frauseufzen

OOC
Player Name: Cami
Pronouns: she/her
Player Age: thirty[mumble]
Player Timezone: PST
Anything you MUST have warnings for? child or animal harm/forceful separation from caregivers. I have OCD and these things can really mess me up if I'm blindsided by them, but with some warning I'm usually okay
Other Characters in Game: n/a
Plurk (if you have one): eolasemah
Other Contacts: Cafiffle on discord
Invite source: requested from mods and granted!

IC
Character Full Name, Western Order: Agathe Marowski (née Schneider)
— Diminutive, if applicable: n/a
Character Chronological Age: late 40's
Character Visible Age, if different: same
Character Gender: female

Canon: OC, loosely adapted from a tabletop Call of Cthulhu campaign
Canonpoint: n/a

ONE paragraph synopsis of character and canon premise: A dour German woman with a sharp tongue and a quick hand, whether what's needed is the covering of a clerical mistake or something rather less admissable. Agathe gives the overall impression of a terrifying schoolmarm stereotype come to life: straight-backed, eagle-eyed, and inscrutable, she maintains an immaculate profile and is rarely in the mood for nonsense.
If one can only figure out what her good side actually looks like, they can attempt to get onto it, but it's entirely possible to go for years not knowing whether or not they've succeeded.

Character Personality:

Shrewd: Agathe has spent most of her life around people who don't respect or like her, which has meant learning how to get what she wants from the world without disturbing or offending them. She is well-versed in being unobtrusive while working toward her own ends, and will do what has to be done in the most practical way she can manage.

Brusque: Having said that, she isn't polite, and whether or not she's able to make a positive impression on someone depends entirely on how all right they are with a blunt, sometimes actively hostile turn of phrase. She's not unfamiliar with gender dynamics as they present in the US, at least in her time period, but has been fortunate enough to keep the company of mostly other women or men who value what she has to say.

Principled: Like the proverbial mule who won't budge, once Agathe has made up her mind about something or someone, it will often take moving heaven and earth to change it. She has very specific ideas about how people are supposed to behave, and is not afraid to let them know.

Self-Possessed: Being a person who isn't always easy to like means spending a lot of time alone, and Agathe is quite comfortable doing so, with a great deal of confidence in her ability to solve her own problems and be her own advocate. This is sometimes to her detriment; it can result in refusing help, or distrusting anyone who offers it.

Resilient: It takes a lot to pierce Agathe's skin (for the most part: everyone has their buttons), and not exactly the type to sit down and die when faced with a problem, she's far more likely to stab it-- either figuratively or literally-- or follow it until she can. Nobody holds a grudge like Agathe Marowski, and this is both a blessing and a curse. Mostly a curse.

Ruthless: On the topic of stabbing, Agathe will take care of business by whatever means necessary. She sees herself as highly practical, and has spent enough of her life dulling down any emotional attachment to violence or cruelty-- that's how it goes in the business-- that it's very difficult to appeal to her sense of compassion, if it exists at all. (it does, but manifests in unexpected ways)
This can be a benefit in the sense that she'll do the work others are too squeamish to take on, but, as everyone knows, that doesn't come without its cost.

Character History: An immigrant from a poor neighborhood in (now East) Berlin, Agathe came with her husband, Mikolaj Marowski, to the United States in 1920 in his attempt to escape political persecution for his socialist views. His family ties in New Bristol gave him an easy in to the Polish mob and led to her abetment and employment as the personal assistant to one of its heavy hitters, Ilar Kipke, which went south after several years when a catastrophic compromise of intel sent everyone underground. The snitch at fault for all this was none other than Mikolaj, whom Agathe helpfully proceeded to remove from the picture before he could cause any more trouble.

She continued to serve Kipke loyally until his murder in the late 1920s, when she was advised by a colleague to give up the business for good and skip town. For a time she fell in with a group of paranormal investigators, who were hunting for less sensible answers behind her boss' death.

It was all hogwash until she got personally cursed by an evil sorceror, but that's neither here nor there.

