#╰ ✯* ━━━ v: 001 / it’s love that makes you fight harder for what you want.

[frchlds-blog]

         ‘   -----   hey   you.   ’   she   lingers   at   the   door   frame   ,   emerald   hues   focused   upon   the   other   shadowhunter.   ‘   you’re   a   tough   guy   to   find.   ’

@ofbrokenrunes  ♡’d.

[parabellum-rpg-archive]

Congratulations, Maddie! You’ve been accepted to play Juliet Carmichael. Please make your page and send it in within 24 hours.

Admin note: Maddie, you’re an insanely talented writer, and I found myself smiling so much at your description of Juliet. I loved the mentions of Plath, Austen, and Palahniuk. That was one of my favorite parts of this audition! - Admin V

IC INFORMATION —

CHARACTER DESIRED Juliet Carmichael

DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Juliet’s still trying to find her place in life. She always wanted to get out of the lifestyle that she grew up in, but I think she fears she’s falling back into it. Maybe there’s money, now, but there’s also violence and drugs and alcohol. She very much fears that it’s a cycle she’ll never escape. As a child, I imagine she drowned herself in books as a form of escapism, and it gave her a lot of ideas on how life should be. If she should be depressed, it should be very agonising and very Plath. If she should fall in love, it should be overwrought and Austen. If she should suffer, it should be glamorous, and so Palahniuk. There were a lot of ‘shoulds’, but of course life never pans out how you expect.

I think she struggled a lot with her relationship with Mason. In a lot of ways he is her hero, because he took care of her, and was the closest thing to a role model she had. But at the same time, in his efforts to look after her, he found himself in the drug trade- and if her parents taught her one good thing, it’s that drugs are dangerous, awful substances to be near. She worried about him, and wanted him out of the business, and then he went to prison and all of her fears were vindicated. How could she not be angry? She loves her brother more than anything, but that love comes with a heavy price. Mason has to bear the weight of all of Juliet’s expectations, as well as her affection.

Her upbringing has given her a bit of a saviour complex, I think. Her parents gave in to their demons, and Juliet blames herself. Children are meant to be the silver lining in whatever clouds plague their parents’ lives, and she was never enough for them. In the end, she projects that on to other people. She was furious when Mason went to prison, because he should have been better. She raged when Luca went out on benders, because he was smarter than that. She wants to fix the broken things around her, but the world isn’t so easily controlled.

From that, comes her love of writing.

She can mold a world in which things go her way, in a way that’s never happened in real life. In real life, the world happens to her. In her writing? Juliet happens to it. Lately, she’s been struggling with her writing, because she feels like a fraud - like she’s trying to be too many things at once. Is it okay to be an escort and an ambitious student? Is it possible to work alongside criminals and still be a good person? Is she a hypocrite? Juliet isn’t sure any more. She isn’t sure who she is, or even who she wants to be, and she’s afraid to write in case she sees a stranger reflected back in her words.

WRITING SAMPLE

001

Her phone lit up, and Juliet’s eyes shot towards the screen.

But it was just work. Fuck.

Tapping her thumb anxiously against the screen before she unlocked it, she tried desperately to undo the knot in her stomach. She couldn’t work tonight - she’d turn the job down. It was fine. She replied with a negative, recommending another girl that might be free tonight, and returned to staring at her screen. Should have deleted Luca’s number, she thought. She could delete it now. But when she went to his contact information, she found herself typing a message to him instead.

Are you okay?

She hesitated over the ‘send’ button, before deleting it. Luca wasn’t her problem any more. She wasn’t strong enough; she couldn’t look after him. But he was also impossible to forget, a whirlwind that had swept her away. She’d had a hard time convincing herself to go to his wedding, because she wasn’t sure if she was ready to see him move on. Juliet knew herself: leaving him had been the best thing for her, but it had also been the hardest thing she’d ever done. When it was good, it was so good, but when it was bad, all she could think about was her dad snoring on the couch, reeking of whisky and screaming in her face if she’d dared to make a noise.

