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Out Of Character Information
Name: Delphi | [![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
delphinova]
Age: 25
Time zone: - 7:00 GMT.
Contact: AIM: Ivy Midnighter; PLURK: endlessskies
Anything we should know?: I loff you guys. ;u;
In Character Information
Name: Agatha Sheridan (online handle: "galilei")
Age: 15
Birthday & Astrology Sign: September 5; Virgo
Arcana: Empress [REVERSED]
World Snapshot:
Agatha's world is much the same as our own, history and all, except that supernatural things are very real. Technology has progressed the same as it has in our world, and coexists with these entities without endangering them, producing what we might call some weird situations. Werewolves? That'd be the Tanner family, right down the street, remember not to give them any silver. Magic? Yeah, there's a mages' academy a few metro stops away from the grocery store. Ghosts? They’ve got a support group on at the local church’s attic. Fairies? Who else would post those random, poorly-punctuated messages online?
Angels and demons? ... There are quite a few entities around that fit the bill. Unfortunately for the Sheridans, quite a few old stories of myth and legend are quite true - including those about gods cursing a family unto the nth generation...More details on that in the History section, of course.
Unfortunately for this world, as noted earlier, it is very much like our own - meaning that it isn't that easy for law enforcement officials to keep all threats in line, especially the supernatural ones. Local vigilantes (demon hunters, etc.) are officially disapproved of, but the worst they get is a slap on the wrist, assuming they live long enough to get that slap. Supernatural entities, after all, are much stronger than the average human, and more often than not hunters die in the line of duty.
Luckily, magic here includes the healing kind of magic - and the Sheridans are very, very good at it. Their power, however, comes with a price.
Backstory:
The Sheridan family is one with a long history of pissing off the Powers That Be and getting cursed for their trouble. It seems that every little infraction one of them makes gets the wrath of God on their tails - if a Sheridan's so much as working as a healer on the wrong side, an angel will probably slap a curse on them. Okay, that's an exaggeration - a noncombatant Sheridan will just get a stern reprimand at worst. The point is, Heaven (if indeed that's what is sending the angels) seems pretty paranoid about the Sheridans. Unfortunately, they've got good cause - "Sheridan" is a relatively new surname for the bloodline, which can be traced back to some pretty foul people. A serial murderer, an executioner, more than a few heretics....a torturer....a corrupt judge....
And at the root of it all, the first freakin' murderer. Yeah. That guy.
How did they find this out, you ask? Agatha's great-something grandfather, back in the days before electricity, was actually the healer who got reprimanded. Despairing after the rebuke was delivered, he asked the visiting angel why this kept happening, tears in his eyes. The angel, either to be merciful or to twist the knife further, told him the full truth, the history of his family's sins. Great-something Grandfather, of course, took this about as well as expected: he wrote it down so any future generations knew of this, told his wife to raise their son to be good, and threw himself off a nearby cliff.
It was with this that his descendants began hesitantly fumbling toward their current ways. The medic's son, for example, developed the healing magic that only Sheridans can use - it's very effective, but comes at the cost of the injuries being inflicted on the user instead. They did their best to stay out of the way of power, to help instead of harm. Of course, more than a few rebellious younger ones dismissed the old traditions as bunk and went their own way, doing as they pleased and raising hell. Said younger ones learned how wrong they were when they earned the family new curses - and the ire of everyone related to them in the process.
It's shaped the family's outlook on life: don't earn the wrath of Heaven, absolutely no killing people, and for the love of all that's good don't do anything that involves working with plants, you'll just kill 'em. ...It's not like they can kill people that easily, anyway. Quite a few Sheridans are physically weak or clumsy.
With this, we come to the present day, and to Agatha, who is for all intents and purposes a normal high school student, aside from her heritage (and aside from having that physical weakness.) Her mother got her by way of artificial insemination, believing (as most Sheridans do) that it would be just plain wrong to get outsiders directly involved in their problems. Agatha herself was not exactly raised "normally": she did not have a real childhood, being treated as an adult and told the truth of her family from a very young age. She was never abused, but she was never really happy, either - yet she never complained. The Sheridans are very insular by nature, hesitant and unwilling to tell others their problems, for who would believe them? More importantly, even if they did, who's to say they wouldn't be persecuted by humans as well as angels?
