✽ imeeji: application

[wonderlandgirl]

✽ Player Name: laila
✽ Player Age: 18+18
✽ Method of Contact: sevendials | sevendials#3391 @ Discord

✽ Character Name: Maruyama Aya
✽ Character Canon: BanG Dream! Girls' Band Party


✽ Canon Summary:
Ever since she was a small girl, Aya has had one ambition: to become an idol. She was especially fond of a unit named Marmalade and considered the lead singer, Ayumi, her role model and her inspiration. She became an idol trainee in middle school and spent three years waiting for her chance to debut - a wait caused, in part, by her difficulty in overcoming her stage fright.

Aya's dream seemed to be becoming reality when she was chosen as the vocalist for Pastel✽Palettes, promoted as an idol band who played their own instruments. Backstage, the her agency made it plain that this was nothing more than a publicity stunt. In reality, Aya was expected to lip-sync while her unitmates simply pretended to play. Though she was deeply uncomfortable with the idea Aya, seeing no way to assert herself, went along with it - but a technical failure saw the ruse exposed for what it was the first time they played live. Though the group's future was in doubt and her dream seemed to lie in ruins Aya, for all she had been devastated by the reversal, refused to give up on her unit and set out to prove to the public that Pastel✽Palettes were the real deal, throwing herself into intensive rehearsals and street-level promotional work, in the hope that her agency and the public would be willing to give them all a second chance.

Though her hard work and determination won over her unitmates Eve and Maya, and saw guitarist Hina grow curious enough about the method behind her madness she agreed to stick around, Aya's decision to fight for the band saw her clashing with bassist Chisato. A former child star who saw Pastel✽Palettes as just another job Chisato, when their debut turned into a disaster, was initially concerned with nothing but getting out gracefully. She couldn't comprehend why Aya thought simply working hard and believing in herself would win out over a lack of natural talent. Gradually, however, she found herself becoming drawn in, even helping Aya hand out flyers in the pouring rain, and came to respect Aya's attitude even if she still couldn't understand it.

Pastel✽Palettes stuck together and, after intensive tutoring and rehearsals, were set to perform live once again. The agency agrees that the girls have earned the chance to play live and decides to launch the band for real, with one caveat: that Aya continue to lip-sync. For all her hard work, her managers still felt the stage fright that saw her completely freezing up during their first, disastrous show would keep her from putting in a good performance. Aya is heartbroken - and her unit come to her rescue. The girls, Chisato included, petition for her on the day of the live, and her managers relent. Finally, Aya takes to the stage, ready to prove she is an idol to be looked up to.

✽ Character in Canon:
Upbeat, determined and tender-hearted, Aya is a kind, even selfless person, who often goes out of her way to help other people. She is enthusiastic and driven - even ambitious - though she can be naive and her passions can occasionally prove to be misdirected. She is extremely earnest and consequently very easy to tease, often blushing and becoming flustered when she believes that she has embarrassed herself, and finds it difficult to handle unexpected or awkward situations without clamming up or starting to cry. Normally, though, she comes across as cheerful and friendly, with an open nature and a ready smile.

Aya is a straightforward girl whose emotions run very close to the surface: she is not the kind of person who could ever be accused of hiding her feelings. When she's happy it's obvious just to look at her, and it's almost a running joke how easy it is to provoke her to tears. She's the girl who cries in the theater at the end of a tragic film, the one who tears up over praise, or because her friends are just that awesome and she simply doesn't know how else to handle it. It's an embarrassing tendency she wishes she could grow beyond, not least of which because she'd like to stop being teased about it.

Finding improvisation difficult, Aya often panics when things don't quite go to plan. In a crisis, she tends to freeze up or break down - something of a handicap for a performer. Her, coupled with crippling stage fright, served to delay her debut to the point she was starting to wonder if she would ever become an idol. She is working very hard to overcome her anxieties, though she does not always manage as well as she might hope. The kind of girl who will fret for hours over misspeaking, Aya can be insecure. She worries a lot about what other people think of her and often believes that friends, classmates and strangers will think extremely badly of her for minor, or understandable, mistakes.

A social media queen, Aya is seldom seen without her cellphone and carries a selfie stick with her everywhere. At first sight, she may come across as self-obsessed, even narcissistic, but though there is a grain of truth in it, these would be unfair assessments. She is, after all, an idol - managing and curating her image simply comes with the territory, and engaging with friends and fans on social media is an important part of her dream job. Even so, she tends to try and keep her intense interest in her own public image and how she is perceived to herself, frequently becoming flustered if she is caught reading fan blogs or searching for #pastel*palettes on Twitter. Her behaviour, too, is motivated as much by anxiety as it is by self-obsession. Aya wants to be perceived as someone worthy of admiration, in her personal and school life as well as her idol career, and she always wants to know if she is living up to that. Finding out what she could do better is only ever a search string away.

