maude dante ❚ smoking rockstar.
character informationFull Name: Maude Grace Dante
Series: Original.
Age: 22.
Species: Demihuman (half heart) | Altered Human DNA.
Appearance/PB: Maude Dante
Maude is a relatively average-height woman, about 5'6" feet tall but she does have a very toned up body, that while not bulky she is clearly the working out type. Even though she is barely twenty-two, her hair is completely white, has always been - it's her natural colour. She keeps it short, messy and wild, kind of spiked at the back, much like a messy rockstar (yes, it is a cliché, but it does fit). Her eyes are deep blue, a little intense, but she is clearly the type of person whose eyes are a window to the soul. She is a pretty young woman, and honestly? She knows it. She doesn't flaunt it, but she knows how to use her appearance to her advantage, although she mostly chooses to discard the red dresses and pretty clothing and dress as messy as possible: untucked white shirt, a loose tie, a leather jacket and some ripped, worn out jeans and nice old boots, to the rockstar liking. She does throw in a long leather jacket and a short black skirt, combat boots and a big belt as well as a top when she's out to on a devil bounty. She has a tongue piercing that you can barely see unless she's sticking her tongue out and a simple black stud on her left ear. On her lower back she has a tribal tattoo that really has no big meaning other than she liked it - you can ask her about it, and that's the honest answer you'll get. ( PB: Agyness Deyn ).
Setting: The world as we know it - sort of. Set in the near future (or a different present). An era of magic and technology together. 101 Metropolis is a mirrored Earth, but this one seems to have a big advance in what comes to genetics and technology. It's not unusual to hear about a non-governmental project going on underground of people being turned into super soldiers. However, it's not just the science that's different, but also the fact that many beings besides humans exist, travelling from different realms to this one, given how easy it is to access it, though there aren't any portals around, but only people who can travel through space and time and realms (some of them powerful enough to allow others to travel along).
Usually, the unnatural (demons, angels) have great influence in men and women, acting a bit as a sin or virtue personification. There are also other non-human beings that may classify as a Metropolitan, that is, someone that's not from an outer realm, such as cyborgs, non-humans and half-breeds.
This verse does have a couple of non-existent cities, the biggest being somewhere in America, called Metropolis (hence the name). Each non-human being has their own characteristics and rules, be it a cyborg or a demi-god and depending if they are from another realm or not, in the 101 Metropolis verse, instead of abiding by one single "rulebook".
History: Maude's earliest memory is that of growing up in a quaint orphanage in Canada. Her life was relatively boring up and the reckless kid couldn't sit still. The nuns that ran the place usually had to put her in detention or give her some other kind of punishment. Maude was the kind of little girl that would climb trees and sneak off to play with the boys or the kind you would expect from a misbehaved child. Still, it's not that the nuns hated the troublesome kid. They simply had a lot of headaches with her. Nevertheless, she always had her heart in the right place and the charming kid managed to get out of detention more often than not.
Life was... normal, really. Until the day she was taken by men in suits wearing white gloves. During the night, they took Maude and sent to the facility - there was really no given name, just "the facility", a secret underground military base where she, along with other children, was put to test. These were not aptitude tests: they were real and they were brutal and deadly. In the end, only twenty children survived the pain and experiences they had to endure. Out of these twenty children, only eight made it to the Soldiers program.
Life in the Facility wasn't that different from the orphanage, testing and military stuff aside. Maude still kept that irreverent rascal inside of her alive and usually gave superiors and scientists more than many headaches. Maude's serial number was 1001213 and her codename was RIOTER. She was number two. Number one's serial number was 2758034, his codename PRODIGY. Tobias had always seen Maude as a rival, not because she wanted to, but because he was so competitive. Being number one was his goal, his focus. There was a kind of hate sparking between the two and there were always disagreements and fights, but they were the very best and ended up going teaming up a lot and their missions had a success rate beyond imagination. And it didn't take long for the then eight teenagers to get fed up with all the training, the experiences, the drugs, the tests, the missions, the assassinations. It was not a surprise when they all managed to escape from the Facility and went on separate ways. Of course, it was unsurprising as well when orders to hunt down and bring back, dead or alive, the seven Soldiers was issued. Over the years, the Soldiers were either killed or brought back to the Facility for "readjustments". Tobias, Maude and Kent - codename ULYSSES, ranked four - managed to keep alive and independent.
