Hi, Humans!
This is Mavis Dracula. (Who is not on the shuttle bus because see last name and also weekend houseguests, and likewise won't be at the welcome picnic until very very late for the same reasons). Yeah, yeah, Dracula's daughter, everybody freaks out at first.
She's 115 going on RARRRR SHE IS STILL 5 YEARS OLD if you ask her dad, but in vampire years, that basically translates to subtracting a century, maturity-wise, so she'll be a Junior in the fall.
Mavis hails from Hotel Transylvania *, a silly but fun adolescent-targeted 3-D animated film released in 2012, directed by Genndy Tartakovsky of Samurai Jack and, yes, Powerpuff Girls fame, starring Adam Sandler as Dracula (aka new teacher bluhblahbluh) and Selena Gomez as his daughter Mavis.
The Story Thus Far
Once upon a time, two lonely bats (of the vampire variety) crashed in the night. While flying over Hawaii, as you do. One of them was the Lady Martha Lubov; the other was Count Dracula. They fell in zing love at first sight, moved back to Transylvania, got married, had a kid, and were attacked by humans who killed Martha and burned down her family castle, also as you do.
That was 1895; this is now. Dracula has spent the intervening years as a lonely, obsessively careful widower, raising his daughter Mavis with a lot of love, but also a lot of fear. Not of him; just of the evil humans waiting out there to bite her toes, steal her candy, shove garlic in her face, and anything else he can think of to make sure she never leaves the safety of home.
That home is a castle surrounded by dark, ghost-infested woods and staffed by witches, zombies, gargoyles and shrunken heads, built to protect Martha’s daughter and all monsters everywhere from the greatest threat they’ve ever faced. The Hotel Transylvania: human-free since 1898.
Also present in the movie are a host of other well-known comics and Saturday Night Live alums as Mavis’ honorary uncles/aunts. In days of yore, these guys were Dracula’s BFFs and party-buds; now, though they love him and his daughter and are grateful for the safety of his hotel, they tend to think he’s forgotten how to have fun. They include:
The movie takes place on Mavis' 118th birthday, and is all about how the accidental intrusion of *GASP* a hyooooooman (Andy Samburg of The Lonely Island as Mavis’ love-interest Sir Jonathan Not-Likely-To-Appear-In-This-RP) into the celebrations leads Drac to realize that a) kids grow up and that's okay, b) times change and not all humans are bad, and c) you gotta follow your zing heart.
More I will not say because a) it's a fun movie and you should watch it, just turn the audio off when they rap, and b) Mavis and her dad are coming to Fandom about two years before the events of the film.
Though Mavis hasn’t reached that magical age where they’ve agreed she can go out by herself, she’s been bugging him to let her meet people like her and see something of the world for years now. Into yet another boring summer -- full of hotel guests that are either too old to understand Mavis or too young to do anything but be babysat by her -- floats a brochure for Fandom High. One of the ones targeted at "special" students who are already in the know about magic and weirdness, so Mavis assumes it’s only for that kind of student.
"Look, Dad, it’s a school for monsters! In a castle on an isolated island! Gremlins run the office! Zombie Karaoke in town! Vampires and werewolves and ghosts! People my age and classes in stuff I can’t just learn from books and you!"
Dracula’s not too keen on anything that involves Mavis leaving the safety of his retreat, but eventually she pouty-batfaces him into agreeing to let her try it -- but only if he gets to come along. After all, they need teachers too, and he has centuries of wisdom to impart. Especially about how awful humans are, and how best to protect yourself from them.
So Mavis Is...
Just zis guy, you know? your average century-plus-year-old cute monster girl, subgenus perky gothicus who thinks and acts a lot like a human teenager. An overprotected, motherless teenager raised in a spooky bubble, who somehow ended up not being a spoiled brat despite how much her dad dotes on her.
Instead, she’s kind (concerned even about the burning "humans" -- actually dressed-up zombies -- that her dad hires to scare her away from going out to see the world as he always promised her she could do once she turned 118), polite to her elders (carefully walking the pregnant Wanda down the castle stairs, referring to her uncle Frank as "the gentleman over there strangling hugging Zombie Mozart"), curious, and interested in learning new things, meeting new people, and not being bored anymore.
