Kestrel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rikoren) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
meowthpuppies2014-06-02 12:43 am
rikoren) wrote in meowthpuppies2014-06-02 12:43 am
Entry tags:
shin and forest covered
( PLAYER INFORMATION )
Name: Kestrel
Contact: rikoren on aim/plurk/dw
Are you over 17?: Yes!
Characters in Forest Covered: nope!
( CHARACTER INFORMATION )
Name/Work Name: Shin/Tori
Canon: Akaya Akashiya Ayakashino
Canon Point: ~200 years before canon
AU/CRAU: Nope!
Age: A few centuries (physically 17)
History: official timeline!
Imagine a perfectly normal modern-day Japan, with cell phones and cars and things. Then add in all the Japanese spirits, or ayakashi, of traditional folklore: fox spirits, tengu, shrine gods, flying goldfish, etc. It's implied that such spirits are struggling to survive in the human realm, though; the reason they can thrive in Yue's hometown of Utsuwa is because a fox spirit named Shin (one of the two shrine gods who watched over the area) had "spirited away" the entire town, casting a barrier that cut it off from the outside world. This barrier wiped the town off the map: trains pass right through the station, never seeing that there even is a station to stop at. Likewise, nobody ever leaves the town.
Ayakashi in this world make a living eating humans. They don't necessarily need to eat them to live (Kurogitsune and Ranchuu are presumably centuries old and have yet to eat one), but abstaining does mean they can never grow in power. This doesn't mean they can eat just anyone, though! Humans are only visible to them if they have particularly strong spiritual energy or happen to be "Meals" - you could say that different ayakashi have different tastes, and those tastes determine whether a human looks edible to them. Like this. Consummation of a "Meal" is never quite explained, but the result of a successful Meal is that there is no trace left of the victim - even the memory of their existence is erased from the minds of the people around them. If an ayakashi eats people indiscriminately, that ayakashi will become an akujiki. These creatures are considered the lowest of the low, and more often than not have lost control to the point they manifest only as corrupted shadows, unable to even speak properly, let alone maintain a solid physical form.
The story begins with Yue, a human boy raised by the ayakashi. Raised solely for the purpose of being Shin's vessel (because Shin lost his body a while back), he was kept locked up in the fox goddess Mikoto's shrine for the entire seven years he was alive, with little to no knowledge of the world outside the shrine's borders. Despite the severity of his house arrest, he's very well-taken care of: he's on friendly terms with Mikoto and all the other residents of the shrine, there's a servant to cook and clean for them all, and he has his "bodyguard" Kurogitsune to play with and keep him company. But the constant spiritual strain of keeping up Shin's seal means that he eventually needs a Meal, which is basically what the ayakashi call the act of devouring a human (or just their soul, in Shin and Mikoto's case). By the start of the game, Yue's so lacking in energy that he sleeps for most of the day, and faints often. So you might consider it fate that, when Kurogitsune sneaks him out for the first time in his life, he immediately runs into two different boys (Tsubaki and Akiyoshi) who catch his attention.
The incident leads to Mikoto explaining (in the vaguest terms possible) that those boys were potential Meals and that Yue should befriend one and bring him home (presumably so that the adults could help him actually complete the process, as he isn't an ayakashi himself). And so he spends the next few days meeting, befriending, and having fun with his new targets. The problem with this is that he himself isn't all that willing to devour the first and only friends he's ever made. There's also the fact that the principal at the local kindergarten was apparently eaten, leading everyone but Yue and his friends to forget he ever existed. While the three embark on their amateur investigation spree, a mysterious man named Sagano also shows up and threatens Yue's life--and it's here that the plot changes, depending on the choices Yue has made up to that point.
Everything after this point is spoilers!
So the cause of aaaalll the events that happen in AkaAka's story begins when humans first started settling in Utsuwa in medieval times. The humans started taking more and more land, and multiplying at exponential rates, in a place which had once been a haven for ayakashi. With the loss of their territory, it became harder and harder for ayakashi to survive, and the weaker ones soon began to disappear. Unable to watch his people starve, Shin then created a barrier by binding shadows to the land, effectively sealing off Utsuwa from the rest of the world. This prevented more people from entering the area, and allowed the ayakashi to roam more freely, safe from outside intervention.
