sirenspull application
Player Information
Name: Shamera
Age: 23
AIM SN: kl0tho
email: klotho@gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yup, on and off through the years.
Bonus: How did you hear about Siren's Pull? ATP!
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Final Fantasy XIII
Canon Format: Video Game
Character's Name: Hope Estheim
Character's Age: 14
What form will your character's NV take?
It looks like a thin chrome rod that separates in half down the middle and slides open to the side at around an seventy-five degree angle like a cell phone. It also has holographic capabilities, projecting from the rod to the side when the item is closed. It has almost hidden buttons on it for people who know how to use it, but for people who don't, it will probably just look like a stick of metal.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
Let's list them from the beginning, shall we? In-game, Hope is a ravager, synergist, and medic with the potential for all the other classes. I'll just take him from those three, though, and then cover a few of the other things that those positions don't involve.
At the beginning of the game, Hope has his normal boomerang skills- he has a futuristic boomerang that can fold small (to fit into his pants pocket... somewhere), and somehow, when he throws it, hits every target he aims at before it returns to him. It's hinted at in the pre-game development rumors, although never confirmed, that it was because boomerangs were a type of extreme sport on Cocoon that Hope learned (I figured it was something like skateboarding for teens). Those are normal skills that he keeps, seeing as it doesn't take much physically and nothing magically- just some extreme calculations in his mind.
When he becomes a l'Cie, though, Hope soon becomes the most powerful magical user in the team (to compensate for his low physical attack and super low HP). He starts off as a ravager- which, in-game, is the primary magical attacker. He can attack with every element in-game, from throwing Blizzard spells to Fira spells quite easily. Eventually as the game progresses, those spells become much more powerful and instead of throwing a single Aero spell, he can summon up a tornado for a brief amount of time, or bombard an entire area with lightning. He can attack with every element in game: listed Fire (Fira, Firaga), Aero (Aerora, Aeroga), Thunder (Thundara, Thundaga), Blizzard (Blizzara, Blizzaga), Water (Watera, Waterga) and is very good with elemental attacks. The first being the basic spell that can be thrown at an enemy, the -ra a much stronger version that can be thrown even further, and the -ga turns it into an area of effect spell.
But, while ravager spells are impressive, enemies tend to recover very quickly if they are not already stunned by a physical attack (it's the stagger meter in the game- ravager spells raise the stagger meter fast, but they do little damage and that meter goes down very quickly unless combined with physical attacks from a commando). His final attack, however, Last Resort, is a physical attack combined with water elements that does massive damage to a single target and smaller damage to anyone standing near that one target.
He gets his next class very quickly, learning to be a synergist, which is a buff class: he can cast shields, both physical and magical, and enhancements in strength and speed, as well as bravery and fortitude and raise all elemental potentials so that anyone who can attack using elemental spells would increase their attack greatly.
Last class is medic, which is somewhat self-explanatory. What's surprising is that he becomes the best medic in-game because Vanille was basically the assigned medic, but as Hope's magic surpassed hers, so did his healing spells. He has the basic cures to heal people, cura and cureja as an area of effect healing spell, esuna which rids all status effects including poisons, and eventually Renew and Raise- which are basically resurrection spells so the player saves on phoenix downs. He doesn't need items to cast magic, either, since he has a constantly refilling mana supply (the atb gauge).
His most amazing attack/defense, however, is most likely his Eidolon (his summon), which comes from the crystal in his brand/blood: Alexander, who is the largest, most powerful, and longest lasting of all the Eidolons in-game. Basically, the most powerful thing in-game, period. The only downside to Alexander is that he moves quite slowly (to compensate for the fact that he can be summoned for the longest time). Eidolons, however, can only be summoned with at least three technical points, which are built up through chaining attacks in-battle so I'm writing it as the more they use their magic, the more crystals build up in their blood until it can be used to summon. However, a character can only have five technical points at a time, so there's a limit to how much of the crystal can build up at once.
Weapons:
Just his boomerang.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:
Hope was born to Bartholomew and Nora Estheim, the former a Sanctum employee and the latter a stay-at-home mother for all intents and purposes. While nothing is known on his early life, it's heavily implied that he was your run-of-the-mill average kid- normal in all aspects, with the exception of being extremely thoughtful and somewhat temperamental about his family.
