Daybreak Application

[no_dejare_de_quererte]

PLAYER INFORMATION

NAME: Michi
CONTACT: yumesukidesho
OTHER CHARACTER(S) IN GAME: N/A

CANON INFORMATION

CHARACTER NAME: Imelda Rivera
CANON: Coco
HISTORY: Imelda's Wiki Page

STRENGTHS:

• The first thing that anyone notices about Imelda is that she has a backbone of steel. Strong-willed and fearless, she doesn't back down or capitulate to anyone, whether they be family or stranger. Her opinions on family and life are deeply held, and her conviction towards those options is often unwavering. We see this in canon when dealing with a variety of people. Her introduction alone highlights that she's all but terrified a service worker that's trying to tell her to can't cross to the land of the living. When dealing with Miguel, it was her unwillingness to let him go home until he had sworn off practicing music. As far as she was concerned, music has destroyed her family, and she wasn't going to allow him to make the same mistakes as her husband. In response to Ernesto, this iron disposition has Imelda being one of the few characters in canon to physically attack him. She doesn't care that he's a famous musician with security guards. She was upset with him, and he was damn well going to hear about it and pay for it.
• Another defining feature of Imelda is her willingness to work hard. After her husband left, it fell on her shoulders to support her young daughter, and she did so by teaching herself a crafting trade--specifically shoe-making. She's introduced in canon as "not having time to be sad", instead getting straight to work rather than wasting time feeling sorry about herself. She also builds the family business from the ground up, which is no small feat for a woman in the 1920s.
• Finally, Imelda wouldn't be Imelda without her dedication to her family. Her strong will and her hard work give her character, but it's her family that makes her human and gives her heart; and that love for her family is often the breaking point of many of her character flaws. We see multiple times that this compassion can overcome both her temper and her stubbornness, especially when she realizes that her actions might not be working in her family's best interests. It's what gets her to forgive Hector after Miguel insists that he's still part of their family and shouldn't be forgotten. It's what gets her to give Miguel her unconditional blessing to go home, when his time starts running short. It's what makes her realize that her ban on music might be hurting Miguel in the first place. In all of these cases, they're some of the only points that we see Imelda back down and change her mind--because in the end, she will always choose family over all else.

FLAWS:

• One of Imelda's main character flaws is her stubbornness, born ironically from the strong-willed nature that I just listed as a strength. While in some cases that steadfastness could be a boon, in others it becomes an obstruction for her--an inability to change her mind, even when doing so would be in her best interests. We see how it comes into play in her relationships with both Héctor and Miguel, where she often cuts them off from fully explaining a situation simply because she can't conceive that her understanding could be wrong.
• Another flaw of hers that plays into her stubbornness is her temper. Imelda is very quick to anger. In fact, I would even go as far as saying that anger is her default emotion whenever something has upset her. It's shown time and time again in canon that she's willing to strike an imposing figure and even lash out at others when things don't go according to her plans. In truth, this is most likely a learned behavior brought about by bottling up her grief and heartbreak. As mentioned before, she had very little time for feeling sad, and anger is an emotion that lends itself much more readily to being productive.
• The final trait that I'm going to discuss is her bitterness--also a learned behavior of hers. Through canon, the Imelda that we're shown is strict and no-nonsense, coming down hard even on her family for disobeying the rules she's laid down for them. It leaves her looking cold and unfeeling, so much so that Miguel remarks at one point that she couldn't possibly understand how he felt about music. This prompts her to sing a line from her favorite ballad, and to explain that she loved music, but she made those strict rules to protect her family from what her husband had done by leaving them. The insight that moment gives allows us to see the compassion that is Imelda's true nature, and that the cold facade is only a defense that she keeps up to protect herself and her family.

Canon Abilities: None, while living. After she died, Imelda gained the ability to summon an alebrije (spirit animal) named Pepita. Pepita is a large, colorful chimera--combining the head and body of a jaguar with the wings and back legs of an eagle, the horns of a ram, and the tail of a lizard. This creature also has the ability to fight on Imelda's behalf, seems to shares her emotional temperament, sometimes serves as a mount to fly her from place to place, and is especially good at tracking if given a belong of the person she wants to find. In addition, we also see Pepita capable of crossing into the land of the living at least once, and taking the form of a normal looking house cat.

AU INFORMATION

AU CHARACTER NAME: Imelda Rivera
AGE: 34
GRADE: Graduate Student
AU BACKSTORY: Imelda was born into the Rivera family, a well-known and affluent family of Mages living in Santa Cecilia, Mexico. She is the oldest daughter, and first to inherit the family's legacy when her parents have stepped down. She also has two younger brothers--twins by the names of Felipe and Óscar who are notorious for their creativity and inventiveness. Her childhood itself was rather unremarkable, and she was taught about magic and the family's secret legacy from an early age.