She is extremely diligent, and believes in working hard to achieve her dreams - she does not consider herself particularly talented, but hopes that with enough effort she will be able to improve enough to debut as an idol, something she has dreamed about since she was very young. This is an attitude that often clashes with that of the hardened professional Chisato, who initially has no time for what she sees as woolly-headed optimism. Aya is easily disappointed and reacts very strongly to bad news and bad luck, but she is very difficult to discourage completely. She is also the kind of person who will wholeheartedly encourage a friend or a schoolmate if they seem to be in need of it - she especially thinks the world of her unitmates and the strengths they all bring to the band, though she sometimes worries that she brings comparatively little to Pastel✽Palettes and cannot compete with them.

Aya has a strong sense of right and wrong, and works tirelessly to atone for and overcome the mistakes that she makes. She is deeply uncomfortable when steered by her agency toward a path that offers a shortcut to success in exchange for living a lie, and when caught out in that lie through no fault of her own she seizes the chance to try and put things right for her band and for the people who have believed in her so far. Aya wants to be looked up to, both as an idol and in her everyday life, but more than that she wants to be worthy of being looked up to: she would far rather have success on her own merits, than succeed at any cost.

✽ Character in Imeeji:
An Aya without her memories in a setting which places her in an idol unit is an Aya who, effectively, has been reset to zero. Something about what she is doing, for all the unfamiliarity and anxiety of the situation, will simply feel very right to her. Given that the situation involves regular death games which she is absolutely certain that she hates, that sense of essential rightness is likely to cause her some concern.

Waking up without memories would confuse, disorient and terrify Aya, and she would not be able to hide it. Though she would take comfort in knowing she was not alone, she would be as upset and frightened as any gentle-natured teenage girl would be in such a situation, and it would show. Once she was a little more settled, though, her essential optimism would see her trying to make the best of the situation. She would form new friendships, or attempt to, both inside her unit and out of it, reasoning that nothing is so bad when you're with friends. Understanding that others are far better adapted to the world than she is, she would be willing to listen to and learn from them.

Aya will not take to death games well at all. Her tendency to react to fear and uncertainty by freezing up will in all likelihood make her an absolute liability for quite some time. Though she is in good physical shape, as can be expected from a girl who has been trained to sing and dance for ninety minutes at a stretch, she has no fighting ability at all and will not at first want to acquire any because she'd far rather not hurt anybody and go home now, please. Though she is unlikely to prioritize combat skills over getting something else to wear (seriously, three outfits?!) she is not an unreasonable person and would certainly see the logic in it if it were to be explained to her by someone she was growing to trust. She is also, however, a very team-spirited person and would not want to let her Imeeji unit down any more than she would Pastel✽Palettes, and if that meant learning to fight she would, ultimately, grit her teeth and do her best. In a support role if possible, please.

Being placed in an idol unit and given jobs to promote it, however, is something Aya will take to gladly and even enthusiastically - this is, after all, exactly what she has spent the last three years of her life back home preparing for. If she has no desire at all to participate in death games, she will have no such doubts about promoting her unit. Her stage fright will of course be a handicap, but not a serious one once she finds her stride and has unitmates by her side who she can perform with and for. For all she may have lost her understanding of why she started to perform with her memories of Ayumi and Marmalade, and lost the companionship of the rest of Pastel✽Palettes, Aya's love of performing and desire to be an idol herself has moved beyond Ayumi and, for all they may have given it a meaning it didn't have when she was a trainee, is not dependant on her band. She is ambitious and determined in her own right, and hard-working with it: she simply will not allow herself to give her new role anything but her very best.

As a friendly, caring and good-natured girl, Aya would try as best she could to get along with everybody (while worrying about that thing she said two weeks ago that, now she thinks about it, could have been seen as weird: does this person now think she's weird?). She simply isn't going to be used to the idea of mixing with anybody more ill-intentioned than the average record company executive, and will find it quite shocking to realize that not everyone present in Imeeji finds the idea of violence abhorrent, and idol lives exciting. She is, however, alert and self-aware enough to recognize the more obvious signs that someone is a threat: naive Aya may be, but she does at least have a functional sense of self-preservation, and will not set out to befriend, say, six foot men in masks.

