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subtleserenityCHARACTER INFO
Name: Zoe Alleyne Washburne
Gender: Female
Age: 32
Source: Firefly
Canon Point: After the events of the last episode in the series, ‘Objects In Space.’
CANON
History: Firefly Wiki (Unfortunately, the Wiki and Zoe’s history are rather limited thanks to the show’s abbreviated run. Additions below are primarily headcanon.)
Zoe Alleyne was born vessleside (on a spaceship) to parents who had a cargo-hauling business to run. She learned early how to keep quiet and how to work as, in addition to their legitimate business ventures, the Alleynes regularly smuggled goods for their customers. From the time she could walk, Zoe was up and about the ship, uncovering nooks and crannies to hide in and watch from. She became adept at stealth as a result... and learned far more about the intricacies of illegal transport, sex, and politics than any child really should.
Their vessel spent most of its time on the outer ring of planets delivering goods and, as a result, Zoe spent very little time among the Alliance circles. What she did know of the Alliance was second-hand complaints about their unfeeling and cruel attitude toward the settlers she knew as customers and brief, first-hand encounters when they boarded her parent’s ship and made a mess of things searching it. It seemed only natural that when the Unification War began – a war in which the Alliance sought to bring the outer ring of planets (known in political opposition as the Independents or Browncoats) to heel – Zoe signed up to fight.
Her skill in stealth made her a valuable soldier, but few could see past her stolid mien to the passionate woman who wanted freedom for her fellows just as much as everyone else. She was just Alleyne, the grim-faced young woman who bailed you out when you got in over your head. A man who kept getting in over his head was one Malcolm Reynolds. Zoe couldn’t help being drawn to him. ‘Like a moth to a flame, sir,’ she’d joke with him the first time he noted it. Mal was the first comrade she fell into a camaraderie with when he actually laughed at that and she smiled back. It was a long road and 10 years from there to the fateful day in Serenity Valley when the Alliance massacred the Independents and forced them to lay down arms.
With their force disbanded, Zoe felt herself adrift and attached herself to the one constant in her life through the hell of the Unification War: Mal. They bought a ship together, a Firefly they called Serenity, and found a crew for her. One of them was a pilot named Hoban “Wash” Washburne. Zoe didn’t trust him one bit on sight. Her father had always told her that a man with a mustache was likely to be as crooked as an attacking Reaver’s flight path, and Zoe took that to heart. When Wash finally shaved the gorram thing off (and subsequently took the trouble to find flowers and an actual piece of chocolate to entice her into a first date), they hit it off. He was quirky, funny, and he made her laugh like only Mal had ever managed. When he proposed to her three years into their acquaintance, she accepted without a second thought. It was the most impulsive decision she’d made since deciding to join the Independents before the War. This time, she was sure the Alliance couldn’t take this away.
Personality: Zoe, first and foremost, is a soldier; one who is opinionated enough to have joined a rebel movement, but a soldier nonetheless. There exists a hierarchy in her mind for those to whom she owes her allegiance and trust. Typically the length of time she’s known someone corresponds to their place in her mental hierarchy, but their competence, strength, and her personal connection to them factor in. Wash, her husband, for instance, ranks on the same level as Mal, her sergeant and captain, even though she has known Mal for considerably longer and Wash is nowhere near Mal in terms of physical or emotional strength. She’s well aware of the frailties and personal merits of each man (and others generally as she has a discerning eye). When faced with the choice to rescue only one of them from unimaginable torture, she immediately chooses Wash because she knows that Mal can take more than he can. It’s as much an acknowledgement of Mal’s strength as her love for Wash. Ultimately, Zoe would kill (and has) or be killed for both of them without a second thought. Each man has a piece of her heart, though they hold it in very different ways.
