My AB OCs: Sati Beshara
Sep. 28th, 2013 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
(NOTE: If you read nothing else in this post, read the ROLEPLAY section, that's where the lulz is, the rest is kinda sad fyi)
You've met the weresnake Sati in Sue vs Sue, and I plan to one day have her be the protagonist it one of my novels. See, I hope to write many books all about the same 'verse, with a series of different protagonists and casts that all eventually intersect. Big goals, I know. I picked Sati to be one of these protagonists because of how much she has to grow from, to improve upon, and in a way that I specifically can understand and empathize with really well (and thus can probably write well/accurately, at least I hope). Her character was inspired by (and created during) the early stage of my recovery from depression when I was still really vulnerable, lost, struggling with my identity because I'd become so engulfed in my mental illness that I didn't know who was without it, when I had just gotten on my feet but was not guaranteed to stay there. Sati's in a similar place, plus she's a supernatural living in a world full of shifters, vampires, and other creatures, whether it's the Anitaverse or my original storyverse, and she'll have to find her internal strength--which she does have, and a great deal more than she realizes--to navigate the external adventures she'll be having in this fantastic world of hers! That's the idea, anyway. And this is the girl:
Sati Beshara is a hereditary werecobra. She, along with her older brother Zahid, was raised by her mother Aziza and aunt Shakuntala, who are all also born-werecobras of course. Her father, Ogbay Beshara, also a weresnake, was deported back to Africa due to a problem with his passports (I imagine the immigration laws are much stricter for therians in the Anitaverse; I know Unseelie fey are stated to be barred from entering the USA) before she was born, and hasn't been heard from since. She didn’t find out about him until she was older from her big brother. She was still really little then and it freaked her out tremendously that someone could just come and drag her family members off and they would never come back and it gave her a very nervous abandonment complex for awhile. She’s over it now, but it’s left her with a dangerously strong sense of loyalty, of holding on. Like, literally loyalty to the death (I hope for this to come up in SvS as the flaw it is---she realizes Lucille is a monster no better than Anita, but she sticks by her side because she gave her loyalty to her and can't take it back). She and her brother Zahid keep their father’s last name since it’s the only thing they have of his. Her mothers (she refers to her aunt and mother as her "mothers" because they both raised her together) have the last name of Haddad, so the four of them are collectively called the Haddad-Beshara family. Their moms raised them in a kinda offbeat tantric kinda-occulty version of Hinduism. Sort of to regular Hinduism as Gnostic Christianity is to more mainstream denominations. It kinda makes it hard for her to really integrate any local Hindu community, since regular Hinduism is so intertwined with specifically Indian culture and they’re usually coming from purely Indian families, not mixed-race multicultural ones like hers. She’s pretty okay with that though, but it’s worth mentioning. Her upbringing in general was a pretty offbeat non-traditional kind, but in a positive way, and neither she nor Zahid would change a thing about how their moms did it.
She started getting depressed (no external reason, just unlucky brain chemistry) in her teen years, and it got to the point that she was self-harming by putting lit match heads out on her skin. Once her burns were noticed and they realized just how bad a state she was in, her moms got her the best help they could afford, but unfortunately had to spend her college fund to get it. It took her years of help to get ‘okay’ but after she did, she got herself a two-year degree from a community college once she could function again, and she now works as a cashier/barista in a bookstore cafe as well as lives independently with a roomie in an apartment. She’s still got difficulties in that depression never actually goes away, and because the meds she’s on do put her in kind of a haze sometimes, but she's doing really well, even if she still has to work at it every day and it's hard sometimes. Once of her biggest fears is slipping back into her depression and losing all the ground she's achieved. But she also never ever gives up on her dreams and desires, and the magnitude of what she will do or allow to be done in order to get what she wants is truly exceptional, and not something most would expect from such a subdued sort of girl. She's had this very strong desire for SOMETHING for awhile, but she has no idea what it is, just that it's there and it's powerful. I'm not even sure what it is, actually, I think it might just be desire itself waiting to attach itself to something or someone. She also practices a fatalistic sort of optimism that disdains needlessly negative attitudes, because, well, what will be will be, so why get too upset? Emphasis on 'needlessly' though. She's known what it really feels like to be at your lowest, so even though she's normally a sympathetic sort, as mentioned, over-dramatic pity-me wangst just pisses her off instead.
