黒崎 一護 ☽☾ Kurosaki Ichigo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
anarchyinsoulsociety) wrote2017-07-21 03:53 am
anarchyinsoulsociety) wrote2017-07-21 03:53 am
Entry tags:
Empatheias app
Player: CD
Contact:
Age: 36
Current Characters: Seven (707)
Character: Ichigo Kurosaki
Age: 17
Canon: Bleach
Canon Point: Directly after the last battle with Ywach, during the first parts of Can't Fear Your Own World (novel).
Background:
It's kinda long.
Personality:
To begin to understand Ichigo, one only needs to read his name. It translates to "one who protects" and he takes that meaningful name to heart. Ever since he was a small child, he went out of his way to protect his mother, sisters, and friends - even though he started out as a bitbof a crybaby. By the time he was in middle school, he was taking on whole gangs with his best friend Chad. But there was one group he could never seem to help.
Ghosts.
For as long as he could remember, Ichigo could see ghosts just like they were regular people. In fact, when he was nine years old, he mistook one for a regular girl and it wound up costing his mom her life. He blamed himself for her death, going so far as to call himself her killer for six years before he found out she was actually murdered by a Hollow - a regular ghost that's lost its heart and eats other souls (to put it simply). This trauma affected him deeply and was fundamental in forming his stand-offish personality.
Because he could see ghosts but not help them, and couldn't save his mom, Ichigo resented his helplessness. Although he never wanted to be a superhero who saves everyone, he did want to save anyone who was having trouble that he knew about. That included his family, his friends, people in his school, Soul Reapers he'd met, and basically everyone in his town. And once his Soul Reaper powers were activated by a Soul Reaper named Rukia, he sought strength from there to finally be able to protect the ones he cares about. His ability to help others usually correlates directly to his mood - the better able he is to help others, the better mood he's in. If he's unable to help, he gets sulky, moody, and broody.
As a Soul Reaper, Ichigo is finally able to help others. Throughout the series, he grows in confidence, but he is also well aware that he has a lot of power and it can be dangerous if he doesn't keep himself in check. At points in canon, he fears his own power, and in particular his inner hollow. Most of the overconfidence he shows in the early series is beaten out of him very quickly once he starts fighting stronger opponents. The one area that he is very stubborn about until almost the very end of the manga is that because his whole mindset is so focused on protecting others, he often doesn't understand that others want a chance to fight too. His friends group is made up of a couple professional Soul Reaper soldiers and humans with amazing powers, so it's understandable why they'd get annoyed by Ichigo's constant attempts to coddle them and take all the burden of fighting on himself. By the end, he seems to get it and has Orihime and Renji get his back (in turns), but boy did it take a long time.
Outside of his Dead People Adventures, Ichigo looks a bit like a delinquent and this has informed his everyday behavior quite a bit. His hair looks bleached (although it's naturally orange, because Anime Genetics), which leads a lot of actual thugs and school staff to assume that he actually is a budding criminal. To the contrary, he's actually a decent student (at the beginning of the series, he's in the top 25 of his class). He's diligent at his schoolwork because it keeps the teachers off his case, and when he beats up muggers or kicks delinquents out of the schoolyard, he makes sure his name stays out of their mouths so the school doesn't hold it against him. Understandably, this comes off as him having a bit of a chip on his shoulder, being stand-offish, and frankly scaring the other students. In his first year, all of the girls in his class (except one) thought he was scary, and by the time he's in his last year, he has whole sports teams propositioning him with the utmost humility. By that point, it's an image he cultivates tediously - he knows people wouldn't take him seriously if they found out he likes chocolate, Shakespeare, and manga, so he keeps up the tough guy facade.
That cultivated Tough Guy image actually hides another important part of Ichigo's personality - he's a big ol' softy. He might grouse and be caustic, but when one of his friends needs help, he'll help them and bitch while doing it. Most of the time this gets him bickering with people, but by the last arc of the series his friends have figured him out - when he complains about the bread his friend Orihime gives him, she cheerfully tells him if he complains he won't get any more, and then their friend Ishida points out that Ichigo actually eats more of it than anyone else. And it actually shuts him up. Basically, he's a tsundere, and all one has to do to defuse an argument with him is to call him out on his bullshit. Otherwise, he'll fuss and fight just because that's how he communicates with people.
Basically, what people should expect from Ichigo on a daily basis in Empatheias is a grumpy teen who acts really tough and cool and is actually a very soft dork on the inside. He'll snark and have good-natured arguments with others, and defend them if they need it (probably even if they don't need it). If there's a fight to be had or some kind of adventure to undertake, he'll be the first in line to go.
