Katherine Raith
Sept 23, 2014 18:08:17 GMT -5
Post by Katherine Raith on Sept 23, 2014 18:08:17 GMT -5
The Basics
Name: Katherine Elizabeth Raith.
Nicknames: Ket. The only people who call her Katherine are her family, and she doesn’t like ‘Kat’ because that’s too common.
Age: 25, born 3rd September 1989.
Orientation: Homosexual.
Desired Rank/Job: Baker and general worker at Mountain View Petting Zoo.
Powers: Tagging. Ket has the ability to mentally ‘tag’ someone, allowing her to track his or her movements and position. When she is actively tagging someone, she sees them as a faint grey outline in the direction that they are in. She can’t see specifics such as clothing or facial expressions or anything like that, just movement. The outline is bigger the closer they are and smaller the farther away they are. She can use this to follow them, or avoid them should she so wish. She can actively tag up to five people at a time, but it is difficult to fully concentrate on any more than two and she starts to lose focus and get confused about who is whom. The tags stay active for up to two hours, but she can get them back again after a short break. She needs to be in some way familiar with someone in order to tag them, be it via knowing them or having seen a picture of them. She cannot tag someone who is more than ten miles away from her. The main side effects of her power are headaches, dizziness, disorientation and blurred vision if she does it too much. She can also get a little paranoid if she sees that someone she has tagged is moving in the same direction as her.
Play By: Nephania.
The Details
Hair Color: Naturally mousy brown but it is more often than not dyed, most commonly bright red.
Eye Color: Pale green.
Any Piercings? Both ears twice.
Any Tattoos? A small tribal bat on her left ankle (her 25th birthday present to herself).
Any Scars? A few small nicks and burn marks from work but nothing really worth noting.
General Appearance: At only 5ft 5 Ket is fairly short, with long hair that is usually worn neatly tied back. Her build is light with subtle curves, and she used to be dainty but her muscles are developing some definition thanks to hard work around the petting zoo. Her skin is naturally quite pale, thanks to her mother’s Scandinavian blood, but gets darker in the summer months due to working outdoors a lot. Ket has thin lips and a slightly upturned nose, but her bright eyes and warm, easy smile tend to outweigh her potentially quite harsh features.
Most people are familiar with Ket through her work in the café at the petting zoo, and are used to seeing her in simple, easy to clean clothing and an apron with a punky cupcake on it. When working around the petting zoo on the animal-side of things she wears jeans and a loose-fitting t-shirt, all with minimal makeup. Those people would likely have to take a moment to recognise Ket outside of work. Her favourite clothing to wear is elaborate pieces in gothic and cyberpunk styles; all lace, fishnet, velvet and leather. She makes a real effort when going out, even if it is only to the shops, and is rarely seen without neatly applied makeup that accents her features. She was born into elegant luxury but then had to suffer through a time of having absolutely nothing. She has now found her own style and it’s one she adores, even if she does sometimes look a little out of place in the quaint mountain town.
Personality: Despite the rollercoaster of a life she has had so far, Ket is an relatively happy young woman who makes it her mission to find joy in every aspect of her life. She has been through all the restrictions of her youth and the horror of life on the streets, and whilst her life now may not be perfect, she is damn grateful of what she has and makes a point to make the most of things. She is a recycling demon and hates waste of any sort, yet is not timid about spending a bit more to get the little luxuries that she was either not allowed or couldn’t afford before. She takes great care of her belongings and woe betide anyone who shows a lack of respect to her possessions or those that she works with. Those who upset her or someone she cares about will quickly find that she is not at all afraid of hitting first.
However, as a general rule Ket is very easy to get along with. She will talk to absolutely anyone that is willing to open their ears for a while, and is kind and loves being able to make others happy. Her passion is her baking but she keeps herself occupied with many other hobbies, most of which allow her to interact with other people in one way or another. She dislikes solitude and does best when surrounded by others, with the exceptions being when she is riding her horse or meditating.
Most of the time Ket is incredibly responsible and hard working, especially for Nolan. If she says that she will get something done, it will be done guaranteed. Sometimes she can be a little flaky with early mornings, especially if she’s been out the night before. Her colleagues have long since lost count of the number of times she’s rushed into work at the last minute, still wearing make-up from the night before, and got changed into her work clothes just before the shift starts. She is a bubbly, fun-loving individual who is relishing in her freedom, determined to get everyone around her to have as much fun on the ride as she does. Few know about her family history, and fewer still about the state she was in when Nolan found her. Most people just brush off her dislike of the cold as nothing more than the same dislike that most people have for it, and are unaware of just how terrifying she finds it.
