Ashlin Thomas is an original character in the Sinner's Sandwich RP. Though completely human in SS!verse she is normally a being known as a Cipher.
General Information []
Full Name: Ashlin Samantha Thomas
Nicknames: Ash, Space Cadet
Alias: Cipher
Date of Birth: April 12, 1988
Appearance []
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 105Ibs.
Hair: Pale Blonde (curly)
Eye Color: Light Blue
Other
Occupation: Bookstore Owner
Vehicle: beat up 1963 VW Bug (light blue)
License Plate: ???
Relationships []
Orientation: Heterosexual
Status: single
Family []
Mother (adopted): Mary Thomas
Father (adopted): Arthur Thomas
Grandmother: Samantha Thomas (deceased)
Mother (biological): unknown
Father (biological): unknown
Friends[]
(or at least she's hopeful about the last three)
Personality []
At first glance Ashlin seems to be little more than your typical cloud cukoolander. She is forever spouting off random seemingly unrelated comments, and is lost in her own world. The truth is though that she is much more than that. If one could read thoughts they would realize that while Ash has a slightly sideways way of looking at the world and thinking about things her thought process makes perfect sense, and the seemingly random comments are all in fact connected. And just as Ashlin regularly confuses those around her she is confused by them. Sarcasm and certain idioms will go right over her head. This is due to the fact these kinds of verbal cues are things most often picked up in conversations with others, something you learn from experience. Since Ashlin was left alone by her peers for the majority of her adolescence she never really had the chance to grasp these things (she was never very fond of television or movies either so she couldn't learn it there.)
Ash feels things very deeply, and has trouble hiding her emotions. This will manifest in rather apparent mood swings. She can find herself feeling intense sadness over things that bother others very little, but can be cheered up again with just a little effort. In general though Ash is an excitable and bubbly person that could best be compared to a large Labrador puppy. While others may think she is oblivious to the world around her it is more that she has learned over the years to tune out the comments about her sanity or lack there of. Humans are rather self centered creatures and so since Ashlin tends to focus more on the big picture and world as whole that people in general tend to ignore (too caught up in their own lives) she herself is seen as oblivious.
This is not to say that Ash is always aware of everything going on around her though. She has a tendency to get wrapped up in her projects or stop whatever she is doing at the drop of a hat when inspiration strikes. While Ashlin would very much like to have friends (or at least a friend) who don't look at her like she is crazy she doesn't actually believe she can have that. The psychologists weren't wrong when they said Ashlin had a fear of abandonment. Though Ashlin knows she isn't really (as) crazy as people think she is she is often haunted by the belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with her that makes others not want to stay with her. She feels like everyone who gets close to her will eventually see whatever this wrongness is that made her parents give her up, and her peers ostracize her, and leave. Her fear does nothing to help matters as she already has trouble connecting with people. She is used to being on the outside, being an observer, and isn't sure how to interact with people in a long term way. The truth is Ashlin is incredibly lonely, though even she doesn't realize just how deep the feeling runs as she has nothing else to compare it to. For almost as long as she can remember no one hasn't looked at her like she was crazy.
Quirks[]
-Ashlin is terrified of doctors and hospitals. She will climb things to escape a doctor, and refuses to take any medicine (especially pills)
-She associates the smell of lilacs with a feeling of safety and home
-She always eats chocolate chip cookies warm, so that the chocolate is still a little melty. Fresh from the oven is best.
-Ash was incredibly close to her grandmother, who died when she was 8
-She can half speak Turkish, and can read Latin
-She has three freckles on her left shoulder -She has a birthmark on her left hip in the shape of Abraham Lincoln's head
-Ash has a very high alcohol tolerance, and used to earn extra money on her travels by winning drinking contests
History[]
Childhood []
Given up for adoption at birth Ashlin never knew her biological parents. Her mother had gotten pregnant as a teenager and made the decision to give up her child for adoption, believing she would have a better life with parents who could properly take care of her. Ashlin’s adopted parents loved her a great deal, and did their best to provide for her. She was always a very curious girl with an active imagination, and would make up fanciful stories about creatures that no one else could see. The main star of these flights on fancy was always her stuffed animal, Bo-Bo. Bo-Bo was a strange looking doll that didn't look quite like any animal but nor was it a person. The closet description might be that it looked like a strange cross between a red panda and a squirrel but even that wasn't quite right. The doll was, in fact, suppose to look like a fox, and had been made by Ashlin's biological mother. She wasn't very good a sewing as one might be able to gather. And though Ashlin did not know the origins of her doll, other than that she'd had it her whole life, it was her most prized possession.
