Liz Sherman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
youshouldberunning) wrote2014-03-03 03:44 pm
youshouldberunning) wrote2014-03-03 03:44 pm
† - City of Darkness Application - †
Mun
Handle. Gann
Age. 30’s
Contact info. plurk: redlionspride, eMail: tori.bear@gamil.com
Link to reservation. http://theshadows.dreamwidth.org/2266.html?thread=3802#cmt3802
Character
The Basics
canon. Hellboy / Maison de Ports Import
character name. Elizabeth Anne Sherman (Aka: Liz, Sparky)
gender. Female
age. 30 / She was 29 before being pulled to a new place – Born April 15th 1975 (the year is 2004).
appearances.
Liz is about five foot one, pale, pale skin tone, dark blackish brown hair, worn long. it has gotten much longer in the past year. She generally has an athletic body build, small and lithe, though in the past year she has stretch marks to shove she had a baby recently, her chest a bit larger than normal and her physically fit shape is a bit out of shape.
Generally she wears a lot of black. her body suit and bullet proof vest that she had when she showed up to the other place have long gone missing. Now she swears a long black broom skirt that comes clear to the floor. her boots are still with her though, so she’s at least comfortable. She has a tie front poet shirt in a off white, always tied properly but still low on her chest. It was the gift of clothing for her to feel more comfortable while pregnant. Though she no longer is, the outfit is still what she is wearing because it’s what she had. Around her neck she wears her auhk on a metal cord that doesn’t melt when she goes all fiery.
Over all that is a black bag that has some trinkets, good and other survival things in it. In her bag are some small odds and ends the house gave her. A locket that tells her how Lily is doing, a pocket watch, a picture of her, hellboy and Abe, a picture of her and Leon, medical supplies, a couple of scavenged knives, and her B.P.R.D. issued Glock 22, which she’s had for some time and hasn’t fired, leaving her two full clips.
Liz has no major accent, other than American. typically she’ll appear to be a bit withdrawn, gothic american. She has a single scar on her forehead where children throw a rock at her and she lost control. Other then that she doesn’t have any scars or tattoos to be shown.
history.
Hellboy Movie on Wikipedia: Plot
Hellboy 1 Synopsis on IMBD: Plot Interestingly detailed!
Hellboy Wiki: Liz (Live Action Film Section Only)
Biography Info by Guillermo del Toro. This page is a write up, word for word from the special edition DVD. It’s the Biography on Liz that is available on DVD. I typed it up to add to my character info because it gives a lot of her back story that the movie doesn’t show out right.
Comic Book Religions: More for my own reference. Catholic.
For reference points for those who don’t read the links (because I’m sure some of them are annoying):
~Childhood Incident: A quick overview of her childhood. She was born and raised by a loving couple who after some time had trouble and spoke of divorce. Her parents moved around a lot, so she never managed to make or keep friends very long. This might have been a good thing, the moving, as she often had small incidents in school with explosions and fire. By time records made it to a school she had already moved on to the next. Even though her parents didn't blame her for their divorce, she blames herself for it. When she was 11 she had an incident that killed several children and other people, including her mother in a court yard.
~Hellboy, Abe & Broom: She considers Hellboy her oldest friend and after a while her lover. The two share a lot in common, though she has a hard time explaining her feelings for him to him. It scares her to give in like that. She calls him Red or HB.
Abe, who she considers her closest friend is someone easy to confide in. She silently considers him family; really, all three of them are. She calls him Abe or Blue.
Professor Broom, Hellboy’s “father” found her at a halfway house when she was seventeen. He took her in and helped her learn a bit about how to handle her powers. He’s always been very kind and understanding to her. His recent death was a tragic event that helped push her to stay by HB’s side longer. She called him Professor, for the most part.
~B.P.R.D.: The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Originally directed by Professor Broom the B.P.R.D. is a secret government facility closely linked with the FBI to do research and defense on paranormal activity. Liz works off and on for them as part of Paranormal Researchers Teams.
~The Pittsburgh Incident: This happened in 2002 Braddock Town, PA. Six agents enter a small steel town outside of Pittsburgh to investigate demonic entities. Something happened to trigger Liz’s abilities and though she warned everyone to get out she wasn’t able to hold back the power. A mile radius was exploded around her killing the other four agents, destroying property and causing major fire issues. The only other survivor was Hellboy. She had herself locked away in a mental hospital in an attempt to keep others safe from her.
~Current: Liz, still suffering from guilt over the Pittsburgh incident, ‘runaway’ from Hellboy and the team to sit in a mental hospital and try to feel ‘normal’ there. Hellboy visited often, but she asked that if he loved her at all he’d stay away. Rasputin appeared in her room at the mental hospital and while she slept he helped awaken her dreams of fire, causing her to have an episode in the middle of her sleep, blowing up a wing of the mental hospital she was in.
After that John Myer managed to convince her to come back to the Bureau, but she said it was ‘only for the weekend’. That weekend Professor Broom was killed, a tragic death for Hellboy as the man was nearly his father. She spoke with Abe about staying in case Hellboy needed her; with Abe's careful advice she decided to do so, and even decided to go to Moscow with Hellboy and crew, to help out. In other words ‘just for the weekend’ turned into ‘I’m back’.
Rasputin, alive again, attempted to open a portal to bring 7 gods to the planet. He needs Hellboy’s stone arm to open the portal. Wanting Liz’s power to help amplify his own, Rasputin hoped that he can use the girl to make Hellboy do as he wanted and force the big red demon to open the gates; in the end he succeeded. Through the course of the Moscow trip, Liz was split off form Hellboy and on her own with only John. Trapped in a chamber with monsters she forced John to help her release her anger as well as her burning powers. She managed to set the room on fire but unable to properly control it she passed out. Hellboy, John and Liz were all captured by Rasputin.
