✩｡:*•. ~ The Selection - A Roleplay ~ .•*:｡✩ discussion
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{ interview }
(view spoiler)[so begins Lennon's crush on Titus lmao
The fifth group is called in and Lennon sits in between Tzuyu and Chiara, adjusting her dress as she does so. She glanced around nervously for a moment before her gaze settled on the reporter. She remarked internally that he was cute before he started shooting questions at them. He asked for their name first.
"I'm Lennon Bennett." she replies, already reeling from the speed of everyone's responses.
"How old are you?" the reporter -- Titus, she learned -- asks. "Nineteen," she answers when the order rolls around to her. This was all moving a bit quick for her. She slowly begins to pick at the skin surrounding the nail on her thumb to keep herself calm. What I wouldn't do for some coffee right now.
When asked about their province, Lennon was ready with her answer as she had anticipated the question. She hoped Titus would start asking real questions soon...she didn't think he seemed the type to be so bland. These questions were surely just formalities for the public. "I'm from Kent." Lennon answers when it was her turn, flashing a small smile at Titus, then the cameras, to hopefully give the impression she wasn't as boring as her home province. Kent...the old Midwest. Endless, rolling fields of corn and beans that seemed to be brown longer than they were green. Her heart longed to live somewhere where nature was always lush and scenic and the architecture was stunning, instead of merely practical.
"How did it feel when your name was called on the broadcast?" Titus asks, looking up from his notes. Lennon noticed he looked exhausted. She wanted to offer him sympathy but she found it inappropriate for the time being. There was a variety of answers. Some, Lennon could tell, were just being modest and polite. She remembered the conversation on the plane and recalls very few of them were truly excited to be there.
"I was excited," Lennon starts, choosing her next words cautiously. "If I'm completely honest, I was more excited at the thought of the library than the prospect of the prince, but I'm still eager to meet His Highness." she answers, a soft chuckle escaping as she responds. Great. Now she sounded selfish. What idiot would admit she was more excited for books than a prince? She bites her lips, already imagining the retaliation of her words. Plenty of girls in Kent would probably protest and say they were more deserving of her position seeing as she was more eager to explore libraries.
Brushing off her thoughts, she listens for Titus' next question. "How are you feeling about the upcoming events in the selection?" Interesting question. If she were to be honest (again) she would say she couldn't care less about the actual Selection -- she was able to read and work on her novel in various luxurious environments for the foreseeable future.
But, alas, she found a better answer when it was her turn to answer. "I'm...I'm actually not sure. I'm definitely not used to having all eyes on me, so nervous, I guess. But I'm also excited. Everything here is so lovely -- I look forward to seeing what the palace has in store for us." Hopefully it's plenty of downtime. She had answered with a regal sort of confidence, but it felt wrong. She hadn't lied -- but she certainly hadn't told the full truth.
"What do your parents do for work?" Yikes, personal.
"Well, my mother is a delivery nurse. She loves kids...probably why she had five," Lennon replies with a soft giggle. "And my father is an English professor. He instilled a love for literature in me. I was the only kid who was ever truly receptive to his antics." She finishes, fondly remembering her father taking her to the library or reading to her in the evenings. She could recall her siblings playing House or something in the background with their menagerie of dolls and stuffed animals while she sat cuddled in her father's arms as he read something she couldn't understand aloud to her. Perhaps she should thank him for her extensive vocabulary.
Titus concludes the interview by asking about pets. Finally, Lennon felt flustered. She had to tell the whole country that she was an absolute freak...
"This is a little embarrassing," she starts, casting her eyes to the floor. "When I was young, I was playing in the woods when I found a baby barn owl that had been dropped from the nest. No matter how high I climbed those trees, I couldn't reach high enough to return it, so I took it home to nurse it to health. He ended up sticking around for whatever reason, so I named him Petruchio and trained him to be rodent control for us." she tells Titus, or the audience, more like. "He basically just acts like a flying barn cat." she adds quietly. She was finished now, but she was sure everyone now thought she was the village freak, and reputation matters in the Selection. Maybe she wouldn't be here as long as she hoped.
They all stood to leave. Lennon noticed the lights lessened as the cameras were temporarily turned off. Titus rose with them, shaking their hands and murmuring some sort of "well done" to each. When he reached Lennon, she (almost eagerly) accepted his hand and shook it in a professional manner. He told her she had done well during her interview, and a blush rose to her cheeks. He promptly moved onto the next girl, and Lennon slipped her hand from his, her fingers trailing from his palm a little slower than she should have allowed.
