#character: artemis

[finowlly]

trioooooooooooooooooo

[revivalrp]

GODDESS OF THE HUNT, FORESTS AND HILLS, THE MOON, AND ARCHERY.

You’ve inherited the Olympian’s PROTECTIVENESS but also their VENGEFUL WAYS.

NAME: Alessia Nikolaidis

AGE: Thirty-five

OCCUPATION: Veterinarian 

PLACE OF BIRTH: Larissa, Greece

GENDER & PRONOUNS: Cis Female & she/her

FACECLAIM: Lyndsy Fonseca

ABILITY: ANIMAL MANIPULATION

They can control animals behavior; they can set stampedes onto attackers, get animals to fetch things, etc. They can also understand and feel animal emotions, perceive through animal senses, communicate with the animals verbally, tame them easily, heal them and, consequently, create a bond with them. May be limited to a particular number of targets at any given time and can be exacted by touch or otherwise, though i can cause backlash when the animals regain free will.

PLAYED BY JESSA.

ABOUT:

A serene minute in the passing of time may be trivial to the hands of Fate but for Alessia, it is her first memory stored with perfect clarity. The trees rustled with the aid of a gentle salty breeze; the canopy had been thick, vibrant green, and thriving with the hum of life. A small break in the branches and leaves brought down the warmth and iridescent glow of the sunshine into a clear spot on the trail with two dandelions swaying in a rhythmic ebb and flow. With little noise and a gentle approach, a hind red deer trotted into the patch of sun and lowered its head to graze from the fresh grass still damp with dew. There were traces of the winter coat still left on the deer, but soon to fly away in the breeze and welcome the coming of spring. Five years old with the light of the world in her eyes, Alessia stood a distance away from the deer with a hand outstretched. Her hand moved to trace the top of the deer’s head and up along its neck, following the curve of its back. Ever so careful to not make any noise, the deer still looked up at her to meet eyes. A moment later, her laughter broke the silence of the woods as she felt herself picked up and swung around, hiked up onto her father’s shoulders to go back to the rest of the family. Alessia had never forgotten that moment in the woods and the feeling in that instant of meeting eyes with the deer. As a child and an adult, it became a fond memory.

Alessia’s childhood is one of brightness and spirit. A whirlwind of colors and laughter. She grew up ambitious right from the start, always a surprise for teachers or adults. With a whole world out there full of knowledge and possibility she wanted nothing more than to take advantage of it. The advantage gave her the ability to place herself above others and while she never did so maliciously – Alessia learned at an early age that being two steps ahead was very important. She was also a social butterfly with those around her – easy at making friends and any person who spent five minutes alone with Alessia could see the captivation in her words, in her intelligence. Perhaps what made it so easy to move away from Larissa and settle into a new environment full of unknowns. While she may have been young when her family moved away from Greece, it would always be her home. Her parents were more than happy through the years to continue educating her about the culture, the history, the mythology behind Greece. It took root in her being, something that she would later come to learn to be far more important than anything else in her life with the exception of one – her brother.

A shock to no one – Alessia has always been fiercely loyal. Those who have found themselves in her inner circle and her family have witnessed time and time again of her undying love for them. Any person to say anything of ill-will of her parents were met with the feisty power of Alessia – intimidating and unrelenting. And if any person dared to do such to her brother? Alessia would ensure they regretted the decision to have ever even had an ill thought in his direction. Unfortunately for those who have found themselves on her bad side, they never find their way back. From a teenager to the present time as an adult, Alessia will sever ties without a second thought after retribution has been paid. A woman of gentle smiles and witty prose, that is only one fragment of herself. There will always be the part of her that is a woman of fierce attitude and vengeful tactics. She has always given her whole heart to those she loves and will give everything else of herself to protect them.

