Sniblet

The Taygete Project

Flavor is good, and so is fleshing out a character early. I'm not all the way sure yet about how Cherry should talk to people, and a chance to help lock that in might be nice.
Sorry about the late post, I can go faster from here.

The Taygete Project

The footfalls again, following Cherry out of the store. Loud, obnoxious. She doesn't need help to pick them out this time. But anyone following her now would be in view of the owner.
She glances over her shoulder. The owner is watching her back, and not watching the...
That.

The first question is always, "Is it real?"
And the answer is - no. Obviously no. If anyone at all were actually following her, her supplier would make sure she knew it, one way or another. If she were in so deep right now as to hallucinate his nonresponse, she'd have some sense of the fact.
This one's even claiming the sound of her pursuer. She looks ahead again. Something's just reminding her to stay on edge, which she doesn't need to be told.

Then it overtakes and stops in front of her. She startles. They don't do that. They don't... usually? Have that level of object permanence.

"Nice to meet you, miss. How are we this fine evening?"

But it can't be real.
Unless this is some kind of mask over a real person stopping her - but the owner's still back there.
She glances back again. The owner went back inside.
She looks ahead again. It's still there.
Who would be stopping her to ask a question like that with the sun so far gone, without the slightest threat in their tone? And with an appearance like that?
An ordinary creep... someone unaware of how things work in this district, or above the danger... someone confident she won't harm them, in any case. Confidence is its own kind of threat.
She holds her ground, tensing up to fight. If he pulls a weapon - if it's a gun - if he has friends. Thoughts running fast. She almost neglects to respond.

"Morning, isn't it? Nothing else to do at this hour?"

The Taygete Project

An old clock tower, frozen at a time that can no longer be read. Is that the minute hand or the hour hand hanging limply at the 6 o'clock position? Is it precisely at six, or a little to the left or right? Who took the face? The other hand? Why did they leave the hand that remains?

A new work of street art at its base, sprayed in that same shade of crimson paint you may have seen once before: on the wall of the warehouse where that gang that wanted to be the new Fenice family used to reside; spread across the pavement in the parking lot of the last major shopping mall to move out of Herse. They've been appearing in abandoned places lately.

A hasty but coherent crimson likeness of Miss Vermillion, smiling mysteriously just as she does in that famous photo from the last public address in which she used the name of Herse. Here, the image is somewhat undercut - not just by its sketchy shape, but by the rest of the composition. Looping around her, curving behind her, chaotically imprinted across her face and clothes...
SMARTEST IN THE WOMAN IN THE
WORLD HERO OF TAYGETE WANT TO BE JUST LIKE
LIKE HER WHEN I SMARTEST MOST BEST FOR THE JOB
ONLY ONE FOR THE JOB IN THE WHOLE WORLD

*

Two cans lighter than she came, a woman, whom more people know by the name of Cherry than any other, makes her way directly to her art supplier. Her work is well behind her sketchbook. She'll never catch up if she stops at just one today.

The streets are quieter at this time. Herse is never quiet and never safe by day or night, but Cherry's frequent sleepless wanderings have found about 4 AM to be the ideal - most everyone worth avoiding is preparing to do something at sunrise, and the rest are asleep, nearly asleep, or wrapping up work. Those left on the streets are out now because they don't want to meet anyone, and that suits her excellently.

She cocks her ear to a voice whispering a mantra in a curious rhythm. "You're-not-alone-now," to the tune of... just a little out of time with her footsteps. Well, there are no absolutes in Herse - some are out now to find people who don't want trouble. She suddenly shifts her gait, and her follower comes briefly out of sync, just long enough that she can hear their steps herself.

Too bad for them, a bad place to stage an ambush. Her destination's just a block off, and the owner's shotgun is always loaded. They'll wait for her outside, but she'll disappoint them.

*

The man behind the counter looks up from his magazine at the ring of the doorbell. Before a word passes between him and the entrant, he bends down and picks out a case of her brand. Unlike most of his stock, with some other exceptions, it's undrinkable in the medical sense, with official warning labels to prove it. But a regular is a regular, and stock that sells is stock that sells.

