Rebels & Mutineers is set in modern day New Orleans, Louisiana. R&M is fueled by player's plots and group input.
Supernatural people have always had their place in society, hidden in plain sight or locked away for their own protection. New Orleans, a haven for the strange and mysterious and a magnet for the supernatural.
Established: Oct. 27th, 2018 Recently Updated Posts && Recently Updated Threads
05.11.19
As the community reels from the untimely death of Lucia Lovelle, life has to move on. Primrose readies for the annual Prom celebration! Keep your eye out for a event board and have fun!
02.27.19
It's not too late to vote for February's OTM winners! The winners for January, keep an eye out on your messages for your winner's graphics for your signature. Already voted? Make sure you check out the Mardi Gras event board! Party up, have a good time, and enjoy!
Another late night closing at the bar had Jaehyun waking up extremely late. It wasn't abnormal for him anymore, this odd sleep schedule. Working at a bar came with its downfalls, but at twenty-four it was hardly that for the man. When Jae finally stirred from his bed it was well after one in the afternoon. He finally had a night off of work, so he was going to spend his time enjoying all that the Phalanx House had to offer, which included a nice cup of coffee. After Jae's run-in with Eppie earlier in the week he had learned she was the one who woke up and put on the brew every morning – the woman had to have been sent from God himself. Jae clothed himself quickly (but fashionably) and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. There, he poured up the last bit of coffee left in the pot and enjoyed it in the silence of post-lunch-hour.
The house was quiet; it was still school hours for all the residents who fell into that age spectrum. Jae had been out of that age group for a while, but wasn’t quite sure what to do with his time outside of Phalanx. So he stayed. Occasionally he held down the fort for Astor, or watched after a class or two whenever a teacher had to bail, but really, he had no reason to stay there. Besides the obvious homelessness. Even that could’ve been fixed if he doubled or tripled up on jobs. It was just easy living here. Jae liked teaching the young skinwalkers, he liked hanging out with Ash, he liked being around his kind. He couldn’t get that living on his own, especially not with how much he’d have to work doing that. Jae continued pondering his life until his coffee was drained, and then it was time to move on to better things. For a moment Jae considered going outside, but it seemed a bit too gloomy out for him at the time. Instead, he went up to the third floor, the practice grounds for the gifted students. Maybe somewhere in there would be a little skinwalker or something that would need his help.
What Jae wasn’t expecting was a nearly empty room. The training grounds were barren, save for one soul. “Hey! Cora right?” Jae didn’t really know all of the students that attended Phalanx at the time, but he could recognize most of them. Especially the ones with gorgeous and funky hair. “What are you doing up here?”
Post by Cora Elaine Marshall on Nov 21, 2018 4:58:05 GMT
Cora’s days had fallen into a slow monotony. Granted, it was one that she tried to break up with shifts at the neighborhood cafe and little exploration trips that took her out into New Orleans proper, but a monotony all the same. Wake up, get ready, breakfast, classes, lunch, practice, homework, sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat. As much as some orderly part of her enjoyed the routine of it all, the chaotic side to her that did exist begged to be released from it. But there was only so much that she could do about that… and she supposed that her education was pretty important. After lunch, however, she typically had to decide whether she would make her way up to the training grounds to try to work with whatever dark, twisted power had settled inside her from the time that she was a little girl or… whether she would go somewhere else. Most of the time, she opted to go elsewhere, since most of her school-aged house mates made their way to the training rooms which meant that she wouldn’t be free to do, or not do, whatever she wanted.
There were a few times in her life where Cora had thought about re-experimenting with the ability that she still didn’t fully understand. Days like today, when she thought that maybe if she worked with it, slowly and with careful supervision, that she could actually one day use it without suffering from the terrible spiral that seemed to come with it. There were times when she wondered what kind of life she could lead if she actually had a handle on her power. And then she remembered the pain, the persistent bad mood, the fact that she hadn’t been able to snap herself out of it on more than one occasion. She didn’t have control out of her ability, her ability had control over her, and she wasn’t strong enough yet to even begin to control it. However, on this particular day, most of her classmates had abandoned the training ground, something about not wanting to be cooped up inside for one day, and she had taken it as a sign that, even if she wasn’t going to practice, she could at least sit in the room and, well, think about it. That was where she had been for the last few hours, sitting cross-legged on a desk and staring at the empty room, a look of intense thought on her face.
