App for Sorting Hat
Player Information
Name: Miyun / Bug
Timezone: GMT
Personal Journal: pandarosi
Players Contact/AIM/MSN/YAHOO: Faereyjar
Email Address: asakura.miyun at gmail dot com
Former/Other Characters in the RP: chairspinner | Izaya Orihara
How did you hear about us?: I already play someone.
Character Information
Name: Kiku Honda
Canon Origin/Series: Axis Powers Hetalia
Teaching Position and why it suits them: Herbology, Japan has a long agricultural history and in the strips he's seen enjoying gardening and farming. Also Netherlands is the TA for this subject and their history is a long one.
Gender: Male
Age: 36 (but he seriously still looks like he's 14 lmao asians)
Out of school living location: Kyoto, Japan. He's lived on-site most of the time, if not he stays nearby in Hogsmeade or visits his friends around the country and stays with them.
Blood status: Pureblood
Personality: Quiet, almost reclusive, Kiku is a man with strange habits and an infuriating sense of politeness; he does not always mean what he says, and he will not always say what he means. At first glance, one's impression of him as an individual might perhaps be that of a serene and traditional young man, well-educated, poetic, and practiced in both discipline and polite self-restraint. He has a sense of delicacy and art, is appreciative of simplicity, minimalism and the importance of history, learning quickly and adapting himself in a unique way. Capable of flexibility without compromising his values, he survives conspicuously in western lands, being at once exasperatingly foreign and yet eager to learn and adapt.
However, Japan is also extremely self-conscious and highly pessimistic to the point of nihilsim. Secretly geeky and secretly terrified of being exposed as such or coming off as weak, he often retreats into his own shell. Once there, few people can break him out of it, and it's possible he may hide himself away for weeks on end, or apologize profusely for pretty much everything. He's somewhat a workaholic and often sleeps in his office while working, loathe to present anything unless he deems it perfect. Despite being (only?) 36, he often feels old and looks back on 'the old days' with fond eyes. However, his habit of referring to himself as an 'old man' may come off as a little jarring, since his looks are so youthful that people often mistaken him for one of his own students, and he still gets asked if he's allowed to be drinking while buying firewhisky at the Three Broomsticks. Traditional to the bone, he's fond of wearing Japanese clothing even in the UK simply because he finds it more comfortable.
Besides herbological gardening and farming, he also enjoys flower arrangement, calligraphy and obscure artistic erotica (coughporn).
He has recently discovered the muggle world of 2D videogames and animation. His affinity for it was quick and lethal, and for a pure-blood, he knows more about it than he will care to admit.
Canon Background: Japan is one of the main characters of Axis Powers Hetalia. Based on WWII, it tracks his relationship with Germany and Italy during World War II and also touches on his history as far back as the start of his relationship with China and the warring states era. Due to the nonlinear storyline of the webcomic, i'll take this from a more historical chronological order. Because my Japan's AU is based more on sakoku (isolationist) Japan, I'll focus more on those strips.
As a child, Japan was 'found' by China, who raised him in his earliest days to the best of his ability. Japan proved to be a fast learner, exhibiting at a young age an uncanny ability to adapt and rework old ideas and improve on them. It is clear that from the very beginning that Japan tended to look down on his "older brother", considering himself superior. As Japan cultivated his own vibrant culture, he began to look upon China's carefree ways of thinking as old-fashioned and naive, denying him as his brother eventually to the point of violence.
In the warring states era, he is portrayed as a quiet, good looking but stubborn boy under the protectorship of several 'hans', personifications of the different warring states. Historically, this era was one of constant battle as the states tried to control the country. Japan was ultimately unified under the rule of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the boss of Mito-han who declares himself the 'future ruler' of Japan while Owari-han looks on unhappily.
Mito-han's victory then propelled Japan into the Edo period, when trade with the west flourished for the first time. Some of the countries that traded in his waters were England, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. However, Spain and Portugal managed to frighten him with imperialism and Christianity and Japan suddenly closed his doors to everyone, becoming a complete hikikomori. For almost 200 years, the only western nation he remained in contact with is the Netherlands, who, despite being confined to only one island in Nagasaki port, brought him news and curiosities from around the world. The Netherlands, too, came to warn him before America flamboyantly forced Japan to open up trade with the west (just so that he could make friends with whales).
So, we come to the Meiji Restoration. Japan was no longer isolationist. Though he still harbored a great desire to hide in his room, he figured it would be best to learn from the western powers and fit in with the world community, modernizing himself in his own special way. Slightly later, in the early 1900s, Japan came under pressure from Russia and looked for someone to be friends with. England was the perfect choice, having also just come out of his own isolation, they quickly became friends despite Japan's boss's wishes and they fought alongside each other in WWI.
