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modmachine) wrote2015-07-29 12:42 am
modmachine) wrote2015-07-29 12:42 am
APPLICATIONS
In order to keep the number of players from getting overwhelming for the mods, all applications are processed in a queue in the order submitted and characters are accepted as space becomes available (either as space in the game is increased or other characters are removed from the game). Acceptance into the queue does not guarantee entrance to the game; unless there are glaring errors in the application (such as a missing section) or moderator concerns, all applications go into the queue based on the time of reserve (if applicable) or submission. There are two queues, one for newly arrived characters and one for those who are already residents of Hex. At the time of game opening, there will be twelve slots for new arrivals and twelve for current residents, discounting moderator characters. (Moderator characters apped in after game start will be a part of the queue.) The remaining four slots in the game will go to whichever fills up first. Post your applications to this entry in the following format: First comment should contain the OOC information section only. Successive comments should be posted in reply to that comment, as many as you need. Moderator responses will be appended to the last comment of the application. Last updated: Dec 5 11:pm EST
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Hajime Aikawa | Kamen Rider Blade
Player name: Airdra
Player age and gender: 32, female
Any other characters in game? N/A
no subject
Character name: Hajime Aikawa
Character canon: Kamen Rider Blade
Canon point: Immediately following the events of the TV series
Character history: In the history of Hajime's world, ten thousand years ago, the creatures of the Earth decided to fight for the right to rule over the planet. Their desire to fight for supremacy spawned the formation of an immortal life-form called Undead. Fifty-three Undead were created, and they were ranked in the same manner as a modern deck of playing cards. The Undead were to fight each other in a Battle Royale, and when defeated, they were sealed into playing cards. Fifty-two of the Undead fit nicely into suits and ranks, and each of these fifty-two Undead represented a species vying for control of the planet. If one of these Undead won the Battle Royale, then that species would win the right to rule Earth. The fifty-third Undead, the Joker, was different. If Joker won, then all life on Earth would be eradicated. Human Undead won that first Battle Royale, and the remaining Undead were safely sealed away for ten thousand years.
Scientists researching immortality unsealed many of the Undead, causing the Battle Royale to restart. Joker was among the unsealed Undead, and he was quick to hunt down and seal the Mantis Undead, the most skilled fighter among the Undead. He then used his abilities to take Mantis Undead's form and power by using the proper card. After that, Joker targeted Human Undead...but Human Undead allowed himself to be sealed willingly. The combination of the Mantis Undead's fighting spirit and Human Undead's compassion had an interesting effect upon Joker--he started to develop emotions and feelings beyond being a mindless force of destruction. He also became unwilling to return to his original form, even disgusted by it. For the first time, he found himself without a screaming desire to destroy, and he didn't know why. He no longer wished to be called Joker, and so he took on the human name of Hajime Aikawa.
He was still, however, drawn towards strong enemies and trying to win the Battle Royale, so he continued to wander the countryside and fight other Undead in Mantis Undead's form. When he wasn't fighting, he was spending his time in Human Undead's form and trying to make sense of suddenly having feelings and emotions. When Hajime fought the Giraffa Undead in the mountains, a human photographer was fatally wounded in the crossfire. Hajime assumed his human form and approached the man as he died, and he was shocked when the man was unconcerned about his own fate--he only wanted to make sure his family was taken care of. He gave Joker a photograph of his wife and daughter and begged him to make sure they were safe. This was too much for Hajime's growing curiosity regarding the humans, and so he took on the identity of freelance photographer. The camera would be a useful tool as he indulged his growing curiosity regarding the humans. After all, humans usually pay more attention to the camera than to the photographer himself.
Hajime found the photographer's family, the Kuriharas, and was able to rent a room in the basement of their restaurant, the Jacaranda. Nine-year-old Amane took a shine to him, and, despite himself, he started to return that affection. Hajime was starting to learn about familial love, even if he didn't want any emotional attachments. He was also approaching the point at which he could reliably pass as a normal human, albeit a shy one who was uncomfortable around crowds and prone to asking awkward questions about emotions and human relationships. Hajime's behavior around the Kuriharas was different from his behavior around others--he made more of an effort to emote like a normal human.
