Pearl (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stickupherforehead) wrote2015-06-08 10:24 pm
stickupherforehead) wrote2015-06-08 10:24 pm
Drift Fleet Application
OUT OF CHARACTER:
Name/Handle: C
Contact:
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insomniacdragon
xsleeplessdragon@AIM
Reference: Caten
IN-CHARACTER:
Character name: Pearl
Character journal:stickupherforehead
Series name: Steven Universe
Canon notes: No changes, original universe. Canon point is up through “Reformed,” season 2 ep 8.
Species: (Crystal) Gem. Basically, the actual physical form of a gem is…their gem. Her human body is a false form, the appearance of which she can (mostly) control at will.
History:
Gems are an alien species who came to the Earth over 5,000 years ago in order to grow more gems. Presumably, using up the resources of the Earth (or maybe life force. Who knows.) does terrible things to the environment and the creatures who happen to live there. Rose Quartz decided to save the Earth and kick out the other gems by starting a war. Pearl had known Rose from before the war and had decided to stay to defend the Earth because of Rose. They eventually won, kicking out the other gems (now hereafter known as ‘homeworld gems’), but at a cost. Of Rose’s army, only a handful survived.
Fast forward to 1980s, and we see that Pearl and friends have been living in a magical temple on the beach. They’ve been keeping themselves occupied for millennia by fighting and containing the monsters that result from damaged gems and ensuring that homeworld gems never come back to Earth. Long story short, Rose falls in love with a human, gets pregnant, and then gives up her physical form for her baby - probably sometime in the early 2000s. (Either way, approximately 11 year old Steven has a smartphone.) So now Pearl and friends (and human dude) get to raise half-human, half-gem baby Steven.
Wacky misadventures usually consist of fighting corrupted gem monsters while Steven learns to control his powers and learns more about his guardians. The important things that happened are that Steven healed a broken gem named Lapis Lazuli, who flew back to homeworld (through space!!!), which then precipitated renewed interest in Earth, which led to homeworld gems coming back to Earth to see if they can’t restart their pre-war operations, which led to a big fight - of which they barely won, so now they’re on high alert against further attacks.
Personality:
Pearl is uptight. She has a thing for cleanliness, symmetry, organizing, proper grammar, and proper sword techniques. Her fighting style is definitely based on ballet, which probably only serves to remind everybody how prim and proper she is. Did I use the word ‘proper’ enough times yet? When she tries to teach Steven how to swordfight, she focuses on the very basics, like posture and footwork – which, even if they are super boring, is the proper way to begin learning. She will also get annoyed and call out movie characters on their obviously fake sword fighting techniques, to the annoyance of other people watching the movie. She’s also the one who cleans up around the house, as evidenced by that one episode in which she was gone for three weeks; the house looked like a tornado hit it.
She is a thinker, which can lead to bouts of anxiety when things are especially stressful (teammates in danger, etc.). She tends to think her actions through and formulates plans at the drop of a hat. Her first instinct when it comes to bypassing obstacles during a mission is to whip out her hologram powers and make a (mildly) convoluted plan on how to get around it. When she’s anxious and overthinking things, she becomes a nervous wreck even if she tries her best to keep moving forward. There’s a lot more clinging to her friends when this happens.
She has a deep sense of responsibility, loyalty, and an almost ridiculous amount of overprotectiveness. Pearl pulls her own weight in battle, works hard, and doesn’t shirk from responsibility – whether it’s doing laundry or preparing for an alien invasion. Her sense of loyalty (and/or unrequited love) is probably best exemplified by the fact that she stayed on Earth for Rose, even when she doesn’t seem to find Earth or humans all that appealing. And more than 5,000 years after making the promise to keep the Earth safe from homeworld gems, she’s still doing her best to keep that promise. Pearl is definitely the mother hen when it comes to Steven’s safety, despite the fact that he’s growing up. She’s more than happy to send Steven back home where it’s safe, especially if a mission starts getting too dangerous for her tastes. In addition to physical dangers, Pearl does her best to keep unsavory truths about the gem wars and gem history from Steven because “he’s not ready to know.” He still gets to learn a large chunk of it over the course of the first season, but Pearl still tries to sugarcoat it when she can.
Pearl can definitely be condescending without even meaning to and may not be the best judge of other people’s feelings. It’s either right or wrong and she’s usually right. For example, she almost always uses the word “primitive” to describe human technologies and likes to lampshade how humans spend so much time doing silly things when their lives are so short. Most of this is stated as fact, rather than some deliberate attempt to disparage the human race in front of Steven. She tends to be condescending on purpose when she’s arguing with Amethyst by picking on the other gem’s grammar, lack of foresight, etc. She also gets extremely condescending and riled up when somebody argues with her when she knows she’s right. This happened once with Steven, when he kept insisting he was right despite all the evidence otherwise, which resulted in one of the first arguments she’s had with Steven.
