PINES APPLICATION

[defenderofmen]

PLAYER

NAME: Ami
CONTACT: mizuyoko
OTHER CHARACTERS IN THE PINES: Clary Fray

CHARACTER

NAME: Elena Michaels
CANON: The Otherworld Series
CANON-POINT: End of Book One: Bitten

DOSSIER

HISTORY: Wiki Here

WHAT ARE YOUR CHARACTER'S STRENGTHS?: Elena's strengths are that she's protective, strong, stubborn, affectionate, forward and a very talented writer. Her life has been hard and everything it's taught her is that bending is just another way to break. In light of that she's grown up to be unbreakable. She is the only female werewolf in her canon because women aren't strong enough to survive the bite. Elena survived. This is the biggest testament to her character and what she can go through. Everything with her changes is very painful which is why even those strong enough to survive sometimes go crazy.

Even with this strength, she is hurt and damaged from her past and inside she's lost and yearning for more to life. The most noticeable way of seeing this is when she interacts with Jeremy and looks to him; even when she doesn't want to. She yearns for his approval, like a father that she never had. Deep down Elena is a very sweet girl. She'll close her eyes to listen to the rain. She's the sort of person who cries more at happy ending than sad ones. More than anything Elena wants a happy ending and she hopes that she'll one day have it. She's affectionate and caring. She tries to appear hardened but her heart is in the right place. She'll do anything for those she cares about, to protect those she considers family or the pack.

She's independent and very intelligent. She first met Clay, the man who turned her into a werewolf, while working at a collage. She has always been a skilled writer and has learned more through the years thanks to her time with Clay, who is an anthropology professor. She's able to catch onto things quickly and keep her head not just above the water, but be swimming against the currents.

WHAT ARE YOUR CHARACTER'S WEAKNESSES?: Elena can be stubborn, restless, lost, forceful and when pushed to her edge violent and short tempered. She hates fighting and she hates herself for what she's turned into. She tries to live at an extreme denying half of herself and clinging to normalcy. She wants to be normal more than anything in the world. It's this desire that makes her deny half of herself and this denial weakens her as a person. It's also this desire that makes her lash out violently or react. Due to the fact that she's holding back so much, such as her past and what she is, she tends to hit a point where she can't and then the emotions spill over in a negative, nonconstructive, way.

She is independent and caring but guarded due to her troubled childhood. It's hard for her to trust. She's protective and doesn't let the men in her life see her weakness. This makes it hard to connect with people on a deep level. She won't share details about her childhood to the point that her significant other who she lives with knows nothing about her family or past. All she's told him is that she was in the foster system.

She over things and while she's very smart, she sometimes doesn't take her own advice and does something stupid. This is how she almost gets killed by a newly turned mutt who also happens to be a murderer. She treated him like any other mutt instead of like the insane killer that he was, shortly after telling Jeremy that they needed to treat these mutts differently.

WHAT EVENTS OR CIRCUMSTANCES IN YOUR CHARACTER'S PAST HAVE IMPACTED THEM THE MOST?: The biggest change was being bitten however I don't believe that it has impacted Elena as much as being in the foster system. She was routinely returned for being an unruly child and was soon pray to child molesters. This taught her that she couldn't be weak and she'd learned how to be strong simply to defend herself. This part of her personality is very predominant through the books. It also helped her when she joined the pack. She is the only female werewolf in her canon and as such, the others considered her the highest prize. It's because of her fighting nature that she's able to keep surviving and I think it's because of this that I think that her time with the foster system, a few specific families, that had the most impact. Of course so had being bitten. It changed how she had to live her life but it didn't change who Elena was as a person.

WHAT MOTIVATES YOUR CHARACTER?: Elena's biggest motivation is to be normal. Through the first book all she wants is to protect her normal life and continue it as soon as possible. She hates being a werewolf and blames Clayton for all of it. Even so she isn't heartless. She can't bring herself to completely push the pack away and that molds into her second big motivation; protecting the pack. These two motivations often clash with each other creating conflict inside of Elena as she fights for control over her own life.

