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gunbladegrrlAPPLICATION - THE FLEET - CANON OCs
Player Information
Age: 34
Time Zone: Eastern
Email: dragonslj@gmail.com
Other Contact Info:
Prefered method of contact: Plurk
Current Characters at The Fleet: N/A
Reserve: Link
Character Information
Nicknames: None
Canon: Final Fantasy VIII
Sex/Gender: Female
Age: 19
PB: Alissandre Martines (but these icons are gradually being phased out for commissioned art)
Journal:
gunbladegrrl4th Walling: The setting can, but as Maria's game timeline is all post-canon, it would be impossible for her to be.
Canon Point: 22 years postgame, including the run of
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witchesreignPhysical description: Fairly tall, dark-haired, tan skin. Maria's muscles are very defined after years of training and exercise; one particular quirk is that she has very large forearms, which she is self-conscious about. She is pretty, graceful, and controlled in her movements; she gives off a very faint air of a great feline, if one were to pick an animal for her.
Canon Information
According to legend, in ancient times the god Hyne granted the use of magic to humanity, or rather specific humans who became known as Sorceresses. With this supernatural power, which each Sorceress passed on to another down through the ages, Sorceresses became moves and shapers of history. One Sorceress, Adel, came to power in the technologically advanced nation of Esthar, and started the Sorceress War by attempting to conquer the nation of Galbadia. The war came to an end when Adel was lured into a sealing container, then launched into space; the hero responsible for this, Laguna Loire, found himself elected President of Esthar, after which the country isolated itself behind technological barriers to rebuild.
Two great inventions came from this War -- the Lunatic Pandora, which could call down the world-shattering power of a Lunar Cry from the moon, and paramagic, a system by which humans could Junction with energy beings called Guardian Forces, and thus draw magic out of other creatures and store it for their own use.
Some time after the war, a teenaged boy named Squall appeared at the orphanage owned by Cid and Edea Kramer, where his younger self lived. The older Squall told Edea about something named SeeD and Garden, and this plus the fact that a dying sorceress also showed up with him and passed her powers to Edea convinced the Kramers that they needed to found the Gardens to train SeeDs as an anti-Sorceress force. Cid Kramer sought out the backing of the Shumi named NORG to build three Gardens, keeping their true nature secret.
Within a few short years the Gardens became known as elite institutions, but none of them remained true to the original intent. Galbadia Garden fell under Galbadia's sway and served as basically an elite military academy and research center for its military. Trabia Garden served more like a school and home for students, much like the orphanage the Kramers originally ran. Balamb alone administered SeeD Exams, and at NORG's suggestion, paid for its expenses by hiring SeeDs out as elite mercenaries.
At the beginning of the game, Squall Leonhart undertook his SeeD exam with several others by embarking on a mission to free the city of Dollet from Galbadian occupation. SeeD technically failed this mission but a peace was negotiated and Squall passed his exam. He and some other graduates were then assigned to help Rinoa Heartilly and the Forest Owls of the city of Timber to abduct Galbadian President Vinzer Deling and force him to liberate Timber, which had been occupied since the Sorceress War. They were duped by a body double and follow the President to the Timber TV station, where he made a global announcement that Sorceress Edea had been named Galbadia's new ambassador. Squall's rival Seifer kidnapped the president and the SeeDs fled to Galbadia Garden as per Garden code.
Galbadia Garden's headmaster ordered them to assassinate Edea, and dispatched a sniper (Irvine) for the purpose. After wacky pratfalls, idiocy, and Edea murdering President Deling before embarking on a parade, the team trapped her in an archway. Irvine had a complete breakdown, because unlike the other SeeDs -- who were all orphans being cared for by her in the past, but don't remember it because of the side-effects of Junctioning -- he still remembered Edea as the kind Matron who cared for him. Squall convinced him to take the shot anyway, but Edea blocked it with a magical barrier, and so Squall charged in to fight her on foot. He dispatched her knight, Seifer, but Edea promptly put a giant chunk of ice through him, disabling him.
Squall woke up in prison, only to be tortured for information about SeeD by Seifer. He and his compatriots escaped, half of them going to sabotage a missile launch on Balamb and the other half returning to Balamb to warn them. The sabotage mission mostly failed, while Squall and his friends discovered that a fight has broken out between supporters of Headmaster Cid and Garden Master NORG. He activated the ancient Centra Shelter mechanisms on which Balamb Garden was built, causing the entire facility to become mobile yet unsteerable just in time to avoid the missiles. NORG attempted to slay Squall to appease the Sorceress, but was defeated, after which Cid revealed the true purpose of SeeD.