Alessia completed her exams with high marks and went on to complete her biomedical sciences undergraduate at the University of Oxford – part of St. Edmund Hall her first and last year. A surprise to none, Alessia continued her education with the University of London at the Royal Veterinary College. Since childhood she’d been drawn to animals. Her parents had been supportive in her love and she grew up surrounded by animals. Fenrir the rabbit. Poppy the border collie. Pip, Locke, and Flint the miniature goats. Those were only a few of the animals that she’d brought home and raised. It was always a natural allure to them and as a person who enjoyed taking care of others, taking care of animals was hardly different. In some ways, better. Alessia studied hard with the intent of being able to one day help animals – to educate and give love to those that had been forgotten by the world. Professors often remarked on her extreme dedication and vision for the future she had set for herself. And a vision she had for herself indeed.

After graduating, Alessia bounced around from one place to another to gain experience and see the world. She continuously kept in contact with those she loved, visiting often, but she wasn’t satisfied with learning everything she could from one sole place. There would always be more people out there with more knowledge, more experience. However, there had always been a plan in mind. Since she moved away from Larissa, Alessia had the intent of returning. As a child, she’d told her parents time and time again that she would return home. As a young adult, she continued to tell her family that one day she would find her way back. Even in the midst of a mountain of lab work, essays to write, and social events to attend, she still found time to read on old history and mythology of her homeland. She talked to her parents regularly in Greek to avoid losing the language. Studied old architecture and art of the past. Her love for Greece never faded despite the distance. However, after the loss of a parent, Alessia went into a deep depressive state. Family is everything to her and she felt the loss in every part of her heart and soul. There were too many nights of sadness and tears. Too many days of just barely getting by before crawling into bed. And yet in those dark days, she found solace in the books she had on the old gods and Greece. The history.

When Alessia reached the point where she felt as if she had learned everything that was offered to her and she’d found herself out of the darkness she’d fallen into, she announced with full confidence that she would be moving back to Larissa. A ticket already bought. A home already purchased. She arrived in Larissa with hopeful ambition and her brother alongside.

ABILITY OVERVIEW:

The abilities of Alessia extends toward animals – the first and foremost being her ability to sense an animal’s emotions and understand them. It was easy for her to assume that it was a simple touch of being tuned into the animals within her home before realizing that it was more. Especially the more animals came across her path in Larissa. Since the manifestation, her abilities have come to light one at a time. Sensing emotions turned into communicating with animals – understanding simple words for the moment but slowly progressing into more as Alessia learns and trains her abilities. She has yet to discover her ability to heal but that is soon to come light and begin as with her other abilities. For healing, it’ll start with simple scrapes and bruises that can be healed before being able to heal wounds and broken bones. She will not be able to bring any animal back from the brink of death – there’s a limit to her abilities. And in the matter of death, she would not interfere unless someone unjustly took the life of the animal or she could see a future benefit to doing so. To heal, tame, or start the process to control any animal, she will need to touch them. Communication can be done through sight alone. When more animals are involved, she can extend her abilities to multiple animals at one time but with the limit of five at most – she can try to push for more but it becomes messy and harder to control. If the animal is entirely unwilling (threatened by her, fearful of her, etc.) and she’s not able to communicate her intentions, when she releases control it will cause the animal to charge or attack her. Alessia will also have to be careful with concentration. If she is controlling any animals’ behavior, concentration breaking could also mean being attacked or causing disaster in some other form. The overall idea with Alessia’s abilities in the future would be a discovery of a new ability and then fixation on advancing and perfecting.

[deathbyvalentine]

After the Murder

Artemis stepped inside the big, big house, and took a breath. It felt like it had years since he had been back here, not a few weeks. Only a light smattering of dust in the air and across the floors, and the light still filtering in softly. There was nothing but gentle silence, apart from the whispering of the trees and traffic. 

His leg still ached. But then, all of him did. He dropped his bag to the ground, treading on the very small pile of letters that had lay waiting. Few were for him, more were for his uncle, who apparently had scarcely been home early. Drac was outside, parking the van somewhere in the narrow, crowded road. Which meant Artemis had a few moments to compose himself. 

