[PLAYER INFO] NAME: Kevin
AGE: 21
JOURNAL: ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragon8writerIM: dragon8writer
PLURK: dragon8writer
E-MAIL: dragon8writer.star@gmail.com
RETURNING: Just the one! Primrose Everdeen
[CHARACTER INFO]CHARACTER NAME: Faith Lehane; The Slayer.
SERIES: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
CHRONOLOGY: Post apocalypse, after the series ends; she’s living by herself in a rather Spartan apartment, doing the jobs no one else wants to because they need to be done – most recently, killing a small nest of children-turned-vampires, and rather hating herself for it.
CLASS: Hero!
BACKGROUND:Faith’s world is much like our own; set in the late 90s, and the early 2000s, it is in fact meant to mimic our world almost exactly – with one major difference. The Buffyverse is a world of magic. It is inhabited by witches, ghosts, and perhaps most importantly demons, the most prolific of which seem to be vampires, former humans who - upon death - lost their soul and were possessed by bestial demons. Their need to feed on others, and their ability to "turn" those still human, made sure there was a steady supply. While their ability to pass for human - and their retention of human traits and memories, allowed them to hunt within the human populace in a way most demons could not.
The counter to this is the slayer – a girl born to every generation, empowered by the heart and soul of a demon, so that she can fight them on their own terms. Guided by the watcher’s council, they keep the unsuspecting human world safe from the monsters that would plague it – and although they can’t be everywhere at once, they are nevertheless a rather powerful figure in the supernatural war.
They were generally guided - and taught - by "Watchers," from the Council - scholars, often gifted in either magic or combat; they trained those with with the potential to become slayers, where they found them, and directed those slayers to where they could do the most good. From simply hunting at a particular grave site, to actually stopping an apocolypse, it was the job of a slayer's watcher to make sure they got where they needed to be.
That said, however, each slayer would inevitably fall; they died in the line of duty as a matter of course, leaving their watchers to grieve for them. When this happens, a new one is awoken – one of many potentials, all female. For millennia, this meant only one girl would be the slayer at a time, one girl would fight the darkness. At the start of the series, this was Buffy Summers - a former cheerleader who had recently moved to Sunnydale, and discovered it was a hellmouth, a gateway to hellish dimensions with a tendency to draw in the supernatural.
For a while, Buffy, along with her friends (Willow and Xander), her watcher (Giles), and her occasional beau (Angel), worked to keep the town and the world at large safe from harm. They fought back against the vampires and other demons in the town, and kept the hellmouth from being opened. An anomaly developed, however, when Buffy was killed - or more specifically, when Buffy was resuscitated from her death. Because she had died, a new slayer was automatically called; yet when she was returned to life, she retained all her powers. Thus, there were two slayers.
This second slayer was not Faith, who would come into the story later. Faith at this point was still living at home, with an alcoholic mother, no father, and public school teachers who refused to believe she did her work even when she did.
Her story starts on her sixteenth birthday, sneaking into a concert with her best – gay – friend, Tommy. It was the Freak Wharf’s drummer, Kenny/Killian, who accidentally set Faith’s it into motion.
Gifted with the ability to create tulpas – mental projections of powerful memories - Kenny accidentally helped bring Faith’s childhood imaginary friend to life; an imaginary friend that turned out to be a long dead demon – the daughter of an ancient slayer, who had turned to evil for vengeance, she became what was known as a vengeance demon, a nearly immortal creature who could grant any wish for revenge she heard, generally in the most twisted of ways. All the while she remained in the guise of a six year old girl.
One wish, which she had never been able to grant in life, was to give her mother Artemia revenge upon the one who had killed them both. None of this was known to Faith at the time. But it was nevertheless to have a great impact upon her – because in order to grant that wish, “Alex” had chosen to bring back her mother in Faith’s body.
It began with blackouts, when angry, in which Artemia would emerge – brutally beating the boys who had teased Tommy; hospitalizing them. It cost Faith friendship with Tommy, who fled, and got her reprimanded at the school. Faith, like the rest, honestly believed it was her doing the deeds. She did little to fight the accusations, simply pretending that she didn’t care.
