TLV application
Character Name: Jane Brunswick
Series: Shades of Grey
Age: 20
From When?: Just after her Ishihara, the color spot test, when she realizes that plans have changed.
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Jane might be outspoken, violent and generally ill mannered, but she has a genuine compassion for what's "good" and "right." For those who get to know her and take the time to understand her, she's tolerable and caring...in her own way.
She doesn't seem very "nice" to people, but that's only because she likes to keep them at a distance. However, she is willing to put herself down the path of Reboot in order to stand up for what she believes. She either blatantly ignores the rules or chooses to bend them to the point of breaking and has no respect for authority. But this, of course, is all for the future she hopes she will see. Something fair and equal. She hides people, helps them, and, despite her sarcastic and unbreakable exterior, does what's right.
Item: Her compact. It contains an image of a man she calls the Herald, who always says the same thing and who makes her immune to any colors she sees for a while. When her inmate is in trouble, he'll change what he says to her.
Abilities/Powers: As far as physical abilities go, Jane is tough and able and willing to break jaws, arms and anything else sent her way. While athletic, she is limited by a normal, human, twenty year old body, though, so she's really just fueled by anger most of the time. She relies on surprise to attack, normally.
Her real abilities come with her sight. She's almost completely colorblind, but can see 12% of the yellow spectrum and 14% of the blue spectrum, which is, obviously, not very much. It's barely above the threshold, but it still makes her solidly a Green (yellow and blue mixture). The rest of the colors are lost on her almost completely, unless they are univisual (which the Barge won't have).
However, she does have another ability that others of her kind do not. Her pupils dilate at will in order to take in more light so that she can see in the dark. "Almost well enough to play tennis." This isn't something that she will reveal openly, however.
Personality:
Jane is an “in your face” revolutionary. After she discovered the truth behind her life and what they had been told for so many years, she started to hate the world she lived in. She knows that things can be different and she’s determined to make sure that they change. She’s very unwilling to let anyone get in the way of that, and so resists help whenever possible. She doesn’t trust many people and, in her world, there aren’t many to trust. Most of the people in power are so corrupt and the people who obey them are even worse in her opinion. She has a very real problem with any kind of authority, whether it’s from a Prefect or even the people in the house she’s working in.
As a Grey, she’s not afforded many luxuries and, in fact, in East Carmine, Greys are worked half to death, even when they are sick and clearly unable to do so. This is a particularly sore point for her, as she watches the people closest to her slowly fade out of existence. They work up to 100 hour weeks and it’s not until Eddie’s father, the swatchman, shows up that it changes. He allows them passes for their sicknesses and injuries where the Yellow Prefect would have wanted them demerited. Jane’s grateful to Eddie’s father for that because, while he could just ignore the problem, he does something about it. He stands up to the Yellow Prefect in defense of the Greys. To Jane, that turns him into an exception. She can trust a man who shows compassion and, in turn, doesn’t kill his son.
But Jane’s hatred isn’t just her seeing other Greys in trouble. She was bullied as a child, as well, by the daughter of the most powerful man in the village. This has helped skew her vision of other people and created the hatred and bitterness from a very young age. In essence, she doesn’t trust the Chromatics and hates them for the way that they use their power. Seeing them scrabble and fight for every small bit of perception really sickens her.
Prefects and the “overhued”, however, are not the only ones on the receiving end of her spiteful feelings. She usually has a hateful word for everyone, though still mainly those who aren’t Greys, and she doesn’t get close to anyone. She doesn’t really hold personal relationships in high regard, as she has bigger things on her mind. From hiding people in attics to doing her constant work in the community, Jane rarely has time to socialize anyway. At least, not with the people of East Carmine. And they tend to stay away from her, too. She has a reputation, especially among those of her generation, for being violent and a little bit off. Despite this, the young men in town still seem to push their luck with her (though it all seems to stem from her retrousse nose and not from her personality at all). This doesn’t ever end well for them, as even Eddie is subjected to death threats when he tries to ask her out at first.
This is likely because violence is not a stranger to her. She’s willing to rip off eyebrows from those who are too forward in their courting, and she plays a very vicious game of hockeyball, which sometimes ends up with people getting stitches. She’s thrown forks at Eddie and has punched him in the face with absolutely no remorse after. Because the rules are so out of her control, she seeks to try and control her world as best as she can. This means that she is usually, at best insolent and at worst dangerous to those around her. Because when Jane gets angry, she gets infuriated. Red spots appear at her cheeks and she has a tendency to throw things at whoever happens to be nearby.
