App for Khu Ioduan
Jan. 26th, 2018 06:11 pm• Player Information •
• Character Information •
• Writing Sample •
Name: Wei
Age/18+?: 31
Contact: plurk: zeroq1 discord: nobody#7007
Other Characters Played: n/a
Most Recent AC Link: n/a
Age/18+?: 31
Contact: plurk: zeroq1 discord: nobody#7007
Other Characters Played: n/a
Most Recent AC Link: n/a
• Character Information •
Name: Ankh
Canon: Kamen Rider OOO
Canon Point: Episode 45, just after stomping out on the Greeed
Age: 800+ (Host is in his early 20's)
Type of Character: Canon
Reference: Kamen Rider Wiki
Personality: The Greeed were made 800 years ago to serve a power hungry king in his conquest of the world. Each was made incomplete, and awoke driven by a desire to be whole that could never be fulfilled. They live with limited senses and limited emotions, and try to fill the void by taking from humans all the things they can never truly own. Even amongst themselves, it's a constant battle for the one thing they always need: more. Ankh is a Greeed, but he's something beyond that. He's the one who learned how to live, and how to be content. Over time, he learned how to be a lot more human.
That said, he started out very much a Greeed, and he maintains many of those characteristics. It's obvious in the first couple episodes that Ankh has very little reverence for life and all he cares about is getting more Medals for himself. One of the first things Ankh did was to stop Eiji from killing a Yummy that was wreaking havoc. Though Eiji got his way and ended up taking down the Yummy earlier, Ankh's plan was to let the Yummy consume an entire office building filled with people just so that it would give him that many more Medals once it was destroyed. Eiji's influence had an effect over the series in this regard, and by the time I'm picking him up from, it's unlikely that he would so happily sit by and watch that kind of destruction, much less cause it. That said, Ankh is only protective of the people who matter to him in some way, and while at this point he's not so inclined to put strangers in harm's way, he won't go too far out of his way to help them, either.
Ankh is selfish and conniving and rarely does anything that doesn't benefit him in some way. Everything he does, he calculates. Sometimes it means that he'll do things that put him at a temporary disadvantage so that he'll come out on top later. His decision to let Eiji become OOO in the first place is a perfect example of that. While he initially thought that Eiji would be stupid and easy to push around, that was a snap assessment and there was a risk in giving that kind of power to a complete stranger. As it turned out, Eiji wasn't as dumb as he first looked, but Ankh continued to keep him on his side despite a lot of frustration because having OOO around was useful.
The flip side of that is that if you know what drives him, it's relatively easy to talk him into things, provided they aren't going to be too much of a hindrance to him. He can be convinced of most things with the promise of Medals, even if they're boring or embarrassing. Similarly, he initially had no interest in Hina's safety, but Eiji talked him into protecting her by offering a year's supply of popsicles.
He's also rude. The way he speaks is generally impolite, he makes no secret of it when he doesn't like something, and it's habit for him to call people idiots as soon as they do something he doesn't agree with or doesn't understand. When Eiji brought him to live at Cous Coussier, he had to make up a cover story about Ankh having grown up in a rough environment in some foreign country, just to sufficiently explain his bad behavior.
Most of the reason for Ankh's calculating, guarded, and prickly nature comes from his background. At the beginning of the show he revived from several centuries of being sealed away in a stone coffin, and prior to that it doesn't seem like he'd had very much interaction with anyone besides the other Greeed and a power mad king. He lived in an environment where it was everyone for themselves, and the one alliance he had made led to betrayal. When the Greeed woke up again, none of them had a full set of their core medals and the first thing any of them did was steal from the others to try get the upper hand. When that's the environment he was used to, it's no wonder that he doesn't let his guard down easily.
Though for all that he's unfriendly and unsociable, it's a surprising how much so-called stupidity he'll actually put up with, whether that's getting dragged unwillingly into social events, tolerating Chiyoko attempting to give him politeness lessons, or letting Eiji push him off a table while scolding him to sit normally. Ankh actually spends many of the less serious moments in the series being the butt of jokes, often involving fairly ridiculous slapstick, and while he's clearly not happy about any of that, he puts up with it, and even decides he misses some of it once he's not there with everyone. He, of course, would chalk up all of it to needing to stay enough in everyone's good graces so he could hold on to whatever benefits they happened to be providing. But with as many times as he can be seen sitting in the background pretending not to pay attention while the rest of the group engages in whatever antics (usually dragging him in at some point) it's hard not to assume that some part of him just enjoys the company.
And by the end of the series, he really does care. At the start, he was a severed hand with an attitude who took over an unconscious human just so that he'd have a body to work with. But over time, having a human body and being around humans constantly started to change him. Having a human body gives him an entirely different way of perceiving things compared to the other Greeed. They have extremely limited senses, and while they can see, hear, and feel, it's all in some muted or distorted form, and the ability to taste is nonexistent. One of the first things he did upon taking over Shingo was eat popsicles, and he proceeded to get addicted to them because they were the first thing he'd ever tasted.
While Shingo's body is what made him physically human, his interactions with others did the rest of it. In the beginning, it was nothing more than an uneasy alliance. Eiji was an idiot who he adopted working with because having OOO as an ally is useful when struggling against the other Greeed, and Hina is nothing more than a hindrance he's forced to deal with because he happens to be possessing her brother's body. Then he spent a lot of time with them, and he got used to them. Eventually, he started to understand and even like them.
That said, it wasn't enough to keep him from betraying them and setting off on his own with Shingo's body as a hostage as soon as he got his full power back. Particularly since in the same incident that allowed him to regain his power, Eiji demonstrated terrifying destructive power of his own and wrecked three of Ankh's Cores. Ankh felt threatened. He knew Eiji had no plans to let him keep Shingo's body, and he'd be lacking in both power and senses without Shingo, so he took his host and ran... and formed a temporary alliance with the rest of the Greeed now that he was strong enough to stand up to them.
Being with the other Greeed, however, quickly brought him to the conclusion that he didn't like associating with them. By then, he'd gotten used to living with a bunch of humans who supported and cared for each other. In contrast, the Greeed only fought amongst themselves in a constant competition for Medals. In the time he spent with them, Maki also questioned Ankh describing a Greeed that had been destroyed as “dead”, saying they were just made of Medals and had no life of their own. It didn't take him long to decide he wanted nothing to do with any of it, at which point he threw the other Greeed's oh-so-precious Medals back in their faces, and stomped off alone, ultimately to go have a showdown with Eiji and decide the fate of his human host body once and for all.
That's the canon point he's coming from here. In the end, he manages to reconcile his differences with Eiji, and eventually sacrifices himself to protect him from Maki. The Core Medal containing his consciousness breaks, and Eiji spends an indeterminate amount of time trying to put it back together, and a sequel movie shows that he does succeed at some point, but who knows when or how. The future Ankh that's been revived is a lot softer around the edges and doesn't seem to mind more openly showing concern over Eiji and Hina, but at the canon point I'm pulling him from, he's still got some hurdles to get over before he'll get there.
As a last side note, Ankh's existence as a Greeed was originally distilled from the essence of birds. Aside from having an arm with a bird on the back of it and big shimmery wings that pop out sometimes, his bird origins color several other things, from the way he moves to certain habits. He's prone to sudden quick movements, tends to lead motion with his head, and carries most of his weight on one foot at a time. He tends to perch moreso than sit, finding either the nearest tree or the highest available place in the room. When he enters or leaves the room where he lives, it's through the window, not the door (and he lives in an attic). He also was at one point disturbed at having someone offer him chicken as a meal, because eating a cooked bird just seemed wrong (though that didn't stop him from getting irritated enough to take a bite out of the thing anyway).
Appearance: Way more information than you need
Abilities: Being a Greeed comes with a lot of perks. For one, they're just physically stronger than humans, to the point that there's basically no way to defeat them unless someone has a power suit. But beyond that, here are the specifics:
Medals- First of all, Greeeds are made of medals. Core Medals are, as the name implies, the core of a Greeed's existence. They are, essentially, what makes that Greeed themselves. Ankh's Core Medals are red and depict birds (hawk, peacock, and condor, to be specific). The more Cores a Greeed has, the more powerful they are and the more complete they feel. Ankh's consciousness is contained in a single Hawk medal, which broke into two pieces at the end of the series. Cell Medals, the more common and less powerful type, are silver in color and used for a lot of different purposes. Since Ankh is composed of these pieces, he can absorb them into himself or pull them out at will.
Making Yummies- One of the major things Greeeds do with Cell Medals is implanting them in someone with a strong desire in order to let that desire grow out of control. Each Greeed's Yummies work a little differently, and Ankh's tend to exist separately from their host and behave like a bird taking care of their young. They kidnap the host, keeping them in a central location that serves as a nest, while the Yummy goes out to get whatever the host wants and bring it back to them. As with all Yummies, this usually ends up with the host being extremely unhappy with this method of having their desire fulfilled, and of course havoc is wrought when the Yummy is out gathering metaphorical food for its chick. Ankh almost never creates Yummies, being incapable of doing so for most of the series, and only briefly of a mindset to consider it once he became able, but he does have the capability. He might think about it if Cell Medals are needed, because breaking down a Yummy that's grown through fulfilling desires is about the only way to create more of them.
Sensing Desire- In order to create a Yummy, a Greeed must first discover someone with a sufficiently powerful desire. In this particular field, they're a bit psychic. Unable to create Yummies for most of the series. Ankh rarely says anything about this as such, but other Greeeds notice the wishes of their would-be Yummy hosts, and Ankh certainly comments on Eiji having an utter lack of desire. Being creatures made from desire, he can easily notice the presence of a Yummy at a considerable distance, as well as pick out which human is the Yummy's host if he's able to interact with them at all.
Shapeshifting- Being fundamentally a pile of medals, a Greeed's physical appearance is mutable. Ankh's true form is humanoid, but clearly inhuman, with bird-like characteristics. But he can also choose to take on the appearance of any human he sees. Right now, he's possessing Shingo, so this mostly only applies to whether his right arm appears Greeed or human at any given moment. (After being revived with his own body, he still chooses to appear as Shingo most of the time because it's what he's used to and how other people recognise him.)
Flight- His Greeed form is based on a bird, so of course he can fly. While he doesn't usually appear to have wings, he can choose to manifest them even while appearing as a human, at which point they will suddenly and dramatically sprout from his back. The wings are translucent and iridescent and give a general impression of being made of light.
Fire- His element is fire, and he can throw fireballs. This one is pretty straightforward.
Suitability: Ankh is resilient and good at adapting to unexpected circumstances. He was sealed away for 800 years and revived as only an arm, and at a giant disadvantage compared to the other Greeed having full bodies, but he immediately figured out what he needed to do to make the best of that. He isn't great at social skills, and at least to start with he's going to be at odds with Eiji (assuming both of them are accepted), so it's debatable whether he'll “fit in” that way but he's used to that. He'll bother people as he deems it necessary (or entertaining).
As for what kinds of plots I'd want to see him in, I know he doesn't tend to fare well in pure slice of life for the reason I just said, so I'd love to get him swept up in whatever overarching plot happens. Exploring is good, too. He'll probably keep himself busy for a while trying to learn the place, anyway.
Inventory: His six remaining Core Medals, all of the remaining medals that belong to Kazari (which I think would be 8 of them, not that it really matters), and however many Cell Medals he has, all of which are basically just part of his body. He wouldn't have had much else at that canon point aside from just the clothes he's wearing.
Talent Preferences: Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration
Canon: Kamen Rider OOO
Canon Point: Episode 45, just after stomping out on the Greeed
Age: 800+ (Host is in his early 20's)
Type of Character: Canon
Reference: Kamen Rider Wiki
Personality: The Greeed were made 800 years ago to serve a power hungry king in his conquest of the world. Each was made incomplete, and awoke driven by a desire to be whole that could never be fulfilled. They live with limited senses and limited emotions, and try to fill the void by taking from humans all the things they can never truly own. Even amongst themselves, it's a constant battle for the one thing they always need: more. Ankh is a Greeed, but he's something beyond that. He's the one who learned how to live, and how to be content. Over time, he learned how to be a lot more human.
That said, he started out very much a Greeed, and he maintains many of those characteristics. It's obvious in the first couple episodes that Ankh has very little reverence for life and all he cares about is getting more Medals for himself. One of the first things Ankh did was to stop Eiji from killing a Yummy that was wreaking havoc. Though Eiji got his way and ended up taking down the Yummy earlier, Ankh's plan was to let the Yummy consume an entire office building filled with people just so that it would give him that many more Medals once it was destroyed. Eiji's influence had an effect over the series in this regard, and by the time I'm picking him up from, it's unlikely that he would so happily sit by and watch that kind of destruction, much less cause it. That said, Ankh is only protective of the people who matter to him in some way, and while at this point he's not so inclined to put strangers in harm's way, he won't go too far out of his way to help them, either.
Ankh is selfish and conniving and rarely does anything that doesn't benefit him in some way. Everything he does, he calculates. Sometimes it means that he'll do things that put him at a temporary disadvantage so that he'll come out on top later. His decision to let Eiji become OOO in the first place is a perfect example of that. While he initially thought that Eiji would be stupid and easy to push around, that was a snap assessment and there was a risk in giving that kind of power to a complete stranger. As it turned out, Eiji wasn't as dumb as he first looked, but Ankh continued to keep him on his side despite a lot of frustration because having OOO around was useful.
The flip side of that is that if you know what drives him, it's relatively easy to talk him into things, provided they aren't going to be too much of a hindrance to him. He can be convinced of most things with the promise of Medals, even if they're boring or embarrassing. Similarly, he initially had no interest in Hina's safety, but Eiji talked him into protecting her by offering a year's supply of popsicles.
He's also rude. The way he speaks is generally impolite, he makes no secret of it when he doesn't like something, and it's habit for him to call people idiots as soon as they do something he doesn't agree with or doesn't understand. When Eiji brought him to live at Cous Coussier, he had to make up a cover story about Ankh having grown up in a rough environment in some foreign country, just to sufficiently explain his bad behavior.
Most of the reason for Ankh's calculating, guarded, and prickly nature comes from his background. At the beginning of the show he revived from several centuries of being sealed away in a stone coffin, and prior to that it doesn't seem like he'd had very much interaction with anyone besides the other Greeed and a power mad king. He lived in an environment where it was everyone for themselves, and the one alliance he had made led to betrayal. When the Greeed woke up again, none of them had a full set of their core medals and the first thing any of them did was steal from the others to try get the upper hand. When that's the environment he was used to, it's no wonder that he doesn't let his guard down easily.
Though for all that he's unfriendly and unsociable, it's a surprising how much so-called stupidity he'll actually put up with, whether that's getting dragged unwillingly into social events, tolerating Chiyoko attempting to give him politeness lessons, or letting Eiji push him off a table while scolding him to sit normally. Ankh actually spends many of the less serious moments in the series being the butt of jokes, often involving fairly ridiculous slapstick, and while he's clearly not happy about any of that, he puts up with it, and even decides he misses some of it once he's not there with everyone. He, of course, would chalk up all of it to needing to stay enough in everyone's good graces so he could hold on to whatever benefits they happened to be providing. But with as many times as he can be seen sitting in the background pretending not to pay attention while the rest of the group engages in whatever antics (usually dragging him in at some point) it's hard not to assume that some part of him just enjoys the company.
And by the end of the series, he really does care. At the start, he was a severed hand with an attitude who took over an unconscious human just so that he'd have a body to work with. But over time, having a human body and being around humans constantly started to change him. Having a human body gives him an entirely different way of perceiving things compared to the other Greeed. They have extremely limited senses, and while they can see, hear, and feel, it's all in some muted or distorted form, and the ability to taste is nonexistent. One of the first things he did upon taking over Shingo was eat popsicles, and he proceeded to get addicted to them because they were the first thing he'd ever tasted.
While Shingo's body is what made him physically human, his interactions with others did the rest of it. In the beginning, it was nothing more than an uneasy alliance. Eiji was an idiot who he adopted working with because having OOO as an ally is useful when struggling against the other Greeed, and Hina is nothing more than a hindrance he's forced to deal with because he happens to be possessing her brother's body. Then he spent a lot of time with them, and he got used to them. Eventually, he started to understand and even like them.
That said, it wasn't enough to keep him from betraying them and setting off on his own with Shingo's body as a hostage as soon as he got his full power back. Particularly since in the same incident that allowed him to regain his power, Eiji demonstrated terrifying destructive power of his own and wrecked three of Ankh's Cores. Ankh felt threatened. He knew Eiji had no plans to let him keep Shingo's body, and he'd be lacking in both power and senses without Shingo, so he took his host and ran... and formed a temporary alliance with the rest of the Greeed now that he was strong enough to stand up to them.
Being with the other Greeed, however, quickly brought him to the conclusion that he didn't like associating with them. By then, he'd gotten used to living with a bunch of humans who supported and cared for each other. In contrast, the Greeed only fought amongst themselves in a constant competition for Medals. In the time he spent with them, Maki also questioned Ankh describing a Greeed that had been destroyed as “dead”, saying they were just made of Medals and had no life of their own. It didn't take him long to decide he wanted nothing to do with any of it, at which point he threw the other Greeed's oh-so-precious Medals back in their faces, and stomped off alone, ultimately to go have a showdown with Eiji and decide the fate of his human host body once and for all.
That's the canon point he's coming from here. In the end, he manages to reconcile his differences with Eiji, and eventually sacrifices himself to protect him from Maki. The Core Medal containing his consciousness breaks, and Eiji spends an indeterminate amount of time trying to put it back together, and a sequel movie shows that he does succeed at some point, but who knows when or how. The future Ankh that's been revived is a lot softer around the edges and doesn't seem to mind more openly showing concern over Eiji and Hina, but at the canon point I'm pulling him from, he's still got some hurdles to get over before he'll get there.