She takes pride in her skills, but can be insecure when things come to a head. She’s good at combat, she’s good at striking precise blows, she’s good at thinking, she’s good at fixing machines. But she’s not the physically strongest. While she mentally knows that she compensates in other ways, it still hurts her when Steven didn’t seem to recognize that. She also had a near breakdown when she found out that Rose had kept secrets even from her. She had taken pride in the fact that nothing was kept from her and that Rose had to have secrets for the good of other people. However, she got upset when the same excuse apparently applied to her as well. Finding out otherwise led her to reflect on how her main motivation for most of her life was Rose and she implied that Rose would be disappointed in her if she saw her now.
Abilities:
Magical Spear Thing: Pearl can materialize a spear (or two) by pulling it out of her gem. It’s more like magic/energy, rather than a physical object in and of itself. The spear can slice through a lot of tough materials and can also shoot out blasts of energy. This will be nerfed. She can still summon it, but she can’t hurt anybody with it. Also assuming she can't like, slice through the hull of a ship and send everybody into the vacuum of space. Could she use it to cut other stuff (food, ropes, etc.) if it won't directly result in somebody getting hurt?
Healing: Assuming her gem is undamaged, she can release her physical body and retreat to her gem to regenerate. Regenerating can happen almost instaneously, but Pearl tends to take her time.
Physical strength: Still stronger than the average human. Lots of jumping and landing and doing backflips in fights without breaking anything. Also she doesn't need to eat or breathe or sleep. She can't swim in magma, however.
Hologram: Pearl can create holograms from her gem. Sometimes, she just uses it to illustrate her plan, but she can also imbue it with programming. For example, she made a holo-Pearl that actually serves as a sword fighting training dummy. Holo-Pearl will fight, say fightin’ words, rank techniques and swordsmanship by levels, etc. It’s not sentient, but it can kick butt if given a weapon.
Shapeshifting: Apparently all gems can shapeshift, but the closest we’ve seen Pearl do that is morphing her clothes with a thought.
Fusion???: Compatible gems/gems who at least can agree on an objective can combine their forms to make a more powerful fusion gem.
Augment Skillset: Engineering
Sample:
Dear Player post
Name/Handle: C
Contact:
xsleeplessdragon@AIM
Reference: Caten
IN-CHARACTER:
Character name: Pearl
Character journal:
stickupherforeheadSeries name: Steven Universe
Canon notes: No changes, original universe. Canon point is up through “Reformed,” season 2 ep 8.
Species: (Crystal) Gem. Basically, the actual physical form of a gem is…their gem. Her human body is a false form, the appearance of which she can (mostly) control at will.
History:
Gems are an alien species who came to the Earth over 5,000 years ago in order to grow more gems. Presumably, using up the resources of the Earth (or maybe life force. Who knows.) does terrible things to the environment and the creatures who happen to live there. Rose Quartz decided to save the Earth and kick out the other gems by starting a war. Pearl had known Rose from before the war and had decided to stay to defend the Earth because of Rose. They eventually won, kicking out the other gems (now hereafter known as ‘homeworld gems’), but at a cost. Of Rose’s army, only a handful survived.
Fast forward to 1980s, and we see that Pearl and friends have been living in a magical temple on the beach. They’ve been keeping themselves occupied for millennia by fighting and containing the monsters that result from damaged gems and ensuring that homeworld gems never come back to Earth. Long story short, Rose falls in love with a human, gets pregnant, and then gives up her physical form for her baby - probably sometime in the early 2000s. (Either way, approximately 11 year old Steven has a smartphone.) So now Pearl and friends (and human dude) get to raise half-human, half-gem baby Steven.
Wacky misadventures usually consist of fighting corrupted gem monsters while Steven learns to control his powers and learns more about his guardians. The important things that happened are that Steven healed a broken gem named Lapis Lazuli, who flew back to homeworld (through space!!!), which then precipitated renewed interest in Earth, which led to homeworld gems coming back to Earth to see if they can’t restart their pre-war operations, which led to a big fight - of which they barely won, so now they’re on high alert against further attacks.
