Application for Distant Skies
Jul. 2nd, 2012 02:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
borrowingtimeABOUT YOU
Name: Pen
Are you 18 or over?: yes
Other characters played: none
CHARACTER
Name: Jacoby “Jake” Marshlight. Sometimes called “Ghost” by assorted inner city people.
Canon: Original
Age: 16
History: Jacoby was born into poverty in the inner city. He never met his father, and his mother was a heroin addict who had contracted HIV from a dirty needle. Jacoby was infected with the virus in utero, but his mother, Kelly Marshlight, never had enough money to get them the treatment they needed. She tried several times to get herself clean, but never succeeded. She and her son lived in squalor, never with enough to eat, and both of them constantly getting sicker. The best they could do in terms of medical treatment was have semi-regular visits to the hospital to get a T-cell count.
By five Jacoby had taken to the streets, acting as a runner for local drug dealers and gang members. He also started engaging in petty thievery, stealing mostly from grocery stores and pharmacies just to survive. His mother was constantly sickly from heroin and malnutrition; however, she somehow managed to keep her HIV from progressing into full-blown AIDS for several more years. Jacoby wasn’t so lucky; by eight he had developed AIDS and was in a downward spiral. His mother either didn’t care enough or didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. Jake’s final T-cell count was a disastrous four. Out of spite he even named his four remaining T-cells after superheroes.
That winter, sick and without a coat, Jacoby was walking past a yard sale when he spotted a yellow scarf on a table and marked for three dollars. Since it was the only cold-weather clothing small enough to take, he stole it. Immediately upon wrapping the scarf around his neck, the scarf came to life. He collapsed as the scarf established a permanent link to him, and right after that, Jacoby felt energy flowing back into him. The scarf was moving and brushing against passersby without their knowledge, already starting to absorb life energy from them. Jacoby could even feel the scarf’s feelings and hear its thoughts; it was grateful to have found a partner, and it would reward a steady supply of energy with health and protection for Jacoby himself. Jacoby went home to show his mother, only to find her passed out on their floor, having fallen off the wagon again. Having long since given up on her and no longer able to stand living in that house anymore, he left permanently.
He drifted between homeless shelters and friends’ houses for several years after that, learning how his scarf—which he named Steve—worked during that time. Steve kept Jacoby alive and healthy, though it also left him tired and unable to go out most days, due to Steve not being very discreet. Jacoby also couldn’t remove Steve, which stood out in summer months. They both learned discretion over time, though, and how to draw energy from people without harming them. Steve also made Jacoby stronger, giving him an edge in any fights he got into. Jacoby was caught several times by child services and was shuttled around through foster care, running away every time. Steve protected Jacoby from all sorts of things during that time. Eventually, Jacoby was able to dodge child services and police entirely, and made a living for himself on the streets, mostly through thieving. He also became almost exclusively nocturnal.
At thirteen, Jacoby was finally found by some faculty from the Night School. They offered him an education, a place to stay and three square meals in exchange for cooperating with the faculty and the assorted rules set down by the community of the supernatural. Jacoby resisted at first, but the draw of permanent shelter and a chance to learn more about himself and Steve was too great. He started attending the School and even assisted the staff with things like finding and bringing in new students. He was never as cooperative as the staff would have liked, however, which is part of the reason he is in Class D.
Two years later he met Samudera and Helga and hit it off with both of them, forming a somewhat tentative friendship with both girls, despite Sam’s dislike of men. A year after that, more students came into Class D, including Lily, the first person at the School who was made of magical technology, and Vanja Jovanovic, a boy Jacoby’s age with an unusual curse. Vanja was the first person in Jacoby’s life that Jacoby really connected to, and a month into the semester the two started dating.
Lately, however, tensions at the Night School and in the city are running rather high. The day students are starting to get suspicious of what their school is being used for at night. Night and Day School students are going missing. A day student recently disappeared into the haunted classroom and never came back. And something is roaming the city by night; something that is killing supernatural beings and their supporters. With things striking closer to home every day and with what seems to be little help from the faculty, Jacoby and his friends have started taking things into their own hands, investigating the disappearances and deaths.
Point in canon: The group has just had a run-in with the Three Monsters, three Night School alums named Behemoth, Leviathan and Ziz. A sort of weird, rocky alliance has been formed as the Monsters imparted what they knew of the events in the city—involving a cult and a very, very old creature of darkness.
Window Location: An unused and violently haunted classroom in P. Shelby Prep.
Universe: Jake’s world is, quite frankly, your typical real-world-with-supernatural-undercurrents. For all intents and purposes, her world is the real world—there are presidents, computers, dogs, countries, pop music and all that good stuff. The story is set in current day America in an unnamed New England city. Under the surface and in the backgrounds, however, the world plays host to a varied, but relatively rare, assortment of supernatural creatures.
At one point in history, the supernatural community outnumbered the human community, but as time marches on the fae have gone underground, sometimes literally, trolls are spotted by crazy people in remote countrysides if at all, bakenkeo pose as normal cats and the dragons have all disappeared. There are still plenty of supernatural folk around, but they are few and far between, have little or no influence on the modern world, and try their best to blend in with the humans or hide out in forests. They still face an age-old dilemma, however—what do you do with your kids when you can’t look after them and you can’t get a babysitter to come out to the creepy woods?
The P. Shelby Night School—locally just called “the Night School”—provides an answer. By day, it is the P. Shelby Academy for the Gifted, a very upscale private school for rich teens. By night, it is the Night School, devoted to giving a modern education to the supernaturally inclined and teaching young fairies, monsters and supernatural creatures how to blend in with the humans and survive in the modern world. There is a very small chain of Night Schools across the country, as well as a handful in Europe and Asia. The idea was started about thirty years ago, when some fairies and vampires in America got together and realized that their children weren’t getting very good educations. There was also the issue of young, often parentless creatures of the night getting into trouble with the human world. Fairies don’t care that much about their children, but no one wants the humans discovering the supernatural world and bombing your barrows.
