PROFILE
PLAYER INFORMATION-
Name/Nickname: Cocoa
AIM/E-mail/Contact: momijizukamori (AIM)/cocoa[at]tokyo-tower.org (e-mail/MSN)
LJ: momijizukamori
CHARACTER INFORMATION-
Canon Character and Series: Jyuushirou Ukitake, Bleach
In-Game Name: Lt. Commander Jyuushirou Ukitake
Age: 38
Gender: male
Position & Ship: Strategist or Navigator, Victoria II
Appearance: Jyuushirou is tall and thin, standing at 6'2" and weighing a hundred and sixty pounds, most of which is muscle. His coloration is somewhat unusual, in that he has dark eyes and eyebrows, but very pale skin, and most noticably, pure white hair, which falls to midback. The latter two are the result of a chronic lung condition, which is also apparent in a persistant cough and a frequent look of tiredness. He wears his hair loose, or when more formality is required or he feels it will get in the way, pulled back into a tight ponytail at the base of his neck. When not in uniform, he tends to dress in clothes that are fairly plain, but also a touch formal, which gives him a general sense of being put-together in his appearance.
Personality: Jyuushirou comes off immediately as a very friendly person - not invasively so, as he's unfailingly polite and socially aware enough to realize when he's starting to be pushy, but he does tend to treat everyone around him as an equal or as if they're part of his family. He's a very good listener, and as such is very easy to put trust in - trust which he will not betray, if he can help it. And while he doesn't trust in people blindly, he does not hold back his faith in others, and is very protective of those he cares about.
When it comes to dealing with his superiors, he's usually quite formal, although not to the point of being cold about it - it's simply that he's deferential to authority. At the same time, though, he has a very strong moral code, and /will/ question orders that violate his personal honor. He also takes a certain amount of pride in his independence, and is a very hardworking person, often taking on more than is expected of him, a trait he acquired as a way of proving himself to people who thought his illness made him weak or incapable.
When the situation demands it, he's very quick to drop the cheerful, friendly attitude and get serious. He fights honorably, but he doesn't play around. Fighting is a means to an end for Jyuushirou, not an end in of itself. He likes being strong, likes being able to protect the people he cares about, but he doesn't enjoy hurting people - it is simply a necessary evil.
Abilities/Weapons: Jyuushirou is a highly skilled swordsman, being proficient both with single blades, and somewhat more unusually, more complicated dual-wielding techniques. To non-mages, the sword he uses simply seems to be a particularly high quality antique blade, with a red hilt-wrapping. It appears to be both well-used and well-cared for. Anyone with mage or spirit sight, however, will be able to tell fairly quickly that the sword - named 'Sougyo no Kotowari' or 'Truth of Pisces' - is a fairly powerful magical weapon, due to the twin storm spirits bound within it. Due to his bond with these spirits, Jyuushirou is able to utilize the sword's special powers. The sword has two levels of power release - shikai and bankai. He's capable of both, but does not use the bankai level because it's too draining.
The shikai release command is 'All waves, rise and become my shield, lightning strike and become my blade'. At this, the sword splits into two katana, connected by a heavy red cord threaded with charms. The swords are unusual in that they have an angular, bladed hook jutting out of the blade, allowing them to be used as a defensive weapon as well as an offensive one. The strikes these deal are a little stronger than normal, as they're backed up with raw magical power. The blades also have a special power in this form - the left one can absorb magical attacks, which are then directed through the right blade, back at the opponent. Maintaining shikai form, however, is a bit of an energy drain, and Jyuushirou generally prefers to fight with the sealed form of the sword unless he really needs the extra power. The spirits of the sword also occasionally manifest themselves to him, either in dreams or meditative trances, taking the form of a pair of androgynous, white haired children, dressed in old-fashioned blue ceremonial robes, or a pair of sleek, blue-silver fish. These two are very playful, and defintely a bit mysterious. They do not currently have the strength to manifest themselves to others, however.
Jyuushirou has a fair bit of magical talent, which is what enables him to use Sougyo no Kotowari's power. He also knows some combat magic - simple, though fairly powerful energy blasts, and a few variations of the basic binding spell. Most of his power goes to supporting his body physically, though. He's very agile, and while he's not a pinnacle of human fitness, he's a fair bit stronger than his thin build suggests, as he's pushed a lot of his physical limits in an effort to prove himself. He can also has the ability to see and talk with ghosts and spirits.