She’s been home-schooled all her life and reads a lot, but that reading is limited to what her dad provides for her, so her knowledge of the outside world is... carefully cultivated, right from the days when Daddy would read her scary bedtime stories from Tales of the Humans that made her hide under the bed so they couldn’t steal her candy or bite her nose. Back then, Mavis believed him wholeheartedly. Nowadays...
Though she knows it really is for her own safety and she hasn’t been locked up in a cruel or self-serving way (a la FH’s Snow White and Rapunzel), the hotel/castle and its grounds have been both playground and prison for years. Mavis has reached the point where she’s feeling trapped and frustrated, and while she’s naive due to the way she was raised, she’s not gullible. She’ll call Dracula on his bullshit when she spots it, and she has the feeling that at least some of the terrors of the outside world are an exaggeration on his part. She’s right, and she’s totally ready to start proving it to him. (Maybe not so ready to learn about the bad things he wasn’t exaggerating about, though. However, that’s called growing up.)
Physically, Mavis is slim, of average height that’ll probably gain a few inches before she’s fully an adult given that both of her parents were beanpoles, with black hair in a sort of flippy pixie cut, and huge blue eyes. Aside from general vampireness (and her love of worm-cakes, scream cheese, and numerous other monster-specific items), the goth comes out in black lipstick, nailpolish and wardrobe of identical sweater-dresses, while the perky raises its head via black and red striped leggings, red high-tops, wide smile, and frequent exclamations of "Holy rabies!" when she’s excited.
Powers, Weirdnesses, and Skills, Because Fandom
Mavis is a classic movie-monster vampire, adapted for a kid-friendly world. She
Meta, LaLaLa
Dracula is Dracula. People can have heard of him via whatever legends their own canon has or any real world fiction about him that’s not Hotel Transylvania. Mavis and he come from a world where he’s famous but most humans assume monsters are fictional, so no need to meta Stoker’s novel or anything that came after. Your character might have read a book or seen a movie about Dracula having a daughter, and that's okay too, but none of the details would match up with Mavis.
In Conclusion...
HI!
~~~~~
*or, as I like to call it, One Of The Few Adam Sandler Movies I Can Stand Largely Because I Don't Have To Look At Him Playing Rubberface And Because Rob Schneider Isn't In It To Up The Offensiveness Quotient From Bearable To Hideous. {back}
She's 115 going on RARRRR SHE IS STILL 5 YEARS OLD if you ask her dad, but in vampire years, that basically translates to subtracting a century, maturity-wise, so she'll be a Junior in the fall.
Mavis hails from Hotel Transylvania *, a silly but fun adolescent-targeted 3-D animated film released in 2012, directed by Genndy Tartakovsky of Samurai Jack and, yes, Powerpuff Girls fame, starring Adam Sandler as Dracula (aka new teacher bluhblahbluh) and Selena Gomez as his daughter Mavis.
The Story Thus Far
Once upon a time, two lonely bats (of the vampire variety) crashed in the night. While flying over Hawaii, as you do. One of them was the Lady Martha Lubov; the other was Count Dracula. They fell in zing love at first sight, moved back to Transylvania, got married, had a kid, and were attacked by humans who killed Martha and burned down her family castle, also as you do.
That was 1895; this is now. Dracula has spent the intervening years as a lonely, obsessively careful widower, raising his daughter Mavis with a lot of love, but also a lot of fear. Not of him; just of the evil humans waiting out there to bite her toes, steal her candy, shove garlic in her face, and anything else he can think of to make sure she never leaves the safety of home.
That home is a castle surrounded by dark, ghost-infested woods and staffed by witches, zombies, gargoyles and shrunken heads, built to protect Martha’s daughter and all monsters everywhere from the greatest threat they’ve ever faced. The Hotel Transylvania: human-free since 1898.