Episode Zero provided a snippet of Hope's life when he was eight years old and left Palumpolum on a field trip with the rest of his school to see the Sunleth Waterscape. It was the first time the children of his class had stepped onto dirt before, as Cocoon was such a sheltered world that the only places they had dirt around major cities such as Palumpolum that was for the decorative purposes of putting potted plants around. The snippet provided a bit of background information on his family and friends as he spent a day out of his comfort zone and almost got into trouble helping his friend Kai look for his missing camera.
Fast forward to when Hope is 14, and a lot has changed since that field trip- his two friends moved away and his father was gone more than he was home. With Nora attempting to mend the distant relationship between her husband and son, she arranges a trip for their family to Bodhum, to see the fal'Cie and Euride Gorge and the wishing fireworks. Bartholomew continues to call in and delay his trip with them, though, until he finally admits that he's too busy with work to go at all.
And the night after his call, the city of Bodhum is purged by the Sanctum in suspicion of hosting a Pulse l'Cie- enemy of Cocoon, whose purposes were only of mayhem and destruction. Hope and his mother are herded on the train like everyone else, with Nora begging the soldiers to let her son go, to no avail. Hope is terrified, as he had grown up being taught that "Pulse is Hell", and with the information that they were all being put on a one-way trip to Pulse... well, what child wouldn't be?
And that's where the game starts.
Point in Canon:
In the midst of the fight with Barthandelus / Orphan. It's actually the final boss in the game, and after failing to take him down, the enemy hits the entire team hard and they all go down with the exception of Fang. Barthandelus needs her to become Ragnarok, so he tortures Vanille, but the team wakes up and defends her as Fang decides that she will comply with Barthandelus in order to protect her. That's when Fang decides that she will fight against the team if it means saving Vanille- except Barthandelus has super charged her weapon so that the moment she moves to strike against everyone else, they apparently become Cie'th. The truth of the matter was that it was all an illusion, yet the team did disappear and reappear later with renewed determination and their l'Cie brands a brilliant, halted blue. I'm taking him from that point- after he disappeared from the battle, but before he reappeared back in there- so he has the same brilliant blue l'Cie mark but is slightly disoriented since he was taken from the middle of battle.
Character Personality:
Hope's at the very edge of teenage moodiness a lot of times, but he's generally a very kind and thoughtful boy who's extremely sensitive to people's emotions and turmoils, and extremely non-confrontational (unless it's about his family since he gets into quite the tantrum when people talk about his family). Going through his history, he's always been a very kind and quiet child, despite being stupidly sheltered and somewhat spoiled. I mean, he's a kid who's never stepped on dirt before he was eight years old, yet by that age he'll also volunteer to walk into danger to find a lost camera so his friend's little brother could see the pictures that night instead of the next day? He's a stupidly kind kid. And that stupid translates a lot into naivety. He's been described as the one who actively plays the peace-keeper when his friends start yelling at each other, and the one who's sensible and patient, and didn't mind sharing his things despite being an only child to an upper-middle class family. He was taught as a child that promises were extremely important, so he'll do just about anything to keep his promises, no matter how small those promises are. Pre-game, he's an extremely thoughtful child who always had the right words to say when it came to cheering his mother up.
Portrayed in-game, though, Hope is more than a little socially awkward and unsure of himself, and is extremely dependent on the people around him- he was extremely close to his mother before she died (especially after being emotionally estranged with his father and losing contact with his friends after they moved away), and when she was gone, he turned to Lightning as a mentor in order to teach himself how to survive. For a while, he hated his dad for breaking promises to his mom, and went through a violent hatred phase with Snow because he blamed the man for his mother's death... but after getting through that, Hope proves to be extremely optimistic and charismatic. He's the one who gives most of the motivational speeches to the group before going into something big, and even though his words and tone are awkward since he's not used to speaking to groups of people and he still had issues with his own self-confidence, people who listen to him usually regain their determination and focus by the time he's done speaking.
This kid. He's awkward, but he makes you want to fight for the things that he believes in, even if it's only because he's so naively optimistic that you don't want to let him down. Hope draws his confidence from the people around him, though- there's a section in-game that's very telling of this: when Lightning asked him if he was scared before they were supposed to rescue two of their teammates, and he replies very honestly that he was terrified- but it was alright because she, and the rest of the team, were with him.