Nearly every word out of her mouth is filled with sarcasm. She rarely speaks kindly about anyone. There are exceptions, however. She is kind and caring to those in need. To those who cannot take care of themselves. She shows unusual compassion, which truly only fuels her desire to see the system put right. But that compassion takes other forms, too. She’s regarded as the best poet in the town and has a way with words that causes Eddie to return to his half promised bride’s favor.
To her, having things equal would be best. She’s not really been exposed to any other forms of government, anything right, but she knows that there does need to be change. She imagines a world where there are no Prefects, no asinine Rules and people can truly be free. Really, she is in the beginning stages of questioning her world. She has been a Grey for far too long and, when it's brought to her attention that her progeny might one day become Prefect, she is a little shocked by that. But she still hopes that the Greys underneath them realize the truth about the Collective. She doesn't care about her progeny, especially if they become Prefects. Jane just concerns herself with Greys, with the people, she feels, can see the truth.
She realizes that it’s not a realistic goal, but it’s one that she’s willing to do almost anything to obtain, including doing the murder without any second thoughts, which is what she did to Courtland, the man in line to be the Yellow Prefect. And it was Eddie, not Jane, who showed him mercy in his final moments. She just watched and thought about what would come next. Courtland, to her, was only one in a long, long line of people who would have to fall before they could take down National Color.
On the Barge, away from the rules and restrictions, she will likely go a little wild at first- doing Lime (their equivalent of a drug) and saying and doing whatever she wants. However, that much freedom, even for her, will become tiresome and even a little frightening, so she will eventually calm down and start to really feel around for what she needs to do. As a warden, she will be tough, a little threatening, but will eventually adapt to her inmate’s needs and wants.
All of the people on the Barge would be considered Previous to her. They would have come before her time and adhered to different rules. This means that she will be intensely fascinated by them and their world, but mostly to gather ideas to improve her own. That’s part of the reason she took the deal to come aboard the Barge. She wanted to find out more about the place and find out what to do to change her own world.
History:Please note: This comes from a book series that is still in progress. Some of the things described in that book remain mysteries, especially about Jane's past, so I've kept it as vague as possible.
The universe Jane lives in is one much changed from the one that most might recognize. After the Something That Happened, some time after 2276, the world shifted. Shortly after that came the Epiphany, which was followed by the New Order. And, in Jane's time, a long time later, the Previous, the people who lived before, are all but forgotten. Now, living in Chromatacia is a difficult affair. People have evolved with a different kind of eye- one that takes in only a limited amount of light and can see only a limited amount of color. They are defined by what colors they can see, based on the Cyan-Yellow-Magenta color dye spectrum. They are grouped by Yellows, Blues, Greens, Reds, Purples, Oranges, Ultraviolets and Greys, with the Greys almost completely colorblind, treated as lower class citizens and forced to live in housing groups called the "Greyzone."
Residents are given univisual (artificial) colors, though, piped in by National Color, depending on the wealth and amount of "scrap color" a town or section has. They use this color for color gardens and any other community project.
They live under an outdated and often loopholed Rulebook. It dictates every part of their lives, including when to drink Ovaltine and what clothes one can wear while traveling. These rules are infallible, though, and cannot be changed or challenged (hence why there are so many loopholes). They cannot be questioned, merely followed. If there is a question they can't answer, then the person is just asking the wrong questions. Rulebreaking usually results in demerits, with negative demerits being enough to send a person to Reboot- a place they believe is supposed to help, but really is just a road to execution. Kim has compiled the known Rules in this list which is included with permission.
An entity named Munsell is the one they follow, reading his teachings at meals and regarding him as the be all end all. This refers to, of course, Albert Henry Munsell, who created the numerical color system that they use.
Jane used to be a good girl. Quirky and a bit...off, she was a calm sort. She did what she was asked and lived happily in the Greyzone, working in the linoleum factory, often double shifts at the age of 15. Then, when she was 18, she was lost for three days and three nights and wandered back into East Carmine with no explanation for where she had been and looking a mess with no shoes. After that point, Jane G-23 turned violent, angry and hateful. She seemed to despise everything and everyone and went about her life with a mouthful of venom. In 18 months, she had earned negative eight hundred demerits, which would have sent her to Reboot after her Ishihara. Not that she ever expected to go. After her test, she was planning on leaving. But it never came to that.
