Welcome to Gaia! ::

Cavalier: Cavalier Juventus, of the Garden

Name: Nora Merlin

Nicknames: N/A

Age: 16

Birthday: February 15. One of her greatest regrets in life is not being born just one day earlier.

Sign: Aquarius

Blood type: O

Favourite Food: Red velvet cake, loaded potatoes

Hated Food: Liver

School: Meadowview

Hobbies:
Band - Nora has notable skill in playing the bass, both classic and electric. Her capacity to read sheet music is a bit below par, but she more than makes up for it with her ear and instinct for improv, which is often showcased in rehearsals and performances with Meadowview's jazz band.

Reading You the Phone Book - Nora is gifted with a lovely, incredibly soothing speaking voice that ranks right up there with Carl Sagan and Morgan Freeman in terms of its captivating quality, and it's made her a bit of a celebrity for a few of the denizens of Destiny City who aren't completely glued to their iPods. Her voice has been immortalized on a few books-on-tape that can be rented at the public library and a smattering of ads for local businesses on the radio, as well as a single, mostly obscure relaxation CD that can be found in stores that carry that sort of thing. When she has the spare time for it she's often involved in some recording project or another, and to this day she's still holding out on her childhood dream of someday becoming a radio personality.

Stage Magic - Still a fan of magic tricks long after many people her age have grown out of it, Nora has recently bought a few magic kits and started trying to learn some herself. She's only at Find Your Card and other restaurant-table displays, but loves demonstrating her sleight of hand whenever she feels an opportunity.

Bird Raising - There have been small flocks of doves and pigeons hopping and fluttering around the Merlin household for as long as Nora can remember, and once she reached a proper age she started learning to handle and breed them herself. She usually has a few perched on her person or freely roaming about the house when she's at home, and treats them with all the care she would give to humans. She's always wanted to set up a carrier pigeon network with her friends for no reason other than the novelty of it.

Hats - Nora likes hats. Nora really likes hats. She has a very extensive hat collection and is always on the hunt for more, and by the way she picked up a derby the other day she thinks would look fantastic on you, would you like to see? Nothing brings an outfit together quite like a nice hat, you know.

Gemstone: Garnet

Virtues:
Warm - Nora is a near-unconditionally friendly face to the people around her. She's always full of kind words and gestures, carrying herself in a way that makes her an inviting and approachable presence. She tries to fashion herself as a "safe" individual one can talk to without fear of being judged or berated - she's very "love the sinner, hate the sin," and does what she can to have some love available for everybody. It's in short supply these days, after all. She's one of those types who is very hospitable whether at her own home or someone else's, making tea and bringing treats and random presents.

Resourceful - Nora's a good friend to have around on a rainy day - she's optimistic and imaginative enough to usually be able to work with what she has, be it a melodramatic situation or a dire one. With some experience, her ability to save people from boredom has the potential to translate into an ability to save people from an untimely demise. This trait also gives her a decent capacity to cheer herself up when she's feeling blue.

Diplomatic - Or, at least, she's a good bet if there's a situation at hand in need of a mediator. Nora doesn't like to demean people's opinions by taking sides in a conflict, and as such can always be counted on to lend her full attention to everyone's version of the story before forming an opinion herself. She is always willing to be a neutral party no matter how ridiculous the situation is.

Lovely Assistant - She's probably not your best bet if you want a good leader, but it's a completely different story when it comes to following. She's comfortable and efficient at fulfilling a subordinate or advisory role - her strength lies in how she's not a submissive yes-girl who will obey everything unquestioningly, but will actively work with whoever she's associated with and has a good sense of where, when and how she will be useful. Provide her with a set of expectations and she'll fulfill them beautifully.

Flaws:
Sickeningly Sweet - Nora's warmth gets to be a bit smothering sometimes. She's the type who will unabashedly refer to complete strangers as terms of endearment like "hon" and "sweetie" and "darling," and has no qualms invading personal space to provide what she thinks would be a comforting touch to other parties who might not be so receptive. Her attempts at being approachable and comforting can end up looping right around and making her a bit unsettling to be around because of this - or worse yet, her touchy-feely sugarcoating of absolutely everything will end up making someone think she's their girlfriend.

Blinded by the Light* - In this girl's world, there is good to be found in everyone, no exceptions. It isn't unlike her to take on troubled individuals as personal projects in some attempt to "improve" them, and when faced with a conflict, she'll try to appeal to the Good Person She Knows Exists Deep Within Your Heart - she thinks salvation is possible for even the most hopeless of cases if she just gives them enough compassion. There's an infinite supply of second chances you can get from her if you ask, and that's even if you're guilty of hurting her repeatedly; unfortunately, she gets so personally invested in her humanism that it upsets or discourages her when she can't make people see their (sometimes nonexistent) inner light. When she witnesses a serious fight that doesn't end up getting peacefully resolved in some way, it can put her in the emotional slums for a little while, and if any of the participants know her personally they can expect a heartfelt talking-to later.

