elizabethxhartford-blog
catch me if you can ;;
Elizabeth Hartford. History professor slash reformed con artist. Vampire coven second in command. Undead, immor(t)al, and really bloody English.
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Sunnybrooke Task 003 - Q&As
What is their greatest weakness?
She lacks an inner strength and determination. Or rather, while she has physical strength and speed in spades, Elizabeth has infinitely less mental and emotional resilience. Some people make the mistake of thinking that it must take an enormous amount of grit and tenacity to survive for as long as she has---even as a vampire. But there is a big difference between strength and imperviousness. Substances that are impervious to damage don’t need to be strong.
People with real resilience get through life because they can take a beating. Because it doesn’t matter how many times they are hurt, or betrayed, or get smacked down---without fail, they always get back up and carry the fuck on. Liz, on the other hand, has largely gotten through life by avoiding getting smacked down altogether. It’s clever, but it flies in the face of everything that is integrity and great strength of character. And it means that when she does get hurt, which she has, it changes her. And usually not for the better.
What is their greatest strength?
She is intelligent and adaptable, and when it comes to manipulating people and events in her favour, she is somewhere between a highly skilled chess master and a natural talent. On one hand, she has proven herself to be a great strategist and regularly displays the ability to think several steps ahead of the people around her. On the other hand, there is an aspect to the ease and the flair with which she does what she does that simply can’t be taught. You have to be born with it. And Elizabeth was born with it.
It was more apparent back when she was running big, elaborate cons and having the time of her life, not wrangling a coven of vampires and convincing border guards to share files on incoming residents with her; but once upon a time, the brunette truly put the art in con artist. Her crimes were enjoyable, delightful and a little tongue-in-cheek, and they always focused on solving a problem with wit rather than bulldozing her way through it. The crime itself was never the point. The challenge of accomplishing the impossible was.
However, in Sunnybrooke, and particularly in her role as second, she has leaned more on her tactical side to stay ahead. But that doesn’t mean that the woman who successfully replaced dozens of paintings in the Louvre with forgeries is completely gone. She’s simply dormant.
What is their best quality?
She is a charismatic leader. Much less so now than she used to be, but Elizabeth has never been a leader in the traditional interpretation of the word. Her vampirism, along with her chosen profession, meant that there was always a need for her to remain anonymous. Yes, on occasion, her actions achieved a level of fame and notoriety. But she never did.
In a sense, she has always been more of the woman behind the curtain---not the face or the figurehead of rebellions, but the whisper in the wings that helped inspire those who were. Her effervescent charm has dulled dramatically as a result of being betrayed and subsequently captured, but perhaps somewhere, deep down, that whirlwind of a woman who really was something to behold is still there. Perhaps she is still the match that can spark a revolution.
What is their worst quality?
She is ultimately self-serving. Which isn’t to say that she can’t be kind, and empathetic, and helpful to the people around her while genuinely wanting what’s best for them---because she is, and she does. She can be incredibly compassionate when she feels like it. And she does care about others. She might be an undead, parasitic creature who used to lie to people for a living, but she’s not heartless.
What it does mean is that Elizabeth will first and foremost help herself. It’s not that she only bothers helping other people when it’s convenient to her, but rather that she avoids helping others when it’s inconvenient to her, or in direct conflict with her own best interests. At the end of the day, if it’s a choice between her and someone else, she will always choose herself. Because that is the only way that she knows how to live.
What is their biggest fear?
It used to be getting caught. Now it’s getting hurt. She always heard that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and while Elizabeth was never thrilled at the prospect of having her heart broken, she was at least comforted by the notion that if it ever did happen, she would not take it lying down. And she would certainly not let it keep her down.
As it turned out, when she eventually did get her heart broken, not only did she take it lying down and then stayed down (or rather in captivity), but it didn’t make her nearly as angry as she thought it would. Oh, it made her angry all right. It made her angry that she could be so stupid that she didn’t see it coming. But mostly, it just made her sad.
