hiddenbygods application

[madamemoiselle]

Mun
Name/Nickname: Christy
Age: 20! but not for long may 21st fuck yeah
Dreamwidth Username: swagu
Contact: veracitatem
Current Characters in Game: N/A

Character
Character Name: Diva
Canon: Blood+
Age: 174; Appears to be late teens/early 20s
Appearance: looking rude
Canon Point: Post-canon, but she's also carrying over development and CR from asgardeventide up to May 7th, 2012
History: Blood+ doesn't really have a good write-up of the history, especially as it relates to Diva, so I wrote my own.
AU History:
In Asgard, Diva made her grand entrance after her death by immediately killing some random person, and thus revealing to the people of Asgard that she was dangerous and unstable from the get-go. This sort of set a precedent for her stay in the game, really. She spent some time getting used to the strange new city that she'd found herself in, enjoying her newfound freedom without much interest until she made better friends with Kaz (OC). Getting to know him better, she discovered that he was also not human and that his diet tended towards humans. With this basic bond, they started going on "dinner dates" to murder and eat the NPCs of Asgard. Appropriately, these events started at about the same time she met Cheriour (OC), an angel of justice. Stupidly, she made it clear to him from their first conversation that she was murderous and had no qualms about this whatsoever.

On their second dinner date, Kaz and Diva decided that the NPCs of Asgard weren't quite tasty enough, and made a meal of Shu Ouma (Guilty Crown) instead. Little did they know that this would lead to some unforeseen consequences (for Diva, at least), because Shu was found by Euridice Taverna (Euri) (OC) and was encouraged to warn all of Asgard about Diva's activities. This post encouraged Cheriour to seek her out and kill her and also put her on Claire Stanfield's (Baccano!) radar (since he had, in true Claire Stanfield fashion, proposed to Euri, and she had, in true Diva fashion, threatened to kill her.) Diva had been given a place to hide after this post by Vriska Serket (Homestuck), a kindness that Diva wanted to repay by (stupidly) going out into town the next day to buy her a gift. Diva spent most of this day on the run out of paranoia, since she knew Cheriour was tracking her down to kill her, but before she met Cheriour, she encountered someone that she had spoken to on the network before—Johan Liebert (Monster).

Johan managed to say absolutely everything right in this encounter to absolutely charm her, but she thought this new friendship was short-lived, since Cheriour did find her and kill her that night. But because it's RP because of the powers of the gods of Asgard, she was brought back to life without a scratch. And because Diva just doesn't give a shit at all about dying, she immediately went to a Valentine's Ball hosted by the gods to party it up. Getting ready for the ball, though, she ran into Claire and was promptly threatened by him. This repeated itself at the Ball that night, where he introduced himself as Vino. Johan also worked his charm for Valentine's Day, sending Diva a few sentimental gifts, and ended up coincidentally getting her to completely trust him. This ended up being beneficial for Johan, since not long after, an event had ice fairies attacking the city, and Johan got his ass kicked. Diva found him and attempted to nurse him back to health, but mostly just made him have a small mental breakdown because he's nutso. This encounter made Johan decide that he didn't want to use Diva as a pawn for his plans for Asgard, but truly wanted to get her to hate him.

In the realm of her other relationship with Kaz, this started to change a little bit. Kaz and Euri are OCs from the same world, and discovering they had a fair amount in common, started to grow closer. Euri, trying to irritate Diva, mentions to her that she and Kaz slept together. This alone wouldn't bother Diva, but the implication that Kaz may actually have feelings for her sure did. So Diva confronts Kaz about this, and really, is almost killed, but manages to weasel his way out of it. He begins to realize that hanging out with Diva may not be such a good idea, but also bonds with her a bit more emotionally and... sexually...

Johan, meanwhile, also managed to attract Claire's attention, and this ended up with him getting his foot horribly broken. He asks Diva to come take care of him, which she gladly does, but he also sees another side of Diva. She confesses that she thinks that she might love him, but also shows him that loving someone and hurting them aren't mutually exclusive. She confesses her desire to kill him, but Johan just becomes more interested in Diva, while still being more motivated to destroy her. A few days later, he starts to get the ball rolling on this by confessing his "love" after Diva accidentally shares more about herself than she meant because of her power in the game. Feeling confident thinking that her feelings were returned, Diva also accepts her feelings for him, and essentially allows herself to love Johan and be completely devoted, though she does know that there's danger lurking in their relationship for both of them.

