P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N Your Name: Melissa OOC Journal: kreugan Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: 18 Email IM: yogilates at gmail, kreugan at aim Characters Played at Ataraxion: Captain Hook, Peeta Mellark, Scott McCall
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N Name: Josh Levison Canon: Being Human (US) Original or Alternate Universe: Original Canon Point: Near the end of 4.11, "Ramona the Pest" Number: 003 or RNG
SETTING.Modern day Boston, with the addition of supernatural elements — vampires, werewolves, ghosts and witches. Vampires and werewolves have a longstanding rivalry, although vampire society has recently taken a hit in the form of a human flu that's fatal when passed on to vampires via blood. The cure for this virus is werewolf blood, so things have been even more hostile than usual. Despite the fact that every supernatural creature tends to be terrible at laying low, the population as a whole is unaware of their existence, and they have to remain in hiding. Vampires tend to have political hierarchies in different regions, while wolves often try to seek out packs. HISTORY.(SEASON ONE) Josh had a great future lined up, studying for a medical degree from a top institution alongside his brilliant and beautiful fiance, Julia. That all changed when he convinced his friend, Stu, to go camping; Stu ended up dead, mauled to death by a werewolf. Josh survived, but on the next full moon he became a monster. While he initially tried to deny what he'd become, after a few weeks of studying his condition he finally admitted that there were no other options — he was a werewolf, and he was a threat to everyone he loved. His solution was to leave town without telling anyone, outside of a short note telling his family and Julia not to worry about him.
He then spends about two years trying to stay off the radar and manage his condition. This mostly means avoiding people and avoiding commitments, and he spends most of his time working crappy jobs and moving from one cheap motel to another. Things change when he's attacked by a pair of vampires in an alley and another vampire, Aidan Waite, intervenes and saves his life. Aidan takes pity on Josh and helps him get patched up, and not long after that he helps him get a job at the hospital where he works. Josh is incredibly grateful for any kind of companionship after his years of isolation, and he isn't even put off by the fact that he's gone from studying med at MIT to working as a hospital porter — it's closer to normal than he's been in a long time.
Eventually, Aidan suggests that the two of them move into a house together, saying that it'll give them one safe haven against the world; they won't be alone, but they won't have to hide what they are all the time. Josh very reluctantly agrees to the idea. After moving in, they discover that the house is haunted by Sally, a young woman who had been killed in the house and is having trouble moving on. Josh and Sally are initially at odds, both of them fairly selfish and fixated on their own problems, but over time they become incredibly close friends.
The first big disruption to their little found family is the arrival of Ray, a werewolf who tries to befriend Josh. Josh is wary, but after realizing that Ray can teach him how to keep others safe, he ends up following his lead. Things fall apart when Ray reveals that he's the one who killed Stu and turned Josh several years ago. Josh is furious and betrayed, and he ends up shutting Ray out of his life, claiming that he'll never let himself hurt anyone the way Ray had — Ray, of course, tells him it's only a matter of time, then leaves. He's ultimately proven right when Josh starts up a shaky romance with a nurse at the hospital, Nora. Nora becomes pregnant early on, and Josh's fear over whether the baby will be human or wolf causes him to act irrationally and at times insensitively towards Nora. Their relationship is on the rocks when she follows him down to the basement of the hospital on the night of a full moon. He tries to get her to safety before he turns, but he ends up scratching her in the process, and she loses the baby to a miscarriage (possibly triggered by the full moon).
(SEASON TWO) Now that Nora knows the truth, she can begin to rationalize his behavior. She doesn't tell Josh that she's been scratched, but she does begin to show an interest in the wolf, asking him pointed questions about what it's like to change. Josh, still hell bent on denying that side of him, is largely dismissive. He discovers the cause for her interest when she turns on the next full moon, and the guilt over having turned Nora is crippling to his confidence in his ability to live a normal life. He abandons his pursuit of med school to turn his attention to finding a cure. On her first night as a wolf, Nora actually saves Josh's life by mauling a vampire that's trying to kill him: good news, in theory, except for the fact that he's a pretty big player in vampire politics. The vampires want payback, and it ends up causing some trouble for Josh and Aidan later on.
