A S A - P O T E N T I A L C O N N E C T I O N S / P L O T S
Below the cut are multiple potential connections & plots for a character to potentially take up with ASA HOLLAND. Please be aware of any trigger warnings before proceeding, and message me if interested!
TW // Medical Malpractice, Abuse, Murder, Violence
✍️ Write Me - It’s the mid 1800s, and you have somehow been gifted the privilege of a penpal. Either you're from the London/Ireland area, or you simply have a family with the standing to get clothing imported from the UK, for a tailor and his kind but young apprentice from Ireland has been tasked with making clothing for your family. Desperate for some sort of friendship or kinship, you and the tailor's apprentice have started writing back and forth. But you notice the letters stutter and stop- then come from a new location. An asylum. Things get odder, and you hear from him sporadically. He's been sent away by his father, he's being told he's crazy. Experimental medications and treatments. Through it all, he sends art and letters... until around 1888, when it all just stops. You never heard from him again... until you meet a scroungy little librarian in Greywood.
📚 Read Me - You are a fan of books of any sort, and the illustrations on the covers of some chapter books and picture books catch your eye. Perhaps you often go into the library, or are a collector of sorts- or you frequent the bookstore for more titles to read. But one day you happen upon a man painting watercolor in his - and the paintings are unmistakably the same artist. But those books were published back in the early 1900s, and this man seems to be in his 40s... it doesn't make sense. He is shy and you strike up a small conversation... he does NOT expect you to show up at his same spot near the fountain again with your own busy-work, eager to sit & make easy chatter. You are an unlikely friend for a nervous soul.
🙌 Welcome Me - It’s 2018, and you live in Greywood in a somewhat derelict apartment building. You see a man show up one night with moving boxes and endless plants, alone as he moves his things into the apartment down the hall. A shoddy flat is suddenly being painted and fixed up, your adjoining balcony cleaned up with furniture, an awning, and a little fountain. The man is quiet but works every evening and night- or in the day, under a patio umbrella with his morning coffee and a cat on his lap. And one day you can’t help complimenting his efforts. The next day when you arrive home, he has fresh tomatoes from his tiny deck garden that he left for you in a basket. He's kind and leaves little gifts, until he moves away. You're not sure where, until you see him working in the library and he tells you he actually moved to an old house and has so much more room now. He invites you over to see it, too. He doesn’t tell you for a while later, but you were the first to speak to him and try to be neighborly to him. Over time, you are a friend he can rely on. He may even look at you fondly.
👁 See Me - You were walking home when you noticed something very odd- a gentleman in nice clothes with dark hair and dark eyes, bloodied and helping drag someone down a long alleyway. You’ve seen many interesting things in Greywood around the time that dusk hits, but somehow this stuck with you. Maybe because you didn’t stop to find out what was going on. Was it a crime or a rescue? A good samaritan, or prey and their victim? It’s plagued your mind for a while- so when you see the same man working in a library with those same dark eyes, you take a chance. You talk him up, ask him for drinks. And when you can, you corner him and finally ask what the hell it is you saw. Suddenly you’re one of the only people who knows of a very dark secret that the Irishman is desperate to keep under wraps.
💬 Distract Me - You need something, or someone, to focus on. And he’s always available at night- maybe because for once the library is closed. You know that the quiet artist will meet you, almost anywhere. It’s usually a bar, a restaurant. Sometimes even a late night walk. You air grievances to the quiet night and the unsettling silence of his concentrated and stoic expression. But he listens, and he comments. He talks of his own twisted and depressing life. His voice is clipped and shy. He tells you a little too much- but is stunned when you don’t go running. Often you’ve met in the night, and when paths cross in the day, things feel different. A shy nod between two almost-friends. You have his number and text occasionally but he’s terrible at it- or maybe you both continue meeting for drinks and a little distraction. Maybe that’s all it is... or maybe not.
