ooc - application
Mun
Name: Silvie
Livejournal Username: silvie_chan
E-mail: ladysilverdragon [at] hotmail [dot] com
AIM/MSN: AIM: thewondertwit MSN ladysilverdragon [at] hotmail [dot] com
Character
Name: Shirley Fennes
Fandom: Tales of Legendia
Gender: Female
Age: 15
Time Period:
Wing Color: "Maya" Blue (Here.)
History: Shirley is the Merines, the destined savior of the Ferines. From birth, she was revered and respected as a savior by the members of her village. Shirley’s parents died when she was very young, resulting in her being raised primarily by an old woman named Miriam and her older sister Stella. Though she was the darling of the village, Shirley always felt isolated from others because of her status as the Merines.
Shirley’s life and destiny was changed forever the day she met Senel Coolidge, a young Orerines boy taken in by the villagers. It was Senel who taught her that Ferines and Orerines could live together side-by-side, peacefully. Shirley even fell a little in love with him, although he always had eyes for Stella, a fact which has always hurt Shirley. Still, the three of them were quite inseparable, and the years they shared were very happy.
Unfortunately, this all came to an end when Shirley first attempted the Rite of Accession, a special ceremony for the Merines to come into her power by communing with the will of the ocean, Nerifes. Shirley failed that Rite, and became deathly ill. It was only because of a special kind of stone called “the tear of the sea,” found by Senel and Stella, that she survived. And though she survived, it was not without price: Shirley could no longer use her eres, manifest her teriques, and she developed a severe allergy to anything that had to do with the sea. Drinking, or falling into the ocean would cause her to collapse with fever; even its breeze was like poison to her. She had been rejected by Nerifes, the will of the ocean and god of the Ferines.
It was not long after that when Crusand, who had followed the unwitting Stella and Senel beck to the village, attacked the village in order to capture the legendary Merines. Stella sacrificed herself to allow Senel and Shirley to escape, leading Shirley and Senel to believe that she had died in the attack. For three years, Senel and Shirley lived on the run for Crusand, never staying in one place for too long for fear of being discovered. Shirley herself rarely interacted with anyone but Senel: her blonde hair marked her immediately as a “Radiant” to the people of the mainland. It was during this time when Shirley found herself falling deeply in love with Senel, even though she called him her brother and he her sister, and had the hope that one day would look at her in the same way he had always looked at Stella.
This charade would come to an end when, on a routine patrol mission for the Alliance Marines, Senel (and Shirley, who was never far from his side, even when his work took him on the treacherous sea) ended up crashing his little boat into the Legacy, a mysterious roaming continent covered with ancient ruins. Their arrival was marked by a soft golden light, a sign that the Merines had returned. Despite Senel and Shirley’s efforts to hide that part of her identity, and her heritage as a Ferines, Shirley found herself being kidnapped by a bandit named Moses Sandor not an hour after her arrival on the ship. This would be the first of many kidnappings, as Shirley was stolen back and forth by a number of vying forces. Vaclav Bolud, the cunning and ruthless prince of Crusand, was the strongest of these forces. He was determined to use the power of the Merines to wake the Legacy’s ancient weapons and use them to annihilate the Kingdom of Gadoria, the country with which Crusand was at war.
During her captivity, Shirley met Fenimore, a helpless Ferines girl and fellow captive of Vaclav. Fenimore was the last remaining Ferines of all that Vaclav had captured; she had watched as the rest of them were slowly tortured to death. Their relationship was rocky at first, especially once Fenimore learned that Shirley was the Merines, but it would end up being one of the driving forces of Shirley’s life. During an incident in the Waterways, where she was nearly rescued by Senel, Shirley met Walter, the guardian of the Merines. Walter was one of the men out to “kidnap” her - although he saw it as more of a rescue from the Orerines. However, Shirley was separated from them both in the Waterways, when she lead the Crusand soldiers away from the injured pair to save them.