There’s a reason that she’s determined to never fall in love again.
What makes them happy?
Contrary to popular belief, what Elizabeth carries closest to her heart are the true bohemian ideals---Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love. Not necessarily because she lives and breathes by them, seeing as her basic nature and history as a con artist means that she fails on the tenant of Truth alone, but perhaps precisely because she doesn’t. She has always loved art, and literature, and culture in all its forms; but above all, what she derives the most pleasure from is finding ecstatic beauty and true meaning in all of the things that she is not. In the ecstasy and the joy and the magnificence of life. That’s what makes her happy.
What makes someone their enemy?
Nothing irritates Elizabeth more than people who refuse to take the world as it is. She thinks that naivety is a trait that people should be expected to outgrow as adults, which is why she also believes that if someone is gullible enough to fall for a con, then it’s usually their own fault. That being said, she doesn’t really see stupid people as enemies. Marks are not enemies. They’re marks.
She might not have a lot of principles, but the ones that she does have she takes great care to follow, and the easiest way to become her enemy is to disagree with or blatantly disregard them. Her rule against violence is perhaps the most well-known, but make a victim out of anyone that she perceives to be innocent, and her respect for you will drop to the point that you can never really get it back. It might seem contradictory to Elizabeth’s world view, but to use her own words: there is a difference between innocence and foolishness. The people that she has conned have been incredibly foolish. They have never been innocent.
What do they look for in a friend?
She looks for the same thing in a friend that she looks for in a lover: common interests and a mutual respect for one another. In fact, Elizabeth has never considered attraction to be a deterrent in friendship---that two people can only be ‘just friends’ in spite of being sexually attracted to each other as opposed to because of it, that such feelings are ultimately problematic and need to be dealt with. Perhaps it is because attraction has always come easier to her than affection, but she is perfectly capable of forming deep and meaningful bonds with people on the basis of sexual chemistry rather than emotional, and she is more than happy to consider it a natural a part of any close friendship. Along with common interests and mutual respect for one another.
She takes the world for how it is---neither black nor white but in glorious shades of grey---and is actually quite puzzled by the idea that relationships should exist in a rigid dichotomy of platonic versus romantic. Or at least she used to be, back when she collected lovers like she was collecting shiny toys or Impressionist art. For obvious reasons, it’s become less relevant since coming to Sunnybrooke.
What do they look for in a lover?
Over the centuries, Elizabeth has taken many lovers from a wide range of races, genders, social classes and personality types; not only because she is open-minded and accepting, but because she is easily bored. However, as a general rule, the easier it is for her to manipulate someone into doing what she wants, the sooner her relationship with them ends. Any companions that have lasted a significant amount of time have done so because they could speak their mind and give as good as they got.
When it comes to physical relationships, she does often find herself attracted people who are exactly like her; people who share her liberal ideals and her intellect, who are charming and convivial and captivating, who definitely have an on-again-off-again relationship with the truth and the law, live for relationships with mind-blowing sexual chemistry and no strings attached, and never ask any questions she does not want to answer.
When it comes to emotional attachments, she instead has a tendency to become fascinated with people who are the exact opposite of her; who are honest, heroic, moral and selfless. She admires those traits, and she would probably be more compatible with someone who could help imbue those traits in her, but good luck getting her to fall in love again.
Are they afraid of death?
She used to be, but she’s been avoiding it for so long that she’s not sure it’s because she’s actually afraid of death, or because she’s simply lived for so long that survival has become a habit. That being said, Elizabeth has a complicated relationship to her own immortality. On one hand, it was not forced on her against her will, and she’s never regretted her decision per se. On the other hand, she knows that it is the prospect of their looming demise that makes human beings embrace life to its fullest extent; that makes them curious, creative, passionate, resilient and vibrantly in love with the brief time they have on Earth.
And to a certain extent, she does miss feeling that way. She misses the urgency that made her human self so much braver and bolder because she knew, in her heart and soul, that her time was running out and that she had to cherish each and every second she was given.
