[OOC] Application: queenofheartsrp
Player Information
Name: Fetchie
Personal Journal: made_in_wonder
Contact Info: gibberditz39@yahoo.com; fetchie88 (aim)
Other Characters: None here!
Character Information
Name: Yami no Bakura
Source Canon: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Age: Over 3,000; physical body, 16
Role In Canon: Primary antagonist
Justification: I’m interested in playing female Bakura here for two reasons - not only the chance to experiment with how the situation would have changed if the Ring Spirit identified as female, but also the chance to play an inhuman character experiencing very human emotions towards others (in particular, other women - who she’d consider as “weak” both for being human and for their gender, despite her own). Bakura doesn’t seem particular concerned one way or another with his gender identity in canon, but he does display typically “masculine” traits: he’s aggressive and physically violent, he uses a hypermasculine personal pronoun/speaking style, and he’s a duelist with a code of honor (two traits that tend in Yugioh to be associated with men, though there are a few female duelists). I’d like to explore how those traits would manifest with the Spirit’s gender swapped - and what new traits might develop to complement her existing personality.
History: Three thousand years ago, give or take a few centuries, an evil goddess of tremendous power, Zorc Necrophades, crossed over from the afterlife to Earth in an attempt to destroy the latter, having been summoned by the dark powers of the magical "Millennium Items". The Pharaoh of Egypt and his priests fought Zorc to a stalemate, ending when the Pharaoh sealed himself and most of Zorc into the Millennium Puzzle, sans their memories.
But a piece of Zorc's soul lodged instead within a different Item, the Millennium Ring. The amnesiac Spirit of the Ring knew only that she was destined to fight the Pharaoh, and that if she assembled all the Millennium Items and placed them in the slab where they'd been created, the door to the underworld would open again - and in the spirit's eyes, this was a Very Good Thing.
She tested out possessing various hosts over three millennia, and finally came under the permanent ownership of a naive teenager named Ryoko Bakura, whose surname the Spirit adopted as her own. Ryoko happened to be friends with the chosen host of the Puzzle, Yuugi Mutou, and the Pharaoh and Zorc's battle began again. The Spirit, however, knew now how to take her time, to let the pieces of its plans fall into place with minimal involvement. So she lurked in the background of Yuugi's many adventures, always stepping in when advantageous for herself and often presenting herself as Yuugi's ally (a disastrous first encounter in which she tried to seal all of Yuugi's friends into tabletop RPG figurines notwithstanding).
She finally made her move as the Pharaoh journeyed into the world of her own memories, trapping said Pharaoh and his friends within a "Dark RPG" wherein all the figures from the distant past became the pawns of the present-day Spirits within the Items. The Spirit came close to destroying the Pharaoh of the game world, and thus guaranteeing Zorc's revival within the Puzzle, but at the last moment the Pharaoh's friends came through for him and all of Zorc's avatars in the game world were defeated.
What happened to the Ring Spirit/the piece of Zorc operating as "Dark Master" (GM) of the game isn't quite clear in canon; she loses control of Ryoko Bakura, but the others still treat the physical Ring like it's dangerous. That's a moot point, however. The Ring Spirit - henceforth just "Bakura" - is being pulled from the moment of her defeat.
Changes: As the splintered piece of an amnesiac goddess, Bakura doesn’t think much about her own gender (or at least, she hasn’t before arriving in the Gardens). She has a very low opinion of other women, however, given that her primary interaction with them has been through possessing a motherless teenage girl. Her host doesn’t share the same “shallow”, stereotypical interests in clothes or boys or aesthetics that seem to dominate conversation in Domino High School, but Bakura has seen more than enough to ridicule, in her own detached way. She’ll be particularly harsh towards “girly” girls - not because it really matters to her what these mortals value, but because she finds their priorities so ironically sheltered it’s absurdly fun to needle them.
While her behavior may resemble her canon male counterpart’s, the reasoning behind it alters with the genderswap. As a spirit who first directly interacted with people during ancient Egyptian times, she retains some Egyptian sensibilities about women and power - namely, that women gain power either by manipulating the men in their life or “male-ing” themselves, adopting typically masculine traits. Never one to settle, Bakura adapts both of these strategies in order to get what she wants: she pulls the strings from the shadows very effectively, singling out important men in her plans and pushing them in the directions she needs them to go. When directly confronting a potential opponent, however, she asserts herself in no uncertain terms, full of bluster and self-aggrandizement.
She’s also even more likely than canon Bakura to get outright sassy or catty. Observing female humans in an attempt to pass for her host if necessary, she’s noticed these behaviors more in women than in men, and has adopted them accordingly. She’s more likely to play innocent, too, if pushed in a corner: who’d suspect the cute little girl? (These behaviors do play on gender stereotypes, but Bakura’s grown quite skilled at manipulating people’s impressions of her, often drawing on the worst parts of their natures.)