It wasn't long before humans affiliated with an organization known as B.O.A.R.D. started using technology and the power of sealed Undead to create Kamen Riders, warriors who could seal the Undead. Hajime's transformation into Chalice was mistaken for another Rider, and he soon came into conflict with Kazuma Kenzaki, Kamen Rider Blade, and Sakuya Tachibana, Kamen Rider Garren. Hajime was initially hostile towards the pair of them, and he still saw humans as weak and useless...though he still had that love for the Kurihara family that he tried so hard to deny. It did not help that the Riders were aware that certain high level Undead were capable of disguising themselves as human, and they assumed this was the case with Hajime. He made no efforts to tell them otherwise. Why admit to being Joker when he now hated that part of himself?
Hajime fought against both the other Undead and the Riders as Kamen Rider Chalice until he was badly wounded in a fight with Garren and left unconscious and badly wounded in the woods. Kenzaki found him and nursed him back to health. This raised a few new concepts for Hajime--he was starting to learn more about human compassion. He didn't understand why Kenzaki might help an enemy, even if he did appreciate the help. This marked a turn in Hajime and Kenzaki's relationship, with Kenzaki making efforts to befriend the secretive Hajime. Kenzaki's reasoning was that there was good in Hajime--he'd seen the way Hajime worked to protect Amane. Hajime didn't understand this, but he slowly started to warm up to Kenzaki. For the first time, he found himself with a friend who had an idea of what he really was.
Other Undead started trying to target Hajime through the Kuriharas, although they assumed he was simply the Mantis Undead, Chalice the Legendary, taking human form. Hajime told himself these human attachments were nothing but a weakness he'd developed...and then he left the Kuriharas in order to keep them safe. He encountered a young man named Jin who dreamed of sailing the world, and he thought that would both keep the Kuriharas safe and get him away from the other Undead and the Battle Royale. It was clear that he missed the Kuriharas terribly; he sent Jin to check up on them without giving Jin a reason. Jin looked upon Hajime as an older brother figure, but when the Shell Undead attacked and destroyed Jin's boat before he and Hajime could set sail, Jin blamed Hajime for the destruction of his dream. Hajime had made a friend, and he was hurt by the rejection. At the same time, other Undead had targeted and kidnapped the Kuriharas. Hajime rescued them, but he allowed Kenzaki to take all the credit--he didn't want them to know of the part he played. The damage was already done; the Kuriharas had been associated with him for too long. He returned home to the Jacaranda, vowing to keep them safe as best he could. After all, if he was right there, then he'd be better able to protect them. Each time they were threatened, it became very clear that Hajime cared for these people, and that attacking someone he cared for was a very good way to get on his bad side.
Life got complicated for Hajime. A new Rider, Leangle, entered the fray. Leangle, a high school student named Mutsuki Kamijou, was possessed by the improperly-sealed Spider Undead. Hajime was outed as Joker by the other Undead, and this caused Mutsuki to fixate upon him, desiring to take Joker's power for his own. Tachibana believed Hajime should be sealed, but Kenzaki steadfastly refused. He swore that if Hajime were to become a problem, he would seal Joker himself--which was a gesture Hajime greatly appreciated. Kenzaki kept insisting that Hajime was now a human, and becoming a human had, by this point, become everything Hajime possibly wanted. He was growing tired of the Battle Royale and being targeted by the other Undead. He didn't want to destroy the world, and he was determined that this would not happen if he were to win the Battle Royale.
A brush with the Caucasus Undead damaged Hajime's repression of Joker. The easiest way to enrage Hajime was to threaten the Kuriharas, and the Caucasus Undead did just that after separating Hajime from the bulk of his cards, which helped to keep Joker's power in check. When Kenzaki attained Blade's King form by simultaneously using the power of thirteen Undead, it was too much for Hajime to take. That surge of power, combined with Mutsuki possessing Hajime's stolen cards, unleashed Joker's full fury upon the world once more. It wasn't until Kenzaki retrieved the stolen cards and the only remaining card in the Suit of Hearts, the Evolution King, for Hajime that Hajime was able to bring his Joker self under control through attaining Chalice Wild Form. Joker was successfully sealed away once more, and Hajime was even more determined to live as a human. He was Hajime Aikawa--not Joker. Not anymore.
The power in Blade's King Form that had caused Hajime to run amok also came with its own price--using that form's power for too long ran the risk of turning Kenzaki into another Joker. Kenzaki was manipulated into fighting Leangle to the point where it seemed as though he would fall to the power--but Hajime was quick to help his friend overcome the Joker that was threatening to awaken, saying that it was his turn to return the favor. He was happy to be the one helping Kenzaki instead of the other way around for once.
