Post by zzz - Julianna Kató on Apr 14, 2012 20:58:49 GMT -5
Julianna Kató
---- THE BASICS
Character's Full Name: Julianna Elizaveta Kató
Nicknames and Aliases: Jules, Evee
Age: 19
Species: Werewolf
She is part of a line similar to the Lockwood's dating back several hundred years in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. She has yet to fulfill the curse personally and remains, for now, innocently 'human.' Once she experiences her first transformation she'll enjoy the same benefits and drawl backs that others like her suffer. Her youth and inexperience will make her vulnerable, as does her lack of knowledge of the arcane or even the existence of non-humans. Currently, she seems to lose her temper more easily the older she gets and she enjoys slight enhancements to her agility and speed placing those traits near peak human in spite of the fact that she isn't the kind of girl who works out regularly every day at the gym.
Played By: Barbara Palvin
Appearance: Like many college students her age, Julianna likes to dress casually when she can. She grew up a bit of a tomboy, playing in the mud and climbing trees and there is a bit of that still within her movements, her lack of pretense and her general physical approach to other people and life. When she began to grow to school age her mother and grandmother insisted that she start to play the part of a proper young lady and accordingly she likes to be pretty when she can be. However these occasions are generally special events or because of some interest on her part to make an impression. She's average height, she feels at five foot seven and a pinch, though for a time she was the tallest, most awkward girl in her classes in school.
Jules likes to have a good time and can often be seen making fun of herself or a situation to generate smiles. She likes to make funny faces, her fascination with old time movie stars like Audrey Hepburn and Lucille Ball a visible influence in the kinds of faces or poses she might adopt. One of the reasons she resorts to humor so physically is that she still feels that her body is on the slim side, though she is grateful that she finally has some curves. Being slender, her body has a natural grace and elegance of line, something she emphasizes with jackets and skirts that reveal long legs or that draw in at her waist to make the most of the curves she does have.
Her hair is one of her favorite features, long and falling down much of her back in a honeyed shade of brown. Her eyes are bright, slightly almond shaped and perhaps ironically slightly cat like when she wears dark liner. Her sense of fashion and what is fashionable is slightly skewed by her Hungarian upbringing and limited exposure to Western pop culture. Without proper guidance her tastes lean in a 1970's-1980's direction, which isn't all bad except she doesn't really know how best to update it.
Personality: This young woman's most predominant trait, at least when you first meet her, has to be her sense of humor. Often at her own expense and occasionally at other's she sees situations from a unique perspective. She isn't exactly odd but she isn't cookie cutter either. Though she isn't necessarily a great student always, she is the type to power through and overcome her shortcomings intellectually with sheer determination. This sense of purpose comes from her earliest days of trying to compete with the older girls and boys she grew up surrounded by. Like in the old comical song, if you say you can do something, she'll try to be and do better - i.e. I can do anything better than you. And if she isn't or can't, when pushed she'll claim she can at least and then just hope that she isn't called on it.
Growing up in a household of women, with a father who traveled extensively 'for work,' she is comfortable around women and befriends them easily, even if she doesn't always like the way many seem to become catty with each other. She'll most often try to diffuse tense situations with humor. This is a heightened response when she's unsure or nervous, sort of an emotional reflex. She likes to read and explore and may still climb a tree she finds interesting, even if it isn't something a lady does. At heart, she's curious and naturally seeks the good in others, even absent fathers.
Julianna grew up wanting to please him when he was home and that natural reaction to men or authority continues, to a point. She can be headstrong when she feels she's right or has a right to be. She likes to consider herself a champion of the under dog. Though the definition of what that means seems to shift the more she gets to know the world and it's people. Despite traveling half way around the world as an exchange student she is still rather naive, especially when considering a place like Mystic Falls and it's surrounding communities.
