Post by Tabby Whitman-Foster on Jun 13, 2013 21:46:21 GMT -7
TABBY FOSTER
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◊ FULL NAME: Tabitha "Tabby" Whitman-Foster
◊ CODENAME: N/A
◊ GENDER: Female
◊ RACE: Human
◊ AGE: 47
◊ APPEARANCE: Red. Hair. That is by far the most distinct physical characteristic one will notice about Tabby as soon as she enters the room, mostly because she hoards boxes of pre-Ragnarök hair dye and uses it profusely to ensure that she never has a strand of hair any other color than red. The hair dye has turned her head into a fiery ball of hair that clearly doesn't match her natural color, but Tabby doesn't care; she knows she looks great and she will laugh at anyone who says otherwise. Once one gets past all the red hair, large and expressive blue-green eyes accentuate a joyous face. Laugh lines crinkle the corners of her eyes and trace the shape of a smile around her lips, showing that she has laughed long and hard during her lifetime and hasn't cared at all. Her complexion is pale and spotted with freckles.
An old scar mottles the hairline at the nape of her neck, if you get the chance to see it, and a weathered tattoo colors the underside of her left wrist with the Chinese character for "Luck." A newer tattoo loops around her right wrist, linking together in a stream of letters that spell "XERWTACB3" in black ink; another tattoo that she got as a spur-of-the-moment decision that was influenced by her maaaaaybe drinking some ethanol one night in her shop. Her height is a little taller than average women, coming in at around 5'9 and still managing to be dwarfed beneath the height of her husband and, soon, a couple of her children. Her body build is average and, to her chagrin, the volume of her chest isn't what it used to be. Wrinkles and weathered skin betray her age here and there, but Tabby doesn't mind at all.
◊ ATTIRE: Tabby's staple clothing are jeans and tank tops and always have been. Her tank tops come in different colors and sometimes she wears an old plaid button shirt over them, but she relishes the cooler clothing on sunny days. Worn steel-toed boots are almost always the only pair of footwear that she sports. When outside of her shop, she prefers to tread barefoot. If welding or doing another activity where her skin needs to be protected, her degree of clothing varies from adding only a denim button-up shirt to full-blown coveralls. Her hair is usually pulled back into a braid or a messy bun in the shop and elsewhere too, but sometimes she just likes it to all hang out. Her wedding ring is always on her finger, and she's been heard to boast that she's super glued it on. For all we know, it might be true.
◊ FACE CLAIM: Carrie Preston
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◊ AFFILIATION: BPRD
◊ PROFESSION: Chief Engineer of the BPRD's Technology Division
◊ PERSONALITY: Ever the eternal optimist, it is rare to see Tabby without a smile. Her congenial personality, while sorely tested in the years after Ragnarök, has returned to full capacity. She likes to laugh. She likes to have fun. She is loud at the best of times and ear-splitting when she's getting after her children. Obnoxious is a good word to describe her, though annoying and immature have also been added to that list.
Without her family, Tabby would be nothing. She is absolutely devoted to Foster and has a tendency to embarrass her children and perhaps even mortify her husband with her propensity to cross the line when she shows her love for the man she agreed to spend her life with. After twenty years and several children, the spark has not gone out of their relationship. Tabby is a zealous mother to all of her kids, whether they be her natural, step, or adopted kids. She will defend them to the death, and if you have slighted her kids in any way, you better watch out. Tabby has access to BPRD's arsenal and she is not afraid to use it when it concerns her family. She does lavish a bit of extra attention on her stepson Elijah. From the start of her relationship with Foster, Tabby always wanted to make sure that his son was comfortable with her and treats him with as much embarrassing maternal affection as anyone could hope for.
When it comes to working, Tabby can crank it back down and put on a straight face for serious business. In fact, one might think she was an entirely different person when working with tech. She abhors interruptions of any kind, mostly because it's very likely that she could be working on a piece of tech that, if something went awry, could kill her, all the people in the room, and everybody in the next room if they're lucky. To Tabby, tech and machinery is as understandable as a native language. She loves her job and what she does and is always looking for ways to bring back pre-Ragnarök systems and tech, or improve what is already working.
