Broken Mirrors - OOC

[Buio]

hmm, that;s a good question actually. being a guy myself i suppose i didn't give much thought to the general utilities that adolescent girls tend to enjoy *chuckles*.

well, considering the living conditions offered to C rankers, I imagine that they wouldn't have any make up immediately provided to them in their dorms, but they could most likely purchase some in the recreational district using their Merit points, with the more popular brand names being worth more points of course.

*chuckles* now I'm imagining girls in dorms trading bottles of mascara and such as a form of secondary currency, and the girls with higher merit points trading better make-up products in return for favours from the others lol. (sort of like those scenes in shawshank where the prisoners are seen trading cigarettes as currency)

 

[Ravenbelle]

Lol that's hilarious and probably accurate lol. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks. I can't wait to get started!

 

[Buio]

you and I both.

personally, i'm just waiting for the banner i submitted to be put up in the ad rotations. Hopefully that will attract more people to the rp and we'll get more applications coming in (that being said, if you have any friends you want to invite in order to further promote this threat, you are fully free to do so)

 

[Ravenbelle]

Its in the ad rotation. That's what attracted me actually. I loved the artwork. Intruiging title and all. I'm sure you'll have lots of character sheets in soon, though I personally hope we don't end up with too large a group because then people don't stay too dependable and the actual escape would literally take us rpers a month or more to actually get through..which slows things down and sigh*...too many people to depend on bugs me. Just saying

 

[Buio]

oh is it? I haven't seen it yet myself so i thought it wasn't up. well that's good to know then ^_^.

also, I stand by the ideology that a good GM values quality over quantity in all things. A large group of really talented and dedicated players is the ideal in most rps, but I'll take a small group of good players over a big group of lackluster players any day.

i don't typically enjoy playing the asshole, but i'm fully prepared to be one if someone come in with a bad CS that reeks of mary sue/garry stue, or otherwise seems like they aren't going to be the kind of player i want in my rp.

 

[Ravenbelle]

Good. There need to be more GM's like that in my opinion. Its just been my experience around here that group rps, especially large ones, wash up easily. And I definitely do not wanna see that happen here.

 

[Buio]

Well, it's a lesson I only learned after having several of my rps on my old site fail because of bad players that I failed to weed out (especially ones that would disappear for extended periods of time without any warning) so i don't exactly fault other GMs for failing to do it.

No to mention it's a pretty delicate balance to maintain. You have to be enough of an asshole that you can send bad players packing when they come knocking on your door, but not so much of one that other players start thinking you're just an elitist jerk who doesn't give anyone a chance.

 

[Kanon]

Yeah, I'm still interested - I'll get a CS up soon. Sorry for the delay, I've been having a hard time deciding on a character for this one. So many possibilities.

 

[Buio]

lol, it's all good, just wanted to make sure.
if you have any friends you want to invite, go ahead.

 

[Lillium]

Nice banner/ad thingy. I've skimmed over the OP and I'm hooked even if I dont really know too much about the RP yet. Well done! That said, I'll work on a CS after I get home. (Either later today or tomorrow)

 

[Buio]

yo, aleth, nice to see you ^_^. i wonder if anyone else from the eureka roleplay is gonna pop heir heads in.

and yeah, i figured that making the banner a part of my signature, and linking the image to the OOC, would be a more effective means of advertizing than just relying on the site banner rotations alone, since those rely mostly on chance.

either way though i look forward to your CS :)

 

[Potayto]

I thought this RP looked cool, so I decided to make a CS. Sorry if I didn't tell you I was making one in advance!

Name: Olivia May Hewlett
Age: 15
Gender: Female
Rank: A
Appearance:

Psychosis: Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) -- Although she actually looks perfectly normal, and is even somewhat attractive, Olivia is convinced when she isn't on Kaleidoscope that her face is deformed somehow. Without Kaleidoscope, she is very preoccupied with somehow "fixing" her face, she shows signs of depression, and she is reluctant to be seen by other people because she thinks they will laugh at her for her (nonexistent) disfiguration. Olivia denies having BDD while under its effects, because she thinks admitting she has a mental affliction will make her have to come to terms with her deformed face.
Psychic Power: Veripathy -- Olivia can sense if people are telling the truth or not when they say things. Sensing half-truths or only part of the truth are a higher level of veripathy, and Olivia is perfectly capable of doing that, although it's a little harder for her than the normal "lie detector mode". She uses her veripathy on herself most of the time to convince herself that she has an average, healthy face if she feels that Kaleidoscope's effect is wearing off. However, this is only a substitute for the drug for about half an hour, and Olivia is still very dependent on it.
Psychic Type: Artificial

