#༊ ⊹ ° . headcannons ˛ ‘ my hands so sore with wrong‚ i can't be soothed.

[calithal]

rate your muse's traits.  ༄            repost and rate your muse's traits out of 10 in each category!

compassion, 2/10. it’s not good. this one’s definitely one of the ‘isle mindset’ ones, where it’s considered such a weakness that she’s grown up with it as a warning of what not to do at all costs. she has grown up surrounded by the suffering of her loved ones, which a strange protection that she did not understand looming over her. the isle as a whole has a way of united suffering. there’s not much compassion there, but there is understanding. she truly could never feel compassion for anyone in auradon, understanding is as close as it could get and even then, Not Really.

bitterness, 10/10. sosososossooooo bitter and grudge holding and unforgiving and jealous and and and!!! this is truly ridiculous with how much she fucks up and not on accident. bitterness against auradon will never change.

happiness, 2/10. she just doesn’t consider it. she is always dissatisfied with peace, and i think happiness, in her mind, is such an auradon thing. none of them will ever be happy. she does not linger on the hopelessness of that statement. harriet and uma will always carry the weight of the world, harry and her will never be satisfied, just general someone’s going to get gil feelings and Much More. she does believe that her family does deserve to be happy, and that often evokes cj brand™ guilt and remorse from her. she absolutely doesn’t, though (sometimes, also harry doesn’t, when he’s acting like her. but most of the time he does.)

politeness, 1/10. so so so very impolite and inappropriate all the time, she does not care. she’ll literally say and do anything that suits her to. this was almost a 0 except she does, in some ways, follow isle conventions of not talking about things. semi-hypocritical of her though because she heavily criticizes auradon doing the same.

morality, 2/10. yeah the ‘i do whatever i want’ is very present here. the reality of morality has been knocked away from her because of her upbringing. she’ll do whatever she needs for her and her people to survive, and a few things that she didn’t need to do, just for fun. however, she has moments that creep in that surprise me where she has a strong desire to be praised and held and told that she’s doing good, only to run from the hills when said desires are fulfilled, of course. she also doesn’t want to be a monster. she does all the violence and murder and arson but she doesn’t want to be like her dad. so there’s that.

pride, 8/10. HUGE but also like. by her own standards. she doesn’t care for perfection and she’s still do Literally anything she wants that makes her look pathetic and childish. 

honesty, 1/10. a little bit of a pathological liar. it’s a huge vulnerability thing. but most of the time, you do have to fish the truth from her like a child, which makes it even harder because she can feel the nuisance of it. there is times where she admits it on her own, but that comes with time and trust. the moment she’s not believed when she’s told the truth, however, (even after a lifetime of lying) she takes it so personally and will hold it as a grudge. she does not see merit to telling the truth, and believes any truth she tells can be wielded against her.

bravery, 8/10. okay so faking your death is absolutely the ‘coward’s way out’ but besides that, she’s very brave, and there’s hardly any consideration for fear besides being vulnerable, which she struggles with majorly so that’s at least two points in itself. cj does not have any real desire to live. when prompted, she has no great reasons why living is fantastic, or a gift. she only functions off of her survival instincts because they’ve been wired into her. she spends so much of the time also being self destructive and near damn suicidal. all this to say, i don’t think she fears death, she just acts like she does.

recklessness, 10/10. yeah. yeah. 

ambition, 8/10. canonically, cj’s ambition is one of her most (and one of her only) highlighted traits. i think so much of it stems from how hard she had to fight to feel notable growing up, as she was the runt of the jolly roger kids. she wants her own everything. she leaves the isle and with it the entirety of her past and family behind because she craves that independence and the knowledge that she can do everything by herself without needing anyone else that badly. anything harriet and harry did, she had to veer directly off the path of it. she had to be different, or better. in actuality, she does not crave captaincy like uma, harry, or harriet do. she does love exploring, and being independent. she has a lot of passion and nowhere to put it.  also, just practically speaking, she does not and would not do well in leadership positions. it’s not like she likes being told what to do. in fact, she’s extremely defiant and demand avoidant. but she can get there. in the end, she knows it’s better for her than to be on her own. this is why her being on a crew only works after a severe disaster where she experiences character growth and considers saving other people in addition to her own life.

