PLAYER INFORMATION

Player Name: Kaitlyn
Are you 18+?: Yes, I'm 24.
Preferred Contact: Discord – kaitmaree#8077
Current Characters: None.

CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character Name: Kathy H.
Canon: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Canonpoint: Kathy will arrive at the end of her canon following the love of her life, Tommy's, final donation and completion.
Character Age: 31.

Background/History: On appearance alone, Kathy looks to be an ordinary 31 year old woman. However she attended Hailsham, a school where pupils were born and prepared for their lifelong fate as a donor – a genetically engineered clone created for the purpose of prolonging the human lifespan.

This medical revolution came about in the 1950s and meant that doctors could cure the previously incurable – as a result in 1967 the average life expectancy surpassed 100 years. It came at a cost – the clones like Kathy were born into a life that would end abruptly before middle age with a series of organ donations.

Despite this gritty ultimatum, Kathy's early life was very similar to that of a British boarder. With health of paramount importance, Hailsham children were treated very well. Later this would prove to be a rarity, schools like Hailsham a thing of the past and the future of donors looking a lot more like battery farming.

Hailsham students learned much of the same as their “regular” human counterparts: English, Biology, Geography, Art, Music, and even skills that would prepare them for the short time they spent in mainstream society before their donations via roleplaying.

Growing up Kathy's best friend was Ruth, a girl that she was very different from but reliant on nonetheless. She was also very close to Tommy, a boy with a lot of rage inside him. Her relationship with both of them was tested when, not long before they all graduated Hailsham and moved to The Cottages, Tommy and Ruth started dating. Kathy never revealed it at the time, but she held romantic feelings for Tommy and struggled with the idea of Ruth and Tommy dating.

Ruth would later admit that she knew she was doing the wrong thing by keeping them apart.

It was during their time at The Cottages that rumours of deferrals arose. These alleged that if two donors could prove they had genuine love for one another, they might be able to delay their donations and spend more time together. While these were discussed at length between Kathy and Tommy re: his relationship with Ruth, it wasn't until after Kathy had been working as a carer for almost ten years and reunited with Tommy and Ruth that Ruth would apologise for keeping them apart and suggest they apply for a deferral.

It would be her last wish as she was due for what would be her final donation.  After dismissing it as too late, Kathy and Tommy did eventually go on to enquire about the deferral only to find out that it was just a rumour.

The two had commenced a romantic relationship all the same with the little time they had together and Kathy cared for him until he decided he didn’t want her to be his carer anymore.

He completed after his fourth donation.

Kathy enters Darrow two weeks after Tommy’s passing, at the end of the film’s canon in the late 1990s. She has received her notice and is one month away from her first donation.

Strengths: 

PATIENCE: Kathy's first sign of patience is shown in her equivalent of primary school, both with Tommy and with Ruth. With Ruth, she was forced to be patient with a strong personality that refused to fade or relent for even a moment. It wasn't easy being Ruth's friend, or so Kathy later reflects, but it did mean that she accomplished things at Hailsham she wouldn't otherwise. Regarding Tommy, she was first faced with the purest form of anger she'd ever seen. She was one of the only students willing to give him a chance and befriend him. Later on, patience reveals itself in its strongest form as she becomes a carer for donors who she sees at their very worst and until their deaths. 

EMPATHY: As above, Kathy has shown signs of empathy in her youth and later in her career. Without empathy, she would not have been able to help Tommy work through his rage as a child and then as an adult. She also wouldn't have been able to be a decent carer for her donors. She describes some carers as wastes of space and is certainly not one of them: her empathy extends as far as spending hours explaining what life was like at Hailsham so her donors die with pleasant thoughts instead of painful ones.

SENSE OF HUMOUR: Without her sense of humour, Kathy simply wouldn't survive. It's quite dry and sometimes might make others roll their eyes, but it's gotten her through thirty-one years that might have otherwise crushed her. In particular, it got her through the pain of two of her best friends romancing one another while she stood alone on the sidelines. Without the ability to laugh, Kathy would only have the option to cry and for her that's only ever been something that's happened without her realising it until it's too late.