The decision, then, was to start a school that blended modern human education and traditional supernatural teachings, and to provide supernatural kids not only with a place where they could learn, but a place where they wouldn’t get in trouble. Thus the Night School system was born, and thus P. Shelby’s grounds at night were commandeered by some very well-to-do vampires.
The school is like Hogwarts meets Charles Xavier’s meets homestead-era school systems. The Night School admits students from ages six to eighteen, and students are gathered into classes regardless of age. Multiple teachers are assigned to each class, both to give the students more one-on-one attention and to keep students in line. Students are taught everything from how to cast spells to how to use the internet. The modern vampire needs to know how to use the internet, after all. Classes are divided based partially on species, in terms of how common the species is, and partially on how easily that species can blend in with humans. People come from all over to send their kids to a Night School. P. Shelby is smaller than most, but it’s one of only two on the entire East Coast, and the other one is all the way down somewhere between Georgia and Florida. P. Shelby hosts students from as far away as Norway and the Himalayas.
The Night School has four class divisions—A, B, C and D. P. Shelby has six classes in total, with two A classes and two B classes.
Class A-1 and A-2. A for Average. These classes consist of fairies, vampires, shapeshifters and human mages. They’re a group who are either skilled enough at glamours and illusions, look human, or literally are human, and generally have no problem fitting in with humans. However, they’re all just “off” enough that they either can’t or won’t go to a normal human school. A-1 are the most human and the most modernized; A-2 are the ones who require glamours or who tend to be stuck in old ways, like a lot of fae.
They can be a pretty snooty group, and certain members of Class A like to bully kids from Classes C and D.
Class B-1 and B-2. B for Borderline. These two classes consist of kids who are odd or inhuman enough that if they were to walk down the streets in broad daylight they would surely turn heads. Class B tends to attract the less human-like fae and sort of “half-human” creatures like fauns, centaurs, sirens and changelings. Werewolves—humans who involuntarily change into wolves—go here as well. All of them could theoretically pass for human, with some work. B-1 is for “half-humans,” while B-2 is for those who look considerably stranger.
Class C. C for Concerning, or Careful depending on who you ask. These are the kids that will only manage to go out in public if they wear a lot of clothing, but could still theoretically integrate into human society in one way or another. These include “wee folk” like Domovoi, kobolds and brownies, which are all essentially diminutive house spirits. Class C also welcomes sentient animals and those who err more on the side of the monstrous. This is where the somewhat dangerous creatures end up. Class C students can expect to either live invisibly among humans, or hide out in sewers, parks or the country.
Class D. D for Different. Or Disturbing, Doomed, Demented, and Dubious. These are the problem kids who for one reason or another have basically no chance of ever fitting in with the normal human world. Their lessons therefore mainly consist of how to hide and go unnoticed. They’re essentially doomed to never leave their homes, only go out at night, or retreat into the forest. This is where the monsters go, and this is also where they dump the kids who just don’t fit anywhere else. The Class D kids all tend to be pretty close to each other, since they tend to have no one else to rely on.
Jake is in Class D. He’s human, and looks and acts the part, but the yellow scarf that’s permanently around his neck ruins the effect. According to Jake, the scarf’s name is Steve, and it is a living thing. Technically Steve is a tsukumogami, a one hundred year old Japanese cotton scarf that, after existing for a century, came to life. The scarf doesn’t really have a name beyond what its owner calls it. The scarf establishes a symbiotic relationship between itself and a host. It protects its host and keeps him or her healthy, and in return the host provides the scarf with the life energy it needs to survive. Steve the scarf is very mobile, able to move its “limbs” however it pleases. It touches the tassels on its ends to people nearby, drawing a little bit of life energy from them—usually not enough to kill, but just enough to make the person a little dizzy. Since Steve makes no effort to blend in, and since Jake makes no effort to hide Steve, both of them together make for a headache for the teachers at the Night School.
The thing is that the supernatural community, while tightly-knit and consisting of some pretty powerful creatures, is tiny and spread out. The human community, on the other hand, is huge. Humans might not believe very much in the supernatural anymore, but everyone knows full well what will happen if humans find out they’re not the only sentient creatures on their planet. And no one wants a war.
Except for some fairy factions. And a troll contingent in the Norwegian countryside. And the strange new creature that’s roaming the city’s streets, killing humans and supernaturals alike, unseen and uncaught…
Abilities: Jake is well-versed in pretty basic street fighting; he has never taken lessons and has no particular martial arts disciplines, but he can hold his own in a fight if need be. Similarly he’s street-smart when it comes to knives and guns, having handled both. He’s not a marksman or an expert knife-fighter, but again, he can hold his own.
His main talent is his living scarf named Steve. The scarf protects him and keeps him alive under almost all circumstances. He’s immune to disease and poison, and any injuries heal at an accelerated rate. The scarf absorbs a small amount of energy from people nearby by brushing them with its tassels, which keeps the scarf and Jacoby healthy. When threatened, the scarf can absorb enough energy to knock out or even kill people. The scarf also acts as an extra pair of limbs; each “arm” has about a four-foot reach and can do everything an arm and hand can do, from grabbing things to punching them. The scarf is strong enough to hold up Jacoby’s weight, which means Jacoby can also use it to climb. It also can’t be removed except through extreme force.
It’s not so much an ability, but Jacoby does have AIDS and though Steve keeps him alive, Jacoby’s blood is still infectious. Jacoby takes a rather perverse pleasure in threatening to bleed on people who really annoy him.
He also makes excellent pizza.
