Meryl Stryfe | Trigun | Not Reserved

[derringers]

Mun
Name/Nickname: May
Age: 21
Dreamwidth Username: aquatic
Contact: plurk: nautical
Current Characters in Game: N/A

Character
Character Name: Meryl Stryfe
Canon: Trigun (anime)
Age: 22
Appearance: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v413/tainn/merl.gif
Canon Point: Before end credits
History: http://trigun.wikia.com/wiki/Meryl_Stryfe
Personality: Meryl is a hard-working, logical woman, first and foremost. She takes her job very seriously. She knows what needs done and what her orders are from the Society, and follows them through no matter what danger is involved. She's crafty, devising ways to go about her work and usually has several plans in line, though often in dangerous situations, one of the options tends to be 'run'. Her work tends to put her in these dangerous situations, but even so, more often than not, she keeps a level head.

She often thinks on sensible and logical levels. Though, she tends to be the only logical person she knows. She's endlessly frustrated by people who don't think before they act. She takes into mind consequences that may arise. Though, sometimes, she jumps to conclusions when she's fed wrong information, noting her first meetings with Vash where she refused to accept his identity due to conflicting information she'd taken as leads, though they were, in fact, false.

Meryl is confident and has a strong personality. This can lean towards bitchy or bossy on her part. She's the type to take charge. She'll disregard rules, such as heading straight into a restricted area, if she finds her task more important than regarding them. She's not afraid to hold a person at gun point or disguise herself as a lackey. She'll take command of a situation or a group of people if she sees it's needed.

Though, Meryl is extremely high strung. This causes her to have a quick temper during certain situations. She'll toss around insults and possible minor violent acts, depending on the person. If it's someone she knows she has to hold her tongue around, she'll grin very forcibly and attempt at talking sense or logic into the person. Also, she has a habit of freaking out or getting lost in her own head when her stress or nervousness is at its peak. She gets loud, very often, when she's frustrated or overly stressed and doesn't seem to really notice nor care.

Underneath it all, the insurance agent is very empathetic. Though she more often than not swallows down whatever is bothering her with a grin or a spout of false annoyance or rage, she empathizes with the pain of people, especially children. She's very kind under her confident shell. Vash, especially, can crack her exterior when he's in danger or in threat of losing himself. Usually, when we see her tears or sorrows over the course of the series, Vash is directly linked. But, she tries very hard not to show this weakness, as she attempts to be a person for her younger partner, Milly, to lean on when needed.

Meryl is an extremely skilled marksman. In the episode Love and Peace we see her hit a spinning, approximately 2 inch wide target with only a moment's glance. She normally carries about 50 derringers in her cape, earning her the title Derringer Meryl. She draws them at quick pace and fires rapidly.

Though her weapon choice is weak and she doesn't often need to use it, her aim is surprisingly impressive. She's swift with an reasonable physical strength for her small size. Meryl is a normal human often placed in situations with mostly those of superhuman abilities are involved. This is her largest weakness. Though she puts up a strong front, she is still a small woman. Her size and normal human reflexes often lead to her being thrown across a room by a punch or kick by said advanced-skilled beings. Monev the Gale easily threw her across the room with a punch during 'Diablo'.

Also, her weapon choice, as previously mentioned, is weak compared to most. Despite her being a quick draw, it's nothing compared to a rapid fire weapon or even the typical large pistol the villains of Gunsmoke. Even compared to Milly's concussion gun, her choice of weapon proves to be less used. She often doesn't draw them at all. Overall, though Meryl isn't weak physically by average human standards, she's in no way especially built for fighting.

Though she's only an insurance agent, Meryl tends to be a well of knowledge. She thinks in a logical, realistic way and can make fast decisions when she's not conflicted, such as the sand steamer incident against Brilliant Dynamite Neon.

Thinking up plans of action and back up plans for every situation is a strong point of hers, as presented in the first episode when encountering 'Vash'. She always thinks before acting, save certain moments, to keep herself and others safe. She's quick on her toes.

Also, she's not beyond serious conversation and is essentially, the brains of her duo with Milly as the brawn.

Meryl has trouble with situations too far into the gray, for the most part. When she can't decipher what's right and wrong, or rather, when there is no greater right or wrong that she can immediately identify, she hesitates. Throughout the series, when dealing with Vash as a whole, she has a difficult time judging his true nature for an extended period of the series. Disturbing new revelations or revealed information sometimes confounds her usual orderly, quick thinking. She has a harder time making decisions when something traumatic jars her thought processes or the result of her action is too unclear for her to decide if it is sound judgment on her part.