However, when the door opened, Cora turned her head to the side, wanting to figure out who had managed to find her, her mind already trying to work out what she would tell them she was doing and why. To her surprise, however, it was not one of the school-aged students who was hell bent on using this room, but someone older, someone she recognized. After all, she was the type of person to say hi to everybody on a regular basis, and she had always had really good facial recall. “Mhmm!” She sent a warm smile his way, reaching up and tucking her blue hair behind her ear. “And you’re… Jaehyun, yeah?” The name felt different on her lips, she was pretty sure that she had never actually said it out loud before, but it didn’t sound awful. However, at his next question, she let out a quiet sigh, straightening her legs out on the desk and letting them dangle. “Well. I’m supposed to be practicing. You can probably see how well that’s going.” She gestured around the room, which was standard and devoid of any unnatural shadow-figures that could have sprung from her fingertips. “What are you doing up here?”
Cora’s smile set a nice, warm feeling inside Jae’s chest. He returned it before plopping into one of the chairs in the barren room.
“Just Jae is fine. Most people get really confused by it.” A charming grin had etched itself onto Jae’s face as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He was curious as to how her practicing was going. As she mentioned, not much seemed to be going on, but Jae had to admit that he didn’t know what she could do in the first place. While he made something of a point to at least know who was in the house, his knowledge about them often didn’t go much further than their names.
“Oh, you know. A little bit of this, a little bit of that.” It wasn’t really an answer to Cora’s question, but it was the best that he had. He wasn’t really sure what brought him up here – just aimless wandering he supposed. He no longer needed to practice, not in the safety of this room anyway. Jae was damn good at shifting now, he could do so nearly effortlessly, and it was a lot less painful than when he started. Sometimes, he’d wander up to the training level to help out the little skinwalkers, none of whom were here today.
“Usually I help out around here, with whatever I can anyway. Need any help? What is your super-secret power anyway? Is it charming people? Because you’re doing great so far.” Jae winked at the woman, the grin never leaving his face. He was a tease; he knew it and reveled in that fact. It’s gotten him into trouble sometimes, but more often than not he was just looking for some harmless flirting.
Post by Cora Elaine Marshall on Nov 23, 2018 5:11:02 GMT
Of all of the things that Cora loved to do, being around other people was probably the number one thing. It wasn’t that she couldn’t have fun on her own, her favorite hobbies were reading and writing, both of which were very solitary activities. The time that she truly flourished, however, often came when she was interacting with at least one other person. She had a few theories about why this was, most of them stemming around the fact that if she was around another person and focusing on their needs, she wasn’t worrying obsessively about her own. More specifically, she wasn’t thinking about her ability, about what it did to her to use it, and why she wouldn’t go anywhere near it willingly. If she didn’t have to worry about herself, then she didn’t have to face those questions at least for another minute, and it was those minutes in-between that she revelled in. Normally, that wouldn’t be the case, but the fact that her power had such a profoundly negative effect on her had colored her view using it at all, which was exactly why she was sitting alone in a barren room with only a few desks and chairs, staring at the room like it had offended her.
However, that irritation and frustration that had been building up inside of her melted away at the sight of another person. And when he told her his preferred name, she married it to the handsome face that had looked in on her particular practice session. “Jae it is, then.” She leaned back, resting her hands on the desk behind her and relaxing back, feeling the muscles in her shoulders loosen as her focus shifted from the question of whether or not she would try to use her power, and recenter on carrying on a conversation with a person she hadn’t taken the time to get to know just yet. The smile on his face made hers feel more natural, and she tilted her head slightly to the side as he gave her an answer that… wasn’t really an answer. She hadn’t officially met Jae before, the extent that she knew of him was that he was a resident in the house, much like her. Beyond that? The only real thing that she knew about him was that he dressed well, he was handsome, and he was incredibly charming. Even in the few moments that they had been talking, it seemed like this was something that came easily to him, even more so than it did her.
