Stripes
Name: Silvia O'Sullivan •
Age: 17 •
Nationality: USA
Appearance: Silvia appears listless most of the time. Despite this, she keeps up good hygiene and makes sure she looked her best wherever she goes. Did the wind just blow? She'll brush her red hair. Did she just eat? She'll look in her pocket mirror to clean her teeth, which are by far the best among all magical girls.
Barring her outfit, the only notable difference between her magical girl and true forms is that her eyes are green instead of orange, and her hair is a bit less dynamic out of costume. Silvia likes to keep up with trends, and sometimes even sets them. She never wears anything too outlandish, but she's something of a fashionista. Normal clothes paired with the right accessories make her look pop.
Description: "Apathetic" is probably the first word that comes to mind when people see Silvia O'Sullivan. She's not an excitable person, and doesn't go out of her way to get to know people or engage in small talk. There are no people, magical girls or otherwise, that she reveres. What few times she does choose to talk to people is out of pure necessity. Furthering her studies is more important than any human interaction. But even then, she does not seem to get excited when she gets a good grade, nor does she seem disappointed when she scores low on a test. She only displays emotions in extreme cases, like that time a student punched her in the face, or when she caught a whiff of someone's hallucination spell.
Ever since she was very young, her parents had always told her what she should be doing. At least, in terms of her school learning. She was an average kid with average grades, but her parents were determined to make sure she studied hard and got perfect grades on everything. They were going to make sure their little girl went to the best school, entered the best collage, and became more successful than all her peers. They would comb out all of her weaknesses to prepare her for the "real world."
That didn't leave much room for her own interests, but she was respected by many and had a lot of people who considered her their friends. She honestly didn't care for most of them. But she did have a friend in Japan that she would write to from time to time. The internet was an amazing place, and it was nice to talk about her problems with someone who was removed from her immediate circle of acquaintances. She enjoyed her friends company so much that she would go visit her one day. Her parents offered to take Silvia to Japan if she did well on her end of year tests, which of course, she did.
But when Silvia met with her friend, she could see that she hadn't been entirely honest during their talks. Silvia had been told that they had a perfect life with a nice home and lots of friends, but when she met face to face with her friend she was working impossible hours in some dead end job. Her colleagues didn't respect her, she had no friends, and she had been trying to pretend she was something she wasn't online in an attempt to reach out to someone. The deception didn't bother Silvia, as she had undersold many of the positive parts of her own life. Her friend gave her a book with tears in her eyes, calling it a memento for her visit. Once she got back to the states, her friend clarified that she handed the book to her because it was cursed, and she needed to get it out of her life. This was kind of strange to Silvia. She she also felt a bit betrayed, because her friend had essentially tried to pass all of her misfortunes onto her with this book. She would never write to her friend again.
Though a foreign school in London seemed to be interested in taking in a transfer student like Silvia. Her parents had been trying to get her into Marrywell Academy for a while, and were quite pleased that they were finally able to get through. Had her former friend's book passed what was left of her good luck to Silvia? Even after a few years she can't say.
It's hard to gauge what Silvia's likes and dislikes are. She does seem to have an interest in culinary arts, as eating is one of the few things she expresses joy in. She's almost always studying, and will join just about any sport she can. The more competitive a sport is, the better. Physical activity isn't something she's shy about engaging in. Her dislikes are also hard to pin down, but she doesn't like talkative people. Especially talkative people that can't tell she's trying to concentrate on something else.
She hasn't really been impressed with the Grand Ministry. Silvia has observed a reverence towards members with stronger grimoires, some of which look down on those with weaker stories. She feels that people should be respected based on the power of their character rather than some book they got by chance. Where she to hold the Book of Omen in her own hands, would people treat her any differently?
Grimoire's Title: Hyakumankai Ikita Neko • Classification: Fable
Description: "The Cat Who Lived a Million Times" is a folk/children's story written in 1977 by Sano Yoko. The book is mostly watercolor pictures, but does of course feature a story. It tells the tale of a tiger striped tabby who lived a million times, always getting reborn to an owner they don't care for. Every time they die, their owner cries, but the tabby never does. But on their millionth life, they have no owner. They are wild, and thus free to go wherever they please. He eventually meets a white cat who he falls in love with, and for once. Though over time, the white cat grows old and dies. Then the tabby cries a million tears before dyeing themselves. This time, the tabby does not return to life.
The story is believed to be Buddhist allegory for enlightenment, as they believe that we are reincarnated several times in earthly bodies before we reach enlightenment. Because the tabby was never able to love anyone other than themselves, they were unable to achieve enlightenment and were forced to live as an effectively immortal cat for 999,999 of its lives. Though the story does not outright spell this out for the reader. Some could easily come away with a different moral. Maybe what the story was actually illustrating was that the tabby was invincible until it decided to start caring for someone other than itself. You can read the story
here.
The story is not especially well known, and is also relatively new as far as fables go. However the story has been referenced in other media. In cowboy Bebop, one of the main characters recalls the story of the "tiger striped tabby," which is a summery of "The Cat Who Lived a Million Times." Regardless, it is pretty weak, even by a fable's standards. Though it does possess the power to make Silvia very strong in the right situation.
Abilities: This grimoire enables its holder to take on the features of the tiger striped tabby in the story.
• While this tome doesn't offer immortality, Silvia becomes stronger in proportion to how outnumbered she is, relative to the power of said opponents. This effects all of her spells and arcane abilities, but has no effect on mundane skills granted by the grimoire.
• However, her power is divided among any allies who are in the vicinity. That is to say that they get stronger while her own power wanes. This effects all of her spells and arcane abilities, but has no effect on mundane skills granted by the grimoire.
• The tabby in the story had several lifetimes to acquire skills, but Silvia is still on her first. Regardless, she can learn abilities from opponents that she fights. This can be anything from a martial arts styles, a spell, to some monstrous ability, but she needs to witness them using it while she's trying to fight them. Anything she learns is relative in power to her grimoire rather than her opponent. Her learned powers so far are:
• Greater Than the Greatest of Tigers: This ability came with her grimoire. When she's alone, she can turn into a giant tiger that can rip most pageless apart in just a few swipes. Though as more allies join her in combat, the transformation becomes weaker. She can maybe muster a tail and some ears, and her finger nails become as tough as tiger claws. Not quite as menacing, nor as effective in combat.
• Magic Missile: Something she picked up sparring with a magical girl who fought with a D&D scenario as their grimoire. Silvia can conjure eight magic missiles that home in on her target. Every ally who fights along side her cuts the number of projectiles she fires in half until she can only fire a single missile at a time.
• Performer's Balance: Another find during a sparing match, this time against a trained circus performer on a precarious arena. Silvia has incredible balance and can maintain her footing almost anywhere. She can even do some stylish flips, but typically won't because that's a good way to get hurt. Skills of this nature typically will not weaken when Silvia is among allies.
• As tidy as Silvia tries to dress, her witch hat in magical form has a patchwork point on it. She believes that is because she was not the first person to use this grimoire, and is actually the tip of her former friends hat sewn onto her own. She hasn't done anything to try and fix it.
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