[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Allie.
AGE: 21+
JOURNAL:
anothershowerIM: AIM: srslyugais
E-MAIL: srslyugais@aol.com
RETURNING: Nope!
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Kelly Bailey.
FANDOM: Misfits.
CHRONOLOGY: Post 2x05.
CLASS: Neutral Good Hero-ish. If she has to slam a few heads to get what she needs, she will.
SUPERHERO NAME: Lady Echo.
ALTER EGO: Kelly Bailey; unemployed.
BACKGROUND:
There isn't much told about Kelly before she started community service. She's twenty years old when she gets her ASBO (Anti-Social Behavior Order) for instigating a fight at an Argos after another girl calls her a slag. At her nonchalant attitude over this behavior, it's safe to assume that it is not the first instance of aggressive behavior on Kelly's part. The only family Kelly has referenced is her mother, with whom she lives.
On her first day of community service, Kelly and the five other young offenders she is assigned to work with were painting benches when a freak ice storm hit. While attempting to seek sanctuary in the community center, Kelly and four of the others (Simon, Alishia, Curtis and Nathan) as well as their probation worker were struck by lightning. Though they are thrown into the air and hit the ground solidly, at first the damage is negligible despite the fact that it should have at least shocked them a bit, if not killed them outright.
That evening, the first signs of Kelly's power start to become apparent. She hears her dogs thoughts first, but brushes them off as her 'losing it' after a stressful day. Later that night she is lying in bed with her fiance when she hears him wondering if she's been sleeping around. In a fit of temper, Kelly punches him and shoves him off the bed. Her fiance, confused and angry, leaves, but not before breaking off their relationship. Kelly hears him thinking that he should never have proposed, and as he's walking away she shouts that she loves him.
The next day of community service is no better. Someone had painted "I AM GOING TO KILL YOU" along the community center wall and the group is told to wash it off. Kelly overhears one of the other young offenders, Simon, thinking about his own experiences with weirdness after the storm. When she ties to get him to say more, Nathan manages to strike a soft spot on Kelly by calling her a chav in his head and she storms off, but not before giving him a bit of a shove. After she finds a quiet spot to calm down and cry a little, the probation worker finds her, and he's not empty handed. When she catches sight of his bleeding face and metal pipe in hand, she takes off, but not before hearing his non-linear and violent thoughts.
Instead of going for help, Kelly makes her way back to the center to warn the others. When she arrives, no one but Simon believes her about what's going on, though he attempts to convince the others that he can turn invisible. Curtis goes to open the door to leave, and even after he and the others had mocked her claims of telepathy, Kelly runs to stop him. The probation worker bursts through the door and strikes Kelly in the head, killing her. Curtis, terrified, watches as time slows down and then rewinds to just after Kelly's arrival. He backs up the story with his own experience, and when Nathan goes to peek out the door he sees the probation worker.
They lock the door and decide to try for another entrance. On their way through, Nathan slips in a pool of blood just outside one of the lockers. When they open it, the sixth young offender (who hadn't shown up for service that day) is shoved mangled and bleeding from a series of axe wounds into it, the obvious work of the probation worker. Curtis reaches out to pull Alisha away from the body, and when his skin touches hers he is overcome with lust. When she pulls away, he has no recollection of his words or actions. After some experimentation, it becomes clear that skin-to-skin contact with Alisha renders the other person uncontrollable to their lust.
The entire group is now thoroughly terrified, and when the probation worker bursts through the glass door to attack Kelly doesn't hesitate to grab a paint can and bash it into his head. When that doesn't do the job, she proceeds to kick him in the head until he's dead (all the while screaming "I am not a chav!"). Almost immediately after, Kelly is overcome with guilt and disgust, but states that he would have killed them all if she hadn't stopped him. The others agree, Alisha the most reluctantly.
The group, convinced no one will believe them about what had happened, agrees to bury both bodies and continue on as though nothing had happened. While they are doing this, Nathan begins to complain that he's the only one without a power. Alisha has her lust-touch, Simon his invisibility, Curtis time-control and Kelly telepathy, but Nathan has yet to show any signs of change from the storm.
When they show up for community service the next day, their new probation worker is already there, asking if they know anything about the disappearance of their old probation worker and the other young offender. No one confesses.
Over the next few months, Kelly's power is more a hindrance than an advantage, particularly since she tends to overhear what people are thinking of her and it's rarely anything nice. She also has the tendency to blurt out what other people are thinking without considering the audience. Despite this habit, her intentions are never anything but good. Kelly sometimes plays off of what people are thinking to try and work out problems, but when these olive branches are ill-received she has a tendency to strike out with violence. When she tries to repair the relationship with the girl she hit at the Argos store, Jodi, and it backfires, Kelly proceeds to headbutt and then throw a chair at her.
