, Levy dyed his hair to match, admiring his reflection more than once in most of the mirrors and reflective surfaces he passes. He likes pink, hard contrasts, and crop tops, which he finds in abundance at any place resembling Hollister Co. and BCBGMAXAZRIA. His closet is mostly populated with crop jackets in varsity style sporting pink on one half, black on the other, and white trim accents. Pants stay cozy as white trainers with pink and black accents to match his tops and equally coordinated high-back sneakers.

Aside from the notable appearance of the midriff-baring crop jacket, Levy keeps his hair long and tucked into a baseball cap that he rarely takes off. He knows it gives him awful hat hair and is impossible to coordinate with anything even slightly more formal, but it's a brand-name hat from a limited run that he purchased (slowly, and with much Google Translating and clicking of the 'back' button until he found the right options to checkout) from an exclusive Japanese store online without knowing a thing about what the characters say so he really, really, really wants to show it off even if no one else cares.

Levy is able to create simple melee weapons and random (dumb) shapes/bits from his shadow. His shadow must be of a size that can accommodate something he creates or it simply cannot pass through. He is entirely unable to create remote constructs and must be capable of wielding/using whatever he's pulling from the shadow.

His ability also requires active focus and multitasking thus he cannot summon more than two or three objects at a time unless he wants to risk objects dissipating as he loses concentration. In vein with this, he must always be touching the constructs he makes or they dissipate with or without his concentrated effort. Even summoning a simple wall for protection requires him to keep a hand (or a foot or something) on it to keep it from melting back into his shadow.

The hardness/cutting/damage power of his constructs is slightly above regular steel alloys. As shadow constructs the objects lack certain physical properties like conduction, but force can still break them and Levy would need to summon more.

Summoning in quick succession tires him out rapidly, too, especially if the objects were fairly large weapons or constructs. He has in him, at the moment, perhaps four or five large summons in quick succession before the drain would make it impossible for him to call on more until he's rested.

Levy was always a bit of a vain little bitch ever since he was young and discovered his mother's tacky rhinestone-studded party purse. It lit up his world in more ways than one to finally see the glitz and the glam of fashion and the adoration of those who wished they could look as good, so he fiddled and fussed until he had a unique look and a gym-toned body to show off, preferring, as he grew up, the commonly named 'hipster' look, but minus the beard and smashed avocados.

It helped that his upper middle class parents were comfortable enough to afford a mildly extravagant lifestyle that allowed Levy to dip his toes into a wardrobe half that always cycled into the bins of the nearest Goodwill when new trends arose. The other half he kept for his more personal favorites--outfits he decided he liked enough to last through every mid-range designers' new seasonal lines.

His family tolerated his spending and he loved them for it in kind. It was a lifestyle he took for granted, happy for a friendly family without thinking about much else. Somewhere along the way, he thought the superficial cordiality was unbreakable. Perhaps it cracked him a bit when he realized it was not.

When his powers emerged at 19 and permanently planted some shadow horns on his head (Levy wonders if it's a subconscious thing, but he's never bothered delving deeper), his parents panicked and punted him off to Haven before they could lose face, telling everyone else that they were sending him to boarding school--for a long, long time.

Needless to say, Levy, ever-obsessed with clothing trends and fashion moguls, knows next to nothing about the school other than its general reputation for taking in superpowered people and keeping them out of the public eye.

The Safe Haven - Revival (Closed)

Is it too late to join?

The Soap Factory

All right, thanks for letting me know.

The Soap Factory

I was wondering how viable a literal living stuffed animal is?

Initially, I had planned to make a CS for a prototype of the fictional Lively Bear line of teddy bear products. This prototype is a Lively Bear whose stem cells expressed the wrong genes: patches of fur of the wrong variety, scales on some parts of its body, teeth and claws where a cute mouth and stubby appendages were supposed to be, etc.. While he was supposed to be an actual living teddy bear, the only part of his description that's correct is the "living" part.