Maude travelled to England and only settled down in Cardiff, where she got a job as a barmaid at the age of sixteen. She lived with an older guitar player, Vincent O'Hara. At the time, they were just buddy sharing a crap flat just above a loud pub, but eventually things progressed and they ended up in a relationship. Maude, who had a sort of love-affair with music, ended up picking up guitar lessons from him and eventually moved to the bass and vocals - while she does not possess a voice of a siren maiden, she has a raspy tone and a deep enough voice for the sort of rock group Vincent wanted to band together up with her and two other mates, Alex, the drummer, and Liam, the lead guitar, then Vincent in the second guitar and vocals and Maude as their bassist and back-up vocals. The band started playing in pubs and small time clubs, and eventually began to gain some popularity. Though first named Up Your Bums, they changed the name to Dirty Grace to become a little more approachable by eventual editors. Vincent got on the 50th best new guitarists chart, landing on the 29th.
But as things began to look more favourable, Maude's relationship with Vincent began to go down the drain as drugs, rock 'n roll and sex began to interfere too much with their lives. Vincent couldn't keep it in his pants and Maude wasn't having none of that, so eventually they broke up and with that, Maude left the band to go back to Canada - just in time, too, as apparently the White Gloves trashed her place just as she was embarking the plane. During her stay, Maude began to search for some answers about her parents - and consequently herself. Although her inhuman strength, stamina and speed could be blamed on the Soldiers test, she had a feeling that her regeneration that apparently seemed total (which meant was she to lose an arm, she would probably be able to grow a new one, à la starfish) was way more than that. Surely the white hair helped as well but the most pushing fact was the whole detail that, while other Soldiers were hooked on drugs just like her, they did not have spasms of pain like she had; maybe something in her system was not compatible, maybe it was some side effect but nevertheless, Maude wanted to know why - and deep down, because she really wouldn't mind kicking off the drug habit.
In Canada, she met up with someone she hadn't seen in a long while: Prodigy, from the Facility. It was him who told her the White Gloves had re-opened a hunt for the three missing Soldiers and Tobias and Kent were bent on killing anyone that approached them. However, maybe out of friendship, Tobias offered to help Maude slip under their radar by faking her death. They agreed on it and Maude continued on her search for the truth. Eventually, she found out her mother had died soon after Maude's third birthday and she went to pay her respects to her grave. As she approached the tombstone, she took notice of a fairly willowy figure with long black hair and a flower in her hand. Hope flared, and she called out for the girl - only to be attacked by her. Maude was surprised to see that the apparent Japanese girl, younger than her by a couple years, was as strong as herself and she seemed completely bent on fighting her, yet not kill her. Some destroyed tombstones later, the girl fled the scene and Maude was left wheezing with a few broken ribs; she was surprised to see that the presence of the girl had blocked her accelerated regeneration.
After discovering some other clues about this woman, she travelled to the Metropolis, where she settled down on a tiny flat. She worked as a barista at night - while doing side jobs as a devil hunter, because apparently, Metropolis had an infestation of those. Sometimes, she would grab her guitar and play a few gigs here and there, and whenever she had the time, she would go down to the local community centre to give some guitar lessons for free to kids and seniors alike.
As she became a little more talked about in the hunting business, one night a potential client came to her with a hefty amount of money and hired her to go after a devil called Valerie, who was once Queen of the world, then exorcised away, and apparently she had broken free and was coming back to take over again. Laid back Maude obviously took the bounty with a small, unworried shrug. Maude talked to her boss - with whom she maintained a rather weird friendship - to explain the situation and as she was used to it, the boss told her to hurry up about it.
Of course, the cocky bounty hunter hadn't realised how impossible it was to beat the to-be Queen succubus; Valerie was a force to be reckoned with. In fact, they were butting heads for a long, long time. Months went by and Maude still wasn't able to pin the devil down. To be honest, they seemed to have a lot of fun fighting each other off. Eventually, however, Valerie came to Maude when the girl was resting from a heavy fight with hundreds of the woman's minions, and offered truces. Of course Maude gave that the squinty eye, but there was an undeniable chemistry between the two of them and so Maude dropped the bounty and instead started to hang out with the to-be Queen as friends.
It wasn't long after that a god-like creature named Mattharg came from another dimension to apparently take vengeance on Valerie. Unsurprisingly, Maude quickly went to her aid, but it was impossible to fend him off and the succubus had to rescue her instead before she died at the hands of the god-like dickhead (as she so lovingly baptised him). Valerie fought him instead and eventually lost, but Mattharg wasn't necessarily evil. Instead, to calm everyone nerves down, he opened a realm for Valerie alone and she became Queen of that world, which seemed to appease the devil woman. After her recovery, Maude went back to a regular life, trying to stay away from too many side jobs. She would find bounties once in a while, but mostly would check with Valerie to make sure she wasn't cutting off one of her friend's head.
