[M&M] Blood of Emeralds

[ihinka]

First of all, thank you for the warm welcome. I shall certainly avail myself of the offer for help at one point or another. For now I'll put down a very preliminary concept for my character. I'll be weaving into her a bit of my native Slavic folklore. With which I may or may not have taken some creative liberties

Lada Smith Name: Lada Smith (real last name unknown) Alias: The Highlander (it started as a joke, people who found out of her immortality dubbed her ’The Highlander’ after the movies and TV show, eventually it stuck) Description: At 5'10'' Lada is lithe and willowy. With long, wavy mahogany hair that Lada usually wears swept to the side or in a tick side braid. Her face is almost patrician in its features. Straight nose, full lips, high cheekbones, thick eyebrows. Her olive skin and dark coloring complement well her forest green eyes. Lada's style of clothing is usually unpretentious. For the longest time robe-styled dresses were her favorite. But in this modern day and age she prefers the practicality of understated jeans and flowy blouses. She rarely if ever wears make-up. And yet, she never seems to need it. Despite her subtle demeanor whenever she walks into a room she inspires awe and draws attention. Age: Unknown, in appearance in her late thirties Personality: Lada's subtle ways extend quite a bit to her personality as well. Demure and soft-spoken, she is a patient and caring listener. She has the motherly feel down pat and people tend to flock to her when in need of comfort. Or simply to not feel alone in the world. And Lada is quite accommodating. She will rarely turn a seeking soul away. Always ready to lend a sympathetic ear or a shoulder to cry on. But for those perceptive enough, or the very few lucky enough to have been allowed within Lada's inner circle of friends, there is a sadness within her. A pain and sorrow so deep and eternal, one could crumble at the weight of it. She can often be found in deep reflection, running her fingers over her lower lip. Lada is a very tactile person. She will gently invade personal spaces, but will somehow always feel welcome there. And her touch is soothing. Almost intimately so. And yet, unimpeachable platonic too. Immensely lucky are those select few who've seen the passion burn bright in her jade eyes. Her quiet and gentle power is what the world usually sees. Greatest Fear: Loving, falling in love, caring for mortals. Origin: Rather than gaining powers, Lada lost almost all of hers. For it is true what they say about how petty the ancient gods can be. Some more so than others. And Lada and her family all fell victim to such godly pettiness. Lada, Goddess of beauty, love, lust, family; protector of human life and women; daughter of the ancient deity Svarog, was made to suffer a fate worse than death at the hands of spiteful fellow gods and goddesses. The Black God and the Goddess Woe, envious of Lada and her radiant family plotted to kill Lada’s consort - Yarila, the deity of spring, youth, fertility, passion and carnal love. As well as their son - Dit, a summer God, bringer of joy, happiness, mutual love, light and warmth. And for Lada they devised the cruelest fate of all. Made to watch as her loved ones were tortured, violated and killed, then being banished to Earth afterwards to live out her life, undying. Immortal for all intents and purposes. Unable to have the very thing she’d once ruled over. Family. Love. Powers: Lada is for all intents and purposes immortal. She does not age. She can be killed, but it is very difficult to do so. Or it is more proper to say she can be put down for indefinite amount of time through certain means. Her regenerative abilities grant her body immunity to some conditions and effects. As well as she’s retained a small portion of her awareness to her former domain - love. Which grants her some abilities but can in no way compare to the powers of love she once wielded. Background: After being banished from her home, Lada was forced to live on Earth as any human would. Or... well, almost like any human would. She'd been stripped of almost all her godly powers save for the few scraps the villains left her with in order to punish her for whatever it was they thought she and her family had wronged them with. Immortality. Life eternal among a race of beings which existence was a blink of the eye compared to a deity's lifespan. And Lada was left to make her life, robbed of her loved ones in the most gruesome of ways. Unable to return home. Unable to bring the wrongdoers to justice. With only one option left. To live. Forever! And so she did, moving through history. Changing with the times. Adapting to the ages. Little by little minuscule portions of her former powers blinked in and out of her being. Allowing her to do work close to the one she did and she still held her divinity. And work she did. For it was the only thing that allowed her to keep her sanity. To bear the weight of the times, passing her by. She saw empires rise and fall. Experienced life from the lowest of slaves to the highest of nobility. Always trying with all that she was to remain true to herself. And in the beginning it worked. She lived and... eventually... even loved again. And again. And again. And again. Until she couldn't do it anymore. The endless cycle of love and loss. It ate away at her soul. And so she withdrew. Only engaging in the world of the mortals as much as she needed to do her work. For even if she could not bare to love again, knowing full well, she will only lose that love to time... She knew that mortals needed love. It was essential! And she could not abandon her calling. But the universe is not without a sense of irony and even gods aren't immune to it. And love never asks. And so it was that Lada fell in love again. Hopelessly, deliriously. One might say... Only as the Goddess of Love can. When Lada had met the dynamic trauma surgeon Ava McAdams, she could have sworn the woman was an incarnation of her long lost consort Yarila. Not an impossibility. It wasn't that uncommon for deities