We're putting the Exalted game on hiatus for awhile, and ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
finch is going to be running a Phoenix After Dark game (old-school World of Darkness). This is the background for my character.
Chastity Dupont grew up in Detroit. Her father made good money working on the assembly line for GM, and her mother was a talented seamstress who mostly worked out of the house. Chastity did well in school, took lessons in ballet, tap, and modern dance, and sang in the church choir. They were happy until just after Chastity's twelfth birthday, when her father lost his job.
Under the sudden stress, the family fell apart. Her father, previously a beer-and-the-ball-game kind of drinker, started drinking more heavily, and when he drank, he got mean. Her mother's bipolar disorder flared badly once they lost their insurance and could no longer afford her regular medication, leaving her spiraling between nearly-destructive mania and crushing depression, with a side of anxiety for good measure. It was no surprise, then, that Chastity preferred the company of anyone outside her family, and frequently spent the night with a series of older boyfriends to get away from them. She spent plenty of time on the streets, where she learned how to pick locks, hotwire cars, and the basics of petty theft, but she managed to avoid getting caught because of an uncanny ability to know when to cut and run. Because of this, and because she wasn't afraid to tell other people about her "feelings," she has contacts and friends in numerous Detroit street gangs.
She wasn't home the night that her parents, both drunk, had a huge fight. They both ended up in the hospital. The police were called, and took a dim view of the altercation and the fact that neither of them could say where their daughter was. When Chastity turned up the next morning, she discovered that her parents' custody had been revoked, and after a few weeks in foster care, she was sent to live with her grandparents in Phoenix.
Her grandparents had essentially disowned her father when he he dropped out of college, and further alienated them when he married her mother, a black woman, and only took Chastity in because she was a) almost 18 and b) still family, regardless of her father's "poor" choices. They live in a 55+ neighborhood, and technically she's not supposed to be there for longer than a month. They drive her to school and pick her up every afternoon so no one sees her coming into or leaving the complex on her own, and restrict her movements greatly.
To Chastity, who's been used to deciding where and when to go, and taking care of herself, this is intensely frustrated and very lonely. While her relationships weren't as healthy as they could be, they were at least people who more or less cared about her, who she could spend time with. She had also been in the choir and on the dance team at her old school, and she transferred to Phoenix too late to try out for anything, so she feels even more frustrated and trapped. Her only creative outlet is an art class, which she enjoys, but she misses performing. She's plenty smart and does well in her classes, but she's never been "the black kid" before and is having a hard time fitting in.
She met Fr. Dylan when she was cutting class - she slipped into the library to avoid the hall monitor and he caught her, much to her surprise. He covered for her on the condition that she keep her nose clean, and she ended up spending a lot of time in the library after school - the only thing she can do that will keep her grandparents off her back. She started attending the meetings of the Supernatural Club because they took place in the library, and she thought that maybe getting involved in school activities might lead to a little more freedom at home.
finch is going to be running a Phoenix After Dark game (old-school World of Darkness). This is the background for my character.Chastity Dupont grew up in Detroit. Her father made good money working on the assembly line for GM, and her mother was a talented seamstress who mostly worked out of the house. Chastity did well in school, took lessons in ballet, tap, and modern dance, and sang in the church choir. They were happy until just after Chastity's twelfth birthday, when her father lost his job.
Under the sudden stress, the family fell apart. Her father, previously a beer-and-the-ball-game kind of drinker, started drinking more heavily, and when he drank, he got mean. Her mother's bipolar disorder flared badly once they lost their insurance and could no longer afford her regular medication, leaving her spiraling between nearly-destructive mania and crushing depression, with a side of anxiety for good measure. It was no surprise, then, that Chastity preferred the company of anyone outside her family, and frequently spent the night with a series of older boyfriends to get away from them. She spent plenty of time on the streets, where she learned how to pick locks, hotwire cars, and the basics of petty theft, but she managed to avoid getting caught because of an uncanny ability to know when to cut and run. Because of this, and because she wasn't afraid to tell other people about her "feelings," she has contacts and friends in numerous Detroit street gangs.
She wasn't home the night that her parents, both drunk, had a huge fight. They both ended up in the hospital. The police were called, and took a dim view of the altercation and the fact that neither of them could say where their daughter was. When Chastity turned up the next morning, she discovered that her parents' custody had been revoked, and after a few weeks in foster care, she was sent to live with her grandparents in Phoenix.
Her grandparents had essentially disowned her father when he he dropped out of college, and further alienated them when he married her mother, a black woman, and only took Chastity in because she was a) almost 18 and b) still family, regardless of her father's "poor" choices. They live in a 55+ neighborhood, and technically she's not supposed to be there for longer than a month. They drive her to school and pick her up every afternoon so no one sees her coming into or leaving the complex on her own, and restrict her movements greatly.
To Chastity, who's been used to deciding where and when to go, and taking care of herself, this is intensely frustrated and very lonely. While her relationships weren't as healthy as they could be, they were at least people who more or less cared about her, who she could spend time with. She had also been in the choir and on the dance team at her old school, and she transferred to Phoenix too late to try out for anything, so she feels even more frustrated and trapped. Her only creative outlet is an art class, which she enjoys, but she misses performing. She's plenty smart and does well in her classes, but she's never been "the black kid" before and is having a hard time fitting in.
She met Fr. Dylan when she was cutting class - she slipped into the library to avoid the hall monitor and he caught her, much to her surprise. He covered for her on the condition that she keep her nose clean, and she ended up spending a lot of time in the library after school - the only thing she can do that will keep her grandparents off her back. She started attending the meetings of the Supernatural Club because they took place in the library, and she thought that maybe getting involved in school activities might lead to a little more freedom at home.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-26 01:41 pm (UTC)From:So please, seriously, reconsider what you're writing here. Please.
Because from where I'm sitting, I see a cliche storm of awful racist tropes. Hurtful ones. The tragic mulatto, the abusive, dysfunctional black addict mother--really, this story's been told before, over and over and over, it's really sort of maddening that black pain and dysfunction is always held up as the only story worth telling. And, to put it bluntly, that kind of story is not your story to tell. It's not for your entertainment. And really, that's how it's coming across--another instance of a white person mining black women's pain and misery for her entertainment.
I know that's not your intent at all, and I know you're a talented writer and RPer. I know you wouldn't write something like this without giving thought to it. But I also feel like as a friend I should be honest with you when I see you doing something questionable, and in that spirit of honesty, if a white person showed up to a game I was running with a character background like that, I'd take hir aside with the same concerns. If I wasn't Storyteller and a white person brought a character like this into the game, I probably wouldn't be back for another session because I wouldn't feel comfortable with it. I don't know anything about your group. I'm not saying it would suddenly be ok if there weren't any brown faces at the table. I'm just being real with you.
This just isn't cool. And I know you're a great writer that's capable of much better than tragic mulattoes and dysfunctional, abusive black addict mothers and hoodrats that run the streets in gangs.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-26 07:04 pm (UTC)From:At least both of Chastity's parents came through her background alive, unlike poor Lotus?no subject
Date: 2011-04-26 11:29 pm (UTC)From: