Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hello! Welcome to my first ever art contest! I'm rje (you bastards!), but you can call me rje or Eric, as I'm using my muley to host this thread. x3 This is a contest based upon a few of my original characters for my story Thicker Than Water, as well as characters belonging to .Some.Other.Mercy. This isn't a gold-in-the-millions contest, but just something for fun. ;D Here's hoping you'll join - most people like these characters (at least Eric gets his share of fans ;D) so without further ado, Thicker Than Water ~ the art contest!

Awards Ceremony starts on Page 1109


I want to thank everyone that made this contest a success, and kept my thread thriving and alive! ^_^ This was the very first contest I've ever held, and while it may have had some snags along the way (like lasting longer than I meant to, and ending during a really poor month xD *makes note to self: do not hold end of contest during Finals! >O*) I believe it was still a success and I absolutely love and adore every piece of art submitted. <3 It was REALLY hard to choose, believe me! There was an overwhelming positive response to my and Mercy's characters as well, and believe me, that definitely put a smile on my face. =D Thank you all!

And by final count: CHARLES came out to be the favorite character by a REALLY close margin ~ but really, how can you love one without the other? ;D

Eric: >O WHAT?! People like that uptight, a**l, sexually-repressed stick-in-the-mud more than ME?! crying But...but I'm so sexy! And my a** looks better in jeans. >O
me: =___=; ...*seriously rethinks my vote*
Eric: *gazing at self in mirror* ...damn my a** really does look better in jeans. heart
me: stressed Say goodnight, Eric.
Eric: GOODNIGHT ERIC! =D
me: *falls over and twitches as the curtain closes*

Updates!

Table of Contents
arrow Introduction and Updates
arrow Prize Pot
arrow FAQs/Entry Form
arrow Rules
arrow Eric's Post
arrow Via's Post
arrow Charles' Post
arrow Additional Characters
arrow Extra Information (RP posts, History, Etc.)
arrow Entries
arrow Contests / Freebies
arrow Fun Stuff!!
arrow Link In / Out
arrow Donators, Bumpers and Other Thank-Yous

F.A.Q._________________________________

Y'know that saying "Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse"? If it'd been written a hundred years earlier, it would have been about me. But that's okay, I was just ahead of my time, I know. Heh, I'm just kidding, I'm not that bad.

Okay, I am -- but I'm charming and cute, too, so it's alright. I love to party, raise hell, screw -- I'll try anything once. Why take life seriously? It sure as hell didn't take -me- seriously.

I mean, you have to live fast. Even if you're immortal -- -especially- if you're immortal. A lot of my kind don't agree -- they think life is meant to be savoured, eaten raw like an antelope brought down with a spear; or even worse, locked up in a box and kept on a shelf. WhatEVER. You end up trapping yourself with useless -memories-. Chewing on them discontentedly like a peice of bloody beef.

The past is best forgotten -- but it's hard. People think the longer you live, the more you forget. They're wrong. Time brings the past into such sharp focus you can -cut- yourself on it.

That's why you gotta keep going, keep moving, keep changing. How else do you leave the past where it belongs? How else do you prove to yourself that it's -done- with you (or vise versa?) People think I do it to avoid responsibility. Maybe I do, but what the ******** wrong with that? I -was- responsible once...and look where it got me. Now I gotta run. And I know...it's all still going to catch up.





History

Eric's not one to divulge much of his history, though whether because of his secretive nature, or a general sense of not-giving-much-of-a-crap about the past, it's hard to say. His attitude seems to lean towards the latter. However, he's willing to divulge his much: He born one-half of a set of twins, the youngest children of a family of seven. His sister Annaliese and himself were -inseperable-...much to the chagrin of his father, who felt his gentle, delicate, shy son was an embarassment. But his sister comforted him when his father's words (or hand) was too rough; she was his rock, and he was able to survive.

Until things changed; his sister left, enthralled with a man he had -never- trusted, and he was left to the mercy of his father and sisters. He quickly made up his mind to visit her in London -- but the short visit turned into something entirely -else- and Eric (he was Alexander at the time; he didn't adopt 'Eric' until the 1930s) ended up never returning to his home or his family. It was roughly right before the turn of the century - and he was merely twenty-two years old. And he would be twenty-two forever.

The vampire that turned Anna was an old one, almost a cult leader one might say; he had a following located in London, then Venice, and Anna had been swept right up in it. Eric went along with it, following them all to Venice, at first to protect Anna, then because he became too entrenched in it all. Until something changed -- and something bad happened. It's hard to say what, and Eric won't talk about it. In fact, it's best to never even mention Venice in his presence. All anyone knows for sure is he almost died, his sister lost her eye and neither of them wanted to have very much to do with other vampires after that. ESPECIALLY old ones.

