bakerstreet | Gothic

Gothic

Lightning streaks across the inky blackness. Somewhere far off in the deep woods, a single wolf howls. Go ahead, bring your meager candle close, no matter the danger that the flame presents to your luxurious satin clothing - you won't find any warmth to relieve you in this mansion built just as much of regret as it is of stone. But you have no other choice since you've been imprisoned here.

Or perhaps you're the one who's keeping a less-than-willing soul here to ease your own pain. Either way, you've found yourself the subject of an atmospheric, suspenseful gothic romance!

a type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th cent. in England. Gothic romances were mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and they were usually set against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole was the forerunner of the type, which included the works of Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Gregory Lewis, and Charles R. Maturin, and the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey satirizes Gothic romances. The influence of the genre can be found in some works of Coleridge, Le Fanu, Poe, and the Brontës. During the 1960s so-called Gothic novels became enormously popular in England and the United States. Seemingly modeled on Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, these novels usually concern spirited young women, either governesses or new brides, who go to live in large gloomy mansions populated by peculiar servants and precocious children and presided over by darkly handsome men with mysterious pasts. Popular practitioners of this genre are Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, Catherine Cookson, and Dorothy Eden.
( source )

HOW TO PLAY
1. Comment with your character, info, and preferred role/trope or even setting. Is your character a bright-eyed ingenue? A tortured soul with as many skeletons in their closet as their are rooms in the castle? Hired help who has fallen for the mansion's newest guest and wants to save them from a certain doomed fate? How about a vampire, werewolf, or ghost? The only limit is your imagination!
2. Reply to others. Hash things out or go with the flow. Just get your gothic, creepy shipping on.
3. RNG the prompts if you need to. Otherwise, have fun. Treat this as seriously or as irreverent as you'd like.

PROMPTS
( change the gender/pronouns out for appropriate ones! | source )

1. Powerful love. Heart-stirring, often sudden, emotions create a life or death commitment. Many times this love is the first the character has felt with this overwhelming power.

2. Uncertainty of reciprocation. What is the beloved thinking? Is the lover's love returned or not?

3. Unreturned love. Someone loves in vain (at least temporarily). Later, the love may be returned.

4. Tension between true love and father's control, disapproval, or choice. Most often, the father of the woman disapproves of the man she loves.

5. Lovers parted. Some obstacle arises and separates the lovers, geographically or in some other way. One of the lovers is banished, arrested, forced to flee, locked in a dungeon, or sometimes, disappears without explanation. Or, an explanation may be given (by the person opposing the lovers' being together) that later turns out to be false.

6. Illicit love or lust threatens the virtuous one. The young woman becomes a target of some evil man's desires and schemes.

7. Rival lovers or multiple suitors. One of the lovers (or even both) can have more than one person vying for affection.

8. Dark (and brooding?) At least one member of the pair has a tragic past or experiences that have left them closed off to the world.

9. Less than ideal beginnings. It's an age-old story: falling in love with the person who locked you in the dungeon. Or the attic, if they're a bit more hospitable.

10. Supernatural elements. Strange dreams about a shadowy place or a mysterious face. Blurry figures that linger just out of the line of sight. And the master of the house, always indisposed around the time of the full moon.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ please let him be your phantom of the opera or something. ;-; bonus for supernatural vibes!! assumed cr is a-ok, pm to hash things out if you wish~! ]

Edited 2023-07-31 23:38 (UTC)

Edited 2023-07-21 19:31 (UTC)

[[Lives for this kind of thing, including dressing the part. Perky and somewhat naive, but tends to learn what's going on fairly quickly.]]

{{She's an academic, antiquarian, scientific observer of the world beyond the veil. She's also an Unconventional Woman™️, a reclusive widow...and a vampire.}}

[ The invitation Julieta had received summoned her to an old, decrepit manor that stood shrouded in mystery. The letter was penned in elegant calligraphy and the wax seal bore a sinister-looking bull. The rumor that circulated among the townsfolk spoke of a demonic creature lurking within the manor's decaying walls. They insisted that going anywhere near that property was a death sentence yet she couldn't resist the allure of the unknown, though it was enough to convince her to arm herself.

As she approaches the manor's entrance, the chilling wind passes right through her worn cloak. Julieta clutches the invitation, feeling its parchment quiver in her trembling hand. Stepping through the creaking threshold, she finds herself immediately lost in a labyrinth of corridors. Perhaps she should have waited for an escort before wandering in. She can't seem to recall the path back to the entrance in the dim light. ]

(for how many years has he been alone? his manor slowly falling into disrepair, the villagers unwilling to work for a man they deem a monster. still, he grows his own food and keeps away as much as he can...but the growing chasm in his heart is almost too much to bear.

but there is a girl. he has seen her on the grounds hunting, perhaps assuming this place long abandoned. his loneliness compels him to pen a letter, an invitation for dinner. and to his surprise, he hears the front door creak open distantly. she had come.)

Hello?

[ She calls out into the darkness but also is unsure she really wants to be found. Deciding to put her tracking skills to use she looks around for signs of life. If there's really someone here then perhaps there's another part of the mansion that's more in use. She might even find something that could tell her more about the mysterious resident than what little she could gather in the invitation. It may be dangerous to take a chance coming here like this but she doesn't have much to lose. It's not often that she would be invited to dinner. She proceeds carefully along the walls and can't help but imagine finding herself face to face with a hungry monster. ]

[Can play the role of the bright eyed ingenue or wear a highly convincing mask of one but can also play the part of the brooding tormented soul cooped up in his fancy home after a tragedy as well. I'm pretty open with discussion!]

Gothic

emeritus iv | ghost | ota

alice liddell • american mcgee's alice • ota

margaery tyrell | asoiaf/got | ota

Viola Avelide | OC | OTA

Dr. Evangeline Nix || Antiquarian horror OC, reluctant vampire || OTA

ciel phantomhive | kuroshitsuji

Meioh Setsuna/Sailor Pluto | Sailormoon | OTA

james buchanan barnes | mcu

Julieta Juris | Gundam IBO | OTA

for @killingsystematically

no subject

no subject

Nie Huaisang | Mo Dao Zu Shi (novel/donghua)

Allison Argent | Teen Wolf