Profile Post!
Name: Soma Cruz
Canon: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, AU
Age: 18
Birthdate: August 18, 1990
Astrological Sign: Leo/Metal Horse
Physical Description: Soma is 5'10", with bright white hair that doesn't look like it should be natural for a human, and pale steel blue eyes, known to fade silver depending on the light. He usually wears a plain black shirt, jeans, boots, and a long white trenchcoat. When something doesn't have his attention too obviously or he's not talking to people, he often gives the impression of a quiet, introspective stoic and can seem much older than he actually is. This lasts until the moment he opens his mouth, at which point he still has the vibe of something very old, dangerous, and powerful, but otherwise acts like a fairly typical eighteen year old socially-awkward dork. If he's particularly agitated or there's a lot of blood around, his eyes start turning almost luminescent yellow, and he gains visible fangs and a more "feral" feel to the "aura".
In wolf form, he's a large solid-white wolf that's just coming out of the "awkward adolescent" age, with legs slightly too long and paws slightly too big; in bat form, he's a solid white Egyptian fruit bat with about a three foot wingspan. He's also capable of a white-fog mist form for a few seconds, but that's rarely seen and tends to give him migraines. He can't speak in any of those three forms, but often forgets this, resulting in a lot of confused barking and squeaking. In theory he has a malleable demon form, but that's never been seen, and he doesn't know how to trigger it.
He typically has his familiar Teela with him - a by-most-respects normal insect-eating bat that happens to have some fire abilities, usually manifested as a very small fireball breath-weapon; if she's killed, he can use some of his power to reform her body, as her spirit returns to him. He can somewhat communicate with her, but she's basically about as intelligent as a four year old child and has a VERY short attention span outside of following a given command until called back. She's capable of reverting to "dormant spirit" at any time, and may not always be active.
Background: Soma was born the middle child of seven children to a third-generation Spanish-immigrant Catholic family in Chicago. He would've been missed in the shuffle more if he didn't stick out due to his unusual looks and the "HI I'M A PREDATORY NIGHT-CREATURE" aura. He spent most of his childhood quietly, doing exchange-student stints with a Japanese host family, with the only hiccups being small things; picking up the violin far too easily, knowing bits of history without studying,and the like.
This got drop-kicked out of normalcy when he went on a class trip with the daughter of his host-family to see a total solar Eclipse...which turned out to be the catalyst for the thousand-year-old elder vampire/Chaos Lord soul that'd been hiding in his body calling out to his extradimensional demon-castle and trying to take over Soma's body.
In this is where things depart from canon, besides Matthias/"Dracula" existing as a separate entity parasitic to Soma rather than Soma existing as his reincarnation. After beating back the posession attempt, instead of resealing the power and the Castle, Soma kept the Castle, focusing instead on trying to turn it into something less malevolent by force of will - reasoning that if Adrian/"Arikado"/He of Too Many Aliases could do it as a scion of the castle, and the castle followed the Master's will, then so could he. Events of Dawn of Sorrow happened slightly differently...but not so much in some respects, besides the goal being more to either kill him and claim the power or force him to lose control to "Dracula" - Matthias - and become the dark lord again.
He's been trying to keep up some pretense of normalcy while keeping the Castle not-solid-plane mostly, keeping close ties with his friends from the disasters and fending off occasional demon-hunters that didn't get the memo and other night-creatures that resent his refusal to lead them against humanity.
Fairytale Background: Soma's family was in one of the larger, more peaceful countries; he grew up in a relatively normal family, actually near AU!Mina's family and the temple they kept, and was in training to be a paladin of the church. Much like his original self, he was utterly unaware that part of the reason the church kept such a close on eye on him was that someone had traced him as the vessel for AU!Matthias/Dracula's soul, defeated the year he was born by a mixed group of demon hunters, led by the Belmont Clan of hunters and Matthias's own half-human son. Matthias's original history is more known in this AU.
After he managed to beat Matthias's attempt at taking over, he sealed Matthias's soul into a pendant that he wears constantly. He had been working to turn Eternal Night from a primarily demonic-chaotic construct into something more balanced, after spotting that it had the potential for such, with very tentative backing from the church...
Then the church was swept away and destroyed as the land was conquered; he managed to use the Castle's power and armies to protect his home town and some of the area near it, at first. Then the High Inquisitor arrived; Soma realized that he was in for a long, protracted siege with a demon that had its own agenda for Eternal Night, and not wanting to risk it falling back into demonic or "evil" hands, he kept up the siege long enough to give the townsfolk time to evacuate and scatter, then sealed it as well.