Fast forward to her teenage years... Imelda at this point in time is the beautiful heiress to an affluent family, and as such has a number of suitors vying for her attention. But being the strong-willed spitfire that she is, she has no interest in settling down with any of them--until an aspiring musician named Héctor comes along and all but sweeps her off her feet. Unlike her other suitors, he's charming and sincere, and they very quickly form a bond over their shared love of music. He plays for her, and she sings, and they fall equally head-over-heels for each other. It's unconventional for a Rivera to marry someone without any magical lineage at all, but Imelda doesn't care. At age 19, she agrees to marry her beloved; and only a year later, she gives birth to a little girl that they name Coco.

But not all ends well for the couple. See, Héctor's friend, Ernesto, is also a musician, but his interest lies in fame and fortune--not family. Ernesto convinces Héctor to go on tour with him around the world, and Héctor in turn convinces Imelda to agree to the idea. Reluctantly, she does, if only because she wants her husband to live out his dreams; and in her heart she knows that he's skilled enough to do it. For a few years, it works out--not always perfectly, but it works. Héctor travels with Ernesto, sending the money he earns and letters filled with love back to his wife and daughter. Imelda tries her best to weather the times that he's away and to cherish his visits home, looking forward to each chance she has to see the love of her life again.

But one day, the letters stop coming. There's no explanation, no notice, no nothing. They simply stop. As the days pass by, she goes back over old letter, looking for something--anything to explain what might have happened. Still, it takes Imelda a long time to realize that this time, for whatever reason, Héctor isn't coming home. The heartbreak is crushing, but even worse is watching her four-year-old daughter wait for her father to come back home.

Word spreads. Santa Cecilia is a small town, and small towns tend to talk. She hears whispers that he must have run off with another woman. That she was naive to think that marrying so young was a good idea. That she should have never trusted a flighty musician. For a while, she worries that perhaps something had happened to him, but over time, the gossip gets to her. With no word from him, from Ernesto, or from any official authorities, she finally accepts that bitter reality.

But rather than wallow in her misery, she busies herself with putting her family back together. Over the next few years, she buckles down on her practice of magic, honing her skills and stepping up to her place in the Rivera family. Her brothers help support her by whatever means they can, often helping her care for Coco when her responsibilities become too numerous. But no-matter how busy she gets, Imelda never misses an occasion to spend time with her daughter--at first simply as mother and child, but later as a teacher of their family's arcane arts.

These days, she attends Daybreak Academy as a graduate student to further hone her skills. Imelda is a somewhat unconventional student at the age of 34, but she refused to accept the school's invitation until she felt that Coco was old enough to understand her mother's absences. She still takes a semester off here and there to return and spend time with her daughter, but with Nightfall approaching, those visits will fewer and farther between as they prepare to protect the world.

AU PERSONALITY DEVIATION: Imelda is much of the same force to be reckoned with as she is in her canon. However, given that she's only had ten years to stew in her bitterness instead of ninety, she's not nearly as bad as her canon version in that regard. She's also younger and not as set in her ways, so she's a little less stubborn and a little more willing to listen to others when the circumstances call for it. That doesn't mean that she'll be a pushover--far from it, but she won't be as prone to holding grudges or letting her temper run away with her.

RACE: Human
SECRET SOCIETY: Imelda belongs to the Rivera family, which is a Mage family dating back for generations. As the oldest child, Imelda is set to become the Head of the family once her parents step down, but that's not for some time yet. Imelda specializes in Familiar magic, and has also been teaching her skills to her daughter, who she intends to have succeed her in turn.

POWERS: I'd like to model Imelda's abilities off her afterlife abilities--namely, the ability to summon Pepita as a familiar. Given Pepita's chimera-like appearance and spirit animal nature, I think it would be more interesting if Imelda was summoning her from the Outlands. As for Pepita herself, I'd like to keep her ability list in tact from canon--with the addition of being able to change her coloration to something more subtle... given that a neon colored familiar would be extremely difficult to hide from the general populace.

HOUSING: No preference, but Imelda would apply to be an RA. She'd be a very strict RA, but ya know...
RP SAMPLE

► A group of threads totaling 10 comments in the TDM between at least two characters, with each thread having at least 3 comments from your character
Imelda and Héctor find each other, and things don't go well.
Imelda's conversation with Mihael
Offering unsolicited advice to Ren