"Money tonight?"

She tosses cash on the counter as she takes the cans. Never credit with her. Probably for the best. She seems like an enemy-of-the-state type.

"Yeah. No favors. Work to do."

"Good. M'floor's already mopped if y'didn't notice."

"I didn't. See me out the back door."

"Squatter outside?"

Cherry nods as she passes him. He rolls his eyes and rolls his shoulders, grabbing his gun to show her out.

The Taygete Project

Cherry

Miss Charlene “Cherry” Zinaida

_{You’d love to know who I came from. Whose little princess was I, before?}

---

You are not insane.

---

"Can you call this place a home?"
_{Can anyone?}

_{Why can’t you meet my eyes?}

---

TAYGETE CITIZENSHIP CARD

ID SERIAL	BIRTH	RESIDENCE	PROFESSION
R7037300	F, Age 23 (Feb 28)	Herse	Unemployed

---

PERSONALITY

Cherry has often been called, and very much is… intense. She’s not easy to talk to. She always seems on edge. In an average conversation there’s a pervasive sense that something very bad must have happened to make her what she is.
What goes on in her head is a mystery. What she shares is often malformed. She will insult people she likes and those she doesn’t. She will, in fevered and angry and sometimes incoherent tones, speak and act against every system of the world.
Politically, you would call her an anarchist. Neurologically, perhaps a psychotic. Philosophically, she owns a well-worn hard copy of Industrial Society and Its Future, and socially, she has declined to have any conversation with you about who she is.

---

BACKGROUND

I was born here. In Taygete. Do you really want to know more? Does my past really matter?
Cherry is extremely cagey about her past. To what extent it’s a defensive measure and to what extent she simply doesn’t care to share is hard to say.

My family liked to pretend that they mattered. The world thought the same. Still does. But you’ve never heard of the Arbor family, have you?
Her parents ranked high in the corporate nobility. They didn’t want her. She decided she didn’t want them either. The surname she gives to those who ask is a fabrication. If there is an Arbor family, they aren’t corporate.

Then and now, I’m no one’s little princess.
She caught herself, briefly, on the way to the bottom of the class ladder, and owned an apartment in Arche funded by a profession no one remembers. She was not diligent. She was not polite. She hit her boss for something that he did to deserve worse. Now she lives in Herse, and has had to get good at hitting people.

I live for what I know, what I can say, and what I can change. No one likes to look me in the eye, but they’ll hear me. They don’t have to want to.
To most on the Shoegazer forums, “Fruitstem” is an open-and-shut basket case. Her goals are rather higher and more dangerous than nonparticipation, and her manifestos tend to drown out perfectly good threads. Her street art, from closed and raised fists to unrecognizable abstract scenes, is unremarkable for Herse, apart from its consistent bloody shade of red, and its seemingly oblivious encroachment into all different territories.

You don't want to know me as badly as you think.
She has accumulated three pending friend requests in her inbox from among the few who’ve understood her. Only the last is less than a month old. Likewise, she never returns to see whether her artwork has been cleaned up or overwritten with a threat.

The me you want is not real.
People might ask when she got “like this.” A question with several answers: she was like this when she was born. She was like this when her parents abandoned her. She was like this when the professional world disposed of her for giving the wrong man, if anything, mercy.
She was like this after her X-Factor manifested and showed her how untenably full of lies her world really was.

---

X-FACTOR

My dreams are real.
Cherry straddles some unseen line between this world and another. She sees visions. She hears voices. One day, they began to tell the truth.

Cherry’s perceptions and intuitions are augmented by another layer of consciousness (whether strictly hers or actually a form of possession, you’d have to ask someone else) that catches fleeting sensations and realizations that she would otherwise miss, and echoes them as audiovisual hallucinations.
In practice, she has something like super senses – in reality, she is superbly aware.