Meryl is, at least outwardly, an emotional fort. She keeps her emotions under control in dire situations the majority of the time. She serves to try and be a support and comfort for everyone she knows. When Julius and his girlfriend were supposedly shot, she was the shoulder for Milly to cry on. When Vash suffers through the scar of killing Legato, she makes a point to remain as strong as she can and nurture him.

She remains confident and unwavering against enemies that surely outclass her in fighting skills or outnumber her, as she did protecting Badwick's parents in Little Arcadia. She doesn't back down unless absolutely necessary.

Vash is Meryl's greatest emotional weakness. He causes her to run into situations she would never normally place herself into. Whether following him to a dangerous battle or into a plant on the verge of melting down, her putting his safety far over her own is hazardous to her. Most of her emotional trauma, such as the incident of Vash destroying one of the moons during his fight with Rai Dei, is linked to him. She cares about him most of all and it leads to her thinking with her heart instead of her head when he's in a high risk situation. She troubles over him and what's hidden in his heart.

Also, Meryl has issue with personally killing someone. Though she doesn't seem anymore phased by killing and death than the rest of the people of Gunsmoke, she never seems capable of really killing someone. Though she's held outlaws directly at gunpoint, it's hard to say how much damage it would do to her if she did need to kill.

Finally, Meryl tends to bottle up all minor to moderate troubles. They seem to build in her often, which might be a cause of her heightened stress levels and possibly her temper.


Abilities: Meryl has marksmanship/small fire arms knowledge and skill on her side, but she has never shot a person and can only really use these skills for non-lethal purposes.

Payment to Yubaba
Memory:
1. Why Vash has a bounty
2. Bete’s death
3. The destruction of the Fifth Moon
4. The significance of her derringers
5. Milly’s relationship with Wolfwood
6. Wolfwood’s death
7. Her planet’s name
8. Her kidnapping by Legato
9. Her job
10. The Nebraska Family incident
New Name: Rem

Samples
First Person: I guess there are some things I can’t help but appreciate about this place. I’ve never seen so much water in my life. There’s never been so many things growing in one place before, but it’s such a huge lie. There’s no way I can settle and feel happy here. For all the emptiness that place held, it was my home. I can feel that I don’t belong… and, I wonder, if that’s how he felt, too. Ha-- I can’t compare this with that, though. This is no where near--

[ sigh. ] Anyway… another thing. This is in no way the work I saw myself doing for work. Really, I want to be doing something important. Not labor like this. Not that… there’s anything wrong with working like this… but it’s not what I want to do. I want to be doing something more meaningful. I hate this empty feeling in my head, like there’s something I should be gearing towards, but I can’t even remotely grasp it! I haven’t been this frustrated in my life!

Ugh! If there’s one thing I hate the most, here, it’s magic!

Third Person:

Lunch is a quiet time for Meryl. She wades through the gardens, barefoot for the feel of grass and not worrying about her presentation when no one is watching her, and settles somewhere heavy with the musk of flowers and earth to eat whatever is being served that’s easy to carry, as well.

She feels like the aches in her neck and back are almost normal. Old remnants of work like the calluses on the tips of her fingers makes her want for what she had done before she’d come here and become entangled in the world of this bathhouse. She remembers heavy places in her heart that have no images, no words, but only empty spots that weigh her slim shoulders down. They are things she sat and lingered on while she ate slowly and watched the clouds meander by with a nonchalance she could envy.

She sighs, shoulders slumping down and body bending so her legs are nearly touching her chest.

“It’s a beautiful day, but I just can’t enjoy it. This sucks,” she mutters, taking a large bite from the nikuman she’d snatched earlier before she’d wandered her way out to the garden.

“I wonder if the well was successful… I should have written my family sooner, too. Uugh, this black cloud that’s following me, of course this would happen to me!”

She groans and sits up again, taking quick, frustrated bites from the meat bun.

“I’ll just have to work my butt off and get home. That’s all there is to it. I’ve gotten out of worse situations than this. I can get out of this, too,” she says, a strong determination in her voice, lost in her own head for a moment before she catches sight of the sky, again, and slumps once more.

“If it’s even possible to get home…. Why me?”