Deep down inside, known only to her and Foster and perhaps Elijah, however, Tabby struggles with a deep hatred for Nuada, the Golden Army and, on some level, all elvenkind. Nuada's army massacred her family, killed her friends, and caused the end of the world. She can be polite when called upon, but if given the chance, Tabby would obliterate Nuada and his kingdom and scour their ilk from the earth. Alas, Tabby is only a humble techie and doesn't have the opportunity for retribution. Yet.
◊ ABILITIES: N/A
◊ SKILLS: Comprehensive and encyclopedic knowledge of all existing tech, ability to repair, enhance, and even create almost any piece of technology if given access to raw materials, educated in engineering, computer science, gunsmithing, electronics, metal-work, and nuclear fusion, ability to change three diapers in as many minutes, tell the perfect bedtime story, whip something edible up within fifteen minutes for a dozen people, and Tabby has extensive experience in childcare and some intermediate first-aid skills.
◊ WEAKNESSES: Tabby's family is her Achilles heel. The slightest thing concerning the Fosters can provoke Tabby into a rage that doesn't necessarily make sense, but she's never made sense before, so why start now? Losing her husband and children would absolutely shatter Tabby.
Her age is catching up to her. All sorts of aches and pains are slowly beginning to creep into her body, and sometimes her kids and co-workers have to call for her a couple times before she answers. And, when it all comes down to it, Tabby might have the aptitude to create, repair, and improve technology, but she's nothing more than a mortal who's a poor shot and overreacts most of the time.
◊ EQUIPMENT: Tabby always has a weapon on her, whether it be a handgun, a soldering iron, or her specially constructed taser that could stun a bull elephant. She's not going to take any chances if she needs to protect her family. Besides that, Tabby has a utility bag full of tools and handheld equipment that she can drag into the field for the recovery of scavenged tech. And, if she's not out in the field, she has all of the equipment of the Bureau's tech division at her disposal.
◊ RESIDENCE: The Foster Clan has an entire level for themselves at the Bureau, Level F (some say for "Foster," some say for other reasons). It is almost always in a state of discord with items and structures needing repair or replacement, toys scattered everywhere, laundry in various states of cleanliness strewn about, and a refrigerator that holds items ranging from the triplets' latest experiment, take-out from the cafeteria, a spare quiver for Artemis, and the odd food that Tabby or Foster were in the process of making before getting distracted and shelving it. Level F is a vibrant and chaotic home, but it's the Fosters' home, and Tabby loves it.
◊ FAMILY: Xavier Foster (Husband), Riley Foster (Child), Whit Foster (Son), Thor Foster (Son), Artemis Foster (Daughter), Ciaran Foster (Son), Bennett Foster (Son,) Bailey Foster (Son), Bryce Foster (Son), Rachel Foster, née Sumner (Daughter-in-law, deceased), Robert Whitman (Father, deceased), Margaret Whitman, née Smith (Mother, deceased), Leroy Whitman (Brother, deceased), Stephen Whitman (Brother, deceased), Collin Whitman (Brother, deceased), Sarah Whitman (Sister, deceased)--------------------------------------------------------------------------◊ HISTORY: Tabitha Whitman was born as the third child and first daughter of a pair of farmers located near Palmyra, New York. A little brother and sister followed her, and the five children spent their childhood climbing trees and rafters in the barn and hiding in the fields when their parents wanted them to help out on the farm. That, however, was finally put to a stop when Tabby almost scalped herself falling from a tree when she was six.
During her recovery, her father took her into his machinery shop to keep her away from her rambunctious siblings and showed her how to do little things with electronics, like to to rewire a toaster so that the toast actually flew into the air when it was done, or how to change the pitch of the voice on her Suzy-Talks-A-Lot doll. Tabby was absolutely delighted and actually displayed a proficient aptitude for working with electronics. After she healed, she still lingered in the shop with her dad, learning how to fix hiccups in the tractor motors or vehicles and other miscellaneous things having to do with machinery.