Your Vices
Likes:
* Baking and sugarwork, especially making sugar and marzipan sculptures.
* Nightlife.
* Rock music.
* Cats, moths and bats - flying foxes are her favourite animals.
* Horses - one of the few things about her former life that she still loves dearly.
* Halloween – she gets to make all the awesome and gory cakes then.
* Meditating.
* Caffeine – got to power through those early mornings somehow.
* Cinnamon and nutmeg.
* Trying new flavours.
* Fresh flowers, especially lilies, spoon daisies and orchids.
* Being inside during a snowstorm – preferably buried under blankets with a hot chocolate and the curtains drawn.
Dislikes:
* High society life.
* Rodents. Dogs make her uncomfortable too.
* Cupcake cakes, to the point that she refuses to make them any more because even the ‘good’ ones look like train-wrecks.
* Pink princess cakes.
* Tea – partly a hangover from her distaste for high society, partly because she doesn’t like the taste.
* People who flaunt their wealth, especially those with a “because I’m rich, that’s why!” mentality.
* Tiny sandwiches - what’s the point of them, really?
* Overly spicy food.
* Slow music.
* Winter - she used to adore snow but a winter spent living on the streets in Pilot Ridge killed that.
* Feeling like she has no control over something.
Strengths:
* Mentally tough and physically fit and capable.
* Independent.
* Learns from her mistakes.
* Determined.
* Prepared to work as hard as it takes to get where or what she wants.
* Naturally talented baker.
* Very good at working with animals.
Weaknesses:
* Weak immune system due to past hypothermia, and prone to numbness in fingers and toes when it gets cold due to past frostbite.
* When pushed too far or made afraid she can get violent and is not at all afraid of lashing out.
* Judgmental of those she deems snobbish or uptight.
* Nolan - she owes the life she has now entirely to him. The easiest way to get to her is through her boss.
* Academically lazy. Whilst not dumb by any stretch of the imagination, Ket doesn’t have much interest in education unless it is directly tied in to something she wants to do.
* The thought of being stuck outside in the snow can trigger severe panic attacks.
Fears: Ket’s biggest fear is that one day she will become like her parents. She would rather live on the streets for the rest of her life than become like that. However, she is also terrified of living on the streets again, and so these two fears directly feed one another and are a constant source of worry for her.
Secret: She does miss her baby brother, but she would never admit that to anyone, least of all her parents.
Family Ties
Father: Victor Raith, yacht broker.
Mother: Lucinda Raith, housewife.
Siblings: Julian Raith, one year younger brother.
Any Other Important People: Nolan – Her boss and saviour (played by Sha).
Domino – Clumsy half-deaf rescue cat.
Alibi – Paint horse stallion. After spending months saving up every penny she could, Ket went along with Nolan to a cull auction. Nolan came away with a couple of animals rescued from the kill-buyers to join the petting zoo, and Ket came away with an unregistered, unhandled semi-feral colt. Two years later and Alibi is broken to ride, and Ket often takes him on little rides around the farmland. She has recently started to try to teach him how to work the livestock on the farm.
History
Lucinda Raith (nee Holmström) is from a very influential Swedish publishing family, although the European blood has been diluted somewhat over three generations living in the United States. She was a manager in one of the family publishing houses in the United States when she met Victor, and two years later they were married and Lucinda was a trophy housewife and administrator of the family books and affairs, as well as a well known and respected socialite.
The Raith family became incredibly wealthy manufacturing guns during World War I and the aftermath that followed it. Over the years that followed the company branched out into other aspects of business, including boat manufacture, and they continued to climb to become a noted family in high society. Victor is one of four brothers, and he inherited control of the very lucrative pleasure boating side of the company based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He spent a great deal of his time in business meetings and with potential clients, and he was in Japan on a work trip the day Lucinda gave birth to their first child, a girl they named Katherine.
