Anna Demirovna (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
indiscreet) wrote2013-12-23 01:15 am
indiscreet) wrote2013-12-23 01:15 am
Entry tags:
( boomtown ) application
Player's Name: Degen
Are you over 16? yes
Characters Played Here: none
Character: Anna Demirovna
Series/Canon: (New) World of Darkness (OC); Chron: The Second City
(A brief note on this for the purpose of Universe Codes: The "new" World of Darkness would probably already be considered, in-game, an AU-Universe of the "old" World of Darkness. Whether the events of Anna's specific chronicle — namely, fairies taking over and ultimately stealing the entire city of Chicago in 1932 — are considered themselves a divergent timeline/AU for nWoD I will leave up to modly discretion!)
History: such words, many vampire, wow
Personality: The thing to always remember with Anna is the profound discrepancy between the way she presents herself – which might indeed also be understood as the person she would prefer to be – and the mix of insecurities and lingering psychological wounds that defines who she is at her core.
The self that Anna presents to the vast majority of the world – her default mode, if you will – is unabashedly flirty and even sexual; she is open about her choice of career, and enjoys opportunities to taunt anyone "prudish" enough to be uncomfortable with her apparent lifestyle. This tendency towards a certain degree of crassness – or at least innuendo – among those Anna perceives as her social equals is tempered by a deep respect for authority that has been ingrained in her since childhood by her Tsar-supporting parents. Put simply, Anna believes very strongly that some people are truly Better, and that those in power deserve their positions, and should remain in power. This means that, despite the poverty of her youth, Anna finds it very easy to move among the circles of the social elite: she has no problem pledging her service to powerful figures – especially when she knows that her loyalty will be rewarded with the increased status of which she feels she is worthy (or even, it might be said, owed by the world). She dresses to impress – namely, to show off her fashionably slender body; is stubborn in her loyalties; and loves nothing more than an opportunity to use her sharp tongue to take those who annoy or disrespect her down a peg.
Ideologically, Anna clings to the beliefs that seem to justify her behavior with the same stubborn dogmatism that can define her friendships. Her dislike of communism (or at least those who openly present themselves as Communists, though she is capable of putting aside her prejudices in interest of necessity) is tied to the fact that she sees the beginning of the Communist Revolution in Russia as a sort of first domino that led to her childhood poverty and, in a way, even her disastrous Embrace. Similarly, she clings to her resentment of Pyotr for the double insult of “stealing” the love of her parents and then not being worthy of that love. Anna is vaguely aware, in the back of her mind, of the flaws and hypocrisy of her insistence of blaming Pyotr for (especially) the death of their parents, but that only makes her more determined not to think too hard about the matter, lest she be forced to admit her own guilt. In this area, her alignment with the church of the Lancea Sanctum is invaluable, since it allows Anna to accept as her purpose being a monster and creature of sin on behalf of God. However, since her brother’s murder, she has dealt increasingly poorly with her remorse, in part because of her unrealized desire to mourn him. And, after the...experience with her silver hand [see History], she has a slight tendency to fall back on bits of pain (e.g. digging her nails into her skin) to reassure and focus herself, and a more troubling tendency towards outright self-harm in times of extreme stress and insecurity.
What is far less obvious is that about Anna is that she is deeply insecure on a number of levels. The trauma of her Embrace has left her terrified of her own weakness, which means that her flirtatious persona is in part an act: Anna likes the idea of romance, but the reality of sex itself — at least in situations where she isn't confident that she could overpower her partner if truly necessary — outright triggers her and leaves her terrified. She desires protection (something that her employment by those in power can provide), but even more (though she is far less consciously aware of it) she needs the love that can fill hole of abandonment – by her sire and perceived as by her family – at her core. But because she sees herself as so fundamentally broken (particularly sexually), and because – ideals of the Lancea Sanctum or no – she at the deepest level does not want to be the monster she thinks she has been Damned to be, Anna does not really see herself as worthy of love – at least not as anything other than the perfect socialite she presents herself as being. This creates a vicious cycle, wherein she sees herself as unworthy of love, and so puts on a performance of who she thinks she needs to be in order to get that love — and then, what love she does get, she mistrusts, since she believes it to be no more than a result of her performed personality.
