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application / aather
HERO APPLICATION
PLAYER INFO
Name: Aaron
Age: 21
Timezone: EST
Contact: cheerypapercut @ gmail | Annabeth on IRC
CHARACTER INFO
Character Name: Bernkastel (Lady Bernkastel, the Witch of Miracles.)
Canon: Umineko no Naku Koro Ni
Reference: http://umineko.wikia.com/wiki/Bernkastel
Appearance: Here. You can't see it in the picture but she also has a large (real) cat tail extending behind her.
Info for a third is here.
Character Info:
Most of Bernkastel's personality can be derived from what it was pre-Logic Error, or, what happened before she was trapped in hell for a thousand years. Bern can't remember much of it, but she was originally the culmination of all the horror forced onto a girl named Rika: she enjoyed taunting people and casually accepted her fate as the girl who dies in every situation. Listless and unresponsive to things most normal little girls like, she only cared about moving on to the next tragedy or thrill. As Frederika, she did care about friends -- but it was overshadowed by the desire to move from game to game, never stopping, often leaving games half-finished or in pieces. This part of her personality carries over to her later self, even if she can't remember much of it.
Canon is slightly unclear, but sometime after the events of Higurashi, Bernkastel managed to become trapped in a Logic Error thanks partially to the Witch of Theatergoing, Featherine. Forced into the logic error because of Featherine's mistake, Bernkastel was trapped in the form of a cat -- something that becomes one of her trademark personality and physical features later on, like her tail and her ability to summon cat familiars. As a thousand years passed inside that hell, Bern was forced to attempt to spell a word on a keyboard as a cat without knowing what the word was -- something that would take a miracle to spell out. During this time, all the positive parts of her personality burned away, creating a malicious little girl, someone who sought revenge and unhappiness for everyone else in the universe. Lambda once states that Bern went crazy because she meticulously kept track of how many days she was inside the Error -- showing her stubbornness and unwillingness to lose or give up. Even when she ultimately loses the game in Umineko, she's still a super sore loser: to the point where she takes the gameboard and attempts to tear it into tiny pieces. She has legitimately forgotten how to be a good person because of her time in there; it shaped her into a malicious creature full of spite.
As an eternal enemy of boredom -- Bern can never be bored for long, it's a detriment to her magic and an irritant to her personality -- Bernkastel was invited by Beatrice to observe her game board. She poker faces her way through sincerity enough to let Beato allow her to observe. But she helps from behind the scenes during the first few episodes, encouraging Battler to get up when he's down -- which isn't necessarily because she likes him, though sometimes it feels like she's his only friend. In fact, she's really using him because she doesn't want to see Beato win at this game of hers; Bernkastel enjoys torturing people, and leaving the two of them broken and beaten is more interesting than someone winning properly. So she cheats, slyly breaking the rules to bring in extra game pieces: Ange, to help Battler regain the fervor to beat Beatrice; Erika, a pawn to threaten Battler's superiority and trap him in his own Logic Error. Bernkastel is a master manipulator and a subtle con artist: she likes being in charge of situations and sitting on top watching when things go wrong. She laughs at other people's pain, even the people she "loves"-- because she doesn't really remember how to make friends, or even what to do with them. She tries to kill Lambda repeatedly (or at least threatens to and maims her a bit), and banishes Erika to the abyss for failing her and allowing Battler to live and Beato to return to her normal self after her (first??) death. Friendship, to her, means beating them up and shoving them down the metaphorical stairs. No matter how much people extend the offer, she doesn't really seem to understand it -- or maybe she does understand, and just doesn't know how to reciprocate.
Later in the series, Bernkastel shows just how cruel and cat-like she can be, noting that she wishes to tear Beatrice and her story apart at the seams. Like a cat kills its prey and then pulls it apart, so too does Bern kill Beatrice and then spend the next four episodes attempting to pick apart the pieces that hide the truth underneath. She's cunning and ruthless: she traps people into doing what she wants (Will is forced to solve the mystery of Beatrice when he just wants to go home to his cat), and enjoys watching people's smiles leave their faces when they realize that they've made a horrible mistake trusting her, such as Lion's implied death in all timelines and him never getting to continue on to a happy life, and telling Ange in a side story never to smile again if she wants her family back. Bernkastel loves winning; When she does, she's haughty and sarcastic. When she loses, she becomes an evil menace. And she does lose to Battler and Beatrice -- so she attempts to erase everyone's magic power and the mystery of Beatrice and Rokkenjima from existence by showing the Single Truth to the entire world at a press conference. In the end (after explosions!!) she gets beaten up by the power of the Ushiromiyas and reverts to her cat form Together with Featherine, her former master, she gets taken home, supposedly never to see the story of Beatrice or Battler again.
