to see a world in a grain of sand

[OOC] Mushi plooot

2009-06-17T23:30:11Z

ffffff I am not going to have time to run a mid-week post for my mushi plot, sadly.

So! If you wanted to get your character deafened, just go ahead and handwave it. ... or hit me up with a link if you want someone on the other end to send snails in your direction. Final post will go up during the weekend; after that, you can assume that Ginko's available to cure people.

[OOC] Mushi Event II: Un-Ah

2009-06-12T23:23:57Z

HEY GUYS HEY GUYS

I'm running another mushi event! In much the same way as my previous mushi event, I'll post a handful of framing posts during the week, which you are free to use to react to the mushi, react to other people, etc. I will be running the mushi itself via cuebattlemusic in addition to playing Ginko. (However, I have something special in mind this time to prevent Ginko from getting too involved in the mushi business this time around.)

So which mushi are we doing this time? The Un and Ah, which are basically the hearing-loss mushi from episode 3. They're tiny, snail-like mushi that eat sound. Usually they crop up inside buildings, caves, etc. during the winter, when there's not enough sound to live off of, but I'll be stretching that part for camp. Pretend these are a special summer variety of Un-Ah.

Effects
- If a person approaches the mushi nest (which looks a lot like a cluster of snails, or the human cochlea), they may become infested by the mushi, which crawls into the affected person’s ears and blocks sound. Otherwise, they are unharmed. Spiritually sensitive people can see the clusters of snails on the ceiling/in the trees/wherever; normal people ... generally can't, but we can stretch things for camp.
- There are two varieties: the Un and the Ah. One Un mushi affects one ear; it's quite common to go deaf on only one side. (Or you could have two of them crawl in at the same time and cause complete deafness. Up to you.)
- The Ah mushi, on the other hand, causes complete deafness; also, a set of tiny, sensitive horns emerge from the afflicted person's forehead. (I'll supply pictures in a bit.) While the horns are in place, the affected person cannot hear normal sounds, due to the fact that everything is being drowned out by a horrible, high-pitched whine. (It's the sound of millions upon billions of mushi voices, ftr. They'd be able to hear other supernatural noises as well.) This can be cured by cupping one's hands over one's ears, thus forcing the mushi to hear the sound of one's own arm muscles.
- I'd prefer that the Un mushi be much, much more common than the An effect, since it's a) simpler and b) more easily cured. If people really want to be affected by an Ah, then that's all right with me, but bear in mind that it's a more severe effect.

Cures:
- Not time. This one requires an active cure.
- Un: Warm salt water, which is poured into the ear. The mushi leaves the ear afterwards. Ah: covering your ears with your hands.
- For the purposes of camp, I'm going to say that lake water will work as well. So if your character ends up dunked in the lake somehow, the mushi will leave. This will work for both the Un and the An types.
- Ginko will not be available to cure people for the majority of the week. However, for the last post in the event (which will be next Friday/Saturday), he will go around curing anyone who hasn't already recovered. If you don't have time/don't want to RP out a thread, you can just handwave it and say that Ginko came by and cured you.

Tentative Schedule

Post 1 (Friday Night (EST)/Saturday Morning(JST)): The Un and An first appear. Ginko will be present, but not exactly available. I'll be RPing both the mushi itself and Ginko.
Post 2 (sometime during the week; evening JST time): Similar to the first post. Giving people a second chance to be affected by the mushi. This will be the most mingly of the posts.
Post 3 (Next Weekend): Ginko informs y'all what the cure is, and goes around helping people. There will still be a few clusters of mushi about, but they'll be plenty avoidable. After this, if you want to handwave getting a cure from Ginko, then go for it.

Questions? Concerns? Drop me a line! I'll be posting this as soon as I gather up a few pictures and icons and stuff.

[Fic] [xxHolic/Mushishi] Thin Places

2009-06-10T15:33:33Z

For dareyuudream, because we started talking about it and she enabled me. I love how well xxxHolic and Mushishi cross over with each other. :|d

Thin Places

Ginko is not unfamiliar with the thin places of the world. He’s barely a mushi-shi, fourteen by only the most generous ways of counting, but his head is filled with a lifetime of lore. The records tell of fissures that lead half-way across the country, mushi-trails marked only by the brief luminescence of their passing, forests much bigger on the inside than should be physically possible. He’s even walked a few of those paths himself, though he wasn’t a mushi-shi then. So when a nearby village contacts him, saying that people have gone missing deep in the woods, he’s not surprised. Instead, he hears them out in his usual, quiet way, and then goes looking.

The forest would be dark even on a sunny day. It’s filled with giant tree after giant tree, their branches intertwining invisibly somewhere far above his head. Earlier in the day, before the rain set in, there had been a few threadbare sunbeams straggling down to his level; now there’s only the occasional drip of rain on the leaves … and a whole lot of mud. He lost one sandal a long way back. His kimono isn’t faring much better, either. Threadbare as it is, there’s not much value to be lost if he completely ruins it here, but it’s also the only clothing he has.