Should death come for her now, it would, on some level, be a relief to her.
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athirawillow:
Mr.Whisk was delighted by the attention, melting in Elizabeth’s hands. He purred all through their exchange and even continued once she placed him down on the counter.
Athira watched with a big smile as the two interacted. She could never get enough of seeing others grant him kindness and affection. He deserved the whole world to admire him, she thought to herself.
Her smile falters a small bit when Liz mentions the theater, but attempts to brush it off with a shrug. “It was the right thing to do. I could… I could smell the burned vampire flesh from outside. I knew I had to see if any of us were still stuck. I found a human instead, but it was well worth the small burn.”
It was the right thing to do. Back in the day, before her arrest, before Sunnybrooke and before she had her heart unceremoniously broken, Elizabeth would have found the comment amusing. She would have looked up, offered up a charming smile and a cheeky wink, and told the other to let her know what ‘doing the right thing’ felt like. Now, the brunette simply nodded and listened, her gaze fixed upon the cat whose fur she had begun stroking again.
“It can be the right thing to do and still be brave,” she chimed in at the end, finally looking up from the counter with a polite, reserved expression on her face. As if her accent didn’t already make her the most English woman in the Appalachian mountains. “Especially considering the fact that it can’t have been an easy sight to behold.”
Running her perfectly manicured fingers through Mr. Whisk’s fur one last time, Elizabeth promptly turned on her heel and began pacing around the shop, stopping every few steps to observe a plant or a flower in more detail. “Have you talked to anyone about it?”
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nimnawn:
Nimueh could not remember the last time she had cried to this extreme. As hours piled by, the severity of her sobbing softened, and she numbly succumbed to an infinitely deep sleep. She could have remained in that unconscious seclusion for the rest of her days, had it not been for banging on her door. Before the commotion was even accompanied by a voice, Nim knew what the problem was.
In fact, there was nothing going on with Nimueh’s pipes. She could have told the neighbour that before even stirring herself from her yearned for black hole of slumber. Desperate to recede back into said darkness, she sat up on her bed and aired an elongated sigh. Her apartment was tiny, with two steps leading up to her bed that was merely a futon on the floor beneath the large bay window, that’s sill was commonly littered with books, incense and mugs. Shelves caked most of the wall space around her, stacked high with books that she was grateful to have lifted away from the ground at this point. It was expected, due to the way her species reacted to sadness, but it was nothing short of annoying, still. The neighbours gripe was indeed warranted, but Nimueh was the source of the issue. This was confirmed by the raindrops tumbling down from above her, splashing and pooling to mimic a waterfall down the short flight of steps that her bed sat upon. Her water aura was having it’s say.
“I- I don’t know!” she eventually cried back, a jolt of panic quaking her as she racked her brain to think of a solution to the flood. She was far too nervous to go to the door, so instead bundled herself up in soft silk bedding and gazed at the source of the voice, longing for it to vanish. “I’ll get it fixed.” She sniffed, a little too loudly. “I’m sorry.”
Elizabeth was a patient person. She always had been---not because she was kind or polite (although she could be both of those things), but because she was clever enough to know that nothing paid off without the ability to bide ones time. It was both a belief and a skill, and it was one that had only increased as a function over time. After all, it was much easier to wait when what felt like months or even years to a normal human being felt like seconds to her.
When the reply finally came, sounding distraught and panicked and altogether miserable, the brunette’s eyebrows knotted together---not only because her concern for her wallpaper had now become eclipsed by her concern for her neighbour, but because she also happened to recognise their voice. It took her a couple of seconds to place it, but once she did, the tone of her own words shifted dramatically. “Nim?” Liz called through the door, knocking again. “It’s Elizabeth. From the community college. Are you all right?”
She waited for another couple of seconds, not wanting to stress the somewhat timid librarian, before continuing. “Nim, can you come to the door, please?” Lately, it seemed that she was getting a lot of practise in the whole soft and nurturing thing, despite having no natural inclinations toward it.
