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[priforprince]

Player Information

Name: Mari
Age: 31
Contact details: ghoulfriend
Other characters: A Genius Shares No Headspace!

Character Information

Name: Hibiki Shikyoin
Canon: PriPara
Canon Point: Post-canon
OU/AU/CRAU/OC: thefarshore CRAU
Age: 15 (though she's been 15 for years now...canon won't let anybody age)

World Information: Hibiki hails from a canon that's actually a loosely-connected set of separate dimensions, which often feature references to, or AU versions of, characters from other dimensions (shows in the franchise). Hibiki's world in particular is a cartoony "puniverse" where most place names feature the letter P and all girls receive a magical ticket to a virtual idol theme park called PriPara, where they're transformed into their "ideal selves". Physics and common sense pretty much don't apply, everyone has a catchphrase and/or verbal tic, and the goings-on of a bunch of amateur idols are Hot News printernationally. "Being yourself" and "everyone's friends, everyone's idols" are the thematic touchstones - though hardly full of absolute saints, the PriPara puniverse is an exceptionally accepting, kind place that encourages individuality.

And then there's this asshole.

Personal History: Hibiki is a super-talented Celebrity and the heir to a major business conglomerate. As a child, she's a tomboy who loves hanging out with her friends, but none of the people she considers her "friends" feel the same way about her. When she realizes everyone had only been pretending to care about her, she decides this means that the whole world is nothing but lies and falsehoods, and that friendship especially doesn't exist. She also gets chased aross "Europara" (PriPara has...interesting...place names) by a girl who sincerely wants to be her friend, Ajimi, but Ajimi behaves so strangely that she only terrifies/traumatizes Hibiki further. Whoops.

After managing to lose Ajimi and cutting off her 70s shoujo roll curls in a dramatic break with her former self, Hibiki decides to become a liar, too. Thus, when she's scouted as a boy model and then makes a big break as a child actor, she never bothers to correct anyone as to her gender. Hibiki's star rises further in the entertainment world until she becomes known as the Ultimate Prince, but she remains both lonely and bitter. She can only believe in talent, especially her OWN talent, and PriPara, a virtual idol theme park that transforms the girls visiting it into their "ideal selves". Hibiki dreams of becoming a Vocal Doll, a being born inside PriPara - the living embodiment of everyone's love and admiration for idols. Vocal Dolls can't leave PriPara, but that doesn't bother Hibiki. In fact, that sounds like a perk.

Hibiki's attempt to become a Vocal Doll, and also to "revolutionize" PriPara, which she sees as overinfested with amateurs and LIARS WHO WON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT FRIENDSHIP, UGH, comprises the main arc of her debut season. She prepares to compete in a performance contest in which the winner will be granted one wish, gathering fellow "geniuses" to put on shows. As part of this process, she encounters Fuwari, a country girl from the "Palps" mountains whom Hibiki tries to make over as her Princess. Fuwari isn't that type, however, and when she turns Hibiki's offer to become a Princess down, she breaks Hibiki's heart. Even Hibiki doesn't realize how badly she's fallen for Fuwari, but she's absolutely awful to the girl afterwards as sour grapes. (She's much more...open....and aware...of her feelings for Falulu, a Vocal Doll.)

Hibiki breaks into PriPara as "Phantom Thief Genius" to pursue her own goals and steal plot-important clothing after Fuwari wrecks her initial plan by turning her down. The cast figures out her identity, but when Hibiki is outed as Phantom Thief Genius, she also reveals herself to be a woman and performs in PriPara. She then bets the rest of the cast that her geniuses can beat their hardworking amateurs. After winning her bet, she gains the right to turn PriPara into "CelePara", a swanky place where only high-ranking idols can perform. She also messes with the rules of the tournament to all but guarantee she'll win it.

The protagonists rally, however, and Hibiki agrees to let them compete against her - but all her messing with the "system" that runs PriPara comes back to bite her. Not only does she lose at the last second to the Power of Friendship, but PriPara glitches out almost immediately afterwards and has to do a hard reset. In the process, it tries to erase everything having to do with CelePara. Including Hibiki. GREAT JOB, HIBIKI.

