Character Name: Claire Francoeur
Her first name is the French form of the name "Clara", derived from the Latin "Clarus" (clear, bright). Her surname is also French. It includes elements from the word "franc" (open, generous) and "coeur" (heart). This is the name given to her by her adopted family. She is actually the youngest daughter of Atlas Ashwin.

Gender: Female
Age and Date of Birth: 14, April 30 (Taurus)

Appearance: Claire is slightly below-average height, standing at 5'4". She has a thin build, but years of dancing have developed a fair amount of lean muscle on her body. Her shoulders, bust, waist, and hips are narrow, and she has somewhat longer legs for her height. She is generally satisfied with her body and worries about developing a more curvaceous figure, concerned about how her looks might impact her future career goals. Her skin is a very pale peach tone; she rarely gets much sun exposure.

She has wide and clear eyes of a pale lavender hue. Her expression is generally enthusiastic and cheerful. She loves wearing makeup, but has to be mindful of following the dress code for her school and dance studio. Typically Claire has to keep her cosmetic use very simple unless it's a vacation day.

Claire has extremely long and wavy golden hair. She wouldn't mind having it a bit shorter, as it would be easier to put up for dance class, but she keeps it long because her mother adores it. When down, the longest layers reach nearly to her knees. Her typical hairstyle leaves her hair mostly down, falling in soft waves around her shoulders and back, with the top half pulled back and twisted into a bun. She doesn't have bangs cut into her hair, but she does keep the front section loose, rather than incorporating it into the bun on top of her head. She parts her hair slightly to the left. There are small tendrils that curl in front of her ears, mimicking the waves of her general style.

For dance classes, Claire's teachers require that she pull all of her hair into a bun on top of her head. It is a very large bun. She gets some friendly teasing from her classmates about resembling a honey bun or cinnamon roll.

Her signature hair accessory is barrette with a wide sky blue ribbon tied into a large bow. At the center of the bow is a candy pink faux rose. She wears this item clipped in front of her bun, at the crown of her head.

Claire's clothing style is very girly and very trendy. She likes frills, ruffles, and lace--but only in a way that wouldn't let her be excluded from social cliques at school or dance class for being a fashion disaster. She loves shopping for new clothes to keep up with styles and hates wearing her older sisters' hand-me-downs. Her high school has a dress code that she has to follow on most weekdays, but she's always looking for ways to accessorize and personalize her uniform without breaking the rules enough to get in trouble. Sometimes her clothing choices are impractical; she will always opt for fashion over function, even if that means her heels are blistered from fancy shoes for a day of walking or she's shivering in the movie theatre because her pretty new dress is so thin.

Personality: Claire is as sunny as her name suggests. She is an enthusiastic and easily excitable teenage girl. She squeals over romantic movies, handsome boys, cute puppies, and popular celebrities. She loves living in the city and everything that comes with it. She gossips with her friends about just about anything she can talk about, and sometimes her sisters wish she would just shut up for a bit. Conversation is one of Claire's favourite things; if it weren't for her family's unlimited talk plan on her cellphone, her parents would have a bill a mile long. She is always animated about the things she loves, and she loves so many things: shopping, dancing, makeup, music, etc.! Some people find her constant stream of chatter and the noises of excitement to be highly annoying.

Sometimes Claire can be moody--she is a teenager, after all--but generally she is stable and reliable for those around her. She is an eternal optimist, always looking for the bright side of the situation and trying to point it out to others. She has a warm and caring nature, and any doldrums or anger tends to dissipate quickly. She doesn't hold a grudge or dwell on past issues. Claire is almost always willing to give someone a second chance--or a third, or a fourth. She believes everyone deserves a chance to try again. She loves sharing her talents with others: picking out clothing for a date one of her older sisters is going on or doing makeup for her entire competition dance team.

Claire is very active. She loves dancing--it's in her blood and she just can't keep still! She studies ballet, contemporary, and jazz. Ballet is her focus and what she dreams of doing professionally someday. Claire is a devoted student for anything she puts her mind to, and this shows in her dance abilities. She doesn't whine about long hours at the studio or weekend practice. She is open to criticism and thinks of it as a reason to work harder or work differently. Her teachers love how devoted she is, and in her dance classes she is absolutely a "teacher's pet". Her willingness to help others and humbleness about her own abilities keeps her from being alienated from her classmates.