Weaknesses: 

PRIDE: On the very first page of her canon, Kathy insists that she isn't proud and then goes on to emphasise all the ways in which she is. Kathy is proud of a lot of things, really – almost as many as she's ashamed of. Most of all, she's proud of her ability as a carer, the fact that she can look after donors like her and help make their transition to completion easier in small ways. Bringing carers biscuits, asking them about their childhoods (even if most donors would rather hear about hers). Her pride separates her from other carers who might perceive her as arrogant but Kathy feels that she has earned her pride at least with regard to her career. In terms of a weakness, it does alienate her from time to time though, and she's always aware of it within her own introspection.

JEALOUSY: Kathy's jealousy more or less rubbed off her from Ruth. Without their constant competition, she would probably be a less jealous character – but the fact of the matter is that Kathy's best friend pursued a relationship with someone she knew that she was in love with (or at least had feelings for). Later in her canon, Ruth was cruel enough to kiss her and then tell her that Tommy wouldn't ever see her that way, prompting greater feelings of jealousy and even a strange sense of relief when Ruth eventually completed – even though they had more or less made up for their issues in childhood and their early 20s.

PASSIVE: Kathy's passiveness is the result of the fact that she doesn't really know any better. She was born into Hailsham and eventually, if a little early, prepared for the fact that she was a clone who was created solely for the purpose of harvesting her organs. She was never one to lash out about this fact; that was Tommy's thing. There was never really a moment throughout her canon where Kathy expressed discontent outwardly about the donation process – she'd spent too many years being told all the things that could happen if she tried to. Kathy's passiveness also extended to her relationships. Though, as aforementioned, she did butt heads with Ruth regarding her relationship with Tommy (and relationships in general), she never really acted on anything. For her whole life, Kathy has been a passenger. 

Fatal Flaw: Kathy's fatal flaw is that she is self-sacrificing. She always puts herself second and others first. For instance, she was willing to set aside (but never really let go of) her love for Tommy for over twenty years in order to a appease her best friend, Ruth. More literally, her canon explores the idea of organ donors as essential warehouses and Kathy's willingness to partake in this would – without the intervention of a new setting – have meant her death. There's little she wouldn't do for others (even perfect strangers) and so much she's still learning to do for herself.

Driving Force: Kathy's driving force in her canon is primarily necessity. As much as she'd love to believe it's her work ethic, love or compassion for the donors she cares for, this is not the path she would have chosen for herself. She was born into a programme that decided her fate. She's spent her whole life preparing for the end of it while watching the people she loves perish too early. She keeps going because she has to, because she's told that there are repercussions if she doesn't. 

Patron: I feel that Apollo best aligns with Kathy's history and personality traits. Her (unpaid) career was associated with the medical field and, although she generally didn't give her donors their medication (nurses were in charge of that), she dealt heavily with palliative care in caring for people as they prepared for and recovered from their surgeries. 

Not yet discussed in her app, Kathy was once an artistic character. Art is a theme heavily explored in Never Let Me Go. As children, the students (eventually donors) were encouraged to paint and draw and submit their work to what was called the Gallery.

They were never told exactly what the artworks were for but later learned it was to assess whether they had souls. Kathy didn't pursue art into adulthood but encouraged others in order to express themselves and was always quite talented herself. She was also always ahead of the curve in school and one of the few to put up her hand to pursue caring, a truly multi-talented character.

Similarly, she has a great love for music and her most fond memories are of purchasing a Judy Bridgewater tape which she would listen to over and over again. Although not much of a singer, this speaks to her appreciation of the arts all throughout her life. 

Kathy can, another Apollo trait, also be quite honest when she wants to be. There is much that she keeps below the surface but she is not above a good argument and doesn't like to be proven wrong. Perhaps it is because she has been lied to so often that Kathy values honesty so strongly.

All that said, Kathy is far from perfect and possesses negative traits that would make Apollo a suitable patron for her. She harbours a lot of anger that she didn't properly realise until she was an adult, rage she shared with Tommy and fellow donors but didn't dare herself speak aloud – nobody knew what, exactly, would happen if they did after all.

