Madeline "Maddie" Curie

Answers are formatted "IC | OOC"

Physical Affection: maybe? | yes
Violence: maybe | yes
Death: no | contact
Power Usage: maybe | yes
Mind Reading: no | contact


Answers are based on OOC preference only.

Backtagging: yes
Threadhopping: yes

PLAYER INFORMATION

NAME: Emily
CONTACT: deerleisure
OTHER CHARACTER(S) IN GAME: Maple D'Mello, Carmen Sandiego

CANON INFORMATION

CHARACTER NAME: Madeline "Maddie" Curie (and familiar/contracted daemon, Zelnothoglys "Zel")
CANON: A shared original universe called Invisible Hand
HISTORY: Here

STRENGTHS:
▫One of Maddie's main strengths is her mental acuity; she is creative, clever, and resourceful. Perhaps due to adjusting her life around being blind, or perhaps just because she is a clever girl at heart, Maddie often finds out-of-the-box solutions to problems. In her original universe, it's Maddie that suggests broadcasting the Hand of Providence and their child-death-fighting tournament in order to sway public opinion. Even in this alternate universe, Maddie is able to work out a way to break the Hand's control over her familiar and friend, Zelnothoglys, and track down an elusive career criminal trying to not be found. She turns a lot of her creativity towards radio, broadcasting, and podcasting work - her main hobby - and is very good at it.
▫Another strength of Maddie is in her character. That is to say, she is simply kind. Taking advantage of kindness is how the Hand manages to trick most of the children they exploit - take the strength and fight the monsters, or people close to you will be hurt. Maddie was the same. Except Maddie did this even knowing full well that she didn't even have people who cared for her - she was bullied or ignored at school, and when her dad acknowledged her existence it was to berate her for being an inconvenience. Still, she wanted to help them. And she did, doing what she could. She's not the type of person who could turn a blind eye to people in need, and she considers that a strength.
▫One thing friends of hers will find is that Maddie is also intensely loyal. She values people close to her more than anything else, and she's willing to go to any length for them. When Zelnothoglys needs her help, she tracks down a career criminal and arranges to meet with her - Maddie, a child, seeking out a criminal and negotiating with her face-to-face just to save one person close to her. It's not that Maddie is brave, it's that she is willing to be brave for those close to her.

FLAWS:
▫Maddie was ostracized throughout her life. Her own mother left because of her. Her father calls her a burden. She never made many friends. Because of this, her self worth has only fallen over time, leading to depressingly low self-esteem. She lacks confidence in herself, although she tries to put up a self-assured front, and more importantly she places little value in her own feelings, happiness, and well-being. How she affects others is a lot more important to her than how things affect her.
▫Because of the way she was raised, Maddie doesn't rely on others. Being self-reliant sounds nice, on paper, but Maddie will refuse to ask for help even when she needs it. She has a lot of special needs, which she refuses to ask for, not wanting to bother people. More to the point, her world view is that "I have to be useful, so people will keep me around. I can't be a burden, or people will abandon me." She was abandoned by her mother for that reason, and when she tried to go back to her father, he rejected her for similar reasons - after a lifetime of telling her how much of a burden she was. She firmly believes that everybody around her is one inconvenience away from leaving her.
▫With all of the above, it should come as no surprise that Maddie also has issues with bottling up - her emotions, her problems, her fears and anxieties. Maddie doesn't want to inconvenience people, so why would she tell them about her problems and inconvenience them that way? She figures she can ignore them, and after a while, they will go away. Or if they don't go away, she can just hide them until she dies. That always works, right?

