gargleblasted app bejeezus
OOC:
Name: Ame
Are you over 16?: Yep~
Personal LJ: vibhava_tanha
Email: patak.ng.liwanag[at]gmail[dot]com
Timezone: +0800 GMT
Other contact: [AIM] arsenicgraffiti
Characters already in the game: n/a :D
How did you find us?: Originally, your old P4 cast postings over at dear_mun + onehotkappa. You can imagine how long ago this was.
IC:
Character name: Ukoku Sanzo. His former and now possibly unneeded alias is Nii Jianyi
Fandom: Saiyuki
Timeline: Saiyuki Reload, March '08 issue, before Sanzo calls him out.
Age: 37. Maybe.
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths: Ukoku is a man of many talents. He'll try anything that seems challenging, and then either toss it away if it no longer has a purpose or keep it if he can use it for the future.
He's skilled in both science and magic. Ukoku finished his Ph.D. at 17, and moved on to train as a monk, where he learned various Buddhist techniques and the martial arts (as seen here, credits to saiyuki_manga). In fact, his level of concentration in practicing the spiritual arts was so advanced that he could use them without chanting mantras, producing such potent results by concentrating it on the tip of his fingers instead (image from saiyuki_manga). He became more powerful when he gained the Muten Sutra, which granted him the ability to, according to Hazel, "[negate] existence itself." Hakkai and Gojyo later clarify this: "[Not] only can he negate attack - but he can also turn space into nothing and bend it - making it possible to even teleport... if he puts his mind to it, he could make us disappear". It's also likely through the use of the sutra that he's able to mask his presence so that no one would be able to sense him.
Both areas of training set the cornerstones for his later role as Dr. Nii Jianyi, the researcher/professor of bio-engineering and of physical engineering ( source) in the Gyuumaoh Revival Project which involved mixing magic and science. By the time the series started, he had already invented or had a major part in inventing a lot of items, notably Gyuumaoh's resurrection chamber, Kami-sama's castle, and that gourd that Kami-sama used to turn people's souls into toys.
He knows how speak, read, and write English, skills he either studied extensively or learned during his trip to the Western continent sometime after Koumyou's death. Though there's little to no actual support for this, it's possible that he may know more than his native language and English - he did stay in the Western continent for some time to "study culture", not only acquainting himself with Filbert's and Hazel's country, but also Gat's. Furthermore, he'd necessarily need to dabble in other languages in order to be able to do extensive research on the Gyuumaoh Revival Project, since it's one that involves both science and magic.
The Maten Sutra, his weapon of choice above his inventions (likely because of its connection to his past), is one of the five scriptures said to have been used in the creation of the world, and each sutra is in itself an object of immense power. Throughout the series, Ukoku is also shown using devices of his own invention, although this is happens more in the anime than in the manga.
How would they use their abilities?: With discretion. He won't flaunt them unless they have to be used, and even then he's highly selective in who sees him when displaying his capabilities.
Having said that, you won't have to worry about, oh, having a Sutra battle in the near future. It's the supposed technological malfunctions you'd have to watch out for >_> With mod permission, of course.
Appearance: He can switch between scruffy and clean-shaven in no time. As Ukoku, his hair is unstyled, and he makes a striking figure, the type that draws in your attention. His monk robes are dyed black, and under the robe is a black turtle neck. He also wears straw sandals. Genjo Sanzo, who has a similar style of clothing, wears jeans under his robes. I'm supposing Ukoku also wears them, but there are shots where we see his ankles and his socks but without the hem of his trousers. So. |D
Nii Jianyi, on the other hand, is someone who you think you know at a glance, the type that you either stay far away from or think of as "that scientist" and leave it at that. You're not quite sure of what he'll do next, and people tend to be wary of him - perhaps exactly what he's going for, since it means that not many people will look too closely at his business since they'll rely heavily on that impression. His hair is gelled up, his chin has two-day old stubble, and there's a bandaid across his cheek. Under his labcoat (its pockets may be filled with random things and there may be stains on the sleeves from ink or other vile substances), he wears a button-down shirt, slacks, and a tie. To top it all off, he wears bunny slippers, carries with him a stuffed rabbit, and has a cigarette dangling from his lips.
Now, what would you make out of that image?
Background/Personality:
i. the moon and the night
In contrast to the series' main characters, Ukoku, who born was to a well-off couple working as graduate professors, didn't have a dysfunctional family life. For all intents and purposes, he seemed like he was well-adjusted, the brilliant kid at the top of the class who still managed to retain his mischevious streak and his charm: the ideal student and a fun guy to be with.
His aim for training to become a Sanzo monk after finishing his Ph.D. at the tender age of 17 was to take on on the occupation deemed to be the most difficult one in the world. This may seem like a shallow reason compared to how ardent the ambitions of some acolytes were, but he needed to kill the bordom gnawing at him, to perhaps find something that was worth learning. After all, what more did he have to strive for when he already had achieved the pinnacle of the fruit of human knowledge - science?
He received the name Ken'yuu upon entering the monastery and, as expected, excelled in learning both the fighting and the spiritual arts. It was one and a half years later that he met Koumyou Sanzo, a good friend of Goudai Sanzo, the previous guardian of the Muten Sutra.
Ken’yuu’s first encounter with Koumyou was simple, yet striking. His first impression of Koumyou was that the monk was a bit dense with his inability to properly follow their conversation - a weird old man who delightedly rambled on about connections only he could have imagined. The only thing that stopped him from writing off Koumyou as an idiot was how Koumyou expressed his opinion on the reason why Ken'yuu entered the monastery: if Ken'yuu was easily bored with everything, then that must mean he's a very boring person.
