application for maskormenace

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Iddy
AGE: 27
JOURNAL: corknut
IM / EMAIL: ZieglerFan719@gmail.com
PLURK: ihdreniel
RETURNING: Yes! Currently playing Alfie Solomons/devoutish

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Lorna Bell
CHARACTER AGE: 10
SERIES: Bad Little Girl by Frances Vick
CHRONOLOGY: Towards the end of the novel, right after she heads off to London with Marianne
CLASS: She's a ten-year-old girl with strong sociopathic tendencies, SO. In canon, she absolutely plays the villain role; in-game, she wouldn't be the sort of villain who'd cause mass chaos and takes over cities (again, ten years old), but in terms of injury, destruction, and possibly even death on a small scale, based on her own personal whims and grudges? Yeah.
HOUSING: Random housing in any city is fine! (Including Maurtia Falls, where my other character is housed; usually I'd request not to have two characters in the same city, but if you want to throw this little shit into Crime Central, live your dreams.)

BACKGROUND:
cw: arson/fire deaths, animal cruelty/death

When we're first introduced to her, Lorna Bell lives in an impoverished housing estate in suburban England with her mother, her older brother, and her mother's boyfriend. Enter Claire Penny, a maternal, well-meaning teacher at Lorna's school with a reputation for taking neglected and overlooked students under her wing. Though she's not Lorna's teacher, she notices her very early on, and immediately feels sorry for her - and immediately paints an unflattering mental picture of her family and home life, based on her obvious poverty and the neighborhood she comes from. As the years go on, they get closer, and they see each other more often, both in and out of school. Lorna relishes the attention that Claire lavishes on her, and she becomes enamored with the idea of Claire taking her home to live with her so that they can have fun all the time. It's not so different from how a lot of kids will fantasize about a favorite teacher - but Lorna takes it several steps further. When Claire starts showing concern and asking leading questions about home, Lorna is all too eager to spin a tale of extreme abuse and neglect, thinking that if Claire believes her family is terrible to her, maybe she'll take her to live with her instead.

All this just confirms Claire's worst thoughts and fears, and makes her all the more determined to save Lorna somehow. However, the police and school officials brush off Claire's reports, saying that the family had been looked into and no evidence of neglect or abuse had been found - and Lorna flatly denies the abuse whenever anyone but Claire asks about it. She doesn't want Claire to go through the proper channels and get her put into the care system, she wants Claire to just whisk her away. All this frustrates Claire immensely, though she keeps trying to convince the authorities that something is off. Eventually, Lorna decides that she needs to try a new approach. Worrying that the problem is Claire's elderly dog taking up too much of her attention, she feeds him weedkiller and kills him. This still doesn't work, and so she comes up with a new plan. Taking her cue from something she saw happen on one of her favorite TV shows, she waits until everyone in her house is asleep - and then she covers the place in petrol and lighter fluid and sets it ablaze. She then runs to Claire's house, and once Claire gets the story out of her (everything but Lorna's own culpability, of course), Lorna tells her she loves her and wants to stay with her. Claire agrees. She doesn't report this to anyone - after all, she reasons, she'd been trying for months and had gotten nowhere. Instead, she takes Lorna and leaves town, allowing everyone to believe that the girl had died in the fire. She tells herself that the most important thing is to make sure Lorna is safe and happy, and to not let her be put through any more anguish. If Lorna wants to stay with her, then she'll let her stay with her, and she'll work out the details later.

They end up going to a little seaside cottage in Cornwall that Claire had inherited from her aunt. Things seem really nice at first - they go to the beach together, they cook together, they snuggle in bed and read together. But Claire is Lorna's primary caretaker now, which means that along with all the fun and games, she's focused on the nitty-gritty, un-fun parts of raising a kid - like making her take baths, do schoolwork, and eat her vegetables. Living at the seaside stops being new and exciting, and starts being boring, especially since Claire is constantly worried about being discovered and insists that they keep a low profile. Lorna isn't happy with any of this, and gradually grows more sullen, moody, and uncooperative.