The mud squelches around his bare foot. Other than the sound of his own movement, however, the forest is completely silent. Even the mushi seem to have gone quiet here, save for the occasional tangle of brightly colored lights floating high overhead. Strange. He’s not entirely sure what to expect, but he’s certain there should be more mushi rather than less. Perhaps it’s time to check one of the scrolls. Wiping his face with one muddy arm, he trudges towards the shelter of an upturned tree stump. The mud here is extra thick; the box on his back is still a little too heavy for him, and it unbalances him badly. He scrabbles for a decent foothold —

In the next moment, Ginko’s feet touch solid hardwood floor. He gets approximately one second to right himself before he slips anyway and ends up flat on his box, all the breath knocked out of him. “O-ow,” he mumbles, struggling to sit up. Somehow, he is lying on the outside porch of a Japanese-style home. Cicadas chirp nearby, and the air is thick both with humidity and the last rays of the setting sun. He rolls onto his side with a groan.

“Getting my porch all dirty, are we?”

Ginko’s head jerks up. In front of him is a beautiful woman. Human, probably — she doesn’t have the look of a mushi about her, even her floaty, violet-colored kimono and wine-red eyes — and yet more than human. Young, and yet with the aching capacity to be much, much older. She smiles at him, and it’s more than a little dangerous. “I’m — I’m just looking,” he says first, wiping at his face with a muddy sleeve. Then he remembers why he came here in the first place. “Did anyone else come through here?”

Another secretive smile. The woman turns, her kimono swishing as it trails against the hardwood floor. “Come inside,” she says, sliding open one of the porch doors. “The buzzing is worse when you’re here.”

Awkwardly, Ginko gets to his feet; he leaves muddy footprints behind him as he walks into the house. “They sound…” Normal, he was going to say, but the building he just entered is anything but. A delicately carved wooden table sits in the middle of the room, with a giant lounging sort of couch resting beneath a great big tapestry of the moon. He can feel the residual energy involved here. The woman is powerful, and she keeps powerful company. It would be enough to make a full-grown mushishi feel small; Ginko feels absolutely tiny in comparison.

“Hmm?” The woman lowers herself onto the couch and stretches. Her limbs seem impossibly long. “You can sit down, you know.”

With the soft clunk of his box hitting the floor, Ginko does so. He tries to sit completely on the floor pillow, at least, to avoid getting mud all over the tatami. “… where is this?” he asks at last. “Where am I?”

The woman pulls out a long pipe. When she lights it, the smoke curls thickly around her. “It will be a shop,” she says, and he can’t tell if she sounds faintly regretful or just sad. “But for the moment, it is my home.”

“Your home,” repeats Ginko, quietly. “Then you’d know if a little girl came through here.”

“I would.” She breathes in a lungful of smoke, then gives him another smile. It’s almost teasing. “That sort of information is valuable, Ginko.”

Valuable? Ginko has to think quickly. Money isn’t something he often has with him, even when he’s just gotten paid by someone; any offerings made to mushi require something entirely different. Even so … The tiny mushishi pulls his aching arms out of the straps of his box and turns it, so that he can easily go through the drawers. He doesn’t notice the small, almost surprised look on the woman’s face when he draws out a small sake bottle with a matching (but incredibly simple) cup. Earthenware, poor quality, with red clay streak around the rim. “I can pay. It’s very good wine,” he adds, when she doesn’t respond immediately. “We call it kouki.”

“The ‘light wine.’”

Ginko blinks. “Ah? You know it?”

“I do.” The woman sits up languidly. Somehow, her mysterious smile has changed again: less ache and more fondness. “And I have the information you seek.”

The boy thinks for a moment. Then he carefully pours a small amount of kouki into the cup, up to the red streak at its brim. It glitters in the last light of the sunset. “Then — if you could tell me —”

“I have the information,” repeats the woman, waving away a handful of smoke, “but it will not help you. The others have moved on already, and the girl … will be a great fortune teller.”

Ginko opens his mouth to thank her anyway. Then he pauses as the meaning of the woman’s sentence sinks in. “Where?” he says. “… here?”

“In this world. So while your offer is appreciated,” she says, “it isn’t required. Yet.” And she smiles that aching sort of smile he saw on her a few minutes ago. “As I said, this isn’t a shop yet.”

That still doesn’t seem fair, he thinks. He shifts a little, trying not to feel absolutely filthy with his soiled kimono and muddied face. He can hear a windchime in the distance. “I … I’ll still pay,” he says after a long moment. “Because I can tell her family that she’ll be all right.”

For a moment, he thinks he’s offended her. Then her face breaks into a grin that is nothing short of ridiculous. “Well then,” she says, taking the cup in both hands. “I’ll just have to help myself~” And she downs the whole thing in one long sip.

