Rivelata Application v2.0
PLAYER
NAME: Jennifer
PERSONAL LJ: rizumu_sakusha
OOC COMM?: Already there
EMAIL/MESSENGER(S): compuscouts (AIM), compuscouts[AT]yahoo[DOT]com
TIMEZONE: EST
CHARACTER
NAME(S): Sha Gojyo
FANDOM: Saiyuki (Gensomaden Saiyuki/Saiyuki Reload/Saiyuki Reload Gunlock)
BACKGROUND HISTORY: Sha Gojyo was born to a human mother and a youkai* father, but his mother wasn't his father's wife. Somehow, probably after both blood parents died, Gojyo found himself in the "care" of the woman he came to call Mom - his father's legal wife, a youkai, and mother to his older half-brother - even though she beat him, yelled at him, and could only be comforted by his older brother, Jien. One day, Mom tried to kill Gojyo, and Jien made the desperate decision to stop her by killing her instead. To the present day, Gojyo carries two scars on his left cheek from where his mother scratched him. The brothers parted ways and didn't see each other for approximately 15 years.
In the interim, Gojyo wandered the streets and learned, probably with the help of a youkai named Banri, how to play cards, rack up a beer tab, and become quite the ladies' man. Gojyo himself is a "taboo child* ", but most humans seem to not realize this while most demons do. Thus, Gojyo lived among and feels more comfortable with humans. He wields a staff-like weapon with a crescent blade at the top and a chained spade at the bottom, summoning it with his youki -- the magical powers youkai possess and use in a variety of ways. In the show, it is called a 'shakujou', but is closer to the "cresecent-moon-toothed spade" (yueyachan) that Chinese Buddhist priests used as both a traveling staff (with clanging rings) and a shovel to dig graves.
Gojyo is particularly close to one of his companions, Hakkai, because they met each other a few months before meeting the other two. Hakkai was "Cho Gonou" then and nearly dead, lying face down in the rain when Gojyo took Gonou back to his house and had a doctor look at the turned-youkai. Eventually Gonou recovered and was just about to leave Gojyo's company when a buddhist priest (Genjyo-sanzo) showed up at his door with a monkey-like boy (Son Goku) and demanded the "mass murderer" be turned over. Long story short, Gonou was not sentenced to death and took on the new name Hakkai, but he and Gojyo are still best friends as a result of the mess. Three years later, Gojyo's destiny caught up with him.
He was summoned to journey with Genjyo-sanzo - among the highest ranking of Buddhist priests but without the shaved head or abstinence from killing, drinking, or smoking - to India to stop a "Minus Wave" from turning all youkai into ravenous, mindless beasts. His other traveling companions included the legendary Son Goku - the Sage Equaling Heaven - and Cho Hakkai, a human cursed for killing 1000 youkai by being himself changed into a youkai. This is the rag-tag group that Gojyo travels with for a year and a half at the time he is pulled from.
In Gensomaden Saiyuki, the Sanzo Party fought against a youkai prince, Kougaiji, and his team (Jien among them, now called Dokugakuji) to keep Sanzo's sutra in his possession. Because Gojyo is taken from the anime, they also fought the new War Prince, Homura, plus his lackeys - and won, insomuch as they stopped Homura from creating his own world using Goku as a focal point. In Saiyuki Reload, they continued their journey westward, fighting a variety of youkai along the way and finally going up against Kami-sama - a man who called himself "God" and stole Sanzo's sutra - which nearly resulted in the death of all four Sanzo Party members, but also forced them to learn more about each other's fighting styles and unite them more as a team as well as friends.
Most recently, they encountered a man by the name of Hazel and his attendant called Gato. Hazel is a Christian (?) bishop with the power to trap youkai souls in his pendant (with the Star of David on it), then release them into the dead bodies of humans, effectively reviving them. The biggest difference is that their eyes become yellow and they despise youkai. Hazel does this because he desires to kill all youkai and make a world exclusively for humans. He thinks that he and Sanzo have identical goals and therefore questions severely why Sanzo travels with "monsters". Naturally, this does not sit well with Hakkai, Goku, and Gojyo. The way that Gojyo deals with it is by mocking Hazel's accent, which is translated as a southern accent.
In Rivelata, Gojyo has tried and failed to keep up his old life of flirting with the ladies and spending his nights in the bars, but holding down an established job in a cushy home life is not something he's used to. He was used to traveling for nearly two years before Rivelata happened to him. Anyway, one girl in particular made him rethink a lot of things and he never really recovered from that. After getting in trouble with the law for trying to break into the library, Gojyo finally took a solo journey into the jungle to figure things out for himself - since it seemed to work out oh so well the time he tried it in canon.