However, during WWII, Japan switches sides. Territorial ambitions lead him to ally with the Axis, and while he's a good fighter, the culture shock when moving to the west is more than just a little hysterical. Italy's friendly greeting kiss causes him to demand marriage, while he diligently plants pasta (too nervous to ask what it is) and makes miniature robots and models of Germany's tanks and guns instead of full-sized ones. He often catches Germany and Italy in odd positions and has an overwhelming desire to pluck Romano's curl (because it looks like a herb!) but thankfully cannot bring himself to do it.
Post world WWII, he pretty much agrees with everything America says and has become an economical power in his own right, buying hair straighteners he doesn't need because America advertised them and they looked cool and making lots of awesome videogames and comics and 2D porn that France really enjoys. He gets visited by Greece who attempts to re-teach him the merits of 3D lovemaking but he pretty much denies that as a dream it is, damnit!.
Basically Japan's a bit of a socially incompetent derp old man but he's cute while doing it.
Background (AU!Canon; HP):[Dirty] Kiku was born in Kyoto, Japan to a proud, rather prominent pure-blooded family of Wizards with a large estate in the old capital. As a young child he was often quiet and weak, so he was given the flower-name "Kiku" (Chrysanthemum) and brought up in a very traditional manner, which did little for his self esteem and made him a polite but difficult boy to handle. Nevertheless, his pure-blooded background, his slender form and girlish youthful looks persisted throughout his childhood and well into his adult years, making him rather popular at his school, where several of the students almost seemed to be battling for his attention. Despite the awkwardness and occasional distraction this implied, he nevertheless grew into a studious, determined young man with a sense of pride an honour, graduating near the top of his class in herbology, potions and charms.
He would have lived the rest of his life in Japan as well, but some major disagreements with his family caused him to deny his inheritance and travel abroad. He says little about his family when asked and though he misses Japan often, he goes back rarely (except on short trips to Tokyo in order to feed his growing obsession with muggle entertainment). His fascination for magical plants led him to pursue an academic research career which took advantage of his slight estrangement, eventually landing him what he thought would be a short but enlightening teaching assistant's job at Hogwarts. He had hoped to write a few more textbooks in Japanese about the less common herbs in the UK and various parts of Europe before moving on, but to his complete surprise however, this foreign land was at once fascinating and full of new things to explore culturally, and after quickly overcoming some slight difficulties with his English (he still stumbles over words sometimes), he proved to be so knowledgeable and competent that accent ceased to be an issue and he became a permanent professor at Hogwarts after his predecessor left. Despite his eccentricities in dress and attitude (especially the occasional reclusion into his office for a week after some mildly embarrassing event upon which he'd simply give assignments out in journals or have to be slowly eased out of his office by his students), he proved to be a strict but capable teacher, turning out enthusiastic students with outstanding OWL and NEWT results.
It was during his early years as a teacher that he met his favorite pupil, Thijs. During his time at Hogwarts, the dutch boy was often at the greenhouses, even outside of class hours, hanging around curiously and fiddling with dangerous flowers. Though Kiku was a little hesitant to allow him free reign among the various plants (after all, the fanged geraniums weren't all that easy to handle--), it was soon obvious that the boy had a talent and that it could be nurtured beyond what was on the syllabus quickly and easily. Despite caring more for the Snargaluffs and Venomous Tentacula than talking Bonsai, they became close friends and formed a tight bond that would later solidify into a working partnership as Professor and Teaching Assistant.
However, the spring before Thijs took up his new job as official assistant, Kiku met an unfortunate accident, the details of which were thus: Having left the greenhouses and in the middle of crossing the grounds, he came across Antonio, who had been herding puffskeins across the grounds. Due to an unfortunate turn of events and quite likely some appealing springtime smell lingering from the plants he had been working with, the puffskeins swarmed Kiku and caused him to trip and fall down a flight of stone stairs, leaving him comatose in the hospital wing for over a week. His crippling embarrassment at the absurdity of the accident (and the amount of time it left him indisposed) has caused him to dislike the spaniard immensely and recluse into his office for weeks on end. While Kiku is happy to write in his journal, give advice or poke his head out of his office occasionally during a class, it's up to Thijs to actively teach most of the classes... or attempt to get his now reclusive professor out of the office and into the actual classroom.