CANON ABILITIES: here again

AU INFORMATION

AU CHARACTER NAME: Madeline "Maddie" Curie (and familiar/contracted daemon, Zelnothoglys "Zel")
AGE: 16
GRADE: 10
AU BACKSTORY:
▫Due to a degenerative birth defect, Maddie was born blind
▫At age 5, her mother just left, and never came back
▫Her father blamed Maddie (specifically, her disability)
▫At age 12, meets a cat named Zelnothoglys, who tells her that daemons will be attacking and she needs power to protect others
▫Forms a contract, attains a decade of magic training and knowledge
▫Fights against a specific type of daemon called thaumivores that appear in the city around her - thaumivores are attracted to magic, and have the ability to "eat" it; the problem is they usually eat what the magic is attached to as well, like people
▫Eventually, leaves home so that her father won't get caught up in the crossfire
▫3 years after their contract is formed, Zelnothoglys tells her the truth; a cabal of elder mages called the Hand of Providence are utilizing thaumivores and daemon contracts to steal magic power, and Zelnothoglys is actually a thaumivore being held in their service
▫Maddie tracks down a rogue mage named Jailbreak to break the Hand's connection to Zelnothoglys
▫Jailbreak succeeds, but the price is that Maddie becomes her apprentice and employee for a year
▫Maddie tries to go home, but her father rejects her
▫Maddie lives with and works with Jailbreak, mostly swindling mages out of magical secrets and selling them to others
▫Maddie also starts broadcasting a podcast called The Witching Hour, dedicated to telling the truth of the occult, magical, and supernatural - it's magically attuned to not be found by mundanes, but Maddie thinks it can help people like her who have touched the magical world but don't understand it yet
▫Nearing the end of their term together, Jailbreak and Maddie run into some trouble, and need to lay low - Jailbreak suggests a school for magical and supernatural children up in France, and Maddie doesn't have a much better option

AU PERSONALITY DEVIATION: Maddie takes on a bit more responsibility in this AU, having both left home at some point and also in being a more active disciple of Jailbreak's. She's more used to things outside of the ordinary, but at the same time, also less used to having a nice, stable environment. Because of the lack of Lighthouse (the underground Hand of Providence resistance group) in this AU, she also has less allies to rely on, leading to further cementing some of her flaws (see Flaws section above.)

RACE: Maddie is Human. Zelnothoglys is a type of daemon called a thaumivore.
SECRET SOCIETY: None

POWERS:
MADDIE
▫Fluent in spoken English, in reading and writing in braille, and can sign in American sign language (she cannot, however, see other people signing it)
▫Excellent speaker, voice actor, and broadcaster
▫Knowledge of working soundboards and various broadcasting or podcasting programs
▫General body-enhancement, a combination of the magic knowledge and a general strengthening through the contract - enough to duke it out with thaumivores.
▫Realty-warping magic called Zone. Alters reality (laws of physics, as well as any objects) within a "Zone", a space around Maddie which starts off large enough to fill in a medium-sized room such as a small lobby or theater and can expand to encompass a couple blocks.
▫Zones might be thought of similarly to a witch's labyrinth in Madoka. They change the content of a place, often to a theme, and can be manipulated in ways that relate to the theme. These changes can be in material, appearance, changing an object into a different object, changing how objects interact with the world, moving things, creating openings, or altering other properties. However, they have no direct method of attack, and more importantly, nothing capable of thought can be directly affected by the magic. Zones fade back to normal immediately upon the release of the magic, Maddie losing consciousness, or Maddie running out of magic juice.
▫Having a general knowledge and training in magic (a decade's worth! thanks daemon contract) she could potentially learn other forms of magic, with a teacher

ZELNOTHOGLYS
▫Shifting forms between many-legged cat (that can hide its extra legs) and giant spider monster.
▫Potentially (but currently not) can take a human form
▫Can choose who can hear when he speaks
▫Can speak
▫In original thaumivore form (giant spider), is hard to perceive by people without magic or other powers - their eyes kind of slide off
▫As a thaumivore, can feed off magic, both current and potential - that's what makes them valuable to the Hand
▫As a thaumivore, has giant bladed arms for his forelimbs
▫As a thaumivore, can create thin, gossamer threads that float through the air and attach to any surface. Once attached, they become almost invisible, and can become either unnoticeable and easily breakable, tough and rope-like, tough and sticky like you'd imagine from a large spiderweb, or even razor-like. No matter how the threads wind up, Zel has complete sense of any vibrations that occur from any thread being touched, moved, or manipulated

HOUSING: Lumière 304 if possible. Might be getting a roommate very soon, but I really want her to be on Imelda's floor for shenanigans. (Regardless, she'll also have a room with Jailbreak off campus and crash there a lot.)

