Ruby City App

[knittinghearts]

PLAYER
Name: Rissa
Age: 21
Personal Journal: N/A
E-mail: rissarisk@gmx.com
AIM/MSN/etc: trebleterrific @ skype, primadonutgirl @ plurk

CHARACTER
Name: Juniper Woods
Canon: Ace Attorney
Age: 18
Timeline: End of Dual Destinies
If playing another character from the same canon, how will you deal with this?: N/A

Personality: Juniper Woods can give off a vastly different impression depending entirely on when and where you first meet her. If you were to encounter her as a child, you would find a frail, shy wisp of a thing, often too sick to so much as go to school. The girl stayed true to those roots as she grew up, but as an aspiring judge-to-be in the dark age of the law, she found the world was unforgiving. At one point, she tried to change accordingly... Tried being the key word.

"Don't worry about me. I am Student Council President, after all. I need to be strong."

As student council president of the prestigious Themis Legal Academy, Juniper held her role in high regards, putting up a front of strength and confidence to everyone she met. She was highly organized and veered straight to the point, and while her conduct was as professional as she clearly aimed for it to be, the wall she put up was obvious to those that knew her well enough. Her posture was stiff, her words stilted, and she referred to her own position frequently in conversations to affirm her behavior. It’s not as if she did a bad job—Far from it. In the short time her childhood friend Athena saw her in a school environment she actively discouraged rude behavior, urged her classmates to be welcoming to their guests, and made sure that a complex mock trial ran smoothly down to the last detail (up until there was an actual murder, that is). Her actions were her own, but she did not let her true self shine through until the cracks in her armor began to show.

Through the events that followed the aforementioned murder, her pretenses were dropped one by one. Her stern expression melted away, and it became clear that she all but wears her heart on her sleeve, beaming a bright smile at her happiest, blubbering tears at her saddest, and… Knitting a scarf when feeling particularly love-struck. It was also made evident that she is still not of the strongest constitution, and she’s prone to coughing fits when overcome by anxiety. The sunflower in her hair (or, later, her hat) helps alleviate this when she breathes into it, working similarly to an inhaler. Even her self-assurance was shown to have been a falsehood. In actuality she remains a meek and timid girl at her core, shown to stutter and trail off when speaking.

Yet Juniper has her own strengths, even if they are not of the more literal sense. She’s kind to a fault, cares about people too much for own good, and can draw inspiration from an act of compassion as small as a smile, waxing poetic about the experience as a whole. Her bleeding heart is not always a good thing—for as dangerously softhearted as she is, upsetting her is all too easy, and it can leave others walking on eggshells—but it stems from a well-meaning place. She is delicate, yes, a gentle soul, and while she may not realize it, there is a type of strength in that. Maintaining her level of empathy and benevolence is no small feat, for all the darkness she has seen in the depths of humanity.

"Yes. Apollo is... just like the sun -- strong and bright and warm. Just talking about him makes me feel like a leaf undergoing photosynthesis."

True to her namesake, Juniper was raised by a wise and doting grandmother in the actual woods. Or a forested area on top of a mountain 3,000 feet in the air, rather. Her love of the outdoors is a major part of who she is, and not just because being outside is when she’s at her healthiest. Juniper feels most at home in nature, and provided she’s comfortable enough with her current companions she’ll talk about plants constantly, either directly or by way of comparing them to everything. She even gives her friends gifts from her garden, putting great thought into which fruit or vegetable would best benefit the one on the receiving end and explaining her reasoning in extreme detail.

“We're studying for a career in law, and in the legal world, evidence is everything.”

If there is one ideal Juniper holds above all others, it is friendship. She will go to great lengths to protect her friends, and has even done so to the extent that it’s caused more harm than good. She’s lied, avoided confrontation and even confessed to a murder she did not commit, all to avoid putting her relationships in jeopardy. However, this undying loyalty has come with a cost. Constance Courte, a teacher in the judge course at Themis and Juniper’s mentor, emphasized the pursuit of truth as her main principle. This is a view that Juniper has always shared, in spite of its lack of popularity among the students that believed the ends justify the means, and she went as far as to become Courte’s “snitch,” telling the teacher of any wrongdoings she heard taking place. While her two best friends were unaware of this arrangement, it inevitably put a wedge between them. This came to a head when she found out one of those best friend’s parents were buying their way through school, and telling Courte indirectly led to the chain of events that sparked her murder. When she tried to adhere to the truth, she hurt her friends. When she tried to protect her friends, she didn’t tell the truth. It was a precarious balancing act, and she came out the other side learning that she simply had to trust in her beliefs and let the truth be found for there to any resolution—if only she hadn’t had to learn the hard way.

