Maison De Portes Application

[twobytwo]

Player's Name: Kate
Contact info: MSN/AIM lsymphony@hotmail.com plurk: twilightlament
DW: twobytwo.dreamwidth.org

Character: River Tam
Canon: Firefly
Version: TV Series/Movie
Canon Point: After the end of the movie
Age: 17
Gender: Female

History:

River Tam was born on one of the Core Planets, Osiris, to a Regan and Gabriel Tam. The Tam’s were a wealthy family and both Simon and River were incredibly intelligent children. River though possessed and intelligence that surpassed her brother. At the age of three, River already corrected Simon’s spelling and Simon noted that there was nothing River couldn’t grasp easily from intellectual studies to dance to art.

At age fourteen, River had already entered a graduate program for physics at Gen Ed and had outpaced any form of study available. All, except for the Alliance run “Academy.” Simon said that the school had the most exciting program and that River was excited about attending the school. For the first several months everything seemed fine to her parents and brother. That was until Simon received confusing letters from River. He recognized these as codes and that River was in danger.

The Academy was really an Alliance front for a research laboratory dedicated to creating the perfect assassin/spy. During her time in the Academy, River was used in extensive experiments. During these ‘sessions’ River’s mind degenerated under both the strain of the experiments that physically altered her brain, and others that unlocked her latent telepathic/psychic abilities. The more they unlocked, the more information River picked up from the others around her. The disturbing images and knowledge about the planet Miranda and the biological/socio experiment performed there with the ‘Pax’ agent, further eroded River’s sanity.

She was in the Academy for two years before Simon was able to arrange for her rescue. Simon managed to disguise himself and sneak into the Academy as a government official. He got River out and put her into cryo sleep. On Persephone, Simon bordered Serenity, with River still in stasis. The Alliance, upon learning of River’s escape, froze all of Simon’s accounts, leaving him without resources, and put out warrants for the arrests of both Tams. They would continue to hunt them relentlessly through the systems.

Once aboard the ship, Captain Malcolm Reynolds released River from cryo sleep. In exchange for helping the siblings stay on the run, Simon agreed to be the ship’s medic and keep River under control. This proved harder than the elder Tam anticipated due to River’s mental instability.

At one point River and Simon were kidnapped by a small settlers town that needed a doctor. Upon the demonstration of River’s abilities with the mute child, Ruby, the town tried to burn her as a witch only to be stopped by the rest of Serenity’s crew. Most of the time River was calm, but grew increasingly unstable.

This came to a head when she grabbed a knife and slashed Jayne across the chest stating that “he looks better in red.” An action that prompted Simon to offer the crew a job – robbing a hospital while Simon used the 3-D Neuro Imager to scan River’s brain. Unbeknownst to Simon, Jayne tried to turn them over to the Feds. However the Tams and the rest of the crew escaped in the end. River though knew about Jayne’s betrayal. At least the information Simon gathered allowed him to start creating treatments for River.

While there was some improvement, River continued to display erratic and sometimes dangerous behavior, such as when she shot the three men trying to board Serenity while the crew attempted to rescue Malcolm. She also started experiencing hallucinations that were possible a projection of what her psychic abilities and increased intuition picked up and processed. Her behavior made her reception by the crew, even those who liked the Tam’s rocky at times.
Later on, the Captain decided to take River on a job with them. This would lead to the event where, through an innocuous ad, the Alliance was able to trigger River’s trained aggression in an attempt at locating her. From there a chain of events led the crew of Serenity to the planet Miranda. Here they discovered the secret trapped in River’s mind; that the Alliance had tried to genetically alter an entire population. Most were killed, but the rest turned into the cannibalistic Reavers.

The crew made a daring attempt to get this information out to the rest of the planets under Alliance control. What occurred was a show down between the Reaver, the Alliance, and the crew of Serenity. River went out to battle a horde of Reavers on her own in order to save Simon and the rest of the crew. She killed them all and came out of the fight with barely a scratch on her. After the Miranda battle, River seamed to stabilize at least some. However with parts of her brain physically altered, there was little chance she’d ever be fully in control.


Personality:

River Tam was a highly intelligent and exceptionally gifted child. Her brilliance outstripped all of her peers and even those much older than she from a young age. Sheltered and possibly a little spoiled, River still possessed a sweet nature and avid interest in expanding her abilities. She had a bright future ahead of her and even the sky wasn’t the limit. That is until the Alliance convinced her to come to The Academy.

They had her for two years and in that two years River was irrevocably changed.
The Alliance expanded River’s intellect and all of her natural physical abilities, but they also through means of surgery, drugs, and a process called ‘neural stripping’, turned a bright, vivacious girl into a paranoid psychotic. It is almost impossible to tell which River one will get in any given moment.

In her lucid periods, River demonstrates her incredible intelligence and intuition. She is sweet, playful and empathic with those around her, capable of expressing a wide range of normal emotion. She enjoys playing with Kaylee, talking with Simon and spending time with the rest of the crew. Even if she still acts a bit ‘peculiar’ during those times, a person can see the girl River used to be peeking through the madness.

She will often relate any topic no matter how subjective to some logical process or theory. This is somewhat strange given her deeply intuitive nature. That tendency is displayed clearly when Shepherd Book watched after River while the others were gone. She told him that she was correcting the bible because of its logical fallacies (such as fitting two of every animal into the Ark). It could very well be her attempt at imposing order on her own fractured mind.