Unfortunately, things only got worse; starting with her mother’s arrest for drug possession, and Faith being sent to the foster system, where she was placed with several other kids in what appeared to be an ultra-religious household. Ironically, however, it was they who provided her with her first true introduction to the supernatural, when she discovered the family’s secret. Their son, supposedly dead, was in fact a vampire – a little boy they kept locked in the attic; using the naughtier children as blood sources.
It was faith’s first kill, although she wasn’t a slayer as of yet. She accidentally knocked a curtain down, lighting up the room and turning it to dust, and leaving its mother and father to grieve.
Faith, meanwhile, fled – along with one of the older foster children, who claimed they could stay at her boyfriend’s place. Faith crashed on the couch for the duration, and it was actually one of the more pleasant experiences in Faith’s life. She’d had no more black outs since the fight at school, and only had to deal with the odd dreams – memories, it would turn out, of Artemia’s final days.
Unfortunately, this peace in Faith’s life was only temporary; during her time at the house, she had begun to date the roommate of their host; a boy who had seemed sweet, and had given her a multitude of gifts – all of which turned out to be stolen. When she confronted him about his kleptomaniac ways, the relationship fell apart, and she quickly realized she was no longer welcome. She packed up and left – in time to find out her mother had been released from the halfway house; yet instead of looking for Faith, had apparently taken up prostitution.
Faith lost control. She blacked out again, viciously beating the man who had been attempting to pick up her mother - and was sent to a mental institution, where she spent several days possessed, before coming out of it. Sadly, she categorized this particular experience as one of the best in her life – the food was good, the rooms were comfy; the entire thing was fancy, having been paid for by Diana Dormer, her future watcher. She even met Kenny in that hospital, there to get help for his problem with creating visions – and the two began to know each other as people.
When she deemed stable, she was released into the woman’s care; and it was revealed to her that she was a potential slayer – not a nobody, but one of the special girls spread throughout the world, who could one day be called to protect the world. She found stability there – throwing herself into training to become a slayer; reading the books, quizzing herself steadily, and preparing for the day she might be called. She even started a steady relationship with Kenny, who revealed that his own girlfriend had been killed by a vampire.
Like all things in Faith’s life, it ended in disaster. She discovered her mother was dead – not at Faith’s hand; she discovered her father was in prison for murder, not dead, and began to remember his abuse of her as a Toddler. Worse, Alex was coming more and more out of her head into real life – making physical appearances where Faith could see her. When Faith was named the slayer, she struck, with the blackouts suddenly becoming much more frequent. No longer depending on anger, she would often shift completely to Artemia without even noticing it; even getting a tattoo – the one on her shoulder to be precise; a tribal mark.
Simultaneously her dreams became more potent, forcing Faith to relive more and more of Artemia’s final days. The first human Artemia accidentally killed; getting dragged forward before Kakistos, an ancient vampire – her daughter being torn from her grasp.
Artemia – and Faith through her – was raped by the vampire; her body broken and left to starve to death, fading away until she finally cried out for vengeance via the demon – her own daughter, killed at the vampire’s hand.
Faith would have been lost at this point, if not for the help of her watcher, and Kenny. The two of them applied a strain of sorts, to allow Faith to confront her and remove the presence from her mind. Sadly, it wasn’t quite soon enough – although they removed Artemia, she had left Faith a parting gift, in the form of her tribal tattoo. It was in fact the mark of Kakistos, and allowed the vampire to chase down Faith anywhere she went.
Because of this, he was able to find her – to know who she was. But instead of going after her directly, he first captured Diana as bait, to bring her into his layer. There, he brutally ripped the watcher in half before Faith’s eyes, before trying to claim her as his own – but Faith beat him off, collapsing the tunnel and escaping with her life, although not robbing her of his.
After that, Faith fled. She felt that the cops would blame her for the murder; she couldn’t remain. Kenny wasn’t even incentive – some of the tulpas he created were of his ex-girlfriend, and he had a rather bad tendency to have sex with them, she’d discovered.
