#i have been actively headcanoning him as being a scorpio rising with his cancer moon in the 8th house because that just makes sense!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

devilsknotrp · 5 years

Photo

Congratulations, Ruby! You have been accepted for the role of Connie Romano (FC: Natasha Liu Bordizzo). My God, you understand Connie perfectly. Everything, from your writing sample to your headcanons, fundamentally demonstrated how much thought you’d put into her and how she will relate to the other characters in play. I think you emphasised her softness - and though it would have been too easy to make her too gentle, you struck just the right balance between her sensitivity for others and her quiet resolve. Connie might be uncertain, but she’s not always a pushover. You also dealt with the theme of peer pressure really well. We’d love to see her continue to struggle with that as the group develops, especially because, at some point, she will have to make a choice... Altogether a wonderful application. Please have a look at this page prior to sending in your account.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name: Ruby Age: 19 Pronouns: She/her Timezone: NZST Activity estimation: I’m enrolled full-time in university so my workload fluctuates week-to-week. I don’t like to really estimate activity because I can’t make promises that it will always remain the same. But I do strive to be active to some extent at least once a day. Triggers: [Redacted]

IN CHARACTER

Name: Connie Denise Romano constancy // devoted to Bacchus // from Rome Age (DD/MM/YYY): 20th of July 1978. CANCER sun, AQUARIUS moon, SCORPIO rising, VIRGO venus. Gender: Cis female Pronouns: She/her Sexuality: Bisexual. Connie has uncomplicated feelings about her sexuality. It has always just been something that has existed within her, devoid of complication, unlike much else of her psyche; she is constantly plagued by complicated feelings about everything else. But she has always known she’s had crushes on girls and on boys. It’s not something she’s ever come out and said to anyone, but she thinks she’d be at peace with it if it came out, or if she dated a girl. It doesn’t seem like a secret that needs to be hidden, but she hides it anyway. She hides a lot of things.

Occupation: High School Senior; aspiring NYU theatre applicant – eventually she wants to be a theatre actress, possibly film but she has no real overwhelming desire for the need to be seen like that. She definitely wants to venture into filmmaking and screenwriting; she has hoards over unfinished manuscripts stuffed in her drawers, most are roles she writes for herself.

Connection to Victim: Brian Goode had always been a bright kid. Connie remembers him in snippets: riding his bike down the street, or down at the arcade, or talking with David. That’s the real thread of connection she has to Brian. David. Connie has always liked David. He’s always kind and she sits next to him in a few of the classes they share together. She had only seen him as a sort-of-maybe friend until he asked her out. Taken by surprise, she had awkwardly turned him down, fumbling her way through an excuse. Connie had still felt too new then, too hurt by everything that had gone down, and David was sweet; she wasn’t ready for sweet. But then it was like he was everywhere, and now she can’t help but look for him in every crowd, or think about what he might say about something. It’s only a small crush, but it makes her feel young and alive and a little shy. Now she feels like they share something. There are moments since Brian’s disappeared that she’s thought about telling David she understands, but that would mean opening up about the gruesome crime, and that’s the secret she holds closest to her chest. Instead, she bakes cookies for his family and has spent time trying to be there for him. As a friend. But she can’t shake the feeling that Brian’s disappearance is connected to her own family’s murder. She’s terrified of what it all means, and she’s determined to help discover what really happened.

Alibi: What were they doing the afternoon Brian Goode disappeared?

Connie had been in the theatre room when Brian Goode disappeared.

“What were you doing?”

“I was practicing my monologue. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte.”

Pause. “It’s Catherine’s bit. You know, I wouldn’t be you for a kingdom!”

“Was anyone else there?”

“It was just me.”

“And what time did you arrive? Did anybody see you? When did you leave? Can anyone confirm that you were there?”

“I must have gotten there at around 2? I’m not sure, sorry. I think I got home around 8? My brother saw me. Em. He was there when I got home. I don’t know if anyone else saw me,” Connie shrugs, “maybe a teacher? I’m sure someone would have been working.”

