application; damned
Name/Handle: bluemoon
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Timezone: Mountain Central Time/-7 Zulu
Is English your primary language?: Yes
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Series: Inuyasha, primarily mangaverse
Series' Medium:
Inuyasha began as a manga and has subsequently been adapted into an anime, and several spinoff movies for said anime. Primarily I am drawing from the manga version, however, since Sesshoumaru's past is detailed more fully in the anime - indeed, the anime or movies are often the only indications we're given of when or if crap actually happened - I am also pulling from it.
Character: Sesshoumaru[sama]
Age:
... oh dear. All right, Rumiko Takahashi has never come out and given a straight answer on this - or she has, but they're all conflicting and the years climb steadily upwards. He is at least three hundred, but from there the reported figures range all the way up to three thousand years old. Practically he is... probably somewhere in the range of 1200 to 1800, assuming that yōkai have physical development of their fake form that roughly coincides with human development, with no accelerated bursts prior to latency or similar.
If he ages like a dog ages rather than a human - which is totally something you could argue - then these estimates are all shot, and he's a different age - probably younger, but you could argue the reverse too /flips tables. Physically, he appears to be 18/19 or so.
Sex/Gender:
Male both physically and mentally, though you could make a solid case about him being fond of crossdressing.
Canon Role:
An...ta...gonist..... Okay so it's complicated, okay? Sesshoumaru is the elder [half] brother of the titular character and protagonist/hero of the series, and for much of the series is portrayed as a secondary villain. He does things like stick his whole hand through Inuyasha's torso, blind him with poison, (apparently) try to kill him many, many times, and punch him out then scold him. However, he is also emphatically against the main villain of the piece for almost the entrity of the series, and in the end both teams up with Inuyasha and has a remarkably civil relationship. By which I mean they don't instantly try to kill each other every time they see one another but that's civil for these guys okay? Most of the time he seems to be a hero - or anti-hero, really - masquerading as a villain, who is actually but not really an anti-villain, who switches sides far too often to make classification easy.
"Real" Name: Tsukinoou Yuki (Yuki Tsukinoou in Western order)
Are you personally familiar with your character's canon?:
I have actually not read every chapter ever of Inuyasha, nor seen all of the anime - this is mostly because the manga is almost 600 chapters long (l;adgh) now that it's finally completed, and I had troubles getting my hands on the anime. However, I have gone through and read every chapter of the manga that actually contains Sesshoumaru, seen all of the movies, and seen or read summaries of most of the scenes relevant to Sesshoumaru from the anime.
As I recall, it was somewhere around chapter 400 that I finally got fed up with the neverending manga, so I've at least read the majority of it.
Please give us a personal history of your character's life and explain to us in detail how they grow and develop over the course of their canon:
Inuyasha as a series is set both in modern Tokyo and 500 years before that, in the area that would become Tokyo. It is effectively the real world, but with more timetravel and Japanese mythology that's actually real what do you know. There's this girl named Kagome, blah blah she has a special jewel that grants wishes and gets shattered, blah blah grand adventure quest. Sesshoumaru, however, doesn't have much to do with this and has nothing to do with the future, so we are leaving that alone and rewinding another 1000-2000ish years.
Sesshoumaru is the (presumably) eldest son and heir of two characters who are never properly named - his mother, whatever her name might be (she's called Fluffy-mama sometimes by fandom when she's not just called Sesshoumaru's mom/mother), and his father, who is only referred to throughout the whole stupid series as the Inu no Taisho (the Great Dog General) and the Lord of the Western Lands (which is possibly China!). His mother was assumed dead for most of the series before - surprise, fanbase! - she showed up alive, well, and delightfully snarky in chapter 466.
Unfortunately, this is a pretty good example of how much is actually known about his history in general.
Both of Sesshoumaru's parents are/were powerful dog yōkai (the closest English translation is 'demon', though it's not exact), just as he is. He is presumably their first and only son and child, and heir apparent for his father's position, Lord of Western Lands. Sesshoumaru presumably grew up in these Western Lands, which may have been a Westernmost portion of Japan or may actually be China (the 'true forms' of the family, a few clues dropped in text and some of how the family dresses, as well as a couple other things make it seem likely but this is all far from confirmed). After probably several hundred to several thousand years of Sesshoumaru training and growing up and doing we're-not-quite-sure-what (but based on his outfit, which has a number of different cultural influences present in it, he might have spent a good deal of time wandering all over the place), the Inu no Taisho met a human princess who he either feel in love or lust with and who he got pregnant. The movie Swords of an Honorable Ruler is the only sort of information we have on this time period, which is unfortunate because the movies are not considered canonical for the manga or anime and logic seems to dictate that the timelines are screwed up, but given that it's all there is and canon cannot make up its mind anyway let's just roll with it.
According to this movie, about 9 months after this human princess got knocked up, Inu no Taisho got into a great big fight with a dragon named Ryukotsusei. He eventually managed to seal the dragon (where it stayed sealed for 200 odd years) by sticking a fang in it, but he suffered terrible wounds from the fight. So there he stands, dripping blood all over the place, and meets with a Sesshoumaru (who looks about 14-16 years old, and who was burning with the desire to become stronger) and had this little conversation of plot relevance with him. Inu no Taisho asked him if he had something to protect, Sesshoumaru said no that sucked all he needed to be concerned with was power and demanded swords if his dad was determined to go die somewhere, Inu no Taisho said no and asked if Sesshoumaru would kill him in order to get him since he said no. There was a meaningful pause, then Inupapa ran off and got himself killed the rest of the way. By someone other than his eldest son.
He left his two swords, which had been carved from his fangs, to his two sons - Inuyasha got left Tetsusaiga, the steel cleaving fang, and Sesshoumaru got left Tensaiga, the heavenly life fang. Inu-papa apparently warded Tetsusaiga and stuck it in a pedistal and swallowed it along with 80 katrillion skulls right before he died; Tensaiga got left hanging on a tree with a note for Sesshoumaru, because folks were afraid of what he'd do to them for delivering That Sword. One of Inu-papa's friends, a peculiar jewelsmith, crafted a black pearl that functioned as a direct path to the underworld/yōkai graveyard (should you want a short trip) and somehow stuck this pearl into Inuyasha's right eye, so he could go and get his sword when the time was right. Inuyasha somehow got the knowledge of where his father's graveyard was implanted in his mind or something, Sesshoumaru got a riddle, and they went on their way.
Then there's another 200 year period that we know pretty much nothing about. It's possible that Sesshoumaru considered Inuyasha at least half worthy, or at least thought that he had the potential to become so (something that was more than could be said for most) and sort of kept a half eye on him and didn't kill him. Ooor it's possible that he considered him a disgrace and a mistake of his father's right from the start, and for some reason didn't eliminate him out of respect of his dad or something. Whichever way it went, around 150 years after Inuyasha was born (according to the movie anyway - these timelines do not make sense but that is not my fault), he went and got himself sealed/killed by a priestess named Kikyo, who he fell in love with and who died just after sealing Inuyasha. Presumably this was the time that Sesshoumaru decided Dad was an idiot for leaving the powerful sword to Inuyasha (unless he already thought that) and started hunting for his dad's grave in order to get the sword that he felt he deserved.
Unless he'd already been doing that for 150 years, though this seems... somewhat less likely?
Sesshoumaru and his obsequious servant, Jaken (who is either a toad/frog yōkai or a kappa or an imp who started following Sesshoumaru around at an unknown time and for unknown, in the manga, reasons - in the anime Sesshoumaru saves his tribe) along with Sesshoumaru's two headed dragon[s], Ah and Un, traveled around Japan for an unspecified but lengthy amount of time looking for his father's grave based off the only clue they had, that riddle I mentioned. Eventually Jaken suggests asking Inuyasha, and upon learning that Inuyasha has been revived and is apparently the pet of another priestess, Sesshoumaru goes off to find him.
