folkmore application

[so_many_pockets]

❥ Character Information

Character Name: Yelena Belova
Character Age: She was *probably* born in or close to 1989, but has no idea beyond that, which makes her roughly 36 at some point in 2025. She did lose 5 years in the blip, though. If asked, who knows what she would say.
Character Species: Human.
Current Health: A few bruises, nothing of note.
Outfit: here, minus the weapons

Character Canon: The MCU.
Link to History: Here.
Canon Point: Post the Hawkeye finale.
Canon Iteration: Original canon.
Canon Iteration Explanation: NA.

❥ Folkmore Roles & Attributes

Skills: Espionage, hand to hand combat, sharpshooting, pursuit and evasive driving, flying a plane (at least, some types of plane), speaks multiple languages.
Canon Abilities: Of the magical sort, none.
Role: Myth.
Role Qualities/Attributes: Short red claws, red on her hands, fangs.
Role Reasoning: Answer both: Why are you picking this role for your character? What are your general plans concerning this? Respond in 100-200 words.
The majority of Yelena's life thus far has been spent being forcibly controlled by other people. At first, this control was maintained by violence and threats of violence, which graduated to literal chemical mind control. As a result, she heavily despises being told what to do, being manipulated or tricked into things, and people who think they have authority over her.

More important to the choice of myth for her is that she, personally, considers herself a bad person for the harm & violence she committed over her life. Her sister has expressed a desire to balance the scales, Yelena is less convinced this is possible, at least for herself. Even if it had been once, after her sister's death, she went back to assassin work to pay the bills.

Goals for her in this role include getting her to grapple with her own guilt and internal control issues, and face up to the unhealthy coping mechanisms that have her isolating herself, acting as if she does not care about things, and essentially regressing.

❥ Personality

Please choose one of the following options for your personality section:

Option 1. A significant percentage of the people who have gotten to know Yelena, since she has regained control of herself, would likely describe her as "a little shit." They are not wrong. There is generally always a slightly mocking vibe to her demeanor or conversation. She is fluent in a number of languages and of those, sarcasm may be her favorite. If they are less generous, they may just think she's an asshole. (They are still not wrong.) She is also secretive, highly independent, proud, mistrustful of almost everyone, thoroughly enjoys a fight, and is prone to being unapologetically very odd and off-putting. Her childhood ended viciously at the age of 6, and any socialization she got after that was largely with the aim of blending in, in order to be a more effective spy and assassin. This has left her with a special fondness for surprising people or subverting expectations of her. She also, as a result of that, finds some enjoyment in standing out - but only in very specific ways. If she does not want to be perceived, she is accomplished at making sure she isn't, on the occasion that she IS perceived when she does not want to be, she may react very badly. Contradictions like this are all over her personality, due to the years of training clashing with her own (still developing) sense of self. Another large example is her confidence: it would be difficult to describe her as lacking in this area, especially in regards to her skills, but this does not mean that she likes the person she thinks of when she thinks of herself.

On the flip side of her personality, on a good day so to speak, she prefers to be honest when she can, she is friendly, generous, kind, outgoing, curious, gentle and protective of those she perceives as innocent, defensive of other women who have went through similar things to her, possessive of the few people she considers herself truly close to but also very protective of them, and once she has decided that she cares about someone, it is extremely difficult to change her mind. (See: her parents.) When hurt, though, or angry, her experience and expression of those feelings tends to be explosive. She has little experience dealing with those emotions, and while she is capable of extraordinary control over her emotions, she prefers not to. It has to be very bad indeed, or she has to feel very unsafe, to shut down entirely.

It is hard for her to imagine what her full potential would be like, at this point in her life, she feels completely disconnected from what personality she had formed and what hopes she had for the future before the blip/her sister's death, and it has left her spiraling. In order to start to visualize her own potential and a future for herself again, she needs to regain an anchor to the world, and better coping methods (or any at all) for when that gets shaky. It's not an impossible task by any means, she is a very deeply caring person, who values family and community really more than anything else, and this keeps her desperation for connection stronger than her fear of further loss. Even in her grief, in her lowest moments since gaining her freedom, she repeatedly chooses to be honest, to be kind, to be friendly, and ultimately to walk away from that revenge, even though it may have personal consequence for her. This does not mean that she won't react out of that fear, or regress (i.e. be a chicken), when it is triggered, but she will eventually reach back out and attempt to fix it if she does. She is willing to confront her fears and the things she has been through to have a stable sense of self, a stable family system, and stability and a sense of peace in general. Gaining that would quite literally change everything for her, and allow, finally, a deeper self examination, introspection about her own moral compass, and most of all the type of growth that currently she cannot even imagine.

❥ Permissions

OOC opt-outs: I don't mind it being mentioned or coming up in conversation, obviously, but I don't particularly want to read detailed descriptions of sexual assault or child abuse, and I'm more likely to write her discussing such things as they happened to her in vague terms, if she discusses them at all.
IC opt-outs: There are things she would refuse to do (things that hurt children or other people she perceives/considers to be innocents, primarily), but I don't want to refuse ahead of time. It would be a good opportunity for growth for her, if it came up.
Content warnings related to the character: Most things I could warn for does happen in her background one way or another. Abandonment, shitty childhood, parent issues, violence, near death experiences, torture, sexual assault, murder, violence against and by children, human trafficking, mind control, identity issues, in particular.
Sensitive subjects related to the character: Mentions or use of mind control, or in fact anyone messing with her mind at all, disregard for/of consent, violence against children or women.

❥ Player Information

Player Name: Bev
Pronouns: she/they
Are you over 18?: Yes
Contact(s): DM, beverytendermb on plurk, beverytender on discord
Link to invitation: Already in game.
Current Characters: Alicent Hightower.
Permissions: Here.
Writing Samples: TDM | folkmore truth meme | I'm already in line to buy it. Why did you need this again?