If a liar’s eyebrow rises just slightly, and the movement reaches her eye, she may consciously dismiss the movement, but at the same time she won’t miss the lie – she may see his nose grow, or an unseen voice may lean over her shoulder and whisper what he must really mean. If her ear catches the indistinct shadow of a breath from a closet, others might fail to notice the sound, while she may perceive a monster hiding behind the closed door.
These phenomena are often symbolic or unclear, and must sprout from what Cherry consciously or unconsciously knows and senses. She may not know what your hand really is, but it’s still best not to challenge her in poker or try to play her for a fool.

---

The Taygete Project

Cherry

Miss Charlene “Cherry” Zinaida

_{You’d love to know who I came from. Whose little princess was I, before?}

---

You are not insane.

---

"Can you call this place a home?"
_{Can anyone?}

_{Why can’t you meet my eyes?}

---

TAYGETE CITIZENSHIP CARD

ID SERIAL	BIRTH	RESIDENCE	PROFESSION
R7037300	F, Age 23 (Feb 28)	Herse	Unemployed

---

PERSONALITY

Cherry has often been called, and very much is… intense. She’s not easy to talk to. She always seems on edge. In an average conversation there’s a pervasive sense that something very bad must have happened to make her what she is.
What goes on in her head is a mystery. What she shares is often malformed. She will insult people she likes and those she doesn’t. She will, in fevered and angry and sometimes incoherent tones, speak and act against every system of the world.
Politically, you would call her an anarchist. Neurologically, perhaps a psychotic. Philosophically, she owns a well-worn hard copy of Industrial Society and Its Future, and socially, she has declined to have any conversation with you about who she is.

---

BACKGROUND

I was born here. In Taygete. Do you really want to know more? Does my past really matter?
Cherry is extremely cagey about her past. To what extent it’s a defensive measure and to what extent she simply doesn’t care to share is hard to say.

My family liked to pretend that they mattered. The world thought the same. Still does. But you’ve never heard of the Arbor family, have you?
Her parents ranked high in the corporate nobility. They didn’t want her. She decided she didn’t want them either. The surname she gives to those who ask is a fabrication. If there is an Arbor family, they aren’t corporate.

Then and now, I’m no one’s little princess.
She caught herself, briefly, on the way to the bottom of the class ladder, and owned an apartment in Arche funded by a profession no one remembers. She was not diligent. She was not polite. She hit her boss for something that he did to deserve worse. Now she lives in Herse, and has had to get good at hitting people.

I live for what I know, what I can say, and what I can change. No one likes to look me in the eye, but they’ll hear me. They don’t have to want to.
To most on the Shoegazer forums, “Fruitstem” is an open-and-shut basket case. Her goals are rather higher and more dangerous than nonparticipation, and her manifestos tend to drown out perfectly good threads. Her street art, from closed and raised fists to unrecognizable abstract scenes, is unremarkable for Herse, apart from its consistent bloody shade of red, and its seemingly oblivious encroachment into all different territories.

You don't want to know me as badly as you think.
She has accumulated three pending friend requests in her inbox from among the few who’ve understood her. Only the last is less than a month old. Likewise, she never returns to see whether her artwork has been cleaned up or overwritten with a threat.

The me you want is not real.
People might ask when she got “like this.” A question with several answers: she was like this when she was born. She was like this when her parents abandoned her. She was like this when the professional world disposed of her for giving the wrong man, if anything, mercy.
She was like this after her X-Factor manifested and showed her how untenably full of lies her world really was.

---

X-FACTOR

My dreams are real.
Cherry straddles some unseen line between this world and another. She sees visions. She hears voices. One day, they began to tell the truth.

Cherry’s perceptions and intuitions are augmented by another layer of consciousness (whether strictly hers or actually a form of possession, you’d have to ask someone else) that catches fleeting sensations and realizations that she would otherwise miss, and echoes them as audiovisual hallucinations.
In practice, she has something like super senses – in reality, she is superbly aware.

If a liar’s eyebrow rises just slightly, and the movement reaches her eye, she may consciously dismiss the movement, but at the same time she won’t miss the lie – she may see his nose grow, or an unseen voice may lean over her shoulder and whisper what he must really mean. If her ear catches the indistinct shadow of a breath from a closet, others might fail to notice the sound, while she may perceive a monster hiding behind the closed door.
These phenomena are often symbolic or unclear, and must sprout from what Cherry consciously or unconsciously knows and senses. She may not know what your hand really is, but it’s still best not to challenge her in poker or try to play her for a fool.

