Luceti Application
Mun
Name: Misa
Livejournal Username:
zemeth
E-mail: Available on request
AIM/MSN: Darksol Gasp
Current Characters at Luceti:
ν-13 (Nu)
Character
Name: Joshua Bright (AKA Joshua Astray, Ouroboros’ Legion No. XIII - the Black Fang)
Fandom: Legend of Heroes VI: Trails in the Sky (AKA Sora no Kiseki)
Gender: Male
Age: 16
Time Period: At the end of FC, just before his conversation with Professor Alba.
Wing Color: Black with amber tips, matching his hair- and eye color.
Note: Since only FC has received an official English translation so far and certain characters aren’t mentioned until the later games, some of the names in this application might differ when SC and 3rd are released in English. In particular, “Karin” may be changed to “Karen”, but for now, I’ll be using the former name, as it’s closer to the Japanese spelling.
And naturally, this contains spoilers for the entire Trails in the Sky trilogy. It's mainly just FC and SC, but there's definitely some allusions to certain events in 3rd as well. You've been warned!
History: Backstory, FC’s Prologue, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2
FC’s Chapter 3 and 4
Personality:
At a glance, Joshua is well-mannered and polite. He may be a bit quiet - if not even a little reserved - and doesn’t talk about himself much, but he’s definitely kind-hearted, fair, and has something of a talent for saying the right thing to people when the situation calls for it, although he’s definitely capable of being blunt about facts when the situation calls for it as well. There are two ways to get him to be more talkative, though, with one of the two being flustering him; for some reason, if he’s not simply unsettled by a person’s words (say, Olivier’s attempts at flirting with him, or Scherazard’s teasing), he tends to get much more talkative. That aside, he’s also a man of his word, even going as far as to note that keeping his word defines who he is, and can be very serious about his job as a Bracer - noticeably more so than his adopted sister Estelle.
Of course, that’s not all there is to him. His politeness is actually something of a shield - a means of distancing himself from others. But when someone does manage to get past this, his behavior shifts a little. Around those he considers himself closer to, while he’s all in all still rather formal, he doesn’t shy away from pointing out their flaws, although often in a lighthearted, teasing way… and sometimes even through backhanded compliments. Despite that, though, he definitely cares for his friends and family, sometimes even to a point where he’s rather protective of them - the most prominent example here being Estelle, who he often tries to protect from harm even if that means risking injury to himself, and to whom he always offers his support when necessary.
Aside from the above, for someone his age, Joshua is fairly intelligent, largely due to him being very interested in reading. As a result, he often ends up as the one explaining things to the rest of the party (or at the very least, to Estelle). And just as frequently, he acts as the group’s voice of reason, due to him generally being the one to think of the most logical course of action, such as eliminating a group of monsters rather than letting them go to eliminate the risk of them causing more trouble in the future. In addition to those two traits, he’s also fairly observant: for example, out of the entire party, he ends up being the first to notice two recurring events in all of the cases that they’ve dealt with. This also means that he’s somewhat decent at picking up more easily missed cues that hint at a person’s true nature, such as the look in Josette’s eyes when she saw the septium crystal that was intended as a gift for the queen.
Unfortunately, there’s also something of a darker side to Joshua’s personality. Earlier, I noted that there are two ways to get him to be more talkative; the second of these would be speaking to him when something bothers him. This occurs a lot more often than it sounds, as there are a few aspects about Joshua that genuinely trouble him. The more obvious of these is the fact that he has a much harder time feeling compassion for people and creatures he isn’t very close to, which shows in the form of him having no problem with considering killing - or actually killing - a living creature even in a situation where others would consider letting it live. This goes back to his time with Ouroboros; though he may not fully remember it, it definitely still affects his personality under specific circumstances, particularly during battle. He has a hard time dealing with this side of himself, and there’s definitely some self-loathing stemming from it.
One other notable thing that can cause this is threatening someone he cares about, which leads to him completely dropping his usual politeness in favor of rather gruesome threats of his own, as Mayor Dalmore finds out the hard way… and it’s pretty safe to say that if Dalmore had actually hurt Estelle, he really would have carried those threats out. Usually, when this sort of behavior surfaces, it’s characterized by his eyes looking much more dull than usual, lacking any shine whatsoever.
