[ooc] xx1. application
Mun alias: Matcha.
E-mail: matchazuki@gmail.com
Messenger name: AIM=matcha chawan.
Previous RP experience (if any): TL;DR. 8D
Character's full name: Shiro.
Series: Kimi no Kakera.
Gender: Male.
Age: Undefined, appears 13 to 15.
Personality: Shiro is a 'hitogata'--a child lacking one of the four main human emotions: 'joy, anger, pathos, humor'. In his case, he lacks 'pathos'. Shiro cannot feel physical pain, cannot empathize with others' pain or pity them, and cannot shed tears. However, this is not to say that he cannot feel sadness or emotional pain--he simply has no way to outwardly express such emotions. The only way he can express anguish is to turn to those around them and ask for their help in how to shed tears. Because he lacks the capacity to pity, he does not pity himself, no matter how pitiful and tragic his situation.
However, Shiro's usual disposition is that of 'joy'. He is simple-minded, honest, and happy--blissfully, hyperactively happy. He has a tendency to ramble inanely, even to himself when alone, and has a curious, inquisitive nature that sometimes seems ridiculous. Shiro has a hard time thinking about deep things and is more impulsive than insightful--he prefers action to thought and planning, often running into dangerous situations on a 'feeling' or 'beliefs' that may or not prove correct. Shiro would rather do something, even if that 'something' proves to be fruitless or useless, than to sit around, doing nothing and being afraid. After all, if he's wrong, he believes he can always try again.
Shiro's innocence almost seems absurd and is only spurred further by the fact that he is extremely forgetful. He forgets all kinds of explicit memory--his personal experiences, people he knew, definitions of nouns, even his own name. The only things he seems to not forget are motor skills, certain phrases that he repeats whenever he finds his mind 'empty', and that he should be searching for something--regardless of what that something is--in order to hold onto his sense of self. Ironically enough, the two things he decided to search for--the hitogata and the sun--were both things he could have found easily if he only knew who and what he was.
However, all of this changes when Shiro holds a weapon, particularly swords. When he has a sword in hand, Shiro's world becomes even more black and white--friends, he must protect; foes, he must kill. Mindlessly fighting, Shiro's personality melts away, and he becomes ferociously brutal, seeming to enjoy the pain he inflicts upon his enemies. However, this state is what wipes his memories clean--sometimes even during a battle, if he is at any time disarmed during the fight, Shiro will suddenly forget everything, including his reason for fighting to begin with and how to properly use a sword.
It is clear that Shiro fears battle and the feeling of emptiness it leaves him with. Though he yearns to remember things, he is, more often than not, unable to fully remember anything, except Princess Icoro, who he forgets often and sometimes has 'feelings' that help remind him of her. Shiro is a loyal friend with a great sense of smell--even over endless snowy wastelands, he can smell the scents of his 'friends' and come to their aid when they need him.
Fairy tale/myth/legend: Kojiki.
Role: Kagutsuchi.
Kingdom territory of origin: Eastern Kingdom.
Adaptation: I know two different versions of the Kagutsuchi portion of the Kojiki and am aiming to take elements from both portions in this adaptation, if that's okay.
The creation gods of the East, Izanagi and Izanami, had many children, and each of these children were deities in turn. They ruled over nature and the individual elements that made up the Eastern territory; however, there was one birth that signified the end of creation, one birth that brought death as well light.
Kagutsuchi, the god of destructive and purifying fire, was born in a sudden and violent flame, severely injuring his mother. In her death throes, Izanami bore three more deities before she passed away and moved on to Yomi, the world of death. Izanagi grieved his beloved wife before his anger turned on his newborn child. Taking the Sword of Ten Grips, Izanagi beheaded the newborn deity, then sliced his soul into two pieces. However, it was not enough to kill the god, and from the ashes of his flame, one half of Kagutsuchi rekindled into the shape of a human boy. Seeing this, Izanagi took pity on his child and instead of trying to kill him again, he chopped up Kagutsuchi's head and other half into nine pieces each and scattered the pieces throughout the world, both as a punishment and a mercy.
Because he only possessed half a soul, the child could not feel pain. Because his godsoul lacked a head, his memories were fleeting--important and unimportant memories alike faded into the void where his mind should have been. He did not know his name was Kagutsuchi; he did not know his nature as a deity. Because his soul was in pieces, so were his emotions. He lacked empathy and could not express his inner pain. Most notably of all, he could not cry. He lived peacefully as an empty vessel searching for something to fill itself with; however, because it was a sword that severed his soul into pieces, whenever Kagutsuchi holds one, his violent and mischievous nature surfaces.
