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[strangletheheart]

untouchable.

go to bed on your own; wake each day with these thoughts.

THE BASICS

NAME: Justine Emily Ward.
NICKNAMES: N/A.
AGE: 25.
DATE OF BIRTH: 10th May.

MARITAL STATUS: Single.
SEXUALITY: Complicated.

OCCUPATION: Writer / Book Collector.
HOMETOWN: New York.
CURRENT RESIDENCE: --
PARENTS: Alive, estranged.
SIBLINGS: One brother, estranged.

QUIRKS: Stammering, varying speech speeds, looking down and avoiding eye contact.
LIKES: Reading, tea, woollen garments, spending time in bookstores, collecting books, writing.
DISLIKES: Most social situations, and while not a open dislike, she struggles with extroverts and physical contact.

RELATIONSHIPS

AILMENTS

MENTAL

☄ Anxiety - anxious about physical contact, social contact, being percieved as impolite.
☄ Phobias - enclosed spaces with others, public transport, crowds.
☄ Hoarding - has some hoarding tendencies in the form of collecting books.
☄ Low Self-Esteem.


PHYSICAL

☄ Countless cold and flu infections.
☄ Bouts of extreme nausea, fevers and vomiting.
☄ Exhaustion, malaise and weakness.
☄ Migraines and nosebleeds.

OOC INFO

NAME: cheryl
AGE: 30
PLURK: @heolstor.plurk.com
TIME ZONE: London GMT

PERSONALITY

While appearing docile due to various medications, Justine is very well read and has learnt to read several languages. Her greatest asset is her intelligence. Some of her favourite books, she can quote large chunks off the top of her head. She knows a great deal about the world of literature, but is overall quite knowledgeable.
Justine is not a social creature. She’s very anxious in most social situations. Her Calling is mostly the blame for that, as well as her upbringing. She struggles to make friends because she doesn’t really know how to deal with people. She knows to be polite, to be considerate, but that’s pretty much all she can do.
Brought up without much affection from her parents, she’s become very self-conscious, especially with her Calling which comes in the form of her fearing to be touched. So much so that she bundles herself up in various layers of clothing to avoid it and keeping a safe distance. She doesn’t do well in vast crowds unless she’s sedated herself enough to do so. However, as desperately lonely as she is and as much as she thinks she can’t be, she craves to be touched. She craves it just as much as she’s terrified of herself.
Her self-esteem level's not that better either. She's spent much of her life being ignore by her family and whilst she was away at boarding school, she got the distinct message that she wasn't important and that she wasn't meant to be shown affection or touched. She has an extremely low opinion of herself.

APPEARANCE

Justine is a frail, mousy looking thing, standing at around 5’ 2” in height. She constantly looks ill; her skin looks sallow and nearly has dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep and poor health. Her dark eyes almost look watery or glazed over, like she’s about to cry and she nearly always has a rather sleepy look about her. Her hair’s a dark blonde / light brownish shade and wavy but a little lacking in lustre, which she normally wears down.
She wraps herself up in several layers of clothing, which hides the fact of how under-weight she is. Her clothes are usually in neutral shades and she particularly likes to wear comfortable clothing, particularly thick woollen jumpers.
Her wings, which she rarely has out, are small, and have the same colourings and markings of that of a common Sparrow.

ABILITIES

☄ Has the ability to create and infect others with diseases, with a focus on physical illnesses that affect the circulatory, respiratory and digestion systems. When not actively using her abilities, she passively radiates cold and flu viruses.

☄ Slowed aging and extended lifespan. Justine has already reached full maturity and can potentially live up until the age of 500 years old or so. Due to the nature of her Calling, it is likely she will die much sooner than this. While she is twenty-five years old, she is beginning to appear older than this and looks to be in her late twenties/early thirties.

☄ Stronger and faster than humans but among the weakest of demons physically. This is amplified when she has her wings out, which as usually remain hidden.

☄ Hotter body temperature than humans and has a faster heartbeat compared to humans. Her blood, when spilt, is oily black in colour.