Shortly thereafter, Vaclav cruelly revealed part of the truth of what had happened three years ago: that Stella had never died, and had been his captive for the past three years, deep in a coma. Vaclav then used the power of the sisters to restore the Bridge, the primary controlling mechanism of the Legacy, and to activate the Nerifes Cannon, the Legacy’s largest and most dangerous cannon. Senel arrived too late to stop the first shot of the cannon, which destroyed Mount Zeriques, the largest mountain of the world. He was also unable to stop Vaclav from firing the cannon again, this time aimed at the capitol of Gadoria, Baltoga. Shirley attempted to stop the cannon from firing herself (for it’s said that the Merines has the power to control the Legacy), but she, too, was unable to stop it from firing. The unconscious Stella used her teriques to stop the second blast from hitting its target, but was fatally wounded in the process. The stone that saved Shirley’s life before granted Stella a few moments in the world of the waking to wish her sister and Senel happiness, and to tell Shirley that her power existed to “make people happy.”
With those words in her heart, Shirley set out to attempt the Rite of Accession again. Before she did so, she tried confessing her feelings to Senel, but was shot down before she could even complete her sentence. She ascended the Altar of the Sea with a group of Ferines, which included Fenimore. For many hours, Nerifes remained silent, and the ceremony seemed to have failed. During the ceremony, a group of Gadorian soldiers came and attacked the group, attempting to arrest Shirley for purported “war crimes” against Gadoria. When Shirley tried to protect one of her followers, Fenimore darted in front of her, taking the blade and suffering a fatal blow. Helpless, Shirley held her, pleading for someone to come and heal Fenimore. No one came to her aid, and Fenimore died in her arms. The Gadorian captain then told her, in no uncertain terms, that he hated her and all of her people, and that all Radiant must be destroyed in order for mankind to survive.
It was in this moment that Shirley became receptive to Nerifes’ voice. Shirley then realized what had happened during her first Rite of Accession: that she had failed it on purpose. For, if she became the Merines, she would have had to kill Senel. Nerifes’ wish was for all Orerines to die and for the mainland to be destroyed. In her grief, anger, and pain, Shirley finally accepted Nerifes’ wish and awakened as the Merines. Senel’s group arrived too late to dissuade her; when they tried, she removed “the blessings of Nerifes,” their eres. Along with Maurits, Walter, and a group of militant Ferines, she then went to Mirage Palace to revive the Wings of Light, an ancient weapon that was the cause of the Cataclysm, a traumatic event on the world that had destroyed half of the world’s land.
Shirley came very close to bringing about a second Cataclysm, which would destroyed what was left of the mainland and would have been the cause of her own death. She was very nearly overwhelmed by the pain of her loss, by Nerifes’ anger, and the fact that Senel had only ever entered her life to kidnap her for Crusand. Still, none of it was quite enough to push her over that final edge - because when it came down to it, Shirley herself had never wanted to trigger the Cataclysm. All Shirley had ever wanted was to live side-by-side with Senel and for her people to live freely, and peacefully. It was Senel who reminded her of this wish, who gave her the strength to set aside that terrible anger and stand up to the spirit of the world. Together, with the odd group of friends Senel found himself a part of, they proved to Nerifes that their desire to live in peace was stronger than its anger. After a fierce battle, the ocean calmed for the first time since the Orerines had come to Melfes in their white ship.
Afterwards, Shirley made her home in Werites Beacon with Musette. She served as a bridge between the Orerines and Ferines, and devoted her time to forging the peace between the two races. However, these negotiations were often interrupted by the presence of a strange black mist, which seemed to bring with it all sorts of trouble. When Senel’s group gathered together again to investigate it, Shirley joined them, lending the power of her restored crystal eres and teriques to the effort. One by one, each member of the group was forced to face their deepest fears and darkest selves. All the while, the dark mist grew stronger. It was revealed that the cause of this black mist was a woman named Schwartz, an entity called the Guide to Nothingness, who sought to return the world to its original state of nothingness. In direct opposition to her was Grune, an entity called the Weaver of Time, who had been traveling with them all along. Even though it would most certainly mean their “miserable deaths,” the group decided to fight Schwartz directly. To do this, they sought out Nerifes’. After proving their worth, they received the true power of sacred eres. They then entered a place called the Cradle of Time, the place where time both begins and ends to face Schwartz.
It was during the battle that Shirley will believe that she was drawn into Luceti, when Schwartz attempted to drown the group with her black mist.
Personality: Shirley is a woman who has seen both some of the best and the worst things that life has to show. Despite it all, she has remained a kind and gentle young woman who wants to believe that inherent good nature of humanity. Idealistic, Shirley strives to put an end to the discrimination between Ferines and Orerines on both sides of the struggle. Her dream is to walk in a world where Ferines and Orerines live side by side, peacefully. In her own words, “There are no Ferines. No Orerines. There’s just us.”