She's a quiet sort, and tends not to stand out despite her oddities. She's sympathetic to others, and concerned about offending others. Her voice, face, body language, etc. tend to be hard to read and don't give away much. She values the truth, but has also seen the trouble that too much honesty can stir up, so she self-censors a good deal in order to keep peace. The fact that she's very non-competitive and not-a-threat can work to her advantage as a form of charm, as it placates very power-concerned people who would get in a pissing match with anyone less placating. This works particularly well for her in the very hierarchical therian society of the ABverse, since she knows her place on the ladder and will roll over like a good Omega to the higher-ups in order to get her way, or just get by. She deals with living in a world that she finds to be disturbing, and at times even violent, by retreating in secluded spots and just basically getting lost in her own head for however long it takes her to heal from whatever blows that the day has dealt. She's more adventurous than most would guess though, but it's in a very passive way, slinking around in strange alleys and seedy clubs and anywhere else that trouble might find her. She likewise elicits her social life passively, placing herself in spots where others are likely to approach her versus approaching them herself. She might dare to make the first move if she can find a really justified precedent for it, though. She's averse to flirting with others or to being flirted with, though she's attracted to men who benevolent yet destructive...or just destructive. Basically, a nice girl, but not that outgoing, with quite possibly a subconscious seeking to get hurt or in trouble since she's not consciously hurting herself anymore. She's also really talented at self-denial, has an uncanny knack for going without food for awhile with fewer ill-effects than is normal, even for a weresnake (real snakes don't have to eat often as compared to mammals, and can survive much longer without food, so I imagine some degree of that would translate to a weresnake).
So she's got a lot on her shoulders, but she's also got incredible determination, and remains hopeful despite how easy it would be to be otherwise. She's definitely someone who could get herself in a lot of trouble, but she's also someone who would try to climb back out of it, and that's why I think she'll make a good interesting protagonist to read about and send on adventures one day when I actually write about her instead of just planning about how I'm going to write about her. I also like the idea of her as UF heroine because she's not at all snarky and is pretty big pushover a lot of the time, unlike the usual type, but is still tough and resilient in her own way, even if she's no ass-kicker and is more likely to try, say, empathizing her way out of things with a villain (which won't always work, but hey, neither does ass-kicking always work either). I don't mean it to be preachy, like her way is better, but it is something I'd personally like to read/write about, and I think, if I can do it well, it can be just as exciting and tense and stuff.
LOOKS
She's 27 years old, but is usually taken for younger, even for a high-schooler sometimes. She's 5'6, probably around 135 pounds, slim to average build/figure, small-to-average bust and hips (technically she's an hourglass since those are evenly wide, but she's probably not what most people think of when they hear the term), average or less muscle to her. Her body is also sturdier than it looks though, even for a therian; she's got the same fragile-yet-resilient thing going physically as she does in terms of personality. She has brown eyes, golden skin, and her black hair is straightened and braided into a Cleopatra style with golden beads and clasps around each individual braid (it's natural texture is more kinky-curly though. She has an emo fringe on one side of her forehead, and thinner choppy bangs on the other side (which is on which side changes regularly). Her heritage is Indian, Ethiopian, Egyptian, Arab-Berber Moroccan, and English, so make of that what you will in terms of her facial features. Small burn marks dot her inner forearms and around her ribcage. She dresses mainly in shades of brown, from deepest mocha to palest cream, accented with rust, gray, black, beige, and white. She goes for layering on top and is a big fan of legwear. A typical outfit for her would be a sleeveless or short-sleeved ruffled blouse, with a camisole or a ves over it, a skirt or pair of shorts, tights or thigh-highs, and boots, accessorized with some burnished gold and/or faux-leather jewelry.
ROLEPLAY
Sati didn't get played at the AB roleplay board. After we left, we kept talking with each other about what our characters were up too, and Sati got incorporated to that not so long ago. So she hasn't really had a chance to do much or meet many people roleplay-wise.
