(no subject)

[iamdamnloyal]

NAME: Christina
JOURNAL: lollobrigida
EMAIL: lollobrigida [at] gmail.com
AIM: onlysayinghello
WIKI NAME: lollobrigida
CHARACTERS:

Anya - BTVS
Elle - Heroes
Rose - Doctor Who
Jo - Supernatural
Chuck - Supernatural
Oliver Queen - Smallville
Eliot Spencer - Leverage


CHARACTER NAME: Harmony Kendall
FANDOM: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series
CANON: End of Harm's Way S5 E09
WHAT THEY LOST: The knowledge that she's a Vampire. She will still be a Vampire; needing to feed, having the fangs, super strength - she just won't realize she's a vampire. In addition to this, even if someone explains it to her that she's a Vampire, in the morning she'll just wake up and forget all over again. Walking Vampire Amnesia.

PERSONALITY: Harmony Kendall, on the surface, appears as a vapid, ditsy, self-centered, attention seeking girl. Harmony Kendall, for the most part, is all of these things. Though she has grown a lot over the years, adding more layers to what was once just an average LA girl obsessed with being the most popular girl.

When she was human, she started as one of the Cordettes, one of Cordelia's trio. When Cordelia's status was lowered her's went way up. After moving from follower to leader, she used most of her time on top to make fun of others. Cordelia and Xander's relationship status, and her ability to make fun of it, was crucial to her keeping her popularity up high.

During the big graduation -slash- Ascension of the Mayor, Harmony ends up being killed -slash- sired by one of the rogue Vampires that are given free range during the events.

Doing what she is used to, she tries to take a role of a leader. It's just more difficult to lead a group of Vampires when you're a blonde girl, that throws rocks with notes on them through windows. Harmony tries her hand at being an arch-enemy, and ends up being the girlfriend to Spike. It's beneficial to Harmony, since she feels they share the same goals: to kill the Slayer. This is fine by Spike, until she starts to annoy him, which presumably, doesn't take too long. Her constant need for attention and to feel important only adds to her annoyance with Spike's own, often failing, goals of killing Buffy. Her clingy ways, not to mention fondness for writing her name on his back in lipstick, make her easily discarded and the two part ways.

Harmony, not one to be dumped, makes a display of burning some of his possessions. Possibly to prove to him that she's the one leaving him. She also has an epic fight with Xander Harris. It ends in a draw though, since neither of them are actually good at fighting. It's mostly a fight of hair-pulling and open-handed slapping, all are classic girl-fight moves, which, for Harmony, are fine to use, Xander not so much.

She has one moment of regret when it comes to ending her relationship with Spike, but even after he reaffirms his vow to kill Buffy, she ends up leaving him and Sunnydale behind. (Later she tries to reconcile with him in LA, but he's once more too focused on Buffy. She does find her own way to make peace with their relationship, enabling her to move on.)

Harmony has always been able to identify herself by the people she surrounds herself with. After she becomes a vampire, however, she finds it especially difficult to reconnect with other people. Trying to reground herself and find a way back to belonging, she seeks out Cordelia, who at one point was her mentor, being an example of how to dress and act when they were in high school. Harmony wants that sort of feeling of belonging again, which she has found difficult to achieve, since she's a vampire. In her search for herself she sings for Lorne and is told that Cordelia will help her find her destiny.

Harmony initially believes that means she's meant to help people, like Cordelia does, and be a Vampire that is similar, in morality, to Angel. She's offered a place to belong with Angel Investigations, but when the first case she helps with is a Vampire Pyramid Scheme/Cult, she sees an easier way to fit in and belong. Harmony betrays Cordelia, and the team, believing that being brought to this cult is how Cordelia led her to her destiny. Despite wanting to be a leader, Harmony once more shows that she prefers taking the easy way and being a follower. When the Cult leader is killed, Harmony tries to flee. Cordelia gives Harmony one final chance and lets her leave without getting staked.

Harmony, even though she was told to leave town, still manages to find her way back into the picture by looking for work at Wolfram and Hart. Cleaning up her act, she focuses on improving herself, and tries to maintain a positive attitude, despite things she can't control (her vampirism). Wesley hand picks her to be Angel's assistant, a role that Harmony tries to give more than 110% percent to.

In trying to redeem herself from her previous betrayal, Harmony throws herself into the job. Focusing on the needs of Angel and how she can help him, Harmony does more than the average steno pool girl does. She constantly wants to prove her worth, researching demon traditions, trying to give Angel an advantage any chance she can. Her attempts to be helpful though, are often misguided and backfire on her. Along with trying to make her way up the corporate ladder, she still seeks out a sense of belonging. She wants to make friends, trying too hard at times to pull herself into the conversation.

Overall, Harmony just wants to be liked, to matter to someone. She wants to belong and be important, which isn't always easy considering that she was mostly seen as the blonde dumb girl. She is loyal (despite sleeping with Marcus Hamilton) and will do whatever is needed to make sure that she's seen in the right light. That includes, knocking people out when she's afraid of losing her job.

