ooc; application for the institute
PLAYER: Jelle
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: Yup!
IF UNDER 18 YEARS OLD, PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE: n/a
CONTACT:queeningsquare /
devilism / aim: Lunixhime / email: queeningsquare[at]gmail[dot]com
CHARACTERS PLAYED: n/a
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Natsuno Yuuki/Koide (he's referred to by either his dad's or mom's last name depending on the situation considering they never legitly got married)
CANON: Shiki
CANON REFERENCE: series information. episode summaries. natsuno on the shiki wiki.
AGE: 15, both canon and AU.
GENDER: Male, both canon and AU.
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: 10th grade
APPEARANCE: A picture! He's the beanpole sort of body type, which means he generally tends to look a little older than his age. His eyes and hair are both purple, and the latter is always generally so messy that it looks like he hasn't properly combed it in ages. His facial expressions generally aren't too emotive as you can already see as well.
PERSONALITY: Right from the very start we're shown the most important characteristic about Natsuno - that he's a very aloof and closed off kind of guy. When we're first introduced to him we see him from Megumi Shimizu's point of view, a girl from the village, and she is practically a complete fangirl for him up to a point where she literally sits outside his window in the bushes every evening. Why? Because for her he symbolizes the perfect cool mysterious guy from the big city, a near stereotype, exactly because of him being so aloof and because of his background. He really does come from the big city, after all, this parents only just moved with him to Sotoba, a smaller village, for a change of environment. But all Natsuno longs for - which is, according to him, the only thing he has in common with Megumi since he otherwise just finds her annoying - is to go back to the big city, to a point where he just fantasizes about running away over the highway. He doesn't like Sotoba at all. The little village atmosphere is nothing for him, since he constantly feels like everyone is judging him and forcing a role upon him that he doesn't want (just like how he's the object of Megumi's affections and fangirling, who sees him as that stereotype) and he also mentions he doesn't really like the 'mob mentality' they have in the village. Aside from that, Sotoba is also a very closed off village and heavily associated with death due to the fact they make grave markers out of the fir trees that grow around the village. So in short, Natsuno dislikes the village he's forced to live in.
That isn't the only thing Natsuno dislikes though. In fact, he's often seen while being bothered by one thing or another, and he often has a troubled expression on his face like practically everything around him is just bothersome. It's either that expression or his indifferent aloof one, either way. He can be seen as a slightly grumpy person, or at the very least a party pooper kind of guy since he's very blunt. Natsuno is never one to sugarcoat his words, instead just saying everything like it is even if it's harsh or rude. Because of this (and his aloofness) he can come across as a very cold kind of person. Aside from that grumpiness there's - like mentioned above - also his indifferent and aloof side. Natsuno hardly seems to care about anything. Even though Megumi is fangirling over him to a point where she actually stalks him, he just completely ignores her and even when she dies he doesn't go to her burial, saying that he has no obligation to do so. Even the letter that Megumi wrote him over summer that she was estatic about is something he easily discards, at first refusing to even accept it but once it's forced on him he merely rips it into pieces and throws it away. His indifference applies to more things than just that girl, though, even about serious topics like death he seems very indifferent. Just look at this conversation he has with Masao (another male teenager in the village) early on in the series:
Natsuno: You or I could die tomorrow too.
Masao: I-I'm not gonna die yet!
Natsuno: Really? It's just a matter of luck.
Masao: B-But my life's just beginning! I still have so much left to do!
Natsuno: I think that's just a problem with how you live.
Masao: So you're fine with people saying that when you die?
Natsuno: I'll be dead. What will I care?
Because of being either a grumpy party pooper or completely aloof, it is imaginable he does not have much in the way of a social life. And that assumption is completely correct, Natsuno usually tries to avoid people when he has the chance. When Tohru cheerfully tries to get to talk to him and know him, Natsuno at first completely rejects him and tries to avoid him until Tohru practically forces himself on him. There's the issue with Megumi and just completely ignoring her too (as seen above). He just tends to keep a distance from people if he has to deal with them.
Some of his other qualities are highlighted more once he dies and then becomes one of the Shiki (this series' vampires variant), although they're already more or less present even before that though. This is why I will still touch on them here, even if he's not a vampire in the AU - they're still present in him, just in a slightly lesser extent.
