#but i cannot stress enough how the entire mantra for this arc has been power no matter the cost

[aresianrepose]

Extremely fucked up that in an arc where everyone is constantly saying they have to get more powerful no matter what right after Ashton literally had to jump into a pit of lava, Laudna is out here with Delilah in her head, and FCG actively attacking the group... Ashton gets blamed for *checks notes* asking if Fearne wanted the crystal, to which she says she thinks it's meant for HIM and somehow it's all Ashton's fault?? Imagine getting exploded into literal shards and having no one, even for a second, care if you're okay? And immediately jumping to the conclusion that you manipulated someone else??? What the fuck.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, LISSA!

You have been accepted for the role of MARGARETE STARIKOV. Admin Bree: Margarete is easily one of the darkest characters I’ve ever written, and I don’t say that lightly. Her darkness is the sort that’s so deep and depraved that it can be much more difficult to understand and put into words without romanticizing or excusing, and even when she was but an idea in the back of my mind, I worried we’d struggle to find someone to do her justice. But Lissa, you did so wonderfully! Her mannerisms, her ways of thinking, her sick little mantra, and even her love for berries—all of them painted a clear picture of the twisted little thing she is. Well done! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Lissa

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/Her

AGE: Twenty

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: During the summer probably an 8/10, though I might be taking trips throughout, but I’ll be sure to shoot the main an ask giving notice. As for when the school year starts, I can’t say for certain since I haven’t registered for classes yet, but hopefully it’ll be either a 6 or a 7 since my unit load shouldn’t be as heavy as it has been.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: Redacted.

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Margarete Vera Starikov

MARGARETE: It is such a lovely name for such a lovely girl, especially one who is every bit as treasured as her moniker implies—she is a pearl, iridescent and bright, but her outward appearance is a demure facade hiding a darkness thick, sweet, and enticing like syrup though closer to poison in composition.

VERA: To some it means truth and to others it means faith, but both are correct when it comes it to the doll-faced girl. For even though they try to hide her and make her someone else, she cannot fight her nature and has never once wanted to. But in terms of faith, it’s what she asks of others, to believe that she can be great and deadly. However, it also refers to the faith a Healer needs to do their job when the ill and the injured place their lives in their skilled hands. 

STARIKOV: It has been known to strike fear into people’s eyes because often it’s associated with an entire line of gifted Heartrenders who have served at the foot of the Darkling for ages at his beck and call. She is the first and only Healer in her family, something she believes is a great shame although her parents are convinced otherwise. It makes her bitter and brittle to know that she is unlike the rest in this sense, at least. 

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?:

I’ve never shied away from playing “evil” characters—in fact, I quite enjoy exploring moral gray areas—but in all my time writing, I’ve never played someone filled with such guiltless malevolence. Of course, one could argue that there’s a reason for it: she’s trying to prove herself, trying to be who she truly is, but then what does that say about her? Well, she’s a killer and fine, there are people who must kill in order to protect or serve, that’s justifiable. However, her victims are the wounded and the ill, the weak and the weary, and what she does is not out of mercy however sick that would still be—no, Margarete kills purely out of spite, bitterness, and pride. There is no nobility in her cause and because of that I think there is no chance for a redemption arc which is what draws me. She is so determinately set in embodying death and making an impression on the world that she cares little about what it does to others. Her search for infamy and recognition will leave a huge scar in her stead and I think it’d be such an interesting challenge to tackle because I don’t want her to be sympathetic, I want her to be the worst that she can be cause only then will she be, in her eyes, the best she can be.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?:

She presses on Konstantin’s bruises by merely existing, but she has never been interested in inflicting the barest pain—instead, she twists the blade in his abdomen by wordlessly taunting him with her presence, situating herself firmly in his line of sight whenever she can. Let him come for her; let him try and prosecute her—when she fells a general, who then could deny her? So she hones her craft in secret, waiting for the moment he snaps like a twig in her vise grip. If he misses his dead wife and child so much, she’d be happy to reunite them, all he needs to do is ask. 

In stories it is usually the older that corrupts, but here the roles are reversed. Rita is so sweet it makes her teeth sorely ache, but how grand it would be to map out and see through her fall. They both know pretty things, but darkness obscures and death preserves, so there is a sort of refined beauty in both. Margarete wants to show the other girl that glamour will fade—that it is better to practice things that are much more definitive and permanent. 

This feels like dying and in some ways it is—to see who you could’ve been turn to ash in your hands. If she is forced to be a Healer for the rest of her long life, she will surely go mad. There are only two who can stop that from happening, two with the power to give her what she wants. The Darkling is a busy man, she escapes his notice, but Altan with his haughty gaze holds her whole world in his palms. If he can’t see it, she will make him, even if it means squeezing the life out of him for once. But how can a girl take on a monster? The answer is clear: she must become what she wants to destroy even if it means it destroys her as well.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: As hard as it would be, I am open to the idea! Of course, it’d need to have proper justification, but if push came to shove I think I’d be able to let him go if it were under the right set of circumstances.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

I think it goes without saying, but to be on the safe side TW: DEATH, STRANGULATION, and also just general unpleasantness so if that’s not your cup of tea look away.

