Information about Sayo!
Mun
Name: Ashlee
Livejournal Username: bushyeyebrows
E-mail: ashtraydentist@aol.com
AIM: ashtraydentist
Current Characters at Luceti: not_a_bluesbro and asobouyo
Character
Name: Sayo
Fandom: Mushishi (蟲師)
Gender: Female
Age: 27
Time Period: End of Episode 16
Wing Color: Gray
History:
Sayo was born into a small family with only one sister, who's name and person is completely forgotten by the start of episode 16; she has an aunt and uncle and parents, who now live on the other side of the river... however, most of her memories of them are pretty much gone. She at some point in her teens met her husband, a traveling salesman, and gave birth to a son, Kaji. Many of the following years are uneventfully peaceful days, at their house (located beside cherry blossom tree). Sayo took pleasure in raising their son and tending to the house, while her spouse soon began traveling on the road more and more often as time progressed to make more money.
We start her story here in episode 16, as she's sleeping under the cherry blossom tree located outside of her house-where she would typically take naps in-between her usual household tasks. It is here during the spring that the parasitic mushi (creatures separate from animals or plants) called the 'Kagedama' (Kanji = "shadow soul") enters her ear and nests in/on her brain. To those who can see mushi, the Kagedama itself is transparent to the point that only its shadow is visible. It can be found waiting in the shade for a vessel to fall sleep nearby... While inside the brain, the mushi eats memories and stops the person from sleeping. In return for those memories, the mushi duplicates, and leaves its host each morning to find more vessels.
From this point onward, Sayo begins to forget things. Random, strange things, like her favorite food, her patterned kimonos, what a sneeze is... and soon, even more alarming things are forgotten, like who Kaji's friends are, her aunt and uncle, her little sister... She's suddenly capable of forgetting things that one would never normally forget. Scared that she would start forgetting her husband, who at this point is still on the road, she begins a ritualistic nightlife of working at her loom, where she weaves cloth at random. While she sits and waits for the next day, unable to sleep, she thinks of her husband off and away somewhere, working...
She tends to finally nod off for a few seconds or perhaps a minute, but only that much. And then she's back to the events of daily life: making breakfast, doing chores, looking out for her son as he does for her, and so on. When Ginko the mushi master is brought in by Kaji to see if his mother is possibly ill with these strange creatures, she already displays to him her usual patterns of extreme forgetfulness, such as not knowing who Kaji's friends are to not knowing what a simple crab is. She invites Ginko in and they all have dinner, to which Ginko takes note of the fourth meal set out among the three of them. Sayo admits to leaving it out for her husband, because she'd heard that it will keep him from starving elsewhere. She often worries for him, with how long he's been gone; when Kaji talks against his father during their meal, she defends her spouse without a beat of hesitation.
She's aware that her son worries, especially for her, and she does understand that her boy brought Ginko in to see what had been wrong with her recently, to which she asks him to continue trying to figure out her illness. She worries that she'll forget that she forgets... in which she'd lose her entire identity in the process.
Kaji and Ginko proceed to investigate and watch her during one of her routine sits at the loom. Hours and hours pass, and as usual she only sleeps for a few seconds... and then gets up and goes to start her day. It's here that Ginko sees the Kagedama in the form of a shadow on the wall, in the shape of Sayo sitting. It slithers off, and he soon completely understands what has been ailing the boy's mother. He explains that there's no way to remove the Kagedama-while it's normally combated with light, its one weakness, there's no way to shine light on the brain. Therefore, it's incurable. He does recommend, however, that she should try hoarding as many memories as she can. Keep recalling things. Keep to her usual prior pattern of working, but with steps to ensure she can keep the memories she truly wants.
When Kaji advises she go outside more often in addendum, she agrees, and then decides to go find her husband, tired of waiting and seeing what's become of him. She and her son go to a town west of their home, Yusan, that he had spoken often of. Once they reach this town, they discover that Kaji's father is alive and well, but has restarted his life with a new wife and child. Instead of confronting him, Sayo takes Kaji and rushes away down the trail. never to turn back and never to speak to her husband again. There she continues without rest, food, or words, until finally she collapses from complete exhaustion.