Balamb crashed into the pacifist city of Fishermans Horizon, repelled a Galbadian assault on the city, then reunited with the sabotage team. Cid appointed Squall as Commander and put Balamb under his control, to Squall's annoyance. After a brief stop to liberate Balamb Town from Galbadia, they travelled to Trabia Garden, which had been wrecked by missiles. There, Irvine revealed the truth about their shared past and they all began to remember it. Shortly thereafter they wound up in a giant battle with Galbadia Garden. In the aftermath, Edea revealed that she had been possessed by the Sorceress Ultimecia, and Rinoa fell comatose.
Squall, intent on preventing Rinoa's coma, began to seek out Ellone, a girl who had been sending him and his compatriots back in time to view Laguna's exploits for some time now and who they had sent away from Garden to keep this power out of Ultimecia's hands. He tracked her to the nation of Esthar, which his group, along with Edea, travelled through the Salt Flats to reach. Breaking through its camouflage system, they followed Ellone's tracks through Esthar, only for Squall and Rinoa to need to go to Esthar's space station to meet with her.
No sooner did they reach it than Seifer launched the Lunatic Pandora. On the space station, Ultimecia possessed Rinoa and uses her to free Adel just as the Lunatic Pandora triggered a Lunar Cry. Ultimecia jumped into Adel's body as her sealing container was swept back to earth by the Lunar Cry. Squall stupidly leaped into space after Rinoa, but they managed to find an abandoned spaceship and pilot it back to safety. Since Rinoa was now a Sorceress, Esthar demanded that she too be sealed away; she agreed to this, but Squall rescued her and convinced her otherwise. President Laguna Loire then hired SeeD for one last mission -- through a ludicrously complicated gambit, they would defeat Ultimecia by allowing her to cast her ultimate spell of Time Compression, then jamming it halfway so SeeD could reach her in her otherwise temporally-inaccessible home.
Long story short, the plan worked; Squall and Ultimecia were flung through time, completing the time loop that began way back at the beginning, after which -- not without some difficulty -- Squall returned home to Rinoa and his friends.
Maria was born in Dollet, six years before the Balamb Garden SeeD exam that kicked off the plot of FFVIII proper. Her parents owned a shop on the main street, which did brisk business selling to tourists and visitors to the local resorts. The oldest child, Maria got just that little bit of extra spoiling and attention that comes with the position, but not enough to ruin her horribly.
At the beginning of the Siege of Dollet, the family found themselves barricaded in the store -- not in immediate danger, but not free to move about the city or return home. For a few days, from this uncomfortable but not miserable position, the girl watched carefully through the windows at the comings and goings of the Dollet army and the Galbadian forces. Not understanding the gravity of the situation, Maria thought it was a heck of a show -- especially when, three days later, the first SeeDs poured off the boat, storming up the street to do... Well, she didn't know what they were doing, but in their cadet uniforms, and gunblades drawn and ready, they seemed like heroes to her. And when a short while later, they came crashing down the streets, followed by the X-ATM092, she thought this was the greatest thing she'd ever seen. At that moment, a desire to become a SeeD crystallized in her heart, and would never leave again.
Her parents certainly weren't gung-ho for the idea, but on the one hand their daughter was clearly destined for tomboyish roughhousing anyway, and on the other hand, a certain measure of self-defense clearly seemed wise, since the Galbadian soldiers could have caused a lot more personal harm and catastrophe had they been intent on doing so. So to placate their daughter, they arranged for her to study under a semi-retired captain in the Dollet infantry (such classes being offered as a way to supplement the extra taxes necessary to pay Balamb Garden's fees). Captain Kartany, in turn, had no particular love for SeeDs himself, but in time recognized that Maria's goal was not just a lark or a whim, and in respect of this fact steered her down the path of basic swordsmanship and physical development.
As the years passed, Maria trained with a fanatic glee -- not just because she wanted to be a SeeD, but because she honestly enjoyed the physical exertion and adrenaline rush of a duel or, not entirely to her credit, confrontation. During her approach to adolescence, she became something of a bossy girl, if not quite a bully; she took charge of her small group of friends with a sort of arrogant assumption that she, with her grand destiny, deserved it. The near-death of her mother to a heart condition, however, jolted Maria halfway out of her complacence and forced her to confront mortality and the fact that she almost lost someone she loved. At fourteen, she matured more or less into the girl she is now.
