(OOC) Application
Mun alias: Crystal
E-mail: Sailorearth8898@aol.com
Messenger name: sailorearth8898 on aim
Character's full name: Ahiru/Princess Tutu
Series: Princess Tutu
Gender: Female
Age: Never specifically stated, but seems to be between 13 and 14.
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Personality:
Ahiru is a kind, caring and passionate girl. She desires to be everyone’s friend, and considers pretty much anyone as such after only a handful of exchanged words. Even if the other person doesn’t return the sentiment or outright even rejects her, she keeps at it until they’re forced to admit the same. In that same vein, Ahiru never gives up on anyone either. She offers encouragement and support to those that need her, whether as herself of as the Prima Donna Princess Tutu.
Ahiru would do anything for those she cares about. She took on the role of a cursed princess because she wanted to see the prince smile, and if she hadn’t been shown another way, she would have sacrificed herself to save him as well.
Ahiru is also vibrant in both her action and words. Easily flustered, she uses wild hand gestures and movements when speaking. She also tends to string her thoughts together into an endless jumble when flustered. Something of a klutz, she’s prone to tripping and stumbling, be it during ballet or otherwise.
When Ahiru’s mind starts to wander, she loses track of everything that’s going on around her. It’s caused her to get into trouble both at school and outside of it, such as nearly walking off a ledge because she was too wrapped up in her surroundings.
As Princess Tutu Ahiru tends to be more soft spoken. She has a natural sense of people’s feelings and what needs to be said to help them unravel them. Tutu has a natural grace and talent that Ahiru doesn’t possess, and when it comes to skill, Ahiru finds herself wishing or hoping that she’ll someday reach that same level.
Her biggest secret is that she is truly a duck, a fact that causes her some anguish. She thinks that as a duck she can’t do anything, and often gets herself down because of this. However, Ahiru’s depression never tends to last long, as she takes the words of those around her to heart and springs right back to her normal chipper self.
Fairy tale/myth/legend: The Wild Swans
Role: Princess Elise
Kingdom territory of origin: North
Adaptation:
Tutu was born as the youngest child of one of the Northern Kings. From a young age she displayed a fondness for dancing, and while her brothers were off in lessons, she would occupy herself with her favorite pastime. She had a natural talent for it, and the king was happy to provide anything she might need for her studies.
Tutu was well loved by those that knew her. In addition to dancing, she seemed to have a natural knack for knowing how a person was feeling. Despite her young age, she could often quell the unhappiness or anguish of those more than twice her age, be it with dance, words, or some combination thereof.
Shortly after Tutu’s fifth birthday, her father decided to remarry. It wasn’t long after the wedding that the newly appointed queen managed to convince her newlywed husband that it would be better if Tutu were sent into the country side to live with peasants for awhile. So it was that Tutu was sent away to live with a new family until she turned thirteen.
In Tutu’s absence, the queen went to work again. She began to spread lies about her new sons, and it short order she had the king believing her fabricated stories. Disgusted, he sent them away, wanting nothing more to do with them. To add insult to injury, as they were leaving their stepmother cursed them, forcing the boys into the form of swans.
It took Tutu some time to adjust to her new life with the peasants who were to be her temporary family. They had little money, and so they couldn’t afford extraneous comforts for her; the only thing she was left with were her ballet shoes that she had taken with her from the castle. There was a lake near her new home, and so when she wasn’t caught up in chores she would head down to there to practice her dancing in relative peace. The animals took to her quite quickly and would stop to watch her dance; the birds especially were enamored of her.
It was decided by her new family that her name would have to be changed. It was not common knowledge that the princess had come to lodge with them, and no matter how they looked at it, Tutu was a strange name. After much thought they awarded Tutu with the new name of Ahiru. It meant duck in one of the other countries’ languages, they explained. Tutu, now Ahiru, accepted this without complaint. If it made them happy, she had no reason to argue. Besides, now she had something in common with the birds she entertained down at the lake.
Shortly before her thirteenth birthday Ahiru was called back to the castle. Her stepmother was to prepare her before she was presented to her father on her actual birthday. Ahiru was excited at the prospect. She would be able to see her brothers again, whom she had missed dearly during her time away. So she went willingly into the arms of her Stepmother, never thinking anything was amiss.
When the Queen saw her she was filled with jealousy. Though she didn’t possess the same beauty she had before, her cuteness and overflowing energy were undeniable. Deciding that she needed to be rid of the girl for good, she called three ducks to her.
Fully aware of the irony of her actions, given her step-daughter’s assumed name, she gave each duck careful instructions. The first was to sit on her forehead, that she might begin to think like a duck. The second was to sit on her heart, that she might act like a duck. The third, to sit on her chest that she might assume the form of a duck. Her curse set, she called Ahiru in to bathe with the water fowl. The Queen’s curse went into affect without being noticed by its bearer.
Ahiru, or Tutu, she really wasn’t sure what she should call herself now, was dressed in the finest of clothes for her presentation. She went to meet her father with open arms, but as she opened her mouth to greet him, the oddest urge came over her. Before she knew it, she had let out a single, solid ‘quack’. Her form shrank, and in moments she was transformed into a horrified mass of feathers. Outraged, the king declared that no such thing could be his daughter, and Ahiru ran from the castle, ashamed.
