#heroicfictions

Name/Alias: Riley

Pronouns: he/him

Age: 21+

Timezone: GMT

Activity Level: I don’t know about numbers but I’m usually very active with replies every day to every few days. I work long hours but I do have 3 days off a week, and I often write in word documents at work then post at home since tumblr is banned

Things you aren’t willing to write: rape, incest, smut

IC:

Biography Info:

Character Name: Aruna Tenzin

Pronouns:  she/her

Gender: cis female

Age: 36

Major/Position: Criminology Professor

FC: Dichen Lachman

Biography:  Aruna Tenzin loved two things as a child. Baseball and cop shows. Her father was a cop himself and would discourage Aruna from watching them because he didn’t want her exposed to that sort of brutality, but when she had to quit baseball because of a condition that allowed for her joints to be prone to easy dislocation, he stopped trying to discourage her. Part of Aruna knew that he had softened up because she wouldn’t pass the police medical testing anyway, but just because she couldn’t be a police officer, that didn’t mean she couldn’t do something she enjoyed with her life.

Looking at some of the top colleges for criminology, she eventually decided on the University of California, welcoming the change from living somewhere rainy to somewhere warm. Aruna graduated with a major in criminology, a minor in psychology and went on to complete a post-grad and doctorate, which she used to one day come back to the University to teach. Aruna might not have been a police officer but she was teaching and molding the minds of tomorrow’s law enforcement. With the right inspiration and motivation, maybe one day, the country would be a better place and the cops would be better cops.

When her wishes came back to haunt her, Aruna wanted to be sick.

It was a rainy Wednesday morning when the police turned up in her classroom with a list of crime scene photographs and a copy of her course syllabus. A student in her class had used her teaching to inspire their own murders. They had taken a class that was meant to help people and they had corrupted it. Aruna consulted as best she could, handed over her attendance lists and allowed the police to look at her students’ essays. She even helped them narrow down the criminal profile, once she was cleared of any involvement herself. One student mentioned the names of the killers who had inspired the crimes in his essays. Derek Fisher. He was arrested and a mess of police work and a criminal trial later, sentenced to prison. Aruna lost her inspiration for teaching and took a sabbatical that turned into a resignation and moved back to Chicago. This time, the rain seemed to match her mood. She tried to write another book, but couldn’t find the words. She was in a rut of self-doubt and broken faith.

Aruna knew she couldn’t stay in her rut forever, though, and when she heard there was a vacancy at Yalton in the Criminology department, she started the application three of four times before finally agreeing to send it. She had to believe there was still something that could be done for the future and sometimes, to weather a storm, you had to get wet.

State at least one headcanon about the character: Aruna still has trouble trusting people, but she’s doing her best. She suffers from anxiety and panic attacks at times, as well as hypermobility syndrome.

She hasn’t dated anyone since Derek committed his crimes. She has trouble letting anyone get that close to her, and she even keeps her students at more of a distance than she used to. It isn’t that she’s cold. Just careful.

OOC:

Name/Alias: Riley

Pronouns: he/him

Age: 21+

Timezone: GMT

Activity Level: I don’t know about numbers but I’m usually very active with replies every day to every few days. I work long hours but I do have 3 days off a week, and I often write in word documents at work then post at home since tumblr is banned

Things you aren’t willing to write: rape, incest, smut

IC:

Biography Info:

Character Name: Landon Carter

Pronouns:  he/him

Gender: cis male

Age: 25

Major/Position: English Major, writer/editor for the Yodeler

FC: Chris Wood

Biography:  ‘We might never be rich or travel the world, but I’ll always love you,’ was the promise his father had made to his mother the day he had proposed. A freelance writer asking a freelance illustrator to marry him, it wasn’t as though Leonard Carter and his would-be wife had that much money in the bank. They lived pay check to pay check. But that second part of the promise was true. The pair of them loved each other and their sons until the day they died.

But that day had come far too soon.

Landon had been at football practice. Fifteen years old and a boy with a smile that lit up the room, he wasn’t your typical jock, elbowing his way through hallways and wearing a letterman’s jacket as if it made him untouchable, but he was tall and had a strength that belied his gentle nature. He liked to get stuck in, and knowing money was slim, the opportunity at a scholarship wasn’t something he could turn down. His parents and brother were at every game, cheering him on in the stands, and he always made sure his brother had enough money for nachos or a hotdog. They had been a nuclear family until that day, their home awash with love and happiness. But one moment - the kind that flashes before your eyes in slow motion in a way that makes you think you can stop it even though you can’t - changed all that.

He can still recall it in vivid detail, in memories that refuse to wipe themselves from his mind. Tyres screeched like banshees, the car skidded, tumbled, and he felt the hot and cold sting of glass shattering, was winded as the seatbelt crunched into his ribs. The slushie in the cup holder spilled everywhere, bright red, and in his dizziness Landon couldn’t tell it apart from the blood. He coughed, pain penetrating his torso as he did, and reached helplessly for his parents before passing out with a stream of warm blood trickling into his eyes.

When he woke up in the hospital, he was torn between the devastation of being told by the sympathetic policeman that his parents hadn’t made it, and the unwavering flow of relief that his brother hadn’t been in the car. It was a cocktail of emotions that mixed unpleasantly with the cocktail of his painkillers. He cried, held his aunt’s hand, and eventually, after hours of grief and longing and disbelief, he fell asleep.

A life touched by loss made him even more open, loving, protective. He held his brother closer than ever before, making sure he had as much of the life their parents would have wanted as Landon could give. Their aunt was a saint, taking them in, and though the house was still as beautiful and warm as theirs had been, things weren’t quite the same. His broken ribs, broken arm and broken body healed, but he couldn’t play football again after that. Irony was a weird thing. He couldn’t play football anymore because of the injuries he’d sustained in the crash, but the life insurance and the sale of his parents’ house meant he didn’t need the scholarship any more. It was like god gave with one hand and took away with the other.

But he would still be the boy his parents raised. He wouldn’t let the darkness of loss taint him. He’d make them proud, make them happy, and be the best big brother, the best student, the best nephew he could possibly be. He made dinner once a week, did his homework on time, took his brother to the movies to see whatever the big thing was that month, played catch in the yard. Maybe he didn’t have the life he’d expected, but he still had a life. It was with disbelief that he opened his mail to find got into Yalton University to study English. He’d applied to a couple of colleges out of state, but he’d never expected to get in. It wasn’t like he was just going to move away.

It was his brother who found the acceptance letter on his desk and insisted he go. ‘You’ve sacrificed so much for me. Don’t sacrifice anything else.’ They hugged each other close, and he promised. Ohio wasn’t that far away. Not in the grand scheme of things.

State at least one headcanon about the character: The driver that killed his parents was drunk, on his way home from a bar in the early evening hours. He didn’t wanna wait for his wife to pick him up. That was what he told the cops, and what he said when crying in the court room when he was sentenced, talking about how sorry he was. Landon doesn’t think he can really hate him, but he hates the concept of drunk driving or driving under the influence and always makes sure his friends get a cab, even if it means he has to pay for it himself.

His ultimate goal is to become a writer, like his dad. He loves reading and re-reading his dads old articles and short stories, and wants to go on to study journalism. He’s looking into getting a part time job or internship at a local news company if he can, and he wrote for the paper in high school.