As mentioned, Sati works as barista/cashier in a bookstore cafe. In roleplay, that bookstore is specifically Mimir's Haunt, which is managed by Basil, a wereswan who is one of Cygnusrex's characters. He's her boss. The reason she's stuck with two positions is because of Odile, another swanmane who belongs to Writtenelision. Odile is best comrades with Baz, and, when she's not training in ballet or fighting, can always be found at his side. However, she's pretty hostile to about 90%+ of the rest of the world, so it's exceedingly hard for Baz to find and keep employees. Sati is the one and only who has managed to hold out. Part of it is her natural resilience, part of it is being smart enough to stay out of any swan's way, and part of it is how, as mentioned previously, she knows how to work the therian hierarchy system and be a good supplicating, placating Omega towards Alphas like Odile. True, real cobras have no such societies in the wild, but AB therian society is, as we all know, not based at all in real animal behavior, and it's the society she has grown up in her whole life. She balances this with not being so submissive that Odile decides she's spineless and thus should be abused (or possibly mercy-killed without the mercy) for it. Thus she lands safely into 'knows her place but is not contemptibly Nathaniel-esque" tolerable for everyone's favorite crazy hostile neo-Viking wereswan.
But though Odile has been mostly neutral on her for a long time, but she's starting to be *somewhat* approving of her as of late as Sati knows how to hit her flattery buttons ("Oh, did you know swans are sacred in my faith?") and she's also found that aspects of Sati's religion are useful against vampires (Odile is, if you'll recall, a violent anti-vampire fanatic. Emphasis on violent.) Much like Cornelius and Voodoo, Sati and her Hinduism can throw some weaponized-faith curveballs that the very Eurocentric vampires of the Anitaverse might well not see coming. For instance, Kalava, the sacred red string bracelet. It can be fancier-looking, but it can also just be a piece of red string. So, let's say that some vampires kidnap her or something, and when she is searched for holy items so she can't use them against 'em, all they find on her is the usual stuff people have in their pockets--chapstick, spare change, string. And it's not a Kalava until it is tied into a bracelet, so it wouldn't go off then. Only when she ties it around her wrist will it become an article of faith, and thus all she has to do is wait for an opportune time. She'd have a weapon against them all along and they'd never know it. Likewise, while bindi can be symbols of things such as class and marital status, or even just decorative these days, some are also symbols of faith. So likewise, she can just have a little tin of saffron or vermillion powder in her pocket at all times, which can easily be passed off as just makeup if she's searched and won't glow until she actually applies it to her own forehead in a mark corresponding to her sect of Hinduism...and then she is a a living anti-vampire beacon like when Sailor Moon's crescent forehead mark glows, baby.
Odile entirely wants this to happen, and imagines it as being like the Heavy at the end of this TF2 video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lSzUMBJnc
JUST PLOWING THROUGH VAMPIRES MUAHAHAH! Of course, this would probably hurt Sati a good deal...remember how when objects of faith react to vampires, they not only glow but get really hot, and that's why Anita has cross-shaped burns from when a cross she was wearing did just that, if I recall right? Can you imagine that on your HEAD? Of course, she's a therian, she'll heal, so no problem, right? That's how Odile sees it. (Actually, that video reminds me more of how it is when Lucretia lends power to Ruthven--she's an incredibly powerful vampire and his maker, but she doesn't have Earthmoving powers despite being of that bloodline. He does. And since she's his maker I figure she can just fucking pour her power into him through physical contact like that so he can use it to make EVEN FUCKING BIGGER EARTHQUAKES AND SHIT and it will be awesome)
Odile has way, way too many plans like these, and now that she knows she can use Sati like that, is starting to get almost...friendly to her, in her own way, as far as she can be said to be so at all to anyone ever. Baz is just relieved they're getting along and that Sati manages to also do her job in the process of avoiding rousing the wrath of his shield-sister. Yes, those two take the Norse thing pretty seriously.
And this isn't actually about Sati, but as a note...Sati's brother Zahid has a pet chinchilla named Puma. Puma is in love with Hank, the wererat that belongs to Writtenelision and who appears in SvS thanks to her generous loan of him. Puma stalks him, and he is terrified of her. He well should be, as she seems able to teleport. She'll be in his shower, then his fridge, his pocket, somewhere new every time he tries to escape...and when he calls Zahid to tell him to PLEASE COME GET HER HELP ME and Zahid goes to check on her...she's right there in her cage. Zahid understandably now thinks that Hank is fucking with him and is getting quite irritated. SLENDERCHILLA!
