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Viscount Greenleaf Captain
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 Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 3:25 pm
Today (Tuesday 21th of Nov, 1887) ms. Charity Lewis has started treatment, in accordance with court order # 6221. She is taking pills for hysteria. We've started her on Fowler's Solution, expecting results immediatly. Side effects include (but are not limited to) optical insanity, seeing things that aren't there.
We wish Charity the best of luck. If her behaviour fails to improve, she will be sent to the Happy Home for.. severe treatment. Please don't post here without the patient's permission.
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:27 pm
 ...To Explain...
This is the diary of a young Victorian woman from Boston, and her decent into madness. She knows nothing of the modern world, but upon finding herself in a mental hospital in Gaia is beginning to learn of its wonders and its horrors. Perhaps the shock of time passing so suddenly for this poor creature will wreak even more damage than the poison her doctor has prescribed...
...To Command...
1. Do not post if you are not a player/gm at Imaginary Friends.
2. Be kind, have fun, and stow the drama.
3. Try not to heap too many new things on Charity all at once.
4. Allow that I may not get all of my Victorian references perfect, and politely pm me a correction when needed.
...To Direct...
Post One - Display Header
Post Two - Intro, Rules, Contents
Post Three - The Biography and Art of Charity Lewis and Family
Post Four - The Biography and Art of All Solution Related Weirdness
Post Five - A Log of Things that have Been
Post Six - A Quick Guide to Victorian Engla- er, Boston
Post Seven - A Quick History of Drug Missuse Near the Turn of the Century
Post Eight - A Glossary of Victorian Words
Post Nine to Fifteen - Reserved 
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:29 pm
 ...The Biography and Art of Charity Lewis...
 Name: Charity Lewis
Gender: Female
Age: Eighteen
Marital Status: Engaged to Fowler
Ethnicity: Scotch Irish
Complexion: Pale with freckles
Hair Color: Chestnut brown
Eye Color: Pale brown
Height: 5'4"
Build: Petite, a bit on the skinny side
Hairstyle: A simple, demure updo
Dress Style: Simple, demure dresses in neutral or pastel colors
Personality:Proper, sweet, and quiet. Does everything her father and older brother tell her to do because she believes they are smarter than she is. Frustrated with the dull life she lives but doesn't know what to do about it. Secretly addicted to reading dashing vampire novels.
History: Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Charity's mother died when she was seven. Since then, her father Gabriel and her older brother Adam have chosen her life for her and expected her to be happy. They are, after all, men and so far more capable of making conscious decisions than a weak-minded woman. Her family is Protestant and fairly strictly so - Charity is fourth generation American and they are well-situated members of their city. She has spent her life learning how to be a middle-class Victorian lady and how to run a proper household in the English style. She is given English clothing to wear, instead of the larger skirts of the American fashion of this time, and generally encouraged to appear as English as possible as her father believes this will keep her from finding a husband. She is not permitted to court or go to social outings, since her father does not want to pay the sizeable dowry her marriage would require.
Family:
-Mother: Delilah Essex Lewis (d.)
-Father: John Lewis
-Brother: Adam Lewis
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:37 pm
 ...The Biography and Art of All Solution Related Weirdness...
Name: Fowler's Solution
State: Full-Blown, If Somewhat See-Through, Manly Hallucination
Gender: Male
Age: Unknown, looks about twenty-five
Marital Status: Engaged to Charity
Ethnicity: Romanian by way of London
Complexion: Pale purle
Hair Color: Chocolate brown
Eye Color: Stormy blue
Height: 6'7"
Build: Muscled and wide-shouldered
Hairstyle: Shoulder length down and face-framing
Dress Style: Somewhere between Victorian and Medieval Knight. Think armor and a cravat.
Personality:Impish, cheerful, and teasing. Devoted to Charity and planning on marrying her (he is her hallucination after all), he knows proper Victorian manners and adores defying them. He is both considerate of his future bride's feelings and constantly nudging her towards breaking out of the behavioral cage she grew up in. Quite 'impertinent' about invading her personal space 'in public' to see what sort of reaction it will provoke. Fowler realizes that no one else can see or hear him, while Charity refuses to even think on such a thing.
