OOC: Application for empatheias

[festumborn]

SPOILERS FOR THE END OF EXODUS

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Xae
Contact: Plurk = Tsukeru
Age: 31
Current Characters:
Velvet Crowe | Tales of Berseria
Luna | Sailor Moon (also apped this round)


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Soushi Minashiro
Age: 19
Canon: Soukyuu no Fafner
Canon Point: Exodus Episode 26 - after his body is assimilated but before his mind is.

Background: General Canon | Soushi Minashiro (he's listed second)

Personality:

One thing that people will notice right away about Soushi is his ability to exude a sense of perpetual calm. It is actually not something everyone can achieve in the type of world they live in and certainly not even before he's fourteen years old. When everything around him is in turmoil, he can usually keep this calm exterior and allow it to affect those he's in contact with. A great factor when dealing with a group of teenagers who are constantly experiencing a fluctuation in their emotional state due to one thing or another. This is a trait that Soushi has purposely honed to be able to focus on the task he would one day need to perform in order to keep his island safe. No matter what he might be feeling beneath the surface, he has to push it down so that he can keep his head clear and not let his friends lose themselves in their pain. He was once so good at it that not even his best friend could understand just what he was feeling. Now that he's taken up a more deadly role as a pilot that puts him on the front line, that calm is what allows him to fight his enemies with a clear head and attempt to keep the others from doing anything too reckless. Outside of battle, Soushi has gone from a distant sense of calm to a relaxed one where he no longer has to hide from those he considers his friends. However, someone who just met him may mistake his calm demeanor as disinterest. It doesn't help that he tends to be on the quiet side. Soushi is the type who thinks about what he intends to say before opening his mouth, which can sometimes mean he gets beaten to the punch by someone else. While he certainly doesn't hesitate to take control of his allies on a battlefield with authority and confidence, Soushi tends to flounder a little when it comes to a social setting. This was most obvious after he left the island to visit what remained of Japan and his friends became aware of the danger that lurked in their world. Despite being the one individual who knew what they felt during a battle, he still kept himself at a distance from them and was often misunderstood by them. The time he spent as part of the Festum hive-mind was a huge changing point for him, with his only human connection to Kazuki. He started to attend group gatherings on his own even if he can still tend to keep to himself. There are those he connects to with a lot better than others but Soushi would definitely prefer to sit back and watch the others interact and sometimes insert himself. This is due to how socially awkward he is in general. For years, there were things he couldn't talk about with people his own age and he could honestly interact with adults. Those adults were always looking to him to be able to perform one task or another relied on him and often treated him as an adult too. He may have gone to school with those his age but after a falling out with Kazuki, Soushi was partially withdrawn from other kids. Even after everything, Soushi is still terrible at socializing with others as friends. He missed out on a good chunk of time just being with his friends as friends and while there is a lot of mutual respect and caring, Soushi just doesn't know what to do with himself most of the time. One good instance of this was when they were traveling with a group of citizens of all ages - while all of his friends were spending time with those citizens in a carefree manner, he was sitting with other pilots having serious strategy discussions. Another is that he still calls some of his closer friends by their last names with Kazuki being the only one he can speak to casually. Even if he may not always know what to do with himself in a friendly and relaxed manner, Soushi is polite to most people. He's always tried to treat those around as someone who is standing on the same level as no matter if they knew something or not. No matter how they act towards him (and there have been those who angrily blamed him for the death of a friend), he tries to treat them with the respect they deserve even if Soushi has to give them the painful truths in order to keep them alive. When Maya's birthday rolled around and she was having a private moment with Kazuki, Soushi may have been nearby but he wouldn't let anyone else eavesdrop on their conversation for long. Being polite is also partially a defense mechanism to keep people at an arm's length. The reason he tends to be distant with people is partially due to how guarded he can become. Their world is not an easy one and deaths are not an unusual occurrence even on an island that's as peaceful as their home. In between attacks, they all live a fairly normal life but are aware that people can do - especially those of them who are constantly on the battlefield. Soushi has his close group of friends that doesn't feel he needs to guard himself against on a daily basis but it's very obvious that he isn't one who trusts outsiders easily. He even warns Maya to keep an eye on the humans she goes to help because Soushi is aware that humans can turn on each other easily enough. It isn't enough that Soushi feels he has to guard himself against the physical pain but also the emotional too. Soushi has lost many friends over the years and so he tends to guard his heart closely. One can't grieve for a fallen friend while faced with something that wants to destroy him too. In fact, he's rarely seen grieving for them in private. It's due to his pragmatic demeanor that he's developed from early on. Soushi is well-aware of the risks everyone faces any time they come up against the enemy. While he will do whatever it takes to ensure that the sacrifices made are not on his side, he knows that everyone surviving is just not the practical outcome. If they aren't threat from the Festum, they must battle against the assimilation phenomenon. Soushi will be cold and callous if killing a human opponent means saving one of his allies - if killing a hundred humans will protect the people of his home. This was extremely useful when they began to travel with over twenty-two thousand civilians. While others would have rushed out to save a small amount in immediate danger, Soushi would prevent them in order to protect those they still could. It may seem more than a little heartless, he is often trying to prevent even bigger casualties in the long run. That said, this means that Soushi is the sort of individual who would willingly give up his own life if it would mean saving others. For the most part, this is limited to those from his island as he's always felt it was his duty to protect them but it could eventually come to mean those that he does start to care for. When given the opportunity to pilot a Fafner that had assimilated so many, Soushi didn't hesitate even knowing that he could end up dying inside of it. He even through himself in front of Kazuki when a human aimed a gun at him. While he may be willing to die, that doesn't mean he's reckless with his life. Soushi was often the voice of reason when it came to overdoing it, keeping him and Kazuki out of battles that wouldn't do much good or end well. He did eventually give his own life to protect the hope for the future. Soushi is extremely loyal to his island - perhaps more so than most and certainly in a slightly different way too. His mother and unborn sister were integrated with the island itself, both becoming part of it in a way humans couldn't. It's because of this that he will do what it takes to keep it safe from both Festum and humans alike. If the sentient Core that was his sister or technically his niece order him to leave it and grant someone else's wishes, that's exactly what he'll do. Were it needed, he would follow the orders from the Core rather than the ones from those who are in command, would