Hi! Call me Seppu or Pupu! You can contact me even if I'm not online! My time zone is PST. I'm open to plotting and roleplays generally when I'm not busy, but feel free to check with me!
AIM | thefirstdoll ✦ SKYPE | prettypistols
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knife effect
Sparkly Vampire
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knife effect
Sparkly Vampire
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:39 pm
ＯＯＣ ＵＰＤＡＴＥＳ
【1017】 - Ling Gui get! Journal started! 【1115】 - Journal refurbished, pistolsys returns after long hiatus! Hurrah!
ＩＣ ＵＰＤＡＴＥＳ
PROLOGUE✦Summer Ritual . . . [fin] SOLO✦Dusty Remnants . . . [fin] META✦Cherry Tree Hill . . . [fin?] PRP✦Puppet Strings and Sticky Fingers . . . [on] PRP✦The Golden Girl . . . [on]
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:40 pm
___ __「九變: 故用兵之法，無恃其不來，恃吾有以待之；無恃其不攻，恃吾有所不可攻也。」 NAME✦ ✦ ✦ 零鬼 / Líng Guǐ (Chinese; pronounced Ling Gwei, ‘Ling’ meaning ‘Zero’ and ‘Gui’ meaning ‘Ghost’)
NICKNAME✦ ✦ ✦ To outsiders, all members of the Ling family prefer to be referred to as “Ling” to enforce their unity; Ling Gui is no exception.
POST COLOR✦ ✦ ✦ #325C74
ALLIANCE & REASONING✦ ✦ ✦ The Ling family has always been loyal to the Emperor. Additionally, Ling Gui aspires to climb in the Legion's hierarchy to be someday reunited with his brother.
LIKES✦ ✦ ✦ Historic fiction, drama (it’s ever-so intriguing), living philosophers, the idea of invisibility, his brother’s music, dark-coloured fabric, bitter tea, epic heroism, clever ghost stories, chess, ventriloquism
DISLIKES✦ ✦ ✦ The sun (he swears he’s allergic, but he goes out anyways), brash leaders, the sound of his name being called, uncleanliness of others, cowards, poor rebuttals, poor criticism
ROMANCE✦ ✦ ✦ Truthfully, Ling Gui doesn’t think too much on his possible romances. He has no preference for females or males. As a simple-complex thinker, he figures if the equation feels right, then there is no error to the function. To him, males and females are both variables in the universal equation. He’s never had a “real” relationships, but he’s unconsciously flirted on minimal occasions.
CALCULATING AND MATHAMATICAL (+/-) | Ling Gui harbors a “mathematical” perspective of the world. Like his name suggests, he prefers to treat all the strangers he meets as “zero factors” in the universal, numeral equation. He scales them on a positive and negative scale; those that cause him harm and frustration are correlated to a negative value, and those that please him and stir his admiration likewise gain a positive value. It’s simply the clearest way to “measure” everything for him. He advocates the philosophy that Lunarians and nature function on a formulaic system, they add and subtract to the currents of tranquility and turmoil to adapt. Like numbers, they can be multiplied to augment their strengths and divided to purge their weaknesses. Ling Gui formulates and observes the actions of others. He’s convinced that everyone is a “constant variable”, regardless of social hierarchy and personal interests. They, themselves, never truly change--rather--they change the environment around them and stir progress. When it comes to difficult circumstances, Ling Gui avoids generalization, which he claims can make one easily delusional. He breaks matters down until they are in their “prime” so that they can be easily understood and rearranged to make sense. In this sense, he’s an excellent consultant and a good listener.
MERCURIAL (+/-) | While his philosophy may appear calculated and logical, Ling deviates from it when applying it to himself. He tries to exhibit as many different sides of himself to manipulate others’ impressions of him, thus reinforcing his mercurial “armor”. Sometimes he prefers to appear caustic, at other times, playful. His favorite persona is “apathetic”, but the dominant trait is “logical”. All warfare is based on deception, and to do many things while seeming to be doing nothing is categorized as a witty success. He learned that to be unpredictable is to gain more benefit. Therefore, even though he has competence, he tends to feign incompetence before his living peers which results in others finding him eccentric or despicable, especially his fellow academy students. His elder brother argues with him that his nature in itself is formulaic--to be unpredictable, is, in the end, to be predictable. Nonetheless, Ling refutes his brother’s claim, dismissing it as nonsense.