No indeed; rather than asking help of others, they work as healers for the vigilantes and for anyone who needs it, taking shifts to make sure nobody overextends themselves. Agatha herself has been working shifts since she turned fourteen, and so far things have been going well...Except for the part where nothing ever stays calm in life, and a turf war between demon followers has sprung up in her small town. The peacekeeping forces are stretched to their limits – including Agatha, who can’t answer the question of “Why are you wearing those bandages?” without mentioning her family’s woes, and risking becoming an outcast in the process.
Canon Standing: Beginning of the turf war; Agatha is off-duty thanks to the nasty wounds she has acquired over most of her left side. She’s currently seeking a healer who will fix this up, no questions asked - she doesn’t want to stay off-duty any longer than necessary.
Personality:
Agatha is mostly asocial. She doesn’t interact much with people outside of her family, though she is civil with people who speak to her. She’s highly intelligent, philosophical, thoughtful, utterly self-loathing, and has no social skills beyond what’s absolutely needed to function in society. She has no aspirations in life beyond doing what she sees as her duty (i.e. healing people,) and is strongly devoted to her family's tenets of neutrality, secrecy, and nonviolence. In her strange yet familiar world, she hasn't taken up arms beyond a can of pepper spray for self-defense...and the messenger bag she always carries around. You know, just in case the demon or whatever is immune to pepper spray. Even so, she absolutely will not initiate a fight, in keeping with the nonviolence tenet.
This is not to say that she's a mindless follower of tradition; far from it, it's because she's so thoughtful that she's decided to keep on going down her family's path. It is her own choice, one born of a strong desire to make sense of a chaotic, nonsensical, cruel situation, to understand why her family does as it does. Over the years, she's come up with her own interpretation of this: Either we cling to a path in life, or we fall into despair from the weight on our shoulders. It informs most of what Agatha has done over the years, as well, resulting in a grim determination to keep going in spite of everything. It's how she endures the pain that comes with her clan's ability. In fact, "grim" or "gloomy" are good descriptors for Agatha herself, as she doesn't smile often, tends to keep to herself, and is somewhat pessimistic. She doesn't believe that there will be a happy ending for her, just death whenever it comes. Part of the reason she doesn't speak much to others is because she believes herself to be "tainted" and doesn't want to get others in trouble with the powers that be by associating with them. This is a very real issue for the Sheridans, and in an odd way, this shows that Agatha actually doesn't mean badly. She just has a funny way of showing it.
Agatha does have hobbies of her own, though most of them don't involve direct contact with others. History, philosophy, and the sciences have a tendency to clash with organized religion, and so whatever rebellious streak Agatha had has manifested itself in a fondness for the above. That's not the only reason she's so interested in learning, though; as noted above, she wants to find some way to make sense out of her situation. History itself shows a pattern of knowledge and truth turning the world from a scary, nonsensical place into something better understood. A child without knowledge isn't really able to make sense of anything; in order to do so, he or she must learn. Thus, Agatha, who wishes to make sense of things, wishes to learn more in order to make the process easier. She looks up to historical figures such as Galileo, who had the nerve to posit an alternative to the way things were and turned out to be right. She even took on the internet handle of "galilei" out of admiration for the man.
Speaking of her aforementioned internet handle - yes, she does use the internet, though she's no hacker or cracker, and isn't a genius at it. Instead, she trawls philosophy forums, frequently engaging in debate with other forumgoers. Sometimes she gets suspended from the forum for it; other times, the other party gets suspended. She's even gotten herself banned a few times for things like politely bringing up church history on a religious forum. The angels don't seem to monitor the internet that much, as she's never gotten a reprimand for this. As a result, this too has become a form of teenage rebellion for her, as well as a means of venting the stress of daily life. With regards to the angels and faith, that's a very sensitive topic for her: while she acknowledges that there is a God, what with the curses and all, she can't bring herself to follow a mainstream religion. Their histories disgust her too much, and so she looks into alternatives that gel more with her way of thinking. Right now, Gnosticism has her interest, and it is her hope that this way of looking at things is closer to the truth.
