Name: Ena Personal Journal:ena Contact Info: AIM: luthienabler Other Characters Played: Cain Knightlord, Alphonse Elric Preferred Housing: N/A - But please some player characters in the house?
Character Name: Madeline Rivers Character Age: 37 Background: For ease of keeping this ordered and making sense, I'm going to split this section into the world background first and then Madeline's personal background.
World Background: Madeline is from Earth, plain and simple, though things have changed a little since 2012. In the year 2036 a group of research scientists in Belgium were doing research into the common cold and how it was able to mutate so quickly and effectively, making a vaccine near impossible. What the mistake actually had been was never quite discovered, only that one of the four scientists working on the project began to get sick. It started in the same way as a normal cold virus - shaking, sweating and a bad case of a blocked nose. But after four days, she began to complain about things crawling over her skin, and on day six she committed suicide after raving about hallucinogenic monsters that left her nearly incoherent with terror.
Nobody suspected that it had anything to do with the research she had been involved with, she made the news simply as a brilliant mind who had tragically snapped under the strain, and the whole thing was promptly forgotten about. That was until her three coworkers started exhibiting symptoms, then their families and-- well, by the time it was labelled as a pandemic, it had spread too far and fast to contain. It proved just as resistant to vaccines as its much less lethal counterpart, mutating at a terrifying rate and spreading like wildfire.
Newspaper headlines that had started as satirical jibes about the 'Zombie Virus', likening the incident to something that might have happened in a B-movie, quickly turned into scaremongering, and then just scared. People began to become paranoid about the disease spreading, hospitals all over the world were inundated by hysterical patients who believed they had caught the virus. People began to talk about rash action, about cordoning off Belgium from the surrounding countries until a solution could be worked out. Belgium, naturally, fought back against this idea. The healthy occupants began to panic, thinking they would be shut in with the diseased ones to die, and began to flee the country.
Unfortunately, one of the infected people also fled, making his way to England where he started the spread of the virus there. Panic does not make a good bedfellow for rational decisions, and murmurs began to start that the Belgians had done this on purpose in some act of aggression. Talk of war began to grow like weeds, as people started to justify what would be terrible actions to themselves, all because of their own fear. In the end it was England that struck the first blow of a war that raged nearly twenty years, decimating pretty much the whole world.
When all was said and done, the world was ruined. Capitals had been laid to waste, countless millions had died, and 'civilisation' had come to a screeching halt - not to mention there was still the ever-present threat of the disease, still not fully wiped out even after nearly everything else had been scoured from the face of the earth. The remaining people retreated to pocket towns and villages, cut themselves off from travel and became largely self-sufficient. Most the settlements were built on the edge of the ocean so as to allow for fishing and sending a body out to sea became thought of as a 'safe' way to dispose of the dead.
Much of the major technology that had been taken for granted in the past (computers and telephones being the major ones) became relics of a history that didn't have much relevance now. Electricity remained in certain locations, though it was mostly powered by wind turbines. Things such a batteries, torches, knives and guns became extremely valuable and could be traded for other goods. Fishing, farming, building and medicine became the predominant careers, and all could be held by both men and women equally. Each settlement preferred to keep itself completely self-contained, and 99.99% of people would be born, live and die in the same settlement.
Even within the settlements, once war had been gone for years, life was far from peaceful. People were inclined to be paranoid and distrusting, any signs of sickness were treated with severity and very little mercy. Crimes were often punished in a barbaric way and there was little in the way of law enforcement. Each settlement governed itself, often choosing someone who acted akin to a Mayor, who dealt with minor disputes. Famine and drought became large problems, and livestock had to be treated with the best of care to ensure healthy offspring and enough meat to go around. Parents often decided they didn't have enough money to feed a child and so abandoned it, these children often perished as very few people were willing to take in an extra mouth to feed.
Personal Background: Madeline was born in 2250, over two hundred years after the initial outbreak of the disease had decimated the world, in a settlement on the coast of Scotland called Stony Beach. She was one of four children, the oldest and only girl. She had a fairly unremarkable upbringing - her father was a fisherman and her mother tended livestock, primary cows, and her family was lucky enough to never go too short on food.