She does want to do good and wants to make amends for what she did in the past. She admits to her mistakes and her desire to do better, when she's framed for murder and drinking human blood. Even without a soul, Harmony wants to live up to what she thought Cordelia was, since in her mind that's her destiny still.



THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:

Her eyes stay trained on the small lit up numbers above the elevator doors. Fingernails tapping out a gentle rhythm against the top of her desk, the force behind each tap shifting a pink highlighter a bit closer to her keyboard. As the numbers rise and fall, she waits for Angel to arrive. It's routine, it's what's expected of her, and it's mostly boring.

When those elevator doors open though, it's the start of a brand new day. Rising to her feet, her chair rolls backwards and she's ready to take on whatever task she's assigned. Taking notes; she's got a pencil and paper ready to go, his mug of blood; prepared perfectly to his exact preferences, and if he wants to know the current hobbies of the Ahyk'Bli? Harmony has poured over more than a few websites and books over the past few weeks, just in case.

She keeps a brisk pace, ensuring that she's no more than a few steps behind Angel, as he moves with determination toward his office. Shutting the door behind them, she stands watch, mindful to try and second guess what changes he's going to make the the agenda. It's only been a few months, but Angel has made more than a dramatic impact within the building. His methods, not exactly to Wolfram and Hart standards, are effective in bringing the results he wants to see.

From the figures that Harmony has seen, it seems to be paying off. Ritual sacrifices are down twenty percent and a recent review of mysterious deaths in the metropolitan area didn't raise any red flags. As she reminds him of his day to days, he corrects her in which things he's actually going to follow through with. Mindful of his requests, she nods, keeping that smile on her face, as she adjusts his schedule.

"Not a problem, Boss." There's a moment of hesitation before she actually leaves his office. It's that 'just in case' moment. She's waiting 'just in case' there's something else that he might need her to do. When his hand waves her away, she just nods and smiles, briskly exiting his office and starting on the list of calls she's going to have to make.

The fuzzy poof on the end of her pen bobs up and down as she talks to someone in Non-Human resources about Angel's choice to cancel a meeting. Her head nods, agreeing that it's not going to do the firm any good if Angel continues to poke around into the affairs of clients that have agreed to his new policies. Pushing the fuzzy end of her pen against the mouth of her newest unicorn figurine, she makes it back up into her pencil cup.

"Uh-huh, no, I completely understand." The pause on the line comes when Hannah spirals back into her reasons. "I promise, I'll be sure to pass along your concerns. I know that Angel will definitely take it into consideration."

Dropping the pen, her fingers tap out a light pattern for a moment, seeking out another break in the conversation, wanting to end the call as soon as possible. "Of course, Hannah. Yep, I'll be sure to do just that. Alright, you have a great day too!"

Exhaling with relief, Harmony realigns the misplaced unicorn back to where it belongs, straightening the base to line up perfectly beside her computer monitor. "Perfect."

"What's perfect?"

Glancing up, she smiles politely at the guy delivering the mail. She fumbles for his name, only recognizing that the old mail guy left and at least that guy didn't try to talk to her.

"Oh, it's nothing." Taking the stack of mail into her hand, Harmony begins her next task of the day: sorting through the catalogs that Spike signed Angel up for, out from the real mail. It's the little things she does that make the bigger difference, she figures. After all, if Angel gets distracted flipping through a SkyMall catalog - who's to say that he'd even notice the fully indexed reference guide on the mating habits of the Dvorshk, that she prepared and put on his desk for his meeting next week.

Opening the filing cabinet, Harmony drops the stack of twelve catalogs onto the even larger stack in the cabinet and smiled. Flipping her day planner open, she reaches for her pink-sparkle pen and crosses another thing off her list of daily tasks.

"Twelve down and only thirty-eight more to do today."



FIRST-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:

Uhm... [runs her hand into her hair, pushing at the back of her head] Well, there's no lump back there.

I really don't remember booking any reservations for a theme-weekend company retreat.

It's cute? With the whole... retro-Medieval Times thing?

[flips through the journal] It even has vintage diaries with... okay, now I know I'm dreaming. I'm not supposed to have anything to do with those books that can be anything you ask them to be.

[slightly worried sounding]

Plus, I totally didn't think they could be current events.




Applied: March 06 2010

http://community.livejournal.com/paradisaooc/2089862.html?thread=68259462#t68259462
http://community.livejournal.com/paradisaooc/2089862.html?thread=68259718#t68259718
http://community.livejournal.com/paradisaooc/2089862.html?thread=68259974#t68259974
http://community.livejournal.com/paradisaooc/2089862.html?thread=68260230#t68260230
http://community.livejournal.com/paradisaooc/2089862.html?thread=68260486#t68260486