RP SAMPLE
This should be sufficient

OOC Information

Player name: Emily
Player age and gender: please don't remind me about my age, she
Player Contact: deerleisure
Any other characters in game? No

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IC Information

Character name: Madeline Curie (Maddie, Black Witch) [and companion Zelnothoglys]
Character canon: Original Character
Canon point: Some time before the big tournament

Physical Description: Maddie is a 15 year old girl of average height for her age (5'3"). She's white and obviously spends a lot of time indoors, judging by her lack of any sort of tan. She keeps her red hair in a neat bob cut, often with a hair clip. She's slender without a lot of curves. Her eyes are a dull gray, visibly clouded over, and never look at or focus on anything. She tends to wear flannel open over a novelty T-shirt; the T-shirts are fairly random and she has no idea what shirt she is wearing unless somebody comments on it.
Zelnothoglys is a cat, mottled browns and oranges and whites. He possesses an indeterminate number of legs but can shrink down so he only has four like other cats. He can transform into a large eyeless spider-mantis-hybrid creature about twelve feet long and eight feet tall with eight legs on his abdomen and a vague upward torso that has two spindly manipulator-legs and two large, scythe-like bladed arms.

About the Character:
In an alternate version of Earth, monsters have been attacking the world with increasing regularity. To combat them, magical animal familiars will seek out children with magical potential and enlist their help, allowing them to transform into magical girls and boys, often called mages for simplicity's sake.

However, this was all set up by the mages of long past. The monsters are real enough - creatures from beyond our world, attracted to the growing power on Earth - but the older mages are able to convert several monsters into smaller, cuter forms. As such, their minds are able to become less alien in thought, and they are promised freedom from service once they perform a job. They are sent out to awaken the latent magical power of children. As these children fight and grow in power, their companions will, at the cusp of these children becoming adults (around the 18th birthday usually,) ask to take their power away, in order to give it over to the next generation. This is a lie. All of that collected magical power gets taken to the older generation, the Elder Magi, who hoard this power, collecting it like wealth and using it to extend their lives.

It was in this world that Madeline Curie was born. Maddie is, in a lot of ways, a normal girl. She talks incessantly, a regular chatterbox. Talking helps her thought process, so she often talks even only to herself. She also talks when she's nervous or scared. And she talks when she's happy. It should come as no surprise that her passion in life is for broadcasting - radio broadcasting, audio dramas, podcasting, all of it. She's an active member of her school's Broadcasting Club, running the school announcements and producing radio dramas for competitions. She also runs a podcast called Magic with Maddie where she talks about the going-ons of magical boys and girls and monsters.

Most people pin her down as pretty "weird", even if Maddie doesn't try to come across that way. Although she talks a lot, she tends to do it without being super friendly, often leading to a "why is this girl talking to me...?" reaction. So even though she involves herself pretty heavily in stuff at school, she doesn't have a lot of friends there. Or any, really.

Her life isn't fun. In fact, despite her talkative nature and friendly demeanor, her life isn't much fun at all. When Maddie was born, she was born prematurely, and because of complications with her premature birth, she's completely blind with 0% sight. This is obviously bad enough, but it caused even more problems. Her mother, a nurse named Anne, left home and never came back one day. Her father, Simon Curie, placed the entirety of blame on Maddie, on how difficult she made life for him and her mother. From then on, Maddie knew that she had lost whatever love he may have had, if there ever was any.

Home life was rough. Her father, now single, would barely even acknowledge Maddie. Maddie learned how to become self-sufficient. Deep down, she hoped that proving she could take care of herself would mean that she could earn her father's love again, but that never happened. She was left with a huge insecurity that her disability would make people leave if it inconvenienced them too much, so she made a Point of showing off how self-sufficient and never-in-need-of-help she was. In a warped way, it became a point of pride.

