#a copycat killer with a chemical cut | character dev | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

amma-castaignede · 3 years

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This house was haunted.

The realization came quickly, as if it had always been present. Mathis’s ghost was as natural as that first gasp of somewhat stale air upon opening the door to one’s childhood bedroom. The hallways were stained with him - on this step he’d lovingly teased her about her braces. The alcove with a window overlooking the back garden was where he’d sheepishly confessed his first kiss. And the locked door. The room he’d forsaken on that cold night when her mother sobbed, her father yelled, and Amélie feared.

Fear was an old friend by now, the ghost of her still living but long gone brother a presence both abhorred and adored in equal measure. The very fact that he still lingered to her memory convinced her that a part of him, the part that loved and defended her, still existed under all that anger and armor and drug induced euphoria the French had manipulated him into clinging to.

He’d been the very first to celebrate her admittance to her dream journalism program at Oxford. The first to celebrate and the first to tease.

“Amma,” Mathis asked, “Journalists have to talk to people, you do know that right?” She’d flushed bright red and then nodded carefully. “So this whole reserved and shy thing isn’t going to cut it. You have to actually talk and present the best version of yourself for the camera.”

“Maybe,” a soft voice conceded as she peeked up through her lashes at him. Her brother, her one solid defender, held such belief and encouragement in his eyes that she actually managed a real smile - chin jutting upwards in defiance. “I am going to be writing and thus I will not have to be on TV.”

They’d both laughed. It was the last time she remembered hearing his laughter.The bittersweet memory of this sound lingered in the corridor. Amélie ghosted a hand over his neglected door knob, then pulled away as if burnt. For a moment, perhaps longer - a week and a half maybe - Amélie had seriously considered relinquishing her university acceptance. Driven mad with grief or perhaps a keen awareness of how the tide was turning in favor of anyone with money and the ability to upload a video - she considered anything and everything that might bring her brother back. Nothing worked and her parents began to treat her as if she was an only child. This admonition, the deliberate choice to forget about the oldest son who’d been Améle’s best friend stung like a rebuke towards her very existence.

Alone in her bedroom, Amélie dialed the last contact number she had for her brother twice without letting it ring through. On the third try she let it ring four times - four was their number. Mother, father, brother, sister -four making the family; four being Amélie and Mathis, Mathis and Amélie; four the number of letters in the pet name he once called her.

Four long years since her brother last laughed at her almost too determined expression. Four years since he’d last hugged her.

Amélie shivered, and then climbed into her childhood bed to dream about what might have been and what was still to come.

Elsewhere, Mathis Castailgnéde awoke to a sense of foreboding in his chest. The phantom in his dreams who sometimes resembled his mother, but mostly the innocence of his sister, had gained the upper hand.

Back in their childhood home, Amélie knew who he was pretending to be. It would be much easier next Christmas.

#a copycat killer with a chemical cut | character dev #self para tbd

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amma-castaignede · 3 years

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grieving for the living

(tw big sad)

Perhaps it was human nature to seek out omens, little signs one might have missed that could have forewarned of a coming tragedy. An unusual chill on a summer’s eve, a sudden sense of dread upon opening the door - when recounting their trauma, survivors always seemed to include these little details. It did not start with the accident, no it was hours before when the driver hesitated before leaving - something deep within them turning with unease. Maybe this was a way to make sense of it, Amélie would later think, a feeble hope that in some other world they might have listened.

Of course, it had been building for months. Even in her glossimer bubble of almost willful ignorance, Amélie knew something was wrong.

The day that it ended dawned bright and beautiful. She remembered the way the sun streamed in through the kitchen window, how the grass felt under her hands as she lay reading in that park. Had she known this was the end, Amélie might have lingered longer in the fading sunshine and peaceful contentment. Perhaps she’d have never left her soft patch of grass, instead letting the afternoon stretch on into eternity. A last whole moment before everything fell apart.

Amélie did not get the luxury of an omen.

In her mind she tried to weave the ending into something she could understand - the third act of some ancient tragedy, greek chorus and all; the penultimate scene in a towering gothic when our heroine must reckon with her ghosts and her demons, when she must decide if they are real or imagined; the gutting last stanza who’s words haunt the reader for weeks. That, perhaps, she could understand. And then she could close that book, leaving the grief and trauma caught between the pages and placed up on a shelf to be opened again at her will - when she longed for the familiar ache.

The ending was a bloodbath, a brutal amputation of some vital organ. Maybe they’d always been like this, the tears and cruelty and shouting lurking just below the thin veneer of civility. Maybe she’d been hopelessly naive, clinging to the rose colored world as a lifeline. But once the rock has been lifted to reveal the dark, feral things lurking below it is nearly impossible to hide them again, no matter how hard her parents tried. He was excised from their lives with a merciless finality, four becoming three and insisting they’d always been this way. Gone and entirely forgotten.