The entire time, B.O.A.R.D. scientists were still researching the Undead--the head of the organization, Tennouji, had been authorizing experiments on the Undead and was behind the Battle Royale restarting itself. Tennouji also wanted the Riders dead--they had outlived their usefulness in helping him weed out the weak Undead and collect Undead power. Tennouji unleashed a fused Undead that could both turn invisible and take the form of others. This Undead wreaked havoc among the Riders, causing Hajime and the now-in-possession-of-his-own-reason (following a sequence of events in which Hajime was not involved) Mutsuki to believe that Tachibana and Kenzaki were possessed by Undead. After being a creeper and unsubtly following Kenzaki around for a while, Hajime figured out what was going on, and he orchestrated a plan to trap this fused Undead. He faked a relapse into his Joker state, which caused the Undead to reveal itself in the hopes of defeating Joker. For the moment, it seemed as though everything was going well for Hajime--he had demonstrated that he had Joker fully under control, Tennouji's machinations had seemingly been stopped, and there was only one other Undead, the Giraffa Undead, left. He'd worked with all of the other Riders, and Giraffa didn't seem like he would be a problem under those circumstances. The Battle Royale wasn't yet complete, but he was feeling better about things than he had in a long time.
Tennouji had one last card up his sleeve, and he fused with the artificially created Kerberos Undead. The Riders, including Hajime, defeated him. At this point, Hajime and the Giraffa Undead were definitely the only ones left, and at one point, it seemed as though Tachibana was about to seal Hajime himself...but Tachibana decided to follow Kenzaki's lead and place his faith in Hajime's humanity. He almost died sealing the Giraffa Undead, leaving him incapacitated for what was to come.
With Giraffa sealed, Joker was the last remaining Undead--and the winner of the Battle Royale. As much as he tried to fight his fate, Hajime found himself once more trapped in his Joker form, and the uncontrollable army of Darkroaches spawned from the Undead Sealing Stone that governed the Battle Royale set about trying to end the world. Hajime had his reason and a bit of self-control, but his body was moving on its own to a certain degree. If anything attacked him, Hajime would be unable to stop himself from fighting back. He attempted to kill himself so he couldn't destroy the humans he had come to care so deeply about, but as an Undead, it didn't take. All he could do was hope Kenzaki would be able to seal him.
Mutsuki attempted to seal Hajime by himself, but Hajime warned him against it--he knew that Kenzaki was the only one with a prayer of sealing him. Hajime sent Mutsuki to the hospital, and, soon enough, Kenzaki came to put an end to the Battle Royale--though not in the way Hajime expected. Instead of sealing Hajime, Kenzaki fought Hajime using Blade King Form. King Form still came with the risk of becoming Joker, and Kenzaki used that. He willingly allowed himself to become an Undead, sacrificing his own humanity so that Hajime could keep his. Two unsealed Undead meant that the Battle Royale was restarted, and there was no winner. Because their Undead instincts would drive them to fight each other until only one remained, Kenzaki went far away, telling Hajime that he should stay and live with the humans--and that he would fight the Undead's fate.
Character world: Hajime's world is largely the world of the early 2000's. The biggest divergence is the existence of the Undead--not reanimated corpses, but immortal undying monsters who exist only to fight. Ten thousand years ago, the Undead came into existence to partake in a Battle Fight for control of the Earth. (Canon lore claims that they sprang into existence thanks to the will of the planets' creatures to fight. ) The Undead would fight, with the winners continuing to exist and the losers getting sealed into playing cards. There were fifty-three Undead, all sorted in the same way as a deck of playing cards. Fifty-two of those Undead represented a particular species--the Undead who won the Battle Fight would secure the Earth for whichever species that Undead represented. The fifty-third Undead, the Joker, represented the apocalypse. If the Joker was the last Undead standing in the Battle Fight, then the Earth would be destroyed. The Human Undead won that first Battle Fight and secured the Earth for the humans.
In the then-modern-day of the early 2000's, the Undead were unsealed by researchers working for an organization called B.O.A.R.D. who were seeking to harness the power of the Undead's immortality. This restarted the Battle Fight and leads B.O.A.R.D. to make use of Rider Systems in order to create Kamen Riders to send out and fight and reseal the freed Undead. The series starts a couple of years after the Undead have been unsealed. The Undead and the Kamen Riders are largely regarded as urban legends, and B.O.A.R.D. is just another unremarkable research company to the general public.
