application for beastly roses

[fatedchaos]

Player Information

Name: Ashe
Personal Journal: ashehole
IM Service: nevra solstice @ aim
Plurk Name: asheling
Current Characters: Jordan Langley, Edward Kenway

Character Information

Character Name: Vanessa Cleveland
Canon: Daughters of the Moon
Canon-Point: Post-Moon Demon
Age: 16
History:
Vanessa's history can get a little complicated.

It all begins about 600 years before her birth. A young woman, about fifteen years of age, can be seen running through the dark in clothes not fit for the time period, her skin sparkling against the tiny bit of moonlight available, a young boy clutched in her arms and a large shadow chasing them down. Thus begins Vanessa's destiny for the future. The being chasing the two down is the most ancient evil in existence: The Atrox. But this will all come together shortly.

Vanessa's childhood was marked by the place where she grew up, the lights and glamor of Los Angeles. She is the daughter of a Hollywood stuntman and a fashion designer, although by no means did the Cleveland family live by the standards of the rich and glamorous. They lived in relative happiness until the year Vanessa was five. That was the year her father died in a stunt accident.

It was around this same time that Vanessa began to notice weird things about herself, like how her mother would search the house for her, even though she was right there. In another few years, she would discover that she had the power to turn invisible, which completely terrified her. There was only one person that Vanessa trusted this secret to: her childhood best friend, Catty, who also had a strange ability. On Vanessa's eighth birthday, she turned both of them invisible, which had disastrous results—Vanessa didn't know how to bring her molecules together again until the extreme emotional distress forced her body to form again, although for a moment, her friend's hand did not materialize—and caused Vanessa to believe that her ability was a horrible and freaky thing. It was not normal.

For years after that incident, Vanessa did her best to not use her power, even though Catty always encouraged her to do it. Then, when both girls were fifteen, strange things began happening to Vanessa. She felt like she was being watched at all times, she had horrible nightmares, and there were these strange people she kept running into. It wasn't until Catty was kidnapped that Vanessa was taken to a woman by two other girls and learned the truth about herself: Vanessa and Catty weren't freaks, or aliens, or anything like that. The truth was, they and the other two girls, were goddesses. Daughters of the Moon. Selene, the goddess of the moon, had seen the horrors released from Pandora's Box and how the Atrox used it to harm the people, but there was one last thing that had emerged: hope. In order to protect the world, Selene had given her mortal daughters to protect them. In order to save Catty's life, Vanessa had to trust a Follower, one of the bad guys, and in doing so he trapped her in his memories, which is sort of like time traveling. As a boy in the early 1200s, the Follower had been kidnapped by the Atrox. She had tried to save him. Because of this act of kindness, Stanton—the Follower—could no longer attempt to harm her himself. Another event arose from this brief stint in the past: The Atrox decided that it needed to have Vanessa and bound her fate to itself, although she remained ignorant of this fact for a couple of years.

The next year and a half were marked by battles, death, and general teenage girl angst.

On the cusp of her sixteenth birthday, a string of disappearances and the warning that a demon had come to Earth led the Daughters into an investigation of these matters at an underground dance club, where girls danced for dollars. Here was where Vanessa met Hector, a charming, beautiful, and mysterious man with whom she felt an immediate connection to. He made her feel like a different person, wild and more open than she had ever been, even with her boyfriend. But Hector turned out to be the demon they were searching for, and Vanessa turned out to be the girl that he wanted to make as his bride. He told her that her good girl act didn't fool him, because in fact, she was really a Daughter of Pandora. It was her destiny to bring another flood of chaos into the world and utterly change it forever. Eventually, however, she ended up freeing him from his shackles to the Atrox at great risk to enslaving herself, and Hector died.