When Jodi retaliates by using her own power (also gained in the storm) to make Kelly lose all of her hair, Kelly goes above and beyond to hide her baldness from the others. She's very clearly self-conscious to how they see her, even when most of the time she pretends not to care. She sums up her usual reaction to any perceived slight very well; "If ya laugh at me, I'll kick the shit outta ya."
Throughout the first series Kelly and Nathan seem to be building up to a romantic entanglement despite his habit of saying cruel things and her reaction usually being a slap or shove. In the first series finale, Kelly and Nathan share two date-like meals, both instigated by Kelly. But before it can go any further, a brainwashed group of teens obsessed with the ideals of purity kidnap Curtis and Alisha, putting such things on the back-burner while Kelly, Simon and Nathan plot a way to get their friends back. In an attempt to get Alisha back, Kelly is also kidnapped and brainwashed. When Nathan approaches her in hopes of snapping her out of whatever had been done, Kelly admits to not having liked who she was. Nathan reveals he had, and in one final attempt to get his friends back he holds the brainwashed group's leader hostage with a water gun. She, too, had gained a power from the storm, but refused any knowledge of how to turn them all back. Her death solved that problem, though, since everyone reverted back to their normal selves when she fell from the roof. Nathan falls as well, despite Simon's attempt to save him, and Kelly was the most stricken of the group by his death.
In the premier of the second series, the group receives a message from someone known as Superhoodie, who is a protector of sorts for all of them. The message reads "go to his grave" and, when they do, Kelly can hear Nathan's thoughts. It ends up that he does have a power: immortality. She's elated that he's alive again, but the shine wears off quickly when, through a misunderstanding involving a shapeshifter, Nathan makes a series of comments about her "massive fanny" and sends her stomping off.
In an attempt to stop the shapeshifter from contacting the police about the murder of their probation worker (who had been killed accidentally by Simon when he discovered she was the fiance to the first probation worker and was attempting to solve the mystery) Kelly mistakes their even newer probation worker for the shapeshifter and attacks him, the fight ending with his death. Curtis rewinds time to before they had attacked, and they eventually do find the shapeshifter, an old friend of Simon's. He manages to diffuse the situation, and once again the group is safe from the police.
The police, however, are the least of their worries. There's also a superpowered tattoo artist who manipulates Nathan into thinking he's in love with Simon, shortly followed by a man who believes he is in a character in a video game, very reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto. He believes Simon is a man named Conty who stole his money and Kelly is his cheating ex-girlfriend, a woman named Roxy. He kidnaps Kelly and demands money be delivered for her release, which the gang get by robbing an armored truck. Kelly, for the first time, is physically bested and has her nose broken. Despite this, she remains fairly collected and buys time by playing into the man's delusions. In the end, Superhoodie comes to his final rescue and is killed, though the rest of the group escapes.
While a marathon is being set up in the community center, Kelly meets a man named Bruno who appears to be hiding from the police. When she helps him by putting an officer off his trail, Bruno is very upfront about his thanks. Despite her usual attitude, Kelly is charmed by the easy way that he admits to finding her beautiful, and she lets him take her home. They sleep together, which is unusual for Kelly since she's usually much more guarded. A tentative relationship starts, but when Bruno is too rough the next time they have sex she calls it off, freaked out. Later, he approaches her to apologize and despite her anger, she helps goes with him when he has to run from the police again.
After a short chase, Bruno is shot. Kelly, who liked him after everything, watched as he died and returned to his original form, a gorilla. Hurt and embarrassed, Kelly allows herself to be comforted by Nathan in one of his few shows of kindness.
PERSONALITY:
From the very start Kelly has been displayed as a very aggressive personality. She is initially portrayed as a stereotypical chav with a very strong Derby accent, though reacts to comments on either with anger and even threats. Even a stray thought about her personality or cultural station is enough to incite a slap, which makes her ability all the more difficult for her to bear.
Even while she occasionally plays up her aggressiveness, it's clear that Kelly is very sensitive to what other people think of her. She's insecure in her worth, particularly when it comes to romantic entanglements. She goes so far as to call off a potential relationship with Nathan when she realizes that his tendency to strike out with cruel humor isn't going to end if they have sex, even when she clearly had been hoping for something more. Kelly would rather be alone and secure that no one can emotionally hurt her than put herself on the spot and be vulnerable to the opinions of others.