Josh and Nora's relationship gradually falls apart as she struggles to cope with her new nature. The big problem is that she's actually empowered by it and embraces it — Josh is horrified by this, and it creates a massive rift between them. This is exacerbated by the arrival of two purebred werewolf twins, who antagonize Josh and draw Nora into their pack. Aidan ends up killing one of the twins in order to get the vampires their payback by pinning the guilt for Nora's vampire murder on the twin. Shortly after, Nora leaves town with the remaining twin to indulge in her new werewolf lifestyle. Josh doesn't have to mope for too long before his fiance rolls into town, and despite a rocky start, they rekindle their romance. Josh is working up the courage to tell her what he is (and why he left her) when an eclipse hits, causing him to wolf out in the middle of the day. Julia witnesses it and is startled into stepping back into traffic. She dies from her injuries, and Josh is left alone and, again, feeling guilty for causing harm to someone he loves.
Meanwhile, Nora's back in town with some big news: she knows how to break the werewolf curse. She tells Josh that you have to kill your maker. Josh of course isn't willing to commit murder to make himself human, seeing as that kind of defeats the whole point. Between losing Julia and finding out that it might cure Nora as well, however, he forfeits his own life and humanity in an attempt to save Nora. This goes about as well as can be expected. He leads Ray out into the woods, Ray beats the crap out of him, and almost shoots Josh with his own gun. Nora shows up in the nick of time to save him, only to get attacked by Ray. While Ray's busy beating Nora, Josh tackles him and then smashes his head in with a rock.
(SEASON THREE) Skip to a year later: Josh is human, Nora isn't. Josh then spends the next few months more deeply invested in the supernatural world than he'd been when he was actually a part of it, constantly putting himself at risk in order to defend his friends. The stakes are raised when Liam, the werewolf twins' father, shows up looking for vengeance. While Aidan killed the brother (to protect Nora and Josh), it later comes out that Nora had killed the sister, Brynn, when she realized how violent and cruel Brynn really was. Josh shows more confidence than he ever showed as a wolf, stepping up to keep Liam from hurting Aidan and Nora.
At around the same time, Josh discovers a newly turned werewolf at the hospital in the form of a delinquent teenager. He and Nora unofficially adopt her in order to help her cope with being a werewolf, but obviously the house isn't entirely teen-friendly, and the girl (Erin) eventually takes off. During this time, Liam gets to her and convinces her to help him kill Aidan, manipulating her desire for a family by offering her a place in his pack. Erin returns to the house and follows through on the plan. Aidan is poisoned with her blood and fights back, which puts Erin in the hospital. Liam then kills Erin while she's in critical condition, causing a rift in the house; unaware of Liam's involvement, Nora assumes Aidan is responsible for Erin's death.
Josh tries to play middleman without choosing sides. It all reaches a tipping point when Liam abducts Aidan and tries to torture a confession out of him. Josh finds out and goes to play hero, which miraculously works, with the exception of the fact that he gets scratched by Liam. Nora learns that Aidan took the blame for the twins' deaths in order to get Nora off the hook, and when they begin to guess at Liam's involvement in Erin's death, she fully forgives Aidan and offers him her support. While held captive by Liam, however, Aidan had been injected with the virus that's been killing off vampires, and everyone in the house stands by as they wait for him to die an awful death.
Only he doesn't, because it turns out that drinking werewolf blood, while temporarily unpleasant, actually makes vampires immune to the virus. This is bad news for werewolves, of course, but Aidan is kind of an idiot and ends up giving this information up to the other vampires in order to keep them from going extinct. Despite a fair amount of friction over this decision, everyone in the house rallies around a new quest to save Sally's soul from an evil witch, Donna (long story!!). While facing off against Donna, Josh somehow interacts with a spell that messes with the nature of his curse; he also ends up facing off against Ray, recently reanimated by Donna. Josh decapitates him, they all fight Donna, and ultimately they get back home safe.
