Welcome to Gaia! ::

Name: Christine Rose

Nicknames: Chrissy

Age: 21 ... or... well, she thinks it is anyway. It's probably right! Right?

Birthday: 5 June

Sign: Gemini

Gemstone: Pearl

Blood Type: B-


Favorite Food: Christine enjoys things that she can put together herself, especially meals that can be considered complete in one dish, such as fried rice! She enjoys stretching her creative wings, though, and is branching out to try all kinds of seafood and vegetarian dishes.


Hated Food: Meats, particularly chicken and beef. She doesn't like the mess involved in dealing with them, and blood is all-around gross.


School: Not attending school at the moment, but she does have a job as an usher at a local theatre!


Hobbies:
Where there's a stage, there's a star
Acting - Christine adores acting with a passion. It's not that she wants the attention on her, though she would never protest being under the spotlight - rather, the thought of falling into a role and becoming someone else, expressing herself through them and finding herself anew in each character enthralls her. She's quick to volunteer at local performances, and throws herself into practice even if she only has a bit part or even a role as an understudy (or if she's simply tasked with helping out with props and equipment); someday, she knows, she'll get the big roles, and then she can share the passion she has with the world.

There's always music to be found somewhere
Singing - Far from being the type to keep her love of singing along to whatever music she happens to be listening to within the confines of the shower stall, Christine adores belting out her favorite show tunes and 80s pop songs alike where anyone can hear. Whether she's listening over a radio or an mp3 player, or even whether others can hear the music or not, Christine isn't afraid to show off her voice... or to try and get others to sing along as well. Singing is more fun when it's a sing-a-long, after all!

Are we sure this is edible?
Cooking - This seems like a fairly straightforward hobby, but in Christine's case it really isn't. While she does enjoy simply following a recipe and preparing a meal that she can enjoy, what she really likes doing is cooking for others. This seems sweet and innocent, but the problem is that Christine likes to experiment, and doesn't always bother to taste her own cooking before attempting to get someone to try it. Her ideas are very hit-and-miss, and she doesn't always realize that there are some foods that simply should not go together. While cinnamon sugar fried rice may be a tasty enough treat, tuna in a caramel sauce isn't quite so good.

Virtues:

No-one is left behind
Inclusive
Feeling abandoned and betrayed by the world, Christine is determined to keep that from happening to anyone else. If she spots someone being left out or ostracized, she will go out of her way to go to their side and pull them into the group. She looks after those who seem to be cast aside, offering them a refuge and a steadfast ally. She tends to act as a big sister to those who need a little extra reassurance, and does her best to make sure everyone around her feels as welcome and wanted as she can make them to be.

Working 9-to-5
Industrious
'Working hard or hardly working?' isn't a question Christine hears much. She is anything but a slacker, and gives her best effort in everything she tries her hand at. Not one to give up when frustrated, she'll simply try a different path. She has no complaints about being tasked with something onorous or boring, and is content to work away at it anyway because if something needs done, it's worth doing well. Slacking off is for people who don't want to get anywhere in life, and the only rewards out there are those you earn. To that end, she's willing to put in the extra hours (and extra focus) to make that happen.

'You need a hug?'
Affectionate
If Christine cares about you, she isn't shy about showing it. Be it in feeding you, spending time with you, or simply offering you a shoulder to lean on while watching a scary or emotional movie, she'll be there. She's a very caring and motherly sort, wanting only to look after and spoil the people she considers as having been taken under her wing. On that note, she's particularly affectionate to cats, and ujst about any guardian cat is welcome in her home - she dotes on those she loves, and while she may be a little too indulgent at times, it's hard to argue against her affectionate and kindly nature.


Flaws:

'Don't leave me!'
Clingy
If you want a happy and relatively stable Christine, you can just forget about leaving her to her own devices. Some people don't play well with others, while some people will break down into tears and panic when left alone for any length of time. Christine is definitely one of the latter cases; she gets anxious and unsettled when she's left to her own devices, and a continued lack of others nearby will lead to her flat-out panicking and attempting to locate anyone, so long as she doesn't have to be alone.

'La-la-la NOT LISTENING'
Immature
For the most part, Christine likes to think of herself as a mature and grown-up young woman. And some of the time,she may even be right... until she's being told something she doesn't want to hear, or is being lectured over some sort of mistake she's made - and then her lack of maturity becomes evident. She will eyeroll, she will ignore, she will stare sullenly at the ground and if she is particularly uninterested in what she is dealing with, she is not above pulling the 'not listening' trick until the source of her annoyance has gone away or changed their tune.