Being told this was likely something new for Ken'yuu, who even then was already developing his intellectual arrogance and his pride. Koumyou's words likely stuck to him even after Koumyou himself went back to his old bumbling self - what was it about this man who saw through him?
A few days after this meeting, Goudai's ill health caught up with him. It's revealed that Goudai had been anticipating his decline, and thus called Koumyou to oversee the succession of the next Sanzo and the guardian of the Maten Sutra. He had also implicitly asked Koumyou for another favor - to look after Ken'yuu, the student with the most ability to win the selection.
The test started when the names of the candidates are called, and Ken'yuu wasn't on the list. This clearly provoked him, and Ken'yuu attacked Goudai, only to be stopped by Koumyou. Afterwards, another key discussion took place between the two in the detainment cell Ken'yuu was placed in. It became apparent that Ken'yuu's boredom had become so pervasive that it consumed his very interest in living, and the only way he could feel like he was alive was to seek out challenges - even if those same challenges would be the very ones to kill him.
He didn't care for living, but his own pride and confidence in his abilities didn't allow him to die without a fight. This is the essential contradiction his cynicism is founded on, possibly further reinforced by his earlier studies in bioengineering and the laws of nature. "To survive is to continue eating others," he said, remembering his hobby of watching a murder of ravens eat their prey (something he continued to do as an adult: he fed the ravens on the roof of Houtou Castle). It is the instinct of any living creature to fight for its survival with any means necessary -- but is this all that there is to it? And even if it is, is there something else that could disprove this overwhelmingly present trend?
Was there something that could still beat him when he had already succeeded in everything else?
Ken'yuu broke out of the detention cell and killed Goudai, succeeding him as the 24th Toushin Ukoku Sanzo, guardian of the Muten sutra and the youngest Sanzo monk until Genjo Sanzo's own ascension. Koumyou reflected that Ken'yuu may have indeed been crying when he killed Goudai - this was the first casualty that meant something, after he admitted to Koumyou that he was indeed waiting for someone to swallow him up. He had failed to die again, and attaining the title of Sanzo meant that he once again had to look for something else in the wide world. Something strong enough to crush him.
The name he was given, Ukoku, means "bird's cry". However, the mark signifying the favor of the gods (a red chakra) never did appear on his forehead, leading some to call him a heretical monk.
Ukoku and Koumyou spent a year travelling together, after which they parted ways, though I imagine Ukoku visits Kinzan Temple when he's in the area. It's during one of those visits where they made The Bet, in any case: Ukoku wonders which one of them does get swallowed, the moon (what Jikaku, Koumyou's mentor, compared to Koumyou to) or the night. Koumyou offers to turn this into a bet, and what is at stake is the next rising sun.
It is not too clear what Koumyou was thinking when he proposed this, although how Ukoku would use The Bet and all its symbolism as his framework for living becomes apparent as the series continues. It becomes the template in which he set up the events of present canon, the grand game he plays as the ultimate thesis of who would win - the reality that the world was dull in its monotonous cycle, or that some other meaning still existed beyond it.
Sometime after that, he met a young blond child on the streets. Intrigued that such a child would ask him if a god existed, Ukoku took in this nameless child ("Kami-sama", as he is called when he meets Sanzo and his motley crew a decade or so later, isn't his real name) and made him his pupil, his way of mimicking the mentor-student bond between Koumyou and Kouryuu, Koumyou's prized disciple who would grow up to be Genjo Sanzo. Eventually, Ukoku brought Kami-sama to meet Kouryuu - this was also Kouryuu's first time to meet his master's eccentric friend.
ii. rabbits
There are a lot of unresolved (or unrevealed) events after they made The Bet. Koumyou's death happened five years after that. Whether or not Ukoku played an active role in it is still a subject of debate, especially since the exact time he joined Gyokumen at Houtou Castle in India is unknown. It is, however, certain that sometime after Koumyou's death, he dyed his robes black, left everything else except his sutra (the one thing he considers indispensable) to Kami-sama, and was able to wander everywhere, studying all sorts of traditions and cultures as a wandering scholar of sorts, switching from one interest to another, eventually reaching the far West and meeting a young aspiring priest named Hazel Grouse.
As Nii Jianyi, he is officially in charge of the project to revive Gyokumen's lover, Gyuumaoh. Unofficially, he is also Gyokumen's partner in convenience and in crime, helping her in various malevolent deeds (the Minus Wave, a phenomenon that turned all youkai in the land mad and destroyed the lives of the townspeople living in harmony with them, turned out to be a deliberate act of being just a side-effect of the revival project), and being her occasional fuck buddy.
Being able to bag and keep his job was no mean feat, considering that Gyokumen, a relentless, cold-blooded and manipulative creature herself, is no fool. Nii ended up being the only human being in Houtou Castle at a time when being a youkai in a clan is equivalent to being part of the upper hierarchy of a fiefdom (one clan, for example, even demanded that a human sacrifice be sent up to them every year). Even before going berserk, they seemed to have more physical strength compared to your average human, and more youkai knew how to use magic than the number of humans who knew how to manipulate advanced technology. On top of that, he had free reign to do as he wished for as long as he continued his efforts in the project; it's highly likely that several items we see throughout the series (the game tower Kami-sama lived in, and a soul-containment gourd two youkai children had) were created by during this period - the game tower was more of a mechanical and architectural marvel (you had to go up 10 floors, each with a different set of challenges, before meeting the boss --- who's at the bottom floor), and the gourd stored the souls of those who consumed its seeds.
