[OOC] Application
For paixaorpg.
Player's Name: Cherry
What Kingdom Hearts games have you played/watched/read? I've read the first volume of the Kingdom Hearts manga and played through Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA; both Sora and Riku), and Kingdom Hearts 2 (except I'm stuck on the final battle, orz). And Re:CoM is sitting on the shelf, but hasn't been played. yet.
AIM/email: Platinum Ryou / ryoushirogane@yahoo.com
LJ: cherryfox
Character: Tear Grants
(Her given name is Mystearica Aura Fende, but she refers to herself as the former. Only Van seems to call her "Mystearica".)
Series: Tales of the Abyss (anime, manga, drama CD, and game incarnations thereof; I prefer to mostly stick to the game and the anime which is mostly a pretty direct adaptation of the game); there's also some backstory in Tales of Fandom Volume 2.
Version: Post-game; pre-epilogue.
Age: 18
(She's 16 in-game, about a year passes during the major events therein, and then about two more years pass between the final battle and the epilogue. I'd like to snatch her some time before the final scene, so, 18 sounds good.)
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Heterosexual
(More specifically her affection seems divided between Luke and cute things.)
Appearance: Tear stands at about 5' 4" in height and weighs about 110 lbs. In all honesty she looks older than she is, and that's most likely thanks to her very generous bust size and her preference for modest clothing (normally in neutral tones, although her dresses back home seem to be in pastels, but still look like something your grandmother might have worn). Her hair is a light brown color with her bangs covering her right eye, the rest spilling down to the middle of her back. Her eyes are a bright shade of blue (the one you can see, at least). Tear's typical attire is her Oracle Knights uniform which includes a turtlenecked burgandy shirt (or leotard perhaps) under a high-collared brown dress, white and gold trim runs down lines in the front and the bottom of the dress splits in about four places. I'm not sure why this is, although it probably aids with running, and it most definitely makes her knives more accessible - these are stored on a belt that runs around her waist and down to the top of each of her burgandy socks (they come up to mid-thigh). Apparently she has three of these knives - the belt accounts for two, the third's whereabouts is a mystery. On her hands are long gloves, and she wears high-heeled boots. I don't know how she runs in those either, but she does it skillfully enough. Around her neck, though obscured from view, would be a 3 carat star sapphire pendant of a deep purple hue. In the game it's faceted, in the anime the stone is a cabochon, so it's up to debate. She also carries a staff with her - it appears to be made of wood with a metal top shaped in the likeness of a blade, only the middle is hollowed out and there are several golden spheres inside of that.
Personality: At first meeting Tear is very professional and follows through with things methodically. She doesn't often joke around (or relax, for that matter). She's been trained as a soldier and has doubtless seen people be killed, and even killed people herself, so her approach to things may come off as cold to those who don't know her well. She was influenced heavily by her instructor, Legretta the Quick, who told her that softness and honesty would quickly get her killed on the battlefield, so Tear tried to become more like the instructor she admired and began masking her emotions and femininity.
She does, however, possess feminine attributes which she does her best to hide - one of these is a penchant for all things cute, be they cheagles, rappigs, or a castle maid's costume. She doesn't seem to have very high self-esteem in terms of her appearance, but will get very flustered when people talk about her body. (She's embarrassed by it, I think, and you can't blame her too much since the only women around were Layla and Legretta, and I don't know if she'd go to them about those sorts of things or not.) She even tells Guy that he doesn't have to think of her as a woman when he reveals he's gynophobic. As for emotions, Tear obviously has these too, and as the game progresses, they become much more obvious. She hates showing weakness and being a burden on other people, and yet when she finds out that she may die, she's just as scared as anyone else would be. She tells Luke to leave her alone because she doesn't want anyone to see her like this (ie. scared/almost in tears), even though he doesn't and just turns around instead. And in the epilogue she openly cries, something she hadn't done in public since she was a small child, and I think that's saying something.
Tear believes in rational thought, and this too is something that she gradually relies on less. She admits to Natalia later in the game that sometimes the only way you can find answers is by letting go; Natalia expresses her surprise at hearing these words from Tear.
Patience is something else Tear possesses, and though she can become irritated easily enough, she prefers offering up warnings seriously and calmly rather than lashing out at people. She understands that results require effort and aren't always immediate. All of that being said, there are still lots of things that Tear's never been exposed to before, and she's able to discover many of these things during the course of the journey. After traveling with her companions for over a year, Tear becomes quite attached to them and admits, after learning that Luke's fonons are separating and that he may soon die, that she wishes there was a way for all of them to remain together.
There are some skits that suggest that Tear has an appreciation for romance (see Keterburg), but she's obviously not very good at expressing those kinds of feelings (again, you can't blame her, as there's nothing to suggest that she's ever been in love before). This is something that all of the party members are able to detect however (sans Luke, because he's an idiot), and in her favor, she does actually confess.