Two years later, as Maria turned 16, Time Compression abruptly gripped Dollet in a brutal hand, as a group of hostile offworlders appeared and began to rampage through the city. As the offworlders and the effects of Time Compression ravaged the city, her family abruptly realized that Balamb Garden was a much safer place for her to be than almost anywhere else. Her father quickly made arrangements for her enrollment, and thanks to the changes made in the Garden due to its acceptance of offworlders, she was accepted in remarkable time. Captain Kartany, in recognition of her drive and zeal, gave her a parting gift: two Dragon-class gunblades he'd acquired from the old Dollet military storage.
Maria parted from her mentor and family with the grim knowledge that they would almost certainly never see each other again, and the boat sailed... into a pocket of extremely dilated time. It emerged after a month inside, and ten years outside.
Personality: At the moment of entering Garden prior to play in ger game:
On the plus side, Maria is bright, friendly, and absolutely determined to succeed at becoming a SeeD. She's really a decent person at heart, she cares about other people, and she is a dedicated student. She has a strong tendency towards excitability and particularly strong moods; good things leave her grinning maniacally and all but bouncing, while frustrations and things that upset her provoke anger to the point of rage, though she'd never cause harm to someone who wasn't trying to harm her or someone she cared about. Oddly, she's much more reasonable simply talking with people; insult or denigrate her and she'll just brush it off and attempt to patiently explain why you're wrong or misunderstanding, at least the first few times you do it.
She is a total nerd about gunblades. She doesn't have the practice with them, but she's studied theory extensively.
On the other hand, she tends to be self-centered. Not selfish, but she sees herself as the hero and protagonist of her story, and with that view comes a tendency to view other people as supporting staff (or antagonists). She has a tendency to follow the letter of the laws a bit too closely; on a SeeD exam, she's the sort who won't just save a dog from a robot, but will actively go looking for a dog to save from the robot in order to get the boost to her Conduct score. She would cheerfully sit and eat attacks from Ifrit till there were just ten seconds left on that timer for the points.
Perhaps a little more alarmingly, she's a little bloodthirsty. Not that she runs around stabbing people with gunblades, but she very much feels that the purpose of training as a SeeD is to right wrongs and triumph over evil. After all, SeeDs saved not just Dollet, but the whole world! And they didn't do it by NOT beating the crap out of monsters and Sorceresses and whatnot with gunblades (and other, lesser weapons). In battle, she's something of a howling berserker -- gunblades whirling, explosions left and right... To be blunt, she has very little talent for subtlety, and while she CAN be diplomatic to people who are neutral or friendly but with diverging interests, she's not the person anyone would pick to lead a high-pressure delegation to secure peace with Galbadia or the like.
More neutrally, she is something of a perfectionist and an eager student; in the Garden, she will probably grab for as many classes as possible, then devote time to study and training during her free hours as well. She is prone to hero-worship for any SeeDs, any Instructors who teach classes she likes, and anyone who uses a gunblade more proficiently than she does.
The oldest child of her family, she knows what it is to be loved and cherished; those feelings have given her a foundation to build her strength on. She's never experienced romantic love, though, and bears a "not for me, I have other things to do" attitude that will likely smash into a million pieces if she meets the right person -- to her dismay, since she'd view it as a weakness or distraction, despite the fact that she would cheer romance on in her friends and even work to help them get it. Her siblings are very close to her in age, so she has no strong maternal instincts; instead, she has a drive to help other people improve themselves, and the strong urge to help people without doing the whole job for them. She won't fight the monster you need to beat for you, but she'll support you through it and help you be strong enough to stand against it. Her motives aren't entirely pure -- after all, the protagonist has to help the others she meets, especially if they're going to be people she counts on and trusts as a SeeD -- but she very much means well, and very much puts her all into that helping. Her heart's in the right place, even if her perceptions aren't always.
Strengths Maria is fierce, proud, and absolutely determined. She is physically fit and has the confidence that comes from knowing she is a capable person who can, and has, achieved everything she wants through hard work and perseverance. Her conviction is strong as diamond, and her will a pillar that will be difficult to break.
Weaknesses Maria is self-centered and has a tendency to be reckless. Her dreams sometimes are TOO big, and she lacks the experience and maturity to understand when she's overreaching herself -- and in fact lacks experience and wisdom in general, being only a young girl.