*Youkai live longer than humans, tend to have elemental powers, and are marked physically by a small tattoo somewhere on their body, elongated ears, and fangs. In Gojyo's case, the element is water because he is a "kappa", or water demon.
**Taboo children are half-youkai and so-called because it is a social taboo for the two races to fornicate. They are marked physically by blood-red hair and eyes; apparently possess no elemental powers; and yet they do have some measure of extraordinary strength, speed, and life expectancy. They are also sterile.
TIMELINE SUMMARY: Against the Stream Arc (Saiyuki Reload) Gojyo was taken from the point at which Zakuro has cast an illusion into the minds of himself, Sanzo, and Hakkai. Gojyo was made to believe his arm was on fire and basically passed out from the shock of thinking his arm would burn off as well as his half-brother Jien/Dokugakuji punching him in the stomach before his brain could fully process everything. More recently, he went on an excursion into the Rivelata jungle alone and has been there ever since.
PERSONALITY:
Gojyo is best described as a playboy with a heart of gold. His favorite things in life are cigarettes, booze, and sex. While on his own, he used booze & games with strangers to get through the day and love with strangers to get through the night. All the while, feeling like his hanyou status (half human, half youkai) would not allow him to enjoy life because neither human nor youkai wanted him. By remaining with the humans, Gojyo stood a chance at hiding the nature of his birth. To earn money, he became an excellent gambler - playing cards and mah-jongg - and something like a petty thief along with Banri.
After meeting Hakkai, Sanzo, and Goku, Gojyo was confronted with the idea that "there are other things in the world that are red". Basically, that he can enjoy life in spite of his "taboo" birth. He becomes a raucous brother-figure to Goku, a best friend to Hakkai, and a pain in Sanzo's side, regularly stopping the journey to do "good deeds" that Sanzo would have otherwise looked over. For example, two brothers were being deceived by a man called "Kami-sama" and Gojyo in fact left his companions (who at first continued on their journey without him) to try to help the brothers, nearly dying in the process. Hakkai also says to Gojyo at one point, "you make a terrible villain". While Sanzo and Goku both accuse Gojyo of being "lecherous", it is nearly always harmless flirting. In fact, the girls he hits on will often indulge his advances and it is only then that Gojyo "gets in trouble" -- being smacked with a paper fan by Sanzo and teased verbally by Goku. In essence, while he enjoys sex, he can actually restrain himself, and is actually more interested in love, which he has never experienced and has said before that he'd "like to experience it at least once". but is no longer sure how he feels about the difference between a lover and a boyfriend/girlfriend.
Because Gojyo is arguably the weakest member of the team in terms of youki, he often makes up for it in personality. He cracks jokes, he teases mercilessly, he is tenacious to a fault, and quite the charmer canonically to ladies, but often uses the word "bijin" (beautiful person) instead of "bijou" (beautiful lady), leading one to wonder if he had ever - in his earlier years - been intimate with a man. Often this is blamed on Banri, but they were as much room-mates then as Hakkai was Gojyo's room-mate for the three years before the Sanzo Party set out for India.
By the point at which I have pulled him from, Gojyo has also discovered a streak of intense loyalty to his traveling companions - the people he considers to be truly friends - and occasionally steps up to a fierce battle for nothing more than to keep the group together. Each time, Gojyo becomes quite frustrated because he actually has very little in the way of extraordinary abilities.
SPECIAL ABILITIES:
Gojyo has some increased strength, a great deal more endurance, and some improved speed and dexterity, allowing him to jump and swing his bladed staff. Despite all that, his fighting style remains crude - mainly tavern-brawling, including punches and kicks, but when he goes up against full-blooded youkai (ex: Youkai-Hakkai, Seiten Taisei Son Goku, and Youko Kurama) it is much clearer that he is second-rate in physical power. All the same, he can outmatch any human in this regard. Some extraordinary talents - ability to hold his breath for long periods of time (but not actually breathe underwater), impressive charisma, as well as the strength/endurance/speed/dexterity - are often blamed on his heritage as a half-water-youkai, only vaguely remeniscient of the kappa of Japanese myth that he is often called as a nickname. As an example of his strength, he is able to carry both Hakkai (a full-grown man) and Goku (a young adult, but not slim at all) at once - one under his arm and one over his shoulder, then walk a great distance while bearing that weight.
