Magicdraft app
PLAYER INFORMATIONNAME: Batty
AGE: 20
JOURNAL: batty_chan
AIM/PLURK/EMAIL: batty_chan
CURRENT CHARACTERS: n/a
CHARACTER INFORMATIONSERIES:
NAME: Byakuya Kuchiki
RACE: At this point, Byakuya is not yet a shinigami, but rather a spirit being with high spiritual energy. However, spirit beings in Bleach are stated to have physical presence and those with higher spiritual energy do feel hunger and such as ordinary humans do, so the main difference in being "alive" would probably just be being visible/audible to humans.
AGE: Never precisely stated, but he appears 110 years before the main storyline seeming physically/mentally 14/15-ish.The correlation between chronological age and physical/mental age is not very consistent in Bleach, but I'd approximate Byakuya's age at this point to be around 127 or so as Rukia Kuchiki and Renji Abarai are about 150 or more and appear somewhat older than young Byakuya did. I'll leave it to mod discretion how to handle the question of being "underage," as aging in the Soul Society does not nearly correspond to human aging, but I don't particularly intend to have Byakuya engage in sexual activities anyway.
CANON POINT: Episode 208, the Turn Back the Pendulum arc
REFERENCES: here!
GENDER: Male
APPEARANCE: Byakuya appears (in the TBTP arc) as a youngish boy of about fourteen/fifteen with steel-gray eyes and black hair that goes just past his shoulders. Usually, he wears it up in a ponytail with a red hair tie, with his bangs falling over the left side of his face. One lock of hair appears to slip over his ears on either side of his face, as well.
From what is seen of him, he wears a white kusode with a blue trim, as well as green hakama. Byakuya has likely been raised from a young age to have perfect posture, as well--he does not slouch, and he holds his head high, as befits his noble status, despite not being particularly tall yet.
He's still young, and not toned or well-muscled or anything, but he practices swordforms often (presumably with his wooden bokken only at this point), and often chases Yoruichi around when she steals his hair tie, so it's safe to assume he's at least in pretty good physical shape, if not exactly strong yet, per se.
PERSONALITY & HOUSE REQUESTS:
I'd like to request Hufflepuff as a house for Byakuya, with Gryffindor as a back-up house.
Much of Byakuya's identity, at this point, is formed by who he is meant to be: the next Head of the Kuchiki clan, and next captain of the Sixth Division. The former is his birthright, and thus guaranteed. But to not achieve the latter as his grandfather before him would be tantamount to being a failure in the eyes of the clan elders.
Thus, there is enormous pressure on his shoulders to reach great heights of achievement, to bring honor and pride to his Kuchiki name. And, far from being stunted by these expectations, Byakuya embraces them with everything he is. He craves the approval of his grandfather, and constantly strives for any word of praise or encouraging nod he can gain. He has been raised his entire life toward an ideal--of a just, honorable, impartial leader that upholds both the laws and dictates of his clan and of the Gotei 13 and the Seireitei. He is to become himself a model, both to future generations and to the men he commands and must inspire loyalty by displaying it, and yet hold his honor (of his clan and squad both) above any personal connections.
By just over a century, Byakuya will have not once, but twice been faced with defying these expectations in favor of following the demands of his heart--when marrying for love, and when forced to choose between honoring his late wife's dying wish or carrying out the dictates of the law to the letter. In the first case he shows a great deal of moral fortitude in following his heart. And in the latter case, despite his stubborn insistence on carrying out the law, he ultimately chooses to do the right thing, and he risks his own life to protect Rukia once Aizen is revealed to be a traitor.
However, the important point to note is that Byakuya is not yet the clan head nor the captain of the Sixth. For all his eagerness to fulfill his family's expectations, he is still but a boy. He's easy to tease and rile, and gets excited at the prospect of having personal time to spend with his grandfather. Byakuya himself seems to reject this reality to some degree, such as when Yoruichi invites him to play a game with him, and he tells her he doesn't have time for such childish things as playing games.
While he can be a brat, however, Byakuya is overall rather mature for (the relative human equivalent of) his age. Propriety and etiquette are part of his noble upbringing and except when his temper is riled (i.e Yoruichi), Byakuya is highly respectful of his elders and of anyone in a position of authority.
Hufflepuff would be a fitting house for Byakuya, as many of the house's core values (justice, impartiality, loyalty, dedication, adherence to the rules and hard work) are ones he has been raised to uphold and embody. It's true that as the heir of a noble family, he has been inculcated with a certain sense of entitlement, but the Shinigami Academy accepts anyone who passes the entrance exam--commoner or noble--and Byakuya understands the value of hard work in rising through the ranks within the Gotei 13. Gryffindor is possible as a back-up house, due to the fact that the very position of being a shinigami entails a certain amount of valor and courage, and a sense of duty to the humans one will protect despite the inherent inability to ever be acknowledged by them for the effort.
