margarine "margie" detemps

OUT OF CHARACTER:
Name/Handle: Aaron
Contact: seacats @ plurk
Reference: Saree
Other characters: N/A

IN-CHARACTER:
Character name: Margarine "Margie" Detemps
Character journal: punchingly
Series name: Final Fantasy XIV
Canon notes: Canon OC! Post-Singularity Reactor.

Species: Roegadyn -- taller humanoids, with flatter noses and more obtusely muscular forms. Margie is a Hellsguard, which means she is slightly less bulky and more magical than other Roe.

History:
Margie is the second child of her parents -- and in true Hellsguard fashion, she was kicked off of their volcano hell home as soon as she reached the age of majority and told to go seek her fortune elsewhere. Dropping her family name and taking on a random last name she picked up in a tavern, Margie became a sellsword working as an offshoot of the Brass Blades of Ul'dah. Unfortunately, sellsword life was not for her -- and in a terrible caravan accident involving the lizard-men, the Amal'jaa, she was blinded in the right eye and banned from the company.

Seeking work as an adventurer, she took up conjury in Gridania for quite some time before moving back to Ul'dah to seek training as a pugilist under master Holyfist. It was there that she discovered that she possessed the Protagonist Powers of the Echo -- a powerful blessing from the creator of the world, Hydaelyn, that allowed her to bascially become one of the most powerful people and also the slayer of many fearsome creatures called primals. Primals basically showed up to not only make Margie's life miserable, but also in an attempt to rid the world of anyone who did not follow them. In fact, there were so many primals that the majority of levels 1-44 were devoted to slaying Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda in their respective homes before they could cause more harm. Still later was Margie called upon to slay the even more powerful "hard mode" and "extreme" versions of these very same primals, and also versions of Leviathan, Ramuh, Shiva and Odin -- basically the more she killed off people's deities, the harder prayed to revive them in a neverending cycle.

However, primals were not the only threat for Eorzea, and Margie was called upon with her friends to aid in the protection of the world against several other, equally terrifying foes. Among other plot points, the following things happen in rather quick succession:
- Many members of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, Margie's affiliated organization, are murdered by the Garlean Empire in an attempt to prevent them from meddling in the safety of Eorzea any more. While many survive, many do not -- and it's heavily implied that it's because of Margie that they did this.
- The Garleans seize on this opportunity and attempt to storm Eorzea in its' confusion, necessitating an immediate intervention by Margie and Alphinaud, a young nerd with some claim to fame because of his grandfather.
- Margie rescues the kidnapped Scions (Minfilia, Tataru, etc) and befriends a machine that later becomes her mount.
- The Ascians also take this time to announce themselves, going so far as to continue to encourage people to summon those Extreme Primals mentioned earlier
- Margie and her companions (The Scions of the Waking Dawn) discover the means to kill an Ascian; in doing so, one of the Scions gives her life for it to succeed, and Minfilia has to be rescued again.
- Margie loses the Echo for a time, instead having to rely only on herself and the "friendship" of a long-dead dragon now reborn: Midgardsormr.
- A relatively crazy lady thinks she's Shiva reborn and begins assisting the angry dragons in attacking the solitary, religion-crazy state of Ishgard. Which of course asks for Margie's help because she's awesome.
- Rich bastards in Ul'dah take the time to cause an uprising in the city-state, necessitating the intervention of the Scions and causing the current Empress, Nanamo, to begin to consider abdication in favor of a republic.
- Unfortunately the same rich bastards attempt to kill Nanamo and blame it all on the Scions, causing everyone to need to flee the city-state: all of the Scions except Alphinaud and Tataru become MIA after this event.
- Margie, Alphinaud, and Tataru throw themselves on the mercy of the Ishgardians for safety, since Ul'dah really wants to kill them as traitors now.

