Name: Ana Ramir Door: door pass: subCanon: Original Canon Point: Shortly before arriving home on her own planet. Age: 20 Appearance: Here!History: There was nothing particularly exciting about Elisabetta Faraldo. She was born in a relatively well-off family in the small city of Taranto, Focolare and, generally speaking, wanted for nothing. She was a content child, if a little overly curious and too adventurous for her own sake. She had a vivid imagination who always found her surroundings too dull, and was continually disappointed by the way her life was exactly nothing like the exciting lives in movies and comics. But she did the best with what she had, even if it earned her a reputation for terrorizing other children.
Things picked up a little after a visit to her father by an older woman, when Elisabetta was 8. Elisabetta, spying and hoping for a clandestine meeting as she was wont to do, learned that this woman was her estranged grandmother, Jolanda Faraldo. That was pretty interesting. She also picked up that her grandmother was involved in something that her father wanted absolutely no part of, much to her grandmother’s apparently continued disappointment. That and the obvious strife between them was enough to pique Elisabetta's interest. She promptly stowed herself in the hatch of her grandmother’s ship in the hangar and hitched a ride all the way back to where ever her grandmother had come from, because that's definitely the sort of thing that happens in movies.
Her destination turned out to be a beautiful estate in the countryside of Randa, the largest city on Focolare, which was considerably more populated and busy than Elisabetta had expected. She was caught even before she’d had much of a chance to explore, and promptly presented to her grandmother, the donna Faraldo, who seemed a little more important here than Elisabetta had counted on. She headed everything and tell everyone what to do, actually, in the most impressive way. Fortunately, her grandmother was amused at the audacity of her granddaughter. She didn’t send her home, and even helped Elisabetta concoct the excuse of a summer camp to explain her absence.
Elisabetta had found a home away from home. She stayed there as often as she could for the next 7 years, growing up in the middle of what she began to discover was the head of a criminal organization. Her grandmother and her grandmother’s men took to calling her Taranto, which Elisabetta had no qualms about. It was a better name than her own was for this kind of a place. Less stuffy, more important. Her grandmother was pleased to have her granddaughter around, after the disappointment her only son had caused when he proved to want nothing to do with the family business. She was happy to educate “Taranto” about whatever she wanted to know, and was delighted that the girl was so interested in the proceedings. And of course, Taranto began to learn about the donna Faraldo, too. She learned that even in her old age, the woman had a curious strength and hardiness that had saved her and her men countless times. She'd even survived dozens of attempts on her life, shootings, stabbings, you name it. She had a reputation for being made of steel, and all enemies feared her. Taranto was fully enamored.
But these things never really last. Tensions between various groups within the city were rising, and someone caught onto the importance of Taranto and her family to the donna Faraldo. Elisabetta was followed home, somewhere that had always been seen as safe by virtue of distance and non-involvement, leading a hit man from a rival group to his targets. When she was 15 her parents were shot to death as a message to donna Faraldo. Jolanda immediately regretted keeping young and inexperienced Elisabetta around somewhere so suddenly risky, and banned her from anything to do with the Faraldo family practice. She sent her into foster care, which Elisabetta would have none of. Maybe it was the shocked grief of suddenly losing both parents, and now her grandmother on top of that. Or maybe she’d just seen exactly what she wanted, and it was not the life a loving foster family would provide.
She left. She changed her name (to Ana Ramír, and she’d go by the second part of it, because that’s cool), buried her grief, covered her tracks, and hitched a ride off-planet. She knew where she was going: Earth. That was where defeated action heroes always rediscovered themselves in movies, and that was where she would find herself. She was determined to become the kind of person that the donna Faraldo would find useful — not a little girl that had to be protected and sent away when it was dangerous, but someone who could earn their place in the family. Ana Ramir begun to take shape on the foundations of Elisabetta and Taranto. She traveled further still, wandering her way through old Europe and picking up languages and skills. She made it to New York City by the time she was 18 and quickly learned the rules of harsh living in the sprawling, cutthroat megatropolis. (Step one was to lose the English accent she’d learned, and pick up an American accent instead. It makes you less of a target.)
It was part way into her second year in the US when a curious thing happened: she began to change. Just a little bit at first. Sometimes she lifted things easily that grown men had trouble with, sometimes during a dash after some petty crime or another, her second wind kicked in and never left again. But when an outbreak of violence caught up with her in the Bronx and a knife actually broke off rather than pierce her skin, Ramir knew she was really onto something. Something genetic, maybe. Definitely something that would let her finally come home and prove Jolanda proud.