Kaji takes her to a nearby abandoned home, where she stays asleep and bedridden in an extreme depression. Day after day, she doesn't stir, until finally on one particular morning the Kagedama's duplicated bodies leave in one giant shadow of mushi. She'd been so depressed that she lost almost all of her memories to the creature... After they left her in one gigantic shadow, she awoke, having forgotten everything personal except for Kaji, their home, and a few personal memories of things relating to the former. She'd lost the memories of her husband, of her family, of Ginko's visit... All of it was gone.
For a year, they rebuild what's been lost. Sayo goes out and experiences day-to-day things, even opening a tea shop at their home. While she tends to forget many things the next day, she's content with her life now, and a year later, Ginko returns and Kaji tells him of what had happened after the mushi master had left. Later in the night, after he leaves them once again to continue his own journey, Sayo finds herself accidentally placing a third dinner dish out for her husband again, without knowing why she'd done it, suggesting she's capable of remembering certain feelings that are beyond just the pictures of memories.
"But somehow... it just makes me feel more relaxed."
Personality: The first and most blindingly clear thing about her personality is, of course, her forgetfulness. Even before the mushi had entered her brain, she was already quite an air-headed girl and often forgot simple things like what she was about to do or what something was called. But after the Kagedama, her poor memory has certainly been multiplied to an unnatural degree. If she meets someone, there's a chance she'll forget who they are within a few days unless she makes some effort to know who they are. And there will definitely be moments of confusion or terror when the most basic objects because foreign to her (i.e. rainbows, animals of any sort, coughing, bowing... the list is very, very long).
Despite her condition, she's always very optimistic, or at the very least calm. When Ginko explained that she would have this problem for the rest of her life, she quickly decides to make the most of it and get out of the house more-to not let the mushi take over her life as best she could. She even decided to go traveling for her husband, though we know now it will be a sad outcome. Sayo is a woman of smiles and is quick to offer one to a guest as well as invite them in for dinner. Her youthful energy and kind demeanor give her a motherly charm (even if she is a handful of a mother) that looks out for another person's best interest. And what's attached to her optimism and generosity is that she's a very easy-going person. To her, nice moments are sitting at a small fire while she sews, or perhaps having an autumn chat with her son as the sun's fading out. Little things aren't taken for granted, even if they are forgotten over time. She appreciates them, and with her knowing her condition now, that appreciation has definitely increased.
With her positives comes a few... well, it's hard to tell if they're negative or not. She can be a bit clumsy and uncoordinated beyond meal-making and loom-work, and her absentminded and 'derpy' behavior can either be considered frustrating or charming, depending on the person she's talking to. She's got plenty of energy even though she's incapable of actually sleeping, and'll go around with a sunny disposition unless the weather is metaphorically a-changing. When she faces an overwhelming depression, however, she's easy to fall hard. When she learned her husband had left them for another family, she didn't show any outward signs of emotion and was completely blank during the journey back. While she handles many things well, if something hits home, it really hits home.
Strengths:
Physical: She's actually pretty young for having a son Kaji's age, and she's still in really great physical shape. She's also surprisingly full of energy despite never sleeping. Speaking of never sleeping, that makes for a looot of extra time in her life. People spend so much of their existence snoozing away the night, but not Sayo! She uses 23.9 out of the day's 24 hours, making her quite sufficient and able to handle many tasks that time would limit. Somehow, the word 'exhaustion' is far less severe a term in her case, and it takes long periods of no food, water, or rest for her to actually collapse as seen in the manga/anime. Otherwise she doesn't get tired until a certain point in the morning, where she nods off for about a minute and then just bounces back awake; if she's eating, drinking, and sitting enough, she can go the distance without any problems.
Mental: Mentally, she's strong. While something like losing memories of anything, like your own sister or parents, can be mind-numbing, she's able to handle it extremely well. In fact, it's thanks to her not remembering her connection with them that she copes so well. After all, who misses something they never knew? She keeps a stiff upper lip and tries her hardest to lead a simple, quiet, but fulfilling life. There are moments where she can be side-tracked by the usual qualms of living, yes, but over all she's upbeat and looks forward to the next day that she might forget all about.