She doesn't mind taking risks, even if she knows that she might wind up less-well-off. This makes it easier for other people to take advantage of her. She can be too trusting and too willing to let someone try again. She can also be somewhat reckless in what she is willing to experiment with. Her mothers often have to reinforce the rules they set for her and why those rules are there to keep her safe. She likes having freedom, but she doesn't have the experience in life to always navigate that freedom intelligently. As the baby of the family, there are a lot of things that other people have always done for her. She rarely has to be the person to try something for the first time; there are usually instructions she can follow. When she does have to do something uncharted, she often fails to properly assess the situation and make the best choices. She rarely manages her money and usually spends it very quickly on things of little value.

Her optimism tends to reach the point of unrealistic hope. She doesn't often ground her wishes or desires in relativity. Sometimes she's shocked by an outcome that everyone else clearly understood would happen. Claire is not always truthful--she doesn't think there's anything wrong with elaborating on a story or coming up with an excuse so you can do something other people don't want you to do. She is a pretty good liar and most people believe her stories unless they catch her in a bind. Her sisters roll their eyes when a favourite shirt goes missing and then comes back with a mysterious stain while Claire says she knows nothing about it. Claire is afraid of heights, and avoids going up on observation decks or staring out the windows of tall buildings. She doesn't get dizzy looking out at the city from her bedroom, but she certainly doesn't look straight down! When she's not engaged and moving, she tends to get very bored and her attention wanders. She often gets into trouble for doing inappropriate things (like trying to see what she can light on fire with the Bunsen burner) if she's not engaged in the tasks she's supposed to be doing (a Chemistry lab assignment).

Claire comes from a family that, although they face some issues, is generally unfamiliar with hardship. She doesn't really understand what it feels like to be poor or struggling. Sometimes she is insensitive to others who are living tough lives because she lacks that type of perspective. She generally means well, but she thinks she can "solve" problems that are systemic, not realizing how upsetting and unnecessary her privileged commentary can be. She doesn't know what it means to truly be in need of something, or to be faced with a hard or impossible decision.

Any Unique Abilities/Skills:
• Excellent communication skills. Although she does talk too much, she's also very good at getting through to people and actually listening to what others have to say.
• Speaks both French and English. She has a latent ability from her past life as a Pleiad (something gained from her interest in worlds beyond her own) to understand a variety of languages. As she connects with her powers as a sailor soldier, she is able to understand and speak additional languages that she has not studied in this life.

History: Claire has lived in New York City all her life, and considers herself a true "city girl". Her mother is a French woman who moved to New York City after college to work for the United States branch of a large international banking firm. There she fell in love with an investment banker from the same firm, and chose to seek US citizenship so the two could be together and live in NYC. Although they could not initially marry in New York, the two women longed for a family and began one a few years after living together. Together they have three daughters conceived via anonymous sperm donation, all carried by the French woman the girls call "Maman". She suffered medical complications shortly after the birth of her third child and was heartbroken to learn she would not be able to carry the fourth child she and her partner had planned for. As a result, they sought adoption and brought their youngest daughter into their lives.

Claire and her sisters do not know she is adopted. Her parents have decided to tell her when she is eighteen. They have concerns about how little they know of her birth family or adoption circumstances, and they worry that she might feel like less of a daughter than her older sisters. They are trying to avoid the topic they know they will have to address someday, hopefully without leading to future resentment or alienation. It is a difficult topic, and both women have slightly conflicting views of what is the "right" thing to do. They have never told direct lies about her history, but they have not provided the whole truth.

Claire and her sisters get along fairly well, although not without some expected sisterly strife every once in a while. As the baby of the family, she is spoiled and indulged a bit more than the others. They are altogether a cooperative and loving family. Both mothers go out of their way to show affection and attention towards their children and each other. The girls share bedrooms, clothing, and hobbies across the group of four. Both parents continued working throughout their childhoods. As a result, the family lives a comfortable upper-middle-class life. They reside in a luxury 4-bedroom condo in Manhattan, go on yearly vacations to interesting destinations, visit Valerie's family in France, spend plenty of time with Michelle's parents in New England, and attend expensive private schools.

When she was very young, her mothers took her to see the Paris Opera Ballet perform during a trip to France. Claire was stunned and entranced by the beautiful costumes and the way the dancers seemed to float across the stage. She begged her parents for dance lessons as soon as they got home. Initially she was enrolled in a simple studio for casual students, but her focus and comments from instructors encouraged her parents to seek more serious training. She continued to learn other dance styles, as well, participating on a competition dance team. When her mothers suggested that she leave that school entirely, Claire couldn't bear to give up the friends she had made. She thinks that her first year of high school is likely to be her final year of competition dance, so that she can increase her focus on ballet, and she is both excited and somewhat disappointed about this. In a perfect world, she would do both--but it's a much too stressful schedule to maintain.

