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Name: Rosita Espinosa Door: Door Pass (Dominant) Canon: The Walking Dead Canon Point: 9x9 - after she's mostly recovered from being chased around by Whisperers, before her group returns to Alexandria from the Hilltop Age: Mid-30s Appearance: Picture History: Walking Dead Wiki CR AU (Optional): N/A Personality: Positive Trait: Stalwart. By the this point in canon, there are only five other characters who have been part of the main group for longer than Rosita, and that's saying something for a world where people die often, unexpectedly, and brutally. She is not only capable and calm under fire which is important when she's often part of the fighting frontline of any battle, but she's motivated to cooperate and stay with groups of people in general. Once she's decided to trust someone she is loyal to a fault but not blindly so, as she's relied upon to call people on their frequent bullshit; she's also, however, a source of moral support and encouragement as she really does enjoy people in general and has been one of the most stable presences through several traumatic episodes while also being flexible and adaptable to meet the needs of the people and circumstances around her. When we first meet Rosita, she's part of the trio of herself, Abraham, and Eugene, who are on a mission to get Eugene and the solution he says he has for the virus outbreak to Washington D.C. and "save the world." They've made it all the way from Houston, TX to somewhere in Georgia by the time we meet them, which is further than any other single group we know about is able to travel successfully, and Eugene does none of the fighting so it's all on Rosita and Abraham. Despite this very important mission, Rosita is an advocate to help the scattered members of the group they discover along the way, and immediately sticks up for another survivor when she's struggling and the others railroad her because she won't argue on her own behalf. This trend of calling people out continues through multiple seasons but has arguably the biggest impact when she helps rescue Eugene during the Savior Wars, and on the way back gives in to her anger and her hurt over his multiple betrayals to tell him he's being a coward and turning on the only friends he's ever had, the friends and (found) family that have done more for him than his current alliance with the Saviors ever had, and thus completely invalidating all of those bonds and experiences. He tells her later that specifically her words caused him to rethink his defense of doing everything he's done solely to survive, and though he escapes Rosita to return to the Saviors, he also sabotages the Saviors' weapon supply and saves the entire group from being gunned down in an ambush. She forgives him, as she did the other times, and they remain close friends. When she has to work with Sasha, the woman that Abraham cheated on her and left her for, Rosita is understandably prickly but still able to do so and speak with her civilly - and even ultimately admits that she's most angry that she never got the chance to tell Abraham she was happy that he was happy before he died. Negative Trait: Stubborn. While the apocalyptic landscape full of reanimated dead and traumatized, often cruel survivors does demand a certain degree of bullheadedness to be successful, every difficult corner Rosita has found herself in is down to her habit of being certain that what she's doing is the right call - for her, anyway. She has a lot of common sense and is both clever and usually oriented to the same goals as the group so she doesn't show this trait as often as others around her, but in the aftermath of Savior leader Negan killing Abraham, whom she loved, and Glenn, whom everybody else loved, she goes a bit off the rails in contradiction to what's best for the group. She's present at the killing at all because she was acting out in hurt and anger over Abraham's treatment of her and the murder of her friend Denise and went along with other members of the group on a vengeance mission, which isolated them from the community and allowed them to be captured. The Saviors take all the guns from her group, and are very clear about if they find any more they'll kill someone; Rosita responds to this by going out scavenging specifically to find a gun they can't track (on the bodies of the walkers, some of whom were military or police and actively packing when they died). When she finds one, Eugene initially agrees to make her a bullet for it but then says he thought more about it and her defiance of the No Firearms rule could get her or someone else killed; Rosita won't hear it, and actively berates him into keeping his promise. Despite the fact Negan has already shown that he doesn't kill whoever acts out but will execute an innocent bystander, Rosita takes her shot at him anyway - which results in another survivor being gunned down for simply being there. And when she still can't handle Negan being alive after everything he's done, even though another character tries to convince her that she's important and needed by the group, she acts on her survivor's guilt and anger to go off on her own on a suicide mission into the Savior compound that ultimately gets Sasha killed and would have gotten her killed too if Sasha hadn't locked her out of the compound. While most of her worst decisions were made out of grief, anger, and trauma, Rosita does show a few instances of just casually ignoring the wishes of her group's leadership to do what she thinks is best, including accompanying Eugene out of Alexandria against the community rules to set