Notably, he is shown to be a consummate chain-smoker, yet exhibits very little physical drain on lung capacity. Sounds like an extraordinary ability to me.
His only other ability is summoning and dismissing his shakujou, as well as controlling the chain telekinetically. He remastered this ability in Rivelata some time ago.
SAMPLES
THIRD PERSON:
The Jackal's Cask looked a little busier than the last time he'd been out drinking. Which admittedly hadn't been in a long time.
But now Gojyo was falling back into old habits... a little drink, a friendly game... it was all very familiar. The only difference was he wouldn't be heading out in the back of a jeep the next day and wouldn't be bringing a pretty thing home on his arm to sleep away the night.
You didn't bring uninvited guests back to your best friend's boyfriend's shop. Even Gojyo had more class than that.
So, until his company showed up, Gojyo decided to just hang out at the bar, tossing a few coins in front of him. He started picking through the shiniest ones before finally holding up two silver ones for the bartender.
"How much'll this buy me?"
The bartender looked like he might fall backwards into the display of overturned glasses shaped like a pyramid. "My good sir, two silver ladies... that would easily buy three rounds for every patron here... maybe four..."
"Okay, well, that's a little too much then..." Gojyo grumbled before finally locating a less shiny brownish looking coin. "How about this one?"
This time the man squinted at the coin. "A copper pence, sir? 10 rounds of ale."
"Yeah let's start with that... make it whiskey if ya have that..." Gojyo muttered as he slid the coin towards the bartender, giving him a grin. "But start a tab for me anyway, wouldja'? I'mma prolly be here awhile."
FIRST PERSON:
Bombs go off. Been workin' on repairin' th' flower-shop while Hakkai and Shu-chan piece the business back together. Now we gotta make sure no pirates do any plunderin'.
Heh. I'd like to see 'em pick a fight with Shu-chan, but anyway.
Basically, I'm ready for a drink.
Anyone else wanna join me, I'll be at the Jackal's Cask since the Crimson Dragon's front door's probably as fucked up as the other businesses on the main street. I seem to recall some gamblers out there. I'd sure like to see a game of Poker or Mahjongg again... you lot are invited too.
NOTES: Sha Goyjo ([info]inthecenterfold) - Goes off into the jungle on a solo-mission into the jungle to search for any and all missing Rivelatians.
Character #2 in my restart.
NAME: Jennifer
PERSONAL LJ: rizumu_sakusha
OOC COMM?: Already there
EMAIL/MESSENGER(S): compuscouts (AIM), compuscouts[AT]yahoo[DOT]com
TIMEZONE: EST
CHARACTER
NAME(S): Sha Gojyo
FANDOM: Saiyuki (Gensomaden Saiyuki/Saiyuki Reload/Saiyuki Reload Gunlock)
BACKGROUND HISTORY: Sha Gojyo was born to a human mother and a youkai* father, but his mother wasn't his father's wife. Somehow, probably after both blood parents died, Gojyo found himself in the "care" of the woman he came to call Mom - his father's legal wife, a youkai, and mother to his older half-brother - even though she beat him, yelled at him, and could only be comforted by his older brother, Jien. One day, Mom tried to kill Gojyo, and Jien made the desperate decision to stop her by killing her instead. To the present day, Gojyo carries two scars on his left cheek from where his mother scratched him. The brothers parted ways and didn't see each other for approximately 15 years.
In the interim, Gojyo wandered the streets and learned, probably with the help of a youkai named Banri, how to play cards, rack up a beer tab, and become quite the ladies' man. Gojyo himself is a "taboo child* ", but most humans seem to not realize this while most demons do. Thus, Gojyo lived among and feels more comfortable with humans. He wields a staff-like weapon with a crescent blade at the top and a chained spade at the bottom, summoning it with his youki -- the magical powers youkai possess and use in a variety of ways. In the show, it is called a 'shakujou', but is closer to the "cresecent-moon-toothed spade" (yueyachan) that Chinese Buddhist priests used as both a traveling staff (with clanging rings) and a shovel to dig graves.
Gojyo is particularly close to one of his companions, Hakkai, because they met each other a few months before meeting the other two. Hakkai was "Cho Gonou" then and nearly dead, lying face down in the rain when Gojyo took Gonou back to his house and had a doctor look at the turned-youkai. Eventually Gonou recovered and was just about to leave Gojyo's company when a buddhist priest (Genjyo-sanzo) showed up at his door with a monkey-like boy (Son Goku) and demanded the "mass murderer" be turned over. Long story short, Gonou was not sentenced to death and took on the new name Hakkai, but he and Gojyo are still best friends as a result of the mess. Three years later, Gojyo's destiny caught up with him.