defy death until it was time to give it. To protect it, Soushi once instructed pilots to do things they morally objected to - namely Kazuki when his friend had the choice to save some humans but was told not to. There is a protective side to him as well, not always obvious but clearly there. From the very beginning, he's always tried to protect those around him even if it may not have been obvious. Watching people get hurt, feeling their death is not an easy thing to take and so he may push himself to keep them safe. Sometimes his protective nature comes out clearly with the way Soushi acts but there's also a more subtle take. This comes in the form of words where he attempts to deal with all of the mental trauma people are dealing with. After all, pilots are usually just barely teenagers when they start going to battle and that alone is a great big ball of stress and emotional turmoil. Factor in all the possibilities for death and loss they have to suffer through on top of that. He is fairly good at using his words to get someone from losing their sense of self, especially when their life is on the line. It helps that he's pretty perceptive to the feelings of those around him. Due to the fact that Soushi is often quiet within a crowd, he has the unique opportunity to pick up on all sorts of things. He tends to understand people than others may think he does, even if he doesn't always know what to do with the information. Still, there may be something of a blind spot when it comes to anyone might have feelings of a romantic nature towards him. While Soushi may not know what to do with certain complicated feelings such as love and affection, his power of perception serves him well during battle. He can manage not only his own problems but can deal with others too, something that's kept him and many other people alive in a fight. Many people would agree that Soushi is an extremely reliable person. Not a lot would question his instructions in a fight and they can sometimes even count on him to pick up the slack while they focus on something completely. His tendency to look at the whole board has earned him a great deal of respect from his fellow pilots and even the adults who have far more experience in a fight. While Soushi has had his share of failures, others still look to him for a sense of reliability. When Kazuki was just starting out, he often had a lot of doubt about what he could do and looked to Soushi for support. It helps that he has that sense of calm and confidence that people need in a lot of situations. This may also be due to the fact that Soushi had this grown-up sort of attitude. Upon being brought into the secret of the world, he was essentially forced to become an adult even while still looking like a child. Not only was he privy to information other kids his age weren't supposed to know, they were also counting on him to handle certain tasks that no one else could, putting a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of a boy who wasn't even a teenager yet. At the age of fourteen, Soushi had even gone so far as to leave the island and see the destruction of the world for himself - meeting with the Human Army even. He had to leave behind his carefree childhood days a lot sooner than the rest of his friends which had a significant impact on the rest of his life. While Soushi may have lost his mother at a relatively young age, he still had his father. Yet his father was also the man who commanded everyone who worked within the facility which made Commander Minashiro a busy man. He did care about his father and was understandably upset over his death but Soushi had been fairly independent even while his father was alive. It became more so after his father was killed as Soushi was shown living within the Alvis facility, eating his meals from a vending machine and not going to rely on the parents of one of his friends. His room may not have had many personal items but it was kept clean to the point that it could be considered overkill. Soushi managed his many, many doses of medicine responsibility and all of his duties as part of Alvis while taking care of himself. There is a sort of OCD to his organization madness - having to have things just right; whether it be the way his living space is set up to giving someone the perfect haircut. He even used a ruler to make sure the hair was the right length when cutting Kazuki's hair. In general, Soushi is a focused person, no matter what may be set in front of him. Once he has his mind set on something it can be difficult for him to break free of that - both in and out of battle. His field of focus depends on that task he sets for himself, so while it is extremely wide in a fight, it can narrow down on other tasks such as his research that it reaches the point that Soushi may forget to do the simple things such as eat and sleep. Even if he can't accomplish something in a day, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to give up on it. He's simply too determined to ever give up on anything he sets his mind to doing and will continue until either it's finished or he is. He's extremely intelligent and always has been, often contributing to the ideas put forth by the adults and drawing up strategies on his own. The intelligence is what made him perfect to become the coordinator for the Siegfried System as sometimes he would have to change tactics in the middle of a battle based on the movements of his enemies and allies. For a time, Soushi put his mind towards other areas such as attempting to find ways to destroy Mark Nicht or how to extend the life of his best friend or moving twenty thousand civilians across continents while under threat. Honestly, I would not feel as if the personality section was complete without putting down something about Soushi's bond with his friend, Kazuki. It is one of his most important relationships throughout the entire series. As young children they were the best of friends, playing and living as normal kids should. They shared just about everything with each other and could understand each other best having both lost their mothers at some point in their childhood. Then came the fateful day when their childish antics ended and it started with a voice they'd picked up over a radio. Thus ended their close friendship, both distancing themselves from the other in order to protect them. It was also at that time when their understanding of each other started to drift apart as Soushi was drawn more into the secret lives the adults on the island had while Kazuki remained in the dark. When Kazuki became a pilot, there was trust on some level but there were plenty of times where they were at odds over something. Understanding didn't come until later after the other teen had gone off to see the world with his own two eyes. From then they started towards rebuilding what they had once shared as kids which was unfortunately cut short when Soushi was taken by the Festum and later assimilated. However, due to the fact that they had been in the Crossing when his body was lost, it left his mind connected to the other boy's. It remained this way for the next two and a half years, playing a huge part in the reconstruction of their bond. Kazuki was the single link he had back to what was his human side, allowing him to keep himself rather than being lost in the nothingness that was the Festum hive-mind. While they couldn't be physically close, they were never closer mentally and stayed that way for the two and a half years Soushi was part of the Festum swarm. Upon his return, Kazuki continues to remain the one person he's closest to in the entire world. No one truly understands him as well as the other male does due to their long-term link, though they can still manage to surprise the other on occasion. This makes them a powerful team on the battlefield and able to work together easily, trust being absolute between the two of them. It also sort of makes Kazuki the most important human in his life (despite Kazuki being part-Festum now too) and so he's constantly looking out for his friend and that care is returned to him in kind. This bond that they've rebuilt is so strong that Kazuki had to be mentally restrained to keep from fading along with Soushi at the end.

