DRYH: Mortal Coils - Jackie
High Concept[edit]
MY NAME IS . . . Jackie Tindall
AND I AM . . . a punky-gothy teenaged rocker girl who's tired of everything being so fucked-up.
Five Questions[edit]
WHAT'S BEEN KEEPING YOU AWAKE? When I was little, I started sneaking into the kitchen at night to steal a few coffee beans at a time, and chew on them, so I could stay awake till Dad came home from work (or that's what he told me and her mom). He'd come in and kiss me goodnight, and while I never let on to him that I'd waited up for him, this was something that, deep down, I guess I needed from him. Now, years later, I get massive headaches if I don't drink five cups a day and chew chocolate-covered coffee beans in the stretches between cups of coffee... though now that mom's figured out dad wasn't always at work after all, my parents' nightly bickering does its share of keeping me awake at night.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO YOU? I was playing my bass when suddenly the amp cut out. Or I thought it did. But the power light was on. I fiddled with it, switching it on and off, and when that didn't help, I went out into the living room, expecting to find my parents giving each other the silent treatment... but found myself in a strange house I'd never seen before. I hurried outside, only then realizing that I couldn't hear any of the normal sounds of the city—no cars, no music from the Wilkinson's place, no dogs barking, no leaves rustling. The only sounds I could hear were the noises inside my own body, my heart beating, the blood flowing, the crackling static of my own nervous system.
Then those sounds were snuffed out, too, as the sky grew dark and the air icy cold. Silence—nothingness—welling up from deep inside me, somehow hungry and insatiable and irresistible. It was a silence filled with only emptiness, terrifying numbness, and the stillness of death. Terrified, I fled back indoors, fighting to whisper something, or moan, or make some noise. Passing through the front door of the strange, lopsided house I'd left, I found myself once more in my own room. Then I realized I could hear the faint hum of the amplifier from my discarded headphones, and some neighbor's lawnmower droning outside, and my parents shouting at one another.
WHAT'S ON THE SURFACE? She's all spikes and nettles on the surface: outspoken, unwilling to take anyone's shit, and to a lot of the kids and even some of the teachers at school, she's downright scary. Even with those she likes, she can be sharp and snarky.
WHAT LIES BENEATH? A yawning chasm within her filled with anxiety and worry that everything that's gone wrong in her life has done so because of her... that she took the wrong path at some point many years ago and has screwed up everything since, and maybe she should have shut up and gone along with everyone's bullshit and everything would've been fine instead of... well, the way it is.
WHAT IS YOUR PATH? Beyond all the regular growing-up stuff Jackie needs to do, deeper down, she mostly needs to mourn her failed family, and accept that it's going to come apart sooner or later... and then, so that she can move on, she needs to learn how to build a new family for herself, to learn again to let people get close to her, and once she does that, to learn to really trust them, even if they aren't perfect and even if they might hurt or disappoint her sometimes.
Sixth Question[edit]
WHAT NIGHTMARE DOGS YOUR STEPS? The Quiet. It lurks in the pauses in conversations, in the wordless looks people give one another, in the silences between songs on the radio. Sometimes, people begin whispering without realizing it... that's one of the many signals that the Quiet is present. They go silent, and then the Quiet has them... and while Jackie isn't sure, she suspects that the Quiet devours what's inside people who fall prey to it, and then regurgitates something else—something unnatural—into the empty vessel of their minds.
Responses[edit]
- TOTAL FLIGHT RESPONSES [1]
- TOTAL FIGHT RESPONSES [2]
Talents[edit]
EXHAUSTION TALENT Jackie's the auditory equivalent of a supertaster: she can hear things nobody else can, can sense the telltale quavers in someone's voice when they're lying or covering something up, can hear a pin drop from an astonishing distance, and can even sort of navigate blind using sound.
MADNESS TALENT When she sings or screams, her voice can shatter glass and make people cover their their ears in pain.
A little more, and her voice can warp metal, blast holes in walls, and send trucks and trailers flying through the air.
A little more, and she can blast people's minds blank, hypnotizing them so that they act out what she sings about...
