Post by Rachel Zwingli on Nov 12, 2014 8:57:53 GMT -5
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Rachel Ophélie Zwingli 
BASICS
DIRECTORY & OOC INFO
OTHER INFORMATION Rachel has some vestige of psychic powers, and it manifests as "empathy"; meaning that she’s slightly more sensitive to the way other people act. Whenever it’s a twinge of annoyance, or an excessive ball of happiness, or just downright depressed and emotional, she can pick up on it and will not hesitate to act upon the emotions that she can “sense”. As of now, though, she is having difficulty placing a “damper” on herself in order to avoid having other people’s emotions influence her own—this is also one of the reasons why she’s prone to bursting out and basically being all blunt to whoever manages to cross her path. Only she knows of this manifestation—she had confirmed her latent ability’s existence when she and Walter (Altair) had talked about his depression and anger issues; which then led him to become better on-stage, and as a whole. She has not told anyone else yet; but she suspects that Walter has some knowledge of her “special ability”. This empathy will only be activated via RPs with permission from the other party/parties involved—this will only happen when people are informed that she’s got the “gift”; otherwise people would just pick up on her “empathy” as an “added intuition” or an “assumption” (even if she’s totally right and they’re just in a state of permanent denial). She’s still trying to control herself from picking up other people’s emotions around her, and it’s proving quite difficult to dampen other people’s presences around her while she’s still struggling with her own. | PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
PERSONALITY
POKEMON
HISTORY “Normally, I’d talk about the early history of my time in the theater up until today, but I guess it would be safe to go back to the beginning—where and how my parents met; and the events that led up to the time I was born.” Rachel’s family has always been rooted in the entertainment industry—most of her paternal relatives were, in one way or another, involved with the inner workings of the world on-stage. Most of the male relatives were either established lead or supporting actors; or well-known chorus singers, while the females were more on the “method” acting side of things. This story would’ve been stereotypical—two known stars of the Unovan “circle of fame” falling in love, but it was definitely not the case. The story begins with one of the regular “faces in the crowd”, one named Aurélie LeVan, a regular patron of the Unovan theater circuit. She would always be seen hanging around in the “VIP” area of the theater, always having access to the best seats in the house, because she’d fallen in love at first sight with one of the actors on the stage; and that actor just happened to be one Adrian Zwingli. At first, he’d just exchange passing greetings with Aurélie at the after-parties, always remarking that whenever he would be performing on-stage, hers would be the one familiar face he’d manage to single out in the crowd. It soon happened that the more she turned up, the better his performances got—and not too soon (after finishing his run with the current troupe he was working for—and they had just ended their theatrical run with West Side Story) that he realized that he had feelings for her. He could only be left to wonder, would she still show up at his shows, even if he was to be changing troupes right after this final performance? As it turned out, Aurélie did continue to watch his performances, even if he was just singing as a part of the revue, or if he was one of the supporting actors in the role that he was performing. It didn’t take long before all of Adrian’s mates noticed that he was spending more and more time with his sweetheart, to which he was always ribbed and teased. One of his other mates had even asked, “Why don’t you just go over and marry her, if you’ve really got your eye on her?” to which he replied, “I would… but I haven’t the courage”. At those words, his mates then began an elaborate set-up, staging a one-act show (to which Aurélie was apparently the only invited guest) and at the end of it, he had finally admitted his feelings for her; and he had proposed. At that point, all of the people involved in the elaborate act burst into applause, and soon after, the two were married—the Unovan coverage was much, to say the least—since Adrian was a beloved and well-known name to all the patrons in the world of theater. It didn’t take long for them to settle down in Castelia, and soon after, Rachel was born. “Well, you could call my dad cheesy and everything, but then I saw the ‘other world’ where he tread. It was the world on a stage, beyond the curtains before first call. The world of theater. Needless to say, I fell in love with it.” Even if Adrian was now a father, he still could not leave the stage behind; he would usually invite his wife (and their newborn daughter) to the daily practices in the theater, where they would watch his performance even before the rest of the audience would. As soon as Rachel could walk—more like, her first “steps” turned out to be dancing, rather than walking—they both knew that their child would go on and make “great things” in her own way. Rather than forcing his own recommendations on her, Adrian let Rachel choose which theater to “understudy” in, in order for her to work her way up and eventually become a well-known star herself. She’d chosen one of the bigger