SELF-AWARE (+/-) / HUMBLE (+) | Ultimately, Ling fears to be defined. Mathematics has always been his strategy towards all exterior circumstances, but he doesn’t want others to apply the same method to him. “Ling Gui”, after all, literally means the “Ghost of Zero”. He prefers remaining a “zero”, watching the equations of other numbers formulate, and tries to make himself appear as inferior as he can--not because of self-consciousness, but because it is unnecessary to him. He refuses to show his eyes to anyone because he’s afraid they’ll give him away, after all, they are the windows to the soul. His appearance in addition to his personality is another reason of why others tend to perceive him as a furtive man filled with secrets. He seems aloof, "spirited away", and on top of everything--his attire is even ghost-like and emphasizes his "undead charisma" (as his brother duly notes). There are many misconceptions about Ling Gui. Perhaps the most prominent is his “arrogance”. He doesn’t take pride in anything he does, and if he succeeded in anything, he’d prefer it to go unnoticed. He knows better than to invigorate with pride and success. After every peaceful period awaits a revolution of calamity. The best way to prepare for it is to disregard victory and accept uncertainty. Despite his wary attention to himself, sometimes he casually allows his natural, genuine kindness to slip or his passive-aggressive ways to flower. Secretly, Ling Gui is a compassionate Lunarian that will try his best to aid someone in need, though he’d struggle not to show it. He’ll deny it to his grave, though.
SEEMINGLY DETACHED, BUT TRUTHFULLY APPRECIATIVE (-/+) | Ling Gui doesn’t seek out relationships, rather, he accumulates them unconsciously. He would rather hurl himself off a waterfall before admitting it, but he enjoys the company of others as well as idle chat--he’d rather just not be the pursuer. Exchanging conversation with others is a secret thrill of his, though he’s careful not to be influenced by the ideas of others. He tends to find beauty in everything, and if not beauty, then complexity. To socialize with beauty and complexity (or the combination of both) soothes Ling Gui and allows him a break from his usual, calculative ways. His brother has a theory that Ling Gui’s simply shy about expressing his true self, but Ling Gui is anything but timid. He’d simply prefer to remove himself from the equation than to take part, or at least, major part. While revolution cycles, he finds margin battles more attractive because little change occurs there. He figured that the safest way of escaping from Death is to ultimately leave it alone to lessen probability, but he nonetheless toys with the concepts of death and dying (ideologically speaking). Contrary to physical impression, he attends social gatherings, but he's reticent during them unless someone strikes a conversation. Sometimes he can be rather zombie-like and phase through conversations, especially when they become too fast for him to follow.
STUBBORN (-) | Despite Ling Gui’s mercurial nature, his stubborn trait never deserts him. Be it food preference or theories, Ling is generally adamant on advocating his view, and going the mile road to prove that all other possibilities are foolish, worthless, and impossible. He advocates simplicity in complexity; to break down all possible variables so that the remaining numbers must be the obvious answer. Therefore, if anyone argues with him on any subject matter at all, they must be wrong--because he’s already “considered everything”. Usually, his failures are accredited to his stubborn spirit. His brother once joked that a thousand Lunarians might be able to move a mountain, but ten-thousand Lunarians would be incompetent in waving Ling Gui.
ECONOMICAL (+/-) | Ling Gui is fully aware of his family's wealth, but he doesn't quite know what to do with his share. Money itself is a burden in his perspective, because of its association with blood and catastrophe. It's a boon that doubles as a curse, and quite honestly, he'd rather be poor and without it. He never spends any money he already has, but he did consider the idea of making investments by allowing others to make loans. He never brings up how much he has in conversation and tries to convince everyone he's broke to the skeleton. His family provides to him what he needs to survive, so he sees no point in buying anything for himself, especially because his objects of interests are all accessible without money (his puppet materials are usually donated to him, he doesn't make too much of an effort to scrounge for pieces). Of course, he does occasionally spend his share, but only on thrifty items of meager value.
ＱＵＩＲＫＳ ＆ ＨＯＢＢＩＥＳ
FALSETTO AND PUPPETCRAFTING | Ling Gui can throw his voice quite well and often performs this skill during family festivals and seasonal events. He can imitate fallen warriors, vengeful ghosts, swooning maidens, stentorian heroes, the list continues. While he normally performs his skill and hobby with the accompaniment of a puppet, he sometimes uses his mercurial voice in everyday conversation. Lunarian children are easily delighted by this, the elders scorn it and reprimand Ling Gui for turning artfulness into immaturity. Additionally, he hand-makes all his puppets from wood, silk, and all other materials he can gather. While large-scale puppets are the Ling childrens’ favorites, Ling Gui loves his paper, shadow puppets the most.The Ling children boast that Ling Gui’s puppet shows are the most entertaining in all of Lunaria, but he retorts with a “You’ve never truly left the Ling house to see the true Lunaria. There are puppet masters more worthy of your praise.”