A romantic at heart, Kelly seems to connect with people who are softer than herself. She's almost always the person who sticks up for Simon when the comments about his 'weirdness' go too far, and when she meets Bruno, his continuous thoughts of her as beautiful were successful in winning her over when she had initially been reluctant to go on a date with him. Even after it's revealed that he was originally a gorilla turned into a human by the storm she couldn't help but be torn up over his death, and seemed to legitimately like him despite that.
The superpowers in Misfits are a reflection of those gifted (or cursed) with them. Kelly gains telepathy because of her preoccupation with how other people think of her, and though she puts up a tough front the thoughts of others are very hurtful to her. Despite this, Kelly isn't prepared to change her ways or put on a nice front to gain the approval of others. She acts the way she acts and is prepared to defend her attitude against any perceived slight viciously.
POWER:
Telepathy.
In canon, Kelly gains the ability to hear the thoughts of others from a freak storm. Language does not seem to act as a barrier - Kelly can understand the thoughts of her dog, Keith, and also of an infant too young to know proper speech. She hears these thoughts in English, and they all have their own 'voice' so as to separate who is thinking what.
The limits of her powers are not made all that clear, but it's safe to assume that the distance at which Kelly can hear thoughts is the same at which she can hear someone speak. She has no control over the ability. There's no off switch, and she can only hear the surface thoughts of a person even if she attempts to concentrate and dive down deeper. She is also limited to only hear one person at a time, since large groups of people don't overwhelm her, though the actual loudness of a room doesn't act as a barrier to her telepathy. Even if a parade is passing by, Kelly can hear thoughts as clearly as if it were utterly silent.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
VIDEO
(There's a few seconds of a shaking, jittering shot of something vaguely gray. A wall, perhaps, or a ceiling. It settles down eventually, and the camera focuses in on the face of a young woman. The expression on it isn't one of peppy cheer, but neither is it of blistering fury.
It's the expression most people incompetent with technology wear when faced with something new. It smooths into annoyance after another brief scene of button fiddling.) Fucks sake. 'S it on? (The accent is heavy and nearly grating. British, clearly, but not the posh version from most films.)
Yah. Awright, wot's this then? Yer computer fing was right unhelpful, talking some shit 'bout heroes. 'M I the cape wearing type? No. This is a joke, yah? It's a crap one, really, so fanks but no fanks. Where's the exit? Not messin', here.
Hey! Any'a you knobs listenin'? Jesus.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
Real life had rules, ques to wait in and paperwork to fill out. It was boring, and shit, and Kelly hadn't had much fun living through it so far. Everything always went wrong eventually, no exceptions. Her mother was always going on about how her daughter was such a pessimist, and that if only she'd smile and stop striking out she could find a nice boy and settle down.
Kelly wanted that. She wasn't even going to try and deny the hours she used to spend planning out her wedding and picking out names for babies that were yet to be. All the stupid romantic shit that Hollywood fed people by the spoonful seemed so perfect that it was nearly sickening, but Kelly loved it. She would sit up for hours at night to watch the romantic comedies and put herself in the shoes of whatever heroine was fighting for her love. She was the person to wrangle up all her female friends for a trip to the cinema for the latest Sandra Bullock or Katherine Heigl movie. It was a nice world, there, where everyone was American and pretty and ended up happy with the perfect guy. It wasn't anything like where she was now.
"Not gonna steal any'a yer shit!" Shouting at the security guard wasn't going to help things, she knew full well, but raising her voice always made Kelly feel a bit better. The man had been following her almost since she'd walked in, and the litany of his thoughts was nothing if not accusatory. This was why she stuck to Argos, even with all of Nathan's mocking; everywhere else had bastards who followed after anyone who didn't fit their ideal profile, and the constant barrage of 'is she going to steal that?' and 'I think she pocketed something' coming from his thoughts finally broke Kelly's last bit of (admittedly lacking) control. What did he know about her? The last time Kelly had stolen anything had been before graduation, so what right did this dickhead have stalking her around the store?
"'S not even my size, you twat." Kelly yanked the skirt she'd been eying from the display and flung it at the security guard, who looked stunned at being picked out from the shopping center's crowd. Uniform or not, Kelly knew how to pick the uptight professionals from a distance. Wanna-be cops were even easier to spot than most, high on their haughty self importance that made her skin crawl. They were worse than real police, hardly worth the air they breathed.
"What? You fink yer betta than me?" When he started coming toward her with a pissy little frown, Kelly laughed, but it was humorless. "Oh, go screw yerself." She didn't need this. She didn't deserve this, and with an extended middle finger she took off toward the store exit.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
Kelly has a very strong
Derby accent, which has been the butt of a few jokes in her canon. I tried to display that in the first person sample. If it's distracting or doesn't fit the style of the community, I will drop it and rewrite the samples. I do hope it isn't an issue!