As a last side note, Ankh's existence as a Greeed was originally distilled from the essence of birds. Aside from having an arm with a bird on the back of it and big shimmery wings that pop out sometimes, his bird origins color several other things, from the way he moves to certain habits. He's prone to sudden quick movements, tends to lead motion with his head, and carries most of his weight on one foot at a time. He tends to perch moreso than sit, finding either the nearest tree or the highest available place in the room. When he enters or leaves the room where he lives, it's through the window, not the door (and he lives in an attic). He also was at one point disturbed at having someone offer him chicken as a meal, because eating a cooked bird just seemed wrong (though that didn't stop him from getting irritated enough to take a bite out of the thing anyway).
Appearance: Way more information than you need
Abilities: Being a Greeed comes with a lot of perks. For one, they're just physically stronger than humans, to the point that there's basically no way to defeat them unless someone has a power suit. But beyond that, here are the specifics:
Medals- First of all, Greeeds are made of medals. Core Medals are, as the name implies, the core of a Greeed's existence. They are, essentially, what makes that Greeed themselves. Ankh's Core Medals are red and depict birds (hawk, peacock, and condor, to be specific). The more Cores a Greeed has, the more powerful they are and the more complete they feel. Ankh's consciousness is contained in a single Hawk medal, which broke into two pieces at the end of the series. Cell Medals, the more common and less powerful type, are silver in color and used for a lot of different purposes. Since Ankh is composed of these pieces, he can absorb them into himself or pull them out at will.
Making Yummies- One of the major things Greeeds do with Cell Medals is implanting them in someone with a strong desire in order to let that desire grow out of control. Each Greeed's Yummies work a little differently, and Ankh's tend to exist separately from their host and behave like a bird taking care of their young. They kidnap the host, keeping them in a central location that serves as a nest, while the Yummy goes out to get whatever the host wants and bring it back to them. As with all Yummies, this usually ends up with the host being extremely unhappy with this method of having their desire fulfilled, and of course havoc is wrought when the Yummy is out gathering metaphorical food for its chick. Ankh almost never creates Yummies, being incapable of doing so for most of the series, and only briefly of a mindset to consider it once he became able, but he does have the capability. He might think about it if Cell Medals are needed, because breaking down a Yummy that's grown through fulfilling desires is about the only way to create more of them.
Sensing Desire- In order to create a Yummy, a Greeed must first discover someone with a sufficiently powerful desire. In this particular field, they're a bit psychic. Unable to create Yummies for most of the series. Ankh rarely says anything about this as such, but other Greeeds notice the wishes of their would-be Yummy hosts, and Ankh certainly comments on Eiji having an utter lack of desire. Being creatures made from desire, he can easily notice the presence of a Yummy at a considerable distance, as well as pick out which human is the Yummy's host if he's able to interact with them at all.
Shapeshifting- Being fundamentally a pile of medals, a Greeed's physical appearance is mutable. Ankh's true form is humanoid, but clearly inhuman, with bird-like characteristics. But he can also choose to take on the appearance of any human he sees. Right now, he's possessing Shingo, so this mostly only applies to whether his right arm appears Greeed or human at any given moment. (After being revived with his own body, he still chooses to appear as Shingo most of the time because it's what he's used to and how other people recognise him.)
Flight- His Greeed form is based on a bird, so of course he can fly. While he doesn't usually appear to have wings, he can choose to manifest them even while appearing as a human, at which point they will suddenly and dramatically sprout from his back. The wings are translucent and iridescent and give a general impression of being made of light.
Fire- His element is fire, and he can throw fireballs. This one is pretty straightforward.
Suitability: Ankh is resilient and good at adapting to unexpected circumstances. He was sealed away for 800 years and revived as only an arm, and at a giant disadvantage compared to the other Greeed having full bodies, but he immediately figured out what he needed to do to make the best of that. He isn't great at social skills, and at least to start with he's going to be at odds with Eiji (assuming both of them are accepted), so it's debatable whether he'll “fit in” that way but he's used to that. He'll bother people as he deems it necessary (or entertaining).
As for what kinds of plots I'd want to see him in, I know he doesn't tend to fare well in pure slice of life for the reason I just said, so I'd love to get him swept up in whatever overarching plot happens. Exploring is good, too. He'll probably keep himself busy for a while trying to learn the place, anyway.
Inventory: His six remaining Core Medals, all of the remaining medals that belong to Kazari (which I think would be 8 of them, not that it really matters), and however many Cell Medals he has, all of which are basically just part of his body. He wouldn't have had much else at that canon point aside from just the clothes he's wearing.
Talent Preferences: Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration
• Writing Sample •
Rules for making a Yummy
Aug. 31st, 2017 12:09 amNot every desire can be turned into a monster. Here's a summary of what means it can:
1. There has to be a strong and persistent desire for something. It has to be a thing the character always really wants. i.e. being really hungry right now doesn't count, but being a food addict does.
2. It has to be in some way selfish. "I want all my friends to be safe and happy" can be a very strong desire but I'm not sure what a Yummy would do with it. That said, if that takes the form of "I want all my friends to be here with me," there will probably be a Yummy going and kidnapping all your friends.
3. It doesn't have to be tangible, but it does need to be obtainable. Anything that the character could theoretically get on their own given enough time is fair game, even if it's not something physical. A couple of canon examples would be someone who wanted to be famous as a writer and the Yummy went around sucking out other people's writing and public speaking ability and giving it to him, or a boxer with a broken hand where the Yummy made it heal perfectly and unnaturally fast by taking the strength from other people's hands. (The effects on both the host and the victims will go back to normal once the Yummy is destroyed.)
4. It has to affect more than one other person. For example, "I want to be beautiful and for people to love me" created one of the most powerful and ridiculous Yummies in the show. But "I want this specific other person to think I'm beautiful and love me" wouldn't work, unless your character has a more generalised plan for making that happen.
It's definitely also possible for desires to be misguided, and that happened a few times in the show. If the underlying motive doesn't qualify for the above, but someone is dead set on making something happen that will lead to what they actually want, that method can make a Yummy. For example, there was a case where the motive was actually "I want this specific person to love me," but she thought that for him to notice her she needed to be better at martial arts, so the Yummy came from "I want to be stronger."
Likewise, there was a boy whose distanced father was obsessed with the idea of justice and wanted to be a lawyer. He thought that he wanted to be able to beat up bad guys and deal with criminals like his dad, and that thought almost spawned a Yummy, but it stopped when he realised that all he actually wanted was for his dad to come home.
1. There has to be a strong and persistent desire for something. It has to be a thing the character always really wants. i.e. being really hungry right now doesn't count, but being a food addict does.
2. It has to be in some way selfish. "I want all my friends to be safe and happy" can be a very strong desire but I'm not sure what a Yummy would do with it. That said, if that takes the form of "I want all my friends to be here with me," there will probably be a Yummy going and kidnapping all your friends.
3. It doesn't have to be tangible, but it does need to be obtainable. Anything that the character could theoretically get on their own given enough time is fair game, even if it's not something physical. A couple of canon examples would be someone who wanted to be famous as a writer and the Yummy went around sucking out other people's writing and public speaking ability and giving it to him, or a boxer with a broken hand where the Yummy made it heal perfectly and unnaturally fast by taking the strength from other people's hands. (The effects on both the host and the victims will go back to normal once the Yummy is destroyed.)
4. It has to affect more than one other person. For example, "I want to be beautiful and for people to love me" created one of the most powerful and ridiculous Yummies in the show. But "I want this specific other person to think I'm beautiful and love me" wouldn't work, unless your character has a more generalised plan for making that happen.
It's definitely also possible for desires to be misguided, and that happened a few times in the show. If the underlying motive doesn't qualify for the above, but someone is dead set on making something happen that will lead to what they actually want, that method can make a Yummy. For example, there was a case where the motive was actually "I want this specific person to love me," but she thought that for him to notice her she needed to be better at martial arts, so the Yummy came from "I want to be stronger."
Likewise, there was a boy whose distanced father was obsessed with the idea of justice and wanted to be a lawyer. He thought that he wanted to be able to beat up bad guys and deal with criminals like his dad, and that thought almost spawned a Yummy, but it stopped when he realised that all he actually wanted was for his dad to come home.
Sea of Hearts Dreamcatcher
Aug. 30th, 2017 11:21 pmReposting here since it doesn't need to be hidden anymore and the information is otherwise useful.
Fears:
-Attachments to People-
So let's start off here by talking about Ankh's past 800 years before the series. He was an alchemical being created to serve a king somewhere in Europe, and that king was a power-hungry conqueror. There were originally ten core medals that made up his being (at this point he was the King of Birds) but a creature with all the medals lacks motivation, so the king took away one and turned him into a Greeed. With one taken away, the Greeed generally become aware that there's a piece missing and seek to fill in the hole with anything and everything (hence the name Greeed.)
Clearly, the fact that the king created him to be a tool and intentionally stole one of his medals didn't bother Ankh, because he stuck with the guy even when the rest of the Greeed rebelled. The reasons are unclear. There are vague references to him wanting power for himself, which is probably valid but I'm not sure whether that alone justifies him siding with the king over the Greeed. My personal theory here is that Ankh was the first one of the Greeed created so he got attached to the king when it was just him and the other Greeed were kind of unwanted competition to start with. And presumably he saw something in the king that was worth following, though he might have also just had an attachment because the king is effectively his father figure. This also means that he got to watch the entirety of the king's descent into madness but that's a different point and I'll come back to that later.
Ultimately, he did go completely out of his mind seeking power and Ankh didn't expect it. There was a confrontation between the Greeed and the king, and Ankh betrayed his fellow Greeed and took the king's side. His reward? Literally being stabbed in the back. The king stuck his claw hand through Ankh and pulled out his medals, then tried to use all the medals at once and that didn't go well. Rather than becoming super powerful, the king ended up turning into a box and sealing all the medals into it (don't ask me how that works). Ankh fell outside the range of what was being sealed, but he reached out to try to grab his medals back so his arm and his consciousness got sealed away but not the rest of his body. This left Ankh with a massive fear of betrayal. (And if you actually want vast amounts of tl;dr but a really good analysis, have a long essay my friend wrote that goes into Ankh having PTSD about this. There are multiple characters on that page so scroll down to the Ankh section.)
According to the novel (which is a canon extension by a different author but still official and I like playing with it) before the whole confrontation with the king and the Greeed, he had one other person he would consider a friend. She was a little blind girl who liked birds. Ankh remembered when he was first created as the King of Birds and loved the sky, but after the king took one of his medals and he became a Greeed, the colors were muted and he couldn't appreciate it the same way. He and the girl bonded over wanting to see a beautiful sky. He made a yummy from her desire to see, intending to help her, but it backfired because the yummy went and basically stole other people's eyes and so the first thing she saw was corpses with no eyes and she went crazy. The novel summaries are very unclear about what happened next, but this somehow resulted in her death. As she was dying, she told him to become the King of Birds again and protect the weak. It's a request he has done a very good job of ignoring, partly because he honestly doesn't know how to do that, between not having access to all ten medals to be the King of Birds again and having completely screwed up the one time he really tried to be helpful.
So long story short there, in his early life he was close to exactly two people. He destroyed one of them, and the other one destroyed him. Ankh's early life sucked and he doesn't want to repeat it, so he is actually kind of terrified of people, really doesn't want to get attached, and has a history of actively avoiding knowing anything of any depth about the people he's around because he's afraid he might end up caring. Eiji and Hina eventually got around that, but of course he's lacking those memories and assumes Eiji killed him so that's just more fuel to the fire here until he gets those memories back.
-Being split into pieces-
See aforementioned and how his arm got cut off within the same period of about a minute that the person he trusted to work with him stabbed him in the back. When he woke up after being sealed, he was just a sentient arm and had to go borrow a random human's body to function normally.
-Being overwhelmed by another consciousness-
Ankh actually spent most of the series at war with someone else's mind, between him possessing a human and then having the rest of his body develop its own consciousness and try to absorb him. Shingo was never too much of a threat, though there are occasional moments where Shingo reasserts control of his body, and if he's actually fully conscious, Ankh can't possess him. When he woke up initially, Ankh spent an episode being just a hand and feeling lost and trying unsuccessfully to convince himself this was okay, and later when he took over Shingo's body by force, he had to choke him until he passed out in order to do it. But once Ankh was in control, Shingo generally seemed pretty quiet as an influence and the most he could do was kick Ankh out of his body.
The one that really terrified him was the other "him" (aka "Lost" Ankh). He started out not being sure why he couldn't generate any more of his body even when he got a few more of his core medals back, then someone was making yummies that were clearly his except that he didn't make them. When he finally met the culprit, it was the rest of his body walking around on its own, having developed its own will. They immediately tried to absorb each other, and it quickly became clear that Ankh was the weaker one. If Eiji hadn't intervened, he would have been taken over by the other one right then and there. He at one point had a nightmare about Eiji turning on him and deciding that he wasn't the "right" Ankh, and letting the other one take him over – and woke up having a full blown panic attack. I mean, look, he was so freaked out he couldn't even walk straight. (And of course the first thing he did was go grab Eiji's face and demand to know if the purple medals -see below- were acting up because idk grabbing faces makes him feel like he has a grip on things.)
Eventually, Lost Ankh succeeded in taking him over, and he spent a couple episodes desperately trying to keep control of his own consciousness while being stuck in the right hand of a body that wanted him to disappear. He managed to stay intact through sheer force of willpower, and only regained control because Eiji was able to get rid of the impostor... which is its own kind of scary but that's for another point.
-People he trusts going crazy-
So getting back to this point. The king was always ambitious and power-hungry, but presumably he didn't start out nuts. Ankh mentions that the OOO belt that Eiji, and originally the king, uses to transform into a Kamen Rider basically latches onto the user's innate desire and eventually sends it out of control. Eiji was a fairly safe bet because he didn't have any strong personal desires, but Ankh described the king as being "desire incarnate," thus the belt eventually made him go berzerk (when he decided he wanted to have all the medals and use them all at once and stabbed Ankh in the back to rip out his cores).
The belt didn't have that effect on Eiji, but then Eiji also became host to the purple medals, which took over his consciousness and literally made him go berzerk when they were active. He gained some control over them, but even then, they eventually had a noticeable effect on his sanity in general. Ankh got extremely nervous about how the purple medals were affecting Eiji, and with the chunk of his memories missing he's basically going to assume that his medal broke because the person with the OOO belt went berzerk and tried to destroy him again.
By association, if anyone's eyes glow purple, it's probably going to freak him out.
-Having his medals destroyed-
The purple medals have the ability to break other core medals. The first time that happened was when Eiji was so determined to defeat Lost Ankh that he ripped into him and destroyed three of his medals. Ankh was grateful that he'd gotten rid of the other "him" but at the same time, he didn't even know that could happen and it was terrifying. Eiji had threatened to kick him out of Shingo's body before, and now that he he was both having trouble staying sane with those medals and had the ability to completely break the pieces that made up Ankh's existence... well let's just say that he felt like he had good reason for taking Shingo's body back over and getting out of there as quickly as possible once he was free from Lost Ankh's influence. Breaking the core containing his consciousness was what killed him, but breaking any of the others results in a hit to his power level that he doesn't have any real way of compensating for.
-Losing his physical senses-
Greeed don't have very good senses. They see, hear, and feel well enough to get by, but nothing more. They have absolutely no sense of taste, and smell is actually never mentioned but presumably that's gone, too. Any color in their vision is dull if it exists at all. Sounds are clear enough to be understood, but a bit distorted and dull. They seem like they can feel pain, but probably not as intensely as a human, and it's debatable how well their sense of feeling works with regard to anything else. It's unclear what Ankh's experience was as the King of Birds and how well he recalls anything from it at this point (the show and book can't seem to agree on whether he was conscious at all before becoming a Greeed) but I can at least say that when he possessed Shingo and got a set of human senses along with it, he became immediately attached to that experience. It's probably the thing he would hate giving up more than anything else.
-Not being alive-
I should start out here by saying that this is something very different from a fear of dying. Since, actually, in canon, dying was a solution to it. This is the fear of being just an object, and never having lived in the first place. His senses are tied into his self-perception in this regard, and it's a big part of why he fought so hard to keep Shingo even though that meant burning bridges with Eiji and Hina (or so he thinks; as it turned out, they ended up being more forgiving than he expected.)
-Being weak/not in control-
At the start of the series, he was just a hand and had very little of his powers. As of the first episode, even a Yummy was stronger than he was. He avoided the other Greeed because he knew they would be stronger than him, but his only option for protection was handing the power that sealed them all away in the first place to a stranger he only hoped he would be able to manipulate to his advantage. He can work from a position of horrible disadvantage if he needs to, but he really doesn't like it. Since he has so much trouble with trust, he hates having to rely on others even as a matter of necessity, and thus has a need to exert that he is the person in charge. This one isn't as true by the end of the series since he's developed a better ability to interact with people, but with the memories gone and his trust issues in place, this will be out in full force.
-Pain- He is perfectly willing to get hurt if it's necessary, so this isn't an incredibly strong fear. That said, he is more pain avoidant than probably anyone else in that show. He won't put himself at risk unless there is a very good reason for it (also tied to the above), and it is very possible (to an extent) to smack him into obedience. Hina does things like grab his ears hard or something similar to make a point, and he will sometimes visibly cower away from her and her super strength if it seems like she's getting mad enough to physically do something to him. He's also the most likely to complain when she does something like hold his hand too hard, but that could be as much just that he likes complaining.
-Being like the other Greeed-
When he briefly goes back to work with the rest of the Greeed, he makes the statement that he hates humans, but he hates Greeeds even more. He doesn't like that form of existence what with the senses and all, but it's also that his time spent around humans made him that much more aware of how incredibly petty and self-centered they are. They just wanted their medals and that's all they ever really thought about – and he acknowledges being the same way, but likes to think he's risen above it. And by the end of the series, he has, because he has a level of emotional understanding that none of the rest of them seem capable of. At the time when he makes the statement, it's debatable, and with his memories twisted, he's basically back to how he started. But he still has a concept of "living" that they don't have thanks to his ability to sense things and some of his experiences having interacted with humans, so he'll still be attached to this idea.
Attachments:
People (Basically going to describe all of Ankh's relationships to other characters here since I know you guys are canonblind. Not all are positive.)
-Eiji and Hina-
See app; I think I covered that pretty solidly there. They were the people who showed him humans could be trustworthy and who cared enough about him dying to convince him that he was alive.
Eiji as Kamen Rider OOO
Eiji's ridiculous underwear (he has an obsession, it is a thing Ankh teases him about... seriously, please just make my day by throwing these boxers somewhere for people to wtf at)
-Chiyoko-
Chiyoko owns Cous Coussier, where Eiji worked and Eiji and Ankh lived together in their small attic room. She is a silly but caring woman who likes costumes and coming up with crazy themes for her restaurant and gets a kick out of driving Ankh up the wall.
-Team Birth-
Date, Gotou, and Satonaka are the secondary Kamen Rider team in this series. Date is the original Kamen Rider Birth, who was replaced by Gotou but eventually came back to fight alongside him using the prototype version of the Birth suit. Satonaka provides support and kicks ass without a suit. Ankh isn't super attached to any of them, but he would recognise them as allies by the end of the series and since people he considers to be on his side are few and far between that's important. (Like the others, the missing memories will mess with this.) Of the three, though, he would be least likely to trust Satonaka, because her paycheck is her motivation and she works for Kougami -see below-
-Shingo- The guy whose body Ankh took over. So he's kind of Ankh's mild-mannered twin who shared a body and headspace with him for a while. This is a complicated relationship that the series never exactly gets into, but it seems like they were aware of each other on some level the whole time Ankh is possessing him and they come out of it understanding each other pretty deeply. I think the person who was least upset about Ankh forcibly taking Shingo's body back over toward the end of the series was Shingo.
-Kougami- Ankh's most uneasy alliance. He provided a lot of assistance in getting the medals back (the candroids -see below- for example) but always had his own agenda. I don't think Ankh knows it, but he's also a descendent of the king, so make of that what you will. He also is obsessed with the idea of birthdays and makes cakes all the time.
-The King and The Girl- The people that haunt his past. These are not positive associations, but they are certainly important. The girl is only in the novel and any time the King is depicted, he's transformed as OOO, so I have no idea what they actually look like.
-"Lost" Ankh- Same as above; as far as he's concerned, his other self is gone and should stay that way. This was the biggest direct threat he faced during the series, and one that came very close to actually deleting his consciousness from existence.
-Dr. Maki- In contrast to Kougami's obsession with beginnings, Maki has an equally strong obsession with endings. His philosophy is basically "destroy the world while it's still beautiful so it can conclude on a good note." To that end, he worked with the Greeeds and eventually tried to become one himself. He was the series' main villain and the person responsible for breaking Ankh's medal, eventually leading to his death. I'm not sure that Ankh hates him, but in the end he was certainly invested in seeing him dead so that he couldn't destroy the world (and more importantly Eiji and Hina because really who actually cares about the world).
-Other Greeeds-
Similar to the above, he would rather not have anything to do with them. They won't stir up psychological issues the way the king or the girl would, but they can certainly be a threat, or a reminder of what it is he doesn't want to be. He seems to have a particular animosity with Cazali. They're the chessmasters of the group, and Cazali was the one who found Lost Ankh and groomed him to work with him against Ankh. Despite all of Cazali's efforts, Ankh is smarter and generally comes out on top, but if he ever gained an ability to work on the same level he'd probably give Ankh the biggest scare of any of them. (Cazali being the cat Greeed, I don't think it's wrong to compare the way these two go at each other to Sylvester and Tweety Bird.)
To briefly describe the others, Uva is the bug Greeed and he is basically the most generic villain ever. Mezul is the sea creatures Greeed and she seems to want to be a mom. Gamel is the Greeed of big heavy herbivorous mammals and he is basically a big five year old and is totally happy to let Mezul act like his mom.
Uva human form
Uva Greeed form
Mezul and Gamel human form
Mezul and Gamel Greeed form
Maki with Cazali and Lost Ankh human form
Cazali and Lost Ankh Greeed form
Other Things
-His very pretty wings- Having wings was probably the thing Ankh missed the most when he was just a hand. When they got the medals to have Eiji use the TaJaDor combo (All three types of Ankh's medals), he made a heartbreakingly sad face watching while Eiji could fly and he couldn't.
-High places- Another bird-like quality. If given a choice of places to sit or stand, he will likely be somewhere up high, like trees, or rooftops, or, you know, wherever.
-Popsicles- And ice cream. And ice cream popsicles. Seriously, he would live off them if he could, and they have a special place in his heart for being the first thing he ever really tasted. He devours them with gusto and gets sad when Chiyoko serves them to other people.
-Medals- Less of a concern now, but Ankh spent most of the series trying to gather his medals, and everyone else's medals, and a pile of cell medals, so this belongs here.
-Candroids- Little robot animals who turn into something that looks like a soda can when not in use. They can conveniently be purchased from nondescript vending machines using cell medals (not kidding). Ankh almost always has a Taka (bird that can fly around and look for things and/or pick stuff up) and Batta (basically a walkie-talkie that can go find whoever you need to talk to) can on him.
-His phone- I don't know how much this is an attachment versus something he just finds useful (same for candroids), but he has an iPhone and also an iPad and he's messing with them all the time and apparently programmed an app for himself to keep track of who had which medals.
-Birds- Less an attachment than an association, but worth noting considering his origins. There's nothing particular about it in the series, but I tend to headcanon that birds like him and vice versa.
-The sky- Novel canon says that before he became a Greeed and lost his ability to see color as clearly, his favorite thing to look at was the sky. So he probably has a particular appreciation for being able to see that again.
Important Locations:
-The King's castle- Where Ankh was stabbed in the back so many years ago. Good way to bring back some awful memories in full force.
-Cous Coussier- The restaurant where Eiji and Ankh live, and where practically everyone in the series works at some point. Downstairs is a restaurant with a variety of furniture (most of the tables and chairs are like you'd normally think of for a restaurant) and whatever decorations suit the theme of the day. Upstairs in the attic room is where Eiji and Ankh live. Ankh spends a lot of time chilling in his bed (look at him being a dork up there with the medals), which I think is actually a couch on top of some other piece of furniture. Whatever it is, he made it as high up in the room as possible because of course he did. This is home more than anywhere else Ankh has been and thus is the place he's most attached to.
-The Greeed mansion- Big house, lots of staircases. This was Maki's house and then it became the Greeed home base. Ankh didn't stay there for very long but did live there for a little while when he turned on Eiji and Hina. I don't have a good screencap for it, but at the top of the stairs up from the first floor (see link on "big house") there's some stained glass reminiscent of the old castle.
-Kougami's office- Kougami has a nice spacious office with a piano in it so that he can make cakes and sing "Happy Birthday" to people when something important happens (not kidding).
-The beach - Where Ankh and Eiji had their showdown and started off trying to kill each other except then Eiji was a good person.
Fears:
-Attachments to People-
So let's start off here by talking about Ankh's past 800 years before the series. He was an alchemical being created to serve a king somewhere in Europe, and that king was a power-hungry conqueror. There were originally ten core medals that made up his being (at this point he was the King of Birds) but a creature with all the medals lacks motivation, so the king took away one and turned him into a Greeed. With one taken away, the Greeed generally become aware that there's a piece missing and seek to fill in the hole with anything and everything (hence the name Greeed.)
Clearly, the fact that the king created him to be a tool and intentionally stole one of his medals didn't bother Ankh, because he stuck with the guy even when the rest of the Greeed rebelled. The reasons are unclear. There are vague references to him wanting power for himself, which is probably valid but I'm not sure whether that alone justifies him siding with the king over the Greeed. My personal theory here is that Ankh was the first one of the Greeed created so he got attached to the king when it was just him and the other Greeed were kind of unwanted competition to start with. And presumably he saw something in the king that was worth following, though he might have also just had an attachment because the king is effectively his father figure. This also means that he got to watch the entirety of the king's descent into madness but that's a different point and I'll come back to that later.
Ultimately, he did go completely out of his mind seeking power and Ankh didn't expect it. There was a confrontation between the Greeed and the king, and Ankh betrayed his fellow Greeed and took the king's side. His reward? Literally being stabbed in the back. The king stuck his claw hand through Ankh and pulled out his medals, then tried to use all the medals at once and that didn't go well. Rather than becoming super powerful, the king ended up turning into a box and sealing all the medals into it (don't ask me how that works). Ankh fell outside the range of what was being sealed, but he reached out to try to grab his medals back so his arm and his consciousness got sealed away but not the rest of his body. This left Ankh with a massive fear of betrayal. (And if you actually want vast amounts of tl;dr but a really good analysis, have a long essay my friend wrote that goes into Ankh having PTSD about this. There are multiple characters on that page so scroll down to the Ankh section.)
According to the novel (which is a canon extension by a different author but still official and I like playing with it) before the whole confrontation with the king and the Greeed, he had one other person he would consider a friend. She was a little blind girl who liked birds. Ankh remembered when he was first created as the King of Birds and loved the sky, but after the king took one of his medals and he became a Greeed, the colors were muted and he couldn't appreciate it the same way. He and the girl bonded over wanting to see a beautiful sky. He made a yummy from her desire to see, intending to help her, but it backfired because the yummy went and basically stole other people's eyes and so the first thing she saw was corpses with no eyes and she went crazy. The novel summaries are very unclear about what happened next, but this somehow resulted in her death. As she was dying, she told him to become the King of Birds again and protect the weak. It's a request he has done a very good job of ignoring, partly because he honestly doesn't know how to do that, between not having access to all ten medals to be the King of Birds again and having completely screwed up the one time he really tried to be helpful.
So long story short there, in his early life he was close to exactly two people. He destroyed one of them, and the other one destroyed him. Ankh's early life sucked and he doesn't want to repeat it, so he is actually kind of terrified of people, really doesn't want to get attached, and has a history of actively avoiding knowing anything of any depth about the people he's around because he's afraid he might end up caring. Eiji and Hina eventually got around that, but of course he's lacking those memories and assumes Eiji killed him so that's just more fuel to the fire here until he gets those memories back.
-Being split into pieces-
See aforementioned and how his arm got cut off within the same period of about a minute that the person he trusted to work with him stabbed him in the back. When he woke up after being sealed, he was just a sentient arm and had to go borrow a random human's body to function normally.
-Being overwhelmed by another consciousness-
Ankh actually spent most of the series at war with someone else's mind, between him possessing a human and then having the rest of his body develop its own consciousness and try to absorb him. Shingo was never too much of a threat, though there are occasional moments where Shingo reasserts control of his body, and if he's actually fully conscious, Ankh can't possess him. When he woke up initially, Ankh spent an episode being just a hand and feeling lost and trying unsuccessfully to convince himself this was okay, and later when he took over Shingo's body by force, he had to choke him until he passed out in order to do it. But once Ankh was in control, Shingo generally seemed pretty quiet as an influence and the most he could do was kick Ankh out of his body.
The one that really terrified him was the other "him" (aka "Lost" Ankh). He started out not being sure why he couldn't generate any more of his body even when he got a few more of his core medals back, then someone was making yummies that were clearly his except that he didn't make them. When he finally met the culprit, it was the rest of his body walking around on its own, having developed its own will. They immediately tried to absorb each other, and it quickly became clear that Ankh was the weaker one. If Eiji hadn't intervened, he would have been taken over by the other one right then and there. He at one point had a nightmare about Eiji turning on him and deciding that he wasn't the "right" Ankh, and letting the other one take him over – and woke up having a full blown panic attack. I mean, look, he was so freaked out he couldn't even walk straight. (And of course the first thing he did was go grab Eiji's face and demand to know if the purple medals -see below- were acting up because idk grabbing faces makes him feel like he has a grip on things.)
Eventually, Lost Ankh succeeded in taking him over, and he spent a couple episodes desperately trying to keep control of his own consciousness while being stuck in the right hand of a body that wanted him to disappear. He managed to stay intact through sheer force of willpower, and only regained control because Eiji was able to get rid of the impostor... which is its own kind of scary but that's for another point.
-People he trusts going crazy-
So getting back to this point. The king was always ambitious and power-hungry, but presumably he didn't start out nuts. Ankh mentions that the OOO belt that Eiji, and originally the king, uses to transform into a Kamen Rider basically latches onto the user's innate desire and eventually sends it out of control. Eiji was a fairly safe bet because he didn't have any strong personal desires, but Ankh described the king as being "desire incarnate," thus the belt eventually made him go berzerk (when he decided he wanted to have all the medals and use them all at once and stabbed Ankh in the back to rip out his cores).
The belt didn't have that effect on Eiji, but then Eiji also became host to the purple medals, which took over his consciousness and literally made him go berzerk when they were active. He gained some control over them, but even then, they eventually had a noticeable effect on his sanity in general. Ankh got extremely nervous about how the purple medals were affecting Eiji, and with the chunk of his memories missing he's basically going to assume that his medal broke because the person with the OOO belt went berzerk and tried to destroy him again.
By association, if anyone's eyes glow purple, it's probably going to freak him out.
-Having his medals destroyed-
The purple medals have the ability to break other core medals. The first time that happened was when Eiji was so determined to defeat Lost Ankh that he ripped into him and destroyed three of his medals. Ankh was grateful that he'd gotten rid of the other "him" but at the same time, he didn't even know that could happen and it was terrifying. Eiji had threatened to kick him out of Shingo's body before, and now that he he was both having trouble staying sane with those medals and had the ability to completely break the pieces that made up Ankh's existence... well let's just say that he felt like he had good reason for taking Shingo's body back over and getting out of there as quickly as possible once he was free from Lost Ankh's influence. Breaking the core containing his consciousness was what killed him, but breaking any of the others results in a hit to his power level that he doesn't have any real way of compensating for.
-Losing his physical senses-
Greeed don't have very good senses. They see, hear, and feel well enough to get by, but nothing more. They have absolutely no sense of taste, and smell is actually never mentioned but presumably that's gone, too. Any color in their vision is dull if it exists at all. Sounds are clear enough to be understood, but a bit distorted and dull. They seem like they can feel pain, but probably not as intensely as a human, and it's debatable how well their sense of feeling works with regard to anything else. It's unclear what Ankh's experience was as the King of Birds and how well he recalls anything from it at this point (the show and book can't seem to agree on whether he was conscious at all before becoming a Greeed) but I can at least say that when he possessed Shingo and got a set of human senses along with it, he became immediately attached to that experience. It's probably the thing he would hate giving up more than anything else.
-Not being alive-
I should start out here by saying that this is something very different from a fear of dying. Since, actually, in canon, dying was a solution to it. This is the fear of being just an object, and never having lived in the first place. His senses are tied into his self-perception in this regard, and it's a big part of why he fought so hard to keep Shingo even though that meant burning bridges with Eiji and Hina (or so he thinks; as it turned out, they ended up being more forgiving than he expected.)
-Being weak/not in control-
At the start of the series, he was just a hand and had very little of his powers. As of the first episode, even a Yummy was stronger than he was. He avoided the other Greeed because he knew they would be stronger than him, but his only option for protection was handing the power that sealed them all away in the first place to a stranger he only hoped he would be able to manipulate to his advantage. He can work from a position of horrible disadvantage if he needs to, but he really doesn't like it. Since he has so much trouble with trust, he hates having to rely on others even as a matter of necessity, and thus has a need to exert that he is the person in charge. This one isn't as true by the end of the series since he's developed a better ability to interact with people, but with the memories gone and his trust issues in place, this will be out in full force.
-Pain- He is perfectly willing to get hurt if it's necessary, so this isn't an incredibly strong fear. That said, he is more pain avoidant than probably anyone else in that show. He won't put himself at risk unless there is a very good reason for it (also tied to the above), and it is very possible (to an extent) to smack him into obedience. Hina does things like grab his ears hard or something similar to make a point, and he will sometimes visibly cower away from her and her super strength if it seems like she's getting mad enough to physically do something to him. He's also the most likely to complain when she does something like hold his hand too hard, but that could be as much just that he likes complaining.
-Being like the other Greeed-
When he briefly goes back to work with the rest of the Greeed, he makes the statement that he hates humans, but he hates Greeeds even more. He doesn't like that form of existence what with the senses and all, but it's also that his time spent around humans made him that much more aware of how incredibly petty and self-centered they are. They just wanted their medals and that's all they ever really thought about – and he acknowledges being the same way, but likes to think he's risen above it. And by the end of the series, he has, because he has a level of emotional understanding that none of the rest of them seem capable of. At the time when he makes the statement, it's debatable, and with his memories twisted, he's basically back to how he started. But he still has a concept of "living" that they don't have thanks to his ability to sense things and some of his experiences having interacted with humans, so he'll still be attached to this idea.
Attachments:
People (Basically going to describe all of Ankh's relationships to other characters here since I know you guys are canonblind. Not all are positive.)
-Eiji and Hina-
See app; I think I covered that pretty solidly there. They were the people who showed him humans could be trustworthy and who cared enough about him dying to convince him that he was alive.
Eiji as Kamen Rider OOO
Eiji's ridiculous underwear (he has an obsession, it is a thing Ankh teases him about... seriously, please just make my day by throwing these boxers somewhere for people to wtf at)
-Chiyoko-
Chiyoko owns Cous Coussier, where Eiji worked and Eiji and Ankh lived together in their small attic room. She is a silly but caring woman who likes costumes and coming up with crazy themes for her restaurant and gets a kick out of driving Ankh up the wall.
-Team Birth-
Date, Gotou, and Satonaka are the secondary Kamen Rider team in this series. Date is the original Kamen Rider Birth, who was replaced by Gotou but eventually came back to fight alongside him using the prototype version of the Birth suit. Satonaka provides support and kicks ass without a suit. Ankh isn't super attached to any of them, but he would recognise them as allies by the end of the series and since people he considers to be on his side are few and far between that's important. (Like the others, the missing memories will mess with this.) Of the three, though, he would be least likely to trust Satonaka, because her paycheck is her motivation and she works for Kougami -see below-
-Shingo- The guy whose body Ankh took over. So he's kind of Ankh's mild-mannered twin who shared a body and headspace with him for a while. This is a complicated relationship that the series never exactly gets into, but it seems like they were aware of each other on some level the whole time Ankh is possessing him and they come out of it understanding each other pretty deeply. I think the person who was least upset about Ankh forcibly taking Shingo's body back over toward the end of the series was Shingo.