Claire has experienced strange dreams since she was a very small child, always featuring the same cast of characters that her imagination supposedly conjured up. These are memories of her past as one of the Pleiades, but she does not know that. Her starseed can sense that her sisters are nearby; it yearns to reunite with them. The memories of the past that she sees in her dreams are blurry and indistinct, and she rarely remembers much of what she saw upon awakening.

Long ago, the kingdom of Taurus was ruled by the strong Atlas and kept safe from harm by his seven daughters, the Pleiades sailor soldiers. In the shadows, a jealous hunter named Orion sought Atlas's throne. Corrupted by Chaos, he was granted eternal life and youth to wait and plot for the heirs of Atlas to die out. With the true rulers out of the way, he ascended the throne. He is a powerful warrior, and his strength grew the longer he controlled Taurus. No one could defeat him, although many tried. However, he knows that someday the heirs to Taurus will be reborn, and when they are he is prepared to fight them before they can awaken their true powers. He fears only the one starseed that is able to destroy him, and he knows that it rests within one of the seven sisters. He must take it before they can harness its power and end his reign.

She eventually awakens as a sailor soldier when the tan female cat Artemis, the shared guardian of all of the Pleiades, finds her. Orion knows that the sisters have been reborn, and he has begun his hunt for them. Claire is somewhat excited to learn of this past life, but also worried about how it will impact her current life. It is then that she finds out she is adopted. She struggles with feeling like her mothers have lied to her, wondering about the sisters she had never met, and feeling confused about how this impacts her beloved existing sisters. She is not terribly excited about fighting or training, and can be a bit of a handful for Artemis to deal with.

Other Noteworthy Facts:
• Both of her parents are women. The girls call their French mother (Valerie) "Maman" and their American mother (Michelle) "Mom". The family uses their French mother's surname. When gay marriage was legalized in New York, the two were formally wed in a small ceremony with their daughters and close family and friends.
• She has 3 older sisters in her adopted family: Gabriella "Gaby" (17), Chloe (16), and Jacqueline "Jackie" (15).
• Attends the expensive Kennedy Girls Prep School as a freshman.

Blood Type: B
Hobby: Dancing, shopping
Favourite Sport: Long-distance running
Favourite Colour: Violet, fire-engine red
Favourite Subject: History
Least Favourite Subject: English, science
Favourite Food: Sugary iced coffee drinks
Least Favourite Food: Broccoli
Weak Point: Bugs, heights, saving money
Dream: To be a professional dancer

Storyline Specific Information:

Seven Sisters:

Senshi Name: Sailor Merope
Realms of Influence: Love and Enchantment
Henshin/Transformation Phrase: "Merope Star Power, Make Up!"

Senshi Fuku: Her sailor collar is her primary colour, deep rose pink, with a single white stripe near the outer edge. She wears a form-fitting sleeveless white bodysuit. Her short pleated skirt is the same pink as her sailor collar, and it consists of two layers of fabric, with the upper layer about an inch or two shorter than the lower. The skirt attaches to her bodysuit below a white band of padded fabric that curves over her upper hips in a slight v-shape. At the front lowest point of the waistband is a star-shaped gemstone in lilac, her secondary colour. Like all of the stars on her uniform, it is a standard five-pointed star. A large bow of the same lilac hue with long, gently curving tails is attached at the back of the waistband near the small of her back. She has another similarly-coloured, slightly-smaller bow with shorter tails fixed at the front of her uniform. In the center of the bow is a star-shaped brooch of the dominant rose pink colour. She wears long white gloves that come up several inches above her elbow. At the top of the gloves there are three padded bands of fabric in her signature pink. She wears lilac thigh-high stockings and pink high-heeled pumps with two straps crossed once over the arch of the foot. Her choker is pink with a small lilac star-shaped gemstone at the center. She wears pink stud earrings with pink stars dangling from the studs. Her golden tiara crosses over her forehead in a slight v-shape, with a pink star-shaped gemstone at the nadir.

In her form as a sailor soldier, she maintains her typical hairstyle and hair accessory.

Powers:
"Merope Romantic Embrace!" - Sailor Merope crosses her hands over her heart. Her body spins around several times, patterns exploding around her like lace doilies. She gestures forward, extending her arms with a welcoming bend towards her target. A bright pink light wraps around them, warm and filled with love.  It heals and restores an ally. It can heal and restore a weakened foe who is being manipulated by dark energy. It besets a standard foe with confusion and bewilderment, filling their mind only with thoughts of romance, lasting around 10 minutes before wearing off. This attack is low to medium power and can only be used against a single target. She eventually learns to channel this healing ability without performing the full attack. In the more compact form, she can transfer the healing energy via a physical hug.

"Love Letter Fascination!" - Sailor Merope throws back her head and thrusts her left hand into the air. A dazzling pink pen appears in her fingers. She uses it to draw a heart in the air in front of her, bisecting it with an arrow. The energy that forms the drawing pulsates twice, then folds itself up into an envelope. She grabs the corner of the envelope and whips it around her. As it passes around her body, it multiplies into a number of identical envelopes. The envelopes rush towards their targets, growing in size and unfolding into a love letter as they approach. On impact, they burst into a dazzle of heart-shaped energy. The energy inflicts immediate damage, partially physical and partially magic, while also running a high percentage risk of temporarily confusing the targets into thinking that they are infatuated with Sailor Merope. This makes them susceptible to her suggestions and unwilling to attack her. When a target is infatuated, a halo of pink hearts spins around their head. The infatuation wears off when the battle ends or when another attack causes enough damage to the target to "snap them out of it." This attack is medium to medium-high power and can be used against multiple targets.

"Sweet Paramour Enchanting Kiss!" - She presses her hands over her heart and bows her head, eyes closed. A pink light reflects off the gemstone in her tiara, strobing three times. Her body begins to glow with pink energy. As her body spins around and her eyes remain closed, she crosses her arms over her chest and slides her hands up from her elbows to her shoulders, then overlaps her fingertips over her lips. The energy around her body shimmers and concentrates on her lips, like bright pink glitter lipstick. She plants a kiss on her fingers and pulls them away from her mouth, leaving the imprint of the kiss--now made of that energy--glimmering in the air before her. She tilts her fingertips away from her body and blows the kiss forward, winking. It zooms forward at an incredibly speed, growing in size as it approaches the target, finally crashing into them and issuing a giant pink firework that goes off in a heart shape. This inflicts physical and magical damage on the opponent, while also causing temporary paralysis that can last up to 20 minutes. With better training, she can learn to use it to purify enemies with corrupted hearts. It is a high power attack that can be used against a single target.

Weapons and Magical Items:
Merope Star Power Stick - This is her transformation item. It consists of a short bright pink handle with a golden star at the top. At the center of the star is a lilac circle with a golden Taurus symbol within it.

Harlequin Rose Pen - This is an item that looks like a bright pink felt-tip pen with bright pink ink. It has gold detailing and a diamond "harlequin" pattern of bright pink and gold on the outside. (The name is also a nod to the publisher of romance novels.)  This is used for Sailor Merope's "Love Letter Fascination!" attack. If she learns to conjure it when not transformed as Sailor Merope, she can use it to write notes and letters that will be accepted by others as truth even if they are lies. The enchantment caused by the magic ink in the pen will fade after approximately a half hour.

Guardian: Artemis - The protector of the Pleiades takes the form of a tan short-haired cat when watching over her charges on Earth. Artemis' cat form has dark green eyes and a golden crescent moon on her forehead. Claire does not know much about Artemis, as the guardian primarily resides with another member of the Pleiades sailor soldiers.

RP Sample: Claire simply stared at the strange cat. She glanced around the street, looking for production trucks or hidden speakers. This had to be a movie set she had stumbled upon, right? Maybe this was something from some Marvel comic book she had never read. She wasn't really much for those superhero comics, in general.

The cat was still trying to get her attention. It had just executed a perfect backflip that was much cleaner than some of her teammates were performing for their new routine. When her team did it, though, there wasn't a bunch of glitter and sparkles. And it didn't end with the creation of some kind of pink wand with a gold star on one end. The cat placed it in her hand, but she stared at it, confused.

"I... I think you have the wrong person?" she replied, laughing nervously. "I'm not a pleasy cheese or whatever you just said."

THIS IS SO AWESOME I LOVE IT SO MUCH

TOTALLY ACCEPTED I CAN'T WAIT TO READ HER


Sorry for the delay! Pluto's computer's been spazzy for her and I've been all bleeeh getting ready for school BUT I LOVE HER YAAAY