The reputation Nii built for himself here was different from his charming old self as Ken'yuu. He's playful and full of humor, though what he says can be either perverse, malicious, or both, depending on the situation. No matter how much he fooled around with his many side projects at work, there was also no mistaking that he did mean business when it was time to conduct a test as instructed by Gyokumen - something that Dr. Hwan, a fellow researcher, seemed to acknowledge him for, despite her derision of Nii's work habits and the many times Nii mocked her for her straight-laced attitude and her crush on Gyokumen. Nii's coworkers also got to see a side of him that he never showed his fellow acolytes at the monastery or the people he met as a monk: he can be downright nasty and bitter, two things that had built up in him since he gradually became obsessed with The Bet.
Here, he also freely showed his amoral side: nothing was sacred. Everything was free game, and what made Nii especially dangerous was his talent at not only creating opportunities for him to act, but also his ability to take advantage of the situations he was caught up in. The taboo of mixing science and magic was blatantly and wantonly violated. He likely accepted all sorts of test subjects, but it seems that his favorite ones were children, as evidenced earlier on by his corruption of Hazel and Kami-sama, later on necessitated with the use of Lirin, the daughter of Gyokumen, for the Revival Project. A particularly memorable series of episodes in the anime went something like this - he took a pair of youkai siblings Gyokumen had found a few years back, gave them a few additional powers and modifications, slapped on one control seed or the other on them (kind of like a microchip, except. It's a seed), then watched them attempt to attack the Sanzo-ikkou and eventually kill each other off. Nature in its finest and most emotional sense of brutality.
Testing how far humans and youkai would go had become a favorite past time of his. If the potential of the spirit was endless, what would be able to break it? If no person on earth could stop him, would heaven strike him down?
His ego and arrogance have grown in a way that he views himself as god and not-god. This world view is an extension of his earlier doubt of his existence - though he has become powerful enough to manipulate both science and nature, he still carries the eternal question of the possibilities that still lie out there, of who else could kill him, if there were stronger beings out there like gods who would take notice and come to sentence him. However, he still is a man of science, and that reflects in his style of speech in several encounters. One can hear him writing a dissertation, clinically describing the situation while he watches people squirm, enjoying their reactions when they realize they're up against something else.
On the other hand, we must remember that science (or, rather, the inflexible system science tends to carry with it) isn't perfect. He remembers this quite well: for one, he never gave a straight answer when Kami-sama asked him if God ever existed. It's also interesting to note that, while he does expect (or hope) to be defeated at one point, he dislikes it when anyone breaks out of their role - in other words, he can be picky in the unpredictability he'd like to encounter. For all that he knows of human nature and uses it to further his ends, his blind spot always seems to appear when his already subjugated victim regains their will to fight - the will to hope, and to dream, to stand up and to defy. These he describes as "bugs", those who keep on crawling to survive even though the odds are against them.
Perhaps his routine in Houtou Castle's spoiled him, since it set him in the comfortable position of being a manipulator from the outside - again, an extension of his talent in guiding people to have certain impressions on who he is, and the extreme amount of patience that he has in developing his plans while his focus is on them. He describes himself as a ghost at one point, having the ability to see and move all while not being seen. The downside of this is that it has made him inflexible, set in calculating the people around him, himself, and the situation he's playing. Ideally, each action he makes (or would like to make) is executed with the precise finality of a chess piece moving from one square to the next, always in anticipation of the opponent's next decision, and this makes it more difficult to account for moves made outside of the rules in which he's defined the world to operate in.
And so we have contradiction number one point five in Ukoku's life: if life is governed by the rules of survival that he is able to control, how now does he deal with being swept away by what lies beyond that law?
Number two is this: isn't man's defiance against the inevitability of nature, something which he seems to despise, the very same thing he craves for in his will to keep on existing for that last fight that will bring him down?
iii. the raven in the sun
Ukoku's inability to understand the will to strive possibly parallels his inability to also understand why he is still alive. The amount of emotion that he shows when Kougaiji and the ikkou break out of the mini-games he set up is fascinating - he isn't simply just angry at his own miscalculation, but one can also see his contempt at their struggle and the malice that says he'll make them suffer all the more for it. There's that strange, twisted pride in his mocking smile at seeing that, yes, there are people who are strong enough to face him, and the anticipation of facing them again that follows.
He looks forward to the day he would die so that he could feel one last burst of what it's like to be alive so he could stop feeling like the walking dead because of boredom. In that sense, one could say he's an immature, spoiled brat with no appreciation for the struggles most people had to go through just to survive. And he doesn't. He never had anything that meant to him until he met Koumyou, whom Ukoku still considers as his only friend.
Koumyou's intervention was both a blessing and a curse. Goudai's death would not have been as dramatic had Koumyou not been there to pinpoint with distinct clarity the reason driving Ken'yuu to live life as he did. Neither would Ukoku have continued to stay as a Sanzo if Koumyou wasn't around (remember how he abandoned everything else but the sutra and dyed his robes black - those were the only two items from that life that connected him with Koumyou). He wouldn't have been as vindictive towards Genjo Sanzo either, when Ukoku finally decided to track them himself after stepping up the pace of the game.
The meeting between the Sanzo-ikkou and Ukoku, of course, was inevitable. After all, at the beginning of the series Sanzo had been sent West by the Buddhist gods to investigate the source of the Minus Wave and the Gyuumaoh Resurrection Project, both of which Ukoku had a hand in. However, the way things had turned out - once he could no longer stir things up when Kougaiji rebelled against the mind control placed on him, he drew in Hazel Grouse, now a bishop whose mission in life was to exorcise youkai, to meet up and separate Sanzo from the rest of the group - brought everything to full circle.
It is the first time we see Ukoku actively want to kill someone, and just how far he would go to do it by looking into the backgrounds of all the players in the game (the rest of the ikkou, Hazel, and his companion Gat) in order to manipulate the circumstances for things to reach this point.
