forum Yesterday Upon The Stair // oxo, rated M or something// CLOSED

Started June 15, 2019 by @croccin-champagne

tune

Tango Arden has bee plagued by ghosts since she was a kid. No, not figurative ghosts. Actual, literal ghosts. Growing up with an ability like hers. in a world where the supernatural isn't supposed to exist, she's learned to keep everything under wraps. She's perfected the art of coming up with excuses when she's accidentally caught mumbling to a ghost on the subway, or when she's caught somewhere she shouldn't be while on an errand for a spirit. And with her father's job in the Air Force, whenever someone catches on, she doesn't have to wait long before she's in a completely different state, country, or continent.

But when her father is stationed in Tokyo, things start changing for her. She's used to ghosts that have died gruesome deaths, but the energy surrounding the ghosts that have started following her, looking specifically for her, is different. It doesn't take long for her to realize the ghosts approaching her are Yakuza members, and that leads to her discovering why her father was stationed here. He's been placed on a team of military and police officials created to hunt down the Yakuza, and find the head.

These ghosts want to use Tango to get to her father, to get him to stop hunting them down. But her father isn't one to just give up without a reason, and Tango really, really doesn't like being ordered around. With the help of a new, living companion, and all the friendly ghosts she encounters, she does something any teen girl with authority issues and the ability to see the dead would do. She decides to hunt down the man in charge of the people that want to kill her father.

Same rules as always, man.

Name:
Age:
Gender:
Sexuality:
Appearance:
Clothing/Style:
Personality:
Backstory(opt):
Likes:
Dislikes:
Fears:
A theme song, if you can:
Other:

Name: Tango Arden
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Sexuality: She has absolutely no clue, and is honestly a bit preoccupied with other things to really put much thought into it.
Appearance: Choppily cut dark red hair to a little below her shoulders, that blazes like a fire in direct sunlight. Occasionally has a streak or two of color, current is a white chunk in the front, on the right side of her face. Tanned skin and covered in various scars.(Gains a few more during the rp.) Looks like she had both ears pierced at one point, but her left earring was literally yanked from her ear. 5’4 and some mix between muscular and curvy, leaning more on the muscled side. Her eyes are a strange and unnerving sort of yellow/green, almost like a cat. Speaking of cats, when light is shined on her eyes in the dark, they do the same reflective thing, sort of evidence that she can see really well in the dark. Keeps her nails painted black, and the polish is somehow always chipped, no matter what.
Clothing/Style: A pair of military grade black combat boots that have definitely seen the world, and swaps between frayed jean shorts and black skinny jeans. Wears an older looking leather bomber jacket with a couple Air Force patches on the sleeves. Prefers tank tops in solid colors, mainly black, which admittedly can make her look even eerier. Never takes off the chain around her neck with her mother’s dog tags on them. Can also be found in her school uniform, though when worn, the outfit usually looks sloppily tossed on, with the shirt only half tucked at the tie undone.
Personality: Can honestly seem scary as hell if you don’t know her, and she’s not making an effort to appear friendly and welcoming. Always watching literally everything, more so than any teenage girl should. She’s got an eidetic memory, and an incredible memory with faces and names, so she can remember everything. Every ghost, every person she’s met. She learned sign young, to keep from being seen as crazy when communicating with spirits in public, so she has a habit of what basically looks like muttering in sign, with her hands down at her sides. Analytical. She can pick apart every move and person she’s fighting with, when she does get into fights, and then use the training she’s had against them with sometimes scary results. Quick thinking, especially on her feet, and resourceful. Kinda…morally grey? Like, she’s obviously got morals, but it's usually hard to tell what is and isn’t pushing it or off limits when it comes to her sense of right and wrong.
Backstory(opt): A bit of it’s obvious, but I’m still fleshing her out.
Likes: Music, being helpful, pulling off a last minute and hasty plan, her cat, the small gang of ghosts that stick around her, Doritos, anything carbonated.
Dislikes: Vegetables, being alone(as in, no ghosts or people), more than one pillow, sleep.
Fears: Letting down the people she cares about, not being able to help someone, being killed by a ghost(they can touch and harm her), making a ghost, and small spaces.
A theme song, if you can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV6pvII1eFU
Other: She doesn’t smile a whole lot, and there’s a reason for that. Most of her smiles don’t quite reach her eyes unless she’s genuinely happy or amused, and it looks creepy. On that note, she’s got this…smile she does, and the best way to describe it is how her guidance counselor did when she was fifteen. ‘Baby eating’. It was mostly a joke, but it’s not too far off, looks wise…

You may! Just fill out the temp, preferably make your chara a highschool kid(they're more likely to have met and become semi friends), and then we can start

Cool! I’ll get that up in a few minutes then!

