Author Topic: Prism Skylark  (Read 1759 times)

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Prism Skylark
« on: February 08, 2018, 01:14:23 AM »
CHARACTER

Name: Prism Skylark

Age: 17, born 1st of Hua, 62 AC

Species and Gender: Female Hummingbird Faunus

Symbol:  A triangle with a white beam of light shining through beaming out 3 colors: Red, yellow, and blue.

Occupation: 1st Year Beacon Student, Seamstress by commission

Appearance: Prism Skylark is a young, lean-bodied woman that stands at the towering height of 4’11” and 124lbs. True to her name, Prism’s hair is a deep sky blue in a choppy windswept bob that ends at her chin, complimented by wide grey eyes and clear, pale skin. A straight noise and thin lips add to the look, and her face is angular, making her appear older and mature than she actually is. Despite her height, Prism stands tall with good posture - preferring to make up for the lack of height with constant heels with a 3-inch minimum, walking and running in them as well as anybody does in boots or sneakers. She has wide shoulders for her height and good muscle definition, especially in her arms and shoulders thanks to a lifetime of parkour and flying. 

The most peculiar attribute Prism possess is the pair of blue-green hummingbird wings she prefers to keep tucked close to her back. When extended, she has a wingspan of approximately 12 feet, and is able to beat them at the rate of approximately 10 beats per second. In the sunlight, they shimmer with minor iridescence along the tips of the wings.  Alongside her wings, Prism will grow small feathers along certain parts of her body (her neck, wrists and forearms, along her upper arms and waist) that possess the same iridescence as her wings do, but she prefers to pluck these to pass as human.

Day-to-day and in combat, Prism prefers to wear tight-sleeveless clothing with minimal loose fabric that hugs her form, useful when activating her semblance. Topped over a pair of cargo pants with a multitude of pockets to store necessities like amo and various trinkets, she prefers to wear knee-high high heeled boots. To accommodate for her wings, Prism usually needs to physically alter her clothing with large slits in the back to allow for her wings to comfortably slip through. When in public she usually prefers to wear a blue jean jacket without the customary wings slits in the back, allowing her to pass as human with her wings hidden. She has several piercings in her ears and one in the right side of her nose, and most notably wears a large pair of amber goggles with black rims at most times. 

History: Prism Skylark grew up in a nameless village a ways outside the borders of Vale, where she lived with her father Blanc Skylark, her mother Rose and two sisters Aiden and Clarissa. Despite being triplets, Prism was the smallest of the three, inheriting her mother’s hummingbird wings instead of a hawk’s like her two sisters from her father’s side. Her father worked as a custom weaponsmith for hunters who commissioned him, and her mother as a specialty seamstress altering human clothing to work with faunus characteristics - together this earned them enough for a modest lifestyle deep in the woods of this little village.

Prism was homeschooled alongside her sisters by their mother, who taught them until age 12. Their mother taught all three to sew to help assist her with her work; while their father contributed to their education by teaching them self-defense and how to fight. Blanc knew the dangers of having his family live in such a remote location, and taught his daughters fight against both human and Grimm with any weapon they could get ahold of, placing an emphasis on using their wings for advantage in battle. He constantly pitted the three sisters against each other, and to avoid getting bowled over by her largest siblings, Prism learned to take advantage of her size through speed and agility. When not at home, the three siblings would explore the thick surrounding forests, taking advantage of their wings and father’s training scale trees and cliffs, further honing their agility and mobility. Being the smallest of the three, Prism would struggle to keep up with her faster sisters, and was often left in the dust as a result. Instead of pouting about it however, she would spend her time observing the forest around her, learning to move quietly and stealthily so she could continue her observations without scaring away the creatures she watched. Despite her wings, Prism was obviously the daughter who inherited a hawk’s eyes - and this was rewarded by her father after learning of her gift at the dinner table, in the form of custom slingshot. With this, Prism slowly taught herself to aim, and was the first of her siblings to ever bring home any of the creatures they chased.