CRAU Information
History: With Ultimecia defeated and NORG gone, Headmaster Cid corrected the error he realized he had made – Garden had drifted too far from its lofty ideals. Galbadia Garden was lost; it remained a pawn of the Galbadian military, a Garden in name only with the barest ties to the concept’s original ideas. With its intended full budget at hand, in addition to the resources of Balamb itself and the numerous funds and investments NORG had set up to return wealth back to the system, Balamb was perhaps at its pinnacle of strength and resources. Much of this, of course, went to the rebuilding of Trabia Garden, but for a substantial period of time Balamb SeeDs helped clean up the mess of the war, the Lunar Cry, and all the fallout of Ultimecia’s mad plan. Cid refused to charge for these services, believing them to be his repayment for the damage he had allowed to occur when NORG had pushed aside his ideals and values for cold hard cash. This engendered no small amount of goodwill, of course, but it also began the inevitable devaluation of SeeD services; no man is willing to pay as much for something after he has received it free of charge, after all.
But the funny thing about casting a spell that affects all space and time was that it affected all space and time. Some time after Ultimecia's defeat, pockets of Time Compression began causing chaos and havoc through the world. Its worst effects, as far as the average person was concerned, was bringing people, places, or THINGS from other worlds to this one. Particular people that had strange powers, which this world could only term as Sorceresses, lacking any other title. Most of the world hated and feared these people, even tried to kill them on sight at times.
Balamb Garden, on the other hand, welcomed them, freely and without reservation. It was noble, selfless, welcoming, kind – a gesture that embodied everything Headmaster Cid valued. It also spent the good will that the Garden had so laboriously built up with the rest of the world. As a consequence, Balamb began to bleed money, and several groups with their own agendas got a foot in the door by sponsoring cadets.
So for some time, Balamb Garden trained promising offworlders into SeeDs and even instructors, taking in those who had no other home in the world. For some time, this proceeded well, but worldwide tension began to build to a head as Time Compression's effects grew worse and worse.
This was the point where Maria entered Balamb Garden as a student. She had left everything and everyone she knew behind to follow her dream.
Having been reconciled to losing them anyway, this didn't slow her down much, and such feelings almost vanished as the sheer delight of stepping through Balamb Garden's doors as a cadet washed over her. (Also she very quickly developed a crush on Cid Raines.) After a brief incident in which she accidentally discharged her gunblades, leading Instructor Claire Farron to forbid her from using the triggers until she was used to the weapons, she settled into a routine with so much eagerness she practically vibrated. She also had absurdly little respect for her own limits -- on multiple occasions, she fought in the Training Center until she was weak from blood loss, and the Infirmary got sick of seeing her. She pushed herself so hard and considered that to be so par for the course that periodically, people had to sit her down and explain to her that she was seriously overworking herself.
As time progressed, the harsh hand of experience shaped and melded Maria into a more rounded person than anyone would have expected of the fanatic fangirl who'd walked through the front gates. Thanks to the influence of Instructor Farron, she ended up pursuing specializations she never intended to take, such as Intelligence and mastery of the rifle. She also picked up the card game Triple Triad with that same mania she showed for all her pursuits.
After three quarters of classes, her past came back to her in a rush when Balamb Garden visited Dollet in between semesters, and Maria returned to a home that had ten years of advancement she'd missed out on. She had time to think and consider, to finally see the home she'd left behind... and she had the chance to decide, once and for all, that everything she had done was worth it.
Around this time, she also found herself dealing with the complete failure of Mikuru and her old friend Zak to hook up -- both of them wanted it, but Zak had terrible self-esteem and Mikuru was terribly shy. Despite all Maria's efforts to put them together and see what happened, nothing ever did come of their spark. Perhaps not coincidentally, this was when Maria began to believe she'd never find any romance of her own.
Galbadia and Esthar formed the two major power blocs, besides Balamb Garden, of the world, and each began moving in a way that would inevitably lead to confrontation. In Balamb Garden, the Garden Master's machinations brought to power Commander Erlea Zabala, a masterful SeeD who implemented many unpopular reforms in Garden. In Esthar, work began on rebuilding the army and developing technology to control Time Compression. Galbadia, still possessed of the superior army, began slowly osmosing more and more of the world. Meanwhile, an organization named Sol Invictus and consisting of offworlders who refused to sign up with Balamb Garden emerged to begin making their own mark.