Katherine was always a difficult child. As an infant she slept infrequently and in short bursts, spending a lot of her waking hours either crying or throwing tantrums, and eventually Lucinda hired a nanny to care for the problematic child. There were accounts to arrange and business trips to plan and society events to attend, after all. Victor was mostly absent for much of Katherine’s youth and that of her one-year younger brother, Julian, though he did always make sure to bring back luxurious gifts for his wife and children. As she became a little older it became apparent that Katherine’s problem behaviour was not simply a phase. She had tantrums when forced to wear dresses, hated having her hair styled and absolutely refused to sit still and quiet when at high tea with her mother and her mother’s friends. Stopping her horse riding lessons was quickly discovered to be the most effective punishment for the young girl, as that was the only threat she tended to respond to.
It didn’t always work very effectively, though. By the time Katherine was twelve the family had been through eleven private tutors and eighteen nannies as they all either left or were fired for being unable to grab any kind of control over the rebellious and rude child. She would bully her much more well behaved brother, she would curse (where she learned that language from her mother had NO idea), and if grabbed she would bite and kick until freed again. If asked, many of the ladies in the society that Lucinda was a part of would say that Katherine was a sickly child, as she was often not at social events due to being bedridden with flu or chicken pox or stomach upsets. In truth, Lucinda simply couldn’t bare the embarrassment of presenting her monster child to her friends.
It was therefore a relief when Katherine became old enough to be sent away to a private, boarding high school. The fees were high but it was very easily affordable for their family, and Katherine was sent off in the hope that a change of scenery would do some good towards fixing her less than socially ideal behaviour. Predictably, it did not. Within months Katherine was failing the classes and receiving write-up after write-up, until one day a few weeks before her thirteenth birthday a woman from some special school in Vermont arrived and took Katherine away despite her parents adamant protests. Lucinda and Victor had of course never heard of this school and were adamant that no, their child would not be staying in some hole in the middle of nowhere. She was a Raith, not some idiot scum-child from the streets! However, they were eventually forced to back down by the courts (even their family lawyers could not win that one) and Katherine was kept at the Hammel Institute.
The change in Katherine was almost instantaneous. Being away from the pressure of the world of her parents, surrounded by ‘common’ kids and being allowed to run around the mountains worked wonders for her temperament. She was however still very academically lazy, and no amount of freedom from lace and curtsies seemed set to fix that. Six months after Katherine (by then going by ‘Ket’) arrived at Hammel, Julian manifested too and came to join her at the school. Their parents put up a much bigger fight to keep Julian than they had to keep Ket, but again, it was a fight they were unable to win. It was only when told that she would have to be kept back a year and join Julian’s classes that Ket started to turn things around and make some attempt at the whole ‘school’ thing.
It was a slow but definite change, with Ket starting to take her classes more seriously and actually put some effort into the work that she was doing. She would clearly never be a model student, but her grades slowly started to climb and she just about managed to avoid having to be kept back a year. She showed a particular talent for cooking, which the school went to great lengths to nurture, and her love of baking grew and with it, her focus and desire to do well in other aspects of the school life. When she graduated from the school Ket had pretty average-ish grades overall, but there could be little doubt that if she wanted a future in the culinary arts, she had enough natural talent to help her get there.
After graduation Ket moved back to her parents’ home in Maryland. Much to their dismay she flat-out refused to go to college, instead getting a job in a small local bakery doing the grunt work. Despite the fact that she was only making cake mixes, cleaning up, rolling fondant and doing other menial jobs while everyone else got to do the awesome creative things, Ket never complained and actually enjoyed her work. Tensions at home had never been higher, though, especially when Ket brought home a girl for the first time. The fight that created was the biggest the house had ever seen, and Ket stormed out and was missing for almost a week before the police found her and brought her home. By then she had lost the job that she loved. Her parents tried to keep the angry eighteen-year-old under lock and key and make her see that this was the life she was supposed to have, but it did not work. Ket frequently broke out in the middle of the night to go to parties or clubs and would often be missing for two or three days at a time. All the family ever did was row, and the only reason Lucinda was able to convince Ket to go to her debutante ball was by promising to give her more freedom if she went through with it.
The day of the ball came and Ket looked wonderful in her white dress and lace gloves with her hair in elegant waves flowing down her back. She went through with the (in her opinion) ghastly ceremony and was all set to leave to head back upstairs afterwards, when her parents appeared and presented her with a young gentleman. Though she was confused at first, it quickly became apparent from the way her parents were speaking that they intended to set them up as a couple. Becoming instantly enraged, Ket yelled at them before storming upstairs, literally ripping off her three thousand dollar dress and throwing on jeans and a shirt, throwing some clothes in a bag and setting off, promising that this time she would never be going back.
