(no subject)

[rosydisposition]

Content Warning: Brief mentions of child death within.

IN CHARACTER

Character Name: Shuichi Minamino aka Kurama aka Kurama the Youko/Youko Kurama
Canon: Yu Yu Hakusho
Canon Point: Post Chapter Black

In-Game Tattoo Placement: On his left side, about four ribs down, the size of a small orange
Current Health/Status: Healthy and sleeping
Apparent Age: 16
Actual Age: Soul is over 1000+, body 16
Species: A demon soul merged with a human body

History: http://yuyuhakusho.wikia.com/wiki/Kurama#History

Kurama lived a thousand or more years before canon began. He was a spirit fox, an animal spirit that was as cutthroat as he was intelligent. He and a friend, Yomi, gathered a group of like-minded individuals who wanted to carve out a territory and status within the demon world. Eventually, Yomi ignored Kurama's orders and took their best men into strongholds that held the best treasures but were the most guarded, losing all of them. Kurama saved Yomi until the last time, in which Kurama placed a trap due to the repeated disobedience, leading anyone who went with him dying and Yomi losing his sight.

The fox went alone for a while before meeting a bat demon who became good friends with him. Eventually, Kuronue, too, was lost on a botched burglary, leading Kurama to revert to his fox form and going solo, spending his days thieving solo, before finally being caught. With the last of his life, he separated his soul from his body and left to the human world, where he found the fetus of a human woman and merged with it. He intended to leave once he regained his demon powers, but after an incident where his human mother, Shiori, saved him from some broken glass, Kurama finally understood empathy and emotions that he had previously ignored for his human mother. He found he could no longer leave as he intended.

He met Hiei a few years before canon began, when Kurama was still in Junior High, and Hiei mistook him for another demon. They fought, but Hiei was injured, and Kurama won, taking him back to heal. Upon learning of a demon that was kidnapping girls, and that one of Kurama's friends was kidnapped, the two teamed up to kill the demon and save the humans kidnapped. It's unclear if they maintained this partnership before the heist to Spirit World or not.

When she fell ill, he joined with two other demons (one being Hiei) to steal artifacts from spirit world. He took a mirror that would grant the user one wish, at the cost of the wisher's life. He wished for his mother's health, after telling Spirit Detective Yusuke Urameshi the story behind his existence, only for Yusuke to step in and offer his own life. The mirror takes nothing (in the manga half of their life energy each) to save Kurama's mother. Kurama, and Kurama's partner in crime, eventually assist Yusuke in his missions.

The fought together in the Dark Tournament, a tournament in which demons in the human world participate to get any wish they so desire granted. There is one 'invited' team, who must participate on penalty of death, and Kurama is among the invited team. He manages to access his demon body twice in the tournament, but loses the final battle on a technicality.

Later on, when there's a portal to the demon world being opened, he, along with friends and a few psychics trained under Yusuke's teacher fight to save the world. Once they've hunted down where they needed to go, Kurama killed a child due to the rules of the child's power and the man in charge and takes out his anger on their enemies later. It isn't enough, though, and he, Hiei and Kuwabara are forced to watch Yusuke die at the hands of their enemy. Kurama is enraged, and being so close to the demon energy that comes from the portal, he transforms into his demon form to chase after their enemy along with the others.

They cannot win, but play witness to Yusuke's awakening as a half-demon and the final fight with their enemy.

Kurama is from after this point and would be somewhere around sixteen or seventeen. Ages aren't really mentioned, so I erred on the side of caution.
Hometown/World: On Earth, somewhere in Japan. Kurama attends school in a city called Mushiyori.

Personality: Kurama is a demon soul, centuries old, reborn inside a human body. 

Upon first meeting him, he appears to be a calm, kind, gentle young man who exists to make his mother and his family happy. He is rarely seen with an expression that isn't a smile or a calm serenity, never allowing what he's feeling or thinking to shine through. Most of his genuine smiles are for his mother and friends, but especially his mother. For her, Shuichi makes sure to see to her every need, her happiness and her health. There is nothing he will not do for her, because he is devoted to her. He even goes so far as to steal an artifact that will grant any wish - his wish being for her health - at the cost of his own life. Kurama feels he owes her, for not being the son he was supposed to be, for looking down on her during his first years of life, for lying to her, and he holds this guilt like an heirloom, unable to accept what he's done to her.

Sadly, even though he is friendly and kind, he doesn't have many friends. Kurama's a very reserved person and his experience in his previous life is still with him, reminding him that getting close to people is not a wise idea. On top of possible betrayals and death, he feels he must keep everyone at arm's length, to protect them from the enemies of his old days. He fears that his past as Kurama the Youko will come back to haunt him and steal what happiness he possesses and prepares himself for it.

