Persephone
From Changeling Venue
| Seeming | Elemental Snowskin |
|---|---|
| Court | Winter Court •• |
| Freehold | New-New Amsterdam |
| Player | Anita Szostak |
Contents |
Overview
Alias(es): Persephone
Real Name: Clara Kate "Sunshine" Wells
Location: New York City
Age: Appears early 30's.
Seeming: Elemental
Kith: Snowskin
Court: Winter
Virtue: Charity
Vice: Envy
Concept: Cold-Hearted Bitch
Physical description: Persephone has long, white hair and a pale complexion, and favors shades of lightly-tinted blue, silver, or stark white. She is about five feet and six inches... but those who've met her always seem to remember her as tall and imposing, looming from above in an intimidating fashion that strikes very firmly in their memories. So too do her chill blue eyes, rimed with frozen tear-drops twinkling at their corners, seeming almost to smile (but that's just the chill of winter in 'em).
Mask:
Mien:
Relevant Mechanics: Member, Duchy of the Icebound Heart
Character Livejournal: None.
History
Basic Timeline:
Clara-Kate was born in Palo Alto, California on July 3, 1947 to well-educated and caring parents who encouraged her early activities enough to be positive influences that led her to explore music. This encouragement led to her witnessing the birth of the Grateful Dead one night in 1963... which changed her life and brought her in tune with the spirit of the times, which led to the Merry Pranksters (who knew her as Sunshine) and the Haight-Ashbury on a long detour that eventually led to Woodstock in 1967 on a wild ride across the country on the Further Bus. The concert had rain at first, then snow for her, as an influence from another world drew her and others across into the realm of an icy queen intent on crushing the lingering strains of music from the souls dragged across as her captives.
Clara-Kate was special, though, and earned special attention. It was she who was so hard to break, buoyed up even in that frozen place by the warmth of memories to the tune of music... and it was she who would be remade in her mistress' image to create perfection in her Keeper's defiance over the cheerful, warm tunes that roused her ire in the first place. A favorite to wear down became the one that she must break, and once broken... turned into her mirror image, body and soul, Persephone. In time that perfection was marred by its base components, crafted as it was whole-cloth of but a human soul, not something able to keep to the rigid and exacting standards of that wintery Queen. Time led that soul to seek its origin, returning to the world of men when once again the strands of music blew through the chill air, and Persephone saw the first and perhaps last opportunity to flee her mistress' side now that she was no longer wanted, a marred creation just short of the Queen's exacting standards.
This returned Persephone to where she began twenty-five years before as Sunshine met the winter's chill, with the Woodstock concert running once again in upstate New York. A helpful stranger set her on the bus down to New York City before anyone else came through the passage she found back to this realm, beginning a new life as one of the Lost in 1994. Persephone had a difficult time adjusting at first, especially as she began to inquire as to what had happened to "her" while she was gone, though others such as Ruby Kirkbride tried to help put her on the path towards a new life. While struggling with the question of who she was now, others helped her find her way by crafting a new identity and to teach her what exactly this experience had changed in her. How she was to cope with such a different reality than either the one she had left in that crystal palace in Faerie or the one lost to time as it passed the Spirit of the Sixties by?
That was the question to be answered, and it seemed the key to her came once again in music. Persephone found that while time has changed music at its core can stay the same. While she could only come so close to the world of musicians before offending her Winter Court sensibilities to stay well out of the spotlight, she found that she could use her harsh criticism to craft something out of the nothings playing in garages and coffee-houses wherever you looked. Instead of being an "A-list" promoter or producer she found she enjoyed working the unknowns out there, finding those with talent and helping them to hone that talent by giving them a chance. More enjoyable still, whether she liked it or not, was separating those who could cut it in a difficult industry from those who just wanted to play for themselves and go home at the end of the day with her biting critique: of their talents, and of their drive to "make it" in that struggle to succeed. Persephone found she enjoys the challenge of making something from the "almost famous" out there treading small stages across the nation, not the success of being the manager or producer once their talent had begun to earn renown and recognition... and so she passes them on to others for a percentage of their "cut". Rather than fame and big money (or, for that matter, maybe a blowout after one album if they start living the wild life after the tour begins), Persephone lives richly by earning a perpetual "finder's fee" at a very reasonable percentage by passing them on to someone willing to commit themselves to the "hot new sensation", and someone who had to remember that this would have been her life otherwise.
Persephone of course couldn't be in the industry and stay entirely out of the spotlight, but she has quite carefully managed to remain "small potatoes" in an industry that loves to make people into celebrities. Small radio appearances, even some talk of being the 'Simon' of some "Radio Idol" idea was bounced about (but ultimately quashed), nothing major but something that sort of fits with life in our modern age, the better to blend into the background should the Winter Queen come looking for her perfect 'daughter' and toy once again.
Current Activities:
Background:
Associations & Associates
Character Inspirations
Soundtrack
Picture a bright blue ball, just spinning, spinnin free,
Dizzy with eternity.
Paint it with a skin of sky,
Brush in some clouds and sea,
Call it home for you and me.
A peaceful place or so it looks from space,
A closer look reveals the human race.
Full of hope, full of grace
Is the human face,
But afraid we may lay our home to waste.
There's a fear down here we can't forget.
Hasn't got a name just yet.
Always awake, always around,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Now watch as the ball revolves
And the nighttime falls.
Again the hunt begins,
Again the bloodwind calls.
By and by, the morning sun will rise,
But the darkness never goes
From some men's eyes.
It strolls the sidewalks and it rolls the streets,
Staking turf, dividing up meat.
Nightmare spook, piece of heat,
It's you and me.
You and me.
Click flash blade in ghetto night,
Rudies looking for a fight.
Rat cat alley, roll them bones.
Need that cash to feed that jones.
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Commissars and pin-stripe bosses
Roll the dice.
Any way they fall,
Guess who gets to pay the price.
Money green or proletarian gray,
Selling guns 'stead of food today.
So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Heartless powers try to tell us
What to think.
If the spirit's sleeping,
Then the flesh is ink
History's page will thus be carved in stone.
And we are here, and we are on our own
On our own.
On our own.
On our own.
If the game is lost,
Then we're all the same.
No one left to place or take the blame.
We can leave this place and empty stone
Or that shinin' ball we used to call our home.
So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Shipping powders back and forth
Singing black goes south and white comes north.
In a whole world full of petty wars
Singing I got mine and you got yours.
And the current fashion sets the pace,
Lose your step, fall out of grace.
And the radical, he rant and rage,
Singing someone's got to turn the page.
And the rich man in his summer home,
Singing just leave well enough alone.
But his pants are down, his cover's blown...
And the politicians throwin' stones,
So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And it's all too clear we're on our own.
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Picture a bright blue ball,
Just spinnin', spinnin, free.
Dizzy with the possibilities.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
-- "Throwing Stones", by the Grateful Dead
Quotes
"Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right." - Scarlet Begonias, The Grateful Dead
"If you get confused listen to the music play..." - Franklin's Tower, The Grateful Dead.
Rumors
- It's said that whatever radio gigs she hasn't done in the real world, she has allowed to play out among the Lost. Some have said that Persephone is a DJ on Radio Free Fae, and is always a good person to talk to if there's a message that needs to be heard. You can't stop the signal...
