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(singillatim) application
PLAYER INFO
Player Name: justine
• Player Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
batsecretary or DM
• Player Age: 30+
• Permissions: Here.
CHARACTER INFO
• Character Name: max briest
• Character Age: 33
• Character Canon: original
• Canon Point: Not long after her 33rd birthday, she's been doing this supervillain thing for a while and has a stable empire under her
• Character History:
World
Max's universe is much like ours, except sometime in the early 1970s, individuals across the began to develop strange powers.
Many tried to keep it secret, and with comic books having grown in popularity after the war, they took inspiration from the heroes and villains on those pages.
Being a masked hero isn't the sort of job that comes with a steady pay check, so it become common in the 90s for heroes to accept sponsorship deals from companies who'd pay top dollar for a logo on a superhero's costume. By the late 2000s, this practice had spiraled out of control; many heroes will only respond to events where there's going to be a high media presence, or if any corporate interests are in trouble. Others have thrown their lot in with the government, trading their secret identity for the promise of a secure future.
On the other side of the fence, supervillains were a natural by-product of the situation. Criminals with powers realised they could operate on a grander scale and began adopting personas and masks to lessen their chance of being discovered.
By the 21st century, heroes and villains, are an accepted part of everyday life, though most people are lucky enough to never interact with either.
Max cw: very vague reference to sexual assault
Max, originally named Amelia, was born into the Italian Mafia in New York. Her father, Joseph, was a capo and a successful one at that, in part due to his willingness to employ people with powers. Amelia was relatively sheltered from her father's business, though not from his temper. It wasn't until her own abilities manifested at 15 that she was drawn into his world. Despite all her protests, she became a thief and assassin who could wear a new face for every crime, and a bargaining chip to be traded to Joseph's allies after she came of age. For a long time, she held out hope that something would change, until a run in with one of her world's heroes made her realize she was going to have to save herself.
After years of planning, at 21 years old Amelia murdered most of the men in her family, framing a rival gang and flaming the fire of retribution between the two groups until they all but decimated each other. She faked her own death during this time, and rebuilt herself as Artemis, a superhero, wanting to make up for all her sins.
Being a superhero didn't pan out the way she'd hoped; after being blocked by red tape, being pushed out by what was essentially a superhero country club, and watching criminals walk away scot-free, Artemis decided to take matters into her own hands again. She felt that she couldn't work within the legal system, even one that allowed vigilantism, so she made use of what she'd learned with her father.
With a brand new identity, the Sphinx, she slipped back into a life of crime, slowly but surely building herself an empire. She controls the drug and arms trade in New York, doing her best to keep those dangerous things out of the hands of people who'd do the most damage with them, while also funneling her profits into humanitarian purposes. Eventually she expanded her operations to more legitimate avenues and she owns a variety of businesses under shell companies, all dedicated to bettering the world.
She also created the persona of Max Briest, the owner of a shipping company passed down from her parents with a penchant for dating celebrities; think a little bit Paris Hilton, a little bit Sara Blakely.
It took her a while to move onto politics, because she wanted to ensure she had a stable backing before taking bigger risks, but she's been whispering in politicians' ears or blackmailing them to support certain bills or reforms. Sex and money are powerful tools when it comes to getting what she wants, and while she isn't always successful, the world is slowly starting to change.
• Character Personality:
Max exists in a world where people became superheroes because that's What Should Be Done when someone suddenly wakes up with powers (thanks, comic books), and as the 'second generation' of powered people, she's been heavily influenced by the importance of stories. Combined with her own childhood of using fiction as an escape from reality, she tends to see the world in terms of narrative structures, and to understand her, you have to understand the roles she's cast herself in.
The first, of course, is the villain. She's being playing the part for so long that it doesn't matter anymore whether or not she is a bad person, she's convinced herself that she is, and that's all there is to it. Max is ruthless, she can do whatever needs to be done - by her own definition - without question, simply because she's the bad guy. Right or wrong don't matter to Max on the small scale, it's the big picture that's important, and that's what the Sphinx, the villain, is for, allowing her to do things that she couldn't do when she was playing superhero. It gives her a way to step back from herself, to view her actions as separate from her own feelings; it's resulted in her being far more resilient and able to cope with doing the terrible things she's done (or the terrible things that have happened to her). One result of this is that she 'plays up' the villainy; she can be melodramatic, she presents herself alternatively as someone with a short fuse who's a little unstable and can snap at any moment, or as the cold, hard, killer who isn't affected by anything. Neither of these facades are real, but she uses either of them as necessary, depending on which will get the best results.