Safe-ish. We quickly discover that vampires who feed on werewolf blood end up siring strange, mutant vampire kids. These mutants are stronger, hungrier and uglier than their first generation counterparts. Liam's still around after his failure to kill Aidan, and he declares war on these mutants as well as the Aidan and company. He crashes Josh and Nora's honeymoon and drags them to a warehouse where he traps them with a pile of the mutant vamps, and Josh is quick to dispatch them by ruthlessly burning them all to death. They then race to the house and help Aidan kill Liam, and then all is sort of well for like, one day.
Josh and Nora get married. Josh's sister, who found out he was a werewolf a while ago and booked it, returns to try to mend their relationship. Things are looking pretty good until Josh heads out to experience his first full moon as a wolf — the second time, though this time as someone who's been turned by a purebred. When Nora wakes up the next morning, she finds that her new husband is stuck as a wolf.
(SEASON FOUR) cw: vague mentions of suicidal impulses. Fast forward to a few months later and the gang's still struggling to adjust to their new wolf bestie. Donna's spell has caused Josh's cycle to reverse: he's only human once a month, on the full moon. This obviously puts a massive strain on his relationship with Nora, and the two of them are only allowed to enjoy each other's company for about thirty minutes each full moon. The effect on Josh's happiness and outlook is devastating. His quality of life is roughly non-existent, and babysitting a werewolf has taken a toll on Nora and Aidan's lifestyles. It's clear to Josh that he's ruining his friends' happiness and that he no longer has anything to offer to make it better. After the first two months, he tried to convince Aidan to kill him. After the third month, he tries again, and when that fails he tries to force their hand into killing him by rigging the gate to let the wolf loose.
They don't kill him, obviously. Instead Sally uses some newly acquired magical talents to try to cure him. This almost works, except using magic causes her to vanish temporarily; while she's gone, Nora and Aidan don't know how to finish the spell, and they accidentally interrupt it. While they do succeed in returning Josh to his human form, they fail to actually separate him from the wolf. To the contrary, they break down the barriers between the two, and Josh is now forced to struggle against the wolf's instincts 24/7. Josh ends up losing his job at the hospital due to his new, unstable behavior. Soon afterwards, he encounters a pregnant werewolf and offers her and her husband his and Nora's help, both with the baby and with being wolves. This introduces Josh and Nora to the couples' much larger pack. While Josh's instinct is to help other wolves, however, he remains wary of packs — too many wolves in one place is incredibly dangerous. Nora convinces him that they can help the members of the pack gain confidence and find their own way, though, and so he reluctantly accompanies her to a pack outing.
Cut to the next morning and Josh is waking up alongside the wrong werewolf lady. While the wolves hooking up isn't strictly cheating, Josh panics and handles the situation horribly. He lies to Nora rather than being honest about it, and when she finds out, he tries to blame his decision on the wolf. She calls him out on it and on the fact that he's still acting like he and the wolf are totally separate, when they're very clearly not. The relationship is staggering onward despite this, but it hits a wall when Josh's control slips and he almost attacks Nora. She tells him to figure out how to deal with what he is and moves out.
Somewhere in the midst of all of this Sally disappears for a while and comes back with the news that she got stuck in the past and lived a few years' worth of an alternate future, in which she becomes a werewolf, Nora and Josh never get together, and Aidan's a total asshole. She tells the gang about their bizarro AU lives and insists that Josh and Nora are very clearly meant to be together. Reality says otherwise, considering the fact that Josh's marriage is falling apart. Josh is still failing to sort his life out, and although he soon gains the ability to shift at will, he's still unable to stop a shift triggered by emotion or pain. When he ends up showing the at-will trick to some of the werewolves from the other pack, they very creepily recruit him as their alpha and invite him over to a werewolf initiation party. Upon realizing that half the guests at said party are human, Josh loses it and yells at them for deliberately ruining people's lives. The other wolves knock him out and put him in a cage, then torture him until he turns so that they can taunt the wolf into scratching the new initiates.