Ginko can’t help but stare; the last time he saw someone do that, they ended up hallucinating for most of the week. “Um … “ He makes a quick mental calculation, then gets to his feet and leans over the table, pouring her another cup. He won’t be able to spare a third.

Fortunately, she seems pleased enough. The second cup goes much slower, in long, thoughtful, savoring sips. “You should take a bath,” she says, apropos of nothing except what is surely a very drunken smile. “If you do that, I’ll forgive you for tracking mud into the house.” She claps her hands and a pair of tiny girls appear. They immediately latch onto his arms, tugging him to his feet before he has a chance to protest. “Go on, take Ginko to the bath,” she says. “I’ll take care of the wine~”

“But —”

“Ginko is going to take a bath!” chirps one.

“Bath is going to be taken by Ginko!” says the other.

And together they drag him deep into the house-that-is-not-yet-a-shop, leaving only muddy footprints behind them.

—-

By the time Ginko escapes his bath, it’s completely dark out. He towels at his head vigorously, trying to scrub out the last bits of pink still clinging to the tips of his hair. The girls had gotten very creative with both the hair soap — what had they called it? shampoo? — and the very mysterious (very pink) substance known as bubble bath. Ginko suspects that he’ll smell like plumeria for the rest of his life.

When he steps back out into the bathroom proper, he can’t find his kimono. He panics for a moment, having visions of walking back to his own world in nothing but a towel, then spots a small parcel in the corner. Clothes? he thinks, taking the package and sitting down with it. He’s expecting his own kimono, mysteriously cleaned perhaps, or at least folded; what he gets, however, is something much stranger. A crisp white … thing, presumably for his upper body, with tiny clear buttons up the middle. Dark pants as well, though they’re not anything like hakama or even the festival wear that he occasionally sees while wandering through Japan. A few more heavier articles of clothing round out the package, but they’re far too hot to wear right now.

Ginko wants his kimono back. But he can’t exactly walk back into the main room with nothing but a towel, so he slips the shirt on. It’s comfortable, if terribly big on him; it ends somewhere just above his knees. The pants, too, seem to swallow him, but somehow they manage to fit nonetheless. He tries not to think about it too much. Instead, he folds the rest of the clothes over one arm and pads back into the main room.

Yuuko (the girls’ name for her) is not alone. There is a man with her, and they are laughing together over some drawing the man has put together. “They look like meatbuns,” she says. “Ah, one day I’ll hire a cook to make me something like that~”

The man is more serene somehow, despite his laughter. He wears glasses and his hair trails down his back in one slim ponytail. His robes seem foreign — beautifully so, deep blue and patterned with astrological symbols — but he wears a terrible ordinary-looking green coat over the top of it, despite the summer heat. “You don’t like them?” he says. “I was very faithful to the original design.”

“I never said I didn’t like them.” She looks as though she wants to say more; instead, she turns to look directly at Ginko. “Finished?” she says, without so much as skipping a beat.

Ginko looks between her and the man. It’s all he can do to keep from asking the obvious question. “Yes, but—” He picks at the shirt awkwardly. “These clothes are…”

“A little too big for you,” says Yuuko, looking amused. “But you’ll grow into them.”

“But I’d rather …” He looks between the two of them, then back down at the spare clothing. He feels excruciatingly tired all of a sudden, and he can’t tell if that’s because of the bath or because of the people. “Can I lie down?”

Yuuko’s expression grows serious. “The boundary won’t remain thin for much longer,” she says. “If you stay the night, you’ll be staying for a long time.”

Ginko tries not to look disappointed. He’s very tired, and the thought of trudging all the way back to the village makes his feet hurt. Seeing his expression, the man chuckles. “He has a long way to go, doesn’t he,” he says, and Ginko gets the feeling that he’s addressing Yuuko, not a certain tiny mushishi. He gets to his feet — he’s extremely tall, even taller than Yuuko — and shrugs out of his green overcoat.

Before Ginko can say anything, the man drapes it over Ginko’s shoulders. He squirms a little, working his arms into the sleeves. The coat is even worse than the clothes; he feels a little like he’s wearing a pile of cloth. “But isn’t this yours?” he says, looking up at the man.

“On loan from me,” says Yuuko, once again looking quite amused with the situation. “He’ll have to pay me back for it later.” She emphasizes the word “pay” with a distinctly suggestive waggle of her eyebrows. “He had some of your wine as well.”

So that’s three cups minimum, thinks Ginko. He takes the bottle from the table and hefts it, feeling a little dismayed; he’s not sure when he’ll be able to get more. Well, no point in worrying about it now. He wraps the bottle in his new clothes and packs it deep inside his box. Once that’s done, he hefts it back over his shoulders, staggering a bit from the weight. “How do I get home?”

“The same way you came,” says Yuuko. She gestures, and Ginko notices the faint trail of mud left over from his arrival.

