OOC ♔ daybreakacademy Application

[priforprince]

PLAYER INFORMATION

NAME: Mari

CONTACT: ghoulfriend

OTHER CHARACTER(S) IN GAME: n/a

CANON INFORMATION

CHARACTER NAME: Hibiki Shikyoin

CANON: PriPara

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!

STRENGTHS:

♔ Idealistic: As an actor, Hibiki spends much of her time embodying the living ideal of the Ultimate Prince, and constantly seeks something better than the world in which she finds herself. She isn't comfortable settling for the status quo when she could improve things via Revolution, and strives always to "shine" ever more, polishing and refining herself and others via the company and environment she seeks. Hibiki is a future-oriented person: she rarely wastes time with regrets or second-guessing. Instead, she focuses on "what to do next" and acts in a way that will bring her closer to her ideal.

♔ Confident: Hibiki is the living embodiment of that inspirational poster saying: "What could you accomplish if you didn't know you could fail?" She defaults to assuming that she'll succeed at anything she attempts, and even if things don't go as she expected, her belief in herself remains unshaken. Her confidence also gives her a certain disregard for the rules. She's got no issues with shamelessly admitting she only adheres to those rules which benefit her; though hardly worth emulating, it does mean she gets a lot done...

♔ Devoted: When Hibiki falls in love with someone or something, she falls desperately and expressively. Her love for PriPara drives all of her actions, even the villainous ones - and she's able to respect others' abilities even when their personalities don't mesh. Her interest in seeing PriPara grow in quality leads her to mentor others (...if by being a jerk to them), and her feelings for Fuwari and Falulu help her learn to put their desires ahead of her own. She's also generous when in a good mood, trying to tailor her gifts for others to their particular tastes and enjoying getting to throw giant fancy parties where everyone can enjoy The Ultimate Experience.

FLAWS:

♔ Narcissistic: "Assuming there are cases when one is just too perfect," Hibiki explains at one point, "it's only natural to love oneself." She is utterly convinced that as soon as she sets her mind on something, it's as good as accomplished - which can lead to her not taking threats seriously enough, or otherwise accidentally sabotaging herself. Her massive amounts of self-love don't even help her get to know herself better, either: she's so used to only having herself for company (she also admits she finds herself captivated by her reflection daily) that she can't recognize emotions like "friendship" when she experiences them.

♔ Temperamental: Hibiki is an all-or-nothing person. She would like to live in a beautiful, tranquil environment, and will attempt to maintain serene, holier-than-thou behavior when at all possible. The moment too many irritants pile on the other side of the scale, however, she completely loses it. Whatever she's feeling in the moment, in general, possesses her entirely: when she's calm, all is well with the world. When she's in love, she's effusive. When she's angry, she's a screaming mess. When she's sad, nothing can clear the storm IN HER HEART. This tendency does not lend itself to quality decision-making. It may also fuel her desire to live somewhere beautiful, as a living ideal, where nothing will ever disturb her again. Forever.

♔ Particular: Because she was raised in such a high-class, fancy environment, Hibiki is "incapable of processing inelegant words" - she freaks out if people have weird verbal tics, especially quirky suffixes. She's also judgmental, in general; not only does she insist upon The Best of everything, which Suits Her, reality rarely matches up to her high standards, and Hibiki does not...handle this fact....very well. Her irritation around others has a tendency to trip the temperamental behavior described above.....and, to make matters worse, her Aesthetic requires she personally listen to her opponents' shows. This has occasionally nearly proved fatal. PriPara is weird.

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.

♔ She's also able to fly around the concert hall on a pair of golden "Gold Airy" wings if her performance moves the audience enough (which is...always, to save on CG budget). These can upgrade to "Platinum Airy", but that only happens once.

♔ All PriPara characters have access to hammerspace. Hibiki has pulled quite a lot of things out of hers in canon, including but not limited to her sword, shield, substitute doll, a single white glove (for challenging people to duels), and flowers of various types and quantities (for flirting).

♔ She also, while in PriPara, 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.

AU INFORMATION

AU CHARACTER NAME: Hibiki Shikyoin

AGE: 15

POSITION: Principal of "Celecademy" (self-proclaimed)

AU BACKSTORY:

Hibiki is the scion of the Shikyoin family of mages, which hails from Japan, but they brought their heir up in Europe because it is Fancier. She's been a gifted Mage from a very young age, and her general interest in magic (see AU Personality) also led her to studying Runes.

The Shikyoins are extremely full of how incredible their heir is, and give Hibiki free rein to do whatever she wants - they can't say they aren't surprised that the next in line has decided to become a movie star for Normal People, but her international influence benefits the family in the long run, so they're following her lead. Plus, it's kind of fun to watch her dominate the hoi polloi.

