But you always hold your head up high {PARADISA APP}
NAME: Dha
JOURNAL: twenty_til_12
EMAIL: blackwaterkeeponrolling@gmail.com
AIM: mustlovetherock
WIKI NAME: N/A
CHARACTERS: None! New player here.
CHARACTER NAME: Freelancer Carolina / Agent Carolina
FANDOM: Red vs Blue
CANON: Season 9, Episode 17
WHAT THEY LOST: Her speed and camouflage armor enhancements.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER:
Throughout her life, Carolina has been nothing but a leader. While there isn't much known canonically about her time before Freelancer, it's easy to see that she's been in charge of her own life and others' for a very long time. Based on her acrobatic fighting style, Carolina was very likely on a gymnastics team from an extremely young age and likely a squad captain once she entered high school. As well, she very likely joined the military as soon as she could. Her wide range of skills and abilities not only show her intense commitment and determination to be the best, but also a long time serving. While she's very capable to pick up new things quickly, she's not simply an antisocial machine that excels in the field but flops as a social creature. She knows how to be a leader outside of being 'the best' at what she does; agents can and do follow her through hell and back (for example, Maine takes a bullet for her). That requires building a rapport with her team outside of missions, which we see she's more than willing to do following her rescue of the Twins. As well, in the field, she does far more than just keep a level head when under pressure, but think and act two steps ahead. When rescuing Agents North and South, she quickly clears North to use a dome shield in the field when they're pursued by soldiers of the Bjordinal Cyrogenics Research Facility even as she's co-piloting their getaway. However, this also means that when she fights, she doesn't get caught up in her head planning three moves ahead and she very much lives in the moment.
Needless to say, while she does have a strong rapport with everyone on their team, there are certainly members that she prefers over others. One of her more antagonistic relationships in canon is with Tex, who Carolina sees as threatening and displays a great deal of jealousy and over-competetiveness with. Despite letting the job block other areas of her life (such as possibly pursuing a relationship with York, as explained below), her jealousy of Tex takes the forefront when they both go after the "package," a briefcase with codes in it to unlock the previously-acquired "Sarcophagus." She tells York straight out, "Don't let her get it first" and he responds with the obvious answer, "who cares who gets it first?" Carolina doesn't even hesitate in telling him that she very much cares who gets to the package first when it comes to her and Tex. Maine getting the package earlier didn't bother her at all, but as soon as Tex enters the sphere, Carolina becomes a green-eyed monster and nearly throws her life away to beat her. Carolina's used to being number one and feels that she's earned both the recognition and responsibility that comes with that role, which also reveals that she believes in the ideas of seniority and hierarchy. You don't get to number one without the work and sacrifices she's made.
However, on a whole, Carolina has almost always put the job first. Personal relationships, suspicions, and doubts come in at a very far second. As mentioned prior, this doesn't mean that she'll treat teammates like shit or stab them in the back to get ahead. However, it does mean that she has to force herself to keep her distance. Previous teammates have died in the field and under the Director's watch and she's learned to try to not to get attached. This isn't always easy for her, though, and there's a definite connection seen between Carolina and York. While she may talk down to insubordinate agents (such as South, who Carolina feels is reckless and doesn't have the skills to back up her mouth), York is one of the few that she outright compliments or speaks to with some affection. When he's injured on the training floor, she's the first to call for medics and by his side as soon as possible. When he leaves the Infirmary early to join up on their mission, she's the one that hurries forward to greet him, but has to stop herself a good couple yards from him. As much as her worry might tell her otherwise, she has confidence in his abilities to perform the job just as she does.
On the same token, Carolina is neither blind nor stupid to the obvious selection process going on in Freelancer. She sees that the Director is drawing lines between them and using the competitive nature of the agents against each other. While she does follow orders, such as when she's ignored when she does ask questions after the conclusion of a mission, but doesn't fit the loyal dog motif. She keeps her suspicions to herself so as to not demoralize the team or quell the spirit of everyone doing only their very best. It's another example of her putting the job first when Maine and Wyoming use live ammunition on the training floor or attempt to cheat using three-on-one to try and beat Tex, as her jealousy hadn't quite been sparked yet (obviously Tex had skills, but Carolina didn't feel threatened by her yet). She knows that Freelancer doesn't always go about things the right way, such as destroying a building with thousands of people in it, but doesn't argue with the fact that it works to bring about success. When Wash jokingly admits that he "almost feels bad" for mooks being killed by Maine, she firmly responds with "don't," also indicating that in her book success comes before the value of human life.
While we mostly see Carolina "on the clock," there are brief glimpses of her non-professional attitudes in times when she's not focused in on a specific goal or mission. She can be caring and sensitive to others' needs when they aren't threatening the team's progress. For example, South is visibly upset over being demoted in ranking and Carolina offers to talk to her privately in a much more gentle voice than we hear her use through most of her canon, but when South is mouthing off during a training exercise, Carolina is brusque and commanding. Still, she shows a sense of humor when around the right group of people and in the right circumstances, which will likely come out more in Paradisa once she realizes there isn't an obvious mission other than keeping tabs on her team. Her priority, though, will always be the team in-game and keeping them alert and safe throughout her time there.
However, regardless of being on or off the clock, Carolina is self-assured and confident, sometimes to the point of being more than a little smug. She likes being in charge and is well aware that she could be rubbing some agents the wrong way, but doesn't accept insubordination at any point. In her mind, she's earned her seniority and won't be disrespected by someone lower on the totem pole (again, the example of her relationship with South displays this). Still, she's more likely to allow her emotions to show through and be a real person when there isn't a mission at hand. As well, she's more likely to be completely honest with herself and others when the pressure of Freelancer lifts a little bit and does tend to show a wider range of emotions than cool, calm, and in charge. She can be funny, she can be a smug bitch, and really be herself, which is competitive and firm, but also confident, brutally honest, and, on occasion, laid back.