tl;dr Aloof witch gets trapped in hell to become a terrifying witch who enjoys tearing Beatrice and Battler to pieces around her because she's a sore loser and hates being bored. Then she gets what's coming to her and fulfills Ange's promise to give her back her family, if halfheartedly -- Battler is the previous personality/identity of a man who almost died escaping Rokkenjima, and Ange has to live with the fact that her brother's body is alive while his spirit is dead. Oops!
Memory Loss Considerations:
Because Bern is Word of God connected to Rika and Frederkia, characters in Higurashi, it's easy to see what sort of person she was before she got trapped in a logic error and lost the ability to empathize. She's actually a pretty kind person -- she likes to tease people and play games but isn't as socially stunted as she is in Umineko. She will be able to make friends (maybe ungracefully but still) and actually learn what it's like to keep them. Without remembering her logic error and the erasing of her personality that came with it, she'll have a more deep and full range of emotion, maybe even sadness and doubt and all those other good human emotions she doesn't seem to have any more. Part of her arc will definitely be her learning how to deal with those emotions even when she's remembering her closed off tendencies and attempting to forget them again. . . and also learning how to be less of a sore loser, because if she doesn't she's going to want to try and kill all the other teams when they don't win games. Oops...
It's important to remember that without her logic error, the rest of her memories don't really make sense from an emotional perspective. Sure, she'll still be stunted (because at least part of that was an innate change), but not nearly to the degree that she is in canon (because, I believe, a large part of that is because she thinks it's more interesting to hold herself at arm's length than it is to reveal all of her secrets at once). She may even find that it's easier to open up to people who aren't Lambda when she doesn't really remember why she connected with her in the first place. It will also be interesting for her to remember how unimaginable cruelty slowly over several memories, while her teammates have a positive influence on her in aather. I predict that she will be slightly less bloodthirsty, but of course, crazy is as crazy does and that probably won't last forever. Still, she'll be more well-rounded in the long run than she is in canon.
Skills:
BERN HAS A LOT OF SKILLS because she's a witch.
- Red/Blue Truth -- just like the other witches, Bern has the ability to use the red (absolute truth, cannot be denied and is taken as certainty) and the blue (presents a solution that is potentially true, or, a truth that is almost 100% true and can be struck down using the red). As the game master she supposedly can also use the Golden Truth, which is only usable by the Territory Lord, but I'm pretty sure she never uses it in canon, only Battler does, making the area a little grey.
- Chess skills -- she is great at chess.
- Spoilers! -- Bern has a lot of pop culture knowledge and really likes to spoil things for people. (She tries to spoil Lambda for Higurashi at one point.)
- That scythe is sharp, yo: literally what it says on the tin, she can pull a scythe from nowhere like it ain't no big deal. The scythe is super sharp and scary, too. No powercap on this I'd reason, because it's mostly just releasing it (though if she did it repeatedly she would get tired).
- Poker face: she poker faces like a pro.
Basic Magic: anything from magically making tea to lighting candles, silly parlor tricks like that. Most, if not all witches can handle this sort of thing so Bern is no exception and there's not much there affected by the powercap except she'll get tired now instead of being infinitely able to do magic.
Here Kitty Kitty: Bern's familiars are black cats with green eyes, and she can summon them at will. They're very intelligent and capable of handling most tasks. THEY ALSO EAT PEOPLE they're great weapons, very nice. Of course she'll no longer be able to summon thousands, more like four or five, and keeping them up will be a task. They also probably can't change into gigantic cats and devour anyone any more, which is actually pretty sad :(
I am also a cat: Because she's technically a cat, Bernkastel can change into and out of her 'cat form' at will. She becomes a black cat with green eyes, much more intelligent than her familiars. This won't really be affected by the powercap because it's such small magic.