As such, Kagutsuchi was driven away to wander and live as a mortal despite being a deity. Part of him felt that it had to search for something--to search for his missing pieces. However, he could not remember what it was. Shortly after he left the Eastern kingdom, he was found by a man amazed at his innocence. This man--later referred to as his 'grampa'--taught him mantras, sayings that he could remember, or at least, even if his mind remembered them, he said them so much that he retained them out of habit. Among these mantras were several instructions:
1) To ask everyone he met whether they were friends or foes, and to protect his friends and kill his foes.
2) That his grampa was the one who instructed him to do #1. Grampa was the man who found him and raised him.
3) When surrounded by foes, run away.
And other such advices. Kagutsuchi held onto those instructions tightly, regarding them as his only guides in his aimless search. He spent the rest of the old man's life repeating the sayings again and again, until the man died. It was then that he resumed his search, the saying engraved into his mind and leading him in his wanderings. Over his travels, Kagutsuchi had been named many things, and many times, he had forgotten those names. The most recent name is 'Shiro'--given to him by a princess of a snowy kingdom because his hair is white and in the ancient language of her kingdom, 'Shiro' also means 'missing something' or 'piece'.
And from here is where he goes out into Mukashi.
I'm not actually expecting him to find his pieces; after all, he's forgotten he's searching for them, and I'm pretty sure no one would be able to help him remember. But, should he find one on accident, because Izanagi did a good job dicing his soul up, a piece or two would not affect him much. He would be able to find two different kinds of pieces: pieces of his other half and pieces of his head. Pieces of his other half would slowly restore his ability to feel pain, to empathize, etc., the very last being his ability to cry, and pieces of his head would help him to slowly start being able to retain memories.
My reasoning behind associating Shiro with Kagutsuchi is that in canon, Shiro is a weapon created to protect the sun. Humans once tried to harness the sun's power and turn it into an endless power supply, but they were punished for their folly. Many weapons were constructed to keep humans away from the core of the sun, but the key to activating the sun was shaped like a human. This was done so that the key could judge humanity--if humanity approached the sun with its foolish intentions, the weapon would destroy them; however, if they proved that they had changed their ways, he would unlock the sun and end their punishment of perpetual night and inevitable extinction. Because he was the only weapon shaped like a human, he was called the 'hitogata'--a word meaning 'in the shape of a human' and implying that though he looked human, he actually was not.
As a weapon of the sun, Shiro is canonly 'activated' into weapon mode when he holds a sword. When angered or threatened with destruction, he is able to generate inextinguishable flames.
Current area of residence: He's usually wandering, but right now, he's still up in the Northern Kingdom, amazed at how soft and white snow is.
Sample journal entry:
Hey! I overheard some people today, and they were talking about stuff! Really cool stuff! I didn't get a lot of it all, because they were talking kind of quiet, but what's a 'peddler'? Can you eat a 'shovel'? 'Shovel' sounds tasty! Where can I find one? What does one look like? Or smell like? Does it taste good?
...what if those travelers already ate them all and the peddlers too?? I've got to find them again and ask them about it!!
Hey, also, does anyone know what my name is? I think I forgot it again--it's so embarrassing! I'm always doing that I think.
Roleplay sample:
"Unghhh,... hrff. Hrmf?"
When he woke, he found that he was covered in a half-foot of powder soft snow. Brows furrowed, he sat up suddenly, exploding from the snow mound in burst of white and coughing out melted ice water.
"Bleghh, ughf!... hey, wait..." He'd been coughing and wiping the wet stuff of his tongue, but actually, it didn't taste that bad. In short, it tasted... pretty good. Smiling wide enough to reveal his sharp, pointy teeth, the child began shoveling handfuls of the white substance into his mouth, laughing at how it became crisp, clean water trickling down his throat.
"Wow! This stuff is good! What's it called?!" Grabbing several more handfuls, he paused only to realize he had been talking to no one. He was alone. Whenever he woke up, he was always alone. He turned the thought over again and again in his mind: always alone, always empty--
Wait, he was empty?
Without dropping the snow, his hands snapped up to hold his head, as he realized--
"Oh crap! What is my name for the love of god!! Who am I? What am I? Actually, where the heck am I? How'd I get here--what am I doing here? Crap, I must've forgotten again... I'm always doing that, geez!" He popped himself a soft punch on the side of his head before standing up and brushing the snow off of himself.
"No point in sitting around and asking myself who I am! I'm not gonna remember!" At least he knew that much. Another smile spread across his lips. "In that case, I'm gonna find out who I am! Yeah!"
Another fruitless search, but every journey starts with a single step. He had walked only three when he fell into a particularly soft mound of snow, disappearing with a quiet floof!