Her newfound devotion also prompts her to hatch a plan of her own to ensure his safety, since he does have the attention of people like Claire, and she knows that being close to her will cause him to be scrutinized. Diva knows that he's planning something big and crazy (though no details), so she decides to try and turn any suspicion he may draw to herself instead by making people believe that she's lying to Johan and he's a saint for trusting her. The biggest of these threats in her mind is Cheriour, since he is immediately distrustful of anyone Diva associates with. She decides to take this into her hands by making Cheriour despise her and focus all of his attention on her, coming to a height with broadcasting his death to the game and taunting him as he dies.

During a lot of these events, her relationship with Claire essentially made a 180 as well. With his fiancee Chane coming into the game, Claire dropped his engagement with Euri, and though he still promised to protect her from Diva, they grew apart. Diva kept talking to Claire because he was so weird, and through both of them being weird people, they became sort of friends. It's more like Stockholm Syndrome, to be honest. This ended up being a good thing, because after Kaz admitted that he was using Diva where she could see, she was a little pissed off and attempted to blackmail him until she lost her temper and essentially scared him off. This action led to a larger group of people plotting on what to do about Diva, which she anticipated, and decided (reluctantly) to hire Claire as her bodyguard.

Also recently in-game, two new characters managed to become a big part of Diva's life in very different ways. First, there's Nina Fortner (Monster), Johan's twin sister. Having really no concept of familial boundaries and just generally being crazy, Diva immediately disliked her by virtue of her being a female in Johan's life. However, Johan told her to behave, so Diva complied, telling Nina that she and Johan were trying to "get better" and be better people. This was a plot on Johan's part to make sure that Nina didn't go around telling all of Asgard that he was a crazed sociopath, and Diva is going along with it to make things easier for him. On the outside, they appear to be friends, but given permission, Diva would kill her in a heartbeat. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Diva met Rapunzel (Tangled) and was completely charmed by Disney Magic how kind and genuine Rapunzel was, despite her time spent in a tower. This has led Diva to begin thinking about her life in a different context, since she does like Rapunzel and want to be friends with her, but there's a conflict between them over her actions.

And that's it for major events up to now!

Personality:
Diva, at a first glance, seems like a fundamentally simple and stereotypical villain. It's really not until the last episode she appears in (or the manga) that her complexity is revealed. While her actions are in no way excusable, with the context of her life, they're not at all surprising, and the writers of Blood+ somehow managed to make the villain of the show much more sympathetic than the protagonist. Well, in my opinion, obviously.

Diva is selfish, childish, and also quite air headed. This is a bit surprising for a person that's going on two centuries old, but quite reasonable when you remember that she was only awake for about sixty of those years, fifty of which were spent in torture and isolation. Unsurprisingly, Diva is not smart by any stretch of the imagination, and what education she does have is dated, since the majority of her education came from early 20th century Russia. While Saya was able to have 50 years of normal life, Diva spent this time locked up, alone in a tower. She spent this time living in filth, poverty, and pain while her sister lived quite comfortably. Her childish nature comes from this lack of mental development, and being forced to ‘grow up’ quite quickly as Diva left the tower. Her selfishness also stems from Amshel, for the most part. After being let out of the tower and being whisked away by her new Chevalier, Diva’s every whim was waited on by him. This continued for the years following right up until her death. Diva is used to getting exactly what she wants and when she wants it. This could mean anything from a cute dress to an actual person.

But to contrast against her sister, after they split ways from the Zoo, both of their lifestyles dramatically changed. Saya was a vagrant with Haji, traveling and looking for Diva so that she could kill her. Diva traveled with Amshel and snowballed massive political power. Powerful people became her Chevalier, consulted Amshel, consulted her, or anything in between. Diva was living the life of the dying class of nobility, but remained in political power through Amshel until her death. So her times spent awake were amongst the highest classes of society, and it reflects in her. She's a very cultured woman in public, especially since she performs opera. Diva has never known anything but the highest luxuries in the world, and is quite happy with that. She's very demure and charming to the public eye, reflecting her position as a cultured heiress.

And as you would expect from an heiress of any kind, Diva is vain. She knows she’s beautiful and alluring, which reflects itself in a very high amount of confidence. Once she has her mind set on something, she's absolutely determined to acheive it, and has no doubts that she can. She may do it in an underhanded way, but that doesn't matter to her. She's extremely selfish and cares little for the well-being of others. Though this view has diminshed somewhat after having her babies to care for and dying, this is still a prominment part of her psyche.

