→ APPLICATION
Character: Ginko
Series: Mushi-Shi
Deviance: D1
Age: Unknown, but I would imagine his late twenties, possibly early thirties.
Gender: Male.
Species: Human.
Appearance: What comes off as being strange about his appearance is that his hair is pure white despite the fact that he is still a relatively young man. His hair is parted to hide the empty left eye socket while his visible right eye is a bright green. Asides from these points Ginko appears to be a normal human, typically wearing simple clothes that meet the needs for the surrounding weather while carrying a wooden box strapped on his back.
Psychology: For the most part, Ginko comes off as being a fairly laid back sort of person. On nearly every occasion when he travels he just goes with the flow. Sometimes he will ask other travelers if he can join them for a short while or take a boat to a location he has never been to before. Outside of going to see either Adashino or Tanyu, the only times Ginko has a set course in mind is when he is summoned to a village or town to handle a mushi matter.
Otherwise, he tends to keep to himself and smoke his cigars. But whenever someone comes around and strikes up a conversation, he's more than willing to share stories and have a good time. There have been instances where he has shown extreme emotion, but those are rare and few. And those are the times where he knows someone is danger of a mushi or is being blindly ignorant to his own warnings. He stresses over and over again to people that they must co-exist with the mushi and not kill them.
But with the except of his single eye and cropped short white hair, Ginko is just like any other human being with feelings, emotions, memories and a life.
Other Skills/Abilities: Because he is a mushi-master, Ginko has an extensive knowledge of all the known mushi to date, although he knows more about more and less about others. It is this knowledge though that allows him to help people to understand them. This isn't so much an ability as it is a trick, but the cigars that he smokes, the smoke from them keeps mushi away. The smoke itself behaves like a friendly, but very weak, mushi and allows this to happen.
Other Weaknesses: Because of the ginko and tokoyami, Ginko does not have as long of a life expectancy as most humans would. At any time the tokoyami could swallow up his other eye, thus ending his life entirely and become one with the tokoyami. THis is a fact he has come to accept though and feels that this probably won't be happening for at least a few years or so. Also, because he is still human, he is just as susceptible to the mushi's powers as any other person would, despite being a mushi-master.
History: Ever since he was a boy Ginko, although at the time known as Yoki, has always been able to see mushi. Because his mother could not see them she dismissed them to be nothing more than a child's over-active imagination. His mother was all that he had and one day came when, while traveling, a mudslide struck while they were walking along a path. In the aftermath Yoki managed to crawl out from the mud and wreckage only to find that both his mother was dead, crushed beneath the rocks and mud, as well as the fact that now his leg was broken. Helpless and alone, Yoki was at a loss-- he could not walk, he was soaked to the bones and exhausted. It was no surprise that his conscious finally gave way and the boy blacked out.
When he came to he found himself inside of someone's home and under the warmth of blankets. As he looked around he saw a woman with white hair and a single green eye watching over him. Her name was Nui, a mushi-master who lived on her own. She had found Yoki unconscious in the mudslide and took him home where she treated his injury and took care of him. After speaking to him she was a little surprise to hear that he could see the mushi as well. But because she was not one to keep company she told him that he could stay with her until his leg healed.
The place where she had made her home was by a pond that was filled with white fish that also contained one eye each. It was explained to Yoki that it was because these fish were swimming in the pond belonging a mushi known as "tokoyami", creatures that thrive in the shadows and can only come out when night has fallen, their meals consisting of the smaller and weaker mushi they find. What makes these mushi even more peculiar is that within them is yet another type mushi called "ginko". It is the ginko that are the fish swimming in the tokoyami and look the way they do because of repeated exposure to the sunlight.
As time went on Nui agreed to teach Yoki all that she knew about the mushi. He finds out that it the ginko that have taken over Nui, giving her white hair and the sinle green eye, the similar characteristics to that of the fish in the pond. Every day the pair would study the mushi surrounding her home or ones that could be found in the forest, as well as the necessary knowledge to survive in the forest. Under her care the young boy found himself growing more and more attached to her as he eagerly listened to all that she said. It was this eagerness that lead to a change though.
One night he begged for her to let him help her, to help find her family that she had been searching for for six years, but Nui turned hima way and told him never to speak of it again. If he did she would force him to leave. And that night Yoki crawled out of bed and went to the lake, antagonizing the tokoyaki to come out for him to see, in order to learn what Nui was truly hiding from him. It was there that he witnessed the tokoyami devour the second eye of a fish, the fish disintegrated from existence. When Nui found and scolded him she explained to him that whenever someone who is exposed to the ginko, the moment they lose their second eye, the tokoyami consume them and turn them into tokoyami themselves. Faced with this realization Yoki begged even further to stay but Nui turned him away once more. She wanted what was best for him so that he could have a life outside the confines of her own world.