Shirley is a very sweet person who cares very deeply those around her, especially those she considers her family. She dislikes conflict and seeing people in conflict around her, so she naturally tries her best to resolve it. She is shy, but not introverted; Shirley enjoys being around people, especially girls her age, and wants very much to be liked by the people she interacts with. She tends to be a little awkward socially, because she’s only very recently began to live among people other than Senel. She is also a very polite person and normally quite softspoken. These traits help mask her social awkwardness, but not completely. (“She does look like a monkey.” “Shirley, you’re not supposed to actually say it out loud.” “Oh, right. I’m sorry. Please forget I said that.”)
Something that Shirley has been working to correct in herself is her passive, bordering on passive-aggressive, behavior. From birth, Shirley has submitted to the destiny of the Merines and only recently has she accepted that identity on her own terms, instead those of Nerifes or other Ferines. Shirley is used to having the desires of others being pushed upon her, and being used to further someone else’s plans. Simply put, Shirley is used to always giving in. When she has been hurt, or became angry, Shirley rarely admitted it. Instead, she would keep the hurt and anger inside, where it would fester and grow. Sometimes she would quietly lash out in subtle, hurtful ways. When Senel rejected her (because he “needed to be with Stella”) she told him this: “I bet she's happy... Stella was in love with you the whole time. Did you know that? She was always looking at you, from the moment we met.”
However, Shirley has recently begun to set aside those behaviors. She’s learning how to express herself, and how to properly talk to people - and how to tease with them, too. She’s still very softspoken and has the tendency to be passive in daily life, but she’s no longer afraid to stand up for what she believes in and what she wants to happen. She’s very determined to see peace between the Ferines and the Orerines, and gives her all to make that peace a reality. Shirley has grown a great deal in the time since she has arrived on the Legacy, and she’s taking steps to grow even more.
Strengths
Physical
ERES; Shirley is a crystal eren. To cast her spell, she uses items such as quills, pens, and other writing utensils to focus the spell; when she is casting, she appears to be physically writing the incantation of the spell in the air. While she canonically has the lowest intelligence statistic in her game, her personal spells have a significant boost in potency (and pinkness) compared to those of her fellow crystal erens. Shirley has healing, support, and offensive eres. As part of coming to Luceti, her spells are about half as powerful as they normally are. They are still, however, very pink.
TERIQUES; Like all other Ferines, Shirley can manifest her spirit in the physical world called a teriques. Her teriques is a pale, shining blue, and normally takes the form of a large butterfly. She can use it to attack in battle and to form a “shield” around a person, which can serve both as a protection and a restraint. When Shirley uses it as a restraint, it is extremely hard to break out of. When confronted as the Merines, it took the combined strength of the entire party to free just Senel from his bonds. As the Merines, her teriques manifested as a pair of large wings upon her back. As part of coming to Luceti, her teriques has been reduced in both size and power about 50%.
Mental
SPIRITUALITY; Now that Shirley has awakened as the Merines, she is sensitive to entities outside the normal physical experience, such as spirits. She hears what she calls “the voice of the sea,” which is in reality, the entity Nerifes. She is the only person in her world capable of communicating with Nerifes without losing her sanity. She has a natural affinity to the water, and the sea, and any spirits affiliated to it.
Emotional
TRUSTING; Shirley believes in the best of people, always. She believes that people, as a whole, want to live peacefully and happily. She trusts in the inherent good nature of a person. She is especially trusting of Senel, as well as the group she traveled with on the Legacy. She draws a great deal strength from those bonds. Once a person gets to know Shirley, they also find that she herself is an easy person to trust.
EMPATHY; Shirley is a very kind, and gentle person, who feels deeply for people. She can’t stand to see a person, Ferines or Orerines, suffering. When she sees a person in need, her first instinct is to try and help them. Even when it was not in her power, Shirley would always try to assist people using her power as the Merines, be it a city of Orerines or her best friend dying in her arms. She does her best to support her friends and family.
Weaknesses
Physical
FRALITY; While Shirley is no longer severed from Nerifes (and therefore, no longer allergic to the sea), she is still a physically frail young woman. With her shoes on, Shirley reaches a grand height of 5’1”. She has a slim build that causes her to be easily knocked down and dragged off. Other than her teriques, Shirley has no real physical defenses.
