(asgardeventide) character info/permissions.
OOC Information;
Name; Sammich
Personal Journal; hezul
Contact; melodyoflogic @ gmail, estamir @ plurk
Other Characters; n/a
IC Information;
Character Name; Hanbei Takenaka. (However, he's likely to introduce himself in eastern order, as Takenaka Hanbei.)
Canon; Samurai Warriors
Canon Point; Directly following the battle of Arioka Castle.
Age; Thirtyish, but looks maybe fourteen or fifteen. Canon is silly.
House; Odin
Power; ice magic
History; ...he's historical!
In short: Hanbei is a samurai and one of the primary strategists and advisors serving under Hideyoshi, one of Japan's three unifiers from the Sengoku period. He used to serve the Saitō clan, but his then-lord Tatsuoki was so incompetent he basically said "fuck this shit" and went to become a hermit until Hideyoshi convinced him to come work for him.
He kicked a whole lot of ass for Hideyoshi (and thus by extension, for Nobunaga, who Hideyoshi still served during his lifetime), but at his current canon point, he is getting very close to his historical death from illness, and he is quite aware that his days are numbered.
Personality; Hanbei is a genius, although he's not necessarily the kind of genius people are expecting when they first meet him. His appearance tends to throw people off, as he looks maybe half of his true age, and it often leads people to write him off as a child - though as he himself might be the first to point out, they really shouldn't assume too much, because there's much more to him than meets the eye.
Of course, he doesn't always do the best job of dispelling any illusions about his age with his behavior. He has a mischievous streak and tends to act a bit more playfully than one might expect a samurai aged thirtyish to act, which just feeds into the misconceptions about his age that his looks promote. He's cheerful, sarcastic, and not above pranks or taking subtle digs at even his own allies; there's an event in SWC where he tells his somewhat dim colleague Masanori that the secret of his intelligence is actually a magic helmet, which Masanori can have when he dies. When he relates this story to other characters, it's punctuated with a lot of "isn't that ADORABLE?" every time he mentions Masanori saying something particularly stupid. So...his playful streak can kind of cross the line into just being a dick sometimes.
There's a lot more depth to him than just being a cheerful troll, however. Although he doesn't tend to give off the impression that he's very serious (and he can frequently be spotting napping, which makes him seem rather lazy besides), Hanbei is deeply committed to his job - one of the chief strategists serving under Hideyoshi Toyotomi - and takes the value of human life very seriously. He confesses at one point that for every battle he plans, he runs through it in his head thousands of times, trying to figure out the best way to reduce the casualties, and that he looks "lazy" because he's compensating for overtaxing his brain (although the fact that he is terminally ill probably also has something to do with that). Although he's usually very composed, the one time he's ever shown losing his temper in canon is when he confronts Nobunaga about treating the lives of all of his men as completely expendable. Hanbei's job puts him in a position where he has to send a lot of people to their deaths, but he takes it deathly seriously and does everything in his power to keep as many people alive as possible, and he's very conscious of the weight of those lives, to the point where he lets it wear on him a bit too much sometimes.
Aside from that, he is ill and dying from it (his death is shortly after his current canon point); specifics aren't given in his canon but the usual historical assumption is that he has tuberculosis. He is pretty clearly aware of his own mortality and is generally calm about it when it comes up; he doesn't really engage in self-pity about his condition. He tends to downplay it when asked (he brushes off concerns from other characters, and in the battle before he dies in SW3, he simply says that he's "a bit under the weather"), but it's presumably been bad enough that the writing has been on the wall for a long time - he has some pretty bad convulsions in one of his scenes that takes place some four years before his death, and Nobunaga, at least, has noticed by this point that he's very close to dying, so it's something he's been living with for years. But he ignores it when his own lord suggests he should get off the battlefield and rest up, insisting that he's fine - and saying that he would prefer to die on the battlefield anyway. (In a couple of the alternate story paths in SW3, where the player can kill him rather than him dying from his illness, he actually thanks whoever strikes him down for giving him an honorable battlefield death.) So while he is calm about his fate, he has some well-buried issues with it, and although he can be somewhat critical of bushido and the way it leads some other characters to throw away their lives (this comes up in particular when he deals with Nagamasa), he ultimately wants that honorable samurai death for himself, rather than a pointless one in a sickbed.
