Application : GB/MH
OOC:
Name: Nini
Are you over 16?: God yes
Personal LJ: iverin
Email: sharkinaditch at gmail
Timezone: US Central
Other contact: AIM: LadyIverin
Characters already in the game: None
How did you find us?: I know half the Touhou cast... Herp.
IC:
Character name: Maribel Hearn
Fandom: Touhou Project
Timeline: post-Magical Astronomy, same as Renko
Age: 20
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths: Maribel has the ability to see and gently manipulate (poke and prod) the borders between worlds, especially worlds within worlds. She also can move between worlds in her dreams. She can't do much with it other than visit, and move around a little fluidly in time while she is dreaming.
How would they use their abilities?: ...Trolling purposes only? Mary is completely innocent and harmless. She walks around asking questions and gets herself into trouble by being the BIGGEST dreamer. That's about it. In canon, she really only uses them to satisfy her endless curiosity.
Appearance: Maribel is of mixed European heritage, with light hair and fair skin, and bright violet-blue eyes that set her apart from her contemporaries. The frumpy way she dresses contrasts starkly with the rather fashionable modern schoolgirl style of her partner in crime, Renko. It also means she's always ready to hop into bed with a book at a moment's notice! Remarkably, she bears a strong resemblance to the Youkai of Borders, Yakumo Yukari.
See here, here, and here for references.
Background/Personality:
Maribel Hearn is an international graduate-level student at prestigious Kyoto University. Well, she was. Then the world blew up. There at Kyoto University, she met her current best friend and partner in crime, Renko Usami. Maribel is the meeker of the duo, often somewhat quiet when she's not chastising her consistently tardy friend. However, she's no shrinking violet. Maribel is actually quite bold, seeking out danger and things that seem impossible--like the border between the world of humans and the world of the youkai--with her partner egging her on. There's a childish wickedness in Maribel as well; she won't hesitate to challenge someone if she thinks she can learn something great, and she has very little fear of the unknown. It is often as though she realizes that her view on things is far beyond that of the comprehension of others.
She hails from the United States, though she was born in Europe to jet-setting intellectual parents who took a hands-on approach to her education. Everything she learned at an early age was gained through practical lessons and the most advanced teaching techniques. When they finally settled in America during Maribel's grade school years, she took refuge from normal public education in libraries and museums. It was during this time that she was identified as both an exceptional academic talent and a probable candidate for eternal hermitage and virginity--not that she minded. Her only love was academia. Nothing ever fascinated or captivated her more than the possibility of being able to uncover an essential truth, whether by observing so many situations that a common thread could be found, or through excessive and obsessive research. Her only goal was to immerse herself in the things she loved, to be happy simply to learn and explore and exist.
In high school, she was fortunate enough to attend an international school, studying three languages and cultivating a love for Japan, the Japanese people, and the folklore of that country. These led her to study abroad during her undergraduate years; no one was shocked in the slightest when she walked straight from the graduating stage to the airport, hopping on a plane to immediately petition for mid-semester entry to Kyoto University. Three papers, seven tests, and a handful of office sit-ins later, Maribel was accepted to the psychology graduate program, focusing on the newer field of Relative Psychology in humans. Her little obsessions, and academic otaku-ism surely fascinated the equally oddball Renko, and they soon became fast friends.
Two sides of a coin, the young women banded together to form the most unlikely to be funded club in the history of people who are old enough to know better--the Sealing Club, aka the Ghostly Field Club. Together, they explored in-depth the possibility of extra-terrestrial, extra-sensory, and extraordinary occurrences and beings both within and without the world of humanity. It seemed foolish to many around them, but Maribel had a secret. Maribel, come to find out, can see these strange things, shimmering pieces of the world that looked to her like the thin membrane of a bubble, and which no one but Renko seemed to believe in.
At first simply able to sense and identify the border of Gensokyo--the land of the youkai--Maribel eventually became able to cross it in her dreams, where she had fantastic and terrifying run-ins with angry monsters who want nothing more than to eat her! Eventually, she learned how to manipulate the borders, and possibly to cross more than just a physical barrier. In fact, it seems entirely plausible that Maribel can slip through both time and space, leaving behind traces of her profound presence on the world of Gensokyo. Somehow, in all of this, she came under the unrelenting gaze of the youkai of borders, Yukari Yakumo, who may well be just a time-contorted version of Maribel herself.