He creates a double of Inuyasha's long dead mother, convinces Inuyasha that he's actually managed to bring her back from the dead (yes boys and girls this is how powerful Sesshoumaru is, IY actually thinks he'd be able to do this) and tortures her when Inuyasha isn't cooperating, before 'accidentally' letting her 'escape' with Inuyasha. The un-mother manages to get the secret out of Inuyasha, so Sesshoumaru shows up, rips out his brothers eye with his bare fingers, and using the pearl hidden in it heads on in to the yōkai graveyard, where he tries to grab the sword.
Except Dad warded it so that Sesshoumaru couldn't touch it without being burned. Slightly later the sword gets pulled out, and then Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha have a great big ol fight and Sesshoumaru eventually gets his left arm cut off. Whoops.
He heads off and spends an unspecified amount of time - a few weeks to a few months - looking for a decent replacement arm. At this point the series big bad, Naraku, approaches him and proposes that they team up. He offers Sesshoumaru a human arm impregnated with a fragment of the Jewel of the Four Souls - a magic jewel that can amplify both demonic and purifying energy - and proposes that they team up. Sesshoumaru can have stuff, just help Naraku kill Inuyasha. Upon learning that this arm will let him use Tetsusaiga, and since killing Inuyasha was already on his to-do list, Sesshoumaru says sure why not, takes Naraku's stuff, and goes off to fight.
As it turns out he can handle Tetsusaiga, which he promptly steals from Inuyasha and then takes off the top of a mountain with it, just to show Inuyasha how much he sucks for not mastering the sword yet. He shoves his entire hand through Inuyasha's chest, Inuyasha rips that nice new arm off, and Sesshoumaru takes off again because there is now no reason to stick around. The arm tries eating him, whereupon Sesshoumaru decides that he doesn't like Naraku, and casually tries killing him - an attempt which fails, because as it turns out it was never actually Naraku he was talking with, but a sort of golem that Naraku created. Whoops.
After a little more time, Sesshoumaru goes to the guy who originally forged Tenseiga and Tetsusaiga and demands that he forge a new blade for him, one that can actually kill folks. Said swordsmith refuses and finds Inuyasha, who he demands protect him and keep Sesshoumaru from killing him for his refusal. Sesshoumaru shows up again, this time sporting a fashionable dragon arm, and there is a grand battle where lots of people get generally whacked around, Sesshoumaru calls Inuyasha an incompetent idiot some more, and Inuyasha is temporarily blinded by Sesshoumaru's poison. Blinding him like this (perhaps inadvertently, but maybe not) allows him to master Tetsusaiga's secret move, that Sesshoumaru used last time to take off the top of a mountain. Inuyasha uses this move on Sesshoumaru and mostly but doesn't quite kill him, mostly because Inuyasha didn't attack at full force and Tensaiga helped protect Sesshoumaru - because the sword is sentient I guess. He ended up blown away and lying in this forest, severely wounded and unable to move, apparently in a bad enough condition that he couldn't keep as tight a grip on his form as he usually did, which led to him looking very ragged and demonic.
Not long after he was found lying there by a little human orphan named Rin, who - instead of screaming and running off, the natural reaction - insisted on trying to take care of him, whether he wanted it or not. She kept on coming back and trying to offer him food and water or stuff, despite his efforts to drive her off, and finally after a while of this Sesshoumaru started becoming somewhat interested in her. Right when he finally recovered and was about to head off, a pack of demonic wolves attacked Rin's village and killed a lot of people, including Rin. Sesshoumaru found the wolves as they were ripping into her and drove them off just by glaring at them, then decided to bring Rin back to life to 'test' Tensaiga's powers (suuuuure, Sesshoumaru), after a bit of a nudge from the sword. Thereafter she became completely devoted to him, he became her surrogate dad somehow, and she joined the little train following him around.
More wandering follows, as that seems to be about all that Sesshoumaru does with his life, and after a while Naraku gets clever and starts creating 'offspring' using bits of his flesh, jewel fragments, and black magic. One of these, a demon named Goushinki, bites Tetsusaiga in half when he fights Inuyasha before he gets torn apart - and when Sesshoumaru finds his remains, because he is somehow able to smell this, he decides that Goushinki's fangs would make a pretty nifty sword actually. He grabs the head and takes it to a swordsmith who forges the demon blade Tokijin out of it, and one short adventure later Sesshoumaru gets his second sword, and finds out that with Tetsusaiga now broken, Inuyasha can occasionally turn into a purer form of demon, which means he goes nuts and tries to kill everything. Learning that the sword that he wants was given to his brother partially to keep him from accidentally going full(er) demon and being driven mad with bloodlust seems to have an effect on Sesshoumaru - thereafter he generally stops trying to steal Tetsusaiga at every turn, and sometimes acts downright helpful.
Not long after this, Naraku decides to use and/or kill Sesshoumaru (again). He kidnaps Rin and demands that Sesshoumaru kill Inuyasha. Sesshoumaru refuses, apparently just to be contrary, and goes to hunt down and kill Naraku; he fails in the end, but it's a close thing. This is the time when he apparently decides that he does not merely dislike Naraku but really really wants to kill him. Also roughly around this time, another of Naraku's offspring - a wind demon named Kagura, who also hates Naraku and wants him dead - decides that Sesshoumaru is her best bet for killing Naraku. She more or less stalks him for a long time after that, and drops in every once in a while to impart helpful tips on how to find/kill Naraku or occasionally attempts to bribe Sesshoumaru into doing so.
After this mostly all that happens is Sesshoumaru's days seem to transform from 'wandering around to unknown ends' to 'wandering around in an active attempt to find and kill Naraku.' Shortly after he chases him all the way to the underworld and his father's grave is when he'll just no longer be there.
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's and why?:
Sesshoumaru is being pulled from around chapter 318, because I think it's one of the more interesting time periods for him. Rin has truly began to soften him from the apparently completely hardened, arrogant thing that he started as, who cared for very little and was strong enough to simply do as he pleased without ever considering another. There's still a lot of that in him, but not as much. It is, however, a middle point; he is not as developed or at peace with himself as he eventually becomes, he is still missing an arm, and he is still more the uncaring demon lord.
He hates Naraku from the day that they meet pretty much, so that won't change, but he does really hate him at this point, as opposed to a casual dislike. If any other members of the IY cast apped he wouldn't really be friendly to them, but he would be less openly antagonistic than he began the series as being. Being pulled from this specific point won't change his reactions all that much just because he doesn't much react to anything. This, however, is something that pretty much stays as a constant throughout the series.
Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality:
As is probably obvious by this point in the application, Sesshoumaru is one of those characters who are difficult to describe accurately, as frequently he seems a contradiction in terms. He is proud, arrogant, and elitist and has no patience for fools (indeed, he has patience for very few in general). However, those very select few that he does have patience for seem unable to try his nerves to the point of any drastic actions, and he has extraordinary patience in pursuing a goal; he can be amazingly tenacious. He apparently spent at least 50 years searching for a freakin sword, though depending on factors and what actually happened it might have been as long as 200 years.
Just think about that for a minute, and try to imagine how long that is. Admittedly, he is the next best thing to immortal, but even so, surely that would be tedious. Once he has a goal, he will pursue it until he has accomplished it, no matter the time it takes - at least unless it becomes impractical enough for him to postpone or abandon it. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes he'll change his mind, or seems to just decide that he might as well stop bothering, or will shift his attention to another goal that makes the current one obsolete. This does not happen often, Sesshoumaru in general does not let go of things, but every once in a while he just does.
