The Grizzly's Sin of Sloth, Fairy King Harlequin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
agrizzlysin) wrote2018-03-24 08:34 pm
agrizzlysin) wrote2018-03-24 08:34 pm
Entry tags:
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PLAYER
YOUR NAME: Wind
18+?: Yes
CONTACT:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
shogunsensual
CHARACTERS IN GAME: Kamui
RESERVATION LINK: Harlequin reserve
YOUR NAME: Wind
18+?: Yes
CONTACT:
CHARACTERS IN GAME: Kamui
RESERVATION LINK: Harlequin reserve
CHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: Fairy King Harlequin, or just King
AGE: Older than 1,300 but younger than 3,000
CANON: The Seven Deadly Sins
NAME: Fairy King Harlequin, or just King
AGE: Older than 1,300 but younger than 3,000
CANON: The Seven Deadly Sins
CANON HISTORY: "A Sin shall ask no questions of another member's sin."
CANON PERSONALITY: Funny enough, though King represents the deadly sin of sloth, he sees himself as selfish rather than lazy. Throughout his centuries of life, he's come to cherish too many things, more things than a single person can possibly protect. When asked what his "number one" would be, King refuses to choose. His sister Elaine, his best friend Helbram, the Fairy King's forest, the fairies who live there, the giantess Diane... They're all his number one, and he can't bear to lose any one of them. Of course, because he tries to save them all and all on his own, he systematically loses them all. For several hundred years, he even loses himself, amnesia stealing his very identify from him. Indecision, hesitation, avoidance, and being too content with the status quo are all reasons King has found not to act because he's afraid of facing those losses. Not acting has only ensured that those losses become reality.
Thus, the Grizzly's Sin of Sloth is born.
First and foremost, it's important to remember that King is not human. He doesn't see the world as humans do. Because they have such long lifespans, fairies don't feel rushed to accomplish anything. Building a family, warring with others, and even leaving behind a legacy are considered human fancies. This leads them to be very lazy and laid back as a whole. King is no exception. Like all fairies, he's content to fly most everywhere, lounging on his levitating pillow and dodging the pointless brawls Meliodas and Ban love so much. Even as Fairy King, he doesn't so much manage or control the Fairy King's Forest as play around with his subjects until an outside force attacks. With the sloth of his people, however, also comes patience. King is a ranged fighter in many ways, willing to step back and let his opponent make the first move. This extends beyond battle as well. He's the type of person who can promise to love someone always and keep that promise two hundred years after the one he promised forgets. He doesn't change his mind easily, not when he's had centuries to settle into his feelings. Unfortunately, due to his circumstances, King has no choice but to operate on a compressed human timeline because he has no choice but to operate with humans.
King's relationship with humanity is difficult at best. His job as Fairy King is to keep the peace between humanity and faeries, so from the very start, most of the humans he's had to deal with directly were the ones trying to break that peace. He is fascinated with the things they create, but he also knows from experience that while humans make beautiful things, they also destroy them. In essence, humans are interesting to watch. They just can't be trusted. King's default mindset is that any human is "guilty until proven innocent." This is evidenced by how easily he believes Ban must have killed his sister out of greed after hearing it from an otherwise unreliable source. Ban is human, so of course he's greedy enough to commit murder. Every once in a while, people like Princess Elizabeth reach him with their earnest efforts to protect those they love, and despite his own feelings, King remains largely proper and polite when addressing human authority. But when someone wrongs him or the fairy people, he treats them with shameless and prejudiced contempt. An eye for an eye, a human life for a fairy life. He won't hide what's really important to him.
At least, he won't hide it until what's important to him is something that shouldn't be. As the Fairy King, it is his duty to protect the Fairy King's Forest and uphold the peace treaty between fairies and humans. It is not his duty to protect Diane or the humans of Liones, but he has spent centuries doing just that. He may have been arrested for allowing his best friend Helbram to slaughter human cities unchecked for five hundred years, but that is only the human perspective. His fairy subjects were aghast that he would abandon the forest to save just one person. He himself was mortified that he couldn't be in five damn places at once so that he could have looked after his little sister, saved Helbram from his suffering, and protected Diane at the same time. He hates himself for not being able to do enough for anyone he cares about. Now King can't help but want to protect everyone he can in a battle, even those he feels he should hate out of duty to the Fairy Realm. He can't always say as much. Nearly every time he shields a human, he uses the excuse that he only did it under Meliodas' orders or because they just happened to be near Diane, the one he really wanted to protect. He even uses the Seven Deadly Sins as an excuse to stay close to Diane. Even though everyone else knows it, it takes a damn 3,000 year old holy war and a mutual out of body experience before he finally says as much to Diane herself. He cares too much though he doesn't want to care at all, hates himself for abandoning his own kingdom and yet can't bring himself to abandon Liones, adores but also despises what humans (and he himself) are capable of.
