♦ arcanarum application
.PLAYER
Name: Peachy / Sierra
Age: 19
Journal: melocotonisma
Contact (MESSENGER/E-MAIL/ETC): AIM: ConquistaSpain / Plurk; inquisitioned If there’s anything else you’d like, I’m in the process of setting up a contact page. vuv
CHARACTER
Name: Afonso Gabriel Luis Henrique de João Silva, alternatively the Republic of Portugal.
Age: At least 600 years old, depending on what you consider the creation of the state or the creation of the territory: his physical appearance is between 18 to 19 years old.
Canon: Axis Powers Hetalia
Canon Point: post signing of the Treaty of Lisbon, in 1668. Portugal has just gained his independence back from Spain during the Iberian Union, as well as just reconfirmed the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance with the marriage of Charles II and Catherine of Bragança in 1662.
History: The history of Portugal a la Wikipedia.
Personality: The first thing one should know about Afonso Silva is that he is not Spanish. While this might seem a bit of a trivial fact, it’s quite important, as he is a small nation surrounded by a very large one, and it brings about natural comparisons and inferiorities that Portugal takes great pride in knocking down. Afonso is the elder of the two Iberian brothers, and his personality takes on a striking difference in comparison to his younger brother’s; where Antonio is loud, cheerful and obnoxious, Afonso is softer and more cynical, more likely to make commentary than to be the starter of the conversation. He’s a bit more on the reserved side, and while he’ll greet you with a handshake and a smile, you won’t see his true personality-a bit of a snark, certainly pleasant, and even occasionally obnoxious--until he’s relaxed enough in your presence. (Or perhaps, if you meet him in a football match.)
Despite this, Afonso is a man who is constantly (or at least thinks he’s constantly) in the grip of his “saudades”, a Portuguese word that in its most basic meaning is “to miss”; however, it’s more than that, and he’ll be the first to tell you so. This has given him quite the romantic view on life, and he’s the type of person that might spend an hour contemplating the condensation on a window without saying a word, fascinated by its inherent meaning in the greater scheme of sorts, or something similar. To call Portugal a daydreamer might be putting it lightly. He also tends to be a hopeless romantic, a remnant of the days he spent walking his country as a trouvadour , and because of this, he can get himself into sticky situations: when someone gains his loyalty, they also gain his trust. Portugal has shown over time that he is a loyal friend, willing to stick it out for as long as possible by someone’s side, and will doggedly defend those that earn his respect-if you were to give him the choice between being stuck on an island with someone he loved for 10 years or someone he hated for a month, he’d immediately go for ten years.
Unfortunately, Portugal also has the brilliant ability to be an absolute hypocrite-he will senselessly shake his colonies and trading posts dry of gold and spices, then turn right around and lecture Spain for using the Inquisition and other violent methods of conquest. While his own methods typically involved skipping from place to place, he could get quite violent, as all empires could. He likes to act like he’s quite pious, but this is coming from the same guy who stored a couple of elephants in a world-class monastery because he “couldn’t find anywhere else to put them”, and while he puts the teachings of God into his kids and his people, he tends to conveniently forget them when they’re not exactly necessary. He’s as stubborn as a mule, and it’s difficult to get him to budge on his opinions, as not only is he stubborn, but he has a lot of machismo pride, and hates to admit that he’s wrong. This is sort of a double edged sword-it kept Rome away from his territory for nearly 8 years when he was a child, an impressive feat-- but it’s gotten him into more trouble than he’ll really admit.
As far as relations with his former colonies go, Portugal was an empire, and while he did manage to let go of his largest colony with little blood and without an actual war, the rest of them didn’t go so smoothly. For the longest time, the idea of taking care of children drove him up the wall (because really, when you were running the entire Indian Ocean, who would want something like that), but once the Netherlands threatened to take his, he did an about-face and became a clingy, overprotective father. It took him until 1999 to let go of his final colony, and that was out of force. At this period in time, he’s just made contact again with his colonies after the Iberian Union. Because of this, he tends to immediately dote towards any of them that appear, and his natural tendency to mentor (or “mentor”, as sometimes his advice tends to lean towards the “this might help me, so you should do this” side of things) comes out among citizens and other, younger figures. Portugal has been around the block a few times, as he is one of the oldest nations in Western Europe-even at this stage in his life.