TEA CEREMONIES | Ling Gui has an undying passion for tea ceremonies, after all, his father owns the Ling Tea House. He enjoys pouring the customers the perfect cup of tea, each step carefully considered and watched during preparation. He's always felt that tea was the most tangible formula that always had the same, constant result when the steps were followed exactly. Perhaps it isn't the tea ceremonies themselves that trill him, but the predictability of tea-setting. It is also noted that Ling Gui performs his puppet shows for all Lunarians to see at the Ling Tea House.
FRIENDLY WITH DEATH | Dying doesn’t seem to be something that Ling Gui fears, despite that he doesn’t want to consciously associate with it. Perhaps it’s because he’s “died” before, many times in the past. Whenever he submerges himself in writing a strategy book or an epic, he pretends that he is writing from a dead man’s perspective. He believes that only the dead see all their mistakes and how they could have easily avoided them. The distinguishing trait that one uses to suspect if a book’s author is Ling Gui is if it has a Deadman’s Tale motif, and of course, nonchalant, inquiring poetry. Although he wears death upon his hat, Ling Gui fears hindsight more than he fears “death”. Ironically, he’s an avid participant in both.
INNOVATIVE GAMES | From childhood, Ling Gui has had a passion for creating whimsical, challenging games. Sometimes they were solely one-player, in which only he could participate. At other times, he didn't mind others joining in to increase the difficulty. The games ranged in variety from ducking the rain while wearing heavy armor to chasing chickens in the courtyard to form fowl-ish patterns. Even during a meal, Ling Gui can compose a game to play, involving the order of food eaten or guessing the measurements of each ingredient. Most of the time, his games are based off martial situations and concealed strategies.
ＰＥＲＳＯＮＡＬＩＴＹ ＱＵＯＴＥＳ
CALCULATING AND MATHAMATICAL (+/-) “It appears that you’ve made a poor choice of conduct on behalf of the Emperor. Allow me to show you on my Chousan--this arrangement represents your failure, though imagine, if I subtracted this factor--you might have succeeded. Be careful what you say, friend. It is, after all, ‘trivial expenses’ that spark the revolutions and romances.”
MERCURIAL (+/-) “Foolish of you to think that something as simple as water was born from the ground. How stupid must you be? Have you never noticed that the sky weeps in the winters--or perhaps you’re blind to everything but shadow? I suppose it’s because you’re young. Why do I even bother explaining these worldly truths to a simpleton like you? I could care less...rather...I don’t care at all. Do what you want. Drink your ground-birthed water like an idiot creature with no form or idea; it doesn’t bother me, what you think. Thoughts are simply the result of your personal formulas, anyways.”
SELF-AWARE (+/-) / HUMBLE (+) “Ah, I don’t plan to get involved in that mess...although it does seem motivating in its own way. It’s horrifying isn’t it, how simple boasting of strength receives a backlash of assault. I’m surprised you credit me for predicting such a thing would happen... I assure you, I was never clever enough to have foreseen it. This is merely coincidence, though funny that you’d think otherwise...”
SEEMINGLY DETACHED, BUT TRUTHFULLY APPRECIATIVE (-/+) “You are very beautiful, miss. Doubtless, many of your comrades tell you so, do they not? Do not redden because you think I say so only because you aided me in something as mundane as this! It is because of your intellect and physiognomy that makes you such a complex being. The Goddess herself was careful to formulate your personage well-punctuated by your kindness shown to me today. However...I’d prefer if you keep to yourself what I have confessed. I, too, am a complexity, but more distant. As a Zero, I’d prefer the rest of Lunaria to think so to.”
STUBBORN (-) “I cannot be mistaken! These rods do not lie--or would you prefer me to exemplify with abacus? Everything is a factor to be inserted into an algebraic function. You think me heartless for substituting his wretched emotion as a variable? I do not. I value it as much as he does, even if I cannot feel the sorrow myself. It is because of his overconfidence that this factor went unnoticed. You must revise your thinking if you wish to be of any more use to your companions.”
