Theresa "Tess" Servopoulos

OUT OF CHARACTER
PLAYER: Jenn
PRONOUNS: She/her
CONTACT: Plurk (victoryfanfare) or DM this journal!
THREADJACKING: I love it.
CANONPUNCTURE: Hard pass on discussions about being a fictional character. Potential canonmates can absolutely inform her of the future.
BACKTAGGING: Yup.
CONTENT WARNINGS: Nothing in particular.

IN CHARACTER
CHARACTER: Tess
CANON: The Last of Us
AGE: 41
DESCRIPTION: Tess is a white woman in her early 40s. She's about 5'8" and she's very lean, veering athletic. Her voice is low, and her face is plain. She cleans up nice, and she puts some effort into that. She has a beauty mark under her left eye. 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 scarf, with some shorter pieces around the front; when it's down, it goes past her shoulders. Her skin is freckled and weathered, and she's got a myriad of little scars, abrasions, scabs and bruises at any given time. She's 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.

Her favored wardrobe includes tank tops, collared shirts, jeans and practical boots (styled circa 2013), but having lived in the late 1800s/very early 1900s, some of her wardrobe is styled to that era –– high waisted jeans/trousers with a button fly, long-sleeved and very tailored shirtwaists, leather holster, Western-style boots.

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:

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, she'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 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.)

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. In confrontations, she knows she doesn't have her partner's physical presence or scruff, so she falls back on being a bit kittenish instead. 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. She's just more serious about toeing the line these days, that's all.

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.

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. (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 instigate with physical aggression but I'm aware that meanness towards animals can bother players.

INTERACTIONS
MAGIC: Generally yes, but check first if it involves any sort of transformation to her body or mental state.
MENTAL: Sure! I'm down but will want to clarify some things first and help you get the best results if it's stuff like mind reading.
MIMICRY: Sure.
INTIMACY: She'll entertain being pursued for casual sex and might even instigate herself. Tess tends to be interested in gruff, tough, self-sufficient and emotionally unavailable men with violent tendencies. I love shipping and am always down to explore options :) She'd be hesitant to engage with inmates sexually but could maybe be tempted, but OOC I am largely interested in this from the perspective of it being a morally questionable choice.
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.
OTHER:

OPT-OUT
Wow, we sure live in a time of pandemic and instability, and basically all of TLOU is about what happens when society crumbles!

In general, Tess is pretty apolitical, but she will comment on having lived under a military state bluntly. In line with the universe being essentially a "science zombie" universe, I also try to treat the infection more like an monster invasion instead of strictly an illness; characters in TLOU don't look at the infected as people anymore. 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 let me know what kind of subjects you want to avoid (or avoid the character entirely) and I'm happy to oblige.

Anyway, if you also want to opt out of interacting with me or my character entirely, please reply below with your name and character journals.