Personality:
Bakura describes herself as a thief and a collector of human souls, which says a lot about her priorities. Interested in occult subjects and spreading fear, she takes special delight in inflicting "punishments" and pain upon those who cross her. This preference for violence helps her tolerate situations that otherwise might seem like sidetracks in her grand scheme, but Bakura's defining trait is flexibility: as long as events move toward her ultimate goals, she’ll put up with detours along the way.
When tormenting victims, she's cocky and prone to corny villain one-liners; when holding conversation or providing commentary, she's often quite casual and incisive in her sarcasm. She’s not above a petty hit below the belt, but humans for the most part are just that: human, amusing creatures who think their pain means something. Bakura is devoid of pride. She doesn't need to prove herself to anyone; she knows she's up to the task, and that's enough for her.
Or at least, that’s how things used to be. As Bakura has a mortal body in the Gardens, complete with vulnerability to physical feelings like hunger, exhaustion, and attraction, she’ll be reluctantly coping with these new signs of “weakness”. Expect touchiness, particularly during wildcards or other events.
In pursuit of her goals, Bakura can be quite social, cutting deals with other villains and even seeming to serve them at times when she sees a sufficient payoff. She’s also far more interested in working the system than destroying it: upon realizing Yuugi is the one destined to own the Millennium Puzzle and therefore collect the Items, Bakura decides to let the boy do his dirty work for her, stepping in when Yuugi (or any of the materials necessary to open the door to the afterworld) is in grave enough danger to rescue the boy or provide him with confidence and hints. It's no coincidence that her Dark Games of choice always take the form of RPGs: she is the "dungeon master" par excellence, scripting the path the heroes take without their realizing just how much.
Her caution and flexibility don't prevent Bakura from possessing several practically human-like tendencies, however. Her everyday demeanor hardly befits a 3,000 year old spirit, given its impertinence and cheek. She speaks incredibly flippantly (for those familiar with Japanese, her personal pronoun of choice even as a woman is "ore-sama") , she boasts with the best of them, and she can't resist topping off displays of villainy with a sinister, theatric flourish (often verbal). Her body language and attitude often walks the almost punkish border between "cocky" and "sassy".
While Bakura usually has a trick up her sleeve, when sufficiently thwarted she freezes, costing her valuable time. She’s also incredibly possessive of people she needs for her plans to succeed; this applies to Yuugi, as mentioned above, but even more so to her "landlady" or host, Ryoko Bakura, whose personal safety she prized even above victory. Bakura has "ways she likes to win and ways she hates to win": she's fiercely independent despite being reliant on others for so much, and possesses if not scruples, a self-appointed code by which she lives her life. (Occasionally she plays this ironically: trapping all of Ryoko's friends into lead figurines, for example, because Ryoko wished that "they could play together forever", or "paying her rent" to Ryoko by punishing teachers that bullied her.)
Just don't expect outright nobility. It's not really her thing.
Abilities:
All of Bakura’s abilities are based on her mastery of the Millennium Ring, her home for the past several millennia. Now that she has a body of her own, removing the Ring will leave her powerless, skill with a switchblade notwithstanding. (Putting the Ring on is not recommended, however: it prefers a naïve, impressionable host, or else someone with equally dark inclinations. Anyone else will feel incredible pain.)
The Ring’s abilities include:
- “Parasite Mind”, the ability to fuse a piece of the wielder’s soul into inanimate objects. This enables the wielder to control said objects at will - for example, to influence when a pair of affected dice will stop rolling.
- The ability to declare a “Dark Game”, a game with supernatural stakes decided upon by the wielder. Bakura’s standard “punishment game” for those who lose to her involves trapping people’s souls in tabletop RPG figurines when they run out of health. It’s possible to tie the effects of a Game to the process of playing it - other Item wielders have caused people to feel illusory pain when their monsters are attacked during Duel Monsters, for example - but Bakura’s never chosen this option.
- The ability to physically summon the creatures depicted on Duel Monsters cards. A list of the cards in Bakura’s deck can be found here.
- The ability to “dowse” for other Millennium Items or forces of evil power: the Ring’s spindles move erratically when dark magic approaches, and point steadily towards other Items in the area.
- The ability to freeze others in place; alternatively, the ability to push them away via psychic force. Strong-willed people can overcome this; Bakura used to be pretty much unbeatable with it, but the human body is affecting her skill.
Any and all of these powers will be nerfed upon player or mod request. As Bakura’s entire existence is a great big godmode, she has a permissions post here.
Sample:
[The mirror reveals a young woman in a black trenchcoat, shuffling a deck of cards nonchalantly. An easy smirk splits her face, and she gives the Vine a friendly nod.]
Yo, ladies! I don’t know about the rest of you, but days of leisurely abandon have started to bore me.
Anybody up for a little game?
[She cackles to herself, as if sharing a secret joke. Boredom isn’t something she’s unused to, after all - but there’s a time to lie in wait and a time to take action. And she’ll never find a way out if she doesn’t take some risks.
Manageable risks, of course. Nothing she can’t handle. You can’t rise from nothingness without desecrating a few graves.]
I’m good at explaining! I can teach you all the rules.
So come on, everybody.
Let’s play.