Post by Kōyōmiya Shihōin on Jun 26, 2023 21:12:24 GMT -5
☆☆ Opening ☆☆
Member's Discord Name: [Kura]Password 1: [Should I arrange for an execution for Kazu's kidnapper?]
Password 2: [Miraculous Kouhai? You shouldn't say things like that.]
Type: [Shadow]
Division: [Second]
Rank: [Unseated Officer]
☆☆ Basic Information ☆☆
Name: [Kōyōmiya Shihōin]Age of Death: [Born in Soul Society]
Real Age/Age of Appearance: [39/16]
Birthday (Month/Day): [06/20]
Blood Type: [B+]
RP Sample (Required): [Please wait...]
☆☆ Appearance ☆☆
Height/Weight: [4'10"/120lbs]Physical Description:
{Autumn Leaves and Summer Floods}
[While the long wavy hair that Kōyōmiya keeps pulled back in a waist-length ponytail has the same warm sunset pink coloration as his eyes that renders them difficult to make out through his bangs and creates a very strong contrast to his sleek reddish-brown skin, the first thing about him that captures most people's attention is that he's unusually young for a shinigami, even among the unseated officers. His small frame and skinny physique, made to look even more fragile by a shihakusho that fits him too loosely, and the fact that he has no visible scars to suggest that he has ever engaged in real battle, all contribute to the general first impression that he must be fairly inexperienced. And while he does chip away at that impression with the arrogant posture and strut of a minor noble, it's hard to take seriously someone of his age. Not even his reiatsu can escape this perception of a fledgling shinigami, as when flared, it takes on a pale yellow that gives the impression of a small lantern flame, one liable to gutter out if only the wind were to blow hard enough.Kōyōmiya has a limited wardrobe; unwilling to indulge in his family's resources for more than a few casual outfits that he rarely wears, he's seen in uniform more often than not. Because of this, Kōyōmiya's usual hair tie is a small strip of the same black cloth that makes up a standard shihakusho. He has little in the way of other accessories while in shinigami garb, with a few additions appearing every few months or so before he ultimately returns to normal. Their off-duty clothing, while lacking in variety, is far more vibrant and follows a neapolitan color scheme of cream, pink, and brown as he tries to emphasize his natural appearance. As he lacks a personal gigai, he has had no opportunity to explore human-realm fashions to dress it in. If he were to obtain one, he would likely continue the color motif unless given reason not to. A subtle scent of maplewood seems to cling tightly to Kōyōmiya and his clothing, as though the young soul is being haunted by the four maple leaves depicted on the Shihōin family's crest, or perhaps something more sinister has attached itself to him?]
☆☆ Personality ☆☆
Dislikes :{Treated Like a Child} - - [So what if he graduated early? He passed the final exams just like every other Shinigami. Besides that, as a Shihōin, he can't allow himself to be looked down on. The living are even worse about it, always assuming that his appearance invalidates having existed for nearly forty years.]
{Explosions} - - [All that power, and yet there's no direction to any of it. They're far too loud for his tastes, and while useful in combat, the risks of spilling over and harming something you didn't intend to will always be there. For obvious reasons, he prefers kido that don't cause that kind of undignified display. It would be better to save them for summer fireworks.]
{Advertising} - - [During academy field training missions in the living world, Kōyōmiya was introduced to the sensory overload that is brand marketing. It's not only loud, shrill, and irritating, but it's also blatant manipulation to make people want things against their better judgment and undermine their self-confidence. Worst of all, it's ubiquitous and seems to have infested nearly all forms of human realm media.]
{Comparison to His Family} - - [Please don't; it's not even a fair contest. Kimiko, Kisala, and Ken'ichi all have such a massive headstart that nothing Kōyōmiya could do at his age could be half as impressive as their achievements.]
{Plain White Clothes} - - [The color of death, of hollow masks, Las Noches, and the Vandenreich, it's hard for him not to see someone dressed entirely in white as an enemy. It's acceptable as an accent color for something else, though. A certain amount of the joy he finds in painting relates to the feeling of replacing a blank white canvas with a fully colored scene.]
{Slow Deaths} - - ["Endings shouldn't be dragged out." That's what he says, at least. A proper ending should be swift and definitive, leaving no ambiguity. This can be seen in his zanjutsu style, which incorporates assassination techniques meant to force exactly that kind of ending on the enemies of soul society.]
Likes:
{Painting} - - [A hobby fully disconnected from his status as a noble or a shinigami, Kōyōmiya simply finds the process of creating landscapes and wildlife from layered brushstrokes to be a calming and centering influence. He often treats it as a substitute for meditation, mastering his emotions by capturing them on canvas.]
