Artemis' Personality

[stranger_to_the_rain]

We all have a face that we hide away forever
And we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone...

Artemis' personality begins with her mercurial demeanor. Each member of the York family, desperate to survive the perils of life as a vampire, found a different way to present themselves to the world. Adam chose to appear ineffectual and harmless. Selene became a monster. Diana passed herself off as a flake. Artemis, however, made a different choice in terms of her demeanor. She created three different outward-facing personas for herself, changing them depending on her audience.

Some are satin...

A wildly-held assumption, among the vampires of Artemis' world of darkness, is that vampires who hail from the Malkavian clan are irreversibly insane. The truth is, of course, a bit more complicated. But often, to pass through her life, Artemis chooses to "play up the crazy." Her derangement, schizophrenia (addressed further below), is only activated by someone threatening one of her friends or allies, but she often pretends that it's active constantly. This has allowed her to be easily dismissed and underestimated by enemies.

When in the company of other vampires--ones she doesn't know or doesn't trust--Artemis has a tendency to burst into song. She doesn't sing anything off the charts. She'll, quite literally, sing whatever it is she was going to say. When she has nothing to say at all, but wants to make her presence known, she'll hum or whistle or sing a nursery rhyme or sonnet. She actually has a beautiful voice, but her mannerisms are intentionally haunting, like a child driven insane. She'll sway from side to side, letting her focus go soft. Sometimes, she'll spin in circles. Her voice tends to be higher when she's adopting this persona. She'll sometimes forget to blink.

...some are steel...

Artemis' second outward persona is the one she reserves for interacting with humans or members of the Order. When dealing with the important work of saving the world, Artemis is very business-like and precise. Some might call her blunt. She'll say whatever has to be said, regardless of anyone's feelings. Artemis is the leader of the Order and she'll make that clear. Any challenges to her decisions will be met with fierce opposition. She will only back down and change her mind if she's presented with an extremely sound reason to do so. This outward confidence, combined with the surprising accuracy of her prophetic visions, has left her largely unchallenged since the beginning.

This isn't to say that she's without kindness or mercy. Artemis will always go out of her way to protect lives. She just won't be sentimental about it. She'll happily save a woman from a burning building, but the odds are high that Artemis will then leave that woman by the side of the road or on the door of a hotel. She doesn't stick around for gratitude and she doesn't deal with the emotional aftermath of a near-death experience. Instead, she'll hand off that work to others.

When she fails, she's extremely careful not to let any emotional response creep through. This isn't to say she's emotionless--as will be discussed below--but that she puts a lot of effort into maintaining a facade of ice. Unfortunately, most people don't understand that there's more beneath her surface.

...some are silk and some are leather...

A third demeanor, one that Artemis almost never shares, is her private persona. This is, perhaps, the persona that's closest to who she really is; and old soul struggling to hold onto her fight. Only those she trusts the most--people like Liam, Fatima, or Diana--are allowed to see this side of her. It is in this state of being that Artemis' nature and demeanor are one and the same, revealing her personality for what it really is.

Artemis is fiercely intelligent. She absorbs information like a sponge and is very good at retaining it. That said, she is better with books than with people and she knows it. Her difficulties connecting with others bothers her immensely. This is especially true because Artemis wants to retain her humanity. She knows that the best way to do that is to be involved in the lives of human beings. Otherwise, she'll lose their perspective and slip deeper into being the monster that she sometimes needs to be. Her struggle to find human connection is most apparent when she takes off her masks.

Sometimes, Artemis wonders how much control she really has over her other demeanors. The idea that Malkavians are incurably insane isn't unfounded. Many, many Malkavians eventually crack under the strain of shared prophecies and visions, known jokingly as the "Malkavian madness network." Artemis is connected to this network. Unlike the prophecies that come to her of her own power, what she sees in her visions are often erratic, violent, and difficult to interpret. They're unpleasant and painful, at times, even if they are also useful. Artemis cannot control them. One of her deepest fears is that they will one day drive her into a pit of madness from which she cannot escape. As it is, even when she's alone, little quirks from her public persona will slip into her behavior. She often talks to herself. Sometimes, she'll "space out," staring at walls while she tries to remember important details.

One of Artemis' strangest obsessions is her fixation on water. It helps her to think, although she cannot understand just why. She's been known, on occasion, to hold business meetings in bathrooms, where she'll shower with her clothes on. Something about the sensation of water on her skin allows her to focus. She's always drawn to fountains, lakes, oceans, and rivers and she's one of the few vampires in the Order who can actually swim, even though she doesn't need to.

Pessimism comes naturally to Artemis, but she isn't without hope. Her hope is drawn from the people in her life who--in her mind--can accomplish the things she cannot. Once source of inspiration for her is Liam, who has struggled against his past to seek redemption (even if he had a little supernatural help). Fatima, who forever walks a tightrope between the human world and the vampire world, also pushes Artemis to be better than her Malkavian instincts. And then there's Diana, a Malkavian who has more humanity than most humans that Artemis knows. Seeing the three of them exist and thrive drives Artemis to keep fighting against the encroaching madness.

Another source of inspiration for Artemis is the memory of her time with Japeth. Although she believes that she has no hope for love and romance, she can remember what it felt like to be loved. It's a feeling she wants others to know, a feeling that she believes will help to change the world for the better. Having had an experience with that reminds Artemis what she's fighting for. For other people. Not herself.

As far as human virtue is concerned, Artemis doesn't hold to the Ten Commandments. She has no objections to stealing or lying, when it's necessary. Although she's never killed a human, she will feed off of one without a second thought. She also has very little objection to killing other supernatural creatures, if they're causing trouble. That said, she has no tolerance for unnecessary suffering. She refuses to allow torture in her compound. When she has to kill someone, she tries to make it a quick kill, as painless as possible. Her weapon of choice is a long, ritual knife that Liam gave her as a sign of his subservience to her.

Being a Malkavian often tests Artemis' self-control. In addition to shared visions, all Malkavians suffer some form of triggered derangement. For Artemis, it's mild schizophrenia, which flares up whenever someone threatens someone important to her. Although when pretending that her derangement is active, she plays an ethereal Cassandra, when it's really active, her outbursts are violent and aggressive. In calmer moments, Artemis often remembers her father appearing to her, urging her to protect someone at all costs, goading her and berating her until she gives in to her violent impulses. To say that Artemis is a loyal friend is an understatement. If you threaten someone important to her, she'll beat you within an inch of your life.