So if you've been paying attention, you'll know that I haven't posted in about two months. Sorry about that. And if you're here, you'll also know that about a month ago, I changed this blog's URL. Sorry about that, too. And if you've ever been in high school, you'll know that things change.
Let's talk about that.
On November 1, just after some of my friends had a heart-to-heart on Halloween night, they decided that it was necessary that we shut down the Role Play. It had been causing some social, academic, and creative issues that I don't want to elaborate on on here, and in order to make things better, we thought it best to cut off all collaboration. No more book.
So that sucks. Obviously. But you'll notice that this blog is still named Rousseaux, and its URL is still Anthony's birthday. One of the conditions was that our individual characters are still ours, and we are free to do what we want with them.
So, since I'm not actively working on his development anymore, let's go ahead and post Anthony's character form here, for future reference.
So, I realize you have never been properly introduced: kids, meet Anthony; Anthony, meet the kids.
Anthony James Rousseaux
Gender:
Male
Born:
September 9th, 1992 (currently age 23, in the beginning of the story only 21)
Literary Status (Protagonist/Antagonist):
Uncertain
Shadow Ranking:
Was once Tier Nine Recruiter, now Tier Seven
Height:
6'4"
Appearance:
Tall and skinny, with narrow shoulders and a slightly lilting stride. Really not incredibly strong. (He has a knife, but in battle relies mostly on his cards.) He has pale-gray hair trimmed just out of his eyes, which are a light brown. He has a rather effeminate jawline and a thin nose. Anthony actually has lots of scars and a Shadow Mark on his left wrist, but he hides them with a Three of Clubs.
Sexuality:
Straight demisexual (needs to form emotional bonds before he can be interested in any-thing
sexual, kissing or otherwise)
Personality:
Very quiet and very observant. Not particularly light-hearted, but easygoing in most situations. He 's very private, and has to be pushed (or at times, negotiated with) in order to express his feelings because he's not sure they're critical to many situations, or his past because he's mostly ashamed of it.
Flaws and Weaknesses:
Just because Anthony does not often acknowledge or act upon his emotions doesn't mean they don't trouble him regularly. He spends a sizable amount of his time regretting things, and swallows every emotion he doesn't want to feel. This is obviously unhealthy, and he has paid the price for it in many ways, on many occasions.
Skills:
Anthony is a card dealer; he has a magic deck of cards with a specific power each, categorized by suit ("Spade to Fight, Heart to Live, Club to Build, Diamond to Steal" - fighting, healing, illusion-casting and misc. cards, respectively). He's also fast in a fight, if not particularly strong, and has good endurance. He always has a diamond-made dagger on him for when he can't or won't fight with his cards.
Story/Backstory:
He had an English mother and an American father. His father was a state representative for northern California, where Anthony lived on the family estate until he was old enough to go to school. At that point, his parents began sending him away to a British boarding school every year, where he spent the holidays with his English grandparents, only coming home to California for the summers. By the time he was ten, he really didn't have much of a relationship with his parents past maintaining social pretense.
When Anthony's cousin Nathan's parents died, Nathan came to stay with them and became a fast family favorite, causing tensions to rise dramatically. One day near the end of the summer, Anthony and Nathan had a fight that involved the Black Joker or Master Thief card tearing between them. This killed Nathan, and Anthony received a jumble of all his interesting thoughts and memories which, as you can imagine, took a while to sort out. Anthony's parents flipped and all social pretenses dropped, causing a huge fight.
This was when Anthony ran away and was intercepted by the Shadows.
The Shadows recognized the potential in Anthony's card dealing power and made him a priority trainee, eventually turning him into a skilled Recruiter.
One of Anthony's first recruits was Dakota Black, when Anthony was thirteen and they both still believed in the Shadows. They became fast friends, and Dakota's house became like Anthony's second (and at times, first) home.
When Anthony was fourteen, he fell in love with a girl named Cassie Reed and couldn't bring himself to recruit her. Dakota helped the couple to run away from the Shadows, and they tried to go into hiding, but did not succeed; thus, Anthony was forced to recruit Cassie. She was immediately shipped off to another base, and he never saw her again. A year later, another Shadow ratted out Dakota for helping them, and as punishment for their treason, Anthony had to kill him. (At this time, Anthony was 15, Dakota was 14, and Raven - Dakota's little sister - was 11.)