When something ends, she learned, it does not always end for everyone. She walked through the streets in an icy cloud, cocooned in a grief for the still living. There is no course for this, no clear cut path to overcoming this loss - when loss seems to trivial a term for the weight of her pain. They did not want to see the rawness of her emotion, the oppressive weakness. In this solitary mourning, in those moments of deepest selfishness, she might catch herself wishing he actually were dead - if only so she could grieve fully.

When not properly addressed, these wounds can fester into obsession. Some days the obsession is overwhelming, the grief a vice on her heart, her lungs, the weight of it all suffocating. Air could only be earned in whispers and rumors, half truths about atrocities. Other days there was only nothingness, a deep vast empty that went on and on. The numbness was easier. Maybe it was nice not to feel.

In some ways that night was the end of Amélie as well. Survival demanded a coldness and cruelty she did not know she possessed. Or was it that he took all of her goodness when he left, tearing away a crucial part of her leaving only pain and jagged edges. Sometimes she forgot what it felt like, the contentment she’d taken for granted, hours in the sun. The woman in the mirror was molded by loss and anger and grief, what once might have been happiness only recognized by its absence. Fear and guilt, it is said, are sisters. Amélie thought grief and anger must be as well, stripping away bit by bit until all that's left is harsh pain and righteous anger.

In the pocket world between wake and sleep, she might catch a sight of her - that girl who missed all the omens, whose face was not yet carved by sorrow. She smiles, then runs from her future self. In her laughter Amélie imagines she says;

Are we to blame for the creature grief has made of us? Or have we been her all along?

#a copycat killer with a chemical cut | character dev #mathis tbd #family tbd #idk what this is but!#self para tbd

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amma-castaignede · 4 years

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ORIGINS & FAMILY:

Name: Amélie Sylvie Castaignède

Nickname: Amma

Birthday: January 31, 1995

Age: 25

Gender: Female.

Place of Birth: London, United Kingdom

Places Lived Since: London, United Kingdom; Oxford, UK

Current Residence: London, United Kingdom

Nationality: British & French

Parents: Emanuel & Colette Castaignède

Grandparents: François Castaignède (grandfather, paternal) Marie Castaignède (grandmother, paternal, deceased) Henri de la Croix (grandfather, maternal) Ava de la Croix (grandmother, maternal)

Aunts & Uncles: n/a

Number of Siblings: one brother, Mathis Castaignède

Relationship With Family: Amélie is incredibly close to her family, particularly her older brother. Or at least she had been. He was the one person who could draw her out of her shell, her family home the place where she felt safest and most able to be herself. They were happy, once. Her parents were devoted but not overbearing, encouraging of their children. Mathis was the golden boy, outgoing and athletic but always went out of his way to encourage and include his painfully shy sister. After he pulled away, the relationship has become colder and her parents have essentially purged him from the house leaving his bedroom locked in some sort of half mad shrine or perhaps a tomb. Her father is quicker to snap, her mother to cry, and Amélie has withdrawn back into herself.

Happiest Memory: On her fourteenth birthday Mathis convinced her to skip out of school for the afternoon, the only time she’d ever dabbled in truancy. They went to see a movie, to her favorite cafe, and then on a long walk in the rare January sunshine. It was a perfect day.

Childhood Trauma: Crippling shyness, few close friends, the loss of her brother.

PHYSICAL:

Height: 5'4”

Weight: 120lbs.

Build: Slim, lithe ballet athletic, surprisingly strong.

Hair Color: dirty blonde

Usual Hair Style: a messy bun held by a velvet scrunchie or half up half down

Eye Color: Blue grey

Glasses? Contacts?: reading glasses when she gets tired or works into the night. She doesn’t wear them as often as she should.

Style of Dress/Typical Outfit(s): Oversized sweaters and mom jeans, blazers over tailored slacks when she needs to dress up more. Big ‘dark academia’ vibes as she tends to stay away from bright colors or things that would draw attention. She usually doesn’t wear particularly revealing or form fitting clothing.

Typical Style of Shoes: mostly ballet flats or boots, heels only on very special occasions.

Jewelery? Tattoos? Piercings?: She has both her ears pierced and no tattoos. She wears simple studs in her ears, a small gold cross necklace, and an apple watch with a pale pink band, other jewelry only when dressing up.

Scars: no physical ones, only emotional

Unique Mannerisms/Physical Habits: Amélie has a particular speech pattern taught by a well meaning child psychiatrist in an attempt to overcome her shyness. She constantly has a notebook and tends to write down observations as they occur to her and has an annoying habit of tapping her pen when thinking.