“Take care,” says the man. His smile is much warmer than Yuuko’s; a sun to her moon.

As Ginko winds his way back onto the darkened porch, he can hear Yuuko’s voice behind him faintly. “You have a soft touch when it comes to children, Clow.”

Clow’s flickering laugh is the last thing Ginko hears before the house dissolves into forest.

—-

Dusting, dusting, dusting. It’s all Watanuki seems to do these days — when he’s not cooking, anyway, or catering to one of Yuuko-san’s many (and endlessly ridiculous) whims.

“Watanukiiiiiii.”

Speaking of which. “What does she want now?” he says, giving the top of the cabinet one last sweep before stepping down off the ladder. “I’m not starting dinner yet!” he yells back. “If you want something to eat that badly, there’s leftovers in the refrigerator!”

“Awwww.” Funny, he can almost hear her pouting. “Then bring me sake!”

Sake? In the middle of the day? Again? Watanuki almost wishes he’d just made her a mid-afternoon snack and been done with it. He puts his duster down in the corner and coughs a little, trying not to sneeze from all the dust. “None of the dishes are clean yet!” he calls back. “You’ve already used all your sake cups!”

“Oh~?” Watanuki doesn’t like the tone of that reply either. “Then you’ll just have to bring the whole bottle, won’t you?”

Oh no. If there’s one thing Watanuki refuses to do today, it’s deal with a hungover Yuuko-san before it’s even time for dinner. “Y-Yuuko-san!” he says. “You can’t just — argh, I’ll find you a cup! Give me a minute!”

“Find Yuuko-san a cup!” Maru’s voice, distant but cheerful.

“Yuuko-san’s cup should be found!” Moro’s, similarly.

Yuuko-san has to have one in here somewhere, thinks Watanuki with a long-suffering sigh. He knows he’s seen a full sake set or two here among all the junk Yuuko-san has saved up. He picks his way through the storeroom, opening boxes and cracking open cabinets. At last, he finds one. It’s been wrapped in an extremely threadbare kimono, which is absolutely filthy from both mud and age. The cup is equally ancient; it’s primitive earthenware, decorated only with a streak of red clay around it’s rim. Is this really all right? he thinks, turning it over in his hand. It looks a little…

“Watanukiiiiii.”

“A-alright, alright! I’m coming!” Cradling the little cup in both hands, he makes his way back to the front of the storage room and prepares to get his employer her wine.

[OOC] More Notes

2009-04-19T00:27:12Z

WHOO more OOC notes and blather time. o/

Important Stuff:
- If you want to get your voice stolen by the shells, this is your last chance to snag one. :|d
- This is not the last post! I will be posting a very small ending post later this week, probably on Monday or Tuesday.
- If you lost your voice already, then you should be getting it back between now and the smaller finale post.

- WHEE FLOOD. However! This is absolutely not intended to affect all of camp. If people want their cabin flooded, then go for it! If you just want to get a little wet, then go for that too! And completely ignoring the tidal wave is also A++. Location does not matter! If the Lawyertarium wants to ignore the wave but someone's completely distant cabin wants to get flooded, go for it.
- Again, this is only intended to be a small/localized event.
- On that note, if you have any issues/questions/whatevers about this event, please please please feel free to let me know. do not want another Mess Hall style explosion. :(

Random Blather
- I thought really long and hard about how exactly to port this event to camp. The original ending (the red tide) really wouldn't have done anything to camp, even if I made it literal and bloody as opposed to just another natural phenomenon. And the shells needed a real reason to be up on shore, when clearly they'd been fine chillin' out over the lake with Marcy et al.
- My next thought was to have a boss fight. Boss fights are fun! Wacky! Exciting! ... and totally not what Mushi-shi is about. I think there are exactly two "fights" in the entire series, and even those aren't really boss fight material. I really think having a fight to end a mushi event would be OOC for Ginko's series, if not OOC for Ginko himself. Therefore...
- I decided to try the tidal wave/flood idea. I am ... rather nervous, since it's bigger than how I thought I'd end the event when I first proposed the idea, but I think it is the best option. Once again, please please tell me if you have any concerns at allll. This is not mod-approved, so pleeease talk to me before you talk to them.

That should be it! Thanks to everyone who played with the event and generally made me feel fuzzy for finally running something myself. :|d

[OOC] Mushi Info!