Before she hopped aboard the bus, however, she made one stop – she beat the drug dealer and pimp who had put her mother in such dire straights, and attempted to save a young girl he was terrorizing. But it was Faith she looked like at terror, after she had knocked the man’s teeth loose – not him.
That was when Faith first started wondering if she wasn’t a monster; before ever coming to Sunnydale.
What happened after that is unknown; other than that Kakistos continued to follow her, all the way to Sunnydale. There, Buffy – her fellow slayer – forced her to confront the vampire, taking it down once and for all with a wooden pillar straight to the heart. Free at last it was, as always, too little too late.
Unfortunately, no one in Sunnydale really checked up on Faith’s past, beyond finding out her watcher was dead. Nobody seemed to have any idea the extent of what she had been through – or at least no one did anything about it. Faith was left to her own devices, in a six dollar motel, and it wasn’t long before she started to feel neglected. The dark path she had begun to follow before arriving carried her forward further, and she became more and more reckless in her fights trying to forget what she had been through.
Perhaps predictably, it all came crashing down around her. Like her predecessor before her, Faith accidentally killed a human being while hunting vampires with Buffy. Unlike Artemia before her, Faith refused to claim guilt for what she had done, protesting that it didn’t bother her. Powerful and lonely, this was just the final thing to convince her she was nothing more than a monster; and monsters were above it all. When Buffy tried to make her deal with what had been done, she tried instead to pin the murder on Buffy – but her bad lying simply brought attention to the truth.
Angel, a vampire with a soul and Buffy’s occasional beau - almost reached her after that; he chained her up and confronted her with what had she had done, to force her to deal with it. Unfortunately Wesley, another watcher sent by the council, interfered. He tried to arrest Faith instead, destroying whatever trust she had left and still failing to stop Faith’s escape.
Faith chose not to run, though, in the end – even saving Buffy’s life, and earning at least some trust back from the slayer and her friends. But her loyalty was no longer to the gang. Instead, she turned to the Mayor of Sunnydale, a man who had traded his soul long ago in order to keep from aging - and who had in fact founded the town on a hellmouth as a place for demons to feed. She promised to help him ascend and become a powerful demon himself, betraying Buffy and the gang ostensibly in return for him giving her a place to live, and a place by his side. In truth, he had become the closest thing she had to a father figure; this despite his occasional habit of threatening her life. On his orders, she killed an innocent man, tried to steal Angel’s soul, and later poisoned the vampire in order to distract Buffy.
The only cure was the blood of a slayer; and in trying to get that blood, Buffy tried to kill Faith. But Faith chose to jump off a building rather than save Buffy’s boy, or help the blonde slayer with the use of her lifes blood. She fell onto a truck, dropped into a coma, and was taken away. Although Buffy did manage to save him, it was only by giving a good portion of her own blood to him.
When she awoke, it was to discover the mayor defeated – in part through advice Faith gave to Buffy in a dream, although the brunette slayer seemed to have forgotten this. Despite the mayor’s sociopathic nature, he was one of the only parental figures Faith had ever had, and it had been one of the few times Faith truly felt loved. So finding him dead had enraged her - all the more when she discovered that Buffy wasn’t even dating Angel anymore, after putting Faith into a coma to save him.
Rather than attempt to reconcile as Buffy hoped, she attacked; kidnapping the other slayer's mother, and ranting about how Buffy had abandoned them – before using a gift given to her by the mayor to swap bodies with Buffy. Unfortunately for her, she became attached tooBuffy’s life. Too having friends who cared about her, and people who saw her as a hero. She even tried to save a church full of people – until Buffy interrupted her, in Faith’s body own body.
Although Buffy set things right, it wasn’t before Faith let something slip – as she beat her own body senseless, she screamed that “Faith” was a monster; a murderer; worthless. It was the first time she actually expressed how she saw herself in the show – and after being put back in her own body, she fled.
Again, at this point, she disappeared from the shows; later to appear in Angel, a spin-off of the series – where she took a contract to kill thetitle character. But her plan in truth was the reverse in the end – getting Angel to kill her. Now truly having slid off the deep end, Faith tortured Wesley, shot at Angel, and yet ended up crying in the rain, and begging him to just end her as the monster she saw herself as.