{Fried Tofu} - - [While Kōyōmiya favors traditional Japanese food in general, fried tofu is a favorite. A crispy indulgence that comes in many appetizing varieties, with his favored choices being agedashi-dōfu and inarizushi. While he has planned to sample some from the living realm if he ever gets a gigai, he still thinks of that as an unlikely goal to follow up on.]
{Storms} - - [Kōyōmiya finds the winds and rains calming and, at times, believes that the distant roar of thunder calls out to him. Indeed, any amount of rain in Gotei often results in the young Shihōin sneaking off to bask in the simple joy of listening to the weather. Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that such storms are a frequent subject matter for his paintings.]
{Purifying Hollows} - - [Doing his part to uphold the cycle of souls and the balance of worlds just feels good. Even if an individual hollow doesn't add up to much on the cosmic scale of the three worlds, it is enough that he's contributing to the greater whole.]
{Witnessing New Sword Styles} - - [So long as it's something he hasn't seen before, it has his attention. Each new style he sees is a breath of inspiration for his own advancement as a swordsman, potentially fueling a breakthrough into the higher realms of zanjutsu. Even if the experience doesn't deepen his understanding of the blade or give him a technique he can adapt for his own use, he still stands to learn much from contemplating how he would advise an ally or defeat an enemy who used such a style.]
{Autumn Leaves} - - [What's not to enjoy in the withering season? The subtle process of changing colors, the way they dance on the wind, the gentle crunch of sandals on a leaf-strewn path. It's all an underappreciated part of the world's natural beauty. Anyone who has known Kōyōmiya for long enough can tell that the time of year energizes him.]
Flaws:
{Weak Constitution} - - [A sickly child who never fully recovered, Kōyōmiya tires easily and requires frequent breaks to catch his breath. This is and will remain a fundamental weakness of his in physical pursuits that impacts every part of his life. He does his best to manage by pacing himself in his day-to-day activities and by optimizing his fighting style to overwhelm opponents before the effects of his weak body can catch up with him.]
{Putting Up A Front} - - [A lot of the young noble's effort goes towards presenting themselves as how they wish they were rather than how they actually are. Faking levels of resolve, composure, and overall maturity that reflect his own expectations for a shinigami, as well as downplaying aspects of himself that are contrary to his unrealistic ideal, even when it hurts to keep lying. He tries his best not to let the resentment show when the facade deviates too much from who he really is.]
{Young} - - [Being fairly youthful for a shinigami in both appearance and actual age means that the stumbling blocks of inexperience are everywhere. From social skills, he hasn't quite finished developing to combat reflexes that aren't quite as automatic as they should be. The lack of basic life experience is a limiting factor that can't be overcome easily. It doesn't help that many of his elders are condescending to him about it or dismiss his current struggles as something to "grow out of" without offering any guidance on how he's supposed to do that.]
{Indecisive} - - [At every fork in the road, Kōyōmiya mulls over questions like "Is this the best option?", "Do I go with who I am or what people expect of me?", "How does that reflect on my family?", and "Isn't there a way to have both?". It's easy for him to get lost in the maze of those doubts and freeze up entirely.]
{Expectations} - - [Being a Shihōin means being held to a higher standard. Means always being watched, judged, and weighed against relatives, ancestors, and other noble houses. And in Kōyōmiya's situation, it means being expected to improve and rise through the ranks. Graduating early wasn't enough; the family wants him to be a seated officer. And then what? He worries that no matter how high he climbs, the pressure to keep rising will never stop.]
Habits:
{Tape Recorders} - - [In a rare break from pretending to be a more traditional shinigami than he is, Kōyōmiya is often seen with handheld analog tape recorders, into which he narrates early drafts of mission reports, various reminders, as well as personal musings he intends to revisit at a later time. It remains unclear exactly where these devices or the seemingly plentiful supply of tapes required to fuel his soliloquies come from, and equally mysterious is where the used tapes go. What is clear is the calming and focusing effect that committing his thoughts to magnetic tape has on him.]
{Finger Framing} - - [A painter's tic: he holds out his hands with fingers held in a rectangle to frame new or interesting scenery with the dimensions of a canvas, considering what it would be like to paint his current perspective. He rarely follows through with these hypothetical pieces, more often painting a mental picture and moving on without fanfare.]
{Visiting Shrines} - - [When he was younger, Hakusui used to take him to shrines for prayers and purification in the hopes that faith would heal what kido and medications had not. Now Kōyōmiya visits on his own, be it lingering in Gotei's well-maintained religious sites while thinking over difficult matters or quietly leaving small offerings at Rukongai's abandoned ones. Often seeking a blessing before a mission and returning to offer gratitude after a successful return.]