WHAT IMPRESSION DO OTHERS TEND TO HAVE OF YOUR CHARACTER?: When you first meet Elena she comes off as sweet or kind. She's beautiful like a doll and fragile. Her skin is pale like porcelain and her blue eyes are clear like the water you'd find in a pool. Her hair is blond, bright, long and silky. It's only when people try to misuse her that this impression falls away. She does come off as smart and even funny. She isn't the best at getting close to people but she's decent at those conversations that consist of the state of the roads, the crowds and other normal day to day topics.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES THAT IMPRESSION DIFFER FROM WHO YOUR CHARACTER REALLY IS?: When you get to know Elena or get on the wrong side of her, people will find that she's strong and fierce and difficult. Even as a small child she'd been known to cause problems. Her temper can flare and she'll knock someone on their ass. She's very protective of her family and children. She never wants to see someone going through what she went through. She's argumentative and keeps secrets, not wanting to ever talk about her past.

HOW DOES YOUR CHARACTER HANDLE CRISIS OR ADVERSITY?: Elena has two ways that she faces something and they're complete opposites. The frist is that she'll try and ignore it. She wants to be normal, more than anything else she hates the life she'd been given, the killing and fighting. She spends a great deal of time trying to ignore her other half. The other way she faces things is when that doesn't work. If someone she cares about gets hurt or if she feels like there is no other way but to face it. This is when she stops running, turns and faces it head on. She's a fighter and there really isn't any middle ground between these two reactions. She even goes as far as to separate her life into two parts. The normal reporter who lived with her boyfriend in Toronto and the werewolf who lives in Bear Valley NY.

WHICH 5 THINGS WILL YOUR CHARACTER REMEMBER UPON ARRIVAL, AND WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THEM?: Her parents death when she was 5, she has no family, that she's a journalist, studied at University of Toronto, NY Bear Valley was the closest thing she had to home. These are all chosen for more or less the same reason. I don't want her to remember that she's a werewolf right away because tension is fun. I do want her to remember her displacement though, that unsettling feeling that you get when you don't know where you belong. She'll remember bits and pieces about foster homes and things like that and it'll help her settle into Pines at first. She won't want to reject the reality that she's always wanted and it'll create interesting complications.

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU FEEL WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER?: She won't be able to control her changes during the beginning of her time in Pines and she'll end up running around the forest. She can infect people by biting them but it'll most likely kill them; there is a 95% chance for survival. This will most likely not happen since she'll be remembering the werewolf thing fairly quickly.


SKILLS, ABILITIES, & PHYSICAL WEAKNESSES:

Werewolf - human form: Elena is stronger than a human; she can hold up a man by the neck and choke them to death or punch out a piece of a wall. She isn't the strongest werewolf though she's nothing to laugh at. She's also fast though not as fast as a wolf, closer to the speed of a sprinter. She also has faster healing. Something that would take weeks to heal will take days. She has heightened senses too. Out of everyone in her pack she's the best tracker and the most skilled at finding people. She's smart and able to use her werewolf senses along with her brain. In the books it's referenced that she can easily life 500 lbs.

Werewolf - wolf form: She is a wolf and can run like a wolf and has the jaw power of a wolf. All of her skills from her human form are stronger however her healing is at the same rate no matter what form she's in. Heightened senses too, she is the best tracker in the pack and able to pick up scents even in cities.

Combat Training: She has spent years training with her pack. When there isn't time to shift they still need to know how to fight. She's skilled with grappling techniques specifically. (Her fighting style @0.39 sec)

Cartographer/Historian: This doesn't count as a skill however Elena is good at adding to old maps as well as reading them. She's less skilled with it on her phone unless it has GPS. She'd became the historian of the werewolf history in her world and had a strange organization system that worked for her. Throwing herself into this history is how she came to grips with becoming a werewolf.

Appetite: Like all werewolves she eats a lot... she mostly subsidizes her meals with protein bars and fatty foods.

Writer: When Elena broke away from the back she became a writer. She preferred to write liberal pieces and ends up writing for a paper in Toronto in Canada. She's a very skilled writer.

INVENTORY: Her wedding ring from Clayton, her dossier book on mutts.

SAMPLES

PROSE-HEAVY: Test Drive; Kal
DIALOGUE-HEAVY: Video; Dyme