The problem with being a faunus weaponssmith in a competative field Blanc often dealt with harsh competition. Despite his remote location and faunus heritage Blanc often netted high-paying customers and famous hunters as commissioners due to the quality of his work; and as a result would receive threats telling him to quit his business or face physical violence  from other weaponsmiths, who accused him of stealing their customers. The police were of no help as they viewed them as “empty threats”, so Blanc was left to deal on his own, and as the threats escalated so did the promise of violence. Blanc became stretched thin between worrying about the safety of his family and his stability of his business, and this stress eventually manifested in first emotional, then eventually physical abuse of his wife. With her family life falling apart, Prism began spending more time outside her house in the forest by herself, sometimes spending the night in one-person shelters. This quickly taught Prism a level of independence that her other siblings didn’t have - who preferred to stick it out in their bedroom, ready to side with their mother in the case of their father’s wrath. Despite learning to care for herself as a result, Prism hated herself for always running away when things got tough - always promising herself she’d go back someday, and stand with her sisters. However, this promise never came to be as eventually the constant negative air of the household attracted Grimm. She returned from a night in the woods early one morning to the sight of her house on fire, a Nevermore perched on the roof, blood and multicolored feathers on it’s beak - all the colors of her sisters and mother’s. She’d made it to the treeline, high in the branches above her own backyard just in time to watch her father get plucked out of the air, dropping the odd rifle he’d been trying to defend himself with. She’d dove for it, thinking she might’ve been able to save him, but when she’d looked up again all he did was mouth “run” before being swallowed.  The sight of her father’s death was enough to kick her semblance into gear, creating gale-force winds. However, this harshly backfired as the gusts caught her wings, and resulted in her being thrown far back into the forest - the only reason she survived the confrontation with the Nevermore , through accidentally fleeing.

The ruins of the village were happened upon by a passing patrol the next day. They’d only located one survivor, a 12 year-old faunus, huddled high in a tree nearly a mile from the wreckage clutching a fancy-looking rifle and a slingshot.

Prism was enrolled in Veil’s fostercare system, hopping from house to house. While initially grief-stricken and enraged, she found herself seeking purpose. She didn’t know what to do without her family. All she wanted was a chance at revenge, to assure that her family didn’t die without consequence, and made the decision she’d someday kill the Nevermore that killed her family - by becoming a huntress. Luck eventually struck out on her when she moved in with an old seamstress, using the skills her mother taught her to assist odd tasks and start saving up. She threw herself into her academics and extracurricular such as a martial-arts club and track team, faunus rights, and student council, earning high marks and gaining a shining social reputation. She furthermore began to expand her physical skill set at night, relearning the fighting techniques her father taught her combined with the sport she’d taken up, and begin to practice summoning and using her semblance alongside it. Using the rifle she’d carried with her since her father’s death, she furthermore began to teach herself how to shoot, with the aim being to make her as spot-on with a bullet as she was with her slingshot. Being an orphan with nothing but a gun to her name, ammunition was expensive, so she quickly learned to never waste a bullet and make every shot count. Eventually by her 17th birthday she’d saved up enough to apply and pay for Beacon’s Entry Exam, and passed with literal flying colors. Her shining academic reputation and high marks in on the exam further netted her several scholarships, setting her up so she could actually afford to go to the elite school. Coming into Beacon, Prism has three goals: to never miss a shot, to never stop moving to assure her goals, and to someday avenge her family.