to give up their divinity only to join the mortal coil and live out their days as the humans over which they presided. But Lada had always believed Yarila completely destroyed. Body and soul. And yet there was this woman, smiling at her with Yarila's electric smile. Looking at her with Yarila's gentle tenderness. Loving her with Yarila's passion burning bright. For the first time in millennia Lada had felt alive again. Truly alive. So much so that she returned to life among people. The work she did feeling even more rewarding than before. Until life mercilessly intervened! That one phone call had been nothing if not soul-ripping...! That night, it was said all the houses in a large radius around Lada's home were filled with thee sounds of people consummating their relationships as if their very lives depended on it. The night when the Goddess of Love had failed in her duties. Failed to protect a loved one. Her loved one! That phone call, that night changed everything for Lada!   "Hello..." Coming off a twenty-four hour shift at the ER Lada's voice was gravely with fatigue and too few hours of sleep. Ava's side of the bed was empty as their shifts had come out of sync with the sudden onset of a virulent strand of stomach flu that had left the hospital's administration scrambling to fill in the gaps. "Hello, ma'am, sorry to disturb you at such a late hour." The anonymous voice droned on in such a manner that had Lada sitting in her bed on pins and needles. "This is Detective Berkowitz. I have you listed as emergency contact and next of kin for one Dr. Ava McAdams." The feeling of dread clamped down heard on Lada's heart. "Y...es!" Her voice broke, rendering her unable to mutter even that one syllable smoothly. All the while she was screaming inside her head... Please, no! Nononononononono! Please anything but... "I'm sorry to say this, ma'am, but.." A broken 'no' tumbled out of Lada's lips as her breath left her and her soul shattered. Detective Berkowitz droned on in his morose tone of voice about Lada having to come ID the body and other procedures that had to be followed in such instances. "How...?" Lada managed to squeeze out and around the lump in her throat. "I'm terribly sorry, ma'am, but I'm not at liberty to discuss an open case." Something flipped in Lada then. She was out of the bed and throwing clothes on, her phone switched to speaker. "Not at liberty...!" She yelled at the top of her lungs. "Detective, you will tell me how my partner died, or..." The silence in the room was deafening. When next Lada spoke it was as if she was another person. "I am on my way to the precinct. When I get there you will tell me all you know about what happened to Ava!" It was not a command. It was not even a threat. It simply was. The broken wail that shattered the quiet night in the neighborhood was the catalyst for something that was talked about among Lada's neighbors for weeks to come. *** "This way." An attendant at the morgue respectfully led Lada to a room where a body had been laid on a steel slab. Covered in the proverbial white sheet. It had taken everything Lada had in her to walk up to the table and lift the corner of that damned white sheet. And sure enough the body of her radiant, dynamic Ava lay there. Empty! Robbed of the light that was Ava's spirit. Tears streamed down Lada's gaunt face as she exited the room. Her Ava wasn't there anymore. Wherever she was it was not with Lada and this was the straw to finally break the camel's back! Desolate and inconsolable Lada approached Detective Berkowitz, who was pacing nervously just outside the room. "Ma'am..." He bravely attempted, but snapped his mouth shut as Lada approached and stood so close to him he had to slant his head up to maintain eye-contact, shorter than Lada by a good few inches. Quickly, though, he lost the battle of wills and lowered his gaze. For a moment there he'd looked almost as if ready to bend a knee before the formidable woman, staring him down. "Everything you know, Detective. Now." Again Lada's words sounded neither like a command or a threat. And yet Berkowitz had found himself compelled to acquiesce. "I'm afraid Dr. McAdams was murdered, ma'am. The MO matches an active serial know as Scarz." Lada nodded automatically, in acknowledgement of the information. Her eyes empty. Almost as lifeless as those of Ava. "You will keep me apprised." Again the non-threat, non-command. "Of course." Berkowitz answered dumbly. Nothing in Lada's body language betrayed any threat, any intent to command or sway the Detective in any conceivable way. And yet he was acting as if he was a worker drone before his hive queen. Outside the precinct Lada sat in her car at the visitor's parking lot, dropped her head in her hands and wept. How many times must she lose pieces of her soul to petty violence?! Why? And for what?!? Crazy was not an excuse. And violence was never preferable to happiness and love. So then why?!? "Why can't I ever die with you, my precious?!?" Lada uttered brokenly. By this point she'd been almost certain Ava had indeed been some incarnation of her truest love ever and consort deity - Yarila. Of course Lada knew why she could never join her lost loves. Because once she had been called to maintain balance in a system of dualities. A task as eternal as she, herself. But now the balance had been tipped. And Lada could not stand at the sidelines and watch any longer. "Forgive me, Ava. I will always love you. And I will always miss you!" Lada raised her head, green eyes burning with determination penetrated the dark night. The car shook as a couple collided with it, limbs entwined in a passionate embrace. Lips locked as if the couple were exchanging life force through their kiss. The woman squealed and chortled happily as her boyfriend pulled her roughly to him and away from the car. "Sorry." The youngsters apologized with goofy, giddy grins, vanishing into the night. Lada picked the pieces of her shattered soul, tucked them down deep, deep, behind walls upon walls and layers of protection and started her car. It was time to get to work!