I'm also under the impression that she likes to read, since her house has a small library on its main level. There's a selenia garden out back which she and Van tended to as well.
Abilities/Weaponry/Strengths:
Tear is a melodist which means that [if she knows the meaning, words and melody to fonic hymns] she can sing songs as artes (essentially "magic spells") which will have one effect or another. The six songs she sings are Yulia's fonic hymns, and when combined with a seventh passage and sung in proper order, they form the Grand Fonic Hymn which is said to summon Lorelei, the aggregate sentience of the seventh fonon (English: a visible, thinking, humanoid being comprised of sound particles). Tear can also use base artes, arcane artes, and fonic artes, along with two mystic artes. Her base and arcane artes normally incorporate the use of her staff or throwing knives issued by the Order of Lorelei's military unit (Oracle Knights). Her other abilities are divided between healing and support artes (First Aid, Resurrection, Enhance Cast) and [mostly] light-based artes (Eclair de Larmes, Holy Lance). Many artes will take on another form when cast in a charged field of fonons. Tear is a seventh fonist which means she can control the seventh fonon - basically all healers in the game are seventh fonists, and this allows her to read the Score, a prophecy the world has been following that was written on seven fonstones many years ago during the Dawn-Age in Yulia's time.
Luke comments in-game that Tear's "too strong". Tear has a strong will and has resolved to stop her brother, even if it costs her life. She's also very good at hiding her thoughts and emotions, making her a difficult read (at first). In cases where she is suffering, she'll often deny the fact, which can actually lead to more harm than good, such as when the miasma was infecting her body. Tear is very rational and tries not to let things upset her - she proves reliable and will do what she can in order to help her friends individually or as a whole. Suzanne (Luke's mother) seems to see Tear as a big sister figure for Luke and Natalia.
Tear is a good, if somewhat dull, teacher. She helps instruct Luke in several battle tutorials early in the game, and teaches him how to better control his fonons and hyperresonance as part of a side quest. She can also optionally accompany Luke on a pilgrimage to visit the pillars scattered around Daath, being a member of the Oracle Knights and capable of reading Ancient Ispanian texts.
Tear may not be a wonder chef, but the game hints that her cooking is acceptable, and both Natalia and Anise complimented the cake she had brought along during their second visit to Tataroo Valley. She was not, however, able to do anything to improve the princess' cooking.
Weaknesses:
Battle-wise she's not as fast as she could be and her hymns and fonic artes take time to cast, thus they can be canceled or interrupted. If she was going one-on-one with a skilled or extremely quick opponent, she'd likely be in trouble, and seems to work best as support. I've also read that throwing knives are not incredibly sharp, and neither is her staff, so it's possible that she'd have some difficulty physically finishing off an opponent if she was fighting solo. She's also pretty light and doesn't wear any protective armor, so I'm guessing her defense is probably pretty darn low. She may be particularly susceptible to poisons, too, if they somehow entered her system via fonons/fon slots. Even though the miasma was removed from her body, she spent quite a bit of time enduring pain because of it and was prescribed a medicine to ease its effects. I don't believe any of that is necessary now (medicine and whatnot), but it might have left her weakened.
The rest comes in a list:
1) Cute Things: Oh she loves them deeply, but she doesn't want anyone to know about it. She can often be seen blushing and murmuring about how cute Mieu is... or Emperor Peony's rappigs... or...! She even purchases a rappig doll that Anise later finds out about. Tear's horribly embarrassed, but the promise of chiffon cake seems to be enough to appease the other girl and keep her from blabbing to the others.
2) Her Modesty: Seriously. Do not mention her melons or Tear will become so flustered that she may very well snap and yell at the offender, regardless of the situation. Not good in the middle of something important.
3) Ghosts: It's not explored too much in the game, but in the anime and drama CDs it's pretty obvious that Tear is SCARED TO DEATH of them. I don't know how it started, or why she still believes in them, but you mention them and she will abruptly change the subject. You try calling her out on her fear and she will say very sternly, very forcefully, that you are being ridiculous and there's no such thing as ghosts. If she hears a bump in the night? Well, expect her to grow very tense. If this continues? Her voice will get weak until something jumps out at her upon which point she will scream and quite possibly strangle whoever happens to be closest to her. (Because latching onto another something is the best way to dispel ghosts, obviously.)
4) Luke: This should be fairly apparent. In the beginning Tear made it her business to protect Luke and return him to his manor in Baticul no matter what. Since he was a civilian, she was quite willing to jump in front of an Oracle soldier's sword in order to protect him. Gradually Luke found his resolve and proved that he could take care of himself, but it didn't change the fact that he was still inexperienced and fairly emotional. He needed people to watch him so he wouldn't mess up again. Also gradually, Tear began to develop feelings for Luke, being one of the first people she had grown close to that didn't betray her and all that. Anyone who would promise to always wait for someone to come home, no matter how impossible that return might be, would likely go to great lengths for that person, I think.
