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 Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:41 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:50 am
BASICSCharacter Name: Hawthorne
Type: Pokemon
Species: Zorua
Gender: Male
Height: 6'0"
Age: 25
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:51 am
POKEMON INFO
Nature: Naughty
Ability: Illusion; Illusion will change the appearance of the Pokémon to a different species.
Skill Set:
[Night Daze] [Dark] [Special] :: The user lets loose a pitch-black shock wave at its target. It may also lower the target's accuracy.
[Payback] [Dark] [Physical] :: Payback inflicts damage. Its power doubles to 100 if the user attacks after the target.
[Facade] [Normal] [Physical] :: An attack move that doubles its power if the user is poisoned, burned, or has paralysis.
[Attract] [Normal] [Status] :: Infatuates targets, making it hard for them to attack.
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:52 am
-"I'm mad, you're mad, we're all mad, here!...Something like that." (( Trickster >> Irritating ))
As a Zorua, Hawthorne loves to mess with people, joke with them, and generally cause trouble. He doesn't do it out of malice, but rather for his own personal enjoyment; it makes him laugh, and he loves to laugh! It's also his way of bonding, so the more he cares for someone, the more he will harass them. Naturally, because he likes to play such tricks on others, not everyone understands his sense of humour, which makes him become Irritating.
-"It's all about showing off, sometimes." (( Flair >> Dramatic ))
Hawthorne, as a performer before and after his dream of Musharna, understands the value of playing to a crowd. He has a good sense of facial expression, intonation and diction, which means that in his daily life he "performs" to the best of his ability, and has a kind of natural flair to him. He likes to dazzle, what can he say? On the other hand, this can make him kind of dramatic, or exaggerated. He can kind of jump the gun and tend towards the overly emotive.
-"Hahahahahahahahaha... hah. You make me laugh. No, really, stop, it hurts." (( Upbeat >> Flippant ))
Hawthorne loves to mess around, and he doesn't let a whole lot weigh him down; it's all part of his flair, after all. If things seem to be going wrong, like the caravan hits a lot of bad weather, he'll usually try to provide comedic relief. He loves looking for excuses to laugh, and takes even the worst insults as a joke. However, this makes him pretty flippant, and it can be hard to get him to act serious or care about just about anything. Not to mention getting him to actually apply himself or do manual labour... most of his energy is directed into his stage performances; good luck getting him to set up a tent.
-"Tell you what: You go down that dark, crumbling corridor... and I'll wait here in case you get lost." (( Vulpine >> Selfish ))
Hawthorne can be quite cunning (and also foxlike, given he is a zorua, haha). He is cunning in that he likes to analyze situations in order to make sure he gets out with the most possible loot, or at least with the skin on his back, and given he is a trickster he'll probably use his vulpine nature to figure out how to serve his own goals best. Because of how he chooses to apply his intelligence, for his own personal gain, he can come across as pretty selfish.
-"If you cross my family, if you make any of them shed a single tear... I will show you monsters like you have never seen, like you could not even begin to fathom. Mark me." (( Protective >> Vengeful ))
After the caravan picked him up, Hawthorne remained steadfast to his circus-folk, to such a degree that even though he's a trickster and loves to pick on people, he's so attentive of his new family that he watches over them a bit like a mother hen. He watches out for the women, helps out on the sly when he's needed by any of the caravan members, and has been known to spirit away certain ruined garments only to return them back magically repaired. However trivial these details may seem, ultimately he is very Protective of his "family," and won't allow harm to befall them. Because of his protective nature, he can be remarkably vengeful, which employs all of his darker side: Hawthorne isn't squeamish about hurting someone who has harmed his family, whether they are within or without.
Strengths: Sewing, weaving, illusions and slight of hand. Resilient, well-spoken and outgoing.
Weaknesses: Prone to dramatic episodes, insecure attachment style, not very physically powerful, selfishness.
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:57 am
xxxxxWhen he was young, Hawthorne had no name, and he lived alone in the remnants of a mountain shrine. Despite its wear and tear, those who sought peace (or an abnormal amount of fresh air) would still take the path which wound through the split rock and into the brush. The mountain could be tricky, because the flowers which surrounded that portion of the path seemed to produce a sweet scent which made travellers tired. Resting was not always safe. Hawthorne lived at this shrine, because it served two purposes: primarily, he was always decently fed, because travellers would leave food for the shrine guardians; secondly, he loved to trick them by assuming the forms of other pokemon, or taking the form of a human. It was fun for him, though he never realized that startling those travellers likely gave them the energy to push past the flowers. One way or another, no one would pass by that point without leaving offerings to the shrine. Needless to say, Hawthorne developed a taste for fried tofu.