The man she was working with was Zane G-49, another Grey, died in Vermillion's Paint Shop, despite Eddie's father's attempts to help. She met Eddie briefly there and, after threatening him with physical harm, didn't see him again until he came to East Carmine and she was assigned to work as a maid in his home. She was unforgivably rude towards him, yet he persisted in trying to ask her on dates, which only annoyed her more. He seemed to get in her way more than anything. It only made things worse when he went to try and save a friend after dark. Because of their limited sight, the people in that world are completely night blind and, when out after dark, suffer from what they call night terrors because of the overwhelming darkness. She followed him then, as she possessed the ability to see in the dark, and put a wheelbarrow in his path as a test to see if he was there to thwart her plans.
And when he ventured to Rusty Hill with his father to retrieve a painting and color swatches...she was there, residing in Zane's old house. She, of course, threatened Eddie, thinking that he was a spy when he entered her house, filled with all manner of Leapbacked technology. She tried to kill him then, but stopped just short of doing so when he proved that he could be useful by revealing he knew her hair was red. This meant, of course, that he would test very high on his Ishihara and would potentially have power.
But Jane wasn't used to trusting people, no matter their use. She continued to resist him and trusted him only when, after the Yellows came to enforce his chair census in the Greyzone, he stood up to the Prefects to stop them. There were, Jane explained to him, people living in the attics of those houses. People who were blind or otherwise defective. They had been in hiding there to keep from getting caught, as they would surely be killed one way or another.
She was determined to keep the truth from him for as long as possible, but when he volunteered to go to High Saffron, a very dangerous place to be, she had to drive him and three others there. When they left, she stayed behind, turning and leaving them there with a promise to meet them before nightfall. But she changed her mind. Deciding that she would rather have him around, she came back for him, only to find him locked in a flak tower by Tommo and Courtland- two of the three who had come along. She fought with them, but really was no match for them. It was Eddie who came to help (let out by a third party) and together they subdued both Tommo and Courtland. The former left to return to the truck and Courtland ventured on with them.
Jane revealed many truths to Eddie on that trip and when Courtland died of the Mildew, she made sure to fabricate a good story for them. Feeding him to a carnivorous yateveo tree, which are known to be dangerous, was only the beginning. She then shoved Eddie into a second tree and, while he was digesting, used her potato peeler to carve a hole in the bottom to save him. That way, they could say that Courtland died while trying to save Eddie from the tree, instead of attempting a trickier cover story.
On the way back, Jane and Eddie spoke at length about the future. They decided to get married and take down National Color together. But it wasn't going to happen that way. After Jane took her Ishihara, she was discovered to be a Green, which meant that her social status was higher, but it also meant that she and Eddie were complementary colors. And, in their society, it's taboo for them to even be friends and forbidden for them to marry. So they parted ways, at least in public.
That's where Jane would have met the Admiral and made her deal. Just after that test.
Sample Journal Entry:
Well, I’ll be jaundiced. I guess all that wasn’t a dream. [Long, awkward pause.] Name’s Jane. [Another long, awkward pause until she gets annoyed at herself and talks a little faster.] Look, I know there’s work to be done around here. There’s always Useful Work to do. However….
…I haven’t heard any of the normal overhued chatter of Prefects, so I guess that doesn’t really matter. Perfect. This place might not be so bad after all.
Sample RP:
Jane was greened. Absolutely and completely greened. Sitting out on the deck, watching the stars, she was completely relaxed. It wasn’t a bad thing, really. She was just relaxed as she lounged in the chair, compact containing the Lime in her hand. Greening wasn’t a habit that she wanted to get into, honestly. It was just an escape from the world, and Jane had her feet firmly grounded on land.
Recreationally, though, was a different story. She could relax all she wanted, trying to avoid the hollow eyed look of the Previous. They were the same as the Chromatics, she mused idly. They had the same kind of wants and needs that really seemed to serve no good purpose. It had only been a few days and already Jane was discouraged. Maybe she had been wrong. Maybe the Previous were all self serving and obsessed with the Worship of the Me.
Now her thoughts were much too clear. She took a quick glance around to make sure she was alone, and opened the compact. The Lime hit her eyes and she blinked once, hearing distant music before she shut it and her hand relaxed to her stomach. Her thoughts were away from the Previous and once again on the night sky.
It was definitely more beautiful here than at home, even if the deck didn’t have fireflies.
Special Notes: A cheat sheet to help better explain the world. It has some of the ideas mentioned here, as well as new ones. Also, I helped to create this encyclopedia to help keep track of things.