In high school, she joined the vocational club and expanded her horizons into computer programming, drafting, electronics, welding, and even a little bit of engineering. She entered state competitions and placed every single year. In her junior and senior year, she took first and went to nationals. She placed her junior year and Tabby won nationals the following year.
This was, of course, attracting attention from MIT, software firms, and other schools with a vested interest in those with an aptitude for technology. However, Tabby and her parents were taken by surprise when a man and a woman in suits showed up on their farm to offer Tabby confidential and top secret education that would be entirely paid for as long as she signed a binding contract to work for their governmental organization when she was done, as well as a non-disclosure agreement. The secrecy of it all excited Tabby, and she took the opportunity and signed the papers that day.
Over the next four years, her skull was jam-packed with so much information about technology that Tabby snapped one night, got wasted on tequila, and woke up in some girl's bed with a tattoo on her wrist that she didn't remember getting. But she got through it with flying colors and, along the way, had learned the basics of just about everything that had to do with technology of any sort including engineering, gun-smithing, metal-work, and nuclear fusion.
It was then that her destination was revealed: The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. She was being vetted to take over the technology vision when the current director stepped down, but in the meantime she did grunt work, repaired everything that Hellboy trashed, and even got to do some special modifications on the Samaritan and Big Baby all the while learning all about the technology the Bureau used and some new tech that no one used.
The year before Ragnarök occurred, Tabby went into nearby Trenton one night to find an anniversary gift for her parents and blow off a little steam. In the process, she met Xavier Foster, a slightly bumbling medical examiner who had just moved to the area. He was old enough to be Tabby's father, but that didn't stop Tabby from waking up in his bed the next morning. A one night stand turned into a relationship that oddly worked, in spite of everything. Tabby met his son, Elijah, and his ex-wife (who Tabby personally thought was a harpy, but she wasn't going to say that in front of Elijah), and everything just kind of flowed from there on out.
But when Nuada defeated Hellboy and took control of the Golden Army, the world went mad. Foster and Elijah were given sanctuary with the BPRD in return for Xavier's medical skill, and Tabby was in the process of getting her family somewhere safe when Nuada's army wiped out all of upstate New York en route to demolish NYC. Tabby's entire family was obliterated in the course of one day. When Tabby learned of Palmyra's destruction, she had to drown her grief for the moment and work towards evacuating the Bureau. With New York City gone, there was no buffer to protect New Jersey, Trenton, or the Bureau from the Golden Army.
Tabby helped evacuate the Bureau's essential equipment as well as Roger the Homunculus and Foster and Elijah before the Golden Army overran the New Jersey headquarters. The remnants of the Bureau traveled to an old base in Colorado, where it was discovered that Tabby was the sole remaining member of the Bureau's tech department. She had to pull more than her weight, so Tabby used her grief to fuel projects like creating a mobile generator to bring Roger the Homunculus out of his static state, restoring the base's machinery and electronics, and repairing anything that broke down.
The day that Ragnarök came to an end, Tabby and Foster were two of the very few remaining Bureau members at the base in Colorado. Foster delivered Liz and Hellboy's twins with some clumsy assistance from Tabby. The young mother died moments after naming her children, and Tabby and Foster didn't know whether they would soon follow. The couple did what they did what they could to care for the twins until finally, the ragged remains of the Bureau's agents returned. The world had been saved, if only just, but the price were the lives of many and, most of all, the life of Hellboy.
It was left to the Bureau to try and rebuild what was left of the world while simultaneously helping to communally care for the Bruttenholm twins, Trevor and Maggie. Tabby threw herself into her work because, to her, her grief wasn't enough to justify holding the rest of humanity at a standstill. Over the next two decades, Tabby spearheaded the work that converted gasoline engines into ethanol engines, restoring and purifying the country-wide water grid, building and distributing electricity generators, restoring radio and cellular towers, restoring the internet, and the odds and ends of other projects as needed. When Foster asked Tabby to marry her, she also began training new tech specialists to ease up on her workload and provide more time for her new family.