ORIGINAL WRITING
Delilah will feature largely as a part of Sati's story. I think she may even take up living with her, either before she is taken in by Gaspard, or after the death of Gaspard. Sati does not take her in so much as she just appears there, haunting her like a ghost that gradually creeps out of her peripheral vision and into full but fleeting view. She will play a very symbolic role; just as Sati was created as the personification of beginning recovery from depression, Delilah was made as the personification of me at my very worst, my very bottom, and she is going to represent that to Sati, the danger of slipping back into that. Sati is going to be torn between empathy for her...and disgust at this mirror of her worst flaws and fears. How she treats Delilah as a result will say a lot about what path she takes in regard to her own issues: caring for herself, or hating herself for having to be cared for.
She and Cornelius will meet and be mutually attracted to each other. However, they want very different things in a relationship. She's looking for a lifelong soulmate, he's looking for fun rolls in the hay, and he's upfront about that, so they're over before they even start They remain very much on good terms all the same though, and Sati introduces him to her friend Tallulah, who as it happens is all for no-strings-attached friends-with-benefits deals like that, and Cornelius is even more attracted to her than to Sati, so it all works out great, especially for him! However, their friendship starts to get strained as Sati gets more familiar with just what being a vampire means about Cornelius. He tries to hide it from her when he realizes how it upsets her, but Sati wants to face it for what it is. How that goes from there, I don't know. (As a note, in the background of SvS, all this has already happened).
Another vampire she will meet is Faustina, who will be getting her own character post, but what role she'll play and what kind of relationship they'll have, I don't know yet. Faustina is kind of unpredictable, so I probably won't know till I get there. Another love interest she will meet is Faris Kasem, a djinn that she is attracted to but, alas, does not return the interest. He may appear, along with the soon-to-be-mentioned Lix, as a weretiger in SvS, since he doesn't work as an AB djinn.
A big moment of character development and growth will come to her through a romantic relationship, but it's from the breakup, not the hook-up. She gets together with a woman named Lix. I am not sure yet if Lix is short for Lixander or Calixta. I am also not sure what Lix will be if not human (she's a red weretiger in the Anitaverse). But I know the important stuff. And this is that while they have a lot of complications alone due to Sati being a straight cisgender woman and Lix being a non-operative transgender lesbian, but what really ends up being the reason they separate has nothing to do with sexuality or gender. It's that Lix engulfed Sati, and when Sati was with her she tended to sort of just be an extension of Lix rather than a person in her own right. I'm not sure how to explain it better than that, but I'm sure you've met couples like this, right? Sati found it so much easier to just let her identity meld into someone else's, as it was so much easier than the struggles she'd faced on her own, but eventually she got up the strength to decide that just because it was easy didn't make it healthy. And I think that was really big for her. Or it's going to be, when I write about it and it happens.
You've met the weresnake Sati in Sue vs Sue, and I plan to one day have her be the protagonist it one of my novels. See, I hope to write many books all about the same 'verse, with a series of different protagonists and casts that all eventually intersect. Big goals, I know. I picked Sati to be one of these protagonists because of how much she has to grow from, to improve upon, and in a way that I specifically can understand and empathize with really well (and thus can probably write well/accurately, at least I hope). Her character was inspired by (and created during) the early stage of my recovery from depression when I was still really vulnerable, lost, struggling with my identity because I'd become so engulfed in my mental illness that I didn't know who was without it, when I had just gotten on my feet but was not guaranteed to stay there. Sati's in a similar place, plus she's a supernatural living in a world full of shifters, vampires, and other creatures, whether it's the Anitaverse or my original storyverse, and she'll have to find her internal strength--which she does have, and a great deal more than she realizes--to navigate the external adventures she'll be having in this fantastic world of hers! That's the idea, anyway. And this is the girl:
Sati Beshara is a hereditary werecobra. She, along with her older brother Zahid, was raised by her mother Aziza and aunt Shakuntala, who are all also born-werecobras of course. Her father, Ogbay Beshara, also a weresnake, was deported back to Africa due to a problem with his passports (I imagine the immigration laws are much stricter for therians in the Anitaverse; I know Unseelie fey are stated to be barred from entering the USA) before she was born, and hasn't been heard from since. She didn’t find out about him until she was older from her big brother. She was still really little then and it freaked her out tremendously that someone could just come and drag her family members off and they would never come back and it gave her a very nervous abandonment complex for awhile. She’s over it now, but it’s left her with a dangerously strong sense of loyalty, of holding on. Like, literally loyalty to the death (I hope for this to come up in SvS as the flaw it is---she realizes Lucille is a monster no better than Anita, but she sticks by her side because she gave her loyalty to her and can't take it back). She and her brother Zahid keep their father’s last name since it’s the only thing they have of his. Her mothers (she refers to her aunt and mother as her "mothers" because they both raised her together) have the last name of Haddad, so the four of them are collectively called the Haddad-Beshara family. Their moms raised them in a kinda offbeat tantric kinda-occulty version of Hinduism. Sort of to regular Hinduism as Gnostic Christianity is to more mainstream denominations. It kinda makes it hard for her to really integrate any local Hindu community, since regular Hinduism is so intertwined with specifically Indian culture and they’re usually coming from purely Indian families, not mixed-race multicultural ones like hers. She’s pretty okay with that though, but it’s worth mentioning. Her upbringing in general was a pretty offbeat non-traditional kind, but in a positive way, and neither she nor Zahid would change a thing about how their moms did it.