Fuwari, Ajimi (who has found her again), and Falulu try and save Hibiki from the system, but Hibiki, Fuwari, and Ajimi all end up in danger of deletion. Hibiki realizes that she has been in love with Fuwari all this time and apologizes. The rest of the cast waste their miracle on saving Hibiki's life, and Hibiki nopes out of the show for a while to go be Fancy with Falulu and Fuwari in the capital of all PriParas, PriParis.

She returns to compete in yet another idol tournament, but is nearly unable to participate because only teams of idols can take part, and becoming a team involves saying vows with the phrase "believe in friendship" in them. Hibiki struggles with that phrase as only a cartoon ex-villain can, and finally ends up finding herself a loophole by saying she believes in Fuwari and Falulu's friendship specifically. This is enough to help her qualify, though she does lose to the protagonists again later on.

Hibiki spends the rest of the show as a combination of comic relief and cool mentor figure - she'll show up at the last minute during crises and either be actually helpful and competent or else make everything worse by insisting on being Extremely Hibiki At All Times. When we do leave her, however, she's in a pretty good place - not able to believe in everyone just yet, but surrounded by people who care about her in a place she loves. She seems sincerely, truly happy. (She also up and took over PriParis offstage, because she could, but well....that's Hibiki!)

Given how well things are going for her in her home "puniverse", Hibiki has mixed feelings when she is summoned to thefarshore to take the god Apollo's place. On the one hand, ascending to godhood seems her due; on the other hand, she's homesick for PriPara and her teammates. Hibiki therefore decides to assemble a new CelePara performing troupe from among the Far Shore's residents and attract PriPara, which she figures would be drawn to their brilliant shows.

To that end, she mentors a mix of showbiz veterans and promising new talent. She diligently answers prayers to raise her own divine powers, becoming (as of the game's conclusion) a God of Fortune and the second-most-powerful new god in the Heavens. Unbeknownst to her, however, she also begins forming connections with the Far Shore's denizens - she's able to admit one of them, Chinatsu, is her "friend" on her own, but it takes her a literal OOC year of fighting with Chinatsu and being bothered by that to figure it out. Everyone else grows closer to her without her realizing it, even when she ropes many of them into performing in her piece de resistance - an absolutely ridiculous movie musical whose screening she feels certain will unite PriPara and the Far Shore. This shall be her new Revolution.

The day of the movie screening dawns. The movie is shown without incident, and her new CelePara performs. But nothing happens: PriPara doesn't come. Devastated, Hibiki finds herself comforted, challenged, and metaphorically slapped upside the head by the many people whose lives she's touched during her attempted Revolution. Realizing she isn't alone in the Far Shore, either, Hibiki renews her determination to save this "scrap-heap puniverse" from itself by being the most magnificent Apollo possible.

By, uh. Kidnapping everyone via flying pirate ship to reveal her next project is a TV serial. HIBIKI MUST HIBIKI. So why should she behave any differently now, upon a printergalactic tour?

Personality: As indicated by her history, Hibiki is the Ultimate Prince - and also the Ultimate Drama Queen. She takes everything absolutely seriously, which is not a great trait to have in a gag comedy (it makes...you...the gag), possesses no shame whatsoever, is used to being the crux around which the world turns, and seems incapable of speaking without pulling rank. She's a character of extremes - she longs for a tranquil, elegant, and serene world, yet possesses an explosive temper. She's impossibly talented in countless fields, yet gets headaches when forced to endure sentence enders, and drops her teacup when she's surprised or appalled (which is often). She's generous, yet has trouble trusting. Her narcissism, however, never falters. Hibiki insists that when she loves a thing, no one loves it more than she does. And Hibiki...definitely loves herself.

Hibiki has extremely high standards of living. She insists upon surrounding herself with nothing but the best - this is how she was raised, but she's also, herself, Number One in Everything, so such an environment suits her. Things "befitting" or "suiting" a situation are important to her in general. As a lover of entertainment, for example, Hibiki insists that genre conventions be followed. Anything less is grounds for her siccing an entire room of people blowing up a complaint hotline on your television program. She's also fond of exclusivity - being the foil to the protagonist of a show that espouses "everybody's friends, everybody's idols" involves a lot of insisting that Only You, or Only The Chosen Few, are Worthy.