Name: Roan-Cassidy Blacker
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Sexuality: bisexual
Appearance: Dusty brown, curly hair to his temples that can get pretty frizzy after a shower, and especially in the rain. He wants to grow it longer, but he finds it difficult to grow it out any longer. He stands at 5’5”, shorter than most of his male classmates. His eyes are hazel-like, but forest green dominates most of the iris. He’s got a short, square jawline with thinnish lips, and a few freckles splashed all over his face. He has tan skin from his upbringing in the Caribbean. He has a long scar across the inside of his right arm.
Clothing/Style: At school, he prefers wearing nice sweaters that cover his arms, preferably navy blue or crimson turtlenecks in the fall. Even in the summer he wears lighter weight sweaters or polo shirts. Year round he wears dark blue or black jeans. In the summer he sandals because it’s the closest thing to being barefoot
Personality: Cassidy prefers summer weather and hates the winter and the cold. He can be pretty extroverted and gets involved with several clubs and volunteer opportunities despite the teasing he gets from other students for immigrating from St. Croix. It used to bother him in the first few years after he joined the school, but his confidence grew with how many friendly acquaintances he made. He doesn’t have a best friend yet, but he reasons that at least he doesn’t have to eat alone at lunch.
Backstory(opt): Cassidy grew up in St. Croix with his single mother struggling to make ends meet working at a tourist hotel. They were able to survive with what they had, but after a hurricane hit their island, Cassidy’s mother sent him to America while she stayed in the Caribbean to try and rebuild their house with the help of Cassidy’s rich father, who finally decided to come back after the hurricane. Cassidy went to America alone and stayed with several foster families while he went to the first few years of high school. He moved with his favorite foster family, a nice stable American family who treat him like their own son, when they moved to Tokyo. He even has a little “brother” now. But he still misses his mom back in the Caribbean.
Likes: coffee with milk—not creamer, studying folklore, the idea of ghosts, his little “brother” Noah, dogs, psychology
Dislikes: being alone for too long, the kids at school who claimed he had “diseases”
Fears: heavy rain and thunderstorms
A theme song, if you can: https://youtu.be/m326LNIRB3k
Other: he’s fluent in Spanish and English

I adore him, but one small thing is that the setting is in Tokyo, not America.

Ahh ok I thought they were meeting in America, I’ll change that then

Alrighty. Sorry to be kinda nit-picky

Should we start with them meeting at school, or maybe outside of school?

Not a problem!

And hm..what if they meet after school while they’re both just wandering the campus?

New schools had never been something Tango was fond of, but she had to admit, Asuka had a gorgeous campus. She could only imagine how it would look during the upcoming blossom season, when the cherry blossoms that were everywhere were in bloom. Nodding her head along to the song playing in her earbuds, her hands moved at her sides, signing to the little girl walking next to her.

Emmy and Tango had been attached at the hip since the poltergeist had crawled out of Tango's bedroom closet in an attempt to scare her when she was young. The poltergeist, who looked very much like a six or seven year old girl with pale skin and dark hair, had stuck around since then, likely because Tango was the only one who could see her at all times, and who wasn't terrified of her. She'd been the first in Tango's growing group of ghosts, the most recent of whom was a teen spirit she'd met just a few hours ago.

Cassidy sat under one of the cherry blossom trees with his notebook cradled in his lap. He’d tried drawing few sketches of the people he saw passing by him on the campus. He glanced up at the girl he had been trying to draw for a while, then back to his paper. His sketch completely bastardized her features. His lines were all wobbly and shaky, her eyes weren’t in the right place, and the her stiff body stature made him shiver with disgust.