'How could you do that?!?'
Crybaby
Christine is a sensitive soul, and tends to burst into tears easily. She will take almost any insult to heart, and anything that is taken to heart will invariably cause her to break down into tears. She doesn't take criticism well, and tends to overreact to even the most gentle of critiques, requiring some time to compose herself afterward before she can continue to face the potential condemnation of her peers or superiors. Even once she has composed herself, she will remain flustered and easily-downtrodden for the rest of the day after she's been criticized.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Eyes: Round, large gray eyes, giving her the appearance of being younger than she actually is. She has thick lashes and is experimenting with makeup and eyeliners, but tends to go without on most days.

Hair: A dark chestnut brown that hangs in waves nearly to her mid-back. She likes to experiment with style but doesn't change up the color too much. Suggesting she cut it short will make her cry, though she doesn't quite know why the thought upsets her so much.

Face: Heart-shaped with refined, delicate features that make her gray eyes appear even larger. Overall her features are sweet and nearly fragile in appearance, belying the strength within.

Clothes: She doesn't quite... know her style yet. So she experiments. She does, however, tend to lean toward things that draw inspiration from the theatre and from music, and is known to raid Crystal Lauper's closet on multiple occasions.


Name: Erika Adalsteinn

Nicknames: She doesn’t have any nicknames at the moment, but this could change in the future!

Age: 19

Birthday: 31 January

Sign: Aquarius

Blood Type: B-


Favorite Food: Erika adores simple, neat meals like fried rice and tuna subs. She also enjoys Oreos, though since those can be a bit pricey she tries to eat them sparingly.


Hated Food: Chicken and red meat – they bother her and she tries very had to avoid them. She also dislikes messy food and prefers to stay away from that, as well.


School: St. Magdalena's Seminary – Upon moving back to Destiny City, it was St. Magdelena’s and St. Magdalena’s alone that Erika was going to. Though her attendance record and grades went up while away from the City, she knows how things work here and it was easy enough to resume her education at this institution.


Hobbies:

’Is there a world you long to see?’
Literature Lover—Erika adores books. They are her refuge, her escape and her shelter all at once. While not a fan of things like graphic novels or manga, she’s astonishingly well-read for someone of her age and favors classics over more modern novels. That isn’t to say she won’t read them, however; Erika is always looking for something new to read and has enough books that she no longer bothers trying to count them all, since trying would take too long. She obtains these books fairly often, but always from cheap sources: secondhand stores, library sales, garage sales, and the occasional discount shelf at local shops.

’The power of the music of the night’
Musical Refuge— Most teenagers enjoy music in some form, but what Erika enjoys is something a bit more complex: musicals. While going to musicals is something she can’t often afford, she does have a handful of soundtrack CDs and spends a lot of her free time listening to them – especially The Phantom of the Opera. While she holds a fair number of musicals dear to her heart, Phantom has been the reigning one in her heart for several years now, due to how much she identifies with the character of the Phantom – down to having almost the same name. To put it simply, musicals strike a chord with Erika, and she’s taken to considering a career working in the theater somehow, though she isn’t sure how she would manage it.

’Where in the world have you been hiding?’
Mistress of Concealment—If there is a small, hidden place that is out of the way and difficult to notice or get into, chances are Erika knows about it. She’s very, very good about finding out-of-the-way places and crawling into them. In fact, these places are some of the few she feels truly safe, and she can stay hidden in them for hours, watching people pass or engaging in one of her other hobbies. Though she can’t manage to creep into places as small as she could as a child, she’s still good at fitting into places it looks like she shouldn’t be able to fit within. Not only does she feel more secure in these places, but it’s a good way to observe her surroundings and get an idea of how other people work.

Gemstone: Garnet



Virtues:

'Something still not here, something yet unclear’
Intelligent – Though it isn’t always readily apparent, Erika is an exceedingly intelligent young woman and is capable of excelling in academia. She’s got a very good memory for information, particularly that provided by the classroom. With excellent English and Mathematics skills, she does well on examinations but does struggle with concepts that involve more abstract thinking: information is her strong suit, not necessarily the complex motivations of people and governments. Asking her to understand people as well as she does academic subjects, however, is an exercise in futility. People make no sense to her and she simply can’t wrap her mind around them.

’One more day all on my own‘
Independent— Erika is a very capable, self-reliant young woman, especially for her age. It’s a positive trait that’s come about through her life experiences: life and people let you down, and let you down hard, so it’s better to not rely on them in the first place. She trusts her brother, but the rest of the world is far from reliable. She doesn’t enjoy asking anyone for help, or accepting it when it’s offered – she knows how to take care of herself, she’s capable of doing it, and she’s going to do it. This has given her a great work ethic: she takes her own notes, is always ready to cover any gaps in production for group projects, and is an eager hand in St. Magdalena’s chore rotations. She’s also skilled at managing money, and at saving up her funds until she can get something she really wants – she will never ask someone to buy something for her, and doesn’t really know how to accept gifts very well (even when they come from family).