Overall, while Hanbei comes across as rather composed and perhaps a bit detached, his own impending mortality and the demands of his position as a strategist have left him intensely aware of the value of life and death, and that guides his thoughts and actions to a far greater extent than he makes obvious. He looks for other ways around things, he aims to avoid wholesale slaughter, and he prefers to negotiate, build alliances, force defections, and use whatever other methods he can to settle a battle without it coming to throwing soldiers at each other and seeing who runs out first. He is highly intelligent and very driven, despite his eccentricities, and he's not above taking advantage of his rather deceptive appearance to deflect attention and keep people from paying attention to his issues (which he would prefer to remain HIS issues and not the business of everyone who passes by). With as cheerful and breezy an attitude as he shows to most people, it's easy to overlook just how serious he can be underneath that smartass exterior - which is fine, because that's just the way he seems to like it.
Permissions;
Physical Stuff; No need to ask me about anything short of major bodily harm - however, Hanbei is pretty fast and has good reflexes, so if it's something he might try to avoid, it may be better to ping me and check!
Powers; Please drop me a line before nailing him with anything. Odds are good I'll be cool with it, but I'd like to be sure we're on the same page.
Fourth-Walling; Absolutely fine, you never need to ask! His name is reasonably recognizable to anyone familiar with sixteenth-century Japanese history.
Noticing Stuff; As noted in his info above, Hanbei is terminally ill! He is very practiced at hiding it, but he is late stage enough that I expect he can't hide it from everyone. Very observant characters or people who are around him a lot will probably be able to pick up on it (and of course, if it's anyone who recognizes him from history, they've got a jump start at knowing about it). It might slip past less observant characters or people he's only talked to once or twice, though. You don't have to ask me before having someone notice; please just be reasonable about whether they really would!
Name; Sammich
Personal Journal; hezul
Contact; melodyoflogic @ gmail, estamir @ plurk
Other Characters; n/a
IC Information;
Character Name; Hanbei Takenaka. (However, he's likely to introduce himself in eastern order, as Takenaka Hanbei.)
Canon; Samurai Warriors
Canon Point; Directly following the battle of Arioka Castle.
Age; Thirtyish, but looks maybe fourteen or fifteen. Canon is silly.
House; Odin
Power; ice magic
History; ...he's historical!
In short: Hanbei is a samurai and one of the primary strategists and advisors serving under Hideyoshi, one of Japan's three unifiers from the Sengoku period. He used to serve the Saitō clan, but his then-lord Tatsuoki was so incompetent he basically said "fuck this shit" and went to become a hermit until Hideyoshi convinced him to come work for him.
He kicked a whole lot of ass for Hideyoshi (and thus by extension, for Nobunaga, who Hideyoshi still served during his lifetime), but at his current canon point, he is getting very close to his historical death from illness, and he is quite aware that his days are numbered.
Personality; Hanbei is a genius, although he's not necessarily the kind of genius people are expecting when they first meet him. His appearance tends to throw people off, as he looks maybe half of his true age, and it often leads people to write him off as a child - though as he himself might be the first to point out, they really shouldn't assume too much, because there's much more to him than meets the eye.
Of course, he doesn't always do the best job of dispelling any illusions about his age with his behavior. He has a mischievous streak and tends to act a bit more playfully than one might expect a samurai aged thirtyish to act, which just feeds into the misconceptions about his age that his looks promote. He's cheerful, sarcastic, and not above pranks or taking subtle digs at even his own allies; there's an event in SWC where he tells his somewhat dim colleague Masanori that the secret of his intelligence is actually a magic helmet, which Masanori can have when he dies. When he relates this story to other characters, it's punctuated with a lot of "isn't that ADORABLE?" every time he mentions Masanori saying something particularly stupid. So...his playful streak can kind of cross the line into just being a dick sometimes.