This wouldn't surprise anyone who knows him well. King is unabashedly emotional, as quick to tears as he is to anger, as transparent in love as he is in war. This is a surprising rarity among the Seven Deadly Sins, which in an ironic twist, turns King into the pragmatic straight man of the group. Compared to the extremely lopsided personalities of his companions, King is both emotionally well-balanced and responsible enough to see the bigger picture and assess their situations accordingly. It also leads him to act on the emotions his companions refuse or are unable to show. Captain Meliodas refers to him as the mascot of the Seven Deadly Sins because he's the kind of person who can cry over Ban stealing stuffed animals from children and then return each and every one of those stuffed animals to their rightful owners like some ridiculous, fairy Santa Claus. But he's also the kind of person who can attack his own captain, the first man to tell him he was a great king, because Diane and Ban trust him too much, and he doesn't want to see them betrayed.
Quite frankly, King has something of a responsibility overload, especially since he never asked for any of it. Despite the many years that he's lived, he's not very mature for a fairy. He's only just begun to grow in his wings. Still the Sacred Tree chose him as Fairy King. Then when he joined the Seven Deadly Sins and swore to protect the Kingdom of Liones, he did so as a prisoner serving a thousand year sentence. He's been saddled with so much and lived for so long that it was only a matter of time before he made a crucial mistake. He doesn't see it that way. For better or worse, King is determined to live up to every ounce of responsibility he's been given. His determination, not only to atone but also to prevent past mistakes from happening again, is what allows him to sacrifice himself so completely for others. He tears his body to shreds in battles that aren't his to fight alone because he also readily accepts the blame that isn't his to carry alone. Many of his "sins" are the result of being forced to make an impossible choice, where no matter which option he takes, he's guaranteed to regret losing the other. King recognizes them as sins nonetheless and recognizes himself as a criminal, a "fool beyond saving."
A fool he may be, but certainly not beyond saving. As Howzer, a holy knight and thus an enemy at the time, contests after King shields him from certain death: "The Seven Deadly Sins are just a bunch of fools that are too kind for their own good."
SKILLS/ABILITIES: King is physically weaker than even the average human. Without his powers and sacred treasure, he has no chance of fighting back against anyone. His magical abilities, however, often allow him to hide this glaring weakness.
• Levitation/Flight: King's most utilized ability. He is able to move himself and other objects through the air, from something as small as tipping a tea cup off a table to something as large scale as sending hundreds of knives careening toward his opponents. Though King does eventually grow wings, he does not depend on them to fly.
• Sensing Energy: Many warriors are able to sense the power of others even when they're a fair distance away. King is one of them. This ability has vague results when not coupled with the magical item Balor's Eye, which allows a person to see exact power levels. For example, if the power is far enough away, King can only sense that there is power, not what kind of power or how many people are exuding that power. The closer he gets to the source, the better he can discern these details.
• Memory Erasure: This ability has yet to be elaborated on, but it is fact that King erases hundreds of years from Diane's memories in order to ensure she forgets about him. He does this by pricking her with an unidentified flower.
• Transformation: King is able to change his appearance, taking on a "human" form. Despite how greatly his height and weight shifts during this transformation, he is able to fashion new clothing or resize his signature outfit whenever he changes form. It's also implied that all faeries have the ability to transform plants into clothing, which might be related.