-Kougami- Ankh's most uneasy alliance. He provided a lot of assistance in getting the medals back (the candroids -see below- for example) but always had his own agenda. I don't think Ankh knows it, but he's also a descendent of the king, so make of that what you will. He also is obsessed with the idea of birthdays and makes cakes all the time.
-The King and The Girl- The people that haunt his past. These are not positive associations, but they are certainly important. The girl is only in the novel and any time the King is depicted, he's transformed as OOO, so I have no idea what they actually look like.
-"Lost" Ankh- Same as above; as far as he's concerned, his other self is gone and should stay that way. This was the biggest direct threat he faced during the series, and one that came very close to actually deleting his consciousness from existence.
-Dr. Maki- In contrast to Kougami's obsession with beginnings, Maki has an equally strong obsession with endings. His philosophy is basically "destroy the world while it's still beautiful so it can conclude on a good note." To that end, he worked with the Greeeds and eventually tried to become one himself. He was the series' main villain and the person responsible for breaking Ankh's medal, eventually leading to his death. I'm not sure that Ankh hates him, but in the end he was certainly invested in seeing him dead so that he couldn't destroy the world (and more importantly Eiji and Hina because really who actually cares about the world).
-Other Greeeds-
Similar to the above, he would rather not have anything to do with them. They won't stir up psychological issues the way the king or the girl would, but they can certainly be a threat, or a reminder of what it is he doesn't want to be. He seems to have a particular animosity with Cazali. They're the chessmasters of the group, and Cazali was the one who found Lost Ankh and groomed him to work with him against Ankh. Despite all of Cazali's efforts, Ankh is smarter and generally comes out on top, but if he ever gained an ability to work on the same level he'd probably give Ankh the biggest scare of any of them. (Cazali being the cat Greeed, I don't think it's wrong to compare the way these two go at each other to Sylvester and Tweety Bird.)
To briefly describe the others, Uva is the bug Greeed and he is basically the most generic villain ever. Mezul is the sea creatures Greeed and she seems to want to be a mom. Gamel is the Greeed of big heavy herbivorous mammals and he is basically a big five year old and is totally happy to let Mezul act like his mom.
Uva human form
Uva Greeed form
Mezul and Gamel human form
Mezul and Gamel Greeed form
Maki with Cazali and Lost Ankh human form
Cazali and Lost Ankh Greeed form
Other Things
-His very pretty wings- Having wings was probably the thing Ankh missed the most when he was just a hand. When they got the medals to have Eiji use the TaJaDor combo (All three types of Ankh's medals), he made a heartbreakingly sad face watching while Eiji could fly and he couldn't.
-High places- Another bird-like quality. If given a choice of places to sit or stand, he will likely be somewhere up high, like trees, or rooftops, or, you know, wherever.
-Popsicles- And ice cream. And ice cream popsicles. Seriously, he would live off them if he could, and they have a special place in his heart for being the first thing he ever really tasted. He devours them with gusto and gets sad when Chiyoko serves them to other people.
-Medals- Less of a concern now, but Ankh spent most of the series trying to gather his medals, and everyone else's medals, and a pile of cell medals, so this belongs here.
-Candroids- Little robot animals who turn into something that looks like a soda can when not in use. They can conveniently be purchased from nondescript vending machines using cell medals (not kidding). Ankh almost always has a Taka (bird that can fly around and look for things and/or pick stuff up) and Batta (basically a walkie-talkie that can go find whoever you need to talk to) can on him.
-His phone- I don't know how much this is an attachment versus something he just finds useful (same for candroids), but he has an iPhone and also an iPad and he's messing with them all the time and apparently programmed an app for himself to keep track of who had which medals.
-Birds- Less an attachment than an association, but worth noting considering his origins. There's nothing particular about it in the series, but I tend to headcanon that birds like him and vice versa.
-The sky- Novel canon says that before he became a Greeed and lost his ability to see color as clearly, his favorite thing to look at was the sky. So he probably has a particular appreciation for being able to see that again.
Important Locations:
-The King's castle- Where Ankh was stabbed in the back so many years ago. Good way to bring back some awful memories in full force.
-Cous Coussier- The restaurant where Eiji and Ankh live, and where practically everyone in the series works at some point. Downstairs is a restaurant with a variety of furniture (most of the tables and chairs are like you'd normally think of for a restaurant) and whatever decorations suit the theme of the day. Upstairs in the attic room is where Eiji and Ankh live. Ankh spends a lot of time chilling in his bed (look at him being a dork up there with the medals), which I think is actually a couch on top of some other piece of furniture. Whatever it is, he made it as high up in the room as possible because of course he did. This is home more than anywhere else Ankh has been and thus is the place he's most attached to.
-The Greeed mansion- Big house, lots of staircases. This was Maki's house and then it became the Greeed home base. Ankh didn't stay there for very long but did live there for a little while when he turned on Eiji and Hina. I don't have a good screencap for it, but at the top of the stairs up from the first floor (see link on "big house") there's some stained glass reminiscent of the old castle.
-Kougami's office- Kougami has a nice spacious office with a piano in it so that he can make cakes and sing "Happy Birthday" to people when something important happens (not kidding).
-The beach - Where Ankh and Eiji had their showdown and started off trying to kill each other except then Eiji was a good person.
Theian App
Aug. 26th, 2017 11:32 pmPlayer Name: Wei
Player Age: 30
Contact: Plurk: zeroq1, Discord: nobody#7007
Character Name: Ankh
Character Canon: Kamen Rider OOO
Character Age: 800-something, though much of that seems to have been completely unconcious
History: http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Ankh
Canon Point: Post-series, shortly after being revived
AU/CRAU Summary: N/A
Personality: The Greeed were made 800 years ago to serve a power hungry king in his conquest of the world. Each was made incomplete, and awoke driven by a desire to be whole that could never be fulfilled. They live with limited senses and limited emotions, and try to fill the void by taking from humans all the things they can never truly own. Even amongst themselves, it's a constant battle for the one thing they always need: more. Ankh is a Greeed, but he's something beyond that. He's the one who learned how to live, and how to be content. Over time, he learned how to be a lot more human.
That said, he started out very much a Greeed, and he maintains many of those characteristics. It's obvious in the first couple episodes that Ankh has very little reverence for life and all he cares about is getting more Medals for himself. One of the first things Ankh did was to stop Eiji from killing a Yummy that was wreaking havoc. Though Eiji got his way and ended up taking down the Yummy earlier, Ankh's plan was to let the Yummy consume an entire office building filled with people just so that it would give him that many more Medals once it was destroyed. Eiji's influence had an effect over the series in this regard, and by the time I'm picking him up from, it's unlikely that he would so happily sit by and watch that kind of destruction, much less cause it. That said, Ankh is only protective of the people who matter to him in some way, and while at this point he's not so inclined to put strangers in harm's way, he won't go too far out of his way to help them, either.
Ankh is selfish and conniving and rarely does anything that doesn't benefit him in some way. Everything he does, he calculates. Sometimes it means that he'll do things that put him at a temporary disadvantage so that he'll come out on top later. His decision to let Eiji become OOO in the first place is a perfect example of that. While he initially thought that Eiji would be stupid and easy to push around, that was a snap assessment and there was a risk in giving that kind of power to a complete stranger. As it turned out, Eiji wasn't as dumb as he first looked, but Ankh continued to keep him on his side despite a lot of frustration because having OOO around was useful.
The flip side of that is that if you know what drives him, it's relatively easy to talk him into things, provided they aren't going to be too much of a hindrance to him. He can be convinced of most things with the promise of Medals, even if they're boring or embarrassing. Similarly, he initially had no interest in Hina's safety, but Eiji talked him into protecting her by offering a year's supply of popsicles.
He's also rude. The way he speaks is generally impolite, he makes no secret of it when he doesn't like something, and it's habit for him to call people idiots as soon as they do something he doesn't agree with or doesn't understand. When Eiji brought him to live at Cous Coussier, he had to make up a cover story about Ankh having grown up in a rough environment in some foreign country, just to sufficiently explain his bad behavior.
Most of the reason for Ankh's calculating, guarded, and prickly nature comes from his background. At the beginning of the show he revived from several centuries of being sealed away in a stone coffin, and prior to that it doesn't seem like he'd had very much interaction with anyone besides the other Greeed and a power mad king. He lived in an environment where it was everyone for themselves, and the one alliance he had made led to betrayal. When the Greeed woke up again, none of them had a full set of their core medals and the first thing any of them did was steal from the others to try get the upper hand. When that's the environment he was used to, it's no wonder that he doesn't let his guard down easily.
Though for all that he's unfriendly and unsociable, it's a surprising how much so-called stupidity he'll actually put up with, whether that's getting dragged unwillingly into social events, tolerating Chiyoko attempting to give him politeness lessons, or letting Eiji push him off a table while scolding him to sit normally. Ankh actually spends many of the less serious moments in the series being the butt of jokes, often involving fairly ridiculous slapstick, and while he's clearly not happy about any of that, he puts up with it, and even decides he misses some of it once he's not there with everyone. He, of course, would chalk up all of it to needing to stay enough in everyone's good graces so he could hold on to whatever benefits they happened to be providing. But with as many times as he can be seen sitting in the background pretending not to pay attention while the rest of the group engages in whatever antics (usually dragging him in at some point) it's hard not to assume that some part of him just enjoys the company.
And by the end of the series, he really does care. At the start, he was a severed hand with an attitude who took over an unconscious human just so that he'd have a body to work with. But over time, having a human body and being around humans constantly started to change him. Having a human body gives him an entirely different way of perceiving things compared to the other Greeed. They have extremely limited senses, and while they can see, hear, and feel, it's all in some muted or distorted form, and the ability to taste is nonexistent. One of the first things he did upon taking over Shingo was eat popsicles, and he proceeded to get addicted to them because they were the first thing he'd ever tasted.
While Shingo's body is what made him physically human, his interactions with others did the rest of it. In the beginning, it was nothing more than an uneasy alliance. Eiji was an idiot who he adopted working with because having OOO as an ally is useful when struggling against the other Greeed, and Hina is nothing more than a hindrance he's forced to deal with because he happens to be possessing her brother's body. Then he spent a lot of time with them, and he got used to them. Eventually, he started to understand and even like them. It wasn't enough to keep him from betraying them and setting off on his own with Shingo's body as a hostage as soon as he got his full power back, but that's where Ankh's development gets interesting.
Up until that moment, he had assumed that power was all he wanted and needed. But once he had it, he discovered that a powerful Greeed isn't actually what he wanted to be. By then, he'd gotten used to living with a bunch of humans who supported and cared for each other. In contrast, the Greeed only fought amongst themselves in a constant competition for Medals. He temporarily formed an alliance with the rest of the Greeed, but quickly decided he couldn't stand how they were, threw their oh-so-precious Medals in their faces, and stomped off alone.
During that same timeframe, Maki also pointed out to him that he had started to think in terms of life and death, while Greeeds, being effectively a pile of medals, aren't alive to begin with. The revelation scared him because he'd gotten used to inhabiting a human body, and enjoying all the experiences that come with that. He tried to ask Hina whether he could keep her brother's body, but of course she couldn't agree to that. With no other options, he chose to fight Eiji, fully intent on killing him, because he was the one person with the power to actually take his human body away.
Of course, he underestimated how much of an effect all that time spent together had on him. He thought he was prepared to get rid of Eiji, but once he confronted him, it was obvious that Eiji still cared, and was even willing to thank him for the things he'd done for him. Ankh is someone who's conditioned to expect betrayal, and having Eiji still treat him that way shook him to his core. He couldn't kill him; in fact, he protected him from Maki at the expense of his own life.
That brings us back to the point about Ankh being protective of the people who matter. At that point, Ankh didn't have anything left to personally strive for because he had been mortally wounded, and that meant there was nothing getting in the way of his desire to keep Eiji and Hina safe. As soon as Hina found him, he decided to join them again and fight with Eiji one last time, in a battle that was ultimately over the fate of the world at large. When his medal finally broke completely, he stuck around for a moment as a fading spirit to make sure that Eiji stayed alive and tell him he was happy with this conclusion and that having someone worrying about him dying made him feel like he'd lived, and to offer Hina a smile that was very much a silent "thank you." They are extremely important to him, much as it took him a long time to realize that and doesn't generally like to admit it.
It's implied in the sequel movie that Eiji eventually manages to put the broken medal back together and bring Ankh back to life. After reviving, he is still basically his usual prickly self, just a little bit all around softer. He looks at the group with a fond smile, and when Hina runs up and hugs him, it takes a second for him to decide to shove her away. At this point, he's also more willing to show visible concern. He had paid attention and tried to keep Eiji out of too much trouble from the beginning, but now he's finally let himself care enough that it actively scares him a little when his friends are in danger. He's still Ankh, though, so as soon as everyone's safe again, he'll be right back to calling them idiots, and of course it's just their imagination if they catch some fondness in the way he says it.
It's also an important side note that Ankh's existence as a Greeed was originally distilled from the essence of birds. Aside from having an arm with a bird on the back of it and big shimmery wings that pop out sometimes, his bird origins color several other things, from the way he moves to certain habits. He's prone to sudden quick movements, tends to lead motion with his head, and carries most of his weight on one foot at a time. He tends to perch moreso than sit, finding either the nearest tree or the highest available place in the room. When he enters or leaves the room where he lives, it's through the window, not the door (and he lives in an attic). He also was at one point disturbed at having someone offer him chicken as a meal, because eating a cooked bird just seemed wrong (though that didn't stop him from getting irritated enough to take a bite out of the thing anyway).
Abilities: Being a Greeed comes with a lot of perks. For one, they're just physically stronger than humans, to the point that there's basically no way to defeat them unless someone has a power suit. But beyond that, here are the specifics:
Medals- First of all, Greeeds are made of medals. Core Medals are, as the name implies, the core of a Greeed's existence. They are, essentially, what makes that Greeed themselves. Ankh's Core Medals are red and depict birds (hawk, peacock, and condor, to be specific). The more Cores a Greeed has, the more powerful they are and the more complete they feel. Ankh's consciousness is contained in a single Hawk medal, which broke into two pieces at the end of the series. Cell Medals, the more common and less powerful type, are silver in color and used for a lot of different purposes. Since Ankh is composed of these pieces, he can absorb them into himself or pull them out at will.
Making Yummies- One of the major things Greeeds do with Cell Medals is implanting them in someone with a strong desire in order to let that desire grow out of control. Each Greeed's Yummies work a little differently, and Ankh's tend to exist separately from their host and behave like a bird taking care of their young. They kidnap the host, keeping them in a central location that serves as a nest, while the Yummy goes out to get whatever the host wants and bring it back to them. As with all Yummies, this usually ends up with the host being extremely unhappy with this method of having their desire fulfilled, and of course havoc is wrought when the Yummy is out gathering metaphorical food for its chick. Ankh almost never creates Yummies, being incapable of doing so for most of the series, and only briefly of a mindset to consider it once he became able, but he does have the capability. He might think about it if Cell Medals are needed, because breaking down a Yummy that's grown through fulfilling desires is about the only way to create more of them.
Sensing Desire- In order to create a Yummy, a Greeed must first discover someone with a sufficiently powerful desire. In this particular field, they're a bit psychic. Unable to create Yummies for most of the series. Ankh rarely says anything about this as such, but other Greeeds notice the wishes of their would-be Yummy hosts, and Ankh certainly comments on Eiji having an utter lack of desire. Being creatures made from desire, he can easily notice the presence of a Yummy at a considerable distance, as well as pick out which human is the Yummy's host if he's able to interact with them at all.
Shapeshifting- Being fundamentally a pile of medals, a Greeed's physical appearance is mutable. Ankh's true form is humanoid, but clearly inhuman, with bird-like characteristics. But he can also choose to take on the appearance of any human he sees. Most of the time, he chooses to take the form of Shingo since he got used to that body after possessing him for so long, but he became Eiji once in order to play a trick on an enemy. Even in human form, he often has his true right hand, though he can choose to hide it.
Flight- His Greeed form is based on a bird, so of course he can fly. While he doesn't usually appear to have wings, he can choose to manifest them even while appearing as a human, at which point they will suddenly and dramatically sprout from his back. The wings are translucent and iridescent and give a general impression of being made of light.
Fire- His element is fire, and he can throw fireballs. This one is pretty straightforward.
Inventory: A book with slots for Medals, containing whichever Core Medals Eiji doesn't have on him (since they're coming from the same canon point). His smart phone. Possibly a half-eaten popsicle.
Room Detail: The color scheme of Ankh's room is primarily black, white, and red. He has a high loft bed with bright red sheets. In the space under the bed, there's a desk where he has a nice computer system set up. Elsewhere, there's a hanging wicker chair designed in a way highly reminiscent of a nest that he would insist is very comfortable, and a bookshelf full of things he doesn't spend a lot of time reading, but would like to have for reference. The decorations are relatively sparse—a few posters and things subtly on the print of blankets or curtains or lampshades--but birds and feathers are a recurring theme.
Samples:
Network from previous game: http://cerealia.dreamwidth.org/168744.html?thread=28314408
Log from PSL: http://stray-musings.dreamwidth.org/23695.html
Aspirations: Mostly I just want to play and see where it goes, and this was a good fit because Ankh, given his life thus far, is bad at peaceful and really just gets bored in places where he isn't constantly in some kind of danger. In general, I love messing with his head, and making him think about the past in ways or moments that he really doesn't want to (which will be even more interesting here thanks to the constant question of how much is even real). Events that poke at his traumatic memories are always a good thing in my book.
Player Age: 30
Contact: Plurk: zeroq1, Discord: nobody#7007
Character Name: Ankh
Character Canon: Kamen Rider OOO
Character Age: 800-something, though much of that seems to have been completely unconcious
History: http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Ankh
Canon Point: Post-series, shortly after being revived
AU/CRAU Summary: N/A
Personality: The Greeed were made 800 years ago to serve a power hungry king in his conquest of the world. Each was made incomplete, and awoke driven by a desire to be whole that could never be fulfilled. They live with limited senses and limited emotions, and try to fill the void by taking from humans all the things they can never truly own. Even amongst themselves, it's a constant battle for the one thing they always need: more. Ankh is a Greeed, but he's something beyond that. He's the one who learned how to live, and how to be content. Over time, he learned how to be a lot more human.