It was all very wrong. Surely she didn't have a crush on this man who had to be nearly ten years older than she was...she was here for the prince. The prince, not the...shockingly cute reporter with striking blue eyes...
The prince. (hide spoiler)]
{ description of lennon's book }
(view spoiler)[wasn't anticipating to do research for a novel but im bored :)
Lennon's novel is a historical fiction novel taking place in the end of the 19th century in Russia. Nikolai Shishkin had just formed the first Romani (gypsy) theatre troupe. The main character, Nataléya, is a young girl who performs with this group. Throughout the novel, Nataléya struggles with mental health while performing for years -- eighteen years, to be exact. She battles the haunts of various love affairs, anxiety, depression, thoughts of d3ath, etc. Readers also start to see early symptoms of paranoia before the group is retired in 1892 when Shishkin developed a new operetta. The novel also explores the wonderful tragedies of love and the human condition in the midst of Nataléya's mental battles.
It dives into the history of gypsies, gypsy culture, Russia, the Romen theatre, mistreatment of women, and the art of performing while forming complex and relatable characters. ( + unrequited love omgosh )
Seeing as Lennon is also well-practiced in poetry, her writing style is nothing short of gorgeous and articulate. Her first draft might as well be her final draft. She takes inspiration from the theatrics of Shakespeare while tying in some of the articulate, disturbing elements of authors like Vladimir Nabokov and Sayaka Murata.
Title: Listen If You Wish
(hide spoiler)]
{ book characters }
(view spoiler)[
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓫𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓬☽
+ name
└ nataléya andreev
+ age
└ starts at 18, ends at 36
+ gender
└ female
+ sexuality
└ heterosexual
+ occupation
└ performer in the sokolovsky gypsy choir
+ location
└ late 19th century Russia
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓪𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓮☽
+ appearance image
└ (view spoiler)[
(hide spoiler)]
+ appearance description
└ nataléya has olive skin, curly mousy brown hair, and light green eyes. she is built like a dancer -- short, muscular, flexible, and elegant.
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+ personality + history description
└ mc, starts with her as a young adult (18)
+ basically groomed by 29 year old Nikolai into joining his operetta after seeing her talent
+ she saw the grooming as affection and developed feelings for Nikolai that remain throughout the novel, contributing to poor mental health. ( she is with several other men to get over him, but to no avail. Nikolai just continues his charming, teasing antics to encourage her to stay with the sokolovsky gypsy choir. )
+ as she ages, her struggles with mental health become more and more evident. she shows signs of anxiety, depression, and paranoia, all which lead to much more damaging thoughts and habits.
+ she basically lives in misery but convinces herself to stay because of her love for Nikolai and performing.
+ when Nikolai develops a new operetta in 1892, she forces herself to retire and finally move past her eighteen year venture of unrequited love.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓫𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓬☽
+ name
└ nikolai shishkin
+ age
└ starts at 29, ends at 47
+ gender
└ male
+ sexuality
└ heterosexual
+ occupation
└ singer, guitarist, and leader of the sokolovsky gypsy choir
+ location
└ late 19th century Russia
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓪𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓮☽
+ appearance image
└ (view spoiler)[
(hide spoiler)]
+ appearance description
└ im lazy so its just young cillian murphy
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓭𝓮𝓼𝓬𝓻𝓲𝓹𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷☽
+ personality + history description
└ icky perv of a man
+ desperately wanted to be famous, so he sought out young "exotic" people with extraordinary talent, like Nataléya.
+ he groomed a handful of young girls into joining his operetta. ( he's charming, but icky )
+ he held onto his dream of fame for years and soaked up every moment in the spotlight
+ after eighteen years, he's almost fifty, but still pursues his dream like he was a young man. He starts up a new operetta of fresh, young faces to start his dream over, leaving his old operetta to either flourish or crumble in his absence. (hide spoiler)]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓵𝓮𝓽𝓽𝓮𝓻 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
(view spoiler)[
Dust swirled in a day old cup of earl grey tea. The small vintage cup sat perched on a coaster that didn't match the delicate porcelain china. It had been slid to the edge of the old-beaten desk, long forgotten.
Lennon sat staring at the parchment, her eyes fixed on the royal signet at the top. Ink from her fountain pen stained her fingertips as she twisted it in her hands.
