Monsterhearts: Prairie Rock: AJ

Avira 'AJ' Jain, the Ghost

Stats:

Hot -1, Cold +2, Volatile -1, Dark +1

Strings:

One string on Sam One string on Ash One string on Khader

Moves:

Unresolved Trauma: Whenever something brings to mind your death, you choke up and gain the Condition traumatised if you don’t have it already. Whenever someone helps you resolve this Condition, you both mark experience.

Projected Blame: While you’ve got the Condition traumatised, you may act as though others had the Condition at fault for my death.

Helpful Spirit: When you help someone resolve a Condition, gain a String on them.

Look:

Brooding, dull eyes
[Image]

Backstory, public knowledge:

AJ and Catherine have been best friends since anyone can remember, despite being very different. AJ has always been a hanger-on at the edges of the popular crowd, her friendship with Catherine protecting her from the worst of the bullying that she'd otherwise be facing as a textbook outcast - she's bookish, she looks different, she eats unusual food, she goes to a temple in another city instead of going to church.

All of that changed recently, a few months after Catherine started dating Logan. At first things seemed to be fine, the trio often eating together at lunch and hanging out after school. Nobody's quite sure what happened; rumours are varied and lurid. But something definitely went down, and the first most people knew about the aftermath was AJ turning up to school with a black eye and Logan getting suspended after AJ's mom went ballistic. The team crashed and burned from the state finals as Logan missed several games. AJ caught a lot of the blame; not everyone bought her side of the story, especially when nobody was talking about the details.

Catherine and Logan ended up closing ranks, sticking together and deciding that AJ needed to be paid back. Catherine knew how squicked out AJ was when they watched Carrie in a Halloween movie marathon, and decided on something similar. Logan got his sister to ask AJ to the end-of-year party at the old auto factory, and she was too flustered to see through the deception. Half the basketball team and in-crowd cornered her and yelled names at her, and then Catherine dumped a bucket of cow's blood over her. A bunch of people saw this, and pretty much everyone knows about it. AJ fled into the depths of the factory, freaking out and screaming.

Since class started up again, AJ has been isolated and resentful, an easy target for mockery and humiliation.

Backstory, not widely known:

Funnily enough, the most prevalent locker-room rumour is the real story, at least part of it; one evening after a movie night where they raided Logan's dad's drinks cabinet too heavily, a drunken threesome ensued. It was after that things got difficult. Logan was keen on getting AJ back in bed, Catherine got jealous, and AJ realised she had unrequited feelings for Catherine. Things ended in a blazing row, and in among all the hurt feelings and rejection, AJ told Catherine how she felt about her, and Logan decked her for it.

Of course, the bigger thing that people don't know about is that AJ didn't survive the prank. Stumbling around the factory at night, terrified out of her wits and half-covered in blood, she slipped and went over a railing. Nobody came after her to help, and her body was never found. She's still not sure how she made it home that night, let alone why she's still here at all. She's more or less solid, but cold to the touch. She doesn't eat or breathe or sleep.

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