Speaking of this stage in his life, Portugal is still quite in the throes of being an empire. Although he just received the wake-up call of his life in the form of his King getting himself killed in a useless battle and being forced to marry Spain for about sixty years, he’s just in the process of settling his feathers again. He’s riding off of a great day in his history, December 1st, 1668, and he still has a wondrous amount of control over the Indian Ocean, something he greatly prides himself and his empire over. (He has, however, just ceded two very large territories and trading rights alongside himself to Brazil to England in hopes of getting his King to marry Portugal’s princess, which ultimately succeeded.) Despite the façade he’s putting on of a certain Empire swagger, on the inside, he’s a little shaky-Portugal is a nation with an Icarus complex, and by god, he just touched the sun and got burned.
Abilities/Strengths: Nations have been shown that generally they can only be hurt by each other-the scar on his left eye, for example, came from his younger brother-which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s also vaguely implied that they don’t really “die”, even in death-related situations, such as the Plague or a drowning or something ridiculous like that. He’s also been trained in the art of war since he was a child, from Carthage’s ambition techniques to Al-Andalus’ constant battles, and general war tactics are something he’s got experience in to say the least. Another point, although not necessarily as important but still worth mentioning, is that he’s quite the silver-tongued devil; he can slip out of sticky situations with just the right words. Having the name of the land of Poets is useful every once in a while.
He’s also good with medicines for his time period-having the medicinal knowledge of Avicenna and Averroes at his back made for Portuguese doctors to be a necessity in most of the European courts during the 15th and 16th centuries. Granted, he knows nothing of modern medicine at all, but he never practiced in leeches, astrology, or anything crazy like that.
As a final technical skill, Portugal’s spent the past 200 or so years exploring the oceans and leading the world in the Age of Discovery; he’s very talented with navigation, reading and creating maps, and using the stars for guides. His natural curiosity gives him a tendency to want to explore, and he has trouble staying in one place for a long period of time at this period of his life.(except perhaps out on the sea)
Weaknesses: As I already discussed the whole nations-not-dying thing, I think I’ll talk a little into his emotional weaknesses. Portugal’s biggest fear is being conquered (not necessarily defeated, but…swallowed up, is a good phrase for it), and at this period in time, it’s very real. There are a few figures that will instantly get him defensive-talk to him about the Iberian Union that just happened, and he will either go off on a tirade or fiercely attempt to change the subject. In that same vein, one of his biggest weaknesses/soft spots would be that he has Moorish blood in him, left over from Al-Andalus. Whether he likes to admit it, his skills-medical, navigational-are mainly gathered from the things the old Moor taught him, and Portugal refuses to acknowledge this fact. He thinks he’s a lot different than Al-Andalus, but in actuality? They’re more similar than he knows, and mentioning that little fact can send him into all sorts of spirals.
I spoke on his skills with navigational tools above, but I’m going to go ahead and make something very clear: those are pretty much only applicable on a boat. A sailor through and through, he has his bearings firmly set in the sea, so on land, he’s directionally challenged to the point of hilarity. (Ever heard of Magellan?) Combine this with his pride and stubbornness, and the fact that he outright refuses to ask for help, and it’s an absolute recipe for disaster.
ARCANARUM
Story: Moulin Rouge
Story Character: Christian
Plans: OKAY SO vuv I mentioned above that around the time Portugal first got his independence (~1139) from the Moors, he spent a year or two of his life wandering around his new lands as a troubadour, a romantic poet, living on and off of people’s villages and in the wild, telling all these songs and trying to get to know the land that had become his. With the assumption of the identity of Christian, I’m going to have him start to revert back to this attitude. Instead of being a salty sailor, he’s going to start to get the wanderlust to leave his responsibility again, forget about the idea of his colonies, forget about gold even(that’s when you know something is horrendously wrong), and want to go back to living the Bohemian life. I also want to tie in the idea of Christian’s horrible jealousy somehow, although that’ll take some plotting with other muns/finding an object of such affection. I’ll probably try to converse with England-mun a little, shhh
SAMPLES
First Person: And a DM post! Mostly reply-based. 8'D If I need one with more entry substance, I'd be glad to provide o/
Third Person:
It had been ages since Portugal’s fingers brushed against the strings of a lyre.