5) Van: Well, Van's gone now, but when it came to her brother, Tear would often throw caution to the wind. It is hinted that as a child Tear adored her brother just as much as Luke does early in the game, and she didn't socialize with anyone else very much. He was her only surviving blood relative, and even at the very end, she referred to Van as her "beloved brother". She never did manage to understand him completely, but I'm sure the loss weighs pretty heavily on her heart.
History:
(I tried to keep this as short as humanly possible, which is hard seeing as Abyss is a 50+ hour game. As such, I cut out a lot of details.)
Once upon a time the ground fell. No, not the sky - I really do mean the ground. An island called Hod was destroyed and sank beneath the planet's crust, only the island didn't burn up in the mantle like one might expect because many years earlier a certain genius woman named Yulia Jue proposed that the land be raised into the air so that the people would not be infected by the poisonous miasma that was seeping from the planet's core. This same woman was also able to speak with Lorelei (see above) and through Lorelei was able to see the planet's "memory" which was then transcribed onto seven fonstones as the Score and pulled into the fonbelt surrounding the planet (think: Saturn's rings, only made up of rocks and fonons - fonons are, in a nutshell [magical] sound particles that exist in everything). Suffice it to say Yulia Jue is quite famous, and also suffice it to say that over time these giant rocks broke up and some fell back to Auldrant (the planet). The Score, as a record of the planet's past, present and future became the basis for a global religion and people followed it in order to be granted the prosperity that it promised.
Anyway, back to Hod falling. Hod fell into the Qliphoth (the world beneath the planet's surface - above are the Outer Lands), and one boy in particular, Vandesdelca Musto Fende (later Van Grants) and his mother were found by the Watchers of Yulia City. The mother gave birth to a daughter sometime thereafter and later died, but Mystearica Aura Fende (later Tear Grants) was [lovingly] raised by her big brother and adopted grandfather, Mayor Teodoro Grants.
At age five it was discovered that Tear could control the seventh fonon. Her brother was both surprised and pleased until Tear told him she wanted to join the Oracle Knights to help him out. Van wasn't so pleased anymore, having his own plans in mind and having harbored more than a little bitterness towards the world that had allowed his homeland to be destroyed. But he let her dream - she was a kid after all, and she'd get over the idea.
She didn't.
At about age 14, after being denied access to the Oracle Knights training school in Daath, a home tutor was hired for Tear in Legretta the Quick (real name: Giselle Oslo). Tear had potential and eventually hardened into a soldier. This was helped along when Tear discovered that Van was planning to destroy the Outer Lands as revenge for Hod. Tear, deciding to take action against him, accepts an assignment under Grand Maestro Mohs within the Oracle Knights Intelligence Division to search for the missing Seventh Fonstone. Her real goal, though, is to follow Van to the surface and stop him - killing him if necessary. She tracks him to a manor in the Kingdom of Kimlasca's capital where he has been teaching a young noble swordplay. After putting the servants to sleep with a fonic hymn and facing off against her brother, her efforts are thwarted by Van's student, Luke fon Fabre. A hyperresonance occurs between the seventh fonons present in both of their bodies, and they are blasted into the Tataroo Valley in enemy Malkuth [Empire] territory.
From there Tear takes responsibility in returning Luke to his home in Baticul. This proves much more difficult than originally anticipated - not only are they blown further from the capital than they thought, but Luke is very much a burden - spoiled, arrogant, and highly temperamental. The two (plus the series mascot, Mieu) are arrested and taken aboard a Malkuth landship called the Tartarus where they are interrogated by Colonel Jade Curtiss, Fon Master Ion, and his guardian Anise Tatlin. Luke and Tear join the others' efforts to promote peace between the enemy kingdoms. They meet up with Luke's servant, Guy Cecil, along the way back to Baticul, and shortly after arrival in said city, are sent out on a mission along with Princess Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lanvaldear to evacuate a mining city that is suffering from the poisonous miasma. In the miner's city, Akzeriuth, Van convinces Luke to use his hyperresonance to destroy the Passage Ring supporting the area, falsely stating that it will clear up the miasma and make him a hero. Instead, the whole area collapses and thousands of lives are lost in an instant.
The party is rescued by another one of Tear's hymns and they fall down into the Qliphoth. Tear then takes them to Yulia City, and Luke faces off against a man with an uncanny resemblance to himself, discovers he's only a replica created in the likeness of this "Asch" person, loses to him and falls unconscious. The other party members, disgusted by Luke's selfish behavior, abandon him and return to the world above. Tear had stayed behind (not for Luke, I imagine it was because she didn't have any leads on the location of the Seventh Fonstone or Van, and besides, some of the Oracle Knights were allied with Van and couldn't be trusted). As a result, she is the first to witness Luke's desire to change. He cuts off his hair with one of her Oracle knives and vows to change. He then asks her to watch him. Tear agrees, reminding Luke that she can give up on him at any time.