Sea of Fragments: Bern is able to traverse the sea of fragments which shows EVERY POSSIBLE FUTURE, and choose to move the one she finds most favorable into the story she's currently possessing. . . which would be a cool power if it wasn't completely crushed by the powercap, so it'll be a SKILL to regain but absolutely useless in consideration. Though I suppose she could use it outside of games and events to just...change her own personal timeline a little bit (going inside before it rained, etc) but it would be extremely tiring.
Miracles pt. 1: As the Witch of Miracles, Bernkastel can make a miracle come true for anyone who wishes to make an agreement with her. (Basically, she makes a contract with them! Like Kyuubey but it's a witch and she doesn't have to follow through if they don't do what she says.) If the contracted person does what she asks, she can bring forth a miracle for them -- however, she can mutilate the miracle into something that's not quite so beautiful at will. For example, Ange does get her brother back, but he's a previous personality of a man who no longer wishes to be called Battler Ushiromiya so it's kind of bittersweet and way to go Bern you are so nice. THIS....probably won't even be usable under powercap but it's possible that she could grant small miracles like "I wish my team had a nice cake!" with the aid of some of the Personae -- I know that Beato had a quest with someone to do stuff like that so it's possible with finagling and it'll hit the powercap quick.
Miracles pt. 2: Bern can also tell someone when a miracle will not occur -- that is, when something is 100% certain to take place. This usually comes true! Of course in Aather it will be limited to outside of game things and not affecting event, but if she used it to say "you will definitely not be able to finish that cake you just wished up" they won't...be able to. This will obviously require player permission on all sides and it will also hit the powercap, but not as fast as the previous part because it's mostly just saying "nope" and not...attempting to help it come about in the first place.
Some sort of wild magic thing: Bern can use EXTREME!! explosions and wild magic to fight other witches, it's extremely vague but think of it like the advanced level of some sort of ninja blasts laser beams thing. This is really what it can be likened to. It....will be usable, but will have to be regained in stages and tire her out extremely quickly.
Team Considerations:
When she only has one or two memories back, Bern will be very very sweet -- initially she was always a loving girl, and without a thousand years of mental torture and doomed murders and such she'll be back to sweet and sort of innocent. She really is a little girl, after all. She will attach to her team at first, which is good, because she'll eventually get back memories that will make her not so sweet, and those positive relationships will be good for her to have so that she doesn't fall back into 'solitary i don't know how to make friends' mode. Her team will be a good reminder of how to do that.
Bernkastel will always be a cat at heart -- and so, by extension, she'll be pretty cat-like around her teammates. Like a cat, she'll be pretty solitary, but when she needs or wants them she'll come back around, and can be persuaded to do things with them. I believe that she will be a strange person on a team, not necessarily someone who believes in the idea of 'teammates,' but I don't think she'll be particularly awful at working together. Especially not once she realizes that it's to her benefit to get along with them -- it's a mutual exchange of participation for memories. She might even warm up to them, but since her only friend in canon is Lambda and their relationship is very...strange, it's hard to say exactly how she'll deal with the more cheery types of personalities on the teams. Probably the same way she deals with anything: she rolls with the flow and tries to come out on top.
Once she's bonded with her team I think that anyone trying to hurt them would be in for a bad surprise: she's not particularly endearing or endeared towards anyone, but she does stick up for the people she thinks are 'hers' when she feels like it reflects negatively on her own position, and death games would be no exception to that. She's not above killing every single other team (even ones like Kunzite and Jasper, people she's closer to) in order to both have fun and protect herself from boredom. . . maybe even to protect herself from death, because death is the ultimate boredom. But killing teammates falls into the idea of mutual benefits, and therefore isn't very profitable. (However, she does seem to have a natural inclination for killing and then tearing the dead to pieces to see what's inside, so she probably will be That One Girl That Laughs At All The Dead People.)
Team Placement Request: I've a stronger preference for a team that is really team-y than a team that operates as individual units, if only to help start some character development (I have a particular fondness for Ruby, but really anywhere!). The only teams I really DON'T want for castmate reasons are Jasper and Peridot, but anywhere else is fine.
WRITING SAMPLE
A link to a test post because my answers to the survey ended up short :V
Introduce yourself in a few sentences.