Description: "A tonic created in 1786 that cures many different ailments... with a heavy price."
Sensations Caused: Dizziness, lightheadedness, shallow breath, loss of balance, fever, headache, loss of visual clarity, possible hallucinations
  
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:40 pm
 ...A Log of Things that have Been...
Nov. 21st 1887 - Boston - Charity is prescribed Fowler's Solution to treat hysteria. Takes the dose, begins to feel ill, sees a young man who helps her lie down for bed.
Dec. 2nd 1887 - Boston - Charity continues to do poorly and rarely leaves her room. Physician recommends moving her to a hospital for observation. Young man is dressed as a knight and reveals his name is Fowler.
Dec. 5th 1887 - Boston - Charity is officially committed to the Happy Home Mental Institution by her father and brother. She is crushed by her family's betrayal and looks to Fowler for companionship and solace.
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:50 pm
 ...Those Few Items which Charity Calls her Own...
An heirloom hairpin left to her by her dead mother that her father hates to have her wear.
The ring presented to her in a roundabout way by Fowler as a sign of their engagement.
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:59 pm
 ...A Quick Guide to Victorian Engla- er, Boston...
Our story begins at the end of 1887, twenty-two years after the end of the American Civil War tore the country apart. In Europe the Italian army was being thwarted in its first attempt to take over parts of Northern Africa; the Triple Alliance between Germany, France and the Austro-Hungarian empire ended thus setting a part of the stage for World War I; and new Sherlock Holmes stories were being published in the London magazine the Strand. This was the year Helen Keller comunicated her first word, the US began to lease the use of Pearl Harbor for the use of its Pacific fleet, and Rowell Hodge recieved the patent for barbed wire. The 1880s were the heyday of every prim constraint Victorian culture put on the world, as well as the scandals that arose when the world rebelled.
While Queen Victoria celebrated her golden jubilee in Great Britain, and the first-ever Groundhog day was being observed, women in Boston were just trying to live their lives as freely as possible. The largely Irish South End is shaken by the events of Bloody Sunday as their country men back home fight for freedom, but they are practical and largely working-class ladies who continue to work and support their families as they always have despite the horror. Although rather orthodox in their Catholocism they are quite liberal in all other respects: Irish women in Boston are almost twice as likely than their American sisters to have a multi-year formal education, and three times as likely to hold down steady employment for more than five years. Their Italian counterparts in the North End trail them significantly, living much more close, familial lives. These two groups largely compose the working class of Boston, along with assorted other European nationalities and a small but thriving African-American population.
The key players in the city - at least from their standpoint - are the middle and upper classes who are mostly of Protestant, Scotch-Irish descent and usually at least three generations American. The Lewis family is one of these, a member of the upper middle class who unfortunately lost its head female early. A proper Victorian-era home requires a woman to be present in it at all times and entirely content with her lot. Education varied from household to household, the particularly rich occasionally sending their daughters all the way to college. Women's sufferage (the right to vote) continued to be a radical topic to discuss over the dinner table, as it had been since before the Civil War and would be until the passing of the 19th Amendment made it moot in 1920. Women had certain role to fill in this world, and it involved marrying right and defering to their husband.
-continuing to edit-
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:13 pm
 ...A Quick History of Drug Missuse Near the Turn of the Century...
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:16 pm
 ...A Glossary of Victorian Words...
Hysteria: a female affliction of emotional instability said to result from the detachment and migration of the womb around the body. Treatment was usually either an opiate elixir or orgasm. Physicians developed the vibrator to treat this 'illness'.
Seamstress: a prostitute. Basically a very polite, seemly way of describing a woman who has sex with others for money. Generally used by those higher in social class to describe those lower, as many poorer girls actually did earn money by taking in clothing for mending and being paid for their stitchery. Implies that the girl is often undressed, thus "mending her dress" instead of having it off for sexual reasons. Often used by men when conversing in the company of women and not wanting them to know what they are talking about. Referenced in a few of the Terry Pratchett books.
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:19 pm
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:28 pm
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:29 pm
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:30 pm
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:31 pm
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:34 pm
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