When she was six years old, her father brought home a baby boy he had found abandoned at the shore, and her parents decided to take it in and raise it as their own. They, like a few of their friends, believed that the key to rebuilding the world wasn't in developing new technology or procreating - but on taking care of the children already born, and to raise more workers that were strong and healthy that could help bring in more food and prosperity to the family.
She was unaware until a little older just how odd this viewpoint was, and during her teenage years she argued a lot with her parents about how foolish their behaviour was. By this time they had taken in another two boys to their family, and this frustrated Madeline a great deal. She only saw them eating all the food brought in and taking up the space, too young to really help out yet, and she couldn't understand why her parents would give up such precious commodities in the hope that maybe one day her 'brothers' would help contribute to the family.
During her upbringing, both her parents taught her their craft as well as various survival skills - such as trapping smaller animals, repairing the home, treating wounds and infections, and basic necessities like cooking. She took to the tasks well, she had a naturally patient disposition and so had no trouble methodically practising a task over and over until she had learnt it. She was never particularly gifted in anything, though she grew competent at most of the aforementioned skills just via experience.
At age seventeen she married a boy called Daniel, who had grown up in the house next door to hers. They set up a home where they operated a fishing boat together. At nineteen she gave birth to her first daughter, followed by a son when she was twenty one. Unfortunately, shortly after the birth of their son, Daniel was killed at sea. He had lost control of the boat when a heavy wind had picked up, and the ship had wrecked against the cliffs.
Unable to go out fishing or to work in the fields herself as her two children were too young to be left alone, Madeline quickly began to run out of food. People she had bartered with for goods refused to help with hand outs because of needing the goods themselves. It was only her parents, now on a larger plot of land because of their three sons now all of adult age and working to help bring in more food, that took her back in. Significantly humbled from her earlier opinions that her parents were fools, she couldn't help but realise that only their genorisity of taking in the orphaned babies had helped provide a home that she could raise her own children in.
Embracing her parents' views finally, she began to teach the same values to her two children. And then to her nieces and nephews when they started to be born, and finally to the orphaned children she began to take in herself. Sixteen years on and she is still taking in children when they are in need. Her two natural children are in their teens now, though she currently has six more between 4 months and 10 years of age. She lives quite a quiet life now, she teaches her children the way that her parents taught her. Her home, which she still shares with her parents and one of her brothers, is mostly prosperous.
Personality: Madeline is practically the personification of patience and calm, very rarely flustered and able to take most things in her stride. She is methodical, very rarely abandoning a task until it's completed. Even though she isn't the most gifted at what she does, she works hard and usually ends up doing a good job through persistance.
She holds a great deal shame and guilt inside for how she acted as a teenager, especially when it became clear to her how wrong she had been, and prefers to pretend she had never behaved that way. As a consequence, she can get a little overzealous in defending her views now and trying to convince others that the life's philosophy she lives by is clearly the right one. In some irrational way, she still semi-blames herself for Daniel's death, believing that if she had not been so insistent in starting a brand new home with her husband and had instead set up home with her family, he would have had company on the ship that day and not been killed.
However, she keeps these thoughts to herself and is quite private when it comes to her feelings and troubles. Preferring to work them out herself, even when she might get better results by leaning on someone else, is a remnant of her stubbornness that remains deeply ingrained. She is quite headstrong and confident, and she brings her children up with very set views on right and wrong. Luckily from the good and loving upbringing she received herself, and her change of heart when she was younger, those views are very much preaching tolerance and kindness to others, even when the majority view is 'out for yourself'.
She is a very loving woman who deeply cares for her family, and is quick to accept others into that same family. She loves being a mother, naturally nurturing, with her patience playing a big role in her ability to take care of so many children all at once. She will always try to help others if she can, even when it might be detrimental to herself or when her help might not be entirely welcome. This is partly from a genuine care, and partly stemming from that guilt over her past views and a desire to make up for them as best she can.
Even after sixteen years she still mourns Daniel, though she does so privately, preferring not to let others see her grief. She has no interest in looking for love again, and she is content with the life that she has now. She is generally a happy person, and even when she's not then she tries to cover it with a smile, always trying to see the glass as half full. This isn't always easy for her, she does sometimes still get doubts and moments of fear for the future, though she does her best to push them down.
