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IN CHARACTER
Character Name: Felicia Hardy
Played-By/Art Claim: N/A
In-Game Tattoo Placement: At the back of her neck, basically.
Current Health/Status: Well enough. No ailments.
Age: 29 (Comics are Weird and don't expand on anything, so I'm pulling this as a vague number). In Evil that Men Do, Felicia makes a line about being a woman "pushing thirty". So...
Species: Human.
History: Marvel Wiki | Comicvine
CRAU History & Impact: N/A
Personality:
Independent, good-natured, flirty, and self-preserving — for someone who goes by the name Black Cat, things aren't always so black and white. Felicia Hardy is the epitome of morally gray, toeing the line between good and bad when the time calls for it. Mainly, when it benefits her and keeps the ones she cares about safe.
Raised in a wealthy family, Felicia was taught to be headstrong and devote herself passionately to all that she pursued. From playing basketball instead of simply cheerleading to her more illegal affairs, Felicia became a woman who doesn't give up on a job until it's done. This resilience has helped her in the most trying times, through personal tragedy and stubborn arrogance.
Felicia lived a relatively normal life until college. Discovering her father was the infamous cat burglar the Cat and suffering from an incident of sexual assault which left her broken, Felicia was put into a situation where she had limited control of her destiny.
It was here that she defined the type of woman she would be. While hating the idea of becoming a victim and allowing her assailant to walk freely, her determination sees her through to ensure she gets revenge. Felicia trained in martial arts and self defense with intent to murder her rapist. However, luck was never on Felicia's side. Her rapist was killed in a drunk driving incident, leaving her to never find the revenge she wanted.
This dealt a large blow ton Felicia's pride - feeling as if another thing stolen from her. Because of this, Felicia began burglarizing. Even now, she viewed burglarizing as some cosmic payback — stealing when something so precious was stolen from her. Her view of it became obsessive and materialistic, filling a void that lead her down a questionable path. Her simple burglaries became bigger and bigger over time, eventually donning a costume and hitting New York as the Black Cat — a costumed thief who crossed paths with a particular wallcrawler as a mysterious thief needing to be stopped.
This is one of the first instances of Felicia showing a troubled mindset of someone looking for an outlet to feel good about herself. From suiting up as a thief, to indulging in torrid affairs, and letting her own arrogance get her into sticky situations with villains... Felicia is quick to act and then ask questions later if heated and encouraged by her own needs. She's reactive and proactive, two deadly traits that get her into situations she may regret.
However, her questionable origins are only the tip of who Felicia really is. Her headstrong and determined personality leads her to quite a few good and bad developments in her personality over time. Felicia is a charmer, flirting her way to get what she wants if needed and succumbing to her own easy-going personality. Despite how tabloids and others view her, she is not unapproachable and cold. Felicia, nicknamed "Party Hardy", still embodies an adventurous woman who takes life a little less seriously than she should in poor attempts to regain control of her life.
When she crosses paths with Spider-Man, they initially are on opposite sides. Felicia, determined to steal and gain a life she felt deserving of materialistic goods, is willing to listen to Spider-Man's view of morals. It's enough to sway her, even if she still tells white lies and leads Spider-Man down questionable paths in the sake of adventure, fun and living a life to its fullest.
They become a dynamic duo that allows her to dip her toes into heroics. She's good at it, works well with Spider but still has difficulty holding back and truly understanding the restraint of being a costumed superhero. Felicia is still selfish, focused on her own goals and ensuring a harmonious balance in her personal and professional life.
However, Felicia still has issues of wanting to be the best she can be and being impulsive light the fuse to the end of her and Spider's relationship. Unable to truly help Spider-Man in the ways he may need, she allowed Kingpin to graft bad luck aura onto herself to assist in crimefighting when in reality it was to put Spider at risk.
Through a series of unfortunate events, Felicia and Spider-Man break up romantically and professionally. Felicia's materialistic, superficial and selfish qualities leads her to be more enamored with Spider-Man over Peter Parker which is the final nail in the coffin for their conflicting views. She's shown to find the most excitement with the masked arachnid, leaving Peter to feel ashamed and even too boring for the girl. Despite her childish and spoiled views, she takes the break-up to heart, growing bitter and petty. It is here, she returns to her questionable professions.
Felicia is able to put her own personal hangups aside and focus on business. As a thief, she is incredibly strategic and knowledgeable in forming plans for infiltration and extraction of goods/items. Felicia's ability to adapt to variables in heist proves her to be intelligent and highly capable to get the job done. This kind of expertise applies to other situations — in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man, Felicia begins working with mob bosses and additionally works her own freelance private investigation instead of simply burglarizing for income. This shows that Felicia is truly morally gray, with a leaning towards doing good despite her own guilt towards being unable to play superhero like Spider-Man.