Mental
PASSIVITY; In the past, Shirley has been passive to the point of taking on the wishes and desires of someone else and allowing them to supersede her own. This is a flaw that Shirley is working very hard to correct herself. However, it still manifests in some conflicts, and when Shirley is feeling angry or upset. She still has a tendency to back down when conflict arises, and has difficulty being direct when she’s angry, but it’s something she’s working on.
SELF-CONCIOUSNESS; Like most girls her age, Shirley is self-conscious about her appearance, height, and her chest. This is something she has difficulty communicating, because she feels embarrassed about being self-conscious in the first place. There are several instances in the game where Shirley remarks that she wishes she could be “more like” the other girls in terms of height (and bust size).
Emotional
DEPENDENCE; Shirley is very dependent on the people she trusts, to the point of weakness. Losing them sends her immediately down a downward spiral. Being apart from her support literally depresses her; enough that when she was living in the Ferines village, Fenimore was able to spot her listlessness and was concerned enough to miss the boat back to her village. Shirley is still very dependent, although she’s learning to live on her own: from the point she was taken from, Shirley was living with Madam Musette.
LOW SELF-ESTEEM; Shirley has suffered from low self-esteem in the past, and it’s still something she struggles with. When she was severed from Nerifes, Shirley was constantly confronted with how she wasn’t “good enough” to save the people whom she loved. Shirley has struggled with feelings of inferiority in regards to Stella since she was very young, especially once they met Senel and after what happened on the Bridge. After the incident at the Wings of Light, Shirley has been doing a lot better in this regard -- but there are still doubts that niggle in the back of her mind, ones that can be hard for her to dispel.
Samples
First Person:
Oh... this is... I don’t think I know this place at all... the Legacy’s trees aren’t like this. Um. Maybe this is ... a mainland forest? But, I... I don’t understand. How could I be on the mainland?... I was on the Legacy, before -- ... before the Cradle of Time. Grune said it was the place where time began, and ... where it ended. It was such an eerie place... so twisted, and awful... like a bad dream come to life...
... but I need to be there. What if ... what if everyone else is still there? I - I can’t let them fight Schwartz alone!... I need to find a way back. I need to and ... and I’m going to.
Senel ... Grune ... everyone... please, wait just a little while. I’m going to find you. Please, be safe...
Third Person: Frost gathering on her lashes from the cold of the mist, Shirley closes her eyes - (only for a moment, to stop them from watering, it was just for a moment) - and when she opens them, finds that everything has changed. Before she can even process it, dizziness and pain hit like a hammer to her temple, and Shirley finds herself collapsing to her knees. The world dances and weaves before her eyes in a way that makes her nauseous. Shirley swallows and closes her eyes. She crouches wherever she is for a moment, bowing her head and clutching her shoulders, while muscles twitch and spasm oddly in her back.
After a while, she can feel the dizziness begin to pass; the pain, however, stays with her. There’s a dull an ache in her shoulders, stinging scrapes on her knees from where she fell, and a headache pounding behind her eyes. Shirley lifts her head to warily view her surroundings.
The first thing she notices is the river. She is kneeling on its muddy banks, while it runs cheerfully in front of her. It is deep and the air around it is cold; Shirley breathes it in, and tastes the spring. The water runs quickly with the spring melt. It’s a comfort, to have running water so close. All water runs towards the sea. As long as she keeps close by it, there will always be an easy way for her to run - if things would come to it. Shirley shivers, and rubs muddy hands on her shoulders. She hopes it doesn’t come to that: she’s tired of running.
Next are the trees, tall and bare. Shirley stares around her, eyes wide. They seem to reach up into forever. They aren’t like the trees in the Crystal Forest, which are twisting spires of sparkling crystal, or like the trees of the Forest of No Return, which are short and squat and forever thick with leaves. Her stomach sinks and the thought that she is no longer on the Legacy crosses her mind. The thought is frightening, in a way that traveling to kill a goddess strangely isn’t - because at least then she wasn’t alone.
“Hello?...” Even to her, Shirley’s voice sounds small and wavering, like a little girl’s. It’s swallowed up whole by these great big woods; enveloped in the sound of the riverwater.