His motivations throughout the series are vague at best; he frequently seems to mercilessly slaughter, spare, abuse, ignore, save, bring back to life, help, hinder or even adopt other characters for no specific reason other than he felt like doing so. One of the best terms I can think of to describe him is "ambiguous." Despite the primarily self-centered focus of his actions, if you're looking for it you can see a whole lot of seemingly random actions that look bizarrely altruistic, once you think about it.
Sesshoumaru is difficult to read or otherwise judge in just about everything; in addition to his actions frequently having some sort of bizarre twist that just leaves you going what, he is amazingly stoic, reserved, and otherwise self-mastering. His idea of being expressive tends to be a slight smirk, a cocked eyebrow, a light glare. In the series he walks through a holy barrier designed to kill demons who try to do just that, and though his very strength as a demon kept it from purifying him out of existence, it apparently substantially weakened him and caused him a good deal of pain - you would never know either by looking at him. Nor is he generally reserved in just expressions and body language, he tends to be reserved in what he says. Sesshoumaru rarely speaks much, instead he tends to say what he wishes and then stay quiet. He is not the type to wax poetic or long winded on anything, and doesn't often use more words than are necessary. He'll talk, and in more than monosyllables, but is mostly shortspoken. He talks most when he's feeling playful or occasionally very, very angry. Both states are generally unhealthy for those around him; it is difficult to enrage Sesshoumaru, but once one does he's out for blood. He will occasionally toy with people - this also usually means trouble.
One of Sesshoumaru's titles/nicknames is the Aristocratic Assassin, and by and large he lives up to it. In addition to being highly deadly (not an assassin, but highly deadly) and probably a member of demon 'nobility', given his position as prince/lord of western lands, his mannerisms seem quite aristocratic. Sesshoumaru is highly honorable, curious, protective, quite formal, and respectful in those (very few) situations that he honestly believes demands his respect. He is also hard-headed and refuses to be controlled, by anyone or anything. Several times in canon when another character has attempted to coerce him into doing one thing or another, he has deliberately done the exact opposite simply to prove a point. He can be aggressive, particularly when another challenges him or he is otherwise prompted, but for the most part he is so confident in his own power that he'll either ignore you or just kill you and move on. If you back up and look at it, he frequently acts very like an alpha wolf or dog - which makes perfect sense, as this is exactly what he is.
He is extraordinarily casual about violence and mass murder - it's even in his name. Most of the various translations of 'Sesshoumaru' have something to do with death or the destruction of life. He's named the killing perfection, or the ending of the circle of life, or the killing blade, or any number of other translations depending on how you translate it. He is frequently casually abusive to one of his traveling band, he is frequently casually murderous as well. Sometimes it doesn't even seem to be personal - the first time he shows up in canon, we see him literally rip someone's head off (he'll occasionally do things like this, and due to circumstances seems to have a strong sense of cosmic irony), apparently for no reason other than to get the attention of those the victim was talking to, and then just tells this band of guys to get out of his way. This, however, is where some of that bizarrely altruistic behavior I was talking about earlier comes in.
Sesshoumaru's behavior, when closely examined, is rather inconsistent. He can and occasionally will slaughter entire groups or even armies for no greater crime than refusing to get out of his way when he's walking, but may spare others who give him far more cause fur murder. It's a funny sort of gauge, but after watching or reading the series for long enough, one of the things that you start to notice is how whenever he kills individuals or groups as practice or because they looked at him funny, they frequently seem to be the 'bad guys'. He has murdered groups of bandits, invading armies, rouge samurai, and many others of that class. And, more than simply being willing to dispatch hundreds of rapists and murderers merely because he's feeling beneficiary and they're in his way, or even just because they're in his way, he sometimes seems to go out of his way to give himself an excuse for killing them other than doing a good deed. He has been shown to change his path or method of transportation for no apparent reason, then slaughter those who are conveniently right in front of him and do not instantly yield to his unreasonable demands.
Similarly, though he claims many, many times that he is going to kill Inuyasha, he's never taken the opportunity to actually do so, despite any number of highly convenient chances coming along throughout the series. He has maimed his younger brother, occasionally quite badly, but always or almost always seems to take the fights as opportunities to help or teach him, more than simply a fast and easy way to kill him. Sesshoumaru fairly obviously has Inuyasha outmatched most of the time, but even at the beginning of the series when he kept going on and on about how Inuyasha did not deserve his father's blood and did not deserve Tetsusaiga, he never took (sometimes perfect) opportunities to simply rip his heart out and be rid of him. And, after ~chapter 200, when Sesshoumaru discovers the reason for Tetsusaiga being left to his brother was its role in suppressing Inuyasha's demonic blood, he occasionally becomes positively helpful. One of the most notable instances of this is one instance when he discovers that IY has transformed into his crazy demon form and simply knocks him out with relatively little damage, then tells his companions to make him transform back before he wakes or he'll just start up again, and just turns around and leaves.
This doesn't mean that Sesshoumaru is wholly good - he is an arrogant and self-serving killer, we see proof of that time and again. But it does seem that it's not to the extent that he would lead others to believe, and that makes him hard to judge, and his motives equally inscrutable.
He is an ultra perfectionist, and demands nothing less than perfection from himself. Such high standards can, perhaps, not be exacted on others, but that's only to be expected, as they are almost without exception lesser beings. He is extremely good at keeping his head, and almost never loses his cool regardless of circumstances, so he will generally react accordingly. He does have a temper, but he rarely loses it. Part of this is his heritage, and hundreds and hundreds of years to learn self-control. Part of being a yōkai is apparently an inherent bloodlust, but after all these years Sesshoumaru has it under such control as to never lose control of it - though occasionally he does seem to come close. For the most part, however, his composure isn't even tested. He knows what and who he is, and what he is capable of, as well as his status and what that means. His circumstances mean that it is usually easy for him to accomplish anything that he wants or needs, so why should he lose his cool?
Please give us a physical description of your character:
Physically, Sesshoumaru varies slightly between the anime and manga, so this description will vary slightly from most people's ideas of him (the anime being the most popularized basic image of him), or the majority of the images you'd get if you just did a google image search. By large, manga Sesshoumaru is paler/whiter and wears more white than anime!him.
I suppose I should start with his true form, that of a dog yōkai. In his true form, Sesshoumaru resembles nothing so much as a giant killer cocker spaniel from hell. In this form he is very, very large - approx. some 50-60 feet high at the shoulder - with the possibility that he could become much larger if he wanted, or arguably smaller. He has a pure white coat, floppy ears, a ragged-edged tongue that comes complete with dripping, highly acidic/poisonous saliva, huge eyes with red sclera and small blue irises with no visible pupil, exaggerated and jagged versions of the markings that appear on his alternate form, a strip of floofy fur circling his shoulder and following down his back until it blends with the rest of his fur, and all the varied other doggy features one would expect from a canine. Just... bigger. Much, much bigger. And with added acidic poison and stuff.
