Application for Ryslig

[waspyourface]

OOC INFORMATION
Name: Einir
Contact: Discord: Moxana#4430
Other Characters: N/A

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Lucrezia Mongfish-Heterodyne
Age: Between 35-45. Probably closer to 40. No canon age, unreliable timeline, dimension hopping. She probably doesn't even know her own age anymore.
Canon: Girl Genius
Canon Point: At the moment she wasps Klaus, right as she's putting the locket on that represses her personality and gives possession of Agatha's body back to her
Character Information: Ye Olde Wiki has the big important informations. It claims that much of her story is mythologized and told through unreliable narrators, though I think it is very possible to believe many of the things said about Lucrezia, mythologized or not. The whole world of Girl Genius runs on the logic of Hero Stories and adventure tropes, and the dramatized nature of her life story as it's told in the legends of the Heterodyne Boys is probably not far from the truth. Words have powerful sway over the truth in Europa, and the stories in oral traditions spread across the land through traveling bards or through families are the histories they have. Even with the high level of steam-powered technology and proliferation of geniuses called Sparks, things like historical records or computers are not accessible to the average person. There is no internet, or formal record-keeping. The only formal record keepers are local and track only their city/village/feif's history. Usually these people work for the local powerful Spark.

Lucrezia is a very powerful Spark, from a family of Sparks. The Spark in this universe is a power, a personality trait, and a mental illness. It's a form of mad genius that sends the person into a sort of mania, making the person capable of incredible hyperfocus and skill, often in one specific area of expertise. Usually this is some form of science or technology, but this is sometimes flexible. For example, in canon there are Sparks who specialize in everything from biological engineering, mech style robots, to pie-baking. Lucrezia was an expert in consciousness transfer and control, and was known to have built "constructs", biological Frankenstein monster-esque beings with minds of their own and often powers of their own. Constructs come in all shapes and sizes up to and including human, but Lucrezia had a fondness for insectoids, wasps and spiders especially. Having the Spark means that when she gets very into her work, she will go into an alternate mind state like all Sparks do, which for her means extra deviousness and a devilish confidence on top of incredible engineering ability. Even without the Spark she is a very talented engineer with a penchant for creepy-crawlies.

The Mongfish family is as close to royalty as a divided, very feudal Europa could get. Her family is famous for its genius as well as its cruelties. They have had power and money for many generations, mostly through their cunning and powerful machines. Sparks are not above blowing one another up to protect their land and power, and from Lucrezia's delight over the thought of burning Sturmhalten Castle to the ground to cover her tracks, she is no exception. Nothing is known of her mother, but Lucrezia's father, Lucifer Mongfish, is often the Villain in stories of the heroic Heterodyne Boys, and his evil plans are thwarted by the heroes. The Heterodynes historically were a powerful, terrifying family like the Mongfishes, but the famous boys Bill and Barry Heterodyne redefined the family name and defied their history by being heroes who came to the rescue of others. Because it is so common for the mania of the Spark to turn Sparks into malicious, cackling mad scientists with no regard for other humans beings, it's an impressive thing that Bill and Barry overcame that part of their Spark to become compassionate people who traveled all over just to save the underdogs.

Lucifer has three daughters, Lucrezia, Demonica, and Serpentina. Serpentina defected to the "good guys" and married a DuMedd, a less well known family of Sparks who generally aren't as evil or as powerful. Lucrezia was tempted away from her father's delightfully evil ways by the charms of Bill Heterodyne, who was always ruining her father's plans and "saving the day". Whether she truly meant to defect and refine her ways, or whether she was attempting to tear down the enemy from the inside is not entirely known, though she did live several quiet years with Bill in Castle Heterodyne, giving birth to their first child and becoming pregnant with the second before the attack by the Other that destroyed the castle and left Lucrezia missing, and her first born son dead. The loss of his family is said to have driven Bill Heterodyne to madness as he searched and fought against the attacks from this evil Other that were falling all over Europe. Around the time the attacks ended, Bill Heterodyne disappeared.

The Other is a mysterious entity that has been causing chaos all over Europa for over a decade now. After the initial first attacks like the one that ruined Castle Heterodyne (an actual sentient castle that's basically a gigantic 'clank' with every weapon you could imagine) nothing quite so dramatic has happened, but it left an already divided continent even more at war. Beings called slaver wasps keep popping up, turning normal human beings into puppets of the Other, or worse, vicious mindless zombies, by crawling into victim's mouths and latching onto their spinal cords. Whole towns fall victim and are left empty save for the surviving Revenants, as people call the enslaved. It is known that the Other can control them, and by those most in the know, by her voice and its very special harmonics. It is revealed in the comic by some of her most trusted followers that the Other is Lucrezia Mongfish Heterodyne herself, and as this Other, considers herself a Goddess to be worshiped, and intends to rule and control all of Europa.

