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[amusicaladventure]

PLAYER↴ Name: Dragon Contact: dragonoflife Other Characters: Zecora CHARACTER↴ Character Name: Ashleigh Mischief Age: 20 Species: Catperson Canon: OC Canon Point: On an extended period of unfocused adventure, playing music to get by and searching her place in life. Character Info: Ash hails from a nexus world, a cosmic singularity, where multiple planes of reality overlap and often disgorge their contents. This leads to a very chaotic and multicultural world, where high magic exists alongside advanced technology, where steampunk mixes with alchemy, where the undead have their own nightlife and dragons serve society by hoarding currency as it pours into the world. Ash's own particular chunk of it has a faintly Earth-like flavor to it, since nexus worlds tend to attract people from scads of different Earths along with all the other worlds. But this admixture of power and science, which serves as a safe haven for so many strange or curious creatures, also can harbor its worst. And one of those worst led to her kind's existence. Catfolk are, straight-up, a messed-up and problematic species who were created by a mage with no ethics and too much power, simply to be a living version of their fantasy playtoy ideal. This leaves them with some minor physical and serious mental problems. On the other hand, it also means they're a very magical species. From her youngest years, Ash had the power to make magic through music. After a few dangerous but fortunately not tragic accidents, she understood the rules well enough to make it work for her -- and also very fortunately, because her parents were good and kind and decent people who did their best, she grew up with no particular desire to abuse that power. Instead, she used it as best she could to do something a little abnormal for a catperson: have a normal life. Which she mostly succeeded at, managing to graduate from high school (most catpeople either go to specialty schools or drop out early). But that only delayed another common catperson problem: a complete lack of focus, and no clear goals or directions. Ash has been roaming around her homeland for two years now without any clear desires or motivations, making her way by performing and ignoring the empty feeling inside. Personality: Ashleigh is decent, cheerful, kind, fun-loving, and generally good. Some people might say she's all these things "on the surface", because they don't capture her full scope -- but she is all these things, really. She's just more complex than that. Given the power she has at her fingertips, Ash very well could have been a tyrant, a bully, and a danger -- that she isn't is thanks to her parents, who taught her responsibility and empathy from a very young age. Her first mishaps with her music scared her deeply and left her with a very healthy respect for its power, and as a consequence she was very hesitant to use it until she understood its rules and its capabilities. Of course, that was years ago, and she's become a little more free in its use now that she knows her limits, so she's a little spoiled -- she's never known hunger, never really been without anything she needed, and most anything she wants, she can get if she chooses to. As a consequence, she's hopelessly directionless and desperate for some meaning in her life. Her main goal had been to get through school, and once she accomplished that she didn't have a next step. A couple of times, college has crossed her mind, but she asks herself what she'd study and never has an answer. So she shrugs and keeps flitting about aimlessly, looking for something. She doesn't know what. She'll know it when she sees it, maybe? The absolute worst curse of being a catperson stems from the disgusting mind of their creator: an inability to say no. (What good is a fantasy that can reject you?) As a consequence, Ash is a pretty forward girl, of the mindset that if she has no choice, she might as well take things on her terms. Consequently, she handles rejection or a lack of interest in her poorly, taking it as a reflection on her self-worth. Similarly, she has very few actual friends -- most of her relationships have some degree, even a minor one, of sexual charge. She's pretty unaware of all of this, having never really sat down for a good bout of introspection to examine her motives as regards other people. Introspection in general is not her strong suit. Because of this, she's also very careful with other people's boundaries. She doesn't touch unless she's sure it's welcome, and the moment she senses any behavior of hers is unwelcome or causing discomfort she'll back way the hell off. She's also a fiery crusader for people being treated as people, not objects, and believes fiercely that anyone should be free to do what they want, no matter what they look like on the outside. Despite being a music mage, Ash is oddly blase about her music. She loves to play, she'll use it to get by, but she doesn't have an immense drive to perform for crowds or get a record deal or anything like that. Again this is a factor of how easily it all comes to her -- there's no challenge, no motivation. It's just a part of her, no more something to be pursued than her own tail. (Which she hasn't chased since she was six, thank you very much.) Abilities: Ash does magic by music. Any effort of hers to produce music invokes accompaniment conjured out of nowhere; she has no conscious control over the form it takes, but it does respond to her desires. So a simple tapping out a beat might just get an occasional cymbal crash for emphasis, while a deliberate desire to perform generally provides an entire band or even orchestra as appropriate to go along with her efforts. In addition, she is also proficient in any musical instrument she picks up, and can anticipate the lyrics and music of songs she's never heard before. Ash's music also changes reality. If she's covering a song, a performance, or a work that isn't hers, she can choose to let her music work its magic to produce one result of moderate size that is determined by the nature of the song. She has no direct control over the results, though they are influenced by both her own desires and the nature of the song she's performing. The 1812 Overture, for example, is great for a firework display at sunset; Metallica's "Fuel" is great for high-speed travel; she doesn't perform Taylor Swift because that just won't end well, ever. Every single original performance of hers, without exception, invokes magic. This magic can have far greater scope, but manifests in far less predictable ways. These effects can be large in scope, but are generally not permanent. Music is eternal, but each song has its end, after all. All her effects tend to be flashy as hell; there's no subtly about them, and major effects will often produce coronas of light that scream MAGIC IS BEING DONE HERE to anyone who doesn't confuse them with a Dragon Ball Z power aura. Unrelated to any of this, she is physically stronger and more enduring than she looks because of her species. She is also incapable of gaining more weight in fat or muscle mass that would substantially alter her appearance; instead, her metabolism ramps up to burn it off, leaving her feverish and ill. CARNIVAL↴ Soul Colour: Orange-gold Ideal Jobs: Showman Relevant Experience: Musical prodigy. Massive repertoire and skill. Reason for Joining: She signed up in exchange for the Ringleader getting rid of her species-based inability to say 'no'. Seal it, ward it, remove it, anything -- so long as it's a permanent fix, a year is so small a price to pay for changing her entire life. SAMPLES↴ Thread sample. Trapped in the forest. Seriously? No matter where she went, she kept coming out of the woods right where she went in. At first, she'd thought it had been a mistake on her part, just getting turned around. The next time she'd immediately realized the forest's game, and had turned back in with a smile, confident that she'd crack its secret now that she knew what to look for. This was attempt six, and she was just plain fed up. Time to brute-force it. Tipping back her head, Ash opened her mouth, cleared her through, and then let her voice free. Music rolled out of nowhere, sounding very much like an invisible full orchestra had abruptly filled the clearing around her, moving with her as she walked. Her song filled every particle in the air with energy and vibration as she put her will behind it. Bring me around, let the night pass by. Lost in the dark, caught wondering why. Searching for the only place I've ever known... So bring me home. The last word lingered in the air atop the fading sounds of violins as Ash stepped out of the woods, her hands spread wide and her head tipped back. The music all died in an instant as the note faded, and she shut her lips on the final consonant. Straightening her neck, she opened her eyes, and the confident smile on her face lasted for one second only before she focused on the full-sized gingerbread house that definitely hadn't been here when she entered the forest -- at this exact spot. "Oh come on! That's not even -- that's not right!" She gestured with both hands at it, palm-up, as if inviting the entire universe to observe how ridiculous this was. Petulantly stomping a foot, she folded her arms and tucked a hand against her cheek as her tail curled around her leg. "Was I out of genre? Or did the near-rhyme spoil it?"