Marigold

Art by Porcelain

> "Who am I...? WHAT am I...? Am I just some freak who never stays in one place for too long...? Am I even a fucking HUMAN? Well...I don't feel like one...I mean...sure, I have the body of a human and probably all the functions of a human and the immune system but...something's wrong. Is it my brain wiring? Is that why I feel so disconnected from it all...?"
>
> *- Marigold*

**Marigold**, referred to as Mari. She is a student of Hope's Peak Academy, and a participant of the Castle Killing Game featured in the DanganRonpa RP Hub. Her title is the **Ultimate Oneirocritic** [ lit. *Super High School Level Oneirocritic. ]*

## Appearance

Marigold is an extremely petite albino girl in her teenage years (16 years old) with fluffy yet curly and messy platinum blonde hair which can easily be seen as white from a distance. She also has light blue eyes and eyebags underneath them.

Marigold wears a blue thick coat with fur on top of it and a white collared untucked shirt, though she's occasionally forced to tuck her shirt in when she's at environments such as school. Marigold has a dark bluish grey skirt and fluffy white boots. It's also confirmed that underneath her boots, she wears fluffy socks.

## Personality

Despite Marigold looking quite child-like and warm in appearance. She's pretty much the opposite on the surface. In fact, Marigold could easily be described as cold, introverted and distant, mostly not speaking unless she was being spoken to. Often, she'd observe conversations from a distance rather than participate in the conversation itself, which, along with her appearance, has resulted in classmates considering her as 'creepy' and 'weird' but they'd never say it directly to her face.

Though Marigold can get frustrated easily, it usually doesn't last too long due to her low energy, getting tired easily. Marigold often expresses her exhaustion by complaining and wishing to fall asleep and 'dream again'.

However, this is most likely a cry for help. Marigold is the way she is out of fear that if she gets attached to anyone, then they'll hurt or leave her in some shape or form. Terrified of this scenario, she attempts to push people away. For example, when Dani and Marigold first met, Marigold would avoid her. Though this also could be because Marigold was scared of the feelings she was getting for her.

Despite this, Marigold wishes to be loved more than anything, though she won't admit it. She's terrified of dying alone and just wants someone to be there for her but due to her past, Marigold thinks she doesn't deserve to be loved.

Due to her experiences with various environments, Marigold is very intelligent and can adapt to surroundings quicker than others. In addition, Marigold is often good at hiding her emotions and remaining calm, often bottling up her emotions to protect herself. In addition, Marigold has a lot of knowledge in Psychology and Oneirology because of her ultimate and can go on for ages about them to anyone. She also has a lot of knowledge in cold winter environments and animals, specifically, penguins and polar bears.

## Talents and abilities

### Psychology knowledge

Marigold can read body language and facial expression pretty well. However, due to her lack of energy and confidence to speak up, Marigold doesn't really say suspicious details she notices out loud and at times, forgets about it due to being too exhausted to point it out.

## Background

### Prior to the tragedy

Marigold never knew her parents, she’s been involved in the foster care system and has been an orphan for as long as she can remember. Marigold was never told anything about her parents, she never knew what they looked like or what their personalities were like at all.

When Marigold was a little kid, she took her moving around constantly as an opportunity to “explore”, wanting to be an explorer and travel all over the world. Sometimes even running away from her foster homes. Marigold seemed like a happy kid back then obsessed with nature, countries and animals.

However, as she got older, her mental health got worse due to the constant moving and abandonment, developing abandonment issues and other mental health problems such as depression/seasonal affective disorder. It’s also heavily implied that a couple of the homes she ended up in were abusive as well.

She ended up having a lot more mental breakdowns due to frustration and abandonment, which she never got support and comfort for. Instead, the only responses she got for her mental breakdowns was verbal and physical abuse. She was also extremely suicidal, being only 10 years old when she first attempted. She started lacking hope in the world, having nobody to turn to. But then…

She started having dreams that made her feel safe. They made her feel like she BELONGED somewhere. So Marigold developed an obsession with dreams and sleep, even helping other people with their dreams online and in forums under the username “partlycloudy”.

However, a couple years later, she started to get popular online and got doxxed at the age of 14, resulting in comments about the way she looked and people even going into detail about how they wanted to hurt her. During this time, Marigold grew more paranoid and isolated herself from everyone. She claims she didn’t sleep for quite a few days and was on high alert at the time, making a promise to never rely on anyone. But through her contributions in oneirology online, she was given the title “Ultimate Oneirocritic”.

Shortly after when she moved to a new area (most likely Novoselic), she saw Dani getting harassed by someone and defended her, despite Dani insisting that she isn’t bothered by it. Marigold then discovered that Dani went to the same school as her after that incident. Their relationship was quite rocky at first, Marigold attempting to push Dani away constantly out of fear she’d get too attached. But overtime, Marigold started legitimately caring for her, even loving her. However, Marigold never told Dani about her being an orphan or about her terrible mental health, terrified of what her reaction could be. But despite that, Marigold was getting better and making good progress.

## Trivia

* Marigold does not have a canon surname
* The name **Marigold** means 'Golden flower'
	+ The flower Marigold usually symbolises optimism and positive emotions
		- This is pretty ironic due to Marigold being the complete opposite of optimistic
* Marigold is canonically a lesbian.
	+ It's recently been confirmed that she's a trans girl
* Marigold was diagnosed with Seasonal affective disorder
	+ But it's implied she had other mental conditions that weren't diagnosed, such as Autism and possibly BPD.
* Marigold has never experienced a brain freeze before.
* She has a sweet tooth and before the killing game, used to keep a bag of lollipops in her pocket.
	+ It's canon she would have these bags around is due to her bad habit of chewing on things (such as her thumb).
* Her favourite food is microwaved noodles, as it's one of the only foods she knows how to cook.
* She's the second smallest in Castle Killing Game, the smallest being Emilia Ratchet
	+ Both of them died during Chapter 3
* Originally, Marigold was going to die in Chapter 4 as a result of suicide. But due to the collars rule, this idea was scrapped.
* She collects plushies and has slept with a Stitch plushie ever since she was a kid.
* Marigold enjoys psychological and dystopian books.
	+ Some of her favourite authors being Kai Kasishiki and Frank Daly