Lucrezia as Goddess is a significant part of her history, but not entirely understood yet. At some undefined point in the past, Lucrezia either discovered or created a species of humanoid women called "geisterdamen" who are all pale and more or less identical, speak a hissing language, and keep giant frost spiders as beasts of burden. They are from another dimension, referring to the real world"as the "shadow realm", though these geisterdamen are all in white and greyscale themselves, and images of their memories in their own dimension are similarly colorless. Still, they consider Lucrezia their deity, worshiping her as a fertility goddess of many aspects. It is said she came to them pregnant and in distress, which is presumably around the time of the Other attack on Castle Heterodyne, when she was said to disappear. While with these geisterdamen, Lucrezia gave birth to her second child, Agatha Heterodyne, and left her in the care of her priestesses. Though they eventually lost Agatha as an infant, they eventually track her down again (mostly through luck), at Sturmhalten Castle, the home of Aaronev Wilhelm Sturmvoraus. Aaronev Wilhem is a follower of Lucrezia's as well, who is working on finding Lucrezia's daughter, or another suitable vessel for her, as the geisterdamen are. When Agatha wanders into their sights, unknowing of these plots, they are able to get her into Lucrezia's machine, using her consciousness transfer technology to implant Lucrezia into her own daughter's body. This is where she enters the ongoing story in the comic proper, and we get to see her personality in real time.

As the Other, less is known of Lucrezia. It is implied that she became such later in life, though by what method or what catalyst is currently unknown. We do know that at the point she became the Other, her inventions grew even more complex, and the mind-transfer technology even more powerful. Her wasp constructs went from simple drones and fighters to including hives of slaver wasps. Her mind transfer is powerful enough npw that she was able to implant herself into three separate bodies that all function independently and have her personality and goals. Both the Other and Lucrezia disappeared shortly after the attack on Castle Heterodyne, and wherever Lucrezia went, she has been unable to return until she was transplanted into her daughter's body. We know she used to travel back and forth to the geisterdamen's realm easily, and that after giving birth to Agatha she disappeared even to them, so it is completely unknown where she has been.

For the purposes of this app I will consider the originally implanted Lucrezia, in her daughter Agatha, to be the "true" Lucrezia.

Personality: Growing up, Lucrezia was surrounded by the morality of the Mongfish Sparks. She is most likely the oldest of Lucifer's daughters, and thus raised to follow his legacy. Morality for powerful Sparks like these is grey at best, and absolutely nonexistant in most cases. Might is Right, in the world of Europa with it's lack of oversight and central government, and for Sparks, Right is a synonym for doomsday devices. Whoever has the biggest death ray or the largest army of constructs gets whatever they want, and the Mongfishes are an aristocratic family who is very used to getting whatever they want. Lucifer raised a daughter who is extremely proud of her own capabilities, often too proud, and who is not shy at all about using her femininity as a weapon. Lucifer died before the events of the comic, and is only seen once in a story that was being told, probably invented, by a side character. It is said that he repented his ways and became a "good guy" when his daughter Lucrezia married Bill Heterodyne, but we have no evidence for or against this. If Lucrezia was his eldest, perhaps he was swayed by her abandonment of the family ways.

What we see of Lucrezia once she has control of her daughter's body begins with vanity and pride. She greets her priestesses, who cry at her return, and to whom she is somewhat patronizing. She shushes them and tells them to be strong for her, for their work is far from done, and then rounds on her high priestess to demand who betrayed her, taking some of her anger out on the most loyal of her followers. At the first chance she is given to view herself in the stolen body of her daughter, she strips down to her victorian-style underclothes in a matter of seconds to admire her curves in a mirror. She is absolutely heedless of the boundaries being crossed, and utterly unbothered about the idea of seducing whoever she pleases using this body of her 18 year old child.

On the subject of boundaries, Lucrezia overall seems to have very few. Not only is she content to be sexual with a body that doesn't belong to her, she also takes immediately to flirting with the son of an old follower of hers- heavily implied to be an old flame- even after she is corrected from her mistaken identity. Tarvek is subtly uncomfortable with this, but Lucrezia either doesn't notice or doesn't care. Once she has also possessed the android body that once belonged to his sister, she ups the ante by testing her fine motor control by pinching Tarvek on the butt. That this may feel incestuous as well as unwanted to Tarvek does not bother her in the slightest. The body is hers now, and she does with it what she wants.

Possessiveness shows up in many ways for Lucrezia. Her dramatic sense of evil lends itself to a "mine mine mine" attitude, fueled by the privilege she was raised in. If Lucrezia wants it, Lucrezia will have it, and she will jealously guard and possess it in whatever way she can. Despite her assumed age, this is one of the many things about Lucrezia that's immature. When things are going her way, she squeals and gloats that she's "going to win!" She's overconfident to the point of hubris, and this exactly what ruins her plans. At a climactic moment of victory for her, she manages to implant a slaver wasp in Klaus, the most powerful man in Europa (and her ex boyfriend). She's near to him, pretending to help him with his "choking" when she sees something in his pocket. It's a locket with the Heterodyne sigil. When she finds the locket, she assumes it is merely a necklace he intended to give her as a gift. There is no suspicion in her mind that something might go wrong, or that it might have anything else to it, and she puts it on without a thought. This necklace was in fact a device made by Bill Heterodyne's brother, Barry, to protect Agatha, and it breaks Lucrezia's control over Agatha's body. This overconfidence has ruined Lucrezia's plans in the past, and is very likely what caused her-as-the-Other's disappearance.

