Hadriel Application

[thelastjoy]

PLAYER
Player name: Hattie
Contact: heyhattie @ plurk
Characters currently in-game: N/A

CHARACTER
Character Name: The Girl 
Character Age: 15
Canon: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys 
Canon Point: End of the final issue

History:

Thanks to war and bomb drops, the world came to an end. In the chaos, a Japanese company took over a small city of survivors in southern California. Better Living Industry, also known as BLI, used advanced technology to become to ruling government of Battery City, the lone center for civilization known in the Americas after the bombs left the land barren. BLI's  attempt to exert control was severe, going so far as to use drugs and mind control technology in the form of Draculoid masks to keep the citizens in line. Their rules were totalitarian and quickly became barbaric, something as simple as breaking a noise ordinance could result in execution.  No bright colors, no music, and no individuality was allowed within city walls. This led to some people escaping and trying to make their own community in the harsh desert wasteland surrounding the city. This place, known as the Zones, became the counter-culture to everything BLI represented. They wore colorful masks in response to the Draculoids and rejected the identities they had as BLI citizens.

Naturally the people of the Zones and the armies of BLI clashed. The people of the desert couldn't stray too far from the city, as the radiation and poison levels became too dangerous the farther in the wasteland one traveled. They couldn't run far when BLI tried to hunt down defectors and eventually the people of the Zones tried to fight back. The 'Analogue Wars' was the year long rebellion against Battery City. Despite fighting hard, the people of the Zone lost. To make an example of their power, BLI took one of the leaders of the war effort and put her under a Draculoid mask in front of her watching subordinates. What BLI didn't know, was that the woman was pregnant.

A part of the woman's soul, filled with rage and hatred in that moment, fled into her fetus. Somehow this, and fate itself, turned the child into a bomb. When detonated, its power could destroy everything in its path, or it could save everyone. While BLI may have been initially unaware of the woman's pregnancy, her friends did everything in their power to get back the baby. The Fabulous Killjoys; Party Poison, Kobra Kid, Fun Ghoul and Jet Star, had served under the woman and stole back the child to raise as their own. They left the Girl unnamed, deciding she could follow desert tradition when she was old enough and led her to believe her mother was dead. 

It didn't take long for everyone to realize something was special about the Girl. The entire desert buzzed with the rumors that she was their last hope. A religion formed around her, treating the miracle baby as a messiah that would end the war her mother has led. The rumors spread to BLI and the Killjoys' job became to keep the girl alive until she was old enough to take the fight to the city.

They managed to keep her safe for many years, raising her on the run and trying to teach her how to survive in the Zones while also trying to give her something of a normal childhood. Their luck couldn't last. BLI's top agent, Korse, eventually caught up to them and kidnapped the Girl back to Battery City. The Killjoys came after her, deciding to risk a suicide mission if it meant saving their daughter. They asked Dr. Death Defying, a former U.S. veteran who ran a pirate radio station/information line in the desert, and Cherri Cola, a former Killjoy that turned to pacifism after the Analogue Wars, to make sure the Girl made it out of the city. She did, thanks to their efforts, but not before she watched each of the Killjoys die in front of her. 

Traumatized, the Girl ran away from Cherri and Dr. Death after they drove her back to the Zones. She spent several years living on her own, avoiding human contact except needing to trade for supplies. She found small comfort in a stray cat that began following her around the Zones. Unbeknownst to her, the cat had been experimented on by BLI to spy on the Girl. As long as she stayed far from rebellions and far from the city limits, they let her live. 

Fate didn't let her stay away forever. Not long after she turned fifteen, the Girl found Party Poison's mask while out trading for food. The mask was almost immediately stolen from her by Val Velocity. Val was the leader of the Ultra Vs, a group of teenagers that fancied themselves the new generation of Killjoys. They rejected the Killjoys desire for justice, instead focused only on violence. Val mocked the Girl for the tragedies she had faced and refused to give back the mask. fter a confrontation with the Dracs, the girl followed the Vs back to their home base in hope she could get the mask back later.

