Permissions + Pandemic Opt-Out

[dog_eat_dog]

OOC PERMISSIONS

CONTACT METHOD: Plurk (victoryfanfare) or email (rezny[at]icloud[dot]com) or DM this journal! THREAD-JACKING: I love it. FOURTH WALLING / CANON PUNCTURE: Hard pass on discussions about being a fictional character. Would prefer to have "I played a video game like that once" comments either; they're just awkward to write around. Characters savvy about zombie media are allowed to talk to her about zombie media other than The Last Of Us. Potential canonmates can absolutely inform her of the future. I occasionally use Annie Wersching (her voice actor and mo-cap actor) as a PB; if your character, for some reason, knows Annie Wersching from 24 or the Vampire Diaries or something, I'm okay with her being told she resembles the actress/characters.  BACKTAGGING: Yup! AVOIDED TOPICS: Nothing outright. PREFERRED GENDER PRONOUN: she/her.

IC CHARACTERISTICS

CURRENT CANON POINT: Death at the Capitol building PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Tess is a white woman in her late 30s. She's about 5'8" and she's very lean, hovering on the cusp of malnourished. Her voice is low, and her face is plain. She cleans up nice, but it's not something she puts much effort into. She's very much at home in jeans, sensible boots, t-shirts and button-ups, and most of her wardrobe consists of that. She has a birth mark under her left eye, and she bites her nails. She wears a little make-up -- a bit of eyeliner or mascara when she's feeling Fun -- and keeps her eyebrows and hair neat. Her hair is usually pulled back in a half-ponytail or with a bandanna, with some shorter pieces around the front. Her skin is freckled and weathered, and she's got a myriad of little scars, abrasions, scabs and bruises at any given time. This woman has seen her fair share of scraps, and on looks alone, it would not be an unfair comparison to think she's had the crap kicked out of her semi-regularly. You would certainly never mistake her for someone with money. In the past, Tess wore a lot of tank tops, but these days it's a lot of collared shirts; if you can get underneath it, there's an gnarly injury stretching over her shoulder, covering a solid four or five square inches. She also has a couple bullet scars; one on her thigh that's very long healed-over, and three others on her torso that well healed over.  DEMEANOR: video 1 video 2 Assumptions about most middle-aged white ladies fall into certain boxes. Maybe you can tell where they shop, or how they treat service staff, or how involved in the PTA or local soccer league they are. They generally have a level of polish. Forty years is generally long enough to have settled into how to dress, run a household, manage a relationship. Most are married, and a full two thirds of them have kids. A lot of them make sure that the people around them are comfortable. A lot of them are peacekeepers, moderate in their indulgences, and looking forward to another family vacation. Not Tess. While she's perfectly capable of being nice -- and she can be genuinely nice -- she's generally not a smiley person. She doesn't like physical contact with strangers, and she's not likely to stand too close. She is not a hugger, she's barely even a handshake person. When friendly, it's still a little bit cool. If she knows someone's watching her, she generally looks pretty ruled, even a little mean -- that's absolutely posturing, but she's comfortable enough about it. (If you catch her unawares, relaxed or staring into space, she can actually look a little younger than her years, maybe even a little cute. Pointing it out is a surefire way to get her to steel up again -- but enjoy it if you glimpse it!) She tends to be very aware of her surroundings, and she is always at least a little ready for things to go south. It's not that she's nervous, it's just her general state of being. If you're in her space, she's always at least a little aware of what you're doing. If she's in yours, she's probably acting like it's already hers. Bickering and arguments are second nature to her, even with people she truly cares about. Perceptive characters will see she has different kinds of harshness, whether it's tough love or vindictive.  Law enforcement might not peg her as quickly as they would if she were a man; she knows she doesn't have her partner's physical presence or scruff, so she falls back on being a bit kittenish instead. But the breadcrumbs are there: she makes easy company with other morally wayward souls, if not outright career criminals, and she's transparent about having been around the block with the legal or military system a few times. Tess has never been very careful about not looking like a criminal, but she is very careful to minimize proof that she's a criminal. She toes a line, at least when eyes are on her. The aforementioned wayward souls and career criminals might have mixed feelings on her; she's not judgmental about criminal activity and she's happy to do some favours, but her tendency to sort people into a pecking order might grate on some. If you're insecure about yourself in some way, you might get the feeling that she's looking for find it; everything has a worth to her. She presents herself as a woman of her word -- if you have her on your side, she's very ride-or-die, sometimes even to absurd degrees -- but it's fair to get the impression that if you can't keep yourself up to her standard, she'll be very, very hard on you. She wants to get along, but she won't tolerate otherwise. If you're not familiar with The Last of Us, she would be very much at home in media like Breaking Bad, A History of Violence, Children of Men, 28 Days Later, The Road, No Country For Old Men, True Grit, Logan, Sons of Anarchy. (Lots of Westerns, there!) She could even be an outright antagonist from a lot of vantage points; within her canon, she's circulated illegal weapons, punctured the quarantine's security, killed people who impede her, sold to a terrorist organization while also not caring if they get wiped out, etc. She lives and works amongst a lot of awful people, and she's witnessed her own government decimate its own people on a near daily basis. She hasn't known a world with civil rights since she was a teenager, and she has no hope of that changing, so she just works the system best she can. ABILITIES: Post-apocalypse survival skills, weapon proficiency, some brawling ability, high fitness level. Tess is a great improvisor and when unarmed, she's ready to use anything at her disposal. She does not hold back, and she's prone to go a little far just in case she falls short. She can also craft rudimentary weapons and knows her way around guns; trained gun handlers will notice that she is far from professional. She keeps them clean and functional, but she can be a little careless when handling them, and her finger lingers on the trigger when it doesn't need to be there.  MEDICAL INFORMATION: Malnourished, underweight, poor to mediocre eating habits Drinker, casual smoker A myriad of old wounds/injuries; a finger that was reset by a non-professional many years ago, a couple old bullet wounds, a couple scars from knife injuries, a number of minor scars up her arms, chest and legs. Three healed bullet wounds in her torso Her right shoulder is very mangled on the surface, specifically in the meaty spot between the shoulder and the neck; whatever happened there, it was debrided quite drastically. The surrounding muscle tissue is a little damaged. She has a good sense of what she needs or can get by with, and may refuse anything she deems superfluous; she'll self-medicate (with alcohol or otherwise) if given the choice to. She'll resist physical restraints, but if successfully put in them, she'll be relatively calm.  CABIN INFORMATION:  Tess's door is an unobtrusive, worn apartment door from the 70s. It has several chains and deadbolts on the back.  Tess's room looks like a dated Boston bachelor apartment, probably going back to the 70s. After sixty years of decay it's in pretty bad shape. The kitchenette has never been updated, so the old laminate is falling away off the cabinets. The wallpaper is scummy grey and peeling in many places, and though the floorboards are swept here or there, it's a shoes-on sort of place. The furniture is at minimum 20 years old, and it's a motley assortment of pieces from different decades at that. The tracks on the dresser drawers are broken, and the bedframe creaks badly. The mattress smells a little musty, and the bedding is pretty threadbare.  OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS:  Complicated. There are a lot of things that Tess feels strongly about, but they're either petty as shit or pretty localized to her world.  "Tourism" has a whole new meaning in her world, so talk about tourists or tourism will probably make the conversation weird. (Spoiler: tourists are people who get ambushed, murdered and looted.)  She doesn't like animals. Please don't tag her with animals approaching her/trying to interact with her as a hook unless you're okay with a potentially negative or dismissive reaction –– she's not going to be abusive but I know meanness towards animals can bother players.

