APPLICATION ::
Character Name: Margarita Surprise
Character Series: GrimGrimoire (Voice actor is supposedly Kim Mai Guest.)
Character Age: Unknown, about...15.
Background: Game @ Wikipedia // Fandom Wiki page. If neither of these are sufficient, I can write something up.
Personality:
At first glance, Margarita's upbeat, confident, forward and friendly to a fault. Dig a little deeper and you'll find that she's also somewhat pushy, rather opinionated and incredibly mischievous. A social butterfly that's as eager to gossip as she is to make your acquaintance, Margarita easily befriended the main character within five minutes of their first meeting. She's carefree, cheerful, can be almost whimsical at times and, frankly? She seems to be the epitome of normalcy when set up against such characters as Hiram Menthe, who's hot for his teacher, or Amoretta, a depressed homunculus. But Margarita's lackadaisical attitude is, in many ways, a sham, because Margarita doesn't have very many reasons to be carefree. Her role in the story is that of a traitor who releases Calvaros' soul, an action that results in the death of everyone within the tower.....including herself.
See, Margarita hides a deep-rooted fear of dying violently. Growing up in a village that burnt witches at the stake has traumatized her in ways that, although largely unacknowledged by her conscious mind, makes her play right into Calvaros' hands. Unfortunately, this includes the literal sense- Calvaros strangles her in at least one of the time loops to "reward" her for setting him free.
But it's not as if Margarita got her kicks lying to people during any of the cycles, especially to those she counted as friends. Although it doesn't help that she's never been very good at deception- she can lie, if she has to, but weaving a complex web of deceit around people is too complicated. Margarita prefers to keep her plans simple and straightforward, and the easiest way for her to do that is to either tell a small lie, lie by omission, or feign total ignorance. Instead of making up intricate untruths that could trip her up later, not to mention give her even more guilt to nurse, Margarita will hold her tongue. In fact, forget lying: Margarita has never been shown to enjoy what she's made to do in order to stay alive. She never wanted to betray everyone or cause their demise, because Margarita is neither evil, a sociopath, or completely oblivious to the consequences of her own actions. In fact, the guilt and regret still eating her up by the time the game ends drives her to flee over the horizons and destroy the last of Calvaros' wandering monsters to atone for her earlier self-centered weakness.
Margarita's greatest failing is her unreliable spine. She often succumbs to the simple, yet ugly selfishness of valuing her own life above all else when backed into a corner, yet is capable of drumming up plenty of courage with someone at her side supporting her. She was manipulated to the extent that she was because she feared being burned at the stake more than the consequences of her actions, yet she stood up to Surely when he attempted to kill Lillet and Hiram. In most of the cycles, Margarita felt like she couldn't count on anyone at the Silver Star Tower for help and so went blithely to her doom, having nothing to cling to but the naive, desperate hope that she would be left alone once she succeeded. And really, those two words sum up Margarita way better than they should: naive and desperate. How else could she even be, given her young age and perilous predicament? Unlike Lillet, who although poor had a happy home life, Margarita grew up watching those with magical potential be persecuted in horrible ways and then had her worst fear played upon to make her submit to vile wills.
Margarita is not, in her heart of hearts, a coward. No, she's far from that, but at this point she is heavily dependent upon other people for strength. She had to have someone on her side before she could muster up the courage to act out against Calvaros- in part because she has already seen, back in her paranoid hometown, what happens to the people who stand alone against a powerful threat. It's very, very difficult for her to trust others with matters of importance, somewhat due to what she's been through and somewhat because of the fact that trust is a two-way street and Margarita knows that no one with any brains should put their lives in her dirty, stupid, fragile hands. But if she manages to have faith in someone, if she manages to truly make a friend and to be befriended in turn, Margarita will do anything for that person. Even if she's terrified or looking death in the face....because all she's ever really wanted (and needed) is to be cared about instead of used and thrown away.
Abilities: I'll have to explain how magic works in Margarita's canon before I can properly answer that, I think, so here goes!
Mages utilize spellbooks called grimoires to exploit the varied classes of magic that exist in their world. They use them to draw magical bases called "Runes" into existence, and then use those Runes to summon beings to obey them. There are four types of magic: Glamour, Necromancy, Alchemy, and Sorcery. Each type of magic has its own particular strength and weakness; Sorcery is strong against Alchemy, but weak against Necromancy, etc. There are three different grimoires for each type, which determines what kind of rune a magician can draw. The type of rune, in turn, determines what kind of creature (described as a "familiar") can be summoned.
For example, the Chaos Nest Grimoire falls under the Sorcery category. It can only draw the Chaos Nest Rune, which can only summon Grimalkins and Dragons - two specific kinds of Sorcery familiars. However, just having a grimoire and/or a functioning Rune isn't enough; you need an energy source to fuel the creation/upgrading of Runes and the summoning of familiars. This energy source is called "mana" and it must be mined from nearby Crystals and deposited in the Runes by low-level familiars. The cost of summoning and creating Runes depends, again, on the type of Rune and the type of familiar, as well as how many Runes/familiars are being created/summoned at one time. On that note, neither Rune nor familiar appear instantly. A Rune will be slow to finish being drawn, and if it is destroyed in the middle of the creation process, the magician will lose all the mana spent summoning it. This also holds true for if a completed Rune is destroyed; once it takes enough damage, it will dispel into nothing. Runes are incapable of being moved once they have been drawn and are vulnerable to enemies with both physical bodies and ghostly, spiritual forms.
While Margarita becomes a skilled magician later in life, she is shown early on to have a remarkable proficiency in Sorcery, demonstrated by how she always uses Sorcery Runes as her first choice and how she has already gained two of the three Sorcery grimoires by the canon point I've taken her from; the Hell Gate Grimoire and the Chaos Nest Grimoire, meaning she has mastered all the spells as well as the art of summoning the creatures housed in those books, as shown below:
{ Hell Gate Grimoire }
[Level 1] - Imps, small creatures that can run fast and inflict nasty scratches.
[Level 2] - Demons, large centaur-like beasts with poisonous claws and wicked horns.
[Level 3] - Imp: Attack
[Level 4] - Demon Power Up: Increases the movement speed of Demons greatly.
[Level 5] - Demon Power Up 2: increases the HP of Demons.
{ Chaos Nest Grimoire }
[Level 1] - Grimalkin, diminutive black cat that wields a staff and can put even the greatest monsters to sleep for awhile with a well-placed spell.
[Level 2] - Dragon, enormous fire-breathing lizard that, while slow-moving, is difficult to kill quickly. Is originally summoned as an egg and requires a period of incubation to hatch, and can be destroyed during those vulnerable few minutes.
[Level 3] - Grimalkin: Mana Burn
[Level 4] - Grimalkin Power Up: Increases the MP of Grimalkins.
[Level 5] - Demon: Black Curse: When afflicted with Black Curse, the target's
HP will gradually decrease.
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