And he needed to compose himself. He felt like he was in fragments. Like he needed to find all the ways he fitted together, so he could approximate an intimation of a person again. He found a mirror, ran a hand over his pale face. Avoided his own eyes. Took a deep breath, and looked.

What he saw was a pale young man, with blue eyes ringed with pink, with a shock of white hair. Someone a little too thin, a little too tired looking. He did not look like a murderer. He did not look like someone that could beat someone to death and not feel a damn thing. He looked like someone that cries at fucking disney movies.

He sat on the bottom stair, tugging at a shoelace half-heartedly. Drac had vomited. Drac had been a wreck. Drac had reacted like a normal person, in short. So what did that make him? A monster maybe? And that was without even considering the fact it was his fault they had ended inside the book in the first place. Him and his stupid auras. Yet again, his gift was a curse.

There was a knock at the door. Forcing a smile, he went to answer it. 

[finowlly]

all according to keikaku

[thanasikokkinakis]

my new fave thing is imagining the team braiding artemis’ hair like they all just gradually pick up on the skill bc her hair is so long and silky and a rare time where she sits still

and the devastation when she cuts it short bc it is just not the same

[diviniumrp]

Max Quarter Twenty-three He/Him Reincarnation of Artemis Frank Dillane

Biography:

Trigger Warnings: child neglect, ableism, racism and general violence

It was nothing out of the ordinary when a little brown-skinned, crooked-toothed child was left on the front doorstep of a Catholic New Orleans orphanage. It was a poor neighbourhood, and many had to abandon the children they couldn’t afford to love. Specifics of the child’s case, though, were unique; he was high above the average age of abandonment (he landed somewhere around five years old - whereas it was usually babies left), was covered head-to-toe in mud - hair matted, he was completely deaf in one ear, and it seemed the only worldly belongings his biological family had left him with were a slingshot and a green tree frog. Questions were asked of the child as they tried to learn who he was: where he’d come from, who his parents were, what his name was, whether he’d run from home or been abandoned - but he didn’t answer any of them. He barely spoke a lick of English to anyone, at first leading the caregivers to believe the filthy little thing was a mute. At least, that was, until he began speaking in made-up tongues - if prodded for an explanation, he’d insist it allowed him to communicate with animals. He began biting other children rather regularly in place of verbal communication - his reasoning being it got him left alone much quicker, though it led the caregivers to threaten to muzzle him.

His refusal to talk about his short, insignificant life before he’d been left at the orphanage wasn’t because he couldn’t remember - he could remember his broken-down house just outside the city, how the leaves crunched underneath his little bare feet. He remembered his unstable, lovely black mother and her long, heavy dreadlocks. And his white father - with his tattooed knuckles, tired eyes, and his hard heart. The child remembered a sibling, too, at least one - though it might’ve been three. Could remember a night when the moon had hung in the sky, and he’d helped his mother give birth - though all he’d really been able to do was try to soothe her. None of this was spoken - it wasn’t important any longer. They hadn’t the capacity within themselves to raise him, to love or want him, once they’d recognized his nature for what it was. They’d known exactly what kind of monster he’d grow up to be - that the wildness in his veins would never settle. And so the curse was passed to others, the child left to a new breed of monsters - who believed they knew or even understood him. Who so often assumed that his being partially deaf insinuated that he was lacking in intelligence - how often they’d yelled at him, as if it would cure his partial deafness. Who would never look at him - or the other little brown children - quite as affectionately as they did the white. Who’d cut off the half-formed dreadlocks his mother had spun, who’d confiscated his precious frog and beloved slingshot. The child was made to know that he was an ugly, broken little thing that would never be adopted - that the other children would require protection from him.

