Mask or Menace Application

[numberthree]

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Amanda
AGE: 35
JOURNAL: Wanderlustlover
IM / EMAIL: Wanderlustlover@gmail.com
PLURK: Wanderlustlover 
RETURNING: Brand new baby.  




〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Allison Hargreeves
CHARACTER AGE: 29
SERIES: The Umbrella Academy 
CHRONOLOGY: Episode 1.10
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: City/House Randomly (then, likely, moving to/in with siblings once reuinted)

BACKGROUND: Allison | The Umbrella Academy


PERSONALITY: 

☂ 00.03 Insufferable, narcissistic creature, but extremely useful. Prevaricates with appalling ease — From the personal notes of Sir Reginald Hargreeves

Allison Hargreeves was the third child bought (and “adopted”) by Reginald Hargreeves — inventor, entrepreneur, renown Olympic gold medalist in fencing, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize — ”to save the world, of course.” Raised in a mansion with siblings who were more like compatriot soldiers, Allison was rigorously trained for physical endurance and the use of her powers from the point she could walk and talk.

The first child to speak up about their father’s dedication to them only being only there when they were training, being experimented on, or our on a mission, Allison has always been willing to speak out sharply, in a sharp cold temper, against what she thinks is wrong. Which started with her father’s treatment of herself and all of her siblings, whom he never named, but numbered in the order with which he felt their usefulness to him was.

☂ “My sister is beautiful, and she knows. Allison loves attention, even while complaining about it, feigning modesty. What else would you expect—her superpower is dishonesty. Father trained her so well.” — From Extra Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven by Vanya Hargreeves

Allison’s powers, warping reality to fit whatever she said something was (through the use of ’I heard a rumor’), gave her everything she wanted as a child. Being capable of always getting her way with the turn of a single phrase, while being raised without parents who truly focused on intrapersonal morals, Allison was in many ways selfish, self-centered, and arrogant. She was quite willing to use all she had to further her aims, whether that was in helping to stop bank robberies by telling a criminal to shoot their accomplice or using it to run loops around her father’s rules for sneaking out. 



Being the only girl in the Umbrella Academy with powers, Allison was courted by and grew up with the focus of the media on her, and her face often splashed across any number of newspapers and magazines. This only furthered both what Hargreeves referred to as Allison’s “insufferable, narcissistic traits” and her own longing to go into acting, knowing the world was already ready and waiting for her to hit adulthood.



☂ It just seemed like, when you left, all you wanted to do was forget this place even existed. — Luther Hargreeves

Except for Luther, none of the Umbrella Academy children planned to stay in their home any longer than they had to. Two of their brothers, Five and Ben, were already gone by their mid-teens, the former vanishing after one intense fight with their father and the second dying in the line of duty. None of which changed anything about how the rest of them were raised, trained, and run, like expendable — and ‘disappointing’ — toy soldiers.

After leaving, Allison started a career as an actress which would blossom so massively that ordinary people, even in small towns recognize her from several of the action and romantic-comedy movies that she’s done. While the fame of her siblings, and their exploits as a child superhero team, had died down and mostly blown away in the 12-13 years since they all parted, Allison’s fame only skyrocketed higher and higher, until, as her sister put it, “[she’s] one of the most famous people in the world.”

☂ I didn't think it was possible to miss a person this much.

While Allison’s life was still on its skyward assent as she claimed movie after movie deal, earning more and more attention from the world at large, she fell in love with Patrick, got married, and they had their daughter, Claire. Still relying on her powers to help her smooth out frustrations and obstacles in her life, Allison was caught by her husband one night, using her powers to convince their daughter to sleep instead of having her temper tantrum. 


Due to this manipulation of their daughter with her powers (and too many doubts about what other things she may have used it on both on himself and their daughter), Patrick filed for divorce and won full custody of Claire. This event changed everything for Allison, as she was required ongoing sessions with a court-ordered therapist to even be given the rights to see or speak to her daughter at all.

☂ Now I know nothing in my life was real.

Eight months later, and at current for Allison’s one-week worth of canon, and her entering Mask or Menace, Allison has been in therapy for three-fourths of a year and is in the process of trying to reconstruct her life. She’s been made to face the crutch her powers have been and the fact it’s made her life a carousel of lies built on rumors that likely had no real truth under them, and to acknowledge her dependence on this and "taking the easy route" cost her the most important person in her world. 


Because of these epiphanies, when Allison meets her siblings again for their father’s funeral, her response to being told she could do her ‘Rumor Thing’ (to get her daughter back, specifically, even) is “I don’t do that anymore” and it holds true, as Allison doesn’t actually use her power once in the whole of first season current-day canon. She’s come to space where she trying to define her life and herself without the lies her skills make real.

☂ Some things just stay broken.

In returning home, Allison is shown as frequently the most mature of her siblings.

While the bar is set very low on this for the Hargreeves Children, none of which had a healthy upbringing or adulthood, Allison is the only one of them to have been married and had a child, and, also, to have those things taken away from her. While she maintains a very coiffed appearance and demeanor at all times, her mental state is still quite fraught. Therapy has both helped further shatter her original conception of herself, and placed into her hands the tools of understanding her present and her choices are now in her hands, "because she is an adult now and there's no one else to blame for her actions but herself." A refrain we hear her give her siblings, as well.

Allison considers herself, in her own words, “broken” very likely indefinitely-without-repair, and she goes on to tell one of her siblings, that he is the “only [person] who knows who [she] really is, and still likes her.” Which has indicative connotations to how much she can’t trust what she’s manipulated of the lives around her, save one, and somehow that one still doesn’t hate her, at least not the way she’s come to hate herself, for who she is and how being that person led to the removal of her daughter. That all the others in her life who like her very likely don't at their truest base, too.

While this struggle for herself and finding, as well as defining, her own new way in life, is a big part of her, Allison shines where it comes to her family. Her absolution to put her daughter first is paramount to all she does. The same can be said of her loyalty to all of her siblings, and to Luther, and Vanya, especially. Though erstwhile some of them may be and all of them estranged from over a decade of barely talking (so much so that not one of her siblings has met her daughter yet), Allison would not turn her back on any of them. Not even for the end of the world and the deaths of everyone on the planet.

Allison very much speaks from her heart and loves her family, even if she can come off distant and fiercely annoyed in turns.

POWER: 
Persuasion ☂
In her canon, if Allison starts a sentence with "I heard a rumor..." the person listening will be convinced of the validity of the statement that comes right after it. With these powers, Allison spent much of her life persuading her father, and the world at large, to go along with her what she wanted. As most of the people this was done to were ordinary people in her world, and Mask or Menace is filled with Superheroes, this will not work on strong-willed people at all.

Per Allison's current canon-placement for entering Mask or Menace, she has no use of her voice, due to her vocal cords being cut in Episode 1.08, taking with them both her ability to speak and her access to her powers. I don't intend to plot a quick fix for either anytime soon, but I have already set up an Opt-Out Post for players as well.

The Super Star ☂
Allison is world famous in her canon. Due to her star-studded life of the last decade, she has always appeared immaculately put together (hair, makeup, four-inch heels, etc.) in the show. This silly power is just making it so her hair, skin, clothes, makeup somehow look radiantly fresh, flawless, fitted, and flattering at all times. 

Super Star Umbrella
Super Star (of Enchantment) - The user acts as the physical representation or personification of the beauty, as such, they are infinitely and supremely beautiful. The main Super Star power that is apparent on the outside of Allison (in the main description) without being something she does/can control. This 1.0 power already approved.

Beauty Inducement - The user can alter the physical qualities of people (including themselves), animals, and inanimate objects so that they will become more healthy, vital, and pleasing aesthetically. (Will be added to permissions, never used without.)

Beauty Thievery - The user can absorb the beauty of others, taking away their targets' radiance, health, and vitality. (Will be added to permissions, never used without.)

Lie Detector ☂
Allison is already a character who is very astute at noticing character shifts/changes, and the 'level of bs' people use when talking to her, as shown in her canon. While Allison won't be able to tell exactly how or what a person is lying about, she'll still get a Bad Feeling™ that something is very off when someone is lying to her (whether a tiny white lie all the way to massive one, and including lies of omission). This will display as a sudden headache, stomach ache, even physical shaking, the severity of which will depend on the severity of the lie in question and the continued length of how long they try to keep up, and/or strengthen the lie by defending it.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE: 

[ The network video when it comes on is of a brand new face that hasn’t been seen here before. A beautiful woman with creamy light brown skin and long, crimped blonde hair, styled artfully back from her face on one side and framing the other. Her make-up is subtle but smoothed to pull together at the toned light red of her lipstick. Her delicate-knit shirt hangs off one shoulder in a soft mint shade, and her bare skin is accented by a simple golden locket.



Everything about her is picturesque save one detail — a garish bandage, with clear, medical grade tape, wrinkling at the edge as she swallows, covers the center of her throat in a glaring white stripe.



She’s focusing on something in her hands when the video comes up, and she looks up at the camera with a faintly awkward reluctance cemented by determination. She gives a small smile that brushes some of the dust off the awkwardness and settles her shoulders, lifting from her lap a torn-out yellow notepad sheet and holding it before her and camera, but below her face, revealing a tattoo of an umbrella on her wrist. It reads, in thick black sharpie letters: ]



Hello. My name is Allison Hargreeves.



[ She counts in her head to five before she puts it down, lifting the next one. Trying to maintain her calm and poise at the necessity of this. To not feel the futility that necessity brings about. That her new inability to speak adds to it. The next page reads: ]



I am new here and looking for my siblings.



 [ Very specifically, them. Not just ‘anyone who knew her,’ given that in her world — and that there are other worlds is not a thing Allison wants to think hard on yet, and definitely right now, right here, with untold number of unknown people watching her — but on hers, she had been recognizable since birth. First as the only girl in the illustrious Umbrella Academy destined to ’save the world, of course’ and then as a world-famous actress for the second half of her life.



Allison knew better than to ask for things too blankly open stated. Stardom taught you many things about humanity you never wanted to know. She dropped the second paper and raised a third prepared one. ]

Their names are Luther, Diego, Klaus, Five, and Vanya. 



[ Another small pause and, instead of picking up a fourth, she simply turns over the third to show the last sentence. ]


Any help in finding them, if they are here, is appreciated. 


LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

Allison's TDM Threads

FINAL NOTES: 
☂ Proviso
I understand that Allison's power might come off invasive to other writers, and will only be using her rumor/reality manipulation powers with the full understanding and agreement of the writers of those characters in threads with her.