A mixture of technology and organic matter makes up the inside of his rotund appearance and so forth.

Let me know if this is something that won't work in the context of this story.

The Sinners

No problem, have a great RPG.

The Sinners

@Ryver: I've played SB, but didn't like it very much. Decor is from a random Google search

All right, here's the CS attempt for Lust.

"Lust" - Nathaniel Wilmer

Name: Nathaniel Wilmer
Title: Lust
Age: 22
Gender: Male

Appearance:


Nathaniel doesn't demand much by way of clothing. At a height of 5' 9", most everything picked up at a local thrift shop would fit him without much issue. He prefers dark, solid-colored button-up shirts, gray jeans, and some sturdy sneakers in case things get hairy.

Personality:

Nathaniel is a fetishist.

He didn’t realize he was one until he bit his sister’s thigh so hard he broke skin. Even as she screamed for him to stop, he couldn’t find a shred of emotion other than the blinding euphoria of watching the blood push itself out of her damaged capillaries, onto the surface of her pale skin, and smeared across his lips and chin. Her pain delighted him, but it was a specific part of her body he craved more.

A soft and slender human thigh is his drug. The rest of a person hardly mattered.

He could waste an entire day doing nothing more than caressing, licking, and biting a thigh. It was the sturdy length of the thigh, the clear seam of the sartorius muscle as the thigh lifted, the slight curve of the biceps femoris as he ran his hands over it, the tension of the gracilis as he slid his tongue along its length. It was all of this and more. He wanted to dig his fingernails into the thigh’s flesh, get as much of it wedged beneath his nails as he could. He wanted to pierce the taut skin of its ventral surface with his incisors, reveling in the increasing severity of the depression made by the thigh’s skin as it tried in vain to cope with the pressure of his teeth, reaching his climax just as the skin tension broke.

He doesn’t want love and he doesn’t want friends. He just wants to feel the endless ecstasy and fall into that bottomless abyss.

His mind is consumed by a mantra that ticks away at his self-control as steadily as a well-oiled clock.

“Don’t love me. Don’t need me. Don’t want me. I just want this one part of you.”

Yet, somewhere in his heart, he thinks he hears his own muted screams.

Background:

Nathaniel grew up in a financially stable middle-class family consisting of one younger sister and a domineering mother. His younger sister, Amelia, was never privy to the days when both his mother and father were present in the house, and he considered her blessed for that.

There was never a peaceful day to be had in the family back then. If his mother wasn’t furious with his above-average elementary school grades (“What? You can’t get an A?”), his father was busy wheedling him to learn martial arts (“Stop hiding in your room all day!”). He was supposed to be grateful for life, shelter, food, and education, according to his mother, and he supposed he was. Despite everything he considered wrong about his parents, he supposed he was.

Then Amelia was born in his first year of middle school, a byproduct of careless, drunken sex and a badly worn condom nine months prior. His father couldn’t handle the strain of raising another child and his mother refused to consider abortion. The divorce was bitter, sudden, and left in its wake the shreds of a barely happy family.

Nathaniel took care of Amelia in place of his mother, who pretended buying diapers and petting her daughter’s head was sufficient care for an infant. Amelia grew up dependent on her brother, who took strange pleasure in her reliance on him. He always held her whenever he was free, always rubbed her cheeks and kissed her forehead with the utmost tenderness. He was a loving brother.

When she was seven years old, he loved her a little more, kissing her chubby legs and nuzzling her thighs with his cheeks. When she giggled and said it tickled, he nibbled on her skin. When she squealed with laughter and the flesh of her thighs trembled against his lips, the warmth of her legs and the blood rushing to his head forced a gulp of air into his lungs. Before he could resist, he teeth had found hold on little Amelia’s inner thigh.

His mother heard the screaming, saw the blood. For the first time since Amelia was born, she behaved like a mother. She sent her son to a juvenile detention center under charges of physical assault.

