quillinx wrote:im just gonna,,,,, plunk the backstory here bc it would make the form too long sry
form
- Grew up in a small town (Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson plays in the bg) and when the rain would fall down I, would, run out screaming into the downpour
for the judge: if you dont want to read these paragraphs of illogical backstory, tl;dr she grew up as a little turd, had an edgy-rebellious phase with a scientific lean, threw away her life for the pursuit of science, as hormonal teenagers are wont to do (what do you mean that's not what normal teenagers do shhhhhhhhh hh hh shhh) but survived, ended up stranded in a city with very bad jobs that were totally not worth her time at all, and only found hope in the form of an unexpected large amount of money when she, coincidentally, went back to the sea for the first time since her tragic almost-death. :^)
(welcome to my human-ish viscet au please enjoy your stay)
Poikilo grew up in a (small town) moderately populated city, in which the beach was only a 15-minute bus ride away from the apartment complex in which she lived. The beach was often quite crowded, and there were several shabby little concessions stands that competed with each other for the limited business to be found on the beach. Poi's mother worked at one of these stands, delivering faux-fancy fruit drinks to the patrons of the beach, and she often left Poi and her siblings to their own devices, trusting Poi as the oldest to keep a close eye on the little ones.
As a little one, Poi was fairly responsible and kept her siblings in line with an iron fist-- when she felt like it. When something else more interesting cropped up, she was liable to either dump her siblings in a tide pool somewhere, or somehow rope them into her convoluted schemes.
- A few of Poi's escapades as a young squeak
• Poikilo & Co.'s Fantastic Trash Collecting Company
- After learning about climate change and pollution in school, Poi created a beach-cleaning-up organization and forced her siblings to be her minions.
- This died a quick and painful death when Poi attempted to kidnap and dispose of the city's unpopular mayor as he lay sunbathing on the beach, claiming that she was "just cleaning up trash".
- The archetypical childrens' adventure club, formed by Poi's classmates and siblings, which had one magnificent heyday period of a week wherein the group chased a vicious murderer through the streets of the city.
- He turned out to be an innocent florist with a penchant for cherry Kool-aid.
Poi adored being in the water and spent as much time as possible down by the beach. While her siblings splashed each other or heckled the sunbathers farther up the shore, Poi would swim out to the deepest spot she was allowed to and swim steadily back and forth, letting the water soothe her. When she slipped into a rhythm of strokes, her mind was free to wander into rich marine-themed daydreams, in which she imagined going back to the Silurian era and touching the toothed back of the first shark to ever roam the seas.
As she grew older, Poi grew more rebellious, breaking all the rules, causing trouble on the beach, and getting herself into trouble by swimming past the depth limit to explore the deeper sea. She fancied herself a scientist and meticulously took notes on the things she found underwater, the animals, the pH level of the water, the amount of trash, the amount of sand-- anything that could be measured, was measured, whether or not it held practical relevance (4 pairs of mismatched earrings found in the general vicinity of Coral Structure 3.) However, to protect her younger siblings from getting caught up in her rule-breaking, her mother forbid her to go to the beach until she got her act together.
Poi considered her scientific endeavors too important to cease. During the daytime, she pretended to focus her energy on other things, volunteering at a nearby nursing home -- charming the residents with wild stories about romance and the sea -- and getting involved with the speech and debate team at school. She got a job as a lifeguard for a public swimming pool and transferred her trash-cleaning operation to the streets of the city, in order to make her mother happy. To all outside appearances, she was complying with her family's wishes.
However, unbeknownst to her mother, Poi was sneaking out every night, when nobody was around, to visit the beach and continue her scientific expeditions. She believed that she'd made a major breakthrough concerning the number of sharks' teeth she'd been finding on the ocean floor, as she went deeper and deeper in, rigging up a primitive snorkeling system to allow herself to go further. She established a camaderie with the midnight partyers who came to the beach to skinny-dip and drink cheap beers, who affectionately called her "that weirdo science kid", and they covered for her.
One night, Poi was exploring further than she ever had, tracking a strange shadowy shape she could see in the distance as she paddled on the surface. Suddenly, she felt a pulling around her feet. She had unwittingly swum straight into a riptide current, and being too far from shore to break free, she was swept under. Although she struggled hard, and she was a strong swimmer, as she fought against the current she breathed in a good deal of water and finally went unconscious. Her last sight before everything went dark was the frothy waves rearing up before her, almost like the sea was opening its gaping maw to swallow her whole.
(dramatic Mayhem soundtrack plays)
Poi woke up in the hospital. The current had carried her, unconscious and floating thanks to the plastic-bottle life vest she'd rigged up for herself, across miles of ocean to finally reach a huge beachfront city. The doctors said that it was a miracle she'd survived, that she'd been unconscious for almost a week after arriving. Poi tried to contact her family, but a voice on the other end informed her that the landline had been disconnected. Without a penny to her name, or anybody she knew at all, Poi was stranded in a strange city.
She raided her bank account and managed to procure a small apartment on the very outskirts of the city, and spent her days attempting to find work. The beach was a day's walk away from the place she lived, and she couldn't afford the bus fare-- or perhaps she was making excuses to herself to avoid the ocean, which had been her closest friend and which had turned so viciously against her. (Dramatic pose) But unemployment rates were high in the city, and nobody wanted to hire a seventeen-year-old with shabby clothes and no references.
- Jobs Poi tried to procure
• Fast-food worker
- Barfed in the French fry oil vats
- Got into a fistfight with the head chef over commercially farmed salmon
- Dropped eggs on the floor during bagging. Twice.
(Sentimental movie soundtrack swoons in the background)
When she reached the beach, it was almost evening, and the majority of tourists had cleared out. Although she'd been terrified at the thought of swimming again, as soon as Poi saw the water, it felt like a part of her had come back to her. She raced to the water's edge and waded into the ocean, which immediately swept her up into the shallows. Letting her limbs do the work of keeping her afloat, she breathed in the salty air and imagined herself once again, like she had when she'd been a child, to be a shark during prehistoric times, calm and purposeful, biding its time in the deep, dark waters.
When Poi headed home, it was dark. As she opened the door to the apartment complex, she resolved to have new hope. She could no longer pay the rent of the apartment she was living in, but she would find housing and work somewhere else. She planned to pack up her things and go on the move, traveling until she found a new mystery to apply herself to. As she was walking towards the stairs, she noticed that for the first time ever, there was a letter in her mailbox slot.
Inside her mailbox was a letter from a lawyer. One of the viscets back at the nursing home, who'd listened to her stories while she'd volunteered there, had died, and to Poi's surprise she was included in his will. It turned out that (surprise lmao) he had been quite wealthy, and wanted the young girl who told the marvelous stories to have a proper education. He had arranged for her to go to college and enrolled her in that school's creative writing program.
Well, it hadn't been what Poi had pictured for her life. But she figured that she could write a few stories if it meant getting a full ride to college, right?
thats as far as ive gotten!!!!! but if i end up winning her, her story will definitely go on
(and also be .. refined...... in certain areas that make no sense......... yes)