There are two other main roles she relies on, the protector and the seductress. The latter is fairly simple; occasionally people need to be convinced to do what she wants them to and in many cases, she relies quite heavily on the fact that men like attractive women who pay attention to them. She'll flirt with almost any man with the aim of getting them in a position from which she can manipulate them, even if she can't see an instant use for someone. If there is a goal to be achieved, Max will fit whatever role necessary to get what she wants. Sometimes that means wrapping them around her finger, sometimes it's about getting them in compromising positions to get blackmail material. Her own feelings, and safety, don't matter.
The final role is the one she likes the most, even if she'd never actually admit that to herself. The reason for doing what she does comes from a drive to make the world better, and to protect people who can't protect themselves. It's the way she deals with the people who she helps, the people living in the buildings she owns, or the girls slinking into clinics to get broken bones set or STIs treated, or the kids coming into soup kitchens looking for a meal they don't have to steal. It's a fairly distant role, she doesn't like to get involved for their sake, feeling that she's unsafe due to people targeting her and who she is as a person, but she's friendly, generous, and willing to take the time to help anyone out with a problem, no matter how small it is. Despite this being her favourite 'role', it's also the one she views as being the most constructed, because she sees herself as a monster, and doesn't think that someone can take pleasure in murdering people, then turn around and be kind. If she spent more of her time in this role, she might be happier.
As part of these roles, the most important thing about Max's personality is her obsession with control, both in a personal content, and in how she deals with others. The skills she learnt in childhood to keep herself safe have only improved with age, and she doesn't often react without careful thought. She might let her surprise, or happiness, or anger show, but only because she wants to, and it's very rare that something gets a genuine reaction out of her. It's not that she chooses every single word, or expression, or gesture, but she'll decide how she wants to interact with someone and tailor her behaviour around that. There's a skill in playing nicely with others, or riling them up to get what she wants.
The problem with Max is that even if learning to play these roles has made her incredibly adaptable, she's spent so long telling these lies about the sort of person she is that she's started to believe them herself.
• Character Skills: Does your character have any particular skills that might help them in game? Maybe they have knowledge of firearms, carpentry, fishing, maybe foraging or how to make clothes. List them here in bullet-point form:
♚ Weaponry: from machine guns to swords, if something is used to kill another person, Max has learnt how to use it. She spends her down time seeking out experts in various fields and paying them to teach her. This includes hand-to-hand combat.
♚ Languages: while not a polyglot, Max has taught herself as many languages as possible. Along with being fluent in English and Italian, she also speaks French, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Russian with decent skill.
♚ Machinery: she's a car junkie, and that extends to other machinery, particularly anything that involves an engine. It's not her most cultivated skill, but she's still useful
♚ Knowledge of human/animal anatomy: as part of her shapeshifting, she's had to learn in great detail how the human body works, while also studying various animals to find traits that she can adapt for her own use
♚ Intelligence: while she might not have finished high school, Max is still smart and calculating. She's had to be, in order to survive.
♚ Survival skills: operating with the 'better safe than sorry' school of thought, Max has taken several survival skills courses, the kinds of ones that drop people in the middle of nowhere with some ex-paratrooper, so she has a decent handle on catching/preparing wild animals, starting fires, building shelter, and safe water preparation
♚Medical/first aid: she's not a doctor, but she's learned how to manage basic wound treatment (cuts, burns, bullet wounds) out of necessity.
• Character Inventory:
— ITEM ONE: A handgun in a shoulder holster + a spare clip
— ITEM TWO: Maurice, her dog – he's a very large Shiloh Shepherd who's exceptionally well trained. Also a good boy.
— ITEM THREE: A cigarette case containing a dozen cigarettes + a lighter
• Important Notes: Nothing I can think of! Using this to apologize for the history section being a little too long, I tried to cut it down as much as I could, sorry!!