For this reason, Anna's time as the Huntress was something of a balm to her — she found the Huntress's natural confidence and dominance intoxicating. However, it was not in the Huntress's nature to have any measure of empathy; the True Fae version of "confidence" is too extreme, too overpowering to function in society. Indeed, the Huntress saw (was, in fact, incapable of seeing otherwise) all relationships as predator/prey or hunter/hunted, and it perhaps goes without saying which role she always had. Anna will be left reeling from the sudden absence of the Huntress's mind in hers: feeling suddenly weak and vulnerable, frightened by the realization of how much control the Huntress had over her (and thus relieved to be free), and uncertain of how much of the strength she learned was really her own.
Above all, Anna is a deeply passionate, driven person: her tendency for stubborn loyalty and dogmatism come from her essential need for a cause at all times, a purpose to which she can devote her entire existence. The goal she chooses might be self-centered (such as her ballet career, or political power), but without one she feels empty, and the burden of the possibly endlessly supply of time that she has hits her with full force. It is at these brief moments of purposelessness before she latches on to some new cause that Anna is most keenly aware of how unnatural her undead state truly is.
Why do you think your character would work in this setting? Anna would have accepted the offer because she feels she has nowhere left to go. Anyone who can get her out of Arcadia would be seen as a savior of sorts, regardless of the strings attached — though that doesn't mean she isn't cognizant of those strings, or resentful of what she's lost. She's not unused to hardship, so although she still prefers cities and luxury, she's a survivor at her core. Her biggest challenge in the setting, beyond adapting to the aspects of 21st century-and-beyond technology, will likely be her vampiric nature, which may be nearly impossible to hide in such a small town.
Anna will probably turn to her dance as a way to make a living, since as mentioned she doesn't have any problem stripping to pay the bills. She's also a fair shot with a bow due to her time as the Huntress, and specializes in a vampiric form of emotional manipulation-based mind control, which are skills she could eventually be convinced to monetize.
Inventory:
- dance bag (includes: pointe shoes, soft shoes, heeled jazz shoes, various tights, leotards, toe tape, as well as her burlesque costume)
- one beaded cocktail dresses and one pair of heels
- enchanted silver bell on a red ribbon: causes whoever wears it to be bound to the Huntress and is only removable by her (currently rather pointless, now that Anna is just herself); does nothing except be magically non-removable unless the Huntress is there to give a direct order
- the literal clothes on her back: men's style button-up shirt, riding trousers, leather boots, costume jewelry earrings, real pearl necklace
Samples:
Third-Person Sample: from Baedal
First-Person Sample: from dear_mun: speaking with a Malkavian who, in an AU, was her employer
Are you over 16? yes
Characters Played Here: none
Character: Anna Demirovna
Series/Canon: (New) World of Darkness (OC); Chron: The Second City
(A brief note on this for the purpose of Universe Codes: The "new" World of Darkness would probably already be considered, in-game, an AU-Universe of the "old" World of Darkness. Whether the events of Anna's specific chronicle — namely, fairies taking over and ultimately stealing the entire city of Chicago in 1932 — are considered themselves a divergent timeline/AU for nWoD I will leave up to modly discretion!)
History: such words, many vampire, wow
Personality: The thing to always remember with Anna is the profound discrepancy between the way she presents herself – which might indeed also be understood as the person she would prefer to be – and the mix of insecurities and lingering psychological wounds that defines who she is at her core.
The self that Anna presents to the vast majority of the world – her default mode, if you will – is unabashedly flirty and even sexual; she is open about her choice of career, and enjoys opportunities to taunt anyone "prudish" enough to be uncomfortable with her apparent lifestyle. This tendency towards a certain degree of crassness – or at least innuendo – among those Anna perceives as her social equals is tempered by a deep respect for authority that has been ingrained in her since childhood by her Tsar-supporting parents. Put simply, Anna believes very strongly that some people are truly Better, and that those in power deserve their positions, and should remain in power. This means that, despite the poverty of her youth, Anna finds it very easy to move among the circles of the social elite: she has no problem pledging her service to powerful figures – especially when she knows that her loyalty will be rewarded with the increased status of which she feels she is worthy (or even, it might be said, owed by the world). She dresses to impress – namely, to show off her fashionably slender body; is stubborn in her loyalties; and loves nothing more than an opportunity to use her sharp tongue to take those who annoy or disrespect her down a peg.
