APPLICATION | eachdraidh

[unshelled]

( PLAYER ★ INFORMATION )

NAME: HOLIDAY
AGE: 21+
CONTACT: acidboom & inglourious.sassterds @ GMAIL
CURRENT CHARACTERS & LATEST AC: N/A


RESERVATION LINK: HERE

( CHARACTER ★ INFORMATION )

DOES THIS CHARACTER MEET SKELETAL BASICS? YES SIREE
NAME & AGE: GEORGIA "GEORGE" LASS ☇ CHRONOLOGICALLY 19, PHYSICALLY FOREVER 18
CANON & CANON POINT: DEAD LIKE ME ☇ TAKEN FROM THE VERY BEGINNING OF S02 EP10
CANON INFORMATION: CANON WIKI ☇ CHARACTER WRITE-UP A ☇ WRITE-UP B

PERSONALITY:

"I'd say I'm sorry for disappointing you, but I'm not; I excel at not giving a shit."

In the Merriam-Webster's dictionary, under the entry for "apathy" are the words "lack of feeling or emotion; lack of interest or concern." Published in the 2007 edition of Words of the Year was the entry "apathetic", defined as "no feeling or passion, indifferent." The American Dialect Society determined that the most prolific word of the 2008 presidential election was "maverick": a person who is beholden to no one.

Despite her rants, raves, and constant assertions to the contrary, George Lass is one-hundred percent none of these things.

You'd be forgiven for believing her, of course. Our first taste of George is two parts detached to one part derisive. She's dropped out of college and is being forced to search for work by her mother on pain of being booted from home, and she takes to the streets with absolutely no interest in succeeding whatsoever. Responsibility and obligation have little bearing on the way she moves through the world. Whether her actions are good, evil, right, wrong, or simply annoying to everyone around her is irrelevant to the matter at hand: primarily that the threat of loss is all around and the best course of action is simply to keep far away from it at all costs. Indeed, this protagonist's cornerstone philosophy in life is based on past experience and centres around avoiding disappointment by avoiding interest and setting no expectations for herself. Expectations beget let down and let down hurts. George refrains from all decision-making and makes a point not to adopt any moral alignment other than "unconcerned". After all, despite having seemingly no opinion on whether she ought to be a decent person or a shitty one, repeated failures and disillusionment have taught her that, as she puts it, "bad people are punished by society's law, and good people are punished by Murphy's Law." And that sucks.

In her own words: "either way you're screwed."

And so the job interview unfolds horrifically. She insults the woman giving the interview (Dolores Herbig as in, "her big brown eyes") with scathing commentary and mumbles sarcastic asides the entire time. The adults in her life seem to view George as a personified snapshot of youth in the early 2000s: disenfranchised, discouraged, and apparently content to mooch off society until their existential concerns work themselves out on their own. It is a wince-inducing display of awkward pausing, ineptly answered questions, a surprisingly naive grasp on what her lack of education means in the grander economic sense, and it ends in total disaster. Naturally, George gets the job.

Only then she gets hit by a toilet seat falling from space and dies. Yes, dies.

Suddenly, a pointless life carelessly discarded is ripped away.
Suddenly, it doesn't seem so pointless anymore.
And just as suddenly, that life is given back.

Instead of the anticipated passing, George is, by chance, conscripted by a group of alternately dedicated and flippant grim reapers belonging to the External Influences division. Her day job? Temp work at the Happy Time Temp Agency. Her real job? To ferry the souls of those murdered, killed in accidents, or by suicide to the afterlife.

Maybe if she hadn't died the cracks would never have begun to show and you'd be forgiven further for thinking her apathetic and independent. Maybe, if George Lass were allowed to age and go on with her life, her commitment to the path of no resistance would continue indefinitely, unquestioned and undisturbed.

Only that isn't what happens. The night before her death we are introduced to three possible suspects in the mystery of why George is so convinced that everything will go wrong: one pathologically uptight mother, one unfaithful and perpetually absent father, and one little sister that George neglects and ignores to a point not far from wanton cruelty. George's family. They are belittling, unsupportive, dysfunctional, and occasionally, in the case of her mother, borderline abusive. George uses distance, passive provocation, and deliberate insubordination to combat her home life, all of it largely (of course) in the form of sarcasm. And why not? Her academic failure and self-imposed social isolation keeps them all at bay.

Post-mortem, everything changes. George attends her own funeral and watches at a distance as her family grapples with the aftermath of her accident. She watches as they fray and eventually fall apart at the seams. In watching her watch her family it becomes clear how rampant the misunderstandings were between them, and how good intentions like wanting to protect yourself and others from unnecessary pain ("When I was a kid my parents would tell me to hold onto things tightly. A kite, a balloon - whatever. To not let go. But I was scared that if I held on too tightly to something or someone, I'd be carried away...") can damage a relationship until it's charred beyond repair ("...Except I'm the one always telling people 'It's over! Time to move on.'") In flashbacks we see a clever little girl at the centre of a funny, warm, and unconventional family. But shades of the person she will someday become are evident, tinged with childlike guile, uncertainty, and just the slightest bit of anxiety.