However when River’s paranoia is triggered, River changes almost completely and the effects can vary wildly. As Malcolm put it, she has “mood swings, of a sort”. She can be aggressive, such as when she slashed Jayne’s chest with a knife, or fearful such as in the hospital on Ariel when she just wanted to escape the agents that she knew were coming. It is not easy to predict which instinct will take hold of her when the mood strikes.

River also has to constantly deal with a tide of emotion both from herself and those around her. Due to the surgeries on her brain she no longer possesses the physical pieces required to moderate her emotions. This means that whatever River feels, she feels profoundly and deeply with no way of shutting it off. Couple this with her awareness of the fact that her presence is a danger to all those around her and you have a deep guilt in River that she cannot shake.

River desperately wants to be normal again. Even in the throes of many of her episodes, she expresses the heartfelt desire to be ‘fixed’, often claiming that she is ‘broken’ and should be left behind. She hates that Simon had to give up so much for her and knows how much she needs him. He is one of the few people that River trusts implicitly.

Yet despite all of her problems, River can be a force of nature. This usually manifests when the lives of the people she cares about are in jeopardy. River taps into all her skills and utilizes whatever means necessary to others (especially her brother) safe.

In the end though, Serenity is now River’s home and its crew her family. She’ll do whatever she has to do for them.

Fears:

Doctors, needles, hospitals, experimentation, losing her brother and her new family. Anything ‘medical’ related stands a chance of setting River off. Even in the hands of her brother she can get nervous and pensive about even simple things. Her brother and the crew of the Serenity are River’s world. Once the threat of the Alliance lessened, she felt safe to be happy around them. They also provide her stability.

Weaknesses:

River is mentally unstable. Between the experiments and things she now knows, her mind is often jumbled up and it’s easy to push her over. She can go from lucid to paranoid to manic to depressed in moments. Sometimes the reasons why make sense and other times not so much. The removal of her amygdalae made River unable to control her emotions. Simon described it as “She feels everything; she can’t not.”

Behavioral Conditioning – The Alliance subjected River to ‘brainwashing’ that was usually administered while she slept so they could implant directly into her subconscious. It is unknown how many triggers were set into River’s mind, how they are activated, and what they will do.

Sleeping – River is prone to vivid nightmares concerning what she sees from other people and her experiences in the Academy. Simon gave her drugs to help her sleep.

Mundane Strengths/Abilities:

Dancing – River has a love of dancing and can pick up any dance steps in a matter of moments.
Intelligence – River has a scary level of intelligence. It’s never quantified, but Simon who was in the top 3% in medical school claims that she makes him look like an ‘idiot child’. At the age of three she corrected Simon’s spelling. At the age of five she corrected theoretical conclusions in text books. River also possesses a high level of problem solving. She is able to easily piece together pieces of information and form theories based on them even when most people cannot see the links.

High Intuition – It’s hard to tell if this is part of mental abilities, intelligence, both, or a separate skill. Either way River often expresses a high degree of insight into people and situations, and has since she was a child. She claims that people were always saying things in the way they moved and what they didn’t say. In fact her intuition borders on pre-cognition.

Weaponry – River is adept with both firearms and hand weapons. This was part of her training at the Academy.

Fighting – River employs a fighting style that taps into her agility and speed. Watching her fight is very much like watching a dancer in action. She was able to take on a horde of Reapers and a bar full of people while barely suffering any injury at all.

Piloting – River knows how to operate space faring ships

Increased Agility/Coordination/Speed/Spatial Recognition – For River, these attributes are far beyond normal human ability. This is demonstrated several times, but perhaps the best when she looks out over an area, ‘locks in’ the targets and proceeds to shoot them with her eyes closed from memory.

Bilingual – English and Chinese

Sensitivity/Magical Ability:

Psychic – River can see into people’s minds and find images, thoughts, and emotions. This is not an ability over which she has perfect control.

Supply List:

Clothes and her boots.

Game Transfers: N/A

Sample RP post:

A nap, she’d just settled down for a short nap that was all. However River knew, before she even opened her eyes, that she was not on Serenity. She couldn’t feel them, her brother and the others. They weren’t there and everything was silent. She used to want silence but now it was frightening.

River opened her eyes only to see the same kind of darkness that was in her mind stretching out before her. No, not exactly. She saw a door. River pushed up to her feet and the skirt of her dress tickled just below her knees. Deep brown eyes shifted back and forth to try and find anything else around. It was a pretty door but she didn’t trust it at all.

Doors could be tricky things – they knew how to open, how to close, how to lock - and this one seemed suspect to her even though it looked like a normal door. She knew better. There was nothing else in the darkness though; just that door with the light seeping past the cracks.
When she touched the knob her hand shook. The quiet left her in a rush and River trembled. There were voices past that door – screaming in silence. She bit her lip as a wave of nervousness crawled up her spine.

“We stopped them, we fixed it. Voices shouldn’t be here. Just a dream.”

She inhaled deeply, turned the knob, and pushed open the door. Her hand came up to block out the sudden light. It hurt her eyes, pierced into her brain. Without thinking, she let go of the door knob to block the light with both hands. It hurt and that screaming? Was it louder?
She couldn’t tell.

The closing of the door echoed and echoed in her head. River turned around fast and jerked on the handle.

Doors knew how to close.

They knew how to lock.

But this one, it had forgotten how to open from this side.

“Simon!” She pounded on the door and knew he wouldn’t answer. No one would. The beating of her fists filled her ears, but the door wouldn’t budge no matter what she did. She was trapped with these new voices. River slid down to the floor, head clenched in her hands.

“Merciful God, please take me away.” The Chinese words came out broken and small. Not this again. It was supposed to be over. Everything was supposed to be fine. She was supposed to be fine.