#wl:intro

BACKGROUND

Pre-apocalypse

Lis was born in Paris (France) but her family moved to the US when she was just a year old. She was raised in suburban North Carolina. She was extremely close to her dad whom she adored, and when he died from a heart attack at age 33 (she was just 7 years old), her world was literally crashed, but she was lucky enough to have a mom that loved her deeply and prioritized the needs of her kids, making sure she and her brother (Andrea) grew up in a safe, loving environment, despite the loss of their father and their various financial struggles. Lis was a wild, creative and free-spirited child, always wanting to try new things, reading books and watching films kids normally have zero interest in, practicing ballet and theater and making friends with older people, asking a million questions a second. Her mother taught her how to knit and sew and cook, and she never felt less than her classmates for being less rich or wearing handmade clothes, despite not being wildly popular at school; that all changed of course when her mother got married to her second husband (Frank) when Lis was around 16 years old. He was quite well-off and despite her inhibitions, Lis soon grew fond of him and accepted him into their family.

Before the outbreak, Lis was a driven, soft-spoken, and quite artistic 24 year old young woman who lived a normal life with her family in the suburbs. She lived in a little flat half an hour away from her mother and little brother,  studying nursing at university and was just a semester away from graduation. She excelled at all her classes and, unlike her brother, was very self-sufficient and self-reliant, happy and excited and making plans for the future.  

Post-apocalypse

As civil unrest grew, cities fell, and the dead took over, Lis’ mother and her step-dad tried to devise ways to protect their family. She moved back into her mom’s house a day after news of the outbreak broke, feeling lost and confused and scared; entirely unfit to comprehend, let alone face, the new world before her. Panicked and scared, she trailed after her mother and brother, keeping close and trying to make sense of what was happening, often venturing outside to try to make contact with friends or talk to people, only to be completely horrified at seeing downtown being literally burned and bombed by the military, hundreds of dead roaming the streets, riots happening everywhere and the power, soon, failing. Within a week of the outbreak, the National Guard arrived at their neighborhood, setting up a perimeter, a safe zone, and imposing a slew of martial laws in order to “keep people safe”, as they were told.

The National Guard put up a fence around the area, and were supplying the people inside it with food, water and some medical supplies. They were also enforcing a strict curfew. Nobody was allowed outside the fences, or even to leave their house after 8 pm. There were some people outside the fence who were close enough to be seen and they were loaded into trucks with one suitcase each – to go “East”, and Lis never really knew where they were taken, but life inside the fence was safe, they were settling into a routine and she wanted to believe that everything would work out, ignoring her gut feeling that something was really wrong and trying to just follow orders and adapt to the new situation, until people around the Safe Zone started mysteriously disappearing. The military had to follow their orders and kill off every sick and wounded person and upon discovering that the government was actually killing people off and bombing other safe areas, not caring about whether or not there were uninfected civilians amongst the dead, her family managed to devise a plan and eventually escape the “safe zone” during a chaotic riot that broke out in the neighborhood in the middle of the night as rumors started to brew and tensions were boiling over with people losing their faith in the military. Unfortunately, during their escape, Lis, her step-dad and her mother were separated from her brother. The loss of him, not knowing where he is, and being unable to do anything about it, had a huge effect on her, but she pushed on, and soon, the family joined a group of survivors who were heading out to Virginia to join a friend of their leader on his secluded farm near a former military base. Believing it to be the safest place and not having anywhere else to turn, they followed them. On their way to the farm, many of the group members died, with the worst incident being a little girl getting sick and dying and turning in the RV next to a sleeping Lis, because her brother didn’t want people to know that she was sick lest they abandoned them. Lis was lucky enough to wake up just as she was being attacked, and killed her first walker en route to Virginia. The incident sparked a huge fight between members of the group, resulting in her little girl’s older brother being exiled from their company, leaving Lis horrified at how little compassion and understanding people were beginning to display.

Once at the farm, the family stayed there for several months, sheltered from the outside world, and Lis began to believe that maybe they could start over there, tentatively making some friends and doing everything within her power to help and contribute to their small community, but within a few months, that dream was dashed when a para-military group attacked the farm, drawing a huge horde of dead to it.

That night was the worst night of her life as her mother was brutally attacked by several walkers while they were trying to escape through the woods, and she had to put her down to spare her the pain of being torn apart by the walkers, alive. Gritting her teeth, Lis shot her right in the head, before being forced to flee the area, leaving her body behind to be devoured by the dead. Not only did she lose her mother, but Lis lost several of her friends, the only safe place she knew of, and got separated from her step-father. They managed to meet up in the woods and flee the area together, but within a couple of days, they were once again being hunted down by members of the para-military group, and Frank– despite her protestations– used himself as bait to distract them so Lis could get away. Currently, she has no idea what happened to him right after being captured by the group.

Horrified and broken, she had been fearfully roaming the empty streets, armed only with a knife and with little to no combat skills, looking for shelter and just surviving, hoping that, one day, she would be somehow reunited with her remaining family– until finally finding shelter with her current group.  

CHARACTER

Lis has gone through just as much shit as every other person in the apocalypse, and she may not be physically strong and powerful, but she’s so strong and brave and stubborn as hell and despite everything, she still believes the best of people. She has this incredible self-awareness about the fact that she’s perhaps the least suited for the world they live in, but she’s not going to let anyone look down on her because she’s made it this far, and she’s determined not just to survive but to live a life worth living. She is nurturing and maternal and would do anything for the people she loves fiercely, and despite everything that she’s been through, she still has a strong hope for a better future and still strives to keep people around her happy and make them smile.