✽ Unit Preferences:
✽ Priority:
LiliS
✽ Acceptable:
pep!pep!; Heart Soldier Senshi; WILD CITY; sensitIV
✽ Do Not Place:
Taisho Roman Revolution; future is now; AlcheME!; BAD END=DEAD END; ☆ZRAEL; avante en garde; BARiTONES

✽ Voice Samples:

✽ SURVEY:
✽ Evaluate yourself honestly: what do you think your soul is worth?
My what? Well, uh... that's a pretty strange question! Well... of course I think I have one, doesn't everyone? But as for what it's worth... um, I'm not really sure that's the kind of question I ought to be answering! Really, I would have thought that was for other people to judge. All I can do is try and be the best that I can be every day, and if that means that other people think I shine, well... that's the best that I can hope for, isn't it? Oh, I'm not sure I answered very well, but I really don't know what else to say!

✽ Is there anything you would do anything to achieve?
Oh, I've wanted to be an idol for as long as I can remember! It's funny, but I don't think I ever really wanted anything else. You see, I've always looked up to Ayumi-san - she's Marmalade's lead singer, but I probably don't need to mention that...! Ayumi-san has always been the kind of idol that I could admire, and I remember wishing I could grow up to be just like her. My parents and my sister have always been really supportive, and I was so excited when I joined my agency and started taking lessons. Compared to some of the other girls, I suppose I'm really not very talented, but I've been working hard toward my debut for three years, and I've really learned a lot since I started! I'm really grateful for the chance to perform with Pastel✽Palettes, so I'm going to keep on doing my best - for the band, and for everyone who comes to see us play!

✽ What does hell mean to you?
Well, um... oh, I've not really thought about it, I'm sorry! If I had to guess, I'd say it must be very lonely. Having nobody to turn to when things go wrong sounds dreadful, and it's awful that there are people in the world who really do...
But I think it's terrible to know you've let people down, too, especially if they're your family or your friends, or the people who look up to you, especially if it's because you've done something you knew was wrong. I think I'd do anything to keep from feeling like that again. I can't even imagine what it would be like if something happened, and I had no way of making things right... it'd be like I betrayed all the people who believed in me. I never want to be that kind of person. Living like that, knowing I should have been better and there's no way to be who they thought I was again... I think that would be the most terrible thing I could imagine.

✽ Which of these nine words is the most meaningful to you, and why? Idolatry, lies, transgressions, vengeance, sorcery, plague, devastation, inquisition, or temptation?
Um, can you repeat those, please? I think I might have missed-- oh, that's really all there is? I'm sorry! This, um, that is... this isn't a very positive list, does it? I think I identify a lot more with more cheerful things so, well, it's a little hard to answer. I suppose sorcery doesn't have to be all bad, so I guess I'd say sorcery? You can do that without having to hurt anybody, I suppose...
But it's not right to lie to people. Or to pretend to be something you aren't. Even if it hurts, an honest failure is much better than success that's built on a lie. And these things always get found out eventually, don't they? I think it's much better not to pretend at all. Even that can be difficult, sometimes, especially when other people are counting on you to do something and you know that it's not right... but it's far better in the end.

✽ Do you want a puppy?
Um... well, puppies are definitely very cute, but there's a lot of responsibility to looking after a dog, isn't there? You have to put a lot of work into it, and I'm not sure that right now I'd really have the time. But it would be okay if my family wanted one, because then we could all take care of him together. Though even if we all worked together the cat probably wouldn't be happy with a puppy in the house... oh, this is so much harder a question than it sounded!

✽ Have you previously owned a puppy?
I know people who have done, but we've always had cats. So it's never really been an option, I'm afraid. I know my sister and I wanted one when we were younger, but I think a lot of children must say that at some point. I know, Chisato-chan has a dog - if there's anything you want to know about taking care of them, I can ask her!

✽ Are you worried we've been recording this conversation?
No... should I be worried? It's what I'd have expected you to do, in an interview. It's-- oh, no, am I looking at the camera again? This won't all be broadcast, will it? Oh, I really hope you're going to be editing this bit out!

✽ Do you have any last words for us?
Thank you for taking the time to meet with me, and to everyone who's been watching at home! Um, Pastel✽Palettes' fourth single, Tenka Toitsu A to Z☆, will be released on February 20, 2019~! We're all going to keep on shining for you, so please continue to support us from now on! Thank you so much for listening to us play!