Maddie at least tries to appear as a normal girl. She tends to bottle up her problems and issues to other people can't see them, and put on the facade of normalcy. If she gets frustrated or annoyed, she will only show it with sarcasm or jokes. Mostly, she presents herself as somebody that can be relied on, always with "Yeah, I can do that" when presented with a problem to be solved. She doesn't ask for help when she needs it, but would be touched if it was actually offered - somebody who would notice it and look out for her like her parents should have.

When she was 12, though, things did change for her. Maddie met a cat. The cat ended up being Zelnothoglys, a familiar. Zel explained that Maddie had a deep wellspring of magical power, and he could help her unlock it, letting her become a magical girl and fight against monsters that threatened the world. Maddie has a good heart, and thinks of herself as a good person, but she doesn't see throwing yourself into danger as something necessary to being a good person. She'd like to think that she would help somebody in need in front of her, but she had no interest in trying to solve all of the world's problems on her own. And so Maddie, understandably, wasn't wild about the idea. But she also had a deep need to prove that she was useful.... so she agreed. That's how the Black Witch was born.

As a magical girl, Maddie had the power to change the environment around here, to alter how reality worked inside of it. It was a drastic change from how most mages operated - Zel explained that magical boys and girls used powers based on their own thoughts and desires, so Maddie must have a deep desire to change the world around her. More than that, that her level of manipulation meant she had a great deal of magical power inside of her. But all of that didn't help her defeat monsters - Maddie actually didn't have much success with that at all. Her powers were not offensive - the most she could do is trap a monster and then punch it to death. And despite her need to prove herself useful, she found it hard to approach and deal with other magical girls (or boys) and didn't have a team needed to truly make the most of her powers. Even as a magical girl, Maddie was alone.

...At least, alone as far as humans went. She did have Zel. Zel began to act as her eyes, communicating things to her and giving Maddie even more freedom than she had before. Zel also looked out for her, making sure she took care of herself and had everything she needed. Over the course of the next 3 years, Zel began to act more as a surrogate parental figure than a sidekick.

And so, when she was 15, Zel couldn't lie to her anymore. He revealed the truth behind the Elder Magi and their schemes, how he was actually one of the monsters given a higher thought process and trapped in a smaller form, and how Maddie would have her powers taken at 18 to feed the Elder Magi's ambitions. And also that the Elder Magi installed all of the familiars, the mascots and animal companions, with a "kill switch" that would release them into their full forms while also driving them mad. This didn't sit well with Maddie. She didn't think she could do anything against these Elder Magi, although she did hate that as well - but mainly, she knew that meant Zel would have to leave her, and this kill switch meant that his fate lied in the hands of these evil people.

Maddie, over the course of her magical girl career, had heard of a "black market" where magical tools were bought and sold. She and Zel sought it out, trying to find a way around the kill switch. When they did, they were directed to Jailbreak, an ex-magical girl who kept her powers past 18. Jailbreak was a shifty criminal, but could disable the Elder Magi's hold over Zel if Maddie would agree to work for her. She agreed.

Disabling the kill switch meant that Zel had access to his original monstrous form as well as his cute cat form. With this, Maddie was finally able to handle monsters "solo" - using her powers in conjunction with a monster of her own. It was almost ironic that this came just as she abandoned the magical girls' fight. She now had a new job, working for Jailbreak and helping her with a variety of very illegal tasks. With Maddie's powers, it was easy to break into places, to steal things, to bypass security systems both mundane and magical.

Jailbreak would become possibly the second important person in Maddie's life, after Zel. Jailbreak is worse with dealing with people than Maddie, with huge amounts of issues that make her keep people at a distance. Still, she would make sure Maddie is doing all right in school, that she remains safe, and that she was eating properly. As messed up as it might be, she was almost becoming a second parental figure (after Zel, her actual father nowhere in that description.)