The twist is that while George usually succeeds at stonewalling the people and opportunities around her precisely the way she allegedly wants to, she isn't exactly trying. Not really. Monotone and blank-faced she may be, but George is quick and bright and more than a little confused. Her idiosyncratic narration (which exists outside her interactions with other characters in a kind of meta headspace) reveals a very real and occasionally crippling fear of the future ("Do you know what it's like to be cusping on adulthood and not know who you are, what you want to be, or even if you want to be? It's ten shades of suck, that's what it is!"). She's also a surprisingly talented wordsmith. Her tendency is to plant poignant, albeit cynical, observations about the nature of life and death between each dry monologue. And for someone who professes to care so little for what others think, George is constantly evaluating herself at a distance ("I don't want to fit in. I just don't want to stand out."), judging and measuring and rolling her eyes at the way she shrinks back ("I should have said thank you. I wanted to say thank you. I wanted to smile and flirt and giggle. But instead I said-- 'Whatever.'"), barring herself from even the possibility of finding what love and friendship there's to be had. Like many eighteen-year-olds, George oscillates wildly between self-states. Her mainstays are insecurity ("Do you not like me anymore?" she asks her superior), surliness ("I'm already late for work. Twenty more minutes isn't going to kill me...again."), and joyful, irreverent sass ("I take my coffee with a little less milk, two sugars, and a lot less of your bullshit."). True, she's irascible. Her sharp tongue and skepticism are hardly a facade. She is less a girl untouched, however, and more a girl untested. If life is going to ruin us all anyway, she reasons, isn't it better to do the ruining yourself?

But death is even more unkind to those who run from the truth than even life is. Faced with the reality that she is, for all intents and purposes, immortal until told otherwise, George is forced to do what she refused to do when alive: adapt.

It's clear to George that coming to terms with her role as a grim reaper is a multi-step process, and that the beginning - accepting the fact that everyone dies irrespective of her wishes - is just the beginning. Reconciling an attempt to build something that will only ever be a tragic mockery of a real life with an eternally youthful appearance hits hard and long. In the course of her duties she comes across people of all backgrounds and ages, but it's the people like her - naive and struggling and indefatigably stubborn - who present a paradoxical challenge: taking their souls is damning them to a fate she hates and knows well; those who escape will get the chance at a fate she'll never have. Furious and in tears after a confrontation with Rube, the group's supernatural foreman, George says, sadly, "I want to be young and silly." He responds, firmly, "You are."

Still: taking souls feels a little too much like murder for her liking. Unlike the emotionless robot she played for the job interview, Reaper George can't quite keep herself from caring for the people she's meant to watch die. At the very least, she sees them as more than just numbers or steps towards a glorious but near unobtainable quota, initially rebelling at every turn in order to find ways of keeping her "Reaps" alive for just a little while longer. She has nightmares. She can't sleep. She is plagued by the increasingly irresistible temptation to reach out to her family one last time. Reapers are told to remain at a distance; they linger in the margins of life and observe from the fringes without involvement or attachment. The irony isn't lost on George, who at times rails against her limbo-like existence and at others embraces it with a resignation that's as heartbreaking as it is frustrating.

So when she reaches her breaking point and asks Rube for advice, he tells her that the only way to survive (in a manner of speaking) is to "think about all the things you like and decide whether they're worth sticking around for."

"And what if I don't?"
"Then you go away and you don't get to like anything anymore."

And decide she does. On the outside, little shifts: her face is still more generous to expressions of withering disregard than to smiles. But inside the clockwork turns, winding up a girl who can admit to herself, at last, that she wants to participate in life, messy bits and all: she seeks out friendship, halting and awkward but genuine nonetheless; ignoring Rube's advice, she flirts, perhaps foolishly, with the idea of a relationship despite the glaring complications, changed from the person who "[ran] from all the people who liked me." For her family, George contents herself with the role of mysterious benefactor, leaving them notes and boons from afar, and doing her best to guide her misguided sister. Her love for others grows against the grain and in spite of how much trouble and strife the act causes her ("It's like respecting someone for being a mess. Because you're a mess too.") George does not take a running start and leap without falling. Her attempts are staggered, sometimes end in tragedy, and her heart, newly discovered, breaks again and again.

"Why do I keep losing all the things and people that I care about?"

But she is mending. Finding absolution for a life half-lived in a death she has no choice but to be fully present for. In 2009, the Oxford English Dictionary published a list of words with contradictory meanings and among them was "weather", which can be defined as either a wearing away from or a withstanding of circumstances. Despite George's rants, raves, and constant assertions to the contrary, this is probably the best word for her.

