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manelesscatkingPLAYER INFO
Name: Robert (or Freeze, if you feel bad using my truename)
Preferred pronoun: He
Preferred means of contact: Tumblr or Gchat(this one literally 24/7), and I'll get AIM if it helps make things happen! PM me here and I'll give you access so you can see my contact info.
CHARACTER INFO
Name: Alanna of Trebond
Gender: Female (but presents as male until more memories are regained)
Age: 15
Source: The Song of the Lioness, a Tortall series
Canon Point: Right after meeting with the Great Mother Goddess - basically, right after the last word in the 1997 Random House edition of Alanna: The First Adventure.
CANON
History: Boom, wiki'd. Alanna switched places with her twin brother Thom when her distant, magophobic father sent them off to be trained for noble careers. She became Alan of Trebond, the weeest of pages, and overcame her lack of natural knightly talents through determination and hella practice. She used her magical powers to commune with (and channel) the Great Mother Goddess during a magically created plague, and ended up saving the prince of Tortall from plaguey death rather than burning herself out from overexertion. It was then (at the very latest) that the Mother took a particular interest in Alanna. Later, Prince Jonathan invited Alan the page to go south to Bazhir lands with all of the squires. While there, the two snuck out at night, drawn to the ancient Black City by the godling Ysandir. Somehow, between the Mother's protection and judicious application of magical fire, the pair purged the Black City of all of the Ysandir, and Jon found out that Alan was actually a girl. Having bonded deeply in this experience, the prince chose Alan as his squire soon after.
The first book ends, some stuff happens off-screen, and the second book starts with Alan riding back from an errand for her patron/father/friend, Sir Myles of Olau. She comes across a kitten with the same color eyes as her own, and adopts him as a familiar. Moments later, a strange traveler comes to her solitary camp and reveals herself to be the Great Mother Goddess. In canon, she returns and becomes a knight and fights in a northern border war and then kills the second-in-line to the throne and then gets adopted by the Bedouin stand-ins in the south and then goes adventuring and stares down YET ANOTHER GOD and then brings the priceless artifact from that quest back to the prince just in time for Duke of Conté II: Electric Boogaloo and ends up killing the second-in-line AGAIN, getting named Champion of Tortall, breaking up with the prince after some squicky power-dynamics stuff, marrying a reformed thief king, and inheriting a barony.
In Changed, however, the fae take advantage of her meeting with the Mother to abduct her and take her across the Hedge.
Personality: From her childhood as a girl to her knightly education as a boy to (what would eventually have been, had she not been abducted) her long and illustrious championhood as a woman, Alanna of Trebond has been thoroughly chivalrous. It is not just that she dreams of being a great warrior - anyone with strength and intent to kill can be that. She is an inveterate adherent to the code by which a true knight operates.
A major part of chivalry - perhaps the greatest part - is a sense of loyalty. Alanna is nothing if not loyal, putting her life on the line many times so that Prince Jonathan of Conté might survive and thrive. This loyalty extends not just to liege lords, but to friends as well: she would do anything for George, and during the Sweating Fever epidemic, she demonstrates feelings of loyalty towards her non-royal squire friends almost as intense as those for the prince.
The flipside of chivalry's very public loyalty is its intense privacy. Chivalry demands that a knight shoulder burdens for others, and Alanna especially seems to take everything on herself. Later in life, she would set out at night to claim the Dominion Jewel - alone, so that no one else would have to weather the cold. As a page, she lies again and again during her conflict with Ralon of Malven, for it would be dishonorable to involve other people in responding to his bullying.
Of course, privacy is necessary in her life, because of her great need for secrecy - she lives her entire adolescent life as a boy, and if anyone in power found out the secret before she was knighted, she would be deep trouble. She becomes skilled at juggling the webs of lies and omissions necessary to keep hidden, but she never becomes so natural and masculine a man as some of the others: after her real self was abducted by the fae, Prince Jonathan took great delight in making her dance awkwardly with ladies of the court. George and his mother eventually helped her Fetch learn to appreciate aspects of femininity, but 15-year-old abductee Alanna still has a wee bit of internalized femmephobia.
Alanna of Trebond was not always the great champion that her Fetch would be in years to come - when she first arrived, Alanna was actually rather terrible at fighting. It is through extreme hard work, determination, and repetition that Alanna became a master of sword and fist. She definitely has to be driven and dedicated in order to pass as a boy for nine years, and absolutely anything she puts her mind to is accomplished with the same gusto and determination as learning to fight or learning to be a man.
An unfortunate dark side to how driven Alanna is, is her tendency to push too hard to get the things she wants, taunting others into engaging. She blatantly picks a final battle with her childhood rival Ralon by insulting him and his family, for instance - she also threw the first punch when he was taking too long to start the fight. Beware possession of something that Alanna desires, for it will likely not end well.