He's generally polite and has a good amount of respect for adults, and girls in particular, since he's been around some very strong characters. He acts quite meek and timid, usually a little slouched and talks with his head down- he has a habit of lacing his fingers together in front of him and rocking on his heels when he's waiting for something to happen, as well as reaching out and clinging to someone's hands when he's uncertain or wants their attention. He even covers his mouth when he laughs, and covers his face when he cries. He's quite good with animals, and will generally go out of the way to make people happy- all quite child-like behaviour, but when he gets angry, he gets angry; it builds like a slow-burning flame, and when he finally snaps, he pretty much loses sight of everything else but his anger, to the point of murder (but, that will take something very, very extreme- the same way with most people, I think).
Hope has a way with words- he may not use big words, he may be a awkward in speech and mannerisms, but he has a very blunt way of speaking that makes it near impossible to disagree with him- and if he's angry, and the person he's angry at has any sort of conscience at all, then those words cut extremely deep.
At this point in his life, Hope will probably oscillate between being very dependent on other people, to trying to do everything himself because he's growing up. He'll most likely be able to manage on his own, although it wouldn't be a very good experience for him. He is a character that needs other people, I can't seem to emphasize that enough, even though he'd do fine by himself. He's just... at his best when he has someone to look after him, and someone he can worry about in return.
Character Plans:
The Darkness is going to play a large part, and I'd like to make him work at the hospital eventually- in-game, he's surprisingly biased as a character. If playing on auto and teamed with Snow and Lightning, he always shields Lightning first and then Snow, and then himself. When teamed with Vanille and Fang, he always shields himself first, and then Fang, and then Vanille. There is a huge part in chapter 7 when he could have healed Snow's ribs, but doesn't and that puts Snow out of commission for a good part of the chapter. I'd like to emphasize on that bias and develop him into either realizing that he shouldn't discriminate when it comes to his healing and synergist abilities, or learn that he shouldn't help people needlessly or it would come back and haunt him. Maybe literally.
He has to learn to grow up and figure out how to care for himself rather than relying on everyone around him, from finding a place to live to jobs to even making his own food.
Appearance/PB:
Here, have a very big picture.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[A bit of static, and then a tapping noise before it sounds like the phone was dropped and then picked up again with fumbling fingers.]
Hello? Hi, um. I guess I could say I'm new here, but I've got the message about this place bringing people in from just about everywhere and then not letting them leave and--
[More static noises for a few seconds before he continues, quieter and sounding a bit embarrassed.]
I'm looking for my friends. I hope they didn't get pulled here as well, but if they did... I just wanted to say, I'm here, too.
[And the feed cuts off.]
Third Person Sample
He hadn't meant to stay out so late!
Hearing the wailing of the sirens, Hope pressed to run faster as he skid around the corner, the rubber soles of his sneakers protesting against the cracking cement- he was only two blocks away from the apartments, but things were deteriorating fast and he could already see the rot creep up the buildings and onto the streets. He had stayed inside the first few nights after people had described the Darkness to him, listening to the sounds outside with his ear pressed against the pillow and trying his hardest not to think about the monsters that were there.
But now... he huffed as he stumbled forward, limbs awkward as he ran while attempting to catch his balance. He had only meant to explore a little, and had lost track of time. He should have known when people started disappearing from the streets, but Hope had just been relieved that he could walk without bumping into strange people. He had been caught up trying to memorize the layout of streets in his head, and hadn't realized the oncoming Darkness until the sirens started sounding.
An inhuman screech resounded behind him, but he was too scared to look back at it. Looking back meant slowing down, or worse, tripping over something and then coming to a complete stop. Right now he was concentrating on breathing and running, darting between an alley and jumping over whatever was in his way.
One block. He could see the apartments now, and even the lit baseball field. Maybe he was overreacting, right? It had to take the monsters a while to come out, even if the rot was quick and spread like a river across the streets. He was starting to slip in it already, but didn't slow down. He could feel his lungs and throat burning, but it was so close...! Just--
It was almost inevitable how he managed to trip over a loose stone and fall forward hard, teeth clenched as the fall jarred his bones and left his elbows and chin scraped raw. His mind blanked for just a moment from the pain, tasting blood in his mouth as he realized he had bit into his cheek, and trying to draw air into his startled lungs.
And it was just that second's pause that allowed his vision to be shadowed, and he looked up from where he fell with wide eyes to see a shadowed being with a single red eye and a gaping mouth of a body.