Genjo Sanzo was the successor and prized student of Koumyou Sanzo, and is therefore also the inheritor of Koumyou's legacy (and Koumyou never picked just anyone). Since Koumyou shielded him from the youkai who killed him to steal the sutras in his possession, Sanzo is also, in a warped sense of logic, Koumyou's cause of death. (There is some fan debate as to whether or not Ukoku also set this up, but I'll leave that out of here. >.>)
In effect, Sanzo had robbed Ukoku of Koumyou twice: first of the admiration he had for his darling student, and next of the fierce support Koumyou ultimately gave to Kouryuu in protecting him. Ukoku isn't someone who enjoys looking too closely at those aspects of human nature, but he did feel torn that someone he truly respected and admired had died.
He has a lot of suppressed emotion, likely because he doesn't analyze them. Anger, spite, hatred, frustration, grief, sadness and jealousy - all of these have no place in the rational, and they serve more as a liability when it comes to survival. He has seen too much of what emotion can do to people, has experimented in so many ways how to induce the full range of human drama while maintaining his confidence, the self-assured scientist independent of human attachments. God, or those who play god, are supposed to be untouchable, after all, and he does take up this position even though he does only ambiguously identify himself as such.
The only logical (and acceptable) way for him to be able to cope with both Koumyou's death and the unbearable, ravaging nothingness that hid beneath his boredom was to continue with The Bet. Maybe, if he saw this game to the very end, he'd see why Koumyou seemed to think that the world was an endlessly fascinating and peaceful place.
Ukoku's presumed blindness at the end of Reload, delivered with a shot Sanzo was able to give because of the ikkou working together as a cohesive team, neatly summarizes who he is now: a spiritually blind man consumed by his impulses. The moonlit night has been covered and twisted by the darkness.
Have you read up on how the game works?: Yep.
a) Draco Malfoy the FlamingFerret.
b) Through theft (and its many forms /o/), missions, and permanent jobs.
1st person sample:
[note: this was originally posted here, but I'll just copy & slightly edit it. Comm's locked for in-game purposes.]
Has it really been a couple of days since the labs reopened? All too soon, too - I would have liked to slept in more, but I also wouldn't say no to settling in these shiny new rooms. Decisions, decisions.
Speaking of settling down again: I do need to announce something. I'm sure you're all aware that several test subjects managed to escape the laboratories during the earthquake, and that our brave and hard working clean-up crew is looking for them now. What I forgot to mention was that one of mine (experiment control code HUM-Obs114Fiw2015-88800) is potentially unstable.
The subject is female, 22 years of age, with long black hair, 5'6" tall, thin. Skin is of beige gray color, excessively greasy. The teeth and the flesh of the mouth area are damaged. Last seen with her digestive system still intact -- but that can still change. The last measurement of her wingspan is 12 feet, from tip to tip.
Try to avoid being vomited on. I can't guarantee if the effects are repairable.
If anyone sees her, kindly contact me and return her alive. ♥ I still have a few more tests to run before signing her clearance.
3rd person sample:
The earth as he knew it had been destroyed.
Ukoku sat on the curb and chewed on a piece of dried squid. To say that it was dry might be redundant, but it wasn't as flavorful as the ones he usually bought whenever he dropped by Kinzan. Tragic. A cursory glance at the packaging revealed another crime: it was not sun dried (or dried on a planet receiving radiation from a star, as things now stood), but processed in a machine with controlled amounts of heat.
Gasp. He swallowed the morsel in his mouth after judging that it wasn't going to get any softer and his jaw wasn't going to have an easier time from it. What a surprise. Of course, it would be heavily inconvenient for an alien race to simply stay in one planet when, oh, they could go just about anywhere in a ship like this. In such cases, self-sufficiency became all the more important - they must have a food source somewhere on board, unless they planned to stop here and there to resupply.
That made Ukoku wonder how vicious intergalactic piracy was and if they'd be attacked by it any time soon. A refugee ship was a disaster waiting to happen, something to look forward to.
Something smooth and plum with four spindly legs zoomed passed him in a hovercraft. He sighed. This was just too surreal even for him, even if the reason why he and everyone else ended up here was stupidly straightforward.
Intergalactic highways. Really now.
Deciding to spare his jaw further torture, he brushed off the salt from his fingers, placing the now sealed package of dried squid in his sleeve before fishing out a pack of cigarettes. Ukoku hummed as he walked, smoothly taking out a stick before pressing the filter between his lips and lighting the smoke.
If the cigarette shook ever so slightly between his fingers or had been creased because he was pressing a little too hard, he didn't notice.
The whiteness of its paper wrapper was a stark contrast against his lightly tanned skin. My, he had been walking a lot for the past few days - staying cooped up in a lab for months on end really wasn't his style. Neither was settling down.
His lips twisted in a small smirk as he headed for his room, mindful of the artificial gravity keeping the ship's structures stable (what fun it would be to find its source!) as he savored the nicotine and the smoke - one of the last sticks he'll ever have from his current favorite brand. He'd laugh, really, but he wasn't one for nostalgia. There were other brands out there, other vices and their substitutes that this place had to offer, assuming they hadn't been able to save the tobacco plant. Little conveniences that didn't matter in the long run, because a vice was simply a vice, meant to be abused.
Trivial. Such a boring and despicable word.
His smile widened by a fraction. If he looked close enough, he thought he could see the grime that no being would be able to scrub off the immaculate white floors, the footsteps of worlds at end that they sought to erase.
Maybe this whole trip to nowhere was trivial, too.
Would anyone miss it?
Questions?:
I'm pretty sure I had a few other questions before, but my brain is fried. So have this:
1) Why is the mod account named "shareenjoyotp"? |D
2) Still not sure about what timeline I should take him from, so if I decide to change it would it still be fine to do that before I intro him?