That said, he started out very much a Greeed, and he maintains many of those characteristics. It's obvious in the first couple episodes that Ankh has very little reverence for life and all he cares about is getting more Medals for himself. One of the first things Ankh did was to stop Eiji from killing a Yummy that was wreaking havoc. Though Eiji got his way and ended up taking down the Yummy earlier, Ankh's plan was to let the Yummy consume an entire office building filled with people just so that it would give him that many more Medals once it was destroyed. Eiji's influence had an effect over the series in this regard, and by the time I'm picking him up from, it's unlikely that he would so happily sit by and watch that kind of destruction, much less cause it. That said, Ankh is only protective of the people who matter to him in some way, and while at this point he's not so inclined to put strangers in harm's way, he won't go too far out of his way to help them, either.
Ankh is selfish and conniving and rarely does anything that doesn't benefit him in some way. Everything he does, he calculates. Sometimes it means that he'll do things that put him at a temporary disadvantage so that he'll come out on top later. His decision to let Eiji become OOO in the first place is a perfect example of that. While he initially thought that Eiji would be stupid and easy to push around, that was a snap assessment and there was a risk in giving that kind of power to a complete stranger. As it turned out, Eiji wasn't as dumb as he first looked, but Ankh continued to keep him on his side despite a lot of frustration because having OOO around was useful.
The flip side of that is that if you know what drives him, it's relatively easy to talk him into things, provided they aren't going to be too much of a hindrance to him. He can be convinced of most things with the promise of Medals, even if they're boring or embarrassing. Similarly, he initially had no interest in Hina's safety, but Eiji talked him into protecting her by offering a year's supply of popsicles.
He's also rude. The way he speaks is generally impolite, he makes no secret of it when he doesn't like something, and it's habit for him to call people idiots as soon as they do something he doesn't agree with or doesn't understand. When Eiji brought him to live at Cous Coussier, he had to make up a cover story about Ankh having grown up in a rough environment in some foreign country, just to sufficiently explain his bad behavior.
Most of the reason for Ankh's calculating, guarded, and prickly nature comes from his background. At the beginning of the show he revived from several centuries of being sealed away in a stone coffin, and prior to that it doesn't seem like he'd had very much interaction with anyone besides the other Greeed and a power mad king. He lived in an environment where it was everyone for themselves, and the one alliance he had made led to betrayal. When the Greeed woke up again, none of them had a full set of their core medals and the first thing any of them did was steal from the others to try get the upper hand. When that's the environment he was used to, it's no wonder that he doesn't let his guard down easily.
Though for all that he's unfriendly and unsociable, it's a surprising how much so-called stupidity he'll actually put up with, whether that's getting dragged unwillingly into social events, tolerating Chiyoko attempting to give him politeness lessons, or letting Eiji push him off a table while scolding him to sit normally. Ankh actually spends many of the less serious moments in the series being the butt of jokes, often involving fairly ridiculous slapstick, and while he's clearly not happy about any of that, he puts up with it, and even decides he misses some of it once he's not there with everyone. He, of course, would chalk up all of it to needing to stay enough in everyone's good graces so he could hold on to whatever benefits they happened to be providing. But with as many times as he can be seen sitting in the background pretending not to pay attention while the rest of the group engages in whatever antics (usually dragging him in at some point) it's hard not to assume that some part of him just enjoys the company.
And by the end of the series, he really does care. At the start, he was a severed hand with an attitude who took over an unconscious human just so that he'd have a body to work with. But over time, having a human body and being around humans constantly started to change him. Having a human body gives him an entirely different way of perceiving things compared to the other Greeed. They have extremely limited senses, and while they can see, hear, and feel, it's all in some muted or distorted form, and the ability to taste is nonexistent. One of the first things he did upon taking over Shingo was eat popsicles, and he proceeded to get addicted to them because they were the first thing he'd ever tasted.
While Shingo's body is what made him physically human, his interactions with others did the rest of it. In the beginning, it was nothing more than an uneasy alliance. Eiji was an idiot who he adopted working with because having OOO as an ally is useful when struggling against the other Greeed, and Hina is nothing more than a hindrance he's forced to deal with because he happens to be possessing her brother's body. Then he spent a lot of time with them, and he got used to them. Eventually, he started to understand and even like them. It wasn't enough to keep him from betraying them and setting off on his own with Shingo's body as a hostage as soon as he got his full power back, but that's where Ankh's development gets interesting.
Up until that moment, he had assumed that power was all he wanted and needed. But once he had it, he discovered that a powerful Greeed isn't actually what he wanted to be. By then, he'd gotten used to living with a bunch of humans who supported and cared for each other. In contrast, the Greeed only fought amongst themselves in a constant competition for Medals. He temporarily formed an alliance with the rest of the Greeed, but quickly decided he couldn't stand how they were, threw their oh-so-precious Medals in their faces, and stomped off alone.
During that same timeframe, Maki also pointed out to him that he had started to think in terms of life and death, while Greeeds, being effectively a pile of medals, aren't alive to begin with. The revelation scared him because he'd gotten used to inhabiting a human body, and enjoying all the experiences that come with that. He tried to ask Hina whether he could keep her brother's body, but of course she couldn't agree to that. With no other options, he chose to fight Eiji, fully intent on killing him, because he was the one person with the power to actually take his human body away.
Of course, he underestimated how much of an effect all that time spent together had on him. He thought he was prepared to get rid of Eiji, but once he confronted him, it was obvious that Eiji still cared, and was even willing to thank him for the things he'd done for him. Ankh is someone who's conditioned to expect betrayal, and having Eiji still treat him that way shook him to his core. He couldn't kill him; in fact, he protected him from Maki at the expense of his own life.
That brings us back to the point about Ankh being protective of the people who matter. At that point, Ankh didn't have anything left to personally strive for because he had been mortally wounded, and that meant there was nothing getting in the way of his desire to keep Eiji and Hina safe. As soon as Hina found him, he decided to join them again and fight with Eiji one last time, in a battle that was ultimately over the fate of the world at large. When his medal finally broke completely, he stuck around for a moment as a fading spirit to make sure that Eiji stayed alive and tell him he was happy with this conclusion and that having someone worrying about him dying made him feel like he'd lived, and to offer Hina a smile that was very much a silent "thank you." They are extremely important to him, much as it took him a long time to realize that and doesn't generally like to admit it.
It's implied in the sequel movie that Eiji eventually manages to put the broken medal back together and bring Ankh back to life. After reviving, he is still basically his usual prickly self, just a little bit all around softer. He looks at the group with a fond smile, and when Hina runs up and hugs him, it takes a second for him to decide to shove her away. At this point, he's also more willing to show visible concern. He had paid attention and tried to keep Eiji out of too much trouble from the beginning, but now he's finally let himself care enough that it actively scares him a little when his friends are in danger. He's still Ankh, though, so as soon as everyone's safe again, he'll be right back to calling them idiots, and of course it's just their imagination if they catch some fondness in the way he says it.
It's also an important side note that Ankh's existence as a Greeed was originally distilled from the essence of birds. Aside from having an arm with a bird on the back of it and big shimmery wings that pop out sometimes, his bird origins color several other things, from the way he moves to certain habits. He's prone to sudden quick movements, tends to lead motion with his head, and carries most of his weight on one foot at a time. He tends to perch moreso than sit, finding either the nearest tree or the highest available place in the room. When he enters or leaves the room where he lives, it's through the window, not the door (and he lives in an attic). He also was at one point disturbed at having someone offer him chicken as a meal, because eating a cooked bird just seemed wrong (though that didn't stop him from getting irritated enough to take a bite out of the thing anyway).
Abilities: Being a Greeed comes with a lot of perks. For one, they're just physically stronger than humans, to the point that there's basically no way to defeat them unless someone has a power suit. But beyond that, here are the specifics:
Medals- First of all, Greeeds are made of medals. Core Medals are, as the name implies, the core of a Greeed's existence. They are, essentially, what makes that Greeed themselves. Ankh's Core Medals are red and depict birds (hawk, peacock, and condor, to be specific). The more Cores a Greeed has, the more powerful they are and the more complete they feel. Ankh's consciousness is contained in a single Hawk medal, which broke into two pieces at the end of the series. Cell Medals, the more common and less powerful type, are silver in color and used for a lot of different purposes. Since Ankh is composed of these pieces, he can absorb them into himself or pull them out at will.
Making Yummies- One of the major things Greeeds do with Cell Medals is implanting them in someone with a strong desire in order to let that desire grow out of control. Each Greeed's Yummies work a little differently, and Ankh's tend to exist separately from their host and behave like a bird taking care of their young. They kidnap the host, keeping them in a central location that serves as a nest, while the Yummy goes out to get whatever the host wants and bring it back to them. As with all Yummies, this usually ends up with the host being extremely unhappy with this method of having their desire fulfilled, and of course havoc is wrought when the Yummy is out gathering metaphorical food for its chick. Ankh almost never creates Yummies, being incapable of doing so for most of the series, and only briefly of a mindset to consider it once he became able, but he does have the capability. He might think about it if Cell Medals are needed, because breaking down a Yummy that's grown through fulfilling desires is about the only way to create more of them.
Sensing Desire- In order to create a Yummy, a Greeed must first discover someone with a sufficiently powerful desire. In this particular field, they're a bit psychic. Unable to create Yummies for most of the series. Ankh rarely says anything about this as such, but other Greeeds notice the wishes of their would-be Yummy hosts, and Ankh certainly comments on Eiji having an utter lack of desire. Being creatures made from desire, he can easily notice the presence of a Yummy at a considerable distance, as well as pick out which human is the Yummy's host if he's able to interact with them at all.
Shapeshifting- Being fundamentally a pile of medals, a Greeed's physical appearance is mutable. Ankh's true form is humanoid, but clearly inhuman, with bird-like characteristics. But he can also choose to take on the appearance of any human he sees. Most of the time, he chooses to take the form of Shingo since he got used to that body after possessing him for so long, but he became Eiji once in order to play a trick on an enemy. Even in human form, he often has his true right hand, though he can choose to hide it.
Flight- His Greeed form is based on a bird, so of course he can fly. While he doesn't usually appear to have wings, he can choose to manifest them even while appearing as a human, at which point they will suddenly and dramatically sprout from his back. The wings are translucent and iridescent and give a general impression of being made of light.
Fire- His element is fire, and he can throw fireballs. This one is pretty straightforward.
Inventory: A book with slots for Medals, containing whichever Core Medals Eiji doesn't have on him (since they're coming from the same canon point). His smart phone. Possibly a half-eaten popsicle.
Room Detail: The color scheme of Ankh's room is primarily black, white, and red. He has a high loft bed with bright red sheets. In the space under the bed, there's a desk where he has a nice computer system set up. Elsewhere, there's a hanging wicker chair designed in a way highly reminiscent of a nest that he would insist is very comfortable, and a bookshelf full of things he doesn't spend a lot of time reading, but would like to have for reference. The decorations are relatively sparse—a few posters and things subtly on the print of blankets or curtains or lampshades--but birds and feathers are a recurring theme.
Samples:
Network from previous game: http://cerealia.dreamwidth.org/168744.html?thread=28314408
Log from PSL: http://stray-musings.dreamwidth.org/23695.html
Aspirations: Mostly I just want to play and see where it goes, and this was a good fit because Ankh, given his life thus far, is bad at peaceful and really just gets bored in places where he isn't constantly in some kind of danger. In general, I love messing with his head, and making him think about the past in ways or moments that he really doesn't want to (which will be even more interesting here thanks to the constant question of how much is even real). Events that poke at his traumatic memories are always a good thing in my book.
Medietas activity
Dec. 1st, 2016 11:50 pmDec 2016
TDM: Open start | Eiji
Eiji
Holiday Party | Coin toss (open) | Twelfth Doctor | Azula
January 2017
Crashing into Trance
Twelfth Doctor's post about power loss
Sense loss denial
Carnival games (open)
Bothering the sleeping Doctor
Genderswap and things get serious with Eiji and ice cream
February 2017
Valentine's magic shenanigans
March 2017
Sky time with Eiji
Unstoppable force meets unmoveable object
April 2017
Eiji and birds
Greeting the Shade
Chloe being new
Nadia and a wall
Meeting Anne-Marie in the woods
May 2017
Dreamscape event: Open Start (Eiji) | Kristen | Marie | Trip | Bruce | Jamie | Tsukasa | Eiji | Noa
Ellen, roof collision
TDM: Open start | Eiji
Eiji
Holiday Party | Coin toss (open) | Twelfth Doctor | Azula
January 2017
Crashing into Trance
Twelfth Doctor's post about power loss
Sense loss denial
Carnival games (open)
Bothering the sleeping Doctor
Genderswap and things get serious with Eiji and ice cream
February 2017
Valentine's magic shenanigans
March 2017
Sky time with Eiji
Unstoppable force meets unmoveable object
April 2017
Eiji and birds
Greeting the Shade
Chloe being new
Nadia and a wall
Meeting Anne-Marie in the woods
May 2017
Dreamscape event: Open Start (Eiji) | Kristen | Marie | Trip | Bruce | Jamie | Tsukasa | Eiji | Noa
Ellen, roof collision
Details for Cerealia
Jun. 6th, 2016 03:39 am      |
Ankh HEIGHT: 181 cm/5'11" in WEIGHT/BUILD: I have no idea of numbers but he's really skinny. He doesn't give the impression of being weak or malnourished (in fact, he seems to have a pretty solid punch), he's just built like a stick. GENERAL APPEARANCE: Flashy and full of attitude are the general impressions Ankh is likely to give off. He appears to be in his early 20's, with eye-catching clothes and hair and don't forget the eyeliner. Outside of that, he will seem like a normal human being most of the time (and he in fact has an actual human body of his own now thanks to his previous game), but if he wants to, he can make his right hand all black and scaly with red armor over it and a bird on the back. He also has optional wings that he can sprout at will, usually accompanied by a burst of red feathers. The wings are iridescent, translucent, and appear to be made of light, but they are fully functional as wings and he can fly with them. PHYSICAL MANNERISMS: Ankh is a bird Greeed, and even in human form, his motions are very bird-like. He tends to carry almost all of his weight on one foot at a time, move in sharp, rapid motions, and lead into movements with his head. He will also generally find the highest point available when picking out a place to sit and can often be found perching in trees. Aside from that, let's just go back to what I said about attitude. His body language is usually closed, with his arms crossed or something similar; he gives an aura of not wanting people to mess with him. He usually doesn't react well to being touched, either jerking away or shoving the other person away from him, whichever seems more fitting at the time. That said, he has no problem being in someone's personal space if he's the one in control of it, and one of his most typical ways of expressing anger is grabbing someone by the chin or by the shirt (or by the neck if he's sufficiently pissed off) and glaring daggers at them. Even when he's not being violent, he spends a lot of time looking surly. A lot of times you'll find him seeming mildly annoyed by everything and pretending he's not the slightest bit interested in anything going on around him, even though he's usually paying attention, and he's most often there by choice (even when it's an annoying situation). He rarely smiles, and when he does, it comes in one of two forms. Most of the time, it's the smug kind, a self-congratulatory sort of smile that happens when he knows something you don't know or he's just pulled off something he thinks is especially clever. The other ones are genuinely happy, small smiles that occasionally show up when he's looking at someone he cares about. If you happen to catch one of these, feel special, because it's like seeing a unicorn. Beyond that, there are actually moments where a heck of a lot of emotion shows on his face, but in the vast majority of those cases, he won't let you see it. His eyes sometimes get really wide when he's a combination of surprised and concerned. In terms of fighting, he favors punching if he has to get in close. If he's at a distance, he's more likely to throw a fireball. If Eiji's around, though, he's more likely to take up the position of strategist, keeping an eye on everything from the sidelines and just supporting as needed. He keeps most of the medals that Eiji uses to transform with him, only giving Eiji the medals when he thinks they're appropriate to the situation. He generally throws them with great precision, putting multiple medals in range for Eiji to easily catch with one motion. Ankh is very fond of ice pops, and will sometimes use the same motion to toss a popsicle stick into a garbage can, provided there happens to be one conveniently in the right kind of range to count as target practice. Otherwise, he'll just toss it over his shoulder or something because he really doesn't care about leaving trash everywhere. VERBAL MANNERISMS: Ankh's way of speaking is rough and impolite. He doesn't tend to speak much, usually only saying what he feels like he needs to (which is sometimes just some sound of blatant annoyance). He has a signature "tch" he uses for that purpose, which is usually accompanied by an appropriately frustrated twitch of his head (see that here). Otherwise, the way he speaks is pretty well summed up a little later in that same video. Sadly not included here is how he has a way of saying "Huh?" that is the most incredulous what-idiotic-thing-did-you-just-say thing in the world. And maybe it should have been under physical, but he has a tendency to open his mouth really wide when he talks. Also, if you liked the song in that video or just want to hear his singing voice or watch the bird dance, that's here. FASHION: Ankh is a snappy dresser who looks like he got most of his clothes from somewhere like Hot Topic. He wears a black or white t-shirt under a black or white overshirt or jacket, the right sleeve of which is usually red (aside from the one jacket he has where the jacket is red and that sleeve is black... variety is the spice of life?). He usually pairs that with pants that are bright red, though occasionally they're black or grey. His boots are black and surprisingly fancy (go back up to the perching in a tree picture and take a look). The biggest detail worth noting here is that the designs on his t-shirts are heavily text and the text is almost always something that means something to him. For example, he has a shirt with text on it reading "desire" and "become complete," which are things that come out of his mouth on a regular basis over the series. ETC.:  |
Permissions
Jun. 4th, 2016 03:39 pmRegarding his abilities!
I'll start with this part since this requires a response. Ankh is something called a Greeed, and that means he has an ability to sense the desires of others. He will prettymuch always be able to tell whether there is something a character really deeply wants, but without context he might have trouble figuring out the specifics. Most of the time, he can get a sort of general category, like if it's something material, or violent, or something about other people they know, etc--but he probably won't know what things or people or whatever specifically without conversation cues. There will be some questions here in a second so I can know what he might be picking up from your character.