Sesshoumaru in his human-lookalike form is roughly 5'10 [178 cm] and 170 lbs [~77 kg]... supposedly. However, either he's being weighed in full costume, all that hair weighs an ungodly amount, yōkai are naturally denser than us normal folks, or the numbers are wrong. Given his body type, that weight seems rather high for his height and build any other way, especially given his arm. He is slim and toned, muscular without being built. His hair is white, silky, and impeccably maintained, and he's got a lot of it - length generally varies from going down to approx. his hips to going all the way down to his knees. He wears it loose and somehow manages to keep it from being a tangled wreck every 20 seconds, or apparently ever getting anything in it. His ears are pointed, like an elf, and he has fangs - albeit smaller ones - in 'human' form as well as canine. He is pale, with really very feminine eyes (this effect diminishes somewhat as the art style of the series evolves over its run, but never really goes away), and either wears eyeshadow or else has natural color on his eyelids that strongly mimics the effect - along with most of the fans, I think that the color is more facial markings; he doesn't carefully apply it every morning. In addition, in some colored images he appears to be wearing something like lip gloss - siiiince this is feudal Japan and all, I mostly just ignore that and chalk it up to the artist putting more detail than is really necessary into the coloring to make him look even more feminine, because I'm pretty sure lip gloss is a more modern invention. This trend fades a little ways into the series, around the point that he starts looking more androgynous than outright like a girl (and eventually even actually starts looking male). In addition, he has a blue/purple crescent moon on his forehead (which he keeps his bangs split in order to display) and two downslanting maroon stripes on each cheek. He has matching stripes on his wrists and probably ankles as well. His eyes are slitted like a cat's, and vary slightly in color from goldenish to red, depending on what people felt like that day I guess. Orangeish or orangish red appear to be the most common variations rather than straight gold. His clothing includes armor, swords, and a lot of white cloth, presumably silk, that he somehow keeps immaculate. He has a large, very fluffy and very long white... thing (which honestly resembles a giant boa) that he keeps draped over his shoulder - common fanon has declared it to be either a pelt (usually heirloom) or a tail. I say it's a pelt, for a variety of reasons. His left arm is MISSING! (Or left forelimb, in doggie form) It got cut off a while ago, and about 1/3 of the way down his upper arm his arm just stops, and he's got a stump. His nails are long and sharp and razor-hard; they are better described as 'talons' - or perhaps more accurately, 'claws' - than 'fingernails'. It's possible that his toenails are the same, we never see one way or another.
For clothing he appears to prefer white - as I mentioned before - with the kimonos decorated with a pattern of flowers spread across them. In mangaverse, these flowers are usually blue/purple, but not always, and sometimes seem to be that signature red that most people think of. Unlike the anime, in the manga his poofy 'pants' are most frequently shown as being white as well. The kimonos that he wear also have ridiculously long sleeves - which are a common feature in women's kimonos, but not men's. Specifically, it seems to most closely match the style of a furisode or hōmongi depending on how long the sleeves are being drawn, both of which are rather formal kimonos most frequently worn by young unmarried women. l;ahgd. REMEMBER THAT THING I SAID ABOUT HIM ARGUABLY BEING A CROSSDRESSER? YEAH, THIS WOULD BE WHY. Honestly though I think that - if this is the case - it's more just him not caring less about what he wears as long as he likes it instead of deliberately going with something to seem a certain way or make a statement or anything of the kind. He couldn't care less what you think, he just wants to look fabulous.
I don't think that much would need to be changed for Landel's setting, though I'm guessing his ears might be rounded upon entry? And probably his pupils would be rounded as well, I guess, so that they're less obviously supernatural.
What kinds of otherwordly abilities does your character have, if any?:
EVERYTHING. This section was really really long because he's stupidly overpowered.
If present, how do you plan to tweak these powers to make your character appropriately hindered in the setting of Landel's?:
Sesshoumaru has natural acidic poison that is far weaker than in-canon. He will be able to burn living things and melt things with it, but it'll take time. It will also be able to temporarily cloud vision and cause nausea, weakness, and pain - especially (though not exclusively) when injected for the last three. It is highly unlikely to cause death, unless someone is exposed to really really seriously high levels of it, quantities that he is no longer able to produce quickly. Or maybe if he injects it directly into your brain or heart or something but honestly at that point you've already got problems.
Sesshoumaru is retaining a number of powers that come of being a daiyoukai, albeit at far less powerful levels. These are strength (roughly 4 times the physical strength of a human in good physical condition who has combat training and fights a lot - though as he's missing an arm, this boils down to 2x the physical strength), speed (he will still be blindingly fast for short periods over short distances, and have good reflexes as a result, but moving too quickly too much will exhaust him far more quickly than anything else he might do, and if he tries too much he is liable to end up collapsing), and senses (smell and hearing in particular are significantly above human levels, though attempting to really use these senses will require intense focus, which - if held long enough - will eventually lead to a debilitating headache). He remains somewhat more difficult to injure and kill than your run of the mill human. His level of stamina is still high, though far lower than it is in-canon. He can survive a little longer than your average person without food or water, but nothing too significant. He is still quite agile and can jump very well, his fingernails are still long, hard, and sharp.
PS he is still always clean.
Not really.
But seriously he'll be hard to get dirty unless he's really really tired.
Does your character have any non-otherworldly abilities/training that surpass the norm?:
Sesshoumaru is in excellent physical condition. He is highly skilled in unarmed combat (though the cutting of his abilities will really severely handicap him here because he's used to speed and poison and all that dangit) and highly skilled with a sword of any description - and given that he at one point uses a giant boomerang, probably most other weapons too. He seems very good at reading what an opponent will do in battle and reacting first, though to be fair a great deal of this probably has to do with his senses and reflexes. He has excellent balance and, in general, a very high level of control over his body in general. His pain tolerance appears to be very high, and is likely significantly above that of the other yōkai we see in the series.
Presumably he is well-read and otherwise educated above the norm for his period, certainly, he's certainly lived long enough to become so. He's probably at least bilingual, as there's some strong evidence that points to the 'Western Lands' actually being China, and various parts of his outfit seem to carry influences from all over the freakin place, which means traveling, which probably means he speaks a bunch of languages.
What do you see your character doing in the scope of the game and how do you plan to use the setting of Landel's Institute to develop them and affect their psychology in a unique, interesting way?:
Given his sheer, overwhelming power levels in-canon, Sesshoumaru is very, very rarely in any situation which he is not in complete control of, and equally rarely is he in any situation that creates any real danger for him. Mostly he shows up, does exactly what he wants, and then leaves when he feels like it. The interesting thing about Landels is - while still keeping him in a horrific environment with enemies, many of whom are reasonably comparable to what he'd be fighting back home - it's cutting his strength vastly, probably by like 90%. Sesshoumaru is never afraid of anything, and odds are very very low of him being afraid of anything here, but he will have to learn caution, and likely find allies. This isn't something he'd have to do in-canon, and seems like it'd automatically turn out quite interesting.
Besides, he's so arrogant, and throwing him into a situation where he is a prisoner who cannot simply do as he pleases... well, it's intriguing.
Given that this RP takes place in an unsettling and outright horrific environment, how do you justify your character as being appropriate in both body and mind for this kind of setting?:
Although Inuyasha is not as inherently dark as a number of canons available out there, there are still a good number of dark and violent themes in the series. The majority is set in the "warring states" period of Japan, and there are lots of monsters and bloody violent death and various unpleasant things. And, as to Sesshoumaru himself - well. Firstly, he's a demon. It is not the traditional western view of demon, with horns and a tail, and they have a slightly different mythos than the associated, but most are still traditionally viewed as wicked/cruel/evil/etc. Sesshoumaru is generally considered a villain, and even if by the end he has swung around to a more recognizable anti-villain and than anti-hero, he is not a light and fluffy guy. He slaughters a variety of people, animals, and other demons on a regular basis (for the first while every time you see him means at least 1 random NPC is about to die, usually it's a lot more) and he spends the first who knows how long actively trying to kill his younger brother. His first appearance he manipulates his brother with a simulacrum of his dead mother before crushing the fake's skull with his foot and stabbing his brother's eye out by sticking his fingers into it. Blandly.
Neither the canon nor the character are light happy fluffy things. In addition, Sesshoumaru is a lord during this warring period, which largely means that he fights a lot, and knows well how to do it. He is used to fighting monsters, and indeed is one himself, even if he wears a better disguise than most.