loyalty, 6/10. she always comes home to the isle and her family, no matter how much she fights it. however, there is a fair bit of straying. huge events that completely shatter this cycle help a lot to keep her closer. she’s not big on developing new loyalties, but they can happen. it’s pretty much just her family (siblings and then also extensions like gil, uma, nina) she’s also really big on defending the honor of those that her loyalties lie with. Huge.

love, ??/10. mmm yeah. i can’t give a number on this. she won’t let me. like nearly everyone on the isle, her relationship with love is so complicated and has been connotated as severely negative and with heavy consequences her entire life. she looks down upon emotional softness and vulnerability in its entirety and considers it a weakness. cj’s love so frequently looks like her fighting it. she always follows through on protecting her loved ones, however it’s always her idea of protecting them, which often becomes her pushing them away. genuine physical affection, unprompted acts of services, random ‘i thought of you’s, and declarations (and carry-throughs, ofc) of violence in your honor are other cj love languages.

sense of family, 5/10. harriet and harry are everything. but she’s always spent half of her time fighting them fiercely and the other half being so dependent on them and their protection. she would kill for them, sometimes she thinks she’s going to kill them all.  harriet is still her big sister, even as she takes on mother responsibilities, it’s still different than a mother, because cj never knew hers and will forever associate the mother role to the one that she wanted, who didn’t want her. the isle is full of non-traditional families, so cj really had no traditional mother role to model her expectations off of. her big sister raised her, but she’s still her sister. harriet (and harry) took care of her when she felt unloved, and even as she fought her and continues to fight her, she will always feel guilt for that. however, she feels as if she cannot change, even if she wanted to. harry is always a battle of pride. when her father cared enough to mold her into anything at all, he created something to fight harry. she still hides behind harry, and she believes that he hates her. her dad is a monster. her memories of him are that of a shadowy nightmare from her childhood, but then, she suffered from his neglect more than anything. the scary stories belonged to her siblings. she both resented him for it, and was also jealous of her siblings for having his attention. then he was as close as mentor as he could be to her when she was essentially his secret assassin, and taught her how to be scary and kill or enforce fear in the quiet of the night. she adored him, in a way, and ceaselessly sought his approval. however, that only lasted for a handful of years, and she had also completely left the isle a few years beyond that. most of her memories are taken up by the time she spent in auradon and beyond. various degrees of repression and actually just losing memories because of different methods of coping with them has left her inable to recall several things before she was 16 and leaving.  since then, he has become more of a rotting corpse that she stares at from the shadows with a completely blank mind. she has no idea what to think, besides that she’s trying not to think about it. and then, he actually is dead. she has nightmares about him and his corpse, telling no one, of course. basically, it’s all very complicated. five is a good flip-flop number, because she’s been raised with family above everything, but it fucks with her.

attractiveness, 9/10. really good genes, she has the startling kind of beauty, definitely leans more ‘hot’ than ‘pretty’ or ’cute’ and is perfectly fine with that. she’s a ten to Me but she has a lot of sharp angles and probably is kind of scary looking with how intense she is, so there’s that. (she also is well aware of how attractive she is, which could either increase or decrease the score depending on your taste)

agility, 10/10. she’s tall now, but she grew up as the tiny runt of the litter, even beyond just her siblings. she had to be fast, and good at hiding. it was all she had. her pessimism helps in a fight in addition to this, she assumes the worst of everything and everyone <3 so she is quick without thinking. she jumps to aggression and violence so quick, but also, good luck catching her, or finding her. even more than just running, she's incredibly sneaky. 

sex drive, 9/10. very much a coping mechanism, and she’s really annoying about it. one point off for the knee-jerk of it, as it’s at a point of reflex to sexualize herself, even if it’s not completely what she wants. there are times when she has sex without wanting to. not because she was forced, but just as a distraction. mostly, sex is fun and she loves it, but she absolutely does not have a healthy relationship with it. (tho, she doesn’t have a healthy relationship with anything) 

stolen from;  @ru5t​​​​​​​  ♡♡ tagging;   you, steal this and say i tagged you!