Now enter Marianne Cairns, a friendly, free-spirited woman who lives nearby. When Claire has a fall and badly injures her leg, Marianne swoops in, stopping by often to help around the house. At first, Lorna dismisses her as weird and nosy - but it's not long before she grows to like her, and the feeling is mutual. Marianne tells Lorna that she has a talent for singing and dancing, and should find a way to take lessons; Lorna loves the idea. At first, this is all a relief to Claire, because spending time with Marianne invariably puts Lorna in a good mood and makes her easier to deal with. But as time goes on, she starts to notice that things are getting a little weird. Lorna starts to become more and more insistent that Claire rest a lot, and take a lot of pain pills - she wants her leg to heal up nicely, she says. Whenever Claire suggests they go out and do something, Lorna says that Claire needs to stay at home and recover, and she can go do whatever it is with Marianne. Pretty soon, Marianne is giving Lorna sympathetic looks and positioning herself as Lorna's primary caretaker, just like Claire used to do - because Lorna's been spinning another story.

Marianne, as far as Lorna is concerned, is much more exciting and fun than boring old Claire is, and she decides that she wants to live with her instead. And just like Claire was inclined to view Lorna's family as a bunch of trashy low-class hoodlums who would naturally abuse their sweet little daughter, Marianne is inclined to see Claire as stuffy and frumpy, and way too overprotective and stifling. And so Lorna plays on that, gradually "admitting" to Marianne that Claire is a controlling, pill-popping nightmare who isolates her from the world and doesn't let her have any friends. Marianne is horrified, and the two concoct a plan - they'll find a way to restrain Claire somehow, and then Marianne will take Lorna away to the big city, where she can have the happy and exciting life that she deserves. Claire had ended up stealing Lorna away because she'd felt she'd tried to go through the system do things the proper way, but the system had failed her; Marianne, however, is just plain impulsive and flighty, and reporting Lorna's "situation" to anyone doesn't seem to even occur to her.

The plan works. Marianne lures an unsuspecting Claire into the basement, where she clobbers her over the head and ties her up. Once Claire comes to, Marianne reveals what Lorna has been telling her, and announces her plans to take her to London, where she can "thrive unstifled". Claire tries to warn her, but she's having none of it; she believes Lorna's side of the story wholeheartedly and completely. She also mentions that they "haven't decided" what to do with Claire yet. Lorna sneaks down to visit a couple of times before they leave, and alternates between begging Claire not to be angry with her, trying to chat in a creepily casual way, and - finally - hitting her in the head several times with various blunt objects, then claiming self-defense to Marianne. The final blow leaves Claire nearly unconscious, and with a very nasty head wound. Marianne is visibly disturbed by the sight, but ultimately still believes that Lorna was only doing what she felt she needed to do to defend herself from a woman who'd abused and terrorized her for her entire life. Lorna, in contrast, believes that she's doing what she needs to do to make sure Claire can't tell Marianne or anybody else the truth about her. They leave not long after, both assuming that Claire is dead. This is the point that Lorna will be pulled from. A bit past this canonpoint, she ends up having very similar issues with Marianne, and - though the specifics of why and how aren't made clear - Marianne ends up dead by her hand. Because of course she does.

PERSONALITY:
A lot of Bad Seed-esque kids in fiction are almost evil beyond their years. They're cunning and intelligent in very adult ways, and any childlike qualities they show are nothing but attempts at manipulation and misdirection - deliberately done not because they're a part of their actual personality, but because they know they need to make people think they're childlike (and therefore sweet and innocent). Lorna Bell isn't like that - she is childlike, full-stop. She's bouncy and energetic and sometimes a little goofy, and she honestly does like playing dress-up and collecting sparkly erasers and holding bunnies at the petting zoo. But she also killed her entire family by pouring petrol down the house drains and chasing it with lighter fluid, because she saw a character do it on a TV show and thought it seemed like a neat idea.