2009-04-12T09:58:21Z

So I don't have to have a super-long OOC note:

- Listening to the shells causes the sezuri-kai mushi to ~~enter~~ affect the listener's body, causing them to lose their voice. The effect is not painful. (ETA: duhhhr I was remembering wrong. The effect is internal, but it's not an infestation.)
- The shells sound like birds rather than the ocean. It's actually quite pretty!
- The effect will fade on its own within a week or so, which is when I am planning to officially end the event. As always, it's up to the player how long they want their character to be affected, and how. If you'd like this to affect voiceless characters differently, then be my guest.
- This is the first of three posts. Ginko will have his own thread in all of them (except the last one maybe), and everyone is absolutely welcome to come talk to him, but he will not be commenting to people in the post unless he has good reason to start a conversation.
- I might borrow the boss journal in order to run the "shells," for those who want to play out picking up the shell and listening to it, but overall the post is intended to be a mingle post.
- If this goes well, I am totally going to run more mushi events in the future. :|d

[OOC] Planning II

2009-04-11T03:26:41Z

Thank you to everyone who voted and gave me input! I'm going to run the Sezuri-kai (voice loss) mushi this week, I think. Tentative schedule is as follows:

Post 1: Sunday morning EST / Sunday evening Japanasialia: First post (shells on the beach of the lake, to start the voice-loss-ness)
Post 2: Sometime during the week: effects~ (Part of the lake turning red and bloody and icky; ginko warning about the mushi)
Post 3: Next weekend-ish (probably Sunday): Ending post. (birds coming out of the shells, etc.)

... which is v. v. tentative, yes. BASICALLY: the mushi themselves will be there a week, and I'll throw up three posts to bookend the event. I'm planning on running it this week, buuut we'll how much time I have. etc.

[OOC] Planning~

2009-04-05T01:03:51Z

I've been wanting to do something with mushi in camp for aaages. There's a couple options that would work really well in camp, I think, in that they're a) not too much stronger than a camp effect, b) limited in scope, and c) have cures won't necessarily require Ginko to attend to everyone afterward.

So! This is a preliminary poll-type thing to figure out what people would most be interested in. Then, within a week or two, I'll probably throw up a more official post to hammer out details. ... or just post something with a very long OOC note. idk. I just wanted to do a wee little spooky event a la the Medicine Seller's creepy posts. For most of these, there'd probably be one post for setup, possibly one post for the effects (if there's something larger or more dramatic going on), and one to get people cured, if necessary.

Sezuri-kai, aka "Chirping Shell": A kind of mushi that normally lives out in the water, but occasionally comes up on shore and hides in shells when a disaster is on the way.

Effects:
- The shells "sing" like birds--anyone spiritually sensitive should hear the sound of birds along the shore of the lake.
- Anyone who holds a mushi'd shell to their ear forgets how to use their voice (temporarily).
- After a few days of the shells appearing on shore, the "disaster" occurs. (In canon, this meant a red tide occurred; the fish in that part of the ocean became poisoned and uneatable. In camp, I'm thinking it would be a more literal red tide, with blood in the water or something spooky. idk.)

Cures:
- A person who has lost their voice will remember it if they hear human (or sentient) voices for a long enough period of time. (AKA: it wears off with time, since it's hard to be a recluse in camp.)
- After the disaster is done, the mushi emerge from their shells in the form of tiny white birds. These are only visible to the spiritually sensitive.

“The False Spring”: A winter-themed mushi, although with a little fiddling, I can probably do this for any season in camp. In the middle of winter, a mysterious patch of beautiful greenery appears. However, it’s not natural; anyone who wanders into it and stays for too long ends up affected by the mushi.

Effect:
- Those who stay in the clearing for too long end up falling asleep. In canon, this hibernation lasts until spring, when the counteracting mushi emerges from its chrysalis; in camp, this would last a week, max.

Cures:
- Time. People awakening from the hibernation might see a butterfly exiting their cabin afterwards, or an empty chrysalis on their ceiling.

Un: Tiny, snail-like mushi that eat sound. They tend to form nests inside caves, houses, and other places where they’re properly sheltered. Generally the only do this during winter, when there’s a lot less sound outside to feed off of, but we can stretch things for camp.

Effects
- If a person approaches the mushi nest, they may become infested by the mushi, which crawls into the affected person’s ears and blocks sound. Otherwise, they are unharmed. Spiritually sensitive people can see clusters of snails on the ceiling; normal people cannot.

Cure:
- Warm salt water, which is poured into the ear. The mushi leaves the ear afterwards.

Manako no Yamimushi: A kind of mushi that lives in the eyes. Caused by looking at true darkness for too long. Canon says that this occurs due to people “closing their second eyelid,” but in camp, it would have to be caused by something different for it to work, I think.

Effects:
- The afflicted person becomes incredibly sensitive to light, then eventually loses their sight altogether. If left alone for too long, their eyes are eaten completely, leaving only a dark void where the eye used to be. (Ginko can’t cure that, so plz not to be going that far unless you really want to get CLAMP’d.)

Cure:
- Medication and rest. Ginko has the appropriate medication in his box, of course, but I imagine it could be independently formulated as well. Either way, it can be given to the patient without Ginko being present.
- … unless someone really does want to have their eye eaten, in which case Ginko has to get the patient to open their eyes under the moonlight, and grab the mushi that comes gushing out. (I’d prefer to avoid having to do this unless someone REALLY wants to be dramatic and lose an eye.)