COMMUTER DETAILS: N/A Untapped by Death Eaters. He's more likely to try to protect Hogwarts.
POSITION: Student
ORIENTATION: Eventually, Byakuya grows up to marry a woman, so probably straight? However, he's still pretty young, and the idea of romance and relationships isn't something he's really thought about yet. Being the sole heir of a prestigious noble clan, he would be expected to have an arranged marriage with some other noblewoman and produce an heir of his own, and as young as he is, has had no reason to question that, has not met the woman he will eventually fall in love with and for whom he will break his family's laws to marry.
ABILITIES & POWERS: At this point, Byakuya is at best a beginning student at the Shinigami Academy. He is seen to have at least some proficiency in shunpo (moving rapidly with a minimal amount of steps and invisible to the human eye--displayed graphically in the anime as momentarily vanishing and reappearing farther ahead) in the scene with him and Yoruichi, and possibly possesses basic kidou skills, but he does not yet have his own zanpakutou, and thus no shikai or bankai yet--a far cry from the fearsome strength of his adult, captain self.
However, while Byakuya will not be particularly strong or skilled as a wizard upon entering Hogwarts, I would like to base his particular aptitudes for magic (the subjects he'll come to learn most quickly and easily) on the strengths of his adult self.
One of the major duties of a shinigami is purifying/protecting humans from monsters called hollows, which devour the souls of both the living and the dead. I think this could roughly translate to an aptitude for Defense Against the Dark Arts.
I'd also like him to discover he has some natural talent in flying, due to the combination of shunpo and the capacity to stand/walk/run in midair that all shinigami possess.
Finally, as a captain, Byakuya's noted strengths are binding spells, long-ranged attacks, and defense. As young Byakuya progresses through the years at Hogwarts, these will become his strengths as well.
WAND: I'd like Byakuya's wand to be Holly, with phoenix feather core, 9 1/2 inches and inflexible.
[T]raditionally considered protective, [holly] works most happily for those who may need help overcoming a tendency to anger and impetuosity.
Holly is one of those woods that varies most dramatically in performance depending on the wand core, and it is a notoriously difficult wood to team with phoenix feather, as the wood’s volatility conflicts strangely with the phoenix’s detachment.
Although it is a rare combination, I believe the pairing of holly and phoenix feather well represents the internal conflict of Byakuya as a youth: as his grandfather says, he has a lot of potential for growth and achievement if he could learn to master his temper. At the same time, he a noble, born and bred, and he is more than well-aware of his family's expectations and his duty to take his position as head of the Kuchiki clan and someday, as captain of the sixth division. As a noble head, he must be calm, poised, and composed, and as a captain he must be clear-headed and rational, able to lead efficiently and uphold law and order fairly and impartially. He must be able to make decisions unimpeded by emotion.
Even as a youth, Byakuya is aware of all these things, and when we see him as an adult, we see his has embraced them, arguably too much so. His adult self is cool and distant, devoted to the law above all personal ties. In so choosing, he is eschewing much of his personal identity in favor of duty and expectation--a decision we learn he suffers greatly from, when faced with conflicting vows at the time of the Rukia execution debacle, and yet stubbornly clings to. Byakuya, as a youth, has not yet been forced to make this choice, and both remain at odds within him. In this way, the wand would represent both how he is now (the volatility of the holly) and what he has the potential to become (the detachment of the phoenix feather). As for the length and flexibility, a standard, if short length makes sense as Byakuya is likely to be precise and efficient in learning and performing magic, rather than grandiose or flamboyant. He's a stubborn boy in general, and raised in both a family, and a society that is very set in its ways. However, he is still young with room to develop and grow, and 'inflexible' is more suitable than 'unyielding,' a description more fitting of his elder self.
MISC.:
WRITING SAMPLESFIRST PERSON:
[ Audio --> Video ]
[Hello, Hogwarts and fellow Magicdrafted, please enjoy some complimentary scratchy, static-y noises as someone tries to figure out how the commuter works.]
...couldn't have simply used a hell butterfly...[And lo! The picture clicks on to a young boy, appearing to be in his early teens. And his expression manages to hold an impressive amount of anger and irration, despite his boyishly cute facial features.]
If this...thing is working now, I demand to know the meaning of this outrage! [Aside from the letter everyone got, anyway.]
