Delainie Carthage

[Delainie Carthage]

DELAINIE CARTHAGE
PLAYED BY :Jessica Lucas

THE CHARACTER

FULL NAME:Delainie Theresa Carthage
NICK NAMES: Lainie
PREFERRED NAME: Delainie
AGE: 26
GENDER: female
OCCUPATION: High School Counselor
HOME REGION:Southwest
PREFERRED WEAPONS: Anything she can get her hands on, when ammo is low she will get as creative as it takes.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Delainie stands around 5'6 and weighs about 120lbs. She has always been considered a light weight, could never bulk up or gain weight. She's stayed about the same size for the last ten years. She'd never been not content with who she was. She has black hair that goes a little past her shoulders but will often where it up so this is an unknown fact. She has olive toned skin and doesn't burn when out in the desert, she just darkens and then eventually it will fade back to her base color. She had high arching eye brows that she prides in keep neat and shaped, even on these times, you just can't get a point across to someone if you're lacking the confidence that a nice wax or pluck can easily fix. When a teenager, Delainie had her eye brow pierced, that was a long time ago and a different Delainie. During a fight she had gotten into (the equation was raging hormones and a boy of course) the other teenage girl had ripped it out, unintentionally, and the scar has never faded. Just stays as a reminder of that fateful day.

Delainie's wardrobe had always been simple, nothing not on sale belonged in her closet and for the most part she had always stayed true to her style. Jeans and simple teeshirts always sufficed and when the occasion called for it she could slip into a black cocktail dress. She could do her hair and apply make-up if she really wanted to, but high heels were asking too much, she preferred flats. While working in the school she would often be teased that she could blend in as one of the kids, and she would remark back it was the only way to reach them. Be one of them. Honestly she didn't even imagine herself running around in tights and a pencil skirt so she would never dissapoint herself by doing so.

PERSONALITY: Delainie is a caring individual, if she wasn't she would never have been so successful as a high school counselor. She always saw high school as a delicate time and wished someone had been there to push her in the right direction. She tries to be supportive of others and listen to what they have to say before casting judgement or giving them a thoughtless verdict. Delainie is guarded, she does have a bit of a troubled past, not quite as bad as others have it some of the kids that walk into her office leave her wondering how they're walking out. But she does have secrets that she will take to her grave, she hates to open up to people about herself, because she's afraid some of them will slip out. Delainie is also very defensive. She easily takes offense to what others say even if it is a joke, she does have a sense of humor, but she is sensitive about subjects and when someone hits a sore spot she recoils.

Delainie can be warm and loving one moment and turn cold on the dime. There is no telling what will bring on her mood swings. There is no controlling them or turning them off or on. The only option is to ride them out. Usually the only people who see this side are her close friends and they all know her situation and have accepted her for who she is. Delainie has loner tendencies, but because she had made good friends over the years they don't allow her to embrace this side of her. They always are pulling her out of the house, or constantly stopping by for a drink and a chat. She doesn't mind but she does like quiet every once in a while.

Delainie struggles with trusting men, it's unfortunately an issue she obtained from years of living with her father. She sees them as deceptive, aggressive drunkards who have no respect for anything. She has tried to be with men before but it always ends badly, she can never fully commit to a relationship and even if it was the most honorable man in the world, she would be unable to move forward because of the fear her father unknowingly instilled. She can put on that smile at work, and talk to the young boys because they are not men yet nor have they reached their maximum potential to inflict damage.

LIKES

• Learning – there is nothing more gratifying than beating the odds and the way Delainie did so was through education and learning.
  
• Reading – escaping into a story was a way that Delainie made it through some events that took place. Becoming characters helped her handle her father's rages, and explain her mother's absences.
  
• Helping others – No one ever helped Delainie out, usually when these sorts of scenarios happen the person becomes bitter and resents others who do receive help along the way. However, Delainie isn't like that she enjoys helping others improve in hopes they turn out better and have the ability to help others along the way to a successful life.
  
• Being Alone- Despite her helpful nature, Delainie can easily become overwhelmed, she likes to spend some time alone so she can continue to keep her cool.
  
• Heat – There is a reason Delainie has spent her whole life out here in the desert and it's because she likes the heat.
  

DISLIKES

• Death – knowing its inevitable is one thing, but seeing everyone around you drop like flies as the brush of a fever was not something she was willing to accept.
  
• Domestic Violence – Being a victim for nearly sixteen years she knows what its like to grow up in a home where you constantly live in fear, she never thought there would be a time in her life where she would go to sleep without her heart nearly pounding out of her chest.
  
• Her parents- it is an understatement to claim that Delainie did not have the best relationships with her parents. Trying to teach these young children to forgive is hypocrisy when every single day she wished both her parents were dead.
  
• Littering – it irks her, she doesn't like to see trash thrown outside on the road.
  