He maintains some of the powers of the Castle - roughly what he would normally have in Blip. He technically could draw on the souls of some of the entities within the Castle either for power or to summon them, but treats that as a last resort, since Eternal Night doesn't really like being squished into a pocket-realm of "nonexistence" and having it remanifest because he isn't entirely trained in controlling it - thereby forcing him back on a stationary defensive - would be a very bad position to be in.
He carries a sword and is trained to use it, but he's traveling under the guise of a wandering bard, trying to avoid attention; bards and minstrels are generally less worrisome travelers than hired swords.
Personality: Soma is, at heart, a slightly fluffy and energetic normal teenage boy that just happens to cope extraordinarily well with weird shit. He's stubborn and hard-headed, with an occasional sulky temper that he's quick to reign in or forget, and while he's extremely intelligent he also has a slightly short attention span at times. He's slightly standoffish with most people, thanks to years of bad reactions to the "creepy vibes", although he opens up pretty quickly and relaxes once he's sure people aren't going to start treating him badly because he "vibes bad". For all that he can be slightly moody, he doesn't get genuinely angry easily at all.
Powers: Outside Eternal Night, some shapeshifting, summoning fire, regeneration, pseudo-immortality, and generally being in a strange midpoint between human, demon, and vampire; short-range (about 30 yards) teleport good for annoying people and getting into/out of things. Also, Teela. In wolf form, he can run at "wait, did you see something?" speed, although he's bad at stopping before he runs into things; in bat form, he can breath fire (although the fireballs are maybe fist-sized and a bit ineffectual) and has typical bat abilities.
Strengths: Loyalty, determination, not being as much of a stupid kid as he acts half the time; hightly intelligent when he stops to think, although that's a BIG caveat, and doesn't always mean whatever he knows or can piece together will be applicable at the time. Capable of out-stubborning ancient chaos lords, and nearly fearless.
Weaknesses: Lack of fear to point of "ooooh let's poke the big thing with a stick!" stupidity. Yanno how people talk about teenagers thinking they're invincible? Try one who KNOWS he is. Bright light is painful, and he can go snowblind if he's out in bright sunlight/around a lot of shiney reflective things on a bright day and forgets a really dark pair of sunglasses. Consecrated things are painful. May not NEED to drink blood, but is bad at the whole, "if I become a vampire" rule of "I will remember to look concerned and not hungry-distracted if someone cuts themself around me" and does have a taste for it. Ancient pissy vampire lord sealed in the back of his head.
Canon: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, AU
Age: 18
Birthdate: August 18, 1990
Astrological Sign: Leo/Metal Horse
Physical Description: Soma is 5'10", with bright white hair that doesn't look like it should be natural for a human, and pale steel blue eyes, known to fade silver depending on the light. He usually wears a plain black shirt, jeans, boots, and a long white trenchcoat. When something doesn't have his attention too obviously or he's not talking to people, he often gives the impression of a quiet, introspective stoic and can seem much older than he actually is. This lasts until the moment he opens his mouth, at which point he still has the vibe of something very old, dangerous, and powerful, but otherwise acts like a fairly typical eighteen year old socially-awkward dork. If he's particularly agitated or there's a lot of blood around, his eyes start turning almost luminescent yellow, and he gains visible fangs and a more "feral" feel to the "aura".
In wolf form, he's a large solid-white wolf that's just coming out of the "awkward adolescent" age, with legs slightly too long and paws slightly too big; in bat form, he's a solid white Egyptian fruit bat with about a three foot wingspan. He's also capable of a white-fog mist form for a few seconds, but that's rarely seen and tends to give him migraines. He can't speak in any of those three forms, but often forgets this, resulting in a lot of confused barking and squeaking. In theory he has a malleable demon form, but that's never been seen, and he doesn't know how to trigger it.
He typically has his familiar Teela with him - a by-most-respects normal insect-eating bat that happens to have some fire abilities, usually manifested as a very small fireball breath-weapon; if she's killed, he can use some of his power to reform her body, as her spirit returns to him. He can somewhat communicate with her, but she's basically about as intelligent as a four year old child and has a VERY short attention span outside of following a given command until called back. She's capable of reverting to "dormant spirit" at any time, and may not always be active.
Background: Soma was born the middle child of seven children to a third-generation Spanish-immigrant Catholic family in Chicago. He would've been missed in the shuffle more if he didn't stick out due to his unusual looks and the "HI I'M A PREDATORY NIGHT-CREATURE" aura. He spent most of his childhood quietly, doing exchange-student stints with a Japanese host family, with the only hiccups being small things; picking up the violin far too easily, knowing bits of history without studying,and the like.
