[OOC: Sanctum Application]
Player Information:
Name: Val
Age: 24
Contact info: lanoyee on LJ,Kikoujutsuka on AIM and plurk.
Characters currently played atSanctum, if any: N/A
Character Information:
Name: Asano Rin
Canon: Blade of the Immortal(manga); Kannagara (LJRP)
Canon point: Vol. 17/18, afterwashing ashore with Dōa.
Age: Eighteen as of Kannagara.
Appearance: Rin is small andslender of stature, coming up to maybe 1.55m/5', has pale, rosy skinand straight black hair which is cut long with a fringe and mostoften worn in two braids adorned with large rings at the end. Eachring is hollow; one contains poison pellets, the other a generalantidote. Her face is round, as are her large brown eyes. She isfine-boned and moderately developped; she would have an hourglassfigure if she were more curvy in general. On her body, she hasseveral scars; a large vertical scar on her abdomen, and anothe largehorizontal one on her ribcage which she received in Kannagara; aswell as a lot of smaller scars. Her hands are calloused from work.
She is always seen in the same outfit;a bright red kimono with a darker red collar and blue flames, tiedwith a yellow obi, atop a dark red underskirt. She wears differentshoes for different occasions. Beneath her clothes, she carries abouttwenty small knives on her. She also usually carries a bag, throughwhich a beautifully carved sword is slung.
Background: Onceupon a time in Edo (modern Tōkyō), Japan, late 18thcentury...
Originally, Rincomes from a pretty well-established samurai family, her fatherhaving been the head of a sword school, the Muten-ichi-ryū. Thiscomfortable life, however, ended on the night of her fourteenthbirthday, when Anotsu Kagehisa and his gang, the Ittō-ryū, showedup at their doorstep and, after already having killed all students ofthe school, had her father killed and her mother brutally raped, allin Rin’s presence. The reason for this was an old feud betweentheir grandfathers as well as Anotsu’s goal of reviving his idea ofa true warrior’s spirit by forcefully taking over other dōjōs.Rin herself got away physically unharmed, but her psychologicalwounds were deep and she swore revenge on Anotsu Kagehisa.
Twoyears later, she meets an old nun who recommends her to hire Manji,an immortal rōnin, as a bodyguard, which Rin manages to do, aftersome initial troubles with Manji. From then on, the unlikely pairrepeatedly runs into Ittō-ryū fighters, among them the man whokilled Rin’s father, a young man named Magatsu Taito who’d beenpresent at Rin’s unusual birthday party and carries a sword thatbelonged to Rin’s father, an immortal like Manji, a female swordfighter named Makie who is close to Anotsu, and the man who rapedRin’s mother. They kill all of them except for Magatsu, from whomthey get the sword back, which will from now on be Rin’s weapon;and Makie, who would have killed Manji if not for Rin’sintervention.
Afterthat, they get an offer from Mugai-ryū, a mysterious organizationwith ties to the government, for teamwork in finding Anotsu Kagehisa.They accept reluctantly and are told by the Mugai-ryū that Anotsuwill be leaving Edo for the Kaga province soon - in the disguise of awoman, no less. Seeing as Anotsu, according to their information, issending out several decoys as bait, the group splits up, hoping tocatch the real deal that way. Rin is paired up with Shira, whose truenature she has to find out the hard way when he tortures the decoytroupe they’d been following and nearly rapes the woman whoimpersonates Anotsu. The woman is saved from that by the arrival ofManji, who cuts Shira’s arm off. All of them are discovered bypassersby, at which point Shira flees.
Not much later,Rin decides to go to Kaga by herself, as Manji, being a wantedcriminal, cannot leave Edo. On the way, she quickly finds out thatshe is wanted now, too - someone had reported her and Manji for themurder of two merchants, probably Shira. Subsequently, Rin pleadswith a woman working at the inn they’d been staying at and getsherself a disguise. From then on, she begins the trip to Kaga. At theKobotoke turnpike, she has to take the high risk of disguisingherself as a local inn owner’s relative - as a wanted criminal, shecan’t get a permission to pass the turnpike, and if she is foundout, it will cost her her head. She manages to get through andcontinues on her journey, being robbed due to naivete in the process.Eventually, she makes it, but collapses in the forest, and is foundby none other than Anotsu Kagehisa himself.