’And there's trouble for all when there's trouble for one. ‘
Obedient—Rules are there for a reason, and they’re meant to be followed. Erika is a girl who’s eager to please and to stay safe, so she is very respectful of authority figures and the rules they put in place. She isn’t looking for trouble, so don’t look to her to defy her elders. Staying small, and quiet, and safe is her priority, and staying safe means being obedient, not causing a stir. It isn’t safe to test boundaries, to flaunt authority, or to question the decisions of those in power. She’ll keep her head down and herself in one piece, because negative attention is something she is willing to do just about anything to avoid. In contrast, the positive attention that she sometimes receives for being so well-behaved is, in a way, its own reward.

Flaws:

’Not in my castle on a cloud.’
Childish – Though she is capable of acting very mature and capable, Erika can come across as being very childish. She wants attention, doesn’t know how to get it, and while she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she’s willing to do just about anything to get what she needs. This is due partly to her upbringing, and her desires are simplistic enough: she needs to know that there are people who care about her, and are paying enough attention to her to notice when she does something worth noticing – and even little things like losing an important handout or ratting out the person next to her for cheating on a test are worth noticing.

’Don't you hear, the winter wind is crying?’
Thin-skinned – Erika doesn’t understand the concept of ‘constructive criticism’; or criticism at all. She lives in fear of being judged for flaws that only she is hyper-aware of, and as a result is afraid to speak up, speak out, or invite any kind of evaluation of herself. She has trouble with people and because of this tends to assume the worst when people talk about her, always seeing a darker twist to their words than they necessarily mean those words to have. Because of this, she doesn't accept compliments any more readily than she does criticism, and tends to react in a way that implies she's just been insulted instead of complimented. And when actually insulted, it's rather easy to tell - she tends to clam up and curl up, or try and get away from the source of the pain. As can be imagined, this makes communicating with Erika a minefield and she ends up sabotaging herself fairly often, avoiding people even when they mean well because she's wary of being hurt.

’At the end of the day you're another day older,
And that's all you can say for the life of the poor.’
Pessimistic—The glass isn’t half full; it’s not even half-empty: It’s a shot glass of water in the desert, and the water’s evaporating faster than you can drink it. Life doesn’t hold promise, the future is bleak, and anything good can never last. This is Erika’s worldview, and it does more than make her a downer to be around. She’s utterly convinced that nothing can ever get better and stay better. When something good happens, like her brother getting a well-paying job that promises financial security, she can’t accept it as a sign of good fortune – she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop and for something terrible to happen that undoes all of the good. Unfortunately, since she’s recently been proven right regarding the reasons behind her return to Destiny City – her brother’s job falling through and their financial straits returning almost full-circle – her tendency to look at everything from the most negative viewpoint possible has only grown stronger.

Crystal Lauper - Fiancée, partner in crime, and quite close to literally being her other half. Tally is the only person Christine really remembers clearly of her life before corruption, and even that is more tied to her emotions for her. Not that it bothers her really - they'll just build new memories and be awesome together!

Family:

Shepherd - With her mother dead and father still in prison, Erika's closest family member is without a doubt her older brother Shepherd. She spent two blissful years getting to spend time with him regularly, and now that she's returned to her previous arrangement she's not coping so well. She doesn't care where they live, or what their circumstances are, she just wants to be able to spend more time with her older brother again.

Allies:

Tomlin - Guardian cat who awakened her and Callisto's bonded; Erika hasn't seen Tomlin since she came back to Destiny City, and due to her pessimistic outlook on life, is terribly afraid something bad happened to him in her absence. In fact, she's rather concerned about everyone she once knew, and isn't sure what to think of their possible fates.

Tallulah Cowden // Eternal Sailor Europa - She taught Erika what she remembers about being a sneshi and they kept up communication even after they mutually left Destiny City. However, in the chaos following her brother's job loss and the move back to Destiny City, Erika has lost touch with Tallulah and doesn't know how she's doing. She wants to check in on her as soon as she's worked out a way to do so, however!

Enemies:

Erika hasn't encountered any enemies since her return, though she doesn't think it will stay that way for long.

x1 old-model ipod

x1 pair of earbud headphones - with cute little skulls on them!

x1 set of IDs


x1 Battered old portable CD player

x1 pair of black headphones - relatively new, functional

x∞ (okay, maybe not quite that many) books, stacked liberally about her room.

x1 Phantom of the Opera Soundtrack CD (Theatre release); her most well-listened to CD.

x1 Lés Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert CD; a present from her brother Shepherd on her last birthday

x1 Copy of Musicals: 100 Hits, scrounged from a garage sale some six months ago. Mostly works, skips on tracks 3 and 9 of the third disc.