But she never does.
The two return to the Outer Lands together and eventually meet up with the rest of the party. Tear continues to watch Luke and actually gives him support, initially cautious and cold, but gradually placing her trust in Luke. The group manages to come up with a plan to stop the rest of the land from collapsing and for getting rid of the miasma; with the help of friends and acquaintences, they begin putting these ideas to action. They visit the Sephiroth Trees around the globe and activate the Passage Rings in order to lower the lands slowly into the Qliphoth. In the process, Tear absorbs poisoned fonons into her body, and it's feared that she may die from it. Despite this, they continue lowering the land for everyone's sake. Then there's the problem of stopping the core's liquifaction so that the land doesn't eventually seek into mud - by stopping the vibration of the core. (Saving the world is very involved, you know.) And then there's the part where they defeat Van, but oops, he's not really dead after all and the plan to stop the core's vibration kinda-sorta backfired. After Fon Master Ion is kidnapped for the one hundredth time and forced by Grand Maestro Mohs to read part of the Score, his body is so weakened that he knows he will die - he asked Tear to come close, takes her hand, and draws her contaminated fonons into himself, thus healing her.
As the game progresses, Tear is able to learn more fonic hymns and even put them together into Yulia's legendary Grand Fonic Hymn, she's forced to watch many of her superiors and people precious to her die, and she even nearly loses Luke. She discovers that, after ridding the world of miasma at the Tower of Rem, Luke's body has become weak and the fonons comprising it are coming apart. But they must persevere, because Van still hasn't given up and refuses to listen. Van (with the help of his associates, the God-Generals) creates a replica of Hod island (now Eldrant), and absorbs Lorelei into himself. It takes the entire party to defeat him and the Grand Fonic Hymn to coax out Lorelei. Luke stays behind on the crumbling replica city in order to free Lorelei and send it into the fonbelt surrounding the planet. Tear is the last to leave, begging him to come home and promising to always be waiting for him. The game ends with Luke, holding the now dead Asch, being praised by Lorelei and fading into oblivion.
Following the credits, Tear and the others are waiting in Tataroo Valley on the eve of Luke's (Asch's) 20th birthday. They see a young man approaching in the distance and when Tear asks him why he's there, he comments that the area has a nice view of Hod and that he made a promise. It's left intentionally ambiguous, but many fans believe this person is Luke.
Sample LJ post:
Well then, that proved easy enough.
I would like to extend greetings to anyone who may be able to view this post and takes the time to do so. I have recently been informed that these fontech journals form a communications network that will operate within the city's limits. In any case, I am a first-time visitor to Paixao and would like to request further information about the city itself and any possibility of finding reliable transportation home. If anyone would be willing to offer assistance, I'd be most grateful.
My name is... ...
Anyway, I'll be sure to explain my situation at the proper time.
My thanks in advance.
Sample RP post:
"Florian?"
Tear opened a side door within Daath Cathedral, preparing to scan the unlit room for any possible sign of the green-haired replica (she and Anise had been forced into a game of hide-and-seek) when the door gave way behind her. It wasn't precisely that the door gave way, but that it was no longer there. The melodist was forced to take a step forward to compensate for the sudden change in balance, and as she did so, she found herself standing beneath an unfamiliar gate. In front of her spanned a line of people waiting to get indoors. Aside from the unfamiliar landscape, Tear took immediate note of the unusual clothing.
'Foreigners?' she wondered silently to herself, but that seemed implausible. Tear had traveled throughout Auldrant and had seen a great number of people in the past several years. Even in Chesedonia she hadn't noticed anything of the sort. The architecture itself was even more striking, and after quickly fumbling over a temporary alias and accepting a pocket-sized fonmachine of some sort, Tear found herself within the domed city.
Tear glanced back and forth along the courtyard, finally deciding that it would be best to find a place to stand out of the way and think for a moment. Thinking had suddenly become quite hard. She had managed to overhear references to the city as "Paixao", but as for the specifics of how she had gotten here and how she was supposed to return to Daath Cathedral, she hadn't the slightest.
After a moment of examination, and a few experimental button presses, Tear managed to bring up a map of the area on the screen of the electronic journal she had been given. She didn't know what to think of the situation, but she had her misgivings and decided that it was best to remain alert - it could easily be some sort of trap.
"I certainly won't find any answers simply by standing around," she chided herself. "Perhaps the civilians know something that I'm not currently aware of. Somehow I doubt I'll be able to go back in the same way I arrived."
