app to eachdraidh

[wilee]

.

( CHARACTER ★ INFORMATION )

NAME & AGE: Malia Hale Tate ( 16 )
CANON & CANON POINT: Teen Wolf, 4x12 "Smoke and Mirrors", the end of the finale.
CANON INFORMATION: wiki-wiki!

PERSONALITY:

A very important thing you need to know about Malia right from the start is that she's a werecoyote. Well, that's part of it. But the most important thing is that she spent eight years as a fully transformed werecoyote, after turning during a full moon while riding in the car with her mother and younger sister, and accidentally killing them. Yeah. It's important because it doesn't really matter what happened in her life before then, what kind of childhood experiences she had or what her favorite things to do were growing up - that event changed absolutely everything. Which sounds dramatic, but it's accurate.

She spent her formative years as a coyote out in the wild, so nine times out of ten ( well, more like four or five out of ten now, but I'll get to that in a minute ) the way she reacts to things or interprets things is a reflection of how she lived during that time. She's very blunt, and honest, whether it comes to explaining how she feels about a person or situation ( even if it offends... everyone ), or if she's mad or pleased with someone. She's a terrible liar because there was no lying as a coyote, there was no such thing as deception or manipulation. She'll sooner get very quiet before trying to lie her way out of a situation. The one time she tried to "tactfully" ask Kira if she thought Scott and Stiles kept secrets from her, she came across VERY awkward, and over-exaggerated. It was pretty ridiculous! And kind of hilarious. But she quickly realized it midway through the conversation, and dropped the act just to outright ask her if she knew what they were hiding. Her human-things awareness is a little tricky to explain, because she knows what sex is and how to dance at a club and that the SATs and her grades are important, but she doesn't really know much about things like insinuation or sarcasm ( but hey, she's spending most of her time with Stiles, so she's quickly learning ). She's not ashamed of it either - when Stiles' dad walks in on them testing out the chains and restraints they have for the full moon, he says that he "doesn't even want to know", and Malia ..completely doesn't understand why Stiles gets so defensive. And she doesn't try to hide it, either.

Her emotions are raw and very readable, even if she tries very hard to always be "fine". She's "fine", she can handle things herself. She almost died? Whatever, she didn't die, so she's fine. She doesn't like relying on others, and she'll do whatever she can to convince you of that. It's not always untrue - she's self-reliant because that's how she was in the wild. She's independent and a little selfish because that's how she survived as a coyote. That's not to say she's always great at being a "tough girl" - she has her moments of weakness like anybody else does. The only difference is that she won't ask for help. If anything she'll try to push people away if she thinks they're going out of their way for her. On the flip side, she also doesn't always think to reach out and help others, either. They can handle it. They should be able to handle it themselves, or they shouldn't have gotten themselves into that situation in the first place. She also has a hard time wrapping her head around a lot of basic human emotions - like forgiveness and empathy. And again, it's because those things didn't really matter as a coyote. She's capable of feeling those things, she's just... out of practice. At first, she was pretty confident she would rather ditch all that humanity nonsense in favor of turning back into a coyote and leaving it all behind again. Now? Not so much.

She's only started to rethink these things over the last few months during her time with Stiles and her new ( human!! ..mostly ) friends, Scott, Kira, and Lydia. It's been a process, to say the least.

Stiles has been teaching her the, more or less, appropriate ways to respond and handle situations in the human world. She's learned quite a few useful things! Like she shouldn't leave her friends behind if they're in danger, or hurt, just because it would be safer for her to just leave. She's learned that it's okay to trust others to have her back, and that she needs to be a reliable source of support herself, because that's what friends do. She learned that if she senses her friend is stressed, or worried, that she should offer to listen to their problems and try to help them through it. As a coyote, her sense of loyalty was very strong, but very selective. Luckily she's learned to translate that into her current human friendships. Now, by the end of the season, she's learned to care about protecting and helping said friends, instead of fiercely focusing on one person and leaving the rest behind. She still sees it as a weakness sometimes, but she's not about to turn her back on them now. Nope! Stiles is especially stuck with her for good, but he's kind of more than just a friend.

Which is why he was able to help her find her anchor. He stayed with her during the full moon, helped talk her through it. He explained that he knows why she's so afraid of him being there, why she's so afraid she'll lose control, but that it's okay to lose control. "Control is overrated". It shouldn't come down to wanting to feel in control, it should be about her own desire to keep herself and the people she cares about safe. But what it really all comes down to is her guilt. Weirdly, her anchor is her own guilt, and her need to come to terms with what she did all those years ago during the full moon. Accepting that she feels guilty and that she's not completely immune to that particular human emotion is a way she keeps herself from giving into her violent werecoyote side completely.

Guilt isn't a personality trait, no, but at this point in Malia's life, it's a huge motivating factor for a lot of the things she does, and it's the emotion she grounds most of her humanity in. She feels incredibly guilty for killing her mom and sister, still, even though she's aware that she had little to no control over her werecoyote form at that age. She knows it's irrational to blame herself for what she did, but she still does. Her guilt is what, ultimately, keeps her on track. In part it's because she feels like she owes her father something, considering he was left thinking his whole family died in a car accident when it was really her fault, and she was really hiding as a coyote that whole time. She's determined to figure out this whole "human" thing for him, as much as herself.