theaters, where she was under another senior; who eventually defaulted and left the circuit. The young Rachel was devastated—how could her “big sister” leave her alone in the big, confusing world of the stage? Who was going to guide her? As it had turned out, she was reassigned another “mentor”; with the premise that they were going to learn from each other; and this mentor’s name was Shelby. It was clear between the two who had more talent—even if Shelby was just starting out, Rachel already had the natural grace, but her voice needed a bit of working on, as she sounded particularly husky—if given the chance, she could be cast for a male role instead of a female role! Nevertheless, the two worked together; although she was left to wonder—why was Shelby always disappearing soon after practice was over? That then led her to practice on her own; and hard as she tried, her natural husky tone still persisted as she grew older. The world that she’d thrown herself into was hard—at first, she was just assigned small roles—even if everyone knew her famous father—because all famous stars started out from the bottom, they said. It was to their reasoning that even if she only had side roles, she continued to practice and hone her talents—she discovered that her own vocal range would vary after she’d hit puberty—but all of this would change as a chance encounter with one Walter Heydrich, after being moved to another troupe in order for her to gain “more exposure”. At first, she was quite standoffish to the golden-haired, crimson-eyed newcomer (as she’d been in the circuit for some time as compared to “this newcomer”) but then eventually realized that “the runt” (as she liked to call him in the back of her head) could back up the stuff he was saying. Eventually though, there would come a time when fate would start playing its own hand in its unique, unusual ways… “Love at first sight? Pfffft, more like ‘disgust’ at first sight when I saw him. He was so bull-headed and conceited, I swore I was going to stomp him down flat and bring him back down to earth. But then… things happen… people change, and uhh… hey! Is this off the record?!” There came the time when Rachel and Walter were cast to work together—it was for the production their troupe was working on, an apparent revival of Spring Awakening. She didn’t know about her costar’s seedy, shady background—but she could tell that there was something that was amiss. Call it instinct, call it "weird vibes", but Rachel knew that there was something that was distracting her co-star from performing at his best. Since the two rehearsed their roles together, they got to know each other better, with Rachel here slowly but surely changing her initial “opinion” of her male counterpart on the stage. Even as they practiced their lines (even while not in the actual theater) she could tell that there was something that was definitely bothering him. She then decided to corner and confront him about it, which eventually led to a shouting match between the two (although in reality, it was Rachel who was doing most of the shouting in his face). It was at this point she had learned about the dilemma her co-star was facing, and since they were just a few days away from opening night, she knew that he had to get his act together; otherwise the entire play would flop right before it would even begin. It was also at this point that her own self-suspicions about picking up other people’s emotions were confirmed, because her co-star was radiating waves of depression, and surprisingly—anger. Even if he was already shouting at the top of his lungs about what was bothering him, she decided to “bring him back to his own senses” in her own unique way. After that one night of “a rather heated discussion”, she had managed to make him face the music—and then noticed the rather drastic improvement with his temperament; not to mention his performance level on stage. Due to her on-stage partner’s sudden improvement, Spring Awakening proved to be a highly-successful performance; and it continued on for two years; and over that time, the two really got to know each other on a more personal and emotional level. Once the initial run had ended; Rachel realized that she’d actually done it—she’d succeeded in making her own name known; and boy was her father impressed with her own theatrical prowess. Now that she was making her own name, she decided to continue on with her favored co-star, and both of them starred in Wicked, she was the Elphaba to his Fiyero. What made their performances so dynamic and so cohesive was the fact that she got along so well with him (and totally refused to work with anyone else at this point) was that the two were in a relationship, making all of their scenes more convincing and “real”. After Wicked’s successful run, things started going a bit downhill for the both of them… “Sudden fame and fortune came his way, so I tried to keep up. In the end, though… things didn’t work out too well…” Their relationship began taking a downhill turn once she realized that he’d been offered a high-profile role in the movie industry—even with his reassurance that it was just “stage acting on a different medium” she had her own reservations and qualms about it. As Walter Heydrich went on to become a wildly-successful movie star, the distance from him began to show—they could only call each other at odd hours of the day or night; and rare exchanges between them became a staple—things came crashing down when the emotional separation was too much for her, and