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Entry tags:
application
PLAYER
Name: Fal
Over 18? Yes
Contact: PM
Current Character: N/A
CHARACTER DETAILS
Name: Leaks
Canon: Lamento: Beyond the Void
Canon Point: Right at the end of the game, when Konoe and his Touga are fighting Leaks.
Age: Unknown and with some rather nebulous chronology! He has been around long enough to have become the greatest magician ever known, and is already part of written record and common word-of-mouth. We're probably talking 40-50+ years-ish as the bare minimum assuming he wasn't already old when he met Shui, but he specifically says towards the end of the game that he's been alive 'longer than [Konoe] can imagine', which suggests he is significantly older than that. Appearance is of a Ribika (the nekomimi race) somewhere in his early-to-mid 30s.
Heba or Tian? Tian. Leaks is a lifelong specialist in magic to a high level of skill, and technology doesn't really exist in his world beyond forging swords. He lacks the nurturing and tender aspects of the alignment, but he's certainly withdrawn and solitary.
Acquired Ability: Magic.
Personality Traits:
Ambitious - Leaks doesn't seem to experience the limitations of typical cats, and has accomplished an exceptional amount as a result of his insatiable drive for more — more knowledge, more power, more strength, more control. He's the most advanced magic user known in his world at the moment, and there doesn't seem to be any limits to his potential. He always sets his sights high and demands much of himself, but success seems to come naturally to him. He's also fearful of no-one, which goes hand in hand with his confidence in his own skills; he knows nobody can stand against him, so he has nothing to fear.
Intelligent - On top of being powerful, Leaks may also be one of the most knowledgeable cats alive. He has a much more in-depth understanding of the world and magic than most other cats, and it's evident that he's highly literate and reads often in his spare time. He seems to find research and furthering his knowledge to be both relaxing and something he's just compelled to do. Learning brings him pleasure — or used to, when pleasure was still something he felt.
Dedicated - Leaks may not apply it for the right reasons, but he's someone who knows how to plan meticulously and is highly organised. He's determined to accomplish anything he sets out to do, and he never forgets why it matters to him. He's a deeply driven cat. Right now, it's hatred and bitterness that motivates his actions, but that may not always be the case.
Ruthless - Leaks doesn't care what happens to other people and actively derives satisfaction from their pain. He's killed and tormented many cats in order to further his goals, and actively goes out of his way to break them down mentally and physically, forcing everyone to bend to his will.
Paranoid - Leaks doesn't trust anyone. He was driven into the woods because he was a Cat of Ruin, in danger of being killed by a mob if he was found. He's never had community or family, and the small love he did have was wasted on someone who, from his point of view, betrayed him and tried to have him killed. For Leaks, the rest of the world is a hateful mistake that should be wiped out, and no punishment is great enough. But one gets the impression that Leaks is striking back at a perceived threat, that this is a retaliatory measure as far as he's concerned.
Wounded - Leaks makes himself out to be a cruel, impervious cat, and he's fashioned himself in such a way that he's carved out anything that could act in contradiction to that. But at his core, everything he does is because of a deep pain he once felt, and even now thoughts of those times still bring him bitterness and anger. There's a vulnerability that he covers in relentless hostility and nastiness, and while he was able to kill so much of that when he took away his own emotions, that won't work for long here.
History:
Leaks is a "Cat of Ruin", a cat born with black fur and mysterious powers, prophesised to bring catastrophe to the Ribika.
A very long time ago Leaks was capable of many emotions, although even back then he was quiet, proud, and naturally untrusting. He lived in isolation outside of the major city of Ransen, and though there were rumours of an evil magician living in the woods, nobody knew where he was for certain. At this time, Leaks was a cat who turned his back on the hostile world and focused entirely on his magic.
One day, Leaks followed the sound of a commotion in the woods and discovered a cat being attacked by a monster. He quickly drove the monster away and rescued the cat, who told him his name was Shui. Leaks learned that he had come from Ransen, and was a candidate for the next Sanga Lord.