AND THEN THE EXPANSION HAPPENS and in the next ten levels you have even more of an emotional roller coaster than the first 50. Oh boy. Tears are shed. Even more lives are lost.
- The Ishgardians are locked in a crazy war with dragons that happened over a gajillion years ago. Only the dragons remember what really happened, so the Ishgardians feel justified in murdering the shit out of them.
- The crazy Shiva-summoning lady is named Ysayle and it turns out that she too has Protagonist Powers! And that these powers are what ended up telling her to side with the dragons.
- Ysayle accompanies you on a gigantic journey across Ishgard and Dravania in an attempt to stop Nidhogg from raising the Dragon Horde against Ishgard.
- You are also accompanied by Estinien, the Azure Dragoon of Ishgard, who possesses one of Nidhogg's eyes (wonder why he'd be angry, hm? you took his eye?)
- Ysayle and Estinien disagree completely on whether to kill or not kill the dragons: Ysayle wins in reconciliation with Hraesvelgr, the lover of the original Shiva, who tells Ysayle that her own manifestation of the goddess is nothing more than wishful thinking. Estinien wins because he gets to stab his lance into Nidhogg's head and take his other eye.
- Except...the eye that Estinien takes actually comes from Hraesvelgr. Which means Nidhogg's second eye is missing.
- Meanwhile, we find out that the nobility and religion of Ishgard are built on complete lies -- and the head of the Temple Knights, Aymeric, is intent on ousting this secret to the public. So of course he is captured and Margie has to rescue him.
- The head of Ishgard, Thordan, tells you he intends on saving Ishgard by turning into a primal himself, and that's just Bad News. He kills one of Margie's steadfast companions, Haurchefant, and ollies out.
- The Garleans reappear because they heard you've got a giant weapon you can use for killing primals? Hidden in the sky?
- Margie kills more Ishgard-specific primals.
- Ysayle dies attempting to keep the Garleans from putting their hands on Azys Lla, the floating weapon island in the sky. In the process, Margie is nearly killed attempting to even get to the weapon.
- Thordan does indeed turn himself and all of his knights into primals using the second Eye of Nidhogg (it was never lost!), and Margie, together with several other Protagonists, dispatches them all handily. It is implied here that Margie and her friends are now becoming so powerful that perhaps nothing can stop them, perhaps even elevating them to primal level, themselves. All bad implications.
- Estinien, in his joy at having both eyes in his possession, gets completely consumed by Nidhogg and turns into him, flying off into the sky to restart the battle against the Ishgardians that you so recently stopped from occurring.

And that's...Heavensward.

Personality:
Seemingly quiet and reserved, Margie stands as a looming, relatively gentle-looking giant amidst friends. Early in life she learned the value of being the person who listens rather than speaks -- so every word is measured and carefully considered, as if she's attempting to put meaning into every syllable. Sparing with both verbal praise and condemnation, she relies mostly on how she presents herself to convey her emotions. With Margie, there is no poker face: her entire body is used as a reflection of what she's feeling, and she's a terrible liar. Honesty is generally the best policy because she shows too much guilt, otherwise.

A very patient person, Margie attempts to use violence only when necessary. However, even the most patient of people has a limit -- if her friends are in danger, Margie is perfectly ready to spring into action with both magic and a good, old-fashioned punch to the face. Punching is, in fact, her preferred way of resolving conflicts when talking about the situation has failed; she isn't afraid of getting her hands dirty. In fact, when talking about the problem is a moot point (cough Ascian threat ultimate evil cough) she's downright gleeful about getting the knock the crap out of people. As a physical person, someone who expresses everything she's feeling with her body, her fighting style is a manifestation of those feelings, and fighting for a just cause makes her incredibly happy. A protagonist to the core, she's quick to jump to the defense of those in the right, and defend the innocent from the beings that may harm them.

But don't discredit her intelligence; Margie has studied not only as a fighter, but as an intellectual as well. It is one of her biggest pet peeves when people assume that because she is quiet, she's actually not smart at all. Personal insults hit close to home for Margie, and it's hard for her to let them go. Her easy nature does much to hide the fact that her grudges are for a lifetime -- and it takes a monumental change of heart for her to forgive someone's wrongdoings. While it takes a lot to make her truly angry, once you've managed it, she will never forget, and will never let you live it down, unless you can prove that you've somehow overcome it.