Personality: Most of the time, Olivia is a serious student in and out of the White School. She hates having her concentration broken, kisses up to staff when necessary, and is definitely a perfectionist (partly because of her BDD); Olivia sets high standards for other people and even higher ones for herself, which could be good or bad. Although most people see her as "uptight", Olivia has no trouble forming casual, entry-level friendships, but is reluctant to share personal information with most people.

Olivia is quietly rebellious, even if she looks like the admins' pet. Most of the time this is manifested when she leaves her living area at night and wanders around. Sometimes, though, this shows in bigger ways. Joining the Broken Mirrors, for example.

Olivia is prone to emotional breakdowns, but she's pretty good at holding them back until she's alone. And no, she will NOT talk about them. Ever.

History: Olivia's backstory doesn't start out that impressively: She was the only daughter of upper-middle-class parents, had a handful of good friends, was loved like most children, and was expected to get good grades regularly. This continued until she was 13, when her family moved to a new town and Olivia was transferred to a different school. Suddenly, everything changed. The girls at the new school, which included grades 7-12, were much more judgmental than the company she was used to, although a bit shallow.

"Oh my God. Liv, those are NOT Bear Paws. You're supposed to wear Bear Paws."
"Don't call me Liv. And trust me, these are brand-name fuzzy boots."
"Brand-name? Ooh, yeah, I think I recognize the brand. The Salvation Army!"

Cue the cruel laughter. Olivia would have to deal with similar torment every day at this new school. Those girls, like vultures, would scavenge on any fashion-unfriendly item. And if they couldn't find one, which happened a lot, they would settle on her face. Olivia, squeezed between her parents' high academic expectations and her classmates' ruthless harassment, collapsed under pressure. Mentally, that is; she began developing body dysmorphic disorder after five months. By the time she was 14, the BDD was obvious. She had even begun shaving off parts of her skin in attempts to "fix" the deformation she believed was there.

Olivia isn't exactly sure how Brewster tracked her down, much less how the administrators know about her latent veripathy, but her parents didn't care. They wouldn't miss a girl who refused to talk to them, so off she went. Since then, Olivia rose somewhat quickly in Brew's ranks, but has become restless. She has the merit score, she has the high access level, and she wears that nice white armband with the big "A" on it, but what she wants is freedom, so a few months back, she was invited to join the Broken Mirrors and accepted, becoming pretty good at gathering information for the group to use. After all, you're not really at the top if you're a lab rat.

 

[Buio]

Hey potayto, it's totally fine, i don;t typically require a 'warning' anyways *chuckles*.

anyways, I like your character quite a bit, and I'm pretty glad you gave her BDD since it was a psychological affliction i knew about, but didn't know the name of it till now *chuckles*.

anyways, the one 'problem' i have with yoru character is actually the opposite of what you;d usually expect, her power is actually a bit too weak lol. If she's an A rank veripath (bonus ponts for coming up with a power i haven't seen already btw ^_^) then logically her power ought to extend beyond just detecting if someone is lying or not (that shoudl be the limitations of a C rank or low B rank). Since she's A rank, she should probably also have the ability to make her targets tell the truth by implanting subconscious suggestions via her telepathic powers (of course there shoudl be some limitation to this, like her needing to maintain eye contact in order to force someone to tell the truth. It goes without saying of course that other telepaths will be more capable of resisting her influence, depending on their skill level, just like she will be more capable of resisting theirs).

it's also pretty interesting how you made a character who has the power to discover anyone;s secrets, but herself is very closed off to everyone around her. not sure if that was intentional but either way i like it ^_^.

also, point of interest, you mentioned that she had started shaving her skin before coming to brew. Wouldn't that have actually left some scars?