---

@Vermicelli lots of superficial changes starting after the citizenship card, complete reworks where you indicated... and the links should work
glad it didn't get bounced for raw edge because i cannot compromise there

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

Out of line, not the game, meaning I don't want my queue spot anymore

The Taygete Project

after working on this for most of an evening i've finally realized how unhinged it looks
but we're all playing extremists aren't we

Cherry

Miss Charlene “Cherry” Zinaida

_{(You’d love to know who I came from. Whose little princess was I, before?)}

---

You are not insane.

---

"Can you call this place a home?"
_{(Can anyone?)}

_{(Why can’t you meet my eyes?)}

---

TAYGETE CITIZENSHIP CARD

ID SERIAL	BIRTH	RESIDENCE	PROFESSION
R7037300	F, Age 23 (Feb 28)	Herse	Unemployed

---

PERSONALITY

Cherry has often been called, and very much is… intense. She’s not easy to talk to. She always seems on edge. In an average conversation there’s a pervasive sense that something very bad must have happened to make her what she is.
What goes on in her head is a mystery. What she shares with the world is often malformed and never “decent.” She will insult people she likes and those she doesn’t. She will, in her baffling prophetic way, speak and act against every system of the world.
Politically, you would call her an anarchist. Neurologically, perhaps a psychotic. Philosophically, she owns a well-worn hard copy of Industrial Society and Its Future.
Socially? Well… that’s fourth on this list. It’s lower yet on hers.

---

BACKGROUND

I was born here. In Taygete. Do you really want to know more? Does my past really matter?
Cherry is extremely cagey about her past. To what extent it’s a defensive measure and to what extent she simply doesn’t care to share is hard to say.

My family liked to pretend that they mattered. The world thought the same. Still does. They all knew I didn’t matter. But you’ve never heard of the Arbor family, have you?
Her parents ranked high in the corporate nobility. They didn’t want her. She decided she didn’t want them either. The surname she gives to those who ask is a complete fabrication.

I live for what I know and what I can say. Some people hang on to my words – from afar. No one likes to look me in the eye. But they’ll hear me. They don’t have to want to.
She gets along well with the gangs of Herse, occasionally acting with them for self-sustenance, and has a following of her own. “Sprawl Shadow,” a hybrid political activist group, urban terrorist organization, and apocalypse cult, is based somewhere deep in the web, somewhat tolerated in Shoegazer forums, and dogwhistled about on Pasithee. She doesn’t run things – she’s not an organizer, and barely a leader. But when she speaks, the oldest members listen to her.

You don't want to know me as badly as you think.
Law enforcement knows her by her screen name only. Dies Lovis finds her equally intriguing, and is equally shut out.

The me you want is not real.
People might ask when she got “like this.” In a few ways, she always was. But it was after her X-Factor manifested that she found herself.

---

X-FACTOR

My dreams are real.
Cherry straddles some unseen line between this world and another. She sees visions. She hears voices. One day, they stopped lying to her.
The connection stretches both ways. The best way to put is that her own spirit can act as a sort of poltergeist. When she is agitated – which is often – lights may flicker, objects may topple, and others may see glimpses of what she sees.
Her control over this is questionable, indirect, and uncertain. When she’s angry at the world, it may be altered, and sometimes that can get in her way. When she’s angry at you, you are in danger – sometimes more than she wants.
This influence stretches as far as she can physically see and hear. A telescope extends her range. A television does not.

---

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

It's been a month and I haven't been keeping up with the RP for a while, droppin out of line

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

No worries, and no need to put me first in queue just cause I was early. I’ll keep eyes here but I won’t die if I come in later than someone who really needed to be in
It’s as good a determinant as any though if everyone else is just cool on the bench, I sure won’t object

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

Well, sounds like I won’t have to think of a way that Dime wins the entrance sparring match at least