Her attempt proved fruitless, but did out her position to Cherri Cola. The reunion between the two was tense, as she remained angry with him for not coming with the other Killjoys during her kidnapping. But after reaching his home, she realized he'd made a shrine to his former friends and that Cherri felt just as guilty for their deaths as she did. After a tearful conversation, the Girl agreed to stay with Cherri. Living together did give them back the playful, familial relationship they once had. Cherri took her to visit Dr. Death, tried to teach her how to shoot via riding waves, and tried to talk her out of the anger she had over her family's deaths. However the two has another argument while out gathering supplies and the Girl told Cherri she wanted to live with Dr. Death instead.

She didn't go to Dr. Death. The Girl ran back o the Ultra Vs in another attempt to steal back Party's mask. She was unsuccessful and after a few nights with them, she did make good on her promise to go to Dr. Death's place. She heard him reusing a broadcast over the radio and knew something was wrong. When she finally found him, he was already dead. Val had killed him. The Girl attempted to shoot him for the crime, but couldn't bring herself to commit murder. Upset, she followed Val out of Dr. Death's place and found a BLI ambush waiting for them. 

The Girl was unable to get away from the fight and was shot trying to run. Cherri showed up trying to save her, but it wasn't enough. Both of them bled out on the battle field. Except the Girl wasn't permitted to die. The Phoenix Witch, the deity that ferried souls to the afterlife, refused to take her. The Girl hadn't detonated yet and it was too dangerous to risk a bomb going off among the dead. The Witch explained to the Girl was she really was, what she was capable of, and that her mother wasn't really dead. The Girl's immediate thought was to use her power for revenge, but the Witch argued that she was capable of better and sent her back to the land of the living.

The Girl buried both Cherri and Dr. Death upon awakening. She cut her hair, dressed in the same colors the Killjoys did and joined the Ultra Vs again. Now knowing what her cat was, she used it to give BLI a message: she was coming. The Girl led the Ultra Vs in battle straight to Battery City, where she promptly surrendered. Taken to the middle of the city, BLI tried to make an example of her as they had her mother. But before they could put her under a mask, the Girl let the bomb inside her explode. 

Instead of destroying the city, she acted like an EMP. Her 'explosion' disabled BLI's mind control, allowing the people of the city to wake up and take back their lives. Even Val was inspired by her actions and he gave her back the mask. The Girl didn't stick around the watch the celebrations, she returned to the desert to commit the mask-and her other friends' personal items- to a shrine for the Witch. She went to Dr. Death's to play an old message of his on the radio, and started out into the desert. Before she could make it far, the Girl ran into a newly freed BLI subordinate who was asking for help. The Girl ran to hug the woman, recognizing her immediately as her mother.  This is the point the Girl will be taken from.

Personality: 

The Girl is a very emotional immature teenager. She doesn’t know how to properly manager her negative emotions, or how to deal with the trauma she’s been through. This comes out most obvious in her refusal to deal with her grief and her lack of control over her anger. 
 

The Girl has been through more loss in a few years than many people would experience in a lifetime. Watching the four people who raised her be killed in front of her has scarred her, leaving her with survivor’s guilt. Instead of coming to terms with her grief, she’s spent the last several years running from her problems. She avoids the people closest to her that could help her understand her pain, she goes so far to avoid people altogether. Girl doesn’t start handling her grief until she finally admits to Cherri that she misses her family, and even then, it takes a fight before she can own up to the most superficial parts of her sadness. She tries to talk a big game when denying how hurt she is, like when she tries to lie to avoid the fight whenever she first meets the Ultra Vs. But she starts sobbing the second she sees one of them has died, even a hint of death hitting too close to things she’s seen before.  Part of this isolation seems rooted in fear. She’s afraid to lose more people in the way she has her family, and later, her friends. Becoming close also means risking future pain. Not only is a potential loss on the line, but she knows she’s spent several years being hunted by BLI. There’s a risk of being killed herself, and Girl still clings to her self-preservation instincts. 
 

This self-imposed isolation has hurt her ability to interact with other people. Girl never has anyone her own age to talk to growing up, but as she becomes a teenager she spends so long refusing to talk to even adults that by the time she meets new people, Girl has difficulty connecting. Obviously, Val isn’t someone she wants to know, but she spends a lot of time with two of the nicer Ultra Vs, Vaya and Vamos, and acts rather awkwardly with each interaction. She clearly wants to befriend them, she asks their opinion about outfits she wears, how she does her hair, and talks to them when she’s still refusing to talk to anyone else. But she acts uncomfortable around them, like it’s taking effort to even have a simple conversation. She holds her hands to her stomach at times, keeps touching her hair to hide behind her hands and stumbles over her words. She wants friends, but Girl’s social skills are rusty and she’s very self-conscious about it. 

While she has difficulty dealing with people, deep down Girl is very loving and soft hearted. With the few people she manages to befriend, she’s unfalteringly loyal. Despite the Killjoys being dead for years, she still believes they were the best people to have ever lived and has trouble hearing that other’s think differently. Even with her complicated relationship with Cherri, she still wants him to be safe and is upset when he puts his life on the line to save her. When she’s comfortable with someone, she stops being awkward and delves into sarcastic jokes instead. She teases the people she loves and becomes more physically affectionate. She’s willing to hug Cherri after avoiding touch from everyone else and after being raised by teenagers, tends to be a little rough with her affections. A friendly punch to the shoulder or shove is just as much part of caring as telling someone how she feels. It also shows in her way of speaking. The way of the Zones means everyone speaks crassly and through confusing metaphor born from a cultural slang. Girl’s no exception to this, infusing her friendly conversations with sarcasm and confusing turns of phrase. The people who raised her were free with cursing a blue streak and Cherri likes to wax lyrically like a poet. She’s a combination of these men, sometimes spitting trash, particularly when angry, but also capable of poetic speeches like she gives when she buries Cherri. 
 

Her isolation and issues with connecting to people have made her very dependent on her cat. The creature is technically a spy and she eventually figures that out, but that didn’t stop her from a parental attachment. She’s used talking to the cat as a replacement for talking to other people for so long that she’s upset at the idea of losing it. Even after she knows what it is, she cries in joy when she’s reunited with the cat after her death experience and takes the cat back with her into the desert. 
 

The other half of her emotional immaturity is her anger problems. The world Girl inhabits is not a safe one. She’s spent her entire life being hunted, being hungry, and constantly on the run. The people of the Zones already express a culture wide anger for the oppression they face, something she inherits from the Killjoys as obvious in her childhood contempt for BLI’s soldiers. But having such an extreme personal tragedy because of the city has left an ugly rage festering in her. She agrees with Val’s speeches, calls the people of the city monsters, and on several occasions, talks about a need for revenge. Her anger isn’t just expressed at BLI, she takes it out inappropriately. She rarely lets herself confront anyone, even when they are hurting her like Val does. She bottles up her anger and when it boils over, she takes it out on whatever and whoever is near. We see this when she yells at Cherri because she’s mad at a drug addict who was making fun of her dead friends and on a much larger scale when she threatens to destroy the entire city, innocent citizens and all, just because of her anger at BLI. 
 

She does, ultimately, decide to do the right thing with her powers. She chooses the non-violent path, like Cherri taught her, and tries to save people instead of seeking revenge. But it takes a literal deity arguing with her plans before Girl is willing to change her mind. Needing actual divine intervention to keep from murder is quite the indicator that Girl really doesn’t know how to manage her anger. 
 

Doing the right thing and saving the city gives her momentary purpose, and Girl shows she is capable of being a real leader. With a set goal in mind, she can bypass the worst of her self conscious behavior and get to the task at hand. She okay marching into the city with the Vs and enacting her plan to save everyone because she has purpose doing it. But the second she’s completed her task, she runs away from the crowds and back to the desert. Her isolation is a hard habit to break and not even saving the world is enough to fix her issues. 
 