Anything is better than falling into despair, after all.
Canon Powers:
Injury Transfer (Mind): This is the unofficial name for the Sheridan clan’s ability to heal others by taking their injuries on themselves. It is hereditary and cannot be taught. All that is required is for the user to touch another person with their bare hand; upon doing so, the injury of the other person disappears and reappears on the user. Needless to say, this process hurts, with the amount of pain depending on the severity of the injury. It can only be used so many times before the user has to take a break so that they can recover. ….of course, it isn’t unheard-of for a Sheridan to end his or her own life this way.
Earth Bane (Mind/Elemental): This is really more of a curse, and again it is hereditary and cannot be taught. It is also always active, unfortunately. The Sheridan family is absolutely incapable of growing or tending plants. If they try to plant a seed in the soil, it will fail; if they touch a plant, it will wither and die shortly thereafter. They even risk rendering the earth barren and dead if they touch it for too long. Agatha counters this to the best of her ability by wearing gloves and skin-covering clothing; can't kill it if there's a barrier between you and it, after all. Still, it might be useful if a plant-based enemy ever shows up – all she’ll have to do is remove her gloves and grapple it.
Canon Weapons|Items:
Pepper Spray (Fire): Some fights in life can be avoided simply by not being aggressive. For everything else, there's pepper spray.
Canon Allies:
N/A
Canon Baggage:
Everything Agatha brings in, she'll be carrying via a messenger bag.
Gauze bandages (because Injury Transfer doesn't come with a healing factor)
First aid kit (same as above)
Persona
[ARMAITI]
LVL (1) | THE REVERSED EMPRESS
SUPPORT SKILLS
► Basic Analysis ( Reveals an target's personas.)
► Distraction ( Allows allies are escape from battle successfully by distracting the enemy.)
► Dia (Recovers a small amount of HP to one ally.)
► Media (Recovers a small amount of HP to all allies. )
▷ Recarm (Wakes up an ally with 50% HP.)
▷ CommLink ( Allows the user to communicate telepathically with other Persona users that they know.)
▷ Enemy Radar ( Reveals location of foes on a floor of the dungeon for a short time
▷ Retundi (Remove all status effects on one target at the cost of the caster being affected by them)
★ Atonement Mark (Heals 25% of damage done to all allies at the cost of the caster suffering it instead)
COMBAT SKILLS
► Agi Inflicts a small amount of Fire damage on one enemy.)
▷ Kouha (Inflicts a small amount of Light damage on one enemy.)
▷ Hama (30% chance of instant KO from the power of Light on one enemy.)
Writing Sample
[Action]
[Agatha is not sure what to make of suddenly being brought into a new place. All she can do for a few minutes is just look around at her surroundings with a cautious eye. This is not home at all, she doesn't recognize any of the surroundings. A possible explanation is, of course, that magic is involved. It isn't unheard-of for someone to be spirited away; it happened, tragically enough, to the neighbor's son about five years ago. He was returned, thankfully, but he didn't remember anything.
So this could very well be a case of being spirited away by a mischievous or malicious spirit - fair enough. Her kin would likely be distressed, but they'd still be able to perform their duties, so hopefully it wouldn't distress them. However, there's a flaw in this theory the more she thinks about it. After all, if the spirit were mischievous or malicious, why would it land her in a city not dissimilar to her own? .... Well, there's an easy enough answer for that, unfortunately: the idea of parallel universes. It wasn't a substantiated theory, but it had been explored enough in speculative fiction and the like that she had some idea of what it meant: a world similar to one's own, but with some differences.
With her luck, these differences would not be good ones. She shifts her messenger bag uneasily, the scrape of the bag against cloth and bandage making her grimace slightly. Ah, right, she remembers now. Her first priority right now is to find a proper healer to get some of these injuries fixed up. She can't allow herself to be off duty much longer.
Even if she's in a different world, she has to keep going. Keep going, or fall into despair.