Background: Follow the link, please!

Abilities: For as fragile as Juniper may be socially, her talents make her remarkably self-sustaining as a person. She is an avid gardener, and enjoys growing all sorts of vegetables. She loves to knit and sew, having made the clothes she normally wears herself as well as costumes for the school festival. And she’s eternally knitting a scarf with hearts on it, for whatever reason. The heart wants what the heart wants.

Juniper also has a beautiful singing voice, according to her peers, although that’s considerably less functional than her other skills. Besides that, she has the general knowledge you would expect of a student attending a respected legal academy, as well as everything else she’s picked up from living out in the woods her whole life.

First Person: [The video feed cuts in on Juniper’s face buried liberally into a large sunflower. It doesn’t look like she’s just stopping to smell the roses, either. What’s visible of her skin between the petals is noticeably pale, and she’s breathing deeply, slow and steady, as if this flower is her only source of oxygen. And it may as well be, for the amount of distress she’s under, but to anyone unfamiliar with her coping mechanisms… It’s an odd sight to behold.

She pulls away and seems to remember that she’s the one who started this broadcast in the first place, staring where she assumes the camera to be. Her brow is knit, the corners of her mouth downturned, and altogether she just looks sad. To be fair, that’s sort of her default expression. Not that a stranger would know that.]

E-Excuse me… I’m sorry for troubling anyone, but—

[And there goes the coughing. It’s not a particularly loud sound—She hardly looks capable of doing anything loudly—But her body shudders, long braids flapping against her back at the motion, and for a minute all she can do is wheeze into a tiny balled fist. Then she’s pulling a sunflower from her hat and mimicking the behavior at the beginning of the video, and the meaning behind it becomes a littler clearer.]

I need help. I’m scared, and alone, and…

[A pause. There are tears welling in her eyes.]

And I want to go home.

Third Person: Juniper didn’t remember getting on a train.

She remembered sitting in her garden, knees dug deep into the dirt, feeling the earth between her fingers. She remembered how bright the sun was shining, how it reminded her of a certain someone and sent a feeling of unbridled warmth rushing through her, strengthening her resolve to finally plant those red peppers. She remembered the crisp air, the wind making her skirts bellow, reaching for the spade beside her and laughing as her clothes refused to sit still, because wasn’t it just the perfect day?

And then… Fog. Both literal and figurative. Fog rolled outside the windows of the train, fog clouded the recesses of her memory, and the sunshine was gone, the dirt and grass stains on her dress were gone, it was all gone gone gone. She’d been accused of murder twice, seen people in her life killed or gravely injured, but this was worse, almost, because at least then she had people to fall back on. As she stepped into the train station she was completely and utterly alone, without a person or plant in sight. The urge to break down entirely was overwhelming, and she was already having trouble breathing, could feel her chest clenching, the tell-tale signs were all there—

But what would Athena say? Apollo? Robin, Hugh? They wouldn’t want her to give up. If even one of them were there she’d have an earful right about then, telling her to get to the bottom of the situation with encouraging words and promising smiles. She wasn’t a lawyer like any of them were or hoped to be, of course. Juniper was going to be a judge. Even so, she attended a legal academy. She had the skills to investigate, if nothing else. She could find the truth, or at least a shred of it. Grasping the friendship bracelet on her wrist to give her strength, she regained her composure and walked to the nearest visible posters with quickened steps. If she imagined hard enough, she could almost pretend her friends were there. Remember their gentle touches, their kind expressions, the sunlight filtering in through the windows of the court lobby and basking all of them in a halo of light that bordered on angelic. It didn’t really work if her eyes were open, not with the noticeable lack of natural light in the dreary place, but if she squeezed her eyes shut…

It would have to be enough.