View Poll: Mushi mushi mushi~

[OOC] o/

2008-07-28T19:58:01Z

Okay, so! As anyone who's familiar with Mushi-Shi knows, Ginko is a helper. It's his job! He likes being nice! And also it gets him shinies to sell back to Adashino and/or study up close, but that's beside the point. Playing him without that aspect of his character would be a very sad and horrible thing, especially since there's so much hilarious potential to be had. So! Here are my thoughts on what I'd like Ginko to do in camp:

Investigate and/or fix camp stuff. (Temporarily.) Showers spurting blood, camp effects, zombies, mistletoe, that sort of thing. He'll be poking anyone who's obviously affected anyway, because it's interesting, but I would eventually like him to be able to fix an ailment or two. ... through some sort of horribly embarrassing and/or cracky cure, but effective nonetheless. Probably what would happen there is, should the situation come up, I'd ask someone in PM if they want help from Ginko or not. For more general camp things, fixes would either be temporary (fixing the showers, only to have them spurt blood again within a week), ineffectual (one zombie fixed out of over nine thousand), or localized (only if someone has a specific request for me to do stuff.)

Investigate and/or help people. This would be a lot more permission-intensive. If he senses something odd about you, he'll ask questions, certainly, but he's a polite type; he won't really get into it if it's clear that you're not comfortable. And OOCly I won't let him pry too far unless I already know that the other party is cool with him being pokey. Actually affecting people would probably be extremely rare. I'm envisioning him as a Yuuko-type -- something we can roll with if you want something specific to happen, but otherwise he's not going to meddle in srs business.

In both cases, I'm assuming that he would try to classify effects in his own terms (AKA ICly he thinks that everything is caused by mushi, but OOCly that's not necessarily the case) and might even have some information to start with, depending on how cool the other party is with him knowing about it.

... which is all a very roundabout way of coming to my permissions-y question: Does your character have a supernatural condition? If so, what is it? What sort of information is Ginko allowed to know already? This is basically the same as my polls for Ishida and Watanuki, except that Ginko is more likely to actually know what's going on, as opposed to just sensing it on the spot. As an example of what sort of info I mean, here's a post about what he knows about the camp phenomena I bastardized in his app. :|d

[OOC] Mushi Information Compilation

2008-07-28T19:30:32Z

Canon Mushi

Tokoyami 「常闇」?
Description: Lives in a semi-symbiotic relationship with the ginko type. Its body is pure darkness; humans who enter its domain have to remember their name in order to escape. If they can't remember their own name, they can take on any new name they want, but in exchange they forfeit all memories of their former life. Comes out to feed at night.
Effect: If you're caught in a tokoyami, the end result is generally absorption and presumably death, at least as far as humans are concerned.
Cure: Remember either your own name or the name of something else.
Seen where?: Episode 12, in a pond.

Ginko 「銀子 or 銀蟲」
Description: Takes on the appearance of a silver flash of light. Its mature (and/or alternate) form is tokoyami. Generally appears at dawn, after the tokoyami has fed.
Effect: Short-term exposure has no effect. Repeated exposures causes the victim to lose one of their eyes and all the color in their skin and hair. The remaining eye is bright green. After that, the victim eventually turns into a tokoyami. More exposure to ginko will speed up the effect; staying out of the light slows it down, but cannot cure it.
Cure: None.
Seen where?: Episode 12, in a pond.

(to be continued)

Camp Mushi

Takoiyaan 「蛸イヤーン」
See also: Marcy
Description: An extremely large and powerful mushi that tends to take the form of a squid. May or may not be an extension of the body of water it lives in, depending on the location. Most takoiyaan live in the sea, but land-dwellers are not completely unheard of.
Effect: Closer to reality than most mushi, the takoiyaan is visible even to non-sensitive humans. Further information has not been discovered just yet, as sea-dwellers are difficult to study and land-dwellers are exceptionally rare.
Cure: ???
Seen where?: Lake. Also, app.

Meme 「芽眼」
See also: so i herd u liek mudkips
Description: Small, fragile mushi that feed off electrical patterns, which are then copied into their own structure. Primarily found in the brains of mammals, they need a wide variety of fresh material or they quickly die off. Primary food for zonbi.
Effect: Mostly harmless to humans. Infestations tend to be large and highly contagious; however, sheer competition and survival of the fittest ensure that only the most flexible meme survive long enough to infect other hosts.
Cure: ???
Seen where?: 4chan, F_W, app.

Zonbi 「ゾンビ」
See also: Braaaaaains.
Description: A small, spring-like mushi that normally feeds off meme-types. However, if it becomes too weak to forage for food on its own, it can take control of a corpse from the inside and force it to get food directly. Related to [that one bridge mushi -- look up the name]. Usually found directly behind the eyes.
Effect: The affected corpse lurches around, attempts to devour brains, and listens to Michael Jackson. Harmless as long as you can keep your distance from it.
Cure: Removing the mushi from the corpse causes it to stop moving. Can also be killed with explosives, if necessary.
Seen where?: Look out the window. Also, app.