Like riding a bike, he mused, as calloused fingertips pressed loosely into the wired strings, the familiar indentations already starting to reappear in the pads of his fingerprints. This used to be a hobby for relaxation, but the lyre was replaced by the vocalists of Italy, and suddenly instrumental music wasn’t so important to him anymore. Besides, a lyre would take up space in the cabins of his precious Leão, space that could be filled with spices, or gold, or one of the rolled up maps in the corner that seemed to take up every inch of the Leão’s wooden floors. Afonso wasn’t sure what had overcome him, but the desire to explore that had been in his bones since the day he first stepped onto a ship and sailed the Volta da Minha had changed, suddenly-the need was still there, but it was different. He could recall the bright lights of sunshine through the trees on his face, the faint snatches of a song in the back of his ears-It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside-but, the idea of sailing sounded…unappealing.
He wanted to write poetry. To chase a beautiful woman, to fall in love like a human, to become so irrevocably and irreverently tangled up in his emotions that he might never have to worry about the responsibilities of being a nation again. He’d often dreamed of running off as a child and making a living as a writer under a pseudonym; no one would ever know it was secretly Afonso, an immortal man with a penchant for memories and getting lost in someone’s smile.
Those thoughts were ridiculous. The fanciful dreams of his childhood weren’t reality, and it was foolish of him to think so; Afonso knew it. A part of Portugal wondered if this was a cause of arriving at this strange island, but his suspicions were mired by the saudades that seemed to cloud his head with cotton. Even so, as he leaned on the window frame of the strange little house he’d been gifted and let the lyre in his hands sing to the stars, he couldn’t help but wonder.
How wonderful might the poet’s life be?
Name: Peachy / Sierra
Age: 19
Journal: melocotonisma
Contact (MESSENGER/E-MAIL/ETC): AIM: ConquistaSpain / Plurk; inquisitioned If there’s anything else you’d like, I’m in the process of setting up a contact page. vuv
CHARACTER
Name: Afonso Gabriel Luis Henrique de João Silva, alternatively the Republic of Portugal.
Age: At least 600 years old, depending on what you consider the creation of the state or the creation of the territory: his physical appearance is between 18 to 19 years old.
Canon: Axis Powers Hetalia
Canon Point: post signing of the Treaty of Lisbon, in 1668. Portugal has just gained his independence back from Spain during the Iberian Union, as well as just reconfirmed the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance with the marriage of Charles II and Catherine of Bragança in 1662.
History: The history of Portugal a la Wikipedia.
Personality: The first thing one should know about Afonso Silva is that he is not Spanish. While this might seem a bit of a trivial fact, it’s quite important, as he is a small nation surrounded by a very large one, and it brings about natural comparisons and inferiorities that Portugal takes great pride in knocking down. Afonso is the elder of the two Iberian brothers, and his personality takes on a striking difference in comparison to his younger brother’s; where Antonio is loud, cheerful and obnoxious, Afonso is softer and more cynical, more likely to make commentary than to be the starter of the conversation. He’s a bit more on the reserved side, and while he’ll greet you with a handshake and a smile, you won’t see his true personality-a bit of a snark, certainly pleasant, and even occasionally obnoxious--until he’s relaxed enough in your presence. (Or perhaps, if you meet him in a football match.)
