ashbrook app

[voidhole]

Player Info
Player Name: Ru
Pronouns: They/Them
Contact: worldtype @ plurk and discord
Permissions: link
Invite: link
Character Info
Character Name: "Hikaru" Indou
Canon/Canon Point: The Summer Hikaru Died
Character Age: 17 (In Appearance)
History:
"Hikaru" or Hikaru is an ancient entity possessing the form of a teenage body. Possibly dubbed by the people of the town as the "Great Brain Snatcher", Hikaru lived up on the mountains in the woods without form and was rumored to steal the faces of those who dared to venture into the mountain. One day the real Hikaru, possibly performing some family ritual, perished in the woods and begged the Great Brainsnatcher not to leave his best friend Yoshiki alone. Hikaru obliged and merged "himself" with the real Hikaru's body.

Hikaru retains all of the real Hikaru's memories though he feels detached from them, like he watched them all on TV, in order to be a "perfect copy" of the real one. Despite this, Yoshiki and those with special powers are able to see through the imitation.

Currently, he is trying to learn more about the real Hikaru and what drove him to go to the mountain that fateful night.

Powers:
-Inhuman form. When distressed or at will, Hikaru's form dissolves into something like geometric ink. He can also unzip himself like taking off a costume
-Consumption of other spirits. Hikaru can consume weaker spirits and take them into his body
-Supernatural strength. He can fight other supernatural entities that are very dangerous to humans.


Role in Ashbrook
Character Skills:
-Video Games
-Manga
-Biking
-Folklore
-Lying
-Supernatural connections
-Long standing family tradtions
-(Inhuman)

-Hikaru is long lived though he does not have a particular sense of time.
Character Values:
-Loyal
-Energetic
-Funny
-Curiosity
-Protective

Role Opt-Outs: None

Bonus details?: YES.

Personality

In canon, what does your character fail at? What are the consequences of that failure? Hikaru often fails at being a human. When he is unable to hold in his emotions, the body he is mimicking dissolves to reveal his true nature as a formless, geometric, eldritch being.

Hikaru knows his true form is unpleasant and tries to hide it from everyone, but it is who he is. His body is just a copy of the real Hikaru Indou's and while he can access Hikaru's memories to better perfect the imitation, it's not really who he is. Much of his behavior is going through muscle memory.

So he struggles when human ideals conflict with his own view of the world. Hikaru is implied to have existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years and so does not understand why humans are so afraid of things like death. Therefore, he is quick to chose killing as an option, even being willing to kill one of Hikaru's friends when she edges close to finding out his secret. Because to him, death isn't an end. Death is just the start of another cycle of reincarnation.

Hikaru is alive but he isn't sure if he has a soul, unlike humans who all possess souls. He makes a distinction between him "existing" and humans "living". This distinction leaves him wonder if he is only capable of being an imitation and could never bridge the gap into really being a living creature with a soul.

What does your character want most in the world?
Hikaru wants more than anything in the world to continue to exist as he and so that someday Yoshiki might come to love him. He wants to be able to live life as a human and experience all of the curious and wondrous things life has to offer. For Hikaru, it is not enough to have the memories of watching a certain film or the memory of the taste and texture of katsu, he must experience for himself. That is the beauty of being getting to be human and having a physical form. That is perhaps part of his initial instinctual motivation.

Underneath the desire to keep being able to exist as he is, Hikaru is slowly realizing that he wants to be seen and accepted as himself and not just someone who stole the life of another. if he were to be able live as a proper human, perhaps Yoshiki would come to love him for what he is instead seeing him as the walking corpse of his dead best friend. However, he spent so many decades being formless and unknowable, he doesn't even recognize why he sometimes feels wistful about living a stolen life despite all of the positives. There is no guilt, only the the unconscious nagging in the back of his brain that no one sees really sees Hikaru just "Hikaru".


How would your character react to a deep betrayal from the person they care about the most?
It would tear him apart. Literally. Hikaru loves Yoshiki more than anything. He needs Yoshiki to like him and accept him. He is a lonely being and is what drew him to the dying Hikaru and being able to live out his dying desire to protect Yoshiki is Hikaru's fundamental motivation. He is terrified of having to hurt Yoshiki to protect himself.

If he doesn't have Yoshiki then he no longer has a reason to be Hikaru. The death of that relationship means the death of him as he is and a return to detached and distant existence.
Where does your character see themselves in five years?Hikaru being some sort of long-lived god or being does not really have a concept of "in five years" beyond how time passes with Hikaru's memories. Before replacing Hikaru, he simply existed and lived on the mountain with no goals or desires, like a machine with a function. He knows the lives of mortals are short-lived yet filled with potential. Since becoming Hikaru, Hikaru just wants to experience life in the "now". He figures that his time as Hikaru is fleeting and therefore he has to grasp what he can while he can.
Samples

Link 1: TDM link