It would be such a fantastic opportunity. To meet the prince, live in the palace...it couldn't be that bad.
Lennon leans forward, adjusting her hand so her pen hovers above the line for her name.
❝ 𝘓𝘦𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘯 𝘐𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘦 𝘉𝘦𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘵 ❞ she writes carefully. She sighs before filling in her age and province.
Am I really doing this?
She looks up at the papers stacked neatly on her desk. She had spent the past six months tucked away in the attic working tirelessly at a desk that desperately needed to be stained again. Her novel had been making such magnificent progress. Was it worth pausing?
Lennon bursts up from her seat to pace the dark attic. Illuminated by only the two skylights on the ceiling, she scans her large collection of books that had been tucked away into mismatched shelves that had been shoved into storage over the years. Her fingers traced the worn covers of Shakespeare, Austin, Nabokov, and other classics among many contemporary fiction novels. The palace would surely have a massive library. She wouldn't miss these books at all.
And maybe she could work while she was at the palace? She wasn't guaranteed an opportunity to fall in love with the prince. Maybe it would be nice to work in a new environment. (Perhaps an environment that didn't clog her sinuses!)
She returns to her squeaky desk chair and uncaps her pen.
"𝔏𝔦𝔰𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰 ~ " the next prompt asks.
❝ 𝘞𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘰... ❞ she writes. She places the end of her pen in the corner of her mouth, thinking of any other talents. ❝ 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘓𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯, 𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨... ❞
Oh my gosh, I'm so boring! No one cares that I can read Latin.
Lennon was half-tempted to scribble out her response, but left it. What were the chances she would be selected anyway? She lets the ink dry before folding the letter and retired for the evening.
She blows out the candle sitting on her desk, collects her day-old tea, and smiles at the skylight as Petruchio flies over the house as he leaves for an evening hunt.
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Lennon returns to her attic the next morning, this time with a fresh mug of coffee and the morning paper. The letter still sat neatly folded in the center of the desk next to her mahogany pen.
"Now or never, Lennie," she mumbles into the empty room. Her voice sounded bland and flat as it bounced off the corners of the room and dwindled away. Horrible acoustics.
She sits at her desk and flicks open the Illea Report. She lazily reads paragraphs about drama amongst the royal family regarding the Selection, foreign affairs, politics, state of the economy, what have you. She definitely admired the writing style. Very few people could take data about a crash in the stock market and make it sound somewhat interesting.
A knock sounded from the door and Lennon's brother, Apollo, steps through the door, still in his pajamas. He strides up to where she was sitting and perches on the edge of her desk.
"Lennie," he begins but Lennon slurps loudly on her coffee to interrupt. She knew exactly why he was there...to talk her out of filling out the letter. Someone needed to be the babysitter while her parents were at work. If she left, it would leave poor, helpless Apollo to watch over her younger siblings.
"Please don't do it, Lennon. You know I can't just uproot my career, and -"
"Except you can! You're an artist! Bring your supplies back to the house, and boom, there you go." Lennon spats, appalled that he would dare to even ask her such a thing. "If I want to put my name in, I will. I refuse to be tied down to this house for the rest of my life because you and Gideon decided to grow up and abandon us."
They hadn't really abandoned them...they just went off and got married...really young. Apollo was only a year older than she was and had just been married.
"I won't pass up my chance to make it just because our parents see me as a live-in nanny." she mutters into her mug. She picks up her pen and pops the cap off with her thumb. "It's too late to stop me anyhow," she remarks and scribbles away. "I've already finished my application."
She finishes filling out the section about her career and family careers, slightly reluctant to say her brothers were film makers and artists, but she worded it to make them seem respectable. They were still on the come up, just like she was. They all had their own little projects that they flourished in...all she needed was a little recognition.
The Selection may offer an opportunity for Lennon to promote her novel. It may make for an interesting advertisement -- Once a Selected, now a Best-Selling Author.
