D3 - Application

[littledrummerboy]

OOC

Name: Greed
Age: 18+
Contact: PM
Current Characters: N/A

IC

Name: Kawabuchi, Sentarou
Age: 15
Canon: Sakamichi no Apollon - Kids on The Slope
Canon Point: Right before canon starts/Kaoru shows up.

Are you joining a cast?
If so, will it be in a different or the same world?
If it's the same world, have you spoken to your castmate about changes that may have already occurred and agreed to them? N/A

Background: The wiki is sparse to say the least, so enjoy your essay.

The setting is post-WW2 Japan. The result of an affair between his mother and an American soldier, Sentarou was abandoned at the church, where he lived until he was about three. At that time, a couple who were unable to conceive adopted him, telling his adoptive grandmother that he was the son of her other daughter who had eloped with a foreign soldier and gone missing. The grandmother wasn't thrilled with this, but did allow him into the home. It's suggested that the fake story they give may coincidentally be true, that his unknown mother may have been the missing sister, but it's never made fully clear. Given the politics of the time, especially as shown by the shame his adoptive family suffers for having him, there's sure to be no shortage of such affairs that would lead to an abandon a mixed race child.

Sen and his new family are subject to neighborhood gossip for taking him in, and his grandmother openly detests him. She burns all photos of his 'mother' and declares she has never had such a daughter who would curse their household with "that abomination", refusing to acknowledge Sentarou as any relation to herself; however, his uncle assures him that he is a loved, cherished part of their family, no matter what she says.

His aunt and uncle are eventually able to have children, and they pop out four. His grandmother lashes out at him whenever he goes near his first born sibling Sachiko, or tries to play or tend to her, but she is very loving to her other grandchildren, cooing that children with more traditional black hair are so cute and lovable.

One day, his grandmother collapses. He and his uncle both hear the sound, and Sen happens to get there first, making it look like the boy had potentially shoved her. In the anime, she's coughing up and covered in blood, which she smears on him while falling, which all makes the scene look even more dubious. When she's pronounced dead, the police question him, doubting his story that he just found her like that. His 'father' (uncle) refuses to ever look him in the eye again, even tries to return him to the orphanage, and ultimately lapses into alcoholism, with violent outbursts and difficulty holding down a job.

Afraid of his violent father, Sentarou starts sleeping at the church after school to avoid going home until as late as possible. When he tells the priest what's happening at home, the priest gives him a rosary that he says had belonged to his mother, given to the church by his grandmother when she was getting rid of all of her things. While the rosary isn't meant to be worn like a necklace, the priest doesn't have the heart to tell him that he shouldn't. He gets made fun of for wearing such a girly necklace and ends up in a fist fight when someone tries to take it from him.

While still avoiding going home, one day a man tells him not to look so sad and gives him some candy. Brilliant kid he is, Sen follows the stranger with candy to a bar where he ends up introduced to jazz. The man, Roy, teaches him to play drums and jazz becomes his escape and his passion, even after his father finds a job in another prefecture, and he has no reason to avoid coming home. Though eventually, Roy's deployment ends and he returns to America. Sentarou's jazz practice moves from the bar to the basement of the record store next door where the Mukaes, and most notably his childhood friend Ritsuko (Rikko) live. A friend of the Mukae family, Jun, is a bit of a high school punk himself, and a talented jazz musician bonds with him and they have sessions together, with Sen coming to call him a brother. Jun has left the story to go to college in Tokyo by the time the story begins, but he drops in during school breaks from time to time.

As discussed, he's half-white in a nation that was over 95% ethnically Japanese. Though, the main character didn't notice Sen was mixed until he was shown a picture of him as a child: it was easier to tell when he was younger and had longer, obviously wavy hair. When he's older, with shorter hair, it could look like it was just bleached, which was popular with rebellious youth at the time. Lighter hair and a larger build, as well as the fight over the rosary had him stereotyped as a thug and he just started living up to that. He becomes famously known as East High's Kawabuchi, someone not to be messed with, by the high school thug circles. He isn't above picking on the weak and helpless, either, though for the most part Ritsuko keeps him from going too crazy. If she tells him other bullies are picking on someone, he'll also go tend to it without complaint.