Name: Ame
Are you over 16?: Yep~
Personal LJ: vibhava_tanha
Email: patak.ng.liwanag[at]gmail[dot]com
Timezone: +0800 GMT
Other contact: [AIM] arsenicgraffiti
Characters already in the game: n/a :D
How did you find us?: Originally, your old P4 cast postings over at dear_mun + onehotkappa. You can imagine how long ago this was.
IC:
Character name: Ukoku Sanzo. His former and now possibly unneeded alias is Nii Jianyi
Fandom: Saiyuki
Timeline: Saiyuki Reload, March '08 issue, before Sanzo calls him out.
Age: 37. Maybe.
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths: Ukoku is a man of many talents. He'll try anything that seems challenging, and then either toss it away if it no longer has a purpose or keep it if he can use it for the future.
He's skilled in both science and magic. Ukoku finished his Ph.D. at 17, and moved on to train as a monk, where he learned various Buddhist techniques and the martial arts (as seen here, credits to saiyuki_manga). In fact, his level of concentration in practicing the spiritual arts was so advanced that he could use them without chanting mantras, producing such potent results by concentrating it on the tip of his fingers instead (image from saiyuki_manga). He became more powerful when he gained the Muten Sutra, which granted him the ability to, according to Hazel, "[negate] existence itself." Hakkai and Gojyo later clarify this: "[Not] only can he negate attack - but he can also turn space into nothing and bend it - making it possible to even teleport... if he puts his mind to it, he could make us disappear". It's also likely through the use of the sutra that he's able to mask his presence so that no one would be able to sense him.
Both areas of training set the cornerstones for his later role as Dr. Nii Jianyi, the researcher/professor of bio-engineering and of physical engineering ( source) in the Gyuumaoh Revival Project which involved mixing magic and science. By the time the series started, he had already invented or had a major part in inventing a lot of items, notably Gyuumaoh's resurrection chamber, Kami-sama's castle, and that gourd that Kami-sama used to turn people's souls into toys.
He knows how speak, read, and write English, skills he either studied extensively or learned during his trip to the Western continent sometime after Koumyou's death. Though there's little to no actual support for this, it's possible that he may know more than his native language and English - he did stay in the Western continent for some time to "study culture", not only acquainting himself with Filbert's and Hazel's country, but also Gat's. Furthermore, he'd necessarily need to dabble in other languages in order to be able to do extensive research on the Gyuumaoh Revival Project, since it's one that involves both science and magic.
The Maten Sutra, his weapon of choice above his inventions (likely because of its connection to his past), is one of the five scriptures said to have been used in the creation of the world, and each sutra is in itself an object of immense power. Throughout the series, Ukoku is also shown using devices of his own invention, although this is happens more in the anime than in the manga.
How would they use their abilities?: With discretion. He won't flaunt them unless they have to be used, and even then he's highly selective in who sees him when displaying his capabilities.
Having said that, you won't have to worry about, oh, having a Sutra battle in the near future. It's the supposed technological malfunctions you'd have to watch out for >_> With mod permission, of course.
Appearance: He can switch between scruffy and clean-shaven in no time. As Ukoku, his hair is unstyled, and he makes a striking figure, the type that draws in your attention. His monk robes are dyed black, and under the robe is a black turtle neck. He also wears straw sandals. Genjo Sanzo, who has a similar style of clothing, wears jeans under his robes. I'm supposing Ukoku also wears them, but there are shots where we see his ankles and his socks but without the hem of his trousers. So. |D
Nii Jianyi, on the other hand, is someone who you think you know at a glance, the type that you either stay far away from or think of as "that scientist" and leave it at that. You're not quite sure of what he'll do next, and people tend to be wary of him - perhaps exactly what he's going for, since it means that not many people will look too closely at his business since they'll rely heavily on that impression. His hair is gelled up, his chin has two-day old stubble, and there's a bandaid across his cheek. Under his labcoat (its pockets may be filled with random things and there may be stains on the sleeves from ink or other vile substances), he wears a button-down shirt, slacks, and a tie. To top it all off, he wears bunny slippers, carries with him a stuffed rabbit, and has a cigarette dangling from his lips.
Now, what would you make out of that image?
Background/Personality:
i. the moon and the night
In contrast to the series' main characters, Ukoku, who born was to a well-off couple working as graduate professors, didn't have a dysfunctional family life. For all intents and purposes, he seemed like he was well-adjusted, the brilliant kid at the top of the class who still managed to retain his mischevious streak and his charm: the ideal student and a fun guy to be with.
His aim for training to become a Sanzo monk after finishing his Ph.D. at the tender age of 17 was to take on on the occupation deemed to be the most difficult one in the world. This may seem like a shallow reason compared to how ardent the ambitions of some acolytes were, but he needed to kill the bordom gnawing at him, to perhaps find something that was worth learning. After all, what more did he have to strive for when he already had achieved the pinnacle of the fruit of human knowledge - science?
He received the name Ken'yuu upon entering the monastery and, as expected, excelled in learning both the fighting and the spiritual arts. It was one and a half years later that he met Koumyou Sanzo, a good friend of Goudai Sanzo, the previous guardian of the Muten Sutra.
Ken’yuu’s first encounter with Koumyou was simple, yet striking. His first impression of Koumyou was that the monk was a bit dense with his inability to properly follow their conversation - a weird old man who delightedly rambled on about connections only he could have imagined. The only thing that stopped him from writing off Koumyou as an idiot was how Koumyou expressed his opinion on the reason why Ken'yuu entered the monastery: if Ken'yuu was easily bored with everything, then that must mean he's a very boring person.