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Timezone: Mountain Central Time/-7 Zulu
Is English your primary language?: Yes
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Series: Inuyasha, primarily mangaverse
Series' Medium:
Inuyasha began as a manga and has subsequently been adapted into an anime, and several spinoff movies for said anime. Primarily I am drawing from the manga version, however, since Sesshoumaru's past is detailed more fully in the anime - indeed, the anime or movies are often the only indications we're given of when or if crap actually happened - I am also pulling from it.
Character: Sesshoumaru[sama]
Age:
... oh dear. All right, Rumiko Takahashi has never come out and given a straight answer on this - or she has, but they're all conflicting and the years climb steadily upwards. He is at least three hundred, but from there the reported figures range all the way up to three thousand years old. Practically he is... probably somewhere in the range of 1200 to 1800, assuming that yōkai have physical development of their fake form that roughly coincides with human development, with no accelerated bursts prior to latency or similar.
If he ages like a dog ages rather than a human - which is totally something you could argue - then these estimates are all shot, and he's a different age - probably younger, but you could argue the reverse too /flips tables. Physically, he appears to be 18/19 or so.
Sex/Gender:
Male both physically and mentally, though you could make a solid case about him being fond of crossdressing.
Canon Role:
An...ta...gonist..... Okay so it's complicated, okay? Sesshoumaru is the elder [half] brother of the titular character and protagonist/hero of the series, and for much of the series is portrayed as a secondary villain. He does things like stick his whole hand through Inuyasha's torso, blind him with poison, (apparently) try to kill him many, many times, and punch him out then scold him. However, he is also emphatically against the main villain of the piece for almost the entrity of the series, and in the end both teams up with Inuyasha and has a remarkably civil relationship. By which I mean they don't instantly try to kill each other every time they see one another but that's civil for these guys okay? Most of the time he seems to be a hero - or anti-hero, really - masquerading as a villain, who is actually but not really an anti-villain, who switches sides far too often to make classification easy.
"Real" Name: Tsukinoou Yuki (Yuki Tsukinoou in Western order)
Are you personally familiar with your character's canon?:
I have actually not read every chapter ever of Inuyasha, nor seen all of the anime - this is mostly because the manga is almost 600 chapters long (l;adgh) now that it's finally completed, and I had troubles getting my hands on the anime. However, I have gone through and read every chapter of the manga that actually contains Sesshoumaru, seen all of the movies, and seen or read summaries of most of the scenes relevant to Sesshoumaru from the anime.
As I recall, it was somewhere around chapter 400 that I finally got fed up with the neverending manga, so I've at least read the majority of it.
Please give us a personal history of your character's life and explain to us in detail how they grow and develop over the course of their canon:
Inuyasha as a series is set both in modern Tokyo and 500 years before that, in the area that would become Tokyo. It is effectively the real world, but with more timetravel and Japanese mythology that's actually real what do you know. There's this girl named Kagome, blah blah she has a special jewel that grants wishes and gets shattered, blah blah grand adventure quest. Sesshoumaru, however, doesn't have much to do with this and has nothing to do with the future, so we are leaving that alone and rewinding another 1000-2000ish years.
Sesshoumaru is the (presumably) eldest son and heir of two characters who are never properly named - his mother, whatever her name might be (she's called Fluffy-mama sometimes by fandom when she's not just called Sesshoumaru's mom/mother), and his father, who is only referred to throughout the whole stupid series as the Inu no Taisho (the Great Dog General) and the Lord of the Western Lands (which is possibly China!). His mother was assumed dead for most of the series before - surprise, fanbase! - she showed up alive, well, and delightfully snarky in chapter 466.
Unfortunately, this is a pretty good example of how much is actually known about his history in general.
Both of Sesshoumaru's parents are/were powerful dog yōkai (the closest English translation is 'demon', though it's not exact), just as he is. He is presumably their first and only son and child, and heir apparent for his father's position, Lord of Western Lands. Sesshoumaru presumably grew up in these Western Lands, which may have been a Westernmost portion of Japan or may actually be China (the 'true forms' of the family, a few clues dropped in text and some of how the family dresses, as well as a couple other things make it seem likely but this is all far from confirmed). After probably several hundred to several thousand years of Sesshoumaru training and growing up and doing we're-not-quite-sure-what (but based on his outfit, which has a number of different cultural influences present in it, he might have spent a good deal of time wandering all over the place), the Inu no Taisho met a human princess who he either feel in love or lust with and who he got pregnant. The movie Swords of an Honorable Ruler is the only sort of information we have on this time period, which is unfortunate because the movies are not considered canonical for the manga or anime and logic seems to dictate that the timelines are screwed up, but given that it's all there is and canon cannot make up its mind anyway let's just roll with it.
According to this movie, about 9 months after this human princess got knocked up, Inu no Taisho got into a great big fight with a dragon named Ryukotsusei. He eventually managed to seal the dragon (where it stayed sealed for 200 odd years) by sticking a fang in it, but he suffered terrible wounds from the fight. So there he stands, dripping blood all over the place, and meets with a Sesshoumaru (who looks about 14-16 years old, and who was burning with the desire to become stronger) and had this little conversation of plot relevance with him. Inu no Taisho asked him if he had something to protect, Sesshoumaru said no that sucked all he needed to be concerned with was power and demanded swords if his dad was determined to go die somewhere, Inu no Taisho said no and asked if Sesshoumaru would kill him in order to get him since he said no. There was a meaningful pause, then Inupapa ran off and got himself killed the rest of the way. By someone other than his eldest son.
He left his two swords, which had been carved from his fangs, to his two sons - Inuyasha got left Tetsusaiga, the steel cleaving fang, and Sesshoumaru got left Tensaiga, the heavenly life fang. Inu-papa apparently warded Tetsusaiga and stuck it in a pedistal and swallowed it along with 80 katrillion skulls right before he died; Tensaiga got left hanging on a tree with a note for Sesshoumaru, because folks were afraid of what he'd do to them for delivering That Sword. One of Inu-papa's friends, a peculiar jewelsmith, crafted a black pearl that functioned as a direct path to the underworld/yōkai graveyard (should you want a short trip) and somehow stuck this pearl into Inuyasha's right eye, so he could go and get his sword when the time was right. Inuyasha somehow got the knowledge of where his father's graveyard was implanted in his mind or something, Sesshoumaru got a riddle, and they went on their way.
Then there's another 200 year period that we know pretty much nothing about. It's possible that Sesshoumaru considered Inuyasha at least half worthy, or at least thought that he had the potential to become so (something that was more than could be said for most) and sort of kept a half eye on him and didn't kill him. Ooor it's possible that he considered him a disgrace and a mistake of his father's right from the start, and for some reason didn't eliminate him out of respect of his dad or something. Whichever way it went, around 150 years after Inuyasha was born (according to the movie anyway - these timelines do not make sense but that is not my fault), he went and got himself sealed/killed by a priestess named Kikyo, who he fell in love with and who died just after sealing Inuyasha. Presumably this was the time that Sesshoumaru decided Dad was an idiot for leaving the powerful sword to Inuyasha (unless he already thought that) and started hunting for his dad's grave in order to get the sword that he felt he deserved.
Unless he'd already been doing that for 150 years, though this seems... somewhat less likely?
Sesshoumaru and his obsequious servant, Jaken (who is either a toad/frog yōkai or a kappa or an imp who started following Sesshoumaru around at an unknown time and for unknown, in the manga, reasons - in the anime Sesshoumaru saves his tribe) along with Sesshoumaru's two headed dragon[s], Ah and Un, traveled around Japan for an unspecified but lengthy amount of time looking for his father's grave based off the only clue they had, that riddle I mentioned. Eventually Jaken suggests asking Inuyasha, and upon learning that Inuyasha has been revived and is apparently the pet of another priestess, Sesshoumaru goes off to find him.