Tommy and Ruth's relationship brought out Kathy's vindictive and vengeful side. It could be argued, too, that she's been co-dependent her own life. Though once a carer she was largely on her own, as soon as she found herself with Tommy or Ruth it was next to impossible to let go. If circumstances hadn't forced them to, she wouldn't have.

Lastly and perhaps most significantly, Kathy is proud. The very first page of her canon deals with this idea. She insists at first that she's not bragging but, really, Kathy couldn't be more confident in her abilities as a carer and is unafraid to talk down others while talking up herself with regard to her skills and the fact that her donors are seldom agitated. 

A character as complex as Kathy is difficult to fit in with just one patron, but I do believe Apollo suits her well.

GAME INFORMATION

Setting Suitability: Though Kathy H no doubt learned about Ancient Rome and the Roman Empire while growing up, its mythology was a thing of fairytales for her. To believe otherwise would to believe in a higher order and that simply wasn't how she was raised. I believe it will blow her mind to be forced into such setting but also open her eyes after spending so many years wearing blinders. I think she'll love it. I think she deserves it.

I also think she'll be an asset to the community primarily because of her experience in hospitals and hospice. Developing actual skills to heal – not just through her presence and her words – would be an interesting change for her and perhaps help her sense the sense of helplessness she sometimes finds arise within her while caring for donors that share the same, awful fate.

She might not know how to fight but she knows how to care and would do whatever it took to make it known here. She's always been a student and had a willingness to learn and a want to change the world; she simply hasn't been given the chance yet and I believe perhaps this is it.

Sample: TD Sample with Queenie Goldstein. Please disregard the patron she references. 

I had started to wonder whether happy birthday would always seem like a contradiction to me. It wasn't as if I resented getting to celebrate another – quite the opposite – but I still couldn't help but think of Tommy and Ruth and the years they wouldn't live because of the world in which we were raised. I couldn't help but dwell on the fact that it could have just as easily been one of the two of them that turned up in Darrow instead of me, and how maybe that would have been the right thing.

It was strange, thinking about whether you deserved to be alive while the nurses on your floor handed over a bouquet of brightly coloured flowers and wished you many more years to come.

I hadn't told any of them that it was my birthday, not wanting to draw attention to a date that I tried my best to avoid in my own mind. I suppose they must have had it in their administrative system. And of course I smiled, holding the gift close to my chest and thanking them endlessly. But there was still a part of me that felt bitter. Not for myself, not necessarily, but for the rest of us. 

I'd still come so far from the previous year, though. I knew that had to count for something as I exited the hospital's lobby, preparing to venture home and bumping into Faye instead. I could only hope that she, too, could see how far I'd come in the time since I'd arrived in the countryside, ridden her motorcycle into the city proper while we discussed the morals of people bred and butchered so others could live.

"Hello, Faye."

I worried a lot about Marius after that day, with the arrival of the chair and all of the memories it carried with it. I know it wasn't my burden to bear, but seeing the pain that he felt, the past that he had arrived from, made me care for him all the more. If I were more honest with myself at the time, I might have realised that so much of it reminded me of Tommy. Of caring for Tommy, and the unspeakable ache he carried around inside of himself.

I'd found out we lived close to one another when I'd helped him maneuver the chair up to his apartment. The closeness comforted me, as if one way or another I could be sure of him, secure in the knowledge he was close, but without intruding on his space. We didn't know each other all that well, anyway. But I knew him well enough to know that I liked him, and that's why I found myself at his apartment that day, fist raised to knock on his door. "Marius?" I called as I knocked, thermos in my free hand. "I've made tea, would you care for some?"

I bought wine.

Not for me, but for Sookie, and in hindsight maybe it was a little strange, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. I asked the same worker at the store which one was best and I'm fairly sure he tried to up sell me again, but I can't say I minded. I was genuinely excited to be going to Sookie's movie night. She was just one of those people you wanted more of in your life.