There's a lot more depth to him than just being a cheerful troll, however. Although he doesn't tend to give off the impression that he's very serious (and he can frequently be spotting napping, which makes him seem rather lazy besides), Hanbei is deeply committed to his job - one of the chief strategists serving under Hideyoshi Toyotomi - and takes the value of human life very seriously. He confesses at one point that for every battle he plans, he runs through it in his head thousands of times, trying to figure out the best way to reduce the casualties, and that he looks "lazy" because he's compensating for overtaxing his brain (although the fact that he is terminally ill probably also has something to do with that). Although he's usually very composed, the one time he's ever shown losing his temper in canon is when he confronts Nobunaga about treating the lives of all of his men as completely expendable. Hanbei's job puts him in a position where he has to send a lot of people to their deaths, but he takes it deathly seriously and does everything in his power to keep as many people alive as possible, and he's very conscious of the weight of those lives, to the point where he lets it wear on him a bit too much sometimes.
Aside from that, he is ill and dying from it (his death is shortly after his current canon point); specifics aren't given in his canon but the usual historical assumption is that he has tuberculosis. He is pretty clearly aware of his own mortality and is generally calm about it when it comes up; he doesn't really engage in self-pity about his condition. He tends to downplay it when asked (he brushes off concerns from other characters, and in the battle before he dies in SW3, he simply says that he's "a bit under the weather"), but it's presumably been bad enough that the writing has been on the wall for a long time - he has some pretty bad convulsions in one of his scenes that takes place some four years before his death, and Nobunaga, at least, has noticed by this point that he's very close to dying, so it's something he's been living with for years. But he ignores it when his own lord suggests he should get off the battlefield and rest up, insisting that he's fine - and saying that he would prefer to die on the battlefield anyway. (In a couple of the alternate story paths in SW3, where the player can kill him rather than him dying from his illness, he actually thanks whoever strikes him down for giving him an honorable battlefield death.) So while he is calm about his fate, he has some well-buried issues with it, and although he can be somewhat critical of bushido and the way it leads some other characters to throw away their lives (this comes up in particular when he deals with Nagamasa), he ultimately wants that honorable samurai death for himself, rather than a pointless one in a sickbed.
Overall, while Hanbei comes across as rather composed and perhaps a bit detached, his own impending mortality and the demands of his position as a strategist have left him intensely aware of the value of life and death, and that guides his thoughts and actions to a far greater extent than he makes obvious. He looks for other ways around things, he aims to avoid wholesale slaughter, and he prefers to negotiate, build alliances, force defections, and use whatever other methods he can to settle a battle without it coming to throwing soldiers at each other and seeing who runs out first. He is highly intelligent and very driven, despite his eccentricities, and he's not above taking advantage of his rather deceptive appearance to deflect attention and keep people from paying attention to his issues (which he would prefer to remain HIS issues and not the business of everyone who passes by). With as cheerful and breezy an attitude as he shows to most people, it's easy to overlook just how serious he can be underneath that smartass exterior - which is fine, because that's just the way he seems to like it.
Permissions;
Physical Stuff; No need to ask me about anything short of major bodily harm - however, Hanbei is pretty fast and has good reflexes, so if it's something he might try to avoid, it may be better to ping me and check!
Powers; Please drop me a line before nailing him with anything. Odds are good I'll be cool with it, but I'd like to be sure we're on the same page.
Fourth-Walling; Absolutely fine, you never need to ask! His name is reasonably recognizable to anyone familiar with sixteenth-century Japanese history.
Noticing Stuff; As noted in his info above, Hanbei is terminally ill! He is very practiced at hiding it, but he is late stage enough that I expect he can't hide it from everyone. Very observant characters or people who are around him a lot will probably be able to pick up on it (and of course, if it's anyone who recognizes him from history, they've got a jump start at knowing about it). It might slip past less observant characters or people he's only talked to once or twice, though. You don't have to ask me before having someone notice; please just be reasonable about whether they really would!