Placed on an altar before Hellboy and unconscious, Rasputin sued Liz's life to entice Hellboy to open the portal. When he refused Rasputin then sucked the soul out of her body then told Hellboy that it “lies on the other side of the portal”, and to open it. “For her...” he did as told. Liz was out of it for all of this, appearing to be dead. When the last battle was over John tells Hellboy she has no pulse. HB leaned in and whispered something in her ear that manages to bring her soul back to her and wake up. She appears to accept his love easier after that, the movie ending in heated kiss.
They returned to headquarters where Liz has agreed to stay, yet again joining the group and taking up her spot next to HB and Abe.
As a Note on her History with the BPRD between all this, I am glomping together 'events' from the comics into her 'movie' history, mostly to help round out things for her. There is a little difference here and there but nothing that doesn't work out. If details are needed, please ask.
Alterations.
Liz will be pulled from another game that she had been at. I’ve since removed her from that game, but I would like to pick her up again. She’s had a long hard road as it is and I think it will be interesting to see how she handles a new horror setting after dealing with that last one. Especially as this one seems worse than that one had.
First, she appeared in the other place right out of canon, dealing with her and Hellboy starting a rocky relationship. In the Haunted House, she was alone with no cast mates the entire time. She did a slow crawl of investigation, found a place to hunker down and keep her head down. She foraged for food and survival things. In general she put up a good fight to keep herself alive.
Actually, she didn’t die once in the house. She was taken out of it a few times and put in suspension in order to help preserve her, but she didn’t die. Very good survival skills, and some of the ghosts took a liking to her.
She fell into a strange relationship with Leon S. Kennedy (from resident Evil) and after a few mistakes, got pregnant. The pregnancy moved swiftly, unnatural feeling, though it was in reality an actual 9 months, it felt as if it were much faster. Time in the house was always a little messed up. When the baby was born it was almost instantly taken away from her, barely letting her hold it. She had been taken by the doctors and had the baby alone. She got to hold it once, name her Lily, and watched as she was taken away. Later she was released to the house and went in search of her child. The baby Lily had been given to someone else, who instead took her in as her protector.
When she found Lily again there was a group of people protecting the child and at first they wouldn’t let her see the child. When the Protector of the baby at last let her in she was allowed to hold the child without actually getting to keep her for her own. She was always under watch and never got to be alone with her.
Liz stayed with the group, threatening to kill any one of them if they tried to take her away from the baby. It wasn’t them that took her though, but the house. Once again they took her and placed her into the care of the house, in a status that kept her knocked out for a while. It’ll be from here that she will wake up somewhere else. For Liz, she’ll think this is just a new section of the ‘houses’ or a new test. It might take a bit to believe it’s somewhere else.
The changes she developed in the House were fairly strong. She went from untrusting of anyone to trusting a few. She is now fine with people knowing that she’s a freak who is an element of fire. She doesn’t hide it anymore. With the help of a few people in the house she even has a bit more control over it now.
She’s going to have issues with not having her baby around. With not being able to find Lily. She’s already well accustomed to loss, but losing Lily is going to take it’s toll. She’s a bit harder but also easier to spook into starting fires. Her temper is explosive, more so than normal, and from time to time she stops caring if anyone else gets hurt because of the fire, so long as she can take care of what she needs to take care of.
In the house she has been put through medical Procedures, capture, a change of elements from Fire to Water and both for a bit. She’s back to normal fire elements though. She has experienced extreme cold, ghosts, demon dogs, creatures, monsters, facing death, people who were taken over by ghosts and spirits. She’s been cut, hurt, in pain, in numb and other various statuses. Her mental status is on permanent paranoia and she rarely sleeps in order to stay awake to keep an eye on things. She has trust issues, more than before now.
The Psychology
Personality.
A quick overview of Liz would show that she is moody, shy around strangers, and a bit distant. She’s a nice girl though, but she's had a troubled and guilt lined past that tends to make her withdraw a bit. That and she has this longing to be ‘normal’; to fit in. She's a little bit broken, and a little bit confused, somewhat lost but very much trying to get herself on the right track.
She has an extreme case of guilt, as well as survivors’ guilt. There are lots of things in her past that she feels is her fault (and most of the time it was her fault), like her parents divorce or her mothers death, or even the death of so many other people all at once when she was 11. The survivors’ guilt comes from the Pittsburgh Incident where four other members of her team were killed because of the lack of her own control with her powers. Their deaths and the death and destruction of a mile radius around her rests heavily in her mind. That was two years ago. Being raised Catholic doesn’t help either.
Liz dislikes being abnormal and longs to take her place in ‘The Big Out-there’ as she puts it. For the most part she just wants to be normal because she thinks it will make things better some how. To be normal, to like normal things means she can live a good and happy life, right? It takes her a while to realize that she really doesn’t mind being a freak when she has friends like Hellboy and Abe; as Abe said “If there's trouble, all us freaks have is each other” which is starting to sink in now. She’s... happier with Hellboy and the program.
Running away from things has always solved lots for her. She ran away from the projects and care homes she was placed in, she ran away from school, and when Professor Broom found her and took her in she ran away from him as well. Though the difference was with the Professor and his program... she always returned, one way or another. When things get awkward or strange between her and the teams she packs up and ‘runs away’. When the Pittsburg incident happened, after the cover up of all those deaths and the fires were over, she ‘ran away’ again by checking herself into a hospital.