He was summoned to journey with Genjyo-sanzo - among the highest ranking of Buddhist priests but without the shaved head or abstinence from killing, drinking, or smoking - to India to stop a "Minus Wave" from turning all youkai into ravenous, mindless beasts. His other traveling companions included the legendary Son Goku - the Sage Equaling Heaven - and Cho Hakkai, a human cursed for killing 1000 youkai by being himself changed into a youkai. This is the rag-tag group that Gojyo travels with for a year and a half at the time he is pulled from.
In Gensomaden Saiyuki, the Sanzo Party fought against a youkai prince, Kougaiji, and his team (Jien among them, now called Dokugakuji) to keep Sanzo's sutra in his possession. Because Gojyo is taken from the anime, they also fought the new War Prince, Homura, plus his lackeys - and won, insomuch as they stopped Homura from creating his own world using Goku as a focal point. In Saiyuki Reload, they continued their journey westward, fighting a variety of youkai along the way and finally going up against Kami-sama - a man who called himself "God" and stole Sanzo's sutra - which nearly resulted in the death of all four Sanzo Party members, but also forced them to learn more about each other's fighting styles and unite them more as a team as well as friends.
Most recently, they encountered a man by the name of Hazel and his attendant called Gato. Hazel is a Christian (?) bishop with the power to trap youkai souls in his pendant (with the Star of David on it), then release them into the dead bodies of humans, effectively reviving them. The biggest difference is that their eyes become yellow and they despise youkai. Hazel does this because he desires to kill all youkai and make a world exclusively for humans. He thinks that he and Sanzo have identical goals and therefore questions severely why Sanzo travels with "monsters". Naturally, this does not sit well with Hakkai, Goku, and Gojyo. The way that Gojyo deals with it is by mocking Hazel's accent, which is translated as a southern accent.
In Rivelata, Gojyo has tried and failed to keep up his old life of flirting with the ladies and spending his nights in the bars, but holding down an established job in a cushy home life is not something he's used to. He was used to traveling for nearly two years before Rivelata happened to him. Anyway, one girl in particular made him rethink a lot of things and he never really recovered from that. After getting in trouble with the law for trying to break into the library, Gojyo finally took a solo journey into the jungle to figure things out for himself - since it seemed to work out oh so well the time he tried it in canon.
*Youkai live longer than humans, tend to have elemental powers, and are marked physically by a small tattoo somewhere on their body, elongated ears, and fangs. In Gojyo's case, the element is water because he is a "kappa", or water demon.
**Taboo children are half-youkai and so-called because it is a social taboo for the two races to fornicate. They are marked physically by blood-red hair and eyes; apparently possess no elemental powers; and yet they do have some measure of extraordinary strength, speed, and life expectancy. They are also sterile.
TIMELINE SUMMARY: Against the Stream Arc (Saiyuki Reload) Gojyo was taken from the point at which Zakuro has cast an illusion into the minds of himself, Sanzo, and Hakkai. Gojyo was made to believe his arm was on fire and basically passed out from the shock of thinking his arm would burn off as well as his half-brother Jien/Dokugakuji punching him in the stomach before his brain could fully process everything. More recently, he went on an excursion into the Rivelata jungle alone and has been there ever since.
PERSONALITY:
Gojyo is best described as a playboy with a heart of gold. His favorite things in life are cigarettes, booze, and sex. While on his own, he used booze & games with strangers to get through the day and love with strangers to get through the night. All the while, feeling like his hanyou status (half human, half youkai) would not allow him to enjoy life because neither human nor youkai wanted him. By remaining with the humans, Gojyo stood a chance at hiding the nature of his birth. To earn money, he became an excellent gambler - playing cards and mah-jongg - and something like a petty thief along with Banri.
After meeting Hakkai, Sanzo, and Goku, Gojyo was confronted with the idea that "there are other things in the world that are red". Basically, that he can enjoy life in spite of his "taboo" birth. He becomes a raucous brother-figure to Goku, a best friend to Hakkai, and a pain in Sanzo's side, regularly stopping the journey to do "good deeds" that Sanzo would have otherwise looked over. For example, two brothers were being deceived by a man called "Kami-sama" and Gojyo in fact left his companions (who at first continued on their journey without him) to try to help the brothers, nearly dying in the process. Hakkai also says to Gojyo at one point, "you make a terrible villain". While Sanzo and Goku both accuse Gojyo of being "lecherous", it is nearly always harmless flirting. In fact, the girls he hits on will often indulge his advances and it is only then that Gojyo "gets in trouble" -- being smacked with a paper fan by Sanzo and teased verbally by Goku. In essence, while he enjoys sex, he can actually restrain himself, and is actually more interested in love, which he has never experienced and has said before that he'd "like to experience it at least once". but is no longer sure how he feels about the difference between a lover and a boyfriend/girlfriend.