• Disaster: King's innate power as the lord of fairies. It allows him to manipulate the natural properties of organic matter. As Merlin sums it up, "A mere scratch becomes a grave wound, a normal poison can become a fatal toxin, and a small tumor can grow to a massive size. The power allows him, as the fairy king, to manage and rule over the plants and forests by exercising complete control over life and death." Though such power on its own may sound godlike, it is greatly limited by King's ability to channel it. If King is weakened through damage, mental anguish, or flat out distraction, his power diminishes exponentially. If King is motivated by his desperate need to protect his loved ones or his home, it increases (which can potentially shatter his body, as seen when he calls upon more power than his body can handle in his battle against the demon clan's Albion, the force of which rips all of his fingernails off). This power is shown in canon when King turns the small cut he's given Meliodas into a large gash and then condenses all of the water within Meliodas' baton into a single drop, turning it into a would-be bullet for him to levitate. He also uses it in conjunction with his sacred treasure, which was forged from the wood of the sacred tree in the fairy realm.
King's sacred treasure is the Spirit Spear Chastiefol, and as a sacred treasure, there's no way a normal person could hope to wield it. It's hard enough just to lift it without King's levitation and disaster abilities. Because he is so much more dependent on his weapon than the other Sins, he always has it with him in the form of a green pillow. The magical spear is stronger than steel and capable of regeneration (perhaps due to King's Disaster ability). It also has many forms, each displaying a different aspect of the sacred tree.
• Form One, Spirit Spear: A heavy spear with no particular aspects other than speed and power. King levitates the spear and directs it to unrelentingly pursue his opponents.
• Form Two, Guardian: A giant stuffed bear formed by shape-shifting the moss that grows on the sacred tree (and thus on Chastiefol). The moss has a high water content, meaning it's resistant to flames and heat but weak to cold. King can order it to immobilize enemies or catch allies as well as fight.
• Form Three, Fossilization: A more organic spear that resembles a crustacean's claw and armor. Once King stabs someone with it, he can petrify them, a technique that's useful against people like Ban who are technically immortal. If the stabbed body part is cut off before the petrification spreads, it can be stopped. It's also implied that King can reverse the effects if he chooses.
• Form Four, Sunflower: A large flower that towers buildings with its size. When King summons this form, a flower bud forces its way out of the earth and grows to maturity in an instant. The moment it blooms, the flower releases a barrage of projectiles like rays of the sun.
• Form Five, Increase: A variable number of smaller blades that act much the same way as Chastiefol's first form. In this form, King can control each blade individually, turning them into a literal swarm of knives. The density of this swarm allows him to use it both offensively and defensively.
• Form Seven, Luminosity: A ringed ball of light shaped much like Saturn. King uses it as a lantern.
• Form Eight, Pollen Garden: A barrier formed with the pollen of the sacred tree. King uses it to protect others in destructive battles. The pollen also has healing properties. While it doesn't heal wounds fast enough to be of any use in battle, it does take away the pain of those wounds.
• Forms Six, Nine, and Ten have yet to be revealed.
• True Spirit Spear Chastiefol: Form One, Form Two, Form Four, Form Five. These are simply powered up versions of Chastiefol's ten forms, what the ten forms would have been if King hadn't started out so weak. King can't effectively wield them without his wings to draw out more of his latent power.
CANON PERSONALITY: Funny enough, though King represents the deadly sin of sloth, he sees himself as selfish rather than lazy. Throughout his centuries of life, he's come to cherish too many things, more things than a single person can possibly protect. When asked what his "number one" would be, King refuses to choose. His sister Elaine, his best friend Helbram, the Fairy King's forest, the fairies who live there, the giantess Diane... They're all his number one, and he can't bear to lose any one of them. Of course, because he tries to save them all and all on his own, he systematically loses them all. For several hundred years, he even loses himself, amnesia stealing his very identify from him. Indecision, hesitation, avoidance, and being too content with the status quo are all reasons King has found not to act because he's afraid of facing those losses. Not acting has only ensured that those losses become reality.
Thus, the Grizzly's Sin of Sloth is born.