Despite this, Afonso is a man who is constantly (or at least thinks he’s constantly) in the grip of his “saudades”, a Portuguese word that in its most basic meaning is “to miss”; however, it’s more than that, and he’ll be the first to tell you so. This has given him quite the romantic view on life, and he’s the type of person that might spend an hour contemplating the condensation on a window without saying a word, fascinated by its inherent meaning in the greater scheme of sorts, or something similar. To call Portugal a daydreamer might be putting it lightly. He also tends to be a hopeless romantic, a remnant of the days he spent walking his country as a trouvadour , and because of this, he can get himself into sticky situations: when someone gains his loyalty, they also gain his trust. Portugal has shown over time that he is a loyal friend, willing to stick it out for as long as possible by someone’s side, and will doggedly defend those that earn his respect-if you were to give him the choice between being stuck on an island with someone he loved for 10 years or someone he hated for a month, he’d immediately go for ten years.
Unfortunately, Portugal also has the brilliant ability to be an absolute hypocrite-he will senselessly shake his colonies and trading posts dry of gold and spices, then turn right around and lecture Spain for using the Inquisition and other violent methods of conquest. While his own methods typically involved skipping from place to place, he could get quite violent, as all empires could. He likes to act like he’s quite pious, but this is coming from the same guy who stored a couple of elephants in a world-class monastery because he “couldn’t find anywhere else to put them”, and while he puts the teachings of God into his kids and his people, he tends to conveniently forget them when they’re not exactly necessary. He’s as stubborn as a mule, and it’s difficult to get him to budge on his opinions, as not only is he stubborn, but he has a lot of machismo pride, and hates to admit that he’s wrong. This is sort of a double edged sword-it kept Rome away from his territory for nearly 8 years when he was a child, an impressive feat-- but it’s gotten him into more trouble than he’ll really admit.
As far as relations with his former colonies go, Portugal was an empire, and while he did manage to let go of his largest colony with little blood and without an actual war, the rest of them didn’t go so smoothly. For the longest time, the idea of taking care of children drove him up the wall (because really, when you were running the entire Indian Ocean, who would want something like that), but once the Netherlands threatened to take his, he did an about-face and became a clingy, overprotective father. It took him until 1999 to let go of his final colony, and that was out of force. At this period in time, he’s just made contact again with his colonies after the Iberian Union. Because of this, he tends to immediately dote towards any of them that appear, and his natural tendency to mentor (or “mentor”, as sometimes his advice tends to lean towards the “this might help me, so you should do this” side of things) comes out among citizens and other, younger figures. Portugal has been around the block a few times, as he is one of the oldest nations in Western Europe-even at this stage in his life.
Speaking of this stage in his life, Portugal is still quite in the throes of being an empire. Although he just received the wake-up call of his life in the form of his King getting himself killed in a useless battle and being forced to marry Spain for about sixty years, he’s just in the process of settling his feathers again. He’s riding off of a great day in his history, December 1st, 1668, and he still has a wondrous amount of control over the Indian Ocean, something he greatly prides himself and his empire over. (He has, however, just ceded two very large territories and trading rights alongside himself to Brazil to England in hopes of getting his King to marry Portugal’s princess, which ultimately succeeded.) Despite the façade he’s putting on of a certain Empire swagger, on the inside, he’s a little shaky-Portugal is a nation with an Icarus complex, and by god, he just touched the sun and got burned.
Abilities/Strengths: Nations have been shown that generally they can only be hurt by each other-the scar on his left eye, for example, came from his younger brother-which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s also vaguely implied that they don’t really “die”, even in death-related situations, such as the Plague or a drowning or something ridiculous like that. He’s also been trained in the art of war since he was a child, from Carthage’s ambition techniques to Al-Andalus’ constant battles, and general war tactics are something he’s got experience in to say the least. Another point, although not necessarily as important but still worth mentioning, is that he’s quite the silver-tongued devil; he can slip out of sticky situations with just the right words. Having the name of the land of Poets is useful every once in a while.
He’s also good with medicines for his time period-having the medicinal knowledge of Avicenna and Averroes at his back made for Portuguese doctors to be a necessity in most of the European courts during the 15th and 16th centuries. Granted, he knows nothing of modern medicine at all, but he never practiced in leeches, astrology, or anything crazy like that.