Because Gojyo is arguably the weakest member of the team in terms of youki, he often makes up for it in personality. He cracks jokes, he teases mercilessly, he is tenacious to a fault, and quite the charmer canonically to ladies, but often uses the word "bijin" (beautiful person) instead of "bijou" (beautiful lady), leading one to wonder if he had ever - in his earlier years - been intimate with a man. Often this is blamed on Banri, but they were as much room-mates then as Hakkai was Gojyo's room-mate for the three years before the Sanzo Party set out for India.
By the point at which I have pulled him from, Gojyo has also discovered a streak of intense loyalty to his traveling companions - the people he considers to be truly friends - and occasionally steps up to a fierce battle for nothing more than to keep the group together. Each time, Gojyo becomes quite frustrated because he actually has very little in the way of extraordinary abilities.
SPECIAL ABILITIES:
Gojyo has some increased strength, a great deal more endurance, and some improved speed and dexterity, allowing him to jump and swing his bladed staff. Despite all that, his fighting style remains crude - mainly tavern-brawling, including punches and kicks, but when he goes up against full-blooded youkai (ex: Youkai-Hakkai, Seiten Taisei Son Goku, and Youko Kurama) it is much clearer that he is second-rate in physical power. All the same, he can outmatch any human in this regard. Some extraordinary talents - ability to hold his breath for long periods of time (but not actually breathe underwater), impressive charisma, as well as the strength/endurance/speed/dexterity - are often blamed on his heritage as a half-water-youkai, only vaguely remeniscient of the kappa of Japanese myth that he is often called as a nickname. As an example of his strength, he is able to carry both Hakkai (a full-grown man) and Goku (a young adult, but not slim at all) at once - one under his arm and one over his shoulder, then walk a great distance while bearing that weight.
Notably, he is shown to be a consummate chain-smoker, yet exhibits very little physical drain on lung capacity. Sounds like an extraordinary ability to me.
His only other ability is summoning and dismissing his shakujou, as well as controlling the chain telekinetically. He remastered this ability in Rivelata some time ago.
SAMPLES
THIRD PERSON:
The Jackal's Cask looked a little busier than the last time he'd been out drinking. Which admittedly hadn't been in a long time.
But now Gojyo was falling back into old habits... a little drink, a friendly game... it was all very familiar. The only difference was he wouldn't be heading out in the back of a jeep the next day and wouldn't be bringing a pretty thing home on his arm to sleep away the night.
You didn't bring uninvited guests back to your best friend's boyfriend's shop. Even Gojyo had more class than that.
So, until his company showed up, Gojyo decided to just hang out at the bar, tossing a few coins in front of him. He started picking through the shiniest ones before finally holding up two silver ones for the bartender.
"How much'll this buy me?"
The bartender looked like he might fall backwards into the display of overturned glasses shaped like a pyramid. "My good sir, two silver ladies... that would easily buy three rounds for every patron here... maybe four..."
"Okay, well, that's a little too much then..." Gojyo grumbled before finally locating a less shiny brownish looking coin. "How about this one?"
This time the man squinted at the coin. "A copper pence, sir? 10 rounds of ale."
"Yeah let's start with that... make it whiskey if ya have that..." Gojyo muttered as he slid the coin towards the bartender, giving him a grin. "But start a tab for me anyway, wouldja'? I'mma prolly be here awhile."
FIRST PERSON:
Bombs go off. Been workin' on repairin' th' flower-shop while Hakkai and Shu-chan piece the business back together. Now we gotta make sure no pirates do any plunderin'.
Heh. I'd like to see 'em pick a fight with Shu-chan, but anyway.
Basically, I'm ready for a drink.
Anyone else wanna join me, I'll be at the Jackal's Cask since the Crimson Dragon's front door's probably as fucked up as the other businesses on the main street. I seem to recall some gamblers out there. I'd sure like to see a game of Poker or Mahjongg again... you lot are invited too.
NOTES: Sha Goyjo ([info]inthecenterfold) - Goes off into the jungle on a solo-mission into the jungle to search for any and all missing Rivelatians.
Character #2 in my restart.