After that, Eric and his sister (who changed her name to Via) drifted around Europe a bit, then headed off to America in the 30s, to drift around a bit more, and eventually drifted apart. Eric's been nearly everything from a bounty hunter to a gunman for the mob to a high-class prostitute, but the one thing he's never been is satisfied. He's forever hungry for something he can't even name, and keeps moving in hopes of finding it one day.

I'm a bit uptight. Ok. Well, a lot uptight. I wasn't always that way though, but by becoming uptight, it sure is easy to get your life back in order. I mean, when everything starts falling apart, you just have to tie things up tight in order to keep them all together. You can't just kiss everything good-bye that you've held tight for the past century or so, can you?

Well, I suppose you could, but you can't blame a man, well, someone who was formerly a man...but even though he's dead, he is still a man...oh well. Anyway, you can't blame a dead man for fearing change, especially when he's grown so accustomed to the same routine over the past hundred odd and dickety years of his life.

So, I became uptight. I just took every single pole nationwide and shoved it up my a**. I suppose Sigmund Freud would call me a**l retentive. Good ol' Sigmund...always with a cigar in his mouth. But sometimes a cigar isn't always a cigar.

Well. I suppose I'm calm, intelligent, demure, my wit is rather brutal, and I feel bad because I always crack it upon the spine of the unsuspecting. Maybe I've got just a bit of the b***h in me, the cruel chick, in the High School, who is sick of being picked on so she just unleashes her most trusted weapon. Sure. Maybe that's it after all. She's just frustrated.

I'm just frustrated.

Maybe I've just given up. I used to be so decomposed, not in a rotting corpse sense, but in a self-righteous slacker sense. I'd just let everything I had fall apart and collapse and I'd love it. I'd love the way my arm would flop listlessly down the side of the couch, my eyes drooped in some lazy half-assed gaze at...oh nothing in particular. I loved the way my back was all slouched, the way I was promoting scoliosis, but it felt so good I couldn't stop.

But now, I've let that all go by the wayside. I am composed. I am perfectly primped and preened. I do starch my collars and iron them crisp. So crisp it ******** kills me when I have to fold them down about my throat. So crisp I wince when I tug my tie just a little bit too tight and it wrinkles.

I've become something that's borderline obsessive compulsive, but isn't because I could stop at any time. But I'm afraid to. I'm afraid to become something wild and untamed again. I'd just be Chaos. Chaos personified.

All I want to be is Charles.

I'm the King of all I survey, and sometimes, I just wish I was blind.


History

My life is like a horror flick gone horribly horribly wrong.

Why is it wrong?

Because it isn't a movie. It's real. It's the honest to God truth so help me Lucifer. I'll place my hand on the unabrigded complete works of Shakespeare and swear it to be true.

Reading gets you into trouble. You read anything they throw at you, and you're bound to get too caught up in it. I was a very naive man at 27. Hard to believe considering who I am now. But I was naive to the point where it pains me now to admit it. But oh well, the past is the past and it most certainly isn't the present or the future.

I loved books. I loved them more than anything else in the world. Hence why I was single. Hence why I was a 27 year old virgin. Crazy. I know. But books were better to me than sex, so I figured, why bother?

That's why I was so oblivious to the fact that someone was coming on to me. I had read my fair share of romance in novels, but that was nothing like the brutal romance of reality in which a man places his hand on your thigh and it means more than "Nice pants. Whoa. Are these cotton? They feel great."

When a squeeze means more than, "Whoops. Sorry about squeezing your leg in a homoerotic fashion. I just wanted to see if it was a prosthesis."

When a squeeze means, "Hey. Let's ********."

He said he was an author, and he wanted to talk to me. He wanted to base a character off of me.

All he wanted to do was debase me, bring me to my knees with his fingers curling into pressure points in my body, pressing in hard on nerve endings until I was on the floor in the fetal position crying into my hands from the pain. Until I passed out from the pain being too much. Waking up to the taste of blood on my lips, a slit wrist at my mouth and a throbbing pain in my neck. And the thought of me drinking blood, filthy blood from someone's nasty veins...it made me pass out again. Naive little me, who had just gone back to a brothel room with some stranger. Oh yeah. He was an author all right, and he was rewriting the story of my ******** life.

Well, I wasn't a moron. I knew what I had become. I had a hard time believing it though. I didn't think I was real. I didn't think I could possibly exist. In neanderthal pretty boy speak my brain would run over the impossibility of my existence.

Vampire not real.
Me not vampire.
Me not real.

But I was real, and I was hungry. Unfortunately it wasn't the passive hippie hungry, where I just wanted some munchies and peace. Screw the war, give me my nachos and cheeze man.