That is not to say he is not popular. Kurama is the center of attention often due to his manners, looks and high intelligence. He's always top score in his school and always being asked by one club or another to join, no matter how many times he rejects the offer. People are always eager to know his opinion on something, even if he has no interest at all. He tries hard to be polite, even in rejection. Shuichi Minamino is the portait of perfection in class and that's all he wants them to see.

The few friends Kurama does have see more of him and were gained through trial. They have fought and sacrificed for each other, taken care of one other and would gladly die for each other. Kurama admires strength, due to his demon soul, but also loyalty. All of their meetings left a profound impact on him, from his first battle with Hiei, to Yusuke offering to sacrifice his own life to save Kurama's mother, to watching Kuwabara struggle to match up to the stronger members of their teams in every battle, leaving them stuck together aside their other friends who've watched them and cheered them on. He cares deeply for their wellbeing, and he will not hesitate to throw himself in the way of any blow meant for them. Their safety is above his own. In fact, even though he knew it wouldn't mean a win for his team, he was willing to use all of his life energy to destroy his opponent during the Dark Tournament. 

He can often be seen as the translator for Hiei, the most distant member of their team. Kurama acts as a bridge between the human world and demon world, crossing the gaps that the human members can't when it comes to demons and vice-versa. He's knowledgable and can read people well, able to tell what would be the best course of action between them. He's also the only one who can get away with teasing Hiei as he does without losing his pretty head, though threats are sure to be incoming.

Kurama's playful and teasing when with his friends in general. Besides being their mediator, he offers dry wit and commentary, sometimes teasing them about things they may be sensitive about, but in an obviously harmless way. For instance, Hiei sits off to the side while their group of friends plays a card game. Kurama asks him to join them, stating that they are 'practically a family', to which Hiei snaps and asks if he wants to lose his precious voicebox. Or the time that Kuwabara convinced him to pretend Yusuke's girlfriend was dead just to see Yusuke's reaction. His sense of humor isn't necessarily the greatest, really.

To his enemies, Kurama is something to be feared. Despite being in a human body, he still carries the soul of a cruel, sadistic killer, and he will let it out, if the situation calls for it. After a demon threatens his mother, he makes sure to kill him, even as the demon begs for mercy, knowing Kurama has a soft heart. Anyone who threatens his friends or family will be met with a swift and painful end. 

He is cold and calculating in battle and he keeps focus on winning. He can make himself a blank slate, erase all emotion and maintain what seems to be a simple pattern of thought, but is actually a complicated series of plans that he makes each and every step of the way. Kurama has a vast intelliect and centuries of experience and he uses them to his advantage, creating several different plans to be prepared for every outcome. He makes certain that no matter what happens, victory, either moral or otherwise, is in his hands. It leads him to being injured in battle as he spends time testing his opponent's strength and formulating a solid plan only after getting as much information as possible from his enemies.

Despite this, Kurama is usually merciful to his opponents and usually spares them. He sees no need to kill someone unless they are a threat to what he stands for, and has made acquaintances and friends out of some of his past enemies, such as Hiei. However, these battles are fought in Shuichi Minamino's body. Whenever Kurama transforms into his demon body, things change immensely.

Youko is sadistic and cruel, toying with his opponents. He has no mercy for anyone and they are only useful alive if they have any information. He taunts his opponents and shows off a lot more than Shuichi, is relentless and outwardly confident. His demon form has no problems torturing someone to get his way, such as when he's first revealed due to a de-aging smoke that took Kurama back to a time before his demon soul was forced to find a replacement body. He grows a tree called a Death Tree, with several mouths that all drip acidic saliva. He makes sure to draw out the torment the enemy would face if he didn't answer his questions to his satisfaction, wanting to know the secret to transform. Youko smiles as he teases his opponents, often throwing their own words back at them.

Youko Kurama values camraderie just as much as Shuichi does and has learned that he wants to protect human world, has grown close to his friends and family and will fight to the bitter end. In his days of thievery, Youko had a band of like-minded individuals who wanted power and status and joined him to get it. He led them on many heists together and tried his best to keep them all alive with his planning and patience. Even after one of them went rogue, taking several of his cohorts with him, Youko went out of his way to save him. Later, still, after Youko decided to start thieving on his own, he found one partner that devastated him to lose. He cares about a select few, but they, just as his human friends, are valuable to the end.