 

[Buio]

Update I updated the Brewster section of the opening post, since i realized i had failed to make it clear ennough that the administratrs rarely if ever, directly interact with our characters, the updated passage reads as such:

"It shoudl be noted that the administrators never directly interacts with the subjects. When they oversee testing and development, they do so through holograms (much like the one Head Administrator Bennett used during the 'orientation' of our characters) and other digital interfaces. This way they do not expose themselves to any danger from any potentially rebellious or violent subjects."​

​

Thank you for your time

 

[Ravenbelle]

Which makes me wonder...what about when they conduct experiments under tha guise of teaching them how to use their powers? Those must be painful if there were those who died because of them. And there must be those who, even if they haven't joined the Broken Mirrors, must complain about what they do. No one's exactly happy there, because well, it's a 'mental asylum'. They complain like regular teens because they dislike the authority figures and depend on kaleidoscope.
There must be times when some who...well for example, Jessica comes back to the dorms with heavy eyes and annoying whines. She rants to the other girls about how the admins had her moving that stupid stress ball around a maze for houuuurs. Her head hurts and the other girls tell her to take a nap or (maybe suggest she takes more kaleidoscope? would that make sense?)

 

[Buio]

Well, there HAVE been deaths, but they're not exactly common in most cases.

See, and maybe this is fitting for a group of people running what the public thinks is a mental assylum, but teh administrators don;t like to be obvious about anything. You may have seen that picture on theinternet about a horse's lead being tied to a plastic chair that, realisticaly, could never stop the horse from going anywhere, but teh horse stays immobile because it's used to it not being able to go anywhere when its lead is tied up, and the caption reads "sometimes, the chains that bind you are more psychological than physical".

Well, that is exactly the kind of tactics the administrators like to use. They like to subtly let you know that you are their prisoner over whom they have absolute control, but they make that control subtle ennough (for example, controling students via providing them with something that takes away their psychological ilnesses, and then threatening to withold that drug from them) that most people can just fool themselves into believing that everything is fine, and just getting used to 'things being the way they are'.

It's this form of subconscious control that is the basis for everything that makes up the systems that run brewster. The fact that the administrators are never 'there' but always watching, and can 'show up' via holograms wherever and whenever they please is one way they reinforce their status as untouchable authority figures who can't be disobeyed.

They offer the subjects with basic amenities, and even offer them the ability to earn more and more privileges, that way they create avery literal class division amongst the subjects (especialy with the ranking system). Using the rank and merit systems, the administrators ensure that A: the kids eventually develop a form of stockholme syndrome where they stop resenting teh administrators and instead start looking for their favour in retrn for more privileges and rewards, and B: they make sure that the subject cannot become one group, united in their suffering against the opressive administrative regime. The subjects are fractured, with different ideals, ideoloies, and social statuses, that lead to having them take out their bitterness on one another instead of uniting to fight back against teh administration. The kids even get rewards for turning each-other in when some of them do something against the 'laws' of brewster, meaning that the administrators don;t even need to provide any policing to make sure the kids stay in line, the kids are all too busy policing each other (a tactic similar to this was actually observed in real-world WW2 concentration camps where nazi SS officers would promote certain jewish prisoners as their 'deputees' giving them marginally better living arangemenets and food in return for those deputees reporting any unruly/rebelious behavior in their fellow camp prisoners, turning the jews against each other and making them incapable of mounting an organized revolt).

With the technology they have at their disposal, the administrators could easily do something like outfit all the kids with explosive colars or something to that effect to keep them in line, but they don;t need to, bedcause the administrators recognize how psychological chains are much harder to break than physical ones (especially when most of your prisoner population is already psychologically damaged to some degree or another).


Back to the topic of the death that have happened during testing though. Like i said, there were not very many, and almost all of them hapened to E and D rankers. The test also become much less invasive and uncomfortable as someone advances through the ranks (this is partially to reinforce the above mentioned stockholm syndrome, and partially because the stronger someone's powers are, teh easier it is to observe them without using machinery or outside technology to monitor them and their environments in the ways that human senses can't). What you have to remember is that the most important thing to the administrators is data, and dead bodies can't give them very much of that. So generally speaking the administrators won't allow a subject to kill themselves with their power, because that would be a waste of potential data that could be collected from that subject in the future.