She decides tofollow him and they spend a time traveling together, trying to escapeAnotsu’s followers all the while, as he has been betrayed by thegovernment and the sword school which he’d made a pact with. Rin ishoping to kill him while he’s asleep or otherwise off guard, butinstead ends up carrying him around when he falls ill with tetanus.When caught by his followers, she surrenders, not wanting to betortured for her enemy’s sake, and leads them to his hiding place.A grand showdown follows, including Manji, who’d followed Rin andfinally caught up. It ends with Anotsu winning, his followersdestroyed, and Rin giving him a promise that one day, she’ll cometo kill him.
Backin Edo, life goes on peacefully until Manji has an interlude, firstwith Giichi, then with some Ittō-ryū, among them Magatsu. It endswell, though, with Manji, Giichi and Magatsu all alive.
Afterthat, however, Manji is invited to the house of Habaki Kagimura,leader of the nigh disbanded Mugai-ryū and also the governmentofficial invested in the pursuit of Anotsu Kagehisa. He does notreturn from this visit, and Rin worries. She moves from the hutthey’d been living in back to her home dōjō, thinking it will besafer there. The night she moves in, she gets a visit from twoIttō-ryū fighters, Dōa and Isaku, who’d been hoping for a placeto spend the night. After a short scuffle, she grants them shelter,and they life at her place for a while. When they have a run-in withthe police due to some trouble Dōa caused earlier, Isaku is takenaway, too, and the girls team up to find their men.
» It is after Isaku is taken away and the girls wash up on theshore that Rin arrived in Kannagara.
Previous Game History: Rinarrived in Kannagara in February, 2010. At first, she lived alone inthe village of Raisato and eked out a living with the spareprovisions available to her. Later, Kuchiki Rukia moved in with herfor a while, but was killed during Nightmare Week. After that, Rinfled Raisato with the aid of Pain and Yukari and stayed in Tsuchisatofor a while and brought Rukia there after she was revived. She wasturned into a child for a few days there, during which the Jokersnatched her and, for the following days, tortured and finally killedher. A group of people came to her rescue, but was too late. Once sherevived, she went to stay with Rukia in Hisato, soon after which sheleft in order to meet up with a group of people who wanted to gosearch and try to contact the gods. She stayed with these people onBalthier's airship for a while. Once that was done, she settled downin Tsuchisato again for a while with Marco. That didn't last long,however, as they were turned out to the streets with the suddenappearance of a native population. They went to stay at the ryokan inHisato, and after a while got their own home. A while later, Marcowas killed by Gau and the deity Ame-no-Uzume made an appearance.After this, Rin left Kannagara.
She returned in September 2010 with norecollection of ever having left, and went back to live with Marco.Soon, she made friends with Iskierka, a dragon, and became her crewmember. The two occasionally took jobs protecting caravans on thedangerous roads outside the villages. Rin also went on asoul-searching journey across the different shrines and temples ofthe world and got to talk to Ame-no-Uzume, who informed her thatwhile she was in Kannagara, another self back home lived on there aswell. She was separated from Marco once more during the secondNightmare Week and stayed mostly with Iskierka. In a moment ofsolitude, she was attacked by Kanda Yu, but rescued by Iskierka. Awhile later, during a birthday party, she questioned her friend Gauabout his murder of Marco and made up with him. Things continued onpeacefully until tensions with the natives escalated. Lelouch waskilled, with Rin taking part in the failed rescue, and several peoplewere taken prisoner, Marco among them. Rin organized with fellowoutsiders and together, they broke all the prisoners out. Since then,they have taken refuge in Mizusato, where the natives are morewelcoming toward the outsiders. She has also become part in anorganized effort to welcome newcomers and provide them withinformation. Her bodyguard, Manji, spent some time in Kannagara,which forced Rin to face how much she'd really changed, how herpriorities changed, for suddenly, she didn't feel very close toManji, previously her most important person, at all. She realized shehad „settled in“ there, made herself at home. Indeed, she hadeven acquired the morphing ability from Marco's mentor, Elfangor.