Name: Silvie
Livejournal Username: silvie_chan
E-mail: ladysilverdragon [at] hotmail [dot] com
AIM/MSN: AIM: thewondertwit MSN ladysilverdragon [at] hotmail [dot] com
Character
Name: Shirley Fennes
Fandom: Tales of Legendia
Gender: Female
Age: 15
Time Period:
Wing Color: "Maya" Blue (Here.)
History: Shirley is the Merines, the destined savior of the Ferines. From birth, she was revered and respected as a savior by the members of her village. Shirley’s parents died when she was very young, resulting in her being raised primarily by an old woman named Miriam and her older sister Stella. Though she was the darling of the village, Shirley always felt isolated from others because of her status as the Merines.
Shirley’s life and destiny was changed forever the day she met Senel Coolidge, a young Orerines boy taken in by the villagers. It was Senel who taught her that Ferines and Orerines could live together side-by-side, peacefully. Shirley even fell a little in love with him, although he always had eyes for Stella, a fact which has always hurt Shirley. Still, the three of them were quite inseparable, and the years they shared were very happy.
Unfortunately, this all came to an end when Shirley first attempted the Rite of Accession, a special ceremony for the Merines to come into her power by communing with the will of the ocean, Nerifes. Shirley failed that Rite, and became deathly ill. It was only because of a special kind of stone called “the tear of the sea,” found by Senel and Stella, that she survived. And though she survived, it was not without price: Shirley could no longer use her eres, manifest her teriques, and she developed a severe allergy to anything that had to do with the sea. Drinking, or falling into the ocean would cause her to collapse with fever; even its breeze was like poison to her. She had been rejected by Nerifes, the will of the ocean and god of the Ferines.
It was not long after that when Crusand, who had followed the unwitting Stella and Senel beck to the village, attacked the village in order to capture the legendary Merines. Stella sacrificed herself to allow Senel and Shirley to escape, leading Shirley and Senel to believe that she had died in the attack. For three years, Senel and Shirley lived on the run for Crusand, never staying in one place for too long for fear of being discovered. Shirley herself rarely interacted with anyone but Senel: her blonde hair marked her immediately as a “Radiant” to the people of the mainland. It was during this time when Shirley found herself falling deeply in love with Senel, even though she called him her brother and he her sister, and had the hope that one day would look at her in the same way he had always looked at Stella.
This charade would come to an end when, on a routine patrol mission for the Alliance Marines, Senel (and Shirley, who was never far from his side, even when his work took him on the treacherous sea) ended up crashing his little boat into the Legacy, a mysterious roaming continent covered with ancient ruins. Their arrival was marked by a soft golden light, a sign that the Merines had returned. Despite Senel and Shirley’s efforts to hide that part of her identity, and her heritage as a Ferines, Shirley found herself being kidnapped by a bandit named Moses Sandor not an hour after her arrival on the ship. This would be the first of many kidnappings, as Shirley was stolen back and forth by a number of vying forces. Vaclav Bolud, the cunning and ruthless prince of Crusand, was the strongest of these forces. He was determined to use the power of the Merines to wake the Legacy’s ancient weapons and use them to annihilate the Kingdom of Gadoria, the country with which Crusand was at war.
During her captivity, Shirley met Fenimore, a helpless Ferines girl and fellow captive of Vaclav. Fenimore was the last remaining Ferines of all that Vaclav had captured; she had watched as the rest of them were slowly tortured to death. Their relationship was rocky at first, especially once Fenimore learned that Shirley was the Merines, but it would end up being one of the driving forces of Shirley’s life. During an incident in the Waterways, where she was nearly rescued by Senel, Shirley met Walter, the guardian of the Merines. Walter was one of the men out to “kidnap” her - although he saw it as more of a rescue from the Orerines. However, Shirley was separated from them both in the Waterways, when she lead the Crusand soldiers away from the injured pair to save them.
