tlv app

[gulling]

User Name/Nick: Bee
Plurk: gothbarbies
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Ilde erbier

Character Name: Katie Slape
Series: Katie by Michael McDowell
Age: 18
From When?: The end of the book, where she dies.

Inmate Justification: The Slapes are not-not the Bloody Benders. Thieves, frauds, and serial murderers. While money is a necessity... they early on acquire more than they would ever need in the late 1800s for their lifestyle. Killing really is just because it amuses Katie to do so. She has no regard for life, shown early in a prologue when she is a child, and reinforced all the way until she finally dies.

Arrival: She'd be happy to come :)

Abilities/Powers:

KATIE JEPSON - Best clairvoyant on love, health, lawsuits, absent friends, marriage, divorce, contested wills, contracts, patent rights, lost property, partnership, journeys and business affairs Miss Katie challenges the world: gives names; readings from cradle to the grave. Ladies 25¢ and 50¢. Gents 50¢. From hair $1. One flight up, №. 251 Christopher St.

Katie is psychic/clairvoyant. She just 'knows' and 'sees' things. She seems to require a person or a related item to focus her visions. Her best visions come from physical contact with someone. Revelations have also been known to come to her in symbolic dreams.

Some future events she can describe directly: who you will marry, how many children, etc. A lot of the information mentioned in her advertisements are part of the present, no future-looking required: where someone is, how much money they have, etc. In these straightforward instances, she keeps her consciousness and goes about her business.

Sometimes, she goes into a trance where she is speaking without her own awareness. These predictions are much more cryptic and imprecise, but also certain to come true. This seems to happen around monumentous moments in fate. For example, her intertwined fate with Philomela and her own death.

She does not directly 'read minds' like a telepath. But she will get context off someone that will make her clairvoyance more precise.

She pretends to do things like reading coffee grounds or palmistry for the theater of it, but she's faking. She will also give fake fortunes if she feels like it. Because she can.

Inmate Information:

CRIMES. She's murdered many women and children. Also animals. She's a thief, she's a fraud when it suits her. She's violent, she's cruel.

QUICK BACKGROUND. Katie comes from poverty in the 1870s. She and her parents are mainly uneducated and unskilled. They only know how to do things the way they know how to do things. Which turns out to be lying, thieving, and killing. They come into a large amount of money through one of their cruel schemes, but their only real goal is to go to the theater regularly. Their big cruel scheme entwines them with the life of Philomela Drax, who they are now legally related to through Hannah's marriage to Philo's uncle. Katie has a very toxic Gemini-like relationship with Philo, obsessed with but also loathing her 'cousin' and taking some pleasure in ruining her things. Katie and Philo are opposites, each contributing to a shared fate that Philo eventually escapes with Katie's death.

PERSONALITY. Katie Slape is myopic. She can't see anything beyond her own concerns and desires. While she may be able to see the intimate details of other people's lives, this doesn't make her thoughtful or empathetic. She instead sees this knowledge as something to hold over others to make them frightened or awed by her. She prefers fear to love, and doesn't know anything about love in the first place. Her relationship with John and Hannah is not all that loving or familial. Each of the adults serves a purpose to her. Hannah is the smartest of the three, and she knows how to take care of things and get things done. John is purely muscle and whatever other advantages the two women get out of having a man around. Sometimes, Katie might express preference for John, but only in that he is more permissive in letting her kill. The affection for death seems to be a shared trait between father and daughter, although Katie is by far the one who pursues it actively.

She pursues killing because it amuses her to do so. For the same reason that she likes her abilities. She likes having power over others, she likes that little fear in their eye just before she kills them. She likes going much too far in her assault and then making the cleanup someone else's problem. People are toys to her. She doesn't recognize or care for them as other people, and never has. She both doesn't understand the way that 'normal' people do things, and isn't particularly interested. She feels very other to people and has never met someone she saw eye to eye with. She's made this work for her.

She's emotionally unintelligent as well as plainly unintelligent. Cunning is ascribed to her, in her way of getting along in the world, but she doesn't know anything that might better her situation. When the Slapes early on steal all that money, they don't even know what to spend it on because they are used to their small existences. All they really want is to go to the theater and enjoy themselves more regularly, but hardly in a way that will run down their finances. They don't aspire to be elite, just a little more comfortable than they were before. Katie talks about the future a great deal to others, but she is not terribly invested in her own beyond what was just discussed. She sees every hidden thing in others, but is very much a black hole to herself. There are no greater likes or dislikes to describe, no ambitions or aspirations, no subtle personality traits.