He's rescued the next day by Aidan, Sally and Nora. While Nora is still unwilling to forgive Josh's violent behavior, she's not ready to give up on him. Just a day after that, the gang discovers that their house is even more haunted than they thought, and after some prompting by Sally they tear down a wall and discover a secret room. In the room is what appears to be the ghost of a young girl, Ramona, who's been eavesdropping on the housemates since they moved in. This is followed by them finding out they're basically being evicted, and Josh is in the middle of packing when the group of werewolves that had kidnapped him show up and threaten Nora. Ramona traps Josh upstairs, prompting him to panic and trigger the shift; when the other werewolves open the door, still in human form, Josh tears them to pieces (literally, still trying to figure out how a werewolf yanked a dude's head off ??). Josh is suitably horrified when he comes to in a house full of dismembered corpses and completely drenched in blood, but they don't have time to dwell on it — it's the night of the full moon, so he and Nora have to get somewhere safe to turn. PERSONALITY.Werewolf problems aside, the worst that can be said about Josh is that he's a fussy and judgmental guy who has a tendency to end up in codependent relationships. He loves to cook, tells really bad jokes, and has a weakness for interior design and cardigans. He has a habit of relying heavily on other people, and sometimes he'll turn a blind eye to things no sane person would just for the sake of maintaining a friendship. Josh is also sometimes guilty of placing his happiness on the actions of others; this, naturally, doesn't do much to offer stability to a guy who's kind of a control freak. This used to be an insanely hypocritical move in the sense that Josh rarely met his own standards. Now he does tend to meet them, but his perspective is a bit too skewed and sometimes too ruthless to be entirely fair or correct.
Even if he's almost always out of his depth, however, Josh usually doesn't lack for conviction, and when his expectations aren't met things can come crashing down very quickly. This is shown again and again in his interactions with Aidan and Sally. When Aidan gets dragged back into vampire politics early on in the series, ostensibly in the act of protecting Josh, Josh feels an acute sense of betrayal and disappointment, saying outright that he's not sure what the point of trying to be good is when Aidan — the oldest and arguably the wisest of them — can't manage it. This is a hugely unfair response, but it's an example of how Josh's dependence on other people can be detrimental to everyone involved.
Before he was turned, Josh's life was largely defined by his parents' expectations. He was extremely driven and intelligent, and for the most part his goals were pretty standard: get married, get a degree, get a successful career. For someone with such an extraordinary amount of self control and focus, the impact of the werewolf curse was devastating. Although it only directly influenced his life once a month, the loss of control that it represented pushed Josh into a tailspin, completely uprooting his confidence in himself and his future. While Josh argues that he abandoned his family in order to keep them safe, and that's absolutely part of his motivation, the truth is that he was also motivated by shame.
His belief that he'd become something dangerous and awful and that in becoming the wolf he'd failed in every single one of his goals — becoming a husband, being a good son, a successful doctor — caused him to violently withdraw from other people, isolating himself due to a severe lack of self worth. Josh hates himself and what he's become, and he spends several years caught up in heavy self-loathing and anger over how badly his life plans have been derailed. His life with Aidan and Sally isn't normal, but it's the first vague sense of stability and family that he allows in after becoming a werewolf. His relationship with Nora, however, is what finally helps him come to terms with the fact that just because his life isn't what he expected, it isn't necessarily over.
Although the curse is what threw things into motion, the majority of the problems Josh faces after he's turned are entirely self-inflicted. His staunch refusal to accept the wolf, essentially another part of himself, results in insane amounts of hypocrisy and denial. His lack of self-awareness has a tendency to sabotage his relationships with others; whenever he messes up, it's the wolf's fault. It's a very shallow defense, and it's as damaging to him as it is his relationships. Although Josh blames the wolf and often buys into that excuse, that doesn't prevent him from feeling guilt for his actions.