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mr-silvestri:
It was a bit of a surprise, even for himself, to acknowledge that he wasn’t as sharp and physically present as he used to be. Mateo met her gaze once more, albeit this time, it was followed by his head shake. He needed to focus.
Unfortunately, it just didn’t work like that. “Liz, I’m barely functioning.” he admitted heavy-heartedly, tapping his pen against his thigh as a nervous gesture. Taking a sharp inhale, his hues trailed to the floor.
Sometimes, Elizabeth had to remind herself that Mateo hadn’t lived for hundreds and hundreds of years---in fact, up until quite recently, he had lived a perfectly ordinary life. He didn’t have the same perspective that her immortality afforded her. Or rather, she had lost the perspective that his humanity afforded him. The vampire was well aware of the fact that she was the one who had changed over time.
Nodding sagely, she fell into silence once more and proceeded to tap her fingernails against the desk, trying to think of what a best friend would say next. “How are you sleeping? You know you’re always welcome to come stay with me.”
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athirawillow:
Athira had kept herself busy all week, not stopping for a second to remember the horrors of the fire. She knew if she acknowledged what she saw it would break her spirit. With the news of Stark moving to town, and all the coven member lives lost, she was constantly on edge. She pushed those feelings deep down to focus on her work and the cats in her care.
She walked around the shop and began tiding the inventory up, ensuring each flower was blooming. When she heard Elizabeth walk in she turned and smiled. “Oh, hey.”
Mr.Whisk was relaxing on the counter when he too heard the vampire enter, and he of course went sprinting to the door to greet her.
“I’m fine.” She says simply. Was she fine? That was a half lie. “Just a little burn on my hand, it’s been healing nicely.” She decides it would be best to focus on her psychical ailments.
As soon as the cat approached her, Elizabeth automatically crouched down in order to greet him back, spending a good few moments stroking his fur before carefully picking him up and cradling him in her arms. It was a natural reflex to her, and always had been---showing love and affection to animals without a second thought. Which, honestly, was a lot more than could be said about her relationship to people. (There was a reason she was much more affectionate to Mateo in wolf form.)
“That’s good to hear,” the coven second replied with a polite smile, despite it being quite clear that she had not enquired about how the other was doing just to hear about her physical well-being. Approaching the counter, she nuzzled into Mr. Whisk one last time before carefully, and gracefully, dropping him back down onto his chosen resting spot.
After dedicating a couple of seconds to brushing down her outfit, delicate hands smoothing out wrinkles and ridding her blouse of cat hair, Elizabeth looked back up. “That was quite an act of bravery you pulled at the Palace Theatre. Or so I’ve heard.”
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mr-silvestri:
To say that the incident at the Palace Theatre had managed to shake Mateo was an understatement. Days after the incident, he found himself restless and on edge, for no particular reason at all. It was starting to get the best of him, often causing him to space out, even in the middle of class.
This time, however, it was in the midst of his conversation with Liz that he found himself zoning out, yet again, preoccupied by his thoughts. “What?” he jerked up, snapping out of the trance-like state, before turning to her abruptly. How rude of him. “Shit, sorry, Liz.” he sunk in his seat, pulling away from the pile of papers that needed to be graded. “I think we’re okay as a whole.”
Elizabeth simply sat still with one eyebrow quirked as she watched her company come out of some distant, faraway thought, not needing much more evidence than that to know that she should really be asking a different set of question. Mateo might have been a puppy, especially by her standards, but she’d never known him to have the attention span of one. On an average day, he paid more attention to her than most people did these days.
“Okay, let me rephrase that,” the brunette chirped, having a sip of her tea before leaning forward slightly. Liz excelled at many things, none of which involved being soft and nurturing and comforting, but the werewolf beta’s status as the closest thing she had to a best friend afforded him the privilege of having her at least try. “How are you holding up?”