Then one day, Mikoto came across a young man named Akashi, who had collapsed on the mountain where the siblings lived. Attracted by the song he was singing, she gave him a camellia flower to eat; this flower was from one of the twin camellia trees which is a symbol of, or the source of, Shin and Mikoto's powers (it's never quite explained, but there is definitely a connection of some sort, as the two trees are in full bloom when the foxes are healthy and lose flowers when they're not). This saved Akashi's life, and also gave him a small portion of the foxes' powers. The problem with this was that Akashi, who eventually learned about their human-eating tendencies, began to resent the ayakashi and used his newfound powers to try to break the barrier. And he succeeded--but breaking the seal caused his soul to get pulled into the resulting hole, unnoticed by anyone else. In order to fix the barrier, Shin threw his body into the hole, his soul then possessing Akashi's abandoned body (as he'd thought Akashi had died). He leaves that scene saying that he needs to tell Akashi's family about his death, but it seems he might not actually have gone through with it, as Akashi later comments on his surprise that his family line continued to exist after all these years (plus Shin admitted to having lived in the Tsubaki family home before, which is the family Akashi belonged to). The thing is, after all those years of captivity, Akashi finally managed to break free of the seal, possessing Shin's abandoned body and carrying the shadows along with him, in an attempt to get revenge. Whether he succeeds or not really depends on Yue's actions throughout the course of the game, but it's interesting to note that the shadows had pretty much claimed Shin's body for their own, putting Akashi's breakout plan on a time limit before the barrier dissipates, the shadows leave, and he and the body he's possessing both get dragged along with them into nonexistence.
Personality: Shin is first and foremost a kind and friendly person. He chats with Yue all the time (one scene has Yue admitting they'd stayed up all night talking together); he's genuinely glad when he sees Akashi/Sagano alive and something approaching well (despite the man violently attacking his vessel), and genuinely sad over any losses, whether it be Akashi's "death" all those years ago or Yue's sacrifice in one of the possible endings. He actually sheds tears when forced to kill an akujiki, saddened by the fact they'd become akujiki in the first place, and the fact that he had to do this. His love for his people, and the lengths he is willing to go for them, leave ayakashi worshipping him years after he lost his body (and therefore his ability to actually communicate with anyone) - even the akujiki remember their love of him, in a warped sort of way.
You could say he's actually a little too kind, or empathetic, or self-sacrificing, or all of the above. There is no hesitation at all when he sacrifices his body to plug the hole in his barrier, and in the Sagano story path it's mentioned multiple times that he wishes, more than anything, to give Sagano what he wants. One end has him actually actively leaving Yue's body, taking Sagano's place and disappearing along with the shadows, which - while forcing the ayakashi he'd previously protected to flee Utsuwa entirely - also gives Sagano his life back, and frees Yue from life as a vessel. His greatest regret is having stolen Sagano's life (and wife, and family, and future), and so returning that lost time to him became more important even than protecting the ayakashi, which admittedly turned out to have been a possibly bad decision (there are quite a few akujiki roaming around town, meaning they might've taken their freedom a bit too far).
That aside, it's also mentioned that Yue takes after him a lot in personality, meaning that outside of the serious situations the game usually shows him in, he can also be playful and teasing at times. In one of the scenes where Yue speaks for him, he's quoted as saying "teehee" in a probably not-entirely-sincere apology, and despite being god of the land, all his most trusted subordinates are perfectly willing to tease him or make the rare (but not mean-spirited) insult. He's also described as having a laid-back attitude, which may be part of why he didn't let anyone know he was awake inside Yue. (Another reason could be wanting Yue to have a little more autonomy than he might have had if Shin was more active, which leads us back to the kindness mentioned before.) All in all, he's basically a friendly cheerful laid-back goof, who only gets any respect because he's too nice (and also insanely powerful).
Debt: Shin feels really incredibly bad about ruining Akashi's life, so someone offering a way to bring the poor boy back to life would probably get his full attention! He doesn't know that he's not technically dead, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?
Previous Game Info: none!
Inventory: Nothing in particular...though he has a nice outfit he might like back eventually.