He also has a bad habit of keeping his own feelings bottled up to keep those around him from worrying, often to a point where doing so actually hurts him. While he’s good at providing support for others, he’s definitely bad at relying on such support himself when he really should, which leads to him usually trying to deal with things that bother him on his own… which, unsurprisingly, tends to not work out too well, leading to more harm than good.
On top of that, Joshua struggles somewhat with his lost memories. Most of what little he can recall is hardly pleasant, but reminders of his forgotten past almost always trigger strange reactions on his part. At best, he simply spaces out for a few moments before deciding that his mind must be playing trick on him and then returning to normal, but there are also a few instances where his reactions are a bit more extreme. The prime example for that would be chasing after the silver-haired man that was sighted at the Jenis Royal Academy on his own, despite the fact that doing so could have been potentially dangerous for him. He can get pretty reckless sometimes, really.
Still, his inability to recall events prior to his adoption into the Bright household isn’t necessarily all bad. While it’s mostly the result of Weissmann altering his memories, at least part of the reason for his amnesia does seem to be that he himself may not want to remember it… and when he does remember eventually, the reason for that becomes clear very quickly: though he himself had no direct part in the tragedy, he definitely blames himself for Karin’s death, and even ten years later, he has an extremely hard time coping with his own feelings of guilt regarding it, mainly as a result of Karin essentially dying in his place because she chose to protect him. All of that leads to Joshua considering himself weak and cowardly, but at the same time, he still keeps his desire to protect those he cares about, which leads to him keeping these sorts of feelings - even prior to fully regaining his memory - to himself, or even to him leaving their side to deal with things himself, even if their help would make his goal much easier to achieve. It probably bears mentioning that he hasn’t gotten much better at coping with the loss of someone close to him; he may not break completely anymore, but should such a thing occur again, it can very well fling him far enough into despair that he’ll completely lose any regard for his own life until someone snaps him out of it.
As for hobbies and the like, aside from reading, he has more than just a passing interest in weapons, and is reasonably skilled at playing the harmonica - in particular, throughout the game, he can often be seen playing the first part of “The Whereabouts of Light”, often if something is bothering him, or if he’s simply unable to sleep. Aside from this, he veers toward religious remarks more often than most of the rest of the cast, bringing up Aidios and praising her notably more frequently than the others; it bears mentioning that the manga version of one particular scene even goes as far as to show him praying for the safety of someone who may have seemed familiar to Joshua at the time, but could very well have been an enemy (and who does, in fact, turn out to be on the opposite side later on).
Strengths:
Physical: For his age, Joshua is noted to be both extremely fast and stronger than an entire squad of soldiers, which is reflected well by his in-game stats - he’s easily one of the most powerful characters among the playable cast, which comes as no surprise considering he used to be an incredibly efficient assassin. He may not remember his past, but the skills he had gained then are definitely still present, which can make him a difficult opponent to deal with. One thing worth noting here is that his reflexes are much better than those of most humans, often allowing him to pick up on an incoming attack or an approaching threat much faster than anyone else.
In battle, he fights using dual swords, relying on his speed to strike frequently. His crafts are primarily centered around handicapping his opponents, primarily by striking at weak spots, dulling their senses, or intimidating them by glaring. He can also taunt opponents into focusing their attacks on him rather than someone else who may be involved in the fight. He also has access to a powerful feinting attack involving consecutive slashes at a single target, as well as an equally powerful move that relies on his speed to unleash a flurry of slashes on all currently present opponents. These two can’t be used as often and easily as his other moves, however.
In addition, like any other orbment user, he has access to arts, which allow him to use spells. Joshua’s orbment, however, is partially limited to Time Quartz, meaning that he has a somewhat stronger focus on arts that affect one’s movement speed and the effect of arts, allowing him to increase or decrease the speed of his targets. Aside from this, though, his strengths lie more with offensive arts, and he’s actually a pretty effective offensive mage of sorts. Changing the quartz setup on his orbment can give him access to different arts - with the right setup, it’s not impossible for him to have access to arts that cause elemental damage to a specific target or within a certain area, heal him, protect him from damage once or increase his own speed.
Mental: Joshua’s pretty smart, partially as a result of just how much he reads. More often than not, he serves as a source of information for the party, explaining things that the others (usually Estelle) aren’t familiar with to them. There are some things he’s still unfamiliar with, and his explanations tend to be relatively simplistic, but they do a good job at getting the point across nevertheless.
