amplified | app for oasis.

Player Info
Name: Awbrey
Age: old as balls (more than 25 ok, eat me)
Contact:

ignio

Character Info
Name: Lydia Martin
Canon: Teen Wolf
Age: 18
Canon Point: post-season four.
History: lyds @ twoof wiki
Personality:

Lesson one in the Lydia Martin Bible of Life: keep up appearances, no matter what. While she has a great deal of depth and many, many, many different layers as a person, the most important thing in the world to her is social status - at least on the surface. The loudest, most glaring trait that Lydia possesses is her keen dislike for losers. She appears completely shallow and conceited; she always looks good, and she keeps a very high social standing. She dates the captain of the lacrosse team, she loves makeup and keeping her hair gorgeous and making sure she has an extremely fashionable wardrobe... She tries very hard to always avoid associating with those on a lower social tier with herself. She is the Queen; make no mistake about that. Appearances are important to her; not just her own, but the appearances of others. She refuses anything but the absolute best for herself and for those she chooses to grace with her friendship. Which includes... Well. Fitting in. Fitting in is very important. It's both one of her best and worst qualities. Her determination to always be at the top of the social ladder is something she even feigns stupidity for. Her parents aren't even aware of her intellect; she hides it that well. They're presented at a teacher meeting and as the teacher in question begins to present Lydia, they make a verbal assumption that her grades are poor when, in fact, Lydia has a higher GPA than almost the entire Beacon Hills student body combined.

In reality, Lydia is genius-levels of intelligent. She's incredibly sharp-witted both academically and practically speaking. She knows both classic and archaic Latin, and has one of the highest grade point averages at BHHS, nearing a 5.0. She claims, when admitting that she knows Archaic Latin, that she "got bored" with classic Latin, so she decided to learn Archaic as a new challenge. Despite her natural thirst for knowledge and the natural curiosity she's imbued with, she forces herself to appear dumbed-down in order to remain popular. There are several times throughout the series where she says something very intelligent, then covers it up by acting as if she was asking it as a question. The masks she wears are there to protect herself, and to keep her high social standing without worries. There is nothing more important to her than the adoration and acceptance of her peers, particularly those considered popular, and being popular means you're supposed to care less about your smarts and your grades. She covers up her natural aptitude for learning, always. It all comes back around to status.

Let's talk about status again for a moment. Status, and power, and social dominance. Lydia Martin is the Queen Bee. She's not necessarily Regina George levels of terrible human being, but she definitely has the admiration of her peers, and she likes it that way. Her birthday party is always the party of the year, for example. Everyone's always invited without invitations even being sent out, because Lydia simply assumes (and isn't wrong) that everyone knows when it is, knows the way it's going to go, and wants to come. Even the socially unsavory can come. It's the biggest party of the entire year. She is the princess, the queen, hell - the supreme goddess - of social butterflies, and she wears her crown with pride and dignity.

She can also be extremely manipulative in a way that is hurtful to those around her, so long as she's the one who comes out on the positive side of the equation. Even when it comes to her nearest and dearest. For example, after Jackson breaks up with her and exhibits awkwardly quasi-flirtatious behavior toward Allison, and Scott and Allison are splitsville, she makes a move on Scott and basically makes out on him, not necessarily with him since he doesn't really reciprocate, under the guise of showing gratitude for his bravery - but really it's just a way to sting back at Allison and Jackson. She plays Scott into her hands by lying and telling Scott that Allison doesn't even look at him romantically anymore, to get him to be more receptive to her strawberry-flavored lipgloss. Even those closest to her heart aren't completely immune to her vicious self-protection tactics.

All of this is the Lydia we first come to know. The Lydia that begins the series in a relationship that she plays off as being completely about status, rather than something deeper ( when in reality, she loves Jackson, truly loves him ), that begins the series willing to step on toes and walk on faces to get what she wants. But this is not the Lydia that exists today. This is a part of her, aspects that will always be a part of her, and her past, but now? Now that her life has changed? Things are different. And underneath all of that surface, underneath the guise of shallow status-seeking sharklike mean girl, there is a young woman who is driven simply because that's her predisposition. She is driven by intellect, she is driven by ambition, she is driven by emotion. She has a great deal of depth. She refuses to appear vulnerable, though she actually feels very exposed once the world around her starts to crumble. Her friends keep her in the dark, but based on her own outwardly displayed ignorance, they also fail to see that she's putting puzzle pieces together and starting to figure things out on her own. She's not just intelligent, but intuitive. It doesn't mean that she's able to cope well, but she does have a keen instinct when something is wrong. Not necessarily to survive, but to be able to tell when something is wrong in general. However, she doesn't show her vulnerability when she's in control of her faculties; that doesn't always happen.