Natsuno is good at remaining calm (perhaps because it's part of being aloof) no matter the situation. Sure, he does freak out in the beginning of the series a few times when vampires pop up out of nowhere in his room (but what person wouldn't, right..), but as the series progresses more and more he becomes more calm about it and doesn't seem to mind facing any of the Shiki in the slightest, his expression not changing much from a grumpy face or a lineface. Even when he talks to Tatsumi, the only one among the Shiki who is stronger than Natsuno, he remains completely calm despite them being enemies and Tatsumi practically threatening him. Because of his constant calm no matter the danger it can be said Natsuno is quite brave. Even before he becomes a Shiki himself he's willing to face down one when it comes to his room (even though it ends up being Tohru, his friend) and later on once he does become one of the Shiki he doesn't seem to mind fighting against all of the other Shiki who are starting to get the upper hand in the village. It could be said that these qualities of being calm and brave come forth out of his own indifference towards dying once he becomes a Shiki, though. From that moment on he's only focused on getting rid of the other Shiki and doesn't seem to care about much else. This is demonstrated in the conversation he has with Tatsumi right before he dies:
Tatsumi: Aren't you afraid of dying?
Natsuno: I've been dead for a long time.
Along with the aloof kind of bravery Natsuno is also fairly ruthless. Even though he's actually only fifteen, once he becomes a Shiki he has no problems at all with harming the other Shiki, no matter whether it's staking or shooting them or even blowing them up. Even before that, while he's still a human, he has no problems with beating one of the Shiki with a shovel to defend himself. He doesn't seem to be feeling guilty in the slightest over killing them, but it's probably mostly since he doesn't view them as human, probably more as something even lower than animals. It's likely that he wouldn't handle this way as easily towards humans, more on this later. He's also fairly smart - not a genius, but enough to be able to handle strategically against a whole group of Shiki who have their plan to take over the village carefully planned and thought out.
To elaborate on the being ruthless to Shiki but less so to humans before - Natsuno might be aloof, cold and blunt, but he does have a good set of morals. Even though he becomes a Shiki later on in canon and would be just as powerful as Tatsumi if he would just drink blood, he completely avoids drinking blood since he doesn't want to turn more regular humans into Shiki, even if that means he has a physical disadvantage to Tatsumi. And even though he's being very forceful about it, he does help Kaori and her brother get out of town, by forcing them to take the bus to another town so they will be save from becoming one of the Shiki. In the end it's also just Natsuno's mission to get rid of all the Shiki in the village, to make sure they won't spread themselves further and turn more innocent people into Shiki. This is why he works together with the humans, specifically with Ozaki. And in his mission of getting rid of all the Shiki he does include himself, since he has become one too after getting his blood sucked until he 'died'. When he blows up the bomb at the end, he gets rid of two Shiki at once - Tatsumi.. and himself. This part will be missing from his personality in the AU though, obviously. While his sense of self-preservation could still definitely use a lot of work, it's not like he exactly wants to die either, since he doesn't consider himself a monster like he thinks about the vampires.
So Natsuno is already as seen above not a completely selfish person, and in that same sense he's not completely cold either. Even though he's blunt and cold to most people, there are a few specific cases in which he can warm up to people. The most obvious case would be Tohru, who practically forced/wormed his way into Natsuno's life despite the latter's protests and avoidance at first. And even though he acts just as he would around everyone else around Tohru, very distant, there's little signs of him trusting the other boy and even signs of somewhat.. special.. fondness (like knocking the other guy on the head for calling him by his first name which he doesn't like). He even allows Tohru - when Tohru becomes a Shiki - to suck all of his blood up to a point where he just dies and becomes a Shiki himself. (Even Tohru is in the end not an exception of him wanting to kill every Shiki though, but it can be said that Natsuno is radical in general about that since he would even kill himself for it.) Another example of how he can slightly warm up to people in his own special way are Kaori and Akira, who at first help him fight against the Shiki, but once Natsuno becomes one of the Shiki himself he - quite forcefully, by pushing them on a bus - helps them escape the village and an untimely end. It's really difficult to get to a guy like Natsuno, but once you do he's a very loyal and helpful friend, even if it's still hard to notice on the surface.
POWERS/ABILITIES: Natsuno honestly doesn't have much experience in combat and the like - he mostly just has to rely on his mutant powers in a more untrained and raw way. But considering the fact that most of the vampires he dealt with weren't exactly combat-trained as well, it ends up working out well enough for him.
That being said, his exact mutant power is practically that his natural human strength is enhanced - as if his body doesn't always have the limits regular ones have. I am personally basing his strength levels on his ability to at least match the vampires he was dealing with in the AU, and on the page on the Marvel wiki about vampires it says: "Most vampires possessed superhuman physical strength anywhere from 10 to 20 times greater than they possessed in their mortal lives. The vast majority of known and recorded vampires were capable of lifting from 1,000lbs to 4,000lbs, with only Count Dracula and his predecessor Varnae being known to lift more at 4 and 7 tons respectively due to their special stance as ruler of Earth's vampire race." So I'd say Natsuno's own strength is a little bit above that top cap of 4,000lbs - I'd say about 5,000. But somewhere around that, at least, so he's at least able to have a slight advantage over most regular vampires when it comes to strength (even if he may not have any other of their special powers, hence why they're still more or less evenly matched in the end on a more general level). This would also match one of his abilities in canon, considering the Jinrou there (a special sub-branch of Shiki, which he eventually turns into) are super strong as well, even compared to the Shiki (so compared to the regular vampires).
