entranceway ;; application

[finewithhalf]

Name: Jessie
DW username: N/A
E-Mail: jessie[AT]kawaii[DOT]nu
IM: N/A (I haven't signed into AIM in the last five years. Plurk is best for me)
Plurk: eljkofantastico

Other Characters: Leo Fitz | hypoxic

Character Name: Maya Penelope Hart
Series: Girl Meets World
Timeline: 3.04 "Girl Meets Permanent Record"
Canon Resource Link: "Sometimes, I walk around the village and I pass stores and I look in windows at things I know I'll never have."
Character History:
[OOC: I AM SO SORRY about all these words. I tried to make there be fewer words and I don't think it worked very well.]

Maya Hart is a bad kid. She's that terrible influence that parents want nowhere near their children. She's loud, and abrasive. She says what she means and does what she wants. She's fearless, unafraid to start an uprising to get out of homework or to steal petty trinkets from a lost and found box. She's rude and belittling, known to hop onto the back of a random stranger and demand a piggyback ride. She's unafraid of authority, and rebels against the adult/child relationship in its intended form. Why, if she wasn't from such a wholesome Disney sitcom, she'd probably be that ninth grader casually smoking in the girls' room! Clearly, she's the baddest of all bad news.

So it makes sense that people abandon her because she's a bad influence. All things considered, she's pretty used to being abandoned in general. When she was seven, her father and mother split up. Her father ran off to start a new family with some other woman. Her mother went off to work extra shifts and make ends meet. With nobody but a grandmother to tend to her, Maya ventured out into the streets. It's still not that remarkable to consider. In New York City, millions of kids have nowhere to go and nobody to give them structure. She knows as much as anyone can know that the world is hard, cruel, and cares about nobody. And since the world has chosen to be so callous, Maya takes the only route she sees: if she is aloof and unaffected, she reasons, the hard things never hurt as much as they could. In the city, nobody cares about a crying kid. The best way to go about things is to just never cry. There's no reason to want things, either. A street kid, taking time out to draw, or to play music? It'll never work. She's supremely aware that the odds are against members of a lower-income class. "I'm fine believing that nothing much is going to happen for me," she says, once challenged about her lack of ambition. "Otherwise, I'm full of hope. You hope for things, you get disappointed."

It was fortunate for her, then, that hope found its way into her life by chance. While walking through the city, Maya heart singing through an open window. As she is a fairly fearless sort of person, she climbed up the sides of a fire escape until discovering the real-world personification of a Disney princess. Riley was impossibly sheltered and beautifully kind, patient, and warmhearted. She was also dumb as a pile of rocks, but some things can't be helped. Maya took to her company immediately, and quickly decided that an innocence as pure as Riley's needed to be preserved at all costs. Maya established the Riley Protection Committee, with the singular mission of defending Riley from the outside world. When Riley misunderstood the point of bobbing for apples, someone would need to be there to let her know that she had to lift her head and breathe sometimes. When Riley's favorite planet, Pluto, was downgraded by scientists, the committee would make sure she never discovered that anything was amiss.

In exchange for this protection, Maya made herself at home in Riley's life. Riley had two doting parents, who provided a stability they were willing to share. Suddenly, Maya had access to home-cooked meals, love, and affection. And though she should have let it heal her, instead she grew rather bitter. Riley's parents helped her with homework, cherished her accomplishments, and kept her safe from harm? Why couldn't Maya's life be like that? Why did she have to borrow someone else's childhood?? Publicly, Maya developed a reputation for being can be cold and manipulative, the result of a coping mechanism that worked too well. Going to her real home meant returning to a lonely little apartment nestled in a rough neighborhood. So why bother staying there? Why bother taking risks, or letting herself be hurt? Despite her age, Maya was always remarkably self-aware of this; she referenced creating a "Dungeon of Sadness" where all her wounds live. It was a place where she could packs her feelings up and put them away "next to [her] Daddy issues and ballerina dreams." There was a strong risk that, if left to her own devices, callouses might continue to roughen the shield around her heart, rendering her an emotional zombie as she worked her way to mediocre adulthood.