She isn't particularly combat ready herself, though she can defend herself if necessary. Madeline won't hesitate to use force in defending her children or home, nor would condemn anyone else for doing the same. Even though she has taken on board her parents' beliefs as her own, she still has a few hang ups from her society. Strangers from outside the town are something to be wary of, and she is quite frightened of viral illnesses, though she is quite capable of dealing with wounds or injuries.
Abilities: No special abilities. She is capable with a knife in combat, is skilled at survival techniques and can treat anything up to broken bones with competence.
Sample Entry 1:[Phone; filtered to children]
[Madeline has been debating over using this contraption for a while, but having heard about all the children this town has taken... the decision was made for her. Her voice is gentle, with a very light Scottish brogue.]
It seems to me that this place tries to get us to forget where we've come from and who were important to us there, so it can make us believe we belong here. Well I know that's a load of rubbish, and not even a different home with a different 'mother and father' can make us forget where we come from.
You must all miss your families a lot, I know I do. But I thought maybe it might help to talk about it some, so they know they're still in your thoughts. If you want to talk, it doesn't have to be anything heavy, you can always come and knock on my door and I'll be glad to trade stories with you for as long as you want.
I know it can get scary here and we all miss the people back home, but the wonderful thing about families is that we can keep adding to them. All the people here you love, we can all be a family and help each other through this.
Sample Entry 2: [The snows always brought a measure of dread, even back home where they were extra careful to keep warm and dry. It was a season of sickness, it was the time when the danger was the most present and she was almost hyper-aware of that here.
She was still uncomfortable surrounded by strangers who could be carrying who-knew-what from whatever weird worlds they came from, and now that snow was falling... she was, honestly, petrified. But there were children in the house who relied on her and friends she had made who would worry if she panicked, so she was doing her best to keep it to herself.
Neverless, that morning when the snow was fresh-fallen, found Madeline walking to the houses of all the people that she knew and then the two schools. She had a scarf over her nose and mouth to ward against infection and, if anyone were paying good attention, they'd notice she never stepped too close to anyone's personal space. Yet despite this, her voice is cheery as she holds up her laden baskets to whoever she comes across.]
I've brought you a scarf and some gloves, here now... put them on, you don't want to catch sick in this cold now, do you?
Note: I wasn't sure it was relevant to the app, but a list of her many family members can be found here.
Madeline Rivers | Original Character
Personal Journal:
Contact Info: AIM: luthienabler
Other Characters Played: Cain Knightlord, Alphonse Elric
Preferred Housing: N/A - But please some player characters in the house?
Character Name: Madeline Rivers
Character Age: 37
Background: For ease of keeping this ordered and making sense, I'm going to split this section into the world background first and then Madeline's personal background.
World Background:
Madeline is from Earth, plain and simple, though things have changed a little since 2012. In the year 2036 a group of research scientists in Belgium were doing research into the common cold and how it was able to mutate so quickly and effectively, making a vaccine near impossible. What the mistake actually had been was never quite discovered, only that one of the four scientists working on the project began to get sick. It started in the same way as a normal cold virus - shaking, sweating and a bad case of a blocked nose. But after four days, she began to complain about things crawling over her skin, and on day six she committed suicide after raving about hallucinogenic monsters that left her nearly incoherent with terror.
Nobody suspected that it had anything to do with the research she had been involved with, she made the news simply as a brilliant mind who had tragically snapped under the strain, and the whole thing was promptly forgotten about. That was until her three coworkers started exhibiting symptoms, then their families and-- well, by the time it was labelled as a pandemic, it had spread too far and fast to contain. It proved just as resistant to vaccines as its much less lethal counterpart, mutating at a terrifying rate and spreading like wildfire.
Newspaper headlines that had started as satirical jibes about the 'Zombie Virus', likening the incident to something that might have happened in a B-movie, quickly turned into scaremongering, and then just scared. People began to become paranoid about the disease spreading, hospitals all over the world were inundated by hysterical patients who believed they had caught the virus. People began to talk about rash action, about cordoning off Belgium from the surrounding countries until a solution could be worked out. Belgium, naturally, fought back against this idea. The healthy occupants began to panic, thinking they would be shut in with the diseased ones to die, and began to flee the country.
Unfortunately, one of the infected people also fled, making his way to England where he started the spread of the virus there. Panic does not make a good bedfellow for rational decisions, and murmurs began to start that the Belgians had done this on purpose in some act of aggression. Talk of war began to grow like weeds, as people started to justify what would be terrible actions to themselves, all because of their own fear. In the end it was England that struck the first blow of a war that raged nearly twenty years, decimating pretty much the whole world.