This brings us up to where I'm apping him from, as a first year (10th grade) high school student.


Personality: Despite the somber history section, he's a pretty happy guy when nothing's going wrong. He loves his siblings, and while he had to grow up to be the man of the house at a young age when his father got a job out of town, he sincerely enjoys playing with and caring for them. His aunt, whom he calls his mother, cares about him enough to know when he seems down and to prepare his favorite food (watermelon) for him when he comes home. He talks about his day and his friends to her, and has a pretty good home life now. They're on the poor side, they live in a small house and share a bathroom (literal room with the bath rather than the toilet type) with the Mukaes next door, and he hasn't been able to buy even new drum sticks for years, but he's not wanting for anything, and things aren't so tight he can't keep a pet pigeon. He's also worked a few part time jobs at the liquor store and other jobs that allow him to use his build and strength to move and deliver things.

While Rikko can reign him in to an extent, he's a free spirit and enjoys picking on class nerds (he thinks it all in good fun) and gets into fist fights with anyone who will take him up on it, without any sense of grudge. He can't even remember the people in his own class who pick a fight with him, he's absent so much, mostly to hang out on the roof or practicing drumming on whatever he can smash sticks on.

He doesn't hesitate to use physical force, getting in people's spaces, forcibly dragging them protesting through a crowd of onlookers, bullying the class train nerd for schedule info and tickets to stalk someone he knows is going out of town, or even punching people he's friendly with if it gets tense enough. He's just as physical with his affection, being very hands on with everyone save for Yurika; she's a special case, being a high class lady even he can't casually throw an arm around.

That said, Sen does have a certain honor code: while he's not a defender of innocents, when Ritsuko tells him some classmates are bullying someone, he does get involved, telling them if they're picking on someone weaker they should at least not bother to give themselves a numbers advantage. It's sheer coincidence that the victim turns out to be some he himself has taken to picking on and has taken a liking to.

His family and childhood friend Ritsuko are Catholic (the series only says Christian, but the Rosary and veneration of Mary strongly suggest Catholic); he attends Sunday service and his family attends Christmas church gatherings, events and mass. He's been known to sleep during mass, but he's neither absurdly sacrilegious nor does he talk about or push his faith much. Aside from the rosary which has personal familial meeting, his stance on religion isn't spoken of much. It's something personal and fairly private.

Don't make the mistake of assuming he's mature just because he's good at playing daddy to his siblings. He's childish and painfully naive. He's oblivious to Ritsuko's painfully obvious crush on him, and when he falls in love at first sight with a dignified rich young lady, he's a spaced out mess who sniffs her handkerchief with a dumb look on his face, and has to be told by someone else that what he feels is love. He's just as oblivious to his best friend's crush on Ritsuko as well. Don't expect him to catch hints too easily. As he gets older, further into the series, he does recognize that there's something complicated between Jun and the girl he likes, Yurika, but even that takes him going out on a date with her where Jun is all they talk about, and other dramatic incidents taking place between them right in front of him.

He also holds certain prejudices that he himself knows aren't reasonable. If he sees a Japanese-American Soldier couple getting frisky, he becomes cold and insists it can't be real love, but some empty fling, like the one that he believes produced him. He apologizes for being moody over it minutes later and knows it's not right, and he doesn't seem to be racist in general, admiring many foreign jazz musicians and his own drumming instructor Roy who's American, black and seems to speak almost exclusively English. Sen doesn't seem to have a great grasp on the language himself later on, needing Kaoru to translate when an American goes on a drunken rant at them, but as a child he made a second home at a bar popular with foreign soldiers, at least until Roy's deployment ended and he went back to the US.