After both Manji and Marco had leftKannagara, Rin lived by herself for a little while, trying to come togrips with her losses. Somewhat recently, she has moved in with herfriends Raikou and Gau in their new home above Gau's bakery, thoughthey have essentially left Kannagara soon after, which forces her toregroup a little. She still welcomes newcomers sometimes, though notas much. All in all, she's come to view her life in Kannagara as anexistence that is separated from her life at home and lives it assuch. Confusion ensues when the two intermingle, which is morefrequently than she'd like, but she feels it is easiest to keep themseparate in her mind. When things get not so clear, she deals with iton a case-by-case basis. Kannagara also has been known to challengeher concept of reality itself and force her to reevaluate it. Mostly,she clings to her preconceived notions of what is real, with adisclaimer of „anything is possible around here“.
Personality: Rin is a veryaverage sort of girl. If you were to make casual acquaintance withher, you'd see a youthful teenage girl; cheerful and expressive, softand easily hurt, eager to be polite but quick of temper. Altogether abit reserved and perhaps not always quite there,but always friendly and helpful.
And that is her whole dilemma. Beingtangled up in a world that is entrenched, nay, definedby blood, violence and pure skill with the sword, being average andfemale is not conductive to a whole lot of things.
It isnot conductive to self esteem. Having never received serious traininggrowing up and not possessing an extraordinary amount of naturaltalent, Rin is years behind everyone else. Not just that, she wasn'traised to carry the attitudeof a warrior. By the standards of the people she hangs with, she istoo soft, too emotional, too prone to openly show when she is afraidor hurt. Viewed like this, it is easy to term her as weak. It's truethat she is not onlyemotional, but very sensitive in general. She cries at the drop of ahat, both for herself and other people. She has to throw up whenpresented with gruesome sights and gets height sick. However, thereis always a but tothese things, and the but is context. While she cries a lot, thatnever keeps her off her track for long. The most impressivedemonstration of this is during a scene after the canon-point I'mtaking her from; she and Dōahave fought their way through a horde of zombies in an undergroundprison in the search for their respective men. They are completelyexhausted, Rin even more so than Dōa. Going along a tunnel, theysoon come to a greater cavern. The whole space is full of people cutin half. Rin, at this point, expresses honest regret, evendevastation for these people's fate, and while Dōa discovers thather man is among them and stays behind, Rin then picks herself up andgoes on to continue fighting her way through the prison.
Becauseif there is one thing Rin is, it's tough.Easy to bend, but extremely hard to break. She keeps enduring andeven fighting back even though her life has uniformly sucked sinceher fourteenth birthday.
Oh,she likes to complain about it. She likes to get a little woeis meon. And she is very, very bitter. Not to mention angry. Initially,anger, hate and bitterness against her tormentors fill her to thebrim; to the point that a complete stranger (albeit an... unusuallyold one, namely a nun of 800 years) remarks that there is bloodlustplain in her eyes. Certainly, Rin is no stranger to bloodlust.Therein lies another of her conflict: because, make no mistake, shewants those men dead,and she will stand for no one but herself, or her very immediateproxy of a personally hired bodyguard, to do the deed. Why aconflict, then? Because Rin is also just so very, fundamentally nice.She abhors killing, has a keen sense of its wrongness and if it'sanyone but a person who directly caused her grave harm (in whichsense no mercy will be had), will express sympathy for their demise.Indeed, she is so very nice that she even lets an opportunity to killthe very man who made her trauma happen slip by when he is sick withtetanus. She is the most humane of (wannabe) killers. Because ofthis, she has to evaluate her stance on the manner at pretty muchevery instance that it happens, weighing out all the factors anddeciding whether she can justify it to herself.
