perilously | somnia (app)

PLAYER INFO

Name: haku
Preferred Contact: pm / endearments / disco available on request (can do this via plurk or pm)
Age: 30+
Invite Link: invite

CHARACTER INFO

Character Name:
Canon: x/1999
Age: 15-16
If Under 16, why is this character a good thematic fit for Somnia?: X/1999 is a setting on the tenterhooks of a foreordained apocalypse it is trying desperately to avoid, well, on one side anyway, Kamui's side. Somnia reflects quite horrifically, through Kamui's lens, what could happen to Tokyo and the Earth as a whole if he doesn't fulfill his role. Somnia's horror aspects are no less or more than the nightmares both waking and in dreamwalking that X/1999 presents to the reader and also through/to Kamui himself. He's well suited to a realm in disrepair that requires connections to happen and truths to be unfurled by hook or by crook, both because that is something he has to contend with in his regular reality (is anything about X regular I ask knowing the answer) but might actually have better luck untangling in a setting such as Somnia provides.
Canon Point: vol 16. ch. 8 after rainbow bridge / subaru goes missing
Wiki Link(s): history NOT including last paragraph since that is anime-only and he's from manga canon rip + personality more accurate to canon point in second paragraph

SOMNIA-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

1. Dreams are how Sleep chooses you. What might draw your character into Somnia— a wound, a wish, a weakness? Would they follow the dream, or run from it?

All three. Jokes aside, it's true: a wound, a wish, a weakness. And in X/1999 one can be three. For Kamui this proves repeatedly to be true. A wish he cannot relinquish, refuses to, despite that it might make people unhappy or hurt others, is his current motivation. His "destiny" however, foreordained as it is written, is also a wish: that of a dreamseer and others to save Tokyo. The intersection of what other people want and expect of Kamui is then bisected again by Kamui figuring out what he wants, and while the canon itself has no conclusion, it's fairly clear that those things are already at odds.

A conflict of interests if ever there was one, it's important to note that Kamui is one side of a coin. His "twin star" who is also Kamui but in the vessel of his childhood friend Fuuma is the flip. Kamui Shirou's wish is to return Fuuma, but he doesn't know how to do that while also he is willing to sacrifice a great deal despite continuously running in the direction of an apocalypse he's supposed to be preventing.

There are many threads by which Sleep could draw this messiah in, and considering his experience in dreamwalking he would not knee-jerk reflex try to run, but he would be invested in figuring out how to wake up because of what is going on in his world/the waking world as he knows it.

2. Somnia is a slow unraveling—of worlds, and of selves. How does your character respond to fear, transformation, and losing control? Do they fight, adapt, collapse?

First off, Kamui despite feeling a great deal has also had a polarizing mix of intimate childhood bonds then six formative years of near isolation where his major connection was...his mom. His mom who he sees burn to death and soon after learns she was a sacrifice for the literal Earth. I cite all of this because it's important in the way that when we stack this on top of the other traumatic events that catalyze him towards his path, Kamui feels a lot and in response to the death of one of his childhood friends and the possession (for lack of a better word) of the other, crashes out and buries himself in his own mind while holding the head of the friend who died.

But.

That is pre-awakening Kamui, we'll call him. After he is saved by Sumeragi Subaru who dream dives to rescue him, it's the bucket of cold water thrown onto the fire, or sand, as it were. From thereon out, although Kamui has moments of high emotion, drama, panic, fear, there is a palpable Thought behind most of those moments.

Because of where I would be taking him from, the answer is adapt and fight. At best: he's unwilling to just take the fate he was handed without any choice of his own, and while that's about 'his' life and canon experiences, it would absolutely apply to Somnia as well. At worst: he's unwilling to just give in or let himself collapse (already did that, so, again to be more accurate) because he shoulders the responsibility of the world but even more deeply felt -- the guilt of those he has made connections with and failed in some way, even if those people do not know this. Kamui cannot willingly yield to his fear or his pain because to do so is at this point a disservice to those who continuously have stepped up for him and, as far as he knows, outside of this dream, they are still waiting for him.

That said, to lose control and be overtaken by more feral aspects of his personality is something he would not like and fear more than other external non-him things. In truth, he lacks control of MANY things in canon and this is also frustrating to him, limitations and inabilities that roadblock him at turns he would take if he could. Kamui has one big ultimate wish, but he has lots of other important desires too, not the least of which is to protect those who are important to him even at the dissent of their own wants, sometimes. Control is tricky with him both as the one with it and the one who feels at its behest ('controlled' by fate, so to speak, or the dreamseers' prophecy.)