"I wasn't done liking things. I wasn't done not liking things. I wasn't done. So I forged ahead. I found a way. And I'm trying to let that be a good thing, as deviant as that might sound."

After all, most people think of death as the final mystery. And George Lass thinks they're wrong.

"It's not so bad, being dead like me."

COURT ALLIANCE & REASONING: UNSEELIE

There are three things keeping George sane and relatively happy while "alive". They are as follows: (a) the idea that she's still around and, given that plus the realisation that she has very little to lose, ought to live in the moment and try her utmost to find happiness and joy and blah blah blah wherever she can; (b) the possibility that she might still find significant meaning somewhere, somehow; and (c) the fact that her family is only going to be around for so long (this one she tries not to think about, but, unconsciously, it's there and it's lasting and it's important.)

Also strict codes of ethics and firm, unyielding belief in principles of any kind have never come easily or naturally to her. Arguably, never has resilience or a willingness to embrace change... but there is a part of her that acknowledges its necessity to the fabric of the world. George also tends to think of herself as "bad" (to once more quote: "It was reassuring to find someone else who wanted to be bad. And it was horrific to find out that it's not just what I do now that matters. It was what I did then.") and she certainly doesn't think of herself as an agent of beauty, light, and unconditional love for all existence regardless of whether it actually exists yet or not. In short, George may not like The Now, but deep inside she values the present, and she knows that quite well.

Cop out Easy answer? George could never be a member of the Seelie Court. Which would make her Unseelie by default.

ABILITIES:

REAPING: Sadly, being a grim reaper doesn't come with too many perks. Taking the souls out of living people is pretty much the only "ability" she has, and it's really more of a capability than a superpower or anything. With a single caress or swiping or touch, reapers can "pop" ("detach" if you prefer) souls from their physical bodies, allowing them to die without feeling emotional or physical pain. Important to note is that this ability isn't limited to those about to die. Roxy, one of George's co-reapers, demonstrates this to great and hilarious effect. Reapers aren't really punished for this... but it isn't advised for obvious reasons, sudden religious conversions and preaching among them.

DOPPLEGANGER: In order to go about their duties on earth without arising suspicion, the undead are given temporary bodies to use and an entirely new appearance. Ordinary humans, recording equipment, and cameras see the face of someone else. Only other reapers will see their fellows exactly as they were when they were alive. The audience is never told where these vessels come from or what they are exactly, but they don't seem to require food, water, or any sort of maintenance to keep their faculties in order. Oddly enough, other than nutrition being optional, the bodies are physiologically identical to those of regular living people: reapers can feel hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and discomfort; though they don't get sick, environmental factors like smoke and pollen affect them in the usual way; and aside from generally having a tolerance way above the natural threshold for any human being, drugs and alcohol impair them too! It's bizarre. Which brings us to...

HEALING: And boy do reapers heal fast. The show doesn't much go out of it's way to clarify the exact impact, if any, of a reaper's regenerative abilities on their pain threshold... Evidence seems to show that non-fatal wounds and ailments, in general, cause significantly less pain than injuries that would kill an ordinary person. George loses her middle finger to a machine at work and barely flinches. Mason, on the other hand, gets hit by a speeding car (kind of) and overdoses on heroin. Both result in varying degrees of agony.

Stranger still is the implication that reapers - or their bodies, in any case - can actually die. At least cosmetically. S01 E04 has Betty locked up in a cold chamber, presumably before an autopsy, apparently having spawned consciousness again after temporarily appearing to have died. The movie, which would otherwise have gone unacknowledged and not spoken of in polite company, completely rearranges the rules so that a reaper can only be permanently "killed" again if they are dismembered, cremated, and have their ashes shot into space. The whole thing is fucking absurd and it was a terrible plotline for a terrible movie. Never mind.

KNOWLEDGE AND GRASP OF LANGUAGE: Aside from sarcasm this is really George's only other notable skill. As a child she read voraciously. Her internal commentary suggests a wide range of (basic) knowledge re: pop culture, simple emergency medicine, etc. She's never seen reading an awful lot during the course of the show, but it's safe to assume she's still a fan and has no problem absorbing facts, figures, or whatever else people generally associate with bookishness. That said, she seems to like learning, not schooling. College drop-out, remember?

FILING, PROCRASTINATING, BOWLING: Yeah that's all I got.

INVENTORY: Unfortunately just the clothes on her back (lol sucker). Presently this consists of:

( one ) double-breasted jacket in pastel blue
( one ) white button-down blouse
( one ) pair of women's slacks in black
( one ) pair black pumps

( WRITING ★ SAMPLES )

NETWORK SAMPLE:

Uh.

【 That's all. That's it. An innocuous audio recording made completely ominous by simple virtue of it being so innocuous.