Connie had been on a bus back from Sioux Falls. Two days earlier she had lied to Emilio and told him she was going to be staying at a friend’s house, throwing out Kelly Shah’s name. Then she hopped on a bus and headed back to her hometown. In the mail she had received a curious post-card, a simple I’m so sorry, baby in sloppy handwriting she could only guess was her mothers. Her bones trembling she had made the snap decision to go back to Sioux Falls. It had her grandma’s old address scribbled as the return address. Her mom must want her to come home. And Connie needed answers, security, her mom.

But Sioux Falls didn’t provide any answers; just dead-ends. Her mom wasn’t there and all that lingered was an air of misery. She walked around the block she grew up and bought a milkshake from Bugsy’s and cried behind her school’s old shed. It felt like a million years ago that she had lived there. And it felt like just yesterday her parents had been brutally slaughtered.

She had gotten on the first bus back to Devil’s Knot after that. She was never going to know what had happened to her parents. She was never going to know where her mom went. She was never going to fully belong to this world. But she could go home and laugh until her stomach hurt with Em.

Her bus had pulled up in Devil’s Knot at around 6PM. When had Brian gone missing again? Connie hadn’t gone home straight away. She got off the bus and headed out to “The Clearing” – she had been to countless parties there, fooled around with boys she wasn’t interested in, spent hours practicing her scripts. The creepiness that lived there felt safe to her, somehow. It felt like a loose connection to her own trauma. She couldn’t visit the site her parents had been murdered at, but she could find solace in the space another gruesome crime had taken place. She was a little entranced by the mystery of the case, wanting desperately to be able to bury herself in the facts and knowledge of the Silverman legend since she couldn’t know the details of her own.

Connie didn’t spend long there. She sat on one of the couches and cried until she felt okay enough to clip on her happy, cheerful, popular girl façade and she went home. All the lights were off by the time she returned to their little suburban home. Em tried. But sometimes Connie just wanted to scream out at the absurdity of trying to build a life while they ignored their past. He wasn’t home. He didn’t see her coming in. But it didn’t matter, he’d protect her.

Connie doesn’t know why she lies but she can’t take it back once it’s out of her mouth. Maybe it’s to protect her mom, or maybe it’s to protect her past, or maybe it is to protect herself. Wouldn’t people see her differently if they knew the truth of where she had come from? Couldn’t they suspect her? She knew how mass hysteria worked. She was an intelligent girl.

Faceclaim: Natasha Liu Bordizzo

WRITING SAMPLE

Connie’s got her legs splayed out on the floor of the drama room. Her knee jutted out at an awkward angle, her thigh starting to cramp. Fingers raking through sheets upon sheets of discarded scripts. All the words are blurring together. Either she can’t concentrate or she’s started to cry. Connie feels so detached from her body that she couldn’t tell you which one it is.

It makes her feel a little sick, being squashed up in this room. It used to be her sanctuary. If Devil’s Knot was starting to overwhelm her, the past sneaking up in her mind, her friends starting to drive her stir-crazy – she could always escape here. An easy lie tossed over her shoulder, ‘You know I have to practice!’ and then she’d indulge herself in reading scripts, curled up in the disgusting bacteria-ridden green couch in the corner. The room was nearly always empty, save for a few other theatre kids who’d come and go from time-to-time. But Connie had started to learn the hours in which they came and went, always aiming to be there by herself. From 11am to 1PM was usually a safe bet if she wanted some time for herself.

But now she’s sitting on the cold floor and her stomach is doing somersaults. She’s almost certain she’s going to be sick soon. Her breakfast making its way back up. She can’t stop thinking about Brian. That cute little kid just gone. His name on the tip of everyone’s tongues, the stifling silence around his disappearance, the haunted clutch-hold his presence has had on this town. Connie knows all the rumours about the past tragedies, she had studied up on the Silverman case as best as she could before arriving, and then the gaps had been filled in by eager classmates ready to divulge all the sick, twisted mysteries Devil’s Knot had to cough up.

