Grace Moreno

→ OOC
Name: Mippins
OOC Contact: mippins or bucketsloth on discord!
Reserve Link: link

→ IC
Character Name: Grace Moreno
Age: 35 (physically frozen at 34)
Canon: Original
Canon Point: About midway through the story; she's with Robin in Philadelphia while Harlan is having his big character development moment revisiting his childhood home

Defining Events:

1. GETTING VAMPIRE'D: Grace comes from a family with a long history of vampire hunting. In her universe, vampires are a normal part of society, but they're supposed to get their blood from sanctioned sources like blood food banks and willing donors. Grace's family are vigilantes who (illegally) hunt down and arrest or kill vampires sourcing their blood from unwilling victims. Her family is pretty prejudice against vampires, believing that they've chosen a selfish path for immortality and it's just a matter of time before bloodlust drives them to killing and taking advantage of humans.

Grace had been vampire hunting with them throughout her adult life, but she's an impulsive thing. While hunting down a small coven, the leader convinced her that actually being a vampire is pretty cool and she allowed him to turn her. Ashamed that she so blatantly went against her family, she left Australia and came to the US to hide out until she figures out how to break the news. This happened about a year before her canonpoint.

2. MEETING HARLAN: While on her Eat Pray Love journey around the US, she met Harlan. There's a lot going on with him*, but suffice to say they flirted, they made plans to go on a proper date later, and she did the very normal thing of following him home and breaking into his apartment to snoop. He woke up and was weirdly into her psycho approach to courtship.

Shortly after, Harlan had some personal shit go down and decided to skip town. Being the impulsive little freaks that they are, Grace went with him. Her canon story begins with the two of them on a road trip to NYC. They pass Harlan's hometown on the way and she convinces him to stop there to track down his estranged high school bestie.

* Harlan's full backstory can be found here (mind the CWs...) if y'all want. The main takeaway as it applies to Grace: "They're coming to terms with the fact that they don't actually know each other despite now being ride or die. Grace is an empath, which typically allows her to decipher Harlan's abrasive quirks, but those quirks aren't all that cute during the day, when her vampire powers are dormant."

3. TURNING ROBIN'S CLIENT: Harlan's high school bestie, Robin, happens to be living in his hometown, so they find her like right away. Robin is a former vampire familiar and now runs a nonprofit in Philadelphia that's essentially a rehab for recovering familiars, but she's in Lock Haven tending to her dying father. Harlan and Grace stay in town for a few weeks to help Robin out, and Grace ends up helping with the nonprofit while Harlan plays babysitter for Robin's two kids.

Robin and Grace go down to Philadelphia for a couple of days to work at the rehab facility. Vampire familiars are humans who swear themselves to their vampire master as basically indentured servants in the hopes that their master will eventually turn them. Grace feels bad about this! While working with one new client who is still interested in becoming a vampire, she turns him herself. Robin is pissed! Grace has to reckon with good intentions not always having good results.

Harlan helps her mend her relationship with Robin so she can continue to help with the nonprofit. A couple weeks later, they go back to Philadelphia. Cue Grace's canonpoint!

Strengths/Weaknesses:

STRENGTHS

• Positive! Grace is very "go with the flow" and can find a silver lining in damn near every situation. She's relentless upbeat, even in moments of emotional turmoil. Typically, this allows her to make friends easily, as she's very likeable.
  
• Empathetic! Grace won't have her empath powers in-game, but vampiric abilities are born from strengths a person possessed as a human. She's great at reading emotions and responding appropriately.
  
• Helpful! Grace thrives on helping others, often giving too much of herself to take care of her friends and family, or even random strangers. She genuinely wants the best for everyone around her and will go very far out of her way to make that happen.

WEAKNESSES

• Impulsive! Grace makes decisions with her heart, often before her head has had a chance to register what's going on. She hasn't had much reason to curtail this trait of hers since she can make the best out of a bad situation and rarely feels the consequences of her actions, but her impulsivity has landed her in some hot water in the ~year prior to her canonpoint. She's still figuring out how to recover from oopsies and how to think through decisions first.
  
• Inattentive! Grace has ADHD and can be all over the map with regards to her attention span, memory, and organization. She's easily overwhelmed when she has too much going on. Sometimes this causes her to avoid uncomfortable situations entirely (like fleeing the country to avoid telling her family she's now a vampire, for example).
  
• Meddlesome! Grace is very nosey and tends to violate boundaries with the intention of helping people solve their problems. To make a living while in the States, she uses her empath ability to pretend to be a fortune teller. This is inherently manipulative and shitty, but she views it as lifting people's spirits and inspiring them to take charge of their lives.

Inventory:

• Crystal Ball: She's been pretending to be a fortune teller and this is her main prop. It has zero magical qualities, unless you count the swirly glittery stuff inside that makes it look ~*~extra psychic~*~.
  
• Silver Cross Necklace: Exactly what it sounds like, just a pure silver cross on a basic chain (which is idk some metal besides silver). As a vampire, the silver would burn her skin but she's gonna live dangerously and wear it over her shirt.
  
• Harlan's Hoodie: A dark gray hoodie that she stole from Harlan before leaving for Philadelphia. It's too big on her and smells like him, aw. It has some blood stains on the inside of the left arm.

Weapon: FLAIL. I'd like for Grace to have a flail with a goofily large spiked ball (like basketball size). Ideally the ball is connected to the handle with an energy beam (like so) that would give her some flexibility in how she controls it (and lead to dumbass hijinx as she learns to use it, lbr). If that's not cool, a regular chain is fine too.

Gacha Items:

• VHS Tape: A banged up VHS tape with a label that's been scribbled over a few times. The label currently says REAR WINDOW, and if played, it is indeed a home recording of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. The recording has been stopped and started to "fast forward" through the commercials.
  
• Sunrise Rehabilitation Pamphlet: A brochure for a rehabilitation center aimed toward helping former vampire familiars reclaim their independence. Embrace your mortal freedom today!
  
• Ghost Eyeball: A disembodied, perfectly spherical eyeball. It's slightly translucent, on account of being ghostly.

→ Persona Info
Persona: This is so stupid but can her persona just be Wrecking Ball from Overwatch??? A football-sized hamster in a big "wrecking ball" mech that's like ~6 feet tall. The mech has GUNS and a grappling hook so it can swing around in ball form.
Major Arcana: The Sun, The Fool, Wheel of Fortune
Fighter or Utility preference?: Utility please! But Fighter works too.

→ Other
Game Goals: Not super sure! I've written Harlan a bunch but NOT GRACE, so I'm looking to flesh her out more and make her more of her own character independent of him. She's coming from a point in her life where she's being forced to figure out her own path and stop putting off dealing with her problems, so my goal is to have her come to terms with that through the relationships she builds with other people. She'll likely want to spend a lot of time helping others, and at some point I'm sure this will force her to spend more time looking inward. As for bonds, I'd actually love to get some negative or semi-negative CR for her. She doesn't have to deal with this very often so I'm excited for her to maybe rub some characters the wrong way or have to deal with conflict.