This got drop-kicked out of normalcy when he went on a class trip with the daughter of his host-family to see a total solar Eclipse...which turned out to be the catalyst for the thousand-year-old elder vampire/Chaos Lord soul that'd been hiding in his body calling out to his extradimensional demon-castle and trying to take over Soma's body.
In this is where things depart from canon, besides Matthias/"Dracula" existing as a separate entity parasitic to Soma rather than Soma existing as his reincarnation. After beating back the posession attempt, instead of resealing the power and the Castle, Soma kept the Castle, focusing instead on trying to turn it into something less malevolent by force of will - reasoning that if Adrian/"Arikado"/He of Too Many Aliases could do it as a scion of the castle, and the castle followed the Master's will, then so could he. Events of Dawn of Sorrow happened slightly differently...but not so much in some respects, besides the goal being more to either kill him and claim the power or force him to lose control to "Dracula" - Matthias - and become the dark lord again.
He's been trying to keep up some pretense of normalcy while keeping the Castle not-solid-plane mostly, keeping close ties with his friends from the disasters and fending off occasional demon-hunters that didn't get the memo and other night-creatures that resent his refusal to lead them against humanity.
Fairytale Background: Soma's family was in one of the larger, more peaceful countries; he grew up in a relatively normal family, actually near AU!Mina's family and the temple they kept, and was in training to be a paladin of the church. Much like his original self, he was utterly unaware that part of the reason the church kept such a close on eye on him was that someone had traced him as the vessel for AU!Matthias/Dracula's soul, defeated the year he was born by a mixed group of demon hunters, led by the Belmont Clan of hunters and Matthias's own half-human son. Matthias's original history is more known in this AU.
After he managed to beat Matthias's attempt at taking over, he sealed Matthias's soul into a pendant that he wears constantly. He had been working to turn Eternal Night from a primarily demonic-chaotic construct into something more balanced, after spotting that it had the potential for such, with very tentative backing from the church...
Then the church was swept away and destroyed as the land was conquered; he managed to use the Castle's power and armies to protect his home town and some of the area near it, at first. Then the High Inquisitor arrived; Soma realized that he was in for a long, protracted siege with a demon that had its own agenda for Eternal Night, and not wanting to risk it falling back into demonic or "evil" hands, he kept up the siege long enough to give the townsfolk time to evacuate and scatter, then sealed it as well.
He maintains some of the powers of the Castle - roughly what he would normally have in Blip. He technically could draw on the souls of some of the entities within the Castle either for power or to summon them, but treats that as a last resort, since Eternal Night doesn't really like being squished into a pocket-realm of "nonexistence" and having it remanifest because he isn't entirely trained in controlling it - thereby forcing him back on a stationary defensive - would be a very bad position to be in.
He carries a sword and is trained to use it, but he's traveling under the guise of a wandering bard, trying to avoid attention; bards and minstrels are generally less worrisome travelers than hired swords.
Personality: Soma is, at heart, a slightly fluffy and energetic normal teenage boy that just happens to cope extraordinarily well with weird shit. He's stubborn and hard-headed, with an occasional sulky temper that he's quick to reign in or forget, and while he's extremely intelligent he also has a slightly short attention span at times. He's slightly standoffish with most people, thanks to years of bad reactions to the "creepy vibes", although he opens up pretty quickly and relaxes once he's sure people aren't going to start treating him badly because he "vibes bad". For all that he can be slightly moody, he doesn't get genuinely angry easily at all.
Powers: Outside Eternal Night, some shapeshifting, summoning fire, regeneration, pseudo-immortality, and generally being in a strange midpoint between human, demon, and vampire; short-range (about 30 yards) teleport good for annoying people and getting into/out of things. Also, Teela. In wolf form, he can run at "wait, did you see something?" speed, although he's bad at stopping before he runs into things; in bat form, he can breath fire (although the fireballs are maybe fist-sized and a bit ineffectual) and has typical bat abilities.
Strengths: Loyalty, determination, not being as much of a stupid kid as he acts half the time; hightly intelligent when he stops to think, although that's a BIG caveat, and doesn't always mean whatever he knows or can piece together will be applicable at the time. Capable of out-stubborning ancient chaos lords, and nearly fearless.
Weaknesses: Lack of fear to point of "ooooh let's poke the big thing with a stick!" stupidity. Yanno how people talk about teenagers thinking they're invincible? Try one who KNOWS he is. Bright light is painful, and he can go snowblind if he's out in bright sunlight/around a lot of shiney reflective things on a bright day and forgets a really dark pair of sunglasses. Consecrated things are painful. May not NEED to drink blood, but is bad at the whole, "if I become a vampire" rule of "I will remember to look concerned and not hungry-distracted if someone cuts themself around me" and does have a taste for it. Ancient pissy vampire lord sealed in the back of his head.