“H-help? Uhm… I mean.” She chewed on the inside of her lip, already feeling frantic at the prospect of using her power. However, the second the word “charming” left his lips, she paused and flicked her eyes towards his. A rose colored blush dusted over her cheeks, and she glanced away, a slightly embarrassed smile on her face. “Oh definitely not, that might actually be more useful.” She chuckled, looking back towards him. “I have the particularly useless ability of manipulating shadows.” It wasn’t totally useless and she knew it, she had seen it when she was at her most desperate, and she had sworn to herself that she would never get back to that point again. “I’m starting to think that your power is charming people though. Either that or you’re just naturally good at it.” Was she still blushing? Absolutely, but the kind smile was on her face and she was trying to pick her way through this conversation without making too much of a fool of herself.
“Yeah! Help, you know, I can be target practice or something. Just be careful not to ruin my face,” In true Jae showing out fashion, he activated his ability and effortlessly shifted in to an exact replica of Cora. “It’s just too beautiful to mess up.” He flipped his now silvery-blue hair over one slim shoulder and flashed the real Cora a charming grin. Jae loved the way her cheeks flushed when he was flirting with her. The pink looked nice on her fair skin. “Charming people is only half of my skills.” Jae-Cora winked before shifting back into his own skin. He then approached Cora and sat down next to her. She was gorgeous, Jae couldn’t deny it. There was something about her that kept him in the practice room with her, and it wasn’t just the shocking and pretty color of her hair.
“Useless? Well, I don’t know about that, but it does sound awesome.” Another award winning grin brightened Jae’s face. He gave her a small nudge and pointed out to the empty floor before them. “Can you show me?” If there was only one thing that Jae had to pick about Phalanx that he loved, he would’ve picked the abilities that were brought together there. How each and every person was different, and could express that difference openly? What Ash made here was amazing. Jae wouldn’t have preferred anything else.
Post by Cora Elaine Marshall on Dec 2, 2018 4:20:12 GMT
The thought of using Jae as target practice for anything was enough to make Cora chuckle, if only because she was pretty sure she couldn’t actually try to hurt him. Well, that and that would require looking at him for longer than a few seconds at a time if she didn’t want to hurt him, and she wasn’t quite sure that she could do that. However, his face began to shift, and Cora watched in fascination as his dark hair was replaced with her own silvery blue, the bones of his face rearranging until she was looking at her own face. Her lips parted and her eyes went wide. She had met a few skinwalkers before, but the way that Jae had done it had seemed so fluid, so effortless that she couldn’t help but admire it. Maybe there would be a day that she was that good with her own ability, but she doubted it. “Now you’re just flattering me.” She giggled, already wanting to hide her face, or for the floor to open up and swallow her whole.
It wasn’t that Cora had never had a boy flirt with her, it was that in every single situation like this that she had found herself in over the course of her life had left her completely speechless. She had no idea how to respond to someone flirting with her, so she usually went with her gut instinct… which was often wrong. In fact, she often joked with her friends that she couldn’t actually seduce a single person to save her life, unless seduction via awkwardness was a real thing. So far in her experience? Not so much.
“Mmm, are you saying that as you or me?” She smiled, feeling her cheeks grow warmer as he (she?) winked at her again, before reverting back to his own face. With that, the tension in her shoulders released, and she felt just a bit more relaxed; there was something unsettling about talking to someone wearing her face. Was that how twins felt? He came and sat down next to her, and Cora leaned forward slightly so that she wasn’t being propped up by her hands. Already, she could feel the nerves knotting the pit of her stomach, and she couldn’t help but wonder… how long until he asked her to show him what she could do? The embarrassing truth of it was that she couldn’t do much. At least, not at first. Usually, she could make a few faint shapes out of shadow on the floor, and then she would eventually lose control, the power taking hold of her instead of her using it. For her age, she should be in better control of her own ability, and she knew it… but she wasn’t, and she had no real desire to experiment the limits of what she could do. Not when she knew the consequences.
