(no subject)

[withmybrain]

Out of Character Information

player name: Carley
player journal: calmyourshit
playing here: no one
where did you find us? your ASOIAF cast enabled me...and then i saw that you have a Simon.
are you 16 years of age or older?: yup

In Character Information

character name: River Tam
Fandom: firefly
Timeline: post-movie
character's age: 17

powers, skills, pets and equipment: River is an incredibly deadly fighter. She uses grace and agility along with weapons that make up for her lack of strength. These in combination with the complex moves she's capable of and her ability to think quickly and creatively in a fight make her canonly capable of destroying essentially anyone who steps up. I'm willing to dumb this down a little, if necessary, for the game. After all, she's a hundred-pound teenage girl -- most would really only need to land one good blow to take her down.

She has a power that isn't explicit in canon, but will be in Scorched. River can hear the thoughts and read the memories of people around her. She will have a lot of difficulty keeping other people out of her head, and may need/take coaching from other people with psychic abilities that don't turn off on their own. When she's in someone else's head, she'll speak with their accent and tone of voice. She also has some minor clairvoyance and can predict things a few seconds before they happen (this, in turn, helps with her fighting -- she's ten moves ahead, because she knows what you'll do three seconds from now and how to counter). She can also use her psychic ability as a weapon. The best way to describe it is having your mind squeezed painfully tightly, then your brain hemorrhages and you die almost immediately. The whole process takes maybe ten seconds.

She won't have any special pets or equipment.

Worthy of note is that sometimes information or thoughts from others can get "stuck" in her mind, with unpredictable results. Having something foreign and negative "stuck" acts like a poison, but if she can express and "unstick" it, she will be able to act more normally. The process is somewhat similar to working out a psychological issue in therapy: a person who was bullied as a child, and has atypical reactions because of it, can work through that trauma and learn to react more typically with help. The mechanics aren't necessarily the same (i.e. sitting down with a psychologist and talking) but the essence is similar.

canon history: http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/River_Tam This covers her history up through the start of the series.

River came onto Serenity at the same time as an Alliance agent who was tracking her and her brother. Simon had to tell River's story to the crew to be allowed to stay. The captain intended to leave River and Simon on Whitefall, but the Alliance agent ended up killed and the Tams were allowed to stay. Over the next few weeks River bonded with the crew, making friends with Kaylee and growing rapport with Shepherd Book, Zoe, Wash, Inara, and Mal. She never quite got along with Jayne, who tried to sell her and her brother to the Alliance. Fortunately, River was able to get them all out unharmed, using her skills and taking opportunities as they arose, and make it back to the ship unharmed and uncaught.

River was kidnapped later to a small colony that tried to burn her as a witch, but the crew saved her, and other than that, she was generally the burdensome but colorful child of the crew. Still later, a bounty hunter named Jubal Early tried to kidnap her, but with the crew's help he was defeated.

By the time she'd been with the crew eight months, she was brought along on a fairly simple bank job. She was able to predict problems before they became problems and (narrowly) help the crew escape a reaver attack. Simon decided to leave the ship with her, where an old behavioral program was triggered in her brain by an advertisement in a bar. She was brought back onto the sip, along with Simon, and directed the crew to a planet called Miranda -- the planet where Reavers originated. There, she was able to show the crew the final recording of a scientist who inadvertently created the Reavers. Having this secret known and allowed her to get some of the poison out of her mind that had caused her erratic behavior. She was also able to tap into her combat capabilities without a trigger moreso than she ever had before. Locked alone in a room with a stream of Reavers flowing in, she survived mostly unharmed and took down dozens, if not hundreds, of enemies, while another battle happened elsewhere that put an end to the threats on her. The crew repaired the ship and she flew away with them for other planets, showing much more lucidity and much less erratic behavior. She will wake up in Scorched from going to bed the same night the ship took to the air.

personality: River is highly intuitive and incredibly intelligent. How much of this is psychic ability versus natural talent is unclear, but it's very likely that she was able to learn more quickly by reading the information she needed from the minds of those around her (likely not understanding that she was doing it). She is naturally curious as well, and had she not been toyed with, would be a generally a friendly, sweet, and imaginative young woman. She has a good sense of morality -- though often misguided in canon, River is almost always trying to do good, including "fixing" Shepherd Book's bible.

River feels every emotion at its full power. She is physically incapable of suppressing emotion, and though she can try to keep on at what she's trying to do, if it's an emotion that impedes functioning normally (like panic) she will be useless. As a result, she doesn't have much of a social filter. She says and does what she's thinking and forgets, until she's reminded, that it might not be a socially correct thing to say or do. If she decides that her very favorite thing is kissing people -- any people, anywhere -- she will say so, and look effusively happy while she says it because that's how kissing makes her feel.

For a long time, River's behavior has imitated that of someone with paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and PTSD, though whether she truly had any of these is up for debate -- does it really qualify when these things were purposefully created with surgery and conditioning, or does that make them something else? Now, however, her symptoms resemble Asperger's or another mild form of autism more than anything else. She can get wrapped up in things and she has, by turns, intense focus or none at all. She doesn't quite function socially and something small can escalate into a meltdown with almost no provocation. She's highly stressed by her abilities and may show old symptoms at any time, if she gets the wrong thought in her brain, until she learns to separate other thoughts from her own and how to only hear what she wants to hear.

why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting?

Writing Samples

Network Post Sample: [The feed starts with a young, thin woman laying in bed, shifting around and turning over -- what started the feed was a particularly enthusiastic flop, which caused River's hand to hit the device. When she turns to the camera, she's seen to be frowning a little in her sleep, brow furrowed, wincing and muttering, only some of it comprehensible.]

Buckle down...buckle down, suit up...assemble, disassemble, dismantle, repair, put it together but it just falls apart...lost in the woods, lose the...lose your way...no, no...

Simon?? [She sits bolt-upright, calling out the name, looking around wildly before she realizes it was a dream. There's a shaky exhale and she pulls her knees up to her chest, closing her eyes tight, hands going over her ears as she rocks back and forth, whispering.]

Go away go away go away go away...

[She stays like that for a minute before the feed cuts off.]


Third Person Sample: http://amatomneslogs.dreamwidth.org/3082142.html?#cutid1


Anything else? ...Anything else? :D