Diva also has an extreme desire for closeness and relationships. This desire stems from her isolation in the tower, and she never grew out of the desire for someone to care for her, even if it's entirely artificial. She's a very physical person, and in a conversation with someone she sort-of-remotely-likes, her body language will convey affection even if that isn't her true emotion. She's a person that honestly desires being loved, but she doesn't know how to express it or even get to that level of emotional intimacy. The exception is Amshel, who she is extremely close to, though whether that's out of genuine love, necessity or even something like Stockholm's is up for debate. That being said, this is why Amshel can be considered the true villain of Blood+--despite her vicious nature, it's really Amshel that's the one in charge.

Ah, but about that viciousness! Diva may be very sympathetic because of how she's used and the question repeatedly posed about how if she hadn't been in the tower, she would probably be a perfectly normal girl, but she's still a raging bitch, don't worry. Diva has a complete lack of a moral compass. Killing people for their tennis shoes or raping and killing a young boy to get pregnant doesn't even phase her. She honestly sees nothing wrong with these things, because in her opinion, humans are lesser beings, and her desires come before anyone else's. It's worth noting that she doesn't hate humans, however. She just hasn't spent much time with them positively. When confronted with these moral issues, Diva is genuinely surprised--and that itself isn't surprising. Despite leaving the tower, Diva was still fairly isolated--Amshel kept anyone that he didn't want her to meet away, so she really never developed any kind of morals in that environment of war and Amshel's underhanded dealings.

But that viciousness will change quickly because of her childish nature. One thing may set her off and be an inch from ripping out someone's heart, but when pacified by kind words, she'll be back to perfectly childish and curious.

Her shallowness is shown with her slight obsession with fashion and beauty, getting more upset by her dress being torn than getting shot in the heart. Diva also harbors jealousy very easily. She is extremely jealous, to the point of obsessive, of her sister. Diva wants to take away everything that Saya loves, all because Diva never got to have any of that. This shows the deeper layer to Diva, because beyond all the awful awful bitch, she’s really just a lost little child looking for someone to love her.

Which is to say, that without her Chevalier telling her what to do, Diva is agreeable enough. She’s friendly, childish, outgoing, and very direct. Diva is very disconnected to humans, since humans have only mistreated her all her life, so she is very reluctant to trust them. However, it doesn't stop her from being curious, or at the very least, polite. Though what we see in canon is mostly her being an awful bitch, in a normal situation, she's nice enough. Without her Chevalier there to influence her and without her babies to fawn over, she'll be pleasant to everyone she meets.

In Asgard, Diva went through pretty significant developments in character. Part of the game mechanic is character development, so there's a longer essay about her development here, but as a basic summation, Diva has become more friendly and accepting of other people. She's willing to give people a chance instead of immediately being confrontational or defensive, and has learned that people aren't nearly as bad as she had originally thought. Living a life isolated from people other than her Chevalier, Diva was under the impression that all humans were incapable of understanding her and her circumstances, but she was able to meet people in Asgard that did understand. This allowed her to open up and to learn about humanity, not immediately writing them off. She was also happy for probably the first time in her life, and this too allowed her to open up and generally be friendlier to people.

That's not to say that she's suddenly a Disney princess, however. She's still mentally unstable and is prone to being violent at the drop of a hat, especially since she did surround herself with people that didn't necessarily discourage this behavior. She may be wiling to be friendly and nice enough to people she talks to, but that hardly means that she would reconsider killing them if it suited her, or if she just wanted to. Diva is still cruel, violent and sadistic, but Asgard has just made her better at hiding it until she needs to reveal that part of herself.

Abilities:
So first of all, a caveat about Blood+: Blood+ is not exactly consistent with the abilities of Chiropterans and some of them literally show up once and are never used again or explained. Those aren't listed here, but if you want to know the others, just let me know!

• Super ___: Chiropterans have super strength/speed/senses! Diva is strong enough to pick up and toss around a cruise ship's anchor like it's nothing, to move so quickly that she has an afterimage/just seems to appear, and as one example of her senses, is able to locate a person based on their heartbeat on a ship full of people.
  
• Regeneration: Diva is able to regenerate from injuries, even those that kill her. For example, if a limb is cut off, she can merely hold it up to the stump and it will reattach itself. If she receives a fatal injury, she will appear to be dead for a few moments/minutes (depending on the severity of the injury), but will simply come back to life. The exceptions to her regeneration are decapitation, fire and extreme injury (like... going through a jet engine or something...).
  
