(no subject)
Player name: Gels
Journal: drdaytimetelly
AIM: gelsqkazoo
Email: PM to drdaytimetelly
Other characters: Dr. John H. Watson
Character name: Angelica Fanshawe
Age: 22
Canon: The Devil's Whore
Canon point: Angelica's taken from the second episode of the series, right after visiting John and Elizabeth Lilburne in prison and being charged with bringing Honest John's new pamphlet to Thomas Rainsborough. She stops along the road to Oxfordshire and falls asleep (and the Levellers never get their pamphlets, buahahaha).
Totem: Angelica's totem is a skeleton key she wears on a long chain around her neck. During a fissure the ornate decorations on the key's bow will disappear.
Weapons: Two flintlock pistols, gunpowder and shot included, and a long dinner knife.
Abilities/powers: Occasionally Angelica sees the devil, though it's less of an awesome superpower and more of a manifestation of some crazy-intense Godly guilt.
Location: An area of land outside of Fanshawe House, a 17th century estate in Oxfordshire. The land slopes and forms a small hill: at the top is an ominous-looking dead tree, at the bottom is a small graveyard with a stone wall and gate that serves as an entrance. A few healthy trees dot the small piece of land, as do a few bushes and thistle patches, but the grass has a sickly brownish-green colour from where its been trampled down by horses and carts.
Personality:
Angelica Fanshawe is a fish out of water. By 17th century standards she's an odd woman: outspoken and opinionated, far, far too involved in 'manly pursuits' like politics and religion, independent and without the need for a husband, and just a bit too sexually liberated for anybody's comfort.
Angelica possesses a rebellious streak that earned her a reputation amongst her fellow aristocrats. Though raised in the Court of King Charles (even considering the king to be like a second father to her), Angelica never really fit in with the wealthy elite. Because she had acted out as a child, Angelica is branded as being mentally unwell, hopelessly flirtatious, and in dire need of being broken by a man. Though desperate to please the King and her husband, both having reprimanded her for not being obedient enough, Angelica is never able to 'fall in line' and become a subservient wife.
She's unhappy with the world, restless and displeased with the inequality she witnesses, and often directly at odds with society's expectations of her. Angelica is fiercely independent and intelligent enough to know when she's been slighted, but at times she questions her own unhappiness with the world. It's almost as though she sees her inability to fit in, to be happy with being seen and not heard, as a personal defect. She fights with herself about what's wrong and right and often questions God (something which you didn't do in the 17th century), and occasionally this quarrel manifests itself as a vision of the devil.
Usually, however, Angelica is confident enough in her actions to act without dwelling on the consequences. At risk of sounding crass - for being a dignified lady, Angelica's got a huge set of balls. She doesn't like to take no for an answer, and once she sets out to do something she lets very little get in her way of achieving this goal. This stubbornness has gotten her into trouble, especially when she refuses to admit defeat.
Angelica also can be just a little bit naive and foolish. Though a hundred times more innocent and naive in her youth - she was almost completely ignorant of the world outside the Court of King Charles I when she was a girl - Angelica's naivety occasionally shows itself when she commits herself to a cause, especially when she jumps in without doing the proper research. When she's dedicated it can be difficult for her to see outside the cause, and at times Angelica just plain refuses to see what's in front of her.
Despite everything - visions of the devil, the war, the execution of her husband - Angelica usually remains optimistic. She truly believes in hope and joy, and through all the heartbreak she knows that there is still something worthwhile out there for her. Though she is realistic enough to fall into despair every once in a while (being plagued by misfortune and tragedy as continuously as she does), it's not often that she gives into the nay-sayers and lets herself give up on something. When she does fall she's always quick to pick herself back up, and eventually this hopeful attitude manages even to convince the show's cynical bastard, Edward Sexby, to have a little hope.
Though serious and driven, Angelica is a friendly person - silly, playful, and imaginative. She doesn't discriminate with the people she chooses to befriend, though unfortunately this has gotten her into a bit of trouble, as indiscriminate friendships ultimately lead to a handful of false friends mixed in with the true ones. Angelica is also exceedingly kind and compassionate - it's this bleeding heart that leads to her to champion certain causes and find forgiveness and sympathy for those who have wronged her. She abhors violence and killing, and seems just as battle-weary as any hardened soldier.
