Reworking a terrible character
This character is my oc for a selection roleplay I’m doing on a different website. (quizup) A selection is basically the bachelor except with royalty and possible death.
n Kali Echo
a 17
c 5
o waitress/singer
p Atlin
She is mostly based on three ideas:
The Greek myth Echo and Narcissus
A pinterest board I made about black and white, and the idea of loneliness as a friend
The image of a tall girl wearing a floor length white dress, surrounded by smoke from cigarettes, in a dark room mostly light by candles and neon lights in shades of cyan and red that merge to make a purple on her skin.
Kali’s mother never wanted children. She was a downtrodden 2, who had once been an up and coming starlet. She’d lost her future when she lost her innocence, and to console herself had turned to clubs with men who liked her. Kali’s father had loved her, and the worship had flattered her into a relationship. Her infatuation with the poor club owner faded when she found out she was pregnant. It was all so romantic, until she realized it would be permanent. Her father and mother fought through the pregnancy, and when Kali was born her father’s name was the only name on her birth certificate.
Kali never met her mother.
Jacob was young, too young to be a father probably. He struggled balancing his club and his daughter, until the obvious solution became letting her come with him. She toddled around the booths, spending as much time under neon lights as she did in the sun. Her clothing was all worn hammy downs from Jacob’s friends. Her hair was never all the way styled, but Jacob learnt how to hand sew holes, and brush little girls hair.
Hand in hand Kali and her father grew to understand the world as it was.
Kali grew up with music always around her. When the club was open she heard jazz, until 5 year old her could hum along to most songs being played by the live band. The band members were her friends, and they taught her how to play. She learned chords on instruments as large as her, and never learned to read sheet music.
When the club wasn’t open she heard pretty much everything other then jazz. She’d grow up with a fondness for the classical she could never hope to play, for the pop she could dance to. She’d try to replicate the sounds with her voice and the clubs materials, and she’d fail every time, but the end result would be something not quite old, and not quite new. Kali called her music borrowed music, and she learnt to play it with the club’s band. On one evening as the customers were clearing out, Kali and the band began playing.
She’d turned one of her poems into lyrics, that she sang with the freedom of never having to sing again the same way. Of the customers remaining, the talent scout Mifflin Harcourt, was there to watch the infamous Atlin Jazz’s band, when he heard singing from a girl young enough to be a celebrity. At the end of the evening he tipped with a business card
Kali followed the business card back to the talent scout, and at the end of her rope was a record deal. She got swept up in plane flights and phone calls, and frantically scribbling her information down. When she reached the studio, it was to immediately begin working with her managers, a man and a woman who had married each in college.
He was a chronic cheater, and she knew and despised him for it. She hungered for the day when she could catch him in the act, so her reputation wouldn’t be the one sacrificed in the inevitable divorce. He was getting lazier as the years went on, as long as she didn’t catch him it didn’t matter. She was getting closer and closer to catching him. There was a day when he brought a new secretary into his office, where he romanced the girl. That day she knew, and was ready to go see him in the act and in a heartbreak could ask for a divorce innocently.
That day she made it to his offices lobby, but was engaged in a conversation with Kali, giving him enough time to make him self respectable. In her disappointed rage she turned on Kali, firing her and making a promise to blacklist her.
Kali came home, and stayed home for 1 uneventful year. Then he came. He was a local celebrity, a 2 who was famous for stealing local girl’s hearts. He was beautiful. Untouchably beautiful. Angelically beautiful. And he was looking at her. He came in nightly, and they formed a relationship over the course of several months. Their unspoken relationship became a spoken relationship when he asked her on their first date. They quickly became a exclusive relationship. Then the isolation started.
By spending more time with him, Kali alienated herself from the friends she’d had since youth, and with their distance came words from him. “They must hate you, but that’s okay. I love you.” and just like that, he was all she had. The world might hate her, but he wasn’t the world.
That harsh reality gradually switched, transforming his words into a much darker knife. “I love you, but you need to stop talking.” “I love you, but you’re singing is too loud.” “I love you, but I need you to shut up.” His words became her thoughts. His love was the keystone to her environment, and he loved her best when she was silent and happy. She stopped playing instruments unless she knew she was alone, stopped complaining. She was always fine, and always writing.
When he left her, swallowed by his vanity into the upper class world, she fell apart. Who would love her if he was gone?
So that’s what I got about her. She had some likes/dislikes, and a few personality traits, but those didn’t really mean anything so I’m going to scratch them.
This character is in a Selection, and I want her to stay like that for a while. One of my problems with using her is that that’s what it feels like. She’s just being pushed around and not doing anything she actually wants. That means her wants have to at least a little line up with mine.
Her to last in this selection
To know the prince character
Lasting in this selection
So that’s where I’m going to work from. Why does she want to stay?
This is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It talks about what people want. I’m gonna use it to figure out what she’d getting from this selection.
She has food, water, shelter, air, and clothing at home, so she isn’t coming for physiological needs. She also isn’t being abuse or mistreated at home so she’s not coming for safety needs.
Part of her background is her being incredibly isolated, so it’s reasonable she has joined the selection in a hopes of relieving her loneliness.
That’s as far up the hierarchy as I can get with her, so I’m going to go with that for why she’s in the selection. She wants to stay so she can find a group of people to be a part of.
How does that interact with the insecurity I’ve given her? Well she wants to be in the center of a group, but she is afraid of forcing herself onto other people. “No one wants me.” She’s going to have to try and pull a group of people to her instead, by giving other people openings and letting them come to her. The issue is the Prince isn’t going to come to her, so she’ll have to find ways to reach for him while still feeling safe in the knowledge he isn’t forced to be around her.
That does mean I’m going to have issues using other peoples posts, because she isn’t likely to go up to someone and initiate. I’ll have to find a go around.
her desperation for something social could draw her in
if they don’t look too busy she might give them an opening
Alright, that’ll be the start of it.
My next problem with her is in conversations. She’s spoken to two people so far. (Well actually one, but twice with the Prince)
1st: She startled him, told him the wrong name, told him she played music without sheet music, told him her real name, and then left
2nd: She stumbled while thanking him, then asked him a question he couldn’t really answer, followed that through until she insulted him, and then apologized three times, now he’s scolding her for apologizing too much
The first time before the conversation started she was wandering the palace because she was feeling anxious, and then she impulsively acted which started their conversation. The second time she took her heels off because she’d decided she was already odd.
Personality wise I can say she’s decided she’s a manic pixie dream girl, and is just going with it, and that’s about it.
I think moving forwards I have to use that “manic pixie dream girl” by having her use non sequiturs, and make observations that seem out of place.