Still, there's more underneath Carolina's surface that isn't exactly well explored by canon. Since her drive is mostly idea-oriented and somewhat introvertive (in that she draws her energy from herself rather than her teammates), she meets her own needs rather than relying on others to fulfill them, with one major exception. She's very self-driven and is absolutely the type to spend her free time training and physically and intellectually bettering herself so as to not get rusty during time off. This is another factor that allows her to be so confident in herself: she doesn't get her number one position by chance or luck. On the same token, it's another reason why she's so deeply jealous of Tex's quick rise to the Director's right-hand woman, trusting her to get the job even more than Carolina. That confidence and trust from the Director speaks more to Carolina than a ranking system or a number on a board and also sees it as herself failing to keep up or having gotten too complacent in her role. The Director is the only person who can really have this effect on Carolina, as she, again, is very self-assured and snippy or criticizing comments from other teammates don't have this same effect. As well, Carolina doesn't particularly have any need for romance and doesn't feel that she's somehow wasting her life in not having a partner or kids.
So, upon arriving in Paradisa, Carolina is very likely going to start running training ops for not only herself but the other Freelancers and continue to be even more gung-ho than normal to regain that confidence in herself, especially while Tex is in-game.
ABILITIES:
First of all, without her armor enhancements of speed and camouflage, Carolina has no superhuman abilities. The Mk 6 armor allows her to lift extremely heavy things, take more hits, and altogether be above the human threshold for both of these things. However, naturally, she's very agile and knows a number of martial arts that she relies on more than marksmanship. This doesn't mean she's a poor shot by any stretch of the imagination, but her preference will always be to fight hand-to-hand. Her fighting style is a combination of CQC and acrobatics, often utilizing a number of aerial moves to best use momentum and is quick to use them in nearly every situation. As well, she's a fast thinker and excels at on-the-spot strategy that focuses on adaptation and an perpetually changing plan to deal with bumps.
However, despite her practical skills, Carolina does lack in some area intellectually. She's not scientifically-based and doesn't necessarily spend a great deal of time pondering the mysteries of life, so she leaves that up to other people and Freelancer capitalizes on strengths rather than weaknesses most of the time.
Specialty skills of hers involve piloting aircraft (such as helicopters, pelicans, etc), infiltration techniques (stealth, some basic lock-picking, circuits, etc.), use of many different types of weaponry: light (handguns), heavy (mini guns, the brute shot), artillery (pelican missiles), grappling (grappling guns with and without hooks), and Freelancer equipment (her speed and camouflage enhancements), but not sniper equipment (as we never see her use it in canon and I would rather give her a weakness than assume she's super awesome at that as well).
THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:
Carolina stared up at the climbing wall, eyes following the different colored handholds as her fingers mechanically and automatically tied the knots for her harness. She could follow the red holds up the left side of the wall for what appeared to be the easiest path, or she could challenge herself with the white on the right, which traced their way under an overhang and up a steep angle. Without hesitation, she took a couple paces to the right, her eyes never leaving the wall for a moment. What's a little challenge to start her day? Some people needed a bowl of cereal or a cup of coffee, but what she needed was a jumpstart, to hit the ground running. It didn't help that things had become increasingly difficult with Maine's lack of sanity; she couldn't even call him the Meta or whatever else the castle residents called him. He deserved better than being treated like a caged animal ready to attack at any moment and she'd been one of those attacked already. It had to be those AI she'd heard about that were driving him to hurt former friends, as the Maine she knew had taken a bullet to the chest for her.
A wave of guilt washed slowly across her, lapping at her interior walls, but Carolina clamped down tight, keeping those emotions tightly in check as she approached the wall. This was no time to be distracting herself with the past; her job here was to keep her team safe and the best way to do that was to push herself harder, to be better and faster than him. York was counting on her, hell, Wash was counting on her, even if he had done a complete 180 since the last time she saw him.
She never thought she'd want him to crack jokes.
Congrats universe, you earned yourself a point, but don't hold it too close, Carolina's coming to get it back.
With that thought, her gloved fingers closed around the first handhold.
FIRST-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE: [audio]
[Meant to be set after Carolina gets a little more used to the castle. When she speaks, it's still not without edge or force, as she has yet to completely unwind.] Nice to know that the physically impossible is run of the mill for this place. Can't say everyone feels the same way. I suppose I ought to thank the castle for grabbing me from when it did, but for some reason I'm not in the mood for thanking something that seems pretty focused on pissing me off.
It's still something that can be learned from if all stopped complaining for five minutes. It's not going to change anytime soon, so our best strategy is to deal with it as a whole instead of letting the fallout break us. We're stronger as a whole, people.
[Filtered to Freelancer crew, sans Maine/Meta]
Meet me in the gym at 0700 hours tomorrow morning. We've got work to do.
INTENT: Honestly, seeing her interact with her team, and especially Tex in the most recent episodes of Red vs Blue, really drew me to her character. Throughout the first few episodes of Season 9, she's depicted as this crazy awesome soldier who can do all these things and blah blah blah blah look how great she is. Seeing her as a flawed human who really isn't immune to natural human emotions (such as jealousy) really brought her to life in my eyes and I re-watched Season 9 with that new mindset, picking up on more things here and there that I didn't see in her before.
As well, putting her in Paradisa will allow me to explore more of that "off-the-clock" side of her and flesh out the character and her quirks even further.