With all her running away habits she is actually a reliable person. If something needs to be done, if she can handle it she will try and get it done. She might not care to work with others often but she can work with a group of people, though it's easier when it's her friends.
She has a large aversion to using her powers. They are hard for her to control (though she is getting better at it!) and is in constant fear of them over taking something again. She's had one too many incidents where her powers have killed people.
In the past year she has gotten better about her problems with people, running away and being what she is. She still however has a bit of a paranoid, closed off personality.
Personality under duress.
Liz isn’t from a horror setting, though some weird monster like things as well as end of the world scenarios have happened to her in canon. She tends to handle those things pretty well, just staring at it like it’s unbelievable and yet she knows it’s fully believable and why me. That being said, she is also coming from a milder horror house before this place. Actually, that one is more a haunted house then anything else. She handles ghosts with relative ease, seeing as she deals with them often enough. Monsters and creatures attacking them? No big deal. Shoot them if they try to bite. Or more accurately, blast them with a blaze of fire to hold them at bay.
She handles the setting pretty well, very adaptable and willing to do what she has to to get where she needs to go. Under constant pressure she tends to get more paranoid and uncomfortable. the more uncomfortable she gets the more likely she will close off from people, or explode. One of the other. So far she has controlled herself without exploding and forgetting, but it;s a possibility.
Now with the thought that her baby (see altered history) could be around or out there somewhere without her, she might actually crack a lot faster. She never wanted to be a mother but now that she is she’d do anything to get her child back again. to make sure she is safe.
Desires & Fears.
All Liz wants is to be normal, or at least happy, surrounded by people she trusts and loves. And to raise her baby, Lily, on her own in peace and no more goddamn horror houses. So much for that, huh? it’s really not a lot to ask for, is it? She’s gotten a better control over her powers, now she just wants some control over her life.
Fears she has are simple as losing control, hurting others, being alone (even if she desires to be left alone). Liz fears most of all losing control of her power and hurting others with it. When she does lose control of her powers she blacks out, most the time someone or something has died when these incidents happen. Being locked or trapped in a space that she can't get out (or others can't leave) is also a great fear. With all of that, deep down she doesn't like being alone. She wants to be normal and live a normal life. Being able to stare at a wall for hours, alone and doing nothing is simple and relaxing, but knowing she is alone bothers her. As much as she pushes herself away from others in the end she just wants to be accepted by others.
In the end her greatest fear is loss of control and hurting others because of it. The fear of feeling the burning pull up from her chest and spread out over her body, reaching out and raising in temperature, escalating out of her control. The fear of the fires leaping from her hands, her head and body, igniting the area around her on fire. That feeling of black starting to fill her sight, the throbbing headache and dizziness. Her mind starting to lose its control as it starts to pass out. The fear of waking up in a charred room with smoking dead bodies littered around her; alone. Though this fear is also fading a bit more as she learns how to control it.
Within the last year she fears losing her baby Lily. Or that Lily wasn’t even a real event in her life. the last thing she wants to learn is that the baby wasn’t real and she’s completely insane. take away her child, her control, her trust and she’ll crack swiftly. She can handle being alone, but letting people get close to her tends to crack her faster as well, because she’ll want to help them as well. Watching them get hurt is always a hard ordeal.
Developing the darkness.
Trying to keep this short as really a lot of it has already been gone over. But developmentally, I think she’ll have to deal a lot with trusting others again, getting close enough to consider helping them, holding her powers under control, and managing to work with other people. As time goes, the fact that she can't find her daughter is going to bother her a lot. Or the fact that she isn’t sure if that other place was real or not will start to affect her, because it took her so long to believe in it in the first place.
Anger, fear, aggression (yeah, yeah, I didn’t mean to take it there), power control, trust. These are the ones that will be the hardest for her to deal with changes. the farther in she goes the harder it will be for her to trust people and the easier it will be to explode, literally, into fire.
Strengths/Weaknesses.
Her strengths in personality would be her loyalties to those she trusts and wants to protect. Which generally is few and far between, but if you can get in on her good side, you’re pretty much a friend for life, unless you betray her. Than she’s not too forgiving. She’s strong minded and thick willed, able to push through a lot of her own problems on her own.
That being said her lack of trust and inability to easily forgive and get close to people is a weakness. She’d rather be alone for the most part, and alone with your thoughts is a bad thing. Trust is hard to gain with her because of past circumstances.
Skills & Abilities
Physical Skills and Flaws.
Liz is in pretty good shape for someone in her 30’s. She’s raised working for the BPRD and has a metabolism, though with in the last month or two she’s had a child. She’s not much of a marathon runner nor does she work out, but she does keep active and on the move. maybe it’s the fire element inside that helps her burn so much fat. She’s not much of a fighter either, nor does she know martial arts or any major hand to hand combat stuff. She does know a bit of hand to hand, but she’s not really trained for that kind of thing.
The fire element inside makes her seem a bit lighter but she also feels warm to the touch. Her coordination isn’t too bad, a bit like a cat really. She’s fast on her feet, and if not? She’ll burn things in her way.
Mental Skills and Flaws.
She’s not much of a mathematician or a problem solver, though she does tend to be the voice of reason in her little group. She likes to stay behind the scenes more than anything and is a bit more of a follower than a leader. That being said, she does know how to lead if the time comes to it. Still she would rather be part of a small intimate group them a large one, and better off still she’d rather solo things, just to assure people are safe from whatever they are going after as well as herself.