That's not to say that Lorna isn't cunning and intelligent at all. It's just that even with all the horrible things she's done, she's still cunning and intelligent in the way of a ten-year-old, not in the way of an adult (let alone a hardened mastermind). She's not very self-sufficient - like most ten-year-olds, she's used to living with and being taken care of by grown-ups. She's not a master planner, or a good strategist - even when she has a clear end goal, her steps towards attaining it are generally comprised of a lot of impulsive decisions and not a lot of actual forethought. She's childishly manipulative, knowing the kinds of things to say that will make adults feel sorry for her, but it's the same kind of clumsy manipulation that a lot of kids are capable of (including plenty of ones that don't murder people) rather than a well-crafted and carefully-maintained facade. She views the world in pretty simplistic terms, with little to no nuance, and this is most obvious in how she sees people. Lorna has a strong tendency to latch on to those who give her a lot of positive attention, and to then romanticize the fuck out of them. At school, Claire lavishes love and praise on her, and Lorna eats it up. Claire is so nice and loving and perfect, she thinks - unlike her own mother, an ordinary everyday human. Wouldn't it be great if she could live with Claire? Life would be happy and fun all the time! But once she actually is living with Claire, she realizes that hey, Claire has human foibles too, and living with someone 24/7 is a lot different from seeing them for only a few hours a day. Once she's Lorna's official caretaker, Claire starts doings things like establishing rules, reprimanding her for her transgressions, and generally trying to act like a responsible parent - something that Lorna genuinely had not been expecting. She's not here for this day-to-day drudgery; she'd killed her own family to escape that. And then Lorna meets Marianne, who's fun-loving and exotic and perfect, unlike Claire, and wouldn't it be great if she could live with Marianne instead - and you see how the cycle continues. It doesn't seem to occur to her that if she spends enough time around Marianne, she'll likely find things to dislike about her, too.

The long and short of it is that while Lorna is capable of innocent, positive interaction with no ulterior motive and of having friendships (albeit shallow ones), she ultimately sees people as fun dispensers - and when they're not fun enough anymore, she wants to be done with them. If they're easily gotten rid of, great; if not, she's willing to take drastic measures. Lorna's positive feelings and actions towards the people she says she cares about aren't insincere, but they're fleeting, they don't have a lot of depth, and if someone displeases her badly enough she has no qualms about discarding them. Claire loved her wholeheartedly, Marianne was completely charmed by her, and there's no real indication that her mother didn't try her best with her - but when she found people who she saw as better prospects, she still rejected them all with brutal finality.

At the end of the novel (and past her canonpoint), Lorna's culpability and true nature are eventually uncovered, and the last we hear of her is that she's in some kind of mental health facility. At first, she spends a lot of time being questioned about the circumstances surrounding the murder of her family, a topic of conversation that she finds "boring". She sees therapists and tutors, and is encouraged to take part in pro-social activities. Will this help her at all, even a little bit? Honestly, who knows. On the one hand, she's a little kid, and kids are inherently malleable. On the other hand... this is a lot. She has a seriously disordered personality and appears to have been the way she is from birth, and that's not something that's just going to go away. It's also pretty alarming just how many people she kills or attempts to kill over the course of the book (full count: her mother, her brother, her stepfather, Claire, and Marianne, not to mention Claire's dog and her stepfather's dogs, who died in the fire). That's a serious escalation, considering the fact that up until the fire she'd had no murders or serious injuries to her name, and unless she finds good reason to slow her roll it doesn't bode well for her future behavior. It's clear that the best thing for her is to be in a highly regulated, highly monitored environment, surrounded by capable adults who will treat her well but who aren't under any illusions about what she's capable of.

So let's drop her in a totally new bugfuck insane world and give her some superpowers. Seems legit.

POWER:

Sparklepower.

She'll be able to make sparkly glitter shoot out of her fingers at will. It's the most useless power ever, but she'll love it. With practice, she'll be able to consciously control the color of said sparkles and to aim them accurately for use in art projects, but at the beginning they'll be pretty random and haphazard.

Living drawings.

She'll be able to will her drawings (and only her own drawings) into reality. The things she brings about will be indistinguishable from the real thing - if she made herself some food this way, for example, she'd be able to eat it, it would taste normal, and it would fill her up. She'll be able to make living things, but nothing with the mental or emotional capacity of a human (or human-equivalent); a dog would be doable, then, but not another person or a sapient alien. Size-wise, she'll be very limited; she won't be able to do this with anything bigger than she is. And no matter what she makes, it will poof from existence the instant she loses interest in it.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
Hello? Anybody home? Helloooooo?