This means that while he experiences the emotional fallout of his behavior, his refusal to acknowledge his culpability doesn't allow him to learn from his mistakes and move on. He's also prone to projecting his problems and insecurities onto other people, and the ones closest to him are the most likely to get the brunt of these meltdowns. This is a cycle that perpetuates throughout the show, even after Josh becomes human. Without the wolf to blame, the accountability is shifted over to his sense of loyalty: it's okay if he does awful things, so long as it's for the sake of protecting the people he loves. When he becomes a wolf a second time, this time with the disruption of Donna's spell, his inability to fully confront his own identity and actions comes to a head.
While a lot of Josh's problems can be traced back to his own terrible coping mechanisms rather than supernatural causes, there have been some obvious changes that he might've dodged if he hadn't been turned. The biggest one is his newfound reliance on violence to get things done. It's still never his first instinct, but Josh doesn't shy away from violence when he thinks it's the only or best solution to a problem. This is something that's developed slowly over the course of a few years; when he was first turned, Josh was terrified of any kind of physical confrontation. The truth is that it's kind of difficult to survive in the supernatural world for too long without getting your hands dirty, and when Josh finally comes to terms with that, he doesn't look back. The ability to lean on the wolf and its fighting instincts have also made it easier to fall back on violent responses, seeing as Josh himself has never been much of a fighter.
With the exception of the times where Josh's control slips and the wolf takes over, however, there's absolutely nothing knee-jerk or messy about Josh's approach to violence. To the contrary, it's usually very clinical. Even when it's a quick decision, it's one made with cold logic. And although the wolf and the supernatural world have fostered these traits, giving them an outlet and making it easier for Josh to act on violent impulse, that ruthless nature isn't completely new. Well before Josh embraces his own violent nature, there are examples of his ability to detach from a situation and make ruthless decisions. When Aidan's actions result in the creation of a theoretically unstable child vampire in season one, Josh yells at him for screwing up and tells him he needs to deal with it by killing the kid. When Aidan slips up again and there's a second teenaged vampire in the mix, this time several years later, Josh yet again expects Aidan to set emotions aside and clean up his mess.
On the surface, Josh can come across as melancholy and hypercritical. Although he still retains his busybody, neurotic tendencies — nit-picking, leaning on bitter and wry sarcasm rather than good-natured humor, etc. — he's more guarded and stoic than he'd been before his three-month wolf sabbatical. Sally describes it as a sort of post traumatic disorder, causing him to feel slightly distant and detached from other people and his environment at all times. The loss of control caused by the interrupted spell that brought him back ends up causing him to backslide into a lot of the same fears and hangups that had defined him immediately after he was turned.
The walls that had been very nearly broken down by his relationships with Nora, Aidan and Sally come back in full force. Paranoia at his lack of control, violent denial of his responsibility for the wolf's actions, and a tendency to blame the wolf for all of his problems are the modus operandi. His confidence is still better off than it was just after being turned, but it's more a matter of being more aggressive and less withdrawn than having improved on his social skills. In a lot of ways, Josh's sense of isolation has never actually gone away. He has his friends, but they're still all separate from the rest of humanity. He's slow to trust and can be very cagey even with his friends, particularly when he's feeling defensive or thinks withholding information will keep someone safe.
This sense of isolation is brought back into the forefront by the effects of Donna's spell. Nora was the first person who really knew and understood him on every level, thanks in part to sharing the curse. Their relationship takes a hit when he's stuck as a wolf for three months, understandably, causing Josh to feel intense guilt over the amount of stress and sadness he's causing both Nora and his friends as they struggle to help him. When Sally's spell brings him back, the new nature of his curse provides another obstacle, making it difficult for Nora to understand what he's going through. More importantly, his inability to control the wolf and his refusal to admit that it's a serious problem causes her to state outright that she's afraid of him. She leaves him rather than putting herself in harm's way, and Josh doesn't blame her for it; that said, he still struggles to confront what he's become.