You cannot simply pull me out of the Soul Society and expect me to participate in your petty human conflict! It is not the place of shinigami to do so! Even if I have yet to graduate from the Academy... At any rate! I cannot help you--as future head of the Kuchiki clan and captain of the Sixth Division of the Gotei 13, I have too many duties to uphold. [Expectations to meet, grandfathers to please, and all.]
I-I'll have you know this could be counted as a kidnapping. [His voice cracks slightly, the mask of bravado slipping as just a bit of that anger is replaced with fear.]
Jii-sama will certainly hear of it. A-and he will be well within his rights to...to execute you, Albus Dumbledore.
S-so I suggest...that you unhand me. Merely reopening the senkaimon through which you brought me will suffice.
THIRD PERSON:
So it seemed...he was stuck here, for awhile. Stuck in an entirely foreign dimension with foreign people and foreign powers, alone. If all that wasn't bad enough, they had done something to him (put him in a gigai, perhaps?) and now everyone, even normal humans could see and hear him. It's...unsettling. Humans and spirit beings are meant to be separate, live in different dimensions and on different planes of existence for a reason. Breaking down those boundaries was just asking to destroy the balance that shinigami strove so hard to protect.
What's perhaps even more unnerving for him, however, is that he is alone--alone in a place where the name 'Kuchiki' means nothing, in which after a century of relying on servants for almost everything, he would need to learn to fend for himself, by himself. It's a small blessing that meals will be provided, but there are many things he's never bothered to learn how to do, and he will look deficient amongst these commoners if he cannot master them on his own.
...And then there is the question of money. Kuchiki Byakuya, sole heir of one of the four great noble houses, has never known want a day in his life. He's never known privation. The very notion that he could someday be in a position in which he would have to carefully monitor what he could afford or not was absurd. And yet, here he was.
One day...one day, he'd be vindicated for these indignities--he would make sure of it. But for now, he has to make his own way in this new dimension, and that means he will need to adapt. Byakuya thinks he can do that; for now, he can consider it practice for when he will need these skills as a shinigami, and as a leader. Adaptability was key to survival in many types of missions, and he is still the future captain of the Sixth Division. He would adapt, and he'd make his grandfather proud.
That's why he's here, in the library--to learn about this dimension, and what's necessary to live within it. And he can't deny that he's looking forward to that part, at least; Byakuya has always enjoyed his lessons, after all.
He plucks the first book off of the shelf in front of him, opens it to the first page, and begins to read.
AGE: 20
JOURNAL: batty_chan
AIM/PLURK/EMAIL: batty_chan
CURRENT CHARACTERS: n/a
CHARACTER INFORMATIONSERIES:
NAME: Byakuya Kuchiki
RACE: At this point, Byakuya is not yet a shinigami, but rather a spirit being with high spiritual energy. However, spirit beings in Bleach are stated to have physical presence and those with higher spiritual energy do feel hunger and such as ordinary humans do, so the main difference in being "alive" would probably just be being visible/audible to humans.
AGE: Never precisely stated, but he appears 110 years before the main storyline seeming physically/mentally 14/15-ish.The correlation between chronological age and physical/mental age is not very consistent in Bleach, but I'd approximate Byakuya's age at this point to be around 127 or so as Rukia Kuchiki and Renji Abarai are about 150 or more and appear somewhat older than young Byakuya did. I'll leave it to mod discretion how to handle the question of being "underage," as aging in the Soul Society does not nearly correspond to human aging, but I don't particularly intend to have Byakuya engage in sexual activities anyway.
CANON POINT: Episode 208, the Turn Back the Pendulum arc
REFERENCES: here!
GENDER: Male
APPEARANCE: Byakuya appears (in the TBTP arc) as a youngish boy of about fourteen/fifteen with steel-gray eyes and black hair that goes just past his shoulders. Usually, he wears it up in a ponytail with a red hair tie, with his bangs falling over the left side of his face. One lock of hair appears to slip over his ears on either side of his face, as well.
From what is seen of him, he wears a white kusode with a blue trim, as well as green hakama. Byakuya has likely been raised from a young age to have perfect posture, as well--he does not slouch, and he holds his head high, as befits his noble status, despite not being particularly tall yet.
He's still young, and not toned or well-muscled or anything, but he practices swordforms often (presumably with his wooden bokken only at this point), and often chases Yoruichi around when she steals his hair tie, so it's safe to assume he's at least in pretty good physical shape, if not exactly strong yet, per se.
PERSONALITY & HOUSE REQUESTS:
I'd like to request Hufflepuff as a house for Byakuya, with Gryffindor as a back-up house.