Powers and Strengths: Currently Julianna is merely human. She fancies herself a poetess and an artist and a person who appreciates beauty and nature. She adores old architecture and modern glass boxes, as she calls much of what cities have to offer these days. She hasn't quite decided whether to become an architect or an artist or an actress or a comic or a writer....she's still discovering what and who she is in a lot of ways. She is a fantastic pastry cook and has been baking fresh breads and tarts since she was old enough to stand on a stool at her mother's counter or table. She is not a mechanic but she can hotwire a vehicle or jump start a battery. She changed a tire once but it was raining and it wasn't a pretty situation. She can speak, read, and write Hungarian, German, Romani, decent English and some French.
Her dormant traits are as follows:
She possesses super strength in both human and wolf form, the power growing as the full moon nears. In wolf form she will be able to overpower most vampires however in human form she is noticeably weaker. Her speed and agility are also super human enabling her to can move, jump, climb, and run incredibly fast without difficulty or exhaustion. This is true even in her human form as werewolves are extremely fast, enabling them to chase down even seasoned vampires with relative ease. This is magnified like her strength during a full moon. She enjoys super human durability which enables her body to handle not only feats of strength and speed but also handle damage that would kill an ordinary human. Along with that she has incredibly fast healing and regenerative abilities that work just as quickly as those of a vampire. Her bite is poisonous to vampires but not to originals and her abilities increase when enraged just as they do during a full moon.
Compared to her North American cousins, Julianna's wolf form tends to have longer, more highly placed ears, a narrower head, more slender limbs and tawnier coloured fur. Because they've been forced to live among humans longer, her kind also tend to be more adaptable or even reclusive by nature versus seeking to be part of a large running pack. Her loyalty still extends itself to a pack/alpha dynamic though she still has a tendency toward independence. Because of her youth transitions and full moons will be exceedingly difficult, leaving her without much control.
Vulnerabilities and Weaknesses: She's young and inexperienced. Therefore she can be taken advantage of by those who seek to manipulate her or mislead her. Once she transforms she'll be literally standing on new legs and afraid, yet more ground for uncertainty. She also has the same weaknesses as any human and eventually as those of her kind. She possess the same intolerance for wolfsbane as any wolf. It can leave her weak and feverish or burn her skin. A broken neck or having her heart removed can kill her instantly just as both magic and the Gilbert Device can affect her. Silver has no affect on her.
---- HISTORY
The family history of her ancestors goes back countless generations and if you asked Julliana now who they were or what they meant to her she'd be nonplussed about their importance. For her, life began in a hospital in war torn Hungary. Growing up in a world just four years shy of Communist rule was difficult, gray and she learned early that is she wanted something she had to fight for it or at the very least want it enough to be willing to compete for it. She found solace and escape in old tapes of American comedies and movies she checked out of the local library. Reading was important to her as well in terms of escape and the opportunity to see life beyond the walls of the apartment she shared with her parents and grandmother.
Once he was cleared for travel, her father spend most of her childhood traveling for work. He would bring back post cards and tiny objects d'art she considered to be treasures. Life was not always the duldrums of city life in Budapest and struggling economies. There were trips to the Danube Bend and a cottage along the curve of the Danube near the city of Visegrád and from the windows there were mountains and wilderness and adventure. In nature she found her freedom, a sense of urgency and an appreciation for life and natural beauty.
What she didn't know was that her father often spent time here in this small cottage, hunting and apart from the world. When he was thirty two, and she was three, he inadvertently caused an accident resulting in a co-workers death at the manufacturing plant he was working in at the time. Following the resulting full moon, the man kept his distance from his family during the monthly changes to be sure no one else was harmed by him. He'd travel, working in commission based sales when he could and when he felt 'dangerous' he'd steal himself away in the cabin, feeding on wildlife. The curse afflicting him was centuries old and he raised his only child ignorant of it feeling that the curse would only afflict males since his own sister seemed unaffected.
Jules was an adequate student until she learned that she could earn the chance to travel too if her grades were strong enough. When the opportunity came, she competed for an arts scholarship to a prominent university and won it. Attending school was exciting if for the fact that it was new. She applied for the opportunity to become an exchange student for a year in the United States and managed to charm the committee with her talent and sense of humor. She begins her sophomore year of college at the university in the larger city near Mystic Falls. During weekends she likes to get out of town and explore and that was how she found and fell in love with Mystic Falls not knowing there might be others like her here, the cursed and the damned.
---- ROLE PLAY SAMPLE
(OOC: This isn't for the character. I can create one if need be but I wanted to get this posted in one sitting and I've lost steam tonight.)
College life was turning out to be a lot more stressful than she'd expected it to be. She'd been to New York a few times before, mostly to shop and occasionally to see a Broadway play with her Great Aunt, who still liked to keep abreast of current happenings in the arts. Katerina crossed the block leaving campus and her morning classes to grab a quick coffee at Starbucks and maybe steal away to read for a few minutes before her afternoon class started. She was feeling anxious about a test she already had coming up in one of her classes. She always had done well in pursuing her education but Columbia University was much different than the smaller schools she'd always gone to. Here she was just like any other freshman.
It was odd. She'd always been singled out for her family, or for her aunt, or the history and reputation her family still held back home. Here she was just Katerina and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. She'd had abstract thought about it prior, of course, and decided that she'd be fine with being anonymous, but now she wasn't so sure. Two of her friends were coming to come to Columbia with her, one as her roommate no less. One had decided to attend Stanford, the other and the one who would have been her roommate, her father lost his corporate job and was now unemployed. She'd lost her funding. Katerina had considered asking her own parents for a semester's help for her friend but in the end decided against it. It was better not to mix friendships and money. Things like that never went well.
Walking past a row of parked cars, and the keypad on one of them opened. She was so lost to her thoughts that she didn't hear the alarms at first. Only when she looked back at the car, seeing all four doors of the electronically protected vehicle did she find it odd. She looked around for the owner of the car, shrugging as a man passed by, "That's odd." Continuing on, she cued up in line at Starbucks and as she was waiting she heard a voice ask, "Maybe I'll look online...I'm sure we can find one of those Wii systems cheaper than that." She turned back without missing a beat and said, "Tiger Direct has them for fifty dollars less than that site." It wasn't until the woman gave her a shocked expression that she realized the voice she'd heard was male. And though she didn't know it, it was the voice on the other end of the cell phone the stranger was talking on.
"Sorry...I, never mind. I thought you...never mind." Kat responded to the stony silence facing her. She turned back front and order herself a double caramel latte and a turtle flavored biscotti. She paid for the items with her debit card and then left the counter as quickly as she could. Outside, worried about what had just happened, it was happening more and more lately. Maybe she was psychic, she didn't know. Whatever the case, things were about to get a lot weirder for her. The idea of checking her balance crossed her mind, the freshly used debit card safely within her sweater pocket. She felt that was safer than her purse, plus her hands were full. She passed an ATM machine and it started spitting out twenties. She stopped, the crumb end of the biscotti perched on her lips as if to take a small nibble before she crossed the street to go bake to class.
Already people were bending over and scooping up the errant bills, already people were diving in for what they were sure was easy money. Pale faced, Kat turned away as the bank manager came out with an employee, "I can't turn the machine off. It won't stop."
"Cut the power."
"I'll try that."
Katerina hurried out into the street. The traffic lights abruptly changing to halt traffic as she crossed. Cars already racing toward the intersection bowed up and slammed into each other. Katerina's head felt like it was going to explode suddenly as a rush of information, panicked callers on cell phones, authorities on route, all of it flooded her brain. She cried out, "STOP!"
And eerie silence descended on the panicked crowds as every single computer operated device in a two block radius was instantly stalled, if not cut off. Hurrying across the crosswalk, the young woman tried her best to get lost in the crowd. The coffee, and the biscotti forgotten as she tossed them into a trash can.
---- THE PLAYER
Alias: Jen
RP Experience: Several years, I enjoy the hobby.
Contact: PM please.