Though the caregivers had taken to calling him Beethoven during his first months in the orphanage, the chid did, eventually, require a name. If not due to their own morality (none of the caregivers particularly cared for the child - throughout his imprisonment, they constantly attempted to have him transferred to nearby deaf and disabled orphanages), then solely for legal reasons. A poll was held in the smoke-filled break room, as no one wanted the sole responsibility of giving the child a name. Eventually, Max (a tribute to one of the caregivers’ particularly awful boyfriends) Quarter (for New Orleans’ French Quarter neighbourhood) was decided on as his name, though he rarely - if ever - responded to it, even if they called his shiny new name into his good ear. The chid - now known as Max - thought maybe he should forget his previous self, his past life, but couldn’t get the image of his mother’s smile out of his mind.

He was left almost solely to his own devices - it was the easiest and seemingly only way, as he had a desire to directly disobey authority, and as he’d never functioned well with the other children. The only rule they managed to enforce with any success was forcing him to regularly attend Church services - though he would fidget through service, and still refused to say his nighttime prayers. Max was told he was feral, wild, a devil child, told by the pastor - after he’d spoken in slithery tongues and bitten the old man - that the devil within him would never be tamed. Rather than reciting his prayers at bedtime, he’d snap his teeth at the other children, would speak in his made-up languages just to scare them away. They frightened him so, but he’d never admit it. He paid no mind to the ones who told him his nature was destructive - didn’t care for their opinions, whether or not they were right. All he cared for was the grounds beyond the designated backyard - which were his, where the child was free. He did as he wanted - would sneak out the window long after bedtime, watch the moon hung low in the Louisiana sky, run and howl at the moon like a rabid pup, dig graves for stolen belongings of his fellow orphans, snap his teeth at the other wild dogs. Began to rule his very own kingdom. He was feral at heart - no matter how many times they cut his matted hair, bandaged his wounded knees, or cleaned him of the mud that so regularly covered him.

When the child did speak, it was rare, important, and only to those he very much liked. As such, many of his conversations growing up were with animals. He’d do anything to be with them - would run away from school to the nearest forest at the earliest opportunity, though they eventually took to locking him to his desk. He’d never felt comfortable walking the streets of a city, but felt right as sticks and rocks poked at the soles of his bare feet. And though he’d never speak it, the forests made him miss his mother more desperately, though he’d grown to forget her name. Or her voice - had it been soft and velvety, or raspy and low? It had all faded away, along with the memory of what tattoos had been on his father’s knuckles - was it a Gemini symbol or a sun? Max wondered if he’d done something particularly bad to trigger their leaving him, or if had just been inevitable. He knew it was better to not think too long on it - he knew he was wild, that he wasn’t ever meant to be the son of anyone but the moon - that he was a child even a mother couldn’t have loved.

Max taught himself everything he knew, though he did have guidance from books stolen from the nearest library. By the age of nine, he’d learned how to set snares, how to - with the aid of stolen kitchen knives - gut and skin numerous animals, how to set a snare using the paper of his stolen books or stolen homework from the other children. His favourite skill, however, was how adept he’d become at frightening the other children. Max cared not for them, had never felt like he was one of them and therefore found it impossible to empathize with them. They’d taken to occasionally calling him a dog, and Max was fond of it, thinking that it was the one thing they had right. His very best tenth birthday gift was from himself - a bow and arrow of his own making, one that he’d been building for weeks and planning for even longer. It was an ugly, ragged thing that left his fingers cut and splintered, but Max adored it beyond belief - since they’d taken his slingshot and his frog, it was the only thing that was his. He wasted no time putting it to use, though he’d never shot at anything before.

He’d practice on any animal he could spot: crappie fish, wild rabbits, an assortment of birds. His first shots were clumsy, though he had a natural eye and hand for the work. Sometimes the animals were able to escape, one of his arrows half-embedded in their flesh, while some bled out slow, trying desperately to escape the King of the New Orleans’ forests. Max would always take mercy on them - would soothe them in his made-up tongues, would gently pet behind their ears, would thank them graciously and almost lovingly. For letting him nearby, for thinking he’d been one of them, for trusting him, for existing at all, before taking a second, cleaner shot that didn’t even afford them the time to yelp. It was the only time Max felt he understood the religion he’d been forced to swallow - he understood both sacrifice and worship. He eventually stole a pocket knife from the store around the corner, and used it for mercy rather than a second arrow. Though he did use the animals as targets, it wasn’t to say that he didn’t take care of them - he’d set them free from hunters’ snares, would spend all his days and nights with them, would call them a family where he’d never really had one, would worship their beauty he wished he had.