IC PERMISSIONS

MENTAL: Sure! I'm down but will want to clairfy some things first and help you get the best results if it's stuff like mind reading. MIMICRY: Yes. VIOLENCE: Absolutely, but I am serious about having OOC conversations about this, especially if death is a risk; I prefer these plot lines to have long-term consequences/impacts and ongoing CR. MAGIC: Generally yes, but check first if it involves any sort of transformation to her body or mental state. DEBATE: Absolutely; Tess might not always tolerate it, but she might go a little ham. ROMANCE/SEXUAL CONTENT: She'll entertain being pursued for casual sex and might even instigate herself. She does have a partner back home, but she doesn't think she'll see him again (and it's emotionally messy anyway.) Romantic overtures will probably be shut down, but something could develop long-term if you wanna slowburn.

PANDEMIC OPT-OUT

Wow, we sure live in a time of pandemic, and basically all of TLOU is about what happens when society crumbles during one! In general, I've been trying to steer conversations a little bit more towards government and the ramifications of living in what is essentially a police state. In line with the universe being essentially a "science zombie" universe, I also try to treat the infection more like a monster or alien invasion instead of as an illness. However, it's not always possible to avoid the reality of it without breaking character.  It's very natural to not want to talk about the pandemic, infection, yadda yadda within the realm of RP right now. If that's the case, no hard feelings! Just reply here and be like "I'd like Tess to avoid that subject entirely with these characters of mine" and I'm happy to oblige.