He creates a double of Inuyasha's long dead mother, convinces Inuyasha that he's actually managed to bring her back from the dead (yes boys and girls this is how powerful Sesshoumaru is, IY actually thinks he'd be able to do this) and tortures her when Inuyasha isn't cooperating, before 'accidentally' letting her 'escape' with Inuyasha. The un-mother manages to get the secret out of Inuyasha, so Sesshoumaru shows up, rips out his brothers eye with his bare fingers, and using the pearl hidden in it heads on in to the yōkai graveyard, where he tries to grab the sword.
Except Dad warded it so that Sesshoumaru couldn't touch it without being burned. Slightly later the sword gets pulled out, and then Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha have a great big ol fight and Sesshoumaru eventually gets his left arm cut off. Whoops.
He heads off and spends an unspecified amount of time - a few weeks to a few months - looking for a decent replacement arm. At this point the series big bad, Naraku, approaches him and proposes that they team up. He offers Sesshoumaru a human arm impregnated with a fragment of the Jewel of the Four Souls - a magic jewel that can amplify both demonic and purifying energy - and proposes that they team up. Sesshoumaru can have stuff, just help Naraku kill Inuyasha. Upon learning that this arm will let him use Tetsusaiga, and since killing Inuyasha was already on his to-do list, Sesshoumaru says sure why not, takes Naraku's stuff, and goes off to fight.
As it turns out he can handle Tetsusaiga, which he promptly steals from Inuyasha and then takes off the top of a mountain with it, just to show Inuyasha how much he sucks for not mastering the sword yet. He shoves his entire hand through Inuyasha's chest, Inuyasha rips that nice new arm off, and Sesshoumaru takes off again because there is now no reason to stick around. The arm tries eating him, whereupon Sesshoumaru decides that he doesn't like Naraku, and casually tries killing him - an attempt which fails, because as it turns out it was never actually Naraku he was talking with, but a sort of golem that Naraku created. Whoops.
After a little more time, Sesshoumaru goes to the guy who originally forged Tenseiga and Tetsusaiga and demands that he forge a new blade for him, one that can actually kill folks. Said swordsmith refuses and finds Inuyasha, who he demands protect him and keep Sesshoumaru from killing him for his refusal. Sesshoumaru shows up again, this time sporting a fashionable dragon arm, and there is a grand battle where lots of people get generally whacked around, Sesshoumaru calls Inuyasha an incompetent idiot some more, and Inuyasha is temporarily blinded by Sesshoumaru's poison. Blinding him like this (perhaps inadvertently, but maybe not) allows him to master Tetsusaiga's secret move, that Sesshoumaru used last time to take off the top of a mountain. Inuyasha uses this move on Sesshoumaru and mostly but doesn't quite kill him, mostly because Inuyasha didn't attack at full force and Tensaiga helped protect Sesshoumaru - because the sword is sentient I guess. He ended up blown away and lying in this forest, severely wounded and unable to move, apparently in a bad enough condition that he couldn't keep as tight a grip on his form as he usually did, which led to him looking very ragged and demonic.
Not long after he was found lying there by a little human orphan named Rin, who - instead of screaming and running off, the natural reaction - insisted on trying to take care of him, whether he wanted it or not. She kept on coming back and trying to offer him food and water or stuff, despite his efforts to drive her off, and finally after a while of this Sesshoumaru started becoming somewhat interested in her. Right when he finally recovered and was about to head off, a pack of demonic wolves attacked Rin's village and killed a lot of people, including Rin. Sesshoumaru found the wolves as they were ripping into her and drove them off just by glaring at them, then decided to bring Rin back to life to 'test' Tensaiga's powers (suuuuure, Sesshoumaru), after a bit of a nudge from the sword. Thereafter she became completely devoted to him, he became her surrogate dad somehow, and she joined the little train following him around.
More wandering follows, as that seems to be about all that Sesshoumaru does with his life, and after a while Naraku gets clever and starts creating 'offspring' using bits of his flesh, jewel fragments, and black magic. One of these, a demon named Goushinki, bites Tetsusaiga in half when he fights Inuyasha before he gets torn apart - and when Sesshoumaru finds his remains, because he is somehow able to smell this, he decides that Goushinki's fangs would make a pretty nifty sword actually. He grabs the head and takes it to a swordsmith who forges the demon blade Tokijin out of it, and one short adventure later Sesshoumaru gets his second sword, and finds out that with Tetsusaiga now broken, Inuyasha can occasionally turn into a purer form of demon, which means he goes nuts and tries to kill everything. Learning that the sword that he wants was given to his brother partially to keep him from accidentally going full(er) demon and being driven mad with bloodlust seems to have an effect on Sesshoumaru - thereafter he generally stops trying to steal Tetsusaiga at every turn, and sometimes acts downright helpful.
Not long after this, Naraku decides to use and/or kill Sesshoumaru (again). He kidnaps Rin and demands that Sesshoumaru kill Inuyasha. Sesshoumaru refuses, apparently just to be contrary, and goes to hunt down and kill Naraku; he fails in the end, but it's a close thing. This is the time when he apparently decides that he does not merely dislike Naraku but really really wants to kill him. Also roughly around this time, another of Naraku's offspring - a wind demon named Kagura, who also hates Naraku and wants him dead - decides that Sesshoumaru is her best bet for killing Naraku. She more or less stalks him for a long time after that, and drops in every once in a while to impart helpful tips on how to find/kill Naraku or occasionally attempts to bribe Sesshoumaru into doing so.
After this mostly all that happens is Sesshoumaru's days seem to transform from 'wandering around to unknown ends' to 'wandering around in an active attempt to find and kill Naraku.' Shortly after he chases him all the way to the underworld and his father's grave is when he'll just no longer be there.
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's and why?:
Sesshoumaru is being pulled from around chapter 318, because I think it's one of the more interesting time periods for him. Rin has truly began to soften him from the apparently completely hardened, arrogant thing that he started as, who cared for very little and was strong enough to simply do as he pleased without ever considering another. There's still a lot of that in him, but not as much. It is, however, a middle point; he is not as developed or at peace with himself as he eventually becomes, he is still missing an arm, and he is still more the uncaring demon lord.
He hates Naraku from the day that they meet pretty much, so that won't change, but he does really hate him at this point, as opposed to a casual dislike. If any other members of the IY cast apped he wouldn't really be friendly to them, but he would be less openly antagonistic than he began the series as being. Being pulled from this specific point won't change his reactions all that much just because he doesn't much react to anything. This, however, is something that pretty much stays as a constant throughout the series.
Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality:
As is probably obvious by this point in the application, Sesshoumaru is one of those characters who are difficult to describe accurately, as frequently he seems a contradiction in terms. He is proud, arrogant, and elitist and has no patience for fools (indeed, he has patience for very few in general). However, those very select few that he does have patience for seem unable to try his nerves to the point of any drastic actions, and he has extraordinary patience in pursuing a goal; he can be amazingly tenacious. He apparently spent at least 50 years searching for a freakin sword, though depending on factors and what actually happened it might have been as long as 200 years.
Just think about that for a minute, and try to imagine how long that is. Admittedly, he is the next best thing to immortal, but even so, surely that would be tedious. Once he has a goal, he will pursue it until he has accomplished it, no matter the time it takes - at least unless it becomes impractical enough for him to postpone or abandon it. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes he'll change his mind, or seems to just decide that he might as well stop bothering, or will shift his attention to another goal that makes the current one obsolete. This does not happen often, Sesshoumaru in general does not let go of things, but every once in a while he just does.