It was while working for Jailbreak that things with the Elder Magi began to come to a head. Other fugitives from the Elder Magi and their system were appearing, often involving Jailbreak. This, by association, would end up involving Maddie. Marco, a magical boy who had been offered power by the Elder Magi and refused, was one such person. Then there was Lily, an incredibly famous magical girl who had publicly gone rogue and was now used as an example by the Elder Magi on why magical girls could never keep their powers into adulthood. They would come to Jailbreak for help, and Maddie would work with Jailbreak and them against the Elder Magi and solve their problems. They were even gearing up to crash some sort of Elder Magi-sanctioned tournament. And as Maddie's world slowly expanded to incorporate these new elements... she wound up in the rift.

Character abilities:
Maddie, civilian:
-Fluent in spoken English and writing/reading braille
-Excellent speaker, voice actor, and broadcaster
-Knows how to operate soundboards and podcasting programs
-Can transform at will

Maddie, transformed into Black Witch:
-In general, possesses increased strength, speed, and durability as a magical girl, roughly on par with what you'd expect from a magical girl. (i.e. about enough to fight large monsters.)
-Can create Zones focused around her where the laws of reality are altered. They expand slowly but can eventually encompass the area of about a city block if she concentrates on expanding it for about two hours. Anything that can think even rudimentary does not become a part of the Zone.
-Zones often look wildly different but recognizable. Objects might become different, patterns and textures might change, but the general shapes remain. They often follow a theme in their change.
-In a thread example, a forest turned into props in a stage play, trees and bushes becoming two-dimensional and made of paper or cardboard. If it helps visualization, think of a Palace from Persona 5 of a witch's labyrinth from Madoka Magica.
-Maddie maintains control of things within her Zone, and there are ways to manipulate the environment depending on the Zone's appearance. She might be able to unzip a wall made out of fabric, or rearrange scenery if it's become a stage play.
-There's often a manipulation of space within her Zones, controllable to an extent by Maddie, where distance and angle are harder to judge accurately. When distorted sufficiently, doors might lead to another entrance on the same wall, up might become down, or you might find walls work as ground - anything is possible when you fuck with reality.
-Maddie might be able to use the environment to attack depending on the nature of the Zone (a jungle theme might have entrapping vines, a lego theme might collapse a structure) but possesses no direct magical attacks whatsoever.

Zelnothoglys, mascot:
-Can talk
-When he talks, he can choose to be heard only by Maddie, but by default everybody can hear him like normal
-Is a cat
-Can possess many legs, but also can possess only four like a normal cat

Zelnothoglys, monster:
-Large size
-Bladed scythe-like arms
-To the nonmagical, eyes tend to gloss over him, making his form hard to pin down and see (this is a general thing for all monsters in this setting)
-Can create thin, gossamer threads that float through the air and attach to any surface. Once attached, they become almost invisible, and can become either unnoticeable and easily breakable, tough and rope-like, tough and sticky like you'd imagine from a large spiderweb, or even razor-like. No matter how the threads wind up, Zel has complete sense of any vibrations that occur from any thread being touched, moved, or manipulated
-which is good because he's blind in this form
-Can still talk though

Inventory:
-Clothes she's wearing; white t-shirt with SURELY NOT EVERYBODY WAS KUNG FU FIGHTING, red flannel shirt over it, jeans, socks, and canvas shoes
-iPhone 9s
-earbuds
-backpack, red and black canvas
-iPhone charger
-talking scientific calculator
-collapsible white cane
-braille writer + 2 styluses
-unused braille paper (thicker uncoated paper, 49 sheets left)
-unused braille notecards (clear plastic index-card sized, 26 left)
-3 folders with various notes on classes (in braille)
-1 folder with notes on broadcasting club
-math textbook (braille edition, algebra II)
-lunchbox with three granola bars inside
-half-empty bottle of water
-transformed, access to her magical girl outfit (which includes a long blindfold)

Samples: