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ataraxion
Name: Wichita
Canon: Zombieland
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: falling asleep at Bill Murray's house.
Number: 028 > 002.
Setting: wiki-wiki
History:
- There are two very important things one needs to know about Krysta: First, that the Earth she knows is quickly being destroyed by an elevated strain of Mad Cow disease. Somebody bit into the wrong hamburger, and now there's a virus being passed on through the human race that literally turns them into flesh-hungry, angry zombies. There's no cure, and there's really no avoiding it either. Zombies are everywhere, and it's going to take some time before she accepts the fact that there are lots of people from worlds that aren't going through the same thing.
Second, the only thing she cares about in this zombie-ridden world is her sister. She will do anything and everything to protect her sister, even if that means leaving you to be killed by the zombies so they can get away. Krysta's never killed anyone that wasn't trying to rip her limb from limb, but she doesn't cut slack for anyone either. Even before the virus she put her sister before everyone, even herself (which probably counts more towards a personality thing, but, that's okay.) so there's really nothing that can change that.
-Before the virus struck, she and her sister used to run cons against... well, any sucker that would fall for their schemes. It was never said in canon why they were doing it, but it seemed like they would just con guys out of their money so they could road trip around the country.
- The virus has killed off all of her friends and family without exception, as far as she knows, and it's changed Krysta a lot. She won't really talk about what (and who) she's lost, but it'll be obvious to anyone that gets to know her that she's buried a lot of sadness in order to keep herself focused on surviving. There are glimpses of the part of her that knows keeping people close is important though, in the way she tells Columbus not to let go when he finally finds who he's looking for.
- Only recently has she opened up to someone that isn't her sister, a guy that goes by Columbus, but she does still keep a sort of barrier in the back of her mind that will keep her from fully trusting anyone. Columbus and Tallahassee are slowly starting to become a part of her 'family', and she's more protective of them than she realizes. The four of them travel together, fighting off zombies and just trying to get by.
Tallahassee (who she sometimes calls 'Florida', just to mix it up) has become a kind of older brother, if not weird uncle figure. She's convinced he's harmless, if not completely insane. After finding out about Buck (his son, who was only about 3 or 4 years old, who was killed by zombies), she's gained a new respect for him, in a way. She might not voice that respect, but she knows now that he has emotional limits, and that changes things. As for Columbus (sometimes 'Ohio'), she will probably always think of him as a guppy with a heart of gold. The poor boy is too trusting for his own good, but he's survived, so obviously he's doing something right.
---- The first time Wichita met Tal and Columbus was while she was running a con on them. (She gave Little Rock a very convincing zombie-bite mark on her forearm, made up of mostly strawberry jam, and tooth paste, for texture.) It didn't take the girls very long to convince them that they believed Little Rock didn't have long before she'd turn into a zombie, and with tear-filled eyes, Wichita asked Tal for his gun so she could shoot her sister before she started to get sick. Like she promised.
Once she had his gun, it was very easy to snag his car keys and leave the abandoned supermarket. From this experience, she concluded that Ohio was pretty damn gutless, and Florida was pretty damn dumb. She never expected to see them again.
Then about a day or two later, the car they stole from the pair over-heated, forcing them to pull over and run another con to snag another vehicle so they could continue on their way to California. As it just so happened, the next car to come driving down the road was a ridiculous yellow Hummer, driven by none-other than the same saps they stole from already.
"Bummer" was her only response to the fact that they just managed to screw them over again. The sisters didn't leave them stranded, though, which is the first sign that Wichita isn't a complete bitch. They decided to stick together as far as California, then they'd go their separate ways.
While in California, Tallahassee suggested they sleep in style, which leads them to the one and only Billy Murray's house. Well, mansion. It's at Bill's house that we see more of Wichita's old self, in the way she joins Bill and Tal in acting out a scene from Ghostbusters (..okay she was also a little high, but the fact that she even trusted them enough to get high with them is saying something.), then later on when she asks Columbus to drink with her.
The two swap stories about their 1997s, and it's really the only solid backstory we get besides the one flashback of Little Rock and Wichita pulling the ring con on the same poor Gas And Gulp bastard that got eaten at the beginning of the film. She talks about how much fun her year was - seeing her first R rated movie, her first kiss, her first tattoo - and I think it paints a pretty good picture of her pre-Z-land lifestyle/mindset without actually just telling us. She had a lot going for her back then, and as such, a lot to lose. After Columbus shares his (admittedly terrible) 1997 memories, she asks him to dance, wanting to make up for the fact that none of the 8th grade girls asked him out that year. The moment is actually really sweet, even after Wichita admits that she'd 'hit that', and they almost share a kiss-
But then Tallahassee interrupts them and ruins the whole moment. They all build a fort together, and fall asleep. ..And then Wichita wakes up in a blue tube of goo!!
Personality:
Wichita, believe it or not, is not your typical stuck-up bitch. At least Columbus sees through her sarcasm and scowls well enough, and there are even times when she seems kinda normal and fun, despite the whole zombie apocalypse deal she's found herself in. But more often than not, when she's around anyone she isn't close with, she tries to seem pretty closed-off, unimpressed, and jaded. Sarcastic and unaffected. And she actually can be, when she has to be. She's learned how to keep herself detached from a lot of her feelings, since most of the time they can only be used against her. And as a con artist, she has to have complete control over her emotions/body language. Like an actor playing a role, in a way. Any slips in her "role" tend to throw her off, and she'll likely run ( sometimes literally) from a situation if she feels like she's losing that control.
After nearly kissing Columbus, she immediately brings up the one rule she has with her sister;
"I can't believe I almost kissed him. What's our rule?"
"Trust no one, just you and me."
"Just you and me, yeah. You and me."
The zombie virus hasn't turned her into a cold hard killer or anything, but there's little in the world that can really get under her skin or make her question any decisions she's made. She doesn't let things about herself or her plans slip, and if it seems like she did, it was most likely intentional. The world she lives in has forced her to become a manipulator, a con-artist, and she's not ashamed of it either. If not just because most of the time, once she cons someone, she'll never see them again.
There's no room for second guessing when your life is on the line. She believes there's also little room for making friends, let alone actually trusting anybody they cross paths with. Her trust issues are deep rooted now, and it takes a long time for her to get over that. And in a way, even those she might meet and talk to frequently, she wouldn't ever admit to trusting them completely.
"Better you make the mistake of trusting us, than us make the mistake of trusting you."
Survival is her main focus in Zombieland ( which is what she and many others have come to call Earth ), and her sister's survival comes before all else. Most if not all of her decisions are made with her sister in mind. Krysta would risk everything to keep her sister safe, and happy, and she's done it before. She tries not to be too over-bearing on Little Rock, but to an outsider she really might come off that way. The sisters have become best friends through all of this, so ( at least, in Wichita's eyes ) the control is pretty evenly distributed between the two of them. Little Rock comes up with plans on the fly, and Wichita usually maps out the bigger cons. They work as a team, no matter what.
Throughout the film we are constantly reminded that her sister always takes first priority, but she slowly drops her hard exterior around the boys the more time she spends with them. Granted, I don't think she'll ever be convinced that Tallahassee and Columbus aren't severely lacking in the brains department, but she's no longer convinced that they might screw her over eventually.
Although she hasn't gotten to the point where she'd rule out screwing them over again.
I think it's very telling that she asks Columbus to drink with her, considering she seems to be pretty gabby when she's buzzed on wine. Not only does that moment bring the two closer, but it also reveals a little bit of what I think she was like before the virus.
Zombie apocalypse aside, Krysta can be pretty likable. Really! It takes some time (or some booze) for people to get to see the "old" her, but before the virus hit her hometown, she was social, popular, and all the other things you can expect from a pretty girl. She's used to getting her way, but she's not a complete brat when she doesn't. Krysta's very grounded, but she definitely likes to have some fun when she gets the chance. Which is rare, in Z-land, but if the opportunity is there, she's on it. She's got a cutting, sarcastic sense of humor, and a cheesy side, even if she has to be a little drunk to let it show. While she doesn't put much thought into relationships or 'hooking up', she does have a bad habit of flirting without having any meaning behind it, or caring much about the aftereffects. She likes being the 'cool chick', and she'll rapid fire pop-culture references at you to prove it.
Other:
She's a huge comedy flick fan, with a particular liking for Bill Murray movies, and has a habit of laughing at all the wrong moments. Her first temporary tattoo was of a porpoise, first kiss was with a hottie named Scotty Lynch, and 1997 overall was a pretty damn good year for her. Wichita is an awesome shot with a firearm, and she's pretty fearless when it comes to defending herself. She doesn't consider herself 'risky', but if she needs to leap without looking, she'll do it. Nine times out of ten though, her moves are all pretty calculated.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
I think her ability to manipulate/con others when she has to could be considered above-average. It's all about attitude (cut-throat, as Columbus put it) and both she and her sister have plenty of that. Judging by the events in the movie, Little Rock was good at coming up with quick plans on the fly (getting to the Rock It ride to avoid the zombies), but Wichita was all about execution. Once she had her mark set, she would get the job done. That said, I think it will take her a bit to get used to working as a one-woman team (since she sure as hell won't trust anyone for a while), but not having her sister around won't be crippling. ..To her ability to con, anyway.
