Roleplay

2196

January 22, 2021 17:06:25

IC

We are the Returned

There have always been children... disappearing. They slip out of sight for a moment to go play near the lake with the waterweeds and tadpoles, to sift through dusty photos in the attic, to build their little forts in the woods. They stumble upon passageways that shouldn't exist behind a worn apple crate of books, little burrows just the right size for a child to crawl through nestled in tree roots, beautiful patterns of light on the water that all of the fish are swimming around, and if their curiosity draws them through, they disappear without a trace as the passage they crossed through vanishes behind them. Where the children emerge is a mystery to all but the children themselves, for they find themselves in different worlds, each unique in their own way. A child could find themself in a land where the clouds are made of candy floss, the ground made of cookie crumbs, and live their life in a realm of sweets and whimsy. A child could stumble into a dour world, shrouded in shades of grey and intrigue, and rise to power in the a crime-saturated underground of monsters and men.
They almost never return to the world of their origin; some never want to go back and know they are at home where the flowers sing lullabies to lull the young ones to sleep and the air always smells of petrichor. Some hate the way the faerie courts wage war across the land, and wish nothing more than to return to Earth, where twilight doesn't hold a constant reign and the forests don't sing with their chaotic colors. In the rare cases when a child returns, they must adjust to going back to living life on Earth, where magic doesn't saturate the air and the tigers don't speak in prose, and must cope with the fact that no matter how emphatically they insist that their experiences were the truth, no one will believe them. Very few find their way back to the world they returned from to disappear a second time. Some children, if they return, bring a little bit of magic from the worlds they traveled to with them to the world of their birth. A ring that can make the skylarks flock towards the sound of your voice, a bell that can only be heard by those who also travelled to another world, a sense of hearing beyond anything a normal human could accomplish. This isn't the case more often than not, but there have been many who perished in the night because their parents confiscated the glass flowers that held their souls, took away the crystals made of their tears. Eventually, the magic is bled out of these artifacts by the very nature of Earth, making an extremely rare type of item virtually nonexistent.

However, there was a recent uptick in the amount of world-travelers returning to Earth; more and more people are findings themselves travelling back through the passageways they found and went through when they were so young, so many are finding themselves right back in their child bodies, where they were right before they crossed over to their worlds with nothing to show for it except for their memories; so many of the disappeared children are coming back. This has become such a problem in recent times, that an establishment has opened by the Returned who grew to maturity in their time in other worlds, dedicated to helping other Returned through adjusting to their situation and even helping those who want to go back to the worlds of magic and wonder they unwillingly left behind to try to find their world once more. The organization is called For the Disappeared, but the general consensus on that name is resigned dislike, so most just call it FtD. FtD is made up of a large amount of camps spread across the country, each superficially like a traditional summer camp. However, all those who attend are Returned, and are encouraged to drop all pretenses of normality and any acts that they didn't go somewhere remarkable. In FtD camps, there is much discussion over worlds of the ocean and mermaids, as opposed to worlds with cities in the clouds, and the impossible is discussed as casually as the weather. Some go back to the worlds they disappeared to so long ago, but most don't, and all are learning to cope with their new situation.
Our story takes place in an FtD camp, this one situated near the border between Oregon and California, in Mid-May. School is out for those who attend school, and many new arrivals, coming back from school or new altogether, are in the process of filtering in. Each of the arrivals went somewhere extraordinary and came back; where they went is up to you.

Because I know that was a rather intimidating wall of text, I'll give a summary. This is a roleplay inspired heavily by an incredible series of pretty much standalone novellas written by Seanan McGuire, this series being called Wayward Children. I cannot recommend the series highly enough, but this is a summary of my roleplay and not a review of the series, so I hereby order you to go read some reviews of the books after this. Back to the summary; the premise of this story is that there have been children over the years that disappear to other worlds, ranging from candylands, horror movies, underwater civilizations, faerie forests, and so, so, SO many more. Most children never come back, but some do return, and the few who return almost never find their way back to the world of magic that they left behind; heck, a lot don't even want to. However, a lot of people have started finding themselves back on Earth recently, to the point where an organization called For the Disappeared (everyone thinks it's a stupid name so they just call it FtD) run by people who returned from different worlds (the Returned) to provide support groups for other Returned. These take the form of summer camps, except everyone there went to somewhere so, so different from Earth. The story takes place in one of these FtD camps, and all of your characters are Returned. You decide where they came from and how their world worked, it is entirely up to you! Go wild with your imagination on this one! They could have hated their experiences, they could have loved them and want to go back, or they could be ambivalent. It's your character, and there are so many possibilities!