For all the great power she possesses to destroy and trick, second only to how much of a knight she is, Alanna is also very much a healer. The special focus of her magics is healing, and even when she's not literally healing people she uses her power (both magical and physical) for the greater good, for her friends, and to put things right.
While pre-Durance Alanna is roughly the same person after being warped by the magic of the True Fae, Alan the Fairest Page has some significant differences. The femmephobia and masculine masquerade that Alan had before being taken morphed into complete masculine gender expression: for all intents and purposes, the Fairest Page is a (rather gay) man. The tendency to taunt and goad in service of achieving goals has been made crueler, edged by a fey malice and more frequently brought to bear for more petty goals. Also, Alan has (for now) forgotten how to heal - he is as fiercely loyal as ever, but for now provides tools and violence (rather than repair) to ameliorate a sticky situation.
INTO THE HEDGE
Seeming: Servant
Role: Fairest Page
Abilities: Preternatural defensive capability in battle, extensive knowledge of weapons and how to use them, ability to find weapons and armor when requested by others, resistance to combat-oriented magic
Description: The ectomorphically tall, lightly armored androgynous figure has painfully white skin, piercingly purple eyes, and red hair that ripples slightly with flames when viewed from the corner of your eye.
Reasoning: Alanna's whole life revolved around being a page - she was freed by the ability to determine her own destiny, but also restricted by (as of this canon point) having to dress as a boy 24/7 and never talk about gender with anyone ever, and by the extensive code of chivalry. As a Fairest Page, she makes a reprise of her service to Prince Jonathan, and follows the strictures of servitude even while she forgets her name and any vestiges of womanhood.
(N.B.: use masculine or gender-neutral pronouns when referring to Alanna; part of Alanna's durance is losing touch with nascent femininity in favor of an adopted masculine persona)
MEMORIES
First Memory: In fetching a very heavy zweihander for the Keeper, the Page recalled handling a similarly unexpectedly heavy blade in order to train in swordcraft. This is the first inkling of a life outside and before the Durance.
Another Five:
-The encounter with the Great Mother Goddess shortly before the point of divergence from canon
-Healing Prince Jonathan of the Sweating Fever, almost burning herself out by channeling a god
-A childhood as a girl (less the specific events and circumstances of childhood and more queering up the andronormativity of the Page's in-game gender identity)
-Sir Myles of Olau, who would later in canon become her adoptive father, but who was her master when she trained as a page
-The cat familiar, Faithful, who came to Alanna's side right before divergence from canon and who is mysteriously absent from Alanna's Durance
SAMPLES
Sample 1
Sample 2
Name: Robert (or Freeze, if you feel bad using my truename)
Preferred pronoun: He
Preferred means of contact: Tumblr or Gchat(this one literally 24/7), and I'll get AIM if it helps make things happen! PM me here and I'll give you access so you can see my contact info.
CHARACTER INFO
Name: Alanna of Trebond
Gender: Female (but presents as male until more memories are regained)
Age: 15
Source: The Song of the Lioness, a Tortall series
Canon Point: Right after meeting with the Great Mother Goddess - basically, right after the last word in the 1997 Random House edition of Alanna: The First Adventure.
CANON
History: Boom, wiki'd. Alanna switched places with her twin brother Thom when her distant, magophobic father sent them off to be trained for noble careers. She became Alan of Trebond, the weeest of pages, and overcame her lack of natural knightly talents through determination and hella practice. She used her magical powers to commune with (and channel) the Great Mother Goddess during a magically created plague, and ended up saving the prince of Tortall from plaguey death rather than burning herself out from overexertion. It was then (at the very latest) that the Mother took a particular interest in Alanna. Later, Prince Jonathan invited Alan the page to go south to Bazhir lands with all of the squires. While there, the two snuck out at night, drawn to the ancient Black City by the godling Ysandir. Somehow, between the Mother's protection and judicious application of magical fire, the pair purged the Black City of all of the Ysandir, and Jon found out that Alan was actually a girl. Having bonded deeply in this experience, the prince chose Alan as his squire soon after.
The first book ends, some stuff happens off-screen, and the second book starts with Alan riding back from an errand for her patron/father/friend, Sir Myles of Olau. She comes across a kitten with the same color eyes as her own, and adopts him as a familiar. Moments later, a strange traveler comes to her solitary camp and reveals herself to be the Great Mother Goddess. In canon, she returns and becomes a knight and fights in a northern border war and then kills the second-in-line to the throne and then gets adopted by the Bedouin stand-ins in the south and then goes adventuring and stares down YET ANOTHER GOD and then brings the priceless artifact from that quest back to the prince just in time for Duke of Conté II: Electric Boogaloo and ends up killing the second-in-line AGAIN, getting named Champion of Tortall, breaking up with the prince after some squicky power-dynamics stuff, marrying a reformed thief king, and inheriting a barony.
In Changed, however, the fae take advantage of her meeting with the Mother to abduct her and take her across the Hedge.
