Citadel Application

[ishouldcarewhyexactly]

Player Information:

Name:  Bry
Age:  23
Contact info: littlefishy206 (aim)
Current characters:  None

Character Information:

Name: US Marshal Mary Shannon (Shepherd)
Canon: In Plain Sight, USA Network series
Canon point:  Series conclusion (Season 5, Episode 8)
Age:   39

Appearance:

 Mary

Mary typically conveys the tough US Marshal who won’t take shit from anyone.  She’ll stare you down or push you around, whichever is needed.  Femininity isn’t her style.  Most of the time she displays a rather bland expression or one that holds a bit of warning in it.  Really piss her off and that warning look will escalate.  Aside from those, Mary can also show rather expressive versions of “you’re an idiot.”  She tends to use them a lot simply because she deals with a lot of idiots.  Her sarcastic twitch of a smile is also rather evident, usually used in conjunction with the idiots.  Once in awhile she’ll show a faked smile, the front she uses to show that everything is okay.  It takes an awful lot to get a real, true smile out of her.

Background: Most of Mary’s life revolves around stress and the fact that her entire family, besides herself, maybe, is dysfunctional.  When she was a child, Mary lived in New Jersey with her parents and baby sister, Brandi.  She never had the chance to be a part of a happy family considering her bank robber father abandoned the family two days before she turned seven.  He’s still on the top wanted list with the FBI.  As a result, Mary was left to take care of her baby sister and alcoholic mother.  Mary’s mom, Jinx, couldn’t hold down a job, drank all the time, and could easily be described as flighty and childlike.  She could never have been considered the parent of the house.  The family had utilities shut off, was thrown out of their house, and generally had a rough time.  At seventeen, Mary married Mark simply to get away from her mother.  The marriage lasted all of 36 hours.

As Mary grew up, she continued to take care of and clean up after Brandi and Jinx as they continued to make bad decision after bad decision.  Mary was pretty used to them screwing up over and over again and basically gave up ever expecting them to grow up and get it together.  Jinx had been arrested for multiple DWIs and other crimes.  Brandi had a similar record, though hers consisted more of drug dealing and grand theft auto.  Mary was the one without a huge police record. 

While still in New Jersey, Mary joined the US Marshal Service and worked with the fugitive apprehension task force.  She could track down and beat up assholes every day.  Because of her acidic and sharp personality, no department really wanted her around even though she was incredibly good at her job.  It was on one of her cases with the marshals that she met Marshall Mann, a US Marshal who worked for the Witness Protection Program.  Mary promptly called WitSec wimpsec and waved Marshall off to do whatever he needed to do to “babysit” the witnesses while the real marshals took down the guy they were after.  Unfortunately for her, it was decided that the female witness required a female escort, which meant Mary was coming along for the ride until the witnesses were secure.  She threw a fit about it, but in the end wound up doing a good job keeping the witnesses from screwing up even if it was unintentional on her part. 

This job was her first taste of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  When they reached there and dropped the witnesses off, Marshall had realized how good Mary was and requested that his boss take her on as a WitSec inspector.  Mary promptly relocated and began working for WitSec, relocating and protecting federal witnesses.  Because of this, Mary can’t tell anyone what she does for a living.  Many times this causes tensions with her family because she can constantly be called away and can never really explain why.  Her family thinks she works at the court house as a glorified messenger.  While brash and a bit unorthodox, Mary is one of the best inspectors the program has. 

Her partnership with Marshall continues to grow to the point that she actually trusted him, which is a big step for her.  Even now he is considered to be her only friend.  She would do absolutely anything to protect Marshall and her witnesses.  When things go sour with a witness and she and Marshall wind up on the side of the road while transporting him, the people who sabotaged their car begin a gun fight.  Marshall gets shot in the process, and Mary promptly spins the car around to use it as a shield for him.  Even while protecting their witness and worrying about dying, Mary’s full focus is on helping Marshall.  She’s not willing to let him die.  Even though they are trapped in an abandoned gas station with four people outside waiting to kill them, no cell service, an annoying witness, and a downed partner, Mary is able to use her head enough to realize the only people the assassins want dead are her and Marshall.  They’re here to rescue the witness, and they’re using a GPS chip he has to find them.  She manages to play the situation right to get their car and drive Marshall to safety before going back and arresting all of them.