She’s smart but no brilliant mind of the scientific community. She’s not much for computers though can handle electronics given to her for work. She likes things simple and works simple. All the fancy shit just complicates things. That said, she’s not so great with things when they get complex. This oddly includes emotions and relationships.
Emotional Skills and Flaws.
Emotionally balanced? Oh ho, that was a good laugh. She’s level headed, for the most part, but she isn’t balanced. Her emotions at times can get the better of her, and she does tend to stick with one emotion for a bit, generally the darker more depressed emotions. She doesn’t how ever break down in an instant, and she’s pretty tough. Still, it’s easy to get into her head, and possible to set off an emotional reaction that will cause a pyromatic explosion.
Supernatural Skills.
Liz is a Pyrokinetic/Pyrokinesis user. The ability to hold mental control over fire/flames. She can mentally produce fire out of thin air needing no 'perfect' conditions of environment, element or good weather. The fire generally projects from her hands first then surrounds her body in a protective cocoon of super hot blue flames. The color varies by temperature as any normal fire would. At the height of her powers she can destroy a rather large radius around her with a blast of superheated blue flames (this has been recorded to over a mile around).
When on fire she can control where to send it, who and what to burn. She can control it pretty well, expect when her emotions get the better of her. When her emotions get loose she loses control. If she panics or gets too mad she tends to burn too bright and too close, slowly building up only to explode. This explosion can be small and condensed or large and wide. Otherwise? She’s pretty good with her control now. Having been helped along by other fire users in the other place she was at, she’d picked up some form of control here and there.
Supernatural Flaws.
As I said above, if she loses control it could be a big explosions. She’s also not the best at controlling her emotions, so this is a real threat. It does wear her out when she uses too much of it, or if she tries to control too much of it. The bigger the fire and longer she holds control over it the more tired she gets. After all, it’s all mental for her. She has to be conscious in order to do it. if she holds it too long she might faint and drop right after.
Skill & Ability growth.
I seem to like putting her through hell, but the last place was more a softly haunted house and not as horrifying as I would have loved. I look forward to trying to see what I can do with her mentally that I haven’t yet done, as well as physically. I want to develop her stress levels to the point that she actually does lose control of her fires, that she burns a place brightly and even brings others to harm. I think in the end that will stress her out a lot more.
Not to mention the issue with Lily being missing. Is she real? Is she a strange Dream? Is this place part of the other? was the other real or part of this place? Is she still in that mental hospital and really losing it or not. I would love to do things to mentally mess with her in this department.
Samples
Please choose two of the following prompts to write a sample from:
1. Desire
2. Lust
3. Power
4. Anger
5. Sorrow
6. Madness
7. Anxiety
prose sample for prompt [Sorrow]
Liz woke to the sound of a baby crying, she was sure that was what she heard. It wasn’t the wind through the floor boards or walls, it wasn’t something in the ceiling. There wasn’t another baby in the building that she knew of. Hell, there were no babies at all in the building that she knew of, but she heard her cry. She heard the sound of Lily, waking up from sleep and crying for something.
For a moment she was back in the house, the first one, curled up on the floor and not far from the bassinet that Lily should have been in. Her mind flashed from horror house break down to something painted nicely. She scrambled to her feet, taking a deep breath to wake up more. “I’m here.” She called softly to the girl. “Momma’s here. One moment.” She whispered, reaching to where Lily should be, taking hold of the bundle of blanket and child and... pausing.
Her reality shifted in her eyes again, to where she really was. The blanket was her coat, wadded up and used as a pillow earlier. She shook it out and choked back a cry. for a moment she felt panic well up in her chest, twisting around to look. “Lily!?” She called out, swearing she could hear the sound of the baby.
Her breathing choked again on itself, jerking back to look beyond her. The same space she curled up the night before, or was it a hour before, for a nap. An uncomfortable nap. that’s right. Lily wasn’t here. Her eyes narrowed together in sorrow, her body shook a bit as she lowered herself back to the floor she was camping on, leaning back into the wall. Sliding her arms around her body she held back tears, though she could feel the sting of them trying.
This wasn’t home, there was no Lily. Or there was a Lily and the house had taken her again. Or this was neither and she didn’t know or understand where or what she was doing here.
For a good hour after she practices flicking a fire on and off with her hand, once in a while burning off tears to hide them as she stared off at the bundled up jacket.
prose sample for prompt [Power]
It had started with a simple attack of a creature. She doesn’t remember anything about that creature, other than the sound it made as the flesh burned of, the fire licking right now to the bones. The sounds of it’s body, falling dead to the ground. There were a few of them laying at her feet, but she didn’t notice that anymore.
She’d gone too far. Let it go too long.
Her head lolled back and a look of pure joy crossed her face. Mouth parted and smiling in a way that was almost demented. Her eyes were open but nearly closed, orange flames seeming to dance in her eyes as she stared up into nothing. It was like she was hearing music no one else could hear or even feel. Her hands held out to the side, and for a moment one might think she was floating, lifted off the ground on a jet of blasting fire.
to anyone watching she looked like a very tall pillar of fire, her hair floating above her, splayed out and dancing like caught in a wind. Her clothing in tatters but not burning. Her necklace glowed a bright orange, barely see-able through the thick fires around her. The ground before her was blackened and burnt, unable to catch fire anymore on it’s own.
For Liz, it was all power. It was power and desire and love and hope and a blissfulness that she didn’t want to let go of. She’d let it go too far, and the feeling was euphoric. This time she didn’t fight it. This time she didn’t try to force it down. She let the fire out and the element dance, letting it sweep out and destroy anything near.