Mentally, he's quite intelligent, though he lacks the education necessary to be really 'book smart' - he is, however, a good tactician. He's also quite good at understanding people, which leads to a strong knowledge of his subordinates' strengths and weaknesses, allowing him to place people in positions that they are well-suited for. This has earned him a reputation as a skilled leader with his peers, and a reputation as a thoughtful superior to his subordinates.
How well can your character hack?: Basic - he's had a little bit of tech training, but not much.
Weaknesses: Physically, his greatest weakness is his damaged lungs. He gets short of breath very easily, which limits his endurance severely, a fact he tries to compensate for with other physical strengths. He's also very prone to respiratory infections, and what would be a minor cold for most quickly turns in a nasty lung infection for him, putting him largely out of comission for days. While his magic is fairly strong, the fact that a good portion of it usually goes to supporting him physically means actually using it wears him out pretty quickly, to the point where overuse will make him collapse.
Emotionally, his weakness lies, somewhat ironically, with his strong sense of honor and pride. Because he was very sheltered as a child due to his frequent illnesses, he puts a great deal of faith in being able to do things for himself, and will sometimes push himself past his limits out of stubborness. He is also sometimes guilty of putting a sense of pride and honor before actually getting the job done, or allowing others under his command to do so, which can have serious consequences.
History:
Jyuushirou was born on Long Night, to a middle class merchant family in Melior. He was the eldest of what was eventually eight siblings - six sons, and two daughters. Though both large, and not particularly wealthy, the family had enough to live comfortably, and made up for any lack of riches by being quite loving.
When he was six, he contracted pertussis - one of the unfortunate hazards of city life. The infection was quite severe, and he likely would have died from it if his inborn magical talent hadn't flared up to protect him. As a result, he survived - but the disease had permanently damaged his lungs, and the flare of his magic had bleached his hair white, a stark contrast to the black of his siblings. Because of the lung damage, he was the weakest of the eight, the most frequently ill, and despite being the oldest, the one most frequently doted on and sheltered by the rest of the family. He appreciated their love and concern, but at the same time wanted to prove his own worth, and to not be a burden to the rest of them. Given his magical talents and utter lack of business sense, he realized that the family trade was best left to his younger siblings, and that he wanted to be able to protect the people he cared about, rather than being the protected one. To this end, he trained physically to try to make up for his poor constistitution and lack of endurance, with the ultimate goal of entering the military academy in Melior.
He failed the entrance examinations several times, due to the physical component, but kept training and coming back each fall, and finally, when he was eighteen, made it into the academy as an officer cadet. While he had not had a great number of friends outside his family growing up, due to being kept home frequently due to illness, his calm good nature and willingness to help others quickly won him many at the academy. There, he excelled at most of the intellectual courses, and managed to become more than passable as most of the combat ones - though in any endurance work, he was still always dead-last. A surprise talent was sword-work - he didn't have the stamina for long bouts, but his agility benefitted him, and and he found he could use his magic to back up the force of his blows. One of the swordmasters at the academy became his chief mentor there, and when Jyuushirou graduated, he gave him one of the blades from his own collection as a gift. It was a sword he'd practiced with on occasion in one-on-one lessons, when they had used live steel, and one that Jyuu felt particularly drawn to, for some reason, but much finer than he had ever hoped to own. The old swordmaster hinted that the blade had secrets waiting to be discovered, but said no more, leaving Jyuushirou both perplexed and very thankful.
The next nine years were a long series of active duty postings, where in Jyuushirou proved himself to be a brave, honorable fighter, as well as a very competent leader. During the first few years, he began to have a series of recurring dreams, of swimming in a vast body of water with two huge silver-blue fish, or of chasing a pair of identical children down a rocky beach. The twins would grin and speak to him, but he could never hear what they would say. The more he used the sword he'd been given, the more frequently the dreams occured, and he started to realize that the sword had the feel of spirit energy around it, which was growing increasingly stronger. One day, during a particularly trying fight that Jyuushirou was rapidly losing as his endurance gave out, he heard a pair of voices in his head telling him to use their power, as the energy in his sword reached out to touch his his own. He grabbed at it - any advantage in a losing situation - and was quite surprised when the blade began to glow and change shape. After that fight, he found he could hear what the spirits said in his dreams, and learned how to manifest the sword's special powers on command.