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Elizabeth was... Tired. Not physically, of course, given that her body had ceased to need any kind of physical rest back when she had given up her mortality; but mentally, and emotionally. Just because her long existence had taught her not to feel the death of each individual she knew on a deep, personal level didn’t mean that the demise of several members of her coven was easy on her, or that she didn’t feel an enormous burden of responsibility for the people who remained. It simply meant that her grief was different.
Stirring her cup of tea, the history professor crossed one leg over the other and shifted slightly in her seat, looking over at her friend and coworker on the other side of the desk. “How is the pack?” Liz asked, putting down the tea spoon. Of course, engaging in a lengthy conversation about the incineration of several vampires while sitting in an empty community college classroom seemed a bit morbid, but given that it was where both of them worked, it was the easiest place for them to catch up in. “How are they holding up?”
@mr-silvestri
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Elizabeth firmly believed, and had repeated many times over in as many different variations, that caring for the emotional health of the coven (or of anyone) was not her strong suit. Yes, she had an excellent eagle eye view of what was going on in general. She could solve almost any practical issues they were having without much fuss. She was organised, meticulous and a skilled negotiator, but she was far from anybody’s idea of a nurturing mother figure, and she was definitely nobody’s therapist. In fact, the only thing that qualified her for the role of carer was the fact that somebody had to care.
While attending to the emotional needs of others was a skillset that she sorely lacked, the brunette had always been able to read people quite easily---always known them quite well, and always understood them even better. So even if she had no idea exactly how to help the vampires in her charge, she could at least make an educated guess as to who would need help the most; and having done that, she could at least drop by to make sure that the appropriate aid was being provided. By someone other than her, of course.
“Athira?” Liz called out when she entered the flower shop, heels clicking rhythmically against the floor as she paced the room in search of the florist. “It’s Elizabeth. I’m just popping by to check in on you. How are you holding up?”
@athirawillow
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Not only had the days following the fire at the Palace Theatre been the toughest challenge to the coven and to Elizabeth’s leadership abilities to date, but they had also been the toughest challenge to her upstair neighbour’s plumbing---and by extension, to the integrity of her flat’s ceiling. And fair enough, she knew that soggy wallpaper and the remote possibility that the entire roof collapsed on top of her were minor grievances in the grand scheme of things, but they were aggravating enough (and, on some level, concerning enough) to warrant attention.
“Hey!” the brunette called through the door of the flat directly above hers, knocking with more fervour than was strictly necessary. She wasn’t known for being aggressive, per se, but she was direct and to the point and she generally didn’t sugarcoat things. “It’s your downstairs neighbour. What the bloody hell is going on with your pipes?!”
@nimnawn
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jordantolch:
Jordan was still trying to figure out all that had happened. There were the obviously facts, like that it was a fire, but then there were the ones like how many people had died that at the present time were still unknown. He’d spoken briefly to the werewolf beta, but Mateo seemed to have only a little more information than he had. He looked to find members of the coven, not spotting any which was either a really good sign or a really bad one.
There had always been things here and there that effected the coven, but never something of this magnitude and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to handle all of this. He started scanning again, searching for his second. With something this big happening in town she had to be there too. At least he hoped she was.
@elizabethxhartford
Elizabeth was not a movie person, and after the events of the night, she very much doubted that she would ever become one---at least not for another hundred years, or so. Which was an unnecessarily dark, wry joke waiting to happen on top of a somewhat callous attitude toward mortality, both of which she at least had the good sense to keep to herself. When you’d lived for almost half a millennia, and especially when you’d spent most of those five hundred years in the company of humans, death didn’t seem like a tragedy anymore. It was simply a bi-product of life.
“Jordan,” the brunette greeted calmly as she approached him, somehow managing to look stylish and put together in the face of the chaos surrounding them. Just because there was a urgent matter for her to attend to didn’t mean that she couldn’t wear a nice pair of heels. “You’re here. What do we know so far?”