• Transformation: After drinking someone's blood, Diva is able to take their appearance down to the smallest detail. And their clothes apparently, but lol, anime. It's also implied that she's able to take some of their memories, but I won't be using this, since it's godmod-y. Instead, she'll have as much knowledge about a person's experiences/mannerisms as she's able to pick up on her own.
  
• Chevalier: When a human drinks her blood (and she effectively "accepts" them), they are turned into a Chiropteran called a Chevalier. A Chevalier has all of the same abilities as Diva, but they undergo a psychological change as well so that they are wholly devoted and borderline obsessed with Diva. Their whole lives center around protecting her. This is something that may won't come up in the game at all, but if it does, I'll make sure that the other player understands the physiological/psychological change that comes along with it.
  
• Kind of related to all of the above, Diva does need to drink human blood for sustenance and to be able to use most of these abilities. She receives no nutrition from anything other than human blood, so she'll need to continue feeding in the game, obviously!
  
• In addition, as part of the game mechanics of asgardeventide, Diva has a power called Bardic Influence, and was level 2. This is described as "At level 2, emotional manipulation is aided by the ability to create illusions. Level 2 illusions are smaller, simpler, and easier to see through than level 3. For example, a level 2 illusion could create a table of food or a scary monster, but not change the scenery entirely. At this point, illusions can be seen by everyone who hears the sound, but it's easier to only manipulate the emotions of a specific target."

Payment to Yubaba
Memory:

1. The memory of being pregnant/her children. She'll remember her encounter with Riku, but will think that it was unsuccessful.
2. asgardeventide: Being in love with Johan Liebert. She'll remember becoming very close to someone and confiding in them with how terrible they both were, but she won't remember either one of their "confessions" or his name/appearance.
3. How to use stilts
4. That she made Alexei her Chevalier
5. How she learned to sing
6. How to use a sword
7. asgardeventide: Her weird "love" triangle with Kaz and Euri. She won't remember it at all, but she'll remember things like threatening Euri and Kaz.
8. The memory of Saya naming her.
9. Amshel's voice
10. Her birthday. She remembers what year she was born, though.

New Name: Mimì

Samples
First Person: Here's a (joint) post at, surprise surprise, asgardeventide
Third Person:
It had taken a while, but she'd fallen into the feeling of routine, and that had overpowered almost everything else. Her tantrums weren't exactly well-received, and she'd already been punished three or four times for them. She didn't exactly keep count. She just took the punishment with a furious glare, her pride sinking lower and lower with each. It took getting used to, after all. Going from being a Queen at the top of the world to truly working underneath someone more powerful, that was a big change.

She stands in front of the mirror, her lips parted as she perfectly applies her lipstick. She'll be performing tonight, as she does almost every night, her sweet and exotic (to their ears, at least) voice to sing them beautiful tales and stories. She'd learned to smile as if the people gathered to listen were the people she wanted to see most and to really charm them after her performances to get as much of a tip out of them as she could.

Her lips smack lightly, distributing the lipstick more evenly. She meets her own eyes in the mirror, looking away from her bright red lips, and she's struck by what she sees. It's strange to see her face and hair done up this way, and wearing what she would have thought of as a glorified bathrobe before. She'd worn them before coming here, but only for performances of Madama Butterfly. They were hardly her clothing of choice for every day, or even longer than a few hours.

Had she really gotten so used to this?

She reaches out, touching the glass of the mirror lightly, like she's in a trance. And she tries, like she does sometimes, to remember the name that she had before. But all that comes to mind is Mimì. She is Mimì now, and she knows that, but she can't help but wonder why it was that way. The name she'd had before, she'd been happy with it. It meant something more than just being a name, but what it was, she couldn't really recall.

"Mimì! Stop daydreaming, you're up soon!"

A voice breaks the trance, and she looks up from the mirror, rolling her eyes at the person that had come to hurry her along.

"Ugh, I'll be ready. Why don't you go bother someone else?" she says sourly, and they leave with an equally sour expression.

She glances back to the mirror, and for a moment, she allows herself to long for that place she was before, where she had been free for the first time in her life. But Mimì just laughs, turning away from the mirror and walking towards the door. She murmurs it softly, even though no one was in the room to hear it anyways.

"Donde lieta uscì, isn't that right?"

Mimì laughs at her little joke. She knows it's not her name, but she can at least be amused at the irony of its origin.