Possessions: Steve the scarf and a backpack with notebooks, several packets of instant oatmeal, his iPod, cell phone, a switchblade, matches, a small box of cast iron nails (for enemy Fae) and a small hand bell (the only thing that calms down the spirit in the haunted classroom). Also a medical bracelet marking Jacoby as having AIDS.
Personality: Jacoby: Jacoby initially comes off as lazy, sleepy, and apathetic. He’s prone to falling asleep in class or in other strange places, he avoids extra work like the plague, he constantly acts like he’s only half-paying attention, and in all respects seems to not really care about anything. A typical teenage street punk, in other words, the kind used to hearing that they’re worthless and will never go anywhere. Where other teens might rage and act out and write sad poetry, however, Jacoby will shrug and turn away and possibly fall asleep. He’s not talkative and makes no real effort to appear intelligent, and he smiles infrequently. He spaces out and regularly checks out of conversations that don’t interest him. He also looks tired all the time, with shadows under his eyes, tousled hair and constant yawning. He slouches and walks slowly, and all of his movements are calculated and sluggish. He’s incredibly easy going; you could tell him the world was ending outside and he’d just shrug and reach languidly for a weapon.
This all isn’t so much an outright act as it is a quiet deception. He learned early that the best ways to avoid conflict were to ignore bullies, be unassuming and inconsequential, and act like nothing bothers you. If people don’t notice you because you’re sitting quiet in the back of the room, then you have the element of surprise on your side when it comes time to act. His laziness and sluggishness is almost Zen-like in this respect, and his general policy is to avoid wasting energy on needless tasks or on getting upset when someone insults you. This is also a survival tactic; he and Steve require the energy of other people in order to keep living, and Jacoby is a pretty low-energy individual to being with. This is why he’s constantly tired and sleeps a lot. Wasting too much energy could easily kill them both. Why get into a lengthy argument when a well-placed and well-timed insult will shut a person up? Why get into a fist fight with a mugger when you can just follow them home and dispatch them quietly later?
This all leads to Jacoby being quiet, observant and very smart, as well as being blunt and straightforward. He’s sarcastic and snarky to a point, and everything he does and says is calculated. He likes to surprise people and frequently asks disarming or to-the-point questions. He is also unashamed to answer straightforward questions. He’s not at all shy about talking about his rough childhood, or any other thing that people might rather avoid. This isn’t to say that he makes things outright uncomfortable for people; he doesn’t like bothering people unless it’s his intent to drive someone away. But at the same time, he considers no topic too taboo to talk about and actually quite likes talking about strange things, so long as he has someone to talk to who shares his interests. His interest are rather varied, and range from typical things like video games and action movies to history, books on foreign and ancient cultures, ancient weaponry, war strategies, and pizza. He has a rather profound love of pizza and can actually cook it, though he often has to improvise since he doesn’t have the necessary tools on hand. He wants to either be a historian or a pizza chef when he grows up, if not both. He likes books, libraries, roofs and quiet places.
Jacoby has a rather strange relationship with death. He’s as blunt about death as he is about everything else. He knows that even with Steve’s help, he likely won’t live more than another ten years, and is completely okay with that. He has no intention in dying before that, though, and believes in enjoying his last days on Earth, even if that means spending an entire day sleeping under a tree. He believes that the universe is random, that no one can ever know the truth about the after life, and knows that good people are just as likely to die as evil people are to grow old. Life isn’t fair, but he’s okay with that too. He’s on pretty good terms with the local ghosts and poltergeists, and regularly frequents the haunted classroom that no one else wants to enter. He is also completely okay with killing when it’s necessary to survive.
When it comes to relationships with others, Jacoby generally likes people but holds the vast majority of them at arm’s length. He’s a guy of many acquaintances and very few friends; someone who likes many but loves few. He knows a whole lot of people in the city and is on good terms with most of them, but refers to them all as “people he knows” or “acquaintances.” He only refers to someone as a friend if they’ve truly earned his trust and love. He doesn’t trust easily, but when he does, he trusts forever. Similarly, he’s very cautious in love, whether it’s familial or romantic; he’s used to getting his heart broken one way or another. He keeps in contact with his mother, but never visits and no longer loves her. He considers his close friends and a few of his teachers to be his family now, and loves them intensely. One of the few times he really expends extra energy is in his defense of them. Seeing his people hurt is his one and only berserk button; he’ll fly into an unstoppable rage if he thinks someone he cares about is in danger. He would readily die for any of them. In some ways, he considers protecting his family to be the only real reason he’s still alive.
Jacoby is gay, but it doesn’t inform much about his personality beyond who he’s attracted to and an appreciation for good shoes. He doesn’t hide it, nor does he shout it for the world to hear; he’s as casual and blunt about it as he is with everything else. It’s the same when it comes to having AIDS—he’ll talk about it, but he doesn’t bring it up unless necessary. He does use it as a scare tactic for when he’s being harassed, however. He is also quick to point out that he has AIDS because of his mother, not because he’s gay. He’s not currently sexually active, but he does have a boyfriend and he’s not a virgin. Sex is something he wants, but is also very realistic about. Part of the reason he’s dating Vanja is because Vanja is immune to disease. Even so, he’s incredibly cautious when it comes to sex. He might be casual about death and might threaten to bleed on people who harass him, but AIDS isn’t something he’d wish on his worst enemy.
Lastly, Jacoby has a rather loose moral code. Survival and protecting his people are paramount to him, and in that respect the ends often justify the means. He’ll kill, steal, lie, cheat and so on if it means surviving. Right is to protect the ones you care about, respect the people around you, and try to be a decent person. Wrong is to betray your people or fail to protect them or yourself. Wrong is also to talk to the police. Jacoby does not like or trust police, no matter who they are. Police in his experience have never been helpful and have often been outright enemies.