Tensions quickly came to a head: Galbadia Garden attacked Balamb Garden and was only repelled with serious losses. A mysterious Time Compression Mage manipulated a massive temporal distortion at Tears Point to summon enough temporal clones of the Lunatic Pandora to induce a massive Lunar Cry, but was stopped by the combined efforts of SeeD and Sol Invictus. Time Compression continued to worsen dramatically, thanks to Esthar's experimentation and Sol Invictus's meddling.
In the middle of all this, Maria graduated almost effortlessly, with eight specializations to her credit, and Garden had never seen a happier graduate. She threw herself into the business of being a SeeD with gusto, taking on missions and putting herself up against dangers as if she had been born to do nothing else.
Galbadia was the first faction to fall. Time Compression buried Deling City under a lake, leaving Sol Invictus to capture Galbadia Garden. From there, the organization led an assault on Balamb Garden, convinced that the SeeDs were the only threat to their ascension. Commander Zabala was nearly killed, but slew the leader and almost everyone else that had survived till the end of the battle.
Maria rampaged through all these battles with her customary determination, dedication, and feral bloodlust -- As time passed, she realized that almost no new cadets were choosing to take up her own weapons of choice, and those who did were getting poor training. As the final battle approached, Maria decided that once it passed, she would get her Instructor license and teach. She would pass on her knowledge to the next generation of SeeDs (at the ripe old age of 20 by the time she got it). She'd give back.
With Zabala incapacitated, the Garden Master at last revealed himself -- as Laguna Loire, recently-deposed President of Esthar and now intent on stopping the plans of the warmongering faction that had ousted him. Esthar had successfully weaponized Time Compression, and only a last-ditch effort by all of Garden's resources at last broke through to the containment devices they hadn't intended to use until after their victory. Maria found herself on Balamb Garden as it soared towards Esthar City with only her rifle to take out a host of trucks far below her. In that moment, she chose to go down there herself -- one girl against an army wielding Time Compression as a weapon, in the hopes of buying enough time for the Garden to get away and the mission to continue. Alone, she fought the army to a standstill, exchausting her GFs and draining every last drop of power she could from her stocked spells and her iron willpower, till the main assault force managed to activate the Time Compression containment devices left behind in Esthar, and Balamb Garden claimed victory. Time Compression was contained at last, and Esthar's power broken.
With victory achieved, Time Compression was bound into a portal that could bridge space and time intentionally. The offworlder population could at last go home -- and SeeD with them, taking on missions and setting up branches of Garden on welcoming worlds to spread its strength and legacy past the bounds of their homeland. Maria had the chance to do only three such missions, though, before a certain Fleet intervened...
Personality: Maria remains bright, friendly, and absolutely determined to accomplish what she sets her mind to. In the past, that was becoming a SeeD; these days, it is to be the best SeeD there is. She has never admitted it to anyone, but she wants to become Commander someday -- the absolute pinnacle, the ideal that which every other SeeD look up to.
Time and achievement of her dream have mellowed her a great deal since she came to Garden, along with the help of her friends and instructors, and these days and it takes a particularly strong circumstances to push her to real joy or real anger. She remains confident and difficult to insult or distress. Time and achievement have NOT tempered her gunblade obssession, though.
As a student, she obeyed the Garden Code probably more strictly than any other cadet in history. As time passed, she did loosen up a little for casual everyday affairs, but on duty she is all business. When she was younger, this adherence to the rules and standards came from that same burning desire to become an amazing SeeD. These days, it stems not only from that continuing drive to be the best, but also because she believes she must be an example to others. Balamb has comparatively few native SeeDs as opposed to offworld ones. In that respect, she feels she's representing 'the home team', as it were, and she must uphold the pride of the native SeeDs. That goes double when she goes offworld to represent the institution in a land that has no experience or history with it.
Luckily for her, none of the viewpoints that seem to be at odds ever really came to a direct choice in her younger days, when she was more rigid about all of them. If she'd ever had to choose between obeying the Garden Code and making a heroic and righteous choice... well, she'd have been in bad shape, and whichever she chose, she would have hated making the choice to begin with. Nowadays, greater maturity and confidence have solidified her beliefs and convictions. She still tries to be the best SeeD possible, and follows the rules strictly as a part of that, but if she was ever asked to choose between the Code and what she believes is just and right, the Code would lose. And then she would go back and spearhead a push to change the Code.