[The video is on, but at first, all that can be seen is a finger, short and pudgy with baby fat. It taps at the screen a few times, then pulls back to reveal Lorna's face. Her hair is about shoulder-length and dark brown at the ends, but blonde at the roots; it's clearly a dye job that's growing out. She grins toothily at the camera, and giggles.]

Hello! I'm just kidding, I know you're there. I'm not new. My name is Lorna, and this is my first ever time on the network.

[She'd thought about it a while, and decided to just go back to being Lorna when she introduced herself. She could have been Lauren, which had been the false name that she'd picked when she and Claire had run away together, but she was sick of Lauren. She was also sick of Lola, Marianne's nickname for her. Anyway, she was pretty sure that she could pick something new later if she wanted; a lot of people here seemed to have more than one name.]

"On the network", isn't that funny? I'm just writing; I'm not on anything. I'm on the couch. But I like this iPhone-- well, it's not a proper iPhone, but it's just as good as, I suppose. It can do all the things I think an iPhone is meant to. But if I get a real iPhone, can I still use it for this? A real one, I mean, with the Apple logo on, not a knock-off.

[She wrinkles her nose, and there's a very brief look of disappointment and distaste on her face as she looks down at the communicator. The missing Apple logo had never bothered her before, but now it's all she can see. She'd always wanted an iPhone. An iPhone, not just any old smartphone. She mouths the word - iPhone - but then dismisses the thought with a wave of her hand.]

Oh, anyway. It doesn't matter. It's so easy to get things here. Take your picture, give you a free sample, ask you a question, give you a free product demo; it's easy. I love it, don't you?

[Another grin.]

I'll say goodbye for now, but tell me about the iPhone - please! I want to get one as soon as possible. We didn't have things like that where I came from; we were too poor. My mum couldn't afford it.

[Her grin fades, and is replaced by a downcast look - the picture of a sad, dejected little girl. Poor thing. Someone had better buy her an iPhone, pronto.]

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
Lorna never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever wants to go home. That's how brilliant this place is. Being an imPort is brilliant - and much better, she decides, than being a dancer and singer in London. She has always, always, always wanted to go to America, and even though she doesn't live in New York or Hollywood or anywhere exciting, it's still okay. And anyway, she'll probably get to go there someday, once she gets famous enough and everybody decides they want her in their movies and commercials and music videos. She already practices for that a lot, at home in front of her mirror. "I was a famous performer back in England," she says loftily, standing with one hand on a jutted-out hip the way she's seen some of the grown-up imPort women do. "But then I was discovered, and brought here, and I think this is where my life really began."

The annoying thing, though, is that all the imPorts are famous by default, which means that from the beginning no one really thinks that she's special. They want to take her picture and coo over how cute she is, and that's fun for a while - but they do that to all the other imPort kids too, and they're everywhere, never giving her a moment's peace. After a while, it starts to get kind of old.

Luckily, there are plenty of other things to occupy her time with once she starts giving fans and paparazzi the cold shoulder. Her powers are great fun, and she can make practically anything with them. Instead of getting someone to buy her the ginger kitten that Marianne had promised her, she just draws one up, easy-peasy. Little Marmalade is adorable, and small enough to ride on her shoulder (though she quickly stops carrying her like that outside, once she realizes it makes people want to take her picture even more; ugh). She has Marmalade for a couple of weeks, but then he scratches her one day while they're playing. He turns up missing not too long after that, but she doesn't look too hard and isn't really that sad, because she's decided she'd like a gray kitten instead. She'd been wishing Marmalade were gray for a while, actually, because she'd thought up the name Smokey, which is much cuter than Marmalade - but she couldn't have just changed his name, because who ever heard of a ginger cat named Smokey? It just wouldn't have done. But it's all for the best, because Marmalade is gone. Out with the old, and in with the new.

And when she draws up Smokey, she makes extra sure to draw him without claws.

FINAL NOTES: n/a