Abilities: Found here

Alignment: Sosyne

Soushi is one of the calmest characters in the entire series - even when it comes to the adults. He had to train himself to keep tight reign on his emotions in order to be the one who operated the Siegfried System and experienced every single emotion or pain the Fafner pilots felt. Anger is also an emotion that plays close to Soushi - from the way his comrades feel towards the Festum and other humans.

Other:

« Excellent chess player « Can cook but usually doesn't « Competent swimmer « Adequate at kendo « Excellent at handling and fixing technology

⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉

General Sample: TDM Top-level | Thread | Thread 2

Emotion Sample:

[Voices, speaking human words are pressing in around him. For most, this wouldn't seem unnatural but for this particular individual, it is. Where he'd been going "words" weren't the form of communication that was often used. Hearing them is disconcerting as is the general sensation of standing in a market. Feeling the sun against what flesh is exposed -- and there is a bit of it seeing as how he's wearing a flight suit with plenty of holes -- the wind tugging at his long hair, scents of fresh fruit and there's a body bumping into his as someone walks past. All he has to do is open his eyes to see it. Which actually turns out to be a bit more difficult than one might expect it to be but he does only to find himself standing in the middle of a market filled with busy people. Ones who appear human. This is not what Soushi was expecting at all. It's the furthest thing from what he was expecting, actually. He lifts a hand to inspect it as if he's never seen it before, allows his gaze to continue downward to take in the rest of his body then lifts his eyes to take in the scene around him. Plenty of buildings, plenty of human-shaped creatures, a bright blue sky with the sun hanging high in it. This is certainly nothing out of the ordinary but Soushi knows better. The buildings are older and not quite the style he's used to, people glancing at him but hardly upset or confused by his sudden appearance in the middle of their marketplace. Upon further inspection, he can see a large crystal hanging in the sky along with a clock tower that has merged with a large tree. His observations only serve to cement the fact that this is not where he's supposed to be, that he's a long way off from the things he knows. The last memory Soushi had was of Kazuki's face -- an expression of sadness that he'd never be able to forget. Hands clench at his sides and he doesn't even realize that the pain of loss currently digging into his heart has started to affect the world around him. Glowing crystals have begun to form on the food closest to him, spreading out to spring out from the plant-life as well. One catches the sun and the teal color flashes, catching Soushi's attention and his eyes dart to it quickly. Words are lodged in his throat at the confusion because it isn't him. The assimilation isn't coming from him. At least not that he's aware of. He doesn't realize that they've sprung forth from his own emotional pain and so they continue to grow larger and now even the people manning the stalls are starting to shout as their foods are becoming crystallized. Words have formed in his head, becoming real after the third mental repeat:] Are you there? [The imitation assimilation crystals don't stop but they're slow and appear to avoid the people.]

Questions: Can he arrive with a model version of his Fafner?