“I suppose.” It could be awesome, in someone else’s hands maybe. But she had spent most of her life shying away from the power inside of her. And then came the nudge and the million dollar question. “Uhm,” she paused, her palms already sweating at the prospect. For one, prolonged moment, she considered doing it. She considered trying to use the power that terrified her, to make some kind of shape on the floor, to try to impress someone who seemed to be able to command his own so effortlessly. And then her thoughts turned, from the triumphant feeling that she might feel to the darkness that roiled inside her, churning and twisting like a demented sea that held nothing but death and sadness. Most of the time, she was tethered somewhere safe, far enough away that she didn’t have to feel it. But when she lost control? That tether snapped, and she drifted out to the center, where she sunk under the waves of shadow and smoke over and over again, afraid that each time she went under she would not be able to emerge.
“No.” It was such a simple answer, but she was sure the terror was written all over her face. Even if it wasn’t, her hands were shaking in her lap, and anybody who bothered to look would be able to tell that something was off about her reaction. “S-some days it works, some days it doesn’t,” she continued, attempting to come up with a reason for her reaction so she wouldn’t have to talk about it. “Today’s one of the days that it just… doesn’t.”
@jaehyun | This got angsty much faster than I anticipated and I'm kinda sorry but not really >.>
“That’s my official job title, of course I’m gonna flatter you.” Jae loved to flirt. It was his favorite pastime, really. Making people feel good made Jae feel good, he supposed. Spreading love. When he said things like that out loud he felt like such a hippie, but it was true. “Let’s be real, I’m saying it as the both of us. Seriously, look at us. We’re two gorgeous humans, no shame in flaunting it.” Jae said puffing out his chest. He knew he could be a little arrogantfull of himselfextra sometimes, but what could you expect out of someone so confident in themselves? It took Jae most of his 24 years to get this comfortable in his skin. If he could help someone else speed up their journey, he definitely took that shot every time it came up.
Jae wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he asked to see Cora’s abilities, but it certainly wasn’t this. How she began fidgeting and became nervous. The shifter could practically feel the unease radiating off of her. Several moments had passed, wherein Cora looked to be swimming in her own thoughts. Not knowing how this shadow manipulation worked, Jae was curious as to what it was that had her so hung up on his one little question.
”No.” Finally came her response. Jae became concerned, as the girl’s shaking became worse. Sympathy swelled in Jae’s brown eyes, as his usually playful grin sobered. The poor girl looked downright terrified. She shakily explained to him how sometimes it just didn’t work. Jae remembered how frustrating it could be sometimes when his skin didn’t do what he wanted, but whatever Cora was feeling… It wasn’t that. The shifter gave one of Cora’s unsteady hands a light, reassuring squeeze.
“’S’alright.” He told her, his trademark grin was suddenly reapplied to his face. If powers were off limits, then that was A-Okay in Jae’s book. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t talk about – literally the only reason he made it through Ash’s schooling was because he was the best chatterbox there was. “Don’t sweat it! Instead, tell me ‘bout yourself, Cora, what makes you smile? You know, besides me.”
Post by Cora Elaine Marshall on Dec 13, 2018 3:33:51 GMT
Cora was pretty hopeless when it came to flirting. Sure, she knew like… the logistics of it, but when it came to someone actually flirting with her and meaning it? She was a total mess. The last time that it had happened at been at the Quarter Cafe, and she had been so shocked that she had dropped the cup of coffee that she had been holding, spilling all over the girl’s shoes and probably ruining them. Needless to say, the invitation to go out sometime had been absolutely resciended, and Cora had banished herself back to the kitchen—with permission from her boss—for the remainder of her shift. Not that it much mattered, by the time she made it into the back they had all heard about it, and they had no intention of letting her forget what had happened. There were still people giving her a hard time about the entire incident, and she had a feeling that was not something that was going to end any time soon.
“Oh come on, that makes me feel much less special.” She stuck her tongue out at him playfully, before reaching up to tuck a bit of hair behind her ear, if only to hide the blush that seemed permanently present on her cheeks for a second or two. Cora was never the type of person who had thought of herself as beautiful or gorgeous, just that she was the way that she was. And yeah, sometimes she felt super pretty and snapped a quick selfie for her instagram, but that was about the extent of her own vanity. Still, there was something about hearing Jae say that she was gorgeous that made her believe it without much thought, because as far as she knew he had no reason to lie to her.