knife effect
Sparkly Vampire
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:41 pm
ＩＭＭＥＤＩＡＴＥ ＦＡＭＩＬＹ ELDER BROTHER✦零十六 (Ling Shi-Liu) | Ling the Sixteenth MOTHER✦ 零兔 (Ling-Tu) | Ling the Hare FATHER:✦ 零十五 (Ling Shi-Wu) | Ling the Fifteenth
ＦＡＭＩＬＹ ＆ ＨＩＳＴＯＲＹ
Ling Gui is a member of the aristocratic Ling family, a family of “contemporary” strategians and writers that have served the Emperor for centuries. A popular joke circulating around Lunaria is that the Ling family’s renown is most prominently accredited to its naming procedure rather than its feats. In the past, the Ling family’s extensive membership made it difficult for the head, Ling-Yi, to keep track of all his descendants. Therefore, the strategian created a numerical system in which all members were to include their order of affiliation when they entered the family. For example, Ling’s first son was renamed, “Ling Er” (Ling the Second). Ling Er’s son and daughter were thus given the names, “Ling San” and “Ling Si” and so forth. Concubines married into the Ling family are also required adopt a new name, though instead of numbers, they are given zodiacal animals in correspondence to the year they were married in. Because of this, the family’s code strictly states that only one marriage is allowed a year, and one cannot occur of the same zodiac until the wife corresponding to it passed away. The Ling family has expanded considerably over the span of time, all of them writers or strategians--often both. All members of the Ling family are also required to practice swordfighting and impromptu warfare once they were capable of walking so that they may gain instinctive reflex in addition to intellectual strategy. Ling Yi once said, “The warrior must align his wit to the sharpness of his blade. Without the compound of both, no Ling will ever achieve worthiness to his title.”
It is because of his family that Ling Gui is different. He wasn’t named according to the family dogma, for honorary reasons. He was born the day Ling Yi, the family head, died of illness; the coincidence was unexpected, taboo for Ling Tu, Ling Gui’s mother. Although the logistic family had no superstitious view on the matter, Ling Tu, who was never truly affected by the family’s tradition, had her superstitions get the better of her. She feared that Ling Yi’s ghost was still among the Ling family, aggravated with death because he had more ideas and hypothesises untested. Surely, if he wanted to remain grounded to Lunaria, he would require a vessel of a sort. After all, he died the day her second son was born. Convinced that Ling Yi’s ghost resided within her newborn, Ling Tu named the child “Ling Gui”, or “The Ghost of Ling”. The family was too involved with their political matters at the time to reprimand Ling Tu, and admittedly, the other concubines found it awkward to.
As the boy grew older, Ling Tu constantly reminded Ling Gui of his namesake: his strategian ancestor and head of the house. Ling Gui absorbed his mother’s words completely, but in a wholly different manner. Ling Gui valued his name greatly; he did not view it as “The Ghost of Ling”, rather, “The Ghost of Zero.” The numerical function of his family only augmented his infatuation with the branches and mechanics of the mathematical world, and he observed them from the margin as “The Ghost of Zero.” When he was younger, the Ling maidens found him spooky and annoying because he’d sit idly by while calculating the content of their gossip. Afterwards, he’d advise them on how to ruin others that attempted to seduce their sweethearts. It is also because of this that the younger Ling boys chose not to associate with him; Ling Gui was constantly seen with the maidens, whom naturally, became his information network. It is also because of his youth that Ling learned to speak to women with lucidity.
The Ling family's males generally refused to take Ling Gui seriously, instead branding him a “pest”, and most commonly, a “ghost”. He was never truly assimilated into the Ling society until his teen years; he’d educated himself well enough in Lunaria’s politics, the art of war, and the ability to apply his mathematical perceptions to converse with his strategian family. Before then, his source of comfort was his elder brother, the docile Ling Shi-Liu (Ling the Sixteenth). Ling Shi-Liu is perhaps the only Lunarian to come the closest in comprehending Ling Gui’s oddities. He embraced his brother’s idiosyncrasy, and their mother did also, for it reassured her that Ling Yi “lived” within her son. Ling Shi-Liu never saw his brother as a “vessel”, rather, another companion that the family took little notice of, mostly because Ling Gui didn’t bother to make himself important and most of the elders were too busy to care. Additionally, both exhibited poor fighting skills, being too absorbed in their ideas and arts to be grounded to reality’s battlefield. From childhood to teenhood, the elder Ling played “ghost” with his brother, observing from afar, listening while unnoticed. The two were often mistaken as twins, for they only appeared to be months apart and were inseparable friends. While Ling Gui would act out puppet shows of Ling Yi, the great strategian, Ling Shi-Liu would accompany the drama with his zither’s melody. Ling Shi-Liu was also different in a manner, he pursued the arts instead of the family’s logistic preference. For this, the elder Ling was heavily scorned, which is partially the reason for his “death”. Ling Tu and Ling Shi-Wu (the father of the boys) were supportive of their elder son’s aesthetic nature despite the elders' spurn. In the end, the two of them failed in assuaging their first son.
