Iyashikei app

[notpassedon]

Player Information

Player Name: Chris
Pronouns: she/they
Age: 36
Preferred Means of Contact: millennialfalcon, objectpermanence @ Discord
Invitation: Link
Other Characters In Game: n/a
Do you have any plans for this character in the game? Just trying to dip my toes back into low-pressure RP.

Character Information

Character's Full Name: Lauren Eleanor DeWitt, aka Laurie
Character's Pronouns: she/her
Character's Canon: Original Character
Character's Canon Point: ~2019, aka 10-ish years after her death
Character's Age: 21 (she stopped aging when she died)
Did your character willingly come to Iyashikei? If yes, why? Yes, because she's bored of her lonely existence, being unable to be seen by or interact with any of the people around her, but she's still not ready to "pass on" to whatever afterlife comes next.
Will they need any special accommodations upon arrival? She will require magical assistance in becoming visible and (selectively) tangible. Per this FAQ answer, I understand that a more effective/permanent solution ought to be purchased using the Rewards system.

Character's History: Lauren Eleanor DeWitt was born in 1988 in Athol (yes, it's pronounced like someone with a lisp saying "asshole"), Massachusetts, to Robert and Maureen DeWitt, an accountant and a florist, respectively. She had an older sister, Kate, and a twin brother, Matt. Laurie's life was completely normal. She had friends, worked hard in school, and graduated high school on the honor roll. While Kate went for a law degree and Matt got a football scholarship to University of Massachusetts, Laurie decided to go to Southern Vermont College, a small school in Bennington, Vermont where she studied nursing. When not studying, she was active with the Campus Democrats, and was excited to watch Barack Obama win the presidential election in November 2008. She stayed up late partying in celebration with her friends after his inauguration on January 20th. Eventually, though, she left her friend's house and was walking along the side of the road through the snow when she was hit by a drunk driver. That was the end of Laurie's life.

Or, it should have been. But it wasn't. Because Laurie didn't know it, but her world was slightly different from ours in that ghosts were real. When her body was rushed to the hospital, bleeding out on a stretcher, Laurie's consciousness slipped away, and watched the whole scene play out, unable to touch anyone or get them to listen to her yelling, "I'm not dead, I'm right here!" She watched as the doctors announced her time of death for the records, watched her friends call her mom, then later watched her family arrive and mourn her. She wasn't able to watch her own funeral, because she couldn't travel more than 30 or so miles from the place of her death (and she tried, many times).

She was obviously stuck, unable (or unwilling?) to pass between this plane and whatever was next. She never met any other ghosts, but assumed they had to be out there somewhere; she wasn't remarkable enough to be the only one, surely? That assumption was confirmed in 2012 when she met Sylvia Baines, an art major at nearby Bennington College, and confirmed psychic medium. Laurie had fallen into the habit of sitting in on college classes, and once she'd exhausted all the interesting ones at SVC, she'd moved on to the other school in town. She was sitting in on a nude figure drawing class at Bennington, making lewd comments about the model, when suddenly a girl started laughing at all her jokes. Laurie couldn't believe it, but Sylvia could actually see and hear her! Syl had a history of talking to the dead, and told Laurie about all the spirits she'd met. She didn't know why some people stuck around after dying and some didn't, but she was the first friend Laurie had had in years, so Laurie didn't care that Syl couldn't solve all her problems.

Still, having only one person who can see you is a lonely existence to be sure. Even more so when Sylvia graduated and moved out of Bennington. No longer would Laurie have someone she could convince to Facebook stalk her family members! No more would she have someone she could make snide comments to to try to get her to crack up in public at a joke no one else could hear. No more would she have... anyone to talk to, at all. Life after Sylvia left became just as lonely as life before Syvlia— or, really, even more lonely, because now Laurie knew what she was missing. She still was too afraid to let go of her tenuous existence on Earth, and try to pass on to whatever came next. So, instead, all she could do was languish in solitude, making sarcastic comments that no one laughed at anymore.

Character's Personality: Laurie's main personality trait is her staunch refusal to take anything seriously. She was a bit more serious in life, at least when it came to her studies and her political activism. But, in death, she has no ability to pursue the activities that brought meaning to her life, so all she's left with is her sarcasm and snarky sense of humor. Her humor only got more brazen after she died, when she no longer had anyone who could tell her off for her inappropriate jokes.

She did smile and laugh a lot when she was alive, but immediately after death, the shock of her sudden isolation took a lot of that joie de vivre out of her. However, the more time she spent as a ghost, the more she felt comfortable speaking her mind, knowing that no one could judge her for it. Meeting Sylvia, as well, made her feel more in touch with her former, happier self.

If it can be said that Laurie excels at anything, it's at being jealous of people. She used to be jealous of people who possessed talents she lacked— especially artistic or musical talents— but nowadays, she's mostly just jealous of people who are, in general, alive. Which means she's pretty much jealous of everyone.

While Laurie used to occasionally ask Sylvia to look up her relatives on Facebook as a way of keeping tabs on them, she refused to have Sylvia pull up her own Facebook page to read message people left after she died. That would be too hard to deal with, and Laurie's fear of feeling any negative emotions prevented her from feeling confident enough to confront that. Likewise, her fear of the unknown prevents her from looking into what she might need to do in order to "pass on" to whatever lies beyond this life. As much as she lets her curiosity and amusement guide her, she also allows her fear to dictate her actions, even if she claims that she just doesn't want to "pass on."

Character Abilities: As a ghost, Laurie is normally invisible to living people, and completely intangible (unable to touch or interact with physical objects). The exception to her invisibility is that any humans who are psychics or mediums are able to see and speak to her. She has heard from a previous friend who was a medium that it is possible for ghosts to possess/take over living bodies, and essentially puppet or control them from the inside. So potentially, Laurie has the ability to do this, although she has never tried. I do not intend to play with this ability without getting express IC and OOC permission from all parties involved.

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Any comments or questions you would like us to know? A funny meme is also welcome!