For the sake of complete information, if someone has a particularly strong desire for something he can make something called a Yummy, which would involve the person spawning some kind of bird monster, then getting kidnapped and stuck somewhere while the monster goes out and runs rampant gathering whatever the desire was and bringing it back to the host, who is usually horrified by this point. Ankh will probably not do this, but I'll include it on the list in case it ever comes up. You can also find more info on how Yummies work here.
So without further ado:
Is there something your character deeply desires? Yes/No
How much? On a scale of 0 (Desire? What desire?) to 10 (I WILL HAVE THE THING IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO), how badly do they want it?
What is the thing? Describe your desire here.
Should he bring it up? This is an OOC question. He doesn't go out of his way to bring things up unless he has a reason (but that could theoretically just be curiosity), so I can play with anything from never saying anything outright to openly poking at it, whatever sounds best to you.
Yummy? Only applies with a pretty strong desire, but would you volunteer your character to spawn a crazy bird monster if he ever decides to do that?
Anything else? For example, does your character have any kind of special circumstances (like being psychically shielded, etc) that will change how Ankh will read it? (OOCly just not wanting him to pick up certain pieces is fine, too.) Or anything else that you think is worth noting goes here.
Feel free to ask questions, also.
Form here:
General Permissions
[OOC]
Backtagging: Feel free! I would ask to keep it within a week if it's in a game context, though, unless we've talked about it. Game plot moves on and in that case it's usually better to handwave the rest of old threads. But for a meme or psl, whenever works.
Threadjacking: Ask first, but it'll probably be fine.
Fourthwalling: See above.
Offensive subjects: Nothing comes to mind, but please respect if I ask to back off of something.
[IC]
Flirting with this character: Would probably be hilarious. Go for it, but don't expect to get anywhere.
Hugging/kissing this character: If you don't mind getting yelled at, shoved away, and/or punched.
Sex with this character: Highly unlikely.
Fighting with this character: No issues here. Depending on the situation he'll either fight back or quickly find a way to leave. ...and if we're talking arguments in general, he tends to start them.
Injuring this character: Probably depends on the circumstances, so ask me. Minor injuries should generally be fine.
Killing this character: Again, ask me.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Despite having some psychic abilities himself, he probably isn't well shielded against this so go right ahead.
I'll start with this part since this requires a response. Ankh is something called a Greeed, and that means he has an ability to sense the desires of others. He will prettymuch always be able to tell whether there is something a character really deeply wants, but without context he might have trouble figuring out the specifics. Most of the time, he can get a sort of general category, like if it's something material, or violent, or something about other people they know, etc--but he probably won't know what things or people or whatever specifically without conversation cues. There will be some questions here in a second so I can know what he might be picking up from your character.
For the sake of complete information, if someone has a particularly strong desire for something he can make something called a Yummy, which would involve the person spawning some kind of bird monster, then getting kidnapped and stuck somewhere while the monster goes out and runs rampant gathering whatever the desire was and bringing it back to the host, who is usually horrified by this point. Ankh will probably not do this, but I'll include it on the list in case it ever comes up. You can also find more info on how Yummies work here.
So without further ado:
Is there something your character deeply desires? Yes/No
How much? On a scale of 0 (Desire? What desire?) to 10 (I WILL HAVE THE THING IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO), how badly do they want it?
What is the thing? Describe your desire here.
Should he bring it up? This is an OOC question. He doesn't go out of his way to bring things up unless he has a reason (but that could theoretically just be curiosity), so I can play with anything from never saying anything outright to openly poking at it, whatever sounds best to you.
Yummy? Only applies with a pretty strong desire, but would you volunteer your character to spawn a crazy bird monster if he ever decides to do that?
Anything else? For example, does your character have any kind of special circumstances (like being psychically shielded, etc) that will change how Ankh will read it? (OOCly just not wanting him to pick up certain pieces is fine, too.) Or anything else that you think is worth noting goes here.
Feel free to ask questions, also.
Form here:
General Permissions
[OOC]
Backtagging: Feel free! I would ask to keep it within a week if it's in a game context, though, unless we've talked about it. Game plot moves on and in that case it's usually better to handwave the rest of old threads. But for a meme or psl, whenever works.
Threadjacking: Ask first, but it'll probably be fine.
Fourthwalling: See above.
Offensive subjects: Nothing comes to mind, but please respect if I ask to back off of something.
[IC]
Flirting with this character: Would probably be hilarious. Go for it, but don't expect to get anywhere.
Hugging/kissing this character: If you don't mind getting yelled at, shoved away, and/or punched.
Sex with this character: Highly unlikely.
Fighting with this character: No issues here. Depending on the situation he'll either fight back or quickly find a way to leave. ...and if we're talking arguments in general, he tends to start them.
Injuring this character: Probably depends on the circumstances, so ask me. Minor injuries should generally be fine.
Killing this character: Again, ask me.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Despite having some psychic abilities himself, he probably isn't well shielded against this so go right ahead.
Cerealia Activity
May. 15th, 2016 03:09 amMay 2016
(Test Drive) Worms | Mirage Hina
(7/7) Intro: Open Start (Eiji | Jinga | Fushimi | Naoki | Shinpachi) | Eiji | Heisuke | Allen | Sulla | Caramia | Four | Souji | Sai
(7/8) Shigeru and his thieving cybuddy
(7/9) Sanctuary Pizza Party: Open Start
(7/10) Chilling in the apartment with Eiji
June 2016
(7/16) Walking off with Felicia's cookies
(7/18) Adventures in being a bird at the zoo: Open Start | Takeru | Eiji | Ishtar | Hawke | Jinga
(7/18) Ignoring Souji's bar fight
(7/19) Getting free ice cream from Yata
(7/19) Overhearing Hikari worrying about dreams
(7/19) ViViD with Jaune
(7/19) Dinner and memories with Eiji; not the fun date it sounds like
(7/19) Rise and a goat
(7/20) Temari's sympathy for a broken bird
(7/21) Memory foxes and the OOO boys
(7/22) Yuri and sad memories
(7/22) Saving Ishtar from a dangerous hallucination
(7/22) Warning Cole about his invisible dove on the network
(7/22) Stumbling across Ryuuga in an abandoned park
(7/23) Event wrap-up: Open Start | Cole | Hikari | Eiji
(7/24) Eiji and Cole and feather pillows
(7/25) Hikari finds him at the zoo
(7/26) "Helping" Eiji with the candroids | (+ Eiji and Hikari chatting about Ankh behind his back)
(Bonus) ViViD adventures with Itachi
July 2016
(7/31) Some ViViD stupidity with underwear and living pictures
(8/7) July intro event: Izaya | Gino | Hinata
(8/9) Hikari beating up a punching bag
(8/10) Fish by the water with Eiji
(8/12) A Yummy in the Pleasure District
(8/15) Sebastian's complaint
August 2016
(8/16 - 8/19) August event: Open Start ( Eiji | Jinga | Sebastian) | Chihiro | Eiji
(8/16) Hikari's return
(8/19-21) Cuddle glitching with Eiji
September 2016
(9/18) Hikari's blindness
(9/19) A blind encounter with Flynn
(9/22) Eiji and dreams of home
(9/23) Finding Inaba at the cafe
Questioning Mosley's question
October 2016
Sayo's fight challenge
Eiji finding out Hikari grew up
November 2016
Flamine attack: Open start | Eiji
Endgame: Hikari | Eiji
Bonus
PSL continuation
(Test Drive) Worms | Mirage Hina
(7/7) Intro: Open Start (Eiji | Jinga | Fushimi | Naoki | Shinpachi) | Eiji | Heisuke | Allen | Sulla | Caramia | Four | Souji | Sai
(7/8) Shigeru and his thieving cybuddy
(7/9) Sanctuary Pizza Party: Open Start
(7/10) Chilling in the apartment with Eiji
June 2016
(7/16) Walking off with Felicia's cookies
(7/18) Adventures in being a bird at the zoo: Open Start | Takeru | Eiji | Ishtar | Hawke | Jinga
(7/18) Ignoring Souji's bar fight
(7/19) Getting free ice cream from Yata
(7/19) Overhearing Hikari worrying about dreams
(7/19) ViViD with Jaune
(7/19) Dinner and memories with Eiji; not the fun date it sounds like
(7/19) Rise and a goat
(7/20) Temari's sympathy for a broken bird
(7/21) Memory foxes and the OOO boys
(7/22) Yuri and sad memories
(7/22) Saving Ishtar from a dangerous hallucination
(7/22) Warning Cole about his invisible dove on the network
(7/22) Stumbling across Ryuuga in an abandoned park
(7/23) Event wrap-up: Open Start | Cole | Hikari | Eiji
(7/24) Eiji and Cole and feather pillows
(7/25) Hikari finds him at the zoo
(7/26) "Helping" Eiji with the candroids | (+ Eiji and Hikari chatting about Ankh behind his back)
(Bonus) ViViD adventures with Itachi
July 2016
(7/31) Some ViViD stupidity with underwear and living pictures
(8/7) July intro event: Izaya | Gino | Hinata
(8/9) Hikari beating up a punching bag
(8/10) Fish by the water with Eiji
(8/12) A Yummy in the Pleasure District
(8/15) Sebastian's complaint
August 2016
(8/16 - 8/19) August event: Open Start ( Eiji | Jinga | Sebastian) | Chihiro | Eiji
(8/16) Hikari's return
(8/19-21) Cuddle glitching with Eiji
September 2016
(9/18) Hikari's blindness
(9/19) A blind encounter with Flynn
(9/22) Eiji and dreams of home
(9/23) Finding Inaba at the cafe
Questioning Mosley's question
October 2016
Sayo's fight challenge
Eiji finding out Hikari grew up
November 2016
Flamine attack: Open start | Eiji
Endgame: Hikari | Eiji
Bonus
PSL continuation
Cerealia App
May. 4th, 2016 08:48 pmApplicant Info
◎ Name: Wei
◎ Journal:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wei_jiangling
◎ Contact: aim: weijiangling plurk: zeroq1
◎ Current Character(s): None
Character Info
◎ Character's Name: Ankh
◎ Character's Canon: Kamen Rider OOO
◎ Character's Age: Looks young 20's, actually 800-something. He wasn't conscious for most of the 800, and it's never given how long he was actually alive before he got sealed away, so there's no solid answer to this question.
◎ Canon Point: Post-series, before Megamax (+ CRAU from Inugami)
◎ Background/History: Wiki
◎ Is the character a hacker and/or do they have a sixth-sense? Ankh has a sixth-sense in the particular form of sensing the desires of others. If there is someone around who has some goal in life they desperately want to fulfill, he will notice. That said, he would have no reason to notice a ghost otherwise, and if he did, it would likely seem like the air over there suddenly really wants something, which might be pretty confusing. He probably wouldn't be able to directly communicate. If it was possible to make a Yummy from one, he might be able to talk to it as a representative, though that could easily end up a bit skewed since Yummies are manifestations of the desire itself.
As for hacking technology, it's debatable whether he might have some minor knowledge. He doesn't hack anything in the series, but he does have access to the mind of someone who is both technologically savvy and a police detective, and makes use of that information. Since it doesn't specifically come up in the series, though, I'd guess that only extends to being able to try muddling his way through things where any security is pretty obviously breakable, and not anything more complex than that.
◎ Personality: The Greeed were made 800 years ago to serve a power hungry king in his conquest of the world. Each was made incomplete, and awoke driven by a desire to be whole that could never be fulfilled. They live with limited senses and limited emotions, and try to fill the void by taking from humans all the things they can never truly own. Even amongst themselves, it's a constant battle for the one thing they always need: more.
Ankh is a Greeed, but he's something beyond that. He's the one who learned how to live, and how to be content. He's the Greeed who learned how to be human.
To be fair, at the start of the series, he was just as bad as the rest of them, and he maintains many of those characteristics. It's obvious in the first couple episodes that Ankh has very little reverence for life and all he cares about is getting more medals for himself. One of the first things Ankh did after giving Eiji the power to become Kamen Rider OOO was to stop him from defeating a Yummy that was wreaking havoc, because it hadn't finished growing yet. Though Eiji got his way and ended up taking down the Yummy earlier, Ankh's plan was to let the Yummy consume an entire office building filled with people just so that it would give him that many more medals afterward. Eiji's influence had an effect over the series in this regard, and by the time I'm picking him up from, it's unlikely that he would so happily sit by and watch that kind of destruction, much less cause it. After all, in the end, he did choose to take Eiji's side and protect the world and the people he ended up caring about. That said, Ankh is only protective of the people who matter to him in some way, and while at this point he's not so inclined to put strangers in harm's way, he won't go too far out of his way to help them, either.
Ankh is selfish and conniving and rarely does anything that doesn't benefit him in some way. Everything he does, he calculates. Sometimes it means that he'll do things that put him at a temporary disadvantage so that he'll come out on top later. His decision to let Eiji become OOO in the first place is a perfect example of that. While he initially thought that Eiji would be stupid and easy to push around, that was a snap assessment and there was a risk in giving that kind of power to a complete stranger. As it turned out, Eiji wasn't as dumb as he first looked, but Ankh continued to keep him on his side despite a lot of frustration because having OOO around was useful. (And over time, because he actually cared about the idiot, but I'll get to that later.) The flip side of that is that if you know what drives him, it's relatively easy to talk him into things, provided they aren't going to be too much of a hindrance to him. For example, there's an episode where someone asked him to act in a movie, and his first reaction was to dismiss the idea as a waste of time and start to walk out of the room. But once he found out there were medals in it for him, he not only agreed to do it, but did it with gusto. Likewise, he initially had no interest in Hina's safety, but Eiji talked him into protecting her by offering a year's supply of popsicles. And of course, Hina can get away with almost anything just by grabbing his ear, because she has super strength and it hurts.
He's also rude. The way he speaks is generally impolite, he makes no secret of it when he doesn't like something, and it's habit for him to call people idiots as soon as they do something he doesn't agree with or doesn't understand. When Eiji brought him to live at Cous Coussier where he would be forced to interact with regular human beings who didn't know his origins, he had to make up a cover story about Ankh having grown up in a rough environment in some foreign country, just to sufficiently explain his bad behavior.
Most of the reason for Ankh's calculating, guarded, and prickly nature comes from his background. At the beginning of the show he revived from several centuries of being sealed away in a stone coffin, and prior to that it doesn't seem like he'd had very much interaction with anyone besides the other Greeed and a power mad king. He lived in an environment where it was everyone for themselves, and the one alliance he had made led to betrayal. When the Greeed woke up again, none of them had a full set of their core medals and the first thing any of them did was steal from the others to try get the upper hand. When that's the environment he was used to, it's no wonder that he doesn't let his guard down easily.
Though for all that he's unfriendly and unsociable, it's a little surprising how much so-called stupidity he's actually inclined to deal with, whether that's getting dragged unwillingly into social events, tolerating the owner of Cous Coussier attempting to give him politeness lessons, or letting Eiji push him off a table while scolding him to sit normally. Ankh actually spends many of the less serious moments in the series being the butt of jokes, often involving fairly ridiculous slapstick, and while he's clearly not happy about any of that, he puts up with it, and even decides he misses some of it once he's not there with everyone. (Really, there's a scene where he's thinking he missed the place, and one of the flashbacks that goes along with it involves Eiji carelessly smacking him in the back of the head while he just doesn't bother moving out of the way.) He, of course, would chalk up all of it to needing to stay enough in everyone's good graces so he could hold on to whatever benefits they happened to be providing. But with as many times as he can be seen sitting in the background pretending not to pay attention while the rest of the group engages in whatever antics (usually dragging him in at some point) it's hard not to assume that some part of him just enjoys the company.
And by the end of the series, he really does care. At the start, he was a severed hand with an attitude who took over an unconscious human just so that he'd have a body to work with. But over time, through experiences provided by having that human body to work with and being surrounded by people who are friendly and caring, he becomes increasingly human, himself. While primarily done for self-preservation, taking over the body of the unconscious Shingo was the first step toward Ankh evolving beyond being a Greeed. Greeed have extremely limited senses, and while they can see, hear, and feel, it's all in some muted or distorted form, and the ability to taste is nonexistent. One of the first things he does upon taking over Shingo is to steal some popsicles from a vendor (which Eiji goes back to pay for, because Ankh doesn't understand money and can't be bothered anyway) and talk about how cool and refreshing they are. That's why the aforementioned bargain involving a year's supply of popsicles worked so well; Ankh loves them, and they never stop being novel. Having a human body gives him an entirely different way of perceiving things compared to the other Greeed, and presumably it also gives him some new ways of feeling things, since human bodies tend to react to emotions.
While Shingo's body is what made him physically human, it's his interactions with others that make him become more human in every other way. In the beginning, it's nothing more than an uneasy alliance. Eiji is an idiot who he adopted working with because having OOO as an ally is useful when struggling against the other Greeed, and Hina is nothing more than a hindrance he's forced to deal with because he happens to be possessing her brother's body. Then he spends a lot of time with them, and he gets used to them. Eventually, he starts to understand and even like them. It's not enough to keep him from betraying them and setting off on his own with Shingo's body as a hostage as soon as he gets his full power back, but that's where Ankh's development gets interesting.
Up until that moment, he had assumed that that power was all he wanted and needed. The second he felt strong enough to keep the upper hand in dealing with the others, he went back to the Greeed, looking for an alliance that would work to his ultimate benefit. In short, it's what he would have done at the beginning of the series if he hadn't started off in a bad position... and he doesn't realize until he gets there just how much he's changed in the meantime. At that point, he's become accustomed to a supportive environment where people care about and protect one another. The constant in-fighting amongst the Greeeds as they go about their neverending contest for who gets the most medals stands in sharp contrast, and he immediately decides he hates it. He had been collecting medals for himself, but after witnessing the Greeeds being their greedy selves, he throws those medals back in their faces and stomps off alone.