When he was thirty, a teaching position for swordwork opened up at the military academy in Bellcius, and to Jyuushirou's surprise, his previous mentor recommended him for the position. While it had not been a career path that had come to mind for him, once he considered it, he realized he could be quite happy training others, and that his own patience for dealing with what were essentially still kids was much higher than that of some of the instructors he had dealt with in his own academy days. So he accepted the position, and spent the next eight years teaching, and on occasion, undertaking short active duty missions where his particular combination of fighting skills and leadership knowledge were useful.
His last mission was an scouting excursion into the edges of the Badlands, to investigate reports of a large monster that had been preying on settlements along the borders. His unit found the monster, and a little more than they originally bargained for. The monster was very strong, and due to a moment of poor decision-making and allowing his second-in-command - originally from one of the villages the monster was preying on - to put personal pride before the good of the group as a whole, it killed the second and badly injured Jyuushirou himself before the group put it down. He was put on medical leave, and once he had recovered sufficiently for desk work, at least, was transfered to the Victoria II.
SAMPLES-
Third Person (roleplay): Jyuushirou took another series of swings at the practice dummy, modulating his breathing as best he could. Fighting against the dummy offered no technical challenge, but the number of people he trusted to handle live steel against him without anyone getting seriously injured was small, and none of them were on this particular ship. The practice swords were passable for some training against the others, but it wasn't quite the same as using Sougyo no Kotowari. His bond with the weapon made it more an extension of himself than anything else, something a practice weapon could never replicate. The blows landed with precision, and he felt a ripple of delight from the twin spirits in the back of his mind. He was slowly adjusting to that - the fact that having been awoken, the sword expressed emotions of its own, usually fairly in sync with his own. That was one of the reasons for his solitary practice - if he wasn't totally used to the sword's reactions, they could mean death if they came at a critical moment in a fight.
He shifted his stance slightly, and came at the dummy again, this time not pausing between the first set of strikes and the second, as he side-stepped the dummy and continued the drill. By the end of it, his breathing was harsh and ragged. That was the second reason for his training - his endurance was still abysmally low. So when he could, he trained by himself, pushing his limits as hard as he could, without anyone else to hold him back with their concerns for him. He could tell his lungs were straining, and took a deeper breath to try to get more air into them - and then something in his throat caught, and he started coughing violently. His grip tightened on the hilt of the sword - instinct now, he'd accidently dropped and broken too many things in past in his coughing fits - and waited for it to pass, trying to breathe between coughs as best he could. When it finally passed, he realized he could taste blood in the back of his mouth - he could feel a pulse of questioning worry from Sougyo no Kotowari as he frowned slightly at that. He sent reassurance back to the spirits - just strain, this time. He sighed and resheathed the sword - no more practice today, not if he wanted to avoid a trip to the infimary - and started to do his cooldown stretches. It was frustrating, to have so many strengths, and then the one gaping weakness he could do nothing about. Training had helped, some, as well as watching his health very carefully, but each reassignment meant a new round of superiors he had to prove himself to. The cycle was getting old.
First Person (journal): [voice|private]
Reassignment to the Victoria...? I know the Academy enrollment numbers have been down, and they've plenty of instructors, but I can't help but feel someone higher up is giving me an unoffical reprimand for that last mission. [there's a soft somewhat sad sigh] That...really turned into a mess. My own damn fault, too. Even so, this seems a bit petty. But I suppose anything is better than a month and a half of laying in bed with nothing to do but think about past mistakes.
[There's a series of small muffled coughs, and then a long pause before he speaks again]
The twins came again last night - it's been a while, so it was good to actually see them again. They said not to worry so much - I suppose my gloomy mood is rubbing off, even if I haven't been able to practice with them. They're right, though...I can't change the past. Only strive to do better in the future.
The assignment is less than ideal, but I'll make the best of it I can.