xxxxxAlthough he can't remember what happened to push him from that shrine, he left it when he was a little older, in order to wander the road side scaring anyone who found him. However, without the steady diet of tofu and shrine gifts, Hawthorne found himself growing weaker. He had gotten lost in the mountains, finally collapsed beside a flowering shrub. He crawled under, leaned against its trunk, and then there was only darkness. Eventually, he heard the sound of bells, and he was stirred as someone scooped him up. Everything was dark then, no matter what he did: he could feel soft cloths all around him, and he could still hear the bells, but now there were voices, too. He was being gently rocked, in the dark, with the scent of flowers, cloth, sweat, wood-- it wasn't until he woke up that he realized where he was.
xxxxxHe was in a Caravan, full of traveling performers. Hawthorne got his name from them, because that was where he was found: nestled beneath a Hawthorne bush. He was nervous around them, at first, and quiet... but his personality was not principally shy. In fact, as soon as the magician started to show him some slight of hand, Hawthorne opened right up. He would stay in his human form, for the most part, but they would make a game of pulling his tail. The magician started to use him in his shows, and Hawthorne would shapeshift in illusion to become any number of terrifying pokemon. They became like his family, and sometimes Hawthorne would forget he wasn't really one of them. Until they pulled his tail, of course, and he would drop whatever he was holding, or stop being able to talk. It made him ache in a way he did not quite understand.
The Dream
xxxxxMusharna came to Hawthorne in a fireside dream, offered him the chance to become human so that he would no longer be at the whim of others when it came to which form he chose. It would be up to him. He could really become one of them, no longer a pokemon pet with an interesting trick. He took Musharna up on this offer, because he thought that somehow it would make him part of the family in a tangible way. A significant way. Who would be so stupid as to think that was all it took to be accepted? In the dream, Hawthorne rested in a pile of cloth, and he played with a mobile made of glass bits and metal, twisting in the light coming from a window. He was in the back of one of the caravan carriages, again: the light kept changing through the slats between the boards, and he could smell honey, somewhere far off. He just had to stay awake long enough to finish his conversation with Musharna, even though he couldn't quite focus his eyes to look at him. Every couple seconds while he was deciding, Hawthorne's shape changed unbidden, cycling through all kinds of pokemon. Finally, he stopped it: I want to be human. I do. As soon as he accepted Musharna's offer, Hawthorne's dream self returned to his human form, and he remained that way, smiling at the sound of the caravan, and the scent of honey, until he fell asleep.
After the Dream
xxxxxHe looked just like he always did in his human form, but when they went to pull his tail like they always did, Hawthorne was no longer obligated to change back. He gave them one of his sly smiles, and quietly kept eating his porridge, as if nothing had happened. Life, from that point on, became sweet. He even got his own act, performing in front of the audience, which was where he learned to polish his illusions and his oratory. He was finally one of them, and he felt like it. However, not all the places they visited were good to the caravan, and one night the show got rowdy... until the Magician's assistant was eventually killed by the crowd, and Hawthorne cradled her body in his arms, before scaring off the audience in a fit of illusions and rage. He probably would have killed them all, if he hadn't been stopped.
xxxxxGiven his outburst, and the caravan's tattered reputation around that area, Hawthorne just doesn't know if he is hurting his family by remaining... besides, now that the assitant is dead, there is a chunk missing from their family, and everything seems to be different. Not for the first time, he's stuck wondering where home is, exactly.
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 11:18 am
Prompt Entry:
"This is a foolish place to be... to inquire about the master of this dream. To come into this dream so carelessly, like a moth to a flame." - Based on Paprika
No darkness is so complete that the light from inside oneself cannot guide the way. All that I can see within this abyss, within the confines of dreaming shadow, are my own hands: around them, the threads I use to weave illusions. I draw the thread taught, and loose strands fall away into the dark. I do not look down; if I was to look down, might I fall, too? I concentrate on the soft fibers around my fingers, the loop of red thread. It glows faintly with its own warm light, and I twist it, pull it, twine it: The Moon Goes Dark, The Moth, and finally... from the depths of my memory, I remember the gate. I pull the strings around my hands, and begin to form the loops which create this final string game. Unbidden, a memory rises from the simple motions.
I remember the gate in fragments: its crumbling stone, lotus flowers carved into the archways. The vines which had reclaimed the lower reaches, and knocked rubble into the undergrowth. Mostly, eyes shut or open, I recall within the darkness the familiar smell of honey. It drifts towards me on some invisible breeze. Something in that place, it must have been one of the flowers, smelled forever of honey.