The other thing that sticks with him from his brief return to the Greeeds is the observation that he had started to think in terms of life and death, while Greeeds, being effectively a pile of medals, aren't alive to begin with. The revelation scares him because he's gotten used to experiencing life like a human, he's grown to enjoy that, and the only reason he can do it is because he's still possessing someone else's body. This leads to confrontations with first Hina, in which he asks her whether she'll allow him to keep her brother's body and she can't tell him anything but no, and then with Eiji, where he just goes in expecting to kill him because he knows he'll have the same answer, and he's the one with the power to do something about it.
Once again, he underestimates how much of an effect all that time spent together had on him. He thinks he's prepared to get rid of Eiji, but even in the face of that it's obvious that Eiji still cares about him, and is even willing to thank him for the things he'd done for him. After he'd already made himself an enemy, that's something he wasn't expecting. It shakes him so much that he loses any resolve he had. Ankh is someone who's conditioned to expect betrayal, to not forgive, and having someone treat him that way is something that he can barely even process.
He can't kill him, and even protects him when Maki, who had been working with the Greeed with a goal of destroying the world, steps in. Very fittingly, as he stops Maki's attack on Eiji and Maki demands to know what he's doing, he responds, rather resolutely, with "I have no idea." While he could be certain that protecting Eiji is right and it's what he wanted to do, the reasons underlying it had become something he didn't fully understand. As mentioned before, Ankh calculates everything he does. Up until that point, his emotions may have played a part in the equation, but they were never the deciding factor. Once they are, he doesn't quite know what to make of it, but that doesn't make him any less sure of his decision in the end.
So when it comes down to it, he cares, and he has cared for a long time by that point, but it's only at the very end that caring starts to be a thing that matters. It's only after that, when Maki has left him with his primary Core Medal broken, that he's willing to admit that he's actually enjoyed the life he had with them, and only when Hina shows concern about him dying that he feels confident in saying he lived.
That brings us back to the point about Ankh being protective of the people who matter. At that point, Ankh didn't have anything left to personally strive for because he had been mortally wounded, and that meant there was nothing getting in the way of his desire to keep Eiji and Hina safe. As soon as Hina found him, he decided to join them again and fight with Eiji one last time, in a battle that was ultimately over the fate of the world at large. When his medal finally broke completely, he stuck around for a moment as a fading spirit to make sure that Eiji stayed alive and tell him he was happy with this conclusion, and to offer Hina a smile that was very much a silent "thank you." They are extremely important to him, much as it took him a long time to realize that and doesn't generally like to admit it.
It's implied in the sequel movie that Eiji eventually manages to put the broken medal back together and bring Ankh back to life. After reviving, he is still basically his usual prickly self, just a little bit all around softer. He looks at the group with a fond smile, and when Hina runs up and hugs him, it takes a second for him to decide to shove her away. At this point, he's also more willing to show visible concern. He had paid attention and tried to keep Eiji out of too much trouble from the beginning, but now he's finally let himself care enough that it actively scares him a little when his friends are in danger. He's still Ankh, though, so as soon as everyone's safe again, he'll be right back to calling them idiots, and of course it's just their imagination if they catch some fondness in the way he says it.
It's also an important side note that Ankh's existence as a Greeed was originally distilled from the essence of birds. Aside from having an arm with a bird on the back of it and big shimmery wings that pop out sometimes, his bird origins color several other things, from the way he moves to certain habits. Like many birds, he's prone to sudden quick movements, tends to lead motion with his head, and carries most of his weight on one foot at a time. He tends to perch moreso than sit, finding either the nearest tree or the highest available place in the room. Where he chooses to sleep is likewise the highest point in the room, and with the way it's covered in a pile of red fabric it's almost like he built a nest up there. When he enters or leaves the room where he lives, it's through the window, not the door (and he lives in an attic). He also was at one point disturbed at having someone offer him chicken as a meal, because eating a cooked bird just seemed wrong (though that didn't stop him from getting irritated enough to take a bite out of the thing anyway).
◎ Powers/Abilities: Being a Greeed comes with a lot of perks. For one, they're just physically stronger than humans, to the point that there's basically no way to defeat them unless someone has a power suit. But beyond that, here are the specifics:
Medals - First of all, Greeeds are made of medals. Core Medals are, as the name implies, the core of a Greeed's existence. They are, essentially, what makes that Greeed themselves. Ankh's Core Medals are red and depict birds (hawk, peacock, and condor, to be specific). The more Cores a Greeed has, the more powerful they are and the more complete they feel. Ankh's consciousness is contained in a single Hawk medal, which broke into two pieces at the end of the series. Cell Medals, the more common and less powerful type, are silver in color and used for a lot of different purposes. Since Ankh is composed of these pieces, he can absorb them into himself or pull them out at will.
Making Yummies - One of the major things Greeeds do with Cell Medals is implanting them in someone with a strong desire in order to let that desire grow out of control. Each Greeed's Yummies work a little differently, and Ankh's tend to exist separately from their host and behave like a bird taking care of their young. They kidnap the host, keeping them in a central location that serves as a nest, while the Yummy goes out to get whatever the host wants and bring it back to them. As with all Yummies, this usually ends up with the host being extremely unhappy with this method of having their desire fulfilled, and of course havoc is wrought when the Yummy is out gathering metaphorical food for its chick. Ankh almost never creates Yummies, being incapable of doing so for most of the series, and only briefly of a mindset to consider it once he became able, but he does have the capability. He might think about it if Cell Medals are needed, because breaking down a Yummy that's grown through fulfilling desires is about the only way to create more of them.
Sensing Desire - In order to create a Yummy, a Greeed must first discover someone with a sufficiently powerful desire. In this particular field, they're a bit psychic. Unable to create Yummies for most of the series. Ankh rarely says anything about this as such, but other Greeeds notice the wishes of their would-be Yummy hosts, and Ankh certainly comments on Eiji having an utter lack of desire. Being creatures made from desire, he can easily notice the presence of a Yummy at a considerable distance, as well as pick out which human is the Yummy's host if he's able to interact with them at all.
Shapeshifting - Being fundamentally a pile of medals, a Greeed's physical appearance is mutable. Ankh's true form is humanoid, but clearly inhuman, with bird-like characteristics. But he can also choose to take on the appearance of any human he sees. Most of the time, he chooses to take the form of Shingo since he got used to that body after possessing him for so long, but he became Eiji once in order to play a trick on an enemy. Even in human form, he often has his true right hand, though he can choose to hide it.
Flight - His Greeed form is based on a bird, so of course he can fly. While he doesn't usually appear to have wings, he can choose to manifest them even while appearing as a human, at which point they will suddenly and dramatically sprout from his back. The wings are translucent and iridescent and give a general impression of being made of light.
Fire - His element is fire, and he can throw fireballs. This one is pretty straightforward.
◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory:
Taka Candroid - Candroids are about what they sound like. They look like soda cans, until they turn into something with mild AI that looks like an animal. This one looks like a hawk. It's particularly good for surveying an area or tracking someone, and can also pick things up and carry them.
Tako Candroid - This one shaped like an octopus. These are good at gripping things and can also spit ink in someone's face. They float, so they can also be used to fly around and look for things like Taka can.
Medal Book - Ankh keeps a book (originally given to him by Hina) with slots to store medals in. It will have one of each of the different Core Medals plus a few Cell Medals. These aren't especially useful to Ankh, since he can't do anything with them other than absorb them, which he won't because 1) using a whole bunch of different Cores is a good way to go crazy and 2) with a human body thanks to being at Inugami he doesn't really need them anymore, anyway. He just likes being the one in charge of the medals so that Eiji doesn't do stupid things with them. The Taka, Tora, and Batta medals are missing, because Eiji keeps those on him.
Taka Medal - In addition to the medals in the book, Ankh has a Taka medal that once contained his consciousness. It broke in half when he died, and Eiji had it repaired while at Inugami. There was something not quite right about the repair, though exactly what was never identified. Presumably his ability to use his powers is tied to the presence of this medal.
Cell Medals - He's not made of medals anymore, but he does still have ways to use them. He'll have a small stock of them, maybe 30 or so, that he can use to fuel his abilities.
Slingshot - A wooden slingshot he got from the school store in Inugami.
Invisibility Compact - A special item he got from the school store in Inugami. It looks like a makeup compact, but when activated causes him (or whoever has it – it's not specifically bonded to him in any way) to become invisible for a maximum of five minutes. It will only work once per day.
CEREALIA-Specific
◎ Element: His canon element is fire.
◎ Sense: Taste. All of the senses are extremely important to him, being a Greeed, but that's the one that specifically came up in the form of an obsession with popsicles. It's also more complex in that it relies on smell and texture as well, so that's probably particularly intriguing.
◎ Seven Character Traits: (determined, resourceful, human) | (selfish, distrustful, devious) + protective once he's decided someone is important enough
Samples
◎ First-Person Sample:
Test Drive
Inugami log
Meme (for the sake of having something here that's not Eiji)
◎ Third-Person Sample:
No one ever looked up.
It was a useful fact that never ceased to amaze Ankh. He might have chalked it up to the way humans were generally inattentive, but it was true even among his fellow Greeed. Wings had always given him a certain advantage, if only when the others were also too distracted to notice shadows.
Not that he had wings, now. But for now he didn't need them. A roof was enough. It was a good place to sit and eat a popsicle on a pleasant day, but more than that, it was a good place to watch everyone else. Today, lacking business at the restaurant, Chiyoko had decided it would be fun to take Eiji and Hina out for a picnic instead. For once, Ankh had managed to disappear before he got dragged into the plans, but that didn't mean he wasn't still idly watching as the others went in and out, repeatedly realizing they had forgotten something.
After what seemed like a stupidly long time spent preparing (first it was napkins someone needed to run back for, then utensils, then, oh, shouldn't we have a blanket to sit on?) the group finally headed off to wherever they had chosen, the women giggling to each other about something Ankh didn't care that he couldn't hear. Eiji hung back, letting the others go ahead until they were nearly out of view.
Then, to Ankh's surprise, he looked directly at him. It seemed he'd been spotted this time, after all.
"Ankh!" He called up with his usual unrelenting cheerfulness, "Why don't you come join us?" Equally predictably, all Ankh did was raise an eyebrow. "Ah, well, I guess it wouldn't really interest you... but it's probably boring always just sitting up there, isn't it?"
"Tch." He looked away, enough of a response to tell the other not to bother. If he had been interested in Hina trying to feed him more poultry, he would have been down there with them already. As much as he chose to watch them from a distance, he wasn't in a mood to be any more involved. Apparently unsurprised, Eiji simply shrugged and walked away, seeming equally cheerful to have had his offer turned down. Ankh couldn't help wondering why he'd tried in the first place.
It then occurred to him that Eiji had just said "always."
He didn't notice how long he'd stared wide-eyed down at the previously occupied ground until the popsicle started melting down his fingers.
(Alternately, if that canon point is too early on and you'd rather a sad thing involving headcanon about Ankh being a ghost hand, you can have this instead.)
◎ Is your character retaining any previous game memories? He's coming in after spending a month at Inugami. Prior to getting to Inugami, the last thing he remembered was being dead. When he woke up in an unfamiliar school, he was understandably very confused. He tracked down Eiji, who admitted to having his medal fixed, and both assumed it was because of that that Ankh appeared in the school right then. He was actually pulled in just like anybody else and showed up human because everyone does at first, but the misconception that this was Eiji's fault has never been corrected.
Shortly after he arrived, there was an event (log above) where students were kidnapped and underwent medical experiments. The victims died and were brought back to life as basically zombies. They still had their personalities, but very little sanity to go along with it. When Ankh realised what had happened to Eiji, he wasn't in any condition to do anything about it (thanks to temporary blindness as a side effect of using the invisibility compact for the first time) but once he recovered, he sought out Eiji to confront him. It started as an attempt to keep Eiji from doing things he would regret, like rampaging around the school and probably killing someone, and maybe, as what seemed like a viable option once they started talking, to turn that aggression toward whoever was responsible for the situation in the first place. It ended up with a lot of shouting and fighting and running and accidentally getting deep into the woods where wolves would attack and starting a forest fire. By the end, it was clear that both of them were going to die, whether thanks to fire, wolves, or each other, and Ankh just chose to run, let Eiji chase, and see which of three deaths was going to catch up with him. Technically he accomplished his goal. He hadn't been there long enough to have seen how death in Inugami isn't permanent, but even if it was... The insane state Eiji was in wasn't really living, and as far as Ankh was concerned, he wasn't really supposed to be alive again to begin with. He wasn't happy with how that all played out, but he didn't have any regrets about it, either.
Since he had only been there a month, he was entirely human and had lost all his powers and possessions. It's possible to regain powers and items over time in Inugami (and actually the game close event that happened shortly after the point I'm taking him from allowed everything to be regained at once) so I'm assuming that he got most of his abilities back between there and here, plus the medal book and a pile of Cell Medals. (The other listed items, he either got from Eiji or the school store while he was at Inugami). As such, his powers will be mostly complete, aside from the part where he has a human body as a base now. He can still absorb medals, but he isn't made of them, so he's probably lost the ability to shapeshift to the likeness of other people or just being an arm, though he can still go between his human form and his Greeed form (At this point it most likely functions more like armor made from whatever Cell Medals he has, so if he only has the handful mentioned in the items, this is probably limited to manifesting his inhuman arm; he would need to make a Yummy at some point or find some other source of new medals in order to have his full Greeed body).
◎ Name: Wei
◎ Journal:
wei_jiangling◎ Contact: aim: weijiangling plurk: zeroq1
◎ Current Character(s): None
Character Info
◎ Character's Name: Ankh
◎ Character's Canon: Kamen Rider OOO
◎ Character's Age: Looks young 20's, actually 800-something. He wasn't conscious for most of the 800, and it's never given how long he was actually alive before he got sealed away, so there's no solid answer to this question.
◎ Canon Point: Post-series, before Megamax (+ CRAU from Inugami)
◎ Background/History: Wiki
◎ Is the character a hacker and/or do they have a sixth-sense? Ankh has a sixth-sense in the particular form of sensing the desires of others. If there is someone around who has some goal in life they desperately want to fulfill, he will notice. That said, he would have no reason to notice a ghost otherwise, and if he did, it would likely seem like the air over there suddenly really wants something, which might be pretty confusing. He probably wouldn't be able to directly communicate. If it was possible to make a Yummy from one, he might be able to talk to it as a representative, though that could easily end up a bit skewed since Yummies are manifestations of the desire itself.
As for hacking technology, it's debatable whether he might have some minor knowledge. He doesn't hack anything in the series, but he does have access to the mind of someone who is both technologically savvy and a police detective, and makes use of that information. Since it doesn't specifically come up in the series, though, I'd guess that only extends to being able to try muddling his way through things where any security is pretty obviously breakable, and not anything more complex than that.
◎ Personality: The Greeed were made 800 years ago to serve a power hungry king in his conquest of the world. Each was made incomplete, and awoke driven by a desire to be whole that could never be fulfilled. They live with limited senses and limited emotions, and try to fill the void by taking from humans all the things they can never truly own. Even amongst themselves, it's a constant battle for the one thing they always need: more.
Ankh is a Greeed, but he's something beyond that. He's the one who learned how to live, and how to be content. He's the Greeed who learned how to be human.
To be fair, at the start of the series, he was just as bad as the rest of them, and he maintains many of those characteristics. It's obvious in the first couple episodes that Ankh has very little reverence for life and all he cares about is getting more medals for himself. One of the first things Ankh did after giving Eiji the power to become Kamen Rider OOO was to stop him from defeating a Yummy that was wreaking havoc, because it hadn't finished growing yet. Though Eiji got his way and ended up taking down the Yummy earlier, Ankh's plan was to let the Yummy consume an entire office building filled with people just so that it would give him that many more medals afterward. Eiji's influence had an effect over the series in this regard, and by the time I'm picking him up from, it's unlikely that he would so happily sit by and watch that kind of destruction, much less cause it. After all, in the end, he did choose to take Eiji's side and protect the world and the people he ended up caring about. That said, Ankh is only protective of the people who matter to him in some way, and while at this point he's not so inclined to put strangers in harm's way, he won't go too far out of his way to help them, either.
Ankh is selfish and conniving and rarely does anything that doesn't benefit him in some way. Everything he does, he calculates. Sometimes it means that he'll do things that put him at a temporary disadvantage so that he'll come out on top later. His decision to let Eiji become OOO in the first place is a perfect example of that. While he initially thought that Eiji would be stupid and easy to push around, that was a snap assessment and there was a risk in giving that kind of power to a complete stranger. As it turned out, Eiji wasn't as dumb as he first looked, but Ankh continued to keep him on his side despite a lot of frustration because having OOO around was useful. (And over time, because he actually cared about the idiot, but I'll get to that later.) The flip side of that is that if you know what drives him, it's relatively easy to talk him into things, provided they aren't going to be too much of a hindrance to him. For example, there's an episode where someone asked him to act in a movie, and his first reaction was to dismiss the idea as a waste of time and start to walk out of the room. But once he found out there were medals in it for him, he not only agreed to do it, but did it with gusto. Likewise, he initially had no interest in Hina's safety, but Eiji talked him into protecting her by offering a year's supply of popsicles. And of course, Hina can get away with almost anything just by grabbing his ear, because she has super strength and it hurts.
He's also rude. The way he speaks is generally impolite, he makes no secret of it when he doesn't like something, and it's habit for him to call people idiots as soon as they do something he doesn't agree with or doesn't understand. When Eiji brought him to live at Cous Coussier where he would be forced to interact with regular human beings who didn't know his origins, he had to make up a cover story about Ankh having grown up in a rough environment in some foreign country, just to sufficiently explain his bad behavior.
Most of the reason for Ankh's calculating, guarded, and prickly nature comes from his background. At the beginning of the show he revived from several centuries of being sealed away in a stone coffin, and prior to that it doesn't seem like he'd had very much interaction with anyone besides the other Greeed and a power mad king. He lived in an environment where it was everyone for themselves, and the one alliance he had made led to betrayal. When the Greeed woke up again, none of them had a full set of their core medals and the first thing any of them did was steal from the others to try get the upper hand. When that's the environment he was used to, it's no wonder that he doesn't let his guard down easily.