Another great turning point would be after Tianna, the fifth Daughter of the Moon, ended up sacrificing her life to seal the Atrox back into its shadow form. Vanessa and the other two remaining Daughters, Serena and Catty, end up trapped in Nefandus, the sinister world the Atrox created adjacent to Earth. While Catty ended up joining her father and pretending to be evil in order to fulfill her destiny, Vanessa and Serena end up spending a long amount of time as prisoners. When they do escape, only Vanessa manages to get away and finds out that it's only a week before her seventeenth birthday. The moon has all but disappeared on Earth, thanks to the Daughters being nearly destroyed. To sum it up, Vanessa ends up going back to save Catty and Serena, only to find out from the Fates that the Atrox had changed her destiny. She was always destined to be its warrior, its lapdog, forever wishing it would love her in return. She is woken from this mind hold, able to defeat those false feelings in time to see Catty sacrifice her own life to destroy the Atrox. She couldn't save her best friend. But the end of the Atrox was not the end of the battle; there was still Catty's father to go up against. It seemed impossible to defeat an Immortal, but the Fates had woven that Vanessa would use a great and fearsome power, and her negative emotions were like a blasting force that brought the being to his knees.

Adamantis escaped, and Serena and Stanton decided to close off Nefandus from Earth, ushering Vanessa out as quickly as possible.

Personality:
Vanessa is a product of her own anxieties and fears. When she was eight, she trusted her secret to her best friend that she could become invisible. Unfortunately, while showing Catty her power, she was unable to reform Catty’s hand for a long time. It traumatized Vanessa far more than it did Catty, and she has since then thought of herself as a freak. More than that, though, because the two girls were so similar - both with special powers and the same moon amulet, Catty had half-convinced her that she was an alien - Vanessa fretted constantly that someone would discover her gift and report her to the government, where she would then be dissected so that they could figure out how she ticked. Because of this, she tries to deny her own powers and focuses intently on being a “normal girl”. She’s an overachiever, making some of the top grades in school, part of the soccer team, and overall incredibly kind to just about everyone. She doesn’t want people to think badly of her, and she’ll go out of her way to be nice.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t work out well for her. For one thing, because of her lack of practice when it comes to her power, it’s usually ruled by her emotions. If she’s freaked out or embarrassed or really excited, she might start turning invisible. The same can happen while she’s invisible, with opposite results. More than that, though, Vanessa is repressing her true nature. She’s a girl who wants to break out of her own cookie-cutter mold. Often times, it manifests in big ways, like becoming the lead singer of a rock band.

Being a Daughter of the Moon is a big thing for Vanessa, even if she completely denied that was what she was at first. She feels a sense of completeness as a goddess, but more than that, she has a circle that she belongs to. She has people to rely on and who will understand her now. It tears at her two natures, though: her normal self and her real self. It’s hard to keep this secret from her mother and boyfriend, but she’s completely terrified that they will find that she’s really a freak and completely reject her. That weighs heavily on her, and she has felt jealous of her friends more than once because they have people they can talk to and rely on outside of the Daughters, whereas she’s too afraid to tell people about herself.

Being a Daughter of the Moon has also opened Vanessa up to a larger world and shown her her true nature. When a demon was unleashed on Los Angeles, she found herself becoming attracted to him, and he marked her as his bride. When she found out, she decided to try and save him while he tempted her to join him. He revealed that she is also a Daughter of Pandora, an agent of pure chaos, and she could throw the world into it if she wanted. In fact, it is her destiny to help throw the world into darkness. She can’t continue denying that part of herself, because it will end up coming out anyway. Vanessa is horrified at the very idea that she’s a spirit of chaotic nature, but she does accept that she doesn’t want to be the one who destroys everything she loves.

Vanessa exhibits low self-esteem and low confidence. She doesn’t think she is as cool as her friends are and wonders why they hang out with her. She doesn’t understand how she got
perfect Michael as her boyfriend, and because of that, she’s often flip-flopped in her relationship with him. They’re often on-again, off-again. What she wants most, and what she tries to tell herself isn’t true, is to be noticed and liked for who she really is.