• Writing Samples:
— SAMPLE ONE: Here
— SAMPLE TWO: Here
Player Name: justine
• Player Contact:
• Player Age: 30+
• Permissions: Here.
CHARACTER INFO
• Character Name: max briest
• Character Age: 33
• Character Canon: original
• Canon Point: Not long after her 33rd birthday, she's been doing this supervillain thing for a while and has a stable empire under her
• Character History:
World
Max's universe is much like ours, except sometime in the early 1970s, individuals across the began to develop strange powers.
Many tried to keep it secret, and with comic books having grown in popularity after the war, they took inspiration from the heroes and villains on those pages.
Being a masked hero isn't the sort of job that comes with a steady pay check, so it become common in the 90s for heroes to accept sponsorship deals from companies who'd pay top dollar for a logo on a superhero's costume. By the late 2000s, this practice had spiraled out of control; many heroes will only respond to events where there's going to be a high media presence, or if any corporate interests are in trouble. Others have thrown their lot in with the government, trading their secret identity for the promise of a secure future.
On the other side of the fence, supervillains were a natural by-product of the situation. Criminals with powers realised they could operate on a grander scale and began adopting personas and masks to lessen their chance of being discovered.
By the 21st century, heroes and villains, are an accepted part of everyday life, though most people are lucky enough to never interact with either.
Max cw: very vague reference to sexual assault
Max, originally named Amelia, was born into the Italian Mafia in New York. Her father, Joseph, was a capo and a successful one at that, in part due to his willingness to employ people with powers. Amelia was relatively sheltered from her father's business, though not from his temper. It wasn't until her own abilities manifested at 15 that she was drawn into his world. Despite all her protests, she became a thief and assassin who could wear a new face for every crime, and a bargaining chip to be traded to Joseph's allies after she came of age. For a long time, she held out hope that something would change, until a run in with one of her world's heroes made her realize she was going to have to save herself.
After years of planning, at 21 years old Amelia murdered most of the men in her family, framing a rival gang and flaming the fire of retribution between the two groups until they all but decimated each other. She faked her own death during this time, and rebuilt herself as Artemis, a superhero, wanting to make up for all her sins.
Being a superhero didn't pan out the way she'd hoped; after being blocked by red tape, being pushed out by what was essentially a superhero country club, and watching criminals walk away scot-free, Artemis decided to take matters into her own hands again. She felt that she couldn't work within the legal system, even one that allowed vigilantism, so she made use of what she'd learned with her father.
With a brand new identity, the Sphinx, she slipped back into a life of crime, slowly but surely building herself an empire. She controls the drug and arms trade in New York, doing her best to keep those dangerous things out of the hands of people who'd do the most damage with them, while also funneling her profits into humanitarian purposes. Eventually she expanded her operations to more legitimate avenues and she owns a variety of businesses under shell companies, all dedicated to bettering the world.
She also created the persona of Max Briest, the owner of a shipping company passed down from her parents with a penchant for dating celebrities; think a little bit Paris Hilton, a little bit Sara Blakely.
It took her a while to move onto politics, because she wanted to ensure she had a stable backing before taking bigger risks, but she's been whispering in politicians' ears or blackmailing them to support certain bills or reforms. Sex and money are powerful tools when it comes to getting what she wants, and while she isn't always successful, the world is slowly starting to change.
• Character Personality:
Max exists in a world where people became superheroes because that's What Should Be Done when someone suddenly wakes up with powers (thanks, comic books), and as the 'second generation' of powered people, she's been heavily influenced by the importance of stories. Combined with her own childhood of using fiction as an escape from reality, she tends to see the world in terms of narrative structures, and to understand her, you have to understand the roles she's cast herself in.
The first, of course, is the villain. She's being playing the part for so long that it doesn't matter anymore whether or not she is a bad person, she's convinced herself that she is, and that's all there is to it. Max is ruthless, she can do whatever needs to be done - by her own definition - without question, simply because she's the bad guy. Right or wrong don't matter to Max on the small scale, it's the big picture that's important, and that's what the Sphinx, the villain, is for, allowing her to do things that she couldn't do when she was playing superhero. It gives her a way to step back from herself, to view her actions as separate from her own feelings; it's resulted in her being far more resilient and able to cope with doing the terrible things she's done (or the terrible things that have happened to her). One result of this is that she 'plays up' the villainy; she can be melodramatic, she presents herself alternatively as someone with a short fuse who's a little unstable and can snap at any moment, or as the cold, hard, killer who isn't affected by anything. Neither of these facades are real, but she uses either of them as necessary, depending on which will get the best results.