School was always difficult for Ashlin socially though not academically. Ash was very intelligent for her age and was a good problem solver with her out of the box ideas. Her biggest problem was always conforming. She had trouble with assignments where something had to be done a certain way to be marked correct, and she had trouble fitting in with her peers. At first Ashlin tried to make friends but choose poorly in who to direct her attempts toward. She was mocked, and bullied by the group of girls she'd tried to join, and quickly became an outcast because of it. No one wanted what had happened to Ashlin to happen to themselves, and so the others in her class either ignored and avoided her or joined in on the bullying. It wasn't even that most of the people in her class actually disliked her, it was mostly that no one wanted to end up in her position and were willing to sacrifice the strange little girl to save themselves.
To cope with the loneliness and bullying Ashlin retreated deeper into her games of make believe. In Ashlin's games Bo-Bo was not actually a stuffed animal at all but in fact one of the spirit creatures that no one else could see that was inhabiting the body of her doll. Everyone had one of these creatures, Ashlin would often explain to her parents, but no one could see them and that was why Bo-Bo had to live inside her doll. Her parents indulged in her games, and thought nothing of them at first. After all, lots of children had imaginary friends. But when Ashlin turned eleven and was still talking about Bo-Bo as if he was actually alive they began to get nervous.
Ashlin saw psychologist after psychologist, about her “seeing things.” Ashlin readily told them all about the spirit creatures, and Bo-Bo. Ashlin did know it was make believe of course but she didn't really care because her games were really the only thing that made school bearable. Luckily for Ashlin the psychologists realized that she was not schizophrenic or any number of other things. They instead believed that she had a severe fear of abandonment due to her birth parents giving her up, among other things. She was an imaginative child and had thus created these creatures that were always with you to combat her fear of being alone. Her parents were relived and tried their best to always be supportive of their daughter hoping this would help. This had taken time though and Ashlin had ended up being put in various medications at certain points. There had even been talk at points that she might need to be put somewhere for her own safety but Ashlin wasn't suppose to know about those conversations and so she kept her knowledge a secret. The entire thing left Ashlin wary of authority figures and with a fear of hospitals and medication (to this day she can't even bring herself to take a day quill.)
Post-Psychologists []
Ashlin stopped talking about her make believe games, to the relief of her parents but she didn't give them up. She took Bo-Bo with her everywhere even throughout middle school, though at that point he mainly stayed secure within her bag. One day toward the end of the eighth grade Ashlin was cornered by some of her usual tormentors. They had found Bo-Bo during gym period and had taken the doll from her. That day after school they began to mock Ashlin for her childishness, and her strangeness. When one of the girls threatened to destroy Bo-Bo she finally snapped. After years of just silently taking the verbal abuse (before now any physical bullying had been at worst shoving or having her books knocked out of her hands) she fought back for the first time in her life. No one is entirely sure what happened next, the memories of those involved little more than a bur of screaming, anger, fear, and a seemingly deafening crack.
Ashlin was found two hours after her tormentors had made a run for it, blacked out at the bottom of a stairwell with her arm laying at an unnatural angle. In truth what had occurred was that Ashlin had lunged at the leader of the little group (the one who had held Bo-Bo tauntingly in front of her) and had tried to grab the doll. She'd missed, and had gotten a hand full of the girl's hair instead all the while screaming incoherently in a blind rage. The tousle was short and in the ensuing attempts to get Ashlin to let go of the bully she was sent tumbling down a short flight of concrete stairs. The bullies, terrified, had thought that they had accidentally killed her, and made a run for it.
Ashlin escaped relatively unscathed with just a concussion and a broken arm for her trouble. The bullying stopped after, but people began to do everything in their power to avoid Ashlin. Rumor and truth are very rarely the same thing, even if they share a common ancestor and this case was no different. The bullies, desperate to justify to themselves and other what they had done began rumors that something unexplainable and supernatural had happened that day. Ashlin had always been seen as odd and though most rational people would have scoffed at the rumors that Ashlin was some kind of witch with demonic servants it must be remembered that high school is anything but rational. Because of the concussion Ashlin herself couldn't remember what had happened, and the rumors began to blur the lines in Ashlin's mind over what was real and what was her fantasy.
