Kadoc Zemlupus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
impostorsyndrome) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
avalaughs2021-08-05 08:04 pm
impostorsyndrome) wrote in avalaughs2021-08-05 08:04 pm
who dares question me
QUESTION FOR A QUESTION MEME
We all like hearing about each other's characters! We all like talking about our own characters! With this groundbreaking new meme, now you can finally do both, for the very first time in DWRP history!
The Guidelines:
Now get to askin'!
The Guidelines:
- Post a toplevel listing the characters you play! If you have any boundaries you want to set re: questions you might receive (e.g. "No NSFW questions for this character"), do that here too.
- Tag other people asking them questions about their characters. What kinds of questions? Up to you! Canon questions, headcanon questions, meta questions, some random thing you've wondered since that thread you had two months ago, it's all fair game.
- Need ideas? I was passed this excellent gallery of various questions memes, so feel free to crib from these or just use them as inspiration.
- Answer the questions you receive, and, once you've done that, hit the person back with a question of your own about their character(s) too!
- You can end it there, or continue to go back and forth asking questions until you're out.
Now get to askin'!
no subject
no subject
Now at 27 he's neither prideful nor self-depreciating. He's aware that he's kind of an uncouth bastard, but he has comrades who accept him in the Shinsengumi, so it doesn't matter. He'll treat himself to things he enjoys unabashedly, then turn around and say stuff like (edgelord incoming) "I don't care if one of my comrades bites the dust. They don't need any sad words. All I can do is keep fighting until I croak too and give my best, like they did". That's back home, though; he's a lot more dedicated to protecting his fellow outworlders here since unlike his comrades in Edo they didn't choose the "live by the sword, die by the sword" life for the most part!
What about Klaudia, does she like herself?
Cw: child abuse/neglect
As for whether she likes herself... She wants to. And she's trying to. But she grew up in a family where she was the only non-human, and the child of an affair as well. Most of her family wanted nothing to do with her, her mother's husband outright hated her, and she wasn't even allowed to leave the house for fear of someone seeing her. That leaves a heavy mark on a child. She feels like there's something wrong with her, since the only people who have been kind to her are pirates. There's always a voice in the back of her mind that tells her she's not meant to be a good person, that she's just inherently bad. If she's very boastful or aggressive about praising herself, it's only to drown that voice out.
For Hijikata: Who is the most important person to him, and why?
CW: Violence/Blinding
Ahhhh... you know, these two actually have quite some things in common. It's not only the "I'm not a good person, but that's okay" (to different degrees) part, but Hijikata was also the result of an affair. When his mother, who raised him alone, died when he was 6 he was given into the care of his older half-siblings (since his father and his wife had already died as well). Only his oldest brother, the head of the household, actually showed him warmth and kindness, the others were upset and ashamed at having to take the bastard child in.
Klaudia's backstory adds a whole other layer to how upset she was when Hijikata called her a demon! He of all people should really know better, because that's precisely where his whole tragic backstory kicks in: when he was 11 a fire broke out in the village, and bandits took advantage of the panic to plunder his family home. When he surprised them and they wanted to silence him his oldest brother stepped in, got cut across the face and blinded. Little Hijikata snapped, grabbed the dagger and blinded the bandits in retaliation (let's just ignore how a theretofore docile kid managed that... anime!!). His other siblings were horrified and called him a demon, and he ran away from home and grew up into a shitty, violent teenage thug who did nothing but pick fights with everybody.
And that ties right into his most important person! Once day the kids he kept beating up beat him up, and a young doujou trainer scraped him off the ground and took him home to nurse. That guy, Isao Kondou, became Hijikata's best friend and later, when they left the countryside to work for the shogunate, his commander in the Shinsengumi. I think Hijikata sees a lot of his oldest brother in Kondou because he, too, is a warm-hearted and accepting person who basically trusts everybody (he's a bit of a disaster man on other fronts because everyone in Gintama is, but, you know). Hijikata wants to protect him and handle the dirty aspects of their work for him. There are other people he cares very much for, like Mitsuba, his love interest, but ultimately he dedicated his life to Kondou (not because he loves him more but because he didn't think he could make Mitsuba happy since he already had a trail of violence following him).
Who's Klaudia's most important person, and also how did she end up with the pirates?
no subject
Similarly, Klaudia's most important person is her captain--which has a lot to do with how she ended up with pirates. Once she realized that her situation at home wasn't going to change--possibly ever, she got scared that she wasn't going to be able to live any kind of meaningful life, so she snuck out and hopped on the first ship to take her out of the city. (For context, this is only about a year ago for her, Avalon time included.) She hopped around a few cities, mostly keeping her head down--until eventually she heard a rumor about a ghost ship captained by a notorious woman that had been hung for murder and treason, and rose from the dead to seek revenge. Really spooky story, right?
Well, Klaudia managed to find a ship that matched the description of that ghost ship, and she decided to join the crew and investigate the ghost story. The first person she met was the captain--a very tall, dark-skin siren with ice blue hair and dress. Klaudia was expecting to have to endure some kind of prejudice or distrust, like on other ships... But the captain just smiled and welcomed her aboard. It was incredibly jarring to have someone treat her so warmly, and that left an impression.