Not sure where to return to, she ran to the lake, her one place of comfort. Her brothers were gone, disinherited and whereabouts unknown (she had gleaned that much from her stay in the castle); she was cursed to be a duck, and now she too had been disinherited. Thinking that if she was a duck, she could at least take a swim on the lake, she hopped into the water.
Upon touching the water, amazement overtook her, as she found herself growing, her transformation dissolving. Her purity of heart had not allowed the curse to have its full affect, and as she had been cursed in water, water too was its undoing. Giddy that she was human again, but aghast at the fact that she was completely naked, she made her way home to explain what had occurred to her foster family, and to get some clothes.
Ahiru soon found that her curse leaked over even into her human form. Gone was her previous grace while dancing, replaced with awkward stumbles and falls. This didn’t dampen her love of her pastime, though it did discourage her. Quacking had also found its way into her regular vocabulary, and she found herself frequently trying to stifle the word that would cause her transformation.
Despite everything that had happened to her, Ahiru found her thoughts turning to her missing brothers. They haunted her, and it wasn’t long before Ahiru decided she had to find them. This is where Ahiru will start in Mukashi Mukashi.
(For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to make a duck into a girl into a princess, but I could manage the reverse. In terms of story changes, Tutu has much less expensive hobbies than her counterpart. While Elisa was reading picture books that cost half a kingdom, Tutu was off dancing. This simply made more sense for her character. The other major change was in the Queen’s curse. In the original tale, she tries to do much the same thing with frogs, but it failed due to Elisa’s purity. Seeing as this was the only plausible way I could pull off Ahiru being a duck, for her the curse succeeds, her purity allowing her to temporarily break it. This is also why the king denounces her, while in the original it was because the queen, failing to curse the princess, more or less made her look like a vagabond. A duck transformation made more sense for Ahiru, and builds up to her anguish over her duck form.
In terms of Ahiru, she has three separate curses on her.
1. Her head: this influences her thoughts. This would be directly responsible for her need to quack.
2. Her heart: this influences her actions. This one would be the reason she might act like a duck, and is also the reason for her current dancing skills. If she ever hopes to dance like Tutu again, she’ll have to find a way to break this one.
3. Her chest: this is what causes her to change into a duck, and is triggered by speaking or acting like a duck.
She can return to her human form with water, but every time she does she comes back sans her clothes. Also, seeing as birds loving her is present in both her canon and the original story, any and all messages sent by her will be delivered by random birds she managed to rope into doing her dirty work for her. )
Current area of residence: Her peasant family’s house in the woods
Sample journal entry:
I’ve worn my slippers out again. I wonder if they’ll be mad if I ask for another pair? I know we don’t have much money, so… Maybe it’s best to just not ask. Especially after that business on my birthday.
So now that father disinherited me, does this mean that I’m no longer Princess Tutu? Am I only Ahiru now, or am I something in-between? Perhaps I’m just that scrawny little yellow duck that I change into every time I quack…
No! Nonono! I can’t think like that! I shouldn’t be thinking about things like that at all. My brothers need to be my first concern. I need to find them, make sure they’re all right. If step-mother did this to me, what did she do to them? But I have no idea where to find them, or any idea where they’ve gone. Maybe if I head to Axis town, I can find something? I could even send out letters asking if anyone’s seen them! Yeah, that’s the idea! I can do this!
Roleplay sample:
“Sorry I’m late!” She called out in greeting to her avian friends by the lake. She rushed out of the woods and into the clearing, a basket filled with assorted berries in her hand. She held it out, acting as if it were a peace offering for her tardiness.
“But I brought breakfast! Well, lunch really, since I’m late, but I’m not that late, so maybe it’s really brunch?” She shook her head to clear it of thoughts, and laughed to herself, “Either way I brought food!” She set the basket down and grabbed a handful of fresh picked blueberries for herself before the birds could swarm the basket. Taking a seat a few feet from the basket, she watched the feeding frenzy as she popped a berry into her mouth.
As she watched her thoughts turned to her brothers. She was really lucky, wasn‘t she? She might not be a princess anymore, and she might change into a duck, and she was really bad at dancing now, but she had a family here. A home to return to. Did her brothers even have that much? Shelter when the weather was bad, food to eat when they’re hungry? Even if… Even if she couldn’t do anything, she had to try. She needed to find them.
Finishing off the remnants of her breakfast, she turned back to the birds who were watching her, having finished off their meal before her. They stayed like that for a few minutes before an idea struck her. Jumping to her feet excitedly, she looked down to her feathered companions, a smile large across her face.
“Yeah, that’s it! I have a favor to ask of you! Tomorrow, if I come with some letters, could you try and find my brothers and give them to them?” She looked to her friends, her blue eyes large and pleading. There was barely a few moments before they began chirping, which Ahiru took to mean they had accepted her request.
“Thank You!” She cried happily, before turning to run down closer to the lake. She needed to get in some practice before she would be forced to go home and finish up her chores. Even if most of her previous grace was gone now, practice still made perfect right?