Fade Rift application

[bloodredcrow]

NATIVE APPLICATION

PLAYER

Name: Ophelia
Age: legal
Contact: already on the contact list
Other Characters: Cullen Rutherford
Interests: Having Cullen here is awesome, but being in a position of authority like he is, he's not really able to get stuck in with people the way someone like Natasha can. He also can't run counter to the needs of the Inquisition and remain IC, but Natasha potentially could. I'd love having her muddle things up, get involved in some serious spywork, and possibly find a place where she can belong. Getting to play through the arc of her being betrayed by one organization, losing the ability to trust, being picked up by a better organization, and having to relearn parts of her humanity is really appealing. Also, lots of fighting, and making as many enemies as she does friends. Maybe even more enemies than friends. She's got a lot of potential for a redemption arc, and those are always fun.

CHARACTER

Name: Natasha Romanoff (though she goes by just Natasha, no family name)
Canon/OC: MCU
Journal: bloodredcrow
Race: human
Nationality: she's got no clue, though she'd guess Orlesian if she had to
Occupation: assassin (former Antivan Crow)
Mage or Non-Mage: non-mage
Age: Your guess is as good as hers, but she'd guess mid-twenties. She was thought to be around six when she was sold to the crows eighteen years ago. This estimate is actually low and mostly due to the fact that she was very petite and didn't talk much, but again, no way for her to know that.

History

canon history

Natasha's family went on the run when she was a baby. She never knew why, but understood that they couldn't trust anyone. They settled in Antiva. The detachment continued. Natasha's parents didn't make friends or let her out to play. She learned early on not to trust anyone or anything, but they were happy for a few years. Her parents had another baby, so Natasha got a brother. Then their house caught fire in the middle of the night. Natasha's mother threw her out a window to safety, went back for her brother, and she never saw any of her family again.

The man who caught her ended up being a terrible person. A con man who recognized her potential as bait and folded her into many of his schemes. She learned a lot of useful and questionable skills, and buried her grief under a shitty attitude. After a few years, she was more trouble than she was worth, and was sold to the Crows. She trained hard and kept her head down, not wanting the Crows to decide they had no more use for her as the con man had. She witnessed early in her training the killing of recruits that were unfortunate enough to make one mistake too many. It hardened her resolve, burned away her childhood innocence. When she was put to the test, pitted against another recruit, a friend, her desperation to survive overshadowed everything else. It was messy and brutal - not the most skilled kill, but she appeared to show no remorse. If she'd known the kind of attention it would bring down on her, she might not have fought so hard.

Anything that had been left of her innocence was lost in the experimentation - magic and torture and neverending pain. Natasha was left with two options: shut down the parts of her that could still feel and be hurt, or let the process grind her into dust. Again, her desperation to survive won. She became one of the best, at a terrible price, but there was no one left to care about her, and a truly great assassin is so hard to build.

When the houses started falling, she saw her chance, and she bolted. Full of resentment for what had been done to her, she didn't want to get caught in the mess, and felt no loyalty or desire to protect the superiors who had hurt her so thoroughly and systematically over the years. Still, life as an assassin was all she really knew, so she took her talents and turned them to freelance work. So far, it's working out pretty well for her.

Personality

Natasha's personality is very dependent on how well she knows you, how much she trusts you, and what she wants from you. The bulk of it is cobbled together almost entirely from covers, and those can only hold out os long. Hich makes her not that great with people for any extended stretch of time. The problem is not so much that Natasha's not a person who likes people. The problem is actually that Natasha doesn't really now who she is. She's not interested in making friends, has serious issues with authority figures, and wouldn't trust rain to be wet. However, she is very well aware at how much easier it is to get people to do what you want if they like you, or if they think they're the one using you. She doesn't want friends, but she will very quickly learn that having none in an organization like the Inquisition is a good way to end up on the outside again. So she will fake it. She will fake it so hard.

Her surface personality, the one that most people will end up seeing, is fairly easy going and doesn't seem to take much seriously. She doesn't share anything real about herself, and shows an intense interest in the lives and interests of others. She remembers things that they like, details about them, and can pull them out at a later date as false proof that she cares. The more you know about someone, the easier to manipulate them. She balances the interest and hollow friendly gestures with just enough annoying behaviour to keep anyone from trying to get any closer than casual friend. She aims to be the person you like when they're around, miss if you haven't seen them for weeks, but don't go seeking out unless you think they might need help.

If someone does seem like they're determined to get to know her better, the kind gestures become less frequent, and the annoying pranks and insensitivity increase. She might pepper in a few low blows and then act surprised when they have their desired effect, cite a clear difference in personality and incompatibility. She doesn't want real friends. She doesn't want any liabilities.

Essentially, if you're fine with Natasha putting on the act of someone who wants a fuck or a friend and never getting all that close, you'll be fine. If you try to actually get to know her, she'll cut bait and try to hurt you just enough to keep you from wanting to come back.