up a radio relay to broadcast messages, which results in them being isolated by Whisperers and nearly killed, and does result in the death of Paul 'Jesus' Rovia when he and others go out searching to find them. Negative Trait: Temper. Quick to rise and quick to cool, Rosita is usually able to direct her anger in at least a productive direction if not at the appropriate source. She can usually be found sighing loudly, rolling her eyes, and/or making disgusted noises when she has an opinion on something, but she also doesn't hesitate to get physical by shoving, throwing punches, or firing guns - and by being brutally, cruelly honest when she's really going. Her most common targets are those who have hurt her personally, specifically Eugene who she feels closest to but also lied to her repeatedly and completely at the start of their friendship and frequently chooses himself over others, including her. Three separate times she's taken her anger out on him, twice without regard for who else is around to witness. First he was cringing and distracted during a lesson she was trying to give on how to use a machete, and she berates him in front of the entire group for being afraid of the sounds the blades make and for being afraid of dying before inviting him to leave if he can't handle it - and then mocks him when they're cornered during the subsequent walker attack when he tentatively offers to help fight their way out of it, staunchly refusing because "we'll do it, you won't." Later after promising he'd help her he tries to refuse to make her a bullet for her scavenged but empty gun and her plan to shoot Negan, which she responds to by telling him he's weak, pathetic, and useless and the only useful thing he can do is make her this bullet which he owes to her and to Abraham for lying to them. Lastly, after rescuing him from the Saviors and when he tries to thank her for defending him from an attack, she assures him that they're not going to kill him but not because they care about him, only because they need the things he knows how to do, and again calls him a weak, pathetic, useless coward. They've managed to grow past all of this and Rosita must be in a very painful place before she'll lash out like this, but she's clearly capable of it and she doesn't pull punches at that point. Negative Trait: Insular. Groups you can depend on are the name of the survival game in post-virus outbreak life, but there's a line between stubborn independence and working together. Overall, Rosita falls somewhere in between most of the people around her, more willing to give people chances but not the first to extend a hand. Her focused loyalty to the people immediately around her no matter what else is going on is a strength and a boon, but it also will allow her to callously dismiss taking a chance to help others out of hand, even if that means those people will die. Her kneejerk reaction is not to take chances in battle with walkers to dig out isolated people, although she also goes along with the group if they decide to try anyway. During the Savior Wars, when her group of Alexandrians are trying to forge an alliance with another group, the Scavengers, who are demanding guns and would give them a significant advantage if they joined the fight, she's ready to torch the entire deal because she feels Alexandria is being taken advantage of. When another survivor in their group tries to talk her around to it, that other people will suffer if they can't get an alliance, Rosita flat out says she doesn't care - "We get what we need. We win. That's all that matters." She does happen to be right and the Scavengers betray them, but she didn't know that at the time. Later, when the communities are more settled and independent, Rosita is with a hunting party that comes across some strangers that cooperate with everything that is demanded of them and are very clearly injured and starving but she still doesn't want to take them back to Alexandria. She doesn't want to leave them either, but lets a six year old make the decision and take the heat instead rather than cross the No Strangers policy put in place by camp leadership. When the council is taking a vote on whether to allow them to stay or not and one of them harshly opposes it and vetoes the others, Rosita admits that she thinks it's the wrong decision, but also passively states that the one opposing it will probably come around rather than feeling the need to take any action herself. She wants them to be able to stay, but doesn't care about it strongly enough to go against group policy in that particular instance. Powers and Abilities: Rosita is a baseline human with no formal combat training or skills, but she has picked up multiple tactics over the course of surviving a zombie apocalypse for over a decade and crossing half the country in the bargain. She is well known in canon for "knowing everything" which is shorthand for if it's a niche skill that's handy - building a water filter, first aid, jumpstarting cars, wiring explosives, tying knots, fixing radios - Rosita probably learned it somewhere along the way. Also per the canon at this point Rosita knows that she's pregnant but isn't showing, and that will obviously pause per game mechanics. In addition, there is no official canon information at this time about what Rosita did before the apocalypse so I had already decided she was working towards being a lawyer and had reached low level paralegal; absolutely useless in her canon, but potentially pertinent now. Inventory: One 5" knife, one handgun with clip, and a somewhat worse for wear string of rosary beads Samples: TDM Thread |