[GleefulNihilism]

Secret text in your app? What the duece? :P

[ihinka]

There, lost the secret text Background and RP sample yet to come

[Avner]

Lots of good progress on characters so far and plenty of time for new applications. Keep the questions coming there is some great stuff brewing

[ihinka]

My application is officially complete Any connection between my character's concept and the date of the deadline is purely coincidental

[Avner]

So you’re telling me I did this to myself

[ihinka]

pleads the fifth Can I plead the fifth? wonders in European

[Solid Snek]

Originally Posted by ihinka

pleads the fifth Can I plead the fifth? wonders in European

As long as you’re being tried in American court... I think so? 90% sure... ish.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by ihinka

pleads the fifth Can I plead the fifth? wonders in European

Maybe Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights?

[Hound]

Edit: I still didn't like how this sounded.

What I was trying to say was, I built my own version of Mistress Raven and Agent Spectre. I did my best to stay true to both characters while expanding their options. Feel free to use or disregard it as you wish. If you have questions on why I did things, feel free to ask. If anyone needs help with their build and want suggestions, feel free to ask.

[Attitude]

That was nice of you.

[GleefulNihilism]

That is nice of you Hound, and I am curious as to what you'd come up with for Countdown.

[Brian]

@Hound: Was nice of you, and I probably need all the help I can get with Stutter Step

[Hiruma Kohaku]

@Hound
I appreciate the different perspective on the build.

[Hound]

Here is Countdown, I'll get on Stutterstep next.

Note: Unarmed counts as Martial Arts and should be a +12 but I can only select a single array.