Her sister is her one BIG weakness, and she always will be. As stated earlier, she would do anything to keep Little Rock safe, including putting herself at risk or in harm's way. No questions asked.
Also, after living in Zombieland for a few months, she was forced to give herself, and her sister, a crash course in gun training. She's got a great shot at this point, scarily accurate because she has to be, although she knows little to nothing about actually servicing a weapon. Whenever her gun started acting up back home she just ditched it for a new one.
-- And while on the Tranquility, she spent some time out in no-man's land, and now she can't lie. That's a thing. She can tell half-truths, and she can choose to just not answer a question she doesn't want to answer honestly, but if she tries to lie, her mind kind of blanks out and she locks up. She physically can't tell a lie.
Inventory: ( here's the stuff that showed up in her locker every jump )
( 1 ) pair of black skinny jeans
( 1 ) thin, white t-shirt
( 1 ) pair of knee-high boots ( so very fashionable, likely stolen )
( 1 ) wallet with fake IDs, stolen credit cards, cash, and some pictures.
( 1 ) Walther PPK hand gun. ( originally 6 magazines worth of bullets. in a plastic baggy. classy as hale. but she likely only have about 4 magazines left. she used her bullets sparingly, but she did use them, so. yeah. _
And then just the stuff that was left behind before in her old room? Depending on where that all ended up, heh. Gotta ask her old cr about that. It was mostly just belongings of people that left the ship, extra pillows from empty rooms, and a few extra chairs from the kitchens. Because she likes taking things that don't belong to her, heh.
Appearance:
Wichita is, for a lack of a more eloquent term, hot. She's aware of the fact, and will use it to her advantage when she can. She stands at 5'6, has a thin build, and big blue-green eyes and full, dark brown hair. Her appearance is something she prides herself in - zombie apocalypse aside, she cares about what she looks like. However, her sense of style has had to change due to the whole zombie invasion thing, and she's gone from wearing heels and skirts with low-cut tops, to jeans, boots, tee-shirts and her favorite leather jacket. The style matches her new attitude, though. And she probably wouldn't be able to walk in heels with any kind of grace anymore anyway, because of it. She's fine with that. [Link!]
Age: 23 ( almost 25, technically, since she was on the TQ just shy of two years )
AU Clarification:
Wichita will be returning to the Tranquility with all the memories she had of the place before she left. There were all the scary-as-shit things that happened, sure, like the space plague and Strela and the nightmare fog and the manticores, but her time on the ship ended up being way more about survival. Which, for her, was ..really new. And kind of weird.
Basically, she's spent the last two years learning that a) she doesn't have to endure this place, or anything really, alone, and b) in fact, people tend to get pretty pissed when she insist that no, really, she doesn't need anybody at all. Because hey, people do actually end up caring about her, after a while. Weird, but somehow, it was true. It took her a long while to get over her habits of keeping people at a healthy fifty foot distance, but most of that came along with help from Neal Caffrey. Who was, for a long time, someone she looked up to and confided in, in a way she hadn't done with someone that wasn't her sister in years. He was her best friend.
She made other friends, too ( found something more than just a friend in a passenger named Brendan Frye, actually. They weren't dating because dating is a stupid word, but she might have loved him. He was gone before she could figure that out ), a group of teens she fondly referred to as Team Jailbait. They weren't really 'kids', but it was a group of people who were tired of being thought of that way, sort of banded together ( unofficially ) and got by that way. She looked out for all of them, whether she realized she was doing it or not. Gave way too many shits about those kids than she ever would have back home, to be frank. She was particularly close to a demigod named Percy Jackson ( then, by extension, his girlfriend Annabeth Chase, once she arrived ), who was one of those hero types. He's another person that challenged the way she always thought, made her, slowly, rethink the idea of not trusting others because of the chance that they might screw her over. She even joined the gunnery team, made an effort to actually help the rest of the ship by offering shooting lessons, that sort of thing. It was more than just protecting herself, she actually started to give a shit that other people survived the ship, too. She helped Brian Kinney and Justin Taylor run a bar that played really shitty 90s dance music all the time. She got comfortable, for a while. Happy.
But then Sherlock Holmes died. Out of nowhere, seemingly.
And Neal went out looking where people really aren't supposed to go looking.
Things changed, after that.
She started shutting people out, once they started to drift apart. It's not because of him, entirely, it's not that dramatic. But the way things were after he got back definitely stung, made it difficult to remember why she started reaching out and trusting people in the first place. It reminded her that there was a reason she always pushed people away.
When the ship gave its passengers masks to wear, that's when she started to backpedal into those old habits, hard. It made her paranoid, untrusting, mean. She went from pushing people away to actually cutting them out. And then Brendan left. And Percy. And Brian. And Simon. And Kurt. And too many others that she cared about too much.