Much like in canon, therefore, Hibiki has been surrounded all her life by 1) opulence 2) other snobs 3) the notion that she can do no wrong. While she still had a traumatic break with her supposed "friends" and servants in childhood, which led to her skewed "acting is itself the truth" outlook, it's only led her to double down on Mage ideology. She especially enjoys the idea that she's better than everyone else, as well as the element of secrecy involved - the idea of knowing things others don't, and getting to use that knowledge against them, appeals.

Although the Shikyoins don't specialize in a particular kind of magic, Hibiki has a special aptitude for, and interest in, illusions. Not only does she prefer magic to reality, but it's also very convenient to be able to make places Seem Prettier when you're someone who functions best in a Pretty environment. Hibiki demands nothing but the best, even if she has to conjure it herself. (Her becoming involved in the entertainment world...was on a whim after being scouted, and has continued for the same reason. It's not like she thinks needs the time to practice! She's a genius, and all that.)

Hibiki's Flame manifested the first time she got a glimpse of the Outlands while gathering Mist. It just so happened that the part Hibiki got to see was one of the gorgeous, Fae-inhabited parts - a world where, it looked like, only beautiful things existed. Hibiki was instantly besotted, and the feelings it inspired in her heart took form as her Flame, which makes her illusions real under certain conditions.

Gaining her own Flame made Hibiki decide the ultimate form of magic was Radiance, and she's come to Daybreak in the hopes of assessing how well the Academy is raising the Radiance of its students. If she doesn't like what she sees, she may decide to Revolutionize The School....and her ultimate goal may be to become a being of pure magic during Nightfall and live in a Paradise of Radiance alone.

At least, that had been her original plan. While Hibiki's backstory is very similar to canon, the plot of PriPara has not happened to her - there was no great climactic event, like the tournament where she created CelePara, to help her realize large numbers of people might not be lying. Instead, she has had a complicated and handwaved-in-case-I-get-castmates relationship with Fuwari and/or Falulu, so that while she's unsure how she feels about the world at large (and therefore how she feels about the idea of cutting herself off from it) she does at least have one or two people to whom she can open her heart. Fuwari in particular I would like to say is juuuust offscreen; she's from the equivalent of the Alps anyway, so Hibiki keeps in touch with her while at Daybreak.

Also, if I'm allowed to incorporate him - Hibiki employs one full-time butler (and other temporary mook staff as needed). Her butler is a man named Rei Ando who has served the Shikyoins since he was a small child; he is himself a Mage and Rune user of limited ability, who studied only the spells necessary to become a model butler. His special trick is the ability to summon replacement teacups after Hibiki, in a startled fit, drops the one she'd been drinking from - and the only butler-y spell beyond him is mending the broken teacups afterwards. He can frequently be found wearing a goat kigurumi, with the idea that he can be a scapegoat should Hibiki encounter any nasty Outland creatures. At first, he was ambivalent about this, but Ando may be warming to his new maaa-nimal identity. Don't judge his choices.

AU PERSONALITY DEVIATION:

In this AU, Hibiki is in love with magic itself instead of with PriPara. This is to maintain the fact that she longs for, admires, and has Opinions About the pillar around which the story turns. Loving magic also seemed to fit someone who, like Hibiki, has a...complicated relationship to the nature of reality. Why should she settle for a drab world of lies and falsehoods when magic can shape the world however it pleases? In fact, isn't the presence of magic itself proof that the idea of "truth" is a sham? All the world is an enchanted stage.

Hibiki's Daybreak personality also combines her original canon character arc with the broader gag-character humor she's used for in in later seasons (the best way to nerf your powerful villain is to make her the joke, right?). Because she's grown up doubling down on an environment that actively encouraged her elitism, she's more openly grumpy and judgmental than she was when she first entered the show in canon; because she's only seen Fuwari and Falulu (and Ando, to an extent) prove themselves to her, she hasn't made up her mind yet whether or not she still wants to become made of nothing but magic. I expect her figuring this out, as she interacts with people in pursuit of raising their Radiance to foster her ideals, will form the bulk of her personal arc in game.

When she is not being the comic relief. Hibiki's pompous overreactions to stupidity and anything else that Isn't Befitting The Situation get increasingly sillier and more extreme as canon goes on. A more exaggerated Hibiki is a Hibiki that's more fun for others to play off of, so while Daybreak Hibiki will be seeking to demonstrate her cool-mentor-from-on-high attitude, I don't expect the other characters will let her fully get away with that. In fact, I'm looking forward to it.

