application / workshop.
PLAYER
YOUR NAME: Dana
18+?: Yep!
CONTACT:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
evergrace
CHARACTERS IN GAME: Anastasia / Idolm@ster: Cinderella Girls /![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
constellates
YOUR NAME: Dana
18+?: Yep!
CONTACT:
CHARACTERS IN GAME: Anastasia / Idolm@ster: Cinderella Girls /
constellatesCHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: Baren Kumou
AGE: 18-20
CANON: Rengoku ni Warau
NAME: Baren Kumou
AGE: 18-20
CANON: Rengoku ni Warau
CANON HISTORY: Wiki link!
why does every character I play not really have a substantial wiki - here's a bullet-pointed list of everything that happens in canon!
CANON PERSONALITY:
Baren is one half of the Purgatory Twins. The Cursed Kumou. The Beasts of Oumi. The children so devilish and awful that they ruined their own mother to an early grave. For ten years, he and his sister have cultivated a reputation that is far more infamous than famous. Even outside of their little village, their reputation is known among those who matter - the warlords who are fighting for the land and the ninja who are trying to work their way out of the shadows - and Baren boasts that maybe one day the bad name of the Kumou will spread throughout the land. He takes pride in it.
There's no doubting that there's something wrong with his personality. He's the type to run through the woods in the middle of trap-infested ninja territory and when questioned why, he just chirps that he "felt like it." It doesn't appear that his impulse control really exists as he instead just marches onward based on the direction of the wind and his own whims. He thinks it's funny when people fall into traps, sometimes even purposefully leading them into ones laid by enemies, and knowing how to set more than a few of his own. He irritates people just to see the looks on their faces, letting his mockery bleed even into his fighting style as he infuriates his opponents with name-calling, childish taunts, and sometimes flinging literal shit into their faces. He doodles offensive pictures and funny faces on anything that he can get his hands on. The fact of the matter is that his hateful titles are probably incredibly well-deserved as it's noted that even between the two twins, Baren is the one who's annoyingly persistent and will pursue jokes that no one else finds funny anymore. He's stubborn and holds grudges easily.
So basically, he's also petty as fuck on top of being made of chaos concentrate.
... but rumor has it that he's also a lot more than that. Sometimes.
No one can possibly explain Baren better than his own twin sister and when asked about him, Okuni says the following: "Don't underestimate Baren. He's strong, and really sly. He'll find [me] easily. And he's sensible, dependable, has a lot of sex appeal, and is really popular with both women and animals. He doesn't sleep after me, and he doesn't wake up after me. He likes when it's tidy, he polishes my kanzashi for me, and is a really capable younger brother. Besides..."
Ignoring the "besides" for a second - we'll get back to it - Okuni explains a side of Baren that's not readily apparent to the public. Another person, Gengetsu who can be called the twins' only consistent friend and ally, similarly says that even though Baren is difficult to handle, he's very good at taking care of people. When looking back on his memories of mornings in the Kumou household where Baren makes breakfast without being asked, is the first to wake up and always calls for Okuni, and then fixes his twin sister's robes once she does rise, Sakichi realizes that he can see it.
Baren has a hidden Mom Friend mode.
As fate would have it, the male half of the Purgatory Twins is also unexpectedly domestic. He'll lounge around all day if you let him. He treats women kindly (though that's also partially probably because his sister puts the fear of God into him). He can keep himself entertained for hours with nothing but petting a tanuki that visits the shrine. When he's not craving chaos, Baren doesn't... seem to ask for much at all. Some food, a roof over his head, and some company.
That said the last part is pretty important.
"Besides..." Okuni goes on to say as she explains Baren, "Besides, he gets lonely quite easily."
Baren is the younger Kumou twin. Before their mother died, he was just as babied and loved as his twin sister. However after Asahi passed away, even though neither of the twins could be expected to have the mental fortitude to handle betrayal at age 8, Baren was clearly the more shaken of the twins. He cried openly and without stop, holding onto his sister's hand, coming up with a mantra that he would carry with him that went "Okuni... we're two but we're one." As if to shield himself from the hardships of the world, he hid himself underneath his Kumou haori as he cried and tried to muster up a smile. Still, some habits linger on. Baren adores Okuni, his older sister. Even though he's largely the one taking care of her and does end up the victim of her abuses, he also clings to her like she's the only friend that he has on this planet.
And to him, she is.
Though this isn't to say that Baren isn't capable of love. Instead, it's quite the opposite. When their beloved villagers who once treated them with kindness began to fight each other, the twins decided to take the role of the scapegoat and get all of the people of Oumi to hate them instead. Baren loves their village so much that he doesn't mind being hated by all of them, as long as they can smile. It's in this sense that Baren is so selfless that he would rather cast aside his own life and well-being if it meant that others would be able to live on. It's a common mindset of the twins - they hate to see the faces of worry on others. They would rather that everyone hate the Purgatory Twins and blame them, so their own lives can be filled with laughter and smiles. No one loves the Purgatory Twins. No one understands the Purgatory Twins. For the sake of preserving everyone else's smiles, they'd rather keep it that way.