Personality: When first encountering Prism Skylark, your immediate impression of her is frugal professionalism. Her good posture and confident carry give feel of discipline and authority, and she speaks in a tactical and delegated way, preferring not to waste precious time or resources - she’s too goal-oriented. While this behavior goes over wonderfully with teachers and figures of authority, it has the tendency to isolate her from peers her age, instead preferring to focus on her studying and combat skills. If you spend enough time around Prism however, and prove to be friendly enough, her actual personality will slowly open up. Prism is surprisingly friendly and charismatic is a joking way, carrying a quick wit that’s always happy to throw out a joke or bad pun. Prism is always happy to help a friend and will go out of her way to do so, and is endlessly patient in the right scenarios when someone is truly struggling due to reasons outside their control, having done the same in the process of teaching herself to shoot and fight. However, if it seems someone is manipulating her for her better nature then she’s not afraid to cut her losses. Thanks to years of struggling to achieve her goals, Prism lives by the principle of do no harm, but take no bullshit: don’t purposefully create strife with others, but have no tolerance when it comes to people disrespecting her. After the loss of her family however, Prism's come to take all life as a precious gift - hating seeing people die, and will do most anything to prevent unnecessary causalities. If you're considered a good friend, she'll be loyal to a fault. Being partly hummingbird, Prism’s inherited several traits from her avian cousins, including a heavy preference for granola and fruit (similar to birdseed and nectar from flowers, in her opinions) and the tendency to endlessly prattle on about nothing, like the buzzing of a hummingbird’s wings.

The downside to Prism’s quick wit is the sharper tongue that accompanies it. When insulted or tricked, she doesn’t hesitate to return it tenfold in the form of verbal annihilation - especially regarding her faunus heritage. While she enjoys socializing with others and considers herself a people’s person, she does have the tendency to get wrapped up in her goals - distracted from enjoying the little moments in life with so much of her goals suspended in a balancing act of perfect grades and better flattery of higher-ups. This extends to the point Prism will accidentally isolate herself as she’s caught up in whatever she’s focused on, simply forgetting to interact with friends and teammates on a basic level. Alongside her accidental isolation, Prism suffers from night terrors and insomnia as a result of seeing her family killed. This leads to her not sleeping for long periods of time and surviving mostly off coffee, sugary snacks, and energy drinks. Even if she does sleep it’s only in 2-3 hour bursts Unfortunately, this also all includes a crippling fear of Nevermores due to watching her father die.

In her own opinion, Prism’s greatest strengths are her patience and perseverance. She knows what she wants and how to get it; and she knows that hard work in the long run will pay off. No matter the setbacks, she’s willing to keep working - as long as she can get up off her feet, she will never back down. She’s furthermore incredibly tactical and frugal, calculating the most optimal way to make the best out of every opportunity or bullet. She knows the struggles of achieving one’s goals and is more than willing to help others, but will cut her losses if she calculates a dead end - preferring nothing to slow her down. However, being so goal-determined sometimes results in accidental isolation and an aura of unfriendliness - she doesn’t mean it personally, she just has so much to focus on. And if even seemingly disrespected, she doesn’t bother to hold her temper, rather cutting off a person’s bullshit at the source than have it waste her time. That’s where her patience and perseverance take a turn for the worst: she’s bitingly frugal, to the point she’ll cut herself off from relationships (even if accidentally) if it means achieving what she wants.

Aura and Semblance:

Prism’s aura is unusually large and bright white, though when looked at from the right angles seems to give off faint echoes of red, yellow, and blue. Her semblance as an ability she’s nicknamed “Gust”, based off of her initial first-ever access of it.

Prism’s semblance allows her to create gusts of wind of varying sizes, which she uses to either to keep the distance between her and her target, or buoy herself up into the air. Smaller gusts used for mobility or quick bursts of flight are her specialty, and she’s learned to ration her aura to allow for as much mobility as possible. If budgeted correctly and using the environment (especially if it’s a windy day) Prism can stay hovering or slowly drifting for upwards of 15 minutes. Bigger and stronger winds require greater effort however, and gale-force winds can consume up to nearly a quarter of her semblance in one gust. Sustaining heavy winds longer than 15 seconds usually depletes her aura completely. When used with dust when Hawk’s Eye is in it’s secondary form, Prism can create storms corresponding to the type of dust used. However due to focusing almost entirely on precision-usage of her semblance (in boosting herself and knocking enemies off-balance), she lacks the necessary practice to be able to summon massive gusts of wind or create windstorms; she's only successfully recreated large gusts like the one that blew back the Nevermore that killed her family under extreme-stress conditions. Basically, entirely on accident.

