[ ELIZABETH GILLIES, female, she/her ] //:…loading vibe. CLARA BLYTH ALDRIDGE-WEST just joined vibe. their profile shows they’re a TWENTY-EIGHT year old EDITOR from LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. it’s nice to see some new faces around here. the vibe they put out is AMBITIOUS, but also MISTRUSTFUL and i hope that doesn’t stop their search. they have been on FOUR vibe dates in GENERATION ONE.
hello everyone! Damon here. i’m 18 and use they/them pronouns. i’m in gmt+0800, so i’ll tend to be a little late to events. being in the future, though, i can say with some confidence that you’re looking at a nice cloudy day. i’m currently on break after having completed my gce a levels, and am applying to university as well as part time jobs, so i’m just taking advantage of these few months of freedom to venture into the rp community. i’ve been rping for about six years and writing for about eight, but i’m always interested to learn and experience more. you can find my indie & musing blog here, and my rph blog here; my Discord is @agentn0vak#2056 feel free to hmu. on to Clara!
some things about my girl:
she certainly looks friendly enough at first glance, but she’s in professional mode most of the time and... isn’t really personally interested in many people
she’s a good boss, she’ll treat the people who work for her well - most of them actually like her, because she knows the value of appreciating your employees
she’s bi. but also have fun finding someone she likes enough to set her work aside for.
that’s why she joined Vibe! she’s not really looking for a long term relationship but she wants to get to know people outside of her work
she likes people that can help her to relax, but also have their shit together
if she doesn’t care for them she’ll drop them pretty quickly though. that’s why she’s only been on four dates that haven’t been all that successful lol
she can hold her alcohol, but she doesn’t like one night stands - you gotta earn it from her, honey
she doesn’t like her siblings, talking about them in front of her is an instant dealbreaker
since her family’s pretty influential you’d have to be living under a rock to not know her last name. as a result she likes to introduce herself with her middle name, going by Clara Blyth so people won’t try to use her for her power. she’ll only let you know her last name if she thinks you’re trustworthy
she’s been terrified ever since the visions started - although of course she hasn’t told anyone. she’s worried that there’s something wrong with her, like a brain tumour or something, and she’s gotten it checked but the doctors couldn’t find anything. she’s in control of herself 24/7 but these visions are something she can’t understand and they have her genuinely fearful for her life
plots/connections i’d like to see:
okay so this girl has definitely toppled her fair share of famous people, so i’d love someone whose life has been affected by her journalism - maybe you’ve got an uncle who went broke because she exposed him for exploiting foreign labour or whatever - not that she cares about ruining people’s lives because she thinks they deserve it, but it’d be fun for her to run into people like that sometimes
maybe someone she used to know when she was younger! she’s been all over the world, even spent a few years living abroad, so she might have met your character when she was a little younger
someone she’s met through her work? there's always interns or part timers or even... informants?
some friends from her college days, or even past Vibe dates??
there is so much we could do, i’ll be messaging people with ideas soon enough but if you have your own feel free to let me know!!
a quick breakdown of her history (this is so long honestly only the first and last bits are really important but i couldn’t help myself sorry):
Clara was born to Leopold Aldridge-West, a business mogul, and Portia Emerson, a socialite whose family broke into the hotel industry. she has two older siblings, Isla (34), and Cedric (32). Leopold’s name has been linked to various investment projects, financial services, and the entertainment industry.
Isla is her father’s right hand man, and is expected to take full command over all his companies as he prepares for retirement. at present she is already in control of his South American branches. Cedric, on the other hand, is more interested in politics, and works for the Attorney General of California.
while her family has a number of living estates in select countries, they currently reside in different states, with Clara having moved out into her own townhouse.
right from the start Clara was viewed as a backup to her siblings. while they were groomed to take over the Aldridge-West legacy (if not the companies, as was in Cedric’s case), Clara was set on a path to financial management in support of Isla.
she didn’t like it, but when your father has his fingers in half the businesses in California and is extending his reach into East Asia and South America what is a little teenage rebellion worth? so she kept her head down and followed her parents’ instructions dutifully.
in college, she took a journalism course as a bonus, and it changed her worldview for good; she realised she wanted to be part of the truth, speaking up on behalf of the people who didn’t have a voice themselves.
now that she’d found a purpose in life it was like she was a changed person. against her parents’ wishes she switched majors to journalism, and when she returned she joined the ranks of a fairly well-known investigative news site, the LA Inquirer. she started from the bottom as a journalist, but utilised her connections to chase down leads. in just three years she’d already written a number of successful articles that toppled her father’s business rivals.
she rose through the ranks quickly, where she met her mentor - Marek Czajka. he was tough and didn’t care that her family was powerful; he mentored her all the same, opening her eyes to the shit that goes on behind the scenes. things like corruption, exploitation, if it was a white collar crime he’d seen it. and the more he showed Clara the more she realised just how much she could change through her journalism.
Marek ultimately welcomed Clara to an anonymous network of whistleblowers that got their information just as illegally, and retired to leave her his legacy. with all the power Clara had, she grew ambitious and controlling, utilising various methods to gain information under her family’s noses. now editor at the LA Inquirer, she’s aware of just how much power she has, and the people she could destroy with what she knows.