But sometimes, someone manages to break through. In Baren's case, he spends more time with the straightforward samurai Sakichi. It's through Sakichi's incredibly direct actions and words - saying things like "I am worried about you" and apologizing for allowing harm to come to the twins when he did not understand them - that we see that Baren has... absolutely no idea how to interact with another human being that cares about him. It's different from the fawning of courtesans, who are absolutely infatuated with their Baren no Danna, as instead there's someone who sees all the stupid shit that Baren does and is sometimes the butt of his jokes - but he still stands by him. Like any other terribly adjusted person, Baren screams. He loses his shit. He gets outright angry and yells into the void because he can't process the information of someone being worried about him and just gets so irritated that he explodes. (It's dumb. He's dumb.)
Okuni is capable of being sweet and encouraging. Baren isn't.
Baren will try to walk away from a fight and leave behind a friend, justifying the action on the walk over that it's not like his friend would die... but he goes back anyway. Because even though Baren is an awful person who would heavily weigh his options, he's also loyal even when he doesn't want to be. Once he picks out the people that he has his allegiance to - or even an entire area, and therefore everyone in that geographical area - that's it. That's where he's going to be dedicated to for the rest of his days. He'll do anything for them, as long as it can guarantee their smile. Even it means earning their hatred. The logic is flawed and the execution is clumsy but -
But for someone who has only known hatred all their life, except for a few shining, bright, perfect years of love that he can only hope to emulate, it's the best possible awkward hodgepodge that he can manage. So even though he's petty, chaotic, and nonsensical at times, Baren is also calculating, awkward, and can get downright motherly when you get past the peacock feathers and find his heart in there somewhere.
SKILLS/ABILITIES:
why does every character I play not really have a substantial wiki - here's a bullet-pointed list of everything that happens in canon!
» In both the Donten ni Warau and Rengoku ni Warau canons (in which Rengoku takes place 300 years before Donten) there exists a creature called the Orochi, which essentially is a monstrous serpent that rises every 300 years to cause destruction and suffering. It chooses a vessel from one of the families that has historically opposed it (the Abe, the Sasaki, the Ashiya, and others including - you guessed it - the Kumou) and then dwells in what is typically considered an ailing soul until it is time to manifest. The curse of the Orochi is vast, however it's said that it is time for it to rise when clouds are casted over the prefecture of Oumi. Typically, the vessel needs to be killed in order for the Orochi to be eradicated and it's a story that never ends happily.
» Baren and Okuni were born twins to the 7th Head of the Kumou family, Asahi Kumou, and enjoyed a wonderful childhood. Their father was absent but their mother possessed a charming and sunny disposition. Their shrine in Oumi was consistently full of laughter as the twins played tricks on the villagers, but remained well-loved and adored.
» Asahi fell ill with a "disease that one gets by overworking oneself" when the twins were only 8 years old. When she died, the villagers took anger with her death and presumed that the cause was because the twins were cursed, a common line of thought when twins were born in the time. The twins realized that their mother was the one who was loved, not them.
» As the skies clouded over in Oumi, the villagers began to argue with one another in their unrest. The twins, not wanting to see their beloved village bicker and argue, went out of their way to play mean tricks and act as little devils to earn the hatred of the villagers.
» The Kumou family has always been considered the Shield, the protectors of Oumi, and as such the twins decided to take up that mantle after their mother passed. In Rengoku ni Warau, they also protect a woman who is known as the Dokuro Hozuki. She is said to be able to discern who the Orochi vessel is.
» For years, the twins continued to worsen their reputation. They lived by themselves in the shrine, aside from a tanuki that would occasionally visit, and their terrible reputation as the Purgatory Twins spread through the land. They became infamous.
» At some point, the two became acquainted with the prostitute Gengetsu of the Ashiya family. Gengetsu is gifted with fortune telling and other onmyouji abilities, thus making her a gifted resource to Baren and Okuni.
» When the twins were 18, they were interrupted as Ishida Sakichi came to their shrine requesting information about the Dokuro Hozuki, not even knowing what it was. They denied him at first, but he accidentally came back with an angry mob of villagers blaming the twins for their problems. After Sakichi dispersed the mob, the twins revealed themselves to him. A comet shot across the sky, and Baren laughed, noting that it would likely be blamed on the two of them as a sign of calamity.
» Sakichi became a freeloader at the Kumou shrine, allowed only to stay after he fed them. Priorities.
» Baren and Okuni staged an accident where it seemed like Okuni was shot so that Sakichi would righteously pursue her aggressor. The twins successfully tricked him into going to the Kunitomo base. The Kunitomo were known as expert gunsmiths who were experiencing internal struggle over inheritance.