E-mail: matchazuki@gmail.com
Messenger name: AIM=matcha chawan.
Previous RP experience (if any): TL;DR. 8D
Character's full name: Shiro.
Series: Kimi no Kakera.
Gender: Male.
Age: Undefined, appears 13 to 15.
Personality: Shiro is a 'hitogata'--a child lacking one of the four main human emotions: 'joy, anger, pathos, humor'. In his case, he lacks 'pathos'. Shiro cannot feel physical pain, cannot empathize with others' pain or pity them, and cannot shed tears. However, this is not to say that he cannot feel sadness or emotional pain--he simply has no way to outwardly express such emotions. The only way he can express anguish is to turn to those around them and ask for their help in how to shed tears. Because he lacks the capacity to pity, he does not pity himself, no matter how pitiful and tragic his situation.
However, Shiro's usual disposition is that of 'joy'. He is simple-minded, honest, and happy--blissfully, hyperactively happy. He has a tendency to ramble inanely, even to himself when alone, and has a curious, inquisitive nature that sometimes seems ridiculous. Shiro has a hard time thinking about deep things and is more impulsive than insightful--he prefers action to thought and planning, often running into dangerous situations on a 'feeling' or 'beliefs' that may or not prove correct. Shiro would rather do something, even if that 'something' proves to be fruitless or useless, than to sit around, doing nothing and being afraid. After all, if he's wrong, he believes he can always try again.
Shiro's innocence almost seems absurd and is only spurred further by the fact that he is extremely forgetful. He forgets all kinds of explicit memory--his personal experiences, people he knew, definitions of nouns, even his own name. The only things he seems to not forget are motor skills, certain phrases that he repeats whenever he finds his mind 'empty', and that he should be searching for something--regardless of what that something is--in order to hold onto his sense of self. Ironically enough, the two things he decided to search for--the hitogata and the sun--were both things he could have found easily if he only knew who and what he was.
However, all of this changes when Shiro holds a weapon, particularly swords. When he has a sword in hand, Shiro's world becomes even more black and white--friends, he must protect; foes, he must kill. Mindlessly fighting, Shiro's personality melts away, and he becomes ferociously brutal, seeming to enjoy the pain he inflicts upon his enemies. However, this state is what wipes his memories clean--sometimes even during a battle, if he is at any time disarmed during the fight, Shiro will suddenly forget everything, including his reason for fighting to begin with and how to properly use a sword.
It is clear that Shiro fears battle and the feeling of emptiness it leaves him with. Though he yearns to remember things, he is, more often than not, unable to fully remember anything, except Princess Icoro, who he forgets often and sometimes has 'feelings' that help remind him of her. Shiro is a loyal friend with a great sense of smell--even over endless snowy wastelands, he can smell the scents of his 'friends' and come to their aid when they need him.
Fairy tale/myth/legend: Kojiki.
Role: Kagutsuchi.
Kingdom territory of origin: Eastern Kingdom.
Adaptation: I know two different versions of the Kagutsuchi portion of the Kojiki and am aiming to take elements from both portions in this adaptation, if that's okay.
The creation gods of the East, Izanagi and Izanami, had many children, and each of these children were deities in turn. They ruled over nature and the individual elements that made up the Eastern territory; however, there was one birth that signified the end of creation, one birth that brought death as well light.
Kagutsuchi, the god of destructive and purifying fire, was born in a sudden and violent flame, severely injuring his mother. In her death throes, Izanami bore three more deities before she passed away and moved on to Yomi, the world of death. Izanagi grieved his beloved wife before his anger turned on his newborn child. Taking the Sword of Ten Grips, Izanagi beheaded the newborn deity, then sliced his soul into two pieces. However, it was not enough to kill the god, and from the ashes of his flame, one half of Kagutsuchi rekindled into the shape of a human boy. Seeing this, Izanagi took pity on his child and instead of trying to kill him again, he chopped up Kagutsuchi's head and other half into nine pieces each and scattered the pieces throughout the world, both as a punishment and a mercy.
Because he only possessed half a soul, the child could not feel pain. Because his godsoul lacked a head, his memories were fleeting--important and unimportant memories alike faded into the void where his mind should have been. He did not know his name was Kagutsuchi; he did not know his nature as a deity. Because his soul was in pieces, so were his emotions. He lacked empathy and could not express his inner pain. Most notably of all, he could not cry. He lived peacefully as an empty vessel searching for something to fill itself with; however, because it was a sword that severed his soul into pieces, whenever Kagutsuchi holds one, his violent and mischievous nature surfaces.