All around, Jacoby is a pretty good if rather poorly-adjusted and sleepy kid.
Personality: Steve: Steve might be a hundred years old, but it’s only really been alive for about a decade. That coupled with the fact that tsukumogami aren’t really known for being discreet (until they’re older anyway) means that Steve is pretty immature. It only really stops moving when it sleeps; otherwise it is constantly moving its “arms” and tassels around, always eager to know what’s going on around it. It communicates and expresses its feelings by, essentially, using emoticons. It creates a black pattern at the end of one arm that shapes itself into different emote depending on how it’s feeling.
Steve has no soul, an immature conscience and rather minimal sentience. It’s self-aware to the point of knowing when it needs to absorb energy, having likings for certain human foods (oatmeal and cucumbers), defending itself and Jacoby and having distinct emotions. It doesn’t outright think, but Jacoby and Steve are able to communicate through essentially feeling what each other is feeling. Steve also has enough intelligence to form opinions and even offer advice at times.
At the same time, though, Steve has a purely animalistic sense of survivalism and is completely unswayed by human morality. It doesn’t absorb enough energy from people to harm them purely because it doesn’t need to. However, in the event that it feels threatened or feels that Jacoby is threatened, it becomes rather merciless in its defense. It will bodily harm or evil kill those it thinks is a threat. Jacoby has a certain amount of control over this, but having a rather jaded sense of right and wrong himself, he is not always quick to stop Steve from hurting people. They have, in the past, killed people, but it’s always been in self-defense.
Steve also has an independent sense of humor, to the point of sometimes being obnoxious. It likes to reach out and tickle or tease people, or pull on hair or pinch. Essentially, Steve is just incredibly childish.
Thread Sample: here
Prose Sample: "Sounds dangerous," Vanja was saying from where he'd curled atop his shaded desk. "Unnecessarily so."
Vanja with his rich, rolling Croatian accent. Jacoby could listen to him talk all day. He smiled slightly, leaning his chair back so he could tap his head against Vanja's shadowed, mostly hidden knee. Vanja responded by tweaking Jacoby's ears. Steve the scarf waved around contentedly. It had been a sleepy sort of day, and a sleepy lunch/dinner break; but Jacoby was between naps and felt like actually doing something.
It was high time he introduced his friends to their dead schoolmate, anyway.
"Not dangerous. Not if you're nice to her. Ring a bell, calm her down. Don't light any matches. She's nice, once y'get past that. Gotta lotta stories."
Samudera, lounging two desks away with her feet propped on the windowsill, rolled her eyes and raised both hands.
"Count me out," she said with a careless shrug. "I don't mess with the dead."
"You?" Jacoby didn't bother to disguise his surprise. "The eldricht horror, scared of ghosts?"
Sam shot him an exasperated look.
"Not scared, Jacoby Marshlight. The dead don't click with us, see? Not our, uh...area of expertise, you could say. If she was some kind of spacetime apparition or an alien, I'd be your go-to girl!"
Jacoby shrugged. "Fair 'nuff. Helg? Lily?"
The two girls were seated side-by-side at their desks, Lily still only halfway through her PB&J dinner. They exchanged a glance and Lily smiled cheerily with her mouth full. She started jotting an answer in her notebook while Helga sighed.
"I don't think so," she said, getting up to toss her dinner remnants in the trash. "I get chills every time I go near there."
Lily held up her notebook, her response written in red gel pen: Sounds neat! I'll go!
"Van?" Jacoby peered up at the shadowed boy and tapped his head against Vanja's knee again. "That leaves you. Consider it a date."
Vanja propped his chin in a clawed hand and gave Jacoby a bemused look.
"Is that what Americans consider a date? Hanging out in the haunted classroom?"
"Sure." Jacoby's chair started to go out from under him, but Steve reached for the floor to prop them up. "We're weird like that."
He wanted Vanja to go; Vanja of all people would appreciate the room and its inhabitant, would appreciate the history. A murdered girl, a haunted classroom, all the dark loneliness associated with ghosts--it was grim and poetic, the kind of thing Vanja loved. Jacoby could see the other boy debating with himself, the thoughtful quirk to his dark lips, the way he narrowed those luminous yellow eyes.
"Fine, then. I'll go."
Jacoby smiled and Lily clapped her hands. Steve pushed against the floor to rock Jacoby's chair back into place and Jacoby stood. He reached for Vanja's and Lily's hands, tugging them both to their feet.
"Alright, kids. Let's meet a ghost. Sam, Helg, back in a few."
Samudera grinned after them, showing a mouth full of needle teeth that hadn't been there a moment ago.
"If you're not, maybe I can deign to go pick up whatever body parts are left after."
Jacoby saluted to show his appreciation and led the others out the classroom door.
Plans: Jake will likely be very interested in exploring Citagazze, particularly the Observatory and the Spectres roaming the streets. He’ll also thoroughly enjoy visiting other worlds as he’s pretty enthusiastic about string theory.
Notes: Jacoby’s window location is in a rather severely haunted and dangerous classroom, so anyone who comes to his world should exercise caution.
DÆMON
Name: Kiby
Sex: Female
Form: Slow loris
Additional notes: She looks like any other slow loris, brown and white and with an adorable face mask.
Additionally, Steve the scarf does not have a daemon, not being enough of a separate or sentient entity to have his own soul.
Why this form: The slow loris is, as the name suggests, a rather slow moving animal, careful and deliberate in its movements when it moves at all. It’s an unassuming primate with similar traits to a sloth, though it’s not quite as docile as a sloth; slow lorises have a toxic bite, making them one of the very few mammals to have this trait. They are also largely nocturnal and are assumed to be mostly solitary. Slow, sleepy, nocturnal and unassuming, but with a surprising “toxic bite” pretty much describes Jake to a T.