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daphnethegentle:
“I agree,” Daphne said with a wistful sigh. “Trust me, I feel the frustration as well. So many have come to my door seeking advice and comfort. They don’t know what to do with themselves with the murderer still on the loose and the FBI giving us no information and the lockdown still in effect.” She ran her teeth along her bottom lip gently.
“I’m organizing something with the owner of Palace Theatre that will hopefully lift some spirits, but I know it’ll only be temporary until we find out what happened to Honey Larkin and the culprit has been taken into custody.”
Out of all of the things that Elizabeth did well as a leader, attending to the emotional needs of the members of her coven was not one of them---it wasn’t that she didn’t care, or that she didn’t try her best, but it simply wasn’t in her nature as a vampire or as an Englishwoman to be open-hearted and affectionately supportive. She was organised and practical. She was a strategist, able to think five, ten, fifteen steps ahead. She wasn’t a therapist. She didn’t even know how to comfort herself. Much less other people.
“Lifting spirits sounds like a good start,” the brunette commented with a polite smile, knowing full well that such a task was largely Daphne’s territory and area of expertise. “I’m afraid my concerns are of a different calibre. A coven of restless vampires who know full well that their nature makes them ideal suspects in any act of violence is counterproductive to everything I, everything we, are trying to achieve here.”
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mr-silvestri:
“The latter, Liz.” he flatly replied, looking at her dead in the eyes. “Always the latter.” Though Mateo knew fully of Elizabeth’s blood drinking as a means of survival, he still had to remind her every now and again to engage in human food. Her body wasn’t rejecting the meals, so she might as well as give it a taste, he believed. Plus, a little social activity never hurt anyone.
Getting up on his feet, the man was eager to waste no time. “Come on, then.” he urged her, ushering her to do the same. “I want a nice steak. And maybe pizza. Throw in fries. And onion rings.” Suddenly, he paused, realising the list he just doled out. “Damn wolf pangs.” he grumbled slightly. His newfound form came with an unfortunate consequence: the forever ravenous crisis.
Elizabeth stood up, picking up her purse and hanging it over her arm before reflexively straightening out her outfit, brushing it off and following him. It wasn’t that she didn’t like human food---ever since she’d turned, she had done her outmost to live as humanly as possible, and that included indulging in communal meals with her friends. However, her idea of socialising over dinner had mostly included expensive French wine and the intellectual aristocracy of various European countries, not... Onion rings.
“I still don’t understand how you can eat so much fried food and never tire of it,” the brunette questioned, biting back the comment about Americans that nearly slipped off her tongue. Not that Brits were much better, of course. “What’s wrong with a nice salad?”
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Ocean’s Eight (2018)
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caleb-dulay:
Caleb nodded. Honestly, she sounded a lot like his mother, just then. At least, his mother at a time when she hadn’t been afraid to speak her views about supernaturals. It caused a sharp ache to grow in Caleb’s chest, and he looked away, staring off at the lake instead of at the vampire beside him. He cleared his throat before he spoke, swallowing back the lump that had grown there.
“You’re probably right,” he conceded, his voice gruffer than usual. “Sorry. I guess I never thought of it that way.” A lie, but one that kept his past a secret. After all, he wasn’t comfortable telling his fellow humans about his past and how he grew up and the views that he had and the things that he did, let alone a supernatural who could actively hate him for it.
Elizabeth didn’t look away for one second. She didn’t even blink, didn’t even breathe (not that she needed to, otherwise, but she was used to mimicking the movement), watching his reactions closely, carefully---not in order to be intimidating, although she realised perhaps a little too late that it could easily be perceived as such. Especially when her lack of human reflexes meant that, unless she moved intentionally, she was still as a statue.
Letting out a perfunctory breath, the brunette shuffled her documents together and put them to one side, using a small rock as a paper weight before turning back to her company. She sat and watched him for another couple of seconds, her head cocked slightly to the side, before she spoke again. “Are you afraid of me?” Elizabeth asked bluntly, her expression showing an honest, open request for an answer.
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