But there, too, was friendship. Though Riley was loathe to visit Maya at home (Maya's neighborhood frightens Riley quite a bit), she and their friends Farkle and Lucas were very vocal about how little they cared about Maya's differences. They never cared what she could afford to wear, or whether she needed to come over after school most days because there was nothing to eat for dinner at home. They didn't judge her for her quirks, or when her mouth got the better of her. There was some tension over an incident where she stole a necklace out of a lost and found box, but even that smoothed itself over. Whenever Maya was ready to abandon an endeavor and give it up as hopeless, her friends were there to prompt her forward. As someone who grew up with nothing, Maya saw this as a social debt, which she repaid by becoming fiercely protective of them. Like Riley, her friends became perfect little creatures to her, who needed to be loved and protected. To them, she became unrelentingly loyal, always available to lend a listening ear, or to give her shoulder as a tear-sponge, or to be a strong arm to threaten vengeance against any potential bullies. the lone wolf turned guard dog, fierceness and spunk packed into a five foot tall seventh grader.

But despite her continued protests, she slipped fairly frequently, proving herself to be a particularly earnest girl who really just wanted to be validated. She once failed an exam at school because she knew the material, but wanted to make it sound more professional and lost her meaning in the process. She connected with several teachers, learning life lessons despite herself. She found art and creativity. She learned to be less judgmental of people who come from different walks of life. She learned to ask for help when things got tough. She learned to cherish the homeless and odd strangers on the street, because they're all people. She learned that good people could say stupid things sometimes, and that it's all right to look a little silly if it results in making someone else smiling more. After coming to accept that her mother works long hours at a cruddy waitress gig, Maya even learned that being alone isn't always the same as being abandoned. She began to imagine that the world might not be as horrible as she thought. This was tested when she dared to reach out, however. After weeks of flirting with an older boy (a high schooler!), he made it clear that he only had eyes for older girls. For Maya, this was only a confirmation: she'd exposed a real emotion, only to have it blow up in her face. She'd pulled herself together long enough to see her older not-boyfriend again, this time during the moment where the older girl dumped him for being too young. And though some girls might have cried, or laughed at the irony of the situation, Maya was able to sit with him and talk him through his own pain. People in pain were kindred, she reasoned. There was no reason to turn them away.

She also found a kindred spirit in Shawn Hunter, a former Troubled Kid himself. Shawn was her mother's age, and spent some time mentoring Maya in a way her family didn't have time to do. Maya spent as much time with him as she could manage without looking uncool. In the process, he was present for the little, important things. When Maya's Goodwill-style fashions began skewing a bit too racy, Shawn took her out to buy a new wardrobe. The gesture might have been small, but it reduced Maya to tears. A shopping trip was so much more than that. It was confirmation that someone cared enough about her to decide she needed to look better. She didn't have to be invisible. It was okay to stand out.

Her confidence continued to blossom as her eighth grade year progressed. She threw herself into her art and into discovering more means of creativity, until she helped organize a formal protest when her school nearly lost funding for its art program. She found value in non-traditional academia when an unconventional English teacher helped her discover that graphic novels can be literature too. She learned that the secret of life is understanding that "people change people," a lesson that she's taken with her ever since. If she really wasn't invisible, if she was going to live a life that mattered at all, she was going to have to be more involved. There was a tangible difference between doing "well" for herself and doing "good" for others. She began to focus less on the ways the world wronged her and more on the ways she could protect others from being damaged in the same way.

As an extension of this, Maya learned forgiveness. During a class assignment, Maya was tasked with writing a letter forgiving someone who wronged her in the past. She chose to write to her father, the man who walked out on her family. It seemed like an easy task, until her father received the letter and approached her to discuss it. He explained that he was just too young and immature to be a father, and that his experiences failing Maya helped him to be better with his new wife and second family. Maya took this information carefully, assessed the defensive, slightly-selfish apology provided, and found that it wasn't enough. She couldn't forgive him for leaving, but she could forgive herself. She'd been thinking that there was spomething inherently wrong with her that drove away people she dared to love. It was a point of growth to realize that sometimes, other people are damaged too. It was okay to stop blaming herself for something that was never her fault in the first place.