On the flip side - there is always a flip side - Hibiki's commitment to excellence means that she's tremendously respectful once she finds someone who lives up to her standards of "worth". She even makes a good rival, since she constantly wishes to see performances of a higher and higher calibre...provided you're okay with someone goading you into doing better. No matter what she's doing, Hibiki remains a snob.

Many of Hibiki's faults are, however, rooted in her trauma. Her irascibility and difficulty trusting definitely are holdovers from believing everything around her was a lie, and her love of things that are the best - that are ideal - likely also stems from the idea that she considers "the best" and "ideal" to be absolute concepts. In other words, they're true, no matter what. Hibiki has come around to respecting people's abilities whether they developed said abilities through effort or talent, but she still remains immensely proud that she is an Effortless Genius. And she also remains difficult to befriend - she's much better at processing adulation than affection, and is so unused to other kinds of positive "CR" with others that she doesn't recognize friendship even when she's the one pursuing the relationship.

Which is not to say Hibiki is always grumpy (though she frequently is). Hibiki is the sort of person who inhabits her moods fully: when she's in a good mood, she's transcendently gracious, but if you knock her off-kilter, watch out. Her Princely demeanor, which she uses with her fans/when she wants something from someone, is flirtatious, with a tendency to use flowery metaphors and also to stress how amazing it is that SHE is spending time with YOU. This Prince role is a "lie" insofar as she may express romantic affection that she doesn't actually feel as part of her service to her fans - but it's also "true", in that being the royal who bestows gifts from on high comes naturally to her. Hibiki may frequently play a role, but the role Hibiki is playing.....is Hibiki.

And "Hibiki" is a role who makes things happen. She's the kind of person who goes after what she wants without any idea that she might fail (which leads to lots of shooting herself in the foot due to overconfidence), and who also recovers from setbacks because she's able to either explain them away or just plain believes in her own awesomeness too much to conceive of a world where Hibiki Shikyoin isn't eventually on top. Hibiki has a complicated relationship to time - the moment she's decided something will happen, it's as good as done, so who cares how much time it takes? Let's act as if it's already settled. (The opposite side of THIS, of course, is that being continually thwarted frustrates Hibiki into ragequitting/BSODing sometimes. The world is supposed to conform to her will. How DARE it do otherwise.)

For all her faults, though, Hibiki's devotion to seeing the world "shine" never falters. Everything she does, she does in pursuit of the "revolution" that will help the situation live up to the grand ideal she has in her head. Hibiki is an ex-villain whose villainy was driven by ideals, and by love - she loves herself, yes, but she also loves PriPara, she loves those privileged few to whom she can open her heart, she loves any performance that she considers to "shine" regardless of who put it on, and she loves the grand splendor of the extravagant world of ideals she desires. Everything about Hibiki's character, ultimately - even her belief that anything less than brilliance Is Unworthy - therefore stems from a version of love.

It's just too bad so much of it is self-love.

CRAU developments: Hibiki's time in the Far Shore has made her, if anything, even more Hibiki than before. Knowing she's a god bolsters her already-formidable ego, and her determination to satisfy her followers has her enacting one performance-related scheme after another. For her followers' sake, she occasionally does things she might not normally, but always in the most Hibiki way she can - and with her own angle.

Hibiki's close CR from the Far Shore may see her unwind a little now that she's learned she can trust them, but she's still unable to accept that maybe "returns to her side despite being melodramatically pushed away" is perhaps a high and overly-complicated bar for realizing someone is her friend. She also abuses her illusion powers constantly....and she and Zetta have locked themselves into a puniverse-spanning, perpetual-stalemate rivalry. I'm sure that will end well in a small, enclosed setting.

Key themes: "Lies" & "Celebrity". Hibiki's personal story is about a person who's used to being the center of the world slowly (s l o w l y) recovering from her massive trust/abandonment issues. All the things she loves assuage both her sense of security and her opulent aesthetic, and the things she hates - idiots and sentence enders - are a reflection of her resultant high standards. Even being an actor combines these two themes, since an actor is a celebrity who lies for a living (especially an actor whose schtick is playing characters of the opposite gender).