She is a natural second-in-command, and will follow the orders of those whom she perceives as in command if she judges them to be competent enough to get a job done. If she disagrees with something, though, she’s not afraid to push back. Zoe is a terse woman who believes in the conservation of words. She’s happy enough to explain something in depth or carry on a regular conversation, but most of her adult life was spent on a battlefield of one sort or another where getting a point across directly could mean the difference between receiving needed support in time and the cavalry being too late to matter.
If she’s ordered to do something by someone she trusts, though, she will do it. She flat out tells Mal that going to trade stolen goods to a woman who shot him is stupid, but dutifully goes along and bails him out when a firefight ensues. She knows that she could make a decent sergeant or captain herself in terms of strategy, but she lacks the charisma and presence to inspire others. She’s always appreciated this about Mal, especially the fact that he can inspire her in their darkest hours.
In spite of a rather cold and stoic front, Zoe does have a softer side and a very dark, dry sense of humor. She’s playful and sensual with Wash when discussing romantic getaways or when he’s spouting off silly and romantic poetry about her in post-coital bliss. She’s maternal toward the ship’s mechanic, a young girl named Kaylee, and the resident ‘witch,’ a psychic named River, who suffered the experiments of the Alliance. Both of the young women are open, honest – painfully so in River’s case – and Zoe finds those admirable traits that she can watch at a distance.
Zoe internalizes a lot because she had to in order to get by. That others don’t is something she’s happy for, whatever hell she went through. She's protective of them and everyone she considers part of her ‘crew.’ The fact that the young women make her think about what it might be like to have a daughter of her own who can laugh and smile freely plays into her sympathies toward them and other younger characters. She would never outright state such thoughts, but she tends to try to help others through teaching. Explaining (curtly) to another soldier how to avoid being killed in battle, and showing the crew how to cut open apples to check they aren’t filled with explosives, are just two examples. Her lessons do tend to be rather morbid, but they’re meant in the best spirit of ‘how not to die.’
INTO THE HEDGE
Seeming: Possession
Role: A weapon for the Keeper’s personal protection.
Abilities: When in a spiritual form, she has the ability to handle her physical form and shoot or hit people with it. It’s probably unpleasant as her bullets were imbued with explosive force by the Keeper. Her spiritual form is also fairly impervious to physical harm. Punching her would be like putting your fist to a metal plate.
Description: In her physical form, Zoe is a Winchester Model 1892 "Mare's Leg". It is a gun of metal and wood that appears to be well-used, but properly cared for.
In her spiritual form, Zoe is a tall, athletic woman who appears human in shape, if nothing else. Her curly black hair has remained intact, but most of her other features are changed. Her brown skin has a metallic shine to it all over, her forearms and shins are encased in wood, and her eyes have gone from brown to a gun metal gray. The scent of smoke and gunpowder hang around her in a cloak. She carries her physical form with her constantly in a holster at her side.
Reasoning: Zoe’s life has been spent fighting. As a child, it was fighting just to live with her family in a small vessel with no port to call home. As a teenager and adult, it was fighting against the Alliance. She also has a protective streak a mile wide for those she pays her allegiance to.
At one point, Zoe cut a methodical and bloody path through every person she encountered on a ship where Mal was being held and tortured by a criminal mastermind in order to rescue him. Her goal is to ensure her survival and the survival of those she cares for (and them that pay). She will put a bullet through the head of anyone who gets in the way of that. As the Keeper’s gun for personal protection, she will have carried that sense of purpose over, though it’s been warped and redirected.
MEMORIES
First Memory: (Event) The massacre of the Independents at Serenity Valley.
Another Five:
- (Concept) The Independents/Browncoats and their struggle against the Alliance
- (Relationship) Her romance with Wash
- (Event) Rescuing Mal from being tortured by Niska and his crew
- (Group) The crew of the Serenity
- (Concept) The Reavers, and specifically what they’ll do if they capture you (Zoe describes how everyone aboard the ship will be raped to death, cannibalized, and have their skin sewn into the insides of the Reavers' clothing, and if they're 'very lucky, [the Reavers will] do it in that order.')
