Characters World of Darkness: Glimpses of Darkness - [Profile] Krystal Johansson

[Krystal]

Name: Krystal Johansson

Gender: Female

Ethnic Background: Swedish, Irish, probably some others too

Nationality: American

Age: 18

Height: 5’2''

Weight: 110 lbs

Eyes: Green

Hair: Deep Auburn

Handedness: Left

Description: Krystal is a gorgeous, young co-ed, a little shorter than average, slender, yet buxom. She has stunning green eyes that sometimes take on a blue or grey hue. Her silky hair is a deep auburn and hangs straight to her shoulder blades, though she has dyed it blond on several occasions. She usually dresses very casually, with loose, frayed jeans or cargo pants and a variety of oversized college sweaters, worn band shirts, and tank tops. She always has a number of pens and pencils on her, and a sketch pad covered in surprisingly detailed doodles.

She is often accompanied by her faithful friend, Fawkes. Fawkes is Krystal's beloved dog and possibly her best friend. He is a well trained and loyal mutt, a large husky-german shepherd crossbreed, with a bit of labrador thrown in. Krystal got him as a puppy when she was thirteen.

Personality: Krystal is a vibrant and confident young woman with a stubborn resolve to make her own way on her own merits and talents rather than her looks. Though considering how her luck has turned out, she's beginning to wonder why. She works very hard and is very reluctant to accept any charity, despite never seeming to get a break.

Despite her mother telling her of their family's supposed psychic abilities, and meeting the rest of her mother's family back in the mid-west on several trips, Krystal thinks of all that supernatural stuff as pure hogwash - same with aliens. Much to her annoyance, she seems to be a weirdness magnet, and meets far more than her share of similar freaks, even for a place like Vegas.

She is a good student, and studies hard. Surprising to her, she actually enjoys her Occult Sciences and Myth and Symbols classes - she eyes the subject matter with a skeptical eye, but the occult and religious iconography give her great ideas for her artwork, and the history helps with her writing.

Krystal is a very gifted artist, with a love of the comic book medium, if not for superheroes. She prefers fantasy concepts and has a style somewhat reminiscent to Brom, Royo, and Vallejo, though with a slightly more comic-booky overtones. Despite her intentions, many of her pieces end up darker than she had originally envisioned.

She was extremely disappointed that the graphic novel she spent a year slaving over - A Thousand Broken Dreams - and that she self-published, barely sold. It also meant that she couldn't afford to go to college out of state as she wanted, instead ending up going to a local community college.

Despite the setbacks, Krystal hasn't given up on her goals. She's going to finish college, get out of debt, and become a successful commercial artist and graphic novelist.

Background: Krystal was born to Jolene Johansson, a small town girl from Maine who ran away to Vegas with her boyfriend when she was fifteen. By sixteen, Jolene was pregnant and single, her boyfriend ditching her when he found her in bed with another man.

Krystal was born and raised in Las Vegas, her mother raising her by herself, working as a showgirl and stripper. Krystal grew up well aware of what her mother did, Jolene never hid what she did from her daughter. Krystal also knew that the men that her mother brought home for a few days or weeks, or rarely months, wasn't her father, or even a replacement for him. She never felt the need to find a replacement for him either.

Once Krystal was a little older, and Jolene was making a decent living dancing on various stages, they began to make regular visits back to Jolene's family in Maine. Her mother always enjoyed the visits, and her family never held anything against the lifestyle she chose. Krystal on the other hand, hated the small town after after the bright lights of Vegas, the cold, and their weird belief in the uncanny. The visits were never short enough for her.

When she was sixteen, Krystal moved out of her mother's home to find her own place. Though Jolene tried to convince her not to, Krystal was tired of her mother's beliefs and the way her boyfriends would look at her - Krystal also felt guilty about the one boyfriend of her mother's that she had slept with, even if Jared was closer to her age than her mother's, and she was sure her mother didn't know about it.

Krystal found a tiny studio apartment and paid her way waitressing and selling art commissions online. While finishing high-school, she slaved her nights away frenetically working on her graphic novel. A year later, A Thousand Broken Dreams was finished, Krystal had graduated high-school, and thought she'd be on her way to college in California.

Instead, her graphic novel flopped - she only managed to sell twenty-one copies, and seventeen of those were to family members and only one person bought it as a PDF. The money she lost self-publishing meant she couldn't afford to move out of state or the tuition, so she had to enroll in a local community college. Further, due to all the time she her graphic novel, she had lagged behind on her commissions, so even that as a source of income was drying up.

Too embarrassed and too prideful to ask her mother or her extended family for help, Krystal struggles on, taking what jobs she can - and is willing to do - to pay the pills. She is also working to regain confidence in her commissions, hoping that will give her some much needed extra income.

A Thousand Broken Dreams: A lengthy graphic novel that Krystal wrote, penciled, and coloured all by herself. The novel is structured similarly to Pulp Fiction, with many interweaving plotlines and points of view. The setting is a version of the real world combined with a medieval fantasy setting, modern technology existing side-by-side with magic in a weird mix that somehow works. The tone is gothic and dark, despite what Krystal had intended, though one of the plot threads is very light-hearted and brightly coloured by contrast with the rest of the novel.

Krystal keeps a battered, dog-eared copy with her, and is often surprised by what she finds in it, while leafing through the pages. She doesn't remember drawing/writing half the things in the graphic novel... but she was very stressed by all the hard work she put into it, only to see it fail.