Congratulations Mel, and welcome! You’ve been accepted as your original character Lydie Gagnon! Go ahead and set up your account, be sure to message the main from it.
Also, be sure to:
Make sure your ask and submit are open.
Follow everyone on the masterlist.
Track the tag norfolk: starter for open dash convos.
And tell us your initial reaction to Norfolk in the tag norfolk: talk!
Name/Alias: Mel
Age: 20
Pronouns: she/her
Timezone: EDT/EST
Personal tumblr: dorkymeadowes
Activity level: I’ll be starting school soon, which means I won’t be on as much as I have been this Summer, but I am on more than I typically should be during the school year, so on a number scale, I’d say I should be a 7/10 or moreso depending on whether it’s outside of midterm/deadline dates or not.
Triggers: none that typically apply to RP
What’s the secret password?: REMOVED.
How did you find us?: I’m pretty sure Rosh posted a link in Chiddy’s Crew, though it took me forever to finally apply.
What character are you applying for?. An original character: Lydie Gagnon.
Anything else?: Optional.
Writing sample:
“Ma cherie, are you sure this is what you want?” Her mother asked while she slipped a box on the counter of the bar to sit against the other three that had been stacked there.
“This is a manner–” it took her brain a few moments to realize the translation wasn’t quite correct, and mended, “a way to use my few skills to ensure that we can have nice, comfortable lives. I know this is a lot of change, and it means we cannot move so easily as we did before, but I like it here, and I know you do too, don’t you, maman?” She left her own box on the opposite side of the counter and walked over to the older woman.
Her mother laughed and shook her head, looking to the ground as her daughter’s hands came to her shoulders, “I suppose I do.” She lifted her gaze to her daughter’s face, taking it in like she always did: as if that time would be the last time she would ever see it; like she was etching it into her memory to avoid it fading away.
Lydie straightened her back and smiled, glad her mother could see how good this endeavour would be for the both of them. “What do you think?” She turned her body to the empty space that would be her shop, her gaze shooting upwards to the high ceiling and rounding to the white wooded walls.
“I think it reflects your taste a lot.” Said the woman whose apartment was filled to the brim with objects and decorative things, to her daughter, whose bedroom was much quieter than the other’s.
“Of course you love it.” Lydie smiled to her mother and wrapped an arm around the other’s shoulders, her eyes returning to gazing around Les Claires Café. Her own space. The thought relaxed her that her body slumped slightly against her mother, a sleepish smile spreading against her lips. Where will you take me?
2. ORIGINAL CHARACTER
Full name: Lydie Gagnon
Age: 26
Sexuality: pansexual
Species: witch
Claimed Power: Electrical Manipulation
Occupation: Owner of Les Claires Café
Address: APT 1, LES CLAIRES CAFÉ, OLD DISTRICT
Quote: “I am no stranger to the cruelty of the world, but I will not be a conduit for it either.”
MBTI: INFJ
Positive traits (3): kind, observant, understanding
Negative traits (3): stubborn, over-protective, cunning
Face claim: Emma Ishta
Biography:
With eyes as soft as a flower’s petals, and hair as golden as the sun, Lydie Gagnon was the model of a Romantic writer’s damsel. She was not born on a harsh, stormy night, however, but on a frosty winter morning some hours after the snow had begun its descent to Earth. She was neither loud nor sleepy, but calm and much too-awake for a newborn child. Lydie Gagnon had, and would continue to, mimick the quiet town she had been born in, though never shared it’s sleepy qualities: preferring to treck the mountains and exploring further to the outskirts of her home, stopping every now and then to capture some bits of plants in jars and store them in her pack, rather than sleeping through the sunrise and missing what the day could offer.
Beautiful, but curiously strange. The townsfolk whispered among themselves in lesser or more pleasant terms when she wandered back to town with her jars of plants in her pack and dirt on her hands and under her fingernails. They always wondered what she did, but no one dared to ask except for her mother, who would check if they were poisonous, then helped her to clean the safe ones and teach her what value each of her treasures had. Though all of the Gagnon women were witches, it seemed all of the power that had remained tuned to the lowest had finally tuned up when came time to bestow Lydie’s gifts. Her mother had been remarkable compared to the other members of her family, but it was clear Lydie’s magic was stronger than hers, and her mother did all she could to cultivate her magic to the best of her capabilities until she taught her all she could. When the neighbours begun to cast unkind glances at them in the market, her mother knew it was time for Lydie and she to make their way to a town that would be more open to their kind: Norfolk.
Lydie found the adjustment to be… strange. She liked those who lived around her and found the town to be welcoming, but she also felt uncomfortable whenever she thought about the town too long. Despite it all, the girl with the French accent and dirty fingernails somehow found herself a niche of friends at the high school she’d been enrolled in, and became the keeper of secrets she hadn’t volunteered to keep. She wondered, maybe, it was that people thought her loyal, but she knew, without admitting it, that they told her the things they were scared of in order to fill the silence that reigned around her like a dictator. Lydie spoke only when necessary, and it was in the quiet that people thought uncomfortable that they revealed themselves to her. As they all grew, she begun to invite her friends to tea instead, and on the advice of one of these friends, opened a tea shop that served in the same function of a cafe. Les Claires Café was an homage to her French roots, but also as a play on the power she’d been claimed by: l’éclaire, ‘the lightning’. Electricity had claimed her when she had turned eighteen, despite the fact that it did not entirely fit in with her work.
Despite it’s name, the café has a calm, relaxing atmosphere that reflects its owner to a T, and it is why most of its customers, especially its regulars, like to tell Lydie things they would never tell anyone else. Over the years, the once-outsider has grown to be the keeper of many’s secrets, and in turn, they have given her a sense of belonging where she otherwise would have felt a stranger. Have you ever told someone else’s secret? A curious child had bobbed over to the counter, not daring to touch the seats while they looked at her with wide eyes. The lady tilted her head to the side, considering the small being before her for seconds that grew more unbearable as they passed until she simply smiled, then turned her attention back to the cleaning the counter.