For Katie, violence, trickery, and intimidation are quick and easy responses to pretty much every situation. She is used to being able to disappear back into her own poverty without being caught. She's not going to be able to do that on the Barge. She is a captive audience to the consequences of her own actions. She will not like it and will double down for a while until she, plainly, runs out of energy for it. Then she might be more amenable to listening to someone about how this behavior really isn't serving her.

Path to Redemption:

Katie is raw and feral. She has never been nurtured, and it shows in how reactive, stupid, and self-centered she is.

Katie needs attention in:

• Education - If she knew more about the world, she could make decisions beyond just "violence".
  
• Psychic abilities - She doesn't understand that she is a small fish in a big pond, she needs to learn some responsibility and etiquette. She should also learn how to protect herself.
  
• Empathy - You can get better at it if you practice!
  
• Self - Her wants are base, and she doesn't know to be content or to enjoy the thought of the future (rather than literally just using it as a weapon against other people??)

She will never be the nicest girl. But if she at least learned how to be content without the junk food diet of other people's suffering, she'd really be improved. If she learned that there are safeguards and responsibilities with her powers, she'd be improved.

Her warden does not necessarily need to be her coach in all of her educational needs, but they do need to be interested and invested in her progress. Katie will be especially receptive to praise about her abilities. Katie prizes those abilities, currently for the wrong reasons, but prized nonetheless.

Katie can be told what to do, as long as both the directions and her benefit in them are clear. Anyone who talks too much or complicates the lesson she's supposed to be learning will be tuned out by her. Just remember that she's never learned how to learn, you gotta start like she's 5.

Katie responds to her own benefit. Make it her idea, make it to her credit, make it to her benefit. It's all positioning with her. I would also advise against getting angry or physical with her, she won't necessarily be intimidated, and it may further her resistance.

History:

"Money, you think, is the sole motive to deception
and devilry in this world. How much money
did the devil make by gulling Eve?"
Melville, The Confidence Man

Katie Slape is born in 1854 to John Slape and "Mlle Desire". John Slape is employed on the railroads during the war, and "Mlle Desire" is a ballerina. Christmas Eve of 1863, "Mlle Desire" dies onstage after drunkenly colliding with a lamp and lighting her costume on fire. Family friend, Hannah Jepson, takes up the care of both Katie and John.

This 'care' becomes the problem of the Parrock family in 1866. Hannah Jepson manages to arrange a marriage with James Parrock, who hopes that her hard nature will be of help managing the family farm. He is quite sorely disappointed. That is not at all why Hannah has come. She poisons James Parrock, then retrieves John and Katie. The family takes over the house, neglects the fields, sells the best parts of the farm, and torments old man Parrock. They leave the old man in an increasingly bare bedroom, from which he could not leave, demanding that he sign over his fortune in his will.

In 1871, Richard Parrock, under the pretense of seeing his lawyer for such a purpose, sends a distressed missive to his long-estranged daughter and his granddaughter: Mary and Philomela Drax. He begs them for their help, asking for Philomela to come out to Goshen (NJ) and disguise herself as help for hire. Philomela does so with a song in her heart and hope in her eyes! She and her mother are destitute and could desperately use that inheritance. They also care for the fate of the old man, unlike the Slapes.

Katie can easily sense that the new servant girl is not who she claims. The Slapes merely humor Philomela's sneaking about. Richard and Philo determine a plan to escape at night with a carpet bag full of money. Richard had unwisely cashed out a number of bonds and hid the money under his mattress, which he turns over to Philo. When Philo returns at night to carry her grandfather down to a wagon, she discovers the old man has been murdered. The Slapes lock her in the room with the corpse, take her carpet bag and the wagon, and leave. As no one in Goshen knows Philo to vouch for her, the family is quite certain that she will be blamed for murdering the old man. They are correct, and Philo barely manages to return to New Egypt (NJ) without arrest.

In Philadelphia (PA), the Slapes eventually read in the newspaper that Philo has escaped arrest. This raises some concern about her finding sympathetic ears for her story. John and Katie go to New Egypt (NJ) intending to kill her. However, when Katie goes to the Drax house, she only finds Mary. Whom she murders viciously and messily. She is more pleased by the agony and angst this will cause Philomela than she is with completing the task she came for.