Player's Name: Cherry
What Kingdom Hearts games have you played/watched/read? I've read the first volume of the Kingdom Hearts manga and played through Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA; both Sora and Riku), and Kingdom Hearts 2 (except I'm stuck on the final battle, orz). And Re:CoM is sitting on the shelf, but hasn't been played. yet.
AIM/email: Platinum Ryou / ryoushirogane@yahoo.com
LJ: cherryfox
Character: Tear Grants
(Her given name is Mystearica Aura Fende, but she refers to herself as the former. Only Van seems to call her "Mystearica".)
Series: Tales of the Abyss (anime, manga, drama CD, and game incarnations thereof; I prefer to mostly stick to the game and the anime which is mostly a pretty direct adaptation of the game); there's also some backstory in Tales of Fandom Volume 2.
Version: Post-game; pre-epilogue.
Age: 18
(She's 16 in-game, about a year passes during the major events therein, and then about two more years pass between the final battle and the epilogue. I'd like to snatch her some time before the final scene, so, 18 sounds good.)
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Heterosexual
(More specifically her affection seems divided between Luke and cute things.)
Appearance: Tear stands at about 5' 4" in height and weighs about 110 lbs. In all honesty she looks older than she is, and that's most likely thanks to her very generous bust size and her preference for modest clothing (normally in neutral tones, although her dresses back home seem to be in pastels, but still look like something your grandmother might have worn). Her hair is a light brown color with her bangs covering her right eye, the rest spilling down to the middle of her back. Her eyes are a bright shade of blue (the one you can see, at least). Tear's typical attire is her Oracle Knights uniform which includes a turtlenecked burgandy shirt (or leotard perhaps) under a high-collared brown dress, white and gold trim runs down lines in the front and the bottom of the dress splits in about four places. I'm not sure why this is, although it probably aids with running, and it most definitely makes her knives more accessible - these are stored on a belt that runs around her waist and down to the top of each of her burgandy socks (they come up to mid-thigh). Apparently she has three of these knives - the belt accounts for two, the third's whereabouts is a mystery. On her hands are long gloves, and she wears high-heeled boots. I don't know how she runs in those either, but she does it skillfully enough. Around her neck, though obscured from view, would be a 3 carat star sapphire pendant of a deep purple hue. In the game it's faceted, in the anime the stone is a cabochon, so it's up to debate. She also carries a staff with her - it appears to be made of wood with a metal top shaped in the likeness of a blade, only the middle is hollowed out and there are several golden spheres inside of that.
Personality: At first meeting Tear is very professional and follows through with things methodically. She doesn't often joke around (or relax, for that matter). She's been trained as a soldier and has doubtless seen people be killed, and even killed people herself, so her approach to things may come off as cold to those who don't know her well. She was influenced heavily by her instructor, Legretta the Quick, who told her that softness and honesty would quickly get her killed on the battlefield, so Tear tried to become more like the instructor she admired and began masking her emotions and femininity.
She does, however, possess feminine attributes which she does her best to hide - one of these is a penchant for all things cute, be they cheagles, rappigs, or a castle maid's costume. She doesn't seem to have very high self-esteem in terms of her appearance, but will get very flustered when people talk about her body. (She's embarrassed by it, I think, and you can't blame her too much since the only women around were Layla and Legretta, and I don't know if she'd go to them about those sorts of things or not.) She even tells Guy that he doesn't have to think of her as a woman when he reveals he's gynophobic. As for emotions, Tear obviously has these too, and as the game progresses, they become much more obvious. She hates showing weakness and being a burden on other people, and yet when she finds out that she may die, she's just as scared as anyone else would be. She tells Luke to leave her alone because she doesn't want anyone to see her like this (ie. scared/almost in tears), even though he doesn't and just turns around instead. And in the epilogue she openly cries, something she hadn't done in public since she was a small child, and I think that's saying something.
Tear believes in rational thought, and this too is something that she gradually relies on less. She admits to Natalia later in the game that sometimes the only way you can find answers is by letting go; Natalia expresses her surprise at hearing these words from Tear.
Patience is something else Tear possesses, and though she can become irritated easily enough, she prefers offering up warnings seriously and calmly rather than lashing out at people. She understands that results require effort and aren't always immediate. All of that being said, there are still lots of things that Tear's never been exposed to before, and she's able to discover many of these things during the course of the journey. After traveling with her companions for over a year, Tear becomes quite attached to them and admits, after learning that Luke's fonons are separating and that he may soon die, that she wishes there was a way for all of them to remain together.
There are some skits that suggest that Tear has an appreciation for romance (see Keterburg), but she's obviously not very good at expressing those kinds of feelings (again, you can't blame her, as there's nothing to suggest that she's ever been in love before). This is something that all of the party members are able to detect however (sans Luke, because he's an idiot), and in her favor, she does actually confess.