Lucrezia is a very sexual being, and her lack of morality extends even here. As mentioned before, she doesn't really consider any of the implications of her flirtations, and always assumes her advances will be well-received. Who wouldn't want her?! Only a fool, she is sure. Even while she was being romanced by Bill Heterodyne, Lucrezia was carrying on an affair with his friend, Klaus Wulfenbach. The two of them had what only can be described as a rivalmance. They're so attracted to each other's intelligence, but they are still on opposite sides of the story- Klaus fights for the Good Guys, and Lucrezia is with the Bad Guys. It's not the same as her Romeo and Juliet romance with Bill, because Bill always believed in her Goodness. Klaus was never convinced by these overtures of reform, and never fully trusted Lucrezia. In the end, though, he did trust her just a touch too much.

Lucrezia did make an effort to end this affair in order to be true to Bill once she agreed to marry him, however her solution was to have a final tryst with Klaus, drug him, and ship him off the map hopefully never to return. If he isn't there, he can't be a temptation or tell her secrets! Not exactly what most people would consider a Good Guy choice, but Lucrezia is fully confident in her actions, here, telling Klaus that it isn't poison, just a sedative, because she's a "Good Guy" now! This newly discovered pacifism clearly did not last long, as only a handful of years later the Other attacks Castle Heterodyne.

This isn't to say that Lucrezia is without warmth. She shows affection several times, to her priestesses, to the memory of a loyal follower, to her cloned self, even to Klaus in the flashbacks. Lucrezia isn't icey cold, but her affection absolutely comes for a price. She doesn't seek love, she seeks loyalty, obedience. She wants to be worshiped, as clearly seen in her creating a religion around herself. The only relationship in which she sought love without control is arguably in Bill Heterodyne. Was she using him, or did she truly love him? It is hard to say, never having seen them interact, but within the tropes of the world and the power of emotions and stories, it is worth it to believe she really did care for Bill Heterodyne. His dorky heroics somehow won her over, along with him always coming out on top when he went up against Lucifer and other malicious Sparks. Her attraction to Bill could have started the same way as Klaus- she admired his Spark and his brains, and there was something special and unique in the way he used it, the way he stuck to his convictions. Lucrezia is a passionate person, and she enjoys seeing passion in others, so Bill's passion for heroics set her heart ablaze.

We see Lucrezia giggling and admiring Tarvek's ambition and passion. She catches Tarvek plotting against her to help her daughter and usurp her plans, but this doesn't upset Lucrezia at all. She sees his machinations as charming, not as a threat, because she believes she still has the power to control him anyway. She has what he wants- and she believes she can use him without risk, or even convert him over completely to being loyal to her eventually. She's overconfident in both her feminine wiles and in her cunning.

Lucrezia is so confident in her cunning and ability to lie that she believes she can fool Agatha's friends when they come to rescue her. She knows nothing about any of them, or what Agatha's relationship is to any of them, and never even bothered to learn what her daughter is like, and still there is no doubt in her mind she can play them all for fools. She doesn't sway from her convictions even when she's talked herself into a corner, trying to convince them of something. It's clear that they are surprised by this choice and confused that Agatha would do it, but Lucrezia doesn't change her plans or back down, simply ordering them to obey her when she grows desperate. She is capable of being a very effective liar, we see this in other cases. There was something about her desperation, or perhaps her lack of knowledge, that led her to be careless here. It's worth remembering, too, that this is her first time back in a human body in many, many, years, and possibly her first time in a physical form in just as many. She's still trying to adjust to being back, and the full extent of her faculties, mental and otherwise, have not blossomed back yet.

All these things you can say against Lucrezia, but it is impossible to deny that she is smart. The clank robots, constructs, and machines that she builds are impressive and have flair. Lucrezia doesn't do anything unless she can do it in style. It's part of her pride, but it makes her villainy a delight to watch. She has fun with her own evil, delights in causing chaos. Her sense of aesthetic may not match the average person's- she coos over her insectoid constructs, and builds machines with a similar creepy aura to them, but she is dedicated to her aesthetic. Lucrezia was born an aristocratic lady, and she will not be having anyone forget that she holds power and beauty. She is still a Spark, however, and as such an inventor. There is a time and place for practical clothes, and she will not shy away from building her own doomsday devices in pants, if she must. They will be form-fitting and compliment her skin, but they will also be comfortable. Lucrezia is not a fighter, we see her struggling with hand-to-hand combat, even when powered up by excess energy, but she is a good shot with a gun, and has ways of getting others to do her fighting for her. The hard work she does involves staying up days at a time to build magnificent machines and breed armies of fighting wasps.

5-10 Key Character Traits: -Ambitious
-Vain
-Overconfident
-Lascivious
-Empowered
-Spoiled
-Feminine
-Playful
-Stubborn
-Intelligent
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? Either
Opt-Outs: Goblin, Minotaur, Werebear

Roleplay Sample: On the test drive!

And the more recent test drive.