Shortly thereafter, Vaclav cruelly revealed part of the truth of what had happened three years ago: that Stella had never died, and had been his captive for the past three years, deep in a coma. Vaclav then used the power of the sisters to restore the Bridge, the primary controlling mechanism of the Legacy, and to activate the Nerifes Cannon, the Legacy’s largest and most dangerous cannon. Senel arrived too late to stop the first shot of the cannon, which destroyed Mount Zeriques, the largest mountain of the world. He was also unable to stop Vaclav from firing the cannon again, this time aimed at the capitol of Gadoria, Baltoga. Shirley attempted to stop the cannon from firing herself (for it’s said that the Merines has the power to control the Legacy), but she, too, was unable to stop it from firing. The unconscious Stella used her teriques to stop the second blast from hitting its target, but was fatally wounded in the process. The stone that saved Shirley’s life before granted Stella a few moments in the world of the waking to wish her sister and Senel happiness, and to tell Shirley that her power existed to “make people happy.”
With those words in her heart, Shirley set out to attempt the Rite of Accession again. Before she did so, she tried confessing her feelings to Senel, but was shot down before she could even complete her sentence. She ascended the Altar of the Sea with a group of Ferines, which included Fenimore. For many hours, Nerifes remained silent, and the ceremony seemed to have failed. During the ceremony, a group of Gadorian soldiers came and attacked the group, attempting to arrest Shirley for purported “war crimes” against Gadoria. When Shirley tried to protect one of her followers, Fenimore darted in front of her, taking the blade and suffering a fatal blow. Helpless, Shirley held her, pleading for someone to come and heal Fenimore. No one came to her aid, and Fenimore died in her arms. The Gadorian captain then told her, in no uncertain terms, that he hated her and all of her people, and that all Radiant must be destroyed in order for mankind to survive.
It was in this moment that Shirley became receptive to Nerifes’ voice. Shirley then realized what had happened during her first Rite of Accession: that she had failed it on purpose. For, if she became the Merines, she would have had to kill Senel. Nerifes’ wish was for all Orerines to die and for the mainland to be destroyed. In her grief, anger, and pain, Shirley finally accepted Nerifes’ wish and awakened as the Merines. Senel’s group arrived too late to dissuade her; when they tried, she removed “the blessings of Nerifes,” their eres. Along with Maurits, Walter, and a group of militant Ferines, she then went to Mirage Palace to revive the Wings of Light, an ancient weapon that was the cause of the Cataclysm, a traumatic event on the world that had destroyed half of the world’s land.
Shirley came very close to bringing about a second Cataclysm, which would destroyed what was left of the mainland and would have been the cause of her own death. She was very nearly overwhelmed by the pain of her loss, by Nerifes’ anger, and the fact that Senel had only ever entered her life to kidnap her for Crusand. Still, none of it was quite enough to push her over that final edge - because when it came down to it, Shirley herself had never wanted to trigger the Cataclysm. All Shirley had ever wanted was to live side-by-side with Senel and for her people to live freely, and peacefully. It was Senel who reminded her of this wish, who gave her the strength to set aside that terrible anger and stand up to the spirit of the world. Together, with the odd group of friends Senel found himself a part of, they proved to Nerifes that their desire to live in peace was stronger than its anger. After a fierce battle, the ocean calmed for the first time since the Orerines had come to Melfes in their white ship.
Afterwards, Shirley made her home in Werites Beacon with Musette. She served as a bridge between the Orerines and Ferines, and devoted her time to forging the peace between the two races. However, these negotiations were often interrupted by the presence of a strange black mist, which seemed to bring with it all sorts of trouble. When Senel’s group gathered together again to investigate it, Shirley joined them, lending the power of her restored crystal eres and teriques to the effort. One by one, each member of the group was forced to face their deepest fears and darkest selves. All the while, the dark mist grew stronger. It was revealed that the cause of this black mist was a woman named Schwartz, an entity called the Guide to Nothingness, who sought to return the world to its original state of nothingness. In direct opposition to her was Grune, an entity called the Weaver of Time, who had been traveling with them all along. Even though it would most certainly mean their “miserable deaths,” the group decided to fight Schwartz directly. To do this, they sought out Nerifes’. After proving their worth, they received the true power of sacred eres. They then entered a place called the Cradle of Time, the place where time both begins and ends to face Schwartz.
It was during the battle that Shirley will believe that she was drawn into Luceti, when Schwartz attempted to drown the group with her black mist.
Personality: Shirley is a woman who has seen both some of the best and the worst things that life has to show. Despite it all, she has remained a kind and gentle young woman who wants to believe that inherent good nature of humanity. Idealistic, Shirley strives to put an end to the discrimination between Ferines and Orerines on both sides of the struggle. Her dream is to walk in a world where Ferines and Orerines live side by side, peacefully. In her own words, “There are no Ferines. No Orerines. There’s just us.”