Ling Gui suffered from a year of brief melancholy when his elder brother surrendered the arts to serve directly under the Emperor. The family was delighted to discover that Ling Shi-Liu was, underneath, an intellectual boy with masterful strategies, and it wasn’t soon until the Emperor’s servants took notice of him. Ling Tu figures that her elder son’s improvement in fighting is what elevated him, for her younger son was still poor in combat. After the elder Ling departed to serve the Emperor directly, the younger Ling never saw him again. It was also during the parting spring that Ling-Gui convinced himself that his brother was “dead”. He reminded himself so by attaching his brother’s beautiful calligraphy character, “死” (death) onto his hat, aware of how childish his actions were, but somehow it eased the void. He would have to observe the universal equations on his own, though his admiration for his brother never truly died, despite their differences and distance. Still, Ling Gui aspires to become a flawless warrior-strategian like his family’s head, but, of course, from the shadows. As a child, he never considered it as an occupation (he simply had an infatuation for mathematics), he’s adamant on becoming a strong warrior-strategian to increase the probabilities a reunion with his “dead” brother. If he was brilliant enough to impress the Emperor, the chances of him meeting his brother would be represented by the right side of the abacus. He would need to become famous and articulate--though he had no intentions of ceasing ghosthood. The margin was his home, and he knew he’d have to conjure a new method to become a prominent ghost. It wouldn’t be simple, but as a descendant of Lin Yi, it certainly wouldn't be impossible. With good training from the academy, he figures his goal won't be too far to reach.
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:42 pm
- click for full image (art by Jason Scheier) -
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The Ling Estate is best described as a palatial abode. It covers an entire side of Jiangshi Peak, and houses all one hundred members of the Ling family. The Ling family is divided into five main families and five branch families; each of the main families are given their own sub-estate within the Ling Estate's whole, and the branch families are scattered across all five. Ling Gui and his family reside in the Fourth Estate which is also commonly referred to as the "Heron Estate". On the exterior, it looks no different than the other four sub-estates, the only difference being its interior color palette. The Heron Estate is painted in extreme monochrome, and all of its inhabitants generally wear white for identification when within the sub-estate's vicinity.. It is important to note that all Ling servants wear black robes and bird masks that correspond to the sub-estate they serve. For example, Ling Gui's servants would wear black heron masks.
An unconventional, but effective type of weaponry that Ling-Gui has taken a liking to. He prefers them for their range in projectile and close-combat usage. He had them custom-commissioned out of steel. He actually does use them for math.
✦ ✦ ✦FIGHTER✦ ✦ ✦ ＳＯＴＯＢＡ Another unconventional, but effective type of weaponry that Ling-Gui has taken a liking to. He has his own name inscribed upon all of them because he wants to make his own burial easier for whoever bests him. (It looks kind of likethis in action.)
✦ ✦ ✦TENRYUJIN✦ ✦ ✦ ???
✦ ✦ ✦MAGIC✦ ✦ ✦ Weapon Projectile Magic; Ling-Gui can make his Sotoba levitate and hurtle towards his enemies.
✦ ✦ ✦FIGHTING STYLE✦ ✦ ✦ While Ling-Gui is capable and educated in using conventional weapons, he chooses not to because he feels more comfortable with weapons that he can personally identify with. He's generally a defensive warrior and prefers using projectile attacks.
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 3:06 am
ＣＡＩＳ(上) ＩＮＩＴＩＡＬＬＹ。。。 An irascible, emotional type of Lunarian, perhaps? A poorly justified assumption on my behalf. ＣＵＲＲＥＮＴＬＹ。。。 A self-motivated natural leader. Fit for a desperate struggle, most likely victor.
ＳＨＩＮ－ＭＵ(上) ＩＮＩＴＩＡＬＬＹ。。。 Insightful, bereft. ＣＵＲＲＥＮＴＬＹ。。。 Seems to be more affirmative than the rest, much like Cais.
ＢＡＯ(上) ＩＮＩＴＩＡＬＬＹ。。。 I hope she eventually goes away. Ignorant to the emotional and physical mien of others. ＣＵＲＲＥＮＴＬＹ。。。 A charming girl who doesn't seem to mind my ghosthood, perhaps she thinks we are friends.
ＨＵＡＮＧ－ＦＵ (下) ＩＮＩＴＩＡＬＬＹ。。。 A rather talkative fellow. ＣＵＲＲＥＮＴＬＹ。。。 Hm.
ＳＩＭＡ－ＬＩ(上) ＩＮＩＴＩＡＬＬＹ。。。 Quiet. ＣＵＲＲＥＮＴＬＹ。。。 A noble girl who understands her function. Says what is necessary; admirable.
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