Abilities: Abilities-wise, Shin can do quite a lot! These abilities include magical fire (it only burns what he wants it to! and doubles as light!), devouring humans (body and soul) (does this count as an ability?), creating protective barriers, and teleportation. There were more, but without his original body he's kind of limited.
Strengths and Weaknesses: He's pretty resilient, having enough energy to fight with multiple ayakashi for surprising periods of time. Being stuck in a human body, he doesn't quite have the physical or spiritual strength that he did as a fox, but he can manage to make himself a little above average with a boost of spiritual power (though he probably shouldn't use too much of that). He's got the mental strength to sacrifice himself multiple times for the sake of those close to him, has a photographic memory (200 years later and he can still recall exactly what Akashi looked and sounded like), and is really good at keeping secrets. He tries to keep a smile and a positive outlook no matter the situation, always choosing (or searching for) the solution that hurts the least people. Also! He doesn't age.
As for weaknesses: his biggest is probably the fact he's a bleeding heart who wants to help everybody (except maybe generic npc humans, though that's also sort of iffy). His curiosity is stronger than his sense of self-preservation, and his need to help everyone doesn't necessarily apply in less serious situations (if you're both in danger of getting caught stealing snacks, he'll probably run first). His softhearted personality also means he's (not-quite-jokingly) intimidated by some of his own subjects, at least partly because they honestly want to beat him up (and totally deserve to, in his opinion). He's kind of stubborn about that, too! If he thinks he has blame to shoulder, it'll nag at him forever until the problem is resolved. We can also turn his secret-keeping into a weakness, as absolutely nobody in all of Utsuwa (aside from Yue and possibly Mikoto) is aware that he isn't in a permanent coma, and he doesn't tell Yue a single significant thing because he's afraid the knowledge would hurt. Which it might! But it could also probably help, in some cases.
( SAMPLE )
Characterization Sample: In either prose or bracket text, we would like at least one sample that contains 300 words minimum to convey and display your characters introspection and voice. Reusing samples from other applications is perfectly fine, so long as they meet the minimum requirement!
You may also link us a thread that is at most one year old, and we would like to see at least ten comments from your character; please note that it should be a thread that contains enough of a conversation that we could get an idea of character voice and how they are portrayed in your personality section.
Name: Kestrel
Contact: rikoren on aim/plurk/dw
Are you over 17?: Yes!
Characters in Forest Covered: nope!
( CHARACTER INFORMATION )
Name/Work Name: Shin/Tori
Canon: Akaya Akashiya Ayakashino
Canon Point: ~200 years before canon
AU/CRAU: Nope!
Age: A few centuries (physically 17)
History: official timeline!
Imagine a perfectly normal modern-day Japan, with cell phones and cars and things. Then add in all the Japanese spirits, or ayakashi, of traditional folklore: fox spirits, tengu, shrine gods, flying goldfish, etc. It's implied that such spirits are struggling to survive in the human realm, though; the reason they can thrive in Yue's hometown of Utsuwa is because a fox spirit named Shin (one of the two shrine gods who watched over the area) had "spirited away" the entire town, casting a barrier that cut it off from the outside world. This barrier wiped the town off the map: trains pass right through the station, never seeing that there even is a station to stop at. Likewise, nobody ever leaves the town.
Ayakashi in this world make a living eating humans. They don't necessarily need to eat them to live (Kurogitsune and Ranchuu are presumably centuries old and have yet to eat one), but abstaining does mean they can never grow in power. This doesn't mean they can eat just anyone, though! Humans are only visible to them if they have particularly strong spiritual energy or happen to be "Meals" - you could say that different ayakashi have different tastes, and those tastes determine whether a human looks edible to them. Like this. Consummation of a "Meal" is never quite explained, but the result of a successful Meal is that there is no trace left of the victim - even the memory of their existence is erased from the minds of the people around them. If an ayakashi eats people indiscriminately, that ayakashi will become an akujiki. These creatures are considered the lowest of the low, and more often than not have lost control to the point they manifest only as corrupted shadows, unable to even speak properly, let alone maintain a solid physical form.
