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Mar. 1st, 2024 at 10:50 PM
❥ Character Information
Character Name: Edith Cushing
Character Age: 25
Character Species: Human
Current Health: Decent. She has rheumatic heart disease and depression, but both are as well controlled as they can be in 1902.
Outfit: Edith starts out with this lovely shirtwaist skirt-suit situation, plus her spectacles which she genuinely needs.
Character Canon: Crimson Peak
Link to History: Abridged edition of Edith's history from the artbook (there is a full version but it's a bit too long)
Canon Point: Post-canon
Canon Iteration: Original canon
Character Age: 25
Character Species: Human
Current Health: Decent. She has rheumatic heart disease and depression, but both are as well controlled as they can be in 1902.
Outfit: Edith starts out with this lovely shirtwaist skirt-suit situation, plus her spectacles which she genuinely needs.
Character Canon: Crimson Peak
Link to History: Abridged edition of Edith's history from the artbook (there is a full version but it's a bit too long)
Canon Point: Post-canon
Canon Iteration: Original canon
❥ Folkmore Roles & Attributes
Skills: Writing (she is a professionally successful fiction writer and avid diarist). Reading skills. Ballroom dancing. Dreaming. Creative problem solving. Tarot reading. High intelligence quotient. Dog care. Some business/financial acumen. Surviving stupidly reckless moves and other typical Final Girl talents.
Canon Abilities: Two-way communication with ghosts, able to see ghosts and other spirit-like beings that no one else can see.
Role: Legend
Role Qualities/Attributes: The wings of an eastern swallowtail butterfly at an appropriately proportioned size for her body, as well as occasional mood-ring eyes that gleam ... only when it doesn't suit her or she's trying to hide something. She already had a ridiculous ability to push through pain, so it won't become stronger, but she will notice it more.
Role Reasoning: Fans of Crimson Peak have been known to describe Edith as "such a good!!" -- really, I've seen this multiple times and totally concur with it. She is just a whole lot of goodness; even her bad qualities tend to be well-meaning, and so if there is a stereotypical Good Guy Role, that's really where Edith falls. But on top of that: she truly does suit the legend, as her concerns are more with 'everyone I care about even a little bit should have a good life' more than focused on herself. Every single quality in the legend description suits Edith.
On the other hand, she has her dark moods and I do intend to play with that, vis a vis her mood ring eyes and being overwhelmed by her emotions. The enhanced durability is also going to lead to her making even more stupidly willful decisions about risking her own safety to help other people, something she is canonically very impressive about doing!!!
❥ Personality
OPTION 2 QUESTIONS (PICK 4-5) 100-300 WORD LIMIT EACH:
What was the most traumatic experience your character endured? How did this change them?
For the people who have seen the film and are expecting me to say something about a certain event at the very end--it's not that. Edith hasn't processed a lot of the traumas she's gone through yet. The most traumatic experience that Edith has managed to internalize is seeing her father's corpse and the way that others around her reacted. Thomas and Alan and Ferguson were all just as horrified as she was, and the medical examiner was pragmatic, but everyone was treating her father as if he were gone and that was something Edith's mind clearly was unable to handle. Since she had lived some time with only one parent, Edith never took lives for granted, but this was where her ability to handle disconnecting with people suffered its final blow and she became even more likely to hold those she cares for closely and tightly as long as she can. That's made her more willing to accept or work with things she may previously have dismissed, which makes her a stronger person—sort of. It also makes her more fragile and a little bit clingier in friendship and love, as well as even more determined to survive despite all odds.
What experience challenged your character's core beliefs? How did they handle this or change from it?
Sir Thomas Sharpe, baronet, and loving him, changed an enormous core belief of Edith's, or rather two of them: one, that aristocrats are always bad people with no sense of caring for those who might be socially beneath them, and two, that things that might seem to be 'evil' at first blush aren't, always. It's easier to focus on the first to answer the question because the second is an explosion of essay-length answer, so: Edith in her youth and young adulthood was taught that anyone with a noble title like 'baronet' was an arrogant, wealthy, highbrow leech who gained their wealth off the little people—but in Thomas she learned he was soft-hearted, giving, dreamy, wanted nothing more than to save the village his father had economically destroyed ... and was also completely broke. (If Edith's own parents weren't self-made wealth, she might have assumed that having privilege automatically makes one evil and being poor was what made people good!) As a result of this exposure to the fact that not every English patrician was actually a self-centered dick rolling in money, Edith has developed a tendency to judge more slowly and try to leave any preconceived notions behind her, simply learning about people as they are. This does also mean she might ignore warnings given to her by another, giving someone a chance even if it turns out to be a bad idea ... but to her it's growth.
What would your character sacrifice to get what they want or to reach their potential? What have they sacrificed already?
Everything.
That is the answer to both questions, really. She has already sacrificed everything she had left to get something she wanted—her marriage to Thomas—and then something else she wanted (which was, essentially, surviving). What she got back isn't entirely clear at the end of the film, and it doesn't seem terribly important to Edith's character, either. She loved, she lived, she survived; she published the novel and it was to all assumptions a success.