» Sakichi came back and brought the Kunitomo with him after starting a fight. Why.
» Baren and Okuni pinned the blame on Sakichi by pretending he was their master who orchestrated the entire plot. Also Why.
» The Kunitomo arc involves Baren and Okuni playing double-agent (or at least pretending to) as they pulled the strings with lies as they sat atop a mountain of gun powder. For some reason, Sakichi's decision was to make this gun powder explode as a solution and create a scene? Eventually the Kunitomo internal struggle is handled and dealt with as everyone laughs and hangs out at the Kumou shrine. Baren and Okuni are quick to point out that they weren't invited.
» Baren goes out one of the following mornings to an area outside the prefecture, to visit the courtesan house that Gengetsu is housed in. He's apparently there for information and to complain about Sakichi, as Sakichi discovers later since he followed Baren there. He tries to book it once he realizes that he's been followed.
» Ninjas try to kidnap Gengetsu and Baren naturally intervenes, saving her and aggravating the ninja by throwing literal shit in their faces. He discovers that the ninja also tried to capture Okuni and she went along with it. Such begins his pursuit to find his sister in ninja territory. Sakichi comes along because he's a glutton for punishment.
» While in Iga Ninja territory, Sakichi and Baren find Momochi Tanba, one of the most ruthless of ninja warriors, defeating an entire army squadron by himself. He forces a son to end the life of his own father and then decapitates the son. Sakichi wants to fight him but Baren tries to pull him aside, telling him that anyone who would sacrifice their own life for a stranger is an idiot.
» Sakichi proceeds to jump into the fray. Predictable.
» Baren saves him by using an improvised slingshot and literally making Sakichi fall into a sinkhole so that his enemy loses sight of him. After some deliberation and a heart to heart, Baren decides that he might be willing to give Sakichi some information if he agrees to work with the Kumous.
» They run into Oda Nobukatsu, the son of Oda Nobunaga, and are attacked by more ninja. This time, Baren fights them off single-handedly and is about to leave Nobukatsu with his injured pride until Nobukatsu reveals that the Iga ninja plan on setting fire to Oumi that same day. Baren abandons the plan to save Okuni to return to Oumi.
» Once in Oumi, the Iga ninja attack Baren systematically to guide him to one specific house. Once he's in place, they set the house to explode with people still inside. From there, the people of Oumi label him as not only a thief and a hooligan, but a murderer. Leaving the rescue of the people inside the house to Sakichi, Baren rides off to the top of a cliff.
» Confronted there, Baren tells Sakichi not to make a fuss about who started the fire. The villagers arrive with a shotgun and shoot off Baren's eyepatch, revealing scales underneath - a possible mark of the Orochi. Baren plays the part, tells them to kill him now or else he'll proceed to curse all of Oumi and its villagers. The villagers shoot Baren and he falls off the cliffside, though his body is never recovered.
» This incident is called the Reingokubach Fall.
» No it's not, but the reference had to be made.
» In untranslated parts of the series, it's revealed that Baren is alive after a two year timeskip. He looks good for a dead guy(?). Other than that, we don't know what's going on. Where did he come from, where did he go, where did you come from, Dragon Eye Joe.
CANON PERSONALITY:
Baren is one half of the Purgatory Twins. The Cursed Kumou. The Beasts of Oumi. The children so devilish and awful that they ruined their own mother to an early grave. For ten years, he and his sister have cultivated a reputation that is far more infamous than famous. Even outside of their little village, their reputation is known among those who matter - the warlords who are fighting for the land and the ninja who are trying to work their way out of the shadows - and Baren boasts that maybe one day the bad name of the Kumou will spread throughout the land. He takes pride in it.
There's no doubting that there's something wrong with his personality. He's the type to run through the woods in the middle of trap-infested ninja territory and when questioned why, he just chirps that he "felt like it." It doesn't appear that his impulse control really exists as he instead just marches onward based on the direction of the wind and his own whims. He thinks it's funny when people fall into traps, sometimes even purposefully leading them into ones laid by enemies, and knowing how to set more than a few of his own. He irritates people just to see the looks on their faces, letting his mockery bleed even into his fighting style as he infuriates his opponents with name-calling, childish taunts, and sometimes flinging literal shit into their faces. He doodles offensive pictures and funny faces on anything that he can get his hands on. The fact of the matter is that his hateful titles are probably incredibly well-deserved as it's noted that even between the two twins, Baren is the one who's annoyingly persistent and will pursue jokes that no one else finds funny anymore. He's stubborn and holds grudges easily.
So basically, he's also petty as fuck on top of being made of chaos concentrate.
... but rumor has it that he's also a lot more than that. Sometimes.