I wondered what sort of movies she liked. I'd watched a few at Hailsham, and then at the Cottages, but none had really struck my fancy the way they did the others. If anything, the way that Ruth mindlessly mimicked them afterwards drove me a bit insane. She was so desperate to be worldly, she'd steal bits and pieces from just about anywhere.

I preferred to read. To enter worlds, instead of trying to bring them into my own. It was harder to focus on time when I was reading and, after I'd left them both for my Carer duties, harder to dwell on who I'd left behind. Sometimes a certain line would strike me, though, an image that would bring back a memory of my past, and my grief would catch me afresh again. Not grief. It wasn't grief then. I knew they were still alive. But longing. A longing for Tommy, and even for Ruth, brought to life by the words and sentences an author I'd never met had so carefully formed.

But I don't know why I'm talking about books again. It was a movie night.  Sookie seemed so enthusiastic about the whole thing, it was hard for me not to be. I rose my hand in a fist to knock on her door, wine in my free hand, and waited.

I think at that point I was tired of talking about things but not ever doing them. It was so much like back at Hailsham, the elaborate fantasies we constructed but knew we'd never get to live. But the thing is, I could live in Darrow. I could be so many things I couldn't be before. I don't know what was holding me back, but at some point I just thought enough is enough and decided I was going to become something more.

And it's not that my job as a volunteer at the hospital didn't satisfy me. It really did. I guess, and maybe this is silly looking back, I just wanted something that said I was worth a little more than that. A certificate or a letter after my name or something that said I was more than someone who gave and never got back. That I was more than a donor. That I deserved something in return.

So I went to Darrow's community college and found myself some forms. I never even considered something other than nursing. I'd always thought I was a good carer - not to boast, of course, but I truly believed I was - and figured this came close. I figured it would be better, even, having patients that had a future that wasn't the abrupt ending of their lives.

I was shaking as I took the forms, carried them back with me to a coffeehouse where I ordered tea and sat. I pored over them like they held the secrets to all of life's mysteries, even let myself smile at the pictures of nurses doing duties on the front and back. I know how ridiculous that sounds. I know that they were only models meant to lure me into the degree. I'm not that naive. But they made me happy nonetheless. They allowed me to picture moving forward.   

I turned twenty-nine in Darrow.

I’d gone many years without really acknowledging my own birthday, which probably sounds a little sad but in reality I was just too busy. I'd always made an effort to bring my donors a card or a cake, if they were eating, and making a bit of a fuss. My own usually passed without recognition, though, unless a nurse happened to note it on my ID badge in my travels, and I can’t say I really minded. If anything, they were just reminders of how much time had slipped away, and how little I had left.

They weren't much fun to celebrate on my own, anyway.

Something about my twenty-ninth struck me differently. I hadn't even noticed, really, until somebody asked me the date, and even then it didn't quite hit me until moments after the words had left my mouth. January 5th. It was funny, I suppose, how I felt. I knew birthdays were meant to be joyous, celebrated with balloons and music and sugary foods, and yet I felt so sad. More than that, I felt guilty.

( cut for length )

 One of my favourite things about Darrow was its bookstore. Of course, I'd read plenty before, back at Hailsham and in the Cottages and to the donors I was caring for but I'd never had quite so much time to do it on my own towards the end. It seemed back home (it still feels strange to call it that, Hailsham was the only home I am certain of) I was always in between places, trying to care for the minds and bodies of others instead of my own.

But between the volunteering and general errands, I had a lot of time. I'd read a lot of books. Books I'd never heard of, too. It made me wonder if I'd somehow been sheltered by the program, if for some reason there were things that they didn't want us to read, or watch (or think, or feel.) On that particular day, though, I'd found something I was assured was a classic and headed back to my apartment to read. It was a little too cold to read in the park much to my disappointment, but I had the makings of hot chocolate in my kitchen and figured that was almost just as good. I really did enjoy the cooler weather, just not so much when it prohibited me from getting fresh air.

I should have been paying attention but I was so wrapped in the blurb on the back of the book - To Kill A Mockingbird it was called - that I didn't even notice the figure until I bumped into them. "I'm so sorry," I said, before I'd even taken in their expression.