When all was said and done, the world was ruined. Capitals had been laid to waste, countless millions had died, and 'civilisation' had come to a screeching halt - not to mention there was still the ever-present threat of the disease, still not fully wiped out even after nearly everything else had been scoured from the face of the earth. The remaining people retreated to pocket towns and villages, cut themselves off from travel and became largely self-sufficient. Most the settlements were built on the edge of the ocean so as to allow for fishing and sending a body out to sea became thought of as a 'safe' way to dispose of the dead.
Much of the major technology that had been taken for granted in the past (computers and telephones being the major ones) became relics of a history that didn't have much relevance now. Electricity remained in certain locations, though it was mostly powered by wind turbines. Things such a batteries, torches, knives and guns became extremely valuable and could be traded for other goods. Fishing, farming, building and medicine became the predominant careers, and all could be held by both men and women equally. Each settlement preferred to keep itself completely self-contained, and 99.99% of people would be born, live and die in the same settlement.
Even within the settlements, once war had been gone for years, life was far from peaceful. People were inclined to be paranoid and distrusting, any signs of sickness were treated with severity and very little mercy. Crimes were often punished in a barbaric way and there was little in the way of law enforcement. Each settlement governed itself, often choosing someone who acted akin to a Mayor, who dealt with minor disputes. Famine and drought became large problems, and livestock had to be treated with the best of care to ensure healthy offspring and enough meat to go around. Parents often decided they didn't have enough money to feed a child and so abandoned it, these children often perished as very few people were willing to take in an extra mouth to feed.
Personal Background:
Madeline was born in 2250, over two hundred years after the initial outbreak of the disease had decimated the world, in a settlement on the coast of Scotland called Stony Beach. She was one of four children, the oldest and only girl. She had a fairly unremarkable upbringing - her father was a fisherman and her mother tended livestock, primary cows, and her family was lucky enough to never go too short on food.
When she was six years old, her father brought home a baby boy he had found abandoned at the shore, and her parents decided to take it in and raise it as their own. They, like a few of their friends, believed that the key to rebuilding the world wasn't in developing new technology or procreating - but on taking care of the children already born, and to raise more workers that were strong and healthy that could help bring in more food and prosperity to the family.
She was unaware until a little older just how odd this viewpoint was, and during her teenage years she argued a lot with her parents about how foolish their behaviour was. By this time they had taken in another two boys to their family, and this frustrated Madeline a great deal. She only saw them eating all the food brought in and taking up the space, too young to really help out yet, and she couldn't understand why her parents would give up such precious commodities in the hope that maybe one day her 'brothers' would help contribute to the family.
During her upbringing, both her parents taught her their craft as well as various survival skills - such as trapping smaller animals, repairing the home, treating wounds and infections, and basic necessities like cooking. She took to the tasks well, she had a naturally patient disposition and so had no trouble methodically practising a task over and over until she had learnt it. She was never particularly gifted in anything, though she grew competent at most of the aforementioned skills just via experience.
At age seventeen she married a boy called Daniel, who had grown up in the house next door to hers. They set up a home where they operated a fishing boat together. At nineteen she gave birth to her first daughter, followed by a son when she was twenty one. Unfortunately, shortly after the birth of their son, Daniel was killed at sea. He had lost control of the boat when a heavy wind had picked up, and the ship had wrecked against the cliffs.
Unable to go out fishing or to work in the fields herself as her two children were too young to be left alone, Madeline quickly began to run out of food. People she had bartered with for goods refused to help with hand outs because of needing the goods themselves. It was only her parents, now on a larger plot of land because of their three sons now all of adult age and working to help bring in more food, that took her back in. Significantly humbled from her earlier opinions that her parents were fools, she couldn't help but realise that only their genorisity of taking in the orphaned babies had helped provide a home that she could raise her own children in.
Embracing her parents' views finally, she began to teach the same values to her two children. And then to her nieces and nephews when they started to be born, and finally to the orphaned children she began to take in herself. Sixteen years on and she is still taking in children when they are in need. Her two natural children are in their teens now, though she currently has six more between 4 months and 10 years of age. She lives quite a quiet life now, she teaches her children the way that her parents taught her. Her home, which she still shares with her parents and one of her brothers, is mostly prosperous.