As with his physical strengths, his past also affects him mentally to some extent; since Weissmann essentially attempted to turn him into a human weapon, he required not only significant strength, reflexes and speed, but also the ability to reason through and execute a solution to a problem, no matter what the circumstances are. This shows multiple times throughout the story, as he’s usually the one finding ways to deal with difficult situations - not to mention the one who frequently takes the most logical approach, for example, by insisting that a quartet of monsters that had been terrorizing a farm be exterminated (as outlined in the original request) rather than spared so as to prevent a repeat of their behavior.
He’s also decent at reading people by picking up on easily missed details. For example, when Josette was at the mayor’s house, according to him, her eyes lit up like those of a hunter’s eyeing her prey when the mayor placed the septium crystal in his safe, something nobody else present at the time noticed.
Emotional: Most of the time, Joshua is calm and polite, and all in all, he’s pretty reasonable. It’s not that easy to actually anger him unless you really push the wrong button; at worst, he might get annoyed or flustered, but it’s rare to see him genuinely angry.
He’s also very much a man of his word - as he says, keeping his word defines who he is. This is arguably both good and bad, as it also means he won’t take back anything he said, even if it may upset someone.
Despite the fact that he has a hard time dealing with his own problems, he’s actually pretty good at comforting others. As Estelle puts it, he always seems to know the right thing to say, and as a result, he’s a good person to talk to about one’s problems. This shows especially strongly in regards to Estelle, as he manages to lift her spirits through his words multiple times throughout the course of the first game, even at times like just after their father went missing and Estelle just finished explained what had happened to her mother during the Hundred Days War.
Lastly, he’s fairly overprotective of those he cares about. The one surefire way to really rile him up is to threaten someone important to him, and he gets scary if that happens. It’s definitely no exaggeration to say that if it’s to keep his loved ones safe, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill if he had to - and if what he says to Mayor Dalmore when he threatens Estelle is any indication, it’d be anything but a swift and painless death.
Weaknesses:
Physical: There’s… really not that much to say here. Joshua’s physical abilities may be above average all in all, but he’s only human, even if he’s close to being something of a human weapon - he’s still as squishy as anyone else, just somewhat more tenacious and more difficult to deal with than someone without (or with less) training is.
Due to his weapon of choice being dual swords, his range isn’t the greatest unless he resorts to arts and crafts. Someone with a ranged weapon, like a staff or an orbal gun, therefore has a small advantage over him, since he can’t just constantly use crafts. Meanwhile, arts aren’t exactly instantaneous; stronger arts will take him longer to cast, and as useful as some of their effects may be, it’s entirely possible to interrupt him while he’s preparing to use them.
And speaking of arts and crafts, both of these require his orbment to use. Without it, he can’t use either of the two, which leaves him… somewhat handicapped in terms of offense, to put it mildly.
Mental: Joshua’s perceptiveness isn’t solely a good thing - it also leads to him being somewhat more suspicious of people than most would be, which can make it difficult for him to trust others. For example, even when Cassius had just saved him and taken him to his house to recover, he questions him initially, wondering what he’s trying to pull. Even something as simple as Olivier deducting that he, Estelle and Scherazard are bracers immediately leads to him initially being suspicious of the man, despite him ultimately being fairly harmless.
In addition, there’s that whole amnesia problem. He can’t remember most of what happened prior to him being adopted by the Brights very clearly, which often leads to odd reactions for him when something reminds him of his forgotten memories. In particular, there’s more than just a few instances where such reminders cause him to space out to a point where he barely reacts to anything else for a few moments.
Lastly, while he’s generally pretty smart, a lot of his knowledge comes from books and is specific to his world. When faced with something he doesn’t recognize, he tends to be at just as much of a loss as anyone else - when he and Estelle faced with an escalator for the first time, for example, he simply guesses that it’s “some kind of… moving staircase” when she asks him what it is, but is all in all obviously just as unsure about what exactly it’s supposed to be as she is.
Emotional: This is easily where most of his weaknesses lie. Though he doesn’t show it often, Joshua is still something of a broken mess emotionally - he has a hard time feeling compassion for living beings, which bothers him immensely. As he himself says, “it’s almost as if there’s something wrong with me as a person.” This does lead to a notable amount of self-loathing on his part, much to the chagrin of those who care about him, like Estelle.