(to be continued)

Character Mushi

(note to self: think of clever/amusing ways to describe my other characters' abilities. Watanuki clearly has the usual mushi-shi "lolol I attract supernatural things" except dialed up to 11.)

[OOC] Tiny FYI!

2008-07-28T18:37:43Z

For those of you out there who care, I am taking Ginko primarily from the anime at the moment. ... this is due to the fact that one-manga only has up to Volume 3 UL'd right now, and I can't seem to get my hands on a copy of Del Rey's translations of volume 4. :|a This should change once I snag the Japanese volumes, however. I'll do a more in-depth post once I have all of his canon, but even then he'll be very anime-centric. Just 'cause it's pretty and wonderful and also what I saw first. (Not that it matters, anyway; the differences between the manga and anime versions are negligible at most.)

Also, while I've seen the movie, I'm generally not going to be including it in my headcanon, save for a few small details and timeline suggestions. (So Maho is still a boy, k.)

[OOC] Stats/Permissions

2008-07-28T18:22:24Z

Name: Ginko! This is technically not his "real" name, but it's the only one he's familiar with.
Age: 21. The timeline in episode 26 says he's about ten when he joins the wandering troupe; the troupe visits once a year after getting him, and then we see Ginko again in the regular timeline ten years later.
Hair: White, shaggy, and messy, but about as clean as it's gonna get for someone who wanders around in Meiji Japan. It looks like he probably cuts it himself. The live-action movie gives him facial hair, but I think that looks kinda funny on him, so here he's clean-shaven.
Eyes: One eye is a strikingly bright shade of green; the other is ... um ... absent. There's a black void in the socket where the eye should be. .| Generally, though, he keeps his hair brushed over his absent left eye, so most people probably won't immediately notice that something's missing.
Height: Tall and stocky. I'd put him at around 6' or so.
Weight: He's built solidly, but he's not super-huge. 175 or so? I suck so hard at estimating weights.
Bloodtype: My canon isn't quite anachronistic enough for Ginko to know his own blood type. ... yet.

Medical info: Missing his left eye; he also got stabbed with a kitchen knife a few months ago, although he's mostly healed up by now. Also, albino. o/ Otherwise he has a clean bill of health.

For the spiritually inclined, you can probably tell that his albinism is caused by exposure to a mushi, which ... isn't the most healthy thing in the world. It might even kill him eventually. Maybe. ... but that's a couple decades away anyway.

Physical Traits: Since he kind of has to hike up and down mountains with a huge box on his back, Ginko's in pretty good shape. He isn't really a fighter, and he's not overly muscled, but he's got enough strength to cope with most of the travel dangers that would crop up in Meiji Japan. Also, tall. He's ethnically Japanese, but between the white hair, stocky build, and big nose, he probably doesn't look it. (I totally thought he might be a foreigner until we got the episode with his backstory.)

What's Okay to Mention: Just about anything! He'll make funny faces at you if you bring up the whole Yoki/Sui thing, or otherwise puzzle him, but hey, it's Ginko. He's pretty laid back about things.

Notes For the Psychics: Very, very calm. Very pleasant and soothing. He also tends to ( inner monologue ) every now and then, so feel free to pick up on that if you'd like.

Abilities: Physically? Nothing much. He's not completely worthless in a fight, but it's really not his thing. ... spiritually, he's got some stuff going on. Like Watanuki, he has a special non-human attracty-thing going on; unlike Watanuki, however, it's not nearly as personal as Watanuki's is. Unusual things tend to gather around him, eventually, but mushi generally don't come up to him and say HEY I'M YOUR NUMBER ONE FAN :DDDD or anything like that. If Watanuki is delicious cake (which you must eat), then Ginko is more like embers in a fireplace. They feel nice, and you might hang out closer than usual if you're lacking a more comfortable place to be, but it's not a strong attraction. And anyway, the effect is mitigated by the fact that he smokes a kind of cigarette that helps cut down the unwanted attention.

In addition to that, Ginko is a doctor. ... sort of. Kind of. He knows a lot about how the human body works and how mushi tend to affect it. But it's generally supernatural / folklore type medicine, so don't expect him to perform surgery any time soon. :| He also has a few small tricks up his sleeve, like taking the mushi express through the earth or binding things with his cigarette smoke. Otherwise, his primary asset is the giant box he carries around, since it's got info and medicine and all that great stuff.

Shapeshift/bodyswap/etc.: Ask me and we'll plan something!

Hugging/Kissing/Nicknaming: Feel free! He'll probably just ;; at you and indulge you, but it's a-okay with me.

Fighting: If you want, sure! He's pretty non-confrontational, though, so I doubt he'll get himself into trouble.