Being told this was likely something new for Ken'yuu, who even then was already developing his intellectual arrogance and his pride. Koumyou's words likely stuck to him even after Koumyou himself went back to his old bumbling self - what was it about this man who saw through him?
A few days after this meeting, Goudai's ill health caught up with him. It's revealed that Goudai had been anticipating his decline, and thus called Koumyou to oversee the succession of the next Sanzo and the guardian of the Maten Sutra. He had also implicitly asked Koumyou for another favor - to look after Ken'yuu, the student with the most ability to win the selection.
The test started when the names of the candidates are called, and Ken'yuu wasn't on the list. This clearly provoked him, and Ken'yuu attacked Goudai, only to be stopped by Koumyou. Afterwards, another key discussion took place between the two in the detainment cell Ken'yuu was placed in. It became apparent that Ken'yuu's boredom had become so pervasive that it consumed his very interest in living, and the only way he could feel like he was alive was to seek out challenges - even if those same challenges would be the very ones to kill him.
He didn't care for living, but his own pride and confidence in his abilities didn't allow him to die without a fight. This is the essential contradiction his cynicism is founded on, possibly further reinforced by his earlier studies in bioengineering and the laws of nature. "To survive is to continue eating others," he said, remembering his hobby of watching a murder of ravens eat their prey (something he continued to do as an adult: he fed the ravens on the roof of Houtou Castle). It is the instinct of any living creature to fight for its survival with any means necessary -- but is this all that there is to it? And even if it is, is there something else that could disprove this overwhelmingly present trend?
Was there something that could still beat him when he had already succeeded in everything else?
Ken'yuu broke out of the detention cell and killed Goudai, succeeding him as the 24th Toushin Ukoku Sanzo, guardian of the Muten sutra and the youngest Sanzo monk until Genjo Sanzo's own ascension. Koumyou reflected that Ken'yuu may have indeed been crying when he killed Goudai - this was the first casualty that meant something, after he admitted to Koumyou that he was indeed waiting for someone to swallow him up. He had failed to die again, and attaining the title of Sanzo meant that he once again had to look for something else in the wide world. Something strong enough to crush him.
The name he was given, Ukoku, means "bird's cry". However, the mark signifying the favor of the gods (a red chakra) never did appear on his forehead, leading some to call him a heretical monk.
Ukoku and Koumyou spent a year travelling together, after which they parted ways, though I imagine Ukoku visits Kinzan Temple when he's in the area. It's during one of those visits where they made The Bet, in any case: Ukoku wonders which one of them does get swallowed, the moon (what Jikaku, Koumyou's mentor, compared to Koumyou to) or the night. Koumyou offers to turn this into a bet, and what is at stake is the next rising sun.
It is not too clear what Koumyou was thinking when he proposed this, although how Ukoku would use The Bet and all its symbolism as his framework for living becomes apparent as the series continues. It becomes the template in which he set up the events of present canon, the grand game he plays as the ultimate thesis of who would win - the reality that the world was dull in its monotonous cycle, or that some other meaning still existed beyond it.
Sometime after that, he met a young blond child on the streets. Intrigued that such a child would ask him if a god existed, Ukoku took in this nameless child ("Kami-sama", as he is called when he meets Sanzo and his motley crew a decade or so later, isn't his real name) and made him his pupil, his way of mimicking the mentor-student bond between Koumyou and Kouryuu, Koumyou's prized disciple who would grow up to be Genjo Sanzo. Eventually, Ukoku brought Kami-sama to meet Kouryuu - this was also Kouryuu's first time to meet his master's eccentric friend.
ii. rabbits
There are a lot of unresolved (or unrevealed) events after they made The Bet. Koumyou's death happened five years after that. Whether or not Ukoku played an active role in it is still a subject of debate, especially since the exact time he joined Gyokumen at Houtou Castle in India is unknown. It is, however, certain that sometime after Koumyou's death, he dyed his robes black, left everything else except his sutra (the one thing he considers indispensable) to Kami-sama, and was able to wander everywhere, studying all sorts of traditions and cultures as a wandering scholar of sorts, switching from one interest to another, eventually reaching the far West and meeting a young aspiring priest named Hazel Grouse.
As Nii Jianyi, he is officially in charge of the project to revive Gyokumen's lover, Gyuumaoh. Unofficially, he is also Gyokumen's partner in convenience and in crime, helping her in various malevolent deeds (the Minus Wave, a phenomenon that turned all youkai in the land mad and destroyed the lives of the townspeople living in harmony with them, turned out to be a deliberate act of being just a side-effect of the revival project), and being her occasional fuck buddy.
Being able to bag and keep his job was no mean feat, considering that Gyokumen, a relentless, cold-blooded and manipulative creature herself, is no fool. Nii ended up being the only human being in Houtou Castle at a time when being a youkai in a clan is equivalent to being part of the upper hierarchy of a fiefdom (one clan, for example, even demanded that a human sacrifice be sent up to them every year). Even before going berserk, they seemed to have more physical strength compared to your average human, and more youkai knew how to use magic than the number of humans who knew how to manipulate advanced technology. On top of that, he had free reign to do as he wished for as long as he continued his efforts in the project; it's highly likely that several items we see throughout the series (the game tower Kami-sama lived in, and a soul-containment gourd two youkai children had) were created by during this period - the game tower was more of a mechanical and architectural marvel (you had to go up 10 floors, each with a different set of challenges, before meeting the boss --- who's at the bottom floor), and the gourd stored the souls of those who consumed its seeds.