New students will sometimes see a white-clothed "boy" wandering the greenhouses at night and wonder if there's a ghost there they've never met before, but what might look like a scene from out of a Japanese horror movie is simply Kiku being at home with the plants that he likes the most... [diana]
Sample Journal Entry: I have forgotten what day of the week it is.
I am very sorry. Please forgive me.
The mandrakes are often crying in the night and I have re-potted them; I believe it will be some time yet before they are manageable enough to allow the students to handle them. As it is their screams are very piercing, so it may be necessary for you to reschedule the class if you have planned it soon. I am sorry for placing so much responsibility in your hands, Thijs... Old man like me, becoming so forgetful even now...
Thank you so much for handling the classes...
Sample Interaction Post in Third Person:
Kiku blinked his eyes blearily as the sun rose, spilling across his desk and illuminating the notes he'd been writing late into the night before. His research had been coming along well, and his paper on the long-term effects of climactic adaptation on the talking bonsai was nearing completion. It had been almost fifteen years since he started the project, and his favorite specimen, a miniature Sakura tree he liked to call "Yoshimi-san" was bidding him good morning from his desk in clumsy Engrish. The other bonsais in the room stirred and joined in the chorus of greetings.
"おはよう! Good morning sun rises in sky singing!" they burbled happily, "早U御座Imasu control!"
Japan smiled to himself as he conversed with them, switching back into Japanese more for the trees' benefits than his. No matter how much he tried, it was almost impossible to teach the plants to speak proper English, despite the long years he'd been living in this country. It was nice to have someone (or something) to speak his language to, though, and their inability to communicate always made for amusing conversations when Thijs was around... though they more often brought hi great frustration than anything else.
Ah. Speaking of which, Thijs had mentioned that there might have been a morning class....
A crushing sense of horror and guilt filled him. He didn't know what time it was, but the fading noise in the Greenhouse attached to his office told him that the class had finished.
Crossing the bonsai-filled room as quietly as possible, he opened the door to the greenhouse just a crack. Sure enough, Thijs was alone in the room, clearing clippings and taking care of the general post-class disorder. Opening it a little wider, he cleared his throat.
"T..Thijs? Mr. Ver Tulpen-san....?" He mumbled, stringing his assistant's names together in a mix of guilty English and Japanese "I'm so sorry, again I slept in during a class....."
Name: Miyun / Bug
Timezone: GMT
Personal Journal: pandarosi
Players Contact/AIM/MSN/YAHOO: Faereyjar
Email Address: asakura.miyun at gmail dot com
Former/Other Characters in the RP: chairspinner | Izaya Orihara
How did you hear about us?: I already play someone.
Character Information
Name: Kiku Honda
Canon Origin/Series: Axis Powers Hetalia
Teaching Position and why it suits them: Herbology, Japan has a long agricultural history and in the strips he's seen enjoying gardening and farming. Also Netherlands is the TA for this subject and their history is a long one.
Gender: Male
Age: 36 (but he seriously still looks like he's 14 lmao asians)
Out of school living location: Kyoto, Japan. He's lived on-site most of the time, if not he stays nearby in Hogsmeade or visits his friends around the country and stays with them.
Blood status: Pureblood
Personality: Quiet, almost reclusive, Kiku is a man with strange habits and an infuriating sense of politeness; he does not always mean what he says, and he will not always say what he means. At first glance, one's impression of him as an individual might perhaps be that of a serene and traditional young man, well-educated, poetic, and practiced in both discipline and polite self-restraint. He has a sense of delicacy and art, is appreciative of simplicity, minimalism and the importance of history, learning quickly and adapting himself in a unique way. Capable of flexibility without compromising his values, he survives conspicuously in western lands, being at once exasperatingly foreign and yet eager to learn and adapt.
However, Japan is also extremely self-conscious and highly pessimistic to the point of nihilsim. Secretly geeky and secretly terrified of being exposed as such or coming off as weak, he often retreats into his own shell. Once there, few people can break him out of it, and it's possible he may hide himself away for weeks on end, or apologize profusely for pretty much everything. He's somewhat a workaholic and often sleeps in his office while working, loathe to present anything unless he deems it perfect. Despite being (only?) 36, he often feels old and looks back on 'the old days' with fond eyes. However, his habit of referring to himself as an 'old man' may come off as a little jarring, since his looks are so youthful that people often mistaken him for one of his own students, and he still gets asked if he's allowed to be drinking while buying firewhisky at the Three Broomsticks. Traditional to the bone, he's fond of wearing Japanese clothing even in the UK simply because he finds it more comfortable.