His motivations throughout the series are vague at best; he frequently seems to mercilessly slaughter, spare, abuse, ignore, save, bring back to life, help, hinder or even adopt other characters for no specific reason other than he felt like doing so. One of the best terms I can think of to describe him is "ambiguous." Despite the primarily self-centered focus of his actions, if you're looking for it you can see a whole lot of seemingly random actions that look bizarrely altruistic, once you think about it.
Sesshoumaru is difficult to read or otherwise judge in just about everything; in addition to his actions frequently having some sort of bizarre twist that just leaves you going what, he is amazingly stoic, reserved, and otherwise self-mastering. His idea of being expressive tends to be a slight smirk, a cocked eyebrow, a light glare. In the series he walks through a holy barrier designed to kill demons who try to do just that, and though his very strength as a demon kept it from purifying him out of existence, it apparently substantially weakened him and caused him a good deal of pain - you would never know either by looking at him. Nor is he generally reserved in just expressions and body language, he tends to be reserved in what he says. Sesshoumaru rarely speaks much, instead he tends to say what he wishes and then stay quiet. He is not the type to wax poetic or long winded on anything, and doesn't often use more words than are necessary. He'll talk, and in more than monosyllables, but is mostly shortspoken. He talks most when he's feeling playful or occasionally very, very angry. Both states are generally unhealthy for those around him; it is difficult to enrage Sesshoumaru, but once one does he's out for blood. He will occasionally toy with people - this also usually means trouble.
One of Sesshoumaru's titles/nicknames is the Aristocratic Assassin, and by and large he lives up to it. In addition to being highly deadly (not an assassin, but highly deadly) and probably a member of demon 'nobility', given his position as prince/lord of western lands, his mannerisms seem quite aristocratic. Sesshoumaru is highly honorable, curious, protective, quite formal, and respectful in those (very few) situations that he honestly believes demands his respect. He is also hard-headed and refuses to be controlled, by anyone or anything. Several times in canon when another character has attempted to coerce him into doing one thing or another, he has deliberately done the exact opposite simply to prove a point. He can be aggressive, particularly when another challenges him or he is otherwise prompted, but for the most part he is so confident in his own power that he'll either ignore you or just kill you and move on. If you back up and look at it, he frequently acts very like an alpha wolf or dog - which makes perfect sense, as this is exactly what he is.
He is extraordinarily casual about violence and mass murder - it's even in his name. Most of the various translations of 'Sesshoumaru' have something to do with death or the destruction of life. He's named the killing perfection, or the ending of the circle of life, or the killing blade, or any number of other translations depending on how you translate it. He is frequently casually abusive to one of his traveling band, he is frequently casually murderous as well. Sometimes it doesn't even seem to be personal - the first time he shows up in canon, we see him literally rip someone's head off (he'll occasionally do things like this, and due to circumstances seems to have a strong sense of cosmic irony), apparently for no reason other than to get the attention of those the victim was talking to, and then just tells this band of guys to get out of his way. This, however, is where some of that bizarrely altruistic behavior I was talking about earlier comes in.
Sesshoumaru's behavior, when closely examined, is rather inconsistent. He can and occasionally will slaughter entire groups or even armies for no greater crime than refusing to get out of his way when he's walking, but may spare others who give him far more cause fur murder. It's a funny sort of gauge, but after watching or reading the series for long enough, one of the things that you start to notice is how whenever he kills individuals or groups as practice or because they looked at him funny, they frequently seem to be the 'bad guys'. He has murdered groups of bandits, invading armies, rouge samurai, and many others of that class. And, more than simply being willing to dispatch hundreds of rapists and murderers merely because he's feeling beneficiary and they're in his way, or even just because they're in his way, he sometimes seems to go out of his way to give himself an excuse for killing them other than doing a good deed. He has been shown to change his path or method of transportation for no apparent reason, then slaughter those who are conveniently right in front of him and do not instantly yield to his unreasonable demands.
Similarly, though he claims many, many times that he is going to kill Inuyasha, he's never taken the opportunity to actually do so, despite any number of highly convenient chances coming along throughout the series. He has maimed his younger brother, occasionally quite badly, but always or almost always seems to take the fights as opportunities to help or teach him, more than simply a fast and easy way to kill him. Sesshoumaru fairly obviously has Inuyasha outmatched most of the time, but even at the beginning of the series when he kept going on and on about how Inuyasha did not deserve his father's blood and did not deserve Tetsusaiga, he never took (sometimes perfect) opportunities to simply rip his heart out and be rid of him. And, after ~chapter 200, when Sesshoumaru discovers the reason for Tetsusaiga being left to his brother was its role in suppressing Inuyasha's demonic blood, he occasionally becomes positively helpful. One of the most notable instances of this is one instance when he discovers that IY has transformed into his crazy demon form and simply knocks him out with relatively little damage, then tells his companions to make him transform back before he wakes or he'll just start up again, and just turns around and leaves.
This doesn't mean that Sesshoumaru is wholly good - he is an arrogant and self-serving killer, we see proof of that time and again. But it does seem that it's not to the extent that he would lead others to believe, and that makes him hard to judge, and his motives equally inscrutable.
He is an ultra perfectionist, and demands nothing less than perfection from himself. Such high standards can, perhaps, not be exacted on others, but that's only to be expected, as they are almost without exception lesser beings. He is extremely good at keeping his head, and almost never loses his cool regardless of circumstances, so he will generally react accordingly. He does have a temper, but he rarely loses it. Part of this is his heritage, and hundreds and hundreds of years to learn self-control. Part of being a yōkai is apparently an inherent bloodlust, but after all these years Sesshoumaru has it under such control as to never lose control of it - though occasionally he does seem to come close. For the most part, however, his composure isn't even tested. He knows what and who he is, and what he is capable of, as well as his status and what that means. His circumstances mean that it is usually easy for him to accomplish anything that he wants or needs, so why should he lose his cool?
Please give us a physical description of your character:
Physically, Sesshoumaru varies slightly between the anime and manga, so this description will vary slightly from most people's ideas of him (the anime being the most popularized basic image of him), or the majority of the images you'd get if you just did a google image search. By large, manga Sesshoumaru is paler/whiter and wears more white than anime!him.
I suppose I should start with his true form, that of a dog yōkai. In his true form, Sesshoumaru resembles nothing so much as a giant killer cocker spaniel from hell. In this form he is very, very large - approx. some 50-60 feet high at the shoulder - with the possibility that he could become much larger if he wanted, or arguably smaller. He has a pure white coat, floppy ears, a ragged-edged tongue that comes complete with dripping, highly acidic/poisonous saliva, huge eyes with red sclera and small blue irises with no visible pupil, exaggerated and jagged versions of the markings that appear on his alternate form, a strip of floofy fur circling his shoulder and following down his back until it blends with the rest of his fur, and all the varied other doggy features one would expect from a canine. Just... bigger. Much, much bigger. And with added acidic poison and stuff.