Name: Pen
Are you 18 or over?: yes
Other characters played: none
CHARACTER
Name: Jacoby “Jake” Marshlight. Sometimes called “Ghost” by assorted inner city people.
Canon: Original
Age: 16
History: Jacoby was born into poverty in the inner city. He never met his father, and his mother was a heroin addict who had contracted HIV from a dirty needle. Jacoby was infected with the virus in utero, but his mother, Kelly Marshlight, never had enough money to get them the treatment they needed. She tried several times to get herself clean, but never succeeded. She and her son lived in squalor, never with enough to eat, and both of them constantly getting sicker. The best they could do in terms of medical treatment was have semi-regular visits to the hospital to get a T-cell count.
By five Jacoby had taken to the streets, acting as a runner for local drug dealers and gang members. He also started engaging in petty thievery, stealing mostly from grocery stores and pharmacies just to survive. His mother was constantly sickly from heroin and malnutrition; however, she somehow managed to keep her HIV from progressing into full-blown AIDS for several more years. Jacoby wasn’t so lucky; by eight he had developed AIDS and was in a downward spiral. His mother either didn’t care enough or didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. Jake’s final T-cell count was a disastrous four. Out of spite he even named his four remaining T-cells after superheroes.
That winter, sick and without a coat, Jacoby was walking past a yard sale when he spotted a yellow scarf on a table and marked for three dollars. Since it was the only cold-weather clothing small enough to take, he stole it. Immediately upon wrapping the scarf around his neck, the scarf came to life. He collapsed as the scarf established a permanent link to him, and right after that, Jacoby felt energy flowing back into him. The scarf was moving and brushing against passersby without their knowledge, already starting to absorb life energy from them. Jacoby could even feel the scarf’s feelings and hear its thoughts; it was grateful to have found a partner, and it would reward a steady supply of energy with health and protection for Jacoby himself. Jacoby went home to show his mother, only to find her passed out on their floor, having fallen off the wagon again. Having long since given up on her and no longer able to stand living in that house anymore, he left permanently.
He drifted between homeless shelters and friends’ houses for several years after that, learning how his scarf—which he named Steve—worked during that time. Steve kept Jacoby alive and healthy, though it also left him tired and unable to go out most days, due to Steve not being very discreet. Jacoby also couldn’t remove Steve, which stood out in summer months. They both learned discretion over time, though, and how to draw energy from people without harming them. Steve also made Jacoby stronger, giving him an edge in any fights he got into. Jacoby was caught several times by child services and was shuttled around through foster care, running away every time. Steve protected Jacoby from all sorts of things during that time. Eventually, Jacoby was able to dodge child services and police entirely, and made a living for himself on the streets, mostly through thieving. He also became almost exclusively nocturnal.
At thirteen, Jacoby was finally found by some faculty from the Night School. They offered him an education, a place to stay and three square meals in exchange for cooperating with the faculty and the assorted rules set down by the community of the supernatural. Jacoby resisted at first, but the draw of permanent shelter and a chance to learn more about himself and Steve was too great. He started attending the School and even assisted the staff with things like finding and bringing in new students. He was never as cooperative as the staff would have liked, however, which is part of the reason he is in Class D.
Two years later he met Samudera and Helga and hit it off with both of them, forming a somewhat tentative friendship with both girls, despite Sam’s dislike of men. A year after that, more students came into Class D, including Lily, the first person at the School who was made of magical technology, and Vanja Jovanovic, a boy Jacoby’s age with an unusual curse. Vanja was the first person in Jacoby’s life that Jacoby really connected to, and a month into the semester the two started dating.
Lately, however, tensions at the Night School and in the city are running rather high. The day students are starting to get suspicious of what their school is being used for at night. Night and Day School students are going missing. A day student recently disappeared into the haunted classroom and never came back. And something is roaming the city by night; something that is killing supernatural beings and their supporters. With things striking closer to home every day and with what seems to be little help from the faculty, Jacoby and his friends have started taking things into their own hands, investigating the disappearances and deaths.
Point in canon: The group has just had a run-in with the Three Monsters, three Night School alums named Behemoth, Leviathan and Ziz. A sort of weird, rocky alliance has been formed as the Monsters imparted what they knew of the events in the city—involving a cult and a very, very old creature of darkness.
Window Location: An unused and violently haunted classroom in P. Shelby Prep.
Universe: Jake’s world is, quite frankly, your typical real-world-with-supernatural-undercurrents. For all intents and purposes, her world is the real world—there are presidents, computers, dogs, countries, pop music and all that good stuff. The story is set in current day America in an unnamed New England city. Under the surface and in the backgrounds, however, the world plays host to a varied, but relatively rare, assortment of supernatural creatures.
At one point in history, the supernatural community outnumbered the human community, but as time marches on the fae have gone underground, sometimes literally, trolls are spotted by crazy people in remote countrysides if at all, bakenkeo pose as normal cats and the dragons have all disappeared. There are still plenty of supernatural folk around, but they are few and far between, have little or no influence on the modern world, and try their best to blend in with the humans or hide out in forests. They still face an age-old dilemma, however—what do you do with your kids when you can’t look after them and you can’t get a babysitter to come out to the creepy woods?
The P. Shelby Night School—locally just called “the Night School”—provides an answer. By day, it is the P. Shelby Academy for the Gifted, a very upscale private school for rich teens. By night, it is the Night School, devoted to giving a modern education to the supernaturally inclined and teaching young fairies, monsters and supernatural creatures how to blend in with the humans and survive in the modern world. There is a very small chain of Night Schools across the country, as well as a handful in Europe and Asia. The idea was started about thirty years ago, when some fairies and vampires in America got together and realized that their children weren’t getting very good educations. There was also the issue of young, often parentless creatures of the night getting into trouble with the human world. Fairies don’t care that much about their children, but no one wants the humans discovering the supernatural world and bombing your barrows.