Name: Zoe Alleyne Washburne
Gender: Female
Age: 32
Source: Firefly
Canon Point: After the events of the last episode in the series, ‘Objects In Space.’
CANON
History: Firefly Wiki (Unfortunately, the Wiki and Zoe’s history are rather limited thanks to the show’s abbreviated run. Additions below are primarily headcanon.)
Zoe Alleyne was born vessleside (on a spaceship) to parents who had a cargo-hauling business to run. She learned early how to keep quiet and how to work as, in addition to their legitimate business ventures, the Alleynes regularly smuggled goods for their customers. From the time she could walk, Zoe was up and about the ship, uncovering nooks and crannies to hide in and watch from. She became adept at stealth as a result... and learned far more about the intricacies of illegal transport, sex, and politics than any child really should.
Their vessel spent most of its time on the outer ring of planets delivering goods and, as a result, Zoe spent very little time among the Alliance circles. What she did know of the Alliance was second-hand complaints about their unfeeling and cruel attitude toward the settlers she knew as customers and brief, first-hand encounters when they boarded her parent’s ship and made a mess of things searching it. It seemed only natural that when the Unification War began – a war in which the Alliance sought to bring the outer ring of planets (known in political opposition as the Independents or Browncoats) to heel – Zoe signed up to fight.
Her skill in stealth made her a valuable soldier, but few could see past her stolid mien to the passionate woman who wanted freedom for her fellows just as much as everyone else. She was just Alleyne, the grim-faced young woman who bailed you out when you got in over your head. A man who kept getting in over his head was one Malcolm Reynolds. Zoe couldn’t help being drawn to him. ‘Like a moth to a flame, sir,’ she’d joke with him the first time he noted it. Mal was the first comrade she fell into a camaraderie with when he actually laughed at that and she smiled back. It was a long road and 10 years from there to the fateful day in Serenity Valley when the Alliance massacred the Independents and forced them to lay down arms.
With their force disbanded, Zoe felt herself adrift and attached herself to the one constant in her life through the hell of the Unification War: Mal. They bought a ship together, a Firefly they called Serenity, and found a crew for her. One of them was a pilot named Hoban “Wash” Washburne. Zoe didn’t trust him one bit on sight. Her father had always told her that a man with a mustache was likely to be as crooked as an attacking Reaver’s flight path, and Zoe took that to heart. When Wash finally shaved the gorram thing off (and subsequently took the trouble to find flowers and an actual piece of chocolate to entice her into a first date), they hit it off. He was quirky, funny, and he made her laugh like only Mal had ever managed. When he proposed to her three years into their acquaintance, she accepted without a second thought. It was the most impulsive decision she’d made since deciding to join the Independents before the War. This time, she was sure the Alliance couldn’t take this away.
Personality: Zoe, first and foremost, is a soldier; one who is opinionated enough to have joined a rebel movement, but a soldier nonetheless. There exists a hierarchy in her mind for those to whom she owes her allegiance and trust. Typically the length of time she’s known someone corresponds to their place in her mental hierarchy, but their competence, strength, and her personal connection to them factor in. Wash, her husband, for instance, ranks on the same level as Mal, her sergeant and captain, even though she has known Mal for considerably longer and Wash is nowhere near Mal in terms of physical or emotional strength. She’s well aware of the frailties and personal merits of each man (and others generally as she has a discerning eye). When faced with the choice to rescue only one of them from unimaginable torture, she immediately chooses Wash because she knows that Mal can take more than he can. It’s as much an acknowledgement of Mal’s strength as her love for Wash. Ultimately, Zoe would kill (and has) or be killed for both of them without a second thought. Each man has a piece of her heart, though they hold it in very different ways.