Sesshoumaru in his human-lookalike form is roughly 5'10 [178 cm] and 170 lbs [~77 kg]... supposedly. However, either he's being weighed in full costume, all that hair weighs an ungodly amount, yōkai are naturally denser than us normal folks, or the numbers are wrong. Given his body type, that weight seems rather high for his height and build any other way, especially given his arm. He is slim and toned, muscular without being built. His hair is white, silky, and impeccably maintained, and he's got a lot of it - length generally varies from going down to approx. his hips to going all the way down to his knees. He wears it loose and somehow manages to keep it from being a tangled wreck every 20 seconds, or apparently ever getting anything in it. His ears are pointed, like an elf, and he has fangs - albeit smaller ones - in 'human' form as well as canine. He is pale, with really very feminine eyes (this effect diminishes somewhat as the art style of the series evolves over its run, but never really goes away), and either wears eyeshadow or else has natural color on his eyelids that strongly mimics the effect - along with most of the fans, I think that the color is more facial markings; he doesn't carefully apply it every morning. In addition, in some colored images he appears to be wearing something like lip gloss - siiiince this is feudal Japan and all, I mostly just ignore that and chalk it up to the artist putting more detail than is really necessary into the coloring to make him look even more feminine, because I'm pretty sure lip gloss is a more modern invention. This trend fades a little ways into the series, around the point that he starts looking more androgynous than outright like a girl (and eventually even actually starts looking male). In addition, he has a blue/purple crescent moon on his forehead (which he keeps his bangs split in order to display) and two downslanting maroon stripes on each cheek. He has matching stripes on his wrists and probably ankles as well. His eyes are slitted like a cat's, and vary slightly in color from goldenish to red, depending on what people felt like that day I guess. Orangeish or orangish red appear to be the most common variations rather than straight gold. His clothing includes armor, swords, and a lot of white cloth, presumably silk, that he somehow keeps immaculate. He has a large, very fluffy and very long white... thing (which honestly resembles a giant boa) that he keeps draped over his shoulder - common fanon has declared it to be either a pelt (usually heirloom) or a tail. I say it's a pelt, for a variety of reasons. His left arm is MISSING! (Or left forelimb, in doggie form) It got cut off a while ago, and about 1/3 of the way down his upper arm his arm just stops, and he's got a stump. His nails are long and sharp and razor-hard; they are better described as 'talons' - or perhaps more accurately, 'claws' - than 'fingernails'. It's possible that his toenails are the same, we never see one way or another.
For clothing he appears to prefer white - as I mentioned before - with the kimonos decorated with a pattern of flowers spread across them. In mangaverse, these flowers are usually blue/purple, but not always, and sometimes seem to be that signature red that most people think of. Unlike the anime, in the manga his poofy 'pants' are most frequently shown as being white as well. The kimonos that he wear also have ridiculously long sleeves - which are a common feature in women's kimonos, but not men's. Specifically, it seems to most closely match the style of a furisode or hōmongi depending on how long the sleeves are being drawn, both of which are rather formal kimonos most frequently worn by young unmarried women. l;ahgd. REMEMBER THAT THING I SAID ABOUT HIM ARGUABLY BEING A CROSSDRESSER? YEAH, THIS WOULD BE WHY. Honestly though I think that - if this is the case - it's more just him not caring less about what he wears as long as he likes it instead of deliberately going with something to seem a certain way or make a statement or anything of the kind. He couldn't care less what you think, he just wants to look fabulous.
I don't think that much would need to be changed for Landel's setting, though I'm guessing his ears might be rounded upon entry? And probably his pupils would be rounded as well, I guess, so that they're less obviously supernatural.
What kinds of otherwordly abilities does your character have, if any?:
EVERYTHING. This section was really really long because he's stupidly overpowered.
If present, how do you plan to tweak these powers to make your character appropriately hindered in the setting of Landel's?:
Sesshoumaru has natural acidic poison that is far weaker than in-canon. He will be able to burn living things and melt things with it, but it'll take time. It will also be able to temporarily cloud vision and cause nausea, weakness, and pain - especially (though not exclusively) when injected for the last three. It is highly unlikely to cause death, unless someone is exposed to really really seriously high levels of it, quantities that he is no longer able to produce quickly. Or maybe if he injects it directly into your brain or heart or something but honestly at that point you've already got problems.
Sesshoumaru is retaining a number of powers that come of being a daiyoukai, albeit at far less powerful levels. These are strength (roughly 4 times the physical strength of a human in good physical condition who has combat training and fights a lot - though as he's missing an arm, this boils down to 2x the physical strength), speed (he will still be blindingly fast for short periods over short distances, and have good reflexes as a result, but moving too quickly too much will exhaust him far more quickly than anything else he might do, and if he tries too much he is liable to end up collapsing), and senses (smell and hearing in particular are significantly above human levels, though attempting to really use these senses will require intense focus, which - if held long enough - will eventually lead to a debilitating headache). He remains somewhat more difficult to injure and kill than your run of the mill human. His level of stamina is still high, though far lower than it is in-canon. He can survive a little longer than your average person without food or water, but nothing too significant. He is still quite agile and can jump very well, his fingernails are still long, hard, and sharp.
PS he is still always clean.
Not really.
But seriously he'll be hard to get dirty unless he's really really tired.
Does your character have any non-otherworldly abilities/training that surpass the norm?:
Sesshoumaru is in excellent physical condition. He is highly skilled in unarmed combat (though the cutting of his abilities will really severely handicap him here because he's used to speed and poison and all that dangit) and highly skilled with a sword of any description - and given that he at one point uses a giant boomerang, probably most other weapons too. He seems very good at reading what an opponent will do in battle and reacting first, though to be fair a great deal of this probably has to do with his senses and reflexes. He has excellent balance and, in general, a very high level of control over his body in general. His pain tolerance appears to be very high, and is likely significantly above that of the other yōkai we see in the series.
Presumably he is well-read and otherwise educated above the norm for his period, certainly, he's certainly lived long enough to become so. He's probably at least bilingual, as there's some strong evidence that points to the 'Western Lands' actually being China, and various parts of his outfit seem to carry influences from all over the freakin place, which means traveling, which probably means he speaks a bunch of languages.
What do you see your character doing in the scope of the game and how do you plan to use the setting of Landel's Institute to develop them and affect their psychology in a unique, interesting way?:
Given his sheer, overwhelming power levels in-canon, Sesshoumaru is very, very rarely in any situation which he is not in complete control of, and equally rarely is he in any situation that creates any real danger for him. Mostly he shows up, does exactly what he wants, and then leaves when he feels like it. The interesting thing about Landels is - while still keeping him in a horrific environment with enemies, many of whom are reasonably comparable to what he'd be fighting back home - it's cutting his strength vastly, probably by like 90%. Sesshoumaru is never afraid of anything, and odds are very very low of him being afraid of anything here, but he will have to learn caution, and likely find allies. This isn't something he'd have to do in-canon, and seems like it'd automatically turn out quite interesting.
Besides, he's so arrogant, and throwing him into a situation where he is a prisoner who cannot simply do as he pleases... well, it's intriguing.
Given that this RP takes place in an unsettling and outright horrific environment, how do you justify your character as being appropriate in both body and mind for this kind of setting?:
Although Inuyasha is not as inherently dark as a number of canons available out there, there are still a good number of dark and violent themes in the series. The majority is set in the "warring states" period of Japan, and there are lots of monsters and bloody violent death and various unpleasant things. And, as to Sesshoumaru himself - well. Firstly, he's a demon. It is not the traditional western view of demon, with horns and a tail, and they have a slightly different mythos than the associated, but most are still traditionally viewed as wicked/cruel/evil/etc. Sesshoumaru is generally considered a villain, and even if by the end he has swung around to a more recognizable anti-villain and than anti-hero, he is not a light and fluffy guy. He slaughters a variety of people, animals, and other demons on a regular basis (for the first while every time you see him means at least 1 random NPC is about to die, usually it's a lot more) and he spends the first who knows how long actively trying to kill his younger brother. His first appearance he manipulates his brother with a simulacrum of his dead mother before crushing the fake's skull with his foot and stabbing his brother's eye out by sticking his fingers into it. Blandly.
Neither the canon nor the character are light happy fluffy things. In addition, Sesshoumaru is a lord during this warring period, which largely means that he fights a lot, and knows well how to do it. He is used to fighting monsters, and indeed is one himself, even if he wears a better disguise than most.