Name/Nickname: Cocoa
AIM/E-mail/Contact: momijizukamori (AIM)/cocoa[at]tokyo-tower.org (e-mail/MSN)
LJ: momijizukamori
CHARACTER INFORMATION-
Canon Character and Series: Jyuushirou Ukitake, Bleach
In-Game Name: Lt. Commander Jyuushirou Ukitake
Age: 38
Gender: male
Position & Ship: Strategist or Navigator, Victoria II
Appearance: Jyuushirou is tall and thin, standing at 6'2" and weighing a hundred and sixty pounds, most of which is muscle. His coloration is somewhat unusual, in that he has dark eyes and eyebrows, but very pale skin, and most noticably, pure white hair, which falls to midback. The latter two are the result of a chronic lung condition, which is also apparent in a persistant cough and a frequent look of tiredness. He wears his hair loose, or when more formality is required or he feels it will get in the way, pulled back into a tight ponytail at the base of his neck. When not in uniform, he tends to dress in clothes that are fairly plain, but also a touch formal, which gives him a general sense of being put-together in his appearance.
Personality: Jyuushirou comes off immediately as a very friendly person - not invasively so, as he's unfailingly polite and socially aware enough to realize when he's starting to be pushy, but he does tend to treat everyone around him as an equal or as if they're part of his family. He's a very good listener, and as such is very easy to put trust in - trust which he will not betray, if he can help it. And while he doesn't trust in people blindly, he does not hold back his faith in others, and is very protective of those he cares about.
When it comes to dealing with his superiors, he's usually quite formal, although not to the point of being cold about it - it's simply that he's deferential to authority. At the same time, though, he has a very strong moral code, and /will/ question orders that violate his personal honor. He also takes a certain amount of pride in his independence, and is a very hardworking person, often taking on more than is expected of him, a trait he acquired as a way of proving himself to people who thought his illness made him weak or incapable.
When the situation demands it, he's very quick to drop the cheerful, friendly attitude and get serious. He fights honorably, but he doesn't play around. Fighting is a means to an end for Jyuushirou, not an end in of itself. He likes being strong, likes being able to protect the people he cares about, but he doesn't enjoy hurting people - it is simply a necessary evil.
Abilities/Weapons: Jyuushirou is a highly skilled swordsman, being proficient both with single blades, and somewhat more unusually, more complicated dual-wielding techniques. To non-mages, the sword he uses simply seems to be a particularly high quality antique blade, with a red hilt-wrapping. It appears to be both well-used and well-cared for. Anyone with mage or spirit sight, however, will be able to tell fairly quickly that the sword - named 'Sougyo no Kotowari' or 'Truth of Pisces' - is a fairly powerful magical weapon, due to the twin storm spirits bound within it. Due to his bond with these spirits, Jyuushirou is able to utilize the sword's special powers. The sword has two levels of power release - shikai and bankai. He's capable of both, but does not use the bankai level because it's too draining.
The shikai release command is 'All waves, rise and become my shield, lightning strike and become my blade'. At this, the sword splits into two katana, connected by a heavy red cord threaded with charms. The swords are unusual in that they have an angular, bladed hook jutting out of the blade, allowing them to be used as a defensive weapon as well as an offensive one. The strikes these deal are a little stronger than normal, as they're backed up with raw magical power. The blades also have a special power in this form - the left one can absorb magical attacks, which are then directed through the right blade, back at the opponent. Maintaining shikai form, however, is a bit of an energy drain, and Jyuushirou generally prefers to fight with the sealed form of the sword unless he really needs the extra power. The spirits of the sword also occasionally manifest themselves to him, either in dreams or meditative trances, taking the form of a pair of androgynous, white haired children, dressed in old-fashioned blue ceremonial robes, or a pair of sleek, blue-silver fish. These two are very playful, and defintely a bit mysterious. They do not currently have the strength to manifest themselves to others, however.
Jyuushirou has a fair bit of magical talent, which is what enables him to use Sougyo no Kotowari's power. He also knows some combat magic - simple, though fairly powerful energy blasts, and a few variations of the basic binding spell. Most of his power goes to supporting his body physically, though. He's very agile, and while he's not a pinnacle of human fitness, he's a fair bit stronger than his thin build suggests, as he's pushed a lot of his physical limits in an effort to prove himself. He can also has the ability to see and talk with ghosts and spirits.