Matters of his forgotten past also tend to be something of a problem for him. He’s obviously uncomfortable with speaking about what he can actually remember, and the bits he can’t recall bother him immensely, to a point where he occasionally throws reason out of the window; for example, by chasing after a certain silver-haired man he thought he recognized during his stay at the Royal Academy. Really, any reminder of these things he can’t clearly remember is likely to result in an unusual reaction from him, whether it’s spacing out as mentioned above, overreacting, doing something rash as previously mentioned, or - though this is something he tends to keep to himself - worrying about someone he can’t even recall clearly.
It doesn’t stop there, either. More often than not, he places those he cares about above himself to a point where it’s outright unhealthy for him: in the past, Karin’s sacrifice affected him so strongly he practically went catatonic because of it. The final scene of FC shows that he’ll even abandon the Bright family for their own sake once he regains his memories despite this hurting him; as Weissmann so aptly puts it, they’re good people - perhaps too good for a “monster” like him - and so for the sake of not putting them into further danger, he abandons them when he sets out on a journey to deal with the magician, going as far as to knock Estelle out using a fast-acting sedative simply to ensure that she wouldn’t follow him and put her own life into danger. This is so much of a problem for him that even later on in his canon, losing someone important to him once more has such a heavy impact on him that he simply ceases to care about his own safety in the middle of a life-or-death situation, and it’s only thanks to Estelle’s support that he doesn’t get himself killed right there and then. Put into different terms, he gets too attached to people important to him, to a point where their well-being is so important to him that he would place their safety above his own happiness, and where actually losing one of them affects him much, much more strongly than it would most.
Aside from that, there’s his habit of keeping his feelings to himself so as to not worry others. Even if he technically means well by that, constantly keeping his problems to himself generally ends up hurting him… and as a result of him not trying to rely on others, some of these problems also take much longer to resolve than if he had chosen to let others help him from the start. In at least two instances, such a problem even carries over into the next game in the series, either because of him not telling anyone else, or because he tries to resolve it on his own.
Name: Misa
Livejournal Username:
zemeth
E-mail: Available on request
AIM/MSN: Darksol Gasp
Current Characters at Luceti:
ν-13 (Nu)
Character
Name: Joshua Bright (AKA Joshua Astray, Ouroboros’ Legion No. XIII - the Black Fang)
Fandom: Legend of Heroes VI: Trails in the Sky (AKA Sora no Kiseki)
Gender: Male
Age: 16
Time Period: At the end of FC, just before his conversation with Professor Alba.
Wing Color: Black with amber tips, matching his hair- and eye color.
Note: Since only FC has received an official English translation so far and certain characters aren’t mentioned until the later games, some of the names in this application might differ when SC and 3rd are released in English. In particular, “Karin” may be changed to “Karen”, but for now, I’ll be using the former name, as it’s closer to the Japanese spelling.
And naturally, this contains spoilers for the entire Trails in the Sky trilogy. It's mainly just FC and SC, but there's definitely some allusions to certain events in 3rd as well. You've been warned!
History: Backstory, FC’s Prologue, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2
FC’s Chapter 3 and 4
Personality:
At a glance, Joshua is well-mannered and polite. He may be a bit quiet - if not even a little reserved - and doesn’t talk about himself much, but he’s definitely kind-hearted, fair, and has something of a talent for saying the right thing to people when the situation calls for it, although he’s definitely capable of being blunt about facts when the situation calls for it as well. There are two ways to get him to be more talkative, though, with one of the two being flustering him; for some reason, if he’s not simply unsettled by a person’s words (say, Olivier’s attempts at flirting with him, or Scherazard’s teasing), he tends to get much more talkative. That aside, he’s also a man of his word, even going as far as to note that keeping his word defines who he is, and can be very serious about his job as a Bracer - noticeably more so than his adopted sister Estelle.
Of course, that’s not all there is to him. His politeness is actually something of a shield - a means of distancing himself from others. But when someone does manage to get past this, his behavior shifts a little. Around those he considers himself closer to, while he’s all in all still rather formal, he doesn’t shy away from pointing out their flaws, although often in a lighthearted, teasing way… and sometimes even through backhanded compliments. Despite that, though, he definitely cares for his friends and family, sometimes even to a point where he’s rather protective of them - the most prominent example here being Estelle, who he often tries to protect from harm even if that means risking injury to himself, and to whom he always offers his support when necessary.