[calithal]

cj clothes thief but in a Very different way than allie. when allie ‘steals’ clothes she’s silly and being cute and kind of shy about it and wants it bc it feels like a hug from whoever’s clothes it is. cj, however, has a rich history with kleptomania and so so used to sharing clothes. the likelihood of whatever she took goes down So Much but also it just makes sense to her for you to have stuff of hers to. it can be a sign of affection or she’s actually. stealing shit HGFGHJ

[calithal]

Has your character ever had a parental figure who was not related to them?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

..... kind of. there is mr. smee, who had a lot more involvement in doing what he could to protect and help 'raise' harriet and harry, which still wasn't a lot compared to the entirety of what they endured. by the time of cj's birth, he had a child of his own and couldn't contribute as much to cj, who was already a high needs baby. cj never considered him a parental figure, or had much respect for him. she has a very pessimistic and bitter perspective about most everything, and does not give him a lot of credit for what he's done for her and her siblings because she never saw or understood it.

none of these are parental figures, but i greatly enjoy the idea of cj being a community baby to harriet and harry's friends. very funny to imagine so many people looking after a hellish little girl. and they're all like 7.

[calithal]

In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

can i give you a list KCHBK cj's childhood was a constant state of fear, which combats how fearless she acts and is, genuinely, in some regards. harry's physical bearing and harriet's emotional bearing left cj with so much to feel worried, scared, and out of control with. kids are by nature resilient, obviously, which is why she's so. Cj. but every time something good happened, something horrible was quick to follow.

the hook still scares her. it always has. she learned to fear it through the part it played in primarily harry's physical abuse. while she and harriet received their own, harry often purposefully took the physical punishment for his sisters, and both harry and harriet worked together to keep hook away from cj at nearly all costs. they did not succeed completely, partly because of cj's own efforts to find a way into her father's life, but they protected her from so much more than she could ever understand. when cj was young, she was incredibly dependent on the two of them, even while she fought them when they tried to take care of her basic needs (eating, sleeping, keeping safe). her rejection had nothing to do with the love she had for them, and the love was so much easier for her when she was younger. so anytime they were hurt, it was the end of the world. there was no complexity to it, it was just fear.

a core moment involving the hook is when cj first experiences their father 'hooking' someone brutally and to the end of their life from a hiding spot when she was about 2. she did not understand it fully, but she saw and heard the pain, and her father, and the hook. then, every injury became the same picture in her head, regardless if it was because of their father or not. cj became inconsolable anytime she saw the hook, as she automatically associated it with the end of a life or what she interpreted the quiet of the victim to be. she would have to be physically removed from her siblings when they were hurt from how she would sob, scream, and cling to them. even if they wanted to be with her, it would be impossible with the closeness and comfort that she needed to feel secure. every moment after involving the hook only instills the fear further with more intensity. it makes harry having a hook of his own an entire fucked up can of worms. it still scares her. her brother is not a monster, he's her brother. but the hook is a monster, their father is a monster, and the hook is a part of him.

but her memories of her childhood are so fuzzy, and are a lot less separate than long moments and memories. she remembers more the hook and what it means, but not why it means that.

the clearest memory and what she would probably name as the most afraid she's ever been is when harry came for her after the barrier's fall. she truly thought he was going to kill her. even as he held her, and showed genuine relief, she did not believe for a moment that death would not be what was next. for at least a week after seeing him and harriet, she refused to sleep or leave freddie because she believed they both would come for her if she did or let her guard down for even a moment.

potentially also before she left, but i think she was so impulsive with her plan to leave she made it past the fear. she planned to fake her death whether or not she could get off of the isle, she believed she had no other choice.

another moment due to recent plotting: when the barrier first fell and harriet's fae nature rapidly caught up with her due to the lack of magic on the isle, she fell extremely ill to the point where no one knew she would survive. freddie and cj were so far beyond even auradon at that point that they had no idea until freddie and her father began communicating (magic, somehow, idk) and he told them. freddie helped cj project a hologram of sorts to visit her sister that they believed to be dying. it was invisible to harry, but cj watched in terror as harry stood by her as harriet layed on what they both believed to be her death bed. when harry left the room to get something, cj crept closer and impulsively reached for harriet's hair, a habit she's had since she was little. the physical contact broke freddie's spell, and cj was snapped back to her physical body. it broke her, she had the most intense panic attack she's ever had, and the week that followed before they heard word that harriet was alive and okay was horrible. this is definitely very notable in the running for The Most Scared moments.