He didn't. Instead, he convinced her that it wasn't too late for redemption – protected her from the police, Buffy, and the watcher’s council all; and in the end, she voluntarily turned herself into the police, to try and make up for what she had done.
Much like with the hospital before it, the jail cells served as a stabilizing place. Food daily, and a place to sleep – with only the occasional idiotic inmate trying to kill her. Although the experience ended like all the rest, it arguably did so on a better note. Faith wasn't released, but rather broke out when she discovered Angel needed her help – he had lost her soul, and if she couldn't capture Angelus, his soulless alterego, there would be no bringing her vampiric sponsor back.
The ease with which Faith broke free proved that she could have escaped at any time; she had kept herself in check, and had the power to do so. More importantly, her talk with Angel at the end of this arc convinced her that redemption meant you had to keep fighting; she couldn't just choose to lay down and let it be over. It was never over.
So rather than go back to prison, Faith took a more active role – she rejoined Buffy and her friends in fighting against a new force, the "first" evil, and helped to stop an apocalypse. For this, she joined Buffy and her gang, now complete with an ex-vengeance demon, a little sister, a dorky demon-summoner, and a slew of potential slayers who had yet to be called - not to mention Xander and Willow, the latter now a powerful witch. But no Angel.
Her role in it was relatively minor – she took charge of the gang for a short while when the turned against Buffy, and unfortunately led them into a trap; but her presence, the presence of another slayer in their battles, was nevertheless a large help to them in their eventual victories, and cemented to Faith that she could do good.
After the battle ended, though, it all fell apart. Buffy, in a desperate gambit, had convinced Willow to cast a spell - awakening potential slayers across the world, making them all into slayers who could help their fight. Faith, too much of a general to join Buffy's army once the major threat was gone, moved to Cleveland – like Sunnydale, the location of a hellmouth where dangerous supernatural creatures tended to gather. There, she did the dirty jobs no one else would. Such as killing children who had been turned into vampires. Although she seemed to hate herself for it, the fact remained that someone had to do it – and as the rogue slayer, people trusted her ability to do what no one else would.
This is the point she is being apped from.
PERSONALITY:
What is your character like, in at least two paragraphs? What are their dreams, their fears, their general quirks and the issues that make them who they are, and does their personality shift in any way after or before the point you are taking them from? If they are from a different or alternate universe, or if their personality radically shifts due to events during the point in time that you are taking them from, how is their new personality different from their normal one?
Faith tends toward the wild side, particularly in her fights – she doesn’t like to over think things as a rule. It isn’t that she’s stupid – or that she’s incapable of planning ahead – but she likes to lose herself in whatever she’s doing. To fight with what often comes down to reckless abandon.
This was even more pronounced when she first came to Sunnydale– throwing herself into battles without care of the outcome, just for the rush of winning, and the ability to forget everything else. Her dead alcoholic of a mother, her jailed– more physically abusive father – and of course the brutal death of her watcher, who was literally ripped in half in front of her. But the day she accidentally killed a human being changed things. At first, she tried to tell herself that she felt no guilt – that she was simply a bad person, same as everyone had always told her, and that was all there was to it. That as a slayer, a warrior, no one could stop her anyhow – she was above all of it.
This was a path that had started long before she came to Sunnydale in truth; a rapid succession of events back in Boston had started the path; beginning when she was abandoned by her friend Tommy – who feared she was turning into a violent bully (not knowing her rages were in fact the result of her being possessed by an ancient slayer.) Continuing when her negligent mother turned hooker was revealed to be dead; and when her father – thought to be dead – was revealed not only to be alive, but in jail for murder… and her memories of the man’s abuses re-awoken.
A small series of betrayals by her love interests worked to propel her down a darker path – the kleptomaniac who first suggested she should help herself to stealing; the drummer who was still sleeping with his dead girlfriend, through mental projections, even as he tried to date Faith. What truly started to break Faith, though, was the death of her watcher. The vicious evisceration of the only person who had ever bothered to believe in her – and the feeling that she couldn’t even stick around without being blamed for the murder – propelled Faith to the edge.