Series: Shades of Grey
Age: 20
From When?: Just after her Ishihara, the color spot test, when she realizes that plans have changed.
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Jane might be outspoken, violent and generally ill mannered, but she has a genuine compassion for what's "good" and "right." For those who get to know her and take the time to understand her, she's tolerable and caring...in her own way.
She doesn't seem very "nice" to people, but that's only because she likes to keep them at a distance. However, she is willing to put herself down the path of Reboot in order to stand up for what she believes. She either blatantly ignores the rules or chooses to bend them to the point of breaking and has no respect for authority. But this, of course, is all for the future she hopes she will see. Something fair and equal. She hides people, helps them, and, despite her sarcastic and unbreakable exterior, does what's right.
Item: Her compact. It contains an image of a man she calls the Herald, who always says the same thing and who makes her immune to any colors she sees for a while. When her inmate is in trouble, he'll change what he says to her.
Abilities/Powers: As far as physical abilities go, Jane is tough and able and willing to break jaws, arms and anything else sent her way. While athletic, she is limited by a normal, human, twenty year old body, though, so she's really just fueled by anger most of the time. She relies on surprise to attack, normally.
Her real abilities come with her sight. She's almost completely colorblind, but can see 12% of the yellow spectrum and 14% of the blue spectrum, which is, obviously, not very much. It's barely above the threshold, but it still makes her solidly a Green (yellow and blue mixture). The rest of the colors are lost on her almost completely, unless they are univisual (which the Barge won't have).
However, she does have another ability that others of her kind do not. Her pupils dilate at will in order to take in more light so that she can see in the dark. "Almost well enough to play tennis." This isn't something that she will reveal openly, however.
Personality:
Jane is an “in your face” revolutionary. After she discovered the truth behind her life and what they had been told for so many years, she started to hate the world she lived in. She knows that things can be different and she’s determined to make sure that they change. She’s very unwilling to let anyone get in the way of that, and so resists help whenever possible. She doesn’t trust many people and, in her world, there aren’t many to trust. Most of the people in power are so corrupt and the people who obey them are even worse in her opinion. She has a very real problem with any kind of authority, whether it’s from a Prefect or even the people in the house she’s working in.
As a Grey, she’s not afforded many luxuries and, in fact, in East Carmine, Greys are worked half to death, even when they are sick and clearly unable to do so. This is a particularly sore point for her, as she watches the people closest to her slowly fade out of existence. They work up to 100 hour weeks and it’s not until Eddie’s father, the swatchman, shows up that it changes. He allows them passes for their sicknesses and injuries where the Yellow Prefect would have wanted them demerited. Jane’s grateful to Eddie’s father for that because, while he could just ignore the problem, he does something about it. He stands up to the Yellow Prefect in defense of the Greys. To Jane, that turns him into an exception. She can trust a man who shows compassion and, in turn, doesn’t kill his son.
But Jane’s hatred isn’t just her seeing other Greys in trouble. She was bullied as a child, as well, by the daughter of the most powerful man in the village. This has helped skew her vision of other people and created the hatred and bitterness from a very young age. In essence, she doesn’t trust the Chromatics and hates them for the way that they use their power. Seeing them scrabble and fight for every small bit of perception really sickens her.
Prefects and the “overhued”, however, are not the only ones on the receiving end of her spiteful feelings. She usually has a hateful word for everyone, though still mainly those who aren’t Greys, and she doesn’t get close to anyone. She doesn’t really hold personal relationships in high regard, as she has bigger things on her mind. From hiding people in attics to doing her constant work in the community, Jane rarely has time to socialize anyway. At least, not with the people of East Carmine. And they tend to stay away from her, too. She has a reputation, especially among those of her generation, for being violent and a little bit off. Despite this, the young men in town still seem to push their luck with her (though it all seems to stem from her retrousse nose and not from her personality at all). This doesn’t ever end well for them, as even Eddie is subjected to death threats when he tries to ask her out at first.
This is likely because violence is not a stranger to her. She’s willing to rip off eyebrows from those who are too forward in their courting, and she plays a very vicious game of hockeyball, which sometimes ends up with people getting stitches. She’s thrown forks at Eddie and has punched him in the face with absolutely no remorse after. Because the rules are so out of her control, she seeks to try and control her world as best as she can. This means that she is usually, at best insolent and at worst dangerous to those around her. Because when Jane gets angry, she gets infuriated. Red spots appear at her cheeks and she has a tendency to throw things at whoever happens to be nearby.