Mentally, he's quite intelligent, though he lacks the education necessary to be really 'book smart' - he is, however, a good tactician. He's also quite good at understanding people, which leads to a strong knowledge of his subordinates' strengths and weaknesses, allowing him to place people in positions that they are well-suited for. This has earned him a reputation as a skilled leader with his peers, and a reputation as a thoughtful superior to his subordinates.
How well can your character hack?: Basic - he's had a little bit of tech training, but not much.
Weaknesses: Physically, his greatest weakness is his damaged lungs. He gets short of breath very easily, which limits his endurance severely, a fact he tries to compensate for with other physical strengths. He's also very prone to respiratory infections, and what would be a minor cold for most quickly turns in a nasty lung infection for him, putting him largely out of comission for days. While his magic is fairly strong, the fact that a good portion of it usually goes to supporting him physically means actually using it wears him out pretty quickly, to the point where overuse will make him collapse.
Emotionally, his weakness lies, somewhat ironically, with his strong sense of honor and pride. Because he was very sheltered as a child due to his frequent illnesses, he puts a great deal of faith in being able to do things for himself, and will sometimes push himself past his limits out of stubborness. He is also sometimes guilty of putting a sense of pride and honor before actually getting the job done, or allowing others under his command to do so, which can have serious consequences.
History:
Jyuushirou was born on Long Night, to a middle class merchant family in Melior. He was the eldest of what was eventually eight siblings - six sons, and two daughters. Though both large, and not particularly wealthy, the family had enough to live comfortably, and made up for any lack of riches by being quite loving.
When he was six, he contracted pertussis - one of the unfortunate hazards of city life. The infection was quite severe, and he likely would have died from it if his inborn magical talent hadn't flared up to protect him. As a result, he survived - but the disease had permanently damaged his lungs, and the flare of his magic had bleached his hair white, a stark contrast to the black of his siblings. Because of the lung damage, he was the weakest of the eight, the most frequently ill, and despite being the oldest, the one most frequently doted on and sheltered by the rest of the family. He appreciated their love and concern, but at the same time wanted to prove his own worth, and to not be a burden to the rest of them. Given his magical talents and utter lack of business sense, he realized that the family trade was best left to his younger siblings, and that he wanted to be able to protect the people he cared about, rather than being the protected one. To this end, he trained physically to try to make up for his poor constistitution and lack of endurance, with the ultimate goal of entering the military academy in Melior.
He failed the entrance examinations several times, due to the physical component, but kept training and coming back each fall, and finally, when he was eighteen, made it into the academy as an officer cadet. While he had not had a great number of friends outside his family growing up, due to being kept home frequently due to illness, his calm good nature and willingness to help others quickly won him many at the academy. There, he excelled at most of the intellectual courses, and managed to become more than passable as most of the combat ones - though in any endurance work, he was still always dead-last. A surprise talent was sword-work - he didn't have the stamina for long bouts, but his agility benefitted him, and and he found he could use his magic to back up the force of his blows. One of the swordmasters at the academy became his chief mentor there, and when Jyuushirou graduated, he gave him one of the blades from his own collection as a gift. It was a sword he'd practiced with on occasion in one-on-one lessons, when they had used live steel, and one that Jyuu felt particularly drawn to, for some reason, but much finer than he had ever hoped to own. The old swordmaster hinted that the blade had secrets waiting to be discovered, but said no more, leaving Jyuushirou both perplexed and very thankful.
The next nine years were a long series of active duty postings, where in Jyuushirou proved himself to be a brave, honorable fighter, as well as a very competent leader. During the first few years, he began to have a series of recurring dreams, of swimming in a vast body of water with two huge silver-blue fish, or of chasing a pair of identical children down a rocky beach. The twins would grin and speak to him, but he could never hear what they would say. The more he used the sword he'd been given, the more frequently the dreams occured, and he started to realize that the sword had the feel of spirit energy around it, which was growing increasingly stronger. One day, during a particularly trying fight that Jyuushirou was rapidly losing as his endurance gave out, he heard a pair of voices in his head telling him to use their power, as the energy in his sword reached out to touch his his own. He grabbed at it - any advantage in a losing situation - and was quite surprised when the blade began to glow and change shape. After that fight, he found he could hear what the spirits said in his dreams, and learned how to manifest the sword's special powers on command.