Kurama the Youko and Shuichi Minamino are said to be merged, that the Youko did not a possess the fetus, leading us to understand the personalities are actually one. It seems like whenever he transforms into Youko, the darker aspects of his personality, the ones that he represses to fit in with human life, are given free reign. He lets the sadism and the cruelty take the front because that is what Kurama the Youko is known for.

Kurama carries a lot of guilt on his shoulders. From his past as Youko to the years of life in the human world. He tells his old second-in-command later in the series that he 'leaves nothing behind', holding on to everything he's done to use as lessons for the future, including the part of him that doesn't quite completely mesh with his Youko side. After defeating Touya, the ice master, he states that he wanted to know if Touya's life and goals were nobler than his own had been, and mentions that regret can spring up unexpectedly. Because he is such an analytical person, Kurama spends more time than he probably should going over everything that went wrong and where he could have changed it, even if there was nothing he could do.

In the end, Kurama is a merging of two into one, managing to find a place in a world where he is shunned by demons and misunderstood by humans. Though he does not have many friends, those he has are invaluable and any who threaten them will find themselves dead. He's kind, even to the enemies who have earned his respect. He values his mother above all, cares for his family and will fight for the human world without hesitation. He is a wise protector, a helpful friend, and a fierce fighter for what is good in the world. Though his demon aspect lets loose the darker parts of his personality, Kurama is not dominated by it. Instead, he uses the power and ruthlessness to his advantage, for the friends he's made, the family he has and the good for all humankind. 


Personal Moral Codes: If it comes to violence, he will not hesitate. And if he must, he will kill. He doesn't like to kill if it can be prevented, but he won't regret the action if it was necessary. He was willing to kill a child just to save the rest of human world. His primary goal is to protect the human world and he will stick to that, keeping to the background as he does so.

He won't steal without reason, but if he believes his reason is justified, he will do so without hesitation. Anything and everything that might be useful, he will find his way to, and while he isn't the same renowned spirit fix thief, he does maintain those skills.

His friends and family come first, human world second and himself last. He will do absolutely anything necessary to see the outcome he favors.


Insecurities/Personal Demons: 

Kurama tends to carry a lot of guilt, for past endeavors, but most prominently, his human mother. This guilt leads him to do a variety of perhaps reckless things for her safety and happiness. He states in early canon that he feels as if he is a 'mother-devouring creature' and wonders if he caused her to fall deathly ill. For her, he will do absolutely anything and it's been used a few times against him in canon.

When he was young, he treated humans around him as inferior, a well-learned child who couldn't stand the human life around him - humans being nothing more than food sources for most demons. That was, until she saved him after he knocked some glass plates on the floor. The scars she earned that day haunt him, even all these years later.

He is well aware of his demon nature and the instincts within. Demons are naturally more aggressive, seek battle and kill, torture and maim others to their hearts content. There are times he lapses into these habits, usually in battle, and he fears the human in him might be lost.

There are feelings of inadequacy, because as Youko, Kurama was much stronger, had much more at his disposal. He has grown strong, but reminding him of his inadequacies is a not a button to press. It triggers an impulsive nature that strikes quickly.

This ties in with the idea of not being able to protect his family and friends. While he once sought power to be free of his form, he now seeks it and ways to better himself so he may be strong enough to protect what he needs to protect. He always has a fear of nothing being able to live up to what is needed and expected of him.


Abilities/Powers/Weaknesses: 

Abilities:
Intellect: Kurama is a wealth of knowledge. He knows things most don't and what he doesn't know, he learns. This gives him an advantage over his enemies, as his cunning mind makes plans several moves ahead and for every possible outcome.
Horticulture Specialist: You need to know what plant is what, ask Kurama. Human and Demon world species.
Strategical Genius: Kurama is capable of finding any slight weakness or pattern and turning it into his strength. He plans every move around a situation, leading him to be a legendary thief and keeping him alive for over a thousand years and then through the face of adversity against demons stronger than he when he became a human.
Enhanced Senses: His senses are better than a human's, especially his sense of smell. He can distinguish scents of people and between race (human or demon). He can tell a letter is written by a human due to its scent.
Endurance/Stamina: His body is far more durable than most humans. He can also use his powers often and summon in great numbers during battle, and still have strength after to continue. Transforming into the Youko increases his endurance and stamina exponentially.
Combat: Kurama's well versed in many different types of combat and is proficient in all of them. He prefers long range, using a whip in battle, but he's been shown to use hand-to-hand combat as well.
Precision: Kurama is incredibly precise, even when he uses impulse to attack, slicing the head clean off of an enemy within a second. It's one of his best skills.
Sixth Sense: He can feel the different energies of people, and is able to tell how powerful they are and the type of energy (spirit or demon energy)
Emotion: Kurama is capable of shutting off all emotion and fighting on impulse alone. He makes himself a blank slate for the purpose of completing his goal.
Technological Expert: Kurama's shown in canon to be able to create a patch from his phone in the human world so that he can communicate in the demon world with his mother. As a thief, he's also had to disarm traps, wards and alarms to get through a successful heist.