Aside from the above, for someone his age, Joshua is fairly intelligent, largely due to him being very interested in reading. As a result, he often ends up as the one explaining things to the rest of the party (or at the very least, to Estelle). And just as frequently, he acts as the group’s voice of reason, due to him generally being the one to think of the most logical course of action, such as eliminating a group of monsters rather than letting them go to eliminate the risk of them causing more trouble in the future. In addition to those two traits, he’s also fairly observant: for example, out of the entire party, he ends up being the first to notice two recurring events in all of the cases that they’ve dealt with. This also means that he’s somewhat decent at picking up more easily missed cues that hint at a person’s true nature, such as the look in Josette’s eyes when she saw the septium crystal that was intended as a gift for the queen.
Unfortunately, there’s also something of a darker side to Joshua’s personality. Earlier, I noted that there are two ways to get him to be more talkative; the second of these would be speaking to him when something bothers him. This occurs a lot more often than it sounds, as there are a few aspects about Joshua that genuinely trouble him. The more obvious of these is the fact that he has a much harder time feeling compassion for people and creatures he isn’t very close to, which shows in the form of him having no problem with considering killing - or actually killing - a living creature even in a situation where others would consider letting it live. This goes back to his time with Ouroboros; though he may not fully remember it, it definitely still affects his personality under specific circumstances, particularly during battle. He has a hard time dealing with this side of himself, and there’s definitely some self-loathing stemming from it.
One other notable thing that can cause this is threatening someone he cares about, which leads to him completely dropping his usual politeness in favor of rather gruesome threats of his own, as Mayor Dalmore finds out the hard way… and it’s pretty safe to say that if Dalmore had actually hurt Estelle, he really would have carried those threats out. Usually, when this sort of behavior surfaces, it’s characterized by his eyes looking much more dull than usual, lacking any shine whatsoever.
He also has a bad habit of keeping his own feelings bottled up to keep those around him from worrying, often to a point where doing so actually hurts him. While he’s good at providing support for others, he’s definitely bad at relying on such support himself when he really should, which leads to him usually trying to deal with things that bother him on his own… which, unsurprisingly, tends to not work out too well, leading to more harm than good.
On top of that, Joshua struggles somewhat with his lost memories. Most of what little he can recall is hardly pleasant, but reminders of his forgotten past almost always trigger strange reactions on his part. At best, he simply spaces out for a few moments before deciding that his mind must be playing trick on him and then returning to normal, but there are also a few instances where his reactions are a bit more extreme. The prime example for that would be chasing after the silver-haired man that was sighted at the Jenis Royal Academy on his own, despite the fact that doing so could have been potentially dangerous for him. He can get pretty reckless sometimes, really.
Still, his inability to recall events prior to his adoption into the Bright household isn’t necessarily all bad. While it’s mostly the result of Weissmann altering his memories, at least part of the reason for his amnesia does seem to be that he himself may not want to remember it… and when he does remember eventually, the reason for that becomes clear very quickly: though he himself had no direct part in the tragedy, he definitely blames himself for Karin’s death, and even ten years later, he has an extremely hard time coping with his own feelings of guilt regarding it, mainly as a result of Karin essentially dying in his place because she chose to protect him. All of that leads to Joshua considering himself weak and cowardly, but at the same time, he still keeps his desire to protect those he cares about, which leads to him keeping these sorts of feelings - even prior to fully regaining his memory - to himself, or even to him leaving their side to deal with things himself, even if their help would make his goal much easier to achieve. It probably bears mentioning that he hasn’t gotten much better at coping with the loss of someone close to him; he may not break completely anymore, but should such a thing occur again, it can very well fling him far enough into despair that he’ll completely lose any regard for his own life until someone snaps him out of it.