With Foster's ex-wife turning out to be a casualty in the end of days, Tabby did her best to at least provide a mother-figure to Elijah. She did not push herself to be called "Mom" or insist that Elijah forget his mother in favor of her. Instead, Tabby was there to listen and joke around and do whatever might make this new and bleak present more palpable for the boy. Friendship helped ease Elijah into this new world as well, and Tabby was delighted when he befriended a girl his age named Rachel and often asked if she'd like to come home for dinner or if Elijah would like two desserts in his sack-lunch he took to the Broom Institute.
Between that and Tabby's work, she and Foster had no real intentions of expanding their family, even after Elijah became a field agent and moved out. But that all changed when Foster returned from an excursion to the borders of the BPRD and brought back an abandoned Fae baby with him. The baby had no gender at all, and while Tabby cradled the baby and defiantly pronounced that the baby would grow to be whatever they wanted, Foster was worried about what color to paint the nursery. The addition of the Fae child they named Riley started the beginning of the expansion of the Foster Clan.
Foster and Tabby's first biological child, a son named Whit, followed two years later. It wasn't long after that an orphaned troll infant was found in the remains of a troll market attacked by raiders. Foster and Tabby adopted the chubby troll baby that Elijah convinced them to name Thor, making their family into six. Six later became seven when a redheaded daughter was born two years later. They named her Artemis, and the couple was content with their large family and their lack of sleep for the time being.
But that didn't stop Tabby from bringing home another child when Elijah was 28, Riley was six, Whit and Thor were four, and Artemis was two. The naked boy had been heading for water when Tabby and her tech team had found him, and the chief engineer raced to save him from what would have surely been a watery grave. Tabby argued that they couldn't just leave him there. Nothing seamed out of the ordinary about the boy until Foster set to giving him a bath at home. As soon as he was submerged in the bath water, the child turned into a seal, revealing himself to be a Selkie. And really, what was one more child in their household? Tabby and Foster named their newest addition Ciaran and continued with their lives.
It was around this time that a man who Tabby could only refer to as a lunatic ran her husband through with a sword. The moment she was informed of it was the most terrifying minute of Tabby's life. She couldn't go on without her Xavier, without her other half. The Bruttenholm twins had ensured that the lunatic didn't do more harm, but the recovery took the better part of a year. But really, Tabby was just happy that her husband was alive.
Years passed and Tabby and Foster were able to eke out just a little more sleep and they thought that seven would be a nice lucky number, so they planned on having one more baby to add to their brood. They tried and tried, but were unable to conceive. Tabby was worried that menopause had hit her at the age of 43. Instead of voicing this concern to her husband the doctor, she built a couple custom generators and engines in return for some pre-Ragnarök fertility pills. Apparently, Foster had the same idea, because that's how the triplets Bennett, Bailey, and Bryce were conceived.
It was during this time that Elijah and his friend Rachel decided to tie the knot, and Tabby couldn't have been more pleased. While she didn't know the gender(s) of the fetus(es) inside of her, the woman was thrilled to have another daughter in addition to her Artemis and welcomed Rachel with as much love and support and kindness that she could offer. Tabby was so thrilled to see Elijah as happy as she and his father were, and even started hoping for a grandbaby not too far down the line.
But that was not meant to be. The day the triplets were born was the day that the family received the awful news that Rachel had died in an ambush on Elijah's field team. To this day, Tabby doesn't know how they got through it and still doesn't know how Elijah did. He didn't come home for almost a year and Tabby didn't know what to do but soldier on and throw herself into tending her family. Elijah was a changed man from that day forward and, though Tabby rejoiced every time she sees him, she's still filled with unspeakable sorrow for the loss that he has suffered.
But now, with nine kids and a world that seems to be stepping away from the brink of disaster, Tabby's just enjoying her husband, their family, and her life.