But driving him away does little to save him. When he tried to grab hold of her as the tokoyami finally consumed her, he too became infected by the ginko. With guidance from the lingering existence of Nui, she managed to save him from being consumed by the tokoyami. In exchange for escaping the tokoyami, Yoki had to sacrifice his left eye to the ginko which saved him. When he came to the next morning the boy was discovered by a passing traveler who took him in. It took him a day to recover his health. By the end of that day he noticed that because of what happened he now was attracting the mushi. It was then that he came to the understanding that he could no longer stay in one place for long or call one place home.
And that was how it all began for Yoki who had now taken on the name of Ginko.
Over the years Ginko grew to learn and understand more about the mushi-shi. He came to the conclusion that mushi are not be feared or hunted down-- they were living things just as everyone else, having every right to live. Instead of fearing them it was better to co-exist with the mushi. It was just the way things were so it was better to accept this fact. Now, because of this, Ginko travels wherever he can, sometimes going to places upon request to handle a situation that involves mushi. In the long run he manages to bring things to a fairly peaceful conclusion and will often collect payment in the form of the whatever mushi was involved or artifacts related to them. It is there in the wooden box that he stores them, occasionally selling an item or two to a friend, one Doctor Adashino, who happened to be a collector of mushi-related artifacts. Asides from Adashino, the one other person he would visit on a fairly regular basis was Tanyu. Tanyu is known as the scribe for all mushi-masters. It is part of her family's legacy to keep record of every story a mushi-master tells, to keep as information for the future generations to come.
Canon Point: This is sort of hard to determine due to the over-lapping stories in the series, but I am taking him earlier on the series, around after the fifth episode, "The Traveling Swamp".
Reality Description: Set in Japan, it is unclear, but the time period is somewhere between the Edo and Meiji Era. But in this version of Japan, the country is closed off to foreign exchange and possesses 19th century technology. Villages and towns make up the land where humans live while the mountains and forests are plentiful for the animals and floral to live. And in all of this the mushi thrive. Mushi are basically the very essence of life itself. They cannot be seen by all humans and the ones who can tend to become mushi-masters, those who study these living entities. This is the world Ginko was born into, one that allows him to study and research mushi as he aids those who are having difficulty or suffering because of the mushi.
Series: Mushi-Shi
Deviance: D1
Age: Unknown, but I would imagine his late twenties, possibly early thirties.
Gender: Male.
Species: Human.
Appearance: What comes off as being strange about his appearance is that his hair is pure white despite the fact that he is still a relatively young man. His hair is parted to hide the empty left eye socket while his visible right eye is a bright green. Asides from these points Ginko appears to be a normal human, typically wearing simple clothes that meet the needs for the surrounding weather while carrying a wooden box strapped on his back.
Psychology: For the most part, Ginko comes off as being a fairly laid back sort of person. On nearly every occasion when he travels he just goes with the flow. Sometimes he will ask other travelers if he can join them for a short while or take a boat to a location he has never been to before. Outside of going to see either Adashino or Tanyu, the only times Ginko has a set course in mind is when he is summoned to a village or town to handle a mushi matter.
Otherwise, he tends to keep to himself and smoke his cigars. But whenever someone comes around and strikes up a conversation, he's more than willing to share stories and have a good time. There have been instances where he has shown extreme emotion, but those are rare and few. And those are the times where he knows someone is danger of a mushi or is being blindly ignorant to his own warnings. He stresses over and over again to people that they must co-exist with the mushi and not kill them.
But with the except of his single eye and cropped short white hair, Ginko is just like any other human being with feelings, emotions, memories and a life.
Other Skills/Abilities: Because he is a mushi-master, Ginko has an extensive knowledge of all the known mushi to date, although he knows more about more and less about others. It is this knowledge though that allows him to help people to understand them. This isn't so much an ability as it is a trick, but the cigars that he smokes, the smoke from them keeps mushi away. The smoke itself behaves like a friendly, but very weak, mushi and allows this to happen.
Other Weaknesses: Because of the ginko and tokoyami, Ginko does not have as long of a life expectancy as most humans would. At any time the tokoyami could swallow up his other eye, thus ending his life entirely and become one with the tokoyami. THis is a fact he has come to accept though and feels that this probably won't be happening for at least a few years or so. Also, because he is still human, he is just as susceptible to the mushi's powers as any other person would, despite being a mushi-master.