No one can possibly explain Baren better than his own twin sister and when asked about him, Okuni says the following: "Don't underestimate Baren. He's strong, and really sly. He'll find [me] easily. And he's sensible, dependable, has a lot of sex appeal, and is really popular with both women and animals. He doesn't sleep after me, and he doesn't wake up after me. He likes when it's tidy, he polishes my kanzashi for me, and is a really capable younger brother. Besides..."
Ignoring the "besides" for a second - we'll get back to it - Okuni explains a side of Baren that's not readily apparent to the public. Another person, Gengetsu who can be called the twins' only consistent friend and ally, similarly says that even though Baren is difficult to handle, he's very good at taking care of people. When looking back on his memories of mornings in the Kumou household where Baren makes breakfast without being asked, is the first to wake up and always calls for Okuni, and then fixes his twin sister's robes once she does rise, Sakichi realizes that he can see it.
Baren has a hidden Mom Friend mode.
As fate would have it, the male half of the Purgatory Twins is also unexpectedly domestic. He'll lounge around all day if you let him. He treats women kindly (though that's also partially probably because his sister puts the fear of God into him). He can keep himself entertained for hours with nothing but petting a tanuki that visits the shrine. When he's not craving chaos, Baren doesn't... seem to ask for much at all. Some food, a roof over his head, and some company.
That said the last part is pretty important.
"Besides..." Okuni goes on to say as she explains Baren, "Besides, he gets lonely quite easily."
Baren is the younger Kumou twin. Before their mother died, he was just as babied and loved as his twin sister. However after Asahi passed away, even though neither of the twins could be expected to have the mental fortitude to handle betrayal at age 8, Baren was clearly the more shaken of the twins. He cried openly and without stop, holding onto his sister's hand, coming up with a mantra that he would carry with him that went "Okuni... we're two but we're one." As if to shield himself from the hardships of the world, he hid himself underneath his Kumou haori as he cried and tried to muster up a smile. Still, some habits linger on. Baren adores Okuni, his older sister. Even though he's largely the one taking care of her and does end up the victim of her abuses, he also clings to her like she's the only friend that he has on this planet.
And to him, she is.
Though this isn't to say that Baren isn't capable of love. Instead, it's quite the opposite. When their beloved villagers who once treated them with kindness began to fight each other, the twins decided to take the role of the scapegoat and get all of the people of Oumi to hate them instead. Baren loves their village so much that he doesn't mind being hated by all of them, as long as they can smile. It's in this sense that Baren is so selfless that he would rather cast aside his own life and well-being if it meant that others would be able to live on. It's a common mindset of the twins - they hate to see the faces of worry on others. They would rather that everyone hate the Purgatory Twins and blame them, so their own lives can be filled with laughter and smiles. No one loves the Purgatory Twins. No one understands the Purgatory Twins. For the sake of preserving everyone else's smiles, they'd rather keep it that way.
But sometimes, someone manages to break through. In Baren's case, he spends more time with the straightforward samurai Sakichi. It's through Sakichi's incredibly direct actions and words - saying things like "I am worried about you" and apologizing for allowing harm to come to the twins when he did not understand them - that we see that Baren has... absolutely no idea how to interact with another human being that cares about him. It's different from the fawning of courtesans, who are absolutely infatuated with their Baren no Danna, as instead there's someone who sees all the stupid shit that Baren does and is sometimes the butt of his jokes - but he still stands by him. Like any other terribly adjusted person, Baren screams. He loses his shit. He gets outright angry and yells into the void because he can't process the information of someone being worried about him and just gets so irritated that he explodes. (It's dumb. He's dumb.)
Okuni is capable of being sweet and encouraging. Baren isn't.
Baren will try to walk away from a fight and leave behind a friend, justifying the action on the walk over that it's not like his friend would die... but he goes back anyway. Because even though Baren is an awful person who would heavily weigh his options, he's also loyal even when he doesn't want to be. Once he picks out the people that he has his allegiance to - or even an entire area, and therefore everyone in that geographical area - that's it. That's where he's going to be dedicated to for the rest of his days. He'll do anything for them, as long as it can guarantee their smile. Even it means earning their hatred. The logic is flawed and the execution is clumsy but -
But for someone who has only known hatred all their life, except for a few shining, bright, perfect years of love that he can only hope to emulate, it's the best possible awkward hodgepodge that he can manage. So even though he's petty, chaotic, and nonsensical at times, Baren is also calculating, awkward, and can get downright motherly when you get past the peacock feathers and find his heart in there somewhere.
SKILLS/ABILITIES:
SWORDSMANSHIP » Between the two Kumou twins, Baren's the one who chose to take up use of the treasured sword of the Kumou. It's a one-handed sword, not quite a katana, but he's talented with it. He crosses blades with multiple ninjas on his own, as well as managing to successfully defeat a renowned samurai, which essentially makes him one of the more talented swordsmen in the land. He also doesn't seem to struggle much despite the fact that he possesses a very obvious blind spot with his eyepatch and even when people go out of their way to purposefully attack it, he's able to defend himself easily.