{Leaning On Walls} - - [While waiting idle for someone or something, he often leans back against a wall or sits on the floor with his back to it. A holdover from those not-so-distant years as an ill boy who may have collapsed where he stood at any moment, what was once necessary is now merely a bad habit. He's promised to grow out of it more than once but has yet to make any noticeable progress in that effort.]
Fears:
{Passing Out} - - [Aware of his lack of stamina, he knows that dragging out a battle can only lead to exhaustion and eventually losing consciousness, and while fellow officers of Gotei will hold back for the sake of his weak constitution, a true enemy isn't going to provide the luxury of stopping for breath. The longer a battle drags out, the more this fear weighs on the young shinigami.]
{The Unclean} - - [While it isn't unusual to fear filth, disease, rot, mold, vermin, and infection, Kōyōmiya's sheltered upbringing and history of poor health have led him to be especially wary of the unclean. The sense of revulsion and horror is so strong that he can be seen air-walking above dirty floors and incinerating trash with Kido just to avoid having to handle it.]
{Kimiko Shihōin} - - [No, she hasn't actually done anything to deserve the levels of fear and resentment he feels towards her. It's merely difficult not to fear the head of the Shihōin family when they have a terrifying amount of influence over his life; the fact that she's also one of Gotei's stronger captains only strengthens the intimidation factor. The knowledge that it's a possibility at all has been enough to inspire keeping a safe distance when such is possible and staying uncomfortably formal when it is not.]
{Someone Listening to the Tapes} - - [There's simply too much of himself saved to those reels of magnetic tape to ever be comfortable with it getting out into the wild. There are too many potential glimpses into the chaos of his thoughts that can't be reconciled with the way he plays at being above it all to ever be comfortable letting someone else hear that. The same as anyone who keeps a journal, really.]
Goals:
{Grow to Fit His Persona} - - [He can't keep fronting forever; he's sunk so much effort into a facade of everything he's "supposed" to be that eventually he'll have to unfurl like a banner or a pair of wings to reveal he's actually become the kind of shinigami he's been pretending to be, or maybe even something greater. Changing hurts, but it's the only way to meet the expectations that come with being a shinigami, the only way to meet the expectations that come with being a Shihōin, and the only way to meet his own expectations of what he could be. Until then, he'll keep up the masquerade with an insincere smile.]
{Master Zanjutsu} - - [The zanpakuto is what separates shinigami from common souls: a container for a piece of their soul, the source of their ability to purify hollows and bury plus, and the source of powers that express their inner self in ways that kido, hoho, and hakuda do not. An ideal weapon for a young Shihōin so caught up in ideas about his own identity and role as a shinigami. Thus, he seeks to master wielding it as a path to deepening his bond with the spirit within.]
{Achieve Shikai} - - [The mark of a true shinigami, something he both desires for the understanding of his own heart that it represents and absolutely needs if he ever hopes to live up to the expectations his family has placed on him. To reach the beginning of understanding his zanpakuto spirit, learn their lesser name and preferred command, and be rewarded with shikai.]
{Achive Seated Officer Quickly} - - [Another family expectation, not something he really wants for himself beyond a prop for his show of being a better shinigami than he actually is. Seated Officer is the lowest rank that's socially acceptable for a Shihōin to have; until then, he's falling short of the standard by being a mere unseated.]
Alignment: [Lawful Good]
Overall Personality:
[Kōyōmiya is deeply concerned with how others will think of him, to the point that he's built a facade to shape how they see him. His role as the architect of a false persona began as a sickly child struggling to live up to the expectations imposed on him as a noble and avoid seeming vulnerable in front of rival families, atop which he's stacked the expectations that came with enrolling in the Shinō Academy and graduating as a shinigami of the second division, and is still actively building higher in pursuit of what he "should be". Submerging much of his true feelings beneath feigned aloofness and insincere charm in an attempt to get along with everyone within soul society... Unless they call him out for being deceptive, as the fledgling shinigami becomes defensive in response to any perceived attacks on his assumed role. To put it less pretentiously, he's young, especially for a shinigami, and mainly concerned with figuring himself out while pretending that he already has.
While he prefers to frame his behavior as calm and decisive discipline rather than intense and instinctual swings between anemic and frenzied, it is true that Kōyōmiya is not an energetic person, maintaining a relaxed pace that suits his limited reservoirs of stamina and reiatsu until he feels the situation demands intense action, at which point he swiftly burns through his reserves in an intense but unsustainable flare until he either stops for breath or collapses outright. Regardless of whether that flare of energy spawns a destructive flurry of slashes devoted to slaying an enemy of Gotei or an equally intense creative flurry of brushstrokes without a clear goal until a finished painting can be seen in its wake, the exhaustion that follows is just as overpowering. This pattern is what compelled the young Shihōin to favor a fighting style that aims to overwhelm opponents quickly, fearing he'll run out of breath in battle if he can't land a killing blow early.