The reputation Nii built for himself here was different from his charming old self as Ken'yuu. He's playful and full of humor, though what he says can be either perverse, malicious, or both, depending on the situation. No matter how much he fooled around with his many side projects at work, there was also no mistaking that he did mean business when it was time to conduct a test as instructed by Gyokumen - something that Dr. Hwan, a fellow researcher, seemed to acknowledge him for, despite her derision of Nii's work habits and the many times Nii mocked her for her straight-laced attitude and her crush on Gyokumen. Nii's coworkers also got to see a side of him that he never showed his fellow acolytes at the monastery or the people he met as a monk: he can be downright nasty and bitter, two things that had built up in him since he gradually became obsessed with The Bet.
Here, he also freely showed his amoral side: nothing was sacred. Everything was free game, and what made Nii especially dangerous was his talent at not only creating opportunities for him to act, but also his ability to take advantage of the situations he was caught up in. The taboo of mixing science and magic was blatantly and wantonly violated. He likely accepted all sorts of test subjects, but it seems that his favorite ones were children, as evidenced earlier on by his corruption of Hazel and Kami-sama, later on necessitated with the use of Lirin, the daughter of Gyokumen, for the Revival Project. A particularly memorable series of episodes in the anime went something like this - he took a pair of youkai siblings Gyokumen had found a few years back, gave them a few additional powers and modifications, slapped on one control seed or the other on them (kind of like a microchip, except. It's a seed), then watched them attempt to attack the Sanzo-ikkou and eventually kill each other off. Nature in its finest and most emotional sense of brutality.
Testing how far humans and youkai would go had become a favorite past time of his. If the potential of the spirit was endless, what would be able to break it? If no person on earth could stop him, would heaven strike him down?
His ego and arrogance have grown in a way that he views himself as god and not-god. This world view is an extension of his earlier doubt of his existence - though he has become powerful enough to manipulate both science and nature, he still carries the eternal question of the possibilities that still lie out there, of who else could kill him, if there were stronger beings out there like gods who would take notice and come to sentence him. However, he still is a man of science, and that reflects in his style of speech in several encounters. One can hear him writing a dissertation, clinically describing the situation while he watches people squirm, enjoying their reactions when they realize they're up against something else.
On the other hand, we must remember that science (or, rather, the inflexible system science tends to carry with it) isn't perfect. He remembers this quite well: for one, he never gave a straight answer when Kami-sama asked him if God ever existed. It's also interesting to note that, while he does expect (or hope) to be defeated at one point, he dislikes it when anyone breaks out of their role - in other words, he can be picky in the unpredictability he'd like to encounter. For all that he knows of human nature and uses it to further his ends, his blind spot always seems to appear when his already subjugated victim regains their will to fight - the will to hope, and to dream, to stand up and to defy. These he describes as "bugs", those who keep on crawling to survive even though the odds are against them.
Perhaps his routine in Houtou Castle's spoiled him, since it set him in the comfortable position of being a manipulator from the outside - again, an extension of his talent in guiding people to have certain impressions on who he is, and the extreme amount of patience that he has in developing his plans while his focus is on them. He describes himself as a ghost at one point, having the ability to see and move all while not being seen. The downside of this is that it has made him inflexible, set in calculating the people around him, himself, and the situation he's playing. Ideally, each action he makes (or would like to make) is executed with the precise finality of a chess piece moving from one square to the next, always in anticipation of the opponent's next decision, and this makes it more difficult to account for moves made outside of the rules in which he's defined the world to operate in.
And so we have contradiction number one point five in Ukoku's life: if life is governed by the rules of survival that he is able to control, how now does he deal with being swept away by what lies beyond that law?
Number two is this: isn't man's defiance against the inevitability of nature, something which he seems to despise, the very same thing he craves for in his will to keep on existing for that last fight that will bring him down?
iii. the raven in the sun
Ukoku's inability to understand the will to strive possibly parallels his inability to also understand why he is still alive. The amount of emotion that he shows when Kougaiji and the ikkou break out of the mini-games he set up is fascinating - he isn't simply just angry at his own miscalculation, but one can also see his contempt at their struggle and the malice that says he'll make them suffer all the more for it. There's that strange, twisted pride in his mocking smile at seeing that, yes, there are people who are strong enough to face him, and the anticipation of facing them again that follows.
He looks forward to the day he would die so that he could feel one last burst of what it's like to be alive so he could stop feeling like the walking dead because of boredom. In that sense, one could say he's an immature, spoiled brat with no appreciation for the struggles most people had to go through just to survive. And he doesn't. He never had anything that meant to him until he met Koumyou, whom Ukoku still considers as his only friend.
Koumyou's intervention was both a blessing and a curse. Goudai's death would not have been as dramatic had Koumyou not been there to pinpoint with distinct clarity the reason driving Ken'yuu to live life as he did. Neither would Ukoku have continued to stay as a Sanzo if Koumyou wasn't around (remember how he abandoned everything else but the sutra and dyed his robes black - those were the only two items from that life that connected him with Koumyou). He wouldn't have been as vindictive towards Genjo Sanzo either, when Ukoku finally decided to track them himself after stepping up the pace of the game.
The meeting between the Sanzo-ikkou and Ukoku, of course, was inevitable. After all, at the beginning of the series Sanzo had been sent West by the Buddhist gods to investigate the source of the Minus Wave and the Gyuumaoh Resurrection Project, both of which Ukoku had a hand in. However, the way things had turned out - once he could no longer stir things up when Kougaiji rebelled against the mind control placed on him, he drew in Hazel Grouse, now a bishop whose mission in life was to exorcise youkai, to meet up and separate Sanzo from the rest of the group - brought everything to full circle.
It is the first time we see Ukoku actively want to kill someone, and just how far he would go to do it by looking into the backgrounds of all the players in the game (the rest of the ikkou, Hazel, and his companion Gat) in order to manipulate the circumstances for things to reach this point.
