brat_inslayage | OOC: Info Post, Or Your Bandwagony Guide to the Buffyverse's Least Favorite Potential

At least, in my experience she's the Buffyverse's least favorite Potential. I could have been hanging out in all the wrong places.

Fandom, meet Kennedy. (I don't know her full name, and at the risk of getting jossed by the season 8 comics I'd otherwise like to pretend don't exist, I'm not making one up yet.) For those of you unfamiliar with Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom, Kennedy's biggest claim to fame is that in the year BtVS season 7, where she appears, aired, she cleaned up several online polls for Most Annoying TV Character.

Naturally this means that I, being a perverse sort of individual, thought she would be awesome to play.

Okay, let's get this stuff out of the way first. One of the huge problems with BtVS S7 is that it's a plot sardine can: there's an insane amount of new characters, mythos, backstory, exposition, and plot crammed into it, and everything suffers as a result. So here's what we absolutely know about Kennedy from canon, mostly extrapolated from dialogue, in bullet point form:

Her family is rich, and lives in New York (per S8 comics).

They have a summer home in the Hamptons.

She has a half sister.

She's been training with a Watcher for years.

She learned how to use a crossbow when she was 8.

She's gay, and she knew it when she was 5.

She has a tongue piercing.

She likes "Italian, skate punk, and Robert Parker mysteries."

And that's all we know for sure. Everything else is extrapolation or my imagination, just so we're clear on that.

Kennedy in Fandom

Kennedy is pre-canon, and 16 when she arrives in Fandom, which puts her at approximately the beginning of BtVS S4, canon time-wise. (Which means she's arriving in Fandom right around the time canon Tara shows up in Sunnydale. I think this is funny.) No, she doesn't know any of the other BtVS characters, though

needsaparrot knows a different, older version of her.

No, Kennedy is not at all shy about liking girls, so girls of Fandom, I'm sorry but she'll likely hit on you at some point. Please, feel free to shoot her down as messily as you like. I'm completely fine with it. Boys, feel free to hit on her too, just know you won't get a nice reception.

For that matter, if you'd prefer she didn't hit on you, let me know as well. She's not going to be some huge horndog, but she does like to flirt, and she certainly wouldn't say no to a hookup.

Wait, Potential Slayer?

Kennedy is a Potential Slayer, AKA Slayer-in-training, AKA Slayer-wannabe, not an actual one. She's one of the thousands of girls around the world who were identified by the Watcher's Council as someone who might get called when the current Slayer bites it, and thus is being trained for the job in case her number gets drawn. (The Council fell down on the job when it came to identifying Buffy.) This means she has a certain amount of Slayer-y instinct, but none of the enhanced strength, speed, healing ability, or wacky dreams. In Fandom, this translates to being pretty much your average, non-powered fighty type who knows how to use a decent range of medieval weaponry. But by Fandom standards she's absolutely nothing special despite all of General Buffy's speeches to the contrary in S7, so again, feel free to point this out to her. It'll make her pissy. It'll be awesome.

The Self-Proclaimed Brat and You

Yeah. As her username hints none too subtly, Kennedy's a brat and she knows it. She even enjoys it. She's a spoiled rich kid, and she expects to get her way. This does not mean I expect any of you to just let her get her way. She's irritating in canon, and where a lot of people in fanfic, I've noticed, either like to play that to an extreme or overcompensate by writing her too sympathetically, I'm playing her as someone who generally means well but comes across a little bit abrasive. She doesn't have a great brain-to-mouth filter, and can irritate people just by the way she behaves and phrases things.

It's my goal here to make that come across, hopefully without actually annoying you all too much OOCly. And I don't mind at all if you let me know, if it is OOCly annoying, and I'll see what I can do to fix it.

She will get up in your face and bitch you out if she thinks you're wrong, and she feels strongly enough about the subject. You may not be wrong. Odds are very good she's the one who's dead wrong.

On the other hand, Kennedy's also a pretty social girl, so she's not going to be going out looking for a fight to pick. She does, however, have a thing about girls getting picked on by guys when they can't stand up for themselves, so that's what is most likely to trigger her. I don't think that's going to be a huge problem in Fandom, but just so you know. Once you earn her respect, she is incredibly loyal and will stand up for you without a second's thought if she thinks it's called for. Again, even if she's wrong.

As for me, I can either be incredibly focused or have an attention span not worth calling a span, so if it happens to be the latter and you're hanging on a tag, give me a ~~whack in the head with a rolled up newspaper~~ poke via AIM or email. You can get hold of me at UsedToMyWay on AIM, though I might not always be on, or kindofabrat *at* gmail *dot* com.

And I think that's all you really need to know about this girl. Looking forward to bringing her in!

Questions, comments, pretty icons, all that stuff? Also totally welcome here.