Hannah is not pleased by this, but now that they are known and connected with several crimes in New Jersey, they decide to make their way up to New York City (NY). They first take up rooms in a house at 251 Christopher Street, but upon assessing the amount of money they have on hand... They simply buy the house and kick out all the other tenants. They want the privacy and security, considering their fortune is in cash and on the premises. Despite their large amount of cash dollars, Katie likes to run a fortune-telling business in the house. She finds this her calling and loves the reactions she gets from her customers. She also knows which customers are carrying large amounts of valuables on their person, and murders them. Her favorite weapon is a hammer. There is an in-depth discussion, where her parents try to convince her to use something that leaves less obvious marks. Katie is not to be dissuaded, she loves her hammer.

Dead visitors are at first thrown into the water, where many such bodies wash up and are often very minimally remarked upon. However, the Slapes eventually buy the building next door to their Christopher St abode and secret a passage between the two. John Slape takes dead girls down to the cellar of the adjoining building, where he buries them, sometimes alive. He cherishes his treasure trove of dead bodies.

They live this way without interruption, until Philomela Drax joins them in New York. Wanted in New Jersey for a crime she didn't commit, freshly mourning her grandfather and mother, and with a bit of money from selling off her house, Philo expects to start anew. However, one day, her friend at the boarding house brings her a "dead" letter from her job at the post. A letter addressed to Mrs. Hannah Slape at 251 Christopher Street. The letter was rejected by the Slapes, who did not want to be found, but who had been recognized at a stage play by Jepson relatives from Camden (NJ).

Philo and her friend, Ella, head to Christopher St to investigate. They see Katie's advertisement for fortunetelling at the window. They are seen by Katie herself, who has no trouble psychically peering past the veil that Philo is wearing. She invites them up and the two girls run away. However, Ella determines to dress herself up in a fresh disguise and go get her fortune read to see inside. Katie kills her and the Slapes take flight from the city. John Slape heads to Philadelphia (PA). Katie and Hannah head to Boston (MA). They intend to split up for a while and lie low while their infamy is forgotten.

In Philadelphia (PA), John Slape loses all his money gambling. Without any way to contact Hannah, he cannot get more from their stash. So he mopes around broke until a group of train robbers come looking for his skills. He was a railroad worker in the war, and they want him to pull up some track to cause an accident. They time this attack specifically for when the wealthy and elite will be returning from their summer excursions at Saratoga (NY). They enact this plan, killing and injuring most of the train so that they can steal all the valuables off the dead. John Slape is caught in the act. He is hung by the railwaymen and some local farmers, while the rest of the train robbers escape. Katie dreams of this, and knows that he is dead. Philo is also there to witness the hanging. She was on the train, and is more determined than ever to hunt down the Slapes and finish them off.

In Boston (MA), Katie is bored and demands to resume her fortune-telling business, at least for something to do. She puts an advertisement in the paper as "Miss Parrock". She is taking customers regularly and, on one terrible afternoon, a customer's dog bites Hannah. Hannah kills the dog, the customer starts screaming, Katie kills the customer, they hide the body in a sack and leave it to rot in the building's storage area. Most pressing, however, is that the dog has given Hannah rabies. She dies a horrible frothing, convulsing death and Katie just leaves her there to die. She's bored! She heads back to New York City (NY) on her own.

Philo, having caught wind of "Miss Parrock's" advertisement, arrives in Boston (MA) in time to witness Hannah's death, but misses Katie.

Katie realizes she can no longer advertise her fortune-telling in the same way without drawing notice. So she begins to offer services on the ferry to Brooklyn (NYC), where she has a captive audience. Fortune-telling has never been about the money for her, but for the chance to use her abilities to frighten and astonish.

Philo finds her there, and Katie notices her like she always does. Katie takes out a knife to finally kill this girl who has been intertwined with her life for so long. Philo punches her in the gut and takes the knife from her. So Katie makes a run for it, leaping for the dock and not quite making it. The ferry crushes her, and she dies a stupid, messy death. Her blood gets on the carpet bag and the money that she stole from Philo nine months prior.

Sample RP: TDM

Special Notes: Don't read this book if graphic violence and cruelty (including against animals) bothers you.