Personality: From her childhood as a girl to her knightly education as a boy to (what would eventually have been, had she not been abducted) her long and illustrious championhood as a woman, Alanna of Trebond has been thoroughly chivalrous. It is not just that she dreams of being a great warrior - anyone with strength and intent to kill can be that. She is an inveterate adherent to the code by which a true knight operates.
A major part of chivalry - perhaps the greatest part - is a sense of loyalty. Alanna is nothing if not loyal, putting her life on the line many times so that Prince Jonathan of Conté might survive and thrive. This loyalty extends not just to liege lords, but to friends as well: she would do anything for George, and during the Sweating Fever epidemic, she demonstrates feelings of loyalty towards her non-royal squire friends almost as intense as those for the prince.
The flipside of chivalry's very public loyalty is its intense privacy. Chivalry demands that a knight shoulder burdens for others, and Alanna especially seems to take everything on herself. Later in life, she would set out at night to claim the Dominion Jewel - alone, so that no one else would have to weather the cold. As a page, she lies again and again during her conflict with Ralon of Malven, for it would be dishonorable to involve other people in responding to his bullying.
Of course, privacy is necessary in her life, because of her great need for secrecy - she lives her entire adolescent life as a boy, and if anyone in power found out the secret before she was knighted, she would be deep trouble. She becomes skilled at juggling the webs of lies and omissions necessary to keep hidden, but she never becomes so natural and masculine a man as some of the others: after her real self was abducted by the fae, Prince Jonathan took great delight in making her dance awkwardly with ladies of the court. George and his mother eventually helped her Fetch learn to appreciate aspects of femininity, but 15-year-old abductee Alanna still has a wee bit of internalized femmephobia.
Alanna of Trebond was not always the great champion that her Fetch would be in years to come - when she first arrived, Alanna was actually rather terrible at fighting. It is through extreme hard work, determination, and repetition that Alanna became a master of sword and fist. She definitely has to be driven and dedicated in order to pass as a boy for nine years, and absolutely anything she puts her mind to is accomplished with the same gusto and determination as learning to fight or learning to be a man.
An unfortunate dark side to how driven Alanna is, is her tendency to push too hard to get the things she wants, taunting others into engaging. She blatantly picks a final battle with her childhood rival Ralon by insulting him and his family, for instance - she also threw the first punch when he was taking too long to start the fight. Beware possession of something that Alanna desires, for it will likely not end well.
For all the great power she possesses to destroy and trick, second only to how much of a knight she is, Alanna is also very much a healer. The special focus of her magics is healing, and even when she's not literally healing people she uses her power (both magical and physical) for the greater good, for her friends, and to put things right.
While pre-Durance Alanna is roughly the same person after being warped by the magic of the True Fae, Alan the Fairest Page has some significant differences. The femmephobia and masculine masquerade that Alan had before being taken morphed into complete masculine gender expression: for all intents and purposes, the Fairest Page is a (rather gay) man. The tendency to taunt and goad in service of achieving goals has been made crueler, edged by a fey malice and more frequently brought to bear for more petty goals. Also, Alan has (for now) forgotten how to heal - he is as fiercely loyal as ever, but for now provides tools and violence (rather than repair) to ameliorate a sticky situation.
INTO THE HEDGE
Seeming: Servant
Role: Fairest Page
Abilities: Preternatural defensive capability in battle, extensive knowledge of weapons and how to use them, ability to find weapons and armor when requested by others, resistance to combat-oriented magic
Description: The ectomorphically tall, lightly armored androgynous figure has painfully white skin, piercingly purple eyes, and red hair that ripples slightly with flames when viewed from the corner of your eye.
Reasoning: Alanna's whole life revolved around being a page - she was freed by the ability to determine her own destiny, but also restricted by (as of this canon point) having to dress as a boy 24/7 and never talk about gender with anyone ever, and by the extensive code of chivalry. As a Fairest Page, she makes a reprise of her service to Prince Jonathan, and follows the strictures of servitude even while she forgets her name and any vestiges of womanhood.
(N.B.: use masculine or gender-neutral pronouns when referring to Alanna; part of Alanna's durance is losing touch with nascent femininity in favor of an adopted masculine persona)
MEMORIES
First Memory: In fetching a very heavy zweihander for the Keeper, the Page recalled handling a similarly unexpectedly heavy blade in order to train in swordcraft. This is the first inkling of a life outside and before the Durance.
Another Five:
-The encounter with the Great Mother Goddess shortly before the point of divergence from canon
-Healing Prince Jonathan of the Sweating Fever, almost burning herself out by channeling a god
-A childhood as a girl (less the specific events and circumstances of childhood and more queering up the andronormativity of the Page's in-game gender identity)
-Sir Myles of Olau, who would later in canon become her adoptive father, but who was her master when she trained as a page
-The cat familiar, Faithful, who came to Alanna's side right before divergence from canon and who is mysteriously absent from Alanna's Durance
SAMPLES
Sample 1
Sample 2