When he was thirty, a teaching position for swordwork opened up at the military academy in Bellcius, and to Jyuushirou's surprise, his previous mentor recommended him for the position. While it had not been a career path that had come to mind for him, once he considered it, he realized he could be quite happy training others, and that his own patience for dealing with what were essentially still kids was much higher than that of some of the instructors he had dealt with in his own academy days. So he accepted the position, and spent the next eight years teaching, and on occasion, undertaking short active duty missions where his particular combination of fighting skills and leadership knowledge were useful.
His last mission was an scouting excursion into the edges of the Badlands, to investigate reports of a large monster that had been preying on settlements along the borders. His unit found the monster, and a little more than they originally bargained for. The monster was very strong, and due to a moment of poor decision-making and allowing his second-in-command - originally from one of the villages the monster was preying on - to put personal pride before the good of the group as a whole, it killed the second and badly injured Jyuushirou himself before the group put it down. He was put on medical leave, and once he had recovered sufficiently for desk work, at least, was transfered to the Victoria II.
SAMPLES-
Third Person (roleplay): Jyuushirou took another series of swings at the practice dummy, modulating his breathing as best he could. Fighting against the dummy offered no technical challenge, but the number of people he trusted to handle live steel against him without anyone getting seriously injured was small, and none of them were on this particular ship. The practice swords were passable for some training against the others, but it wasn't quite the same as using Sougyo no Kotowari. His bond with the weapon made it more an extension of himself than anything else, something a practice weapon could never replicate. The blows landed with precision, and he felt a ripple of delight from the twin spirits in the back of his mind. He was slowly adjusting to that - the fact that having been awoken, the sword expressed emotions of its own, usually fairly in sync with his own. That was one of the reasons for his solitary practice - if he wasn't totally used to the sword's reactions, they could mean death if they came at a critical moment in a fight.
He shifted his stance slightly, and came at the dummy again, this time not pausing between the first set of strikes and the second, as he side-stepped the dummy and continued the drill. By the end of it, his breathing was harsh and ragged. That was the second reason for his training - his endurance was still abysmally low. So when he could, he trained by himself, pushing his limits as hard as he could, without anyone else to hold him back with their concerns for him. He could tell his lungs were straining, and took a deeper breath to try to get more air into them - and then something in his throat caught, and he started coughing violently. His grip tightened on the hilt of the sword - instinct now, he'd accidently dropped and broken too many things in past in his coughing fits - and waited for it to pass, trying to breathe between coughs as best he could. When it finally passed, he realized he could taste blood in the back of his mouth - he could feel a pulse of questioning worry from Sougyo no Kotowari as he frowned slightly at that. He sent reassurance back to the spirits - just strain, this time. He sighed and resheathed the sword - no more practice today, not if he wanted to avoid a trip to the infimary - and started to do his cooldown stretches. It was frustrating, to have so many strengths, and then the one gaping weakness he could do nothing about. Training had helped, some, as well as watching his health very carefully, but each reassignment meant a new round of superiors he had to prove himself to. The cycle was getting old.
First Person (journal): [voice|private]
Reassignment to the Victoria...? I know the Academy enrollment numbers have been down, and they've plenty of instructors, but I can't help but feel someone higher up is giving me an unoffical reprimand for that last mission. [there's a soft somewhat sad sigh] That...really turned into a mess. My own damn fault, too. Even so, this seems a bit petty. But I suppose anything is better than a month and a half of laying in bed with nothing to do but think about past mistakes.
[There's a series of small muffled coughs, and then a long pause before he speaks again]
The twins came again last night - it's been a while, so it was good to actually see them again. They said not to worry so much - I suppose my gloomy mood is rubbing off, even if I haven't been able to practice with them. They're right, though...I can't change the past. Only strive to do better in the future.
The assignment is less than ideal, but I'll make the best of it I can.