As for hobbies and the like, aside from reading, he has more than just a passing interest in weapons, and is reasonably skilled at playing the harmonica - in particular, throughout the game, he can often be seen playing the first part of “The Whereabouts of Light”, often if something is bothering him, or if he’s simply unable to sleep. Aside from this, he veers toward religious remarks more often than most of the rest of the cast, bringing up Aidios and praising her notably more frequently than the others; it bears mentioning that the manga version of one particular scene even goes as far as to show him praying for the safety of someone who may have seemed familiar to Joshua at the time, but could very well have been an enemy (and who does, in fact, turn out to be on the opposite side later on).
Strengths:
Physical: For his age, Joshua is noted to be both extremely fast and stronger than an entire squad of soldiers, which is reflected well by his in-game stats - he’s easily one of the most powerful characters among the playable cast, which comes as no surprise considering he used to be an incredibly efficient assassin. He may not remember his past, but the skills he had gained then are definitely still present, which can make him a difficult opponent to deal with. One thing worth noting here is that his reflexes are much better than those of most humans, often allowing him to pick up on an incoming attack or an approaching threat much faster than anyone else.
In battle, he fights using dual swords, relying on his speed to strike frequently. His crafts are primarily centered around handicapping his opponents, primarily by striking at weak spots, dulling their senses, or intimidating them by glaring. He can also taunt opponents into focusing their attacks on him rather than someone else who may be involved in the fight. He also has access to a powerful feinting attack involving consecutive slashes at a single target, as well as an equally powerful move that relies on his speed to unleash a flurry of slashes on all currently present opponents. These two can’t be used as often and easily as his other moves, however.
In addition, like any other orbment user, he has access to arts, which allow him to use spells. Joshua’s orbment, however, is partially limited to Time Quartz, meaning that he has a somewhat stronger focus on arts that affect one’s movement speed and the effect of arts, allowing him to increase or decrease the speed of his targets. Aside from this, though, his strengths lie more with offensive arts, and he’s actually a pretty effective offensive mage of sorts. Changing the quartz setup on his orbment can give him access to different arts - with the right setup, it’s not impossible for him to have access to arts that cause elemental damage to a specific target or within a certain area, heal him, protect him from damage once or increase his own speed.
Mental: Joshua’s pretty smart, partially as a result of just how much he reads. More often than not, he serves as a source of information for the party, explaining things that the others (usually Estelle) aren’t familiar with to them. There are some things he’s still unfamiliar with, and his explanations tend to be relatively simplistic, but they do a good job at getting the point across nevertheless.
As with his physical strengths, his past also affects him mentally to some extent; since Weissmann essentially attempted to turn him into a human weapon, he required not only significant strength, reflexes and speed, but also the ability to reason through and execute a solution to a problem, no matter what the circumstances are. This shows multiple times throughout the story, as he’s usually the one finding ways to deal with difficult situations - not to mention the one who frequently takes the most logical approach, for example, by insisting that a quartet of monsters that had been terrorizing a farm be exterminated (as outlined in the original request) rather than spared so as to prevent a repeat of their behavior.
He’s also decent at reading people by picking up on easily missed details. For example, when Josette was at the mayor’s house, according to him, her eyes lit up like those of a hunter’s eyeing her prey when the mayor placed the septium crystal in his safe, something nobody else present at the time noticed.
Emotional: Most of the time, Joshua is calm and polite, and all in all, he’s pretty reasonable. It’s not that easy to actually anger him unless you really push the wrong button; at worst, he might get annoyed or flustered, but it’s rare to see him genuinely angry.
He’s also very much a man of his word - as he says, keeping his word defines who he is. This is arguably both good and bad, as it also means he won’t take back anything he said, even if it may upset someone.
Despite the fact that he has a hard time dealing with his own problems, he’s actually pretty good at comforting others. As Estelle puts it, he always seems to know the right thing to say, and as a result, he’s a good person to talk to about one’s problems. This shows especially strongly in regards to Estelle, as he manages to lift her spirits through his words multiple times throughout the course of the first game, even at times like just after their father went missing and Estelle just finished explained what had happened to her mother during the Hundred Days War.
Lastly, he’s fairly overprotective of those he cares about. The one surefire way to really rile him up is to threaten someone important to him, and he gets scary if that happens. It’s definitely no exaggeration to say that if it’s to keep his loved ones safe, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill if he had to - and if what he says to Mayor Dalmore when he threatens Estelle is any indication, it’d be anything but a swift and painless death.