[calithal]

26. How does your character behave around children?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

probably not well. for a long time, in childhood, other children were seen as competition for harriet's attention and care. interestingly enough, harry never was, but harry was competition in a different way, in a more individual sense as well as for their father's attention. however, that was an uphill battle, both because hook never complied to what she wanted even when everyone on that ship knew what she was doing and what she wanted, as well as because his attention was not one that cj wanted. it was physically and mentally abusive. but cj would've rather been abused than ignored. she was also denied her mother's attention, which led to even more fighting towards her siblings and her other caretaker, smee.

anyway, other kids :) for a long time, cj was the youngest, and the center of harriet's attention (even if there were other kids in her care at the time, i'm pretty sure new baby sister takes the cake) when that starts to deviate because of new little ones and cj growing older (even, yk, at the age of 3/4, minimum self sufficiency and independence), cj did not handle that well. she acted out constantly, via putting herself in danger (running off ship when 'no one noticed her', balancing on the edge of the deck or the dock, hiding for hours and hours at a time, and playing with dangerous items like fire or knives (though that was genuine fascination as well)) to a point where she had to be tied up frequently (she learned to chew through the ropes to get back to harriet but also the frequency and longevity of it is why she hates being held in way that feels restricting so much), and being straight up volatile. she also fought with the other children in harriet's care, a lot, especially if they behaved moderately well for her. god, she was so mean to nice kids, so mean. she didn't know how to be nice to anyone, but she was especially cruel when she thought harriet might favor someone and thought she could push them to violence/out of her favor. genuinely, they also disgusted her and enraged her as she viewed them as suck-ups. and that was her sister. she was possessive towards harry as well, but he already had his own friends and did not entertain her attempts to keep him to herself, whereas harriet had no choice but to. as she grew older (and the more she watched harry, w/ his violent treatment on board as well as his response to that treatment), her approaches to the conflict she felt became more violent.

eventually, her sister's attention fell off of her radar as she began pandering to her father's attention instead. for the other kids, this is the best case scenario as cj's efforts to 'win harriet's attention' became more and more violent. cj, at 10/11 (with her father's influence and 'guidance' (he groomed her to be what he wanted. it was not sexual, but the fact that he groomed her is true)), believes herself to be grown up enough to keep secrets from her siblings, and that all along they had wanted her to be the baby and squander her independence so she could never be on her own. and all of this was why her father had to be the one to teach her how to kill, and cj understood that her loss of morality would be how she could show the rest of the isle she was all grown up, and they had to believe her. her father was finally giving her what she'd always wanted, so harry and harriet became the enemy instead. she fought with them ceaselessly or said nothing at all. where cj had once been clingy, dependent, and attention-seeking, she became cold, combative, and with an edge of haughty confidence that her father gave her. she wasn't like the other kids now, she was grown. she doesn't consider herself a child any longer. she doesn't believe there's any maturation left so in a lot of ways, she stays at the level of petulance and stubbornness of a 10-11 year old for a long ass time.

eventually, she phases out of that once her father forgets about her. and then harry's gone from the jolly roger, and she hates him for it and feels horribly abandoned, and she hates harriet for it because why couldn't she make him stay? she's furious with both of them and detaches from them even more. harriet begins to more firmly find her own way with her crew, and with that new people to look after. cj denies any offer to officially leave the jolly roger from either sibling out of the hope that her father will want her again. however, she is not physically there almost ever, as 13 year old cj has started engaging in the crime on the streets of the isle that she had been sheltered from growing up. she only leaves the roger once she starts living with freddie at around 14/15 in some random apartment space that freddie's father finds and keeps for them, and then after that she gets too deep into trouble and decides she knows the best way out (faking her death and leaving).

OKAY NOW PRESENTLY DS,JNBHDCJK there's a lot of like, pangs and feelings in her heart when she sees kids (i should specify, isle kids. she dgaf about the auradon kids to no one's surprise, i'm sure) there's an obligation to protect them that she feels but doesn't necessarily always act on. she's actually really uncharacteristically sweet on a few of the quiet ones. she has stupid nicknames for them and braids their hair or slips them the food that she steals and hoards from auradon but doesn't eat. unfortunately very likely to become someone's cool disinterested bad influence older sister figure. would not recommend teasing her on this one it could be catastrophic. please for the sake of the children. i think a lot of this comes from my HUGE soft spot with kids, no way in hell can i say 'cj is mean to kids as a 19 y/o' but she is kind of egotistical in a way that only her and her people need to survive, so realistically she doesn't care as much as she should.