Besides herbological gardening and farming, he also enjoys flower arrangement, calligraphy and obscure artistic erotica (coughporn).
He has recently discovered the muggle world of 2D videogames and animation. His affinity for it was quick and lethal, and for a pure-blood, he knows more about it than he will care to admit.
Canon Background: Japan is one of the main characters of Axis Powers Hetalia. Based on WWII, it tracks his relationship with Germany and Italy during World War II and also touches on his history as far back as the start of his relationship with China and the warring states era. Due to the nonlinear storyline of the webcomic, i'll take this from a more historical chronological order. Because my Japan's AU is based more on sakoku (isolationist) Japan, I'll focus more on those strips.
As a child, Japan was 'found' by China, who raised him in his earliest days to the best of his ability. Japan proved to be a fast learner, exhibiting at a young age an uncanny ability to adapt and rework old ideas and improve on them. It is clear that from the very beginning that Japan tended to look down on his "older brother", considering himself superior. As Japan cultivated his own vibrant culture, he began to look upon China's carefree ways of thinking as old-fashioned and naive, denying him as his brother eventually to the point of violence.
In the warring states era, he is portrayed as a quiet, good looking but stubborn boy under the protectorship of several 'hans', personifications of the different warring states. Historically, this era was one of constant battle as the states tried to control the country. Japan was ultimately unified under the rule of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the boss of Mito-han who declares himself the 'future ruler' of Japan while Owari-han looks on unhappily.
Mito-han's victory then propelled Japan into the Edo period, when trade with the west flourished for the first time. Some of the countries that traded in his waters were England, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. However, Spain and Portugal managed to frighten him with imperialism and Christianity and Japan suddenly closed his doors to everyone, becoming a complete hikikomori. For almost 200 years, the only western nation he remained in contact with is the Netherlands, who, despite being confined to only one island in Nagasaki port, brought him news and curiosities from around the world. The Netherlands, too, came to warn him before America flamboyantly forced Japan to open up trade with the west (just so that he could make friends with whales).
So, we come to the Meiji Restoration. Japan was no longer isolationist. Though he still harbored a great desire to hide in his room, he figured it would be best to learn from the western powers and fit in with the world community, modernizing himself in his own special way. Slightly later, in the early 1900s, Japan came under pressure from Russia and looked for someone to be friends with. England was the perfect choice, having also just come out of his own isolation, they quickly became friends despite Japan's boss's wishes and they fought alongside each other in WWI.
However, during WWII, Japan switches sides. Territorial ambitions lead him to ally with the Axis, and while he's a good fighter, the culture shock when moving to the west is more than just a little hysterical. Italy's friendly greeting kiss causes him to demand marriage, while he diligently plants pasta (too nervous to ask what it is) and makes miniature robots and models of Germany's tanks and guns instead of full-sized ones. He often catches Germany and Italy in odd positions and has an overwhelming desire to pluck Romano's curl (because it looks like a herb!) but thankfully cannot bring himself to do it.
Post world WWII, he pretty much agrees with everything America says and has become an economical power in his own right, buying hair straighteners he doesn't need because America advertised them and they looked cool and making lots of awesome videogames and comics and 2D porn that France really enjoys. He gets visited by Greece who attempts to re-teach him the merits of 3D lovemaking but he pretty much denies that as a dream it is, damnit!.
Basically Japan's a bit of a socially incompetent derp old man but he's cute while doing it.
Background (AU!Canon; HP):[Dirty] Kiku was born in Kyoto, Japan to a proud, rather prominent pure-blooded family of Wizards with a large estate in the old capital. As a young child he was often quiet and weak, so he was given the flower-name "Kiku" (Chrysanthemum) and brought up in a very traditional manner, which did little for his self esteem and made him a polite but difficult boy to handle. Nevertheless, his pure-blooded background, his slender form and girlish youthful looks persisted throughout his childhood and well into his adult years, making him rather popular at his school, where several of the students almost seemed to be battling for his attention. Despite the awkwardness and occasional distraction this implied, he nevertheless grew into a studious, determined young man with a sense of pride an honour, graduating near the top of his class in herbology, potions and charms.