She sees her Dad’s mangled body. Her stepmom’s headstone. Her mom’s own vanishing from her life. Connie knows all about tragedies and mysteries and satanic ritual cult bullshit. Part of her feels like a bad luck magnet. She’s been reading the same line on the script Mrs Rubens had written for her for half-an-hour. Fed up, she crumples it up in her hand and throws it across the room. Some days she wishes it was acceptable to screech until her lungs hurt. Connie has this sudden overwhelming desire to douse herself in gasoline and sink under water. To throw her body across the room and see how it lands. But instead she presses her lips together and lifts her body up off of the ground. Does a quick stretch to release the tension building in her muscles and fetches the screwed up piece of paper from across the other side of the room.

She just hopes Brian isn’t suffering. She wonders if it would be better if he was found dead or alive. Is he being tortured? She’s read all the books on satanic cults. She’s not sure if she believes in any of what they say – the sex orgies and torture and animal sacrifices. It was all started from puritanical religious ideologies. But part of her does wonder. She wasn’t allowed to see the case files from her parents murder but she knows it was something satanic. Connie shakes her head in an effort to rid her head of the thoughts, threading her fingers through her hair and brushing out any knots that have gathered. Shut up, brain! She wants to yell. It’s always going too fast for her liking. Her brain is still stuck on Brian as she goes to twist open the door to leave. He was such a sweet kid, and even if he wasn’t, no-one deserves to go missing. It’s horrific.

She checks the time on one of the clocks hanging up on the wall before she leaves. If she hurries she might catch some of her crowd still at Patsy’s Diner. She doubts she could keep any food down, but they’re all expecting her. Connie doesn’t know if she can handle having to talk about the case like it’s an enthralling gossip fest tonight, sometimes she wonders if her friends have any hearts at all or if they’re all made of ice. But she plasters on a bright mega-watt, charming smile and works herself into a happy state of mind.

It’s easy to pretend. But she wonders how long she has left until she falls apart at the seams she’s meticulously stitched herself together with. It’s starting to feel like any minute this wild wolf within her will be unleashed. The days are become longer, more tightly coiled around her, and there’s still no sign of a missing child. It’s not normal. Connie isn’t sure how to act like everything can still be the same when something so sinister has taken place…again. In this town, in her life.

She pulls a piece of gum out of her bag, a simple black square shoulder bag she’d picked up as a treat for herself last week, before all this chaos had been unleashed. Carefully she unwraps the mint flavoured piece of gum and pops it in her mouth, throwing the wrapper away in the nearest bin. The act of chewing soothes her nerves, the pop of flavour giving her something more interesting to taste than the rising vomit trying to push itself out of her.

ANYTHING ELSE?

NOTE: Since a lot of Connie’s life is entwined with Emilio’s, I’ve taken a lot of liberties in imagining what her childhood and present day living situation etc. looks like! This would be fleshed out better in conjunction with Emilio’s player & story, obviously, if I was accepted.

BIOGRAPHY.

BEFORE.

Connie Denise Romano was born on the twentieth of July, 1978, as the clock struck a quarter past three in the afternoon, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Her parents were on the brink of a divorce, Grease was still on top of the charts and the stage had been set for her arrival.

Her birth mom was a loose cannon, a firecracker, a live-wire. Connie remembers being enamoured by her, wide-eyed, watching her mom flit around their living room in her dressing gown, belting out Call Me by Blondie, drenched head to toe from the rain outside. But she also remembers the screams in the middle of the night, the long periods of time where she’d disappear for, the terse fights between her parents in their living room at one in the morning. By the time Connie was six her mom, Annie, had left for good.

Emilio will never understand that part of her: the sliver of Annie that lives underneath her skin, that aches to come crawling out on the middle of the stage, the screeched monologues where she shuts her eyes and channels the energy of the woman who’s DNA runs through her. Emilio’s mom is lovely, he’ll never wonder if she was responsible for the murders. It haunts her at night sometimes, a bubbling question mark underneath the surface of her skin. Her memories are clipped, dream-like, half the time she wonders if Annie wasn’t even half the nightmare she remembers her to be; sometimes she’s curious if she was worse, and sometimes she swears these bursts of anger that flare up within her are from her.