I'm also under the impression that she likes to read, since her house has a small library on its main level. There's a selenia garden out back which she and Van tended to as well.
Abilities/Weaponry/Strengths:
Tear is a melodist which means that [if she knows the meaning, words and melody to fonic hymns] she can sing songs as artes (essentially "magic spells") which will have one effect or another. The six songs she sings are Yulia's fonic hymns, and when combined with a seventh passage and sung in proper order, they form the Grand Fonic Hymn which is said to summon Lorelei, the aggregate sentience of the seventh fonon (English: a visible, thinking, humanoid being comprised of sound particles). Tear can also use base artes, arcane artes, and fonic artes, along with two mystic artes. Her base and arcane artes normally incorporate the use of her staff or throwing knives issued by the Order of Lorelei's military unit (Oracle Knights). Her other abilities are divided between healing and support artes (First Aid, Resurrection, Enhance Cast) and [mostly] light-based artes (Eclair de Larmes, Holy Lance). Many artes will take on another form when cast in a charged field of fonons. Tear is a seventh fonist which means she can control the seventh fonon - basically all healers in the game are seventh fonists, and this allows her to read the Score, a prophecy the world has been following that was written on seven fonstones many years ago during the Dawn-Age in Yulia's time.
Luke comments in-game that Tear's "too strong". Tear has a strong will and has resolved to stop her brother, even if it costs her life. She's also very good at hiding her thoughts and emotions, making her a difficult read (at first). In cases where she is suffering, she'll often deny the fact, which can actually lead to more harm than good, such as when the miasma was infecting her body. Tear is very rational and tries not to let things upset her - she proves reliable and will do what she can in order to help her friends individually or as a whole. Suzanne (Luke's mother) seems to see Tear as a big sister figure for Luke and Natalia.
Tear is a good, if somewhat dull, teacher. She helps instruct Luke in several battle tutorials early in the game, and teaches him how to better control his fonons and hyperresonance as part of a side quest. She can also optionally accompany Luke on a pilgrimage to visit the pillars scattered around Daath, being a member of the Oracle Knights and capable of reading Ancient Ispanian texts.
Tear may not be a wonder chef, but the game hints that her cooking is acceptable, and both Natalia and Anise complimented the cake she had brought along during their second visit to Tataroo Valley. She was not, however, able to do anything to improve the princess' cooking.
Weaknesses:
Battle-wise she's not as fast as she could be and her hymns and fonic artes take time to cast, thus they can be canceled or interrupted. If she was going one-on-one with a skilled or extremely quick opponent, she'd likely be in trouble, and seems to work best as support. I've also read that throwing knives are not incredibly sharp, and neither is her staff, so it's possible that she'd have some difficulty physically finishing off an opponent if she was fighting solo. She's also pretty light and doesn't wear any protective armor, so I'm guessing her defense is probably pretty darn low. She may be particularly susceptible to poisons, too, if they somehow entered her system via fonons/fon slots. Even though the miasma was removed from her body, she spent quite a bit of time enduring pain because of it and was prescribed a medicine to ease its effects. I don't believe any of that is necessary now (medicine and whatnot), but it might have left her weakened.
The rest comes in a list:
1) Cute Things: Oh she loves them deeply, but she doesn't want anyone to know about it. She can often be seen blushing and murmuring about how cute Mieu is... or Emperor Peony's rappigs... or...! She even purchases a rappig doll that Anise later finds out about. Tear's horribly embarrassed, but the promise of chiffon cake seems to be enough to appease the other girl and keep her from blabbing to the others.
2) Her Modesty: Seriously. Do not mention her melons or Tear will become so flustered that she may very well snap and yell at the offender, regardless of the situation. Not good in the middle of something important.
3) Ghosts: It's not explored too much in the game, but in the anime and drama CDs it's pretty obvious that Tear is SCARED TO DEATH of them. I don't know how it started, or why she still believes in them, but you mention them and she will abruptly change the subject. You try calling her out on her fear and she will say very sternly, very forcefully, that you are being ridiculous and there's no such thing as ghosts. If she hears a bump in the night? Well, expect her to grow very tense. If this continues? Her voice will get weak until something jumps out at her upon which point she will scream and quite possibly strangle whoever happens to be closest to her. (Because latching onto another something is the best way to dispel ghosts, obviously.)
4) Luke: This should be fairly apparent. In the beginning Tear made it her business to protect Luke and return him to his manor in Baticul no matter what. Since he was a civilian, she was quite willing to jump in front of an Oracle soldier's sword in order to protect him. Gradually Luke found his resolve and proved that he could take care of himself, but it didn't change the fact that he was still inexperienced and fairly emotional. He needed people to watch him so he wouldn't mess up again. Also gradually, Tear began to develop feelings for Luke, being one of the first people she had grown close to that didn't betray her and all that. Anyone who would promise to always wait for someone to come home, no matter how impossible that return might be, would likely go to great lengths for that person, I think.