Also present in the movie are a host of other well-known comics and Saturday Night Live alums as Mavis’ honorary uncles/aunts. In days of yore, these guys were Dracula’s BFFs and party-buds; now, though they love him and his daughter and are grateful for the safety of his hotel, they tend to think he’s forgotten how to have fun. They include:
- Kevin James as Frankenstein (he goes by Frank, and this movie is utterly devoid of Frankenstein Was The Scientist Dammit meta; to make up for that intellectual deficiency, there’s mummy farts) and Fran Drescher as his wife Eunice (who, lacking kids of her own, takes out her Jewish-mothering instincts on Mavis).
- Wayne the Wolfman (Steve Buscemi), his perpetually pregnant wife Wanda (Molly Shannon) and their billion furry pre-teen children.
- Bachelors Murray the Mummy (Cee Lo Green) and Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade)
.
The movie takes place on Mavis' 118th birthday, and is all about how the accidental intrusion of *GASP* a hyooooooman (Andy Samburg of The Lonely Island as Mavis’ love-interest Sir Jonathan Not-Likely-To-Appear-In-This-RP) into the celebrations leads Drac to realize that a) kids grow up and that's okay, b) times change and not all humans are bad, and c) you gotta follow your zing heart.
More I will not say because a) it's a fun movie and you should watch it, just turn the audio off when they rap, and b) Mavis and her dad are coming to Fandom about two years before the events of the film.
Though Mavis hasn’t reached that magical age where they’ve agreed she can go out by herself, she’s been bugging him to let her meet people like her and see something of the world for years now. Into yet another boring summer -- full of hotel guests that are either too old to understand Mavis or too young to do anything but be babysat by her -- floats a brochure for Fandom High. One of the ones targeted at "special" students who are already in the know about magic and weirdness, so Mavis assumes it’s only for that kind of student.
"Look, Dad, it’s a school for monsters! In a castle on an isolated island! Gremlins run the office! Zombie Karaoke in town! Vampires and werewolves and ghosts! People my age and classes in stuff I can’t just learn from books and you!"
Dracula’s not too keen on anything that involves Mavis leaving the safety of his retreat, but eventually she pouty-batfaces him into agreeing to let her try it -- but only if he gets to come along. After all, they need teachers too, and he has centuries of wisdom to impart. Especially about how awful humans are, and how best to protect yourself from them.
So Mavis Is...
Just zis guy, you know? your average century-plus-year-old cute monster girl, subgenus perky gothicus who thinks and acts a lot like a human teenager. An overprotected, motherless teenager raised in a spooky bubble, who somehow ended up not being a spoiled brat despite how much her dad dotes on her.
Instead, she’s kind (concerned even about the burning "humans" -- actually dressed-up zombies -- that her dad hires to scare her away from going out to see the world as he always promised her she could do once she turned 118), polite to her elders (carefully walking the pregnant Wanda down the castle stairs, referring to her uncle Frank as "the gentleman over there strangling hugging Zombie Mozart"), curious, and interested in learning new things, meeting new people, and not being bored anymore.
She’s been home-schooled all her life and reads a lot, but that reading is limited to what her dad provides for her, so her knowledge of the outside world is... carefully cultivated, right from the days when Daddy would read her scary bedtime stories from Tales of the Humans that made her hide under the bed so they couldn’t steal her candy or bite her nose. Back then, Mavis believed him wholeheartedly. Nowadays...
Though she knows it really is for her own safety and she hasn’t been locked up in a cruel or self-serving way (a la FH’s Snow White and Rapunzel), the hotel/castle and its grounds have been both playground and prison for years. Mavis has reached the point where she’s feeling trapped and frustrated, and while she’s naive due to the way she was raised, she’s not gullible. She’ll call Dracula on his bullshit when she spots it, and she has the feeling that at least some of the terrors of the outside world are an exaggeration on his part. She’s right, and she’s totally ready to start proving it to him. (Maybe not so ready to learn about the bad things he wasn’t exaggerating about, though. However, that’s called growing up.)