[calithal]

What was your character's favourite toy as a child?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

harriet and harry <3 harriet was her jungle gym and her and harry probably like,,,, wrestled idk. harry was also her jungle gym because piggy back rides. i can see her liking dolls (A Doll, very likely cloth with weird human hair. maybe harry made it for her, idk, they're so weird) when she was very very small because she finds the sensation of rubbing/twirling hair soothing, as it reminded her of harriet. it was probably one of the only ways to get her to sleep. eventually, she got embarrassed enough or got made fun of enough that she rid the habit quickly, growing out of it the moment it became a weakness. however, when she was in auradon and had sleepless, utterly depressed nights where she just ached, she picked the habit up again for a short amount of time. (aka, stole some poor auradonian child's doll) of course, nobody knows about this, not even freddie.

[calithal]

If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

a couple things (i'm losing my mind) but the short answer is she does blame herself and feels she deserves it, but in the face of others, she will refuse to take the blame.

with others, i think she's pretty deflective and defensive. at least externally, which means there's a lot of fighting taking the blame, especially when people try to make her take it. a lot of the time it's justified, but she refuses it anyway just to refuse it. she doesn't care about being the bad guy or doing bad things, though she does often preface it to people as 'you can't get mad at me for doing bad things. i told you i'm bad.' i think she also has a tendency to fall into the 'oh so everything's MY fault?' attitude, as she felt there was a lot of that growing up from how unwanted she felt when she clung as a child. she'll throw the blame around aimlessly and senselessly.

but she also has so much self-hatred, and frequently blames herself for everything at her lows. she deserves to suffer, everything's all her fault, and she can't fix anything because it's just how she is. but she's horrible. cj believes she's trapped in a cycle of self-sabotage and causing suffering, and refuses to change. she literally has to be shaken enough by a nearly world-ending tragedy before she's able to overcome her own barriers.

[calithal]

In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

generally, she compares herself to and considers mostly everyone (in her circle/family) to be morally better than her. this takes the shape most often of them deserving to live a better life, beyond what the isle has to offer. she has so much self-hatred that she tries to ignore and repress, but it speaks so loudly through her actions. her self-destructive tendencies, unnecessary risk-taking, reckless behavior, sabotaging relationships (and, everything), and putting herself in physical harm’s way all speak to this. she hates herself and the way she acts, and she knows no one that loves her deserves to deal with it, so she attempts to push them away even further, as well as punish herself for how she is and how she behaves. a fair bit of the why is also that she doesn’t know how to communicate her emotions, and acts of self-destruction and putting herself in danger are her means of communicating her need for attention. still, even as she wants to- and, in a way, she doesn’t know how to want to -she believes she cannot change. really, she doesn’t know how she could change. she feels it is deeply ingrained in her, like a poison or a toxin that ruins everything and everyone around her.

self-validation is very rare, however, in order to feel physically safe, cj believes that she needs to feel like she’s better at some facet of combat or survival than whoever else is in her company. this could be a false sense of it or true. usually, she relies on her unpredictability, agility/speed/stealth, and ruthlessness or refusal to give up, even when she’s been beaten or outnumbered. even while she purposefully puts herself in danger frequently, there are parts of her survival instincts that refuse to be silenced at other times. as with most things, she has a tendency towards inconsistency.

[calithal]

How does your character behave around children?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

answered here but i'm generating a new one bc i'm a cheater and i like to talk about my girl.

1. Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

hahahhahhhahah this generator is sniping my ass. what a great question that i talk about 20 times a day. ahahahahhahahaha.

she has two siblings, harriet, who is five years older than her, and harry, who is three years older than her. all three of them have different mothers, but it doesn't mean anything to cj. that's her brother and her sister. they took care of her and they grew up together on the same ship. she's gotten into fights before from how defensive she gets about them technically being 'half-siblings', mostly with other kids who just wanted to be mean. they're everything to her. but she’s always spent half of her time fighting them fiercely and the other half being so dependent on them and their protection. she would kill for them, sometimes she thinks she’s going to kill them all. her father also spent time while he was using her as a mercenary to work their bonds apart, telling 10/11 year old cj all about how they were trying to take away her independence and smother her, and how they didn't really want her. this only made things so much worse. 