This drought-and-flood relationship with energy comes with a hesitancy to commit to those moments of action, something not helped by Kōyōmiya's consuming need to justify his decisions in the moment, even if he won't stand by them later. Those justifications are easy to find when there's either a time crunch to reach one or there's a clear "right answer", regardless of whether that means right for Gotei, right for the Shihōin family, or right for himself. While he finds no reason to hesitate in following direct orders, upholding the family's good name, or working to improve himself, if those come into conflict, he is forced to admit priorities that he would rather not, placing Gotei's will above his own interest and his family above even Gotei. Smaller issues are actually the greater stumbling block for him. Without an immediate conflict that demands decisive action or a set of established rules he can use as a razor to cull "wrong answers", he risks hemming and hawwing, weighing and re-weighing if the situation warrants that kind of expenditure until he can reach a clear judgment. Though the instructors from the Shinō Academy have made him more aware of this flaw as of late, inspiring the young Shihōin to impose self-constructed deadlines on himself to force the kinds of immediate judgments he finds easier to navigate.
Something that bears remembering is that his false persona is an aspirational one; it is and always has been an affectionate mimicry, a lie he hopes will gradually come true. He's ambitious, open to changing himself, and finds his identity shifting in small ways from day-to-day, interaction-to-interaction, and thought-to-thought. Although those shifts are not always in the direction he desires, he is at no risk of losing himself in his usual facade or any others he adopts, never needing to worry about what's real. His other roles are temporary; be they part of the job created for an infiltration mission or defensive veils hastily raised to distance himself from an overwhelming situation, Kōyōmiya is willing to try on personas like clothing until he finds the ones that fit comfortably and has little interest in clinging to what he outgrows or wears out. What is too different from what he is or wants to be simply does not fit and becomes too tiring to maintain for long.
So concerned with his outward persona, he is somewhat out of touch with his own feelings and is uncomfortable being "himself" where others can see. preferring to resolve his emotional issues on his own by pouring them into paintings or cassette tape monologs that he can take a step away from and view from an outside perspective, instead of showing the kind of vulnerability that comes with sharing those feelings with another person. He's actually less open with those he considers friends, because he cares enough about the impact he'll have on them to hide facets of himself that could cause discomfort or drag down their moods. And despite what many would think, he does want friends, be they traditional companions or friendly rivals; he enjoys having someone he can share the beautiful and painful world with. What he doesn't want is romance; he returns any and all affection received with mock-reciprocality of a lesser intensity, never extending beyond empty words. So focused on his own development and so afraid of actual honesty that he's convinced it's better off to stay single for now, unless he can find a hero, someone he can idolize and count on who won't advance quickly and leave him behind, nor stagnate while he continues to grow.
His view on the enemies of Gotei is simple: Able to utter the tattered cliche that is "nothing personal" and sincerely mean it, Kōyōmiya tries his best to remain detached as he carries out impersonal justice against any and all. As he sees it, there really isnt anything personal; the individuals affiliated with the Vandenreich and Las Noches are cogs in hostile military forces and are to be treated as such. While Bakkoto-weilding rogues are dangerous criminals to be held accountable to the laws of the land, regardless of their reasons or attempts at justification. And while the inhabitants of hell are less common foes, he fears what they represent and believes they must not be allowed to roam outside their prison. All must be slain or captured for the sake of soul society as a whole. Meanwhile, mod-souls and bount receive the young Shihōin's grudging indifference; he believes Gotei should take action to clean up their mistakes, but orders are to live and let-live and there are other concerns that take priority. Free Quincy are given much the same treatment, though Kōyōmiya's resentment for the archers is more intense than that he feels for the failed experiments.
Out of all breeds of souls, it's actually hollows that the fledgling reaper doesn't tint his view of with disdain, as from his perspective, they're mere animals that are incapable of being truly guilty. When confronted over this view, his only argument is that forgiving hollows is sensible, logical, and sane in the light that a zanpakuto absolves purified souls of the sins they committed as a hollow, which means a shinigami's job is to forgive hollows as they return to the cycle. And return them to the cycle he does; with no desire to punish them for their actions, he fights merely to liberate them from their lives as wild beasts whose instincts have robbed them of choice. When it comes to Arrancar, however, he fears them and thinks of them as dangerous animals that have simply learned to pass for humans.]