Nearly every word out of her mouth is filled with sarcasm. She rarely speaks kindly about anyone. There are exceptions, however. She is kind and caring to those in need. To those who cannot take care of themselves. She shows unusual compassion, which truly only fuels her desire to see the system put right. But that compassion takes other forms, too. She’s regarded as the best poet in the town and has a way with words that causes Eddie to return to his half promised bride’s favor.
To her, having things equal would be best. She’s not really been exposed to any other forms of government, anything right, but she knows that there does need to be change. She imagines a world where there are no Prefects, no asinine Rules and people can truly be free. Really, she is in the beginning stages of questioning her world. She has been a Grey for far too long and, when it's brought to her attention that her progeny might one day become Prefect, she is a little shocked by that. But she still hopes that the Greys underneath them realize the truth about the Collective. She doesn't care about her progeny, especially if they become Prefects. Jane just concerns herself with Greys, with the people, she feels, can see the truth.
She realizes that it’s not a realistic goal, but it’s one that she’s willing to do almost anything to obtain, including doing the murder without any second thoughts, which is what she did to Courtland, the man in line to be the Yellow Prefect. And it was Eddie, not Jane, who showed him mercy in his final moments. She just watched and thought about what would come next. Courtland, to her, was only one in a long, long line of people who would have to fall before they could take down National Color.
On the Barge, away from the rules and restrictions, she will likely go a little wild at first- doing Lime (their equivalent of a drug) and saying and doing whatever she wants. However, that much freedom, even for her, will become tiresome and even a little frightening, so she will eventually calm down and start to really feel around for what she needs to do. As a warden, she will be tough, a little threatening, but will eventually adapt to her inmate’s needs and wants.
All of the people on the Barge would be considered Previous to her. They would have come before her time and adhered to different rules. This means that she will be intensely fascinated by them and their world, but mostly to gather ideas to improve her own. That’s part of the reason she took the deal to come aboard the Barge. She wanted to find out more about the place and find out what to do to change her own world.
History:Please note: This comes from a book series that is still in progress. Some of the things described in that book remain mysteries, especially about Jane's past, so I've kept it as vague as possible.
The universe Jane lives in is one much changed from the one that most might recognize. After the Something That Happened, some time after 2276, the world shifted. Shortly after that came the Epiphany, which was followed by the New Order. And, in Jane's time, a long time later, the Previous, the people who lived before, are all but forgotten. Now, living in Chromatacia is a difficult affair. People have evolved with a different kind of eye- one that takes in only a limited amount of light and can see only a limited amount of color. They are defined by what colors they can see, based on the Cyan-Yellow-Magenta color dye spectrum. They are grouped by Yellows, Blues, Greens, Reds, Purples, Oranges, Ultraviolets and Greys, with the Greys almost completely colorblind, treated as lower class citizens and forced to live in housing groups called the "Greyzone."
Residents are given univisual (artificial) colors, though, piped in by National Color, depending on the wealth and amount of "scrap color" a town or section has. They use this color for color gardens and any other community project.
They live under an outdated and often loopholed Rulebook. It dictates every part of their lives, including when to drink Ovaltine and what clothes one can wear while traveling. These rules are infallible, though, and cannot be changed or challenged (hence why there are so many loopholes). They cannot be questioned, merely followed. If there is a question they can't answer, then the person is just asking the wrong questions. Rulebreaking usually results in demerits, with negative demerits being enough to send a person to Reboot- a place they believe is supposed to help, but really is just a road to execution. Kim has compiled the known Rules in this list which is included with permission.
An entity named Munsell is the one they follow, reading his teachings at meals and regarding him as the be all end all. This refers to, of course, Albert Henry Munsell, who created the numerical color system that they use.
Jane used to be a good girl. Quirky and a bit...off, she was a calm sort. She did what she was asked and lived happily in the Greyzone, working in the linoleum factory, often double shifts at the age of 15. Then, when she was 18, she was lost for three days and three nights and wandered back into East Carmine with no explanation for where she had been and looking a mess with no shoes. After that point, Jane G-23 turned violent, angry and hateful. She seemed to despise everything and everyone and went about her life with a mouthful of venom. In 18 months, she had earned negative eight hundred demerits, which would have sent her to Reboot after her Ishihara. Not that she ever expected to go. After her test, she was planning on leaving. But it never came to that.