The story begins with Yue, a human boy raised by the ayakashi. Raised solely for the purpose of being Shin's vessel (because Shin lost his body a while back), he was kept locked up in the fox goddess Mikoto's shrine for the entire seven years he was alive, with little to no knowledge of the world outside the shrine's borders. Despite the severity of his house arrest, he's very well-taken care of: he's on friendly terms with Mikoto and all the other residents of the shrine, there's a servant to cook and clean for them all, and he has his "bodyguard" Kurogitsune to play with and keep him company. But the constant spiritual strain of keeping up Shin's seal means that he eventually needs a Meal, which is basically what the ayakashi call the act of devouring a human (or just their soul, in Shin and Mikoto's case). By the start of the game, Yue's so lacking in energy that he sleeps for most of the day, and faints often. So you might consider it fate that, when Kurogitsune sneaks him out for the first time in his life, he immediately runs into two different boys (Tsubaki and Akiyoshi) who catch his attention.
The incident leads to Mikoto explaining (in the vaguest terms possible) that those boys were potential Meals and that Yue should befriend one and bring him home (presumably so that the adults could help him actually complete the process, as he isn't an ayakashi himself). And so he spends the next few days meeting, befriending, and having fun with his new targets. The problem with this is that he himself isn't all that willing to devour the first and only friends he's ever made. There's also the fact that the principal at the local kindergarten was apparently eaten, leading everyone but Yue and his friends to forget he ever existed. While the three embark on their amateur investigation spree, a mysterious man named Sagano also shows up and threatens Yue's life--and it's here that the plot changes, depending on the choices Yue has made up to that point.
Everything after this point is spoilers!
So the cause of aaaalll the events that happen in AkaAka's story begins when humans first started settling in Utsuwa in medieval times. The humans started taking more and more land, and multiplying at exponential rates, in a place which had once been a haven for ayakashi. With the loss of their territory, it became harder and harder for ayakashi to survive, and the weaker ones soon began to disappear. Unable to watch his people starve, Shin then created a barrier by binding shadows to the land, effectively sealing off Utsuwa from the rest of the world. This prevented more people from entering the area, and allowed the ayakashi to roam more freely, safe from outside intervention.
Then one day, Mikoto came across a young man named Akashi, who had collapsed on the mountain where the siblings lived. Attracted by the song he was singing, she gave him a camellia flower to eat; this flower was from one of the twin camellia trees which is a symbol of, or the source of, Shin and Mikoto's powers (it's never quite explained, but there is definitely a connection of some sort, as the two trees are in full bloom when the foxes are healthy and lose flowers when they're not). This saved Akashi's life, and also gave him a small portion of the foxes' powers. The problem with this was that Akashi, who eventually learned about their human-eating tendencies, began to resent the ayakashi and used his newfound powers to try to break the barrier. And he succeeded--but breaking the seal caused his soul to get pulled into the resulting hole, unnoticed by anyone else. In order to fix the barrier, Shin threw his body into the hole, his soul then possessing Akashi's abandoned body (as he'd thought Akashi had died). He leaves that scene saying that he needs to tell Akashi's family about his death, but it seems he might not actually have gone through with it, as Akashi later comments on his surprise that his family line continued to exist after all these years (plus Shin admitted to having lived in the Tsubaki family home before, which is the family Akashi belonged to). The thing is, after all those years of captivity, Akashi finally managed to break free of the seal, possessing Shin's abandoned body and carrying the shadows along with him, in an attempt to get revenge. Whether he succeeds or not really depends on Yue's actions throughout the course of the game, but it's interesting to note that the shadows had pretty much claimed Shin's body for their own, putting Akashi's breakout plan on a time limit before the barrier dissipates, the shadows leave, and he and the body he's possessing both get dragged along with them into nonexistence.
Personality: Shin is first and foremost a kind and friendly person. He chats with Yue all the time (one scene has Yue admitting they'd stayed up all night talking together); he's genuinely glad when he sees Akashi/Sagano alive and something approaching well (despite the man violently attacking his vessel), and genuinely sad over any losses, whether it be Akashi's "death" all those years ago or Yue's sacrifice in one of the possible endings. He actually sheds tears when forced to kill an akujiki, saddened by the fact they'd become akujiki in the first place, and the fact that he had to do this. His love for his people, and the lengths he is willing to go for them, leave ayakashi worshipping him years after he lost his body (and therefore his ability to actually communicate with anyone) - even the akujiki remember their love of him, in a warped sort of way.