Nathaniel’s case was deemed severe enough to warrant a two-year stay in secure confinement. When he was finally released at the age of 18, neither his mother nor Amelia welcomed him home.

He took to the streets to survive. It was during this time period that he met Sloth.

Abilities:

Nathaniel is a good butcher. Quick with knives and firm with shears, he has taken a twisted liking to torture and vivisection. Having trained his hands on a multitude of whores, he knows where to cut for a delicious scream, what tendon to sever to mitigate movement, and how to seduce to procure easy prey. Through it all, he holds onto any particularly enticing thighs until decomposition sets in, after which he disposes of them in bits and pieces to starving stray animals.
While he has some basic knowledge of firearms, he’s much more adept with sharp edges.

Power:

After the black miasma engulfed them, Nathaniel awoke to a world that looked drawn in smudged charcoal. His world was nothing but black, gray, and white, with varying shades in-between. It was after a few moments of reorienting that he realized the only colors left to him were the varying shades of blood—the dark red of deoxygenated blood, the bright red of freshly oxygenated blood.

The vivid red permeated the charcoal-gray of human flesh and the soot-black of walls and partitions. He could see the glowing red map of arteries, arterioles, and capillaries in a human body up to the far-point focus of his eyes, as if he was an x-ray that pierced everything but blood.

It was after touching his own injuries from the fight that he realized the irony of his abilities. He could heal what he directly touched so long as the heart was beating. The larger the wound, the longer it took for the veins and arteries to heal, muscles to reattach, and flesh to knit back together. His attempts to test on the dead yielded no results. In his vision, blood from a dead heart ran black as tar. Those hearts still beating glowed brighter than traffic lights. The fervor of human life set against the backdrop of a gray-washed world cut him to the quick. He couldn’t even make out their faces anymore.

All he could see was the pulsating of their blood. He couldn’t even enjoy the sensations of caressing a thigh. All he could hear as he pressed his face against grayscaled flesh was the accusing red of blood. All he could comprehend was the panic inside his own mind. What did he have left if not that broken euphoria of the dying and the wounded?

This was a punishment.

Yet, somewhere in his heart, he thought he felt relief.

How you joined the sinners:

Nathaniel’s stay in a juvenile correctional facility for two years had changed him, only for the worse. If he had any morals before, however skewed, they were nonexistent now. He had learned to play by the rules of the facility only to get back into the outside world, where he hid himself for four years amongst the small-time gangs roaming New York City. During this time, his fetish had taken a horrific turn. Starved for endorphins and the physical sensation of freely caressing flesh during his two years of confinement, his first opportunity to make up for lost time started with a few prostitutes and ended with dismemberment.

He found he quite liked cutting their thighs off. Legs were easier to enjoy without the pesky person attached to it. With the consternation he had caused in the prostitution rings with his atrocities, however, Nathaniel was not safe from repercussions. In an expected progression of events, a gang purported to control one of the strip clubs whose members he had amputated found him and cornered him. His small-time gang offered no resistance and left him to die. It was Sloth who saved him, though he didn’t bother asking her why. Her thighs, after all, were not his cup of tea. When she offered him a position in her gang, he figured she just wanted a butcher to clean up her messes. As long as he got to keep the body parts he wanted, he considered it a win-win situation.

Personal Arc:

13-year-old Amelia Wilmer has been going to therapy ever since the incident that sent her brother to juvie. Traumatized by her brother, but still unable to hate him, she still sees him in her nightmares and is only just beginning to put the past behind her. Nathaniel hasn’t forgotten about his dear little sister, though. During one of Sloth’s dead periods, he attempts to reach out to Amelia again, but she fervently rejects him. Too scared to call the police and too scared to speak to her brother, Amelia stops going to school for a week, hoping Nathaniel will disappear. He isn’t so easily deterred, however, and one last conversation between the two of them promises closure for the mixed feelings she has for her brother.

The Sinners

I'm planning on making a CS to compete for Lust's slot.

Will have it up later today.

Let me know if there's anything wrong with this and I'll step down.