First and foremost, it's important to remember that King is not human. He doesn't see the world as humans do. Because they have such long lifespans, fairies don't feel rushed to accomplish anything. Building a family, warring with others, and even leaving behind a legacy are considered human fancies. This leads them to be very lazy and laid back as a whole. King is no exception. Like all fairies, he's content to fly most everywhere, lounging on his levitating pillow and dodging the pointless brawls Meliodas and Ban love so much. Even as Fairy King, he doesn't so much manage or control the Fairy King's Forest as play around with his subjects until an outside force attacks. With the sloth of his people, however, also comes patience. King is a ranged fighter in many ways, willing to step back and let his opponent make the first move. This extends beyond battle as well. He's the type of person who can promise to love someone always and keep that promise two hundred years after the one he promised forgets. He doesn't change his mind easily, not when he's had centuries to settle into his feelings. Unfortunately, due to his circumstances, King has no choice but to operate on a compressed human timeline because he has no choice but to operate with humans.
King's relationship with humanity is difficult at best. His job as Fairy King is to keep the peace between humanity and faeries, so from the very start, most of the humans he's had to deal with directly were the ones trying to break that peace. He is fascinated with the things they create, but he also knows from experience that while humans make beautiful things, they also destroy them. In essence, humans are interesting to watch. They just can't be trusted. King's default mindset is that any human is "guilty until proven innocent." This is evidenced by how easily he believes Ban must have killed his sister out of greed after hearing it from an otherwise unreliable source. Ban is human, so of course he's greedy enough to commit murder. Every once in a while, people like Princess Elizabeth reach him with their earnest efforts to protect those they love, and despite his own feelings, King remains largely proper and polite when addressing human authority. But when someone wrongs him or the fairy people, he treats them with shameless and prejudiced contempt. An eye for an eye, a human life for a fairy life. He won't hide what's really important to him.
At least, he won't hide it until what's important to him is something that shouldn't be. As the Fairy King, it is his duty to protect the Fairy King's Forest and uphold the peace treaty between fairies and humans. It is not his duty to protect Diane or the humans of Liones, but he has spent centuries doing just that. He may have been arrested for allowing his best friend Helbram to slaughter human cities unchecked for five hundred years, but that is only the human perspective. His fairy subjects were aghast that he would abandon the forest to save just one person. He himself was mortified that he couldn't be in five damn places at once so that he could have looked after his little sister, saved Helbram from his suffering, and protected Diane at the same time. He hates himself for not being able to do enough for anyone he cares about. Now King can't help but want to protect everyone he can in a battle, even those he feels he should hate out of duty to the Fairy Realm. He can't always say as much. Nearly every time he shields a human, he uses the excuse that he only did it under Meliodas' orders or because they just happened to be near Diane, the one he really wanted to protect. He even uses the Seven Deadly Sins as an excuse to stay close to Diane. Even though everyone else knows it, it takes a damn 3,000 year old holy war and a mutual out of body experience before he finally says as much to Diane herself. He cares too much though he doesn't want to care at all, hates himself for abandoning his own kingdom and yet can't bring himself to abandon Liones, adores but also despises what humans (and he himself) are capable of.
This wouldn't surprise anyone who knows him well. King is unabashedly emotional, as quick to tears as he is to anger, as transparent in love as he is in war. This is a surprising rarity among the Seven Deadly Sins, which in an ironic twist, turns King into the pragmatic straight man of the group. Compared to the extremely lopsided personalities of his companions, King is both emotionally well-balanced and responsible enough to see the bigger picture and assess their situations accordingly. It also leads him to act on the emotions his companions refuse or are unable to show. Captain Meliodas refers to him as the mascot of the Seven Deadly Sins because he's the kind of person who can cry over Ban stealing stuffed animals from children and then return each and every one of those stuffed animals to their rightful owners like some ridiculous, fairy Santa Claus. But he's also the kind of person who can attack his own captain, the first man to tell him he was a great king, because Diane and Ban trust him too much, and he doesn't want to see them betrayed.
Quite frankly, King has something of a responsibility overload, especially since he never asked for any of it. Despite the many years that he's lived, he's not very mature for a fairy. He's only just begun to grow in his wings. Still the Sacred Tree chose him as Fairy King. Then when he joined the Seven Deadly Sins and swore to protect the Kingdom of Liones, he did so as a prisoner serving a thousand year sentence. He's been saddled with so much and lived for so long that it was only a matter of time before he made a crucial mistake. He doesn't see it that way. For better or worse, King is determined to live up to every ounce of responsibility he's been given. His determination, not only to atone but also to prevent past mistakes from happening again, is what allows him to sacrifice himself so completely for others. He tears his body to shreds in battles that aren't his to fight alone because he also readily accepts the blame that isn't his to carry alone. Many of his "sins" are the result of being forced to make an impossible choice, where no matter which option he takes, he's guaranteed to regret losing the other. King recognizes them as sins nonetheless and recognizes himself as a criminal, a "fool beyond saving."