5) Van: Well, Van's gone now, but when it came to her brother, Tear would often throw caution to the wind. It is hinted that as a child Tear adored her brother just as much as Luke does early in the game, and she didn't socialize with anyone else very much. He was her only surviving blood relative, and even at the very end, she referred to Van as her "beloved brother". She never did manage to understand him completely, but I'm sure the loss weighs pretty heavily on her heart.
History:
(I tried to keep this as short as humanly possible, which is hard seeing as Abyss is a 50+ hour game. As such, I cut out a lot of details.)
Once upon a time the ground fell. No, not the sky - I really do mean the ground. An island called Hod was destroyed and sank beneath the planet's crust, only the island didn't burn up in the mantle like one might expect because many years earlier a certain genius woman named Yulia Jue proposed that the land be raised into the air so that the people would not be infected by the poisonous miasma that was seeping from the planet's core. This same woman was also able to speak with Lorelei (see above) and through Lorelei was able to see the planet's "memory" which was then transcribed onto seven fonstones as the Score and pulled into the fonbelt surrounding the planet (think: Saturn's rings, only made up of rocks and fonons - fonons are, in a nutshell [magical] sound particles that exist in everything). Suffice it to say Yulia Jue is quite famous, and also suffice it to say that over time these giant rocks broke up and some fell back to Auldrant (the planet). The Score, as a record of the planet's past, present and future became the basis for a global religion and people followed it in order to be granted the prosperity that it promised.
Anyway, back to Hod falling. Hod fell into the Qliphoth (the world beneath the planet's surface - above are the Outer Lands), and one boy in particular, Vandesdelca Musto Fende (later Van Grants) and his mother were found by the Watchers of Yulia City. The mother gave birth to a daughter sometime thereafter and later died, but Mystearica Aura Fende (later Tear Grants) was [lovingly] raised by her big brother and adopted grandfather, Mayor Teodoro Grants.
At age five it was discovered that Tear could control the seventh fonon. Her brother was both surprised and pleased until Tear told him she wanted to join the Oracle Knights to help him out. Van wasn't so pleased anymore, having his own plans in mind and having harbored more than a little bitterness towards the world that had allowed his homeland to be destroyed. But he let her dream - she was a kid after all, and she'd get over the idea.
She didn't.
At about age 14, after being denied access to the Oracle Knights training school in Daath, a home tutor was hired for Tear in Legretta the Quick (real name: Giselle Oslo). Tear had potential and eventually hardened into a soldier. This was helped along when Tear discovered that Van was planning to destroy the Outer Lands as revenge for Hod. Tear, deciding to take action against him, accepts an assignment under Grand Maestro Mohs within the Oracle Knights Intelligence Division to search for the missing Seventh Fonstone. Her real goal, though, is to follow Van to the surface and stop him - killing him if necessary. She tracks him to a manor in the Kingdom of Kimlasca's capital where he has been teaching a young noble swordplay. After putting the servants to sleep with a fonic hymn and facing off against her brother, her efforts are thwarted by Van's student, Luke fon Fabre. A hyperresonance occurs between the seventh fonons present in both of their bodies, and they are blasted into the Tataroo Valley in enemy Malkuth [Empire] territory.
From there Tear takes responsibility in returning Luke to his home in Baticul. This proves much more difficult than originally anticipated - not only are they blown further from the capital than they thought, but Luke is very much a burden - spoiled, arrogant, and highly temperamental. The two (plus the series mascot, Mieu) are arrested and taken aboard a Malkuth landship called the Tartarus where they are interrogated by Colonel Jade Curtiss, Fon Master Ion, and his guardian Anise Tatlin. Luke and Tear join the others' efforts to promote peace between the enemy kingdoms. They meet up with Luke's servant, Guy Cecil, along the way back to Baticul, and shortly after arrival in said city, are sent out on a mission along with Princess Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lanvaldear to evacuate a mining city that is suffering from the poisonous miasma. In the miner's city, Akzeriuth, Van convinces Luke to use his hyperresonance to destroy the Passage Ring supporting the area, falsely stating that it will clear up the miasma and make him a hero. Instead, the whole area collapses and thousands of lives are lost in an instant.
The party is rescued by another one of Tear's hymns and they fall down into the Qliphoth. Tear then takes them to Yulia City, and Luke faces off against a man with an uncanny resemblance to himself, discovers he's only a replica created in the likeness of this "Asch" person, loses to him and falls unconscious. The other party members, disgusted by Luke's selfish behavior, abandon him and return to the world above. Tear had stayed behind (not for Luke, I imagine it was because she didn't have any leads on the location of the Seventh Fonstone or Van, and besides, some of the Oracle Knights were allied with Van and couldn't be trusted). As a result, she is the first to witness Luke's desire to change. He cuts off his hair with one of her Oracle knives and vows to change. He then asks her to watch him. Tear agrees, reminding Luke that she can give up on him at any time.
