RYSLIG | Application

[ghostlygaze]

OOC INFORMATION
Name: Val
ContactDreamwidth,Plurk,robots-batsen#4481 on Discord (pm first)
Age: 22 (23 in feb)
Other Characters: None

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Rosalynn “Rosa” House
Age: 18

World Information:
The world setting is modern day Earth, give or take a few years. The key difference to our world, however, is that creatures of folklore across the world are very real, though they keep themselves hidden away from the sight of humans. Cryptozoology is treated much the same in this world as it is in ours; it’s for conspiracy theorists, and rejected by the scientific community at large.

Ghosts are very real as well in this world. They can choose to show themselves to people, though either through trauma or some other form of connection to death one can innately see Ghosts regardless if the ghost wants to be seen or not. Those ‘in the know’ within cryptozoological circles refer to these people as ‘Mediums’ due to the fact they can both contact and perceive ghosts without the use of a ouija board or other such means, as well as the fact that they tend to attract ghosts as well - for better or for worse.

Character Information:
cw: underage drinking, alcoholism, mentions of gaslighting

Rosalynn was born to a middle-class family as the only child of Amelia House, a bank clerk, and Ross House, a travel agent, in the city of The Hague, in the Netherlands. Her parents moved there from the UK due to work reasons, and she grew up going to an english-speaking school, so she ended up retaining her home dialect.

For as long as she can remember she had always been able to see ghosts, something that her parents dismissed as childish imaginations, brushing it off as her being too creative and playing pretend. However, as she grew older she only became more insistent that she was seeing these spectres, some of which scared her when their appearance was less than pleasant due to the way they had departed from the living - which soon found her seeing a psychiatrist. From there, she went from therapist to therapist, as well as dozens of different psych medications (none of which worked for her) in an attempt to ‘fix’ her.

A key event in her childhood is that when she was about 6 years old, her parents took her out camping during an overseas holiday in America to visit family friends. During this camping trip she had wandered off into the treeline to collect sticks for the fireplace, when she ran into what looked to be her mother. When she asked what her mother was doing here and why she wasn’t helping her father set up the tent, her mother replied that she needed to come with her.
When she refused, feeling uneasy due to the amount of ghosts that had seemingly suddenly appeared in the trees around them, her mother repeated herself, as though her voice was played back on a broken record. The ghosts, in unison, screamed at her to run - and she did, screaming the whole way back from fear, the bundle of firewood forgotten in the forest as she ran back to the campsite, screaming the whole way in fear. Her parents were conflicted about what had happened, only knowing that something had terrified their daughter.

As the years went on, she began to act out; not listening to her parents, getting into fights at school, seemingly random outbursts and fits of frustration/rage, even getting into alcohol by the time she was 15, and slowly but surely beginning to question her own grip on reality due to everyone else around her insisting that the ghosts she saw weren’t actual ghosts, but a manifestation of some other underlying condition. Her parents continued sending her to a slew of different therapists, as well as keeping her on a rotation of different medications that were supposed to help, but never did.

Her parents frequently fought over what was causing her condition, where to send her, what medication to give her, and just overall how to cope with how she perceived reality. Their fights eventually led to their divorce, with Rosa continuing to live with her mother, while her father moved back to the UK. Rosa, however, stopped telling her mother about her troubles with ghosts, essentially gaslighting herself into believing she really was just crazy and seeing things, and that the ghosts she saw weren’t actually real.

Her behaviour only got worse, however, more and more turning to alcohol to make the things she saw go away - or at least becoming incoherent enough that she didn’t register them. Her mother tried to put a stop to it, even sending her to rehab on several occasions, but she always ended up relapsing and finding increasingly improbable ways of getting to/hiding bottles away.

Personality:

Growing up Rosa always liked to be independent, which her teachers and parents picked up on and encouraged. She always felt distant to peers, though that largely was due to the fact she disliked spending time around crowds, leading a much more solitary life than most would her age.

Due to her inherent ability to see ghosts it wasn’t a rarity for her to see decomposing people, to which she always reacted to emotionally, finding the visions horrifying and difficult to deal with, which is why she turned to alcohol at a young age so she wouldn’t have to see the things she sees, generally being avoidant on processing her traumas and emotions. She also prefers to run from the things that trouble her than fight, out of fear rather than violence - not that she can’t fight, but she’ll only do so when cornered and there is nowhere else to run.

Due to the effect alcohol has on her, on top of seeing ghosts without anyone believing her, she’s become incredibly disobedient towards authority figures that she perceived to think they knew what was best for her. Despite this she can be a deeply polarising person, craving affection yet shying away from it when it’s given to her freely, always questioning if they were just being nice to her because they pity her, or if the kindness was just something to pull out from under her when she least expects it.

The constant reprimands that the way she perceived reality wasn’t real, and that the spectres haunting her are little more than an overactive imagination, her self-esteem had taken a serious blow, and she often self-deprecates to deal with negative comments towards her.

5-10 Key Character Traits:
- Independent
- Emotional
- Solitary
- Disobedient
- Self-deprecating
- Avoidant
- Polarising

Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION Either!
Opt-Outs: Troll, Lich, Goblin, Simulacrum, Slime

Roleplay Sample: tdm thread