Emotional: "Mi Casa es su Casa". She never minds sharing what she has, as little as she sometimes thinks it is, and doesn't seem to posses much of a mean bone in her body. Her strong love for her son is evident enough in day-to-day life, and even at the very end of the story he's the one person she's always remembered. Sayo has an abundance of love to give, and sadly it's sometimes not returned, but she's always been faithful to what she believes in or cares about, and she's gone so far as to track down that faith into an entirely different village. Her care runs deep enough to convert itself into concern, even to the point where she'll place out dishes for her MIA husband's safe journeys.
Weaknesses:
Physical: She may be in good shape, but she's still just a normal gal. No shounen powers, no swift punches or ability to withstand kicks to the face, nothing you'd see from half the fellas in Luceti. She's not a fighter, and never really will be, with her type of personality. She may run on 24 hour energy mushi, but she's no warrior. Unless she can catch you off guard with a frying pan to the back of the head, there's really nothing she can do to protect herself.
Mental: Oooh boy, the first word that should go to anyone's head about Sayo when it comes to mental weakness is mushi. The Kagedama has a firm hold on her mind and eats away memories within moments. Simple things to remember are suddenly at risk for needing to be relearned. And while her closest or most fond memories are kept last to keep the host alive, she still suffers greatly from the mushi's presence. Someday, she may just forget her age and name. Or maybe she'll forget her son and her home... or her worst fear of all: maybe she'll forget that she even forgets in the first place. Suddenly, she'll be a completely different person, no longer 'Sayo'. And that scares her more than anything when it comes to her condition.
Emotional: She's emotionally stable for the most part, this is true, but if she's hurt by something she hides within her own mind and doesn't let any of her pain out. It's bottled up and used in self-destructive ways, though she never means to use them as such. She just... wants to work it all out of existence, those negative feelings. She'll work and work and try to preoccupy her mind. But in the process, she seems to not recognize that she's draining herself physically, to keep blankly wallowing. Instead of facing the huge blows to the gut, she'd much rather turn away and try and hide from what's hurting her.
Name: Ashlee
Livejournal Username: bushyeyebrows
E-mail: ashtraydentist@aol.com
AIM: ashtraydentist
Current Characters at Luceti: not_a_bluesbro and asobouyo
Character
Name: Sayo
Fandom: Mushishi (蟲師)
Gender: Female
Age: 27
Time Period: End of Episode 16
Wing Color: Gray
History:
Sayo was born into a small family with only one sister, who's name and person is completely forgotten by the start of episode 16; she has an aunt and uncle and parents, who now live on the other side of the river... however, most of her memories of them are pretty much gone. She at some point in her teens met her husband, a traveling salesman, and gave birth to a son, Kaji. Many of the following years are uneventfully peaceful days, at their house (located beside cherry blossom tree). Sayo took pleasure in raising their son and tending to the house, while her spouse soon began traveling on the road more and more often as time progressed to make more money.
We start her story here in episode 16, as she's sleeping under the cherry blossom tree located outside of her house-where she would typically take naps in-between her usual household tasks. It is here during the spring that the parasitic mushi (creatures separate from animals or plants) called the 'Kagedama' (Kanji = "shadow soul") enters her ear and nests in/on her brain. To those who can see mushi, the Kagedama itself is transparent to the point that only its shadow is visible. It can be found waiting in the shade for a vessel to fall sleep nearby... While inside the brain, the mushi eats memories and stops the person from sleeping. In return for those memories, the mushi duplicates, and leaves its host each morning to find more vessels.
From this point onward, Sayo begins to forget things. Random, strange things, like her favorite food, her patterned kimonos, what a sneeze is... and soon, even more alarming things are forgotten, like who Kaji's friends are, her aunt and uncle, her little sister... She's suddenly capable of forgetting things that one would never normally forget. Scared that she would start forgetting her husband, who at this point is still on the road, she begins a ritualistic nightlife of working at her loom, where she weaves cloth at random. While she sits and waits for the next day, unable to sleep, she thinks of her husband off and away somewhere, working...