So she went out, like Neal did.
It was stupid, she knew it was. But she wanted to find answers, wanted to play the game. Only she spent three weeks out and about, and came back with nothing but a freaking mental breakdown.
Luckily, somehow, she still had people that gave a shit about her ( even if she tried so damn hard to cut them all out while she wore her mask ). She found a roommate in Annabeth, a few drinking buddies in Jo Harvelle, Stiles Stilinski and Damon Salvatore. Just, y'know, people who were there for her to remind her that everything didn't actually suck as bad as she thought it did. She might not be as happy as she was during that first year when the ship felt like a vacation from Zombieland, but she had people. A solid ground to use to regroup and get her shit together.
So that's kind of where she's at now. Dealing with the whole 'the ship fucked with my brain and that sucks' thing, and the fact that a lot of the people she grew to love ( in a way, not that she'd ever admit to it ) were gone, but there were others here that had the potential to help her in the same way those other people did. Not that she thinks she needs any help, she doesn't.
She'll just let them all think that. Right. Sure. It's all for them, not her.
Not that she'd be able to say that out loud if she tried.
revisions!
Wichita will be returning to the Tranquility with all the memories she had of the place before she left. There were all the scary-as-shit things that happened, sure, like the space plague and Strela and the nightmare fog and the manticores, but her time on the ship ended up being way more about survival. Which, for her, was ..really new. And kind of weird.
Basically, she's spent the last two years learning that a) she doesn't have to endure this place, or anything really, alone, and b) in fact, people tend to get pretty pissed when she insist that no, really, she doesn't need anybody at all. Because hey, people do actually end up caring about her, after a while. Weird, but somehow, it was true. It took her a long while to get over her habits of keeping people at a healthy fifty foot distance, but most of that came along with help from Neal Caffrey. Who was, for a long time, someone she looked up to and confided in, in a way she hadn't done with someone that wasn't her sister in years. He was her best friend.
She made other friends, too ( found something more than just a friend in a passenger named Brendan Frye, actually. They weren't dating because dating is a stupid word, but she might have loved him. He was gone before she could figure that out ), a group of teens she fondly referred to as Team Jailbait. They weren't really 'kids', but it was a group of people who were tired of being thought of that way, sort of banded together ( unofficially ) and got by that way. She looked out for all of them, whether she realized she was doing it or not. Gave way too many shits about those kids than she ever would have back home, to be frank. She was particularly close to a demigod named Percy Jackson ( then, by extension, his girlfriend Annabeth Chase, once she arrived ), who was one of those hero types. He's another person that challenged the way she always thought, made her, slowly, rethink the idea of not trusting others because of the chance that they might screw her over. She even joined the gunnery team, made an effort to actually help the rest of the ship by offering shooting lessons, that sort of thing. It was more than just protecting herself, she actually started to give a shit that other people survived the ship, too. She helped Brian Kinney and Justin Taylor run a bar that played really shitty 90s dance music all the time. She got comfortable, for a while. Happy.
But then Sherlock Holmes died. Out of nowhere, seemingly.
And Neal went out looking where people really aren't supposed to go looking.
Things changed, after that.
She started shutting people out, once they started to drift apart. It's not because of him, entirely, it's not that dramatic. But the way things were after he got back definitely stung, made it difficult to remember why she started reaching out and trusting people in the first place. It reminded her that there was a reason she always pushed people away.
When the ship gave its passengers masks to wear, that's when she started to backpedal into those old habits, hard. It made her paranoid, untrusting, mean. She went from pushing people away to actually cutting them out. And then Brendan left. And Percy. And Brian. And Simon. And Kurt. And too many others that she cared about too much.
So she went out, like Neal did.
It was stupid, she knew it was. But she wanted to find answers, wanted to play the game. Only she spent three weeks out and about, and came back with nothing but a freaking mental breakdown.
Luckily, somehow, she still had people that gave a shit about her ( even if she tried so damn hard to cut them all out while she wore her mask ). She found a roommate in Annabeth, a few drinking buddies in Jo Harvelle, Stiles Stilinski and Damon Salvatore. Just, y'know, people who were there for her to remind her that everything didn't actually suck as bad as she thought it did. She might not be as happy as she was during that first year when the ship felt like a vacation from Zombieland, but she had people. A solid ground to use to regroup and get her shit together.
So that's kind of where she's at now. Dealing with the whole 'the ship fucked with my brain and that sucks' thing, and the fact that a lot of the people she grew to love ( in a way, not that she'd ever admit to it ) were gone, but there were others here that had the potential to help her in the same way those other people did. Not that she thinks she needs any help, she doesn't.
She'll just let them all think that. Right. Sure. It's all for them, not her.
Not that she'd be able to say that out loud if she tried.