Shui seemed to get lost in the woods many times after that, and Leaks found that he had to keep on rescuing him; in this way, Shui slowly got to know the reclusive and stubborn magician. Leaks reluctantly allowed himself to open up his life to Shui in turn, culminating in inviting him back to his hidden home. Shui would come to his home directly from then on, sitting and playing songs on his lute while Leaks read his books and practiced his magic. They would pass the hours so peacefully that Shui would sometimes fall asleep as they sat together into the night, and Leaks would cover him with a blanket. Shui vowed that he'd bring Leaks back to Ransen when he was a Sanga Lord and show them all that he wasn't an evil or ruinous cat.
However, one morning Shui came to his home in a subdued mood, and told him he could no longer come to see him. Leaks was devastated and furious, believing that Shui had abandoned him so that he could be promoted to Sanga Lord without any liabilities. Only a few days later, Leaks woke to the sight and sound of the forest burning around him and a mob of cats coming from Ransen to drive him out and destroy his home. Shui was the only person who knew of his location at the time, leaving him as the only one Leaks thought could possibly be responsible. After the commotion was over and the cats were driven away, Shui ran breathlessly through the burning woods seeking to explain, but was unable to make him hear his reasons for what happened.
Leaks was stoic on the surface, but his emotions ran deeper than even Shui could know, and the pain of being betrayed was unimaginable. He realised that what he'd felt for Shui had brought him nothing but bad luck and suffering. As an act of revenge and a solution to his pain, he used Shui's unborn baby as a 'vessel', casting a spell that would siphon all of his good and kind emotions into the baby and make him especially empathic, leaving Leaks with nothing to drive him but bitterness, anger, hate, and contempt.
Since then his power has grown exponentially, as has his hatred for all Ribika, going unchecked without any positive emotions. His aspiration is to destroy the world and reshape it into one devoid of emotion, so nobody can feel joy, or pain, or sorrow, or pleasure -- and at the time he's taken from, he's on the cusp of succeeding. Meigi cats serve him, the undead are pulled out of the ground to round up the Ribika and kill them. At this point, whole villages have been destroyed and their cats killed by the Void slicing them to pieces or the Shiku illness stealing parts of their body. Without his ability to feel affinity or sympathise with any other cat, Leaks has become a heartless sociopath who derives amusement from the torment and suffering of others.
Canon Abilities/Skills:
Leaks is a powerful magician. While there are other magic-users in his world who sing to empower warriors, known in the native language as Sanga, it's made clear that Leaks's 'songs' are different from that. In fact, Leaks has his own Sanga, who he uses to extend his abilities further.
On this point, Leaks is a strong character and someone who can't really be trusted not to use his powers to harm others frivolously, at least initially.
Aging - He has seeming immortality or doesn't age.
Energy - He can also create attacks made of pure energy and blast them at others. He can vary it to only cause unconsciousness.
Barrier - He can create protective barriers for himself that deflect bladed attacks and may potentially protect from more than that.
Concealment - He can conceal objects by bending space, including exceptionally large ones, like colossal trees that disappear into the clouds.
Teleportation - He can teleport. The distances involved and whether he needs to have visited the place beforehand isn't made clear, so I'm inclined to limit this one.
Shiku - He created the Shiku illness, which causes body parts to vanish entirely until the cat dies. This is no longer inherently lethal or permanent and can only be used on castmates successfully.
Void - With his Sanga's assistance he can create Void, a curse that causes the natural world to reject Ribika's bodies. The grass cuts their fingers if they touch it, water slices their throats and mouths if they try to drink it, etc. It's a painful and physically destructive song to sing, so it's likely he has his Sanga do it to spare himself from harm.
Magic theft - He is able to 'steal' magic from other magic-users, such as devils. At the time of being taken, he still had the power of all the devils, so he can put Devil Curses on others if he can get the chance to touch them, or use talismans on them.
Zombie armies - He is shown to raise armies of undead who do his bidding.
He also claims the ability to go into the past and change it by offering to alter various characters' histories and start their lives over from scratch, but this may be a bluff and for obvious reasons it makes sense to scrap it! Half this guy's powers are just plot-convenient macguffins anyway.
Suitability: I'm interested in giving Leaks a common goal with others, and forcing him into a position of cooperation through his circumstances. If I'm honest I think he'd be a very difficult addition at first ICly, particularly because of the necessity of a tether, but that's part of the appeal. Being forced to open up to someone for his own survival might be the only way his trajectory of destruction isn't terminal, and I think that'd make an otherwise deadlocked character a lot more open and interesting.