Which brings us to emotional trauma and how that has completely and totally flipped her world inside out. Lydia Martin has been through a lot since Allison Argent and Derek Hale came to Beacon Hills. She witnessed an alpha werewolf bust through the window of a movie store and run past her car, after which she had to be heavily medicated to avoid fits of paranoia and terror. At that point, she still didn't have much of a clue, really, what was going on - at least not that she didn't have to dig for herself. The second huge turning point came when Peter Hale attacked her and bit her on the Lacrosse field. She recovers physically, eventually, and is shown to be immune to the effects of werewolf bite. She neither turns, nor dies. However, once she wakes up, she begins to have powerful hallucinations that leave her terrified and panicked, and she goes missing. Completely naked, wandering aimlessly, in a fugue state. Through what seems like psychic manipulation and being almost possessed by Peter's essence - which it is assumed is transferred to her through his bite - she brings him back to life. Everything involving him frightens her, and she loses a great deal of sleep, begins to have nightmares, but she never complains about it outwardly.

Lydia is not a weak person, by any means. She's incredibly strong, and at the very least her unwillingness to outwardly display any weakness she does feel is almost a fault. She isn't good at asking help from her friends or the people she cares about; she'd much rather take it on herself, because she feels she should be able to based on her own competence, but also based on something deeper. Let's take a moment to talk about Jackson. He is Lydia's first love, and when he breaks up with her abruptly, she plays it off like it's nothing. However, she loves him deeply, and it really does hurt her. She never shows it. This trait is one that doesn't seem dynamic. After he seemingly dies in her arms, after being brought back to his humanity by none other than herself, then comes back to life... All of her emotions are raw and right there on the surface. He is the key to her heartstrings. Between seasons two and three, he leaves to go to London. This is possibly the most prime example of her inability to allow her emotions to rise to the surface, of her refusal to show weakness. It is clear, through a few simple moments and nuances, that his leaving is tearing her apart inside. But she hides it by being flippant, and going through a series of purely physical lovers. She even tells Allison that she doesn't want a boyfriend, she wants a distraction. She is as flirty as she's ever been, and she goes after boys like it's her job... But she never keeps them around. They are nothing more than a way for her to keep from falling apart outwardly. She never shows how much Jackson's departure hurts her, not intentionally, and hardly even admits it to herself.

Now. Nightmares that aren't centered around Peter Hale. In season three, Lydia begins have nightmares in which a person's death is depicted and she wakes up screaming. She also starts to go back into fugue states and finds herself waking up at the scene of the deaths she previously dreamed of. For instance, she wakes up screaming, and leaves to go replenish her ibuprofin stash, but finds herself at the scene of a pool, where she discovers a mangled body and the ground covered in blood. These are abilities that bother and frighten Lydia, and at first, she balks against them. She denies them even after she is told directly that she is a Banshee, clinging to the normalcy she so desperately wishes still dominated her world, despite the fact that her world is no longer the one she used to know. She suppresses them for awhile, trying to avoid them, to ignore them, as much as she can, but despite her best efforts it keeps happening. Eventually, she concedes to them and says she'll use her abilities to help people. It's one of the most selfless things she's ever done, and it shows a huge amount of growth from the self-serving girl we first met. This step is a big one.

She also embraces the fact that she's no longer at the top of the social food chain. She has true friendships, even with someone like Stiles to whom she hardly ever gave the time of day before. She is less guarded, over time, and slowly begins to open up more. Really, she just tries to avoid showing her vulnerability to protect herself from getting hurt. Lydia doesn't enjoy pain. But she does begin to genuinely, outwardly show that she cares about the people she considers her friends, instead of just caring about them inwardly. She still has difficulty accepting their help or being gracious when it's given to her without asking, but she's getting better. She's opening up. She's letting the deeper inside out, by and by, the more the world changes around her. She recognizes that she has to be willing to change with it if she wants to keep, and help, her friends and loved ones.

There are a couple of crucial changes in Lydia between season 3b and season 4. She retains the majority of her core personality, but she adapts a more emotionally distant mannerism. She also has completely cut boys ( specifically, and quote, ‘teenage boys’ ) out of her life and her priorities. She’s much more focused on her schooling, protecting her friends, and finding out more about her abilities as a Banshee. She’s also internalizing a lot of emotions. She just lost the guy she was dating (and sort of developing feelings for, though she was distant with him much more than she’d been with Jackson) and, more importantly, lost her best friend. Her world has been flipped on its head and torn asunder and thrown all around and she’s had to adapt to that. In addition, her family is struggling financially, which is something she’s not accustomed to dealing with. She’s always been hailed as natural leader, and she is now truly stepping up to that plate.

Abilities/Powers:

Lydia is a Banshee. While she doesn't have a completely concrete and secure grasp on the abilities that come with this so far, it would appear that they include but are not limited to: really morbid precognitive dreams which end in the blood-curdling scream that hails imminent death, said blood-curdling scream which probably breaks a billion supernatural sound barriers, the ability to tune into supernatural frequencies and wavelengths and hear things that no one else can hear. So far, what we know of her powers is pretty vague, only that her screams generally tend to hail death moments before, or as, it's happening. She also tends to enter a subconscious sort of fugue state that leads her to... Well. Dead bodies.