You could say he's actually a little too kind, or empathetic, or self-sacrificing, or all of the above. There is no hesitation at all when he sacrifices his body to plug the hole in his barrier, and in the Sagano story path it's mentioned multiple times that he wishes, more than anything, to give Sagano what he wants. One end has him actually actively leaving Yue's body, taking Sagano's place and disappearing along with the shadows, which - while forcing the ayakashi he'd previously protected to flee Utsuwa entirely - also gives Sagano his life back, and frees Yue from life as a vessel. His greatest regret is having stolen Sagano's life (and wife, and family, and future), and so returning that lost time to him became more important even than protecting the ayakashi, which admittedly turned out to have been a possibly bad decision (there are quite a few akujiki roaming around town, meaning they might've taken their freedom a bit too far).
That aside, it's also mentioned that Yue takes after him a lot in personality, meaning that outside of the serious situations the game usually shows him in, he can also be playful and teasing at times. In one of the scenes where Yue speaks for him, he's quoted as saying "teehee" in a probably not-entirely-sincere apology, and despite being god of the land, all his most trusted subordinates are perfectly willing to tease him or make the rare (but not mean-spirited) insult. He's also described as having a laid-back attitude, which may be part of why he didn't let anyone know he was awake inside Yue. (Another reason could be wanting Yue to have a little more autonomy than he might have had if Shin was more active, which leads us back to the kindness mentioned before.) All in all, he's basically a friendly cheerful laid-back goof, who only gets any respect because he's too nice (and also insanely powerful).
Debt: Shin feels really incredibly bad about ruining Akashi's life, so someone offering a way to bring the poor boy back to life would probably get his full attention! He doesn't know that he's not technically dead, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?
Previous Game Info: none!
Inventory: Nothing in particular...though he has a nice outfit he might like back eventually.
Abilities: Abilities-wise, Shin can do quite a lot! These abilities include magical fire (it only burns what he wants it to! and doubles as light!), devouring humans (body and soul) (does this count as an ability?), creating protective barriers, and teleportation. There were more, but without his original body he's kind of limited.
Strengths and Weaknesses: He's pretty resilient, having enough energy to fight with multiple ayakashi for surprising periods of time. Being stuck in a human body, he doesn't quite have the physical or spiritual strength that he did as a fox, but he can manage to make himself a little above average with a boost of spiritual power (though he probably shouldn't use too much of that). He's got the mental strength to sacrifice himself multiple times for the sake of those close to him, has a photographic memory (200 years later and he can still recall exactly what Akashi looked and sounded like), and is really good at keeping secrets. He tries to keep a smile and a positive outlook no matter the situation, always choosing (or searching for) the solution that hurts the least people. Also! He doesn't age.
As for weaknesses: his biggest is probably the fact he's a bleeding heart who wants to help everybody (except maybe generic npc humans, though that's also sort of iffy). His curiosity is stronger than his sense of self-preservation, and his need to help everyone doesn't necessarily apply in less serious situations (if you're both in danger of getting caught stealing snacks, he'll probably run first). His softhearted personality also means he's (not-quite-jokingly) intimidated by some of his own subjects, at least partly because they honestly want to beat him up (and totally deserve to, in his opinion). He's kind of stubborn about that, too! If he thinks he has blame to shoulder, it'll nag at him forever until the problem is resolved. We can also turn his secret-keeping into a weakness, as absolutely nobody in all of Utsuwa (aside from Yue and possibly Mikoto) is aware that he isn't in a permanent coma, and he doesn't tell Yue a single significant thing because he's afraid the knowledge would hurt. Which it might! But it could also probably help, in some cases.
( SAMPLE )
Characterization Sample: In either prose or bracket text, we would like at least one sample that contains 300 words minimum to convey and display your characters introspection and voice. Reusing samples from other applications is perfectly fine, so long as they meet the minimum requirement!
You may also link us a thread that is at most one year old, and we would like to see at least ten comments from your character; please note that it should be a thread that contains enough of a conversation that we could get an idea of character voice and how they are portrayed in your personality section.