RACE: Human

SECRET SOCIETY: Hibiki is from a Mage family! She is a Flame, as well, but has not yet joined a Candle school. Instead, she will probably try to form her own independent, handpicked class, focused on increasing Radiance.

POWERS:

♔ Hibiki is a talented Mage who has chosen to focus on illusions. She can choose to either target a specific recipient to see/hear things that aren't there, or spread the illusion across a 1 km radius (which is also, not coincidentally, how far away a sentence ender user has to be before their presence stops disrupting her).

♔ When performing for a magical audience, Hibiki uses her illusions for stage effects. She also inserts a small skit into the middle of her show, which she calls a "Making Drama". This is mostly an excuse for her to yell melodramatic things and look cool.

♔ Her spells require focus and concentration to maintain, however, so if Hibiki's distracted while working illusion spell(s), the magic dissipates. They also don't normally have physical heft - anyone putting their hand through an illusion Hibiki's conjured will find the illusion flickering, like flames, around their hand.

♔ Hibiki's Flame is the ability to make the illusions she conjures seem to have physical weight and presence in addition to looking/sounding like they're there - but in order for this to be effective, not only do the caveats above about focus apply, she also has to be singing. (Musical accompaniment is easy with illusion magic, et al.)

♔ Because she is very picky about her Style, she will only ever generate illusions of things that fit her aesthetic/the lyrics of the song she's performing, which limits the possible results of her power. Expect things like "giant gold statues of herself", "golden rosebushes", "a blue crystal heart she pulls out of her chest and stabs dramatically with a sword, raining the shards on her target", "purple fire from her finger when she says BANG!", "turning the scenery purple just because she can with no other effects", etc.

♔ If Hibiki's Radiance burns brightly enough, Hibiki sprouts a pair of golden wings and gains the ability to fly. Down the line, I'd like her to be able to change to the Platinum Airy wings instead of the Gold ones, but I am planning to save that for a Climactic Character Arc moment.

♔ In addition to her illusion magic, Hibiki is able to summon a sparkling purple rope made of magic that can affix to any surface. She uses this to swing around on when her wings aren't available.

♔ She also has spells built into her jackets that let her store things that...really have no business being able to fit. Like a life-size dummy doll of herself and a literal sword. Which she can split into two swords with magic if she wants to.

♔ Hibiki takes the time to enchant whole piles of flowers so that they'll fly like projectiles when she tosses them ala Tuxedo Mask. She stores these using the jacket spell above.

♔ She has also woven a spell into the Phantom Thief Genius costume that allows her to magically tug the whole thing off at one go - and be wearing a different set of clothes beneath it. Nothing but a real sound use of magical aptitude over here, yes sirree.

♔ On the rare occasions where having a physical prop is preferable to illusions, Hibiki sets up set pieces that react to her snapping her fingers. Disco balls that open and flowers come out, washbasins that fall onto people's heads.....just theater things.

♔ Hibiki has invented a spell that heightens her focus; she uses this ONLY to help her sense anything with the properties of the number "1". This is useful if she needs to go first when drawing lots and literally no other time.

♔ Because she's Into Magic, in general, Hibiki has also dabbled in Rune magic. She has created artificial purple butterflies that broadcast whatever they see into a screen she keeps with her. These butterflies also have a lockpicking spell built in, just in case. They are of higher intelligence than normal butterflies but won't be solving complex equations any time soon.

♔ She has an enchanted drone that she uses as demonstrated in the gif.

♔ I would also like her to have a Rune-powered flying pirate ship. It can shoot magical energy beams, but let's be real, she's mostly going to sing and dance on it.

♔ Ando has created Hibiki a Runic pair of "sentence ender cutphones". These look like normal headphones, but whenever anyone uses a sentence ender, the headphones play Hibiki's singing voice over the sound of the offending suffix.

♔ Finally, Hibiki sparkles as a free action. This is not magic. This is just Hibiki.

HOUSING: Hibiki lives in a penthouse in Soleil! One with a CD pattern in the floor, no less.

RP SAMPLE

October TDM
November TDM

Extra Note: Because Hibiki is a "go big or go home" person, and because it would give her immediate CR, I'd kinda like my first post in-game to be Hibiki's arriving In Style and promptly declaring herself Daybreak's new principal. Would that be OK? Like I mentioned above, I don't expect any of her power grabs to actually work, and I'm happy to handwave the authorities shutting her down if nobody on the mod team would have fun with an NPC thread.

If the mod team would prefer she NOT show up yelling about being in charge now, I can have her prefer to create her own alternate class in town right from the start. Thanks for your consideration!