Post by ggi on Dec 28, 2008 20:39:25 GMT -7
The Handler
Name: Katherine Corrigan, PhD
Nickname: Kate
Classification: Human
Gender: Female
Age & Birthday: 37, Jan. 7
Appearance:
Katherine Corrigan is most aptly described as a scholarly woman. Pale, due to the infrequency of her time outdoors, and frequently slouching, Kate appears just as bookish on the exterior as she is on the interior. She stands at just over five and a half feet, and at a stocky hundred and sixty pounds, she does not cut a very imposing figure.
A natural blonde, Kate's hair is cut short and blunt and frames her round jaw and cheeks. With generally round and unimposing facial features, Kate is the picture of generic, Anglo-Saxon female genetics. Her soft features, however, stand in stark contrast to her haircut, sharp green eyes, and wry, ever-present smile.
While she is concerned with her professional appearance, and takes the time to make herself presentable, Kate rarely sports any manner of make-up. Despite the general lack of accessories Kate subscribes to, she is never seen without a pair of earrings. As they are the only variety of jewelry Kate has ever invested in, she has the better part of a hundred pairs. She has managed, for nigh on a decade, to keep from wearing any single pair for more than a day in succession.
As banal as her appearance may seem, Kate exudes a sense of purpose. Her motions are sure and steady, her eyes are ahead as she walks, and her voice kept at a reasonable and easily audible level. Katherine Corrigan is confident in herself and all that she entails, and it shows in her body-language.
Attire:
Having taught professionally for the better part of a decade, Kate has developed an aversion for suits. Her hiring by the B.P.R.D. served her as the perfect excuse to dress down, and she seized it. Since she was no more than an consultant, Kate no longer saw the need to dress to her finest. Clad frequently in dark slacks, nondescript long-sleeved shirts, and flat shoes, Kate clashes with the more conservatively dressed agents. Fortunately, her knowledge of the occult makes her a difficult woman to replace easily.
No one has bothered to mention her faux-pas.
Seeing as Kate Corrigan lives and breathes the occult, it is difficult to identify when she is 'off duty.' Her attire shifts only slightly when she's off the clock—a rotation of cheerful sweaters filters in alongside the occasional pair of cargo-pants—but the change is hardly a substantial one.
The Creation
Name: Kate
Power List: Kate would, personally, like to believe that 'extensive folkloric knowledge' qualifies as a power, but no. Kate possesses no special abilities.
Detailed Power: N/A.
The Potential
Alignment/Occupation: Currently a Consultant with the B.P.R.D..
Weapons: As an consultant, Kate was reluctantly supplied with a .22. She has yet to actually load this weapon, and keeps it in the second drawer of her desk. On her key-ring, she carries a small can of mace which she has never been forced to use.
Personality:
Kate is a generally cheerful person. She is fulfilled in her work, despite how it may disturb or frighten her on occasion, and takes great joy at the surreality of it all. Because of this, she is normally very relaxed and occasionally prone to bouts of cheer when asked to preform the job she was hired to do. She has a tendency to crack jokes, tell stories, or give personal advice.
While Kate is cheery to a fault, she is not a fool. She is well aware of the inherent risks that the agents of the B.P.R.D. take, and the consequences they should face if things go...awry. Her concern for the health (or occasionally lives) of the agents, however, is expressed through her work. She strives to give the best information, to seek out the quickest solution, to compile the most data in any situation. Though casual, Kate has never once shirked on the job.
Though Kate is a well-adjusted person, comparatively, it must be noted that she is little more than just that. With no powers, no combative skills, and no particularly favorable genetics, Kate doesn't possess anything to help her out of a hazardous situation besides her brain. She depends, wholeheartedly, on her own mental faculties and the validity of the information she has acquired.
Skills:
Kate has three degrees, each earned nearly simultaneously (much to the detriment of her early-adult social life). She has a Doctorate in Folklore and Mythology, a Master's in Anthropology, and a Bachelor's degree in Antique Entomology. As it stands, Kate speaks five living languages (English, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, and German), ten dead ones, and can derive the meaning from nearly every ancient text or cave wall on the planet. Her esoteric and paranormal knowledge is extensive enough that she's written and published several definitive books, as well as a cavalcade of papers.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of her published work is...lacking in acclaim due to its frequently fantastical subject matter.
Beyond the skills that her degrees and years of study afford her, Kate has an extensive knowledge of film Noir, a penchant for hard-boiled-detective novels, can Swing dance with reasonable grace, and has a very decent poker-face despite her lack of ability wherein the game is concerned.
Strengths:
Kate retains information at a rate bordering on phenomenal. Her comfort, within her sphere of knowledge, makes her nearly impossible to scare and very difficult to confuse. Kate can keep an even, logical temperament in hazardous situations.