she decided to call it off with him through a voice mail message she’d left. After that, things weren’t the same for her afterwards. Even if she’d continued to act on the stage in the theater district, things just weren’t the same. It was at this point she’d gone through the worst and had an emotional meltdown. Luckily, however, there were some things that helped distract her… namely, Pokémon. It had taken quite a lot of prodding (and pestering) from her current troupe; but once they’d gotten word that Rachel here had gone into complete “meltdown” mode, they all rushed to her home in order to cheer her up. One of them had sprouted the idea of giving her a gift—namely, two Pokémon that they could find in the area. Once they’d gotten around (with a lot of food and drinks) they then decided to present to her the companions that they’d picked out—the first one was a Rufflet, while the other one they’d chosen, quite surprisingly, was a Petilil. As Rachel looked at the two, the Petilil took the first step and approached her—before gently hugging her leg; which caused her to break down again—and thank her troupe for being there with her after all that had happened. Time passed, and Rachel had slowly but surely recovered from the heart break—and now had her attention focused on the two—when she got another role for her theater performance; this time it was for a more… raunchy musical called Hairspray. Seeing as she was cast in the lead role, she knew that she had to rise to the challenge in order to prove to everyone that she was back in business and that “the show would go on”. The show itself was a wild success in itself; and it looked that she was finally on the road to recovery from breaking things off with Walter. Even if she was dark-skinned and of lithe stature (as the role of Tracy was originally meant to be for a plus-sized, fair-skinned woman) she had won acclaim and was recognized for her rather “unusual” interpretation during the time the play was on stage. “Who knew that fate would deal another hand my way and make the irony in this situation be all the more obvious? At least we’re still on good terms with each other.” After her successful run as Tracy—her troupe was now touted to perform the next “revival” of Cats, and she was cast as Grizabella. This particular performance was one that she would never forget—because of the song “Memory”; as well as seeing a certain face suddenly show up in the crowd right after the first gala night performance: it was Walter. By this time, she knew that he’d gone on to become a wildly successful movie star, having been the on-screen “James Bond” for a trilogy of films…and when she found out that he had returned to visit and talk with her, she had a suspicion that something was wrong, yet again. This time, however, it came to light that he had come for her advice; and over a few drinks (that eventually became an all-nighter of sharing news and whatever else had been going on with their lives) she realized that he had just come from another “whirlwind romance” and was still in a state of denial; and was reeling from the pain that had wracked him. This was around the time Walter (Altair) was about to begin filming his third Bond movie; and Rachel had left the suggestion that “if you got anything on your mind, you know where to reach me. We can talk it out,” and then left the befuddled movie star with a smirk on her face. Now that she’d said her piece (and had made peace with him in the process) she then continued to perform as Grizabella—and the play had reached such a level of recognition, she became part of the permanent cast—and nobody could top her performance as Grizabella. After Cats had run for almost three years—they decided to wrap up and left the most memorable last-night performance that nobody would ever forget: practically all of Unova had turned out to see the final performance of the troupe; and from that point on, Rachel became a recognized household name; not just with the theater circle, but with other people as well. Now that the high of wrapping up Cats had come to a close, her troupe then decided to continue with another revival; this time it was Miss Saigon—and she was chosen to be Kim. Seeing that this was going to be another challenging role, she decided to throw herself into it completely—and it was also around this time that Walter had come by for another visit; they’d made it a thing to “meet” whenever one of them had a problem, and they would talk it out. This time, though, she had noticed that there was something wrong with him: unlike her, who had enough time to recover in order to continue for another theatrical performance, Walter had been performing on-screen non-stop, without rest. He definitely wasn’t as healthy as he used to look, and she decided to take things into her own hands. After inviting him over to Driftveil (their conversations always happened in either Castelia—her place; or Driftveil—his family’s place) she had let slip the words that would forever change Walter’s career and make him step down from the limelight, for a long-overdue (and well-deserved) vacation from the glitz and glamor of fame. Even if he’d realized sometime later that she’d tricked him; in time he did come to see that he really needed the long-overdue time to contemplate and recover, away from the limelight. As of the moment, she is still performing as Kim for the stage play Miss Saigon, and just as always, the play is drawing quite the crowd. RP SAMPLE
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