It was just Connie and her dad for a while then. He was her best friend, her confidant, her hero who could do no wrong. He tried to teach her to be fierce and resilient in the face of danger, strong and confident and sure of herself, but that’s just not the kind of kid she was. Connie was shy, she was bright and personable around the right people, but she always fit in better at the adult table than the kids table. Clinging to her Dad’s leg at parties, mumbling her name when asked, declining the offer of a birthday party. He enrolled her in drama classes to help ease her out of her shell, or maybe, because he was scared she had that same pent up energy bubbling under her and he wanted her to have a healthy outlet to channel it into. It didn’t matter, she fell into the role of theatre like she was born for the stage.

He remarried when she was ten. Connie had craved a mom so badly, she had spent every night praying at the altar of her bed to stars for one. This intense, sensitive desire that ran through her to be loved. Julia was kind and she took her shopping and they had movie dates, just the two of them, together on the weekends but Connie could still sense the distance. Julia was marrying her Dad, not her. She liked being an easy kid, knew even then how to shut up and play the right part. She went along with being tolerated and not loved. It was an easy role to play.

Her journey into adolescence was rocky. Connie didn’t know how to fit in at first. Her mind has always jumped miles ahead, inquisitive and adept at reading her own emotions. She struggled through middle-school, teetering on the edge of a million different friend groups, playing the shy girl, the weird girl, the outcast girl, the friendly girl, the popular girl; she kind of knew everyone, and no-one ever really knew her. It wasn’t the way she preferred it, her bones ached for settlement but all she could find was restlessness.

In her first year of high school she had no-one. She struggled to make friends in Sioux Falls. The same people she had known her entire life flitted in and out of her life like revolving figures in a play, she reached out to grasp them and they all just slipped away. Her friendships grew away from her, their common interests and shared histories fading into oblivion to make room for those awkward silences of knowing there’s no mutual understanding left anymore. It had left her sad, but Connie always moved on from everything without pushing it, a smile on her face. It was all for her to digest silently, not in a fit of rage.

She made friends in her sophomore year: a bad crowd, her dad had called them. It had been her rebellious stage. Connie had quietly embarked on a journey of destroying herself for fun. It was the year she began to detest everything inside of her. Her insides recoiled and she couldn’t stand to look at herself in the mirror. Every morning she woke up fatigued and nauseous with the thought of having to exist in the world. She had met Peter in one of her drama classes. He was older, and he smoked, and his friends liked to go out to the woods late at night. He kissed her and she felt like she was permanent, her feet stuck firmly on the ground. Then he’d go days without calling her and she’d let herself go stir crazy inside her own brain. They never got up to anything wild. It was never that sort of rebellious phase. Connie would just hang out past her curfew with them, smoking cigarettes she hated the taste of, laughing along when the boys wrestled on the ground.

But by junior year they were gone and she was stuck with herself again. And then her world got shifted upside down.

DURING.

They are hazy memories she can’t quite recollect. A bad dream she tends to forget about. Connie liked to buy the cover-up of a random attack. It goes down better for her. Peter had called her afterwards, to ask if it was satanic, he talked her ear off about the occult. Connie didn’t care. She pushed the event to the back of her brain and reworked herself into a new woman. This would not define her. It would not become her. It is always on her mind.

Police officers. Lawyers. Social workers. God, the fucking social workers. Connie remembers them all in bits and pieces, like watching a film she’s only half interested in. The open mouths, the silent words, the folded up case files she couldn’t look at. The funeral. The faux sympathies from her classmates. The rancid vomit she would throw up every night.

Emilio filed for custody of her and they moved to Devil’s Knot to start a new life.

Connie made herself a list of rules before leaving: no-one was going to know about what had happened, she was going to find herself with a group of friends, she was going to stop thinking about her missing mom and her dead dad, she was going to stop hurting herself for fun. Her life was going to become easy, despite everything.

AFTER.