She tends to finally nod off for a few seconds or perhaps a minute, but only that much. And then she's back to the events of daily life: making breakfast, doing chores, looking out for her son as he does for her, and so on. When Ginko the mushi master is brought in by Kaji to see if his mother is possibly ill with these strange creatures, she already displays to him her usual patterns of extreme forgetfulness, such as not knowing who Kaji's friends are to not knowing what a simple crab is. She invites Ginko in and they all have dinner, to which Ginko takes note of the fourth meal set out among the three of them. Sayo admits to leaving it out for her husband, because she'd heard that it will keep him from starving elsewhere. She often worries for him, with how long he's been gone; when Kaji talks against his father during their meal, she defends her spouse without a beat of hesitation.
She's aware that her son worries, especially for her, and she does understand that her boy brought Ginko in to see what had been wrong with her recently, to which she asks him to continue trying to figure out her illness. She worries that she'll forget that she forgets... in which she'd lose her entire identity in the process.
Kaji and Ginko proceed to investigate and watch her during one of her routine sits at the loom. Hours and hours pass, and as usual she only sleeps for a few seconds... and then gets up and goes to start her day. It's here that Ginko sees the Kagedama in the form of a shadow on the wall, in the shape of Sayo sitting. It slithers off, and he soon completely understands what has been ailing the boy's mother. He explains that there's no way to remove the Kagedama-while it's normally combated with light, its one weakness, there's no way to shine light on the brain. Therefore, it's incurable. He does recommend, however, that she should try hoarding as many memories as she can. Keep recalling things. Keep to her usual prior pattern of working, but with steps to ensure she can keep the memories she truly wants.
When Kaji advises she go outside more often in addendum, she agrees, and then decides to go find her husband, tired of waiting and seeing what's become of him. She and her son go to a town west of their home, Yusan, that he had spoken often of. Once they reach this town, they discover that Kaji's father is alive and well, but has restarted his life with a new wife and child. Instead of confronting him, Sayo takes Kaji and rushes away down the trail. never to turn back and never to speak to her husband again. There she continues without rest, food, or words, until finally she collapses from complete exhaustion.
Kaji takes her to a nearby abandoned home, where she stays asleep and bedridden in an extreme depression. Day after day, she doesn't stir, until finally on one particular morning the Kagedama's duplicated bodies leave in one giant shadow of mushi. She'd been so depressed that she lost almost all of her memories to the creature... After they left her in one gigantic shadow, she awoke, having forgotten everything personal except for Kaji, their home, and a few personal memories of things relating to the former. She'd lost the memories of her husband, of her family, of Ginko's visit... All of it was gone.
For a year, they rebuild what's been lost. Sayo goes out and experiences day-to-day things, even opening a tea shop at their home. While she tends to forget many things the next day, she's content with her life now, and a year later, Ginko returns and Kaji tells him of what had happened after the mushi master had left. Later in the night, after he leaves them once again to continue his own journey, Sayo finds herself accidentally placing a third dinner dish out for her husband again, without knowing why she'd done it, suggesting she's capable of remembering certain feelings that are beyond just the pictures of memories.
"But somehow... it just makes me feel more relaxed."
Personality: The first and most blindingly clear thing about her personality is, of course, her forgetfulness. Even before the mushi had entered her brain, she was already quite an air-headed girl and often forgot simple things like what she was about to do or what something was called. But after the Kagedama, her poor memory has certainly been multiplied to an unnatural degree. If she meets someone, there's a chance she'll forget who they are within a few days unless she makes some effort to know who they are. And there will definitely be moments of confusion or terror when the most basic objects because foreign to her (i.e. rainbows, animals of any sort, coughing, bowing... the list is very, very long).
Despite her condition, she's always very optimistic, or at the very least calm. When Ginko explained that she would have this problem for the rest of her life, she quickly decides to make the most of it and get out of the house more-to not let the mushi take over her life as best she could. She even decided to go traveling for her husband, though we know now it will be a sad outcome. Sayo is a woman of smiles and is quick to offer one to a guest as well as invite them in for dinner. Her youthful energy and kind demeanor give her a motherly charm (even if she is a handful of a mother) that looks out for another person's best interest. And what's attached to her optimism and generosity is that she's a very easy-going person. To her, nice moments are sitting at a small fire while she sews, or perhaps having an autumn chat with her son as the sun's fading out. Little things aren't taken for granted, even if they are forgotten over time. She appreciates them, and with her knowing her condition now, that appreciation has definitely increased.