She is a natural second-in-command, and will follow the orders of those whom she perceives as in command if she judges them to be competent enough to get a job done. If she disagrees with something, though, she’s not afraid to push back. Zoe is a terse woman who believes in the conservation of words. She’s happy enough to explain something in depth or carry on a regular conversation, but most of her adult life was spent on a battlefield of one sort or another where getting a point across directly could mean the difference between receiving needed support in time and the cavalry being too late to matter.
If she’s ordered to do something by someone she trusts, though, she will do it. She flat out tells Mal that going to trade stolen goods to a woman who shot him is stupid, but dutifully goes along and bails him out when a firefight ensues. She knows that she could make a decent sergeant or captain herself in terms of strategy, but she lacks the charisma and presence to inspire others. She’s always appreciated this about Mal, especially the fact that he can inspire her in their darkest hours.
In spite of a rather cold and stoic front, Zoe does have a softer side and a very dark, dry sense of humor. She’s playful and sensual with Wash when discussing romantic getaways or when he’s spouting off silly and romantic poetry about her in post-coital bliss. She’s maternal toward the ship’s mechanic, a young girl named Kaylee, and the resident ‘witch,’ a psychic named River, who suffered the experiments of the Alliance. Both of the young women are open, honest – painfully so in River’s case – and Zoe finds those admirable traits that she can watch at a distance.
Zoe internalizes a lot because she had to in order to get by. That others don’t is something she’s happy for, whatever hell she went through. She's protective of them and everyone she considers part of her ‘crew.’ The fact that the young women make her think about what it might be like to have a daughter of her own who can laugh and smile freely plays into her sympathies toward them and other younger characters. She would never outright state such thoughts, but she tends to try to help others through teaching. Explaining (curtly) to another soldier how to avoid being killed in battle, and showing the crew how to cut open apples to check they aren’t filled with explosives, are just two examples. Her lessons do tend to be rather morbid, but they’re meant in the best spirit of ‘how not to die.’
INTO THE HEDGE
Seeming: Possession
Role: A weapon for the Keeper’s personal protection.
Abilities: When in a spiritual form, she has the ability to handle her physical form and shoot or hit people with it. It’s probably unpleasant as her bullets were imbued with explosive force by the Keeper. Her spiritual form is also fairly impervious to physical harm. Punching her would be like putting your fist to a metal plate.
Description: In her physical form, Zoe is a Winchester Model 1892 "Mare's Leg". It is a gun of metal and wood that appears to be well-used, but properly cared for.
In her spiritual form, Zoe is a tall, athletic woman who appears human in shape, if nothing else. Her curly black hair has remained intact, but most of her other features are changed. Her brown skin has a metallic shine to it all over, her forearms and shins are encased in wood, and her eyes have gone from brown to a gun metal gray. The scent of smoke and gunpowder hang around her in a cloak. She carries her physical form with her constantly in a holster at her side.
Reasoning: Zoe’s life has been spent fighting. As a child, it was fighting just to live with her family in a small vessel with no port to call home. As a teenager and adult, it was fighting against the Alliance. She also has a protective streak a mile wide for those she pays her allegiance to.
At one point, Zoe cut a methodical and bloody path through every person she encountered on a ship where Mal was being held and tortured by a criminal mastermind in order to rescue him. Her goal is to ensure her survival and the survival of those she cares for (and them that pay). She will put a bullet through the head of anyone who gets in the way of that. As the Keeper’s gun for personal protection, she will have carried that sense of purpose over, though it’s been warped and redirected.
MEMORIES
First Memory: (Event) The massacre of the Independents at Serenity Valley.
Another Five:
- (Concept) The Independents/Browncoats and their struggle against the Alliance
- (Relationship) Her romance with Wash
- (Event) Rescuing Mal from being tortured by Niska and his crew
- (Group) The crew of the Serenity
- (Concept) The Reavers, and specifically what they’ll do if they capture you (Zoe describes how everyone aboard the ship will be raped to death, cannibalized, and have their skin sewn into the insides of the Reavers' clothing, and if they're 'very lucky, [the Reavers will] do it in that order.')