Notethat she is astoundingly good at justifying things to herselfsometimes. While she can be altruistic in certain instances, such asrisking her own life for others, sometimes strangers - she can alsobe deeply selfish. If she really wants something, she will generallynot shy away from taking whatever action is required to get there,and sometimes she does use shadier methods of doing so. She can bequite mercenary in her approach to things and people, considering howthey can be of useto her.
Selectively Applied morals, baby.
She does display a certain difficulty in truly dealingwith the consequences of her actions. There is a tendency to guilttrip and to let that cloud her judgement. While she can superficiallyacknowledge a grievous wrongdoing, truly facing it and dealing withit in a proper manner comes hard to her. Her brain will work aroundthis in odd ways, such as offering part of herself up as a sacrificeor making excuses for horrible people in lieu of dealing with killinga marginally less horrible person (with much more devastatingresults).
With great sensitivity comes a certain level of intelligence, so onesometimes hears, and this is certainly the case here. Rin is nogenius and her education is, while probably among the best a girl ather time and of her status could get, not that of a scholar. But shehas a complex way of viewing the world, usually consideringperspectives other than her own and different factors of a matter.She is good at figuring things out and also clever and resourceful,coming up with innovative solutions to her problems, such as carryingmedicine and poison in her hair rings, of all places. Both thesequalities tend to get greatly hampered by her impulsivity. Rin has atendency to get carried away by her emotions and her momentum, thusoften foregoing a more logical approach of things in favor ofinstinctual reactions; not seldomly to her detriment and failure, asshe does not have the physical strength to allow her to neglectacting logically.
Butshe does it time and time again, and is not even deterred by fear. Itis not that she does not have fear, for it is an old companion ofhers; fears and terror and every flavor in between. Yet one couldoften describe her behavior as fearless. Or perhaps, it is that sheoften acts without really considering danger. She is aware of it, butshe'll discard it as a negligible factor, and she has a certainability to cast it aside. Especially when faced with life-or-deathsituations, she may well experience terror, but she tends to then putit away and slip into a different state of awareness in which she isextremely calm and focused on playing her cards out right.
She definitely has an obsessive streak, considering how shepractically latched onto her revenge as something that drives her inlife, and just how very much and to what lengths she is driven by it,going so far as to risk her life in her pursuit of her Anotsu, evenwhen she might as well have waited for his return to Edo. She takesno detours; indeed she has a general tendency to approach things verydirectly. It is only after gaining a bit more experience that shegains a bit of a feeling for when it is better to bide her time andassemble a more thorough plan.
While more of a reactive sort, in that most of what she does iscaused by an outside trigger, she is quite proactive, never stayingidle for long. She's a problem-solver as well as someone who likes tohave something to busy herself with.
Socially speaking, she likes being around people. Mostly because sheabhors being alone. At the same time, she is somewhat reserved andrarely approaches new people unless they are shoved or shovethemselves into her life. Both of these things can be accredited to acertain extent to her experiences, namely the death of her parentsand its consequences. Being alone in the house of her birth of twoyears likely played a big role in her distaste for lonesomeness,while her reticence in making new connections probably has a lot todo with the fact in how she relates to the world: thanks to herexperience and her vendetta, she sees herself as somewhat separatefrom the rest of society. In her mind, she occupies an entirelydifferent world than most people around her. And she's stuck in therefor as long as her vendetta goes on. Her vendetta is what she definesherself by; or rather, she defines herself by her attachment to herparents. Before they died, her definition was likely consistingentirely of being their child. With her parents gone, this is not anoption anymore, but in a way, she clings to it by way of her thirstfor vengeance. This may well be a reason for why she hasn't killedAnotsu yet. She does want closure, but she needs to be ready for it.It is a journey of the self, and to Rin, the symbol of hertransitioning to adulthood, to becoming an independent human being ofher own. It's a stand-in, even. Putting an end to her vendetta, inwhatever way, means fully becoming an adult and leaving childhoodbehind.