Despite all this, Vanessa is still incredibly brave. She doesn’t hesitate to throw herself into traps or dangerous situations, and it doesn’t matter who it’s for. Friends, enemies, perfect strangers. She can’t stand injustice and refuses to be cowed because she’s afraid. She will stick up for the people who have nobody rallying in their corner, and she’s really into feminism and the idea that girls shouldn’t have to be afraid to be free. Which is ironic, all things considered. But the freak thing really only ever applies to Vanessa.

In one instance, she agrees to go with Stanton, an evil Follower, to find her friend. Instead, he traps her in his own memories. Regardless of this, when she sees that a young Stanton is about to be kidnapped by the Atrox, she picks the boy up and runs off with him. She won’t let him be taken by the Atrox. This gains her Stanton’s trust and tentative friendship, something that she holds on to regardless of the fact that he’s supposed to be the enemy. She also risks her own freedom and life to release Hector from his bonds, despite the fact that he’s attempting to force her to become a demon. She does this for not only him, but also for her mentor, Maggie, who was in love with Hector.

Vanessa’s friendships with the other Daughters are important to her. They are like sisters, girls bonded by the same destiny to fight the Atrox. More than anything, though, Vanessa is attached to her best friend, Catty. Both girls have been together for so long, they’re almost co-dependent on each other. Vanessa gets jealous whenever Catty hangs out with anyone else, including Tianna. She’s also jealous of Catty’s relationship with Chris. When Catty goes to sacrifice herself to destroy the Atrox, Vanessa tries to stop her, refusing to leave her side until the very last minute. She gets angry, feeling like Catty doesn’t love her enough to stay with her, to try to find another way. She has no idea how she is supposed to go on living when Catty is dead and feels guilty that she’s alive when Catty was always the one with the zest for life. Vanessa also feels betrayed by Serena when she decides to stay in Nefandus with Stanton rather than returning home with her, and betrayed by Jimena, who had known that both Catty and Serena wouldn’t return.

Abilities/Powers:
-Molecular Manipulation: Vanessa’s gift from Selene is the ability to turn invisible, but it’s more than just that. She’s able to stretch her molecules out until she’s nothing but air. She can do this with other people and with objects as well. Along with invisibility, she’s able to charge up the molecules around her and use them as a physical force to hit people. It’s almost like a Force Push.

-Floral tattoo: Vanessa has a floral tattoo on her chest, left side, above the heart. It's very archaic looking and is actually a protection spell woven into her skin. It's meant to protect her from the power of demons, but it's been known to work as a shield against other mental attacks. Unfortunately, that's all it's able to protect her from.

-Hope: Being a goddess of hope, she has the minor ability to inspire hope in other people. It’s nothing major, but it’s something that has given confidence boosters and whatnot.

-Being a total killjoy.

-Really good singer.

-Can read, write, and understand Ancient Greek and Latin.

Items:
-her moon amulet
-clothes (jeans, cute tanktop, shoes)
-a couple of dollars

Samples

here’s a thread!

Her entire life - or at least a good portion of it - has been spent wanting to be powerless, to be one of the normal kids she spent so much time pretending she was. But Vanessa shivers in her coffin, arms wrapped around herself as she stares out into endless rows of glass coffins, the sun hitting them and reminding her of diamonds instead, and she thinks about how she hates this. She hates the calm and quiet feeling under her skin where it used to buzz. She hates that even though she’s terrified, she can’t disappear.

She waits and hopes to hear a concentration of humming, but everything is deadly silent.

Her mouth is dry as she continues to sit there and freeze, because she can’t think of anything else to do. Can’t think of where to go or how to get out of this nightmare. That’s it, right? It’s a nightmare.

Nightmares are familiar to her, as familiar as the shadows that haunt her room and Hector’s touch along her arm and moonlight.

Vanessa holds herself tighter. Where’s Catty? Where’s Serena and Jimena and Tianna? Where’s Stanton?

She drags her legs closer to her chest, resting her chin on her knee and wills her body to fall apart. Her chest tightens instead, and her breathing becomes shallow.

If ever there was a time to be a freak, it was now.