Abilities:
High-level spiritual medium: Ichigo has been able to see, hear, and speak with ghosts since he was a child. He himself has a very very high level of spiritual pressure which he is not always great at covering up, so others who are sensitive should be able to sense it. Because his own spiritual pressure is so high, he doesn't often display the talent that others in the series do of sensing others far away by their spiritual pressure. There seem to be exceptions to this based on how well he knows the person or how far away they are, but in general to him it's like hearing a voice over a very large waterfall - sensing others long-range is not his best talent.
Peak human fitness + sports skills: Because of all his Ghost Adventures, Ichigo is basically shredded (but very skinny-shredded). Even during the small arc where he lost his powers, he was still able to chase down muggers, loan himself out to different sports teams for money, and withstand some pretty harsh physical training. Apparently this translates to being pretty good at sports, too, because other than karate and judo, he's also seen subbing in the basketball team and soccer team at his school and is very sought after.
Combat training: Goes without saying, really. In addition to all his regular human fighting training, Ichigo has also been personally trained by two Soul Reaper Captains, defeated two more in battle, got trained by Soul Reaper God's personal guard, then killed Soul Reaper God. ...o-oops? Basically, Ichigo spends half his time in all the 686 chapters of Bleach training to fight. It also bears mention that his first mentor, Urahara, mentions that Ichigo learns swordfighting from him almost inhumanly quickly - he also trained to use Bankai in three days, when it takes others longer than 10 years.
Swordplay: In the last arc, Ichigo carried a dual zanpakuto, one large and one small sword imbued with the essence of his soul, one black and one white. By the very end it was just one big cleaver again. Because his swords are generally very large and often as tall as he is (they change a lot throughout the series, but they're always big), his fighting style can best be described as "hit it until it doesn't stand up anymore". He can parry and block, but he's not overly concerned with technique and swordsmanship - he's kinda like the M1 Abrams tank of sword fighters.
Speed and Bankai: Ichigo's first Bankai - his sword's ultimate release move - makes his sword a regular black katana and makes him very very fast. His more current Bankai just kinda makes him grow a spare horn on one side of his head and combines his two swords into one. This sword seemed to be broken in his last strike of the series, and his original big cleaver sword was revealed underneath, so it's fuzzy on whether he can even still do it. It's something I intend to avoid doing ICly unless we get canon confirmation that he can still perform it (it's possible, since the series is semi-ongoing with the novels).
So about those swords... The two swords being different colors was actually pretty important, though, because
Two losers live in his head: since each zanpakuto has a 'spirit' based roughly on the wielder's psyche. Ichigo has a very distinct case of this where neither one of his zanpakuto spirits are what would be considered conventional - the black-clad one is his ancestral powers and the white one is a hollow version of him (and also basically his id). By the end of the series he has them well under control and is fairly well in harmony with both of them, but for a large part of the series his hollow side taking over was a very real danger, and actually happened a couple of times. It wasn't an enjoyable experience for Ichigo, and when he finally accepted his white hollow self as a part of his psyche, he became a lot more self-assured (think someone accepting their Shadow in Persona 4 - it's exactly that sort of thing).
Alignment: Thras - fear and bravery. A lot of Ichigo's early story has to do with overcoming fear in order to fight. During his first training with Urahara, Urahara mentions that all his blade speaks of is fear - fear that he can't save others, that he'll get hurt, and that he'll die. Once Ichigo overcomes that, he eventually becomes so brave it's kinda ridiculous. There are a few other places in the series that shake his courage - notably when he sees how powerful Aizen is during the Deicide arc and just about gives up on fighting him - but overall his bravery is one of his most notable features by the end. Heck, in the 10 years later chapters, he even names his son a name that translates to "Brave One".
Other:
General Sample: http://empatheias-ooc.dreamwidth.org/185692.html?thread=26249820#cmt26249820
http://empatheias-ooc.dreamwidth.org/185692.html?thread=26215260#cmt26215260
Emotion Sample: http://empatheias-ooc.dreamwidth.org/185692.html?thread=26213468#cmt26213468
Questions:
Revision!
[As the noise from the back of the attraction got bigger and louder, Ichigo go more serious. He hadn't noticed his amulet glowing, or that the glow was beginning to spark as he heard the noises come closer. He readied himself, instinctively taking a firm stance from many years of battles. The noise - it sounded like a heavy, angry cat - got closer until it was just around the corner.
Right as he was sure the creature (or staff member with an appropriate noisemaker) was about to round the corner, Ichigo felt a sudden wave of heat wash over his body. It wasn't like other times he'd gone into battle exactly. Sure, his spiritual pressure was probably surging and his body knew what to do, but this time felt slightly different. Hotter, windier... brighter?
And that was when Ichigo realized something was burning his leg and looked down to find the cuff of his pants leg on fire, along with a bit of his surrounding area]
Wh-What the hell?!
[Whereas a second ago he was focused on whatever was around that corner, Ichigo was now more concerned with putting out the ambient effects of his brand of courage]