Athleticism: Amélie is a classically trained ballet dancer, it's something that she excels at but did not wish to pursue professionally. She still practices as almost a meditation in control and discipline and is thus surprisingly strong for her size and look.

Health Problems/Illnesses: Social anxiety and depression

INTELLECT:

Level of Education: Degree in journalism from Oxford

Languages Spoken: English and French

Level of Self-Esteem: It tanked when Mathis left as he’d always been the one to encourage her. She feels better about herself when she has a goal, something she can achieve and point to.

Gifts/Talents: Writing, ballet, making herself invisible. She also has an incredible memory from listening more than talking.

Mathematical?: Not particularly but she was tenacious enough to work at it in school.

Makes Decisions Based Mostly On Emotions, or On Logic?: She likes to think its logic, but recently her choices have been much more emotionally influenced although she will find a way to logic through them.

Life Philosophy: Anything can be done if you have enough dedication.

Religious Stance: Catholic, it is something she clings to out of habit mostly

Cautious or Daring?: Hella fucking cautious, but once committed to something she will do whatever it takes but always plans things through

Most Sensitive About/Vulnerable To: The mortifying ordeal of being perceived, her brother

Optimist or Pessimist?: Pessimist but stubborn and committed to changing what she can.

Extrovert or Introvert?: Introvert

RELATIONSHIPS:

Current Relationship Status: a very single and shy pringle

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual, she hasn’t particularly had the chance to explore this but her very secret crushes are more often on women than men.

Past Relationships: Only unrequited crushes

Primary Reason For Being Broken Up With: n/a

Primary Reasons For Breaking Up With People: n/a

Ever Cheated?: one would have to be in a relationship in order to cheat, so no.

Been Cheated On: see above

Level of Sexual Experience: Amélie is very inexperienced, soft baby

Story of First Kiss: Her name was Charlotte and she was in Amélie’s ballet class. She seemed to take Amélie’s shyness as a challenge and persisted until she opened up. They were sixteen, walking home after class and caught in a sudden downpour. Charlotte pulled Amélie into a doorway for shelter, both laughing over the surprise. Charlotte kissed her, and then ran back out into the rain.

Story of Loss of Virginity: She was visiting her brother at university and he was one of Mathis’s friends. It was also her first time drinking, but he was kind and made her laugh.

A Social Person?: HECK NO, only when forced and usually only around her brother. She forces herself to be more social in order to effectively do her job.

Most Comfortable Around: Hands down her brother, but she hasn’t seen him in years. She is growing more comfortable around Felicity and Maria.

Oldest Friend: Mathis, obviously.

How Does She Think Others Perceive Her?: Amélie would prefer not to be perceived, thank you very much. Although she believes most people tend to overlook her or not take her very seriously. She thinks they look down on her for her shyness and the measured way she sometimes speaks.

How Do Others Actually Perceive Her?: When they do notice her, they tend to think she’s reserved or perhaps if they are being less kind, think she is aloof and stuck up. Those who know her well see her as tenacious and almost obsessive.

SECRETS:

Life Goals: To get her brother back and expose the mob for what they really are, saving the city and the nation from their violence.

Dreams: Amélie wants to no longer be so afraid and to maybe be happy. To publish a bestselling novel and live by the sea with the love of her life, some tiny village where she feels comfortable and happy.

Greatest Fears: Being perceived, losing her brother for good

Most Ashamed Of: her shyness, how she didn’t realize what was happening with Mathis sooner and didn’t do enough to stop him.

Secret Hobbies: Amélie likes to write little stories about strangers she sees on the underground or in a cafe, little one page fantasies in her journal (its not as creepy as it sounds i promise)

Crimes Committed (Was she caught? Charged?): None.

DETAILS/QUIRKS:

Night Owl or Early Bird?: night owl

Light or Heavy Sleeper?: light sleeper.

Favorite Animal: owls

Favorite Foods: chocolate ice cream, her mother’s green beans

Least Favorite Food: anything too greasy

Favorite Book: the house of the spirits by isabel allende

Least Favorite Book: she doesn’t have one really

Favorite Movie: Casablanca

Least Favorite Movie: trashy rom-coms

Coffee or Tea?: coffee

Crunchy or Smooth Peanut Butter?: smooth

Type of Car She Drives: Amélie does not drive!

Lefty or Righty?: righty

Favorite Color: pale green

Cusser?: nope!

Smoker? Drinker? Drug User?: no smoking or drug use, she doesn’t drink often, maybe a glass of wine at dinner on occasion.

Biggest Regret: Not being there for her brother like he was always there for her, not chasing after Charlotte after her first kiss

Pets: a cat named Edgar Allen Poe, called Poe who is very grumpy

#a copycat killer with a chemical cut | character dev

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