She started getting depressed (no external reason, just unlucky brain chemistry) in her teen years, and it got to the point that she was self-harming by putting lit match heads out on her skin. Once her burns were noticed and they realized just how bad a state she was in, her moms got her the best help they could afford, but unfortunately had to spend her college fund to get it. It took her years of help to get ‘okay’ but after she did, she got herself a two-year degree from a community college once she could function again, and she now works as a cashier/barista in a bookstore cafe as well as lives independently with a roomie in an apartment. She’s still got difficulties in that depression never actually goes away, and because the meds she’s on do put her in kind of a haze sometimes, but she's doing really well, even if she still has to work at it every day and it's hard sometimes. Once of her biggest fears is slipping back into her depression and losing all the ground she's achieved. But she also never ever gives up on her dreams and desires, and the magnitude of what she will do or allow to be done in order to get what she wants is truly exceptional, and not something most would expect from such a subdued sort of girl. She's had this very strong desire for SOMETHING for awhile, but she has no idea what it is, just that it's there and it's powerful. I'm not even sure what it is, actually, I think it might just be desire itself waiting to attach itself to something or someone. She also practices a fatalistic sort of optimism that disdains needlessly negative attitudes, because, well, what will be will be, so why get too upset? Emphasis on 'needlessly' though. She's known what it really feels like to be at your lowest, so even though she's normally a sympathetic sort, as mentioned, over-dramatic pity-me wangst just pisses her off instead.
She's a quiet sort, and tends not to stand out despite her oddities. She's sympathetic to others, and concerned about offending others. Her voice, face, body language, etc. tend to be hard to read and don't give away much. She values the truth, but has also seen the trouble that too much honesty can stir up, so she self-censors a good deal in order to keep peace. The fact that she's very non-competitive and not-a-threat can work to her advantage as a form of charm, as it placates very power-concerned people who would get in a pissing match with anyone less placating. This works particularly well for her in the very hierarchical therian society of the ABverse, since she knows her place on the ladder and will roll over like a good Omega to the higher-ups in order to get her way, or just get by. She deals with living in a world that she finds to be disturbing, and at times even violent, by retreating in secluded spots and just basically getting lost in her own head for however long it takes her to heal from whatever blows that the day has dealt. She's more adventurous than most would guess though, but it's in a very passive way, slinking around in strange alleys and seedy clubs and anywhere else that trouble might find her. She likewise elicits her social life passively, placing herself in spots where others are likely to approach her versus approaching them herself. She might dare to make the first move if she can find a really justified precedent for it, though. She's averse to flirting with others or to being flirted with, though she's attracted to men who benevolent yet destructive...or just destructive. Basically, a nice girl, but not that outgoing, with quite possibly a subconscious seeking to get hurt or in trouble since she's not consciously hurting herself anymore. She's also really talented at self-denial, has an uncanny knack for going without food for awhile with fewer ill-effects than is normal, even for a weresnake (real snakes don't have to eat often as compared to mammals, and can survive much longer without food, so I imagine some degree of that would translate to a weresnake).
So she's got a lot on her shoulders, but she's also got incredible determination, and remains hopeful despite how easy it would be to be otherwise. She's definitely someone who could get herself in a lot of trouble, but she's also someone who would try to climb back out of it, and that's why I think she'll make a good interesting protagonist to read about and send on adventures one day when I actually write about her instead of just planning about how I'm going to write about her. I also like the idea of her as UF heroine because she's not at all snarky and is pretty big pushover a lot of the time, unlike the usual type, but is still tough and resilient in her own way, even if she's no ass-kicker and is more likely to try, say, empathizing her way out of things with a villain (which won't always work, but hey, neither does ass-kicking always work either). I don't mean it to be preachy, like her way is better, but it is something I'd personally like to read/write about, and I think, if I can do it well, it can be just as exciting and tense and stuff.
