"Marion"

## Appearance

She appears as a female, full body humanoid, segmented mannequin/marionette, with pale white skin, white hair, and black eyes. She either resembles a porcelain or fiberglass/plastic mannequin, depending on the body used, or her specific powers.

There are visible cracks in her porcelain body, where they are the most pronounced.

Her mannequin body also possesses metallic inserts at the stumps and appendages.

Her mannequin body is unique in the sense that its damaged nature grants it a *unique* property - had it been undamaged, it would serve as a blank template and grant her absolutely no powers whatsoever. As her first core body is broken, she can freely absorb undamaged mannequins and use them for parts.

Her powerless form retains her black eyes and white skin (albeit undamaged) and hair, but her entire body is no longer segmented, meaning that she can no longer separate her body. Interestingly, her white irises are also present within black sclerae, allowing her to look more personable.

## Personality

She is a timid and shy Stygian, confused about her existence. Being manipulated to attack the Radiant Force, she believes that it's for her own self-preservation. So, she fights very viciously, trying to eliminate them before they would get a chance to kill her and deny her of her short life. She also initially proves to be weak-willed.

Once the misunderstanding is clear, she feels a lot more confident in the Radiant Force, and allies with the girls to stop their power.

## Background

Formed from a Seed being implanted in a broken mannequin with the intent to divide, and capture Radiant Force members, let alone kill them, she was manipulated by her masters, by playing on her fears, imprinting in her mind the propaganda taught to the rest of the Stygian Army.

While the original members of the Radiant Force came into conflict with Willow Mori and Millicent Watson in the doll factory, she proceeded to attack them while they were divided.

She was defeated when Willow Mori used her power of ghostly possession to exert enough control over her core body, resulting in her Seed being ejected, nullifying her puppetry.

As her Seed was forcibly migrated into a bland, undamaged, blank mannequin, she was rendered powerless, informing the Radiant Force and their allies of a way to non-lethally pacify Stygians and rendering them powerless as well.

After the war, she manufactures new mannequin bodies alongside the restarted doll factory to house her the Seeds of her new Stygian brethren, allowing them to live normal lives without having their powers run amok.

## Powers And Abilities

**Puppetry**: Her main ability is to control marionettes. With her Seed in her core body, she can control her own body parts, as well as other mannequins in a surrounding area.

She can detach and launch her limbs at great speed to fling at her foes, or augment her blows. She also detaches her appendages to protect herself, or ensnare opponents.

**Puppet Creation:** She has the power to manufacture puppet bodies with her Stygian essence.

**Assimilation:** She can assimilate all kinds of puppet bodies and parts into her core body, modifying it to attack.

**Regeneration:** Like all Stygians, thanks to the power of the Seed, she can regenerate lost body parts if she so chooses. However, given that she would have to not use her powers, this is used as a last resort - regenerating a multitude of body parts take an absurd amount of time as well.

**Adaptability:** Her limbs can be modified with weapons, such as built-in guns or knives. By controlling them, she can gain knowledge of how they work and incorporate them into her fighting style. Similarly, if her limb is holding an inanimate object such as a knife or gun, she can also gain knowledge in this matter and learn how to fight with these weapons too just by controlling the wielding limb.

## Weaknesses

**Fragility:** Her body parts tend to be somewhat fragile to solid state projectiles if they ever get hit.

**Light of Hope:** The Light of Hope attack, aimed at her Seed, creates massive angina, disrupting the flow of Chaos energy by removing people's conflict in emotions. This immobilizes her for the time being, just like all Stygians.

**Electrocution:** By sending an electrical current through the metallic appendage inserts before reconnecting them to the body, she can be electrocuted from the inside. If the current is strong enough, it can kill her by forcing her Seed to explode and liquefy.

**Saturated Eradication/Disintegration:** Complete eradication of her body is one surefire way to kill her.

**Immobilization:** Psychokinetic immobilization is one way of slowing her down. However, her puppetry allows her control over her limbs and even resist psychokinetic control over them.

**Possession:** If someone possesses her core body, where her Seed is located, and exerts enough force to overpower control over it, the Seed will be forcibly ejected from the core body, causing her to lose the ability to use her puppetry and animate her core body, as well as leaving her Seed completely vulnerable.

**Indiscernable Absorption:** She can be tricked into absorbing puppet parts that can disable her core body (e.g a bomb), or be staggered by enemies hurling her separated appendages at her core body at high speeds, staggering and stunning her momentarily from the impact and leaving her wide open for enemies to continue their assault.

## Notes

I was inspired by the creation of horror mannequins as characters, and I also wanted to showcase a turning point in this story arc - that Stygians can be pacified rather than being outright destroyed or disposed of in many a Monster of the Week show.

To accomplish this, Marion serves as a terrifying, but not villainous antagonist, that remains sympathetic enough to stay in the story. Her abilities also enhance the worldbuilding of the series as a whole, along with the Stygians themselves.

## Trivia

* Her appearance borrows from Jumeau from Sailor Moon, the Ceramic Woman from DreadOut, Mistral and Monsoon from Metal Gear Rising, and the Guardian, along with Laura Victoriano from The Evil Within 2.
* And she takes resemblance from the Doll Woman from Chainsaw Man.
* Silent Hill's mannequin spider, Scarlet, Asphyxia, Josh's mother and the nurses, among others also served as inspiration for her design.
* Her giant forms take inspiration from Compound Yorha Type 2P from the crossover between Final Fantasy 14 and Nier: Automata.
* And she takes inspiration from the robotic apprentice in George Shrinks.