She gets walking.]
Name: Delphi | [
delphinova]Age: 25
Time zone: - 7:00 GMT.
Contact: AIM: Ivy Midnighter; PLURK: endlessskies
Anything we should know?: I loff you guys. ;u;
In Character Information
Name: Agatha Sheridan (online handle: "galilei")
Age: 15
Birthday & Astrology Sign: September 5; Virgo
Arcana: Empress [REVERSED]
World Snapshot:
Agatha's world is much the same as our own, history and all, except that supernatural things are very real. Technology has progressed the same as it has in our world, and coexists with these entities without endangering them, producing what we might call some weird situations. Werewolves? That'd be the Tanner family, right down the street, remember not to give them any silver. Magic? Yeah, there's a mages' academy a few metro stops away from the grocery store. Ghosts? They’ve got a support group on at the local church’s attic. Fairies? Who else would post those random, poorly-punctuated messages online?
Angels and demons? ... There are quite a few entities around that fit the bill. Unfortunately for the Sheridans, quite a few old stories of myth and legend are quite true - including those about gods cursing a family unto the nth generation...More details on that in the History section, of course.
Unfortunately for this world, as noted earlier, it is very much like our own - meaning that it isn't that easy for law enforcement officials to keep all threats in line, especially the supernatural ones. Local vigilantes (demon hunters, etc.) are officially disapproved of, but the worst they get is a slap on the wrist, assuming they live long enough to get that slap. Supernatural entities, after all, are much stronger than the average human, and more often than not hunters die in the line of duty.
Luckily, magic here includes the healing kind of magic - and the Sheridans are very, very good at it. Their power, however, comes with a price.
Backstory:
The Sheridan family is one with a long history of pissing off the Powers That Be and getting cursed for their trouble. It seems that every little infraction one of them makes gets the wrath of God on their tails - if a Sheridan's so much as working as a healer on the wrong side, an angel will probably slap a curse on them. Okay, that's an exaggeration - a noncombatant Sheridan will just get a stern reprimand at worst. The point is, Heaven (if indeed that's what is sending the angels) seems pretty paranoid about the Sheridans. Unfortunately, they've got good cause - "Sheridan" is a relatively new surname for the bloodline, which can be traced back to some pretty foul people. A serial murderer, an executioner, more than a few heretics....a torturer....a corrupt judge....
And at the root of it all, the first freakin' murderer. Yeah. That guy.
How did they find this out, you ask? Agatha's great-something grandfather, back in the days before electricity, was actually the healer who got reprimanded. Despairing after the rebuke was delivered, he asked the visiting angel why this kept happening, tears in his eyes. The angel, either to be merciful or to twist the knife further, told him the full truth, the history of his family's sins. Great-something Grandfather, of course, took this about as well as expected: he wrote it down so any future generations knew of this, told his wife to raise their son to be good, and threw himself off a nearby cliff.
It was with this that his descendants began hesitantly fumbling toward their current ways. The medic's son, for example, developed the healing magic that only Sheridans can use - it's very effective, but comes at the cost of the injuries being inflicted on the user instead. They did their best to stay out of the way of power, to help instead of harm. Of course, more than a few rebellious younger ones dismissed the old traditions as bunk and went their own way, doing as they pleased and raising hell. Said younger ones learned how wrong they were when they earned the family new curses - and the ire of everyone related to them in the process.
It's shaped the family's outlook on life: don't earn the wrath of Heaven, absolutely no killing people, and for the love of all that's good don't do anything that involves working with plants, you'll just kill 'em. ...It's not like they can kill people that easily, anyway. Quite a few Sheridans are physically weak or clumsy.
With this, we come to the present day, and to Agatha, who is for all intents and purposes a normal high school student, aside from her heritage (and aside from having that physical weakness.) Her mother got her by way of artificial insemination, believing (as most Sheridans do) that it would be just plain wrong to get outsiders directly involved in their problems. Agatha herself was not exactly raised "normally": she did not have a real childhood, being treated as an adult and told the truth of her family from a very young age. She was never abused, but she was never really happy, either - yet she never complained. The Sheridans are very insular by nature, hesitant and unwilling to tell others their problems, for who would believe them? More importantly, even if they did, who's to say they wouldn't be persecuted by humans as well as angels?