As a final technical skill, Portugal’s spent the past 200 or so years exploring the oceans and leading the world in the Age of Discovery; he’s very talented with navigation, reading and creating maps, and using the stars for guides. His natural curiosity gives him a tendency to want to explore, and he has trouble staying in one place for a long period of time at this period of his life.(except perhaps out on the sea)
Weaknesses: As I already discussed the whole nations-not-dying thing, I think I’ll talk a little into his emotional weaknesses. Portugal’s biggest fear is being conquered (not necessarily defeated, but…swallowed up, is a good phrase for it), and at this period in time, it’s very real. There are a few figures that will instantly get him defensive-talk to him about the Iberian Union that just happened, and he will either go off on a tirade or fiercely attempt to change the subject. In that same vein, one of his biggest weaknesses/soft spots would be that he has Moorish blood in him, left over from Al-Andalus. Whether he likes to admit it, his skills-medical, navigational-are mainly gathered from the things the old Moor taught him, and Portugal refuses to acknowledge this fact. He thinks he’s a lot different than Al-Andalus, but in actuality? They’re more similar than he knows, and mentioning that little fact can send him into all sorts of spirals.
I spoke on his skills with navigational tools above, but I’m going to go ahead and make something very clear: those are pretty much only applicable on a boat. A sailor through and through, he has his bearings firmly set in the sea, so on land, he’s directionally challenged to the point of hilarity. (Ever heard of Magellan?) Combine this with his pride and stubbornness, and the fact that he outright refuses to ask for help, and it’s an absolute recipe for disaster.
ARCANARUM
Story: Moulin Rouge
Story Character: Christian
Plans: OKAY SO vuv I mentioned above that around the time Portugal first got his independence (~1139) from the Moors, he spent a year or two of his life wandering around his new lands as a troubadour, a romantic poet, living on and off of people’s villages and in the wild, telling all these songs and trying to get to know the land that had become his. With the assumption of the identity of Christian, I’m going to have him start to revert back to this attitude. Instead of being a salty sailor, he’s going to start to get the wanderlust to leave his responsibility again, forget about the idea of his colonies, forget about gold even(that’s when you know something is horrendously wrong), and want to go back to living the Bohemian life. I also want to tie in the idea of Christian’s horrible jealousy somehow, although that’ll take some plotting with other muns/finding an object of such affection. I’ll probably try to converse with England-mun a little, shhh
SAMPLES
First Person: And a DM post! Mostly reply-based. 8'D If I need one with more entry substance, I'd be glad to provide o/
Third Person:
It had been ages since Portugal’s fingers brushed against the strings of a lyre.
Like riding a bike, he mused, as calloused fingertips pressed loosely into the wired strings, the familiar indentations already starting to reappear in the pads of his fingerprints. This used to be a hobby for relaxation, but the lyre was replaced by the vocalists of Italy, and suddenly instrumental music wasn’t so important to him anymore. Besides, a lyre would take up space in the cabins of his precious Leão, space that could be filled with spices, or gold, or one of the rolled up maps in the corner that seemed to take up every inch of the Leão’s wooden floors. Afonso wasn’t sure what had overcome him, but the desire to explore that had been in his bones since the day he first stepped onto a ship and sailed the Volta da Minha had changed, suddenly-the need was still there, but it was different. He could recall the bright lights of sunshine through the trees on his face, the faint snatches of a song in the back of his ears-It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside-but, the idea of sailing sounded…unappealing.
He wanted to write poetry. To chase a beautiful woman, to fall in love like a human, to become so irrevocably and irreverently tangled up in his emotions that he might never have to worry about the responsibilities of being a nation again. He’d often dreamed of running off as a child and making a living as a writer under a pseudonym; no one would ever know it was secretly Afonso, an immortal man with a penchant for memories and getting lost in someone’s smile.
Those thoughts were ridiculous. The fanciful dreams of his childhood weren’t reality, and it was foolish of him to think so; Afonso knew it. A part of Portugal wondered if this was a cause of arriving at this strange island, but his suspicions were mired by the saudades that seemed to cloud his head with cotton. Even so, as he leaned on the window frame of the strange little house he’d been gifted and let the lyre in his hands sing to the stars, he couldn’t help but wonder.
How wonderful might the poet’s life be?