COMBAT » Baren's not as strong as his sister - which probably isn't saying much, because he doesn't think there's anyone as strong as his sister. However the Kumou twins are definitely very skilled fighters, to the point that they treat battles and drawn swords like a game. They're able to maintain their heads and their laughter, going out of their way to pull pranks and taunt their opponents just to infuriate them further. They flip over their opponents with reckless energy, striking precisely and sometimes going out of their way to immaturely taunt their opponent. After fighting them for the first time, the main character reflects that there's no one who pisses him off more. Baren lovingly keeps up this trend even when he's on his own, flinging literal shit at his opponents if there's any lying around. (Why is he like this?)
TRAPS » The Kumou Shrine is said to have a "garden" - which is incorrect because it's not any sort of pleasant scenery, it's just a ton of traps. Baren has a sharp eye that lets him detect traps, which makes sense because he's gotten to make so many of his own. He practically has a sixth sense for them as he's able to notice any sort of hazardous things that might be coming up and just sidesteps them completely. So basically his skills regarding traps including noticing them, setting them up, detonating them on purpose through the use of excellent marksmanship, and the like.
ACTING » He's a really, really convincing actor. Lying is his lifeblood and he shamelessly utilizes it for everything that he could possibly need. He has a poker face that's pretty unshakeable unless someone really manages to catch him off-guard.
CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: Baren Kaiyou
AU AGE: 21
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES:
AU NAME: Baren Kaiyou
AU AGE: 21
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES:
» Like the true Edgy Animu that he is, the tips of Baren's bangs and locks of his hair are tinted red for some reason. It'll just be stark black in his AU. Also they naturally stick up because Anime but Baren's going to go out of his way to style and gel his stupid ponytail.
» Baren's about 5'7" because Kemuri does her research and sticks to realistic historical heights - but he'll be bumped up to about 5'10" given modern height standards.It is probably 6' even given Baren's hair.
» Also, underneath his eyepatch there appear to be scales growing around his eye which is otherwise functional. In the AU, he'll still have both eyes always visible, no scales.
AU HISTORY:
AU PERSONALITY:
Baren's reincarnated life is at the same time better and worse than his original incarnation.
One of the most prominent cases of him being better is simple: he has people skills. The Baren that lived in the Sengoku Era was always implied to be capable of working with others, even charming them sometimes when it suited him, but there was always the caveat that he worked hard to be hated. Given his modern day interest in trying to be at least moderately successful in the name of being able to take care of his sister in the future, he's not nearly so obstinate and awful. There's even some part of him that is capable of the concept of friends, understands that he might even have some even though he can't quite admit it out loud, and doesn't mind having other people around. Rather than the mentality of it being him and his sister against the world and not letting anyone in ever, Baren is capable of managing a decent social life where he'll let certain people into his company if they manage to catch his attention. (It's just getting him to trust them that's hard.)
... now on the flipside, it also means that he's aware of just how talented he is. The twins of the Sengoku Era were capable of remarkable things. They were smart, crafty, beautiful, sly, athletic, strong, witty, resourceful - and they frequently used these talents in order to cultivate their reputation as children of purgatory. Instead, Baren's now employing those skills for his personal gain. Not too much gain, mind you, he's not interested in fame, glory, or ambition, but he's also not about to be humble about what he's capable of when he puts his mind to it.
Though that's become something that he's kept under wraps. Something that Baren's kept from his original life is that he's secretive. He doesn't trust anyone except his twin sister. His paranoia is still vast and he keeps himself incredibly private even in the modern age. There's no way to find him on any social media and even though his name is out there as a model, he keeps his interaction with his fans minimal. If he has it his way, no one would know anything about him that he wouldn't want them to. It makes him choosy about who he meets and spends time with. His friendships are less crafted on coincidence and common interests, but more on the idea of Baren choosing exactly who he'll invest his time in - and typically because they've caught his eye for one reason or another. Yet even those people are held at an arm's length. At this point in time, it remains that the only person he's capable of relying on and trusting is his own twin sister.
Even immediate family isn't trusted. In his original incarnation, he took pride in being one of the 8th Heads of the Kumou family. They come from a long line of fighters and protectors, always staying in the same region of Japan in order to protect the prefecture that's important to them. When their mother died, Baren and Okuni took on the responsibility of the Kumou in order to motivate themselves to a cause. However in this life where the Orochi curse isn't the real and the Kumou part of Baren's blood is the part that he hates, he lacks the same sort of dedication to... well, any cause at all. It leaves him listless and going through the motions. Even though he still tries to enjoy life as much as he can, it's less in retaliation to the hatred that he feels with the world, but more in an attempt to make up for all the years that he felt captive trying to live up to a name that he didn't even want anymore. Although it can't be denied that Baren still has a penchant for chaos, thriving on nonsense and laughter, it lacks direction. It's chaos for the sake of chaos - much like how Baren lives most of his life going on with whims rather than concocting any sort of big plan.