A fool he may be, but certainly not beyond saving. As Howzer, a holy knight and thus an enemy at the time, contests after King shields him from certain death: "The Seven Deadly Sins are just a bunch of fools that are too kind for their own good."
SKILLS/ABILITIES: King is physically weaker than even the average human. Without his powers and sacred treasure, he has no chance of fighting back against anyone. His magical abilities, however, often allow him to hide this glaring weakness.
• Levitation/Flight: King's most utilized ability. He is able to move himself and other objects through the air, from something as small as tipping a tea cup off a table to something as large scale as sending hundreds of knives careening toward his opponents. Though King does eventually grow wings, he does not depend on them to fly.
• Sensing Energy: Many warriors are able to sense the power of others even when they're a fair distance away. King is one of them. This ability has vague results when not coupled with the magical item Balor's Eye, which allows a person to see exact power levels. For example, if the power is far enough away, King can only sense that there is power, not what kind of power or how many people are exuding that power. The closer he gets to the source, the better he can discern these details.
• Memory Erasure: This ability has yet to be elaborated on, but it is fact that King erases hundreds of years from Diane's memories in order to ensure she forgets about him. He does this by pricking her with an unidentified flower.
• Transformation: King is able to change his appearance, taking on a "human" form. Despite how greatly his height and weight shifts during this transformation, he is able to fashion new clothing or resize his signature outfit whenever he changes form. It's also implied that all faeries have the ability to transform plants into clothing, which might be related.
• Disaster: King's innate power as the lord of fairies. It allows him to manipulate the natural properties of organic matter. As Merlin sums it up, "A mere scratch becomes a grave wound, a normal poison can become a fatal toxin, and a small tumor can grow to a massive size. The power allows him, as the fairy king, to manage and rule over the plants and forests by exercising complete control over life and death." Though such power on its own may sound godlike, it is greatly limited by King's ability to channel it. If King is weakened through damage, mental anguish, or flat out distraction, his power diminishes exponentially. If King is motivated by his desperate need to protect his loved ones or his home, it increases (which can potentially shatter his body, as seen when he calls upon more power than his body can handle in his battle against the demon clan's Albion, the force of which rips all of his fingernails off). This power is shown in canon when King turns the small cut he's given Meliodas into a large gash and then condenses all of the water within Meliodas' baton into a single drop, turning it into a would-be bullet for him to levitate. He also uses it in conjunction with his sacred treasure, which was forged from the wood of the sacred tree in the fairy realm.
King's sacred treasure is the Spirit Spear Chastiefol, and as a sacred treasure, there's no way a normal person could hope to wield it. It's hard enough just to lift it without King's levitation and disaster abilities. Because he is so much more dependent on his weapon than the other Sins, he always has it with him in the form of a green pillow. The magical spear is stronger than steel and capable of regeneration (perhaps due to King's Disaster ability). It also has many forms, each displaying a different aspect of the sacred tree.
• Form One, Spirit Spear: A heavy spear with no particular aspects other than speed and power. King levitates the spear and directs it to unrelentingly pursue his opponents.
• Form Two, Guardian: A giant stuffed bear formed by shape-shifting the moss that grows on the sacred tree (and thus on Chastiefol). The moss has a high water content, meaning it's resistant to flames and heat but weak to cold. King can order it to immobilize enemies or catch allies as well as fight.
• Form Three, Fossilization: A more organic spear that resembles a crustacean's claw and armor. Once King stabs someone with it, he can petrify them, a technique that's useful against people like Ban who are technically immortal. If the stabbed body part is cut off before the petrification spreads, it can be stopped. It's also implied that King can reverse the effects if he chooses.
• Form Four, Sunflower: A large flower that towers buildings with its size. When King summons this form, a flower bud forces its way out of the earth and grows to maturity in an instant. The moment it blooms, the flower releases a barrage of projectiles like rays of the sun.
