Information

Sterling

The Sun Tigrean
Owner: Asher

Age: 13 years, 2 weeks, 5 days

Born: April 6th, 2011

Adopted: 12 years, 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Adopted: December 1st, 2011

Statistics

• Level: 15
   
• Strength: 10
   
• Defense: 15
   
• Speed: 10
   
• Health: 15
   
• HP: 0/15
   
• Intelligence: 0
   
• Books Read: 0
• Food Eaten: 0
• Job: Unemployed

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About

Name: Sterling O'Neal

Age: 26

Orientation: Homoromantic Homosexual

Occupation: Drummer for the band Fable; radio producer for a local station, and dabbles in electronic dance composing and mixing

Appearance: Sterling exudes plenty of boyish charm and makes it a point to play up the part as well. Tousled straw-blonde hair cropped short frames a face that always seems to be smiling, especially in her bright blue eyes. Despite their vividness, her eyes are rimmed with permanent dark circles under them. At 5'8" tall, Sterling's build is very androgynous, athletic, and toned due to daily exercise. She exhibits few curves, broader shoulders, and a slimmer chest. She often is seen wearing plaid or floral prints, polo shirts, or graphic t-shirts, jeans or cargo shorts, and sneakers. Heavily tattooed against her pale skin, Sterling has full sleeves and other various tattoos along her body, the most notable of which is a large tiger around her left arm, and she regularly adds more. Piercings include small plugs or gauges in her ears and a single nose stud in her right nostril. She speaks with a cockney accent due to being born in London.

Personality: Vibrant and full of life, Sterling lights up the area wherever she goes. She is friendly and easy-going, the type who can talk to a stranger without any sense of awkwardness and who works to bring up the mood when things seem low. She loves to joke and is expressive with her actions, especially her hands. Everything about her seems magnetic, and for this reason Sterling knows many people, from friends to rivals and bitter enemies. Sterling isn't a fan of conflict, however, and always tries to diffuse difficult situations with compromise. She much prefers to be a lover rather than a fighter, and as much as she'll stand up for herself and those she cares for, she prefers to talk things out and get back onto a more cheerful track. Sterling lives well off a fast pace, often at parties or with various social groups, and has problems saying 'no' when lost in the moment. This exposes much inner weakness that Sterling compensates for by being confident and a flirty debonair, making up for the intense fears and insecurities she holds under her surface.

Sterling has problems in trusting too easily, falling to vices, and struggles to run from a previous self that was entirely self-destructive. She fears change and responds to it very emotionally. She is easily persuaded and relents if pressured too much, something Sterling tries hard to overcome. Whereas a pretty face and fleeting promises would have swayed her every which way in the past, Sterling strives for more permanence as she gets older and matures. Commitment still terrifies her though, and she's prone to freezing up when unsure of the correct decision to make. Living without consequence has left deep scars on the woman's psyche and she fears repeating mistakes. Her healing and growth are an ongoing process, supported by her bandmates every step of the way. Sterling learns more and more to be pickier with her choices, to be a leader rather than a follower, and be truer to herself and others.

The woman feeds off of social energy and noise, enjoying the adrenaline rush from impulsive decisions and excitement. This she knows comes with a price, and with more responsibilities on her plate Sterling finds herself withdrawing from such habits more often. She still is drawn to the company, however, and is fidgety and uneasy when alone, fearing loneliness above all else. When left to her own devices she enjoys hopping around her favorite pubs in town, crashing a party, or just going for a jog downtown. Sterling hits the gym every other day to keep herself focused and couples this regime with a careful diet. She does love to indulge in alcohol, but knows her limits well. Her two biggest obsessions are in keeping up a large record collection and watching soccer (she'll often loop Von and Maggie into watching games with her). Whereas there are few things that Sterling dislikes, she isn't fond of doctors, humid weather, coffee, early mornings, fish and most seafood, and 'gushy romance crap' (romantic comedies, romance novels, poetry, etc).

Abilities: Sterling displays acute synesthesia, which manifests as an ability to see sound as physical shapes, patterns, and colors. She is able to control it well, and often uses it to enhance her musical talents. When active, her eyes whirl with iridescent colors. She also have better-than-average hearing, and can pick up certain tones out of normal human range. One way Sterling judges people is by how their voice 'looks'; she sees Maggie in shades of blue/purple/white, and Von in orange/green. Organic shapes are friendlier and calmer to Sterling, while sharp-edged shapes and quick, repetitive patterns are jarring and harsh to her.