My name is Bernkastel, the Witch of Miracles. I go wherever I want to, and do whatever I think is interesting. I hate being bored. I'd also like some tea, if you don't mind.
[ . . . ]
....you really do think I'm going to answer your questions that thoroughly? It would be annoying to just do what you asked the entire time.
"The suffering of a few is okay if it benefits a great many." Do you agree with this sentiment? Why or why not?
As long as the outcome is favorable, I don't worry about who lives or who dies.
...the suffering of many can be more enjoyable if it's watching them suffer for a doomed cause.
What event from your past has impacted you the most? Please describe.
. . . heh. Hehehe. You think you can trick me into talking about my past? Very nice try. Next question.
What are three things you're good at, as well as three things you're not so good at?
[ silence. she seems like she's not really considering it..... ]
I don't want to answer the question. If you can't think of more entertaining ones, then I'm going to leave.
[ another pause. ]
I can guarantee that no miracles with occur. ...Telling people about the imminent failure after so much struggle is my specialty. I don't fail at anything I set out to accomplish. Failure is worse than being bored.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
[ her tail flicks. ]
I wish that hold hag would get off of my back about coming to talk to her. That's all.
Do you believe in soulmates or love at first sight?
[ a snort; she looks derisive. ]
No. People die for love and kill for love all the time. True love doesn't exist in the realm of humans.
"Killing criminals is okay if they've committed a grave crime." Do you agree with this? Why or why not?
...sure. As long as the punishment is always equal to the crime. [ a small, but sharp, cackle. ] I love trials.
Do you consider yourself a strong person? Why or why not?
I do what I need to do. You should consider trying it yourself. Whether or not you think that makes me a strong person, you can judge.
If you met a stranger, and were allowed to ask one single question in order to get to know them better, what question would you ask? And, if somebody asked you this question, how would you answer?
Do you believe in miracles?
[ . . . ] Of course I do. I also believe there are times when miracles can never occur. [ a smile ] You'd be surprised how many people think miracles can be given away like candy.
Free section: [ there's just some laughter, the jingling of a cat's bell....and she's gone. ]
PLAYER INFO
Name: Aaron
Age: 21
Timezone: EST
Contact: cheerypapercut @ gmail | Annabeth on IRC
CHARACTER INFO
Character Name: Bernkastel (Lady Bernkastel, the Witch of Miracles.)
Canon: Umineko no Naku Koro Ni
Reference: http://umineko.wikia.com/wiki/Bernkastel
Appearance: Here. You can't see it in the picture but she also has a large (real) cat tail extending behind her.
Info for a third is here.
Character Info:
Most of Bernkastel's personality can be derived from what it was pre-Logic Error, or, what happened before she was trapped in hell for a thousand years. Bern can't remember much of it, but she was originally the culmination of all the horror forced onto a girl named Rika: she enjoyed taunting people and casually accepted her fate as the girl who dies in every situation. Listless and unresponsive to things most normal little girls like, she only cared about moving on to the next tragedy or thrill. As Frederika, she did care about friends -- but it was overshadowed by the desire to move from game to game, never stopping, often leaving games half-finished or in pieces. This part of her personality carries over to her later self, even if she can't remember much of it.
Canon is slightly unclear, but sometime after the events of Higurashi, Bernkastel managed to become trapped in a Logic Error thanks partially to the Witch of Theatergoing, Featherine. Forced into the logic error because of Featherine's mistake, Bernkastel was trapped in the form of a cat -- something that becomes one of her trademark personality and physical features later on, like her tail and her ability to summon cat familiars. As a thousand years passed inside that hell, Bern was forced to attempt to spell a word on a keyboard as a cat without knowing what the word was -- something that would take a miracle to spell out. During this time, all the positive parts of her personality burned away, creating a malicious little girl, someone who sought revenge and unhappiness for everyone else in the universe. Lambda once states that Bern went crazy because she meticulously kept track of how many days she was inside the Error -- showing her stubbornness and unwillingness to lose or give up. Even when she ultimately loses the game in Umineko, she's still a super sore loser: to the point where she takes the gameboard and attempts to tear it into tiny pieces. She has legitimately forgotten how to be a good person because of her time in there; it shaped her into a malicious creature full of spite.