Much of Byakuya's identity, at this point, is formed by who he is meant to be: the next Head of the Kuchiki clan, and next captain of the Sixth Division. The former is his birthright, and thus guaranteed. But to not achieve the latter as his grandfather before him would be tantamount to being a failure in the eyes of the clan elders.
Thus, there is enormous pressure on his shoulders to reach great heights of achievement, to bring honor and pride to his Kuchiki name. And, far from being stunted by these expectations, Byakuya embraces them with everything he is. He craves the approval of his grandfather, and constantly strives for any word of praise or encouraging nod he can gain. He has been raised his entire life toward an ideal--of a just, honorable, impartial leader that upholds both the laws and dictates of his clan and of the Gotei 13 and the Seireitei. He is to become himself a model, both to future generations and to the men he commands and must inspire loyalty by displaying it, and yet hold his honor (of his clan and squad both) above any personal connections.
By just over a century, Byakuya will have not once, but twice been faced with defying these expectations in favor of following the demands of his heart--when marrying for love, and when forced to choose between honoring his late wife's dying wish or carrying out the dictates of the law to the letter. In the first case he shows a great deal of moral fortitude in following his heart. And in the latter case, despite his stubborn insistence on carrying out the law, he ultimately chooses to do the right thing, and he risks his own life to protect Rukia once Aizen is revealed to be a traitor.
However, the important point to note is that Byakuya is not yet the clan head nor the captain of the Sixth. For all his eagerness to fulfill his family's expectations, he is still but a boy. He's easy to tease and rile, and gets excited at the prospect of having personal time to spend with his grandfather. Byakuya himself seems to reject this reality to some degree, such as when Yoruichi invites him to play a game with him, and he tells her he doesn't have time for such childish things as playing games.
While he can be a brat, however, Byakuya is overall rather mature for (the relative human equivalent of) his age. Propriety and etiquette are part of his noble upbringing and except when his temper is riled (i.e Yoruichi), Byakuya is highly respectful of his elders and of anyone in a position of authority.
Hufflepuff would be a fitting house for Byakuya, as many of the house's core values (justice, impartiality, loyalty, dedication, adherence to the rules and hard work) are ones he has been raised to uphold and embody. It's true that as the heir of a noble family, he has been inculcated with a certain sense of entitlement, but the Shinigami Academy accepts anyone who passes the entrance exam--commoner or noble--and Byakuya understands the value of hard work in rising through the ranks within the Gotei 13. Gryffindor is possible as a back-up house, due to the fact that the very position of being a shinigami entails a certain amount of valor and courage, and a sense of duty to the humans one will protect despite the inherent inability to ever be acknowledged by them for the effort.
COMMUTER DETAILS: N/A Untapped by Death Eaters. He's more likely to try to protect Hogwarts.
POSITION: Student
ORIENTATION: Eventually, Byakuya grows up to marry a woman, so probably straight? However, he's still pretty young, and the idea of romance and relationships isn't something he's really thought about yet. Being the sole heir of a prestigious noble clan, he would be expected to have an arranged marriage with some other noblewoman and produce an heir of his own, and as young as he is, has had no reason to question that, has not met the woman he will eventually fall in love with and for whom he will break his family's laws to marry.
ABILITIES & POWERS: At this point, Byakuya is at best a beginning student at the Shinigami Academy. He is seen to have at least some proficiency in shunpo (moving rapidly with a minimal amount of steps and invisible to the human eye--displayed graphically in the anime as momentarily vanishing and reappearing farther ahead) in the scene with him and Yoruichi, and possibly possesses basic kidou skills, but he does not yet have his own zanpakutou, and thus no shikai or bankai yet--a far cry from the fearsome strength of his adult, captain self.
However, while Byakuya will not be particularly strong or skilled as a wizard upon entering Hogwarts, I would like to base his particular aptitudes for magic (the subjects he'll come to learn most quickly and easily) on the strengths of his adult self.
One of the major duties of a shinigami is purifying/protecting humans from monsters called hollows, which devour the souls of both the living and the dead. I think this could roughly translate to an aptitude for Defense Against the Dark Arts.
I'd also like him to discover he has some natural talent in flying, due to the combination of shunpo and the capacity to stand/walk/run in midair that all shinigami possess.
Finally, as a captain, Byakuya's noted strengths are binding spells, long-ranged attacks, and defense. As young Byakuya progresses through the years at Hogwarts, these will become his strengths as well.
WAND: I'd like Byakuya's wand to be Holly, with phoenix feather core, 9 1/2 inches and inflexible.
[T]raditionally considered protective, [holly] works most happily for those who may need help overcoming a tendency to anger and impetuosity.
Holly is one of those woods that varies most dramatically in performance depending on the wand core, and it is a notoriously difficult wood to team with phoenix feather, as the wood’s volatility conflicts strangely with the phoenix’s detachment.