Perhaps the most radical aspect of Angelica's personality, especially for the 17th century, is her attitude towards love and sex. She's a bit of a flirt; she knows how to use her charms and wit to win men over, though less so when actually romantically attached to someone. Angelica rather unapologetically enjoys sex and tends to blur gender roles in her relationships - much to the chagrin of her first husband. She aspires to find an equal and a friend in a lover - a partner, someone to share her passions and conspire with, and who won't try to silence her when she speaks. ...or when they're in bed together.
History:
Angelica was born in 1625 to the Fanshawes, a prominent Royalist family. Prominent enough so that when Angelica’s dear Papist mother decided that her true calling in life was to join a convent in France and leave her family behind, Angelica was able to spend much of her time in the Court of King Charles I, becoming close with the royal family. After her father passed away a few short years after her mother's departure, Angelica was left with only one blood relative, Harry Fanshawe, her closest friend and first cousin, and her father's heir.
At the age of seventeen Angelica married Harry, for love and not for money, or so she described the match. It was in the moments before her wedding when she was approached by Elizabeth Lilburne, whose husband was being publicly whipped in the streets for publishing and preaching seditious material, and was begged to ask the queen a favour and save John Lilburne from prison. Though Angelica could not save the man then, it was the beginning of a very long relationship with the infamous Lilburnes. Also at the time of her marriage to Harry that her path crossed with Edward Sexby, who became a servant to the Fanshawes for a brief period. She travelled with the aid of Sexby to Newgate Prison to see Lilburne, and it is then that she is properly introduced into the brewing conflict between the crown and its dissenters.
Though she remained loyal to Harry, and considered him still very much still her close friend, eventually the couple grew apart because of his suspicions about her purity and his growing disdain for her lack of obedient aloofness. As war became imminent and the opposing armies marched, her husband struck their servant Sexby down on the battlefield for changing sides and fighting with Cromwell’s Army. Angelica later puts her husband’s life in jeopardy by disobeying him and then later surrendering the Fanshawe estate to the marching Roundhead army - resulting in his execution by firing squad, ordered by King Charles himself, and her dismissal from the favours of the court.
During her more desperate months without her husband or the graces of Charles I and his court, she wandered the streets and made a foolish decision to take up the offer of food and shelter from a wandering officer named Chimney. After accidentally running Master Chimney through in order to stop his sexual advances, she stole his clothes and money and fled into the woods, eventually running into Sexby once more and saving him from a roving band of vagrants. They eventually crossed paths with Master Joliffe, the companion of the officer she killed earlier, and after witnessing Sexby dispatch his friends and taking what money he had off of him, Angelica convinced Sexby to let Joliffe go - even though this act of mercy would plague her for the rest of her life.
After this brief interlude in the woods, Angelica returned to Newgate prison with Sexby in order to deliver the money stolen from Chimney and Joliffe to John Lilburne. At Lilburne and his wife’s request, she smuggled out a pamphlet to be printed for Lilburne, but in the ensuing chaos of leaving the prison without being searched was parted from Sexby once again. Her next venture was to carry her back to her home, Fanshawe House, which had been taken over by Parliamentary forces led by the Leveller, Thomas Rainsborough.
3rd person sample: SECOND APP, YO. >:D
1st person sample:
God help me, the words. The words are ruined; Honest John's words, blotted and smudged and ruined by salt water. They are gone; I cannot read them, they are no more. Lost, lost, lost. Oh God in Heaven, his cause is lost and it is all my fault.
How did the tide wash over me as I slept? I was in Oxfordshire! Was my direction so poor that I rode right into the sea?
But the city, oh, this strange version of Hell. Have I found Gomorrah? It crumbles, but it is so empty that the sound of the mortar as it strikes the ground echoes throughout the streets. What have I done to deserve isolation?
God, have you abandoned me? Am I truly alone? If I am not alone please speak, so that I may know that I have not gone mad.