So in a way, Baren's letting all of his potential go to waste just like he did in canon where he accepted a fate in which people were going to hate him no matter what he did, but in this case it's simply because he'd rather not have his past delved into too deeply. In the mystical time that he used to live in, he used onmyouji to divine information and employed ninjas in his stead in order to stay ahead of everyone else. The equivalent of that in the modern era is his incredibly advanced education which was put forward by his mother in order to make sure that he could charm people like a snake in the grass - and it worked. There's still some part of Baren that wants to stay ahead of the game, to reaffirm that he's smarter than everyone else and isn't opposed to using them like chess pieces, but right now there is no grand game for him to win.
The contradictions in Baren's personality remain: he's talented, but he goes out of his way to hide it. He's sociable, but he's not afraid to cut people out if they cross a line. He's charming, but he's also an absolute demon if you leave him unattended. He'd die for his sister in a heartbeat, but otherwise doesn't believe in the merits of blood relatives. He's willing to put his face on billboards, posters, and magazines - but he will never say a word more about himself than he thinks you need to know.
At least one thing remains true, and it's that he's an absolute mess.
Yet he's a mess that's living a simple, enjoyable, reckless lifestyle that lacks the destruction of the turbulent Sengoku era.
There's only the next day ahead in a peaceful era that his original self would have longed for. Somehow putting him in a context where he isn't surrounded by war, famine, and manipulation has only made him incredibly... bored.
(And maybe a little bit more vain.)
» The Kumou family is an influential family in Japan with a long-standing history and high social status. That said, the current head of the branch family is definitely a dickbag. That's Baren's father.
» Baren's mother was a rising young actress who became skilled in the ways of Ingratiating Herself to People. She eventually became the mistress of Baren's father, though faulty birth control practices led to her getting pregnant. Although she'd hoped that the Kumou head would follow through on his empty promises of leaving his current family for her, that wasn't meant to be. She was discarded along with her unborn twins as he went out of his way to cover up any possible scandal.
» Spiteful and ruinous, Baren's mother decided that the best revenge was drawn out and painful. Baren and his twin sister were raised under Spartan conditions. All money was spent to give the illusion of affluence, to give the twins the best education and the best clothes so that they could begin the long climb back to the top.
» In order to actually have enough money to sustain themselves, Baren and his sister learned the art of swindling from their mother. They became little con artists in their own right and weren't against stealing and pickpocketing. They would go to festivals and parades just to cause trouble and steal wallets. Over the years, they became quite good at it.
» When it came to school, Baren and his sister were very charming. They were the perfect image of sweet children, but they would never let anyone come back to their house. They became popular among their classmates, however they followed their mothers' explicit instructions to never trust anyone with the truth. This only further fueled their belief that they could only trust each other.
» The twins' mother funneled all of the money they got to the twins. Her only vice left was alcohol. She continued to be two-faced as she would steal and con in order to get them enough money to live, but grew ugly and vicious as she had a sincerely sour outlook on the world. Her dreams were clearly broken and shattered and she raised the twins with the sole intent of completing her goals in mind. She was still irrationally bitter toward them in the first place for "destroying" everything that she had worked toward.
» Baren received an excellent education that included a number of extracurriculars so that he could properly entertain and be magnetic at parties. He has a mastery of the arts (literature, drama, visual), took up fencing, kendo, archery, and horseback riding, knows how to read music and is skilled with a piano, and he knows which one the salad fork is.
» Once the twins were enrolled in a private academy for high school, they finally made friends with someone who was high class enough to give them an invitation to a party that their father would also be attending. As far as they were concerned, that's the opportunity that they were waiting for.
» At age 16, the twins baited their father into a trap in a room away from the festivities after he was given too much alcohol and prompted him into saying things that would ruin his marriage and position within the Kumou family, all while recording it. They threatened a large explosive story that would ruin the Kumou family's pride because they and their mother had nothing to lose anymore. In their twisted sense of humor, they settled for a video of him groveling and the promise of enough money that the twins would never want for anything ever again. Baren insists that their stupid father gave them the money because they backed him into a corner. Not because he felt bad or guilty or any sort of human emotion. But Baren also never claimed to be a reliable narrator.
» Fucking devil children.
» Yet blackmail and success do not quite win a mother's love and health. Due to her lifestyle, their mother died shortly after from "a disease one gets from overworking oneself" as the twins were told. (Also kidney failure and what have you.)
» Baren cried at her grave even though he didn't want to.
» Following that, the twins decided that Japan had nothing left for them. They decided to move to Recollé when they were 18, though they would still occasionally travel at random in order to see more of the world. They're reckless and live without concern for anyone, but they embrace their freedom with everything that they have now. They've had more fun in the past three years than ever before.