Side note: Lydia has a genius-level IQ and a wicked fashion sense. Also I'm pretty sure her love of lipgloss isn't just love. I'm pretty sure it's like... A fetish.

BONUS. Okay. So. Strengths and weaknesses. Most of this is covered in her personality section, but to touch base on some things that stick out particularly strongly. Strengths are that Lydia is an undeniably strong-willed person, even against her own emotions. She’s very good at saving face, even when she’s upset. She may feel horrible on the inside but she doesn’t let people know when they get to her (often; she’s not infallible, of course). She’s also possessed of a genius-level IQ, as I mentioned above. She has one of the highest GPAs at Beacon Hills High School and excels in every subject, though mathematics is her strongest suit. She is fantastic at fashion and looking good in general. She’s intuitive and clever and reads between the lines, often seeing things that others miss even when she’s not honing into her Banshee abilities.

Weaknesses:

Weaknesses are that she is just like any other teenage girl. Her desire for approval and to be societally accepted, her propensity to stack up massive credit card debt for the sake of her wardrobe, her secret insecurity that she doesn’t allow anyone to see… She’s also, aside from having some precognition and level of clairvoyance, not possessed of any particularly helpful supernatural abilities like healing so um. She can be killed. Like… easily. Well, not easily. She’s got fight in her. But she has no healing or supernatural defenses, physically. She also tends to take the hardest emotional hits when bad things happen. She internalizes them, but she has nightmares not only because of her Banshee abilities. She’s been shown more than once in the series using some sort of sedative to calm her nerves. Kinda neurotic… Not without reason.

Network Sample:

I’ve never seen anything like this before. By all logical accounts, it makes no sense. This entire system seems scientifically impossible. I’m not sure if this will even - ( there’s static over a few of her words, a frustrated sound, some shaking and smacking noises ) Can anyone even hear me? I’m looking for someone. A few someones, actually. If you can hear this… Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, Kira Yukimura, and Malia Tate - if any of you know them, have heard of them, and can find them. Tell them Lydia is here, she’s searching for them. For some sort of -- of safe house. But tell them… The voices are worse, here. Louder. Something very bad is going on. Find me. Now.

Prose Sample:

Finding Allison and Stiles had been a godsend for her. Allison's presence in particular made things an entire world easier. The situation wasn't rendered any less strange, of course, but it certainly made coping easier. Besides, she needed to have someone around that understood her background better than the hundreds of random strangers suddenly presented to her. Then there was the added benefit of having someone to talk to about researching what all of this was really about. She didn't like to display her intellect, but with Allison and Stiles she felt comfortable enough to discuss and share findings. There was so much here to be learned, so much to find out... So many new bureaucratic processes to dissect. The first point of interest she chose to seek out involved the native species. The predators, the prey, the dominant and the meek - Lydia needed to know all of them. If there were werewolves or any other manner of freakish otherworldly creature, she wanted to know every detail. She wanted to know what all of this meant. She wanted to find out the inner workings.

More than that, though, she needed to keep herself busy. Too many things were happening back in Beacon Hills for her to simply forget that they were there, without her help, without her resources. Or Stiles'. Or Allison's. They were a big part of all that was happening and, quite frankly, it was leaving Lydia losing a great deal of sleep at night. Certainly, the welcome was a lovely one. It all seemed like a big party at first. But if Lydia knew anything about big parties, and she did, there was almost always something going on behind the scenes - no matter how mundane.

She has written down on a piece of paper a set of notes. The first of them explain the circumstances of her abduction. She felt as if she almost entered a fugue state again, follwing blindly and semi-willingly as the little flitting things led her to and fro and eventually brought her here. The second, surrounds the shard of gemstone which, apparently, resides within her soul. She wondered if this was actually tied to her abilities as a Banshee. Given the nature of the rest of the world here, it was entirely possible. Perhaps they brought her here to help with her abilities, just like she'd started to do back in Beacon Hills. There was no clear cut way of knowing, though. Not yet.

So she pored over books, literature of all forms, looking for answers to escape the feeling of instability. It felt as if the floor had been ripped out from underneath her and she'd fallen into some strange, detached otherworld. Everything felt off. Even with her friends here and the comfort they brought, it just wasn't right. And she would get to the bottom of it. She had no choice. She refused any other path. She would find this thing out, she would make herself understand it, she would solve the puzzle. It was all or nothing, and she was deeply involved now. There was no going back.

This was her only option.

Misc: both samples were intended for other game settings; i find they're plenty strong for her voice and i'm rather proud of them, so i wanted to keep them, BUT! just let me know if i need to re-write, and i'd be happy to! ♥