Events in the end of the series meant that the general populace had to deal with hordes of rampaging cockroach monsters, though they wouldn't necessarily know what these monsters were or why this was happening.
no subject
Character personality: Because he is an Undead, Hajime has trouble with things that humans take for granted. He understands battle and having enemies quite well. Those are normal things for an Undead. What baffles him is the human capacity to care for others, in some cases to care for them more than one cares for oneself. Amane's early declaration that she'd love him even if he were a monster caught him totally off-guard, and Kenzaki's self-sacrifice for him in the finale is another thing he's unprepared to face.
He is aware of the fact that he has become more human in mind if not in body, and it initially worried him. Early on in the series, he tries to avoid the call of other Undead to come fight as much as he possibly can, only willingly leaping into action when the Kuriharas are in danger somehow. He isn't overly concerned with collateral damage otherwise, and other characters do comment on this, initially thinking of him as some kind of monster that only derives pleasure from fighting. He would prefer to be thought of that way--he seems equipped to be able to deal with that, but he is at a loss when other people call him out on the way he has come to care for his adopted family. Other Undead, when they learn of the connection or of the way Hajime has been hiding himself among the humans, are quick to use this as an insult, saying Hajime has gone soft or has grown weak thanks to this human influence. It takes him a while to accept that he has formed attachments and also to view these attachments as a source of strength.
When he fights, Hajime fights to win. He would also prefer to be in the thick of battle himself. He carries a bow, true, but he's more likely to use it as a bludgeoning instrument than he is as a ranged weapon. He's smart enough to back off and watch his opponent for a bit, searching for a weakness, but when he has decided to act, look out. He is absolutely vicious in battle, and he does not take losing well. It's in part a hard-wired Undead instinct, for to an Undead, a loss can be as good as dying. It's also an ego thing--he is the strongest, he needs to fight and win in order to prove that. This is also something he looks at with a bit of bitterness--the one time he wanted to lose, needed someone to be stronger than them and seal him, Kenzaki surprised him with another option. The Battle Fight is still ongoing.
Hajime is not good at explaining things. When confronted about some oddity or another, his preferred reaction is to go very quiet, look away, and then try to leave. Physical combat, he can handle. Verbal combat, not so much. He would rather leave awkward silence and unanswered questions in his wake than have to lie about something. Part of this is just due to his inexperience as a human--he doesn't have any decent alternatives to give as a lie in part because he doesn't know any.
Hajime builds up friendships very slowly, and this is not helped along by the fact that love and friendship tended to escape him at first in his existence as a human. His friendship with Kenzaki builds up in starts, with Hajime attacking him after the first time they fight a common enemy together. It’s not until Kenzaki insists on treating Hajime’s wounds after a battle with Garren that Hajime begins to warm to him, albeit in a slow, distant way. Even when he and Kenzaki have seemingly established a fairly strong level of trust, there are times when Hajime is still prone to claim that the only way they can really understand each other is through battle. Even though Kenzaki pretty much becomes his best friend, they still come close to killing one another on several occasions, in part because Hajime can be a pretty lousy conversationalist.
Hajime loathes the Joker aspect of himself. He has ever since he started assuming Human Undead’s form and the identity of Hajime Aikawa. Calling him Joker is a huge insult, and he desperately wants to get away from that side of himself and the path fate has lain out before him. He doesn’t want to destroy the world anymore. Thanks to the way his canon treated him at series’ end, Hajime is about as stable as he’ll ever be, humanity-wise. He’s been shown love and sacrifice. His best friend made a tremendous sacrifice so that Hajime would be able to live among the humans and his adoptive family, and he’s trying very, very hard to live up to that. He’s mellowed a little bit, although he remains quick to defend those he cares about and still will not back down from a fight.
Character abilities:
Hajime is an Undead, which means he cannot die, only be sealed into a Rouse Card after being defeated in battle. This also means that he has green blood and enhanced speed, reflexes, senses, and strength when compared to a normal human. He also does not appear to need to eat or sleep in the way a human might--he doesn't seem to get how to sleep in a bed and is often confused by offerings of food.