Physically, Mavis is slim, of average height that’ll probably gain a few inches before she’s fully an adult given that both of her parents were beanpoles, with black hair in a sort of flippy pixie cut, and huge blue eyes. Aside from general vampireness (and her love of worm-cakes, scream cheese, and numerous other monster-specific items), the goth comes out in black lipstick, nailpolish and wardrobe of identical sweater-dresses, while the perky raises its head via black and red striped leggings, red high-tops, wide smile, and frequent exclamations of "Holy rabies!" when she’s excited.
Powers, Weirdnesses, and Skills, Because Fandom
Mavis is a classic movie-monster vampire, adapted for a kid-friendly world. She
- Was born a vampire, so she did have a childhood and age into a teenager, but that's probably meant to stop when she reaches some undefined adult state, since her father hasn't changed physically in the last century
- Has permanently visible fangs, much like Navaan
- Will smoke and burn in direct sunlight, like a Buffyverse vampire
- Is allergic to garlic. Her throat swells up.
- Is allergic to stake through the heart, but who wouldn't that kill?
- Sleeps in (or on) a coffin, though my take is that's more tradition than physically needing to. Still, it's coming to her dorm room with her.
- So is the Do Not Disturb sign. Vaaaaaaugely like a sentient pet? Except for it's a head on a string. It exists purely to give Drac visitors attitude when they knock, looks like a mildly creepy doll-head unless you examine it super-closely, and sounds a lot like this. Can be shut up by the command of its owner or by taping its mouth shut.
- Doesn't physically have to sleep during the day, or get the bleeds like a Sookieverse vampire
- Doesn't appear in mirrors
- Needs to ingest blood or a blood substitute, but drinks Near Blood or Blood Beaters, not human blood, in addition to eating regular food
- Can transform into a bat (and does so pretty frequently)
- Either changes her clothes to bat-size or makes them reappear instantaneously when she's human-shaped again, at the speed of cartoon physics
- Can fly in bat-form, though she likes switch to human in the air, freefall, and then poof, bat, because fun
- Can walk on walls/ceilings in both human and bat form
- Can mesmerise anything whose eyes she can stare into -- this works to control behavior or erase memories; basically, Jedi Mind Trick, which obviously isn't going to happen in-game without OOC permission. That power is foilable via contact lenses canonically and strong will/alien biology as needed in RP.
- Has super-speed and strength in both human and bat form
- Has wishy-washy telekinesis that might be psionic, might be magic, and probably can't be used to lift anything heavier than a person or two.
- Which means technically she can hover/air-walk a la Karla, but she's 99% more likely to just turn into a bat
- Which means technically she can hover/air-walk a la Karla, but she's 99% more likely to just turn into a bat
- Has generally heightened senses and should be able to tell the difference between something alive and something not-alive, and probably between various monster types that she's familiar with.
- However, at least at the point she's coming to Fandom, she's never met a human -- so she's only going to register them as "something alive" -- and assume, at least for the first day or so, that everyone she meets is just some type of monster she hasn't encountered yet.
- Speaks Romanian, English, and Bat, at least. Probably Spider and Rat, as well.
- Is well-educated (in some things) and intelligent, can sew (in both human and bat form!), can sing and dance, and has probably gained a lot of customer service skills from helping out in the hotel business. (I’d extrapolate that she’s a decent babysitter too, given her gazillion werewolf "cousins," so she's available for that if needed!)
- Is voice-acted by Selena Gomez, so in theory she could be a ringer for alum Alex Russo, but animated Mavis doesn't resemble Selena, and I'm not going to be using her as a PB, except perhaps for AU Weekend.
Meta, LaLaLa
Dracula is Dracula. People can have heard of him via whatever legends their own canon has or any real world fiction about him that’s not Hotel Transylvania. Mavis and he come from a world where he’s famous but most humans assume monsters are fictional, so no need to meta Stoker’s novel or anything that came after. Your character might have read a book or seen a movie about Dracula having a daughter, and that's okay too, but none of the details would match up with Mavis.
In Conclusion...
HI!
~~~~~
*or, as I like to call it, One Of The Few Adam Sandler Movies I Can Stand Largely Because I Don't Have To Look At Him Playing Rubberface And Because Rob Schneider Isn't In It To Up The Offensiveness Quotient From Bearable To Hideous. {back}