Note that her attachment to Manji also increasingly becomes animportant factor in her life, one of the main motivations for heractions and part of her self-image as well.
Sexuality: In canon, Rin onlyever expresses open sexual interest in one person, a man. Thus, forall intents and purposes, she is presented as heterosexual. InKannagara, she equally has only crushed on men so far. I'm using„crushed“ here as practically synonymous with sexual attractionbecause for Rin, sexual attraction is very much linked to theemotional connection she feels to a person. While she is definitelysexually inclined and, I think, capable of casual sexual attraction,we never see her entertain such thoughts or display the accordingbehavior, and thus I find it to be negligible; at least as far as hercurrent situation goes - I don't think she's had much access toproper sexual education, and as such I think an environment likeSanctum's is going to change things.
While historically, Japanese society inthe time-period Rin hails from, the late 18th century,seems to have been relatively open to homosexuality, female as wellas male, in Blade of the Immortal, this seems to not be the case. Amale character once insinuates another male character might be gay;this is intended and received as an insult. One might consider thishaving to do with class reasons, as neither appear to be from thesamurai class; however, I find it much more plausible that this islikely an instance where the author of the manga has chosen torepresent present-day values and mores, rather thanperiod-appropriate ones. Blade of the Immortal does have itsanachronisms, so this is not really a surprise.
Taking this into account, as well asRin's status as a samurai's daughter, as which she would have beenraised to be a samurai's wife, I theorize that while she was probablyquite aware of homosexuality in itself, she did not considerattraction to another woman as a option at home. In Kannagara, shehas not considered it for herself, but had several(male) friends in homosexual relationships and is thus quite used tothe concept itself by now.
All in all, I would say that, if sheconsciously identifies as anything, it's heterosexual, but couldexperience attraction to people independently of sex or gender,provided the emotional connection is there.
She does sometimesdisplay surprising sexual overtness in the series, though. Betweenher and Manji, she is the one who makes any advances at all,and there is that scene in which she asks him about his masturbationpractices. She then reports it was Hyakurin who told her to ask this,indicating it was not her own idea, but she did go through with it.This is in line with her general brashness and impulsivity.
I imagine her as taking a while to warmup to Sanctum's sexual side, but once the initial shock is gottenover, she is likely to be quite curious and start actively engagingwith it, seeking out knowledge and maybe even coming to wish toexperiment with other characters. But that's what I'll be there tofind out.
Skills and Powers: Mostlybingeing on sweets and being cute as a button - I mean.
Okay, Rin isn't somuch with the physical prowess. Nor with the handling a sword.Instead, her strength lies in her brain, in that she is bothintelligent and good at putting two and two together, as well asclever, able to come up with solutions on the spot and in a pinch.
Furthermore,she has great assets in skills of the social variety; perhaps hergreatest strength being her knowledge of people. She has an intrinsicability to readpeople, to figure out what makes them tick, and, if need be, playthem accordingly. This makes her a good manipulator and a passableactor.
And while she gets scared quite often, Rin has a certain recklessnessabout her that lets her rise above her fear, so to speak, coupledwith a tendency to go completely calm in a life-and-death situation.She is very durable both physically and mentally and seems to have analmost limitless reserve of energy within her.
While her sword skills aren't the best and certainly pale incomparison to all the other fighters in her canon, they arenonetheless above average for a woman of her time.
In Kannagara, she also acquired the ability to morph; that is, toacquire the shape of various animals. It works by „acquiring“ theDNA of the animal, thereby having in her the information of theanimal as its genes intended it to be. When in morph, her instinctswill mostly guide her, so she'll largely know how to behave as saidanimal. Nonetheless, it takes some getting used to. The process ofmorphing from start to finish can take a couple of minutes. While inmorph, she can communicate with other humans via thought-speak. Shecannot stay in one morph any longer than about two hours, or she willnot be able to change back. At present, she has acquired severalmorphs such as dragon, cat, fly, various birds etc.
