Marika Arachne- The Spider Seamstress

Appearance:


Marika is a small girl, barely five feet high. She normally wears a dark purple school uniform that covers her entirely with long sleeves and skirt. Round glasses over her round red eyes complete the mousy look. Her chin is quite pointed, as is her nose. She is slender, lacking much body fat or musculature. Her hair is wirey and dark purple, pulled back in twin braided pigtails, and that on her body is bristly and sharp. Her eyebrows are quite bushy, but she hates them and plucks them thinner. Her skin carries a purplish tinge in normal lighting and is pale, giving her a sickly look in combination with her height and undeveloped body. Three bangs hang over her forehead, in reality flexible "fangs". Her voice is average for her age, coated in a Greek accent. It tends to become a drawn out whine when she's upset.

History:

Marika was born 15 years ago to the Arachne family, a secretive family known in the underworld for their assassination skills stretching back all the way to classical times, when they were often hired to kill the leaders of warring city states. Marika was born to a loving mother and father, as well as an older brother. She was never quite normal, even for an Arachne. She would obsess over everything in the house, fixing it if it wasn't perfect. She learned how to sew before she could walk so she fix holes in clothing, no matter how minimal. By the time she was three, she had started taking apart dolls and stitching the parts she liked best together into a single doll, discarding the rest. With her families unique magics, she even animated them, having them be her friends. She showed little interest in other children, growing enraged when they made the slightest mistakes.

The only people she ever tolerated were her parents. After all, they were perfect. They had given up on lucrative careers as assassins to protect her and her brother. They loved her and she loved them back. But then one day, a day before her thirteenth birthday, she learned they weren't perfect. It might not have hit her so hard if it hadn't tainted her by association. In her rage at what she saw as an utter betrayal, she killed them. They had trained her to defend herself with her powers, but she used them for the old family business. She lured them into the darkness and entangled them in the woods, tied face to face. She screamed at them for hours before finally raining the final blows on them. It's not certain who was more tearful when she did it. She disappeared for a full year along with her bother.


Now, she's returned to the public eye as a talented young seamstress, mildly popular in her home country, enough to live off of, but not enough to draw unappreciated attention.

Personality:

Marika is an extreme perfectionist. Nothing that isn't made by her can live up to her standards. She especially can't stand other people or even herself, venturing into public only rarely, usually letting her servants collect fabric and groceries and taking classes online. When she is forced to enter public, she is barely capable of hiding her hatred of everything around her, coming across as moody and agitated, especially since she wears makeup and dresses uncomfortably to avoid standing out. The only time she becomes attached to somebody is when they have parts she wants, with the exception of her boyfriend Miles.

At home, her obsessions are more obvious, with her constantly loosing her mind over any detail that strikes her as off. Due to her massive inferiority complex, she also displays jealous rage towards anybody better at her craft than her, and wishes she could remake herself with the parts she takes. However, counterbalancing her frequent rages are long periods of depression, lasting months at a time, during which she can do little but weep uncontrollably, a rare period when humanity seems to break through.

Powers:

Web Weaver- Marika can create thin thread from her hair, or what appears to be hair. She can sew with this nearly invisible thread, obviously, but it also has a far more dangerous purpose. Marika can sense vibrations through wire she's placed down, easily finding prey in the dark. She has two ways of magically amplifying this thread, both of which will be covered in their own entries.

Venomous- The three bangs hanging over her forehead are in fact some sort of fang. Her venom is limited in production due to her age and size, but it is an extremely potent anesthetic that can even slow down the decay of dead bodies, or at least parts of them. Used very sparingly on some of her scissors.

Spider strength- Not actually any stronger than an ordinary 15 year old girl. Just more agile and faster by far.

Shed- She periodically sheds her skin and hair, revealing a new set underneath. This can heal wounds and even regrow limbs.

Kaspa- A twisted version of those used by mainstream seamstresses. It is the home of her and her dolls, mostly just resembling a normal house, although with a strangely huge selection of front doors.