As such, Kagutsuchi was driven away to wander and live as a mortal despite being a deity. Part of him felt that it had to search for something--to search for his missing pieces. However, he could not remember what it was. Shortly after he left the Eastern kingdom, he was found by a man amazed at his innocence. This man--later referred to as his 'grampa'--taught him mantras, sayings that he could remember, or at least, even if his mind remembered them, he said them so much that he retained them out of habit. Among these mantras were several instructions:
1) To ask everyone he met whether they were friends or foes, and to protect his friends and kill his foes.
2) That his grampa was the one who instructed him to do #1. Grampa was the man who found him and raised him.
3) When surrounded by foes, run away.
And other such advices. Kagutsuchi held onto those instructions tightly, regarding them as his only guides in his aimless search. He spent the rest of the old man's life repeating the sayings again and again, until the man died. It was then that he resumed his search, the saying engraved into his mind and leading him in his wanderings. Over his travels, Kagutsuchi had been named many things, and many times, he had forgotten those names. The most recent name is 'Shiro'--given to him by a princess of a snowy kingdom because his hair is white and in the ancient language of her kingdom, 'Shiro' also means 'missing something' or 'piece'.
And from here is where he goes out into Mukashi.
I'm not actually expecting him to find his pieces; after all, he's forgotten he's searching for them, and I'm pretty sure no one would be able to help him remember. But, should he find one on accident, because Izanagi did a good job dicing his soul up, a piece or two would not affect him much. He would be able to find two different kinds of pieces: pieces of his other half and pieces of his head. Pieces of his other half would slowly restore his ability to feel pain, to empathize, etc., the very last being his ability to cry, and pieces of his head would help him to slowly start being able to retain memories.
My reasoning behind associating Shiro with Kagutsuchi is that in canon, Shiro is a weapon created to protect the sun. Humans once tried to harness the sun's power and turn it into an endless power supply, but they were punished for their folly. Many weapons were constructed to keep humans away from the core of the sun, but the key to activating the sun was shaped like a human. This was done so that the key could judge humanity--if humanity approached the sun with its foolish intentions, the weapon would destroy them; however, if they proved that they had changed their ways, he would unlock the sun and end their punishment of perpetual night and inevitable extinction. Because he was the only weapon shaped like a human, he was called the 'hitogata'--a word meaning 'in the shape of a human' and implying that though he looked human, he actually was not.
As a weapon of the sun, Shiro is canonly 'activated' into weapon mode when he holds a sword. When angered or threatened with destruction, he is able to generate inextinguishable flames.
Current area of residence: He's usually wandering, but right now, he's still up in the Northern Kingdom, amazed at how soft and white snow is.
Sample journal entry:
Hey! I overheard some people today, and they were talking about stuff! Really cool stuff! I didn't get a lot of it all, because they were talking kind of quiet, but what's a 'peddler'? Can you eat a 'shovel'? 'Shovel' sounds tasty! Where can I find one? What does one look like? Or smell like? Does it taste good?
...what if those travelers already ate them all and the peddlers too?? I've got to find them again and ask them about it!!
Hey, also, does anyone know what my name is? I think I forgot it again--it's so embarrassing! I'm always doing that I think.
Roleplay sample:
"Unghhh,... hrff. Hrmf?"
When he woke, he found that he was covered in a half-foot of powder soft snow. Brows furrowed, he sat up suddenly, exploding from the snow mound in burst of white and coughing out melted ice water.
"Bleghh, ughf!... hey, wait..." He'd been coughing and wiping the wet stuff of his tongue, but actually, it didn't taste that bad. In short, it tasted... pretty good. Smiling wide enough to reveal his sharp, pointy teeth, the child began shoveling handfuls of the white substance into his mouth, laughing at how it became crisp, clean water trickling down his throat.
"Wow! This stuff is good! What's it called?!" Grabbing several more handfuls, he paused only to realize he had been talking to no one. He was alone. Whenever he woke up, he was always alone. He turned the thought over again and again in his mind: always alone, always empty--
Wait, he was empty?
Without dropping the snow, his hands snapped up to hold his head, as he realized--
"Oh crap! What is my name for the love of god!! Who am I? What am I? Actually, where the heck am I? How'd I get here--what am I doing here? Crap, I must've forgotten again... I'm always doing that, geez!" He popped himself a soft punch on the side of his head before standing up and brushing the snow off of himself.
"No point in sitting around and asking myself who I am! I'm not gonna remember!" At least he knew that much. Another smile spread across his lips. "In that case, I'm gonna find out who I am! Yeah!"
Another fruitless search, but every journey starts with a single step. He had walked only three when he fell into a particularly soft mound of snow, disappearing with a quiet floof!