I also liked the sound of a game that balanced CR and missions while staying relatively small and manageable.
Inventory: A black mask with metal detailing that covers his face, skintight black leather pants, heeled boots with upturned tips, and a hooded coat with several serrated ornamental daggers attached. He also has a metal pendant on the end of his braid.
CHARACTER QUESTIONNAIRE
What are your character's feelings on freedom? How would they define freedom? How important is it to them? Would they fight for it, or have they fought for it in the past? If they have, how did they go about it?
Leaks's opinions can probably be intuited from his life before and after his emotion purge, but he never talks about it specifically.
He's effectively always abstained from Ribikan life and forged a path on his own. Since Ribika rejected him, he rejected them in turn. It feels like he would be a person who sees himself as above being concerned for collective freedoms, and fundamentally only serves himself and his individual needs. In one sense his own personal freedom has always been there as a result, uncontested because nobody can stand up to his power — but in another way, he's always been trapped outside of his own society and people, his fellow cats never able to regard him with anything but hatred or fear.
In any case, finding himself suddenly reliant on the help of others will be a massive and very undesirable shock, and he'll resent losing the freedom to go his own way immediately.
Describe a formative moment in your character's life, something that changed them and defined who they are as a person.
The defining moment of his life is probably the moment he first opened up to Shui and let himself feel love. Not only did everything cascade from that point in the sequence of events, but Shui was the first and only time he let himself care about another person. He's still not willing to open himself up to someone in that way again.
Does your character have a favorite person? If so, how would they describe that person? What do they like about that person? What do they dislike? If they don't have a favorite person, what would they look for in a favorite person? What traits would draw them to another person? What traits could they tolerate that others might not be able to?
These days Leaks only cares about himself, if he cares about anything - but that's more a rejection of all other things in the world, rather than actual positive feelings about himself. At one point however, Shui was all he cared for. At first he found Shui irritating, as he seemed to be hapless and always getting himself into trouble, but he had a gentle, sweet nature, and his keen interest in being Leaks's friend was unlike anything he'd experienced before. He wasn't used to others opening up to him or trusting him, and the way Shui disregarded the superstition and embraced him despite his strange powers was an acceptance Leaks could never have imagined. It's why Shui's perceived betrayal was so destructive.
Also he'd look for a redhead lmao
What has your character's arc been like so far? How have they developed from their first appearance to their canon point?
Leaks has changed a great deal over the span of his lifetime and the key moments we see in his story. Originally just a reclusive, quiet cat who threw himself into learning magic with all his heart, he's let himself become consumed with hatred for the world, and in his cruelty he wants to watch it suffer a slow and terrible death. He's gone past the point of no return in his world by wiping out so many Ribika, and even once Shui's ghost plants the seed of doubt in his mind about what he's doing, he refuses to acknowledge it for what it means.
How would you like to continue your character's arc in the game? How would you like them to develop? What would you like to have them accomplish?
I'd like him to grapple with the return of his emotions. Although in the game he has half of them removed, there is a lot of canon showing his behaviour as a cat with feelings. The CD Drama ~Rhapsody of the Past~ fleshes out his relationship with Shui from beginning to 'betrayal'. The visual novel itself, while it only summarises the events the first few times, gives you the full story once you clear it, with complete dialogue and extended sections of text. We have a really clear vision of the kind of cat Leaks can be when he has emotions - and while he's still quite gruff and abrasive, he's capable of a lot of tenderness and sincerity.
Lamento has an interesting way of dealing with Leaks's emotions and lack thereof. He felt rage because he was betrayed, but to feel betrayed he had to have felt love and trust. If you take away those feelings, one would expect Leaks to no longer care because trusting Shui will have lost its significance, but instead his rage continues. It's a literal subtraction of love without affecting anything it caused. If Leaks returns to feeling a full range of emotions, I think it would be interesting to explore him coming to terms with the scope of the horror and bloodshed he's caused, and whether he finds a similar way to compartmentalise those feelings.
Aside from that, I just want him to meet some cool people and have some nice threads where he learns about different people and worlds. :)
SAMPLES
1, 2.
God I hope these tiny samples are okay. I have not RPed this asshole since 2012 so my other samples are old as balls. :(
If you'd like me to write anything custom for the application, please do let me know.