She has become more diplomatic over time, although she's best at dealing with people who are neutral or friendly but with diverging interests
Strengths Maria has gained significant wisdom and experience, thanks not just to her time in Garden but to the many people she has met. Exposure to offworlders and people who superstition might view as monsters or terrifying threats have broadened her immensely and made her a stronger, broader, better person. She has, in short, matured.
Weaknesses Because of the turnover in people coming through Garden and the absurd ages of the canon protagonists and SeeDs in general, Maria has adopted a sort of 'old grizzled veteran' air that doesn't at all make sense for a girl who is not quite out of her teenage years yet. She has taken a view of professional benevolence to younger and less-skilled people, while at the same time writing off normal experiences for a girl her age, like love or even a life not filled with battle, as outside of her sphere.
Number of gara: 2
Primary Color(s)/Color Patterns: Flame orange
Secondary Color(s)/Color Patterns: Deep amethyst shot through with black
Shapes/Configuration: The primary Vii gara is shaped like a stylized dragon from heraldry, wings spread and tail curled beneath its hind legs. The secondary Lea gara is a simple diamond.
Other Information
While canonically, we only see two types of gunblade models in FFVIII -- Squall's Revolver and Seifer's Hyperion -- Maria uses a different class of gunblade, originally intended for one-handed use in combination with a shield. Dragon-class gunblades were one of the original gunblade models, designed with the weapon's original purpose of being a higher-power replacement for swords. Like all gunblades, it fell out of favor as a dead-end technology not suited for mass distribution. Maria received her twin gunblades from Captain Kartany as a combined going-away present and a reward for her acceptance to Balamb Garden. Their current model has been upgraded significantly, resembling blades of shimmering energy with dragon winged-hilts and advanced compensation mechanisms to shift their center of balance in accordance with her needs.
In times of desperation -- when she is wounded or an ally has fallen, for example -- Maria can call upon a deep level of power called a Limit Break, in which she channels all her anger, desperation, and frustration into a supreme attack. Maria's base Limit Break is called Renzokuken, and is a series of quick and powerful strikes with her gunblades in the space of mere moments. The stronger the power she draws up for the Limit Break, the more likely the chance she will activate a finisher. Her native finisher is called Totemic Renzokuken, which draws on her personal chi to make her undergo a temporary transformation:
Level One: Lion. Maria transforms into a massive lion which delivers a powerful blow to one foe.
Level Two: Hydra. Maria transforms into a multi-headed hydra which delivers nine bites total, split up among all enemies.
Level Three: Phoenix. Maria transforms into a phoenix which unleashes a powerful wave of flame across the battlefield, harming all foes and healing and reviving all allies.
Level Four: Bahamut TRIGGER. The ultimate level only available when Maria has the GF Bahamut Junctioned. Instead of transforming herself, Maria temporarily reverses the bond -- Junctioning herself to Bahamut, so that the GF manifests in a modified version of itself, all blades and sharp edges. It then attacks with several amazingly powerful hits, then culminates in one final amplified blast of energy breath which can break the damage limit.
In addition to this, Maria also uses a technique known as paramagic. Through the use of a small device called a Junction Device, Maria can Junction energy beings known as Guardian Forces (GFs) to her mental wavelength. This allows access to several powers and abilities, such as summoning them into combat, stealing items from foes, or transforming monsters into Triple Triad cards.
The most important ability Junctioning a GF gives her is the ability to Draw magical energy out of creatures that have it. When drawn out, this energy takes the form of a spell, which can them be immediately cast as if Maria herself had cast the spell, or 'stocked' -- stored inside Maria for later use. Stocked magic can be cast like normal spells, but it can also be Junctioned to various stats to increase them, such as Strength, Vitality, Hit Points, Speed... Each spell adds differently to different stats -- Haste, for example, adds much more to Speed than it does to Strength.
The act of Drawing is harmless to the person she Draws from and has no effect on their ability to cast magic, since it taps from an essentially unlimited source of potential.
Maria has multiple GFs Junctioned and available for use: Shiva, Quetzalcoatl, Siren, Ifrit, Diablos, Carbuncle, and for extremely bizarre reasons, the Final Fantasy X version of Bahamut.
Notable/Unique Needs: None.
Anything else? Nope!
Writing Samples
A network post from Saudade
Third Person: TDM link
TDM for a different game