• Form Five, Increase: A variable number of smaller blades that act much the same way as Chastiefol's first form. In this form, King can control each blade individually, turning them into a literal swarm of knives. The density of this swarm allows him to use it both offensively and defensively.
• Form Seven, Luminosity: A ringed ball of light shaped much like Saturn. King uses it as a lantern.
• Form Eight, Pollen Garden: A barrier formed with the pollen of the sacred tree. King uses it to protect others in destructive battles. The pollen also has healing properties. While it doesn't heal wounds fast enough to be of any use in battle, it does take away the pain of those wounds.
• Forms Six, Nine, and Ten have yet to be revealed.
• True Spirit Spear Chastiefol: Form One, Form Two, Form Four, Form Five. These are simply powered up versions of Chastiefol's ten forms, what the ten forms would have been if King hadn't started out so weak. King can't effectively wield them without his wings to draw out more of his latent power.
CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: Harlequin "Quin" Pine
AU AGE: 14
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: Quin, unlike King, has no wings, and he ages just like any other Recolle citizen.
AU NAME: Harlequin "Quin" Pine
AU AGE: 14
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: Quin, unlike King, has no wings, and he ages just like any other Recolle citizen.
AU HISTORY: Harlequin was born fourteen years ago to Gertrude and Glaucio Pine. The two of them made up a prevalent event planning team and were constantly busy planning out other people's lives. Thus most of Quin's life was spent in the company of family friends and babysitters.
His childhood firsts were all witnessed and celebrated by Dollie, his grandmother on his father's side. She would sew stuffed animals and patch together quilts for him. In fact, she was the one who first taught him how to sew when he was still too young to use anything more than a kid's plastic needle. He loved her, admired her more than he ever did his own parents and actually listened to her when she scolded him. She passed away just before his ninth birthday. While she was babysitting him, she had a heart attack. He was playing in another room. He didn't even notice. By the time he found her body, it was too late. He was despondent for a very long time, but eventually, he picked up a real sewing needle and began to teach himself more complicated techniques, if only so that he could do necessary repairs on everything she had made for him. Over the years he came to enjoy creating things on his own.
Unlike his grandmother, his parents had always been quick to throw money at him to keep him happy, and so it was no surprise that this was how they decided to comfort him after her death. Quin was all too willing to take advantage of this. He demanded the best consoles and gaming computers available, the most expensive sewing machines and materials he could find in any given catalog, even a large trampoline for their backyard on a whim. He got it all. The only thing they denied him was their own time. Quin never complained. It wouldn't get him anywhere anyway. He had stopped expecting things from them very early on and was quite content to reap the rewards their parenting ignorance had sown.
The real problem reared its ugly head when his parents started expecting things from him.
Around the time he started middle school, Quin began to notice a change. Gertrude would ask him if he wanted to see what mommy and daddy's work was like, if he would tour the venues with them, what he thought of various design decisions. He blew her off again and again despite that when asked he couldn't produce anything else he'd rather do with his life. He wasn't interested in his parents, and so he wasn't interested in their work by extension. Besides, he had an online raid scheduled! When all of Gertrude's attempts had failed, it was Glaucio's turn to step in, have a father-son talk with his boy about their high hopes for him. Quin responded by not coming home the next day. Or the following day. Or the day after that.
Not only was he not interested in the family business, but he absolutely did not want to hear about the great expectations his parents held for him. If he listened to them, he'd think about them, and if he thought about them, he'd start imagining the many, many ways he would fail them. Just like he'd failed his grandmother.
During his stint away from home, he skipped school to hang around libraries and restaurants then stayed overnight with friends like Sakura (keystaff). He never let on that his parents had no idea where he was, and his parents didn't tell anyone else either. When he finally walked through the front door three days later, they had retreated, not knowing what else to do except pretend that nothing had happened.
Now that he's nearly finished with his first year of high school, however, his mom has begun to poke and prod again. It's gone about as well as anyone could have expected. Quin is simply that dead set on never risking another failure, no matter how impossible this goal may be.
AU PERSONALITY: The deciding difference between King and Quin is that Quin is lacking centuries of life experience and emotional maturity. The fact that Quin is not only human but has lived a relatively easy life makes a huge difference in how he views the world.