Her most phenomenal strength, however, seems to be her overwhelming tolerance for boredom. Kate Corrigan could shuffle paperwork and sit watching endless reels of documentary footage for nigh on unmeasurable amounts of time. Her tolerance for the mundane is only facilitated by her overwhelming love of the supernatural, giving her the mental fortitude to last through any amount of banality with the promise of something spectacular in return.
Weaknesses:
While Kate is a brilliant woman, she has no tolerance for death or gore. Kate's ability to concentrate and recall information are severely impeded by the presence of blood, corpses, the undead, and the like. While she is unlikely to panic outright, she will go to great length to distance herself from such things, even to the detriment of herself and her situation.
As a scholar, Kate has very rarely experienced any live violence. Though she isn't unused to the concept, the practice of it can surprise her and cause a lapse in her thought process. She is as unused to taking any amount of physical damage, as she is to doling it out. She is a very poor fighter and a mediocre shot, at best.
The Story
History:
Katherine Corrigan was born in Oakland, California, the daughter of a Mechanical Engineer and a Secretary. Her parents, both very reasonable and intelligent people, assured her from the beginning that she could become anything she wanted to. Kate had decided, if this was true, that she wanted to be a fairy. Naturally, this was impossible, but the concept had sparked her imagination.
Kate raced through grammar school, skipping grades as though each one would bring her closer to a pair of gossamer wings. By the time she entered High School the urge to become a fairy had worn off but her interest in the occult still ran roughshod over her life. Her mother scolded and berated her constantly through her four years of High School, urging her to invest her life into something worthwhile, to find a nice man and settle down, and to consider her mother's feelings in her decisions. Kate listened to them half-heartedly and, when she graduated at the top of her class, she applied to several medically inclined schools.
She was admitted, with a full scholarship, to the University of California Los Angeles. Her mother was happy for her, though she seemed convinced that Kate would benefit more from simply marrying a doctor than becoming one. Within the first year, Kate discovered that she had an aversion to blood and exposed soft tissue so powerful it bordered on phobic. She promptly dropped out of the program and moved back to Northern California.
She was accepted, in similar fashion with UCLA, to UC Berkeley that fall. Her mother disapproved, but she was finally able to pursue her lifelong interest in the occult. Provided with staggering amounts of information, Kate spent the vast majority of her waking hours in the respective libraries of Berkeley and San Francisco. With little to distract her, Kate applied to multiple programs at UC Berkeley. Her first degree was a Bachelor's in Antique Entomology, a major which she had practically defined on her own. Upon receiving her first degree she began to teach a class on that very subject. Her Master's in Anthropological study came second, and though she acquired her Master's in Folklore and Mythology at Berkeley, she did not pursue her doctorate there.
Inspired and emboldened by her degrees, Kate applied at the National University of Bucharest. She spent two years traveling Europe, predominantly within Romania, as she poured research into her thesis work. The paper that earned her a Doctorate in Folklore and Mythology concerned the 'Anthropological Mutations of the Moroi/Strigoi Mythos and its Consequent Development Alongside Early Christianity,' as was reflected in its title. It was published in several international journals, and was frequently toted as being the definitive work on the subject. The publication of her Doctorate Thesis brought Kate little notoriety, but the little it did garner earned her a handful of fairly prestigious job offers.
Of the short list, Kate chose the one closest to her area of interest. Within six months of publishing her Doctorate Thesis, she became an assistant professor of Archaeological Anthropology at New York University. She worked closely with the faculty of the department, often substituting in sections that were not her direct responsibility, earning her the title of Professor despite the fact that she was not. During her time at NYU, Kate published a series of books on the paranormal, superstition, and legendary creatures. Most of her books became required reading in Theological and Liberal Arts departments, and were frequently sold out at all of the bookstores immediately surrounding campus.
Her mother used Kate's first book, a detailed compendium concerning Germanic and Anglo-Saxon Troll Myths, as a paperweight until the day she died.
Kate continued to teach at NYU, her expertise making her an asset to several of the programs, and was offered a position as the interim chair of the Liberal Arts department. Why she was offered that particular job, Kate could never ascertain. After a few years, she was approached by several government agencies in quick succession. First, she received a phone call from the FBI. A week later, an agent of the CIA showed up on her doorstep. Two days after that, she came to work and found two NSA agents going through her desk at NYU. The very next morning, a man named Manning was in her office when she arrived.
He handed her a folder, said nothing, and watched her as she leafed through it. The folder contained several coroners' reports, two detailed logs labeled 'Breach 1' and 'Breach 2' respectively, and a handful of pages xeroxed from her book on Trolls. She'd asked what it was. He'd asked her if she had anything else. She'd offered him a drawer's worth of data from her filing cabinet and he'd offered her a job on the spot. After several minutes of explanation from Thomas Manning, she'd been overjoyed to discover that such a place as the B.P.R.D. not only existed, but was hiring.