As an eternal enemy of boredom -- Bern can never be bored for long, it's a detriment to her magic and an irritant to her personality -- Bernkastel was invited by Beatrice to observe her game board. She poker faces her way through sincerity enough to let Beato allow her to observe. But she helps from behind the scenes during the first few episodes, encouraging Battler to get up when he's down -- which isn't necessarily because she likes him, though sometimes it feels like she's his only friend. In fact, she's really using him because she doesn't want to see Beato win at this game of hers; Bernkastel enjoys torturing people, and leaving the two of them broken and beaten is more interesting than someone winning properly. So she cheats, slyly breaking the rules to bring in extra game pieces: Ange, to help Battler regain the fervor to beat Beatrice; Erika, a pawn to threaten Battler's superiority and trap him in his own Logic Error. Bernkastel is a master manipulator and a subtle con artist: she likes being in charge of situations and sitting on top watching when things go wrong. She laughs at other people's pain, even the people she "loves"-- because she doesn't really remember how to make friends, or even what to do with them. She tries to kill Lambda repeatedly (or at least threatens to and maims her a bit), and banishes Erika to the abyss for failing her and allowing Battler to live and Beato to return to her normal self after her (first??) death. Friendship, to her, means beating them up and shoving them down the metaphorical stairs. No matter how much people extend the offer, she doesn't really seem to understand it -- or maybe she does understand, and just doesn't know how to reciprocate.
Later in the series, Bernkastel shows just how cruel and cat-like she can be, noting that she wishes to tear Beatrice and her story apart at the seams. Like a cat kills its prey and then pulls it apart, so too does Bern kill Beatrice and then spend the next four episodes attempting to pick apart the pieces that hide the truth underneath. She's cunning and ruthless: she traps people into doing what she wants (Will is forced to solve the mystery of Beatrice when he just wants to go home to his cat), and enjoys watching people's smiles leave their faces when they realize that they've made a horrible mistake trusting her, such as Lion's implied death in all timelines and him never getting to continue on to a happy life, and telling Ange in a side story never to smile again if she wants her family back. Bernkastel loves winning; When she does, she's haughty and sarcastic. When she loses, she becomes an evil menace. And she does lose to Battler and Beatrice -- so she attempts to erase everyone's magic power and the mystery of Beatrice and Rokkenjima from existence by showing the Single Truth to the entire world at a press conference. In the end (after explosions!!) she gets beaten up by the power of the Ushiromiyas and reverts to her cat form Together with Featherine, her former master, she gets taken home, supposedly never to see the story of Beatrice or Battler again.
tl;dr Aloof witch gets trapped in hell to become a terrifying witch who enjoys tearing Beatrice and Battler to pieces around her because she's a sore loser and hates being bored. Then she gets what's coming to her and fulfills Ange's promise to give her back her family, if halfheartedly -- Battler is the previous personality/identity of a man who almost died escaping Rokkenjima, and Ange has to live with the fact that her brother's body is alive while his spirit is dead. Oops!
Memory Loss Considerations:
Because Bern is Word of God connected to Rika and Frederkia, characters in Higurashi, it's easy to see what sort of person she was before she got trapped in a logic error and lost the ability to empathize. She's actually a pretty kind person -- she likes to tease people and play games but isn't as socially stunted as she is in Umineko. She will be able to make friends (maybe ungracefully but still) and actually learn what it's like to keep them. Without remembering her logic error and the erasing of her personality that came with it, she'll have a more deep and full range of emotion, maybe even sadness and doubt and all those other good human emotions she doesn't seem to have any more. Part of her arc will definitely be her learning how to deal with those emotions even when she's remembering her closed off tendencies and attempting to forget them again. . . and also learning how to be less of a sore loser, because if she doesn't she's going to want to try and kill all the other teams when they don't win games. Oops...
It's important to remember that without her logic error, the rest of her memories don't really make sense from an emotional perspective. Sure, she'll still be stunted (because at least part of that was an innate change), but not nearly to the degree that she is in canon (because, I believe, a large part of that is because she thinks it's more interesting to hold herself at arm's length than it is to reveal all of her secrets at once). She may even find that it's easier to open up to people who aren't Lambda when she doesn't really remember why she connected with her in the first place. It will also be interesting for her to remember how unimaginable cruelty slowly over several memories, while her teammates have a positive influence on her in aather. I predict that she will be slightly less bloodthirsty, but of course, crazy is as crazy does and that probably won't last forever. Still, she'll be more well-rounded in the long run than she is in canon.