That was my home. I remember it not clearly, but in pieces, because that was too long ago. I see myself walk up to the gate: I am me, but not me. That is my skill. As a Zorua, I can become any pokemon I want, but it is only an illusion. I could, at that point, become human. Only my tail marked me for what I was. I lived at that crumbled gate, the mark of a shrine which had once stood in homage to the forest guides meant to watch over travellers. Why did I stay there, alone, for so long?
Just as I am about to seize the truth in my fragment dream, the image of me in my past turns to look me in the eye, and I see in his expression a wicked smile. Because he understands something that I don't understand. I try to look at the space before this image, but as in my waking life, there is just emptiness: the dust of long-lost memories. Who I was before the shrine, I cannot recall, and the image falls away.
The sweet, heavy scent of honey lingers.
Instead of in sequence, the next memory falls into place much later, a piece out of order. There is a dirt road, and my feet are sore. I am in my natural form. A human approaches, and I shift into something monstrous, an illusion which terrifies them. That is all, because they run, and they run, and they don't look back.
I shut my eyes, but the memories keep coming. I am somewhere warm, and dark, and there is the sound of wheels and bells. I remember being found by the side of the road, tangled up in hawthorne bushes, and later waking to the inside of this moving cabin... wherever it was. That is where they derive my name. I see myself being picked up, and carried, by a man I know now is the snake-man. I can't help but smile, and I want to reach out, but I keep watching. I can't have actually seen these things, but it's funny the way that memory reaches to compensate for missing images and creates its own solutions. The best part of this memory is what follows. I am sitting by a fire, and the smoke is overwhelming. It keeps blowing into my eyes. I am in my human form, wrapped in a blanket. The material is soft, and I bury my face against it, until someone offers me a bowl of porridge. Kindness?
The memories go dark, for a moment. I remember... and it hurts all over again. Why was I guarding that shrine, for so long? Why did I spend so much time in isolation? It was easy to live off the food left to the shrine spirits, but I don't remember why... who would do that to themselves?
The next memory: I at the fireside again, and the strong-woman laughs with a full-bellied roll and slaps her knee as the magician and his assistant explain that I am the best trick yet. The assistant reaches over, and pulls my tail. I return to my natural form, and drop the porridge, scalding my paws. They are all laughing, but I am limping, and I realize that I can never be one of them. Not like this. The caravan picked me up, a stray by the side of the road, and I happen to be an interesting sideshow. The strong woman wrestles me sometimes for the audience, and I change my shape to a snorlax, a scyther, a suicune-- anything she wants, I become. Even pokemon of myth. For the first time, I feel like I have a family. And that blanket they gave me on the first night never left my side.
Cloth, thread, these things became important to me. Even though I could create the illusion of being human, I never was; they all knew that. I knew it. I couldn't forget. The acrobats, the dancers, the storytellers... they joined us, and left. My family, on the surface, shifted infinitely much like my own form. Until Musharna came to me in a dream. I could make you real, you could be like them. Why would I turn that down? The opportunity to fit in with my family. Watching myself in these memories, I wonder how I could have been so stupid as to believe that my family was a real family, that they would accept me as one of them just because I was given a human body. But I took the chance, and it turned out that I was right. The very first thing I did when I became human was eat a bowl of porridge, because this time when they pulled my tail, I didn't revert. There was a dead silence around the fire, and then laughter, and embracing. I remember the snake-man, whose skin was scaly to the touch, smelled faintly of cloves. The magician's assistant had soft skin. As soon as I was human, they obliged me and taught me how to sew, they showed me how to weave, and I became affectionately dubbed their seamstress.
Forward, again. Somewhere in time. I am on the stage, my own act, and a drunk man is heckling me. "Go suck a--" he starts to yell, until I take the form of a Steelix, and approach him. He runs screaming from the crowd. I revert to my original form and laugh, and laugh; the audience, now, starts to laugh with me. Well, why not? It's just a trick of the eyes. It's just a bit of fun.
The memory shuts down, and another fragmented vision envelopes me. I am barefoot, and the stage is slick with blood. I am cradling the magician's assistant in my arms, looking at her face. She has no life left in her. The muscles in my jaw twitch, and I howl in anger. I cannot retake my old form, but I am still an illusionist: I put her down gently, and raise my hands to the sky. I bellow out: You, who have done this, who have witnessed this crime: you are all guilty. I know what happens next, but before I can watch what I have done, the memory skips again.
Why are there no more memories? I see light, now, in the darkness, but I reach out for my family in the confusing darkness. Where is the caravan, our fire, the endless nights of poor weather and huddling together? The music, dancing, food--
When I wake, will my family be there? Who have I become?
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 11:19 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 11:36 am
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