With her positives comes a few... well, it's hard to tell if they're negative or not. She can be a bit clumsy and uncoordinated beyond meal-making and loom-work, and her absentminded and 'derpy' behavior can either be considered frustrating or charming, depending on the person she's talking to. She's got plenty of energy even though she's incapable of actually sleeping, and'll go around with a sunny disposition unless the weather is metaphorically a-changing. When she faces an overwhelming depression, however, she's easy to fall hard. When she learned her husband had left them for another family, she didn't show any outward signs of emotion and was completely blank during the journey back. While she handles many things well, if something hits home, it really hits home.
Strengths:
Physical: She's actually pretty young for having a son Kaji's age, and she's still in really great physical shape. She's also surprisingly full of energy despite never sleeping. Speaking of never sleeping, that makes for a looot of extra time in her life. People spend so much of their existence snoozing away the night, but not Sayo! She uses 23.9 out of the day's 24 hours, making her quite sufficient and able to handle many tasks that time would limit. Somehow, the word 'exhaustion' is far less severe a term in her case, and it takes long periods of no food, water, or rest for her to actually collapse as seen in the manga/anime. Otherwise she doesn't get tired until a certain point in the morning, where she nods off for about a minute and then just bounces back awake; if she's eating, drinking, and sitting enough, she can go the distance without any problems.
Mental: Mentally, she's strong. While something like losing memories of anything, like your own sister or parents, can be mind-numbing, she's able to handle it extremely well. In fact, it's thanks to her not remembering her connection with them that she copes so well. After all, who misses something they never knew? She keeps a stiff upper lip and tries her hardest to lead a simple, quiet, but fulfilling life. There are moments where she can be side-tracked by the usual qualms of living, yes, but over all she's upbeat and looks forward to the next day that she might forget all about.
Emotional: "Mi Casa es su Casa". She never minds sharing what she has, as little as she sometimes thinks it is, and doesn't seem to posses much of a mean bone in her body. Her strong love for her son is evident enough in day-to-day life, and even at the very end of the story he's the one person she's always remembered. Sayo has an abundance of love to give, and sadly it's sometimes not returned, but she's always been faithful to what she believes in or cares about, and she's gone so far as to track down that faith into an entirely different village. Her care runs deep enough to convert itself into concern, even to the point where she'll place out dishes for her MIA husband's safe journeys.
Weaknesses:
Physical: She may be in good shape, but she's still just a normal gal. No shounen powers, no swift punches or ability to withstand kicks to the face, nothing you'd see from half the fellas in Luceti. She's not a fighter, and never really will be, with her type of personality. She may run on 24 hour energy mushi, but she's no warrior. Unless she can catch you off guard with a frying pan to the back of the head, there's really nothing she can do to protect herself.
Mental: Oooh boy, the first word that should go to anyone's head about Sayo when it comes to mental weakness is mushi. The Kagedama has a firm hold on her mind and eats away memories within moments. Simple things to remember are suddenly at risk for needing to be relearned. And while her closest or most fond memories are kept last to keep the host alive, she still suffers greatly from the mushi's presence. Someday, she may just forget her age and name. Or maybe she'll forget her son and her home... or her worst fear of all: maybe she'll forget that she even forgets in the first place. Suddenly, she'll be a completely different person, no longer 'Sayo'. And that scares her more than anything when it comes to her condition.
Emotional: She's emotionally stable for the most part, this is true, but if she's hurt by something she hides within her own mind and doesn't let any of her pain out. It's bottled up and used in self-destructive ways, though she never means to use them as such. She just... wants to work it all out of existence, those negative feelings. She'll work and work and try to preoccupy her mind. But in the process, she seems to not recognize that she's draining herself physically, to keep blankly wallowing. Instead of facing the huge blows to the gut, she'd much rather turn away and try and hide from what's hurting her.