She doesn’t want to change, and lately, she’s been terrified of losing herself. She believes that she can stab zombies in the head and still sing folk songs and take care of the people around her and braid that one piece of hair and cook, and remain gentle. She is a tactile person who instinctively takes care of others. Her compassion, her faith, her bravery, her nurturing instinct and her iron will are just some of the things that do so much more to inform who she is at the core of her character than her ability to cave skulls in. She may not be physically strong, but the other ways in which she’s contributed to her group are just as important and valuable as physical fighting - if not more so, because let’s face it, everyone can fight zombies; how many of them are willing to do domestic chores and take care of the sick and people they barely know?

pre-apocalypse

sonya had always been a fighter. you could have told from the way she tore out of her mother at birth. the two were polar opposites: strong and fragile, decisive and confused. with no men in the house, sonya took it upon herself to not only play faithful daughter, but also dutiful son, to karen gates. in her youth, she filled up much of her time with sports, her adolescence with studies, and her adulthood with work. she had competed as an olympic gymnast as a child, but along the way, she developed a love for rock climbing. (to be more accurate, she had her heart broken by an amateur climber and she swore that she wouldn’t stop until she was better than him.) her father, ian papadakis, was never present in her life until she earned her first olympic gold, and her mother passed away from diabetes shortly after sonya earned her 4th olympic gold.

post-apocalypse

though initially shaken by the outbreak, sonya seemed to almost thrive in the new environment. it was thrilling in ways that sports just...weren’t. for months, she travelled on her own, joining with some groups here and there when she grew a little lonely, making her way to nowhere in particular. her journey had started in florida, where she was doing charity work for hospitals. months of wandering and zombie-slaying eventually led her to virginia, where she met with nicholas lancaster and three other survivors.

the five of them together were a tight-knit group, and eventually stumbled onto the camp, where they chose to reside. in a twist of fate, five became two, and by process of elimination, sonya found herself in a leadership position she never really asked for.

personality

for sonya, it’s all about pushing herself to the limit, both physically and emotionally. though relatively calm and collected at camp, she has been proven to have a slow-building temper. she often goes out for hunts or to do field work when she gets the chance, preferring to avoid responsibilities that might await her at camp. she feels strongly that all expeditions out of camp go much smoother with her there, and that her abilities are best put to use where violence is an acceptable answer. she trusts very few people to get things done, and is incredibly impatient. she doesn’t take excuses, only results.

headcanons

     ➳ sonya is known widely for her athleticism: she has made use of climbing equipment for scouring trees and mountain faces for additional resources.

     ➳ can best many of the people at camp in arm-wrestling.

     ➳ she has an irrational fear of heights/falling, which is truly ironic, considering that she has a passion for rock climbing and bouldering.

     ➳ despite her cold, godless temperament, sonya is devoutly catholic. she rarely lets her personal feelings get in the way of decisions, and prays morning and night. she is not lawless, and in fact is a huge stickler for rules.

     ➳ sonya is a closeted lesbian, closeted being only because she feels strongly that having romantic interests during an apocalypse is a means to an end, and because it goes against her religious beliefs.

pre-apocalypse:

in three words: living the dream. in more: roxy is the middle child of her family, and while all stereotypes point to the middle child being forgotten, she was anything but. stellar in school, but holding a love for art and music, roxy mcdermott went against her parent’s wishes and majored in art history, where she applied her studies at the metropolitan museum of art in new york. she struggled on her own for a bit, but after meeting paul robert, an architect from switzerland, while studying abroad, roxy married young. he helped further her career greatly. the two married when she was 19, him, 21, and into the world they welcomed a baby girl, sicily gina, three years later.

post-apocalypse:

in one word: terrifying. little butterfly roxy, raised with the gentle but mature eyes of an artist, couldn’t have been more unprepared for when the outbreak arose. during paul’s birthday celebration on a yacht floating along the hudson river, it was gina who spotted the terrors that waited on the shore before her near-sighted mother and carefree father could. only moments later, the unmistakeable groans and growls of the undead could be heard from the deck...

the three fled in a life raft to safety, and for the next 3 months, at roxy’s insistence, they trekked towards virginia, hoping to find her family alive. along the way, the robert family encountered lucas klein in baltimore, maryland, and join his group for safety. after 2 months, the group broke into two due to disagreements with klein’s harsh methods and high expectations. roxy is forcefully separated from her husband, who chose to stay with klein, and gina, whom chose her father over her mother.

after over a month apart, roxy found her infected spouse chained up at a convenience store in virginia. in a rage that gina was left alone, roxy shot and dismembered him... well, whatever was left of him, anyway.

a month later, she and her group arrive at the gates of the camp. they are weary, but grateful for the opportunity to stay there.

personality:

a self-labelled pacifist, roxy is truly just scared for her life. the idea of violence makes her shrink, even though it is necessary for survival. though times are bleak, she somehow manages to smile through it... she’s motherly and well-spoken, and almost spiritual in how she conducts herself. because of her docile nature, she took up a teaching position at camp, to minimize any chance encounters with the undead. she’s gentle, and often tries to soothe others with words of affirmation or music.

she has fiercely tried to not let the apocalypse corrupt her pure and optimistic spirit, but in the coming days, she is sure to be tested.

headcanons

     ➳she speaks 4 languages fluenty: french, english, italian, and spanish. italian and spanish she learned in college. french, however, she learned while dating paul

     ➳in her lessons, roxy is incredibly fond of tying together art and history, music and math, etc;. she even writes her own music to aid in her teaching.

     ➳her survival knowledge is incredibly limited–roxy only knows how to shoot a gun out of necessity, and her aim isn’t that hot, either. in the event that all hell breaks loose… she’s about as useful as a box of matches under water.

     ➳it has been her dream since the apocalypse struck to find a piano and play it. since arriving at the gates of camp 7 months ago, all she’s had is a guitar and whatever else there is around camp.