Combat Behavior: Prism’s a cutthroat sniper with a near-perfect aim, her own motto being to never waste a bullet. When in combat, she prefers to find a high place and set up a nest, waiting and scanning the battlefield for the perfect moment to strike. She uses her wings, semblance, and natural small size to assist in her mobility and agility, allowing her to reach unsuspecting perches and often surprise the enemy.  She furthermore never stays in one place, knowing a stationary sniper is a dead one - using her semblance and parkour-like abilities to constantly keep opponents guessing. Due to using her own semblance so often she’s gotten excellent at budgeting it, allowing her to use it for extended periods of time. When forced into close combat, Prism can make efficient use of her rifle’s secondary form. The glave’s staff keeps Prism from making direct contact with her opponents, and relies primarily on her wings and semblance to boost her agility to stay at least two steps ahead of the enemy, doing her best to often (accurately) predict their moves and avoid them. She furthermore uses the resulting recoil from shooting her rifle to give her added mobility and height (think like how Ruby uses her scythe).

The disadvantage to being a long-range sniper, even with close-combat training, is you get too used to having the time to think. Prism ironically struggles with thinking on the fly, used to having a few moments to assess the situation and come up with the best reaction - resulting in being vulnerable to surprise attacks. This furthermore makes thinking on her feet difficult when forced into a one-on-one, because as long as she’s kept on her toes she won’t be able to formulate an offensive response, too busy spending the valuable moments between strikes figuring out how to defend properly and attempting to predict her enemy's moves. Furthermore, being naturally small in stature gives Prism a disadvantage when it comes to battles of physicality and of defense. She can accurately be described as a glass cannon - powerful from a distance and can be in a fight, but a few good hits and she’s down for the count.

Overall, her strengths include:
- Good observational skills and plan-making
- Able to predict enemies moves
- Smart use of semblance and aura (able to budget efficiently)
- Highly agile and mobile (parkour!), good at surprising enemies
- Has attacks that cover all varieties of ranges (sniper rifle for long-range, dust usage in glave form for mid-range, glave itself for close-range)

Weaknesses include:
- Often at a physical disadvantage due to (lack of) size/strength 
- Glass cannon, poor defenses
- Struggles with thinking on-the-spot when in battle, can easily be caught off-guard
- Small size can make getting hits in difficult
- Weak against mid-range and low-range attacks due to lack of familiarity with them



WEAPON

Name: Hawk’s Eye

Primary Form: Hawk’s Eye’s primary form is that of a semi-automatic sniper rifle with added scope that’s accurate up to 800 meters, the metal white with blue accents. The barrel has a length of 24 inches, with the added body bringing it up to 43 inches. Hawk’s Eye has a detachable scope and a bipod that allows it to stick to any surface for added balance, including uneven ones. The total weight of the rifle totals up to 16 lbs with the added scope and a sling, allowing for Prism to carry it in flight. The Hawk’s Eye has a 5-round internal magazine that Prism can quickly change, and would give the expected effects when shooting dust-loaded cartridges.

Secondary Form: When close-quarters combat is necessary for Prism, Hawk’s Eye primary form can transform into that of a glave by extending the barrel to become a handle up to 6 feet long, with the body of the rifle folding in to form a blade 18 inches long. The staff of the glave stiff functions as a long-distance rifle in this form, as the space for the magazine does remain in the glave’s blade. The blade of the glave can take on effects depending on the type of dust loaded into the cartridge in this form:

Fire: Lights blade on fire, can create sweeping crescent of flames that expands outwards when swung
Ice: Covers blade in ice, creates freezing crescent with small ice particles useful to blind enemies. If stabbed into the ground, can create an ice-slicked surface expanding in a straight line from the point the blades strikes
Lighting: Electrocutes blade of the glave, electrocuting enemies when in contact.
Wind: Creates crescent-shaped gust of wind(not depleting aura)
Earth: Creates a sandstorm when swung, used to blind enemies/provide cover.
Gravity/Kinetic: Can be used to increase the force of the swing of the glave

Tertiary Form: When not in combat, Hawk’s Eye is able to fold up its internal components to form a shoebox-sized steel box that Prism can carry at her waist on her back.