Mary is dating Raphael, though it was more a friends with benefits type relationship for her.  Eventually they get engaged, but it’s broken off awhile later since it would never work out.  Her life seems to be going well until her mother shows up in Albuquerque and moves in with her, causing even more chaos to Mary’s life.  It’s further complicated when her younger sister also moves in with her.  Brandi’s problems catch up with Mary when she is kidnapped by accident instead of her sister.  Apparently Brandi screwed a drug dealer out of an entire suitcase of meth, and he wanted the drugs back one way or another.  Mary manages to escape, but is nearly raped and killed in the process.  It is a long recovery for her afterward, especially since she had killed a man and the FBI had torn her house to shreds, to no avail, looking for Brandi’s hidden meth. 

During one case with a witness, the witness puts Mary in a bad spot when she moves out of her designated location and into the worst part of Albuquerque.  Mary protests, but gets nothing for it.  In the end, she gets shot in the stomach while protecting her witness and nearly dies.  She recovers and is once more back on the job, the day she’s let out of the hospital in fact. 

Soon after, Mary’s life is finally turning around again.  Her mother and sister seem to be getting it together.  Her mother is out of alcohol rehab and sober, and her sister is engaged to a wonderful man and taking college classes again.  Just when things seem to be going well though, Mary’s finds out that her father has another family.  She has half brothers and sisters that she wants nothing to do with.  Then her ex husband turns up.  They have a one night stand, and Mary ends up pregnant.  She tries to deny it, but eventually can’t.  Mary hates every moment of her pregnancy and plans on giving the child up for adoption.   

The day her sister was going to get married, with Mary the maid of honor, Mary is called to the courthouse to give testimony on a case she helped work, with a witness she hates.  Everything goes to hell when machine gun fire erupts, and they all flee to the basement.  They realize pretty soon after that they’re trapped and are going to need to fight their way out.  Being eight months pregnant, Mary was told to simply take cover and wait.  As always, she doesn’t, and winds up taking out the last man from behind.  When she arrives at her sister’s wedding, she finds her sister in tears and running away.  She provides her sister her car and lets her leave, saying she’ll explain things to her fiancé.  After she explains everything and almost everyone has left, Mary goes into premature labor. 

In the end, Mary decides that she’s going to keep baby Norah because there is nobody out there who could protect her baby like she could.  After six months of maternity leave, Mary is back at work and ready to go.  Her home life is still a bit of a mess with Brandi still gone, her mother gone after her, and her ex husband hanging around and trying to help out.  Mary is still trying to figure out how to make work and home work out.  And then her father shows up at her door. 

Mary arrests him right away and turns him in to the FBI.  He insists that the reason he left was because his family was in danger, and he now wants to set up one more score with the FBI to get his partner.  The plan goes a bit haywire when James’ partner kills Mary’s brother, James escapes the FBI’s custody, and he disappears.  Mary tracks him down thanks to the fact that she put a tracking device into the necklace she’d returned to him before the plan began.  In the end, Mary disobeys orders and goes after her father to bring him in.  Once again, the deal he’s trying to make goes sour, and he and Mary end up in a shootout.  He protects her from being shot by taking the hits and dies from them. 

After her father’s death, Mary has to figure out what to do with burying him.  If that’s not enough, her mother and Brandi return, Brandi pregnant and unmarried.  Marshall also admits his feelings for Mary, but asks that she “let him go” because he’s happy with Abigail and if she calls, he will come to help Mary every time.  Mary finally begins dealing with her own issues and starts to take the right steps forward. 

Previous Game History: N/A

Personality: Just like her life, Mary’s personality really revolves around the fact that she was abandoned when she was almost seven.  It has caused an intense distrust of other people.  It’s more than just being suspicious of their motives though.  Mary is so afraid that they will walk away from her that she makes sure that they can’t.  By leaving first.  She holds everyone at arms length, at least.  It’s a defense mechanism to protect herself from the hurt that’s sure to come.  Mary has major commitment issues with both friends and lovers.  One night stands or multiple night stands involving sex and nothing else are her forte.  Really forming an emotional connection with someone is nearly impossible.  She has built a wall around herself that is miles high, covered in barbed wire, land mines, and a moat with sharks, crocodiles, piranhas, and any other dangerous sea dwelling creature imaginable.  Nobody is going to get through.  She just can’t let that happen.  She refuses to let anyone know what she does for a living, though that is mostly because it’s against policy and she can’t.  While this wall has started to slowly come down after her dad returned to her life and she started to move forward, it’s still nowhere near gone.