Personality:
Pearl is uptight. She has a thing for cleanliness, symmetry, organizing, proper grammar, and proper sword techniques. Her fighting style is definitely based on ballet, which probably only serves to remind everybody how prim and proper she is. Did I use the word ‘proper’ enough times yet? When she tries to teach Steven how to swordfight, she focuses on the very basics, like posture and footwork – which, even if they are super boring, is the proper way to begin learning. She will also get annoyed and call out movie characters on their obviously fake sword fighting techniques, to the annoyance of other people watching the movie. She’s also the one who cleans up around the house, as evidenced by that one episode in which she was gone for three weeks; the house looked like a tornado hit it.
She is a thinker, which can lead to bouts of anxiety when things are especially stressful (teammates in danger, etc.). She tends to think her actions through and formulates plans at the drop of a hat. Her first instinct when it comes to bypassing obstacles during a mission is to whip out her hologram powers and make a (mildly) convoluted plan on how to get around it. When she’s anxious and overthinking things, she becomes a nervous wreck even if she tries her best to keep moving forward. There’s a lot more clinging to her friends when this happens.
She has a deep sense of responsibility, loyalty, and an almost ridiculous amount of overprotectiveness. Pearl pulls her own weight in battle, works hard, and doesn’t shirk from responsibility – whether it’s doing laundry or preparing for an alien invasion. Her sense of loyalty (and/or unrequited love) is probably best exemplified by the fact that she stayed on Earth for Rose, even when she doesn’t seem to find Earth or humans all that appealing. And more than 5,000 years after making the promise to keep the Earth safe from homeworld gems, she’s still doing her best to keep that promise. Pearl is definitely the mother hen when it comes to Steven’s safety, despite the fact that he’s growing up. She’s more than happy to send Steven back home where it’s safe, especially if a mission starts getting too dangerous for her tastes. In addition to physical dangers, Pearl does her best to keep unsavory truths about the gem wars and gem history from Steven because “he’s not ready to know.” He still gets to learn a large chunk of it over the course of the first season, but Pearl still tries to sugarcoat it when she can.
Pearl can definitely be condescending without even meaning to and may not be the best judge of other people’s feelings. It’s either right or wrong and she’s usually right. For example, she almost always uses the word “primitive” to describe human technologies and likes to lampshade how humans spend so much time doing silly things when their lives are so short. Most of this is stated as fact, rather than some deliberate attempt to disparage the human race in front of Steven. She tends to be condescending on purpose when she’s arguing with Amethyst by picking on the other gem’s grammar, lack of foresight, etc. She also gets extremely condescending and riled up when somebody argues with her when she knows she’s right. This happened once with Steven, when he kept insisting he was right despite all the evidence otherwise, which resulted in one of the first arguments she’s had with Steven.
She takes pride in her skills, but can be insecure when things come to a head. She’s good at combat, she’s good at striking precise blows, she’s good at thinking, she’s good at fixing machines. But she’s not the physically strongest. While she mentally knows that she compensates in other ways, it still hurts her when Steven didn’t seem to recognize that. She also had a near breakdown when she found out that Rose had kept secrets even from her. She had taken pride in the fact that nothing was kept from her and that Rose had to have secrets for the good of other people. However, she got upset when the same excuse apparently applied to her as well. Finding out otherwise led her to reflect on how her main motivation for most of her life was Rose and she implied that Rose would be disappointed in her if she saw her now.
Abilities:
Magical Spear Thing: Pearl can materialize a spear (or two) by pulling it out of her gem. It’s more like magic/energy, rather than a physical object in and of itself. The spear can slice through a lot of tough materials and can also shoot out blasts of energy. This will be nerfed. She can still summon it, but she can’t hurt anybody with it. Also assuming she can't like, slice through the hull of a ship and send everybody into the vacuum of space. Could she use it to cut other stuff (food, ropes, etc.) if it won't directly result in somebody getting hurt?
Healing: Assuming her gem is undamaged, she can release her physical body and retreat to her gem to regenerate. Regenerating can happen almost instaneously, but Pearl tends to take her time.
Physical strength: Still stronger than the average human. Lots of jumping and landing and doing backflips in fights without breaking anything. Also she doesn't need to eat or breathe or sleep. She can't swim in magma, however.
Hologram: Pearl can create holograms from her gem. Sometimes, she just uses it to illustrate her plan, but she can also imbue it with programming. For example, she made a holo-Pearl that actually serves as a sword fighting training dummy. Holo-Pearl will fight, say fightin’ words, rank techniques and swordsmanship by levels, etc. It’s not sentient, but it can kick butt if given a weapon.
Shapeshifting: Apparently all gems can shapeshift, but the closest we’ve seen Pearl do that is morphing her clothes with a thought.
Fusion???: Compatible gems/gems who at least can agree on an objective can combine their forms to make a more powerful fusion gem.
Augment Skillset: Engineering
Sample:
Dear Player post