Ideologically, Anna clings to the beliefs that seem to justify her behavior with the same stubborn dogmatism that can define her friendships. Her dislike of communism (or at least those who openly present themselves as Communists, though she is capable of putting aside her prejudices in interest of necessity) is tied to the fact that she sees the beginning of the Communist Revolution in Russia as a sort of first domino that led to her childhood poverty and, in a way, even her disastrous Embrace. Similarly, she clings to her resentment of Pyotr for the double insult of “stealing” the love of her parents and then not being worthy of that love. Anna is vaguely aware, in the back of her mind, of the flaws and hypocrisy of her insistence of blaming Pyotr for (especially) the death of their parents, but that only makes her more determined not to think too hard about the matter, lest she be forced to admit her own guilt. In this area, her alignment with the church of the Lancea Sanctum is invaluable, since it allows Anna to accept as her purpose being a monster and creature of sin on behalf of God. However, since her brother’s murder, she has dealt increasingly poorly with her remorse, in part because of her unrealized desire to mourn him. And, after the...experience with her silver hand [see History], she has a slight tendency to fall back on bits of pain (e.g. digging her nails into her skin) to reassure and focus herself, and a more troubling tendency towards outright self-harm in times of extreme stress and insecurity.
What is far less obvious is that about Anna is that she is deeply insecure on a number of levels. The trauma of her Embrace has left her terrified of her own weakness, which means that her flirtatious persona is in part an act: Anna likes the idea of romance, but the reality of sex itself — at least in situations where she isn't confident that she could overpower her partner if truly necessary — outright triggers her and leaves her terrified. She desires protection (something that her employment by those in power can provide), but even more (though she is far less consciously aware of it) she needs the love that can fill hole of abandonment – by her sire and perceived as by her family – at her core. But because she sees herself as so fundamentally broken (particularly sexually), and because – ideals of the Lancea Sanctum or no – she at the deepest level does not want to be the monster she thinks she has been Damned to be, Anna does not really see herself as worthy of love – at least not as anything other than the perfect socialite she presents herself as being. This creates a vicious cycle, wherein she sees herself as unworthy of love, and so puts on a performance of who she thinks she needs to be in order to get that love — and then, what love she does get, she mistrusts, since she believes it to be no more than a result of her performed personality.
For this reason, Anna's time as the Huntress was something of a balm to her — she found the Huntress's natural confidence and dominance intoxicating. However, it was not in the Huntress's nature to have any measure of empathy; the True Fae version of "confidence" is too extreme, too overpowering to function in society. Indeed, the Huntress saw (was, in fact, incapable of seeing otherwise) all relationships as predator/prey or hunter/hunted, and it perhaps goes without saying which role she always had. Anna will be left reeling from the sudden absence of the Huntress's mind in hers: feeling suddenly weak and vulnerable, frightened by the realization of how much control the Huntress had over her (and thus relieved to be free), and uncertain of how much of the strength she learned was really her own.
Above all, Anna is a deeply passionate, driven person: her tendency for stubborn loyalty and dogmatism come from her essential need for a cause at all times, a purpose to which she can devote her entire existence. The goal she chooses might be self-centered (such as her ballet career, or political power), but without one she feels empty, and the burden of the possibly endlessly supply of time that she has hits her with full force. It is at these brief moments of purposelessness before she latches on to some new cause that Anna is most keenly aware of how unnatural her undead state truly is.
Why do you think your character would work in this setting? Anna would have accepted the offer because she feels she has nowhere left to go. Anyone who can get her out of Arcadia would be seen as a savior of sorts, regardless of the strings attached — though that doesn't mean she isn't cognizant of those strings, or resentful of what she's lost. She's not unused to hardship, so although she still prefers cities and luxury, she's a survivor at her core. Her biggest challenge in the setting, beyond adapting to the aspects of 21st century-and-beyond technology, will likely be her vampiric nature, which may be nearly impossible to hide in such a small town.
Anna will probably turn to her dance as a way to make a living, since as mentioned she doesn't have any problem stripping to pay the bills. She's also a fair shot with a bow due to her time as the Huntress, and specializes in a vampiric form of emotional manipulation-based mind control, which are skills she could eventually be convinced to monetize.
Inventory:
- dance bag (includes: pointe shoes, soft shoes, heeled jazz shoes, various tights, leotards, toe tape, as well as her burlesque costume)
- one beaded cocktail dresses and one pair of heels
- enchanted silver bell on a red ribbon: causes whoever wears it to be bound to the Huntress and is only removable by her (currently rather pointless, now that Anna is just herself); does nothing except be magically non-removable unless the Huntress is there to give a direct order
- the literal clothes on her back: men's style button-up shirt, riding trousers, leather boots, costume jewelry earrings, real pearl necklace
Samples:
Third-Person Sample: from Baedal
First-Person Sample: from dear_mun: speaking with a Malkavian who, in an AU, was her employer