• Bugs/Snakes/Spiders – any of those creepy crawlies can stay as far away from her as they'd like as far as she's concerned.
  

HISTORY BEFORE: Delainie Theresa Carthage was born out of wedlock to a couple living with a cousin in the ghettos of Los Angeles. She wasn't planned, and honestly only took her first breath because of the lack of funds for abortion during her mother's second trimester. The young couple had broke away from their parents because the families both believed they were no good for one another. Neither obtaining a high school diploma or anything equivalent. Their cousin made good money with illicit activities and recruited Delainie's father to work for him. Her mother did love her though, if that counted for anything. When her father was gone with his cousin, her mother would take the small infant with her and board a bus to go see her mother in the suburbs. Her mother would speak illy of her daughters choice of men and tell her she needed to break away while she could. She was slowly but surely convincing her daughter to come back home and leave the trash where she found it.

One afternoon her daughter came to her house with a bruised face and the sobbing hungry infant in her arms. Her mother embraced her and told her it was time to come home. Delainie's mother agreed and said she had already brought her and the baby's things. She was ready to come home. “oh no, you need to drop something back off first,” her mother said, nodding towards the three month old Delainie, and so she did. She got in the car with her own mother and directed her to where they had been staying. She left the child in it's play pen and then was off to return to her life in suburbia. When Delainie's father came home to find the baby left all alone he was outrage and hurt and knew what it meant. He went into the suburbs to get his girl back but was greeted by a few LAPD officers who were handing him a restraining order. Young, foolish, and in love he tried to fight his way back to his lover, but that just resulted in him being thrown to the ground and hauled into the car. When they found what was still on him from the days work, he had earned himself 6 months in jail and a fine of five thousand dollars. His cousin was able to spot him the money for the fine, and watch his baby until he got out.

Delainie never knew a good childhood. She was always being rocked by a woman who thought “She was so cute” and that would only last for a little while until they got bored or disgusted by some of the things babies do. Her father's cousin wasn't too loving while her father was away, and her father ended up returning in and out of jail for the rest of her life. Small petty crimes, but they added up against a child who wouldn't know love. When Delainie started to look like her mother, her father would squint at her through bleary eyes and curse the day she left. When Delainie got old enough to take a punch, that was when that started. Her father was a mean drunk, and the pain caused by her mother leaving seemed to be placed entirely on Delainie's shoulders. She would pay for the rest of her life she spent with this man. When she was old enough she spent little to no time home, but had to return every once in awhile for supplies or to check on the old man, or his cousins babies that would be leading the same life Delainie had.

She would be greeted by beatings and struggle to escape with her life. Swearing she would never return, only to find her way back a few weeks later. In high school, the teachers didn't care about the bruises on Delainie's arms or the split lips and swollen eyes, the limp from her father slamming the door on her leg. Nope. They just saw a hood rat, that would be dropping out soon enough, and leaving an open seat for a student that wanted to be there. Delainie knew what they saw and she knew what they thought. She also knew that it wasn't true. She listened to their lectures and learned from them, whether they intended to teach her the lessons or not, she absorbed more knowledge than any student around her. She had a lot of anger pent up inside of her, she was weak compared to her father, but she wasn't weak and she knew that.

She would find herself getting into fights quite often for little things to big problems, she would always come out on top, they were all scared of her, because she didn't stop. Even when a teacher would be pulling her off of them, or the persons friends were on her back she would still go after the one she meant to make an example out of like there was nothing in her way. She spent some time out of school on suspensions and would have to go to the library to catch up on the subjects she was missing in school, she didn't mind. No one ever had a problem with her at the library. Because of her aggressive tendencies she had quite a bit of trouble making friends in school, but when she graduated with a fantastic GPA, not a 4.0, she couldn't manage that and living out of the streets, she applied for scholarships and got enough money to go to college. She took out loans to live on campus, she told herself things had to be different now. She was not an animalistic teenager any more, but an adult.

So she changed her ways and behaved to the best of her ability. She actually made friends that would last a life time and a career she was passionate about and excellent at. After college she landed a job in a different school district and is living in a small apartment near the suburbs. She thinks of her mother every time she drives home, and sometimes it makes her angry, and sometimes it makes her sad. Either way she needs to move on and that's what she's been doing.

DURING APOCALYPSE:She'd been flipping through student files when she had heard something stirring outside her door. A bet annoyed that someone was out there at this time of night upset her and she snapped the file shut to cross the room and peak out. Of course there was that fear that she had been trying to suppress for these last few years, that her father would be out there and he would be drunk and mad, and ready to take it all out on her. She tiptoed across the room figuring whoever out there had no business expecting her to answer the door. What was looking at the door was a monster. She gasped and clutched her mouth. Then scolded herself for being so damn insensitive, the man out there could be a burn victim, could have just gotten in an accident and need help... so he walked all the way up to the third floor? she decided against opening the door, and decided if he needed help she would call the police for him. She silently crept back and grabbed her phone out of her bag. Dialing a number she'd called quite a few times in her life.