The decision, then, was to start a school that blended modern human education and traditional supernatural teachings, and to provide supernatural kids not only with a place where they could learn, but a place where they wouldn’t get in trouble. Thus the Night School system was born, and thus P. Shelby’s grounds at night were commandeered by some very well-to-do vampires.
The school is like Hogwarts meets Charles Xavier’s meets homestead-era school systems. The Night School admits students from ages six to eighteen, and students are gathered into classes regardless of age. Multiple teachers are assigned to each class, both to give the students more one-on-one attention and to keep students in line. Students are taught everything from how to cast spells to how to use the internet. The modern vampire needs to know how to use the internet, after all. Classes are divided based partially on species, in terms of how common the species is, and partially on how easily that species can blend in with humans. People come from all over to send their kids to a Night School. P. Shelby is smaller than most, but it’s one of only two on the entire East Coast, and the other one is all the way down somewhere between Georgia and Florida. P. Shelby hosts students from as far away as Norway and the Himalayas.
The Night School has four class divisions—A, B, C and D. P. Shelby has six classes in total, with two A classes and two B classes.
Class A-1 and A-2. A for Average. These classes consist of fairies, vampires, shapeshifters and human mages. They’re a group who are either skilled enough at glamours and illusions, look human, or literally are human, and generally have no problem fitting in with humans. However, they’re all just “off” enough that they either can’t or won’t go to a normal human school. A-1 are the most human and the most modernized; A-2 are the ones who require glamours or who tend to be stuck in old ways, like a lot of fae.
They can be a pretty snooty group, and certain members of Class A like to bully kids from Classes C and D.
Class B-1 and B-2. B for Borderline. These two classes consist of kids who are odd or inhuman enough that if they were to walk down the streets in broad daylight they would surely turn heads. Class B tends to attract the less human-like fae and sort of “half-human” creatures like fauns, centaurs, sirens and changelings. Werewolves—humans who involuntarily change into wolves—go here as well. All of them could theoretically pass for human, with some work. B-1 is for “half-humans,” while B-2 is for those who look considerably stranger.
Class C. C for Concerning, or Careful depending on who you ask. These are the kids that will only manage to go out in public if they wear a lot of clothing, but could still theoretically integrate into human society in one way or another. These include “wee folk” like Domovoi, kobolds and brownies, which are all essentially diminutive house spirits. Class C also welcomes sentient animals and those who err more on the side of the monstrous. This is where the somewhat dangerous creatures end up. Class C students can expect to either live invisibly among humans, or hide out in sewers, parks or the country.
Class D. D for Different. Or Disturbing, Doomed, Demented, and Dubious. These are the problem kids who for one reason or another have basically no chance of ever fitting in with the normal human world. Their lessons therefore mainly consist of how to hide and go unnoticed. They’re essentially doomed to never leave their homes, only go out at night, or retreat into the forest. This is where the monsters go, and this is also where they dump the kids who just don’t fit anywhere else. The Class D kids all tend to be pretty close to each other, since they tend to have no one else to rely on.
Jake is in Class D. He’s human, and looks and acts the part, but the yellow scarf that’s permanently around his neck ruins the effect. According to Jake, the scarf’s name is Steve, and it is a living thing. Technically Steve is a tsukumogami, a one hundred year old Japanese cotton scarf that, after existing for a century, came to life. The scarf doesn’t really have a name beyond what its owner calls it. The scarf establishes a symbiotic relationship between itself and a host. It protects its host and keeps him or her healthy, and in return the host provides the scarf with the life energy it needs to survive. Steve the scarf is very mobile, able to move its “limbs” however it pleases. It touches the tassels on its ends to people nearby, drawing a little bit of life energy from them—usually not enough to kill, but just enough to make the person a little dizzy. Since Steve makes no effort to blend in, and since Jake makes no effort to hide Steve, both of them together make for a headache for the teachers at the Night School.
The thing is that the supernatural community, while tightly-knit and consisting of some pretty powerful creatures, is tiny and spread out. The human community, on the other hand, is huge. Humans might not believe very much in the supernatural anymore, but everyone knows full well what will happen if humans find out they’re not the only sentient creatures on their planet. And no one wants a war.
Except for some fairy factions. And a troll contingent in the Norwegian countryside. And the strange new creature that’s roaming the city’s streets, killing humans and supernaturals alike, unseen and uncaught…
Abilities: Jake is well-versed in pretty basic street fighting; he has never taken lessons and has no particular martial arts disciplines, but he can hold his own in a fight if need be. Similarly he’s street-smart when it comes to knives and guns, having handled both. He’s not a marksman or an expert knife-fighter, but again, he can hold his own.
His main talent is his living scarf named Steve. The scarf protects him and keeps him alive under almost all circumstances. He’s immune to disease and poison, and any injuries heal at an accelerated rate. The scarf absorbs a small amount of energy from people nearby by brushing them with its tassels, which keeps the scarf and Jacoby healthy. When threatened, the scarf can absorb enough energy to knock out or even kill people. The scarf also acts as an extra pair of limbs; each “arm” has about a four-foot reach and can do everything an arm and hand can do, from grabbing things to punching them. The scarf is strong enough to hold up Jacoby’s weight, which means Jacoby can also use it to climb. It also can’t be removed except through extreme force.
It’s not so much an ability, but Jacoby does have AIDS and though Steve keeps him alive, Jacoby’s blood is still infectious. Jacoby takes a rather perverse pleasure in threatening to bleed on people who really annoy him.
He also makes excellent pizza.
