Hope Nysolm

**Hope Nysolm** is the alpha character played by Amy Vorpahl. She is the songwriter and bass player for her band, which includes her brother Hal, and her boyfriend, Lorenzo.

Hope is an introverted, timid and tragic person (one of her flaws is literally "scared of men"). Amy has stated that her beta characters employ a trait that is suppressed in Hope. Her first character, Soupbone, employs Independence; her second, Friday, employs courage; her third, Stella Monticarsi, employs sexuality.

## Character Introduction

To begin Foreververse, the cast was asked to write a day in the life for their characters, before the alpha characters entered into the "test." This is "A Day in the Life: Hope Nysolm," written by Hope's player, Amy Vorpahl.

I woke up with the sun, as usual. It never ceased to surprise me that I responded like clockwork to daylight. *Probably because if it’s on the day side of dawn, it means Lorenzo’s* passed out*. I dragged my aching body out of bed and searched the apartment* for exactly where my boyfriend had unwillingly ended his bender the night before. For a long time, it seemed that his tolerance for vice was expanding, but recently, he was blacking out earlier and earlier. Part of me wished one day he would never wake up. But right now, I just wished Lorenzo hadn’t passed out in the—*shit. The bathroom again.*

I hated when that was the room where his body decided to shut down. I could navigate around the kitchen, whether he was in a chair or on the floor; the living room was easy because he usually slept face down in the couch, and I could creep through the room and out the door without him waking up. Even if he did, I would be in my car, driving to the studio before he would even be able to stand up. He never fell asleep in the bedroom—Hal had helped me put a lock on the door from the inside, and I used it any chance I got. But “Midnight Lorenzo” in the bathroom sucked. I couldn’t get ready for my day without waking him up. Showers and toilets were loud.

I sighed, threw on a T-shirt and jeans, grabbed my bass, and texted my brother: “Hey Hal, coming over!” and added a purple devil-faced emoji, which was their code for “Lorenzo”. I used to have to keep it a secret, but I didn’t care anymore. He knew I was trying to leave him, but that I couldn’t. He knew that Hal wanted him out of the band, but couldn’t fire him. He knew the Nysolm siblings wished he was out of their lives, but he found that funny. All three of them knew that Lorenzo would be around for as forever as they could imagine.

I popped open my trunk and as I hefted my ukulele case into the trunk, a sharp pain ran up my side, and I groaned. I forgot about last night. That’s where he had hit me. He was super fucked up, and yelled until I came out of the bedroom. I tried to lay him down but he got too physical and as I pushed away from him, he struck out for my face, his usual target. But, because of my Muay Thai training I had done the past year, I had already backed away and turned, so his knuckles only hit the side of my ribs. *I’ve had worse*. The training helped, but I wasn’t a born fighter—I still couldn’t bring myself to hurt anyone in real life, and my first major defense was running away. Still, with Lorenzo’s slowed movement, I’d been able to dodge most of his blows.

When I got to Hal’s, his focused and frowning eyes quickly examined me before scanning his front yard.

“Relax, dude. He’s still asleep. Just in the bathroom.”

“Your face looks okay…”

“My ribs.”

“What?! I’m gonna—“

“No you’re
not. Can I use your shower?”

Hal was an incredibly generous, loving and protective older brother. At one point, Hal and Lorenzo had been extremely close—they were the only members of their band back
in high school. Then, Hal left for college, and Lorenzo hung back to take classes at Community College and date Me. I wound up leaving town to go to
college, too, and it wasn’t until years later when the three of them came back together and really put effort into the band. They were successful. Then they were really successful. Then, after a few more years and one especially popular song, they were famous. And that’s when everything went wrong.

I kept overnight stuff at my brother’s so I got ready quickly and headed out. Before I cleared the front door, though, Hal caught me.

“Hope!”

“I’m fine, Hal. Thanks for the shower.”

“I just want to make sure—“

I hugged him. He wanted to have a conversation that was impossible to have. I smiled. “I gotta get to the studio early. There are a few tunes I need to nail down before I pitch them to you guys.”

Hal smiled back. I was the definition of creativity to him, and my music seemed to be the only thing that could ever help me. It helped me more than he could, he thought.

I waved as I drove away, but I parked a block away. I coughed over and over, long and hard and ugly… until I stopped. Then I made my way to the studio.

## Cast Insight

When the cast began playing 7th Sea, Amy published this note about Hope on twitter:

ForeverVerse is a show where the characters "jump" between RPG systems in a "Quantum Leap"-type way. Our Alpha characters are based on ourselves, and Ivan (our GM) proposed that our Beta characters in each system be similar to our Alphas.

So why was Hope a devil-may-care Labrador, a big beefy soldier, and now she's a delicate courtesan?

Because Alpha Hope is an introverted, timid and tragic person (one of her flaws is literally "scared of men"), I am choosing to make her Beta characters employ a trait that is suppressed in Hope. Her first character, Soupbone, employs Independence; her second, Friday, employs courage; her third, Stella Monticarsi, employs sexuality.

## References

1. ↑ Amy explains her characters on Twitter.