No indeed; rather than asking help of others, they work as healers for the vigilantes and for anyone who needs it, taking shifts to make sure nobody overextends themselves. Agatha herself has been working shifts since she turned fourteen, and so far things have been going well...Except for the part where nothing ever stays calm in life, and a turf war between demon followers has sprung up in her small town. The peacekeeping forces are stretched to their limits – including Agatha, who can’t answer the question of “Why are you wearing those bandages?” without mentioning her family’s woes, and risking becoming an outcast in the process.
Canon Standing: Beginning of the turf war; Agatha is off-duty thanks to the nasty wounds she has acquired over most of her left side. She’s currently seeking a healer who will fix this up, no questions asked - she doesn’t want to stay off-duty any longer than necessary.
Personality:
Agatha is mostly asocial. She doesn’t interact much with people outside of her family, though she is civil with people who speak to her. She’s highly intelligent, philosophical, thoughtful, utterly self-loathing, and has no social skills beyond what’s absolutely needed to function in society. She has no aspirations in life beyond doing what she sees as her duty (i.e. healing people,) and is strongly devoted to her family's tenets of neutrality, secrecy, and nonviolence. In her strange yet familiar world, she hasn't taken up arms beyond a can of pepper spray for self-defense...and the messenger bag she always carries around. You know, just in case the demon or whatever is immune to pepper spray. Even so, she absolutely will not initiate a fight, in keeping with the nonviolence tenet.
This is not to say that she's a mindless follower of tradition; far from it, it's because she's so thoughtful that she's decided to keep on going down her family's path. It is her own choice, one born of a strong desire to make sense of a chaotic, nonsensical, cruel situation, to understand why her family does as it does. Over the years, she's come up with her own interpretation of this: Either we cling to a path in life, or we fall into despair from the weight on our shoulders. It informs most of what Agatha has done over the years, as well, resulting in a grim determination to keep going in spite of everything. It's how she endures the pain that comes with her clan's ability. In fact, "grim" or "gloomy" are good descriptors for Agatha herself, as she doesn't smile often, tends to keep to herself, and is somewhat pessimistic. She doesn't believe that there will be a happy ending for her, just death whenever it comes. Part of the reason she doesn't speak much to others is because she believes herself to be "tainted" and doesn't want to get others in trouble with the powers that be by associating with them. This is a very real issue for the Sheridans, and in an odd way, this shows that Agatha actually doesn't mean badly. She just has a funny way of showing it.
Agatha does have hobbies of her own, though most of them don't involve direct contact with others. History, philosophy, and the sciences have a tendency to clash with organized religion, and so whatever rebellious streak Agatha had has manifested itself in a fondness for the above. That's not the only reason she's so interested in learning, though; as noted above, she wants to find some way to make sense out of her situation. History itself shows a pattern of knowledge and truth turning the world from a scary, nonsensical place into something better understood. A child without knowledge isn't really able to make sense of anything; in order to do so, he or she must learn. Thus, Agatha, who wishes to make sense of things, wishes to learn more in order to make the process easier. She looks up to historical figures such as Galileo, who had the nerve to posit an alternative to the way things were and turned out to be right. She even took on the internet handle of "galilei" out of admiration for the man.
Speaking of her aforementioned internet handle - yes, she does use the internet, though she's no hacker or cracker, and isn't a genius at it. Instead, she trawls philosophy forums, frequently engaging in debate with other forumgoers. Sometimes she gets suspended from the forum for it; other times, the other party gets suspended. She's even gotten herself banned a few times for things like politely bringing up church history on a religious forum. The angels don't seem to monitor the internet that much, as she's never gotten a reprimand for this. As a result, this too has become a form of teenage rebellion for her, as well as a means of venting the stress of daily life. With regards to the angels and faith, that's a very sensitive topic for her: while she acknowledges that there is a God, what with the curses and all, she can't bring herself to follow a mainstream religion. Their histories disgust her too much, and so she looks into alternatives that gel more with her way of thinking. Right now, Gnosticism has her interest, and it is her hope that this way of looking at things is closer to the truth.