Dust Functions: Hawk’s Eye’s sniper form has none, accept when loaded with dust-tipped bullets, which then would carry the predicted effect (fire-type dust creating a flaming bullet, ice-typed bullet freezing a body part on impact, etc). In it’s secondary form, a dust cartridge can be loaded into a slot at the base of the blade of the glave, allowing the blade to take on the dust’s intended effects. This manifests in the blade being covered by the corresponding dust effect (fire dust lighting on the blade on fire, ice dust causing it to freeze, etc) and when slashed through the air, send out crescent-shaped waves that correspond with the dust’s intended effect, giving Prism a small range of secondary attacks.

History: Hawk’s Eye was a sniper rifle created by Prism’s father for an unknown client shortly before his death, and was used by Blanc to attempt to defend himself from the Nevermore that attacked his house and family. Prism managed to rescue the rifle but failed to save her father; and it’s now one of the last remaining pieces she has of her family, making her value it dearly. 
« Last Edit: March 09, 2018, 11:19:19 PM by Moth »
Prism Skylark - Beacon First Year, Winged Sharpshooter and Leader of Team CASA (Casanova) #ffffff

Chantou Rou - Beacon First Year, Insect-Eyed Rebel of Team LGGR (Lager) #ff82a4

Albrecht Clodwal - Beacon First Year, White Knight Nice-Guy of Team CNRS (Cinerous) #00a4a4

Azre and Erza Sundown- Shade First Years, Fallen Stars of Team RASB (Raspberry) #fe2d00, #feab00

Jima Purpora - Beacon Third Year, Grimm-Obsessed Scholar of Team PLSM (Plasma) #6e3aa8

Kingnoname1

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Re: Prism Skylark
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2018, 06:03:43 AM »
This is really really good I only have three nitpicks

  • In the history section you say ‘outside the borders of veil,’ I’m pretty sure you mean Vale.
  • The first emergence of her semblance beating a super powerful threat thing is something we come down pretty hard on so I have to ask you to cut out the pushing the Nevermore back into forest at 12 years. Perhaps she could try to push it back but end up flinging herself back into the forest?
  • I disagree with a lot of your weaknesses being meaningful but you have enough so it doesn’t really matter. Being bad while disarmed or relying on your superpower aren't very impactful but being real smoll and bad at reacting is enough.
No criticism is too harsh so hit me with your best shot.

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Moth

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Re: Prism Skylark
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2018, 10:18:08 PM »
Thank you for the initial compliment, I was pretty proud of her outcome! Made the following changes in response to the points:
- Changed Veil to Vale
- Rewrote weaknesses paragraph to be more relevant, alongside list of strengths/weaknesses
- Rewrote point in history about how she escaped the Nevermore. Initially meant to imply the winds blew back both her and the Nevermore; now just details how it blew back her (like that idea more anyways)
- Added sentence about using recoil from Hawk's Eye firing for further mobility
- Added dust functions when Hawk's Eye is in it's secondary form, giving her a small selection of mid-range attacks.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2018, 10:25:36 PM by Moth »
Prism Skylark - Beacon First Year, Winged Sharpshooter and Leader of Team CASA (Casanova) #ffffff

Chantou Rou - Beacon First Year, Insect-Eyed Rebel of Team LGGR (Lager) #ff82a4

Albrecht Clodwal - Beacon First Year, White Knight Nice-Guy of Team CNRS (Cinerous) #00a4a4

Azre and Erza Sundown- Shade First Years, Fallen Stars of Team RASB (Raspberry) #fe2d00, #feab00

Jima Purpora - Beacon Third Year, Grimm-Obsessed Scholar of Team PLSM (Plasma) #6e3aa8