Rules

No powerplaying or godmodding! These characters shouldn't be extremely powerful! They are allowed to have been powerful in the worlds they came from, but on Earth, it's limited to things a human can do and, in uncommon cases, a single magical trait or item that imparts a single, semi-powerful magical effect.
Be courteous to each other. This roleplay is intended to be at a slow-to-medium pace, so that everyone can have a chance to respond to it without getting left behind. Be patient in waiting for responses, because not everyone is constantly active. However, if they haven't responded in over a day, you are allowed to ping them; just don't be mean about it! Don't be That Guy!
I should under no circumstances have to say this, but no NSFW. Seriously.
LGBTQIA+ is accepted and supported in this thread! If you don't support it, then don't talk about it!
Don't do anything to a character that the player may not like (injuring, for example) without the player's permission. That doesn't mean you have to explicitly ask them in the OOC to do something; you can ask through roleplay in your characters' actions, or give the player a warning. Stuff like that.
To prove that you read the rules, change the 'More details' in the character sheet to 'Other details'.
You can have as many characters as you can handle. The more characters, the better, I say.
Let us know, if you can, when you will be experiencing reduced activity.
Most importantly, have a wonderful time!

Character Sheet

Code:

[b]Name:[/b]

[b]Gender:[/b]

[b]Age:[/b] (between 12 and 18)

[b]Sexuality:[/b] (optional)

[b]Personality:[/b]

[b]Backstory:[/b] (optional)

[b]World:[/b] (can be put in Backstory instead)

[b]Appearance:[/b] (drawing, description, or both)

[b]More details:[/b]

Character list:
Kelitoh Runs-Like-The-Rivers - @/Fauxbia
Annie Fintan - @/Symphony7
Athena Laurier - @/Phoenixgirl111
Xavier Strange - @/Dreambasket
Flim - @/hmidd
Connie Williams - @/Fauxbia
Rowan Larson - @/WeaverofLies
Averies, The Champion - @/Sunnycat4
Brook Willow - @/CitrusRulers

Welcome back to Earth; you are not alone.

|Pronounced 'Phobia'
||come look at my cat

||

never gonna give you up
never gonna let you down
never gonna run around and desert you
never gonna make you cry
never gonna say goodbye
never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

||

Last edited on Feb 17, 2021 11:23:47 by Fauxbia

How detailed does the world section have to be?

Symphony7

611

January 22, 2021 18:46:35

How detailed does the world section have to be?

Please click eggs! They'll die if they don't hatch soon ;^;

@Symphony7 As detailed as you want it! Mine is incorporated into the backstory which is extremely long (i may have gotten carried away...) for my character, but the level of detail is up to you.
Thanks for taking an interest!

Fauxbia

2196

January 22, 2021 18:56:33

@Symphony7 As detailed as you want it! Mine is incorporated into the backstory which is extremely long (i may have gotten carried away...) for my character, but the level of detail is up to you.
Thanks for taking an interest!

|Pronounced 'Phobia'
||come look at my cat

||

never gonna give you up
never gonna let you down
never gonna run around and desert you
never gonna make you cry
never gonna say goodbye
never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

||

Last edited on Jan 22, 2021 18:57:01 by Fauxbia

Name: Kelitoh Runs-Like-The-Rivers

Gender: Female

Age: 13

Sexuality: Pansexual

Personality: Kelitoh is... an interesting person. She has a very short temper, and is easily motivated to fight anyone who sets her off; when she fights, she fights dirty. Normally, she's aloof and standoffish, and even quite mean at times, and spends most to all of her free time in the woods around the camp. When she makes a friend, she is fiercely loyal and protective. She's mentally older than she looks, and sometimes acts as such. Under all of the aggression and standoffishness and loyalty, she harbors a lot of tamped down sadness and melancholy due to her situation upon returning to Earth, and she wants nothing more than to go back to the world she lost.

Backstory: Backstory here.

World: She went to a world of two major warring species: the werewolves of the verdant forests of the Wildlands, and the harpies of the vast blue and their sky-cities of the Zenith. The travelers that came to this world almost always ended up in the Wildlands, and usually ended up either living in a forest settlement, or joining the werewolf packs and fighting in the war. The few who found themselves in a sky-city of the Zenith would have no way of joining the war for the harpies, due to the fact that only werewolves are able to turn humans, so they would have to live out their lives in the sky-cities, for they had no way of getting down to the Wildlands. Neither side has made any progress toward winning, but at this point, war is all they know. They couldn't just stop and think of the futility of what they were doing, that werewolves couldn't possibly enjoy their hypothetical victory over the harpies due to their inability to reach the Zenith, and that the hypothetical victory of the harpies would leave them with a huge amount of dangerous forests and beasts that would snap them up in a second, when really, they were happier in the sky. Neither side has allowed themselves to realize this for centuries, and so the war persists.

Appearance: Drawing coming soon! Kelitoh is around 5'4" in height, and rather thin while still having considerable muscle tone. Her skin is darkish tan and freckled, marked all over with scratches, scuff marks, and bruises. She has a semi-round face with sharpish features, and brown eyes that carry a hint of a lighter shade, as if they had once been amber. She has very long, dark brown hair that grows rather fast, but it's naturally incredibly curly, and is severely matted and tangled after going a year without brushing it. It still reaches her waist in a veritable mane around her, and has an assortment of grass, leaves, twigs, and the like caught in it. She prefers practical clothing over any semblance of fashion, and the tips of her hiking boots are worn away, leaving her toes bare. Her nails are usually kept long, and periodically bitten down when they get too much so.

Other details:
Kelitoh used to be a werewolf, and is still desperately holding onto it despite that feature being gone from her.
She has a myriad of scars, accumulated from years in her world, and two from childhood memories.
She absolutely despises vegetables and dislikes fruit; meat is her go-to meal, always.

Fauxbia

2196

January 22, 2021 18:56:47

Name: Kelitoh Runs-Like-The-Rivers

Gender: Female

Age: 13

Sexuality: Pansexual

Personality: Kelitoh is... an interesting person. She has a very short temper, and is easily motivated to fight anyone who sets her off; when she fights, she fights dirty. Normally, she's aloof and standoffish, and even quite mean at times, and spends most to all of her free time in the woods around the camp. When she makes a friend, she is fiercely loyal and protective. She's mentally older than she looks, and sometimes acts as such. Under all of the aggression and standoffishness and loyalty, she harbors a lot of tamped down sadness and melancholy due to her situation upon returning to Earth, and she wants nothing more than to go back to the world she lost.

Backstory: Backstory here.

World: She went to a world of two major warring species: the werewolves of the verdant forests of the Wildlands, and the harpies of the vast blue and their sky-cities of the Zenith. The travelers that came to this world almost always ended up in the Wildlands, and usually ended up either living in a forest settlement, or joining the werewolf packs and fighting in the war. The few who found themselves in a sky-city of the Zenith would have no way of joining the war for the harpies, due to the fact that only werewolves are able to turn humans, so they would have to live out their lives in the sky-cities, for they had no way of getting down to the Wildlands. Neither side has made any progress toward winning, but at this point, war is all they know. They couldn't just stop and think of the futility of what they were doing, that werewolves couldn't possibly enjoy their hypothetical victory over the harpies due to their inability to reach the Zenith, and that the hypothetical victory of the harpies would leave them with a huge amount of dangerous forests and beasts that would snap them up in a second, when really, they were happier in the sky. Neither side has allowed themselves to realize this for centuries, and so the war persists.

Appearance: Drawing coming soon! Kelitoh is around 5'4" in height, and rather thin while still having considerable muscle tone. Her skin is darkish tan and freckled, marked all over with scratches, scuff marks, and bruises. She has a semi-round face with sharpish features, and brown eyes that carry a hint of a lighter shade, as if they had once been amber. She has very long, dark brown hair that grows rather fast, but it's naturally incredibly curly, and is severely matted and tangled after going a year without brushing it. It still reaches her waist in a veritable mane around her, and has an assortment of grass, leaves, twigs, and the like caught in it. She prefers practical clothing over any semblance of fashion, and the tips of her hiking boots are worn away, leaving her toes bare. Her nails are usually kept long, and periodically bitten down when they get too much so.

Other details:
Kelitoh used to be a werewolf, and is still desperately holding onto it despite that feature being gone from her.
She has a myriad of scars, accumulated from years in her world, and two from childhood memories.
She absolutely despises vegetables and dislikes fruit; meat is her go-to meal, always.

|Pronounced 'Phobia'
||come look at my cat

||

never gonna give you up
never gonna let you down
never gonna run around and desert you
never gonna make you cry
never gonna say goodbye
never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

||

Last edited on Feb 01, 2021 12:37:57 by Fauxbia

Name: Annie Fintan
Gender: Female
Age: 16
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Personality: Annie is mostly relaxed, and seemingly uncaring to the world around her. But she can be a bit short tempered. She's definitely in that angsty teen phase of her life despite being as mature as she is, and her uncaring demeanor is easy to catch with it. Despite this she does actually care on some level especially to her friends.
Backstory: Will be told in rp ~~I'm also kinda lazy~~ (optional)
World: Annie's world was very complex. It had two gods ruling it and it was filled to the brim with magic of all kinds. All humans had magic, there were demons, angels, and monsters of all types galore. There was lots to explore there. She talks of many things like wars, dragons, soul magic.
Appearance: Annie has auburn red hair that normally goes past her shoulders but mostly ties it up into a ponytail. She also has bright firey orange eyes that are slowly fading to brown. Her most distinctive feature is her height, only standing at 4'11". She also has a fairly small petite figure with her short stature. Fashion was never something she cared about and mostly just wears simple clothes, nothing fancy or extravagant.
other details: Annie can emit fire from her body. It's mostly connected to her emotions but she can't really do it as well as she used to the most she can do is heat up a bit and glow. She knows spells as well but she's never been able to cast any since she's gotten back to Earth.

Symphony7

611

January 22, 2021 19:26:30

Name: Annie Fintan
Gender: Female
Age: 16
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Personality: Annie is mostly relaxed, and seemingly uncaring to the world around her. But she can be a bit short tempered. She's definitely in that angsty teen phase of her life despite being as mature as she is, and her uncaring demeanor is easy to catch with it. Despite this she does actually care on some level especially to her friends.
Backstory: Will be told in rp ~~I'm also kinda lazy~~ (optional)
World: Annie's world was very complex. It had two gods ruling it and it was filled to the brim with magic of all kinds. All humans had magic, there were demons, angels, and monsters of all types galore. There was lots to explore there. She talks of many things like wars, dragons, soul magic.
Appearance: Annie has auburn red hair that normally goes past her shoulders but mostly ties it up into a ponytail. She also has bright firey orange eyes that are slowly fading to brown. Her most distinctive feature is her height, only standing at 4'11". She also has a fairly small petite figure with her short stature. Fashion was never something she cared about and mostly just wears simple clothes, nothing fancy or extravagant.
other details: Annie can emit fire from her body. It's mostly connected to her emotions but she can't really do it as well as she used to the most she can do is heat up a bit and glow. She knows spells as well but she's never been able to cast any since she's gotten back to Earth.

Please click eggs! They'll die if they don't hatch soon ;^;

Last edited on Jan 22, 2021 21:09:04 by Symphony7

Wait
I didn't to that right
Oh well

Symphony7

611

January 22, 2021 19:26:52

Wait
I didn't to that right
Oh well

Please click eggs! They'll die if they don't hatch soon ;^;

@Fauxbia That was the longest backstory I have ever seen in my life, also, Im considering making a character, although it's midnight where I'm at so Ill post it tomorrow

SkruncklyBug

131

39

56

2576

January 22, 2021 19:55:05

@Fauxbia That was the longest backstory I have ever seen in my life, also, Im considering making a character, although it's midnight where I'm at so Ill post it tomorrow

@Phoenixgirl11 Hah... hah... I may slightly enjoy writing, to the point where it is possibly conceivable that I may have a chance of going overboard while writing backstories...
Okay all of that was utter bs I am totally an English nut and this happens to me all the time please help
Thank you for taking an interest lmao—

@Symphony7 Ello! Love your character, but you may want to double-check the rules rq before I accept her~

Fauxbia

2196

January 22, 2021 20:58:53

@Phoenixgirl11 Hah... hah... I may slightly enjoy writing, to the point where it is possibly conceivable that I may have a chance of going overboard while writing backstories...
Okay all of that was utter bs I am totally an English nut and this happens to me all the time please help
Thank you for taking an interest lmao—

@Symphony7 Ello! Love your character, but you may want to double-check the rules rq before I accept her~

|Pronounced 'Phobia'
||come look at my cat

||

never gonna give you up
never gonna let you down
never gonna run around and desert you
never gonna make you cry
never gonna say goodbye
never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

||

Oh frick

Symphony7