Sticky string- One of the enhancements she can make to her thread. Using her family's magic, Marika can cause the thread to become sticky to the point of being nearly impossible to break free of without either loosing a piece of skin or clothing. Used to incapacitate targets and bring them home.

Soul stitches- Her most advanced ability by far, and the other enhanced version of her thread. This thread, when woven through a collection of body parts, can animate it, as long as the body is complete on the outside. She uses this to make her Dolls.

Gear:

Scissors- Forgoing the use of knives, Marika instead tosses dangerously sharp scissors at her foes. She has aim sufficient to avoid destroying parts she wants, and can use her threads to guide them.

Weaknesses:

Depression- Utterly helpless during her depressive fits. She doesn't eat, drink or sleep during them, and would have died long ago if not for her Dolls, specifically Yuu.

Knives- Marika has severe issues with knives, either going into utter panic or unstoppable rage upon seeing them. Either compromises her battle ability significantly, and the latter can make her run out of scissors quickly.

Dolls:

The beings called Dolls are a unique sort of being entirely of Marika's design. Like a modern day Frankenstein, she takes the most perfect parts of individuals and puts them together into her own friends. While she has dozens of these creations working for her, only three usually stick around with her, the rest being nonsapient. Despite being externally intact, Dolls lack most internal organs outside of lungs and a digestive system, and even the lungs are unnecessary for survival. As a result, Dolls have no blood flow or body heat.


Yuu- Marika's oldest and most successful Doll currently alive. The closest thing to perfection Marika has ever seen, she's intelligent, beautiful, and the most powerful doll overall. She is Marika's right hand man and even acts like her mother, the closest she can get to what she really wants to be. Yuu always carries herself with as much grace, patience, and kindness as she can, which is usually quite a bit, but not as much as she'd like. She knows her perfect little girl has problems, horrible problems, but only she can understand and fix them. She has studied psychology to find answers to them, but Marika's deranged behavior only slowly shows any change, and the introduction of Miles into the home has made her worse than ever, even as she has grown happier.

Yuu hides her distress at this deep down. She can't let her family see her family see her weak. They require a strong face, even those who hate her. She hides her hatred of Miles to Marika's face, but it's an open secret in the kaspa, and nobody wants to be alone in a room with them. All of these conflicting emotions have taken their toll on Yuu, and this manifests in the Marika-voice, a manifestation of all her doubts and misdeeds that whispers in her ear. While not full blown mental illness, the Marika-voice is still a bad sign for Yuu's mental health.

She has seamstress skills of her own, lesser than Marika's but enough to repair her body when injured. She is a skilled combatant, armed with a venomous kunai attached to a string that can be retracted by a pulley system on her arm. The venom on the kunai is also an adhesive that only comes undone at her touch, allowing Yuu to use it as a grappling hook or harpoon. She can create this venom from her tears at will, and it is highly flammable, allowing her to ignite it as easily as she deactivates it. She herself grows stronger when exposed to fire, the more she touches the stronger she becomes. She also has a Wakizashi(short sword) hidden under her sleeve for close combat.

Yuu is an Asian woman, presumably Japanese in origin given her name. Her face is decorated with large, deep black eyes with delicate lashes and thin brows and a small button nose. It's framed by a helmet of smooth black hair, bangs brushed between her eyes. She also often wears a hat resembling that of a United States Admiral's, just pitch black with gold spiderweb patterns on the brim and a gold spider on a shield marking the front. Her chin, to which her hair reaches at its furthest, is delicately pointed.

Her body is abnormally curvaceous, with wide hips and huge breasts. Normally she is clad in a full black uniform, held closed with golden buttons. This uniform is thick, with a texture approaching wool, and is fully immune to flame. In this uniform she hides many kunai over her body, as well as a wakazashi sword (effectively a small katana) at her hip.