Cassidy ripped the page out of his notebook and balled it up in a fit of frustration. He set it beside himself and decided to make art the way he knew how—write it. He looked back up to the girl again, seeing her sign something to the empty air beside her. Strange, he tilted his head and decided to write about how this red haired girl named… Gabrielle could talk to ghosts through sign language.

A tug on her shirt drew Tango out of the thoughts she'd been drawn into, and she continued walking as she glanced down at Emmy, who was signing to her. The poltergeist then pointed at a boy sitting under one of the trees, a wadded up piece of paper at his side and a notebook in hand. In every new place, Emmy took it upon herself to try and get Tango to make friends, despite the girl's tendency to scare most people away.

"No, I will not go talk to him. That's weird and you know it." Her hands moved quickly, and to most people, it would honestly look like she was signing her thoughts at her sides.

Cassidy looked up after he had written a good sized paragraph, clenching and unclenching his dominant to relieve a cramp in his wrist. He watched her for a few seconds, mesmerized by the sign language. He didn’t understand it, but there was a sort of kinetic poetry made by even a simple sentence.
He skimmed over what he had written and decided he was satisfied with his work—albeit small amount of creativity, it was better than nothing. He secured the book closed with the leather strap and used the tree to pull himself to stand.

"Emmy, don't-" Tango muttered, as the poltergeist started for the boy. She'd been too focused to notice him watching her, but her friend hadn't, apparently. Don't you dare, don't you-dammit. Tango was there in the blink of an eye as Emmy pushed the boy just enough to make him stumble, catching him and steadying him.

“¡Dios mío!” Cassidy let out a surprised yelp upon stumbling and imagined himself breaking his nose until “Gabrielle” came out of no where to catch him. He gripped onto her arms until he steadied himself, “I am so sorry, I don’t know what..I tripped on.” He stared wide eyed at the ground until his heartstrings slowed again. He let go of her arms, wiping his sweaty hands on his jeans.

The Japanese she had queued up on the tip of her tongue died as he spoke Spanish, and then English. It was probably for the best, considering Tango was well ware that her pronunciation needed work. She shot an unamused look at Emmy, who was laughing, a sound that sounded a lot like TV static. "It's cool, don't sweat it. You alright?" There was a slight undertone of something like polite concern in her voice, but her empty expression didn't quite match it.

Cassidy composed himself, “Ah, Yes, I’m fine.” He took a step back to give some space between the two of them, “You speak English.” He breathed in relief. He wasn’t too fluent in Japanese yet and it was difficult to have a conversation more than general small talk. He placed his hands in his pockets, trying to make himself seem as friendly as possible with an open stance and loose, close-mouthed smile.

"I spent a few years in America, and then another in the UK." Tango said, shrugging a shoulder as her fingers resumed their quick movements. She could see Emmy out of the corner of her eye, and had gotten good at reading sign without looking at the person or thing signing.

“Ah, neat. I lived in America for about three years too. Then my uh, family moved here. They wanted to spend a year or two as English teachers. Not at this school, a lower budget one, I think.” Cassidy took his hands from his pockets and pressed his thumb into his right palm nervously, “What brought you here?”

"My Dad's in the military." Tango continued signing with one hand, reaching up to brush her hair from her face with the other. "He's stationed out on Yokota currently." Her eerie eyes scanned the boy up and down once, like she was calculating something.

Cassidy subconsciously fixed the collar of his blue sweater and stuffed his hands in his jean pockets, offering an awkward smile, “That’s really neat..tell your dad I thank him for his service.”

"I will." Tango stumbled slightly, as Emmy elbowed her, and sighed through her nose. "You got any plans for the next hour or so?" She asked, resisting the urge to elbow her friend back.

“Not that I know of.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot, “What about you? Are you thinking about plans for the next hour or so?” He brought up his hand to scratch his upper lip, silently scolding himself for that blatant display of insecurity.

"I was going to go 'exploring'." She said, making air quotes with her fingers. "To get to know the city I'll be living in for a bit. Care to join me, if you aren't absolutely terrified of social interaction?" "I'm not being an ass. I'm being nice, offering company or however it is you make friends with living people."