Physical Details: Around six feet tall and rail thin, generally unsmiling, but with a certain grace and sharpness to her movement that brings to mind a bird of prey. Her black, greying hair is kept pulled tightly back, and her clothing is invariably modest, even dowdy.
She speaks in a low, gravelly alto with a thick eastern German accent.

Does this character use any disability aids? What are they and what is their purpose? n/a

Is the character bringing a pet? Describe them. No

Inventory upon arrival: Clothes do not count. No fantasy items or things that could not occur in 1960 or earlier. No vehicles. Disability aids do not take up a slot, nor do pets.

1. an antique German carving knife with an antler handle
2. a 1920s Eveready flashlight
3. her wedding ring (significant in that it was not previously on her person)

Suitability

(copying answers from invite request, hope that's ok)

What elements of the game are you most interested in engaging with? The time period and politics! I'm an insane person and I kind of enjoy the idea of someone coming forward to a more regressive time, especially one actively hostile to the things she's running from.

How will your character integrate into the setting? How do you see them dealing with life in Sweetwater? What are your plans for them in this game? I don't have any plans, per se, because I like to improvise! But I imagine Agathe will integrate as well as she tries to, which is to say: she works hard at flying under the radar so she can still be who she is in private, and as a very crafty person she will quickly recognize the hostilities facing her as a German expat from a post-WWII society, etc. It'll take her a little time to catch up on the lingo and politics from several decades in the future, but she's adaptable and will learn the strengths of the people around her to try and figure things out.

Why did you choose this character specifically for this game? Admittedly I'm doing a bit of additional shaping specific for this context, but this is a character trope I've been playing and enjoying for. Gosh. Many years at this point, and I always enjoy putting her in situations that she has to claw her way out of. I think she's a particularly good one for bouncing off of, and makes CR easily, which seemed like a good fit for the setting.

I also want to just throw in a disclaimer, as someone apping a German expat in the mid-20th century: although Agathe is coming from the time just before the rise of the Nazi party, I want to make it extremely clear that there is no alignment with them in her politics/philosophies and that she will be disgusted (if unsurprised) to hear what has happened to her country in the meantime.

What are your favorite elements of horror? In case my PB was any indication, The Haunting (1963) is one of my favorite horror movies. I'm a kind of annoyingly visual person, so I have the most fun with situations where you're not really seeing much happen at all, but it's all in the sound and the vibes and the creeping awareness that something is wrong. I love a puzzle and a twist, and like any proper RPer I have a healthy appreciation for Shit Being All Fucked Up in a general sense.

Do you understand that Silent Spring's purpose is horror, not domesticity/found family, and that the following themes (nuclear panic, the Red Scare, conformism, sexism and restrictive gender roles, heteronormativity/gender binarism, surveillance, gaslighting, brainwashing/propaganda, disinformation, pollution/contamination, poisoning, loss of control, smoking, alcohol culture, and uncanny valley) cannot be opted out of? HELL YEAH brother

Do you agree to accept the potential IC consequences (social shunning/ostracism, potential exclusion from neighborhood social events, up to brainwashing, sleep deprivation torture, and nonconsensual haloperidol injection) in full for your character's actions in game? boy howdy do I

Housing Preferences

What is your usual tagging speed? Tagging patterns? I tend to be a daytime tagger, and though I'm pretty good at matching pace with my partners, I try to put out a minimum of one tag per thread per day just to keep stuff rolling along. Exceptions obviously when I'm sick or having an irl situation, but that's life.
I have a small child who I am generally spending all my time with from after work/daycare (5:30ish) until he goes to bed (7:30ish) and on weekends, so I am capital U Unavailable on weekday evenings. I'll usually find time to sneak in tags on weekends, but they're not guaranteed.

What activity level is ideal to you in a partner? Similar to mine I think! I will get frustrated and antsy if someone is too slow and I feel like they're lagging me behind the rest of the game, because I tend to think of things pretty linearly and don't like to have y conversation until x conversation is concluded, that sort of thing.

What is your timezone? How important is it that the other players in the household be in a similar timezone? PST! Doesn't really matter, as long as I can talk to them sometimes about game-important things.

Would you like a household with a child, without, or do you have no preference? No preference!

Are you okay with being placed with a character/character(s) that would impact your character's reputation? oh definitely