Parts of herself and what she is really feeling stay locked up inside of her where nobody can access them and nobody will know they exist.  Outwardly nothing appears to be wrong, but inside she’s falling apart.  Mary never seems vulnerable, but that’s just the front she uses.  She really needs someone there to care enough to dig past her prickly behavior and risk getting hurt in order to help her because she will never outwardly ask for help.  She’s used to dealing with a lot of stress in her life; it’s pretty much the norm for her.  Even so, eventually it gets to be too much.  She’ll use long rants about anything and everything that’s bothering her and lists to help keep herself from losing it.  While she can bottle things up for awhile, eventually it all explodes in spectacular fashion.  Unfortunately, that only tends to alienate her more from other people.

Not only does Mary have this wall around herself, she also has a very good way to keep people from wanting to have anything to do with her.  She’s very blunt, sharp tongued, and bitterly sarcastic.  Mary has a major mouth on her.  If you screw up, she’s going to let you know without pulling punches.  Babying people isn’t her style.  You’ll get the plain, bare truth no matter how much it hurts.  Mess with her and she’s going to mess back.  Hard.  Antagonizing or insulting someone is like any normal woman’s joy of going to the mall.  She never follows the usual “female” stereotypes.  She’s much more masculine in her behavior.  Mary will throw insults or just throw down with someone as easily as a guy would.  She rarely ever wears make-up, and you’ll rarely catch her in much besides jeans, a plain shirt, and a leather jacket. 

Mary is also incredibly stubborn.  If you have an opinion, she doesn’t really care much.  At one point she held her phone out the window when her boss was talking to her because she didn’t want to listen to what he was saying.  She’s rather unorthodox at times.  Promises mean a lot to her since she doesn’t believe that anyone besides herself and Marshall keep them.  She will never break her promises and refuses to use the word unless she really means it.

She hates it when people lie to her, but she’s pretty used to it since it’s part of her job.  Because of that, she is very good at figuring out when something feels off or when someone is lying.  However, Mary also lies quite a bit.  She’s rather good at it and can come up with something on the fly.  Usually it’s really believable too. 

Change really bothers Mary and most of the time she has no idea how to deal with it.  When something major changes in her life, she tries her hardest to deny it and just walk away.  It overwhelms her way too quickly, especially if it’s a change on the personal front.  Mary doesn’t deal well with her own personal life.  She needs to be in control, and change completely undermines that.  Like the walls she’s built around herself, the fact that she’s going to need to accept the fact that life is a bit messy is starting to sink in; however, it’s still going to take her a long time to fully accept that and learn to work with it.

Because of everything that she’s been through in life, Mary’s view of the world is incredibly dark.  For her, there is no positive side.  In fact, she revels in other people’s suffering and misery.  The happiness just disgusts her.  She can’t usually see the good in people and rarely finds anyone worth even associating with.  Why would she want to connect with the steaming pile of crap that is humanity?  Mary simply doesn’t believe in happily ever after.  She expects things to go wrong, for her life to be incredibly screwed up.  Mary is very cynical which she thinks is a rather realistic view of the world.  The magic that some other people can see doesn’t exist for her.  What is, is and that’s all.

Despite her attitude, Mary is actually incredibly good at protecting people.  She can get through to them when no one else can thanks to the fact that she throws the truth in their faces and because she actually does care.  When she needs to be, Mary can be the kind, caring person who will help ease your pain and support you.  Gentle is about the last word that would be used to describe her usually, but she can fit that to a tee when she needs to.  She takes her job very seriously and protecting these people is her job. 