He continued on through adolescence as he had throughout his childhood - quietly and lonely, always with a little devilry bubbling up inside of him. Max enjoyed his loneliness thoroughly, and found it continuously harder and harder to care for people. Eventually, somewhere in his mid-teens, he decided he needed money - not that he believed or cared for the idea of it, but rather that he wanted to buy a stash of cheap Native Reservation cigarettes. Max began selling fresh meat and clean pelts at an early morning farmer’s market just outside town, where he wasn’t so easily recognized as the local loon. His teachers and caregivers gave up on him easily - there was nothing to be done with no budget for a child as unresponsive and hopeless as Max. He’d be out on the streets once he was eighteen, and from there on he’d be his own problem. The orphanage continued on just as they had, counting down the days until the little beast was eighteen, and he’d do just the same.

As he aged, Max stepped into the darkness quite willingly. Sometimes, he’d crouch at the end of one of his roommates’ beds, bow and arrow in hand, waiting for them to wake. He did it for the moment of fear as they woke, realized who he was, what weapon he was holding. He thrived on the fact that they didn’t doubt he’d pull the string back and let it fly - Max imagined it sinking into the skin just above their collarbone. Far from a perfect shot, far enough that it wouldn’t allow an immediate death - but rather a slow one, one that would assure they’d die but not just yet. Nothing like the merciful, meaningful deaths of the animals - no. He would let it be slow. He’d been vilified at the orphanage - called a freak, had a few incidents wherein the other children cut off locks of his hair while he slept. This wasn’t to say that was kind to them - or to anyone - but their cruelty drove Max further into himself, into the woods, far away from anyone who would recognize him as a human boy.

In his own right, Max was quick-witted and clever, though exceedingly withdrawn, and often belittling to others. He liked to watch people, to try and figure out their inner workings - who they were at their core, their motivations and desires. Their dignified shells bored him - they were such lazy, uninteresting creatures. Lustful and selfish. Not that he thought of himself as much better than them, but rather that he simply considered himself ‘other’. He’d never fit in with the black kids or the white, was never quite human - always more of a wild dog than a human boy. It was difficult for Max to care for people much at all, though he’d occasionally try his hand at it. When he did care for others, he was jealous and overprotective, and always easily offended, trigger-happy temper driving all away. He felt a little as if there were a part of himself - like he was just a portion of a whole.

It was on the eve of his eighteenth birthday that Max awarded himself a second gift. He’d crouched on the bed of his least-favourite roommate, bow and arrow set up in his hands. His bag was packed by the open window (complete with a jar of New Orleans dirt, all his arrows, clothing and shoes stolen from his roommates), and his heart beat steadily. He’d been waiting to do this for years, had been saving up this privilege since the boy had cut off Max’s hair. He’d drawn the string back, and waited. Breathed in, and then out. His heartbeat pounded through his deaf ear, and Max whistled to wake the boy up. And he did - groggy and lazy, until his eyes adjusted, and his eyes widened in fear, raising his hands in surrender. Max happily let the string loose, and hit him in the in the center of his palm, effectively nailing his hand to the bed frame. Watched rather calmly, for a moment, as he struggled for breath, to not die of shock, as he screamed for help. Max didn’t stay to see what happened to him - he climbed quickly out the window as he so often did, and didn’t look back once at the orphanage as he made his way into the woods. He stayed in the forests for a few days, collecting his supplies, until winter’s cold began to set in and he hopped a freight train running through Texas, hopping off in the first major city on the route. He dreamt often - of a past life, of that stupid boy’s hand drilled right against the bed frame.

