Institute app, in progress

PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER: Hedge
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: no i am a tiny baby

CONTACT: taoofcrime on plurk and AIM.
CHARACTERS PLAYED: Reki//totallystoned, Liir//friendofdorothy, Naija//fathoming

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Yasaburo Shimogamo
CANON: Uchouten Kazoku
CANON REFERENCE: Any info links will be accepted here. If apping an OC, this doesn't really apply to you.
AGE: 18
GENDER: M
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: senior
APPEARANCE: A somewhat gangly young man, with messy brown hair. He has brown, fuzzy ears resembling those of a tanuki and a tail attached at his lower back that is likewise. His best feature is his winning smile, endearing and mischevious.

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 mutant 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/illusions.

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 hand and an ardent belief that things will turn out OK.

POWERS/ABILITIES: Physical mutation: Like most of his kind, Yasaburo has a tail and ears that resemble those of the tanuki, a real life animal that has a folkloric reputation for shapeshifting and mischeviousness. He uses his power to disguise this, in most normal situations.

His mutant power is illusions. Yasaburo is capable of fooling all the senses, provided he has a 'base' stimulation to that sense to work with. For instance he can change the scent of garbage to that of delicious cooking, but can't create a strong scent out of nowhere, or make leaves appear to look and feel like money, but can't conjure illusory money out of nowhere. He can alter his own appearance as well, to nearly anything within a reasonable distance of his own size.

He can't alter something to be like something he has never experienced. For instance he could not make a hamburger taste like thousand-year eggs, as he has never eaten those (though he would dearly like to). He could, however, make it taste like chicken or tofu. He is extraordinarily talented at this but also extraordinarily lazy, leading to frustration for people who believe in him reaching his full potential. If he is startled and frightened, there is a chance that his control over the illusions may fail, leading to them being exposed for what they are and his ears and tail to suddenly appear. They will also fade a short time after he stops trying to actively maintain them or leaves the area.

AU HISTORY: This is the meat of the AU. We want a detailed history of their character. Their early life, how they came to discover they were a mutant, and what lead them to the institute. If they've been here awhile, we'd like to know what they've done since coming to Xavier. If they're a returning character, we want to fill in the gap between when they were here last and now. Once again, spare no detail. There is no hard limit on how long this needs to be, but if we feel it is too barebones, there will be a revision, so please do what you can.

SAMPLES

NETWORK SAMPLE: You may link from an outside source, either our Test Drive or other places, but they MUST be set in the game. An acceptable linked sample for this prompt must be have at least seven comments from YOUR character in the linked thread.
This is basically to show off character voice in the form of a network post. It can be text, vocal, or video. We want at least some dialog, though in cases of less talkative characters, we are willing to accept character 'voice' in more subtle ways. Make it work!

LOG SAMPLE: You may link from an outside source, either our Test Drive or other places, but they MUST be set in the game. An acceptable linked sample for this prompt must be have at least seven comments from YOUR character in the linked thread.
This is an example of your ability to write the character's introspection. Their thoughts, feelings, and reactions to a given situation. Get inside their head. Remember to show, not tell. These are off network, what would normally go in the log community. You do not necessarily need to write this prose style, and can do a bracket style if you choose. But we still need to see a healthy amount of introspection.