Items: Rinwill be bringing the clothes she's wearing as well as her sword, aChinese sword that is shaped much like a katana, and her shoulderbag, containing money, a water container, and some other small stuff.
Writing samples: Allsamples do need to be set within Sanctum’s game setting, and give agood idea of how you will play your character in-game!
Action:
[In this video, you can see the face ofa young girl who is visibly excited; the kind where she is keeping itunder control but is evidently ready to go bouncing off walls on theinside.]
So, ah, I was wondering. Has anyonehere ridden a bicycle before? Are you good at it? Does it take a longtime to master? Do you have pointers?
[Yes, she mighthave just asked people on the streets about this, but she's secretlymaybekinda hoping to make this a bonding experience withher friends. Because what better to bond about than BICYCLES.]
And, uhm, I guess I'd need another jobif I want one, that is. A bicycle.
[Paaause, in which she'snot really bouncing up and down, but she might as well be.]
That is all.
[A slight bow of the head,and the feed clicks off.]
Third Person Prose:
A few days after arriving in Sanctumand taking up residence in a small apartment there, Rin startsnoticing that she has a regular visitor. A cat keeps lounging abouther windows and doors. Always the same cat. It's still quite youngand sleek with its spotted coat, and it makes itself ratherimpossible to ignore when one day, as she comes home from going aboutthe city, the kitten greets her at the door, rubbing against her legsand meowing soulfully. “All right, all right,” Rin says then,with a bit of a laugh, and bends down to pet the cat. That evening,she makes sure to put out the parts of her fish she won't be eatingout for the cat to have. She knows she's practically digging her owngrave here, as far as ever having hopes of getting rid of the animalagain, but maybe she doesn't mind so much. It's nice to have company.
That's how it's been going a lotlately, hasn't it? It used to be that she was the one who got takenin by others, but she's been increasingly the one to take in thestrays. Or rather, the one into whose lives the strays invitedthemselves. Funny thing, that. Does it mean she's growing up?Probably, it does. For better or for worse.
Even if she's feeling so much like astray herself right now. Stranded in another unfamiliar world,without familiar faces. At least this one doesn't seem to be sportingany powers-that-be bent on tormenting her and everyone else. Sofar. Still, the thing aboutKannagara was that she could bear it as long as she had her people.
But they've beenleaving anyway, haven't they? Maybe it's just as well, then, that shefinally left, too.
What a pitiful wayof comforting oneself.
She knows that.Knows it's nothing more than pitiful. Everything about it. That sheshould miss Kannagara, that she should miss it so dearly, that sheshould have left it but not returned home. That she's here, now,bonding with a stray cat.
Life just isn'tgetting any better, is it. Well, technically, it hasn't gotten anyworse. It just so happens that she traded some disadvantages forother things that are greater disadvantages to her personally.Tyranny against loneliness and an alarming lack of aim.
Funny,too, how she should feel so out of sorts, useless and empty withoutanything to fight against. It's like fighting is the only way oflife she knows anymore. Which is absurd, for she hasn't really beenfighting for what feels like at least a year, has she?
Butshe's been viewing it, treating it like a fight. If it's not aphysical battle, it's a battle of the mind, a battle against herself,settling into a peaceful routine in a world that was not going togrant her peace of mind for long.
Really,she should relax. She's only been here for a few days, and shedoesn't know much about this world yet. She doesn't have to changeanything about her world view just yet.
Thatshe doesn't really want to is maybe the saddest thing of all.
Shesighs, puts the last dish away and leans out of the window to lookfor the cat. It's gone along somewhere else, it seems.
Plans: So I'm going to befrank: I'm here for the smut. Specifically, I want to explore Rin'ssexuality in a somewhat natural manner, in a game that prompts itmore than a game without a sex-focus would. In addition to that, Iwant to see her react to the environment, to a place where there areno powerful rulers that represent an oppressive kind of force, wherethere's essentially no one to blame for her troubles. I'm alsoexcited to have her react to the different technologies present inSanctum. As the bicycle sample might give away.