For applicants considering an alternate version of a character already in game, please use this as your chance to explain the key differences between your character and the one already in play: I'm including this just to answer the question of headcanon/fanon. Is Maribel actually Yukari? Maybe. Possibly. Nothing is impossible in Gensokyo. For the purposes of my interpretation of things, Maribel and Yukari are sort of the same soul in frighteningly similar bodies, but each with unique perspectives and challenges they present to the world. Maribel is the good witch, the innocent damsel, the little girl whose curiosity could be her own undoing. Yukari is bitter, old, has seen too much of the universe to really have anything to do with what the thousands of years difference between the two of them could possibly embody. Changed as she was by the years and by being transformed into a youkai, Yukari is merely a Maribel-like shell with a wicked, totally different core.
For the purposes of this app and this game, I do not consider Maribel and Yukari to be the same character. Neither does most of fandom; it is also not canon in ANY WAY that they are precisely, one hundred percent the same person. In fact, their uncanny likeness is probably just ZUN being a creeper and a troll.
P.S. I have more blessings to app this character from Yukari's player than many people have at large family Thanksgivings.
Have you read up on how the game works?: The guide app is called FlamingFerret. Characters may make money through missions/jobs, mooching, and STEALING!
1st person sample:
Ah... hello? Is anyone there? This is kind of iffy, compared to what he had back in Ja--Oh!
[The feed finally shows someone there, a lovely, soft-featured blonde girl who appears to be poking curiously at the guide.]
I see how it works, now. This is fine, I suppose.
[She sits quite neatly, like a tried, true, practiced vlogger.] Hello, good afternoon! My name is Maribel Hearn, apparently never-to-be-famous-on-earth formerly-future psychologist. Some of you have undoubtedly met me and my associate, Miss Renko Usami, formerly-future physicist. I didn't really expect things to be going this well on a ship in the middle of inexplicable space and time... However! I've really met some kind people...
Those two nice soldier-types in the red clothes... The woman with the paddle... Ah, that very stern-looking man with the... Well. Hm. [Loading... loading... her brain is loading content... She smiles! Suddenly, her words have frighteningly cheerful force and conviction.]
Well. Yes. You're all invited to the first intergalactic meeting of the Ghostly Field Club, Thor chapter. Anyone interested in the paranormal should make plans to attend. Space will be limited, and of course you'll all be treated to a lecture in theoretical something-or-other by Renko, if she manages to show up on time. Everyone who shows up before she does gets cookies!
3rd person sample:
Maribel can hardly dare to breathe as she explores the halls of this new, dangerous, exciting place. It seems to hum with both life and industry--a contrast her analytical mind can't help but relish. What kind of new people will she meet today? Where will they hail from? What will they be made of?
And, most importantly, will today be the day that she finds a boundary to another world?
For there to be so many unique, wonderful, and terrible things aboard one lone, floating ship, surely there's something within it that defies explanation. It must be even beyond the Guide's helpful text, she wagers, something far, far beyond even the abnormal.
Around this new corner, into an empty, dark corridor she turns, fingers carefully twined together on the back side of her notebook to avoid any appearance of nosiness or impropriety. She's definitely just holding this book, good alien sir or madam, and definitely not taking notes on all your peculiar behaviors! Why would such an innocent, lovely lass do that?
But on the inside, she's alive with excitement, in awe of this impossible place. Something is drawing her ever further into the interior of the ship, like the siren call of the stacks in the library, the old paper archives so long outdated by technology.
Maribel doesn't notice she's been led in an ever-tightening circle until suddenly a shadow falls over her. Plastering on a perfect, composed smile, she turns to face a mass of lilac and blonde that may or may not be her own reflection.
And then, terrifying and familiar, it speaks.
"Hello..."
Questions?: Not as far as I can see!
Did you put your characters name and fandom in the subject: Yes, mommy.
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