(i'm a cheater. i never stop cheating) genuinely her dynamics with both of them are so different that i don't know, from her perspective, if it's at all measurable to compare them. i kind of really think that harriet and harry are closer with each other than either one of them is with cj, especially considering all the hell she's put them through and the difference in age, maturity, and resilience. she has purposefully (even when she truly didn't want to) and non-purposefully put so much space (literal and figurative) between her and them.

she might be closest like a sibling to harry. when she was little, she wanted to be just like him and would mirror everything he did and how he acted. for a while, he was the cool big brother, and after it became second nature and unconscious to emulate him. harry was violent, so she was. harry never cried, so she never cried. harry took care of everything himself, so she had to do everything herself. even still, they share a lot of similarities. of course, all three of them do, but cj and harry's are definitely more noticeable than at least hers and harriet's. harriet's role as a primary caregiver in cj's life also distanced their bond in a traditional sister sense. before harriet could be a fun big sister, she had to raise cj, take care of her and set boundaries for safety where she knew how to. i think she was around cj the most, speaking to specifically how much time harry spent protecting the two of them by shouldering the abuse given from their father and his crew. cj has always found it easier to pine after what she did not have, like her father's or mother's love and attention, so it would make sense that she wanted harry the more she could not see him. i absolutely don't think he was never there, but i do think he had so much going on, and in comparison to harriet, was around slightly less, enough that cj would want for him.

i would say cj feels like she can be more vulnerable with harriet, though. there's a kind of warmth and support there that she doesn't feel with harry because of how much pride plays into their relationship, and also because harriet raised her in a way that is similar to a mother role. cj would never say, and she truly doesn't feel, that harriet is her mother. cj had so little experience with her own mother, who only rarely fed her and was not present besides that, that there's no comparison to make. that's just harriet.

harriet and harry took care of her when she felt unloved, and even as she fought them and continues to fight them, she will always feel guilt for that. however, she feels as if she cannot change, even if she wanted to. the guilt also puts space between them on cj's side, as cj views specifically harriet as unreachable in terms of morality and goodness. even though harry and her constantly clash, and how much space pride puts in their relationship, he also has become someone that she doesn't believe she deserves. they both deserve to live better lives, apart from her, in her mind, which is part of the reason why she fights so much.

[calithal]

How does your character behave around people they like?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

Not Well NCSHJBS. though, she really is consistently always on her worst behavior. and most of the people that she likes are also on their worst behavior, she also has the tendency to bring that out of people. at best, she's happy, and maybe even calm or relaxes. this does not mean she's doing what they want, she thrives in chaos and being reckless, but it is true that she's not doing the things that they don't want her to. peace is hard for her, but she can find it enjoyable in specific moments, even when, as a whole, she fights it and believes she'll never be satisfied with it. at worst, she's directly fighting them and trying to push them away. in some moments, she does catch herself trying to please her loved ones (and with that, it's such a bare minimum. her people don't really want her to behave well, they want her to take care of herself and stop hurting them.) and in those moments, sometimes she turns herself around once she's realizes it. she rejects obedience and the concept of behaving well with everything in her, but there are so many deep down parts of her that want to please her loved ones. there's so many fighting inside and outside of her all the time.

without her people, though, she loses her passion and fire and becomes so, so bored. if she's not playing her version of a game on the people in auradon, it's not fun anymore and she'll make herself miserable to be around, or completely retract. she's actually surprisingly quiet when she's in an unfamiliar environment with no one that she trusts. (kind of quiet in the way that she could explode at any moment, though) or, she's incredibly loud and performative as seen in her wicked world episodes. but, again, that was a game to her. she's kind of always incessantly on her guard, unless she's being self-destructive (even then, most times she catches herself fighting her own survival instincts), but even more so when she believes there's no one to trust, naturally.

[calithal]

Has your character ever been bitten by an animal? How were they affected (or unaffected)?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

okay she really ends up developing a fucked up relationship with pain so. why don't we start with that :)

i think she's been bitten so many times it becomes a learned behavior. like it really scares harriet at the frequency of it and it's remarkable she hasn't gotten rabies yet. even when she was little, she was fucking around and finding out constantly and had unending curiosity. some part of her relates to hostile animals in a surreal way, she just thinks they're NeatTM but unfortunately she's really bad at being gentle and also at stopping once bitten. she will pick up a thrashing scared feral animal and bring it back with a big smile. (she especially thought it would impress harry) very much envisioning baby hercules with the two lil snake creatures in the disney movie. she's never lost a limb because of a bite, but she has lost a large- but not lethal -amount of blood from them.

we all know she's a biter, literally and metaphorically, it's like a core part of who she is at this point. it's very likely there's a connection there between her fascination with bitey animals and how she acts. as a child, she could never win a fight on strength alone, so surprise was always what she used. biting nearly always wins her out. also, she's just a weirdo, likes the sensation of sinking her teeth in.