Lennon pours a small amount of glistening dark red wax on the envelope, before sealing it with her personal emblem -- a soaring barn owl with her initials curled elegantly into the design. It was the fanciest thing she owned...perfect for sending an application to the palace. (hide spoiler)]
i'm making a list of perfumes for my selected because i'm a fragrance obsessed weirdo but at least you know i smell good
(view spoiler)[
+ everyday
└ memoirs of a trespasser (imaginary authors) - madagascar vanilla, guiacawood, myrrh, ambrette seeds, oak
+ going on dates
└ vanilla 28 (kayali) - orchid, jasmine, brown sugar, tonka bean, amber
+ special occasions
└ love don't be shy (kilian) - neroli, pink pepper, orange blossom, fluffy marshmallow, vanilla, caramel, musk (hide spoiler)]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓷𝓸𝓷 𝓲𝓻𝓮𝓷𝓮 𝓫𝓮𝓷𝓷𝓮𝓽𝓽 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓫𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓬☽
+ name
└ lennon irene bennett
+ nickname
└ lennie (family + significant others)
+ age
└ 19
+ gender
└ female
+ sexuality
└ heterosexual
+ occupation
└
english lit studentselected+ location
└ kent
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓪𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓮☽
+ appearance image
└ (view spoiler)[
+ appearance description
└ lennon has dark, shaggy hair, large brown eyes, and fair skin. she has freckles all over her body, mostly on her face. she is relatively thin, but doesn't have much muscle. she wears thin, round glasses whenever she reads or writes.
+ voice claim
└ keira knightley
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓼𝓸𝓷𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓽𝔂☽
+ personality description
└ lennon is very intelligent, independent, witty, and bold. she isn't afraid to speak her mind and won't hesitate to let someone know how she feels about them. however, she knows the appropriate moments to speak boldly, and normally tends to be more quiet and reserved. she isn't very good at making friends, but she has a friendly nature. she is very loyal and has a huge soft spot for those she loves, especially her family.
+ likes
└ reading, being outside, writing, watching movies, listening to vinyls, baking, coffee, pastries, dancing, her family, watercolor painting, playing cello, going on long walks or runs
+ dislikes
└ being interrupted while reading or writing, being forced into social situations, stains, being the center of attention
+ habits and nervous ticks
└ she picks at the skin around her nails whenever shes uncomfortable
+ fears and phobias
└ ommetaphobia (fear of going blind), thanatophobia (fear of losing a loved one)
+ wishes and desires
└ be a successful published author
+ strengths
└ very articulate and intelligent, creative, resilient, valiant
+ weaknesses
└ prideful, standoffish
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓻𝓮𝓵𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓹𝓼☽
+ father
└ dorian bennett, 50
+ mother
└ hestia bennett, 46
+ brothers
└ gideon bennett, 22
└ apollo bennett, 20
└ quentin bennett, 10
+ sister
└ iris bennett, 6
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓱𝓲𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂☽
lennon grew up in kent alongside her parents and several siblings. her father was a professor at a well known college, and her mother was a delivery nurse. they lived comfortably with a lifestyle similar to threes before castes were abolished.
lennon, being the middle of five children, was used to being talked over and forgotten. her father had kindled a love of reading in her early on, so she was usually found tucked away in a quiet corner with a book hoping to escape the chaos of her household. she was also known to venture into the woods to do watercolor paintings in hopes to avoid the volume of her siblings for an hour or two. despite all of this, she loves her family more than life itself and would give anything to see them happy.
as lennon grew older, her two older brothers moved out and she was forced to act as the eldest sibling. she stopped venturing into the woods as much. she began acting more like a mother as her own mother aged. all of her childhood whimsy was forced out of her as she was pressured to start a career and start helping out more around the house. to escape her undesirable reality, lennon began writing a historical fiction novel. she found the tedious amounts of research and character building enjoyable.
when her letter for the selection came, she was more than happy to fill it out. on the off chance she made it in, it was an honorable excuse to dodge all of her work as a stand-in parent and work on her novel in a new, glamorous environment. and the prince was handsome enough for her, so she submitted her form and waited.
when her name was called, she was nothing short of giddy. she was less excited about the prince than the idea of glamorous libraries and gardens. regardless, it was impossible to pass up, so she gladly accepted her invitation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☾𝓸𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓻☽
+ tamed a baby barn owl when she was young; petruchio (now it acts as a barn cat for the family)
+ maid one
└ name: genevieve meadows
appearance: (view spoiler)[
(hide spoiler)]
basic personality: sweetest human you will ever meet, very trustworthy and responsible, creative, always has a smile on her face
+ maid two
└ name: clayre hamilton
appearance: (view spoiler)[
(hide spoiler)]
basic personality: really shy and quiet, very gentle, very soft speaker, good at making random things, always smells like florals
+ maid three
└ name: aeyoung mai
appearance: (view spoiler)[
(hide spoiler)]
basic personality: of the three, the most bold. likes to gossip, very loyal, happy, very chatty
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