There are two other main roles she relies on, the protector and the seductress. The latter is fairly simple; occasionally people need to be convinced to do what she wants them to and in many cases, she relies quite heavily on the fact that men like attractive women who pay attention to them. She'll flirt with almost any man with the aim of getting them in a position from which she can manipulate them, even if she can't see an instant use for someone. If there is a goal to be achieved, Max will fit whatever role necessary to get what she wants. Sometimes that means wrapping them around her finger, sometimes it's about getting them in compromising positions to get blackmail material. Her own feelings, and safety, don't matter.
The final role is the one she likes the most, even if she'd never actually admit that to herself. The reason for doing what she does comes from a drive to make the world better, and to protect people who can't protect themselves. It's the way she deals with the people who she helps, the people living in the buildings she owns, or the girls slinking into clinics to get broken bones set or STIs treated, or the kids coming into soup kitchens looking for a meal they don't have to steal. It's a fairly distant role, she doesn't like to get involved for their sake, feeling that she's unsafe due to people targeting her and who she is as a person, but she's friendly, generous, and willing to take the time to help anyone out with a problem, no matter how small it is. Despite this being her favourite 'role', it's also the one she views as being the most constructed, because she sees herself as a monster, and doesn't think that someone can take pleasure in murdering people, then turn around and be kind. If she spent more of her time in this role, she might be happier.
As part of these roles, the most important thing about Max's personality is her obsession with control, both in a personal content, and in how she deals with others. The skills she learnt in childhood to keep herself safe have only improved with age, and she doesn't often react without careful thought. She might let her surprise, or happiness, or anger show, but only because she wants to, and it's very rare that something gets a genuine reaction out of her. It's not that she chooses every single word, or expression, or gesture, but she'll decide how she wants to interact with someone and tailor her behaviour around that. There's a skill in playing nicely with others, or riling them up to get what she wants.
The problem with Max is that even if learning to play these roles has made her incredibly adaptable, she's spent so long telling these lies about the sort of person she is that she's started to believe them herself.
• Character Skills: Does your character have any particular skills that might help them in game? Maybe they have knowledge of firearms, carpentry, fishing, maybe foraging or how to make clothes. List them here in bullet-point form:
♚ Weaponry: from machine guns to swords, if something is used to kill another person, Max has learnt how to use it. She spends her down time seeking out experts in various fields and paying them to teach her. This includes hand-to-hand combat.
♚ Languages: while not a polyglot, Max has taught herself as many languages as possible. Along with being fluent in English and Italian, she also speaks French, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Russian with decent skill.
♚ Machinery: she's a car junkie, and that extends to other machinery, particularly anything that involves an engine. It's not her most cultivated skill, but she's still useful
♚ Knowledge of human/animal anatomy: as part of her shapeshifting, she's had to learn in great detail how the human body works, while also studying various animals to find traits that she can adapt for her own use
♚ Intelligence: while she might not have finished high school, Max is still smart and calculating. She's had to be, in order to survive.
♚ Survival skills: operating with the 'better safe than sorry' school of thought, Max has taken several survival skills courses, the kinds of ones that drop people in the middle of nowhere with some ex-paratrooper, so she has a decent handle on catching/preparing wild animals, starting fires, building shelter, and safe water preparation
♚Medical/first aid: she's not a doctor, but she's learned how to manage basic wound treatment (cuts, burns, bullet wounds) out of necessity.
• Character Inventory:
— ITEM ONE: A handgun in a shoulder holster + a spare clip
— ITEM TWO: Maurice, her dog – he's a very large Shiloh Shepherd who's exceptionally well trained. Also a good boy.
— ITEM THREE: A cigarette case containing a dozen cigarettes + a lighter
• Important Notes: Nothing I can think of! Using this to apologize for the history section being a little too long, I tried to cut it down as much as I could, sorry!!
• Writing Samples:
— SAMPLE ONE: Here
— SAMPLE TWO: Here