There's no reason that for love or story she wouldn't do it all again, now that she's done it once and came out the other side. Edith is very much a "live in the moment" sort of person, and one who will throw caution to the wind for something that feels deeply important.
What is a time where your character failed drastically at something and how did it impact them, what did they do about it?
Edith was given a warning—"beware of Crimson Peak"—and she failed to find out where Crimson Peak actually was until it was too late. The fact the warning was otherworldly and delivered out of time made it more difficult, and it is rather understanding in context how she didn't know! But it's still a monumental failure, and one that Edith absolutely reflects on and blames herself for. A ghost remained tethered to her spirit for the sole purpose of delivering this warning and Edith walks right into the very place she should beware of. It scared her, shook her to her core, and actually saved her life: this realization made her more willing to reconsider the ghosts around her and Allerdale Hall and figure out what they might actually be trying to do. Maybe it wasn't scare her off or harm her. Maybe they were trying to tell her something important.
What was the most traumatic experience your character endured? How did this change them?
For the people who have seen the film and are expecting me to say something about a certain event at the very end--it's not that. Edith hasn't processed a lot of the traumas she's gone through yet. The most traumatic experience that Edith has managed to internalize is seeing her father's corpse and the way that others around her reacted. Thomas and Alan and Ferguson were all just as horrified as she was, and the medical examiner was pragmatic, but everyone was treating her father as if he were gone and that was something Edith's mind clearly was unable to handle. Since she had lived some time with only one parent, Edith never took lives for granted, but this was where her ability to handle disconnecting with people suffered its final blow and she became even more likely to hold those she cares for closely and tightly as long as she can. That's made her more willing to accept or work with things she may previously have dismissed, which makes her a stronger person—sort of. It also makes her more fragile and a little bit clingier in friendship and love, as well as even more determined to survive despite all odds.
What experience challenged your character's core beliefs? How did they handle this or change from it?
Sir Thomas Sharpe, baronet, and loving him, changed an enormous core belief of Edith's, or rather two of them: one, that aristocrats are always bad people with no sense of caring for those who might be socially beneath them, and two, that things that might seem to be 'evil' at first blush aren't, always. It's easier to focus on the first to answer the question because the second is an explosion of essay-length answer, so: Edith in her youth and young adulthood was taught that anyone with a noble title like 'baronet' was an arrogant, wealthy, highbrow leech who gained their wealth off the little people—but in Thomas she learned he was soft-hearted, giving, dreamy, wanted nothing more than to save the village his father had economically destroyed ... and was also completely broke. (If Edith's own parents weren't self-made wealth, she might have assumed that having privilege automatically makes one evil and being poor was what made people good!) As a result of this exposure to the fact that not every English patrician was actually a self-centered dick rolling in money, Edith has developed a tendency to judge more slowly and try to leave any preconceived notions behind her, simply learning about people as they are. This does also mean she might ignore warnings given to her by another, giving someone a chance even if it turns out to be a bad idea ... but to her it's growth.
What would your character sacrifice to get what they want or to reach their potential? What have they sacrificed already?
Everything.
That is the answer to both questions, really. She has already sacrificed everything she had left to get something she wanted—her marriage to Thomas—and then something else she wanted (which was, essentially, surviving). What she got back isn't entirely clear at the end of the film, and it doesn't seem terribly important to Edith's character, either. She loved, she lived, she survived; she published the novel and it was to all assumptions a success.
There's no reason that for love or story she wouldn't do it all again, now that she's done it once and came out the other side. Edith is very much a "live in the moment" sort of person, and one who will throw caution to the wind for something that feels deeply important.
What is a time where your character failed drastically at something and how did it impact them, what did they do about it?
Edith was given a warning—"beware of Crimson Peak"—and she failed to find out where Crimson Peak actually was until it was too late. The fact the warning was otherworldly and delivered out of time made it more difficult, and it is rather understanding in context how she didn't know! But it's still a monumental failure, and one that Edith absolutely reflects on and blames herself for. A ghost remained tethered to her spirit for the sole purpose of delivering this warning and Edith walks right into the very place she should beware of. It scared her, shook her to her core, and actually saved her life: this realization made her more willing to reconsider the ghosts around her and Allerdale Hall and figure out what they might actually be trying to do. Maybe it wasn't scare her off or harm her. Maybe they were trying to tell her something important.
❥ Player Information
Player Name: Kit
Pronouns: she/they
Are you over 18?: yes!
Contact(s): skeletonality on discord,![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
skeletonality
Who Invited You?: me, I invited me!
Current Characters: harrowhark & dulcinea!
Permissions: here
Writing Samples: this is the most recent TDM. this is me with a different username in a game on a different journal website because it's the meatiest Edith writing I've got that isn't locked.
Pronouns: she/they
Are you over 18?: yes!
Contact(s): skeletonality on discord,
Who Invited You?: me, I invited me!
Current Characters: harrowhark & dulcinea!
Permissions: here
Writing Samples: this is the most recent TDM. this is me with a different username in a game on a different journal website because it's the meatiest Edith writing I've got that isn't locked.