But she never does.
The two return to the Outer Lands together and eventually meet up with the rest of the party. Tear continues to watch Luke and actually gives him support, initially cautious and cold, but gradually placing her trust in Luke. The group manages to come up with a plan to stop the rest of the land from collapsing and for getting rid of the miasma; with the help of friends and acquaintences, they begin putting these ideas to action. They visit the Sephiroth Trees around the globe and activate the Passage Rings in order to lower the lands slowly into the Qliphoth. In the process, Tear absorbs poisoned fonons into her body, and it's feared that she may die from it. Despite this, they continue lowering the land for everyone's sake. Then there's the problem of stopping the core's liquifaction so that the land doesn't eventually seek into mud - by stopping the vibration of the core. (Saving the world is very involved, you know.) And then there's the part where they defeat Van, but oops, he's not really dead after all and the plan to stop the core's vibration kinda-sorta backfired. After Fon Master Ion is kidnapped for the one hundredth time and forced by Grand Maestro Mohs to read part of the Score, his body is so weakened that he knows he will die - he asked Tear to come close, takes her hand, and draws her contaminated fonons into himself, thus healing her.
As the game progresses, Tear is able to learn more fonic hymns and even put them together into Yulia's legendary Grand Fonic Hymn, she's forced to watch many of her superiors and people precious to her die, and she even nearly loses Luke. She discovers that, after ridding the world of miasma at the Tower of Rem, Luke's body has become weak and the fonons comprising it are coming apart. But they must persevere, because Van still hasn't given up and refuses to listen. Van (with the help of his associates, the God-Generals) creates a replica of Hod island (now Eldrant), and absorbs Lorelei into himself. It takes the entire party to defeat him and the Grand Fonic Hymn to coax out Lorelei. Luke stays behind on the crumbling replica city in order to free Lorelei and send it into the fonbelt surrounding the planet. Tear is the last to leave, begging him to come home and promising to always be waiting for him. The game ends with Luke, holding the now dead Asch, being praised by Lorelei and fading into oblivion.
Following the credits, Tear and the others are waiting in Tataroo Valley on the eve of Luke's (Asch's) 20th birthday. They see a young man approaching in the distance and when Tear asks him why he's there, he comments that the area has a nice view of Hod and that he made a promise. It's left intentionally ambiguous, but many fans believe this person is Luke.
Sample LJ post:
Well then, that proved easy enough.
I would like to extend greetings to anyone who may be able to view this post and takes the time to do so. I have recently been informed that these fontech journals form a communications network that will operate within the city's limits. In any case, I am a first-time visitor to Paixao and would like to request further information about the city itself and any possibility of finding reliable transportation home. If anyone would be willing to offer assistance, I'd be most grateful.
My name is... ...
Anyway, I'll be sure to explain my situation at the proper time.
My thanks in advance.
Sample RP post:
"Florian?"
Tear opened a side door within Daath Cathedral, preparing to scan the unlit room for any possible sign of the green-haired replica (she and Anise had been forced into a game of hide-and-seek) when the door gave way behind her. It wasn't precisely that the door gave way, but that it was no longer there. The melodist was forced to take a step forward to compensate for the sudden change in balance, and as she did so, she found herself standing beneath an unfamiliar gate. In front of her spanned a line of people waiting to get indoors. Aside from the unfamiliar landscape, Tear took immediate note of the unusual clothing.
'Foreigners?' she wondered silently to herself, but that seemed implausible. Tear had traveled throughout Auldrant and had seen a great number of people in the past several years. Even in Chesedonia she hadn't noticed anything of the sort. The architecture itself was even more striking, and after quickly fumbling over a temporary alias and accepting a pocket-sized fonmachine of some sort, Tear found herself within the domed city.
Tear glanced back and forth along the courtyard, finally deciding that it would be best to find a place to stand out of the way and think for a moment. Thinking had suddenly become quite hard. She had managed to overhear references to the city as "Paixao", but as for the specifics of how she had gotten here and how she was supposed to return to Daath Cathedral, she hadn't the slightest.
After a moment of examination, and a few experimental button presses, Tear managed to bring up a map of the area on the screen of the electronic journal she had been given. She didn't know what to think of the situation, but she had her misgivings and decided that it was best to remain alert - it could easily be some sort of trap.
"I certainly won't find any answers simply by standing around," she chided herself. "Perhaps the civilians know something that I'm not currently aware of. Somehow I doubt I'll be able to go back in the same way I arrived."