Maiming/Killing/Death: Sure! I don't foresee it happening, but I'm cool with it.

Healing: Healing/treating injuries acquired in camp is fine; healing his permanent attributes (missing eye, coloration) is not. Unless we're doing it for crack or something.

Stealing: DO NOT TOUCH THE BOX OR THE SMOKES. seriously I will cut you. :( This is partially because ... I don't know what's in the box, exactly! And partially because it's filled with irreplaceable things that'd be difficult to work around ICly. Humorous stealing is okay, but only if he gets his stuff back afterwards.

Cooking: Eh, he's probably okay. But not amazing.

[OOC] App post!

2008-07-28T17:37:07Z

Character: Ginko
Series: Mushi-Shi
Character Age: Canon is ambiguous; however, calculating the timelines given in the final episode puts him at right around 21 years of age.

Canon: Mushi-Shi is a beautiful, atmospheric series centered around an albino hobo who studies sparkly bugs for a living. … no really, that about sums it up. The bugs, or “mushi,” as the series calls them, are responsible for all things great and supernatural in the world, ranging from eye-eating parasites worthy of a CLAMP series to huge dragon-like spirit guardians who are responsible for all the wildlife on an entire mountain. Naturally, when humans interact with these mushi, things are bound to go just a tad bit wrong — which is where the bug-studying hobos, aka “mushi-shi,” come in. It’s their job to deal with the many supernatural problems that mushi cause, such as the aforementioned eye-voring types, as well as educate people in ways they can live alongside the critters without getting themselves homph-gomphed.

Ginko is the titular mushi-shi of the series. A quiet, laid-back young man, it’s rare to see him worked up about his job, save for the rare life-or-death instances that punctuate his otherwise quiet existence. And even then it’s more of a “:| god you are so stupid” moment more than outright panic. Most situations are handled with direct (if sometimes blunt) wisdom or even amusement, with the occasional moment of deadpan snark. Unlike most of his fellow mushi-shi, Ginko follows his own sort of prime directive; he generally tries to avoid killing the mushi when he can, and refrains from interfering in cases that aren’t doing anyone any harm. Which suits him just fine, in the end; he can’t settle anywhere particular, as his magical hobo abilities draw in the sort of unwanted mushi attention that makes staying in one place a rather dangerous pastime. He remains a mysterious figure throughout most of the series, leaving all the most important questions up in the air even at the end: Who is he, really? Where does he come from? And how the hell did he get a trenchcoat in the middle of Meiji Japan, anyway?

Sample Post:

Hold still for a moment. I don’t want you to lose that eye just yet.

You can feel it, can’t you? The mushi moving behind your eye-sockets. I imagine it’s been making life difficult for you lately. Corpses aren’t supposed to move around this much after death, so it’s no wonder all your limbs are falling off. It’s not your fault. If you had a choice, you’d be lying down somewhere comfortable instead of shambling around like this. That’s the zonbi-type mushi at work. Normally, it feeds off the weaker meme-types that cling to mammal brains, but without a wide enough variety of fresh food, it’s too small and weak to get the stronger ones that hide in the middle of the brain. So instead it takes up residence in an empty body and uses that to get at the brains it needs to survive.

“Braaains,” that’s right. Relax. This is going to take some time. … to be honest, I didn’t come entirely prepared for this. The Director’s letter laid out some of the details, but other than the village’s name and some directions, there wasn’t much. Saying that the mythical village of O-shi Fuudai has nearly ten thousand kinds of mushi was impressive, yes, but the list was a little vague. Reports of a takoiyaaaan-type living in the lake. Rumors of mushi turning the local bathwater into blood. … and 9027 counts of zonbi infestations. Maybe I should have paid less attention to the offer of free food every Tuesday. I hadn’t seen one zonbi in my travels up til now, much less over nine thousand of them, so I thought that any detour or inconvenience would be worth it to see that. Which is fortunate, considering what I had to go through to get here. No offense to your Director — it’s just the first time I’ve had to climb into a rabbit hole when entering a village. And the birds afterwards were … ah. There’s a first time for everything. Even hearing a sudden burst of music in your head. I’m beginning to wonder if everything here is some sort of mushi, or at least strongly influenced by them somehow. A great “Circle of Life,” according to the birds.

Keep holding still, there. We’re almost done. You have some damage in the eye sockets already, probably from the villagers fighting back against the mushi. Though not with arrows … maybe some kind of gunpowder explosive? Hmm. Here, you can hold your eye while I reach in there —

— like so. That wasn’t too hard. I’ll get a proper burial arranged once I’m done here. And in the meantime, he won’t mind if I borrow this zonbi-type mushi. It’s still just a little too rare for me to pass up at the moment. … even though I think I’m going to change my mind within a week or two.

One down — nine thousand twenty-six to go.

(( Voting went here: 51 IN / 1 OUT: 98.1%. ))