History: Ever since he was a boy Ginko, although at the time known as Yoki, has always been able to see mushi. Because his mother could not see them she dismissed them to be nothing more than a child's over-active imagination. His mother was all that he had and one day came when, while traveling, a mudslide struck while they were walking along a path. In the aftermath Yoki managed to crawl out from the mud and wreckage only to find that both his mother was dead, crushed beneath the rocks and mud, as well as the fact that now his leg was broken. Helpless and alone, Yoki was at a loss-- he could not walk, he was soaked to the bones and exhausted. It was no surprise that his conscious finally gave way and the boy blacked out.
When he came to he found himself inside of someone's home and under the warmth of blankets. As he looked around he saw a woman with white hair and a single green eye watching over him. Her name was Nui, a mushi-master who lived on her own. She had found Yoki unconscious in the mudslide and took him home where she treated his injury and took care of him. After speaking to him she was a little surprise to hear that he could see the mushi as well. But because she was not one to keep company she told him that he could stay with her until his leg healed.
The place where she had made her home was by a pond that was filled with white fish that also contained one eye each. It was explained to Yoki that it was because these fish were swimming in the pond belonging a mushi known as "tokoyami", creatures that thrive in the shadows and can only come out when night has fallen, their meals consisting of the smaller and weaker mushi they find. What makes these mushi even more peculiar is that within them is yet another type mushi called "ginko". It is the ginko that are the fish swimming in the tokoyami and look the way they do because of repeated exposure to the sunlight.
As time went on Nui agreed to teach Yoki all that she knew about the mushi. He finds out that it the ginko that have taken over Nui, giving her white hair and the sinle green eye, the similar characteristics to that of the fish in the pond. Every day the pair would study the mushi surrounding her home or ones that could be found in the forest, as well as the necessary knowledge to survive in the forest. Under her care the young boy found himself growing more and more attached to her as he eagerly listened to all that she said. It was this eagerness that lead to a change though.
One night he begged for her to let him help her, to help find her family that she had been searching for for six years, but Nui turned hima way and told him never to speak of it again. If he did she would force him to leave. And that night Yoki crawled out of bed and went to the lake, antagonizing the tokoyaki to come out for him to see, in order to learn what Nui was truly hiding from him. It was there that he witnessed the tokoyami devour the second eye of a fish, the fish disintegrated from existence. When Nui found and scolded him she explained to him that whenever someone who is exposed to the ginko, the moment they lose their second eye, the tokoyami consume them and turn them into tokoyami themselves. Faced with this realization Yoki begged even further to stay but Nui turned him away once more. She wanted what was best for him so that he could have a life outside the confines of her own world.
But driving him away does little to save him. When he tried to grab hold of her as the tokoyami finally consumed her, he too became infected by the ginko. With guidance from the lingering existence of Nui, she managed to save him from being consumed by the tokoyami. In exchange for escaping the tokoyami, Yoki had to sacrifice his left eye to the ginko which saved him. When he came to the next morning the boy was discovered by a passing traveler who took him in. It took him a day to recover his health. By the end of that day he noticed that because of what happened he now was attracting the mushi. It was then that he came to the understanding that he could no longer stay in one place for long or call one place home.
And that was how it all began for Yoki who had now taken on the name of Ginko.
Over the years Ginko grew to learn and understand more about the mushi-shi. He came to the conclusion that mushi are not be feared or hunted down-- they were living things just as everyone else, having every right to live. Instead of fearing them it was better to co-exist with the mushi. It was just the way things were so it was better to accept this fact. Now, because of this, Ginko travels wherever he can, sometimes going to places upon request to handle a situation that involves mushi. In the long run he manages to bring things to a fairly peaceful conclusion and will often collect payment in the form of the whatever mushi was involved or artifacts related to them. It is there in the wooden box that he stores them, occasionally selling an item or two to a friend, one Doctor Adashino, who happened to be a collector of mushi-related artifacts. Asides from Adashino, the one other person he would visit on a fairly regular basis was Tanyu. Tanyu is known as the scribe for all mushi-masters. It is part of her family's legacy to keep record of every story a mushi-master tells, to keep as information for the future generations to come.
Canon Point: This is sort of hard to determine due to the over-lapping stories in the series, but I am taking him earlier on the series, around after the fifth episode, "The Traveling Swamp".
Reality Description: Set in Japan, it is unclear, but the time period is somewhere between the Edo and Meiji Era. But in this version of Japan, the country is closed off to foreign exchange and possesses 19th century technology. Villages and towns make up the land where humans live while the mountains and forests are plentiful for the animals and floral to live. And in all of this the mushi thrive. Mushi are basically the very essence of life itself. They cannot be seen by all humans and the ones who can tend to become mushi-masters, those who study these living entities. This is the world Ginko was born into, one that allows him to study and research mushi as he aids those who are having difficulty or suffering because of the mushi.