Morning Person - Nora tends to be in a generally uplifted mood all the time, which is all fine and good, except for the fact that a lot of other people aren't in a generally uplifted mood all the time. She is always full of bubbly cheery optimism, even during times when everyone else is weary and grumpy, and it gets a bit grating to deal with her when it's the crack of dawn and she's talking about what a fantastic day it's going to be and you just want to groan, roll over and go back to sleep. She's a genuinely happy person in a sea of disgruntled teenagers, and it can create problems. Really, just take a hopeless romantic and extend the "romantic" part to all other aspects of life, and you have Nora Merlin.

Plays it Too Safe - Nora is probably a supporter of the recent trend of self-esteem-obsessed education where everybody wins and nobody gets left out: she gets so overly concerned with creating stress-free, conflict-free environments that it can make her a bit controlling and almost aggressive in her desire to ensure that nobody gets hurt or offended. She's sort of riding on a niceness high horse she uses to try and herd people into a pen of fairness, and can end up ruining people's fun with her agenda to make sure everyone is enjoying themselves.


*This flaw is her main weakness. Basically, having a "Can't we all just get along?" attitude doesn't mesh well with having to spend a lot of time in the battlefield, and being so over-forgiving could lead to some serious backlash on herself and others. She's going to get hurt and likely cause some pain for others, and ironically because she is trying to play the role of a peacemaker.


I'm counting this flaw as her weakness: it effectively makes her an extreme pacifist and unwilling to fight outside of base self-defense, which would lead to a lot of conflict with her teammates when it's time to take up arms. It would take quite some time and effort for Kunzite and co. to beat the "Can't we all just get along?" attitude out of her system - like a child caught in a war zone, she'll have to be forced to grow up and realize all the world's problems can't be solved by playing nice if she's to be of any use as Juventus.

Relaxation Exercises - Nora likes for life to be as free of stresses as humanly possible, and as such has a variety of relaxation techniques in her arsenal she'll offer to those she thinks could use them. Really, she's at her happiest leading willing groups of people into their own personal places of tranquility-- she always arranges open sessions at the end of the semester for people with finals anxiety, for example-- but also won't turn down a one-on-one session if asked.

Why Juventus?
Youth: Nora is an effective personification of the sphere of Youth in two main ways. The first is that she has a very lively, youthful personality to the point of being a bit of a child-at-heart; she goes through her day carrying around a load of carefree, but naive idealisms about the world. Along with the childlike nature of her psyche, though, she also has very maternal aspects to her personality and a few of her hobbies, and would most likely be very good at babysitting or entertaining children if she were ever put up to it.

tl;dr SHE IS LIKE A KID AND ALSO GOOD WITH THEM

The Garden: The Garden is kind of a junior-grade to Paradise in the sense that it's meant to be innocent, pleasant, welcoming and safe -- Nora either is, or tries to be, all four of these things (though in some circles to a fault). Gardens are also places that require human maintenance and cultivation to be what they are, and this part of the equation can admittedly be seen more through her flaws than her virtues: she has a tendency to try weeding and pruning bad situations (and occasionally, people) into good ones, and is also often invasively nice. So with these traits in mind, she does well personifying a hospitable and peaceful Garden, but her personality and behavior also give her the aspects of a busybodying Gardener who has the capacity to care for and nurture her domain, but sometimes does so in a way that can be thought of as a little controlling -- a garden is a carefully controlled space even if it's nice.


On Youth / The Garden:
Just gonna haphazard things up for now.

-'Garden' = place of innocence
-Nora's personality is generally innocent / naive - kid at heart, idealistic
-On the flip side, her virtues and hobbies would make her good at looking after and entertaining children, so she's as much a caretaker of the Garden as she is an embodiment of its ideas.
-The Garden could also be thought of as a safe haven, sanctuary, a place free of sin: Nora is a generally welcoming and accepting individual, and looks past the sins of others.

-ALONG WITH THIS, the Garden is the only Cavalier place of influence that requires constant human care to be what it is; a smattering of Nora's traits give her the traits of the "Gardener," such as her ultimate drive to make something good out of every situation and individual to come her way - she's "weeding" the world around her with her sometimes controlling nature.

Alright, I swapped out a flaw and tweaked another, hope that helps things

Changed around her weakness explanation, since I realized having her too unwilling to fight would lead to me having to play another Simon in battle RPs. XD; I want her to be troublesome, yes, but not such an absolute deadweight.