Story

Sterling's childhood was peaceful, uneventful, and rather normal for most of her early years. She would be seen as a typical kid in an average family of five, the youngest of three girls and the playful, rowdy troublemaker of the bunch. Born into a military family, her father was a member of the US Air Force stationed in the United Kingdom when he met her mother, a primary school teacher. Sterling was used to seeing her father in and out of the picture whenever he was deployed on assignment, so never became as close to him as she did with her mother or her sisters. Her mother did her best to mask the marriage troubles caused by the constant time apart as Sterling grew up, though she started to see the tension each time her father returned home. Sterling became more aware of the situation with the slow change in her father's demeanor, noting his descent from a stern but attentive man into a moody, stressful alcoholic.

She hated the arguing most of all, hearing her normally placid mother raising her voice only with him and the bitter words that he threw at her in turn. She was thankful it never became worse, the relationship reaching its breaking point just after Sterling turned eight. Divorce became an unspoken taboo among Sterling and her sisters, who took the sharp change poorly and did their best to lay low and keep to themselves in the coming months. Her father was discharged from the military upon completing his final tour of duty soon after the divorce paperwork was processed, and his decision to move back to the US was of little surprise to Sterling or her mother. What did surprise the girl was the joint custody arrangement that would take Sterling with her father, splitting the family apart and thrusting Sterling into a new and terrifying situation for the child.

America was not at all like home, and Sterling took to the change of scenery poorly. She withdrew emotionally, became apathetic towards her schoolwork and dealt with bullying that only served to create further anger towards her situation and her father. Sterling sought outlets to vent her emotions, dabbling in extra-curricular activities until she found interest in middle school band playing the drums. All other focus was abandoned except for band, though Sterling kept her grades just high enough to pass and get through school at a bare minimum. It would at least distract her enough from her lonely, broken home life to get by.

That was, until something strange happened. Music became Sterling's safe haven, but it also triggered something that she thought at first was just a trick of the light. When playing music she would see wisps of color flash in front of her eyes, erratic and fleeting, often timed to the sounds she heard. As time passed and the visual tic appeared more frequently it began to frighten the girl, unable to cope with the overload of stimulus at every sound. Sterling became paranoid, lashed out, and as a result her father, unwilling to put up with his daughter's 'problems', pushed her into therapy and threatened further discipline if she didn't 'shape up'. Sterling attempted to save face, play along with therapy and do as she was told, but her anxiety peaked whenever her synesthesia returned, and as broken as Sterling was, she resorted to self-harm to cope. She did all she could to fight it back, keep it quiet and controlled, and craft a more palatable persona on the surface to convince others of her improvement, but the damage under the surface still lingered. Sterling could play the 'normal' card well enough after some time, allowing herself to be tugged along by her father as he moved several more times up until her sophomore year of high school.

Joining high school band continued to give Sterling direction and focus, an avid member of the drum line. Sterling grew more confident as she excelled in band, her social life began to blossom, and she found herself fitting in better than ever before. Meeting Maggie was the biggest turning point in her teenage years, finding someone she could confide in and who truly understood and accepted her differences. The two had a rocky first start in their friendship but it became extremely close as they went to college, so much so that Sterling developed a crush on her. Confessing to Maggie was entirely a disappointment with the rejection she received, something that affected Sterling so much that she pulled away and fell into bad vices to distract herself once again from her upset. As she spiraled out of control, losing herself in parties, alcohol, drugs, and one-night stands, Maggie became the one person who caught her when she fell and stayed by her side, getting her help and on the road to recovery.

Sterling took her time finishing college due to her health and once she graduated she worked part-time until she was hired by a local radio station. The thought of creating a band was something that she and Maggie idly entertained, but with the encouragement of Von they began to play gigs in their spare time. Sterling also began delving into remixing music as a hobby, releasing her work online under the moniker 'Quicksilver'. She experiments with sound as a way to help further understand and regulate her synesthesia, and with careful support and outside research she has come to see it as less of a detriment and more as a unique gift.

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