Of course, growing up also means that boys become more of an issue. Maya's group of friends was intergendered, and included Riley's first boyfriend Lucas. The problem was that as they spent time together, Maya grew to like him as well. The issue manifested in a childish way; when Lucas was near, Maya would readily insult and harass him. He was a wholesome boy from Texas (with a few skeletons in his closet), which made him an easy target. But after an incident where Lucas went on a dangerous bull-riding escapade, Maya was forced to confront the fact that she was worried about him as more than just a friend. This started a lengthy dance of avoidance, where Maya and Riley eventually agreed to share Lucas for the sake of sparing their friendship. Everything would be equal, they reasoned, and then they could maintain a status quo and continue growing up without growing apart.

High school made that difficult. Maya and her friends started their freshman year struggling to hold one another steady as they had the rug pulled out from under them. "We were kings," Maya lamented as they scurried to keep from being trampled under the weight of stampeding upperclassmen. Kings became patriots, and they prepared to weather the storm with the power of friendship to hold them together. But things were more difficult than ever. The boys settled into extracurricular passions, leaving Maya and Riley to cling closer to one another in response. If their team was destined to grow apart, at least they would have each other. They became almost dangerously codependent, as canon continues hinting that one shared life is difficult for two people to live at once. But for now, Maya and Riley are as MayaandRiley, determined to share friends, parents, classes, and a singular boyfriend."I go where she goes," Maya asserted just a few days before discovering Wonderland. She might be a Bad Kid by trade, but she's working on getting better.


Abilities/Special Powers: Maya is the most normal of normal humans. Her canon is very slice-of-life. However, in terms of abilities within the realm of normies, she's a highly highly talented artist, though she's not particularly good with technique yet. She's still learning. She can also sing and play at least a few guitar chords. (I'm reaching for something to throw here.)

Third-Person Sample:

All things considered, being brought here just made a lot of sense. Good things could never last. There'd been too much goodness and light in Maya's world lately. It was an uncanny kind of delightfulness. She'd just gotten her first-ever A on an exam. That was like sending a flare out to the cosmos saying "hey, get in there and make sure that Hart kid doesn't forget her place!" No wonder kidnapping and weird trippy cartoon sceneries had to happen to counterbalance it. Maya had started to reach above her means, and the universe was just doing its job and smacking her back down where she belonged.

At least there was whimsy. Riley would be into that.

For a long moment, she lingered in place, eyes scanning over the unfamiliar setting. It occurred to her that as much as she talked about being alone, at least she'd always had some form of makeshift home before. Now, it was really looking like she was truly and honestly alone. Her lower lip gave a threatening tremble before she swallowed, took a deep breath, and stilled her nerves. Crying never got anyone out of anything. Pull it together, Hart.

As she stepped out of of the way-too-colorful gardens and started toward the mansion, Maya moved forward with an extra spring in her step. Though things started out roughly, Maya Hart was a resilient sort of girl. If she couldn't feel secure, she'd just have to act confident until she felt it for real. Before long, she was moving through perimeter as if she owned it. She eavesdropped on conversations when she caught people chattering about their lives. If she wanted to know the deal, then she'd just have to fake it until she made it. Sooner or later, someone would spill something useful.

Red Queen? Weird, but okay. Covering mirrors? Well, that explained the outfit.

She'd stay there for as long as there was something to listen to, performing her best spy routine. Sure, she wasn't nearly as hidden as she thought she was, bright blue eyes openly visible as she stared at strangers. They were adults over there talking, and that meant she had hours before anyone noticed her. Probably. If not, then she'd just have to do her best "don't wanna get caught stealing" sprint.


First-Person Sample:

So there's really no internet. I mean, someone already mentioned the "no internet" thing a while ago, but I just figured it was really bad wifi or something. There's seriously no internet? I saw some guy out there using magic to paint roses, but nobody thought there could be some magic fios hookup or something?

[There's a huff then, as she flops on her bed, rolls over, and stretches out before returning to the whining at hand.]

Don't you think it's a little cruel and unusual? We've got all this free stuff coming out of everywhere, and I can't post it. I can't like it, can't share it.

[She trails off, then sits up at a slouch.]

I get that it sounds spoiled to whine about stuff a lot of people don't have. But... The internet was always how I kept up on fringe artists. Art is so important, and here it's kind of just... Not a thing. Is there even a place for creative types to go? I heard a lot about the bar, but I'm not really sure that's my scene.