Personality: Madeline is practically the personification of patience and calm, very rarely flustered and able to take most things in her stride. She is methodical, very rarely abandoning a task until it's completed. Even though she isn't the most gifted at what she does, she works hard and usually ends up doing a good job through persistance.
She holds a great deal shame and guilt inside for how she acted as a teenager, especially when it became clear to her how wrong she had been, and prefers to pretend she had never behaved that way. As a consequence, she can get a little overzealous in defending her views now and trying to convince others that the life's philosophy she lives by is clearly the right one. In some irrational way, she still semi-blames herself for Daniel's death, believing that if she had not been so insistent in starting a brand new home with her husband and had instead set up home with her family, he would have had company on the ship that day and not been killed.
However, she keeps these thoughts to herself and is quite private when it comes to her feelings and troubles. Preferring to work them out herself, even when she might get better results by leaning on someone else, is a remnant of her stubbornness that remains deeply ingrained. She is quite headstrong and confident, and she brings her children up with very set views on right and wrong. Luckily from the good and loving upbringing she received herself, and her change of heart when she was younger, those views are very much preaching tolerance and kindness to others, even when the majority view is 'out for yourself'.
She is a very loving woman who deeply cares for her family, and is quick to accept others into that same family. She loves being a mother, naturally nurturing, with her patience playing a big role in her ability to take care of so many children all at once. She will always try to help others if she can, even when it might be detrimental to herself or when her help might not be entirely welcome. This is partly from a genuine care, and partly stemming from that guilt over her past views and a desire to make up for them as best she can.
Even after sixteen years she still mourns Daniel, though she does so privately, preferring not to let others see her grief. She has no interest in looking for love again, and she is content with the life that she has now. She is generally a happy person, and even when she's not then she tries to cover it with a smile, always trying to see the glass as half full. This isn't always easy for her, she does sometimes still get doubts and moments of fear for the future, though she does her best to push them down.
She isn't particularly combat ready herself, though she can defend herself if necessary. Madeline won't hesitate to use force in defending her children or home, nor would condemn anyone else for doing the same. Even though she has taken on board her parents' beliefs as her own, she still has a few hang ups from her society. Strangers from outside the town are something to be wary of, and she is quite frightened of viral illnesses, though she is quite capable of dealing with wounds or injuries.
Abilities: No special abilities. She is capable with a knife in combat, is skilled at survival techniques and can treat anything up to broken bones with competence.
Sample Entry 1: [Phone; filtered to children]
[Madeline has been debating over using this contraption for a while, but having heard about all the children this town has taken... the decision was made for her. Her voice is gentle, with a very light Scottish brogue.]
It seems to me that this place tries to get us to forget where we've come from and who were important to us there, so it can make us believe we belong here. Well I know that's a load of rubbish, and not even a different home with a different 'mother and father' can make us forget where we come from.
You must all miss your families a lot, I know I do. But I thought maybe it might help to talk about it some, so they know they're still in your thoughts. If you want to talk, it doesn't have to be anything heavy, you can always come and knock on my door and I'll be glad to trade stories with you for as long as you want.
I know it can get scary here and we all miss the people back home, but the wonderful thing about families is that we can keep adding to them. All the people here you love, we can all be a family and help each other through this.
Sample Entry 2: [The snows always brought a measure of dread, even back home where they were extra careful to keep warm and dry. It was a season of sickness, it was the time when the danger was the most present and she was almost hyper-aware of that here.
She was still uncomfortable surrounded by strangers who could be carrying who-knew-what from whatever weird worlds they came from, and now that snow was falling... she was, honestly, petrified. But there were children in the house who relied on her and friends she had made who would worry if she panicked, so she was doing her best to keep it to herself.
Neverless, that morning when the snow was fresh-fallen, found Madeline walking to the houses of all the people that she knew and then the two schools. She had a scarf over her nose and mouth to ward against infection and, if anyone were paying good attention, they'd notice she never stepped too close to anyone's personal space. Yet despite this, her voice is cheery as she holds up her laden baskets to whoever she comes across.]
I've brought you a scarf and some gloves, here now... put them on, you don't want to catch sick in this cold now, do you?
Note: I wasn't sure it was relevant to the app, but a list of her many family members can be found here.