Despite her own instances of being petty and hotheaded (dating Peter's frenemy Flash Thompson, having smart comments about Mary Jane Watson, and even going as far as to bicker with Peter), she is also willing to apologize and learn from her choices. Felicia is shown to genuinely care about her friends and allies. Even after team-ups and time passing, Felicia and Peter mend their bad relationship post break-up and become amazing friends. She goes forth with becoming an ally he can call on when needing help with crime matters, valued for her heart and experience. Felicia is fiercely loyal when needed and will go out of her way to assist to those she cares for.
Felicia does soul searching eventually, settling in that her skillset is not strictly good for thieving. By seeing more in herself because of Spider-Man's eventual friendship, she does good by taking on paid jobs for detective work and mercenary work. Felicia's main motive was less about romance and personal happiness and becomes more about securing financial stability. She opens up her own private investigation office known as Cat’s Eye Private Investigations while still taking up jobs from lesser-known mob bosses, keeping with her flip-floppy view of getting money so long as no one is getting killed.
While priding herself on being able to work better alone, Felicia is shown to be charming or useful enough to find herself teaming up with a few people who value her skills professionally. She works small crime cases with Puma (eventually becoming her lover), finds companionship with Firestar (Angelica Jones), Hellcat (Patsy Walker) and Photon (Monica Rambeau), and even teams up with Venom despite their rivalry in the past. Her partnerships are all short-lived, however. At the root, Felicia has issues trusting people and not fully allowing people to see her weaknesses, despite her best efforts to. Unfortunately, Felicia rarely settles and keeps causing conflicts in her relationships because of this (or writers remove her from group books). Through a few poor team-ups with Heroes for Hire and the Defenders, it becomes clear that long-term Felicia excels at taking matters into her own hands.
One major trait that consistently shows up in Felicia's development is her ability to learn from the tragedies and wrong-doings in her life. Felicia actively grows as a character, going to a "villain" to ally of Spider-Man. Felicia's selfish thieving begins to lessen and she soon goes close to a year without breaking & entering. Over the course of her time away from burglaries, Felicia is shown to go out of her way to help her allies even at the cost of her own reputation and well-being. Like any cat, Felicia's prickliness at times washes away and glimpses of a truly caring woman is shown.
An example of this is when needing to break Norman Osborne out of prison, Spider-Man requests Black Cat's assistance. Knowing that Peter's reputation means more, Felicia is willing to take the heat and complete the extraction herself.
Felicia doesn't like playing hero, but she finds herself doing heroic things quite often — keeping her brownie points collected as much as her stolen jewels and art pieces.
Abilities/Powers/Weaknesses & Warping: Due to her canon point, Felicia would have undergone requests to Doctor Strange to remove her bad luck powers years ago. She currently has no powers and relies on her skills/inventory. Below are an explanation of her basic skills:
Thievery — Felicia is a skilled thief and is an expert in stealth, lock picking, escapology, evading and detecting alarms and cracking open safes. This talent was trained extensively over the years and at her current skill, she is able to break into maximum security prisons easily.
Athleticism — Felicia possesses the reflexes, agility and stamina of athlete with 5+ years of devoted training and experience. In addition, she is able to move with acrobatic precision and pointed grace.
Fighting — Felicia is shown to have basic fighting, brawling and martial arts skill. She actively is shown to keep up with some of Spider-Man's most aggressive enemies in terms of fighting. Canonly, she's also defeated Sabretooth.
Felicia's weaknesses are also akin to a normal human — she has a normal pain tolerance, mortality, and stable mindset.
Inventory:
1. Grappling Hook
2. Cell phone
3. 2 Sets of Electromagnetic contact lenses (which allows her modified vision)
4. Toolkit from Tinkerer which includes 3 EMP grenades and lockpicks.
5. Black Cat costume
6. Set of street clothes
Writing Samples: @Bakerstreet | @Deerington's TDM
OUT OF CHARACTER
Player Name: Jem
Player Age: 30+
Player Contact:
Other Characters In Game: N/A
In-Game Tag If Accepted: Felicia Hardy: Jem
Permissions for Character: over here!
Are you comfortable with prominent elements of fourth-walling?: Sure.
What themes of horror/psychological thrillers do you enjoy the most?: I'm totally into fear of abandonment, guilt, and need to survive. I like characters being forced to do what they need to do in order to survive and then having to worry about the after effects.
Is there anything in particular you absolutely need specific content warnings for?: Rape and sexual assault if it ever came up ICly, but I'm pretty flexible.
Additional Information: Nothing!