Cora dared to glance up at him as she told him no, and she watched as the grin fell from his lips completely. Almost immediately, she felt a kind of guilt; she liked his smile, there was something about it that made her feel warm and comfortable, and a million other things that she couldn’t really place because she didn’t have the words for them. Instead, she glanced back down at her shaking hands, willing herself to keep it together, because the last thing that she needed was a full scale meltdown in front of the first cute guy that had paid attention to her in… well, quite a while. She felt a pressure against her hand, and glancing down, she saw Jae’s hand covering hers. The gentle squeeze was enough to bring a small smile to her face, and she stole another look up at him, as grateful of a look as she could muster etched into every line of her face. His megawatt smile was back on his face, and there was some small, traitorous part of her that realized how close the two of them were.
“Thanks,” she said quietly, pushing the last few feelings of fear down and sealing them away. She arched her eyebrows, looking up at him. Most of the people in her life were not the kind of people who would let her get off the hook and switch topics just because it made her feel uncomfortable. If anything, a lot of people would be pushing her to find out more about her since it wasn’t a side to her that she showed many people. “Besides you, huh?” She nudged him with her shoulder, thinking for a moment before offering up an answer. “Hmm. Music, dancing, bad horror movies… or good ones, I’m not that picky with my movie choices.” Just no romantic comedies, but she wasn’t going to say that to someone she had just met. “What about you?” Not that it seemed like he had a hard time finding something to smile about.
@jaehyun | This post was exactly 666 words and that amuses me >.>
“Whaaat?” Jae screeched obnoxiously, before bumping Cora’s shoulder with his own. “Oh, so now I’m not allowed to be fabulous too? Fine, fine you know what, it’s all you. You’re all the gorgeous. Are you happy now?” The skinwalker was teasing, of course, but in true Jae fashion he had to make a big deal about it. Hopefully it would rile a smile out of the quiet blue-haired beauty, or if Jae was lucky, a really good laugh.
“Anytime, darling, anytime.” He said dismissively. Honestly, he didn’t think she needed to thank him for simply being there and not being a total prat. She was terrified, Jae would be a total ass if he had pushed it where she clearly didn’t want to go. Ash had shown him a similar kindness. Being a skinwalker was something of a taboo in the world – of all the crazy things other superhumans could do, changing faces was apparently the most terrifying of them. Well, it wasn’t as simple as that. Skinwalkers, those who had supreme control over their ability, could practically absorb the life of another person. They could take mannerisms, fingerprints hell, even their memories. So after all of the hate and scorn Jaehyun had received growing up, he was easily hesitant about using his ability freely around Astor. Credit went to Ash, though. He never pushed Jae. Never demanded anything of him. Soon enough, Jae had opened up, bit by bit, and flourished.
Ash probably regretted his decision to pick up that little turd on the street ten years ago.
“Yeah,” He said emphatically, “Besides me, c’mon, you can’t honestly say this face doesn’t make you grin.” He made a goofy cross eyed face before grinning to her again.
“Bad horror movies? Oh, Cora, darling, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Have you seen ‘Zombeavers’? Oh! Or ‘People Who Live Under the Stairs’?” He began listing movies as he wrapped an arm around Cora’s neck and pulled her in for a tight hug. No one else in this blasted house wanted to watch terrible movies with him, they always called them stupid. That or Ash said they were too young to watch them. “Me? Oh, I like making other people smile. And beautiful people, like yourself.” Another charming wink. Flirting was Jae’s favorite pastime.
Post by Cora Elaine Marshall on Jan 8, 2019 1:04:58 GMT
“N-no!” The words fell out of Cora’s lips, her eyes already wide, and maybe just a little panicked. As Jae continued on, however, it became apparent that he was teasing, and a giggle fell from her lips even as she actively attempted to not go back over everything that she had said so far and analyze it. She knew that she would be doing that later anyways, there was no need to start when it would, without a doubt, make her act… weird. “Oh, please, I think we both know that if there’s anybody in this room who would get called ‘gorgeous’ or ‘fabulous’, it’s you.” Cora looked down as she bumped her shoulder back against his, her smile so wide that it crinkled the corners of her eyes. She wasn’t the type to feel uneasy in one on one conversations with people that she barely knew, but there was something about talking with Jae that just felt easy. He was nice, and despite being older than her, he wasn’t exactly treating her like she was a child. It was a nice change.