At the age of twenty-one, Maude had an encounter with the girl that had attacked her a couple of years ago on her mother's grave. By then, Maude was much readier to take her on - only to discover that she wasn't alone. An incredible force stayed put as they fought and eventually, the guitarist got to him. He was tall, handsome, and had a sleek style, Armani suits and expensive bowl hats. He had long hair, very white, and covered his right eye - his left one was of the colour of fire, gold and the setting sun. His name was apparently Dragonus, a creature that had been exorcised out of all living worlds into the forgotten ones, who had come back. He was the girl's father - and he was Maude's father as well.
The encounter shook up Maude quite a bit so she went to Valerie to find some kind of comfort and they began to have a sort of... relationship. It wasn't the usual relationship, Maude simply found comfort in her and the succubus both enjoyed Maude's company and usual attitude and liked to keep her around. She let her stay in her realm for as much as necessary, giving her free access to it - the devil had a sort of venom gland which she could change at will behind her canines and one of the venoms was the key to get into her realm. Nevertheless, it had a sort of secondary effect of leaving said person rather infatuated with Valerie to ensure the succubus anyone that went in her realm had no intention of betraying her, and though she used the minimum possible on Maude, the girl couldn't help but to feel a little knot in her stomach when Valerie was around, even if she realised that it was all about the venom.
Maude came back to the Metropolis after a couple of weeks in Valerie's realm to look for some answers. She learned through various clues that her father wanted to become a god, a single deity worth of worship, eliminating all other creatures of god-like power. Dragonus apparently was looking for a way to turn a human a heartless, a creature without soul and heart that he could use as his private army, an unstoppable force capable of killing gods. Apparently, Gloria, her half-sister, was who was closest to being a heartless. In fact, Mattharg would be killed by her - and once he had been, the realm he had built for Valerie began to fall apart. Maude had to dash away to her to rescue the succubus before she too disappeared without trace.
Valerie tried to stop her - it seemed that the succubus's former mentor, Illyanna, and Dragonus were old friends and she knew what a handful the man was. It even had put a knot on her throat knowing that Maude was his daughter. Dragonus had betrayed Illyanna and indirectly, Valerie, thus imprisoning both of them, but she did not blame Maude, so much that she was trying to stop the girl from fighting him - but how could she when the girl was so bent on rescuing brainwashed Gloria from Dragonus's grasp?
Maude managed to find a way to Gloria and she learned that wasn't a heartless at all. Although part of her heart was not human either, Gloria still had a very human-like soul. Maude, however, apparently only had half a heart, which meant Dragonus would find her much more suitable as the leader of an army. He disposed of Gloria, but the joke was on him: Valerie rushed to the scene and bit Maude with that venom of hers, making her a slave to her will. Dragonus was pissed but he had a certain limit of time to be on each realm and his clock was ticking. Before he realm-shifted, the creature nearly managed to kill Valerie. Instead, he almost killed Maude instead as she was still Charmed at the time, and protected the succubus.
Her recovery was excruciatingly slow and painful, but the succubus, who had by then taken up on a new identity, tergiverse, stayed with her until she was fully recovered, and made sure that she regained her whole free will. Gloria, thankful for her sister's effort of releasing her from their father's grasp, made sure to guard her like a hound until she was up on her own two feet. The girl wasn't much of a talker and she wasn't exactly the most social-friendly girl, but she did try and she stayed at Maude's place.
Not long after all of those events, the sisters were informed that there was yet another sibling living in Miami. Maude planned on travelling there to check up on this rumour but it was the sibling who ended up finding her; he was a young man that looked a lot like her. He was out of danger because in the eyes of Dragonus, Sean was his biggest failure as he was entirely human - not a drop of Dragonus blood in him. Maude was quickly charmed by him, feeling they were actually very much alike personality-wise. He was just a male, gayer version of her. He told her he studied physiotherapy so he could be a masseuse and lived with his boyfriend Dave back in Miami but they were thinking of moving. Like her, he had grown up in an orphanage, though his childhood had been spent in Ireland. He was adopted at the age of eight by a lovely couple and then moved to America when his parents got a job overseas, where he met Dave.