» Baren is now enrolled as a student at Recollé University, though he hates attending classes. He does partake in typical reckless college student behavior though - he drinks, smokes, gambles, drag races, and generally makes poor life choices at an alarming rate.
» He skips classes to do modeling jobs and will shamelessly take anything that he can get. He and his sister don't need to earn much money as they still receive checks from their father (who they haven't told about their mother being deceased) but Baren doesn't want to use his disgusting father's money for the things that are actually important to him.
» Since his Recollé persona is someone who isn't nearly as pretentious - he lies and says he doesn't know how to play the piano and has never touched a bow, and so on - he channels his hoity toity spirit into art. He doodles almost incessantly and while a number of them are dumb, he actually occasionally indulges in thoughtful drawings that incorporate a lot of Japanese imagery. To combine his need to be reckless and terrible but also artistic, he indulges in both graffiti and street art.
AU PERSONALITY:
Baren's reincarnated life is at the same time better and worse than his original incarnation.
One of the most prominent cases of him being better is simple: he has people skills. The Baren that lived in the Sengoku Era was always implied to be capable of working with others, even charming them sometimes when it suited him, but there was always the caveat that he worked hard to be hated. Given his modern day interest in trying to be at least moderately successful in the name of being able to take care of his sister in the future, he's not nearly so obstinate and awful. There's even some part of him that is capable of the concept of friends, understands that he might even have some even though he can't quite admit it out loud, and doesn't mind having other people around. Rather than the mentality of it being him and his sister against the world and not letting anyone in ever, Baren is capable of managing a decent social life where he'll let certain people into his company if they manage to catch his attention. (It's just getting him to trust them that's hard.)
... now on the flipside, it also means that he's aware of just how talented he is. The twins of the Sengoku Era were capable of remarkable things. They were smart, crafty, beautiful, sly, athletic, strong, witty, resourceful - and they frequently used these talents in order to cultivate their reputation as children of purgatory. Instead, Baren's now employing those skills for his personal gain. Not too much gain, mind you, he's not interested in fame, glory, or ambition, but he's also not about to be humble about what he's capable of when he puts his mind to it.
Though that's become something that he's kept under wraps. Something that Baren's kept from his original life is that he's secretive. He doesn't trust anyone except his twin sister. His paranoia is still vast and he keeps himself incredibly private even in the modern age. There's no way to find him on any social media and even though his name is out there as a model, he keeps his interaction with his fans minimal. If he has it his way, no one would know anything about him that he wouldn't want them to. It makes him choosy about who he meets and spends time with. His friendships are less crafted on coincidence and common interests, but more on the idea of Baren choosing exactly who he'll invest his time in - and typically because they've caught his eye for one reason or another. Yet even those people are held at an arm's length. At this point in time, it remains that the only person he's capable of relying on and trusting is his own twin sister.
Even immediate family isn't trusted. In his original incarnation, he took pride in being one of the 8th Heads of the Kumou family. They come from a long line of fighters and protectors, always staying in the same region of Japan in order to protect the prefecture that's important to them. When their mother died, Baren and Okuni took on the responsibility of the Kumou in order to motivate themselves to a cause. However in this life where the Orochi curse isn't the real and the Kumou part of Baren's blood is the part that he hates, he lacks the same sort of dedication to... well, any cause at all. It leaves him listless and going through the motions. Even though he still tries to enjoy life as much as he can, it's less in retaliation to the hatred that he feels with the world, but more in an attempt to make up for all the years that he felt captive trying to live up to a name that he didn't even want anymore. Although it can't be denied that Baren still has a penchant for chaos, thriving on nonsense and laughter, it lacks direction. It's chaos for the sake of chaos - much like how Baren lives most of his life going on with whims rather than concocting any sort of big plan.
So in a way, Baren's letting all of his potential go to waste just like he did in canon where he accepted a fate in which people were going to hate him no matter what he did, but in this case it's simply because he'd rather not have his past delved into too deeply. In the mystical time that he used to live in, he used onmyouji to divine information and employed ninjas in his stead in order to stay ahead of everyone else. The equivalent of that in the modern era is his incredibly advanced education which was put forward by his mother in order to make sure that he could charm people like a snake in the grass - and it worked. There's still some part of Baren that wants to stay ahead of the game, to reaffirm that he's smarter than everyone else and isn't opposed to using them like chess pieces, but right now there is no grand game for him to win.
The contradictions in Baren's personality remain: he's talented, but he goes out of his way to hide it. He's sociable, but he's not afraid to cut people out if they cross a line. He's charming, but he's also an absolute demon if you leave him unattended. He'd die for his sister in a heartbeat, but otherwise doesn't believe in the merits of blood relatives. He's willing to put his face on billboards, posters, and magazines - but he will never say a word more about himself than he thinks you need to know.
At least one thing remains true, and it's that he's an absolute mess.