Possessions: Steve the scarf and a backpack with notebooks, several packets of instant oatmeal, his iPod, cell phone, a switchblade, matches, a small box of cast iron nails (for enemy Fae) and a small hand bell (the only thing that calms down the spirit in the haunted classroom). Also a medical bracelet marking Jacoby as having AIDS.
Personality: Jacoby: Jacoby initially comes off as lazy, sleepy, and apathetic. He’s prone to falling asleep in class or in other strange places, he avoids extra work like the plague, he constantly acts like he’s only half-paying attention, and in all respects seems to not really care about anything. A typical teenage street punk, in other words, the kind used to hearing that they’re worthless and will never go anywhere. Where other teens might rage and act out and write sad poetry, however, Jacoby will shrug and turn away and possibly fall asleep. He’s not talkative and makes no real effort to appear intelligent, and he smiles infrequently. He spaces out and regularly checks out of conversations that don’t interest him. He also looks tired all the time, with shadows under his eyes, tousled hair and constant yawning. He slouches and walks slowly, and all of his movements are calculated and sluggish. He’s incredibly easy going; you could tell him the world was ending outside and he’d just shrug and reach languidly for a weapon.
This all isn’t so much an outright act as it is a quiet deception. He learned early that the best ways to avoid conflict were to ignore bullies, be unassuming and inconsequential, and act like nothing bothers you. If people don’t notice you because you’re sitting quiet in the back of the room, then you have the element of surprise on your side when it comes time to act. His laziness and sluggishness is almost Zen-like in this respect, and his general policy is to avoid wasting energy on needless tasks or on getting upset when someone insults you. This is also a survival tactic; he and Steve require the energy of other people in order to keep living, and Jacoby is a pretty low-energy individual to being with. This is why he’s constantly tired and sleeps a lot. Wasting too much energy could easily kill them both. Why get into a lengthy argument when a well-placed and well-timed insult will shut a person up? Why get into a fist fight with a mugger when you can just follow them home and dispatch them quietly later?
This all leads to Jacoby being quiet, observant and very smart, as well as being blunt and straightforward. He’s sarcastic and snarky to a point, and everything he does and says is calculated. He likes to surprise people and frequently asks disarming or to-the-point questions. He is also unashamed to answer straightforward questions. He’s not at all shy about talking about his rough childhood, or any other thing that people might rather avoid. This isn’t to say that he makes things outright uncomfortable for people; he doesn’t like bothering people unless it’s his intent to drive someone away. But at the same time, he considers no topic too taboo to talk about and actually quite likes talking about strange things, so long as he has someone to talk to who shares his interests. His interest are rather varied, and range from typical things like video games and action movies to history, books on foreign and ancient cultures, ancient weaponry, war strategies, and pizza. He has a rather profound love of pizza and can actually cook it, though he often has to improvise since he doesn’t have the necessary tools on hand. He wants to either be a historian or a pizza chef when he grows up, if not both. He likes books, libraries, roofs and quiet places.
Jacoby has a rather strange relationship with death. He’s as blunt about death as he is about everything else. He knows that even with Steve’s help, he likely won’t live more than another ten years, and is completely okay with that. He has no intention in dying before that, though, and believes in enjoying his last days on Earth, even if that means spending an entire day sleeping under a tree. He believes that the universe is random, that no one can ever know the truth about the after life, and knows that good people are just as likely to die as evil people are to grow old. Life isn’t fair, but he’s okay with that too. He’s on pretty good terms with the local ghosts and poltergeists, and regularly frequents the haunted classroom that no one else wants to enter. He is also completely okay with killing when it’s necessary to survive.
When it comes to relationships with others, Jacoby generally likes people but holds the vast majority of them at arm’s length. He’s a guy of many acquaintances and very few friends; someone who likes many but loves few. He knows a whole lot of people in the city and is on good terms with most of them, but refers to them all as “people he knows” or “acquaintances.” He only refers to someone as a friend if they’ve truly earned his trust and love. He doesn’t trust easily, but when he does, he trusts forever. Similarly, he’s very cautious in love, whether it’s familial or romantic; he’s used to getting his heart broken one way or another. He keeps in contact with his mother, but never visits and no longer loves her. He considers his close friends and a few of his teachers to be his family now, and loves them intensely. One of the few times he really expends extra energy is in his defense of them. Seeing his people hurt is his one and only berserk button; he’ll fly into an unstoppable rage if he thinks someone he cares about is in danger. He would readily die for any of them. In some ways, he considers protecting his family to be the only real reason he’s still alive.
Jacoby is gay, but it doesn’t inform much about his personality beyond who he’s attracted to and an appreciation for good shoes. He doesn’t hide it, nor does he shout it for the world to hear; he’s as casual and blunt about it as he is with everything else. It’s the same when it comes to having AIDS—he’ll talk about it, but he doesn’t bring it up unless necessary. He does use it as a scare tactic for when he’s being harassed, however. He is also quick to point out that he has AIDS because of his mother, not because he’s gay. He’s not currently sexually active, but he does have a boyfriend and he’s not a virgin. Sex is something he wants, but is also very realistic about. Part of the reason he’s dating Vanja is because Vanja is immune to disease. Even so, he’s incredibly cautious when it comes to sex. He might be casual about death and might threaten to bleed on people who harass him, but AIDS isn’t something he’d wish on his worst enemy.
Lastly, Jacoby has a rather loose moral code. Survival and protecting his people are paramount to him, and in that respect the ends often justify the means. He’ll kill, steal, lie, cheat and so on if it means surviving. Right is to protect the ones you care about, respect the people around you, and try to be a decent person. Wrong is to betray your people or fail to protect them or yourself. Wrong is also to talk to the police. Jacoby does not like or trust police, no matter who they are. Police in his experience have never been helpful and have often been outright enemies.
