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Aug. 29th, 2029 09:11 am
RIVER TAM
[ we're all (dreaming); don't make faces ] FIREFLY JOURNAL: ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small} eschatologicallyPLURK: TIMEZONE: Pacific | GMT -7
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River is five foot nothin', barely 110 lbs. Long brown hair that is usually a scraggly mess, unless someone helps her or until she becomes self-aware enough to care about her appearance. Dark eyes, waif-like features, tends to go without shoes whenever possible and probably in a few instances where it is not ideal but she does it anyway. River moves like a dancer stuck somewhere between positions. She constantly moves, shifting her weight, balancing on improbable objects, hiding around corners. She's not a fan of eye contact when first meeting someone. Talks in riddles wrapped in enigmas that contain bits of the person's soul that she's talking to. Yep.
At first glance, River seems like a severely emotionally unbalanced young woman with no brain to mouth filter who has a rather short attention span and a penchant for thinking things are games when they are, in fact, much more dangerous and put herself and others at risk. Prone to mood swings and bursts of shouting rage and throwing things, it easy to say that the initial understanding of her personality is accurate.
But it's incomplete. River isn't so much mentally ill as she is traumatized; two years of experiments, brain surgery and mental conditioning turned a genius teenager who was bored with the typical schooling and somewhat telepathically sensitive into a young woman who cannot stop herself from feeling, saying, thinking, doing whatever comes into her mind. This includes information from the minds of other people, things they have never told her aloud or never intended for her to know. She deals with this the best way that she can; when she is lucid and happy everything is a game, even dangerous situations until they become glaringly obvious and must be dealt with. Because when she is not lucid, or when she is not happy, she can't stop remembering and hearing things that she doesn't want to remember or hear. When she's not happy or when she's scared she has even less control over the mind that's been altered to give her as little conscious and subconscious control as possible. A lot of this changes when she's with Simon, her older brother. Because he is ultimately the person who spends the most time with her, the person she trusts and the person who took her out of the hell she was trapped in, a lot of the River from before the Academy shines through in his presence; the genius child, the bratty little sister. Their relationship is almost co-dependent, or could be argued as such already, considering that they're on the run from the law that would throw him in prison (or kill him) while shipping her right back to the people who did so much damage to her in the first place and they were close before anything terrible happened to them. The fact that their presence on Serenity is a constant issue of recurring conflict and that their parents refused to help Simon when he originally approached them about his concern that something was happening to River, they honestly don't have anyone to fully depend on other than each other. She has an active (and highly understandable) phobia to medical situations in which her brother isn't involved. Even when he is, that bratty part of her will come out unless it's something that truly reminds her of the Academy, in which case she will panic and flail and try to get away. If something is serious (to her - which is usually a life or death situation to anyone ELSE) then River does what she understands needs doing, though it takes a lot for her to get there. In her case? That means dealing with it with her own two hands, and with whatever weapon is nearby. And thanks to her own inherent abilities and what the Academy has done to her, River Tam can do absolutely anything she puts her mind to - and quite a few things it puts itself to on her behalf. She loves to dance, hates wearing shoes, loves wearing dresses and has absolutely no sense of when not to be nosy - either in people's heads or in observing their lives. River lives in an absolute chaotic neutral space when it comes to a personal moral code - grey as grey can be. Mostly River sees it like this: protect the people who need protecting. She's not about to put herself on the front lines by any stretch and she is just as likely to hide in case of an emergency as she is to fight. But when backed into a corner, literally or figuratively, River will come out swinging and screaming. She has nothing against killing in self-defense, certainly - and River's definition of self-defense covers some strange situations. She'd rather not kill people. Usually. Most days. River doesn't have many insecurities but the ones she has, whoo. What a doozy. River believes she's bad luck for those around her, that what she knows and what she experienced at the Academy have put a giant target on herself and her friends. She's afraid that knowing what she does isn't going to prevent them from getting killed trying to protect her. Plus, she's a teenager whose ability to properly sort through her emotions mentally has been entirely compromised.
Combat: River was trained every single day for over two years to be an assassin by the largest government power in her canon. Thus, she is exceptionally skilled at hand-to-hand and weapons combat, be it blades, firearms, or whatever is accessible at the time. In episode 1.09 War Stories, she looks down a hallway of people shooting at her and Kaylee (the ship's engineer), turns back around a corner, and fires blind into the hallway, hitting each assailant with perfect precision.
In the general sense, if River can lift it, she can use it. If she can't lift it, she can use her own fists and feet. Telepathy: River is a telepath; however she is a telepath with very little by way of control and can only receive information - she is incapable of doing any telepathic projection. At times her ability makes it very difficult for her to tell the difference between what is actually happening in front of her and what other people are merely thinking about/remembering/associating with the moment. She can't turn this ability off at all - it controls her a great deal more than she controls it, even at her most lucid. She can perceive secrets, desires, lies, anticipated actions. In the canon story "Crystal" by Brett Matthews, River is given a combination of drugs by her brother that accidentally allows her full access to her precognitive ability. Without this combination of drugs, her precognition is limited to a very small window of time and could be better understood as a sense of either good or bad to come or the possible futility of an action as opposed to a definite and clear vision of the future. Genius Intellect: There really aren't any limits to what River can do if she found a way to approach a problem. River takes to things the way fish take to the water. No matter what it is; dancing, fighting, mathematics, River is able to understand it and improve upon it (to the annoyance of others, at times, in regards to religious texts and other things that are not considered in need of improvement) with very little effort on her part. This also goes hand in hand with her fighting and balancing abilities; to her, it's all math and art, which means she's efficient and graceful no matter what she's doing. She can dance, shoot, engage in close-quarters combat, and pilot a spacecraft with little to no conscious effort on her part. And she is very good at whatever she does put effort into; no matter what the quantity of said effort is, the quality of her work will always be genius level. CANONPOINT: post Objects in Space AGE: 18 HEIGHT: 5'6" BUILD: Dancer HAIR: Brown EYES: Brown APPEARANCE: pb'd by Malese Jow BACKTAGGING: Y 4TH-WALLING: Y THREADJACKING: Y MIND READING: Y FIGHTING: Y ROMANCE: Y INJURY: Y KILLING: N PSYCHIC PERMISSIONS: HERE |
( efficio )
fellden :: application
Aug. 16th, 2019 03:35 pmPLAYER
NAME: Era
AGE: 35
PREFERRED CONTACT:
OTHER CHARACTERS: n/a
CHARACTER
NAME: River Tam
AGE: 18
CANON & CANON POINT: Post "Objects In Space"
RESERVATION LINK: HERE
HISTORY: Here
PERSONALITY: At first glance, River seems like a severely emotionally unbalanced young woman with no brain to mouth filter who has a rather short attention span and a penchant for thinking things are games when they are, in fact, much more dangerous and put herself and others at risk. Prone to mood swings and bursts of shouting rage and throwing things, it easy to say that the initial understanding of her personality is accurate.
But it's incomplete.
River isn't so much mentally ill as she is traumatized; two years of experiments, brain surgery and mental conditioning turned a genius teenager who was bored with the typical schooling and somewhat telepathically sensitive into a young woman who cannot stop herself from feeling, saying, thinking, doing whatever comes into her mind. This includes information from the minds of other people, things they have never told her aloud or never intended for her to know. She deals with this the best way that she can; when she is lucid and happy everything is a game, even dangerous situations until they become glaringly obvious and must be dealt with. Because when she is not lucid, or when she is not happy, she can't stop remembering and hearing things that she doesn't want to remember or hear. When she's not happy or when she's scared she has even less control over the mind that's been altered to give her as little conscious and subconscious control as possible.
A lot of this changes when she's with Simon, her older brother. Because he is ultimately the person who spends the most time with her, the person she trusts and the person who took her out of the hell she was trapped in, a lot of the River from before the Academy shines through in his presence; the genius child, the bratty little sister. Their relationship is almost co-dependent, or could be argued as such already, considering that they're on the run from the law that would throw him in prison (or kill him) while shipping her right back to the people who did so much damage to her in the first place and they were close before anything terrible happened to them. The fact that their presence on Serenity is a constant issue of recurring conflict and that their parents refused to help Simon when he originally approached them about his concern that something was happening to River, they honestly don't have anyone to fully depend on other than each other.
She has an active (and highly understandable) phobia to medical situations in which her brother isn't involved. Even when he is, that bratty part of her will come out unless it's something that truly reminds her of the Academy, in which case she will panic and flail and try to get away. If something is serious (to her - which is usually a life or death situation to anyone ELSE) then River does what she understands needs doing, though it takes a lot for her to get there. In her case? That means dealing with it with her own two hands, and with whatever weapon is nearby. And thanks to her own inherent abilities and what the Academy has done to her, River Tam can do absolutely anything she puts her mind to - and quite a few things it puts itself to on her behalf.
She loves to dance, hates wearing shoes, loves wearing dresses and has absolutely no sense of when not to be nosy - either in people's heads or in observing their lives.
River lives in an absolute chaotic neutral space when it comes to a personal moral code - grey as grey can be. Mostly River sees it like this: protect the people who need protecting. She's not about to put herself on the front lines by any stretch and she is just as likely to hide in case of an emergency as she is to fight. But when backed into a corner, literally or figuratively, River will come out swinging and screaming. She has nothing against killing in self-defense, certainly - and River's definition of self-defense covers some strange situations. She'd rather not kill people. Usually. Most days.
River doesn't have many insecurities but the ones she has, whoo. What a doozy. River believes she's bad luck for those around her, that what she knows and what she experienced at the Academy have put a giant target on herself and her friends. She's afraid that knowing what she does isn't going to prevent them from getting killed trying to protect her.
Plus, she's a teenager whose ability to properly sort through her emotions mentally has been entirely compromised.
ABILITIES/SKILLS: Combat: River was trained every single day for over two years to be an assassin by the largest government power in her canon. Thus, she is exceptionally skilled at hand-to-hand and weapons combat, be it blades, firearms, or whatever is accessible at the time. In episode 1.09 War Stories, she looks down a hallway of people shooting at her and Kaylee (the ship's engineer), turns back around a corner, and fires blind into the hallway, hitting each assailant with perfect precision.
In the general sense, if River can lift it, she can use it. If she can't lift it, she can use her own fists and feet.
Telepathy: River is a telepath; however she is a telepath with very little by way of control and can only receive information - she is incapable of doing any telepathic projection. At times her ability makes it very difficult for her to tell the difference between what is actually happening in front of her and what other people are merely thinking about/remembering/associating with the moment. She can't turn this ability off at all - it controls her a great deal more than she controls it, even at her most lucid. She can perceive secrets, desires, lies, anticipated actions. In the canon story "Crystal" by Brett Matthews, River is given a combination of drugs by her brother that accidentally allows her full access to her precognitive ability. Without this combination of drugs, her precognition is limited to a very small window of time and could be better understood as a sense of either good or bad to come or the possible futility of an action as opposed to a definite and clear vision of the future.
Genius Intellect: There really aren't any limits to what River can do if she found a way to approach a problem. River takes to things the way fish take to the water. No matter what it is; dancing, fighting, mathematics, River is able to understand it and improve upon it (to the annoyance of others, at times, in regards to religious texts and other things that are not considered in need of improvement) with very little effort on her part.
This also goes hand in hand with her fighting and balancing abilities; to her, it's all math and art, which means she's efficient and graceful no matter what she's doing.
She can dance, shoot, engage in close-quarters combat, and pilot a spacecraft with little to no conscious effort on her part. And she is very good at whatever she does put effort into; no matter what the quantity of said effort is, the quality of her work will always be genius level.
Since she can’t really opt out of her own powers or even choose who they do or do not work on, I don’t think I need to do any power warping. Please let me know mods if you have other ideas!
INVENTORY/COMPANIONS: (2) toy dinosaurs (they belong to Wash)
(1) pair of combat boots in her size
(1) blue dress
(1) maroon dress
(1) black sweater
aka nothing useful
FACTION CHOICE: Court of Stars
REASON: River is most definitely not reliant on logic, linear thinking, and the facts at hand. Linear thinking? Never heard of her. Logic? Fallible. The facts at hand? Changeable and probably more than you'd expect, considering River is a one-sided telepath.
She's a dreamer, through and through. I mean, River can barely logic her way through eating an ice cream treat but she can imagine up scenarios to get herself out of nearly any situation. Logic just has rather little to do with it.
TATTOO: Like this, but about 1/2 of the size and with the color requirements for the Court of Stars
SAMPLES
NETWORK: [ The video opens to wispy brown hair, blue eyes, eyebrows taking up the entirety of the screen.
Upside-down, in fact.
It corrects itself in a moment but it is impossible to tell if that's because the broadcaster has turned the device or flipped herself, instead.
Suddenly, her open palm takes up the screen. ]
Hi.