Everyone else on the ship were likewise welcoming (barring varying amounts of warm-up time), and it was the first place that she ever felt like she belonged. Later, she heard a second version of the ghost story that framed the captain as a protector of those who love the sea and wish for freedom, and she's now convinced that the captain was in that port to save her the day they picked her up.
She thinks the world of her captain, trusts her implicitly, would do anything she says, and looks up to her like a parental figure. It's super cute.
When was the time that Hijikata was most frightened?
no subject
It's so nice how they were both given a purpose and positive perspective in life thanks to their respective leader, too. It was damn gutsy of Klaudia to go investigate the ghost ship all on her own, especially since most likely no one would have gone looking for her if she got into trouble! What caused her to be so interested in ghosts to begin with? In any case her captain sounds fantastic (and gorgeous). Kondou is only 1 year older than Hijikata, so he really is more of a big brother- than a father figure, but that's all Hijikata needed anyway.
As for Hijikata's biggest fears, canonically it's ghosts and dentists, and those do scare him shitless whenever he encounters them, but naturally that's usually more on the comedic side of things. Situations in which he's earnestly frightened usually relate to Kondou's (and sometimes other people's) safety. I don't have good media from the earlier seasons at hand, but this one from later in the series (beyond Hijikata's canon point) shows Kondou taken away by the new police force in power after a government turnover that left the Shinsengumi out of favour, and Okita and Hijikata are horrified because they know they'll execute him. After that Hijikata has pretty graphic nightmares of the execution that leave him waking up in a cold sweat, acts all paralysed, and outright says "Without him I can't do anything". His life back home really is fully dedicated to the Shinsengumi, and if Kondou is its soul, then it's one and the same.
Does Klaudia, on the whole, feel happy in Avalon (if we disregard that she surely misses her captain and crewmates)?
no subject
Firstly: That scene looks heartbreaking. Poor Hijikata! Awful how Klaudia could probably sympathize with him there, too. I don't think she's ever fully considered that she or anyone else in her crew could die; she's still very much in that youthful headspace of feeling they're all invincible. But losing her Captain would very much feel like losing the world right now.
As for ghosts... There's an IC and an OOC explanation for that, haha. ICly, she read a lot of stories when she was younger. That was pretty much her only way of exploring the world, and she latched onto ghosts as an interesting phenomenon just because they were able to go anywhere. It's not like you can lock a ghost in a room, it could just leave. Not to mention, for a child who felt trapped and like she was only half-living, the sort of fear that ghost stories inspired at least let her feel like something exciting was happening around her.
OOCly, it's kinda funny how that came about. We decided to start the campaign with all the characters knowing each other and traveling together already, so we had to figure out how they joined the crew in the first place. I decided that Klaudia (who was the most recent addition) was going to just simply come across the boat and ask for work. Sometime after that, the DM was like "Oh, here's some info your character would have heard about", and part of that was a really worrisome ghost story about the boat. So I was presented with the contradiction of Klaudia being warned away from this boat but also make the conscious decision to join the crew. Rather than change her backstory, I decided to lean hard into the ghost investigator vibe, and now she's basically Ryan from Buzzfeed Unsolved. Also, the jury is still out on whether her Captain is a ghost or not, and she's okay with that.
As for whether she feels happy in Avalon... Sort of? Mostly. She's not happy about her magic being gone, but she's interested in all the new things around her. She loves exploring, loves learning new things, and she's having a lot of fun with alchemy and light magic. She doesn't like being on her own, but she's made a lot of new friends, and she doesn't have to worry about her family catching up to her here. The only downside is that she misses being on the ocean--not just her crew, but everything about living on a boat and having the sun and the waves and the salty air, etc. That was where she felt the most free, and it makes her feel a little restless to be stuck on land again.
She also doesn't like feeling like it's on her shoulders to save the world and all. It's a lot of responsibility that she doesn't feel like she can handle, so she's mostly hoping that her crew ends up here. Then she won't have to worry about what happens to anyone else.
no subject
Aw, Klaudia feeling invincible with her captain and crew is cute... hopefully it'll be smooth sailing for them (
pun intended)!That makes so much sense about the ghosts! It's true, they can't be locked up anywhere. Poor little Klaudia, at least the books gave her a bit of an escape. I love how your whole campaign seems to be playing out on the high seas, that is so cool! The one I was part of before the pandemic was a pretty classic one with much on-land travelling and dungeon-crawling. Klaudia hearing the warnings about the ghost ship and going "I don't care, I always wanted to see a ghost anyway" is truly on-brand now in hindsight.
She would miss the sea around here, that adds up (a lake just isn't the same, wild as it is!). But it's good that she also finds acceptance here, even if some jerks (coughcough) will still call her a demon. The responsibility can be a little much for people who aren't from, like, shounen anime, but as long as she just exists here and contributes to the magic pool she's pretty much doing her part!