And herself? She felt happy for the first time in years.
Handle. Gann
Age. 30’s
Contact info. plurk: redlionspride, eMail: tori.bear@gamil.com
Link to reservation. http://theshadows.dreamwidth.org/2266.html?thread=3802#cmt3802
Character
The Basics
canon. Hellboy / Maison de Ports Import
character name. Elizabeth Anne Sherman (Aka: Liz, Sparky)
gender. Female
age. 30 / She was 29 before being pulled to a new place – Born April 15th 1975 (the year is 2004).
appearances.
Liz is about five foot one, pale, pale skin tone, dark blackish brown hair, worn long. it has gotten much longer in the past year. She generally has an athletic body build, small and lithe, though in the past year she has stretch marks to shove she had a baby recently, her chest a bit larger than normal and her physically fit shape is a bit out of shape.
Generally she wears a lot of black. her body suit and bullet proof vest that she had when she showed up to the other place have long gone missing. Now she swears a long black broom skirt that comes clear to the floor. her boots are still with her though, so she’s at least comfortable. She has a tie front poet shirt in a off white, always tied properly but still low on her chest. It was the gift of clothing for her to feel more comfortable while pregnant. Though she no longer is, the outfit is still what she is wearing because it’s what she had. Around her neck she wears her auhk on a metal cord that doesn’t melt when she goes all fiery.
Over all that is a black bag that has some trinkets, good and other survival things in it. In her bag are some small odds and ends the house gave her. A locket that tells her how Lily is doing, a pocket watch, a picture of her, hellboy and Abe, a picture of her and Leon, medical supplies, a couple of scavenged knives, and her B.P.R.D. issued Glock 22, which she’s had for some time and hasn’t fired, leaving her two full clips.
Liz has no major accent, other than American. typically she’ll appear to be a bit withdrawn, gothic american. She has a single scar on her forehead where children throw a rock at her and she lost control. Other then that she doesn’t have any scars or tattoos to be shown.
history.
Hellboy Movie on Wikipedia: Plot
Hellboy 1 Synopsis on IMBD: Plot Interestingly detailed!
Hellboy Wiki: Liz (Live Action Film Section Only)
Biography Info by Guillermo del Toro. This page is a write up, word for word from the special edition DVD. It’s the Biography on Liz that is available on DVD. I typed it up to add to my character info because it gives a lot of her back story that the movie doesn’t show out right.
Comic Book Religions: More for my own reference. Catholic.
For reference points for those who don’t read the links (because I’m sure some of them are annoying):
~Childhood Incident: A quick overview of her childhood. She was born and raised by a loving couple who after some time had trouble and spoke of divorce. Her parents moved around a lot, so she never managed to make or keep friends very long. This might have been a good thing, the moving, as she often had small incidents in school with explosions and fire. By time records made it to a school she had already moved on to the next. Even though her parents didn't blame her for their divorce, she blames herself for it. When she was 11 she had an incident that killed several children and other people, including her mother in a court yard.
~Hellboy, Abe & Broom: She considers Hellboy her oldest friend and after a while her lover. The two share a lot in common, though she has a hard time explaining her feelings for him to him. It scares her to give in like that. She calls him Red or HB.
Abe, who she considers her closest friend is someone easy to confide in. She silently considers him family; really, all three of them are. She calls him Abe or Blue.
Professor Broom, Hellboy’s “father” found her at a halfway house when she was seventeen. He took her in and helped her learn a bit about how to handle her powers. He’s always been very kind and understanding to her. His recent death was a tragic event that helped push her to stay by HB’s side longer. She called him Professor, for the most part.
~B.P.R.D.: The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Originally directed by Professor Broom the B.P.R.D. is a secret government facility closely linked with the FBI to do research and defense on paranormal activity. Liz works off and on for them as part of Paranormal Researchers Teams.
~The Pittsburgh Incident: This happened in 2002 Braddock Town, PA. Six agents enter a small steel town outside of Pittsburgh to investigate demonic entities. Something happened to trigger Liz’s abilities and though she warned everyone to get out she wasn’t able to hold back the power. A mile radius was exploded around her killing the other four agents, destroying property and causing major fire issues. The only other survivor was Hellboy. She had herself locked away in a mental hospital in an attempt to keep others safe from her.
~Current: Liz, still suffering from guilt over the Pittsburgh incident, ‘runaway’ from Hellboy and the team to sit in a mental hospital and try to feel ‘normal’ there. Hellboy visited often, but she asked that if he loved her at all he’d stay away. Rasputin appeared in her room at the mental hospital and while she slept he helped awaken her dreams of fire, causing her to have an episode in the middle of her sleep, blowing up a wing of the mental hospital she was in.
After that John Myer managed to convince her to come back to the Bureau, but she said it was ‘only for the weekend’. That weekend Professor Broom was killed, a tragic death for Hellboy as the man was nearly his father. She spoke with Abe about staying in case Hellboy needed her; with Abe's careful advice she decided to do so, and even decided to go to Moscow with Hellboy and crew, to help out. In other words ‘just for the weekend’ turned into ‘I’m back’.
Rasputin, alive again, attempted to open a portal to bring 7 gods to the planet. He needs Hellboy’s stone arm to open the portal. Wanting Liz’s power to help amplify his own, Rasputin hoped that he can use the girl to make Hellboy do as he wanted and force the big red demon to open the gates; in the end he succeeded. Through the course of the Moscow trip, Liz was split off form Hellboy and on her own with only John. Trapped in a chamber with monsters she forced John to help her release her anger as well as her burning powers. She managed to set the room on fire but unable to properly control it she passed out. Hellboy, John and Liz were all captured by Rasputin.
