Application - Synodiporia

[partynose]

P L A Y E R;
NAME: Blue
AGE: Over 18
PLAYER JOURNAL: blue_rampion
TIMEZONE: UTC +10
CONTACT: blue[dot]rampion[at]gmail[dot]com | blueflowers
OTHER CHARACTERS PLAYED: Matthew Swift

C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: Pearl
CANON: Steven Universe
POINT IN CANON: Season 4, Episode 6: "Last One Out of Beach City."
AGE: Over 6000 years
APPEARANCE: Like so!
CANON HISTORY: Wiki link!

CANON PERSONALITY:

Pearl was created to be one thing: a servant and a decorative symbol of someone else's status. This has left strong marks on her personalty, but she's spent thousands of years fighting to be free of her origins as an indentured servant.

On first meeting, Pearl might be mistaken for the most 'normal' of the Crystal gems. She's polite and well mannered to others, and she likes project an appearance of confidence and capability. Of course, she's annything but. Pearl is, in short, a control freak. She loves things to be tidy and orderly and symmetrical, and she has a perfectionist streak that's a mile wide. She's neurotic and easily flustered; everything has to be just right with Pearl, and she can't stand for something to be out of place or misorganised. She'll often scold Steven and Amethyst for their messes, but she often ends up being the one who cleans up - perhaps a left over from her servant origins. Pearl wasn't just born a servant - she was created specifically to be one. There's a good chance that Pearl's need for order and tidiness was programmed into her personality.

And her servant origins are likely the cause of another aspect of Pearl's personality - her low self esteem and inferiority complex. She hides all of these insecurities under an act of haughtiness and overdofidence, but earl often feels weak and useless on her own. In order to feel secure, she needs validation and approval from others. Pearl wants to feel special, and at times she can be incredibly selfish about going about making herself feel that way.

But the person who first helped her feel like she was special, like she was important, was Rose. Rose taught Pearl that she didn't have to be a servant and a slave, that she could be her own person - that she had her own power. Rose inspired Pearl to join the rebellion, and to rebel on an even more personal level by becoming something unthinkable for a Pearl - someone who could fight. Pearl studied the art of sword-fighting, learning to use skill and intelligence to make up for the fact that she was never designed to fight. She also studied engineering and developed her own love of history - Pearl's strengths have always been her intelligence, and there's little that gets her more excited than the opportunity to explain what she knows or display her intelligence.

Not that this meant everything was smooth sailing. Pearl loved Rose, to the point of self-destructive sacrifice. Even while Rose made her feel like everything, Pearl still viewed herself as nothing in comparison to Rose's brilliance. She would leap into battles to protect Rose, risking her own life, even when they were battles that Rose could easily fight and win on her own. She was incredibly clingy, and became intensely jealous when one of Rose's romantic relationships with human men became serious. Pearl always thought that one day, Rose would choose her, and it devastated her when she chose Greg instead. Another blow was when she learned that there were secrets Rose kept from even her - especially when she had been sure that there wasn't anything that Rose hadn't shared with her.

Now that Rose is gone, Pearl has felt incredibly lost. Now, she needs to be there for Rose's son Steven - and while Pearl misses Rose every day, she wouldn't give up Steven for Rose. She's not the only mother-figure in Steven's life - Garnet also holds that title, with Amethyst in the role of older sister - but she is certainly the most mothering to Steven. Pearl worries and fusses over Steven like any other mother would, and she also takes great pride in watching him grow and develop.

She's also a stalwart defender of the Earth and humanity - even if her ability to understand human life is low. In fact, Pearl can be highly dismissive and condescending towards humanity in general. She values humans, and considers protecting them important - but she views them more akin to how humans view animals and pets. Humans aren't equals to Pearl. She also tends to be very literal minded and unknowingly insensitive, which doesn't exactly help her develop bonds with humans. In truth, while Pearl knows that Rose loved humanity and considered them worth fighting for, she's never really understood why. This has changed, as she's started to get to know individual humans, like Steven's friend Connie - or even gotten to get past her differences with Greg. But she's still got a long way to go.

POINT OF DEPARTURE: NA

VETERAN?:

I'm applying Pearl as a pre-Moebius veteran, who disappeared just after the post-Moebius liminal space.

ABILITIES:

Pearl isn't a human - she's a Gem, which means that strictly speaking, she is the pearl embedded in her forehead. What appears to be her 'body' is in fact a projection created by her pearl; a kind of hologram that has mass. This body is highly resilient, but can be harmed - but as long as the gem itself isn't damaged, Pearl will simply disappear back into the gem, and reform with time.

Effectively, this makes Pearl functionally immortal. She does not age, and she does not need to breathe, eat, drink, or sleep. Natural causes cannot kill her. However, this doesn't mean that she can't die - if her gem is cracked or damaged, her physical form may deteriorate. Eventually, she would become corrupted, transforming into a Gem Monster - a mindless creature, rather than a thinking, sentient Gem. And if her pearl is shattered entirely, she will die.

Other abilities all gems have include the ability to create bubbles - floating protective containers that will keep something within it, usually a gem. Placing a bubble in a gem will prevent the gem from being able to reform, and it's implied to be a kind of stasis. The bubbles can also be teleported to another location (typically, 'home' - or the Temple in Pearl's case). All gems can also shape-shift for a short period of time - altering their clothes, general appearance, and even their entire shape. Pearl in particular has been seen shapeshifting her clothes, but she seems not to prefer more drastic shapeshifting, having never been seen to do so in the series.