Skills:
BERN HAS A LOT OF SKILLS because she's a witch.
- Red/Blue Truth -- just like the other witches, Bern has the ability to use the red (absolute truth, cannot be denied and is taken as certainty) and the blue (presents a solution that is potentially true, or, a truth that is almost 100% true and can be struck down using the red). As the game master she supposedly can also use the Golden Truth, which is only usable by the Territory Lord, but I'm pretty sure she never uses it in canon, only Battler does, making the area a little grey.
- Chess skills -- she is great at chess.
- Spoilers! -- Bern has a lot of pop culture knowledge and really likes to spoil things for people. (She tries to spoil Lambda for Higurashi at one point.)
- That scythe is sharp, yo: literally what it says on the tin, she can pull a scythe from nowhere like it ain't no big deal. The scythe is super sharp and scary, too. No powercap on this I'd reason, because it's mostly just releasing it (though if she did it repeatedly she would get tired).
- Poker face: she poker faces like a pro.
Basic Magic: anything from magically making tea to lighting candles, silly parlor tricks like that. Most, if not all witches can handle this sort of thing so Bern is no exception and there's not much there affected by the powercap except she'll get tired now instead of being infinitely able to do magic.
Here Kitty Kitty: Bern's familiars are black cats with green eyes, and she can summon them at will. They're very intelligent and capable of handling most tasks. THEY ALSO EAT PEOPLE they're great weapons, very nice. Of course she'll no longer be able to summon thousands, more like four or five, and keeping them up will be a task. They also probably can't change into gigantic cats and devour anyone any more, which is actually pretty sad :(
I am also a cat: Because she's technically a cat, Bernkastel can change into and out of her 'cat form' at will. She becomes a black cat with green eyes, much more intelligent than her familiars. This won't really be affected by the powercap because it's such small magic.
Sea of Fragments: Bern is able to traverse the sea of fragments which shows EVERY POSSIBLE FUTURE, and choose to move the one she finds most favorable into the story she's currently possessing. . . which would be a cool power if it wasn't completely crushed by the powercap, so it'll be a SKILL to regain but absolutely useless in consideration. Though I suppose she could use it outside of games and events to just...change her own personal timeline a little bit (going inside before it rained, etc) but it would be extremely tiring.
Miracles pt. 1: As the Witch of Miracles, Bernkastel can make a miracle come true for anyone who wishes to make an agreement with her. (Basically, she makes a contract with them! Like Kyuubey but it's a witch and she doesn't have to follow through if they don't do what she says.) If the contracted person does what she asks, she can bring forth a miracle for them -- however, she can mutilate the miracle into something that's not quite so beautiful at will. For example, Ange does get her brother back, but he's a previous personality of a man who no longer wishes to be called Battler Ushiromiya so it's kind of bittersweet and way to go Bern you are so nice. THIS....probably won't even be usable under powercap but it's possible that she could grant small miracles like "I wish my team had a nice cake!" with the aid of some of the Personae -- I know that Beato had a quest with someone to do stuff like that so it's possible with finagling and it'll hit the powercap quick.
Miracles pt. 2: Bern can also tell someone when a miracle will not occur -- that is, when something is 100% certain to take place. This usually comes true! Of course in Aather it will be limited to outside of game things and not affecting event, but if she used it to say "you will definitely not be able to finish that cake you just wished up" they won't...be able to. This will obviously require player permission on all sides and it will also hit the powercap, but not as fast as the previous part because it's mostly just saying "nope" and not...attempting to help it come about in the first place.
Some sort of wild magic thing: Bern can use EXTREME!! explosions and wild magic to fight other witches, it's extremely vague but think of it like the advanced level of some sort of ninja blasts laser beams thing. This is really what it can be likened to. It....will be usable, but will have to be regained in stages and tire her out extremely quickly.