Powers:

Plant Manipulation: Kurama can manipulate any plant, including seeds, for fighting or for healing, growing them at an accelerated rate. The larger the plant, the more energy he consumes. If the plant has roots, he can revive it. His trademark is a Rose Whip, turning a rose into his weapon. He can alter them somewhat to suit his needs, if it is in its biology.
~Using a powder made from a mold, he can create a smokescreen.
~With the petals of a rose, Kurama can create a whirlwind of razor sharp petals to surround and attack his enemy.

Transformation: Kurama can turn into his demon form almost at will, though mostly in battle or moments of stress. His entire body changes, hair turning silver, eyes turning gold, growing fox ears and a silver fox's tail. Even through energy manipulation, he can change the appearance of his clothing to better suit Youko's tastes.
~Under Youko's demonic influence, plants become more vicious and deadlier.

Healing: It is mentioned in canon that Kurama can heal. It's not clear precisely how, whether he uses demonic energy or his plants, but one can infer that his ability to manipulate plants, his cunning mind always being prepared and his intelligence to make use of any plant in his arsenal makes him a good healer. 
~Using this knowledge, he can also identify and concoct powerful poisons, and even ways to make a parasitic demon regret his life and beg for death, without destroying the body it is in.

Faster recovery rate: Kurama's body heals exponentially faster than most. What would take some people weeks to heal, he can heal in days.


Weaknesses:

Kurama seems to know a little about almost everything, leading to some to keeping their distance from him. He doesn't flaunt his intelligence, but being a walking encyclopedia can be off-putting to others, especially those with a lot of pride. It also leads him to overthink things, leading to walls forming before he ever gets to really know someone.

His age and experience can also cause conflicts, especially inside. He is a demon, but his humanity often fights and moral areas are gray for him. That humanity has gotten the better of him more than once in canon and he curses it as much as he embraces it. Setting-wise, Kurama's seen and done many things, things he isn't necessarily proud of, leaving a weak point in his defenses.

He tends to take the blame in things that don't go right, especially when he knows the Youko in him wouldn't have failed like he did. It's a constant weight on his back and can and has brought out the worst in him.

The way Kurama deals with his opponents has led to him being injured and unable to fight in many instances, which is something that can be easily taken advantage of, were it come to that (and it has happened)

Using too much power can be crippling, even lethal, and Kurama tends to push himself far for the good of all. Coupled with what one can call a self-sacrificial tendency means he can and probably will do a great amount of damage to himself.

He is a proud young man, who does not take kindly being manipulated. He seems to be self-assured and it often leads to undesirable results. 

Kurama's greatest weakness, however, is his human mother. He is so dedicated, so doting upon her that he will do anything to keep her safe until he can plan his way out of it. It pains him greatly to have hurt her in any way and a few of his enemies have used this to their advantage.

Ability/Power/Magic Warping: I'm fine with limiting Kurama's powers however the app team sees fit. Some suggestions are:

~Healing rate is reduced.
~Manipulating plants can turn on him and those around him. 
~Using his power is especially draining, meaning bigger plants could take his entire reserves of energy
~Removal of his transformation or--
~Every use of his demonic power, especially transformation, will deteriorate his mental state and bring out the darker aspects of his personality and demon biology that he tries to hide. He may be more paranoid and distrustful of himself and others, uncertain and his friends may not always appear as friends.
~Plants become more vicious in his presence or don't transform at all at random times
~Things Kurama makes from plants (potions, antidotes, ointments, etc) may not turn out as intended and could hurt rather than heal. (ie, anything to sleep could cause nightmares, anything to deal with headaches can cause hallucinations, something meant to help with pain or healing could become poison)

Inventory: 
-Two of his battle outfits
-School Uniform
-a number of seeds stored in his hair
-a rose, also stored in his hair
Writing Samples: 
https://soddersays.dreamwidth.org/2779.html?thread=125147#cmt125147
https://soddersays.dreamwidth.org/2779.html?thread=142811#cmt142811

OUT OF CHARACTER

Player Name: Taisa
Player Age: 31
Player Contact: minitaisa