The man she was working with was Zane G-49, another Grey, died in Vermillion's Paint Shop, despite Eddie's father's attempts to help. She met Eddie briefly there and, after threatening him with physical harm, didn't see him again until he came to East Carmine and she was assigned to work as a maid in his home. She was unforgivably rude towards him, yet he persisted in trying to ask her on dates, which only annoyed her more. He seemed to get in her way more than anything. It only made things worse when he went to try and save a friend after dark. Because of their limited sight, the people in that world are completely night blind and, when out after dark, suffer from what they call night terrors because of the overwhelming darkness. She followed him then, as she possessed the ability to see in the dark, and put a wheelbarrow in his path as a test to see if he was there to thwart her plans.
And when he ventured to Rusty Hill with his father to retrieve a painting and color swatches...she was there, residing in Zane's old house. She, of course, threatened Eddie, thinking that he was a spy when he entered her house, filled with all manner of Leapbacked technology. She tried to kill him then, but stopped just short of doing so when he proved that he could be useful by revealing he knew her hair was red. This meant, of course, that he would test very high on his Ishihara and would potentially have power.
But Jane wasn't used to trusting people, no matter their use. She continued to resist him and trusted him only when, after the Yellows came to enforce his chair census in the Greyzone, he stood up to the Prefects to stop them. There were, Jane explained to him, people living in the attics of those houses. People who were blind or otherwise defective. They had been in hiding there to keep from getting caught, as they would surely be killed one way or another.
She was determined to keep the truth from him for as long as possible, but when he volunteered to go to High Saffron, a very dangerous place to be, she had to drive him and three others there. When they left, she stayed behind, turning and leaving them there with a promise to meet them before nightfall. But she changed her mind. Deciding that she would rather have him around, she came back for him, only to find him locked in a flak tower by Tommo and Courtland- two of the three who had come along. She fought with them, but really was no match for them. It was Eddie who came to help (let out by a third party) and together they subdued both Tommo and Courtland. The former left to return to the truck and Courtland ventured on with them.
Jane revealed many truths to Eddie on that trip and when Courtland died of the Mildew, she made sure to fabricate a good story for them. Feeding him to a carnivorous yateveo tree, which are known to be dangerous, was only the beginning. She then shoved Eddie into a second tree and, while he was digesting, used her potato peeler to carve a hole in the bottom to save him. That way, they could say that Courtland died while trying to save Eddie from the tree, instead of attempting a trickier cover story.
On the way back, Jane and Eddie spoke at length about the future. They decided to get married and take down National Color together. But it wasn't going to happen that way. After Jane took her Ishihara, she was discovered to be a Green, which meant that her social status was higher, but it also meant that she and Eddie were complementary colors. And, in their society, it's taboo for them to even be friends and forbidden for them to marry. So they parted ways, at least in public.
That's where Jane would have met the Admiral and made her deal. Just after that test.
Sample Journal Entry:
Well, I’ll be jaundiced. I guess all that wasn’t a dream. [Long, awkward pause.] Name’s Jane. [Another long, awkward pause until she gets annoyed at herself and talks a little faster.] Look, I know there’s work to be done around here. There’s always Useful Work to do. However….
…I haven’t heard any of the normal overhued chatter of Prefects, so I guess that doesn’t really matter. Perfect. This place might not be so bad after all.
Sample RP:
Jane was greened. Absolutely and completely greened. Sitting out on the deck, watching the stars, she was completely relaxed. It wasn’t a bad thing, really. She was just relaxed as she lounged in the chair, compact containing the Lime in her hand. Greening wasn’t a habit that she wanted to get into, honestly. It was just an escape from the world, and Jane had her feet firmly grounded on land.
Recreationally, though, was a different story. She could relax all she wanted, trying to avoid the hollow eyed look of the Previous. They were the same as the Chromatics, she mused idly. They had the same kind of wants and needs that really seemed to serve no good purpose. It had only been a few days and already Jane was discouraged. Maybe she had been wrong. Maybe the Previous were all self serving and obsessed with the Worship of the Me.
Now her thoughts were much too clear. She took a quick glance around to make sure she was alone, and opened the compact. The Lime hit her eyes and she blinked once, hearing distant music before she shut it and her hand relaxed to her stomach. Her thoughts were away from the Previous and once again on the night sky.
It was definitely more beautiful here than at home, even if the deck didn’t have fireflies.
Special Notes: A cheat sheet to help better explain the world. It has some of the ideas mentioned here, as well as new ones. Also, I helped to create this encyclopedia to help keep track of things.