It wasn’t long before Texas grew dull, and then Max was off to Arizona and California where, combined, he spent a year and a half. Making friends with a raggedy group introduced Max to freight hopping - though he’d never previously heard of it, it was an idea that appealed to him immediately. The idea of having no home at all was all he’d ever wanted, and was immensely pleasing to him. They freight hopped across the country - mostly together, though Max would often stop off with or without tagalongs to spend a day or a month in the woods - as much as he loved the freedoms of the trains, he missed the earth. The mud, earth, the animals.  It was easy to live without other humans, as Max still hadn’t quite grown used to existing comfortably with them. He’d sometimes work odd jobs while on land in order to stock up on enough spare change to feed himself, and to continue his age-old cigarette habit. Long-term, Max had but one idea conceived - one day he’d have a cabin in the woods so he’d never have to leave. He thought of the boy he’d shot often, but only to wish that he’d shot both hands, that he’d shot him in the curve above his collarbone. It was when he was half-asleep on a train moving through New York state that he felt something tugging at him - something pulling at him to visit Savannah. It was uncharacteristic, the pull to be anywhere but the woods, but he couldn’t ignore it, as it stayed with him for weeks, until he went off his regular tracks and crossed over the Georgia border. It wasn’t a city that had stood out to him until he’d crossed it’s borders - until it’d changed him. Made him himself. Whether this was for the better or worse, he couldn’t say.

Abilities:

He supposed he should’ve seen it coming - that his ability would be to morph into the creatures he’d always envied. It wasn’t an immediate change, no - it’d snuck up on him once he’d begun living in Savannah. The first time it happened, though, Max had thought he was dying. He’d been wandering through the woods, when his bones had broken and reformed into new structures, his eyes replaced by another’s, and his skin had burned as it grew a thick, patchy coat. He could feel himself being ripped to shreds, could feel himself dying. After he’d wept and begged for mercy, all that was left of the raggedy boy was a wild dog. He hadn’t been sure, at first, what had happened - perhaps he was just having dreams of a past life again. He breathed easier, the air lighter in his lungs. His hearing had improved wildly in his good ear, the bad still providing only radio silence. It was when he’d gone to howl at the moon that he’d realized just what has happened - a howl. A real one. How could he have done something so beautiful without even noticing? He’d run fast as he could through the forests, had howled at the moon all night. It was, just when he was accepting that this was his new self, that he transformed unwillingly back into his body.

Max has been able to transform back into animals - a dog and a rabbit - since, but hasn’t been able to control it at all. It wasn’t to say that he hasn’t tried - he’s stolen every book that even mentions werewolves from the library. He wants so desperately to be able to control this ability, to manipulate it to his whim, even if he’s not able to stay inhuman permanently. Part of what’s so infuriating about being unable to transform again under his own control is that the elusive beauty of animals he’s envied for so long is just outside his reach.

         MAX IS TAKEN AND PLAYED BY MARGARITA IN EST

[deathbyvalentine]

They said be the change you want to see in the world, but the mirror won't even show my reflection. I have no kindness left in me. This earth is burning, and if I stay, I will too. The stars are calling me. I can't ignore them. I have the cosmos in my lungs, and dark matter in my brain. Space static buzzes in my mouth like love undeclared. I am detached. I am not meant to be here. I want to go home. I need a map declaring 'I am here'. I need to sleep. I need to walk for many miles, until I can finally rest. I don't know what I need, but it isn't this roof blocking the sky, and these four walls made corset. It isn't anything I can find on this earth.

Other. (A.V.P)

[sourpup-blog]

Artemis, having to leave his twin behind against his will

He would find him again. The harder they fought to drag him away from Apollo, the harder Artemis would fight to come back to his brother. Artemis would embrace his namesake and hunt those that took him away from Apollo as he searched, and he would drag his blade across their throats.