Though for all that he's unfriendly and unsociable, it's a little surprising how much so-called stupidity he's actually inclined to deal with, whether that's getting dragged unwillingly into social events, tolerating the owner of Cous Coussier attempting to give him politeness lessons, or letting Eiji push him off a table while scolding him to sit normally. Ankh actually spends many of the less serious moments in the series being the butt of jokes, often involving fairly ridiculous slapstick, and while he's clearly not happy about any of that, he puts up with it, and even decides he misses some of it once he's not there with everyone. (Really, there's a scene where he's thinking he missed the place, and one of the flashbacks that goes along with it involves Eiji carelessly smacking him in the back of the head while he just doesn't bother moving out of the way.) He, of course, would chalk up all of it to needing to stay enough in everyone's good graces so he could hold on to whatever benefits they happened to be providing. But with as many times as he can be seen sitting in the background pretending not to pay attention while the rest of the group engages in whatever antics (usually dragging him in at some point) it's hard not to assume that some part of him just enjoys the company.
And by the end of the series, he really does care. At the start, he was a severed hand with an attitude who took over an unconscious human just so that he'd have a body to work with. But over time, through experiences provided by having that human body to work with and being surrounded by people who are friendly and caring, he becomes increasingly human, himself. While primarily done for self-preservation, taking over the body of the unconscious Shingo was the first step toward Ankh evolving beyond being a Greeed. Greeed have extremely limited senses, and while they can see, hear, and feel, it's all in some muted or distorted form, and the ability to taste is nonexistent. One of the first things he does upon taking over Shingo is to steal some popsicles from a vendor (which Eiji goes back to pay for, because Ankh doesn't understand money and can't be bothered anyway) and talk about how cool and refreshing they are. That's why the aforementioned bargain involving a year's supply of popsicles worked so well; Ankh loves them, and they never stop being novel. Having a human body gives him an entirely different way of perceiving things compared to the other Greeed, and presumably it also gives him some new ways of feeling things, since human bodies tend to react to emotions.
While Shingo's body is what made him physically human, it's his interactions with others that make him become more human in every other way. In the beginning, it's nothing more than an uneasy alliance. Eiji is an idiot who he adopted working with because having OOO as an ally is useful when struggling against the other Greeed, and Hina is nothing more than a hindrance he's forced to deal with because he happens to be possessing her brother's body. Then he spends a lot of time with them, and he gets used to them. Eventually, he starts to understand and even like them. It's not enough to keep him from betraying them and setting off on his own with Shingo's body as a hostage as soon as he gets his full power back, but that's where Ankh's development gets interesting.
Up until that moment, he had assumed that that power was all he wanted and needed. The second he felt strong enough to keep the upper hand in dealing with the others, he went back to the Greeed, looking for an alliance that would work to his ultimate benefit. In short, it's what he would have done at the beginning of the series if he hadn't started off in a bad position... and he doesn't realize until he gets there just how much he's changed in the meantime. At that point, he's become accustomed to a supportive environment where people care about and protect one another. The constant in-fighting amongst the Greeeds as they go about their neverending contest for who gets the most medals stands in sharp contrast, and he immediately decides he hates it. He had been collecting medals for himself, but after witnessing the Greeeds being their greedy selves, he throws those medals back in their faces and stomps off alone.
The other thing that sticks with him from his brief return to the Greeeds is the observation that he had started to think in terms of life and death, while Greeeds, being effectively a pile of medals, aren't alive to begin with. The revelation scares him because he's gotten used to experiencing life like a human, he's grown to enjoy that, and the only reason he can do it is because he's still possessing someone else's body. This leads to confrontations with first Hina, in which he asks her whether she'll allow him to keep her brother's body and she can't tell him anything but no, and then with Eiji, where he just goes in expecting to kill him because he knows he'll have the same answer, and he's the one with the power to do something about it.
Once again, he underestimates how much of an effect all that time spent together had on him. He thinks he's prepared to get rid of Eiji, but even in the face of that it's obvious that Eiji still cares about him, and is even willing to thank him for the things he'd done for him. After he'd already made himself an enemy, that's something he wasn't expecting. It shakes him so much that he loses any resolve he had. Ankh is someone who's conditioned to expect betrayal, to not forgive, and having someone treat him that way is something that he can barely even process.
He can't kill him, and even protects him when Maki, who had been working with the Greeed with a goal of destroying the world, steps in. Very fittingly, as he stops Maki's attack on Eiji and Maki demands to know what he's doing, he responds, rather resolutely, with "I have no idea." While he could be certain that protecting Eiji is right and it's what he wanted to do, the reasons underlying it had become something he didn't fully understand. As mentioned before, Ankh calculates everything he does. Up until that point, his emotions may have played a part in the equation, but they were never the deciding factor. Once they are, he doesn't quite know what to make of it, but that doesn't make him any less sure of his decision in the end.
So when it comes down to it, he cares, and he has cared for a long time by that point, but it's only at the very end that caring starts to be a thing that matters. It's only after that, when Maki has left him with his primary Core Medal broken, that he's willing to admit that he's actually enjoyed the life he had with them, and only when Hina shows concern about him dying that he feels confident in saying he lived.
That brings us back to the point about Ankh being protective of the people who matter. At that point, Ankh didn't have anything left to personally strive for because he had been mortally wounded, and that meant there was nothing getting in the way of his desire to keep Eiji and Hina safe. As soon as Hina found him, he decided to join them again and fight with Eiji one last time, in a battle that was ultimately over the fate of the world at large. When his medal finally broke completely, he stuck around for a moment as a fading spirit to make sure that Eiji stayed alive and tell him he was happy with this conclusion, and to offer Hina a smile that was very much a silent "thank you." They are extremely important to him, much as it took him a long time to realize that and doesn't generally like to admit it.
It's implied in the sequel movie that Eiji eventually manages to put the broken medal back together and bring Ankh back to life. After reviving, he is still basically his usual prickly self, just a little bit all around softer. He looks at the group with a fond smile, and when Hina runs up and hugs him, it takes a second for him to decide to shove her away. At this point, he's also more willing to show visible concern. He had paid attention and tried to keep Eiji out of too much trouble from the beginning, but now he's finally let himself care enough that it actively scares him a little when his friends are in danger. He's still Ankh, though, so as soon as everyone's safe again, he'll be right back to calling them idiots, and of course it's just their imagination if they catch some fondness in the way he says it.
It's also an important side note that Ankh's existence as a Greeed was originally distilled from the essence of birds. Aside from having an arm with a bird on the back of it and big shimmery wings that pop out sometimes, his bird origins color several other things, from the way he moves to certain habits. Like many birds, he's prone to sudden quick movements, tends to lead motion with his head, and carries most of his weight on one foot at a time. He tends to perch moreso than sit, finding either the nearest tree or the highest available place in the room. Where he chooses to sleep is likewise the highest point in the room, and with the way it's covered in a pile of red fabric it's almost like he built a nest up there. When he enters or leaves the room where he lives, it's through the window, not the door (and he lives in an attic). He also was at one point disturbed at having someone offer him chicken as a meal, because eating a cooked bird just seemed wrong (though that didn't stop him from getting irritated enough to take a bite out of the thing anyway).
◎ Powers/Abilities: Being a Greeed comes with a lot of perks. For one, they're just physically stronger than humans, to the point that there's basically no way to defeat them unless someone has a power suit. But beyond that, here are the specifics:
Medals - First of all, Greeeds are made of medals. Core Medals are, as the name implies, the core of a Greeed's existence. They are, essentially, what makes that Greeed themselves. Ankh's Core Medals are red and depict birds (hawk, peacock, and condor, to be specific). The more Cores a Greeed has, the more powerful they are and the more complete they feel. Ankh's consciousness is contained in a single Hawk medal, which broke into two pieces at the end of the series. Cell Medals, the more common and less powerful type, are silver in color and used for a lot of different purposes. Since Ankh is composed of these pieces, he can absorb them into himself or pull them out at will.
Making Yummies - One of the major things Greeeds do with Cell Medals is implanting them in someone with a strong desire in order to let that desire grow out of control. Each Greeed's Yummies work a little differently, and Ankh's tend to exist separately from their host and behave like a bird taking care of their young. They kidnap the host, keeping them in a central location that serves as a nest, while the Yummy goes out to get whatever the host wants and bring it back to them. As with all Yummies, this usually ends up with the host being extremely unhappy with this method of having their desire fulfilled, and of course havoc is wrought when the Yummy is out gathering metaphorical food for its chick. Ankh almost never creates Yummies, being incapable of doing so for most of the series, and only briefly of a mindset to consider it once he became able, but he does have the capability. He might think about it if Cell Medals are needed, because breaking down a Yummy that's grown through fulfilling desires is about the only way to create more of them.
Sensing Desire - In order to create a Yummy, a Greeed must first discover someone with a sufficiently powerful desire. In this particular field, they're a bit psychic. Unable to create Yummies for most of the series. Ankh rarely says anything about this as such, but other Greeeds notice the wishes of their would-be Yummy hosts, and Ankh certainly comments on Eiji having an utter lack of desire. Being creatures made from desire, he can easily notice the presence of a Yummy at a considerable distance, as well as pick out which human is the Yummy's host if he's able to interact with them at all.
Shapeshifting - Being fundamentally a pile of medals, a Greeed's physical appearance is mutable. Ankh's true form is humanoid, but clearly inhuman, with bird-like characteristics. But he can also choose to take on the appearance of any human he sees. Most of the time, he chooses to take the form of Shingo since he got used to that body after possessing him for so long, but he became Eiji once in order to play a trick on an enemy. Even in human form, he often has his true right hand, though he can choose to hide it.
Flight - His Greeed form is based on a bird, so of course he can fly. While he doesn't usually appear to have wings, he can choose to manifest them even while appearing as a human, at which point they will suddenly and dramatically sprout from his back. The wings are translucent and iridescent and give a general impression of being made of light.
Fire - His element is fire, and he can throw fireballs. This one is pretty straightforward.
◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory:
Taka Candroid - Candroids are about what they sound like. They look like soda cans, until they turn into something with mild AI that looks like an animal. This one looks like a hawk. It's particularly good for surveying an area or tracking someone, and can also pick things up and carry them.
Tako Candroid - This one shaped like an octopus. These are good at gripping things and can also spit ink in someone's face. They float, so they can also be used to fly around and look for things like Taka can.
Medal Book - Ankh keeps a book (originally given to him by Hina) with slots to store medals in. It will have one of each of the different Core Medals plus a few Cell Medals. These aren't especially useful to Ankh, since he can't do anything with them other than absorb them, which he won't because 1) using a whole bunch of different Cores is a good way to go crazy and 2) with a human body thanks to being at Inugami he doesn't really need them anymore, anyway. He just likes being the one in charge of the medals so that Eiji doesn't do stupid things with them. The Taka, Tora, and Batta medals are missing, because Eiji keeps those on him.
Taka Medal - In addition to the medals in the book, Ankh has a Taka medal that once contained his consciousness. It broke in half when he died, and Eiji had it repaired while at Inugami. There was something not quite right about the repair, though exactly what was never identified. Presumably his ability to use his powers is tied to the presence of this medal.
Cell Medals - He's not made of medals anymore, but he does still have ways to use them. He'll have a small stock of them, maybe 30 or so, that he can use to fuel his abilities.
Slingshot - A wooden slingshot he got from the school store in Inugami.
Invisibility Compact - A special item he got from the school store in Inugami. It looks like a makeup compact, but when activated causes him (or whoever has it – it's not specifically bonded to him in any way) to become invisible for a maximum of five minutes. It will only work once per day.
CEREALIA-Specific
◎ Element: His canon element is fire.
◎ Sense: Taste. All of the senses are extremely important to him, being a Greeed, but that's the one that specifically came up in the form of an obsession with popsicles. It's also more complex in that it relies on smell and texture as well, so that's probably particularly intriguing.
◎ Seven Character Traits: (determined, resourceful, human) | (selfish, distrustful, devious) + protective once he's decided someone is important enough
Samples
◎ First-Person Sample:
Test Drive
Inugami log
Meme (for the sake of having something here that's not Eiji)
◎ Third-Person Sample:
No one ever looked up.
It was a useful fact that never ceased to amaze Ankh. He might have chalked it up to the way humans were generally inattentive, but it was true even among his fellow Greeed. Wings had always given him a certain advantage, if only when the others were also too distracted to notice shadows.
Not that he had wings, now. But for now he didn't need them. A roof was enough. It was a good place to sit and eat a popsicle on a pleasant day, but more than that, it was a good place to watch everyone else. Today, lacking business at the restaurant, Chiyoko had decided it would be fun to take Eiji and Hina out for a picnic instead. For once, Ankh had managed to disappear before he got dragged into the plans, but that didn't mean he wasn't still idly watching as the others went in and out, repeatedly realizing they had forgotten something.
After what seemed like a stupidly long time spent preparing (first it was napkins someone needed to run back for, then utensils, then, oh, shouldn't we have a blanket to sit on?) the group finally headed off to wherever they had chosen, the women giggling to each other about something Ankh didn't care that he couldn't hear. Eiji hung back, letting the others go ahead until they were nearly out of view.
Then, to Ankh's surprise, he looked directly at him. It seemed he'd been spotted this time, after all.
"Ankh!" He called up with his usual unrelenting cheerfulness, "Why don't you come join us?" Equally predictably, all Ankh did was raise an eyebrow. "Ah, well, I guess it wouldn't really interest you... but it's probably boring always just sitting up there, isn't it?"
"Tch." He looked away, enough of a response to tell the other not to bother. If he had been interested in Hina trying to feed him more poultry, he would have been down there with them already. As much as he chose to watch them from a distance, he wasn't in a mood to be any more involved. Apparently unsurprised, Eiji simply shrugged and walked away, seeming equally cheerful to have had his offer turned down. Ankh couldn't help wondering why he'd tried in the first place.
It then occurred to him that Eiji had just said "always."
He didn't notice how long he'd stared wide-eyed down at the previously occupied ground until the popsicle started melting down his fingers.
(Alternately, if that canon point is too early on and you'd rather a sad thing involving headcanon about Ankh being a ghost hand, you can have this instead.)
◎ Is your character retaining any previous game memories? He's coming in after spending a month at Inugami. Prior to getting to Inugami, the last thing he remembered was being dead. When he woke up in an unfamiliar school, he was understandably very confused. He tracked down Eiji, who admitted to having his medal fixed, and both assumed it was because of that that Ankh appeared in the school right then. He was actually pulled in just like anybody else and showed up human because everyone does at first, but the misconception that this was Eiji's fault has never been corrected.
Shortly after he arrived, there was an event (log above) where students were kidnapped and underwent medical experiments. The victims died and were brought back to life as basically zombies. They still had their personalities, but very little sanity to go along with it. When Ankh realised what had happened to Eiji, he wasn't in any condition to do anything about it (thanks to temporary blindness as a side effect of using the invisibility compact for the first time) but once he recovered, he sought out Eiji to confront him. It started as an attempt to keep Eiji from doing things he would regret, like rampaging around the school and probably killing someone, and maybe, as what seemed like a viable option once they started talking, to turn that aggression toward whoever was responsible for the situation in the first place. It ended up with a lot of shouting and fighting and running and accidentally getting deep into the woods where wolves would attack and starting a forest fire. By the end, it was clear that both of them were going to die, whether thanks to fire, wolves, or each other, and Ankh just chose to run, let Eiji chase, and see which of three deaths was going to catch up with him. Technically he accomplished his goal. He hadn't been there long enough to have seen how death in Inugami isn't permanent, but even if it was... The insane state Eiji was in wasn't really living, and as far as Ankh was concerned, he wasn't really supposed to be alive again to begin with. He wasn't happy with how that all played out, but he didn't have any regrets about it, either.
Since he had only been there a month, he was entirely human and had lost all his powers and possessions. It's possible to regain powers and items over time in Inugami (and actually the game close event that happened shortly after the point I'm taking him from allowed everything to be regained at once) so I'm assuming that he got most of his abilities back between there and here, plus the medal book and a pile of Cell Medals. (The other listed items, he either got from Eiji or the school store while he was at Inugami). As such, his powers will be mostly complete, aside from the part where he has a human body as a base now. He can still absorb medals, but he isn't made of them, so he's probably lost the ability to shapeshift to the likeness of other people or just being an arm, though he can still go between his human form and his Greeed form (At this point it most likely functions more like armor made from whatever Cell Medals he has, so if he only has the handful mentioned in the items, this is probably limited to manifesting his inhuman arm; he would need to make a Yummy at some point or find some other source of new medals in order to have his full Greeed body).
Memes and PSLs
Mar. 25th, 2016 01:44 amOpen
IC Anon Questions
Picture Prompt
Texts from Tokusatsu
Insomnia
Body Heat
The Floor is Lava
Jail Cell
Anon Dares
Ghost of a Chance
Stuck in an Elevator
Friendship
Campfire
Random Scenario
Endless Hallways
Tokusatsu Hogwarts
Nonary Game
Drunk History
Single Parent
Close call
Boop the snoot
Closed
Texts with Eiji about vodka and ice cream
Accidentally in Star Trek universe
Nursed back to health by Ravyn Song
Far future adventures with Minoru
Campfire with Umi
Trapped in a basement with Marie
Trying to keep Rose from poking around medals
Getting Eiji in trouble at the Hogwarts AU
Snow fun with Eiji
Wing Kink, molting
Snowed in with Sebastian
Quote meme with Kirk
IC Anon Questions
Picture Prompt
Texts from Tokusatsu
Insomnia
Body Heat
The Floor is Lava
Jail Cell
Anon Dares
Ghost of a Chance
Stuck in an Elevator
Friendship
Campfire
Random Scenario
Endless Hallways
Tokusatsu Hogwarts
Nonary Game
Drunk History
Single Parent
Close call
Boop the snoot
Closed
Texts with Eiji about vodka and ice cream
Accidentally in Star Trek universe
Nursed back to health by Ravyn Song
Far future adventures with Minoru
Campfire with Umi
Trapped in a basement with Marie
Trying to keep Rose from poking around medals
Getting Eiji in trouble at the Hogwarts AU
Snow fun with Eiji
Wing Kink, molting
Snowed in with Sebastian
Quote meme with Kirk