As far as transformation is concerned, it's dependent greatly on what it would mean for Kamui's mentality; would he be 'himself' or less? or even more? And how does that factor into the control aspect? Whatever the case, the answer for the other things is still that he would adapt, but in the aftermath of transformation(s) he might not like the choices he had made.

3. Connection is the only constant. What kind of bonds does your character form— fast and burning, slow and wary, deep and desperate? How might that shape their time in this world?

At canon start Kamui is deeply distrusting. For six years prior to canon timeline he was mostly isolated. He comes to Tokyo bearing tragedy and fate on his shoulders and ill equipped to do so, wielding his psychic powers with a guns-blazing kind of energy that is mostly bravado of a traumatized adolescent who doesn't know even 37% of his own story much less motivation and the real path lain before him. So connection isn't easy, especially when he has the idea being close to him will get people hurt; so even the two people he loves more than anything in the world, he cold shoulders to the extreme at first.

Fast-forward to giving in, one of them dies, the other becomes Kamui's fated antagonist, and also the father of those kids dies as well. So, another point for do-not-make-connections!

However, fast forward more, specifically to where I'd draw him from canon and...it's rather different. Kamui is making and has made connections knowing this will likely mean pain and loss for those around him. Kamui feels for people: affection, worry, attachment, loss, upset, and something probably adjacent to envy but not quite. Feelings, for Kamui are indeed connections. He has a hard time putting names to those things though, and so it means a great deal when he does. Calling someone 'friend' is a big deal for him, but caring about them isn't in the sense that he can give that quite willingly and with no holds barred. But naming it is different.

Still, Kamui also is a terrible liar to others and to himself. His bonds in Somnia would be like his bonds in his own doomed Tokyo: sincere, a bit wary at first, in good faith. One could read him like a cat: if he's with you, he's with you, no matter what people think.

Those connections Kamui has ever made that mean a lot have time or concentration of happenings at their root or both. There exists in him also though a desire to see the good in most things or people, soft at heart despite trying not to be for some time.

4. What are two major forces in your character’s personality that are often in conflict? (Ex: logic vs emotion, power vs guilt, obedience vs rage, etc.)

fate vs choice

Or in plainer terms, fate -- that which the world expects of him and asks of him; and choice -- that which Kamui wants/expects for himself as himself irregardless of the world. These are two concrete examples but they do apply to his personality on the whole, some of that being because this has been the bulk of his life for better or for worse. Kamui's entire role as Kamui of the Dragons Of Heaven is to save the world, and the further canon goes it's clear it's at any cost. However, one of the biggest costs in Kamui's own heart/world has already been lost; to save the other half, essentially, is his one self-perceived wish.

Canon shows us this is not his true wish though and because canon was never finished this is supposition but: possibly the fate vs choice thing festered so deeply in him that it made too convoluted his own truth. What else does Kamui wish for aside from returning his childhood friend to himself, that is so deeply buried or mutated he cannot name it for himself?

Kamui remaining in the 'role' of the Kamui all while striving to just restore his friend, also demonstrates that impasse. He can neither fully shed the world's fate nor protect it so narrow-mindedly.

VESSEL SELECTION
Which Vessel Type are you choosing: Token or Offering? Offering
Why does this Vessel type feel appropriate for your character? Arguably Kamui can be slated to fit the bill for Token OR Offering, but I'm leaning "Offering" because he basically IS THAT in canon. He has the illusion of choice but the foreordained quality of the fated day is fairly indelible to the dreamseers and others. Even Kamui himself works within the web of that which has been put before him like some much unwanted puzzle he's being forced to at least try and solve (with the 'or else everything perishes' ultimatum as a fun fun motivation.) The concept of him also struggling to maintain his regular form parallels his struggle in canon to pursue what's true to him while dealing with (and sometimes fighting still) the fate that was foisted onto him. Also: the conflict of retaining perceived humanity (upholding that fate and the priority of the world) vs the selfish wish he has regarding saving his friend (arguably more animal/less human/however one wants to call it), and then with that the 'sacrifice' of that humanity to realize that more selfish choice.

A messiah laden with lots of imagery depicting the duality of the 'Kamui', what he is and what he's perceived as, lend themselves to a physical manifestation such as Offering would be. Add to this something crucial: in X/1999 kamui is tasked with creating a kekkai, that which would protect what needs protecting, but he is so-far unable to do this. Physical manifestation as his route, via Offering, prods and pulls at that fact.

Choose one OR list three subclass options within your chosen Vessel type that you think would suit them: lycan

Samples: tdm toplevel