Emilio is all she has left. He’s quickly turned into her best friend, the only person in the world she thinks she trusts, but it still makes her stomach twist and turn when she remembers he’s responsible for her. He’s overprotective sometimes, and she’s gotten good at lying to even him. It just doesn’t feel like this is her life sometimes.

It would have been easy to fade into the background. Connie has been doing it her whole life. She’s too quiet, sometimes, and her head is always racing too far ahead. She’s always caught up in her own little world. Entering Devil’s Knot she thought she’d immediately fall in with the outcasts. That’s where she belongs, right? But instead she was easily swept up by the most popular kids in school. She doesn’t know how it happened. One minute she was nervously getting ready for her first day, freaking out, and the next she was being pulled along by Kelly Shah.

It had been nice at first, to belong somewhere. There are moments she genuinely appreciates her friends. Then there are moments she feels like such an imposter it makes her want to scream. They don’t know the first thing about her and Connie doesn’t see the point in putting on appearances, it’s starting to wear her down. All she wanted was to live a normal, boring life. But she’s starting to see it’s going to be very hard to achieve that.

Especially with Brian now missing. It feels like only the start of something deeply sinister.

HEADCANNONS.

i. Connie’s wardrobe consists of lots of turtlenecks, solid colours, lilac cardigans, lots of miniskirts, chunky boots that hit right under the knee, navy track pants with stripes down the side, lots of sweater vests, mood rings, flower and butterfly charms and hair-clips, empire waist dresses, low heels, plaid patterns, her favourite cream and baby pink floral long skirt, cropped chunky cable knit sweaters, floral patterns. Her main colour combinations are: black, lilac, peach, navy and red.

ii. Her top artists of the year have to be Alanis Morissette, Goo Goo Dolls, The Smashing Pumpkins, TLC, Oasis, No Doubt, Aaliyah, Hole, Jewel, Bikini Kill, Madonna, Fiona Apple, Modest Mouse, Bjork and Belle and Sebastian.

iii. Connie is a major fan of The X Files. The week Brian Goode went missing was the first episode she had missed since her dad’s death.

iv. Her other staple favourite shows are: Seinfeld, the newly airing Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Beverly Hills, 90210 (she’s a secret Brenda Walsh fan; like she just gets it), Party of Five, The Nanny, Melrose Place and My So Called Life.

v. Connie had been a feverish reader in her youth, devouring all the books she could get her hands on. Her dad had said her mom used to love to read. It had bought her closer to her somehow. But then she hit fourteen and couldn’t stand the sight of words. It’s only after her dad’s death that she’s been getting back into reading again.

vi. Connie hated hiking before her parents died. Now it’s one of her favourite secret hobbies.

vii. She loves to bake.

viii. She had been obsessed with the O.J. Simpson case the year before.

ix. She had bought all the Satanic ritual books she could grab her hands on right after the murder. Everyone wanted to shield her from the truth but she needed to know. Nobody would tell her anything so she had to find out for herself.

x. There is something about ‘The West Memphis Three’ that unsettles her. She has to look away every-time they’re brought up.

xi. She’s a social drinker but a secret smoker. It’s only habitual, a stress-reliever, the only tie she has left to Peter and his crowd. Em has no idea.

xii. Her day-to-day life has been very boring lately: school, theatre practice, listening to what everyone else is doing and going along with the crowd.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS.

i. EMILIO: It’s funny how quickly tragedy can bond you. Connie has always looked up to Em. He’s her big brother, how could she not? They were as close as they could be, considering the age gap and the intervals of missing time between visits. He was still her big brother and she still wanted him to like her and he still annoyed her constantly. But now he’s all she has left in this world. Her very best friend. Her guardian, now responsible for her well-being. It’s like walking a tight-rope with him sometimes. She loves him and she hates him all in the same breathe, and then she feels bad when she knows he’s just doing the best he can.

ii. HEATHER: Heather is unlike anyone Connie has ever met before. There is just something about them that draws Connie in. It’s electric. Their determination, drive, commitment…Connie envies and admires all of it. She thinks the world of them. The brightest part of her day is when they have debate or are studying together or Connie catches her eye from across the room. There’s just something about them that makes Connie glow warm and happy, inspires her to strive to be a better person.