Weaknesses:
Physical: There’s… really not that much to say here. Joshua’s physical abilities may be above average all in all, but he’s only human, even if he’s close to being something of a human weapon - he’s still as squishy as anyone else, just somewhat more tenacious and more difficult to deal with than someone without (or with less) training is.
Due to his weapon of choice being dual swords, his range isn’t the greatest unless he resorts to arts and crafts. Someone with a ranged weapon, like a staff or an orbal gun, therefore has a small advantage over him, since he can’t just constantly use crafts. Meanwhile, arts aren’t exactly instantaneous; stronger arts will take him longer to cast, and as useful as some of their effects may be, it’s entirely possible to interrupt him while he’s preparing to use them.
And speaking of arts and crafts, both of these require his orbment to use. Without it, he can’t use either of the two, which leaves him… somewhat handicapped in terms of offense, to put it mildly.
Mental: Joshua’s perceptiveness isn’t solely a good thing - it also leads to him being somewhat more suspicious of people than most would be, which can make it difficult for him to trust others. For example, even when Cassius had just saved him and taken him to his house to recover, he questions him initially, wondering what he’s trying to pull. Even something as simple as Olivier deducting that he, Estelle and Scherazard are bracers immediately leads to him initially being suspicious of the man, despite him ultimately being fairly harmless.
In addition, there’s that whole amnesia problem. He can’t remember most of what happened prior to him being adopted by the Brights very clearly, which often leads to odd reactions for him when something reminds him of his forgotten memories. In particular, there’s more than just a few instances where such reminders cause him to space out to a point where he barely reacts to anything else for a few moments.
Lastly, while he’s generally pretty smart, a lot of his knowledge comes from books and is specific to his world. When faced with something he doesn’t recognize, he tends to be at just as much of a loss as anyone else - when he and Estelle faced with an escalator for the first time, for example, he simply guesses that it’s “some kind of… moving staircase” when she asks him what it is, but is all in all obviously just as unsure about what exactly it’s supposed to be as she is.
Emotional: This is easily where most of his weaknesses lie. Though he doesn’t show it often, Joshua is still something of a broken mess emotionally - he has a hard time feeling compassion for living beings, which bothers him immensely. As he himself says, “it’s almost as if there’s something wrong with me as a person.” This does lead to a notable amount of self-loathing on his part, much to the chagrin of those who care about him, like Estelle.
Matters of his forgotten past also tend to be something of a problem for him. He’s obviously uncomfortable with speaking about what he can actually remember, and the bits he can’t recall bother him immensely, to a point where he occasionally throws reason out of the window; for example, by chasing after a certain silver-haired man he thought he recognized during his stay at the Royal Academy. Really, any reminder of these things he can’t clearly remember is likely to result in an unusual reaction from him, whether it’s spacing out as mentioned above, overreacting, doing something rash as previously mentioned, or - though this is something he tends to keep to himself - worrying about someone he can’t even recall clearly.
It doesn’t stop there, either. More often than not, he places those he cares about above himself to a point where it’s outright unhealthy for him: in the past, Karin’s sacrifice affected him so strongly he practically went catatonic because of it. The final scene of FC shows that he’ll even abandon the Bright family for their own sake once he regains his memories despite this hurting him; as Weissmann so aptly puts it, they’re good people - perhaps too good for a “monster” like him - and so for the sake of not putting them into further danger, he abandons them when he sets out on a journey to deal with the magician, going as far as to knock Estelle out using a fast-acting sedative simply to ensure that she wouldn’t follow him and put her own life into danger. This is so much of a problem for him that even later on in his canon, losing someone important to him once more has such a heavy impact on him that he simply ceases to care about his own safety in the middle of a life-or-death situation, and it’s only thanks to Estelle’s support that he doesn’t get himself killed right there and then. Put into different terms, he gets too attached to people important to him, to a point where their well-being is so important to him that he would place their safety above his own happiness, and where actually losing one of them affects him much, much more strongly than it would most.
Aside from that, there’s his habit of keeping his feelings to himself so as to not worry others. Even if he technically means well by that, constantly keeping his problems to himself generally ends up hurting him… and as a result of him not trying to rely on others, some of these problems also take much longer to resolve than if he had chosen to let others help him from the start. In at least two instances, such a problem even carries over into the next game in the series, either because of him not telling anyone else, or because he tries to resolve it on his own.