For starters, Quin has never had to fight for his or anyone else's life. The esteemed shounen manga values of every cliche protagonist mean squat to a scrawny teenage boy who just wants to skate by in life with minimum effort. Quin is not the kid who protects his friends from evil or fights for what he believes in. Whatever wrongs may be plaguing the world this day are not his problem until one of his more righteous friends drags him into it. Even then, everyone's going to know he's a reluctant participant. He not only lacks the motivation to be aggressive, he doesn't have the strength for it. Quin's wet noodle status means he's more likely to rely on the authorities than to waste his time protecting his own pathetic pride.
Being born human means Quin grew up with many human concepts that King did not. The idea of competition is one of them. Quin is incredibly competitive as long as his skill is being tested rather than his power. He plays every video game with the fire of victory in his eyes, and he puts a great deal of effort into everything he sews, comparing his finished product to everything the rest of the world has to offer. This may not be great for his self esteem, but it does wonders in getting Quin up off his lazy ass. Passive though Quin may be in general, when he finds something he enjoys, he wants to be the best at it. He wants to be the best gamer, the best crafter, the best friend, and the best boyfriend anyone has ever seen.
Too bad he's inherited King's insecurities.
Quin has no problem making friends or being social. He likes some people, dislikes others, and falls head over heels for a select few. He's comfortable enough in his own skin to interact with all of them. The effort that goes into maintaining those relationships is where he loses his cool. If it's his friend's birthday, for example, then Quin leaps in with an all or nothing mindset. He has to come up with the best place to hold the best party where he can give the best gift and make sure his friend has the best time possible! He'll fret and worry and agonize for days until he overwhelms himself and decides to hide away in some MMORPG instead, forgetting about his friend's birthday entirely. He deals with his crushes in much the same way. Quin will pine forever rather than face the potential for disappointment that confessions offer. There's nothing wrong with unrequited love! He can live vicariously through his friends' relationships!
Many of these personality contrasts come about because of one key variation between King and Quin: willingness to take responsibility. Quin has none. Zilch, zero, nada, not even remotely interested. Because of his age, he's been able to dodge a great deal of responsibility up until now, and he plans to keep doing so for as long as humanly possible. He doesn't want to do well in school if that just means everyone will expect more of him, he doesn't want to take care of a younger sibling or even just a pet no matter how cute, and he doesn't want to help run the family business if it's going to take over his whole damn life. Sometimes, Quin will act out for the sole purpose of reminding his parents or teachers that he's unreliable, a character trait he's essentially invented for himself. He might not do his part of a group presentation despite having completed all the paperwork because he doesn't feel like getting up in front of the class, or he might steal money from his parents' ample wallets and hand it over to a homeless person he's never even talked to before. Anything to preserve his freedom from obligation.
Because the moment he feels truly responsible for something, actually wants to protect or nurture it, he knows he's going to fail for real.
His childhood firsts were all witnessed and celebrated by Dollie, his grandmother on his father's side. She would sew stuffed animals and patch together quilts for him. In fact, she was the one who first taught him how to sew when he was still too young to use anything more than a kid's plastic needle. He loved her, admired her more than he ever did his own parents and actually listened to her when she scolded him. She passed away just before his ninth birthday. While she was babysitting him, she had a heart attack. He was playing in another room. He didn't even notice. By the time he found her body, it was too late. He was despondent for a very long time, but eventually, he picked up a real sewing needle and began to teach himself more complicated techniques, if only so that he could do necessary repairs on everything she had made for him. Over the years he came to enjoy creating things on his own.
Unlike his grandmother, his parents had always been quick to throw money at him to keep him happy, and so it was no surprise that this was how they decided to comfort him after her death. Quin was all too willing to take advantage of this. He demanded the best consoles and gaming computers available, the most expensive sewing machines and materials he could find in any given catalog, even a large trampoline for their backyard on a whim. He got it all. The only thing they denied him was their own time. Quin never complained. It wouldn't get him anywhere anyway. He had stopped expecting things from them very early on and was quite content to reap the rewards their parenting ignorance had sown.
The real problem reared its ugly head when his parents started expecting things from him.