Yet he's a mess that's living a simple, enjoyable, reckless lifestyle that lacks the destruction of the turbulent Sengoku era.
There's only the next day ahead in a peaceful era that his original self would have longed for. Somehow putting him in a context where he isn't surrounded by war, famine, and manipulation has only made him incredibly... bored.
(And maybe a little bit more vain.)
no subject
CANON: Rengoku ni Warau
AU NAME: Baren Kaiyou
AU AGE: 21
AU OCCUPATION: Model, College Student, Graffiti Artist
BLURB: - Baren is a successful model at age 21, mostly because he looks good in anything
- he likes it so much that he keeps his random hair doodads even when walking the street, so he's pretty Iconic just from having this shit in his hair (yes. those are bells and a feather. peacock, he's an actual peacock and yes you can hear him coming)
- he moved to Recollé with his twin sister about three years ago from Japan
- on the outside he's charming and fun-loving to the point of being Devil May Care though it's more like Live Fast Die Young Bad
GirlsBoys Do It Well- so that means he gets up to shit like drinking, smoking, gambling, drag racing, what have you and loves escalating parties to the point of earning the moniker Party Satan
- and it seems like he's causing chaos a lot just for the sake of causing chaos and being a pain in the ass
- he has a penchant for graffiti and tags buildings for fun because he just thought that an inside joke he had with a friend was funny so he put it on a wall or it's Japanese motifs and kanji and honestly artistic and thoughtful but it's hard to tell they're the same artist
-he can probably be serious enough to talk about his responsibilities which mostly include taking care of his beloved twin sister
- those moments are Rare bc Baren doesn't like it when people realize he's An Actual Person with Feelings
- he's technically enrolled in the college as a third year (just in case he catches Surprise Ugly one day and modeling doesn't work) but hates showing up for classes. a lot. he's the guy who shows up on syllabus day and then ditches except to show up for exams
- if you manage to worm your way into being someone that he likes, he's actually very good at taking care of people and loyal when he doesn't want to be. secret tsundere.
- oh but he's nicer to women bc his sister puts the Fear of God into him
- now for an au background no one cares about. here's his seedy and sketchy past before he moved, which he keeps super under wraps and on a Need to Know basis (and no one he's met in Recollé needs to know)
- he and his sister were born to a mistress for a politician (of the Kumou family) who abandoned them and their mother
- their mother trained the twins to fake being High Class, paying tuition for private schools and tutors and buying nice clothes instead of good food
- Baren and his sister learned how to be great pickpockets and con artists to get money instead
- eventually they re-entered High Society through their own merit and scammed their own dad into blackmail bc the twins are fucking devil children
- blackmail does not buy a mother's love and health though and she passed away three years ago
- thus resulting in the twins' move to Recollé where they decided to scrap everything they knew and just live how they wanted
- but sometimes you can catch Baren having an informed opinion on something (arts, literature, history, politics) bc he never figured out how to stop being In the Know
- he'd just much prefer that people think he's a good for nothing hooligan (he's unfortunately much smarter than he pretends smh)
LOOKING FOR:
- is your character a straight-laced fuddy duddy? baren's here to be your Manic Pixie Nightmare
- is your character a criminal? they've probably run into Baren. an "honor among thieves" situation would be really interesting!
- does your character need a job? Baren would probably hire a babysitter for himself (read: someone assigned to pay bail if he gets arrested and keep it from his sister)
- is your character a fashionista or designer? he'll model your designs and talk about #aesthetic hell ye
- part of the law enforcement? tbh Baren's probably a regular trouble maker who either can't get pinned for anything he does due to lack of evidence or settles out of court. alternatively, Baren's probably gotten to know a couple of different miscreants so you could always try to make him an informant
- open to flings, hookups, friends with benefits, exes? canon tells us that Baren is popular for some reason - but lmfao if anyone wants to hash out a messy ex story with me, I need it
- is your character a fellow college student? please endure late night cram sessions with Baren
- is your character another model? actor? random celeb? be Baren's superficial friends who he hangs out with but they don't know anything about him
- is your character the type to follow fashion and be a fan? he'd actually be weirded out. please. this sounds funny.
- is your character a social outcast or problem child with attitude? come to Baren. they're actually his favorite types of people. he'll teach you how to pickpocket (why)
- does your character work at the animal shelter? animals love him so he probably brings strays regularly
- is your character another socialite from Japan? really specific but Baren's high class lifestyle extends to Japan only tbh, but someone might be able to recognize him from that - and he'll then swear them to secrecy bc he doesn't want to talk about his past ever ever ever
- is your character a Recollé socialite? sometimes to entertain himself, within the past 3 years Baren will have gone to fancy parties in full disguise to wine and dine and gather information and learn names and influential people before disappearing
- or please help the party satan agenda and make baren an urban legend
OPTIONAL ENABLE ME: lmao nah