Gems can also 'fuse' with other gems - merging together to create a new, single being that is created from their combined personalities and abilities. When she fuses with Amethyst, they become Opal; with Garnet, Sardonyx; with Rose Quartz, Rainbow Quartz; and with Amethyst and Garnet together, Alexandrite. Fusions are much more powerful than any of the Gems on their own.

Most gems are also able to summon their Gem Weapon - in Pearl's case, this is her spear, which she is highly proficient with. The spear can also appear in a smaller 'wand' form, or be summoned twice, allowing Pearl to dual weild. She's also able to fire off energy blasts from the spear in rapid succession, although not fast enough for quick or skilled foes. She may also 'charge' the weapon in order to create a bigger blast.

As for more specific abilities of Pearl's, she is able to create holograms which appear from her gem. These may simply show past 'recorded' events or display images that Pearl wishes to show, but they are also capable of making fully formed holographic replications of herself. These holographic projections can interact with solid matter, fight, and function without Pearl's presence for at least up to two weeks - although they don't share her intelligence, typically acting more like a program than a person.

She can also summon small physical objects from her gem - it's unknown whether these items have any kind of time limit, but they do seem to at least last a short while without Pearl, and do have physical mass and presence. She can also light up dark places using her gem, walk on water, and possesses weak telekinetic abilities. Since she's only been seen using her telekinetic abilities to manipulate things like sand or clouds, however, it's likely that she's only able to manipulate particles.

Pearl's most impressive abilities, however, are the ones she's learned - these abilities weren't granted to her by her gem makeup, but by thousands of years of practice and hard work.

In battle, she fights with a balletic, graceful style, with swift precision. She isn't as strong as other gems, but she holds her own through sheer skill and through superior strategy. Pearl will wait for the right moment, and strike - meaning that while she might not hit as often, when she does she's might more likely to KO her opponent entirely. And while she's highly skilled with her summoned spears, Pearl also favours the use of human swords. These she doesn't summon at all - she needs to acquire a physical sword - but she's just as capable with them, and can comfortably duel wield as well.

She's a self-taught mechanical engineer, able to construct a semi-functioning spacecraft from leftover machine parts alone, or construct a working battle robot. She's also just as able when it comes to repairs, and she's able to work even with technology she's unfamiliar with.

Pearl also possesses a great love of history, and can precisely recall history and events (often with the aid of her holograms). Pearl is extremely intelligent, and commands a wide range of knowledge about gem culture, history, technology, and science.

INVENTORY:

No items - anything she has on her person, like clothing, is actually created by her gem projection

ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW?

M A R K S;
JUSTIFICATION:

Magician: Pearl possesses many qualities Magician values - precision, energy, movement, and focus. She is an intellectual, someone who values her mind and regards it as her greatest weapon. Although some of Magician's keywords don't match (Pearl does not possess self confidence and conviction), overall she's a good fit.

Empress: Empress likes mother-types, and Pearl's the biggest mother-hen of them all. She is the queen of fussing, and she's as protective as a mother bear over Steven. Also, while the sexuality and fertility aspects don't match up (Pearl would probably find sex to be even more disgusting than eating), her relationship with Rose was nonethless one full of desire and attraction and appreciation for beauty.

Emperor: If it weren't for the fact that Pearl's not a father and there was the whole 'rebelling against the traditions and rules of her society' thing, Emperor would be practically a perfect match up for Pearl. Pearl loves stability and order and discipline and structure. She is a giant stick in the mud, and Emperor is an Arcana who definitely likes his sticks in the mud.

Moon: Doubt? Check. Anxiety? Check. Unrealistic ideas? Check. Psychological conflict? Double check. Pearl is just one big bundle of self-deception and inner turmoil and internal tension. And while she has been improving in this regard - particularly in terms of coming to accept that Rose didn't choose her, and she can't change that - this has been a slow process, and she far from resolving all of her issues.

VETO:

Devil: While Devil could potentially be a decent match for Pearl with archetypes like Anxiety, Obsession, and Self-bondage, a lot of his other meanings really don't fit. Materialism, Hedonism, Ignorance - these are the antithesis of Pearl. But really, the main reason for me is that I just really wouldn't be happy trying to play Pearl while dealing with all of Devil's aesthetic and general Devil-ness.

S A M P L E S;

Test drive thread

PROSE SAMPLE:

From Prompt 39:

As liminal space changed, and Pearl's foot step's daintily on one of the keys, a single, reverberating note rings around her.

Pearl pauses, lifting her leg back up. Then, to test her hypothesis, she presses it down once more. The note rings out again. With a flurry of movement, Pearl bursts into a short balletic dance across the keys, full of glides and pirouettes and graceful leaps. With each step, an elegant piano song accompanies her. She comes to a stop, and the music stops with her - but the notes still hang in the air, waiting for the dance to begin again.

Pearl laughs. She must admit, while liminal space isn't always to her liking, this - oh, how she does love this. No matter how she steps, the music is always harmonious - everything always fits, not a note out of place. It's certain a far cry from the loud, inelegant music that Greg favours. True, she gets along better with Greg these days...but that doesn't mean that her opinions on his music have changed.

"Oh, I wish Steven were here to see this," she says, with gentle melancholy. He would love this place, she was sure. "He'd have all of us singing a song...well. And fusing together. I must admit, this would make for quite the place for fusion..."

What songs would they create, dancing together to become one? Pearl sighs. She'll never know. Her fellow Gems and Steven weren't here, and she knew all too well that liminal spaces were all too fleeting. Even if one day they became Travellers themselves, they would never see this place.