Around the time he started middle school, Quin began to notice a change. Gertrude would ask him if he wanted to see what mommy and daddy's work was like, if he would tour the venues with them, what he thought of various design decisions. He blew her off again and again despite that when asked he couldn't produce anything else he'd rather do with his life. He wasn't interested in his parents, and so he wasn't interested in their work by extension. Besides, he had an online raid scheduled! When all of Gertrude's attempts had failed, it was Glaucio's turn to step in, have a father-son talk with his boy about their high hopes for him. Quin responded by not coming home the next day. Or the following day. Or the day after that.
Not only was he not interested in the family business, but he absolutely did not want to hear about the great expectations his parents held for him. If he listened to them, he'd think about them, and if he thought about them, he'd start imagining the many, many ways he would fail them. Just like he'd failed his grandmother.
During his stint away from home, he skipped school to hang around libraries and restaurants then stayed overnight with friends like Sakura (
keystaff). He never let on that his parents had no idea where he was, and his parents didn't tell anyone else either. When he finally walked through the front door three days later, they had retreated, not knowing what else to do except pretend that nothing had happened.Now that he's nearly finished with his first year of high school, however, his mom has begun to poke and prod again. It's gone about as well as anyone could have expected. Quin is simply that dead set on never risking another failure, no matter how impossible this goal may be.
AU PERSONALITY: The deciding difference between King and Quin is that Quin is lacking centuries of life experience and emotional maturity. The fact that Quin is not only human but has lived a relatively easy life makes a huge difference in how he views the world.
For starters, Quin has never had to fight for his or anyone else's life. The esteemed shounen manga values of every cliche protagonist mean squat to a scrawny teenage boy who just wants to skate by in life with minimum effort. Quin is not the kid who protects his friends from evil or fights for what he believes in. Whatever wrongs may be plaguing the world this day are not his problem until one of his more righteous friends drags him into it. Even then, everyone's going to know he's a reluctant participant. He not only lacks the motivation to be aggressive, he doesn't have the strength for it. Quin's wet noodle status means he's more likely to rely on the authorities than to waste his time protecting his own pathetic pride.
Being born human means Quin grew up with many human concepts that King did not. The idea of competition is one of them. Quin is incredibly competitive as long as his skill is being tested rather than his power. He plays every video game with the fire of victory in his eyes, and he puts a great deal of effort into everything he sews, comparing his finished product to everything the rest of the world has to offer. This may not be great for his self esteem, but it does wonders in getting Quin up off his lazy ass. Passive though Quin may be in general, when he finds something he enjoys, he wants to be the best at it. He wants to be the best gamer, the best crafter, the best friend, and the best boyfriend anyone has ever seen.
Too bad he's inherited King's insecurities.
Quin has no problem making friends or being social. He likes some people, dislikes others, and falls head over heels for a select few. He's comfortable enough in his own skin to interact with all of them. The effort that goes into maintaining those relationships is where he loses his cool. If it's his friend's birthday, for example, then Quin leaps in with an all or nothing mindset. He has to come up with the best place to hold the best party where he can give the best gift and make sure his friend has the best time possible! He'll fret and worry and agonize for days until he overwhelms himself and decides to hide away in some MMORPG instead, forgetting about his friend's birthday entirely. He deals with his crushes in much the same way. Quin will pine forever rather than face the potential for disappointment that confessions offer. There's nothing wrong with unrequited love! He can live vicariously through his friends' relationships!
Many of these personality contrasts come about because of one key variation between King and Quin: willingness to take responsibility. Quin has none. Zilch, zero, nada, not even remotely interested. Because of his age, he's been able to dodge a great deal of responsibility up until now, and he plans to keep doing so for as long as humanly possible. He doesn't want to do well in school if that just means everyone will expect more of him, he doesn't want to take care of a younger sibling or even just a pet no matter how cute, and he doesn't want to help run the family business if it's going to take over his whole damn life. Sometimes, Quin will act out for the sole purpose of reminding his parents or teachers that he's unreliable, a character trait he's essentially invented for himself. He might not do his part of a group presentation despite having completed all the paperwork because he doesn't feel like getting up in front of the class, or he might steal money from his parents' ample wallets and hand it over to a homeless person he's never even talked to before. Anything to preserve his freedom from obligation.
Because the moment he feels truly responsible for something, actually wants to protect or nurture it, he knows he's going to fail for real.