She thought of Mason, working hard to look after a kid he’d never asked to be in charge of. She thought of Luca, and all his bad habits, and how maybe it’s cute and fun when you’re in your twenties, but old habits die hard and the partying would start to rot him soon enough.

She knew how it worked. She’d seen addiction in action before. But she’d also seen how bad things could cause a sharp downward spiral. And despite it all, she was worried about him. His fiance had been shot at their wedding. How could he be okay? She could already imagine him washing pills down with booze.

“Not your problem, not your problem, not your problem,” she mumbled to herself, tossing the phone face down on her couch and stretching her legs out. Let him poison himself. She couldn’t keep wasting her energy on him. If he’d really cared, he would have made more of an effort to ease up on the partying when he saw how it worried her. Juliet needed to put herself first. She needed a bubble bath, she needed to put on her silk pyjamas, and she needed a hot chocolate and a chick flick. No work tonight, no trying to impress anyone.

Just Juliet.

002

She had been so angry. And it felt like such a cliche, sitting in the visitation room, raising her voice, spitting out ‘fuck you’s and ‘how could you be so goddamn stupid’s. It was almost funny, actually, that it didn’t matter how expensive her clothes were now, or how many people were willing to treat her like a princess worth spoiling, she still felt like trash from the wrong side of town.

She looked around at the cheap manicures around her, the bad haircuts, the clothes that didn’t fit right, and she had thought: I’m just like you. Even through that anger, though, she’d visited Mason every week without fail. He was her brother; he’d dropped everything to look after her when nobody else would. Hell, he’d only been arrested because of his work, and he only had his work because he’d been trying to take care of her. And she’d been right there waiting for him, with a change of clothes and a taxi, on the day he got out. He didn’t need to be looked after, but he was her brother. She’d care for him whether he liked it or not.

He had looked pale: that was her first thought when he emerged from the prison doors. Pale, but a free man.

Juliet threw her arms around him, burying her face against his shoulder. “If you ever get arrested again, I’m going to kill you,” she mumbled, fingers digging in. The Costello’s were a part of their lives, like it or not - they were in too deep, and she couldn’t ask him to stop working with them. Certainly not for as long as she still worked at Roma. But if Mason was ever stupid enough, reckless enough, to get caught again… she’d fight Marcel Costello if she had to, whatever it took to get Mason out of prison. She couldn’t lose him, not again.

003

She’d been afraid, initially, that she wasn’t cut out for this line of work. She didn’t ooze confidence, like the other girls. But in fact, her reserved nature seemed to be an asset. Customers seemed to like her because she was sweet. A little soft. Real. So they said, anyway.

They said a lot of things, as if the money they were paying her wasn’t enough.

You look beautiful, he said. And Juliet ducked her head, curls falling across her face in an effort to hide her shy smile. She’d never get used to that, probably. She didn’t feel beautiful, mostly. She felt like a plain, working class girl with beautiful clothes, beautiful hair, beautiful makeup.

Thank you, she said, wondering if she could give this up. After graduation, she’d not need to work for money. But she wondered, sometimes, if she needed the validation. The distraction.

Do you like my dress? She said, because they always seemed to like explicit permission to look at her body. I was worried it might not be appropriate for a nice place like this.

They also seemed to like feeling bigger than her, cleverer. Juliet never played dumb, but she’d play naive. She had the doe-eyed sweetheart thing down - it had been honest, in the beginning. She’d been insecure, new, uncertain. Now she knew what she was doing, and she knew what people liked. Men, like the one who had hired her tonight, liked to feel like they could teach you things. That was generally how she played it. Sweet and interested, and it wasn’t hard, because she was those things - she liked new people, hearing new stories even if they were made up to impress her. And it made them laugh all the harder when, later in the evening, she’d loosen up a little with a smirk, and make some cheeky comment that left them unsure if they should be flattered or insulted.

[frchlds-blog]

        ‘   -----   simon   !   ’   his   name   is   drawn   out   ,   followed   by   soft   giggling.   ‘   could   you   just   focus   for   one   second   please   ?   ’

@remembcr  ♡’d.