The few deaths that have occured were, again, mostly planned by the administrators, and mostly occured to openly rebellious new arrivals who both showed very little signs of being capble of actually mastering their powers, and who openly spoke out against the silent tyrany of the administrators. Having them die during testing is an effective and silent way to remind everyone how much cntrol the administrators have over them, and generally speaking the reaction among the subjects is "well, it was their fault for being so weak" or "That's what hapens when you cause trouble. They shoudl have just shut up and followed the rules like everyone else" or something along those lines.


P.S. as an interesting asside, you shoudl take 5 seconds to sit back and think how many of these very same psychological manipulation tactics modern day govermnents are using in order to keep the general populace pacified and taught that 'this is just the way things are' *chuckles*.

 

[Ravenbelle]

Oh my god....okay. That definitely answers my question and more....woah. You're awesome.

 

[Rainbowwave]

Are you still accepting characters?

 

[Lillium]

Name: Autumn Daniels
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Rank: A

Appearance

Appearance: Autumn is an attractive girl with long red hair and sky blue eyes. Standing at 5'7", her figure is feminine and graceful. Not fussy with her appearance, she doesn't wear any makeup or accessories. She's happy as long as she's clean and decently dressed. Her long hair is kept loose, sometimes held back from her face with plain black hairpins. She has a faint scar about an inch long , almost hidden in her hairline above her right eyebrow.

Psychosis: Cotard Delusion/Walking Corpse Syndrome – Ever since she was a little girl, Autumn has been plagued by the delusion that she is dead. No matter how hard people try to convince her otherwise, she refused to believe that she is in fact alive and in perfectly good health. These delusions gradually got worse, inducing hallucinations that her body wasn't corporeal which in turn brought on bouts of depression and constant panic.

Psychic Power: Hallucinokinesis – More commonly known as illusion manipulation, it allows Autumn to manipulate and create illusions thereby altering a subject's perception of reality. Inducing illusions on an individual is much easier than manipulating a group as she has to concentrate on only a single target. The largest number she can manipulate for now is 8, and those too only basic illusions such as invisibility or camouflage. In order for her power to work, she must have the target in clear visual range. Maintaining an illusion can be tricky as even the tiniest flaw in the vision (such as incorrectly placed shadows or lighting) can be perceived and alert the subject's mind, shattering the illusion.
Other telepaths naturally have a higher resistance to Autumn's illusions.
Psychic Type: Artificial

Personality: Due to her disorder, her true personality rarely ever gets a chance to shine. After the first few doses of Kaleidoscope however, she's progressing reasonably well. Her bouts of depression are less frequent along with her 'episodes'.

Autumn's usually reserved and quite shy with people she doesn't know too well. She's very curious, seeing so many different aspects of the world which she had previously blocked out. Collecting pretty objects has become a hobby of hers (origami, especially the floral ones.) Her mouth has a habit of speaking without her brain's approval when she's excited or upset, which sometimes causes offense or misunderstandings. Never meaning to intentionally hurt of insult someone, she will apologize when she realizes her mistake.

Gifted (or cursed) with an expressive face and eyes, her feelings are written out clearly for the world to see. As expected, she's a horrible liar and blushes quite easily. Surprisingly enough, she doesn't cry like most teenage girls would when hurt or upset. Autumn rarely ever cries.

Beneath her mild demeanor lurks a rebellious streak, a certain stubbornness, if you will. She hates being forced to do anything. Autumn values freedom and wants to make her own choices instead of having them dictated by someone else.

When it comes to studies, she isn't particularly fond of it. Autumn only finishes her coursework because they don't allow 'free time' otherwise. Quickly and correctly completing her given assignments mean more time for her. The students who do better at the tests are allowed to rank up, which in turn provides more facilities and time.

History:

Ultra long history

The first few years of Autumn Daniels' life was ordinary and happy. She lived in a middle-high class neighborhood with her parents and two younger twin siblings. She was a likeable child, if a bit too excitable and hyperactive. In the summer after her 8th birthday, her father built a little tree-house for them to play in. Autumn and her siblings loved playing games in it and spent almost all their time in it.

Barely a month after the tree house was built; Autumn was playing dragons and knights with her siblings as per their usual while their mother looked on occasionally while she worked on her writing. Little Lily, only 6 years old got into a fight with her twin brother for pulling on her braid. Their mother moved to break up the fight and lecture the twins for the billionth time, turning her back to Autumn. Not wanting to play by herself after the twins got a time out, she started to climb down. In her haste, her foot missed a rung of the ladder. She didn't remember what exactly happened next though she was aware of someone screaming, a voice that sounded suspiciously like her own as the world went black.