Genjo Sanzo was the successor and prized student of Koumyou Sanzo, and is therefore also the inheritor of Koumyou's legacy (and Koumyou never picked just anyone). Since Koumyou shielded him from the youkai who killed him to steal the sutras in his possession, Sanzo is also, in a warped sense of logic, Koumyou's cause of death. (There is some fan debate as to whether or not Ukoku also set this up, but I'll leave that out of here. >.>)
In effect, Sanzo had robbed Ukoku of Koumyou twice: first of the admiration he had for his darling student, and next of the fierce support Koumyou ultimately gave to Kouryuu in protecting him. Ukoku isn't someone who enjoys looking too closely at those aspects of human nature, but he did feel torn that someone he truly respected and admired had died.
He has a lot of suppressed emotion, likely because he doesn't analyze them. Anger, spite, hatred, frustration, grief, sadness and jealousy - all of these have no place in the rational, and they serve more as a liability when it comes to survival. He has seen too much of what emotion can do to people, has experimented in so many ways how to induce the full range of human drama while maintaining his confidence, the self-assured scientist independent of human attachments. God, or those who play god, are supposed to be untouchable, after all, and he does take up this position even though he does only ambiguously identify himself as such.
The only logical (and acceptable) way for him to be able to cope with both Koumyou's death and the unbearable, ravaging nothingness that hid beneath his boredom was to continue with The Bet. Maybe, if he saw this game to the very end, he'd see why Koumyou seemed to think that the world was an endlessly fascinating and peaceful place.
Ukoku's presumed blindness at the end of Reload, delivered with a shot Sanzo was able to give because of the ikkou working together as a cohesive team, neatly summarizes who he is now: a spiritually blind man consumed by his impulses. The moonlit night has been covered and twisted by the darkness.
Have you read up on how the game works?: Yep.
a) Draco Malfoy the FlamingFerret.
b) Through theft (and its many forms /o/), missions, and permanent jobs.
1st person sample:
[note: this was originally posted here, but I'll just copy & slightly edit it. Comm's locked for in-game purposes.]
Has it really been a couple of days since the labs reopened? All too soon, too - I would have liked to slept in more, but I also wouldn't say no to settling in these shiny new rooms. Decisions, decisions.
Speaking of settling down again: I do need to announce something. I'm sure you're all aware that several test subjects managed to escape the laboratories during the earthquake, and that our brave and hard working clean-up crew is looking for them now. What I forgot to mention was that one of mine (experiment control code HUM-Obs114Fiw2015-88800) is potentially unstable.
The subject is female, 22 years of age, with long black hair, 5'6" tall, thin. Skin is of beige gray color, excessively greasy. The teeth and the flesh of the mouth area are damaged. Last seen with her digestive system still intact -- but that can still change. The last measurement of her wingspan is 12 feet, from tip to tip.
Try to avoid being vomited on. I can't guarantee if the effects are repairable.
If anyone sees her, kindly contact me and return her alive. ♥ I still have a few more tests to run before signing her clearance.
3rd person sample:
The earth as he knew it had been destroyed.
Ukoku sat on the curb and chewed on a piece of dried squid. To say that it was dry might be redundant, but it wasn't as flavorful as the ones he usually bought whenever he dropped by Kinzan. Tragic. A cursory glance at the packaging revealed another crime: it was not sun dried (or dried on a planet receiving radiation from a star, as things now stood), but processed in a machine with controlled amounts of heat.
Gasp. He swallowed the morsel in his mouth after judging that it wasn't going to get any softer and his jaw wasn't going to have an easier time from it. What a surprise. Of course, it would be heavily inconvenient for an alien race to simply stay in one planet when, oh, they could go just about anywhere in a ship like this. In such cases, self-sufficiency became all the more important - they must have a food source somewhere on board, unless they planned to stop here and there to resupply.
That made Ukoku wonder how vicious intergalactic piracy was and if they'd be attacked by it any time soon. A refugee ship was a disaster waiting to happen, something to look forward to.
Something smooth and plum with four spindly legs zoomed passed him in a hovercraft. He sighed. This was just too surreal even for him, even if the reason why he and everyone else ended up here was stupidly straightforward.
Intergalactic highways. Really now.
Deciding to spare his jaw further torture, he brushed off the salt from his fingers, placing the now sealed package of dried squid in his sleeve before fishing out a pack of cigarettes. Ukoku hummed as he walked, smoothly taking out a stick before pressing the filter between his lips and lighting the smoke.
If the cigarette shook ever so slightly between his fingers or had been creased because he was pressing a little too hard, he didn't notice.
The whiteness of its paper wrapper was a stark contrast against his lightly tanned skin. My, he had been walking a lot for the past few days - staying cooped up in a lab for months on end really wasn't his style. Neither was settling down.
His lips twisted in a small smirk as he headed for his room, mindful of the artificial gravity keeping the ship's structures stable (what fun it would be to find its source!) as he savored the nicotine and the smoke - one of the last sticks he'll ever have from his current favorite brand. He'd laugh, really, but he wasn't one for nostalgia. There were other brands out there, other vices and their substitutes that this place had to offer, assuming they hadn't been able to save the tobacco plant. Little conveniences that didn't matter in the long run, because a vice was simply a vice, meant to be abused.
Trivial. Such a boring and despicable word.
His smile widened by a fraction. If he looked close enough, he thought he could see the grime that no being would be able to scrub off the immaculate white floors, the footsteps of worlds at end that they sought to erase.
Maybe this whole trip to nowhere was trivial, too.
Would anyone miss it?
Questions?:
I'm pretty sure I had a few other questions before, but my brain is fried. So have this:
1) Why is the mod account named "shareenjoyotp"? |D
2) Still not sure about what timeline I should take him from, so if I decide to change it would it still be fine to do that before I intro him?