Faith left Boston – though not before punching out the man who had pimped out her mother; it was the look of horror on the face of the woman Faith had tried to save that first made Faith wonder if she was a monster – if people could just look at her, and see it; that – along with Kakistos’s constant chase of her- was what started her down her path. The accidental killing of the deputy mayor, paired with jealousy over Buffy’s seemingly perfect life, were simply what catapulted her over the edge; convinced her that she was a monster, and she should act accordingly
Still, with help from Angel - a practical expert in the quest for redemption - she was eventually able to break through and come to terms with the guilt she honestly felt for what she had done; although not before murdering an innocent, betraying Buffy’s trust entirely, getting put into a coma, and wreaking havoc down the countryside on her way to LA.
Still, with his help, she was able to accepted that that she wasn’t simply bad by nature; that, like any other human being, she was responsible for her actions. For the first time, she allowed herself to feel the full guilt for what she had done.
As part of her attempt for redemption, she willingly went to prison for a time, treating it as a stabilizing experience – three square meals a day, only the very occasional (stupid) person trying to kill her… yet when she found out Angel needed her help, she broke free from the prison with ease, proving she could have done so at any time. More than that, she proved herself willing to drop her passive attempts at redemption, and take a more active role – helping Angel to avert the apocalypse (by restoring his soul), and then heading into battle besides Buffy, her old time rival, friend, and occasional arch nemesis - and taking a more direct hand in saving the world.
Since that time, she has paid more attention to her surroundings in a fight – in the comics, she actually stops another girl from making the same mistake she did. She recognizes consequences – as seen by her going to jail – and she tries to make up for things that go wrong on her watch.
Faith is still relatively laid back, preferring a night at the clubs to prowling the streets, but when lives are on the line she won’t run from her responsibilities, or turn her back on those who depend on her. She’s loyal to those who believed in her and to some extent those she has wronged – again, determined to make up for what she had done and prove that it’s possible to come back.
Her search for repentance sometimes takes her to dark places, however. After fighting the First Evil, Faith started taking it on herself to perform what others wouldn’t touch. When she was asked to take care of children, she leapt to say yes – despite inferior living conditions indicating she was already struggling to make ends meet; and when she found out that those children were vampires, and “take care of” referred to slaying them, she took care of that too. She was angry at the necessity; she seemed angry at the necessity – it undoubtedly brought back fears that there was something simply wrong with her. But she did it, because in her mind someone had to – and no one else would. In this, and in most things, Faith doesn’t hesitate; for all her wildness, she’s has a stubborn streak – she is determined to get things done.
Regardless of that determination, however, Faith tends to lack confidence in herself as a Slayer. Everyone always views Buffy as the real deal – and while they call Faith Slayer still, she’s always the one who went rogue. Further, as much as she wants to be the special one, she’s also scared of that responsibility and belief. When there’s someone else who can take up leadership, she much prefers them to do it – because while she’s learned that she’s capable of taking charge, from a brief stint leading the slayers, she doesn’t really trust herself with that any more than she does with her strength; to quote something she says in the later comics, she isn’t sure she’s strong enough to be that strong.
Finally, I want to quickly review the basics of what makes Faith Faith – it’s the lack of trust she has in herself, mixed with the determination to prove herself anyway. Her mother was abusive, and her father was a murderer – who Faith grew up thinking had died. Everyone who cared about Faith was quickly killed, and those left ignored her, mistrusted her, or attempted to use her – with the sociopathic mayor being the closest thing she had to a father figure. Since he used her for murder and mayhem, he mostly added to the problems.
The thing about Faith, though, is that she seems determined to prove them wrong – even herself – in order to prove the few people who’ve believed in her correct. Her recklessness is a mixture of upbringing – no one taught her much in the way of responsibility – and the desire to run from her past. Her fear of commitment is the result of being disappointed so many times, and her fear of responsibilities she isn’t sure she can truly handle. But her determination, her struggle to make up for things, and her willingness to help others all work in counterpoint of that, driven by a internal core of strength that emerged when Angel refused to simply kill her as a bad person, which allow her to face up to the responsibilities she can’t afford to flee from. In that struggle is born the nuances of her personality described above.