Skills and Powers: Being a US Marshal, Mary is a really good shot.  She’s not dead on all the time or anywhere near assassin level, but she can hold her own if she needs to do so.  Mary knows her way around a gun and what to do in order to kill someone before they kill her.  Picking out potential danger spots and knowing how to deal with them is second nature to her.  Aside from a gun, Mary can kick ass in a physical fight as well, especially if she doesn’t need to worry about her face being broadcast over national television.  She’s dealt with a lot of dirt bags, so beating people up isn’t an issue.  Considering it’s her job to protect people from those who want them dead, Mary has rather high observation skills.  If something is off, she’s likely to pick up on it.  Also thanks to her job, she can lie like it’s nobody’s business.  Or at least she can come up with something on the spot even if it isn’t the best.  

Items: Mary carries two Glocks on her at all times, a 23 at her hip and another smaller one, a 27, in an ankle holster.  She is also likely to have at least an extra clip within easy access.  Her marshal’s badge and cell phone are also staples to what she has with her, though neither will do her much good in the citadel.  The only other item of real sentiment she’ll be sure to have is her Saint Mary medallion, a small, circular gold necklace she wears all the time.

Writing samples:

Action:

[The video feed flicks on to show a rather pissed off Mary, or at least a Mary that’s edging pretty close to pissed off.  She’s hungry and dealing with a lot of shit which makes her easily irritated, as if she isn’t always easily irritated.]

Alright, look.  I’ve been here three days.  Thank god or whatever other freaking deity you believe in that I found some coffee right off the bat.  However, this is all a bit much and if any of you want me not to go flying off the deep end and start shooting people for fun, I’m going to suggest offering your assistance to my quest. 

Quest?  God, did I seriously just say that?  I’m sounding like Marshall.  Jesus.

[She shakes her head to knock that thought out of the way and get back to more important matters.  Food.]

Anyway… Pancakes. 

Yeah, you heard me.  I need some, and somebody out there has to know where the hell I can find them here.  I knew where to get them during any of the 24 hours in a day at home. 

[I guess this is what it feels like for my witnesses.  Starting fresh.  A whole new life.  The whole shebang minus the new name.  Key differences being they didn’t need to deal with a totally warped reality, and they have me to help them through it.  I’m on my own here.]

Sheesh, get over it.  You’re always alone.

[She pauses a second before realizing what she just did.]

I can’t believe I just talked to myself.  Jesus this place is already screwing with my head.

[She makes a disgusted looking face and shakes her head before turning her full attention back to the people she’s possibly talking to.]

See?  I’m already getting close to winding up in the loony bin.  We need to get on with this.  Pancakes’ location.  Chop chop.

Third Person Prose:

Mary hated change, and this change was so big it made Mount Everest look like a goddamn pimple.  Sheesh.  She’d come to accept the fact that her life was going to be messy, and that messy was okay.  Or at least she was starting to accept that a little bit more.  Like the change thing though, this messy was too much.  It was messy to the point that it made the idiots on that show Hoarders look like neat freaks.  Okay, first things first. 

“You’d think the goddamn entrance to whatever the hell dream world this is would be a little bit nicer.  I mean, water, come on!”

Mary had listened to the explanations of where she was and why, but she still wasn’t ready to accept the fact that she wasn’t simply dreaming.  After all, stuff like this didn’t happen.  You couldn’t just walk into a whole different world unknowingly.  If whole different worlds existed, which she highly doubted.  Of course you couldn’t walk through mirrors either, and she’d just done that.

One more reason why none of this is real.  Lost in my dreams like with that stupid rabbit and the FBI.  Jesus, I wonder what this is a premonition of. 

She was not even sure that she wanted to know.  In fact, she was absolutely positive that she didn’t want to know at all.  Whatever it was, it would be bad.  Bad or not though, anything would be better than this insanity.  This was I can’t even turn my head around it, throw me in with all the crazies and feed me pudding for the rest of my life insane. 

Yeah.  She could live without that.

“Okay, so,” she clapped her hands once before continuing.  “How about this?  You stamp my passport or whatever the hell it is you need to do to show that I was here.  Then you show me to the exit, and we all go on our merry way and all is good.  Okay?  Okay.”

Mary nodded regardless of the fact that she hadn’t received an answer.  She wasn’t expecting one, especially since she hadn’t given anyone a chance to answer.  In her mind, there was only one answer.