Shirley is a very sweet person who cares very deeply those around her, especially those she considers her family. She dislikes conflict and seeing people in conflict around her, so she naturally tries her best to resolve it. She is shy, but not introverted; Shirley enjoys being around people, especially girls her age, and wants very much to be liked by the people she interacts with. She tends to be a little awkward socially, because she’s only very recently began to live among people other than Senel. She is also a very polite person and normally quite softspoken. These traits help mask her social awkwardness, but not completely. (“She does look like a monkey.” “Shirley, you’re not supposed to actually say it out loud.” “Oh, right. I’m sorry. Please forget I said that.”)
Something that Shirley has been working to correct in herself is her passive, bordering on passive-aggressive, behavior. From birth, Shirley has submitted to the destiny of the Merines and only recently has she accepted that identity on her own terms, instead those of Nerifes or other Ferines. Shirley is used to having the desires of others being pushed upon her, and being used to further someone else’s plans. Simply put, Shirley is used to always giving in. When she has been hurt, or became angry, Shirley rarely admitted it. Instead, she would keep the hurt and anger inside, where it would fester and grow. Sometimes she would quietly lash out in subtle, hurtful ways. When Senel rejected her (because he “needed to be with Stella”) she told him this: “I bet she's happy... Stella was in love with you the whole time. Did you know that? She was always looking at you, from the moment we met.”
However, Shirley has recently begun to set aside those behaviors. She’s learning how to express herself, and how to properly talk to people - and how to tease with them, too. She’s still very softspoken and has the tendency to be passive in daily life, but she’s no longer afraid to stand up for what she believes in and what she wants to happen. She’s very determined to see peace between the Ferines and the Orerines, and gives her all to make that peace a reality. Shirley has grown a great deal in the time since she has arrived on the Legacy, and she’s taking steps to grow even more.
Strengths
Physical
ERES; Shirley is a crystal eren. To cast her spell, she uses items such as quills, pens, and other writing utensils to focus the spell; when she is casting, she appears to be physically writing the incantation of the spell in the air. While she canonically has the lowest intelligence statistic in her game, her personal spells have a significant boost in potency (and pinkness) compared to those of her fellow crystal erens. Shirley has healing, support, and offensive eres. As part of coming to Luceti, her spells are about half as powerful as they normally are. They are still, however, very pink.
TERIQUES; Like all other Ferines, Shirley can manifest her spirit in the physical world called a teriques. Her teriques is a pale, shining blue, and normally takes the form of a large butterfly. She can use it to attack in battle and to form a “shield” around a person, which can serve both as a protection and a restraint. When Shirley uses it as a restraint, it is extremely hard to break out of. When confronted as the Merines, it took the combined strength of the entire party to free just Senel from his bonds. As the Merines, her teriques manifested as a pair of large wings upon her back. As part of coming to Luceti, her teriques has been reduced in both size and power about 50%.
Mental
SPIRITUALITY; Now that Shirley has awakened as the Merines, she is sensitive to entities outside the normal physical experience, such as spirits. She hears what she calls “the voice of the sea,” which is in reality, the entity Nerifes. She is the only person in her world capable of communicating with Nerifes without losing her sanity. She has a natural affinity to the water, and the sea, and any spirits affiliated to it.
Emotional
TRUSTING; Shirley believes in the best of people, always. She believes that people, as a whole, want to live peacefully and happily. She trusts in the inherent good nature of a person. She is especially trusting of Senel, as well as the group she traveled with on the Legacy. She draws a great deal strength from those bonds. Once a person gets to know Shirley, they also find that she herself is an easy person to trust.
EMPATHY; Shirley is a very kind, and gentle person, who feels deeply for people. She can’t stand to see a person, Ferines or Orerines, suffering. When she sees a person in need, her first instinct is to try and help them. Even when it was not in her power, Shirley would always try to assist people using her power as the Merines, be it a city of Orerines or her best friend dying in her arms. She does her best to support her friends and family.
Weaknesses
Physical
FRALITY; While Shirley is no longer severed from Nerifes (and therefore, no longer allergic to the sea), she is still a physically frail young woman. With her shoes on, Shirley reaches a grand height of 5’1”. She has a slim build that causes her to be easily knocked down and dragged off. Other than her teriques, Shirley has no real physical defenses.