Anything is better than falling into despair, after all.
Canon Powers:
Injury Transfer (Mind): This is the unofficial name for the Sheridan clan’s ability to heal others by taking their injuries on themselves. It is hereditary and cannot be taught. All that is required is for the user to touch another person with their bare hand; upon doing so, the injury of the other person disappears and reappears on the user. Needless to say, this process hurts, with the amount of pain depending on the severity of the injury. It can only be used so many times before the user has to take a break so that they can recover. ….of course, it isn’t unheard-of for a Sheridan to end his or her own life this way.
Earth Bane (Mind/Elemental): This is really more of a curse, and again it is hereditary and cannot be taught. It is also always active, unfortunately. The Sheridan family is absolutely incapable of growing or tending plants. If they try to plant a seed in the soil, it will fail; if they touch a plant, it will wither and die shortly thereafter. They even risk rendering the earth barren and dead if they touch it for too long. Agatha counters this to the best of her ability by wearing gloves and skin-covering clothing; can't kill it if there's a barrier between you and it, after all. Still, it might be useful if a plant-based enemy ever shows up – all she’ll have to do is remove her gloves and grapple it.
Canon Weapons|Items:
Pepper Spray (Fire): Some fights in life can be avoided simply by not being aggressive. For everything else, there's pepper spray.
Canon Allies:
N/A
Canon Baggage:
Everything Agatha brings in, she'll be carrying via a messenger bag.
Gauze bandages (because Injury Transfer doesn't come with a healing factor)
First aid kit (same as above)
Persona
[ARMAITI]
LVL (1) | THE REVERSED EMPRESS
SUPPORT SKILLS
► Basic Analysis ( Reveals an target's personas.)
► Distraction ( Allows allies are escape from battle successfully by distracting the enemy.)
► Dia (Recovers a small amount of HP to one ally.)
► Media (Recovers a small amount of HP to all allies. )
▷ Recarm (Wakes up an ally with 50% HP.)
▷ CommLink ( Allows the user to communicate telepathically with other Persona users that they know.)
▷ Enemy Radar ( Reveals location of foes on a floor of the dungeon for a short time
▷ Retundi (Remove all status effects on one target at the cost of the caster being affected by them)
★ Atonement Mark (Heals 25% of damage done to all allies at the cost of the caster suffering it instead)
COMBAT SKILLS
► Agi Inflicts a small amount of Fire damage on one enemy.)
▷ Kouha (Inflicts a small amount of Light damage on one enemy.)
▷ Hama (30% chance of instant KO from the power of Light on one enemy.)
Writing Sample
[Action]
[Agatha is not sure what to make of suddenly being brought into a new place. All she can do for a few minutes is just look around at her surroundings with a cautious eye. This is not home at all, she doesn't recognize any of the surroundings. A possible explanation is, of course, that magic is involved. It isn't unheard-of for someone to be spirited away; it happened, tragically enough, to the neighbor's son about five years ago. He was returned, thankfully, but he didn't remember anything.
So this could very well be a case of being spirited away by a mischievous or malicious spirit - fair enough. Her kin would likely be distressed, but they'd still be able to perform their duties, so hopefully it wouldn't distress them. However, there's a flaw in this theory the more she thinks about it. After all, if the spirit were mischievous or malicious, why would it land her in a city not dissimilar to her own? .... Well, there's an easy enough answer for that, unfortunately: the idea of parallel universes. It wasn't a substantiated theory, but it had been explored enough in speculative fiction and the like that she had some idea of what it meant: a world similar to one's own, but with some differences.
With her luck, these differences would not be good ones. She shifts her messenger bag uneasily, the scrape of the bag against cloth and bandage making her grimace slightly. Ah, right, she remembers now. Her first priority right now is to find a proper healer to get some of these injuries fixed up. She can't allow herself to be off duty much longer.
Even if she's in a different world, she has to keep going. Keep going, or fall into despair.
She gets walking.]
