Marcelene Natyme

"Anyone can learn to dance like me. Nobody can learn to love dancing as much as I do, though. Audiences sense that authenticity, I think."

— Marcelene Natyme

Bio

Marcelene was born Tombaugh, Pluto, to a middle-class family of brewery owners. She was born with a mutation that withered her legs, which her family was able to overcome with medical intervention. She needed to exercise her bioronic legs, however, so her family enrolled her in a classical dance class for toddlers. While this was originally intended as simply physical therapy that she would grow out of, she instead fell in love with dance. Her singing voice and lyrical talents grew alongside her dancing ability, and when she was thirteen she signed on to Eclipse Entertainment as a child entertainer.

When she hit nineteen, she got tired of the censorship, so she did what most child stars do and released a risqué album. This one in particular was themed around Kur-Spice, inspired by her recent coming-of-age rite and the wild vision quest she'd been on. Eclipse Entertainment was nearly set to cancel her contract and ban her from dancing forever when the album topped the charts almost immediately. Eclipse didn't so much care that a spike in Kur-Spice abuse followed after, they had Chits to make.

By the Age of Convergence, Marcelene surpassed even Stirsky von Stumbleblaat as one of the most popular musical artists in Human Space, due in no small part to her flawless vocals while performing immaculate, acrobatic and usually alluring dance routines.

Mutations and Bioronics

Marcelene is a mutant. She had been born with withered legs, but those were corrected in her childhood. Her other mutations are:

Righting Reflex

Pelvic Gyroganglia

Mn+ (copper, greenish tint)

Additionally, she has bioronic legs that look human and are optimized for strength.

Controversies

X-Pither Mobs routinely form around Marcelene, and more than one attempt has been made on her life under the belief that she's an Alraune.

Her bionics are given credit by some critics for her dancing talents.

She has a string of ex-lovers, and rumor has it that she's insufferably arrogant with her partners. All of her partners fervently deny this, but the Solarnet is the Solarnet.

She took a year off to do a stint in the Plutonian Defense Army during a Rigelian incursion. While she earned a Boarding Action Ribbon with a Laurel, there are those who consider this brief enlistment as a stunt, as evidenced by the military-themed album that followed her return and the combat footage that showed her wearing little armor and, to quote one skeptic, 'barely in uniform.'

Legacy

Marcelene is an important cultural figure, if for no other reason than most of the human race finds themselves at some point or another humming one of her hundreds of songs, and there's not a single party on any rock orbiting Sol where someone doesn't attempt (and usually fail) to emulate one of her dance moves. Even if her music isn't someone's style or taste, there's something to like in her body of work. Additionally, her fan base is notably rabid, and stalkers are so common that she had to move to Nike Fortuna as a permanent home just for the added security.