She is, in the end, still attached to the past. She never takes on the desert tradition of finding her own colors and mask. Instead she keeps her leathers that are eerily like what she wore as a child and bear the colors all the Killjoys wore. She never chooses a name for herself either. She’s a teenager still struggling to understand her own identity and is so caught up in her past she has trouble truly moving forward. She’s making steps to fix her problems; committing her family’s items to the Witch is the start of moving on, a funeral being held years after the fact. But just like a funeral is the start of the closure process, Girl still has a long way to go to grow past her immaturity and flourish.  She’s a good kid, caught between needing to be an adult to survive on her own and still being too young to handle the weight of the world. But she’s still got problems festering under the surface that can easily drag her down a darker path if she doesn’t let herself face them. 

Inventory: 

• Backpack: Olive colored backpack that has been patched several times. What is in it is never shown on panel, so let's just go with it being empty for now.

• Clothes: A ragged black tank top, gray denim jeans with rips in the knees, black boots, and a mutli-colored leather vest. 

• Cat: A small black cat, fully grown. The cat, while still a living mammal, has also been outfitted in a sort of cyborg with a video recording device that seems to function through the cat's eyes. The cybernetic parts were connected to servers in Battery city.

Abilities: 

• Wave Riding: In-universe, wave riding is a skill presented as the user seeing 'waves' coming off of every living creature and object. By focusing on these waves someone can execute perfect aim, aka shooting along the line of a wave instead of aiming at the object, or can use the waves to see over long distances. In the comic this ability can be used to see over several miles, but if that's too much for the game I'm cool with the sight portion (or the whole power) getting nixed.

• Languages: English and rudimentary Japanese; almost everything in her world comes with bilingual instructions and broadcasts are shown to sometimes be ran in both English and Japanese. Presumably she would be able to understand at least a little Japanese.

• Survival Skills: She lived in the desert with nothing but a cat and her wits for several years. Presumably she knows how to find water and shelter, make fire, scavenge for food, deal with small injuries, and navigate in the wild. 

Flaws: 

Girl's biggest flaw is her emotional immaturity and inability to deal with her negative feelings. Her tendency to bottle her feelings causes massive problems for her whenever things boil over. Her inability to handle her anger has already made her lash out at her friend unduly, raise a gun against Val, and there was the little matter of threatening to destroy an entire city full of innocent people. She also can't handle her grief, which tends to feed right back into her anger. 

She also spend several years running from her problems instead of dealing with them, time that very directly cost people their lives. If she'd stepped up to the plate years ago and fulfilled the destiny set out for her, a lot of suffering could have been avoided since people could have been freed from BLI sooner. Despite that she didn't know about them, the fact she neglected the duties set out for her on a cosmic level should be seen as a very wicked thing. 

SAMPLES
Action Log Sample:  Test Drive link

There's a group of people standing several yards away from Girl, failing to make a fire, and she's trying not to roll her eyes. Girl is perched atop of some of the debris of a destroyed building and the cat is lazing on rumble beside her, stretching every few moments until his paws hit against her leg.  Girl reached down to scratch at his haunches. She's spent the past few days on the outskirts, trying to blend into the background and avoiding people. The group below her keeps glancing up at her, but they must recognize her from her usual hovering enough to ignore her. That or they've decided she's not a threat. She imagines that's why no one has pointed a weapon at her yet. It doesn't stop her from keeps a sharp rock in her palm, just in case.

Girl doesn't particularly think they'll attack her, not really. She doesn't think these people understand much about survival anyway if they can't even make a simple fire. She can't imagine why they're trying anyway; she's seen the houses here with their intact walls and real beds. There's no fear of freezing to death at night here, not like back home. Girl doesn't know these people but she can't help but think they couldn't handle back home. That should be a good thing. They can just laugh with each other, be normal. It makes her stomach hurt. 

She watches them curse and kick at their meager pile of sticks. She could show them how to do it better, teach them for the off chance this place turned winter-like and those skills would mean the difference between life and death. It's not her place to save people anymore, is it? She'd completed her purpose. She doesn't owe anyone, anything anymore. The last time she'd trusted people, she watched them kill someone she loved. Being alone was worth being alive. She tells herself it's best to stay away. 

Girl slides from her perch, making sure to be noisy enough to alert the group she's moving. She pauses when she hits the ground, eyeing the people as they eye her back. She doesn't have a purpose anymore. Girl clears her throat, takes a few steps toward them.

"You're doing it wrong. I can show you."