(no subject)

[Name]: hedge
[Age]: owes Jesus a dollar
[Contacts]:
? DW:
? AIM: taoofcrime
? Plurk: taoofcrime
[Timezone]: cst
[Other Characters]: -



[Name]: Yasaburo Shimogamo
[Canon]: Uchouten Kazoku
[Age]: about 19, or its tanuki equivalent
[Gender]: m
[Canon Point]: episode 9

[History]: In modern day Kyoto, there exist three dominant species: humans, tanuki and tengu. The former is, of course, generally not aware that their world is shared as the other two can easily disguise themselves. Though there are sometimes conflicts, the three species generally find a harmonious balance and do their best to stay out of each others ways.

The Shimogamo family is one of the oldest tanuki families, with a proud lineage stretching back to the Heian era. As one of the old families, they are often looked to for leadership by their community. Yasaburo is the second youngest of four brothers of this family. His father Soichirou Shimogamo, held the prestigious post of nise-emon, the closest the tanuki community has to a mayor.

However last year, tragedy struck. The Friday Fellows, a secretive, ancient and amoral group of humans, each taking the name of one of the seven lucky gods, captured Soichirou and ate him in a hot pot, this being apparently the tradition of their new years bash. Their newest member was Benten (formerly Suzuki Satomi), former pupil (and kidnapping victim) of Yasaburo's tengu teacher, Professor Akadama. It should be noted here that while it was regarded as a tragedy, there was very little in the way of resentment from even Soichirou's family. Risking ending up in a hot pot is considered simply one of the hazards of not being the dominant species. So while this certainly strained relations between Benten and the Shimogamos, it was not considered anything that unusual.

The result of this was the severing of relations between the Shimogamos and their cousins, the Ebisugawas, another old family, and the breaking off of Yasaburo's engagement to Kaisei Ebisugawa.

Fast forward to the present. As a result of their father's death Yaichiro Shimogamo is running for the office of nise-emon and Yajiro has adopted the form of a frog from grief and guilt and now sits at the bottom of a well, dispensing advice to those who use the well as a confessional. Yasaburo is living an irresponsible but happy life. Professor Akadama, injured in a Noodle Incident and unable to fly, asks Yasaburo to deliver a letter to Benten. This results in the destruction of one of the mystical artifacts in Benten's possession, causing Yasaburo to flee to Osaka. Benten manages to track him down though, and forgives the debt in exchange for his entertaining the Friday Fellows (who are not aware that he's a tanuki).

Meanwhile relations between the Shimogamos and Ebisugawas have gone from cold to hot, resulting in a midair battle between flying houseboats fueled by booze. In the next two episodes we learn that Yajiro was indirectly responsible for their father's death and that it was the head of the Ebisugawa clan who sold him to the Friday Fellows. This is the canon point I'll be bringing him from.

[Personality]: Yasaburo's fundamental philosophy is thus: "The only thing you really need is to live an interesting life." He is a novelty seeker at core, lover of the strange and irregular, both in environment and character. Not just seeking novelty out of escape from boredom though, he genuinely believes it's by exposure to new things that people grow most. This frequently leads him into trouble, as he seeks out potentially dangerous people just because he finds them interesting. Foremost among these is Benten (ne Suzuki Satomi) who has managed to keep him on his toes since they first met.

It also leads to him being accused (somewhat truthfully) of being lazy. He's the type of open, relaxed person you can find taking a nap in a park while everyone else is in the middle of their workday.

Yet despite this image he's built up of being an irresponsible flaneur, Yasaburo actually pays keen attention to his duties. This is shown in his taking care of Akadama-sensei, looking after his little brother and helping his mother with her pranks. He smoothes over the cognitive dissonance between his stated philosophy and his actions by reminding himself that these are duties he chose to take on himself, not ones that were chosen for him. In other words, he pays attention to what he thinks is right to do rather than what others tell him he should do. If you think this makes him sound stubborn at times, you're right.

Speaking of, Yasaburo thinks tradition, whether tanuki or human, can go hang. An inheritor of the ancient leadership role of the Shimogamo clan, Yasaburo highly resents being forced into any role he didn't willingly take on (that, he thinks, is for his older brother), including gender roles, which he bends with his frequent public crossdressing/forming.

There's one way in which he does fit perfectly with tanuki tradition though: pranks. Never mean spirited, Yasaburo happily uses his abilities to shake people's lives up a bit or to get ahead in life himself. He keeps strictly to pranks that do not harm the subject and give them something to look back on with a chuckle.

Of course all this curiosity and iconoclasm can land him in hot water sometimes. Luckily he's a fast talker, good at finding excuses for himself. If he weren't a tanuki already he'd probably be a flash mob organizer or three card monte man.

Lucky for him also he has a large, warm family to fall back on if he gets burned. He extends that same warmth back to his family and friends, and probably will to the friends he makes here too.

None of this should imply that he doesn't have a breaking point or never gets mad. He's absolutely willing to fight in defense of his family and would never abandon a person in need, especially not a senior citizen, who he seems to ironically have a flair for working with. If he needs to, he will use his ability with deception to terrify instead of amuse or inconveinence.

In summary, Yasaburo's iconoclast and caring brother and son, defier of tradition but eager to help his sensei, loafer, doer of the right thing, prankster and philosopher and he handles the tension between these aspects of himself with a dismissive wave of the paw and an ardent belief that things will turn out OK.

[Abilities / Strengths & Weaknesses]: Being a tanuki, as is traditional in Japanese folklore, Yasaburo is endowed with the power of shapeshifting. In his natural form, he looks like this. However he is able to shapeshift into a variety of forms, thus appearing to be anything from an old man, to a schoolgirl, even a large animal or inanimate object. The larger and more complex the object he shifts into the more physically taxing it is and the more likely he is to pop back into his natural form by accident. These transformations appear to be physically complete and are not simply projections/hallucinations. The physical limit for the size of these transformations is about three meters for him. In human form, he tends to default to the form of a lanky, shaggy haired young man appearing to be about the human age of 19.

He can also create small, short lived illusions centered around small objects, for instance by disguising leaves as money. These illusions will fade rapidly once he has left the immediate area.

He does not have the traditional tanuki prehensile/growable testicles, thank god.

[Limited Powers]: Yasaburo's transformations will be limited to no larger than about human sized.

[Other Important Facts]:

A cold butt is the cause of innumerable ills for a tanuki.

[Samples]:
? Thread: http://reallybadeggs.dreamwidth.org/11443.html?thread=4094387#cmt4094387
http://reallybadeggs.dreamwidth.org/4314.html?thread=2688218#cmt2688218

? Post: [AUDIO | OPEN]

Alright, I'm just going to put this out there. Call it a public service announcement.

The Atlantean palace guards have no sense of humor at all. If anyone tells you that they're not allowed to move from their posts no matter what you do, don't listen to them. I almost got gutted!