                —I.

From their likeness, they sculpted five children, each undoubtedly theirs, thus Death was their birthright and murder their call. It was hard to argue with fate or, in actuality, genetics—they all had hair dark as a raven’s feathers and they all possessed the same taste for the metallic tang of blood. However, after their second eldest had fallen soon after their first, when the dirt was still damp on their marked graves, they realized there was a sixth to come. Stricken, they fretted over the future of their young babe, and when she was born, they sighed in relief for she was nothing like the others, nothing like them—with hair the brown of a wren’s downy body and eyes that were a bright, shining blue, Margarete or Molly, as they would come to call her, was sugar, spice, and all things nice.

What they had failed to realize in that moment was that although her looks were completely her own, she had indeed inherited their proclivity for blood. When they resigned her to her meager fate, they starved her of it and as a result she became ravenous and wanting. 

                —II.

She arrived with a ruddy guard in tow, about to jump headlong into a fever let in by a chill. Gaunt-faced, she knocked on Margarete’s door, begging for some semblance of relief if not for herself then for the poor babe kicking forcefully in her womb. It was a simple case in all honesty, one that could be resolved easily with no testament to her skill—except if the noblewoman were to veer sharply in another direction, exhibiting symptoms more resembling death than life. It was a challenge the young girl accepted readily, all too eager to prove her worth, but not as a Healer like some would believe, but as something else altogether.  

Her slender hands were placed protectively around her belly, half-swollen with a child’s growing form—the miracle of life, Margarete thought sardonically, though her face expressed nothing except insincere joy. “Don’t you worry,” she stressed, lips pressed into a sly smile, “I will take care of you, just put your faith in me.” 

The noblewoman shivered under Margarete’s scrutinizing stare—perhaps she knew deep down that this was end. As she tucked her long legs together and lied down passively, hands still hovering around her unborn child, she murmured a quick and simple prayer to her saints. 

Margarete was careful to go gradually—after all, her assigned guard was stationed outside—and beat by beat the woman’s heart slowed. It was a subtle feeling, not too unlike the apprehension she had felt in coming, so much so they were indecipherable from each other: the dying and the fear. 

First she fell into a slumber, drawn in by the lull, and then she gasped as her lungs struggled to draw a breath no longer propelled by the rushing of blood. In a matter of moments she had gone from living to dead and with a pleased smirk Margarete looked upon her hard-won triumph, now pale and still. Schooling her features to reflect a mask of terror, she peered out the door, her voice even trembling as she spoke, “Something awful has happened—quick, get your superior!”

He ran down the hall and around the corner, gone as soon as she finished her sentence. Then turning around, she looked back at the lifeless noblewoman—was this number two or two and a half?

               —III.

They called her murderess and gleefully she rejoiced. It was a nice change from what they used to say when they’d tell her she was like glass or a long bolt of uncut silk, but in their haste to compare her to fine things, they forgot that even glass could cut and silk could strangle in the right hands—well hers were ready, willing, and skilled enough to do just that. 

She felt his dark blue eyes bore into the back of her skull, likely wishing to crack it open on the granite floor of courtyard and spill the blood that pulsed within her. 

“I’m sorry Sir, for failing you so,” she told him one day when he insisted on knowing just what had gone wrong, “I am no saint, but if it provides you any comfort, her last moments were peaceful.” 

His jaw tightened, the muscles there taut and stretched; Konstantin was the very picture of restrained fury and she reveled in the ability to make a man—a general, in fact—feel so helpless and incensed. 

Where did the girl go; the one that was so full of sugar, spice, and everything nice? Well she was the first victim, strangled by her own hands and brute strength the day she donned that gray-sleeved kefta. She tried it their way through hard work and perseverance, but after that failed, it was time for her to show them what a grave miscalculation they made. Her proof was in the bodies and in each life that she took and she will continue until her heretic’s song is recognized as truth.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

She favors certain fruits, especially ones that are berries. When she bites into them, the juice drips down her chin and stains her lips and fingers red like blood.

In the more recent years, she has become cold and aloof—almost unrecognizable from what she used be, because in her quest to become her heart’s desire, she has sacrificed everything, even herself. All her old friends regard her with a great deal of caution, she seems off-kilter and slightly awry, so now she is more of a lone wolf which only further encourages her to spiral since there is no one really her stopping anyways. 

Although she wasn’t originally, now Margarete is more methodical in choosing her victims for fear someone will start asking questions about her less than stellar record. It wasn’t that she didn’t think of the consequences earlier, just that she didn’t care for them when the opportunity arose. In truth, she targets the fearful ones, finding their terror at her delectable. Often she’ll utter the line, “I will take care of you, just put your faith in me,” just to humor herself. 

She has never seen the Unsea, but oh how she yearns to. It’s a morbid curiosity of hers to see where so many have died, kin or not. While everyone tries to avoid it like the plague, she does not, but only when she’s rightfully a Heartrender will she visit the Shadow Fold.

EXTRAS: Nope, didn’t have anytime for them!

ANYTHING ELSE?: Either The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald or East of Eden by John Steinbeck.