[ She puts her hand down, but it's still just eyes, eyebrows, hair, and the bridge of her nose in the shot. ]
We arrived here changed, in flux. Still changing? The parameters are unclear. It has only been a number of days. She's good with numbers, bad with calendars, occasionally interested in counting. Does it matter?
Have you been changed? A blessing, a curse? Is something missing? Growing a seedling where it once towered over the land? This is how it is for her.
No one speaks of the history of this place. The fissure between Emperor and Priestess. How we came to be here.
Why?
LOG: River's toplevel at the TDM & River & Book
NOTES, QUESTIONS, COMMENTS:
- Can River read your character's mind?
- If no, continue onward to question 4.
- If yes, what will your character's reaction be to her waxing poetic about the contents of their brains / history / heart / soul (if applicable)?
- If yes, what is completely and utterly off limits for her to discuss in public (she doesn't have much tact but I do)?
- If no, does River get ANYTHING off your character telepathically or are they simply a blank slate? If you don't want her to be able to mind read but do want there to be a theme to the type of non-information she receives, I can work with that/think something up that is appropriate!
OOC PREFERENCES:
•CONTACT METHOD:
•THREAD-JACKING: Come at me broseph
•FOURTH WALLING / CANON PUNCTURE: Canon puncture is a-ok, fourth walling is fine with a head's up!
•BACKTAGGING: MAI BREAD AND BUTTAH
•AVOIDED TOPICS: Sexual assault
•PREFERRED GENDER PRONOUN: they/them/theirs
IC CHARACTERISTICS:
•CURRENT CANON POINT: Post Objects in Space
•PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: River is five foot nothin', barely 110 lbs. Long brown hair that is usually a scraggly mess, unless someone helps her or until she becomes self-aware enough to care about her appearance. Dark eyes, waif-like features, tends to go without shoes whenever possible and probably in a few instances where it is not ideal but she does it anyway.
•DEMEANOR: River moves like a dancer stuck somewhere between positions. She constantly moves, shifting her weight, balancing on improbable objects, hiding around corners. She's not a fan of eye contact when first meeting someone. Talks in riddles wrapped in enigmas that contain bits of the person's soul that she's talking to. Yep.
•ABILITIES: Combat: River was trained every single day for over two years to be an assassin by the largest government power in her canon. Thus, she is exceptionally skilled at hand-to-hand and weapons combat, be it blades, firearms, or whatever is accessible at the time. In episode 1.09 War Stories, she looks down a hallway of people shooting at her and Kaylee (the ship's engineer), turns back around a corner, and fires blind into the hallway, hitting each assailant with perfect precision. In the general sense if River can lift it, she can use it. If she can't lift it, she can use her own fists and feet.
Telepathy: River is a telepath; however she is a telepath with very little by way of control and can only receive information - she is incapable of doing any telepathic projection. At times her ability makes it very difficult for her to tell the difference between what is actually happening in front of her and what other people are merely thinking about/remembering/associating with the moment. She can't turn this ability off at all - it controls her a great deal more than she controls it, even at her most lucid. She can perceive secrets, desires, lies, anticipated actions.
Genius Intellect: There really aren't any limits to what River can do if she found a way to approach a problem. River takes to things the way fish take to water. No matter what it is; dancing, fighting, mathematics, River is able to understand it and improve upon it (to the annoyance of others, at times, in regards to religious texts and other things that are not considered in need of improvement) with very little effort on her part. This also goes hand in hand with her fighting and balancing abilities; to her it's all math and art, which means she's efficient and graceful no matter what she's doing. She can dance, shoot, engage in close-quarters combat, and pilot a spacecraft with little to no conscious effort on her part. And she is very good at whatever she does put effort into; no matter what the quantity of said effort is, the quality of her work will always be genius level.
IC PERMISSIONS:
•MENTAL: Yes! Though if this is a consciously used skill, please let me know oocly so that I can provide appropriate reactions!
•MIMICRY: Yes!
•VIOLENCE: Yes!
•MAGIC: Yes!
•DEBATE: HAHHAHAH yes but good luck getting a sensical answer out of her.
If you're uninterested in playing with me (or River) send me a PM or comment here also!
how IS my driving, anyway?
Aug. 5th, 2013 09:33 am
Have a problem with the way I'm playing River?
Have a question about characterization?
Want to tell me how awesome a job I've done?
Then you've come to the right place!
Anonymous comments are allowed, IP logging is off, all comments screened by default.
Cheers!