LOOKS
She's 27 years old, but is usually taken for younger, even for a high-schooler sometimes. She's 5'6, probably around 135 pounds, slim to average build/figure, small-to-average bust and hips (technically she's an hourglass since those are evenly wide, but she's probably not what most people think of when they hear the term), average or less muscle to her. Her body is also sturdier than it looks though, even for a therian; she's got the same fragile-yet-resilient thing going physically as she does in terms of personality. She has brown eyes, golden skin, and her black hair is straightened and braided into a Cleopatra style with golden beads and clasps around each individual braid (it's natural texture is more kinky-curly though. She has an emo fringe on one side of her forehead, and thinner choppy bangs on the other side (which is on which side changes regularly). Her heritage is Indian, Ethiopian, Egyptian, Arab-Berber Moroccan, and English, so make of that what you will in terms of her facial features. Small burn marks dot her inner forearms and around her ribcage. She dresses mainly in shades of brown, from deepest mocha to palest cream, accented with rust, gray, black, beige, and white. She goes for layering on top and is a big fan of legwear. A typical outfit for her would be a sleeveless or short-sleeved ruffled blouse, with a camisole or a ves over it, a skirt or pair of shorts, tights or thigh-highs, and boots, accessorized with some burnished gold and/or faux-leather jewelry.
ROLEPLAY
Sati didn't get played at the AB roleplay board. After we left, we kept talking with each other about what our characters were up too, and Sati got incorporated to that not so long ago. So she hasn't really had a chance to do much or meet many people roleplay-wise.
As mentioned, Sati works as barista/cashier in a bookstore cafe. In roleplay, that bookstore is specifically Mimir's Haunt, which is managed by Basil, a wereswan who is one of Cygnusrex's characters. He's her boss. The reason she's stuck with two positions is because of Odile, another swanmane who belongs to Writtenelision. Odile is best comrades with Baz, and, when she's not training in ballet or fighting, can always be found at his side. However, she's pretty hostile to about 90%+ of the rest of the world, so it's exceedingly hard for Baz to find and keep employees. Sati is the one and only who has managed to hold out. Part of it is her natural resilience, part of it is being smart enough to stay out of any swan's way, and part of it is how, as mentioned previously, she knows how to work the therian hierarchy system and be a good supplicating, placating Omega towards Alphas like Odile. True, real cobras have no such societies in the wild, but AB therian society is, as we all know, not based at all in real animal behavior, and it's the society she has grown up in her whole life. She balances this with not being so submissive that Odile decides she's spineless and thus should be abused (or possibly mercy-killed without the mercy) for it. Thus she lands safely into 'knows her place but is not contemptibly Nathaniel-esque" tolerable for everyone's favorite crazy hostile neo-Viking wereswan.
But though Odile has been mostly neutral on her for a long time, but she's starting to be *somewhat* approving of her as of late as Sati knows how to hit her flattery buttons ("Oh, did you know swans are sacred in my faith?") and she's also found that aspects of Sati's religion are useful against vampires (Odile is, if you'll recall, a violent anti-vampire fanatic. Emphasis on violent.) Much like Cornelius and Voodoo, Sati and her Hinduism can throw some weaponized-faith curveballs that the very Eurocentric vampires of the Anitaverse might well not see coming. For instance, Kalava, the sacred red string bracelet. It can be fancier-looking, but it can also just be a piece of red string. So, let's say that some vampires kidnap her or something, and when she is searched for holy items so she can't use them against 'em, all they find on her is the usual stuff people have in their pockets--chapstick, spare change, string. And it's not a Kalava until it is tied into a bracelet, so it wouldn't go off then. Only when she ties it around her wrist will it become an article of faith, and thus all she has to do is wait for an opportune time. She'd have a weapon against them all along and they'd never know it. Likewise, while bindi can be symbols of things such as class and marital status, or even just decorative these days, some are also symbols of faith. So likewise, she can just have a little tin of saffron or vermillion powder in her pocket at all times, which can easily be passed off as just makeup if she's searched and won't glow until she actually applies it to her own forehead in a mark corresponding to her sect of Hinduism...and then she is a a living anti-vampire beacon like when Sailor Moon's crescent forehead mark glows, baby.