Although he's more desperate to separate himself and the wolf than ever before, its actions are usually a direct result of his thoughts or impulses, just pushed to dangerous extremes. The dichotomy that Josh has set up between himself and the wolf results in a dangerous tug-of-war between both sides, and rather than ever settling on a happy, calm medium, the wolf is only allowed to manifest in violent outbursts. It's shown that the wolf's nature is directly influenced by the degree to which Josh accepts it. The more he runs away and rejects it, the more unbalanced and volatile it becomes; if he's able to drop the denial and recognize it as an aspect of himself, then it becomes less unpredictable and easier to control. On a practical level, this mostly means that he has to focus more on staying calm, maybe pick up some meditation techniques he learned from another old werewolf, and constantly work at accepting rather than fighting the wolf. If all goes well, this will allow him to keep the wolf under control until the unavoidable monthly shift. If he caves to his old habits of denial and blame, however, it's always possible for the balance to become unstable again, and odds are the wolf will be more hostile throughout the month. ABILITIES, WEAKNESSES & POWER LIMITATIONS.+ Heightened sense of smell and hearing in any form. + While human, has increased strength on the day before the full moon. + Able to shift at will, though this is very physically taxing. + In wolf form he has a very tough hide and increased speed and strength. + When partially shifted (wolf man!!), he has increased strength but very little control. + The shift causes his body to reconstruct (heals any current wounds). - Heightened senses aside, his human form is like any other and just as vulnerable. - Vulnerable to silver in either form. Causes permanent damage and has a toxic effect. - If he shifts against his will, it can take him up to a full day to recover. - Anger, fear or pain might trigger the shift against his will; the full moon always will. - When ingested, wolfsbane works as a mild tranquilizer against the wolf. - Due to the trauma of the shift, werewolves have a life expectancy of about 45-50 years. Inventory:- (2) complete outfits (too lazy to list things!!) - (1) Star of David necklace - (1) wedding ring - (2) plaid blankets - (1) incredibly sexy beanie - (1) creepy dog/cat/?? sculpture Age: 29 Appearance: 5'10", slim build, fit but not remotely imposing. Light brown hair and eyes. Usually a little bit unkempt. As a wolf, basically a gigantic hairless rat. 
AU Clarification: More like the opposite of AU, but just a note that I'm apping him back in without his previous TQ memories. S A M P L E SLog Sample:The morning after the shift should've been the easiest. It used to mean another month free of the wolf, not having to watch the clock and trek out into the middle of nowhere or lock himself up behind steel doors. Should've been, maybe, but it wasn't; the pain had faded with each shift, but it was still there, enough to slow him down and distract him. Enough to remind him that he'd lost control. There was never any relief in waking up, just a new countdown to the next full moon. Now he doesn't even have that. Can't mark it off in days and hours and minutes, can't scrape some semblance of control out of knowing when and choosing where it would happen. This time it's evening, the middle of the week. There's a knock at the door and Mark's on the other side, furious; there's the spark of pain as he strikes out, and then it's yelling and fighting and Nora. He hears Mark mention Wendy, hears Nora's shocked response. She tries to split them up and Mark shoves her away, hard, and it's her pained shout that triggers the shift. A few seconds later he's ready to tear open Mark's throat. Nora yells at him to stop, and he's not even sure who responds, him or the wolf — his vision's red, nails and teeth burning from the shift. He's himself again by the time they get Mark out of the house, but the damage is already done. Josh is a liar. Nora's always known that, on some level, but it's been a long time since he's lied to her. When he'd been stranded as the wolf and saw his wife just once a month, she'd found it difficult to look at him. Difficult to smile and pretend she was happy when everything was falling apart. She can't look at him now, either, but this time that sadness is cut with blame, made sharper for the fear and disappointment. He leans against the back of the couch and watches her as she turns her back on him and climbs the stairs up to their bedroom (alone), waits for her to turn around, prays for one last chance to explain himself. Assure her that he was going to tell her, he was, he just had to figure out how— instead he hears the door to their room shut, quiet, and then it's just the sounds of the house settling before he finally gives up. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't unfold the blanket on the edge of the couch, doesn't even try to lay down. And as he's sitting there, staring at absolutely nothing and feeling sorry for himself, it occurs to him that the worst part isn't even that he's ruined his marriage. The worst part is that Nora's right: every time he slips, every time he gets to feel that power, part of him likes it. Comms Sample: Linking with permission, one and two. |