[calithal]

How does your character behave around children?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

answered here but i'm generating a new one bc i'm a cheater and i like to talk about my girl.

4. Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?

cheaters never win bc i did in fact talk about this one in the last one. lil bit. the isle is a constant environment of witnessing horrible things happen to the people that love you and protect you, as well as to literally everyone else. all of these have shaped cj’s pessimistic attitude, unpredictable nature, and lack of stability or peace. it extends to more than just her family by blood (uma, gil, sammy, and others) because these people were part of her childhood with the five and three year age gap between harriet and harry, respectively.

really, everyone from the isle knows that they're all fucked up from what they've seen and what's happened to them. it's one of the things that bonds them. but, generally, i think people assume cj cares a lot less about what she's seen happen to the people that she cares about than she does, because of how she acts. and it's absolutely a fair assumption given how cruel, stubborn and dismissive she gets with her loved ones. but she walks herself around in circles of guilt because of just how much everyone else has suffered, and, eventually, she realizes how much of it she was protected from.

this also feels like a cheater answer but i really like. i feel it. she doesn't have specifics. she watched her big brother who she idolized be physically abused and humiliated constantly, she watched her sister who raised her be so exhausted and wrought with worry. all that she knew of life was suffering. harriet, harry and smee tried their best to give her a childhood, and i certainly believe that she had more of a childhood than harry or harriet and many of their friends, but it was still so heavy with darkness and fear.

[calithal]

41. Does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

generally, i think yes and no. i don't think she believes she has to earn it, because she's never been purposely focused on self-improvement. even in the plotting where she's matured and gotten Better, it's never been on purpose.

it is incredibly difficult for her to process the possibility that she doesn't deserve good things. after what she suffered through- after what they all suffered through, of course they deserve it. they deserve everything good and more. they deserve everything auradon has to offer and everything else they try to keep for themselves. then again, she groups the suffering with that of her family and other isle-borns. on the surface, she does not think a lot about what she, specifically, deserves.

however, internally she has so much self-hatred, and at times doesn't believe that she deserves to live. especially when she compares herself to her family (the people she knows are deserving of a better life than what they had on the isle), she finds herself undeserving of life, in general. this especially plays into her cycles of self-destructive behavior, because she's acting like she wants to die, so doesn't she? she's making problems for her siblings and their other family, so she doesn't deserve their protection, so she continues to do those things because it doesn't matter. it's too much pressure to try and be better because she deeply believes, no matter what, she'll fuck it up again and they don't deserve that. even after the barrier falls, she keeps herself stuck into her same patterns like nothing's happened, she stays on the isle and participates in constant risk behavior and violence. she pushes any offering of help away and fights the people who care about her constantly and she's so so so stubborn.

[calithal]

15. Is your character preoccupied with money or material possession? Why or why not?

character development questions: hard mode, accepting!  ༄

god. she’s,,,,, a pirate. i don’t know. she's not preoccupied with them for their value or for the wealth. i think she just really likes shiny things. she steals a lot, mostly compulsively, or as revenge, or actually just for fun. cj's really big on taking things just so someone else can't have them, as a whole, or to keep little hoards of treasures. so, yeah, pirate-isms, but there's not really an obsession with wealth. it's learned slightly after her time in auradon, but it's more of a transition from the bartering of the isle. even isle wealth didn't mean that much to her. (power, loyalty, the big kind of fear) cj finds value in safety, which is ironic because she often despises it once she has it and defies it. she loves having a scary body to hide behind, though. 

also she thinks the people in auradon are stupid, and she sees them as consumed by wealth. boo consumerism and overconsumption, however she is taking that shiny bracelet, thanks <3

i don't know how to explain this but she develops a 'give me money' attitude but it's like, i don't know what she uses it for. she thinks it's funny to take/'win' (these games we speak of are like glucose guardian situations) money from rich people. what is she doing with the money ...... i don't know. even things she enjoys like sparkly things or clothes or food or alcohol or drugs, she's sooooo much more likely to steal them. i guess in theory the money is when she wants to pay for things, which could be like,, people she thinks deserves it. however, in practice.... i don't Know i can't trust her and you shouldn't either.

[calithal]

cj physical affection is either tearing into you or doing a little kid lean situation (you canNot grab her back, she will bite and run away) where she just leans up right next to you with nearly all her weight. squishes even potentially.