Marceline- Unlike calm, reserved Yuu, Marceline is crass, cruel, and wishes she looked 21. She hates her master and creator, and would have long since been disposed of if she wasn't so useful. Part of this temperament comes from her overly large eyes, causing her constant agony due to their poor fit in her eye sockets and skull in general. Or rather, eye. She tore one out in an attempt to make it stop hurting and Marika hasn't found a perfect replacement yet. Her battle strategy is cowardly, preferring to run, playing nice then backstabbing her foes when forced to fight. However, this strategy suits her powers well, as she becomes stronger the more pain she's in and even releases this pain in her attacks, making even slight injuries crippling.

After being freed from Marika, Marceline is searching for her place. She has found employment with the billionaire Marvel Smith, but self-doubt still plagues her, not helped by her co-worker. Not only are her feelings on him painfully mixed, but he outshines her in power to a horrifying degree, lessening her already-crippled self-esteem. This and her struggle with keeping off of the various drugs in her life leave her as bitter and miserable as ever, but at least she doesn't have Marika to deal with.

She is barely taller than Marika. Her blonde hair reaches to her rear, small bangs hanging over her missing eye, which also has a patch of a variety of designs, a usual favorite being a red heart shape. Her remaining eye is massive and deep blue, dwarfing her tiny nose and even her wide mouth, giving her a face a strangely stretched look. Unlike curvaceous Yuu, Marceline is thin, with small breasts and very little to her hips. She dresses in pink whenever possible, usually a sleeveless, shoulder-baring dress. Lacy white gloves are permanently sewn onto her forearms.

Cosmina- The youngest, in looks at least, and least physically powerful of Marika's main Dolls. She is graceful and friendly, although lacking in an understanding of personal space. She looks up to Yuu and desperately wants to be like her, leading to several accidents with kunai and fire. Realizing she won't grow up, she's obsessed over learning as much about being an adult as she can. She's well read in everything from Twilight to Shakespeare, has studied anatomy, and managed to get wi-fi in the kaspa and house so she can watch Netflix. She loves the history channel, but MTV can suck it.

She's also the one most often seen outside, often in areas where a little girl really shouldn't go. Fortunately, she has protection. It's uncertain what the horns on her head were taken from, but they function as a sensory tool, basically a sonar telling where everything around her is, at least vaguely. They also allow her a deadly combat ability. She can see every layer of a foe with her sonar, pick out a weak spot, and fire a sonic attack that hits internally. While a horrifying sniper, she's useless in direct combat and against supersonic foes.

After being freed from Marika, Cosmina was adopted by Haruko Miyata.

Cosmina is slender and graceful, built like a young ballet dancer. She tends to wear simple dresses, often colorful ones of her own design. Same goes for the hats that cover her horns. Her ideas for hats are diverse and odd, ranging from rhinestoned crowns to sparkling Santa caps. As long as the horns are covered, she's happy with anything.

Cassandra- Cassandra is the youngest of the dolls, finished by Yuu as a Christmas gift to Marika. She is a cluelessly cheerful klutz, operating on the mental level of a young child, despite appearing nearly adult. All her other senses are highly enhanced, leaving her with a high craving in them. She constantly seeks out music, snacks, soft objects, anything that appeals to her senses. Her low intellect and blindness make her seemingly helpless in unfamiliar environments, but in reality she is deceptively deadly. She has no trouble using the little dagger hidden under her skirt to pierce the heart of foes, preferring them as a target because she can hear its steady beat. She is the most loyal doll after Yuu, not understanding Marika's evil.

She's especially slim, lacking body fat like most of the dolls. Her head is oddly tall, with a high forehead covered by her orange bangs. Her chin, mouth, and nose are all small and pointy. Her hair falls in bunches to the sides of her head, held by frilly black scrunchies and ending on her upper chest. The rest falls down her back, reaching its small. She wears a short black dress over white pants and whatever blindfold she feels like that day, each with its own patterns and designs.

Theme:

Normal:



Kaspa:



Battle: