Application to High Seas

[inferiorcomplexes]

[Name]: Grey
[Age]: 26
[Contacts]:
♦ DW: orophias
♦ AIM: ossanbaradise
♦ Plurk: peakedcap
[Timezone]: GMT+8
[Other Characters]: --



[Name]: Franziska von Karma
[Canon]: Ace Attorney
[Age]: 19
[Gender]: female
[Canon Point]: Post-Ace Attorney Investigations

[History]: wiki

[Personality]:
"To be perfect in every way." That's the von Karma family creed and the philosophy Franziska was raised on. And for young Franziska, perfection was to be just like her father, Manfred von Karma, a renowned prosecutor who has never lost a case. Perfection meant being able to best Miles Edgeworth, Manfred's protege whom Franziska saw both as a little brother and a rival, and earn the right to be the successor to the von Karma name. Both men were known to be geniuses in prosecution, as Edgeworth managed to effortlessly follow Manfred's footsteps. Franziska, as she later acknowledged, was not a genius, and was a lot younger than Edgeworth. (Age aside, she still insists that she's the older sister.) She strove to catch up to them, to prove that she was worth her name and her legacy, through hard work and dedication. At the age of thirteen, Franziska was already priding herself as a "prodigy prosecutor", having graduated from a prestigious German law school.

And she was indeed a prosecutor. Like her father and little brother, she has never lost a case. She was known and feared among her peers. Her arguments were precise. Her investigations were thorough; as thorough as you can get without having the kleptomaniac tendencies of the protagonists of the Ace Attorney series. She was quick witted and could easily develop counterarguments against the defense. She was strict and disciplined with the rules, and was known to whip people for being foolish (this can mean anything from being generally annoying to breaking a minor rule like keeping the courtroom clean to being a criminal) without a moment's notice.

This harsh personality was brought about by the pressure of being expected to be perfect. This was her primary drive until Manfred von Karma was tried and found guilty of the murder of Gregory Edgeworth, Miles Edgeworth's father. She was uninvolved with the trial itself. Phoenix Wright, an old friend of Edgeworth's, was the defense attorney. Manfred von Karma was the prosecutor and the original defendant, tried for a murder related to that of his father's, was Edgeworth. This case left her without a father (the "anchor of her life" as she called him when she was thirteen) and a little brother, who decided to "choose death" and leave the world of prosecutor. She lost both her goal and her benchmark for perfection.

Angered by her loss, Franziska flew to America to defeat Phoenix Wright. She did everything she could to defeat him: conducting surprise investigations, controlling the witnesses' testimonies, withholding evidence, planting a tracking device on the detective in charge, and the like. She lost three times and each loss made her more desperate and reckless. This anger was made worse when Edgeworth decided to show up during the investigation stage of her fourth case against Phoenix. He was a changed man, having lost not only his perfect record but also his ideas when it comes to perfection. He didn't care as much as he did. She hated what he had become. She hated how he called her out with losing to Phoenix three times. She was more fired up than ever. Had Edgeworth not dragged her to a clinic, she would have gone to court even if the assassin the defendant for the case hired shot her on the shoulder the moment she stepped out of the car.

Thus she was made to give up the case to Edgeworth. She was called to go to court to deliver and present some evidence before it ended. Phoenix still won. Phoenix still won. After the trial, Franziska stormed out of court screaming about being unworthy of the von Karma name, leaving her whip behind. She, at that point in time, had given up on being a prosecutor. And she would have left forever had Phoenix not given the whip to Edgeworth who then chased after her in the airport to return it. She admitted to not being a genius. She admitted to being crushed by the expectation to be perfect. She admitted to wanting to take revenge on Edgeworth for always leaving her behind by defeating Phoenix. She showed signs of wanting to change what she had become but believed that she couldn't. Edgeworth convinced her that she could. The additional threat/pep talk about leaving her behind again if she stopped being a prosecutor convinced her to carry on with her profession. And yes, she was still bent on defeating Edgeworth.

That being said, Franziska's personality didn't change much over the course of the games. What changed was her motivations. She used to fight for her father's recognition. Then she fought for revenge. While she still considered Edgeworth to be her rival, by the time of the third game (one year after the Engarde case) she started to fight for herself. Come Ace Attorney Investigations, the game where I'm taking her from, she chose to be a prosecutor to capture criminals. She's still a perfectionist, upholding the von Karma creed, but she can now handle defeat with a little more grace.

It's also worth noting that Franziska isn't as mature as she presents herself to be. She has a lot of insecurities (height, status, being compared to Edgeoworth and Manfred) and a lot of pride. She can obviously be selfish, and occasionally naive. She tends to believe what she wants to believe and dismisses all other opinions as worthless until proven with evidence and testimony. She has a tendency to be unaware about how mean she presents herself to be and was taken aback when an eight year old called her out on it. Anger aside, she usually means well by her actions. She's just not good with showing affection. For example, knowing that Miles Edgeworth is afraid of earthquakes, her reaction to being with him after a quake was to order him to get some fresh air as he looked pale. Disliking how dirty Detective Gumshoe's coat had become was to attempt to throw it away so he could buy a new one. She eventually mailed it back to him.

Franziska still looks up to her father with some degree of pride and respect. She differs with him when it comes to philosophy as Manfred believes that there are people who are above the law and can not be tried in court. Franziska believes otherwise and, with the aide of Miles Edgeworth, Detective Dick Gumshoe, Kay Faraday and Agent Shi-long Lang, managed to try a corrupt ex-foreign ambassador. Simply put, she believes in the power of law and that all criminals should be given their proper punishment.

[Abilities / Strengths & Weaknesses]:

Perfectly human. Franziska has no magical abilities, not even sparkle-inducing logic. She has basic logic, but not the type that causes your screen to sparkle. She does, as a prosecutor should, have some knowledge of the law and court proceedings, though the Ace Attorney court system does not always apply everywhere. She also has some experience in conducting crime scene investigations and interrogations. She has also worked with the INTERPOL and assisted with international cases.

She is one of the more physically fit lawyers in the series, and the most combat oriented. She is skilled with the whip and is able to whip a man to unconsciousness and snag evidence off another man's hand while hitting another man in the process. She has no notable combat experience, however. She also uses the whip in investigations and interrogations, claiming to "have wrangled many a testimony out of people" with it.

Franziska is short tempered and an angry Franziska will most often times go on an all out offense. This would be advantageous if she were right about things and disadvantageous if she's wrong. If she's right then you can bet that she'll do everything she can to prove her point. If she's wrong then you'll have to do everything you can to stop her. This is a person who attempted to go to court even after being shot on the shoulder, only to be dragged to the clinic. She can be extremely stubborn and narrow minded. Though due to her von Karma training, she has learned to respect the importance of evidence and testimony. Present enough evidence to prove her wrong and she'll probably stop going on a rampage. Albeit she'll be really pissed off about it. Her short temper is made even worse by how she has a lot of pride and a lot of not-so-hidden insecurities.

She has problems when it comes to basic forms of expression. She's usually demanding and bossy when she wants something and has the tendency to be smug and condescending. She usually means well but her harshness makes her good intentions hard to translate. Granted she does try to make up for things if she acknowledges that she screwed up somewhere along the way.

She's also a failure of a liar as she'll be betrayed by either a nervous cringe or a smug smile. She has no patience for overly complicated things and is prone to jumping to conclusions.

[Limited Powers]:
There is nothing to limit.

[Other Important Facts]:
perfectionisms and histrionicflair are my old Franziska accounts.

[Samples]:
♦ Thread: thread sample
♦ Post:
[ Text ]
[ Look at all these perfectly dotted i's. She wasn't going to lose points for penmanship, even if she, at the moment, refused to believe what was right in front of her. ]

This is how you greet your captives? With the heavy scent of brine and an amateurish poem? Old-untold. Be-flee. Shattered-matters? Tell your fool of a poet that shattered and matters don't even follow the same rhyming scheme. A first-grader can write a better poem than this. And the smell! Do none of you bathe?

How long until I wake up? That I would dream of a setting so foolishly uncivilized... I'll never review gruesome case files before bed again.