Anthony shouldn't have killed Dakota because that's a really shitty thing to do to your best friend, but also because for the years to come, it gave the Shadows a hold on Anthony they hadn't had before. They convinced him of how cowardly and unforgivable that was, among other things he'd done (recruiting Cassie, killing other people, etc.), and essentially used these things as blackmail to make him do even more shitty stuff. (It was very important to them that he felt like he would never have an out.)
In order to deal with everything, Anthony made himself pretty much completely numb, and it worked until he was about nineteen (when he peaked and stopped climbing the Shadow ranks). Then Raven ran away from home, and the Shadows assumed that it was because she'd found out about them or about Anthony killing her brother. They immediately sent Anthony to either recruit her (despite her apparent lack of powers), or kill her. He knew he could never recruit her, and at the thought of killing his friend's little sister, Anthony finally snapped. He had a small mental breakdown because he couldn't manage to numb himself anymore, and he finally allowed his allegiances to drift from the Shadows. For the next two years or so, he followed after Raven without actually catching her, and got demoted several times.
When our story starts, Anthony is on his way to recruit Raven to the Shadows, but sent on a detour to befriend and recruit the other characters.
Kill Count:
Unknown |
| I made this with an anime maker game; I couldn't change the proportions so he kinda looks like a twelve-year-old, but it's supposed to be him after he leaves the Shadows and joins the Army. |
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| Same anime maker; this is him before he peaked in the Shadow ranks, so probably when he was eighteen or nineteen. (He drank very lightly then, but now doesn't drink at all; it freaks him out.) |
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| Sara made this Anthony dragon with her mad drawing skillz. (No, Anthony cannot actually turn into a dragon.) |
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| Bailey made this with an online chibi-maker thing. |
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| Again, chibi-maker thing. |
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| This was made on Polyvore. |
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| Siri made this for I think my Christmas present last year. |
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| This is the original inspiration picture of Anthony, which I may or may not have posted here before. |
I'm not sure I own any more than two of those pictures. Moving on.
Because the roleplay is over, and I am without a project, I'm pretty freaking bored. Right now, I'm floating around doing stuff like rereading Harry Potter (third time), rereading Hunger Games (second time), starting Divergent, watching lots and lots and lots of movies, basically looking for inspiration wherever I hope I can get it. It's not working very well, but I'm not really sure what else to do.
Any ideas?
In Creative Writing, we've been doing lots of short projects, which are interesting and fun, but they really need revision. (Once revised, I'll post them here.) Mr. Parker (yes, last year's English teacher is this year's Creative Writing teacher) says that next year he'll be offering Creative Writing II, in which we'll work on just one project all year: a big project, like a screenplay or a novel or whatever it is we high schoolers each decide we've wanted to do for the past sixteen-to-eighteen years. So I'll be working on a novel, then. Yaaaaaay! I really need a project now, though. Something to work on consistently, and something that I can feel is meaningful and well-executed once I've finished. And maybe next year I can fix it, or try a new one. Either way, there's really no reason to wait around.
I need to finish something. Mr. Parker told me I'm good, but I "lack discipline." Sad, but true.
Get it together, Allie.
Do you guys ever get like this? Project-less and under-stimulated, I mean. And if so, what do you do?
Until next time (whenever that may be),
-Allie H-S
P.S: I do have one thing I've been poking at, a short story about a girl whose mother uproots her and her little sister to leave her father. It's called Missoula because that's where they go, off to see her aunt. So we'll see if that turns into anything. Wish me luck.
Other Miscellaneous Updates: I never finished 1984; I hate Debate; you should read a webcomic called Namesake; I joined Pottermore as WombatRiver12772 and it put me in Slytherin; and HAPPY THANKSGIVING unless you're not American in which case HAPPY DAY YOU SHOULD HAVE SOMETHING NICE FOR DINNER! That is all.