Although it is a rare combination, I believe the pairing of holly and phoenix feather well represents the internal conflict of Byakuya as a youth: as his grandfather says, he has a lot of potential for growth and achievement if he could learn to master his temper. At the same time, he a noble, born and bred, and he is more than well-aware of his family's expectations and his duty to take his position as head of the Kuchiki clan and someday, as captain of the sixth division. As a noble head, he must be calm, poised, and composed, and as a captain he must be clear-headed and rational, able to lead efficiently and uphold law and order fairly and impartially. He must be able to make decisions unimpeded by emotion.
Even as a youth, Byakuya is aware of all these things, and when we see him as an adult, we see his has embraced them, arguably too much so. His adult self is cool and distant, devoted to the law above all personal ties. In so choosing, he is eschewing much of his personal identity in favor of duty and expectation--a decision we learn he suffers greatly from, when faced with conflicting vows at the time of the Rukia execution debacle, and yet stubbornly clings to. Byakuya, as a youth, has not yet been forced to make this choice, and both remain at odds within him. In this way, the wand would represent both how he is now (the volatility of the holly) and what he has the potential to become (the detachment of the phoenix feather). As for the length and flexibility, a standard, if short length makes sense as Byakuya is likely to be precise and efficient in learning and performing magic, rather than grandiose or flamboyant. He's a stubborn boy in general, and raised in both a family, and a society that is very set in its ways. However, he is still young with room to develop and grow, and 'inflexible' is more suitable than 'unyielding,' a description more fitting of his elder self.
MISC.:
WRITING SAMPLESFIRST PERSON:
[ Audio --> Video ]
[Hello, Hogwarts and fellow Magicdrafted, please enjoy some complimentary scratchy, static-y noises as someone tries to figure out how the commuter works.]
...couldn't have simply used a hell butterfly...[And lo! The picture clicks on to a young boy, appearing to be in his early teens. And his expression manages to hold an impressive amount of anger and irration, despite his boyishly cute facial features.]
If this...thing is working now, I demand to know the meaning of this outrage! [Aside from the letter everyone got, anyway.]
You cannot simply pull me out of the Soul Society and expect me to participate in your petty human conflict! It is not the place of shinigami to do so! Even if I have yet to graduate from the Academy... At any rate! I cannot help you--as future head of the Kuchiki clan and captain of the Sixth Division of the Gotei 13, I have too many duties to uphold. [Expectations to meet, grandfathers to please, and all.]
I-I'll have you know this could be counted as a kidnapping. [His voice cracks slightly, the mask of bravado slipping as just a bit of that anger is replaced with fear.]
Jii-sama will certainly hear of it. A-and he will be well within his rights to...to execute you, Albus Dumbledore.
S-so I suggest...that you unhand me. Merely reopening the senkaimon through which you brought me will suffice.
THIRD PERSON:
So it seemed...he was stuck here, for awhile. Stuck in an entirely foreign dimension with foreign people and foreign powers, alone. If all that wasn't bad enough, they had done something to him (put him in a gigai, perhaps?) and now everyone, even normal humans could see and hear him. It's...unsettling. Humans and spirit beings are meant to be separate, live in different dimensions and on different planes of existence for a reason. Breaking down those boundaries was just asking to destroy the balance that shinigami strove so hard to protect.
What's perhaps even more unnerving for him, however, is that he is alone--alone in a place where the name 'Kuchiki' means nothing, in which after a century of relying on servants for almost everything, he would need to learn to fend for himself, by himself. It's a small blessing that meals will be provided, but there are many things he's never bothered to learn how to do, and he will look deficient amongst these commoners if he cannot master them on his own.
...And then there is the question of money. Kuchiki Byakuya, sole heir of one of the four great noble houses, has never known want a day in his life. He's never known privation. The very notion that he could someday be in a position in which he would have to carefully monitor what he could afford or not was absurd. And yet, here he was.
One day...one day, he'd be vindicated for these indignities--he would make sure of it. But for now, he has to make his own way in this new dimension, and that means he will need to adapt. Byakuya thinks he can do that; for now, he can consider it practice for when he will need these skills as a shinigami, and as a leader. Adaptability was key to survival in many types of missions, and he is still the future captain of the Sixth Division. He would adapt, and he'd make his grandfather proud.
That's why he's here, in the library--to learn about this dimension, and what's necessary to live within it. And he can't deny that he's looking forward to that part, at least; Byakuya has always enjoyed his lessons, after all.
He plucks the first book off of the shelf in front of him, opens it to the first page, and begins to read.