Autumn was rushed to the hospital by her frantic mother, scared nearly to death because her baby was unconscious and bleeding from a head wound. After a few agonizing hours in the waiting room, the Daniels' were assured that their daughter was going to pull through. However, they couldn't be certain about her state of mind until she woke up. Head trauma was a complex thing as each case was different from the other.

Autumn didn't remember much of her month at the hospital except waking up occasionally and feeling disoriented. Everything was out of focus and she felt like she was floating. Fever dreams plagued her minds as she flickered between consciousness. Her parents stayed watch diligently at her bedside until she was finally cleared to leave. She had recovered from her physical injuries quite well, they said. However, it would be wise to take her to see a therapist just in case.
Returning home, a few weeks passed by uneventfully. Autumn was much quieter and withdrawn and she wasn't allowed to go outside to play just yet. She felt like something was wrong, out of place but she couldn't decide what it was. Finally allowed to go outside, she saw the tree house and it all came flooding back.

Still a child, she didn't exactly understand the concept of death yet. Just that when something was hurt really badly and lay very still, they weren't going to get up and move again. They were put into a box and buried in the backyard; everyone put flowers on it and said nice things. She knew this because her grandma explained it to her when Chirpy, her budgie had died. Autumn knew that she had been hurt very badly and lay very still. In her mind, this meant that she wasn't allowed to walk around. She was supposed to be put into a box. When she told her dad, he tried to explain to her that no, she was okay. She wasn't going to be put into a box like Chirpy.

No matter how much her parents tried to tell her, she just couldn't believe it. She had been there when Chirpy was buried, she had been hurt badly too. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that she was dead. Horrible dreams about dark boxes and holes in the ground began to plaque her at night.

Time passed by, her condition worsening with each passing day. She grew depressed and began to shut everyone out. Her parents had to force her to eat as she claimed that dead people couldn't eat and refused to. Autumn was certain she would fade away into nothingness any day now. Her siblings were afraid of their sister's screaming and crying whenever they tried to go near her. Nearly out of their minds, her parents tried everything from therapy to medication. They only worked for a period of time before she regressed.

Her episodes grew more frequent and longer each passing year. After the initial stages of depression, Autumn began to see hallucinations. Her mind believed that she was dead without a doubt and she began to see herself as incorporeal. She didn't, shouldn't exist anymore. In time, these hallucinations extended to the environment and she began to see the trees as decayed, the grass withered. She was in the land of death.

During the periods of calm between her episodes she was withdrawn and showed little to no reaction to pleasant stimuli or took any interest in social activities. When she was thirteen years old, her parents after much searching had heard news of a special Institute for psychiatric patients. Their treatments were rumored to be surprisingly effective. The Daniels' contacted Brewster Institute, hopeful that they had finally found people who could help their daughter. After contacting the administration they had Autumn admitted there.
__
At first, Brewster's seemed exactly the same as the many different therapists she'd seen over the years. Autumn didn't really believe they would be able to help her. However after the first few weeks, she began to see the differences. The biggest one being Kaleidoscope, a drug which actually seemed to help her. As time passed, she could feel the confusion and fear in her mind clearing bit by bit. At first, she was overjoyed. She could be normal. She wouldn't be breaking her family's hearts anymore.

However, she soon came to realize that beneath the helpful façade, Brewster's was a prison. They were all test subjects, used for their abnormal abilities. Kaleidoscope was addictive, in the fact that stopping the dosage would cause regression of their respective psychological disorders. Autumn didn't want to be a prisoner. But she didn't want to regress into a loony again either. Just when she was certain her teeth would be ground into nothing from frustration, she was contacted by a young boy around her age. He explained to her about a secretive group called 'Broken Mirrors'. Though wary at first, the group seemed like a good idea, so of course she was in.

 

[Lillium]

I think I might've gotten a bit carried away with the personality section of the CS ^^; I was intending on adding a subsection for likes and dislikes to allow for more insight into her persona. Anyway, I'm gonna go back to class. See you guys in a bit.