She told them there was a man outside of her door that didn't look in to good of shape. The operator said they would send someone out to check it out, and that she should just stay inside and keep quiet. Thanks, just what I was planning to do, She watched the man outside her door wander around the deck and eventually fall down Delainie was watching is awe, it was like he didn't even know how to move, like he was learning for the first time. Eventually two men in that navy blue came up the stairs, a hand risen to show they meant no harm, but their guns were drawn- only pointing down to the ground. She strained herself to hear what was going on. They asked him if he was alright, they asked him if he would come down to the ground floor with them and they would help him out. The man didn't seem to make even the slightest intelligent response and ended up coming right towards them. But this was not in a “i'll go willingly manner” it was an indeed charge and Delainie would testify to that after the man was dead. The first officer shot him in the leg to try to slow him down but when that didn't work they had to go for the kill.

A fallen corpse now lay on her deck, and she opened the door at that point to look down at the man on the ground, he looked familiar probably from the complex, he may even live next door, but she wasn't sure and told him they should look next door for his family. They apologized for the disturbance and she thanked them for their service, ambulances were coming next to haul off the dead guy, and Delainie was outside to make sure they got all the blood off the deck, people were coming out to gawk. They would act like friends now, come to embrace her and hope she was okay, but all they really wanted was the dirt of what had happened. At that point Delainie felt sick and turned to go back inside. She locked the door as always and then crawled into bed, when she awoke the next morning the world was a very different place.

ROLEPLAY EXAMPLE:

A thin woman wearing leather and denim, with a head protected by a black helmet with tinted face guard pulled off the highways. She'd been zig zagging through the whole stretch of road since she got out of Georgia. She'd taken only few breaks during the day, but never traveled at night. It was not difficult to avoid obstacles, moving or not, during the day. But at night she lost her advantage by gaining a weakness. It had been a while. She'd lost count of the days, and nights, but it had been a long time since she left home.

She'd gotten pretty good at this thing as she leaned forward to increase speed. A few of the infected began to come into view from the vehicles they seemed to be interested in, or more likely, the rotting flesh inside. The noise always attracted them, but they could never keep up with her. Once she did pass by a small group, and was nearly trapped when she ran into a road block. She thought for sure she was going to have to abandon the bike- which she was sure what was keeping her alive these past weeks, and hit the road on foot.

Fortunately she was able to find a way around before they got to close to make that decision. She carried on the cool pavement. It was chilly up here in the east. She was from the South and it was just getting unbearably hot to always be running around with out much protection. At least up here she was alright temperature wise when wearing thick clothing to try to deflect their bites- that is if they ever got close enough, which she had been lucky enough to avoid so far.

She carried on through the winding road that eventually lead to a small town, she came to a slow before entering the boundaries. This had been something she was used to. She needed to walk her bike through, or else she would alert the whole community she was there. Which she had learned from a mistake in the first week of the outbreak. She wheeled the devil through the main streets. She passed a few unknown local shops and then carried forth. Lucky thing about small towns is there aren't as many of them. She had her combat knife on the side of her boot, she had mastered dropping down to retrieve it and then popping back up to strike. She also had her M9, tucked comfortably in the back of her waist band. She hated wearing this stupid helmet. She couldn't hear or see to well, but knew if something creeped up onto her she was safe, with that aspect. Once she found a place to stash her bike she would leave the helmet with it. Only then would she be able to be fully aware of her surroundings.

She saw something stirring in the shops but didn't look twice, she was moving quickly through the small strip of shops and wanted to keep it that way. If something was alive and well, they would know better than to shout out for someone.

She found a good place to leave her bike, some surrounding foliage outside a neighborhood. She removed her helmet and shook out her hair. She set hung it by the handles, and then readjusted her weapons. Doing the two tap touch. Gun in back. Check. Knife in boot, check. She proceeded through this small suburbia. The houses were nice and white, the majority of them were two stories. She picked the first one to her right, but she looked at it for a long time, glancing at all windows for any sign of movement. The sky promised rain so she would have to figure out her sleeping arrangements quickly. She always had a hard time looking through a downfall, and a ever harder time riding through it. She walked up the porch steps and they screeched underneath her steps. Might as well try the doorbell she sighed twisted the brass knob. To no surprise there was no deadbolt to stop her from entering. She stepped forward into the darkness of the home and held her breath as she listened for anything that gave away pending danger.

word count: 735

PLANS: The rest of my characters are getting tied down! It's time for a new face

ANYTHING ELSE?: Not now.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

GO BY: Max
ROLEPLAY LEVEL: Not getting any better!
HOW DID YOU FIND US?: Making it.
PASSWORD:*****
TIME ZONE: Pacific

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[Max Guevara]

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