Odile entirely wants this to happen, and imagines it as being like the Heavy at the end of this TF2 video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lSzUMBJnc
JUST PLOWING THROUGH VAMPIRES MUAHAHAH! Of course, this would probably hurt Sati a good deal...remember how when objects of faith react to vampires, they not only glow but get really hot, and that's why Anita has cross-shaped burns from when a cross she was wearing did just that, if I recall right? Can you imagine that on your HEAD? Of course, she's a therian, she'll heal, so no problem, right? That's how Odile sees it. (Actually, that video reminds me more of how it is when Lucretia lends power to Ruthven--she's an incredibly powerful vampire and his maker, but she doesn't have Earthmoving powers despite being of that bloodline. He does. And since she's his maker I figure she can just fucking pour her power into him through physical contact like that so he can use it to make EVEN FUCKING BIGGER EARTHQUAKES AND SHIT and it will be awesome)
Odile has way, way too many plans like these, and now that she knows she can use Sati like that, is starting to get almost...friendly to her, in her own way, as far as she can be said to be so at all to anyone ever. Baz is just relieved they're getting along and that Sati manages to also do her job in the process of avoiding rousing the wrath of his shield-sister. Yes, those two take the Norse thing pretty seriously.
And this isn't actually about Sati, but as a note...Sati's brother Zahid has a pet chinchilla named Puma. Puma is in love with Hank, the wererat that belongs to Writtenelision and who appears in SvS thanks to her generous loan of him. Puma stalks him, and he is terrified of her. He well should be, as she seems able to teleport. She'll be in his shower, then his fridge, his pocket, somewhere new every time he tries to escape...and when he calls Zahid to tell him to PLEASE COME GET HER HELP ME and Zahid goes to check on her...she's right there in her cage. Zahid understandably now thinks that Hank is fucking with him and is getting quite irritated. SLENDERCHILLA!
ORIGINAL WRITING
Delilah will feature largely as a part of Sati's story. I think she may even take up living with her, either before she is taken in by Gaspard, or after the death of Gaspard. Sati does not take her in so much as she just appears there, haunting her like a ghost that gradually creeps out of her peripheral vision and into full but fleeting view. She will play a very symbolic role; just as Sati was created as the personification of beginning recovery from depression, Delilah was made as the personification of me at my very worst, my very bottom, and she is going to represent that to Sati, the danger of slipping back into that. Sati is going to be torn between empathy for her...and disgust at this mirror of her worst flaws and fears. How she treats Delilah as a result will say a lot about what path she takes in regard to her own issues: caring for herself, or hating herself for having to be cared for.
She and Cornelius will meet and be mutually attracted to each other. However, they want very different things in a relationship. She's looking for a lifelong soulmate, he's looking for fun rolls in the hay, and he's upfront about that, so they're over before they even start They remain very much on good terms all the same though, and Sati introduces him to her friend Tallulah, who as it happens is all for no-strings-attached friends-with-benefits deals like that, and Cornelius is even more attracted to her than to Sati, so it all works out great, especially for him! However, their friendship starts to get strained as Sati gets more familiar with just what being a vampire means about Cornelius. He tries to hide it from her when he realizes how it upsets her, but Sati wants to face it for what it is. How that goes from there, I don't know. (As a note, in the background of SvS, all this has already happened).
Another vampire she will meet is Faustina, who will be getting her own character post, but what role she'll play and what kind of relationship they'll have, I don't know yet. Faustina is kind of unpredictable, so I probably won't know till I get there. Another love interest she will meet is Faris Kasem, a djinn that she is attracted to but, alas, does not return the interest. He may appear, along with the soon-to-be-mentioned Lix, as a weretiger in SvS, since he doesn't work as an AB djinn.