Mental
PASSIVITY; In the past, Shirley has been passive to the point of taking on the wishes and desires of someone else and allowing them to supersede her own. This is a flaw that Shirley is working very hard to correct herself. However, it still manifests in some conflicts, and when Shirley is feeling angry or upset. She still has a tendency to back down when conflict arises, and has difficulty being direct when she’s angry, but it’s something she’s working on.
SELF-CONCIOUSNESS; Like most girls her age, Shirley is self-conscious about her appearance, height, and her chest. This is something she has difficulty communicating, because she feels embarrassed about being self-conscious in the first place. There are several instances in the game where Shirley remarks that she wishes she could be “more like” the other girls in terms of height (and bust size).
Emotional
DEPENDENCE; Shirley is very dependent on the people she trusts, to the point of weakness. Losing them sends her immediately down a downward spiral. Being apart from her support literally depresses her; enough that when she was living in the Ferines village, Fenimore was able to spot her listlessness and was concerned enough to miss the boat back to her village. Shirley is still very dependent, although she’s learning to live on her own: from the point she was taken from, Shirley was living with Madam Musette.
LOW SELF-ESTEEM; Shirley has suffered from low self-esteem in the past, and it’s still something she struggles with. When she was severed from Nerifes, Shirley was constantly confronted with how she wasn’t “good enough” to save the people whom she loved. Shirley has struggled with feelings of inferiority in regards to Stella since she was very young, especially once they met Senel and after what happened on the Bridge. After the incident at the Wings of Light, Shirley has been doing a lot better in this regard -- but there are still doubts that niggle in the back of her mind, ones that can be hard for her to dispel.
Samples
First Person:
Oh... this is... I don’t think I know this place at all... the Legacy’s trees aren’t like this. Um. Maybe this is ... a mainland forest? But, I... I don’t understand. How could I be on the mainland?... I was on the Legacy, before -- ... before the Cradle of Time. Grune said it was the place where time began, and ... where it ended. It was such an eerie place... so twisted, and awful... like a bad dream come to life...
... but I need to be there. What if ... what if everyone else is still there? I - I can’t let them fight Schwartz alone!... I need to find a way back. I need to and ... and I’m going to.
Senel ... Grune ... everyone... please, wait just a little while. I’m going to find you. Please, be safe...
Third Person: Frost gathering on her lashes from the cold of the mist, Shirley closes her eyes - (only for a moment, to stop them from watering, it was just for a moment) - and when she opens them, finds that everything has changed. Before she can even process it, dizziness and pain hit like a hammer to her temple, and Shirley finds herself collapsing to her knees. The world dances and weaves before her eyes in a way that makes her nauseous. Shirley swallows and closes her eyes. She crouches wherever she is for a moment, bowing her head and clutching her shoulders, while muscles twitch and spasm oddly in her back.
After a while, she can feel the dizziness begin to pass; the pain, however, stays with her. There’s a dull an ache in her shoulders, stinging scrapes on her knees from where she fell, and a headache pounding behind her eyes. Shirley lifts her head to warily view her surroundings.
The first thing she notices is the river. She is kneeling on its muddy banks, while it runs cheerfully in front of her. It is deep and the air around it is cold; Shirley breathes it in, and tastes the spring. The water runs quickly with the spring melt. It’s a comfort, to have running water so close. All water runs towards the sea. As long as she keeps close by it, there will always be an easy way for her to run - if things would come to it. Shirley shivers, and rubs muddy hands on her shoulders. She hopes it doesn’t come to that: she’s tired of running.
Next are the trees, tall and bare. Shirley stares around her, eyes wide. They seem to reach up into forever. They aren’t like the trees in the Crystal Forest, which are twisting spires of sparkling crystal, or like the trees of the Forest of No Return, which are short and squat and forever thick with leaves. Her stomach sinks and the thought that she is no longer on the Legacy crosses her mind. The thought is frightening, in a way that traveling to kill a goddess strangely isn’t - because at least then she wasn’t alone.
“Hello?...” Even to her, Shirley’s voice sounds small and wavering, like a little girl’s. It’s swallowed up whole by these great big woods; enveloped in the sound of the riverwater.