This was brutal murder I was hungry for. But then again, I was naive, remember? I didn't want to go up against someone tough. I was too moronic to figure out that

Vampire = Strong + Powerful + Quick

I figured that since I had lost so much blood, I must've become the most fragile thing on the planet. I figured I was a walking glass figurine. I was a rose that could just wilt and drop all of it's crimson petals at any moment.

In my head the equation was:

Vampire = This dead fellow who has no blood inside of him and is therefore the sickliest creature on the face of the planet.

So, I decided that my easiest meal choice would be women, and of course, I would pick women who were expecting men to approach them on the street.

I ate hookers. I waltzed them off hither and thither and drank them. I didn't want everyone to know that vampires were frolicing about though. I didn't want people to know monsters were real. I was innocent enough to think that everyone else was innocent like I had once been. So, I pretended to be a serial killer.

I'd pray to God that I would be forgiven someday as I mutilated them. I cried for them. I wept for those poor girls. I wept because they had trusted me just as I had trusted him.

And look at what I had become.

I had become a monster who wept for his victims.

I was a Byronic hero.
I was so ******** emo, I didn't need to cut my wrists. I was already dead.

I wept all the time. It was so pathetic. I'd just plunk down in an alleyway, kill a girl, mutilate her, and then cry about it. Boo hoo hoo, I'm a serial killer, and nobody knows it but me.

That's right. I never got caught. The newspapers just turned it into a big spook fest, everyone got into a big tizzy, the coppers went nuts, and I just kept drinking myself silly.

Thank God for Judas Iscariot. (Oh how ironic.)
Judas Iscariot is my savior. (I slay me.)
Judas Iscariot died for my sins. (Ok. I know. I'm going to hell for that one. But that's only if the devil can catch me.)

Judas Iscariot managed to catch up with me, in an alleyway, while I was slumped over the corpse of a hooker, crying like a big wussbaby. He stood me up and decked me so hard I fell right back on over.

And I cried some more.

Then he called me...

Now get this, because this is how good Judas is...

He called me...

A little precious virgin girl.

Which was so close to the truth I stopped crying, and I introduced myself. And then I punched him back.

We beat the crap out of each other, and somehow, I wound up balls deep in him. I know. Ironic. I lost my virginity to Judas Iscariot which I'm fairly certain is the equivalent of giving Jesus the universal wedgie and maybe even a swirlie follow up. I gave Judas Iscariot my innocence. How's that for stickin' it to the man?

Oh the double entendres.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I pretty much spent the rest of my life palling about with Judas, which was ridiculously fun. I turned into a lethargic pompous a*****e. I took on this whole attitude that I was bigger than big. I was giving blow jobs to the man who screwed Jesus over. Now really, how many people can say that?

I began to hate myself. I really did. I was acting like a frat boy, and it was so gross.

So, I stopped. I buried myself in Shakespeare, I buried myself in the theatre. I wanted to work, to be a productive member of society. Judas would chuckle at my follies and shake his head, and I just took all those poles and shoved them up my a**, and I laughed at him, and I turned my head away.

Now we clash because I have a spine. And I'm leading a life that doesn't mesh with his.

And now he loves me even more because he can't have me.

And now he loves me even more because he wishes he could be what I am.

But he can't.

He can't ever ever never ever be what I am.

Because I didn't throw the first punch.

EXTRA STUFF_________________________________

Any extra information about the characters will be here, including idea for images or scenes you might draw, character relationships and RP posts, so you can learn more about the characters.




Possible Scenes
Just an idea of the type of scenes you could draw for couple pictures, groups or singles. ^^

Scenes with background story
- Alexander dragging Annaliese, her face bleeding, with fire in the background (full story)
- Charles holding a sobbing, bleeding Eric (full story)
- Angel crying and pointing a gun at Eric's face, the other completely unemotional (full story)

Other scenes
- A bored Eric peeking over Charles' shoulder as he's holding a book - in an annoying way, like 'whaddya readin'?' Or pretty much any picture of Charles reading something (newpaper, script, etc) and Eric annoying him because he's bored. xD
- Via knitting frustratedly
- Eric dancing provocatively in a club, or any scene with Via and Eric in a club
- A completely-clothed Charles embracing/holding a completely-nude Eric <33 (it's possible to do this without showing anything)
- Eric and Angel in a drinking contest (past or present) - Eric should always be winning
- Eric and present-day Daniel fighting <33 (rooftop or alleyway)
- Via standing on the edge of a building, looking out over the city
- Eric getting a piggyback ride from an annoyed Charles x3 <33
- Annaliese and Meredith talking and making daisy chains
- Victor possessively holding Annaliese - bonus if he's feeding/has fed from her

- and lots more! (PM for info)




Excerpts and Roleplay Posts

CONTESTS_________________________________