Placed on an altar before Hellboy and unconscious, Rasputin sued Liz's life to entice Hellboy to open the portal. When he refused Rasputin then sucked the soul out of her body then told Hellboy that it “lies on the other side of the portal”, and to open it. “For her...” he did as told. Liz was out of it for all of this, appearing to be dead. When the last battle was over John tells Hellboy she has no pulse. HB leaned in and whispered something in her ear that manages to bring her soul back to her and wake up. She appears to accept his love easier after that, the movie ending in heated kiss.
They returned to headquarters where Liz has agreed to stay, yet again joining the group and taking up her spot next to HB and Abe.
As a Note on her History with the BPRD between all this, I am glomping together 'events' from the comics into her 'movie' history, mostly to help round out things for her. There is a little difference here and there but nothing that doesn't work out. If details are needed, please ask.
Alterations.
Liz will be pulled from another game that she had been at. I’ve since removed her from that game, but I would like to pick her up again. She’s had a long hard road as it is and I think it will be interesting to see how she handles a new horror setting after dealing with that last one. Especially as this one seems worse than that one had.
First, she appeared in the other place right out of canon, dealing with her and Hellboy starting a rocky relationship. In the Haunted House, she was alone with no cast mates the entire time. She did a slow crawl of investigation, found a place to hunker down and keep her head down. She foraged for food and survival things. In general she put up a good fight to keep herself alive.
Actually, she didn’t die once in the house. She was taken out of it a few times and put in suspension in order to help preserve her, but she didn’t die. Very good survival skills, and some of the ghosts took a liking to her.
She fell into a strange relationship with Leon S. Kennedy (from resident Evil) and after a few mistakes, got pregnant. The pregnancy moved swiftly, unnatural feeling, though it was in reality an actual 9 months, it felt as if it were much faster. Time in the house was always a little messed up. When the baby was born it was almost instantly taken away from her, barely letting her hold it. She had been taken by the doctors and had the baby alone. She got to hold it once, name her Lily, and watched as she was taken away. Later she was released to the house and went in search of her child. The baby Lily had been given to someone else, who instead took her in as her protector.
When she found Lily again there was a group of people protecting the child and at first they wouldn’t let her see the child. When the Protector of the baby at last let her in she was allowed to hold the child without actually getting to keep her for her own. She was always under watch and never got to be alone with her.
Liz stayed with the group, threatening to kill any one of them if they tried to take her away from the baby. It wasn’t them that took her though, but the house. Once again they took her and placed her into the care of the house, in a status that kept her knocked out for a while. It’ll be from here that she will wake up somewhere else. For Liz, she’ll think this is just a new section of the ‘houses’ or a new test. It might take a bit to believe it’s somewhere else.
The changes she developed in the House were fairly strong. She went from untrusting of anyone to trusting a few. She is now fine with people knowing that she’s a freak who is an element of fire. She doesn’t hide it anymore. With the help of a few people in the house she even has a bit more control over it now.
She’s going to have issues with not having her baby around. With not being able to find Lily. She’s already well accustomed to loss, but losing Lily is going to take it’s toll. She’s a bit harder but also easier to spook into starting fires. Her temper is explosive, more so than normal, and from time to time she stops caring if anyone else gets hurt because of the fire, so long as she can take care of what she needs to take care of.
In the house she has been put through medical Procedures, capture, a change of elements from Fire to Water and both for a bit. She’s back to normal fire elements though. She has experienced extreme cold, ghosts, demon dogs, creatures, monsters, facing death, people who were taken over by ghosts and spirits. She’s been cut, hurt, in pain, in numb and other various statuses. Her mental status is on permanent paranoia and she rarely sleeps in order to stay awake to keep an eye on things. She has trust issues, more than before now.
The Psychology
Personality.
A quick overview of Liz would show that she is moody, shy around strangers, and a bit distant. She’s a nice girl though, but she's had a troubled and guilt lined past that tends to make her withdraw a bit. That and she has this longing to be ‘normal’; to fit in. She's a little bit broken, and a little bit confused, somewhat lost but very much trying to get herself on the right track.
She has an extreme case of guilt, as well as survivors’ guilt. There are lots of things in her past that she feels is her fault (and most of the time it was her fault), like her parents divorce or her mothers death, or even the death of so many other people all at once when she was 11. The survivors’ guilt comes from the Pittsburgh Incident where four other members of her team were killed because of the lack of her own control with her powers. Their deaths and the death and destruction of a mile radius around her rests heavily in her mind. That was two years ago. Being raised Catholic doesn’t help either.
Liz dislikes being abnormal and longs to take her place in ‘The Big Out-there’ as she puts it. For the most part she just wants to be normal because she thinks it will make things better some how. To be normal, to like normal things means she can live a good and happy life, right? It takes her a while to realize that she really doesn’t mind being a freak when she has friends like Hellboy and Abe; as Abe said “If there's trouble, all us freaks have is each other” which is starting to sink in now. She’s... happier with Hellboy and the program.
Running away from things has always solved lots for her. She ran away from the projects and care homes she was placed in, she ran away from school, and when Professor Broom found her and took her in she ran away from him as well. Though the difference was with the Professor and his program... she always returned, one way or another. When things get awkward or strange between her and the teams she packs up and ‘runs away’. When the Pittsburg incident happened, after the cover up of all those deaths and the fires were over, she ‘ran away’ again by checking herself into a hospital.