Ket used the money she had on her to get a bus, travelling back to the mountain town where she had gained her first taste of freedom. However, things had changed since she had left a year before. Her friends had moved away, either back home or on to their college lives, and she had no money with her in order to stay in a motel. Using the last of her change to buy some food, Ket found an empty doorway down an alleyway and sobbed until the early hours.
With nothing left for her in Pilot Ridge, Ket travelled into Burlington. The following three months were brutal. Several times the police tried to make her go back home, but she was an adult so they legally could not force her. Late summer turned to fall and she was surviving by whatever means she could; soup kitchens, donations, food from kind souls and a few small petty thefts that she hated but had no choice in the matter of. The bright spark had died, but she still felt freer than she had ever felt at home. The weight fell off her, she was always sick and as fall turned into winter, every morning when she woke up she felt extremely lucky to still be alive at all. The snow fell hard that year, and days after the first snowfall Ket began to suffer from frostbite and hypothermia. With no other choice, Ket tried to attack and rob a man that wandered down her alley, desperate to steal his money and go… somewhere. Home, the hospital or to a motel, she wasn’t sure. The cold, hunger and pain were making her delirious, and her sickness and starvation left her pitifully weak and the man very easily knocked her off. Ket expected him to beat her and near-instantly gave up, knowing she would not make it through another night in the cold in that state.
She did not expect him to take her to the hospital for treatment, and offer her a place to stay once she was stable.
It has been five years since Nolan rescued Ket from what would likely have been an early grave. She lived in a small apartment above one of the barns on the petting zoo, working in the café baking and making cakes for sale during the morning, and working out on the farm with the animals in the afternoon and evening. She earned her keep through her work, with enough money on the side to be able to start living a life of her own. It took a long time for Ket to adjust and find out who she was, away from all the pressures of the life she had been under before, but with Nolan’s guidance she began to slowly find her way.
A year ago Ket put the idea forward to him to start a little side-business at the café, making celebration cakes for birthdays, weddings and other occasions. After working with Nolan to iron out the details, Sugar Shifters was born with Ket leading it. Her income from the little business allowed her to be able to afford to finally move out of the barn-apartment and into a real apartment not far away from the petting zoo. Sure it is dark, the building is grim and the apartment is a bit of a squeeze with just her and Domino in there, but it is hers, and that is more than she ever could have had if she’d have stayed in the life she was born into.
Some women are happy being trophy wives and big names in high society with thousand-dollar pant suits and more cars than a small dealership.
Ket is happy being a poor but free cowgirl baker in crimson velvet and killer heels.
Roleplay Example
It had been a very long day at the petting zoo, but a very happy and productive one at least. As well as making and decorating all the cakes and sweet treats for the café, she had finished off two wedding cakes that were being picked up tomorrow. Her everything ached, from her fingertips right down to the soles of her feet, but it was a satisfying ache at least. Warm and reassuring, a gentle reminder that she was doing something. She was progressing. She was making her own way.
The faded blue Beetle pulled up in the little parking lot shared by two of the apartment buildings nearby, including hers, and she locked it up before heading inside. She wasn’t quite sure why she locked it really; it was a hunk of rust and someone would have to be pretty damn desperate to try to steal it. They’d be better off just stealing the wheels from it. They were probably worth more than the rest of the car combined. After letting her long hair out of the ponytail it had been held in all day, Ket let herself into the building before bounding up the stairs to her apartment on the fourth floor. It was small and dark and smelled faintly of cat, but it was hers and she loved it dearly.
Her work rucksack was discarded onto the faded cream sofa, startling the cat that had been snoozing on the arm. Domino fell off with all the elegance of a brick, landing in a heavy heap on the ground. “Oh, I’m so sorry buddy.” The cat let out a grumbled mewl of protest before running over for some attention, just barely avoiding running into the coffee table. Ket knelt down and gently scritched his back before looking at the clock. She had just about enough time to shower and eat before heading out again. Sure she was tired and aching, but there was still a whole world out there to explore, and the night was still young.
What About You?
Name: Splatt.
Age: 30 is looming much quicker than I would like it to be.
Experience: <This much>
How Did You Find Us? I pressed ‘h’ in the address bar and Hammel was first on the drop-down list.
Ready To Play? TWO girls on one site? This is a record for me! Hell yeah I’m ready!