Helpfully, Hibiki chooses to sing a song about this latter point when given even the sliver of an opportunity. Thank you, Hibiki. What would we do without you.

Main Motivation: To spread the worship of the God Apollo throughout the puniverse, in order to both provide said puniverse with The Ultimate Entertainment and surround herself and those she cares about with nothing but The Best, living as befits her style. To that end:



Honestly, I could have just linked that picture and we'd have been good.

Skills:

Canon Abilities:

♔ Hibiki is a "genius"! She speaks several languages, can play pretty much any sport with ease, has been shown to be an excellent hacker, and doesn't require rehearsal to perform well onstage, either. She's also incredibly charismatic and can make sparkles appear in midair at will. Sometimes she can even make it rain rose petals. Hibiki is talented.

♔ Hibiki has trained to "increase her sensitivity to the number 1". By focusing, she is able to determine where items marked with the number 1 are in games of chance and selects them accordingly. She has a success rate of over 80% with this, um. Ability.

♔ While in PriPara, Hibiki is able to shoot a glittery purple rope from her jacket sleeve that she swings around on like Spider-Man. No explanation is ever given for why or how. I'd like to retain this ability, because it's weird/funny.

♔ All PriPara characters have access to hammerspace. Hibiki has pulled quite a lot of things out of hers in canon, but to adhere to the five-item limit in VoidTrecker, she'll have access to her sword, substitute doll, tablet, and two small stuffed purple goat robots on wheeled platforms. These "spygoats" have livestreaming cameras for eyes, and whatever they see can be viewed using an app on Hibiki's tablet. They also are each equipped with a useful add-on stuck on their platform: one goat has a riot shield and the other goat has a robotic "grabber". These help them be of maa-ssistance.

♔ While in PriPara, Hibiki can change at will into the Phantom Thief Genius costume. Hibiki "plays this role" when she desires something that she's failed to obtain through traditional means. I'd like to keep this costume if possible, but she won't have access to other outfit changes except by using her illusory god power (see below).

The Far Shore abilities:

♔ Hibiki has assumed the position of the god Apollo! On the bright side, she can fly, she can teleport, and she no longer requires physical sustenance (though she still can get hungry/thirsty). On the less bright side, she's easy to overlook/forget unless the viewer is young or spiritually sensitive.

♔ As a god, she can give a name to "shinki" (lingering amnesiac spirits of the dead), forming a bond between herself and that shinki. The god has a vision of their shinki's death during the naming process; all gods are forbidden from disclosing the contents of this vision to their shinki. As of the end of thefarshore, Hibiki has two shinki, Wendy and D2. She still possesses the power to name others, though she will do so reluctantly.

♔ Any god can feel any strong emotion their shinki experiences, as the shinki is responsible for teaching their god right from wrong - though this can endanger the god if the shinki feels strong guilt about something. Hibiki hates this element of the god-shinki bond, and avoids naming shinki except in emergencies.

♔ If Hibiki calls an alternate reading of the kanji she used to name a shinki, that shinki will transform into a "vessel", an item or animal Hibiki can use to destroy malevolent spirits. When in vessel form, gods and shinki can communicate telepathically.

♔ As a "God of Fortune", or a god with a large number of worshippers, Hibiki has several abilities unique to herself (TFS gods default to having one). Her first ability as the god Apollo is the power to cast audiovisual illusions within a radius of multiple blocks, though overusing this ability gives her a headache.

♔ Her second ability, gained upon becoming a God of Fortune, is a pair of silver Platinum Airy wings. Since all gods can fly, these wings are mostly for show - but they make her fly faster, and longer, and when she flaps them hard enough she can try to knock people over with sparkling purple wind. As one does.

♔ Her third ability, earned postgame, is UNLIMITED TEACUP WORKS the ability to make teacups (complete with tea, and occasionally a saucer) appear out of thin air just by thinking about it. If she's sufficiently surprised or appalled, this also tends to happen involuntearily.

Item: Yet another spygoat. This one comes with a silver platter maa-ttached, the better to fetch items, serve as a tea table, etc. You know. Crucial duties.

Sample: "hope weasel discussion"

Notes: I'm not even the slightest bit sorry.