Despite a tendency to judge books by their cover and miss an awful lot of obvious cues, he's not completely incapable of understanding depth. While a flamboyant classmate Matsuoka Seiji initially weirds him out by being so peppy and cutesy, once he finds out that the boy is from a poor family and wants to be a pop-rock musician like the Beatles to make it big and make money to support them, he ends up acknowledging that rock music, while not his style, may have some merit and agrees to join Seiji's band temporarily, just to help him get it off the ground. When someone else calls the him a flake, Sentarou insists there's more to him than it seems, without spilling Seiji's personal drama any further. Seiji thrusts this (true) sob story on Sentarou knowing this direct approach is the key to getting the famous bully's nice side to come out. If you're direct and blunt with him, he will usually respond well.

And while he's happy in life now and when things are going good, when things go bad, so does he. He's happy to have taken on the Man Of The House role at a young age, but when his father comes back, despite close, loyal friendships and a tight bond to his family, he chooses to simply leave without telling a soul, rather than express his unease. He decides he isn't needed anymore, and remembers his father believes him responsible for the death of his grandmother; he's just a source of shame and pain, and should quietly disappear, even if his oldest sister Sachiko, the only sibling who was old enough to remember when her father was a violent drunk, is afraid of their father coming home. He tells her he's not drinking anymore so surely it's fine, but he doesn't stick around to find out. He attempts to abandon everything and everyone at least twice in the series, even those he knows do love and care about him. Both times, people who care about him know he's holding something in, prompt him to talk to them, to stop holding it in, but he continues to hold in anything that really matters.

Samples

Prison is a nice place to make friends.

Sample B:
(Normally an OP post wouldn't go into this much detail since there's really nothing in the lead-in paragraphs for the masses to respond to and I'd prefer to let out the deeper nervousness in the conversations that follow, but the point's more to show his thought process and mental space for an app.)

[TPO. Time. Place... What was the other one? The fact that that single word (is it even a word?) sticks with him more than the warning around it should make him heed said warning a little more seriously: don' go on that date. And it's not like Bon didn't probably have his best interests at heart: he can't think of a single selfish reason he'd discourage him. It was Bon who scored him the double date with Rikko and him last year, and precisely because he figured Sen wouldn't be able to handle it one on one. This is all consistent. Sensible. From a trustworthy source.

But if the sensible thing to do is not to go on this date, then he doesn't want to be sensible. So it's back to thinking on "TPO", even as some part of his mind nags at him that it's hardly the only real problem with a guy like him going on a date with a modern day princess. If he gets down TPO, he'll have it.

Besides, it's about wanting to treat her right. She's not some stuck up snob. She invited him this time! Probably, nothing he does will make her too mad. She's an understanding lady. But he should aim higher than that: he should sweep her off her feet a little! And why should that seem so impossible?! His best friend, the one warning him off of all this, is a spoiled rich kid, practically a modern day prince, and they're best friends! Maybe he's even got a knack for that type! Natural charisma!


Sentarou holds onto that high for all of forty-five seconds before his shoulders slump and that dazed, already defeated look sweeps over his face again. As his eyes lower and drift to the side, they fall on... Whatever that thing is. You know. The thing. That thing that's so unreal he tends to forget it's a real option for when he has problems, because frankly he wonders if he's not just going mad, schizophrenic, delusional or something. It happens to a lot of artists. Most of them are on drugs or something, but he is, for the record, a musician. Maybe he's prone to it too.

Some people in that thing, that thing that he can't show or prove to anyone else, say they're from the future, where objects like that, mobile phones and junk, can be used to immediately write to someone in their own world, like a regular phone only way more convenient. Maybe if that existed here, he'd reach out to Bon again, demand more on this TPO thing, until he had it down so well even Bon had to agree it might not be a complete mistake to set out on this first date alone. But there are no cell phones here, even Bon and Yurika-san don't have them. No one here does. They don't exist. Besides that one there, the one he now has in hand.

Still, while it won't connect to the person he wants to ask most (and least), it does cast a pretty wide net. The alternative is stewing on it alone. And tempting as that is, his fingers move and eventually, his face is on the network with a simple question, seeming as flippant and easy as anything else he's ever said.]

TPO: What is it and how do I learn it by tomorrow?