Well, for a minute at least. The minute passes and then the feed switches to video, revealing a young woman with somewhat mussed blonde hair and lips pressed tightly together in obvious discomfort. Her eyes are fixed, mistrustful, and... curious despite herself. After shifting her eyes from one side to the other many times in a pantomime of uncertainty, the young woman grimace-smiles. 】

Uh. Guess I... didn't see that coming. 【 the smile drops 】 Everyone here's proooobably pretty used to using enchanted necklaces to communicate with people over long distances by this point or - whatever. I dunno. Apparently some of you here have been around since before the whole high fantasy thing went out of style but– Hey. Who am I to judge! I can see how you'd get used to magic by that point, yeah.

After being stuck in one place for so long you adapt. Change. Mutate. People can get used to anything if you put them through the paces long enough. Right? 【 Cloudiness takes over her face at this point. George shrugs and glances off to the side. For the rest of the video she's looking at anything but the viewer and it's clearly deliberate.

She sighs. Sing-songing: 】 Annnnyway. They're pretty in a mysterious object kinda way. We don't really have anything like this where I'm from so I guess I'm still adjusting. In the mean time – if anyone can give me, uh, a heads-up or something on where I could get some waffles...? Yeah, that'd be great. Uh. I'd appreciate it, I mean.

【 Another handful of beats pass before the woman looks at the "camera" again with the same expression from the beginning of the feed: tense but also amused. 】

'kay bye.

LOG SAMPLE:

George stared at the door in front of her and considered how deeply unremarkable it was with something not unlike rage. Opening doors had been difficult for her in this Strange New World™ ("Strange New World™" was how she thought of the Drabwurld and talked of the Drabwurld and she refused to speak of the Drabwurld as anything else until the hollow feeling in her stomach abated - caps lock and trademark included) but she'd yet to figure out why. She supposed it might have something to do with the recent change from being an undead teenager made to look different by the Magic of Death™ (see above; George had always thought of Death's little tricks in much the same way as she thought of the Drabwurld now) to something apparently precious but still similar to everyone else. She wasn't technically a reaper anymore, not for her world, anyway, but... whatever she was felt strange. Foreign. Maybe it was just the air.

After a moment's pause and a decision to abandon the doorknob for now, George reached up to knock. First she knocked cooly, then aggressively.

When the relaxed but firm rapping turned to violent convulsing and kicking, George decided she'd had just about enough and let out a throaty growl before spinning around. "Fuck you!" she shouted at no one in particular. "Fuck you and fuck this... twsited... Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Assholes, tabletop bullshit universe you brought me to. Fuck. You."

It was satisfying and it made her cry, but only a little. There wasn't a lot in terms of visceral trauma that could make her cry these days but being forced to reckon with what madness her life had become since dying provided her and those around her with a steady source of poorly masked tears, obstinate pouting, and existential despair.

"Great," she muttered, aware that if someone came along and found her talking to herself they'd probably think she was even more nuts than she already felt. "I'm a cliché."

To say she missed her home and her life - her afterlife - and her absurd little band of merry reapers would be a stretch. But lately, before coming to the Drabwurld, there had been days and moments when she found herself frozen, stunned by the realisation that she was enjoying herself and her company. The sense of bewildered delight it brought her might last weeks, even, if she were experiencing a particularly uncharacteristic lucky patch. George closed her eyes and slid to the ground without disengaging from the door's wood, exhaling the way she imaged a stunt man in preparation for a cliff dive might, all heaviness and shaky understanding. It was easy to picture them all around their usual table at Der Wafflehaus. There was Rube scarfing down bacon and eggs and probably everything else he could get his hands on. Roxy might be telling Daisy about something she'd seen on a talkshow that morning and Daisy might be replying cattily (or kindly; George could never tell which it was going to be with her). Mason would–

George sat up, frowning, but not unhappy. Truthfully she wasn't sure what Mason would be doing. Her ability to think like a moron didn't extend far enough to allow for an imaginary scenario. This thought made her grin. She felt wicked and cheeky and a bit more like herself this way.

But the fact was that she was not in Der Wafflehaus. She was trapped in some Strange New World™ that would not, for some reason, provide her the ability to open doors without getting the handles jammed and that was wrong. This was wrong or she was wrong and she could not for the life of her figure out what to do about it. It was a bit like waking up after a bleary, humid night, convinced you'd gotten into bed with pyjamas on, only to find out that for some reason you're naked. Else it was like finding out the guy you'd recently given your virginity to after a reasonably long and romantic courtship hadn't returned your calls despite promising to.

Not once. Not any of them. Not at all.

George stood up abruptly and in less than four seconds found herself storming away from the restaurant wearing a grumpy scowl once more. "I never even liked waffles," she said aloud to bolster her resolve, and decided that perhaps chatting to oneself was not so terrible a quirk after all.