All around, Jacoby is a pretty good if rather poorly-adjusted and sleepy kid.
Personality: Steve: Steve might be a hundred years old, but it’s only really been alive for about a decade. That coupled with the fact that tsukumogami aren’t really known for being discreet (until they’re older anyway) means that Steve is pretty immature. It only really stops moving when it sleeps; otherwise it is constantly moving its “arms” and tassels around, always eager to know what’s going on around it. It communicates and expresses its feelings by, essentially, using emoticons. It creates a black pattern at the end of one arm that shapes itself into different emote depending on how it’s feeling.
Steve has no soul, an immature conscience and rather minimal sentience. It’s self-aware to the point of knowing when it needs to absorb energy, having likings for certain human foods (oatmeal and cucumbers), defending itself and Jacoby and having distinct emotions. It doesn’t outright think, but Jacoby and Steve are able to communicate through essentially feeling what each other is feeling. Steve also has enough intelligence to form opinions and even offer advice at times.
At the same time, though, Steve has a purely animalistic sense of survivalism and is completely unswayed by human morality. It doesn’t absorb enough energy from people to harm them purely because it doesn’t need to. However, in the event that it feels threatened or feels that Jacoby is threatened, it becomes rather merciless in its defense. It will bodily harm or evil kill those it thinks is a threat. Jacoby has a certain amount of control over this, but having a rather jaded sense of right and wrong himself, he is not always quick to stop Steve from hurting people. They have, in the past, killed people, but it’s always been in self-defense.
Steve also has an independent sense of humor, to the point of sometimes being obnoxious. It likes to reach out and tickle or tease people, or pull on hair or pinch. Essentially, Steve is just incredibly childish.
Thread Sample: here
Prose Sample: "Sounds dangerous," Vanja was saying from where he'd curled atop his shaded desk. "Unnecessarily so."
Vanja with his rich, rolling Croatian accent. Jacoby could listen to him talk all day. He smiled slightly, leaning his chair back so he could tap his head against Vanja's shadowed, mostly hidden knee. Vanja responded by tweaking Jacoby's ears. Steve the scarf waved around contentedly. It had been a sleepy sort of day, and a sleepy lunch/dinner break; but Jacoby was between naps and felt like actually doing something.
It was high time he introduced his friends to their dead schoolmate, anyway.
"Not dangerous. Not if you're nice to her. Ring a bell, calm her down. Don't light any matches. She's nice, once y'get past that. Gotta lotta stories."
Samudera, lounging two desks away with her feet propped on the windowsill, rolled her eyes and raised both hands.
"Count me out," she said with a careless shrug. "I don't mess with the dead."
"You?" Jacoby didn't bother to disguise his surprise. "The eldricht horror, scared of ghosts?"
Sam shot him an exasperated look.
"Not scared, Jacoby Marshlight. The dead don't click with us, see? Not our, uh...area of expertise, you could say. If she was some kind of spacetime apparition or an alien, I'd be your go-to girl!"
Jacoby shrugged. "Fair 'nuff. Helg? Lily?"
The two girls were seated side-by-side at their desks, Lily still only halfway through her PB&J dinner. They exchanged a glance and Lily smiled cheerily with her mouth full. She started jotting an answer in her notebook while Helga sighed.
"I don't think so," she said, getting up to toss her dinner remnants in the trash. "I get chills every time I go near there."
Lily held up her notebook, her response written in red gel pen: Sounds neat! I'll go!
"Van?" Jacoby peered up at the shadowed boy and tapped his head against Vanja's knee again. "That leaves you. Consider it a date."
Vanja propped his chin in a clawed hand and gave Jacoby a bemused look.
"Is that what Americans consider a date? Hanging out in the haunted classroom?"
"Sure." Jacoby's chair started to go out from under him, but Steve reached for the floor to prop them up. "We're weird like that."
He wanted Vanja to go; Vanja of all people would appreciate the room and its inhabitant, would appreciate the history. A murdered girl, a haunted classroom, all the dark loneliness associated with ghosts--it was grim and poetic, the kind of thing Vanja loved. Jacoby could see the other boy debating with himself, the thoughtful quirk to his dark lips, the way he narrowed those luminous yellow eyes.
"Fine, then. I'll go."
Jacoby smiled and Lily clapped her hands. Steve pushed against the floor to rock Jacoby's chair back into place and Jacoby stood. He reached for Vanja's and Lily's hands, tugging them both to their feet.
"Alright, kids. Let's meet a ghost. Sam, Helg, back in a few."
Samudera grinned after them, showing a mouth full of needle teeth that hadn't been there a moment ago.
"If you're not, maybe I can deign to go pick up whatever body parts are left after."
Jacoby saluted to show his appreciation and led the others out the classroom door.
Plans: Jake will likely be very interested in exploring Citagazze, particularly the Observatory and the Spectres roaming the streets. He’ll also thoroughly enjoy visiting other worlds as he’s pretty enthusiastic about string theory.
Notes: Jacoby’s window location is in a rather severely haunted and dangerous classroom, so anyone who comes to his world should exercise caution.
DÆMON
Name: Kiby
Sex: Female
Form: Slow loris
Additional notes: She looks like any other slow loris, brown and white and with an adorable face mask.
Additionally, Steve the scarf does not have a daemon, not being enough of a separate or sentient entity to have his own soul.
Why this form: The slow loris is, as the name suggests, a rather slow moving animal, careful and deliberate in its movements when it moves at all. It’s an unassuming primate with similar traits to a sloth, though it’s not quite as docile as a sloth; slow lorises have a toxic bite, making them one of the very few mammals to have this trait. They are also largely nocturnal and are assumed to be mostly solitary. Slow, sleepy, nocturnal and unassuming, but with a surprising “toxic bite” pretty much describes Jake to a T.