In addition, Margie has never been the best at reading *people* -- although she is a great listener, due to having so many chatty people around her, she has never quite figured out how to read everyone's body language. To someone so perpetually at ease, those who are angry or upset tend to baffle her. While Margie tries her best to comfort people like that, she's not always the best at it, and doesn't always understand unless told what she needs to do to make a situation better.

Despite this, Margie is a true friend -- a great listener, someone who will both guard you and heal you with equal ease depending on the situation. She values her friends higher than anything else in her life, and would give an arm and a leg to keep them safe and happy. Expect her to give you strange gifts in an attempt to make you feel better (high quality rocks, anyone?), and for her to always be there when you need her. Just...perhaps not understanding your body language. I hope you like hugs.

Abilities:
As a warrior of light, Margie has the ability to swap between classes and jobs easily. She is a distinguished Monk, a competent conjurer, and a fairly recent learner of the job Summoner. She also dabbles in several other weapons with vague knowledge of how to wield them. Her primary focuses are the magical arts: she can heal people, and even raise them from the dead (with great taxation); Margie is also capable of summoning the powers of the primals to destroy her foes. Very recently, she has begun learning from the Sharlayans the power of divining the future through Astrology, and using those readings to heal incoming damage. Though she is still a bit of a novice at this art, and sometimes her predictions are a bit...off.

She is also very strong -- being a Monk has its' perks -- and although relatively average with most conventional weapons, she's pretty damn good at punching people in the face. EMBRACE YOUR CHAKRAS. Love the punch. Embrace the punch.

As a FFXIV Protag, she also has the power of the Echo: she can subconsciously view memories from other people's pasts, generally relevant to the current problem or mystery they are solving. It's relatively random, however, and sort of just does what it wants when it feels like it. It also protects her moderately from any sort of mental tempering -- mind control just doesn't work on Hydaelyn's chosen.

She also has the ability to carry 100x more stuff in her pockets than any reasonable person.

Augment Skillset: ON A HILARIOUS SUGGESTION Maintenance Augment -- because a 7 foot tall lady with an army of Roombas sounds incredibly hilarious to me. Also because she would take even the smallest job seriously, and would keep a ship very clean and organized!

(If you are looking for a serious Augment, however, then the Security Augment would fit one of the FFXIV character's skillsets extremely well. But. Army of Roombas.)

Sample:
While Margie was not intending to wake up to a pile of colorful boxes, it certainly seemed that someone did -- and so, yawning and in her smallclothes, the girl examined the bright purple objects with mild curiosity. Scrawled in thick, playful letters across every box was the words "Yum-O's!", something that made no sense to her. Carefully, Margie pulled one of the hundred out of the neat pile, peering at it more closely.

"Ingredients..." she murmured to herself, large finger tracing the ingredient list that contained hundreds of scientific-sounding words. Although she knew a bit about the culinary arts, none of the words made sense to her, outside of 'sugar' and 'dye', as well as water and other basic ingredients. Did that mean the contents were poisoned? But surely the Drift Fleet wouldn't be sending them one hundred purple boxes of sugar-coated poison...right? The thought did occur to her that perhaps it was a test of some sort, a logic puzzle involving hundreds of boxes to be taken to various locations. But the temptation and horror of what could be inside of them took precedence over that particular train of thought for the moment.

With a firm shake of her head -- get it together, Margie! --the woman ripped open the box of Yum-O's in her hands, carefully pulling a hole in the strange plastic packaging and dipping a finger into the opening. First test: nothing bit her. That counted out any sort of Sharlayan nonsense of biting boxes or Allagan pincing annihilation creatures, probably. Instead, her finger brushed the material that felt more organic than processed. Test two commenced: pouring the flakes onto her palm, she immediately put them into her mouth, chewing idly.

"Oh. It's a snack...!"

Well, she shrugged. If it had been poison, she probably would have been okay. As it stood, Margie continued to munch on the cereal, until the entire box was gone.