He's pretty good at controlling his strength by now instead of accidentally shoving over trees all over the place or any of that, but it's a little less under control when he gets more emotional.
AU HISTORY: Natsuno was born in the big city. His parents had always been a little.. special in their believes - the very free-spirited kind of people. It's why they never married, so Natsuno technically only got his mother's last name, but thanks to the fact that his parents were still together and also lived together and acted like they were married, he was constantly referred to either by his father's or mother's last name depending on the situation. The fact that they were so free-spirited also meant that at least they didn't react too badly to the knowledge that their son was a mutant, even though his powers already activated and started to show at a young age. Super strength is a pretty difficult skill to hide for a little kid, after all, especially if they don't know what they're doing when they're suddenly lifting the entire couch at a young age while playing hide and seek or something similar.
As Natsuno grew older and went to school and didn't exactly seem to realise just how he was different from the other kids, it became harder and harder to hide the fact that he was a mutant. In fact, the rumor started to spread pretty easily and kept haunting Natsuno all the way to middle school. His parents didn't want the boy or their family to have to deal with it and the harassment though, so they decided to move from the big city to a very small rural town called Sotoba. Surrounded by forest on all sides and only connected to the big city by a distant highway, it was the sort of place they figured would be perfect to further raise their son, who had recently turned fifteen, without drawing too much attention to him. Natsuno never liked his parents' decision though even if it had been for his sake. Sotoba had nothing to do, the people were constantly gossiping about the "new city folks" who just moved in, still putting him into the spotlight for a different reason which annoyed Natsuno to no ends. There was nothing more he wanted than to move back to the big city and go to some university and just try and pretend to be a normal guy one way or another, no matter how hard it may be since he's exactly not a normal guy. The only person he even vaguely tolerated in the village was Tohru, an overly friendly guy who managed to worm his way into Natsuno's heart, even if the latter would never admit it.
Things rapidly changed in the village though. Another family moved into a big mansion on the hill outside Sotoba only a little while after Natsuno's family moved to the town. At first Natsuno was just glad that attention was transferred from him to these new people, but after a little while odd things started happening around the village. One day a villager went missing and was found in the forest, showing signs of heavy anemia. It was Megumi Shimizu - a teenage girl who was completely in love with Natsuno, but who he didn't give a single shit about. She was brought back to the village, but their condition only seemed to worsen for no apparent reason and a few days later they died. It was a big happening in the village, but it was only the first thing that set everything into motion. More and more villagers ended up showing signs of anemia and dying. First it happened to the elderly, but it seemed more and more unnatural when it happened to so many people at once and even younger people started dying. And when Natsuno noticed Megumi suddenly still being alive and showing up out of nowhere during a sleepover at Tohru's place, when he noticed her bending over the other guy and biting him.. Natsuno realised just what was causing the sudden deaths. Especially when Tohru started to show signs of anemia as well and died a few times later.
It was exactly that event that made Natsuno more determined rather than aloof for just once, and he went out to seek more evidence that the cause of the sudden deaths were vampires. Eventually he concluded that the family that moved in must be the vampires causing all of this, and he was right - they had moved to Sotoba to try and turn the whole village into a village of vampires by sucking the villagers empty one by one and turning them into vampires as well. He tried warning the villagers about it, but none of them would believe him. Even his own parents didn't believe him, instead thinking he was just making stuff up to try and cover up his own weirdness. And the villagers though along the same lines: some of the rumors from the big city had managed to follow them into the village after a little while, and people realised Natsuno was a mutant-- which meant they only thought even more that he was just making up stuff to make humans start to suspect other humans.
In fact, they instead started to suspect Natsuno of all the sudden deaths, as impossible as it would seem for a teenage boy, even a mutant teenage boy with way above average strength, to cause all of it. Natusno did try to take care of the vampires by himself for a little bit out of revenge for them having taken his best friend's life, digging up some graves and driving stakes through the vampire's hearts after a struggle with them, but there wasn't much he could do just by himself, mutant powers or no mutant powers. He just couldn't be everywhere at once. And because the harassment from the villagers became worse and worse to a point where one of them even tried to shoot him since they thought it would end the problems as long as he was dead, Natsuno's parents saw no other choice but to send the boy off to the Xavier Institute of Higher Learning, where they felt he may finally really fit in.