A big moment of character development and growth will come to her through a romantic relationship, but it's from the breakup, not the hook-up. She gets together with a woman named Lix. I am not sure yet if Lix is short for Lixander or Calixta. I am also not sure what Lix will be if not human (she's a red weretiger in the Anitaverse). But I know the important stuff. And this is that while they have a lot of complications alone due to Sati being a straight cisgender woman and Lix being a non-operative transgender lesbian, but what really ends up being the reason they separate has nothing to do with sexuality or gender. It's that Lix engulfed Sati, and when Sati was with her she tended to sort of just be an extension of Lix rather than a person in her own right. I'm not sure how to explain it better than that, but I'm sure you've met couples like this, right? Sati found it so much easier to just let her identity meld into someone else's, as it was so much easier than the struggles she'd faced on her own, but eventually she got up the strength to decide that just because it was easy didn't make it healthy. And I think that was really big for her. Or it's going to be, when I write about it and it happens.
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Date: 2013-09-28 06:27 pm (UTC)"Crazy hostile neo-Viking wereswan" is probably one of the best things I've ever seen to describe Odile.
And I love their relationship, such as it is.
Someone who knows how to work the system that is Odile!
...And Odile's general lunacy in regards to Sati and her faith. Using her as a holy battering ram.
(And the Heavy and Medic remind me of Detty's super powered faith in her fellow swans!)
And PUMA! RUN AWAY HANK! FLEE! SHE'S COMING!
And I do love how complex Sati is. All of your characters are wonderfully complex!
no subject
Date: 2013-09-28 06:39 pm (UTC)D''aw, thank you! It can make them so hard to write though, the boogers, because I've got all this stuff of how they are in my head and I'm like HOW DO I *SHOW* THIS I CAN'T JUST TYPE ALL IT OUT LIKE THIS FOR READERS SJSJDSDFKA
(And the Heavy and Medic remind me of Detty's super powered faith in her fellow swans!)
Lab coat Detty! Archimedes can be Roy!
And I love their relationship, such as it is.
HAHA ME TOO it cracks me up
THE SLENDERCHILLA WILL GET YOU HANK!
no subject
Date: 2013-09-28 06:52 pm (UTC)With pink gloves! And Roy! (...I'm sorry Detty. If this were anywhere but AB-verse, you'd be like Medic. First on everyone's kill list. 'Hmmm, we could go after the glowing people attacking us... oooor we could go after the person making them glow!')
Sati being followed home by Odile. Because she needs her insta-holy weapon! ...And now I'm imagining Odile picking Sati up by her ankles and using her as a flail. BECAUSE FOREHEAD!
And no one will help you. Because she's just a cute little chinchilla!
no subject
Date: 2013-09-28 07:00 pm (UTC)Pink gloves omg awww
OMG YES LOLLL THIS HAS TO HAPPEN I am going to try so hard to put that into SVS
Yup! And look, she was in her cage all along, you're just crazy, Hank!
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Date: 2013-09-28 07:10 pm (UTC)Of course! I mean, she has to be pretty! (The difference between Lucy and Anita. Because Lucy would go after Detty first.)
"...Sooo... that's your sister."
"Yep!"
"...She's... using Sati as a flail."
"Not the craziest thing she's ever done."
SHE WAS IN MY SHOWER! AND MY UNDERWEAR DRAWER! AND ON TOP OF AGGIE'S HEAD WHILE WE WERE KISSING!
...At least my boss doesn't find me attractive...
no subject
Date: 2013-09-30 01:38 am (UTC)We've never been shown how werecobra transformations work in the Anitaverse, nor have we ever seen them in full shift. There were two cobra-like people with Mr. Oliver that could have been werecobra in hybrid form, but also could have been more men that Melanie transformed into snake-like monsters as she did her harem. So I sort of had to just make up how I thought it was most likely to work in the Anitaverse, and going on how the Anitaverse tends to run these things, that would most likely be "bigass cobras because that's most cool, screw biology". I can't say I'm a huge fan of that, but it's what fits best AB-wise.
In my own system, conservation of mass is covered by mass actually going to a specific place, a sort of pocket dimension, whenever it is taken away by magic, whether it's a therian shifting, or magically shrinking something, or whatever. That's also where extra mass is taken from when you want something to become bigger, transform into a larger animal, etc. There's always mass coming and going out of it because magic of that type is being done around the world, there's always some therian that turns into something smaller and one into something bigger, etc., but in theory it could be totally empty of mass at some point because everyone decided to use it at the same time and then you'd just be SOL if you wanted to be a wereorca that day. So when Sati becomes a cobra, she's a normal cobra, the excess mass goes to the pocket dimension, which she draws on to get back to human form.
Nooo, the questions aren't pushy at all, I totally appreciate them! =D And that bit about the werespiders is so neat, though so sucky for them!