Family's tricky though, because she found out midway through the season that her father, Henry Tate, wasn't her biological father. Yeah, her father turned out to be the murderous and mostly hated not-actual-alpha-werewolf, Peter Hale. Not only did she get really pissed at Stiles for keeping that secret from her, but it made her question whether or not she was actually capable of being "good" ( like murder could maybe run in the family ), and it made her become obsessed with the need to find out who her real mother is. This need kind of pokes at the part of her that's willing to do anything to get what she wants, including trusting Peter, on some level. For a while, she was convinced she could handle whatever manipulation or lies Peter threw her way, and she didn't care if it was "smart" or not, because all she wanted was to find out who and where her mother was. But yeah, that's definitely her self-reliant "I'm fine!!" side rearing its head, considering Stiles tries to warn her not to listen to him, that it isn't smart, and she says she doesn't care. So she gets a little reckless when it comes to finding out the truth, but she doesn't see that as a bad thing.

But that's all part of being human, right? It's part of the transition process. She'll get the hang of it eventually.

COURT ALLIANCE & REASONING:

UNSEELIE:
Malia might have relearned a good amount of the do's and don'ts of being a human over the last few months, but that doesn't change the fact that she's still very volatile, unpredictable, and feral in a lot of ways, all as a direct result of growing up in the wild. Her gut reactions are usually what she goes with, no matter how much she's be told about ..not doing that. She just reacts. She might be learning to think about others before acting ( and speaking, hah ), and what it means to be in a pack with humans ( so to speak ), but she's still very much focused on her own survival. And she's more than willing to use her were-abilities in order to ensure said survival, which kinda ties in with the Unseelie's habits of using magic for all it's worth. She does things because she wants to, not because it's right or wrong. Most of the time her wants do tend to be on the "good" side of the spectrum, but that doesn't change that her motivations are generally pretty damn selfish. She's learning! And she has the potential to embody the Seelie's way of thinking, since those ideals are what Stiles is teaching her, essentially. But. It'll take some time before she's 100% on that side of things.

ABILITIES:

werecoyote.
strengths;

( strength, speed, stamina & senses )
Like all were-things, Malia has enhanced strength, speed, and stamina. She's still learning to control it, as she's said a few times she needs to "focus" to make it happen, so it's not this instant thing she has, but she's capable of kicking same major butt and not breaking a sweat, whether or not she's turned into her werecoyoteface or human. Weres also have heightened senses, like smell and hearing ( usually used to track people or sense emotions, in canon ), which she's also still learning how to use on command, but she can definitely do it. She just needs to tap into it.
( shapeshifting ..kinda )
Technically! Malia is physically capable of transforming into a full coyote. Fur and paws and claws and all. She probably won't ever do that, unless it's for some seriously intense survival reasons, because she still associates that ability with, er. killing her family and growing up in the wild. But! That's a thing she can do. Otherwise, when she taps into her abilities, her eyes glow a bright blue color like this, and during the full moon her werecoyote side comes out and makes her look like this.
( healing & pain tolerance )
Another shifter ability is healing! Which is pretty much what it says on the tin. More intense wounds take a little time to heal, but scrapes and bruises aren't an issue for her. She can also tolerate more pain than the average human. She's not invulnerable to pain, it just takes a lot for her to be affected by it.

weaknesses;

( full moon )
Yeeeeeaah, she's still learning how to control herself during a full moon. Stiles helped her find her anchor, so she's capable of resisting the change, but it's not easy for her yet. Her shifting ( and abilities in general ) is still affected by her emotions, big time. The phases of the moon also have a little bit of an impact on how strong she can be - during her full moon she's at her strongest, but during a new moon, she's at her weakest. During an eclipse? She's left completely human.
( wolfsbane, electricity, & mountain ash )
Aconite! Poison! Any kind of contact with this particular plant will immobilize her, and her abilities. A heavy shock of electricity can also hurt her, and a steady pulse of just enough electricity can keep her from healing, or using her strength. No ifs ands or buts about it. Mountain ash is another way to contain a werecoyote. It won't weaken them, but a barrier of mountain ash around a were can effectively trap them. Oh, and flashing lights. Pulse beacons are a really effective way to trap a werewolf, too, because the flashing lights and high-pitched sound ..really freaks them out. It messes with their senses enough to temporarily incapacitate them.
( mortal wounds )
Another plain and simple one - she might have superhuman healing abilities, as in she can take a bullet to the shoulder and still not need to go to the hospital, but if she's shot in the head, or the heart, that'll take her out. If she's burned, she can usually heal, but if she's caught in a fire? There's no coming back from that, no. Basically, she's not immortal.
( math )
No seriously, fuck math.

PLAYER: Chrissy
CONTACT: pickpockets