Even though only Natsuno knew leaving Sotoba behind in that state meant leaving it to be ripe for the vampires' picking, he still left.
He had nothing to miss there anymore, after all.
SAMPLES
NETWORK SAMPLE:
[ Apparently someone is bothering with video today. Natsuno's not much of a video kind of person, really - he doesn't like attention being drawn to him, after all - but it's kind of necessary for the message, so he's putting up with it. "Putting up with it" seems like the best kind of description anyway with the way he's frowning as if he's doing something really bothersome. ]
Someone left their book behind after class. [ And here's the reason why it's video - he holds up a book with one hand to show it off before letting out a sigh. ] The teacher told me to give it back to its owner.
[ Because it's not like he'd be doing this by himself.. it's annoying, okay. ]
Inside there's hearts and something about the guy from a year ahead being really handsome-- [ He stops, wrinkling his nose a little as if this is already embarrassing enough for him to have to even say, and he holds out the book open towards the camera. ] .. Just look for yourself. [ Because he sure is not reciting more of that junk, thanks. ]
Anyway, if it's your book, make sure to take it with you next time. It's a pain when I have to do it, so be a little considerate.
[ Even if that could easily be countered by saying it's only considerate for him to return it to its proper owner too.. but he's not going to buckle to that argument. ]
( ooc: as an extra, if you want to see more examples of his voice, feel free to look here! )
LOG SAMPLE:
Natsuno gets up from his bed with a sigh.
Honestly, he doesn't think about everything that happened before he got to the Institute much anymore. It doesn't matter, despite how heavy the situation was - mostly since he doesn't really care about the things he left behind. He never liked the vilage anyway, he never liked the people in it.. so then why should he care that any of those things probably already disappeared while he wasn't there to try to take care of it? The only reason he even tried to fight the vampires before it became impossible rather than just leaving right away was because he couldn't leave the whole situation alone anymore when Tohru (that idiot) got turned into one of them. Even his parents.. well, he couldn't say he necessarily disliked them, but he didn't really care a whole lot about them either. They always just did what they felt like, anyway, and by the time he realised that maybe it was for his sake as well, it was already too late to change his mind about any of it. Even if they were vampires too by now, he wouldn't really care. Tohru is the only thing he really regrets losing, really regrets not being able to save by tackling the issue as it popped up just because he thought vampires weren't something real.
A stupid assumption, maybe, considering mutants like him were very real.. but still, weren't vampires supposed to be something out of stupid horror movies and stories rather than a real and very annoying threat?
.. Ah, well. Maybe that's exactly the reason he doesn't linger much on everything that happened before. Because the only thing it can awaken in him other than general indifference is the sinking feeling he gets in his stomach whenever he thinks about the fact that he let one of the few people he actually ever gave a shit about die. The village wasn't his responsibility anyway, they hated him, they seriously tried to say that he was the one causing it when he was actually the one trying to help them to begin with.
Natsuno shakes his head, and with a groan he moves off the bed and grabs his bag. Maybe this is why he shouldn't nap in the middle of the day, he just gets weird dreams and feelings that are completely unnecessary.
At least class - even if it may be boring - is a good distraction from it all. Mind-numbing, really, even if what Natsuno does the most is just find a spot by the window and stare outside. Is this the kind of life he expected? When they moved to Sotoba and he told himself he'd get out of there, that he'd go to a big school in a big city, or at least anywhere that wasn't Sotoba.. did he expect anything like the Institute?
Probably not. This isn't exactly a normal place in any sense of the word, after all. But it's not like he could have ended up in a better place anyway and he knows it. Not with the prejudice against mutants and the debates around it. It'd just be a pain having to put up with all of that, it'd be a pain to have stayed behind in Sotoba and have to avoid getting killed either by the vampires or by the people since he didn't belong to either group, so maybe it's easier to be here. No one thinks he's weird. He doesn't stand out. He's just among people just like him. Some loud, a lot of them annoying, but - they're like him. He's not weird compared to them.
It's probably the biggest blessing here. Disappearing into the crowd, no longer standing out for once. Even if it's not a very perfect or interesting life, it's at least not an entirely bothersome life either. He can walk through the hallways just like he's doing now, and nothing stands out about him. No one even gives him a second glance like they did all the time before.
Even when he scuffles into class, no one looks up from their desks and just continues on talking to each other normally.
Natsuno plops down into his seat, dropping his bag next to him and stares out of the window. Sure, maybe it's not perfect.. but he can live like this.