POWER: What is/are your character’s superpower(s)? If they have abilities in their canon source, please list them here. If they do not, please create some! Every character brought into the City must have at least one power, though this may be as useful or as useless as you wish. Please indicate which abilities are canon for your character and which are not.
Additionally, each character is permitted an upper limit of three separate powers. At our discretion, we may request that you reduce, readjust, or otherwise redefine your character’s powers in order to acclimate more readily to the game setting. Characters from more Eastern-style sources are to have their powers adapted to a Western setting – for example, characters from the series “Naruto” would turn their most prominent ninjutsu into the super-powers they receive upon arriving here.
Super strength; a canon ability, a slayers metaphysical strength allows them to punch through solid tile – not to mention lift people several times their weight, or kick someone clear across a room; their strengthened bodies exhibit a large amount of endurance in order to deal with these acts of strength. Slayers have even been known to get up and take off after getting hit by a pick-up truck.
Super Speed - another canon ability, Faith can move about thrice as fast as any normal human.
Speedy healing: Again, canon – Faith heals about four times faster than your average human.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE: How your character will be addressing the game at large. This sample should follow the same rough format as Cape&Cowl proper — a first-person, text/audio/video-based, intentional post to an internet community. Preferably more than a paragraph in length, this sample is to show us your character's unique voice. If you can make us laugh or outright scare the pants off us, you’re doing a good job!
[Video]
Someone wanna tell me why we’re all sitting back and taking this porter’s shit? Not exactly fond of getting pulled from anywhere if you know what I mean.
[She leans back in her chair, trying to look relaxed – if somewhat defiant.] Not that I’m exactly eager to head back to Cleveland or anything; but I figure someone’s gotta have a screw or three loose if they’re bringing all of us in one place just to send us off again.
So; anyone know who’s head I gotta crack to figure out what’s going on around here?
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: The name of the game is introspection, folks. This sample will both showcase how you will play in the logs community, and how well you understand your character’s motivations, hopes, dreams, quirks, etc. This sample should be a bit longer than your first, and, again, make us cry, make us laugh, or make us never want to meet your character in a back alley and you’re doing a good job!
Additionally, this sample should also be set in-game, so we can get an idea how you will play this character in a collaborative environment.
A note: In the cases of both first person and third person samples, we do NOT accept links to samples written at other games. If, however, you are a returning player applying for a character that you have played previously at Cape&Cowl, you are allowed to link to posts made by that character in this game.
Faith stretched, feeling the joints shift and pop as she moved down the street; a little groan escaped her lips, eyes closing as she allowed herself to relax, at least a little. Still, her senses were open to the possibility of attack – something she’d grown all to used to, with the police still hunting her back home atop the more demonic residents of Cleveland.
Opening them again, she crossed the street, taking the chance to glance at a few children playing across the side walk; she wondered how many of them were Imports like her.
It wasn’t the worst place to be, she had to admit; better than home, at least, without anyone trying to hunt her. People to fight, who could actually keep up with her – not to mention a whole world between her and B; and no little kids to “take care” of... She couldn’t quite relax, though; knowing that someone else was in charge of her life again. Knowing that she could be taken out at any time, not by her choice but at someone else’s whim.
She realized that her fingers were curled, knuckles practically white, and forced them to release; returning her attention to the outside world. A whole city full of heroes – and people who saw her as one of them; no Buffy in sight; no cops who wanted her head; maybe a chance to do a little right, fix up some of what she had done – and check out a whole new night scene without anyone recognizing her photo from the television.
Faith was going to like it here.
FINAL NOTES: The background is largely drawn from Go Ask Malice – as discussed with the mods, prior to submission; although it is independently written, it is the only real source of Faith’s background – and I was sold as official Buffyverse merchandise, with the blessing of the network. The only indescrepency is whether Faith was 16 17 or 18 at the time – Faith’s birthdate was only made official later, and there’s some inconsistencies in the canon as a whole as a result.
I have it listed sixteen here, like the book, but it’s possible she should have been 17