Opinions & Affiliations

Natasha used to be a member of the Anvitan Crows, but she left them several years ago to do her own thing. Which is really just the same thing she did for them, but with no one else pulling her strings. A small part of her is grateful for the education they provided, as it's her only means of earning a living. A much much larger part was delighted to see them fall and would probably take a contract on any of her old superiors for free, just for the satisfaction of being able to return a fraction of the hurt they visited on her during her training. There is no love lost there, and no shred of loyalty.

Her opinions on literally just about everything else are flexible. Holding strong opinions doesn't make it easy to kill people for money, so all of hers are mild. She doesn't believe in the Maker, so she thinks the Chantry is a big con. She's pretty glad that race relations will probably always be in turmoil, because it's a big part of the reason she finds work. She took jobs on both sides of the Mage/Templar war, and is totally fine with that.

Adaptation

It's not a huge leap to take a master assassin and make her a master assassin. She's still a human, still a killer, still a potential asset to the greater good. The world is different, but Natasha (and even her place in it) can remain almost entirely the same. She still gets to escape from a shadowy organization, spend some time as a free agent, and get a chance at a little redemption with a new organization that's a little more above board. In theory.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Natasha is the rogueiest rogue that ever did rogue. An assassin's assassin. She's fairly good at playing people, though not as good at playing the overall political game. Not directly. She can manipulate key players to nudge things in a direction she wants, but she doesn't have enough clout to be an important player in her own right. She has difficulty being genuine. In any situation where she has to get along well with others for an extended period of time, she's probably going to do more harm than good. She's just not used to it. She doesn't do teamwork.

She's great on her own, though. She's morally entirely grey. She has no problem torturing and killing, no problem essentially destroying someone's life. She's able to justify it by thinking of herself as merely an instrument of destruction. If the chaos doesn't come from her hand, someone else will be the one to set it in motion. As far as she's concerned, blame rests with the person who sets her on her path, who pays her fee and sets her task. This lets her get down to some really questionable things and not even blink.

Inventory

She won't be coming with much, mostly because she won't be sure whether or not she wants to stay. Still, there are some basics that an assassin just can't be without. Daggers, quite a few of them. Functional leather armour in a few different dark colours for different settings. Traps, poisons, and the makings thereof, all packed away in a trunk. Camping gear, including quite a lot of furs - she's used to roughing it, and hates the cold.

Motivation

Money, first and foremost. She is an assassin, and it's the only thing she can count on. There's also that whole problem of the end of the world being nigh, and if the Inquisition is the side that's out to save it, then it makes sense to let them buy her services. She'd rather the world didn't end. She lives in it, after all.

Recruitment Quest

possible history - (I originally had this bit in her history section because it didn't seem like it belonged here but it puts me over the word limit please just pretend that this is the right spot!)
Her latest job is keeping the Inquisition from getting a foothold in a specific circle of Orlais society, which she's accomplishing with a little bit of murder and kidnapping and forgery, but mostly by foiling specific attempts on their behalf in ways she finds more amusing.

A small group of Inquisition members has been after the backing of a select group of Orlesian nobility. I'm flexible on the exact details of this part. I can come up with specifics on my own and run the NPCs needed, or if you have something in the pipeline that you think could dovetail in, I'm happy to fold her into an existing plot. The problem is that they can't seem to get their foot in the door. People are going missing, turning up dead, slamming doors in their faces. Which would be annoying enough, but reports and information are being delayed, altered, or going missing altogether. Clearly there's something working against the Inquisition members, as they're usually highly competent. So, there's a new step in the plan. Find this person who's determined to piss in their cornflakes, and either eliminate them or flip them. Which means they can discover that there is an even deeper reason these nobles are so hesitant to help, and perhaps eliminate it and get some powerful people behind their cause.

I'm less concerned with running a specific plot here than I am with finding a way for her recruitment into the Inquisition to closely mirror her canon recruitment into SHIELD. Send an agent to neutralize the threat she's posing, and have them recognize her potential and bring her in instead of kill her.

SAMPLES

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While Natasha might not be entirely certain what she was expecting from the Inquisition, but this isn't it. With all the talk, the speculation, she'd expected something a little more... polished, perhaps. The Hold's facade, still crumbling in places, and the refugees slipping out in sprawling tent cities. She's pretty sure there is someone literally sleeping up a tree in one of the courtyards. It's disorganized and vibrant and not nearly as cohesive as some would have her believe, and it's perfect. She can blend in here, get her hooks in, find a place. If they're going to save the world, she'd rather be on their side. Besides, with the general feeling in Orlais, and the panic felt over the rifters and the number of mages and dalish among them, she doesn't imagine they're going to stop facing resistance any time soon. There's going to be work, and plenty of it.

So she finds herself a little bolt hole, stows her gear, and sets off to get a feel for the layout of Skyhold. It doesn't take all that long, and already she can tell there are plenty of her kind of people, those that take jobs without moral judgement and know the value of asking the right questions and leaving the wrong ones unspoken. She ends up in the tavern, situating herself in the middle of the action, watching the cross section of inhabitants that pass through the doors. The rumours are better than the wine, and infinitely better than the drunken singing. Now all she needs is an obliging chatty drunk.