☄ Able to recognise the 'species' of others with wings out in very general terms: angels, demons, vampires, werewolves, supernaturals and humans. anything else comes off as 'something different'.

LINKS

ic inbox
visuals
fic
cr chart

ABOUT

Justine's homeworld is a modern au in which supernatural beings exist within society amongst humans: demons, angels, werewolves, vampires and supernatural humans. Justine is a Poludnica demon, a demon who creates sickness within their body to infect others. She has grown a speciality in physical illness, specifically those that affect the circulatory, respiratory and digestion systems. She has the potential to create diseases of her own, starting pandemics - but doing so would ultimately kill her in the process. Because of the toll of giving others diseases and the specific Calling itself, Justine often looks and is sickly herself.

cw: child abuse/child neglect; institutionalisation; institutional-related abuse
Justine was born to a wealthy, powerful demon family. Her grandfather, Simeon, is a Neqa'el - a leader amongst demons - and worked hard to produce a large family of influencers: Glaysa Labolas, those with the ability to control emotions and Temeluchus, those who can control fear. With the exception of a small group of the family being Rakshasa - the family enforcers - all other Callings were considered lesser and undesirable. So called 'undesirables' are either killed or sent off to institutions in hopes they die young. Reputation meant everything.

Always a sickly child, she grew up without affection from her parents - brought up by nannies and eventually sent to a boarding school. Her father was distant, haunted by the loss of his first family, while her ambitious and self-centred mother saw Justine and her brother Maximilian as little more than pawns to help raise her own social standing. They'd be married off to other demon families, having no say in their own lives. Her mother was often verbally abusive to her - because she was so sickly, because she was so nervous, and her tendency to shrink away was seen as an insult against her mother — who was so desperately obsessed with her social standing within the family. Maximilian was at least some comfort to her and they had a good relationship until he came of age and became more involved with family business. Despite her poor health, she was an incredibly bright child - something of a prodigy with her knowledge and natural acquisition of languages.

When Justine turned sixteen and became a Poludnica, it seemed set on what her future would be. No arranged marriage, no possibility of pursuing her own interests. Under the guise of a party thrown to celebrate her getting her wings, Justine's family met to decide what they'd do with her. Brought before her grandfather, he threw out the rest of the family to talk to her alone. But even the hardest of old demons could be softened by the sight of his frightened youngest grandchild, named for his long dead wife. Simeon was a leader of demons, but he wasn't completely heartless. Desperate for her own freedom, hoping for mercy, she made a deal: she would agree to being sent to an institution without fuss and would remain there. If she survived to the age of maturity, she would be allowed to leave. She would then completely cut herself off from her family, essentially writing herself off as dead. This would mean the family would no longer pay for her expensive keep and would no longer have an undesirable within their family. Reputation after all meant everything, she reminded him. Impressed by his little granddaughter's cleverness, her grandfather agreed to the terms, even allowing a small amount to be paid to her after she left the institution. It was almost refreshing to see a young demon try to bargain for herself like that.

Blackhall was a hospital facility for supernatural families with more money than sense, where they could dump their children struggling with their Callings. It was largely for the demon population and a vast majority of Poludnicas, Afreets and Behemoths were sent there. There's no affection here either: patients would be locked up in rooms alone, contained and 'safe'. They'd often face harsh regimes: force-feeding or restraints and wouldn't be allowed interaction with others. But Justine had been lonely for a long time, she had already lived under her mother's abuse and while her two years broke what was left of her spirit, she survived. She didn't die as she thought and her family hoped she would.

To her credit, her Calling didn't kill her. Nor did Blackhall. On her eighteenth birthday, she signed herself out, as agreed, and walked away from her family for good. It wasn't easy, though. She tried to secretly write to her brother after her release but the replies became few and far between before they stopped altogether - Maximilian was lost to her.

Now she looks after herself, living an isolated life. She still struggles with her health and her Calling but she tries to find some small pieces of happiness in what's been a isolated and unloved life. She collects books and spends her time reading and writing, mostly about her time in Blackhall.

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