◦ Application

Oct 09, 2011 14:33

Name: Kristen
LJ: mouthofbrass
E-Mail: kristen[at]spectrumvoid.net
IM: MadMadPhineas

Character Name: Alice
Series: Ibara no Ou (King of Thorn)
Timeline: Post-mortem
Canon Resource Link: Wikipedia article

Character Background: Ibara no Ou takes place in a near, semi-post-apocalyptic future after a strange virus from space has ravaged the world's population. This virus, Medusa, is communicable and causes a person's cells to harden, eventually turning the body into a clay-like substance that cracks and breaks apart.

The virus was first found when a young Siberian boy went to inspect the site of a meteor strike. He carried the virus home with him and his family became infected and died with the exception of his younger sister, Alice (which is clearly a Siberian name). Alice set the house on fire, thereby diluting and spreading the virus throughout the world via the smoke going up into the atmosphere.

Thanks, Alice, for starting a pandemic.

Soon afterward she was taken in by Carol Vega, a scientist and leader of the cult Venus Gate, who discovered that the reason Alice survived the virus was because Medusa isn't a traditional virus. Rather than attacking the body, it attacks the psyche and the imagination, latching onto strong images in the mind, separating them from the body of the host, and manifesting them as reality. Due to abuse she had suffered at the hands of her parents, Alice suffered from Disassociative Identity Disorder. She had created an "imaginary friend" named Laloo, a mischievous cat-boy-creature who could never do anything right. It was Laloo who behaved badly and took punishments for her when she got into trouble, helping her to cope. When Alice became infected with Medusa, the virus latched onto the image of Laloo in her mind and he came to life, erupting from Alice's back with enough violence to leave physical scars. Terrified of what was happening and by the deaths of her family, Alice locked Laloo into a room in the house and set it on fire. The truth of her story was verified by the presence of an extra charred corpse with a cat's tail found in the house after the fire had been put out. A secondary side effect of her Medusa infection was that her body stopped aging.

Vega proceeded to use Alice as a guinea pig in experiments meant to test Medusa and her ability to manifest it. These experiments ultimately had two outcomes. One was that most of Alice's body was destroyed, leaving her with only her head, left arm, and enough of her upper torso to house her heart and one lung. She was kept alive inside of a capsule by machines and the power of the Medusa in her. The other outcome of the experiments was that Alice obtained the power to make Medusa manifest at will. One of the various ways she can do this is to separate her spirit from her body and walk around in an illusion or ghost form that appears to be her actual chronological age.

Once Vega hired on Zeus to fix the problems with the capsules that were involved in making the imaginary become reality, the plot of the manga commenced. Certain infected individuals were brought to a facility, having been told that they would be placed into cryogenic stasis until a cure had been found. In reality, they would be forced to dream within their capsules in order to fabricate a new reality of Zeus's creation that was basically a vast survival game for mankind.

Alice spends most of the story following the main party around the island and its facilities, observing them. She alternates between a mixture of perverse amusement and macabre interest in their struggle to survive, and apathy toward everything in general. She expresses boredom when they overcome obstacles, but helps them to do so at other times by using mind control on Tim or by leading Marco around, and at no point does she get bored enough to stop observing their progress.

Although she knows what's really going on, she doesn't reveal her knowledge until she meets Kasumi and brings her to the lab where her body has been sealed, revealing her own powers, the state of her real body, and her role in the spread of Medusa. Alice's main interest in helping the party has more to do with ending her own suffering by ending Shizuku's dreams than it has to do with wanting to save the world. As she tells Kasumi, her spirit can't leave the island while her body remains there, alive.

She doesn't seem to mind telling Kasumi bluntly that Marco's probably dead, and she laughs maniacally when she's demonstrating the incorporeal nature of her form to Kasumi, who reacts with fear, thinking Alice is going to strangle her. Despite this, Alice doesn't ever try to actively deceive Kasumi or Marco, or manipulate the situation other than to aid them. Her actions seem to be a combination of her testing their resolve as well as her showing her fatalistic and macabre sides (in her confrontation with Kasumi). She's seemingly only entertained by threats of danger and at no point in the story does she express fear, probably because of her experiences as a science project and then an invalid, and because of the fact that as of yet, there's nothing on the island that can actually harm her.

She listens thoughtfully while Kasumi explains her relationship with Shizuku and then urges Kasumi to go and find her sister, appearing to genuinely care for both of their well-being. She exhibits this earlier in the story as well when she tries to comfort and reassure the monster Shizuku has turned into. She responds positively to Kasumi's promise to come back and help her, telling her that she better not die, but once Kasumi leaves, with characteristic fatalism, Alice confides in her rabbit companion that she knows Kasumi won't be back.

After that point, when Zeus's god race comes to kill her, she has the rabbit remove her from her capsule at great risk to her health, and goes looking for Marco. Again, she shows no fear, calmly telling the creatures that she hasn't done anything, before going about her business to continue helping the main party. When she finds Marco dead, she uses the remaining power of the Medusa inside her to resurrect him and gets her own wish to disappear from existence.

Abilites/Special Powers: Alice has the power to manifest Medusa at will. This is primarily in the form of a large clockwork rabbit companion that protects her and prehensile chains which are alternately used to protect her and to manipulate objects around her.

While these manifestations usually remain in the vicinity of her physical body, she can also separate her soul from her body in order to walk around and observe. In this form, she appears as her actual age (in her mid- to late teens), but can't physically interact with anything. This means she can't touch anyone or anything, but she also can't be injured by anyone or anything.

Interestingly, anything she creates from Medusa remains intact unless someone either destroys it or she purposely unmanifests it. However, if she's actively manipulating the object she's created, it's very difficult for it to be destroyed or harmed.

Lastly, she has some power to enter the minds of others. It's easiest for her to do this with animals and young children, but it seems to take a lot of energy from her and she only does it when necessary.

Third-Person Sample: This wasn't what she had expected from death. Alice had been certain that there was no afterlife--most of her life had felt like an afterlife, so she had no need for an after-afterlife--but even if there had been, she hadn't been prepared for everything to be exactly the same.

Well, not exactly. There was no Medusa surrounding her. She could tell that right away. Her bunny was gone, too, the one she'd had as a child. She was by herself in the capsule now, with only the hoses and tubes and wires for company.

She didn't allow herself to be bothered by this. She could miss her things, as tired of them as she'd grown over the years, later.

Without ever opening her physical eyes, she separated her soul from her body. The older image of herself coalesced like a cloud of smoke--how she hoped she would look if she'd been allowed to age properly, dressed for the cold of Siberia despite not knowing the climate here. She slid her hands into her pockets and turned to look at herself in the capsule. Even if her things weren't there, at least the capsule was. She could be thankful for that. Thankful that there was still some Medusa left over after helping Marco, too, though she had no explanation for how that was possible.

This wasn't lab two, though. The floor, the walls, the ceiling were all paneled by a warm wood, though the life support machines made it colder to the eye. There was a closet that she found she couldn't touch after a brief moment of experimenting with it.

So aside from the location, nothing had changed. What a bore. Hands in her pockets once again, she disappeared through the wall. Maybe she could find something more amusing if she wandered around a little bit.

First-Person Sample: [The wall unit flicks on as Alice walks past it, hands in the pockets of her long coat, her hood pulled up over her head. She pauses just as she's moving out of frame and takes a step back, turning her head to look at the camera with vague curiosity.]

A motion sensor...? [She steps closer, peering at the unit and talking more or less to herself.] So these things work. And there are other people here?

[After some consideration a smirk curls her lips.] Maybe this won't be so boring after all.

+ooc

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