She booked passage on a transport ship and started back to Focolare — only briefly diverted when the ship was hijacked by pirates and destroyed, leaving Ramir and a small group temporarily stranded on a very unwelcoming alien planet.
It's from shortly before her arrival back on Focolare that she'll be taken. Personality: Ramir is quite loud, very self-assured, and distressingly irreverent, and is thoroughly convinced that anything she wants can be had by demanding it. In her experience, most of the rest of the world gives up more quickly than she does, and she’ll butt heads with anyone to get whatever she’s after. Having recently developed extraordinary powers has done nothing to dissuade her from this notion, if anything she’s been delighted to toss tact and manners out the window. Who can say no to her now, when she can just throw them through a wall for it?
That’s not quite all there is to her, though she prefers to keep any other facets of her personality under wraps. Snap judgments based on her crass behavior work in her favor, and she likes to be thought of as a loud idiot. It gives her room to work with her slyer traits — her cleverness, ambition, and keen observation. Below the bluster, Ramir is really quite good with people, and particularly at reading them. Even while being her over-the-top self she gauges those around her, works out what strategy in particular will get what she wants out of them. These are all the sides of her that her grandmother Jolanda encouraged her to build on, and what she went to Earth to practice at the tender age of 15. She got quite good at them all — right up until the superstrength appeared, and she quickly learned how much more fun it is to bull through things. Still, she understands the concepts of subterfuge and wit, and uses them when she needs to.
That said, her loud act isn't just an act. She really is brash and impulsive, motivated by self-interest and whatever seems like most fun at the time, and she has quite a temper. Her anger is loud and explosive, just like the rest of her temperament, but it blows over and goes forgotten almost immediately. Really, there isn’t very much that really gets to her. She’ll have petty fights with just about anyone, friend or not, and half the time she’s decided to forget it and be friends again before the end of the encounter. (The other half the time she has a plan to get malicious and probably hilarious revenge — but don’t worry, things will be even after that. No need for a grudge.) True grievances against her get a colder, deeper sort of anger, the kind that could come to consume and drive her — but there haven’t been many of those in her life so far. She settled most of them, and simply doesn’t let herself think about the yet-unpunished crime that was the murder of her parents. There’s nothing she can do about it at the moment, so she sets it aside for now. Later, though, she plans to make someone pay.
There’s one last side that comes up even more rarely than Ramir’s serious anger. That’s the side of Elisabetta Faraldo, who lost both her parents in one loud, explosive night, and then was cast from the side of her favorite person in the world in response. While Ramir will eventually let herself feel the rage over this, Elisabetta is the one that harbors the grief, and there are no plans to release it. This side of her also desperately wants to prove herself worthy of love and warmth, and craves finding what she had with Jolanda again. She wants to find the sense of beloved importance she had with her, she wants to be someone’s favorite. She wants her family. She’s willing to go to great lengths to get that, and it could easily prove the root of dozens of bad decisions. If anyone manages to worm past her learned suspicions and street smarts, or begins to fulfill those unexpressed cravings of hers, they would find themselves with an intense and possibly ill-advised loyalty, transplanted straight from her relationship with Jolanda. Ramir might tell herself that this is just her drive to build up a trusted family like donna Faraldo had, but it’s more than that. She’s easily able to be blinded by affection for anyone who reminds her of what she’s lost, and she would give away too much to keep that connection, should she find it. It’s a weakness she’s not only unaware of, but happy to have exploited if it would mean even just the illusion of familial love. Powers and Abilities: Superstrength: She’s no Superman, but it's not nothing. She could manage to pick up a car and throw it at someone, but bigger feats of strength will take training and growing.
Invulnerability: Unless you've got one hell of a weapon, she generally can't be shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned with any lasting effect. Her skin repels cuts, her bones resist force, and even fire can't do much more than singe. A lightsaber would probably do the trick, though. Drowning definitely would.
Enhanced system: She has increased metabolism and stamina, although these aren't on the same level as her strength and invulnerability. They're just, y'know, better than human. Inventory: Her favorite jacket, and knapsack with: cellphone, solar charger, canteen with water purifier, lighter, pocket knife. Samples: log threadnetwork post |
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heavyhitter) wrote2020-09-16 03:03 pm