With all her running away habits she is actually a reliable person. If something needs to be done, if she can handle it she will try and get it done. She might not care to work with others often but she can work with a group of people, though it's easier when it's her friends.
She has a large aversion to using her powers. They are hard for her to control (though she is getting better at it!) and is in constant fear of them over taking something again. She's had one too many incidents where her powers have killed people.
In the past year she has gotten better about her problems with people, running away and being what she is. She still however has a bit of a paranoid, closed off personality.
Personality under duress.
Liz isn’t from a horror setting, though some weird monster like things as well as end of the world scenarios have happened to her in canon. She tends to handle those things pretty well, just staring at it like it’s unbelievable and yet she knows it’s fully believable and why me. That being said, she is also coming from a milder horror house before this place. Actually, that one is more a haunted house then anything else. She handles ghosts with relative ease, seeing as she deals with them often enough. Monsters and creatures attacking them? No big deal. Shoot them if they try to bite. Or more accurately, blast them with a blaze of fire to hold them at bay.
She handles the setting pretty well, very adaptable and willing to do what she has to to get where she needs to go. Under constant pressure she tends to get more paranoid and uncomfortable. the more uncomfortable she gets the more likely she will close off from people, or explode. One of the other. So far she has controlled herself without exploding and forgetting, but it;s a possibility.
Now with the thought that her baby (see altered history) could be around or out there somewhere without her, she might actually crack a lot faster. She never wanted to be a mother but now that she is she’d do anything to get her child back again. to make sure she is safe.
Desires & Fears.
All Liz wants is to be normal, or at least happy, surrounded by people she trusts and loves. And to raise her baby, Lily, on her own in peace and no more goddamn horror houses. So much for that, huh? it’s really not a lot to ask for, is it? She’s gotten a better control over her powers, now she just wants some control over her life.
Fears she has are simple as losing control, hurting others, being alone (even if she desires to be left alone). Liz fears most of all losing control of her power and hurting others with it. When she does lose control of her powers she blacks out, most the time someone or something has died when these incidents happen. Being locked or trapped in a space that she can't get out (or others can't leave) is also a great fear. With all of that, deep down she doesn't like being alone. She wants to be normal and live a normal life. Being able to stare at a wall for hours, alone and doing nothing is simple and relaxing, but knowing she is alone bothers her. As much as she pushes herself away from others in the end she just wants to be accepted by others.
In the end her greatest fear is loss of control and hurting others because of it. The fear of feeling the burning pull up from her chest and spread out over her body, reaching out and raising in temperature, escalating out of her control. The fear of the fires leaping from her hands, her head and body, igniting the area around her on fire. That feeling of black starting to fill her sight, the throbbing headache and dizziness. Her mind starting to lose its control as it starts to pass out. The fear of waking up in a charred room with smoking dead bodies littered around her; alone. Though this fear is also fading a bit more as she learns how to control it.
Within the last year she fears losing her baby Lily. Or that Lily wasn’t even a real event in her life. the last thing she wants to learn is that the baby wasn’t real and she’s completely insane. take away her child, her control, her trust and she’ll crack swiftly. She can handle being alone, but letting people get close to her tends to crack her faster as well, because she’ll want to help them as well. Watching them get hurt is always a hard ordeal.
Developing the darkness.
Trying to keep this short as really a lot of it has already been gone over. But developmentally, I think she’ll have to deal a lot with trusting others again, getting close enough to consider helping them, holding her powers under control, and managing to work with other people. As time goes, the fact that she can't find her daughter is going to bother her a lot. Or the fact that she isn’t sure if that other place was real or not will start to affect her, because it took her so long to believe in it in the first place.
Anger, fear, aggression (yeah, yeah, I didn’t mean to take it there), power control, trust. These are the ones that will be the hardest for her to deal with changes. the farther in she goes the harder it will be for her to trust people and the easier it will be to explode, literally, into fire.
Strengths/Weaknesses.
Her strengths in personality would be her loyalties to those she trusts and wants to protect. Which generally is few and far between, but if you can get in on her good side, you’re pretty much a friend for life, unless you betray her. Than she’s not too forgiving. She’s strong minded and thick willed, able to push through a lot of her own problems on her own.
That being said her lack of trust and inability to easily forgive and get close to people is a weakness. She’d rather be alone for the most part, and alone with your thoughts is a bad thing. Trust is hard to gain with her because of past circumstances.
Skills & Abilities
Physical Skills and Flaws.
Liz is in pretty good shape for someone in her 30’s. She’s raised working for the BPRD and has a metabolism, though with in the last month or two she’s had a child. She’s not much of a marathon runner nor does she work out, but she does keep active and on the move. maybe it’s the fire element inside that helps her burn so much fat. She’s not much of a fighter either, nor does she know martial arts or any major hand to hand combat stuff. She does know a bit of hand to hand, but she’s not really trained for that kind of thing.
The fire element inside makes her seem a bit lighter but she also feels warm to the touch. Her coordination isn’t too bad, a bit like a cat really. She’s fast on her feet, and if not? She’ll burn things in her way.
Mental Skills and Flaws.
She’s not much of a mathematician or a problem solver, though she does tend to be the voice of reason in her little group. She likes to stay behind the scenes more than anything and is a bit more of a follower than a leader. That being said, she does know how to lead if the time comes to it. Still she would rather be part of a small intimate group them a large one, and better off still she’d rather solo things, just to assure people are safe from whatever they are going after as well as herself.