Ash had never had any friends but it was different after the incident. When she was at school she was almost completely isolated. Ashlin was an intelligent girl and did well in school. She was never the top of her class because the teachers didn’t always understand her off beat methods of solving problems but she did well all the same. Unfortunately that’s what let her slip through the cracks. Teachers didn’t have time for students who did well enough but weren't stars, and didn’t cause trouble, no matter how bizarre or alone they were.
To occupy her time, Ashlin began to take up various hobbies, trying something whenever it struck her fancy. She would often jump from interest to interest, and while some stuck other things were quickly forgotten. She found she enjoyed making things, and set up a small workshop for her various projects; some things were small like making her mother a new spice rack and others were all together more fanciful and complex (such as welding together a rather large cookie cutter in Bo-Bo's image.)
By the time Ashlin had graduated high school she had become quite good with various kinds of power tools, had a rather extensive stamp collection, and was quite adapt at putting together a lovely tea party (though they were always rather short on guests.) At first her parents were dismayed when Ashlin choose to backpack around the world instead of go to college. She was a smart girl and had been accepted to good schools but she knew college wasn’t for her. She wanted to learn things first hand, and her curious nature was more suited for free study than conventional schooling. Ashlin spent the next four years traveling the world. She learned a lot in her travels, but never found what she knew deep down she was looking for. When she finally did make it back home she found she didn't feel like she was home, still as out of place as she'd always felt here and everywhere else. Ashlin wanted to settle down somewhere but knew that place wasn't in her hometown, and so she packed up her possessions (some clothes, books, welding gear, power tools, her tea cups, stamp collection, and Bo-Bo) and moved to the town of Greenvale to open a bookstore.
Greenvale []
Ashlin has lived in Greenvale for little over a week now, and has spent most of that time working on her bookshop. The first two people she met since coming to Greenvale were Mister Stewart and Michael Tillotson. As the building Ashlin is renting belongs to Mr.Stewart the pair came to see her progress. Despite the rather awkward first meeting, Michael left the shop as Ash's first real friend.
Michael and Ashlin meet again two days later when he came to ask for help deciphering the less than legible journal of homeopathic remedies she'd given him. Their tea was something of an up and down of awkwardness, with Michael revealing both his scars and the fact that he carries with him a sword. Ashlin agreed to make a special soap for Michael to help him with his scars, and in exchange Michael agreed to teach her how to fence. Things became awkward again when Michael fell asleep on her couch. After Michael woke up from a nightmare Ashlin confessed her own trouble with nightmares when she was younger. He is the only person who knows that Ashlin was aware of the fact that her adopted parents thought about putting her in a mental institution.
While at the grocery store later that day she ran into, quite literally, Bradley Karrde Smith. After a rather strange, but pleasant meeting that involved monkey-squirrel band aids, and pin wheels the two parted ways. Continuing her exploration of Greenvale, Ashlin wandered into SWERY 65 where she was pushed into Todd Thorne. After a rapid game of revolving door musical chairs she had made the acquaintance of Emily Wyatt, Kevin Ashcroft Atticus Lasseter, Tamika Weir, and Francis York Morgan, as well as running into Brad again. When Michael appeared at the bar she dragged him to their table, unaware of the less than friendly feeling between Michael and Tamika.
It was assumed by most of the table that Michael and Ashlin were an item (despite Ash's flustered protest) and at least one view certainly wasn't helped when Todd caught sight of Michael accidentally groping Ash. She had already been panicking after discovering that Brad was a doctor. After being comforted by both Tamika, and Emily Ashlin was feeling better. Or she was until she saw Kevin draping himself over Michael. Feeling jealous (though she didn't recognize it as such) Ash returned to the table.
While walking home from the bar Ash ran into a man she did not know, surrounded by cigarette smoke. Despite her better instincts Ashlin did not run; a mistake she would regret. The Smoking Man pushed her against the fence, and began kissing her. Ashlin was torn between her complete terror, and an almost attract she felt to the man that she in no way understood. When he at last pulled away Ash found they were surrounded by creatures she'd never seen before: The Shadows.