iii. ELIAS: Connie immediately felt a connection to Elias as soon as she met him. He seems to be the only like-minded person in this town to her sometimes. He’s her trusted confidante when it comes to the arts. Some of the rumours about him have limited her from being able to develop a deeper friendship with him the way she wants, her group would just never allow it, but she always feels at peace in his presence and wishes she could just ditch her friends some days and hang out with Elias.

iv. DAVID: He hadn’t really made her radar, other than he was nice and new like she was, and they sat in the same classes together. But then he asked her out, and she turned him down, and now she can’t get him out of her mind. It’s only a small crush, not anything near what she feels for Heather, but it’s there all the same: blossoming in her chest. Since he’s asked her out, she feels like they’ve grown into better friends, and now with Brian missing…well, she’s been spending a lot more time with him.

v. KELLY: Kelly is probably the closest thing she has to a best friend here in Devil’s Knot. Connie both loves and loathes her. There are times where she swears it’s just the two of them against the world, a genuine, real friendship. And then Kelly goes and does something that completely makes Connie pause and wonder who the fuck this girl is. But at the end of the day, her arm is gonna be slung around hers, and they’re gonna giggle at the back of class together, and go shopping together, and Connie is gonna spend her weekends curled up in Kelly’s bed. There’s so much pressure that comes with being friends with Kelly Shah. It always feels like too much sometimes, like Connie is gonna mess up and get kicked out of town.

vi. HOMER, SAM: As much as Connie feels uncomfortable by being in the same group as the popular kids – there comes an immense amount of pressure and responsibility and anxiety with the job – she genuinely does like both Homer and Sam, even if sometimes she feels not good enough in the group or she questions what they’re doing, she thinks the two of them have good hearts and she finds her friendship with the two of them mostly an easy ride.

vii. MILTON: Connie secretly hates Milton. She can’t stand him. He makes her blood boil and rise and she has to bite her tongue every time he speaks. She doesn’t understand why Kelly is still with him at all.

PLOT POINTS.

I’d love to see Connie somehow get tied up in the Chapter business through Em; I don’t see her being truly a part of it, but I think it could be fun to explore maybe her opposition to it and how that affects her relationship with Emilio.

An exploration of the Sioux Falls drama and how that ties into Devil’s Knot’s mystery, if it does at all.

Her complicated relationship with her birth mother – possibly going to see Karen Shah to deal with it or going to see Karen Shah regardless, actually. I’d also love to see Connie trying to find a mother figure through some of the other women in town. It’s something that she’s always desperately been searching for.

I can definitely see her getting involved and trying to figure out what happened to Brian since her own past is still a mystery. It’s going to be easier for her to try and get the truth out of a situation she’s removed from while still feeling like she’s gaining peace of mind from her own trauma. I can see this leading her to work with the younger kids or some of the past generation that was involved in the Silverman case.

I’d also really love to see some sort of connection to Pete Silverman. I think they’d both be characters who carry a lot of guilt. Pete, for his past. And Connie, for the past she’s hiding. Somehow they’re very different but feel similar.

I’d also love for her to get involved in Brian’s disappearance through her lie about her alibi – did someone see her on that bus? Did someone see her out in the clearing? Does someone know about Sioux Falls? I’d love for her past and her lies to come unravelling.

I think a lot of constant themes have popped up in this app with Connie – her past, her commitment to theatre and the arts, her sense of being lost and not belonging, curiosity / avoidance about satanic rituals, her need to belong somewhere, guilt / regret / avoidance / overthinking, her ties to her different family relationships, the friendships she’s made here – I think these are all important parts of her that will be explored in various different ways and plots. I think my overarching goal for Connie as a singular person, not involved within the mystery, would be for her to find a true sense of belonging and confidence rather than playing the role of whoever is wanted from who in that moment. Connie needs to discover who she is.

#dkaccepted #accepted #connie romano #literate rp #new rp

1 note · View note