Team Considerations:
When she only has one or two memories back, Bern will be very very sweet -- initially she was always a loving girl, and without a thousand years of mental torture and doomed murders and such she'll be back to sweet and sort of innocent. She really is a little girl, after all. She will attach to her team at first, which is good, because she'll eventually get back memories that will make her not so sweet, and those positive relationships will be good for her to have so that she doesn't fall back into 'solitary i don't know how to make friends' mode. Her team will be a good reminder of how to do that.
Bernkastel will always be a cat at heart -- and so, by extension, she'll be pretty cat-like around her teammates. Like a cat, she'll be pretty solitary, but when she needs or wants them she'll come back around, and can be persuaded to do things with them. I believe that she will be a strange person on a team, not necessarily someone who believes in the idea of 'teammates,' but I don't think she'll be particularly awful at working together. Especially not once she realizes that it's to her benefit to get along with them -- it's a mutual exchange of participation for memories. She might even warm up to them, but since her only friend in canon is Lambda and their relationship is very...strange, it's hard to say exactly how she'll deal with the more cheery types of personalities on the teams. Probably the same way she deals with anything: she rolls with the flow and tries to come out on top.
Once she's bonded with her team I think that anyone trying to hurt them would be in for a bad surprise: she's not particularly endearing or endeared towards anyone, but she does stick up for the people she thinks are 'hers' when she feels like it reflects negatively on her own position, and death games would be no exception to that. She's not above killing every single other team (even ones like Kunzite and Jasper, people she's closer to) in order to both have fun and protect herself from boredom. . . maybe even to protect herself from death, because death is the ultimate boredom. But killing teammates falls into the idea of mutual benefits, and therefore isn't very profitable. (However, she does seem to have a natural inclination for killing and then tearing the dead to pieces to see what's inside, so she probably will be That One Girl That Laughs At All The Dead People.)
Team Placement Request: I've a stronger preference for a team that is really team-y than a team that operates as individual units, if only to help start some character development (I have a particular fondness for Ruby, but really anywhere!). The only teams I really DON'T want for castmate reasons are Jasper and Peridot, but anywhere else is fine.
WRITING SAMPLE
A link to a test post because my answers to the survey ended up short :V
Introduce yourself in a few sentences.
My name is Bernkastel, the Witch of Miracles. I go wherever I want to, and do whatever I think is interesting. I hate being bored. I'd also like some tea, if you don't mind.
[ . . . ]
....you really do think I'm going to answer your questions that thoroughly? It would be annoying to just do what you asked the entire time.
"The suffering of a few is okay if it benefits a great many." Do you agree with this sentiment? Why or why not?
As long as the outcome is favorable, I don't worry about who lives or who dies.
...the suffering of many can be more enjoyable if it's watching them suffer for a doomed cause.
What event from your past has impacted you the most? Please describe.
. . . heh. Hehehe. You think you can trick me into talking about my past? Very nice try. Next question.
What are three things you're good at, as well as three things you're not so good at?
[ silence. she seems like she's not really considering it..... ]
I don't want to answer the question. If you can't think of more entertaining ones, then I'm going to leave.
[ another pause. ]
I can guarantee that no miracles with occur. ...Telling people about the imminent failure after so much struggle is my specialty. I don't fail at anything I set out to accomplish. Failure is worse than being bored.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
[ her tail flicks. ]
I wish that hold hag would get off of my back about coming to talk to her. That's all.
Do you believe in soulmates or love at first sight?
[ a snort; she looks derisive. ]
No. People die for love and kill for love all the time. True love doesn't exist in the realm of humans.
"Killing criminals is okay if they've committed a grave crime." Do you agree with this? Why or why not?
...sure. As long as the punishment is always equal to the crime. [ a small, but sharp, cackle. ] I love trials.
Do you consider yourself a strong person? Why or why not?
I do what I need to do. You should consider trying it yourself. Whether or not you think that makes me a strong person, you can judge.
If you met a stranger, and were allowed to ask one single question in order to get to know them better, what question would you ask? And, if somebody asked you this question, how would you answer?
Do you believe in miracles?
[ . . . ] Of course I do. I also believe there are times when miracles can never occur. [ a smile ] You'd be surprised how many people think miracles can be given away like candy.
Free section: [ there's just some laughter, the jingling of a cat's bell....and she's gone. ]