Jae wasn’t the first one who had asked to see her ability, nor was he the first one to ask her about it. However, he was one of the first to take it just fine when she said no, or reacted the way that she did. Most of the people in her life who asked to see her ability wanted to actually see her use it, a kind of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” deal, and they couldn’t believe that she wouldn’t want to use her super special powers. Nobody ever asked her about the side effects, and that wasn’t information that she was going to give out to people who didn’t need to know. Mr. Perona knew, mostly because he had been the one that she had listed as her emergency contact when she had checked herself into the hospital, her ex-boyfriend had found out because she’d had to explain where she had gone and didn’t want to lie to him, and of course her best friend Asha knew, but that was it. Still, it made explaining why she didn’t want to actually use her power a bit of a bear. In the end, she usually told everybody the same thing that she had told Jae, and eventually they accepted it.
“Oh, it definitely does.” She flashed her bright smile at him, giggling as he crossed his eyes. “Even when you aren’t making goofy faces at me.” She stuck her tongue out at him, crossing her own eyes in the process, before leaning back on her hands, mostly to get them to stop shaking. Should she practice? Almost definitely, the less she did it, the less control she had over her own ability. But the memory of the shadows spidering over her arms and stretching across wall like a haphazard cross between a vine and a dark spider web was enough to give her pause. Add in the phantom feeling of discomfort that settled into the pit of her stomach, and the memory of despair clawing at her throat from the moment she took hold of the power seated so firmly inside her, and there were plenty of reasons for her to never want to try it again. It was dangerous, she knew that if there were something that made her power surge she would never be able to stop it, but she just… couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not when she was so sure that she would end up losing control again. Not when she was so sure that she would end up having to check herself back in. That had been bad enough the last time around, but now that she had more friends and more of a relationship with the people in Phalanx House, it would require a lot more explanation that she wasn’t prepared to give.
The topic moved, and Cora found that Jae had a tendency to move along with it. As he wrapped his arm around her neck and pulled her into him, she could feel her recently-cooled cheeks heating all over again, as her arm shifted from where it was supporting her wait to wrapping around him, returning the tight hug. “‘People Who Live Under the Stairs’ was amazing, but ‘Zombeavers’ is definitely new to me.” It sounded atrocious, something that could only be a B, C, or D list horror movie, complete with horrible effects, bad acting, and limited editing. Cora needed to see it with every fiber of her being. There was something about those movies, the fear that they were meant to convey, and the humor that she had gotten out of them instead, that she was hooked on, and if she found a partner to sit through said bad horror movies with her? Well, she was certainly game for that. “Please tell me you’ve seen ‘The Gingerdead Man’. If you haven’t, we’re watching it as soon as possible, it’s an absolute masterpiece.” The thought of introducing Jae to the insanity that was The Gingerdead Man, complete with Gary Busey voicing a serial killer gingerbread man made from spice mix combined with his ashes, was amusing to say the least, and there was nobody else that she would even dream of showing it to. In her mind, nobody else would appreciate it.
It didn’t surprise Cora at all that Jae liked making other people smile. In fact, it seemed that he had a knack for it. Though she was a naturally bubbly person, she hadn’t been able to wipe the smile off of her face since he had walked into the room, save for that one, tricky little moment when he had asked her about her ability. However, the word beautiful left his lips, and Cora reached up, covering her cheeks with her hands. “I hope you know that saying stuff like that is not at all helping me function like a normal person.” She couldn’t finish the sentence without a little chuckle, shaking her head as her hands remained firmly in place. The last person to call her any variation of beautiful or gorgeous… well, she couldn’t really even remember if her ex did call her any of those things. He had ended up being a worthless jerk, anyways. “I’m just… not used to that.”
@jaehyun | I'm so sorry, this feels choppy as all hell XD