She’s smart but no brilliant mind of the scientific community. She’s not much for computers though can handle electronics given to her for work. She likes things simple and works simple. All the fancy shit just complicates things. That said, she’s not so great with things when they get complex. This oddly includes emotions and relationships.
Emotional Skills and Flaws.
Emotionally balanced? Oh ho, that was a good laugh. She’s level headed, for the most part, but she isn’t balanced. Her emotions at times can get the better of her, and she does tend to stick with one emotion for a bit, generally the darker more depressed emotions. She doesn’t how ever break down in an instant, and she’s pretty tough. Still, it’s easy to get into her head, and possible to set off an emotional reaction that will cause a pyromatic explosion.
Supernatural Skills.
Liz is a Pyrokinetic/Pyrokinesis user. The ability to hold mental control over fire/flames. She can mentally produce fire out of thin air needing no 'perfect' conditions of environment, element or good weather. The fire generally projects from her hands first then surrounds her body in a protective cocoon of super hot blue flames. The color varies by temperature as any normal fire would. At the height of her powers she can destroy a rather large radius around her with a blast of superheated blue flames (this has been recorded to over a mile around).
When on fire she can control where to send it, who and what to burn. She can control it pretty well, expect when her emotions get the better of her. When her emotions get loose she loses control. If she panics or gets too mad she tends to burn too bright and too close, slowly building up only to explode. This explosion can be small and condensed or large and wide. Otherwise? She’s pretty good with her control now. Having been helped along by other fire users in the other place she was at, she’d picked up some form of control here and there.
Supernatural Flaws.
As I said above, if she loses control it could be a big explosions. She’s also not the best at controlling her emotions, so this is a real threat. It does wear her out when she uses too much of it, or if she tries to control too much of it. The bigger the fire and longer she holds control over it the more tired she gets. After all, it’s all mental for her. She has to be conscious in order to do it. if she holds it too long she might faint and drop right after.
Skill & Ability growth.
I seem to like putting her through hell, but the last place was more a softly haunted house and not as horrifying as I would have loved. I look forward to trying to see what I can do with her mentally that I haven’t yet done, as well as physically. I want to develop her stress levels to the point that she actually does lose control of her fires, that she burns a place brightly and even brings others to harm. I think in the end that will stress her out a lot more.
Not to mention the issue with Lily being missing. Is she real? Is she a strange Dream? Is this place part of the other? was the other real or part of this place? Is she still in that mental hospital and really losing it or not. I would love to do things to mentally mess with her in this department.
Samples
Please choose two of the following prompts to write a sample from:
1. Desire
2. Lust
3. Power
4. Anger
5. Sorrow
6. Madness
7. Anxiety
prose sample for prompt [Sorrow]
Liz woke to the sound of a baby crying, she was sure that was what she heard. It wasn’t the wind through the floor boards or walls, it wasn’t something in the ceiling. There wasn’t another baby in the building that she knew of. Hell, there were no babies at all in the building that she knew of, but she heard her cry. She heard the sound of Lily, waking up from sleep and crying for something.
For a moment she was back in the house, the first one, curled up on the floor and not far from the bassinet that Lily should have been in. Her mind flashed from horror house break down to something painted nicely. She scrambled to her feet, taking a deep breath to wake up more. “I’m here.” She called softly to the girl. “Momma’s here. One moment.” She whispered, reaching to where Lily should be, taking hold of the bundle of blanket and child and... pausing.
Her reality shifted in her eyes again, to where she really was. The blanket was her coat, wadded up and used as a pillow earlier. She shook it out and choked back a cry. for a moment she felt panic well up in her chest, twisting around to look. “Lily!?” She called out, swearing she could hear the sound of the baby.
Her breathing choked again on itself, jerking back to look beyond her. The same space she curled up the night before, or was it a hour before, for a nap. An uncomfortable nap. that’s right. Lily wasn’t here. Her eyes narrowed together in sorrow, her body shook a bit as she lowered herself back to the floor she was camping on, leaning back into the wall. Sliding her arms around her body she held back tears, though she could feel the sting of them trying.
This wasn’t home, there was no Lily. Or there was a Lily and the house had taken her again. Or this was neither and she didn’t know or understand where or what she was doing here.
For a good hour after she practices flicking a fire on and off with her hand, once in a while burning off tears to hide them as she stared off at the bundled up jacket.
prose sample for prompt [Power]
It had started with a simple attack of a creature. She doesn’t remember anything about that creature, other than the sound it made as the flesh burned of, the fire licking right now to the bones. The sounds of it’s body, falling dead to the ground. There were a few of them laying at her feet, but she didn’t notice that anymore.
She’d gone too far. Let it go too long.
Her head lolled back and a look of pure joy crossed her face. Mouth parted and smiling in a way that was almost demented. Her eyes were open but nearly closed, orange flames seeming to dance in her eyes as she stared up into nothing. It was like she was hearing music no one else could hear or even feel. Her hands held out to the side, and for a moment one might think she was floating, lifted off the ground on a jet of blasting fire.
to anyone watching she looked like a very tall pillar of fire, her hair floating above her, splayed out and dancing like caught in a wind. Her clothing in tatters but not burning. Her necklace glowed a bright orange, barely see-able through the thick fires around her. The ground before her was blackened and burnt, unable to catch fire anymore on it’s own.
For Liz, it was all power. It was power and desire and love and hope and a blissfulness that she didn’t want to let go of. She’d let it go too far, and the feeling was euphoric. This time she didn’t fight it. This time she didn’t try to force it down. She let the fire out and the element dance, letting it sweep out and destroy anything near.
And herself? She felt happy for the first time in years.