He would have lived the rest of his life in Japan as well, but some major disagreements with his family caused him to deny his inheritance and travel abroad. He says little about his family when asked and though he misses Japan often, he goes back rarely (except on short trips to Tokyo in order to feed his growing obsession with muggle entertainment). His fascination for magical plants led him to pursue an academic research career which took advantage of his slight estrangement, eventually landing him what he thought would be a short but enlightening teaching assistant's job at Hogwarts. He had hoped to write a few more textbooks in Japanese about the less common herbs in the UK and various parts of Europe before moving on, but to his complete surprise however, this foreign land was at once fascinating and full of new things to explore culturally, and after quickly overcoming some slight difficulties with his English (he still stumbles over words sometimes), he proved to be so knowledgeable and competent that accent ceased to be an issue and he became a permanent professor at Hogwarts after his predecessor left. Despite his eccentricities in dress and attitude (especially the occasional reclusion into his office for a week after some mildly embarrassing event upon which he'd simply give assignments out in journals or have to be slowly eased out of his office by his students), he proved to be a strict but capable teacher, turning out enthusiastic students with outstanding OWL and NEWT results.
It was during his early years as a teacher that he met his favorite pupil, Thijs. During his time at Hogwarts, the dutch boy was often at the greenhouses, even outside of class hours, hanging around curiously and fiddling with dangerous flowers. Though Kiku was a little hesitant to allow him free reign among the various plants (after all, the fanged geraniums weren't all that easy to handle--), it was soon obvious that the boy had a talent and that it could be nurtured beyond what was on the syllabus quickly and easily. Despite caring more for the Snargaluffs and Venomous Tentacula than talking Bonsai, they became close friends and formed a tight bond that would later solidify into a working partnership as Professor and Teaching Assistant.
However, the spring before Thijs took up his new job as official assistant, Kiku met an unfortunate accident, the details of which were thus: Having left the greenhouses and in the middle of crossing the grounds, he came across Antonio, who had been herding puffskeins across the grounds. Due to an unfortunate turn of events and quite likely some appealing springtime smell lingering from the plants he had been working with, the puffskeins swarmed Kiku and caused him to trip and fall down a flight of stone stairs, leaving him comatose in the hospital wing for over a week. His crippling embarrassment at the absurdity of the accident (and the amount of time it left him indisposed) has caused him to dislike the spaniard immensely and recluse into his office for weeks on end. While Kiku is happy to write in his journal, give advice or poke his head out of his office occasionally during a class, it's up to Thijs to actively teach most of the classes... or attempt to get his now reclusive professor out of the office and into the actual classroom.
New students will sometimes see a white-clothed "boy" wandering the greenhouses at night and wonder if there's a ghost there they've never met before, but what might look like a scene from out of a Japanese horror movie is simply Kiku being at home with the plants that he likes the most... [diana]
Sample Journal Entry: I have forgotten what day of the week it is.
I am very sorry. Please forgive me.
The mandrakes are often crying in the night and I have re-potted them; I believe it will be some time yet before they are manageable enough to allow the students to handle them. As it is their screams are very piercing, so it may be necessary for you to reschedule the class if you have planned it soon. I am sorry for placing so much responsibility in your hands, Thijs... Old man like me, becoming so forgetful even now...
Thank you so much for handling the classes...
Sample Interaction Post in Third Person:
Kiku blinked his eyes blearily as the sun rose, spilling across his desk and illuminating the notes he'd been writing late into the night before. His research had been coming along well, and his paper on the long-term effects of climactic adaptation on the talking bonsai was nearing completion. It had been almost fifteen years since he started the project, and his favorite specimen, a miniature Sakura tree he liked to call "Yoshimi-san" was bidding him good morning from his desk in clumsy Engrish. The other bonsais in the room stirred and joined in the chorus of greetings.
"おはよう! Good morning sun rises in sky singing!" they burbled happily, "早U御座Imasu control!"
Japan smiled to himself as he conversed with them, switching back into Japanese more for the trees' benefits than his. No matter how much he tried, it was almost impossible to teach the plants to speak proper English, despite the long years he'd been living in this country. It was nice to have someone (or something) to speak his language to, though, and their inability to communicate always made for amusing conversations when Thijs was around... though they more often brought hi great frustration than anything else.
Ah. Speaking of which, Thijs had mentioned that there might have been a morning class....
A crushing sense of horror and guilt filled him. He didn't know what time it was, but the fading noise in the Greenhouse attached to his office told him that the class had finished.
Crossing the bonsai-filled room as quietly as possible, he opened the door to the greenhouse just a crack. Sure enough, Thijs was alone in the room, clearing clippings and taking care of the general post-class disorder. Opening it a little wider, he cleared his throat.
"T..Thijs? Mr. Ver Tulpen-san....?" He mumbled, stringing his assistant's names together in a mix of guilty English and Japanese "I'm so sorry, again I slept in during a class....."