Sean had to return to Miami. During that short time, Maude and Siobhan had a rather bad "break up" of sorts, and Maude couldn't stay around so she went to Chicago to visit an old friend, John 'Jonas' Jones, from her bassist phase. Meanwhile, Gloria went to Japan to learn more about herself. Once she arrived at Chicago, Jonas picked her up at the airport and they went straight to a bar to drink a couple of beers. Jonas was trying to put a band together and he wanted Maude in as vocals and guitarist as he played the bass. A friend of his was drums, a Russian guy named Savva Jeloudov. The three of them hit off right away and they formed what they would eventually call Little Red Dresses.
Prodigy, or Tobias as he went by then, met her in Chicago and informed her Kent destroyed the Facility and the White Gloves alike. Kent was also a bounty hunter and Tobias was getting into business as well, especially into the underground weapons merchandise. It was trough him she met Monroe, a weapon dealer lady with a lot of class - and Maude's eventual boss. She had a bar and Maude needed a job and so it worked out. Although sometimes they headbutted a lot, Maude was loyal to Monroe and vice-versa. The band slowly began to work around bars, but they didn't have much luck in finding a nice contract.
While Maude's life was relatively normal by then, it went back to regular-crazy when Siobhan came back into her life broken and hurt. Dragonus had taken revenge on her for stopping his plans. Of course Maude took care of her and made sure she was protected at all times, while being careful for any signs that would indicate Dragonus presence.
For a while, everything was fine and dandy. But soon things went downhill when Dragonus appeared with Gloria and Sean brainwashed, with the mere purpose of bringing Maude in to him and use her as a mean to kill all that would stand in his way of becoming the single god, as Dragonus was the only person able to unleash what it was to mean a heartless in Maude. He managed to trap her in and he did turn her into a heartless, but as she did have another half human, she was able to fight back and instead of killing everyone he ordered her to, she fought against Dragonus itself but won for a high price: during process, she lost most of her physical enhancements and nearly bled to death if it wasn't for Siobhan who, once again, rescued her. When she came to her senses, Maude had most of her abilities diminished with the exception of her durable stamina and her accelerated regeneration (even though it had been diminished, she could use it at will, only not to grow lost limbs any more).
Ever since that event, Maude has been doing the occasional bounty hunt, but mostly works at Monroe's bar and does as many gigs as possible. Though still sort-of in love with Siobhan, she tends to drown those feelings by turning to other people and to alcohol.
Personality: Maude is an optimistic soul with a immense soft spot for music and life itself, for parties and friends. Nobody would guess that inside of her chest beats only half of a heart. The heart is forever making the head its fool.
François de la Rochefoucauld
➡ AAAHHH WIP SHIT COCKS ;
Many things come to us naturally, and to Maude, it would be being extremely playful and even a bit (a lot) of a flirt. As a young woman, she tries to live it up as much as she can, enjoying each minute of her life, probably because of her past experience of being trapped until she was sixteen in the Facility, which made her eager to compensate the teenager years she lost.
Most of the time, Maude is a cheerful and positive woman with a smile on her face. She's quite friendly, never really having an anti-social streak because of her past - in fact, back in her life at the Facility, she had been always the kid that stood out because she was always so comforting to her friends. And she's loyal to them, being the kind of person that give a leg and an arm (and something else if that's what the situation calls for) for those she loves.
Unfortunately, and no matter how much she wishes she could surpress it, Maude is still a soldier deep down and sometimes, it rears its ugly head in and it takes a lot of herself to bury it deep down again - and she makes bad decisions regarding it, trying to mute the call with alcohol, drugs, sex, just to ignore it. She is partially afraid of it, terrified that side of her will take over someday and make herself vulnerable, something she can't stand. It makes her uneasy and nervous, giving her the need of shielding a lot of things though she is honest most of the time with her feelings. She's been hurt in the past, of course, who hasn't, but she does know how to pick herself up, even if she lets herself be on her knees for a while to catch her breath.
Although she is an extremely open person, she still has a lot of secrets she refuses to share with, well, anyone. While she's extremely social and can get along with almost everyone (even the crazies), Maude does have a sense of private space and so she doesn't ever really step boundaries when she's told she's doing so, least it's important to help the person. She has no trouble in sacrificing this and that for a friend and is always ready to protect them. Maude isn't exactly the kind of person that ever truly shows her real face, at least not completely, and she doesn't have any problem in telling lies, little white ones or big ugly ones.
Abilities: MONKEYDICKS!!
Anything Else: SHITMAGNETS!!