Hajime is the Joker Undead, which allows him to take the form of any other Undead that has been sealed into a Rouse Card. He uses the Two of Hearts, the Human Undead, to pass as a human, and he uses the Ace of Hearts, the Mantis Undead, to fight as Kamen Rider Chalice. If he uses the King of Hearts card while he is Chalice and has all thirteen of the suit of Hearts in his possession, he can take Chalice Wild Form, which is more powerful. As Chalice, he can also use these cards to perform special attacks. There is a list of all the cards he possesses and their effects here on his journal. In his Joker form, he's a large insectoid monster who will fight tirelessly and relentlessly, firing blasts of green energy at his enemies.
It is important to note that Hajime absolutely hates his Joker form, and he would do anything to avoid taking it again. The power of all of his cards combined keeps his Joker instincts and Joker's power at bay. If his cards are lost or taken from him, he will have trouble keeping it together--the best he can do is exert a considerable amount of will to essentially make himself go into a coma for a little while. If the cards are not returned to him, he will rampage.
In his human guise, Hajime is a freelance photographer. He's got a lot of experience maintaining and using film cameras and has a darkroom.
Samples: I've got a TDM thread here and here.
AU nature: Here, Hajime has become a demon. His demonic form is, for the most part, his Undead form--that of a bipedal bug monster. He has the ability to make a partial transformation into his demon form, which gets him his far less risky transformation into Chalice. At least his returning to a human form no longer hinges on whether or not he possesses a certain playing card.
He is now making use of Exploits and Embeds to mimic several of the powers he had in canon. He can shake off amounts of damage that would greatly wound or kill an ordinary human, can still kick things hard enough that they explode, and still has an inhumanly fast reaction time.
Because he's a demon, he has suddenly become a very competent liar, though he still prefers to avoid having to do so with people he actually likes.
He also has three glitches directly related to what he was in canon: one of them is green blood even in his Cover's human form. The other is that he's got a compulsion to always carry with him a partial deck of cards--just the suit of hearts. He will become agitated when separated from his cards, though they're just normal playing cards in this case. The third is that when he causes something to explode, he feels compelled to pose dramatically in front of it for a few moments.
AU history: Hajime was originally an angel who existed to destroy things for the God-Machine. This all came to an end in his Fall, which happened when he witnessed one human willing to be self-sacrificing for another. This caused him to show mercy for the first time. Like all fallen demons, he immediately adopted a Cover and went into hiding. He is still on his first Cover, and he is becoming quite attached to it despite himself. He has also made a pact with a young takoyaki seller for a secondary Cover in the future, though the takoyaki seller has no idea what sort of deal he's really made and Hajime's in no rush to either follow up on the deal or to tell him what he agreed to.
His current Cover is currently that of a freelance photographer who is boarding with the Ichinose family, which consists of a father, Yuichi, and his teenage son, Jin. The two of them do not get along well. Jin's in that rebellious stage where all he wants to do is run away from home and become a musician, while Yuichi's insisting that his son get his head out of the clouds and go for a more realistic goal. Hajime tries to stay out of these conflicts as much as he can, preferring to remain neutral in these very human arguments as he learns more about human relationships.
Hajime's Cover doesn't have much in the way of actual family or existing relationships of note, and so it's important to him to start building those up--even if he isn't quite sure what he's doing. He gets along well with his new family even with all the father-son spats, and he's had a couple of close calls regarding blowing his Cover in having to fight a few angels and other demons here and there. Unfortunately for him, Jin has caught a few glimpses of these fights. He does not know that, and he is unaware that Jin is laboring under the delusion that Hajime is secretly a transforming superhero like what you'd see on TV.
Justification: In canon, Hajime is a monster who tries to stop being a monster. Hajime met a dying human whose primary concern was for his family, not himself, and this leads Hajime to try living as a human. Here, his Fall was triggered by seeing a similar display, causing him to show mercy towards his would-be victims. He'll be hiding among the humans dealing with human emotions all the while being something that's very much not human.
The Undead are all organized by a fairly rigid hierarchy and all ultimately exist to serve one purpose--to fight and, in Hajime's case as the Joker, to destroy. Hajime wants to break free of that purpose, but he feels he's fated to end the world no matter what. As a demon, he originally would have existed for the purpose of destroying things in the God-Machine's name. He still gets the confusion about humanity and human emotions in general that he had in canon, just filtered through a different sort of monster background.
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