mistyoldworld (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistyoldworld) wrote2012-07-18 11:32 pm
mistyoldworld) wrote2012-07-18 11:32 pm
Entry tags:
Application for Tu Shanshu
Player Information:
Name: Pen
Age: 25
Contact: Plurk: talkingsoup ; Email: tripwire015@yahoo.com
Game Cast: None
Character Information:
Name: Aisling
Canon: The Secret of Kells
Canon Point: The end of the movie, when Brendan has returned to Kells, Aisling has reappeared to him and she has seen the Book.
Age: Unknown; looks to be about eight. Probably at least a century or so old.
Reference: movie wiki entry
Tuatha de Danann
Aisling's magic
Setting: It’s set in the real world, in ninth century Ireland. It is an Ireland where Christianity has taken hold and the pagan ways are dead or dying; where abbeys dot the landscape amidst untouched forests, and where the threat of Viking invasion is always very real. This is a time when the great illuminators lived and when creating a Bible took years or even decades, if not lifetimes. This is also the time when the Book of Kells was created.
The Book of Kells is considered the definitive illuminated manuscript, created by Irish monks sometime in the early 800s C.E. It was created at the Abbey of Kells, located in County Meath in Ireland, and to this day no one is certain how the inks used for the vivid colors or the incredibly intricate details were made. Ireland at the time is considered to have been a veritable melting pot of people and cultures, as the rise of Christianity had opened the doors to many travelers. Study of the Book indicates that it might have been influenced by North African, Asian and European motifs and art styles.
In this world lives Brendan, a boy living at the Abbey of Kells. He has never seen anything outside the abbey walls, and the abbey itself is ruled over by his stern uncle, Abbot Cellach. The Abbot is concerned with the defense of Kells, as the Vikings have been coming down out of the north and sacking villages and abbeys across Ireland. To protect the abbey, the Abbot has ordered the construction of a gigantic wall to try and keep out the northmen, as well as other unsavories like pagans and cultists.
There are other things beyond the walls of Kells as well. Though the days of fairies and druids have faded, their influence is still seen and the wilds still seem to belong to the Fair Folk. Beyond the walls of Kells lies an enormous forest, unsullied and uncharted by humans, and ruled over by the fae child, Aisling. Aisling is the last surviving member of the Tuatha de Danann.
The Tuatha de Danann are a race of magical people who lived in Ireland long, long before Christianity reached the island. They were strong and proud, skilled with magic, and were able to live alongside nature in a way no human could. They could speak to animals and plants and control clouds and mist. They could also even change their form at will. As the Tuatha de passed into legend, they came to be considered fairies or even deities, with names like Dagda, Lugh and Cuchallain.
According to Aisling, her people were all destroyed by the Dark One, a creature called Crom Cruach. Crom is represented as a sort of snake god, and in real world mythology, he demanded the sacrifice of children until he was defeated by St. Patrick. All the same, Aisling lost her people and her entire family to Crom, and now the snake sleeps deep in a mound in her forest, presumably sent to rest by St. Patrick himself. Simply approaching the area drains her lifeforce. She’s absolutely terrified of Crom, and even the mention of him or the sight of his iconography scares her.
Despite the Dark One’s mound in her woods, Aisling’s forest is a beautiful place, one she has kept watch over for centuries. It’s dominated by an extremely large oak tree somewhere near the center, and is populated by wolves, deer and plenty of other wildlife, all of whom Aisling seems to be friends with.
Brendan meets Aisling when he goes into her forest to look for berries (technically oak galls) to make ink. At first Aisling wants to drive Brendan out, but after awhile they become friends. Aisling even invites Brendan to return to her forest whenever he likes. She even indirectly helps Brendan with his work on the Book of Kells, helping him to see the beauty of the natural world, and later helping him to enter Crom’s lair in search of a magnifying crystal, almost at the cost of her life.
When the Vikings finally arrive at Kells and destroy it, Aisling helps Brendan to escape with the Book. He and Brother Aidan of Iona eventually complete the Book and travel Ireland, literally spreading the Gospel to people. Finally, Brendan returns to the forest and to the abbey, to find Aisling’s health restored after her encounter with Crom, and to find his uncle Abbot Cellach still alive and waiting for him.
Aisling remains in her forest, where she continues to look after it, though now with a certain respect for humans and their work.
Personality: At first blush, Aisling is pretty much indistinguishable than your usual free spirit child. She has an unbridled curiosity and a fascination with everything she sees, always happy to learn about new things. Yet she also continually finds new joy from things she’s seen many times, like a spiderweb or a flower or a sunset. At the same time, she is very mobile and hyperactive, never sitting still, never staying in one place for long, always preferring to keep moving. She is full of energy, but not to the point of talkativeness or bounciness. Her energy is almost like a river; steady, controlled and directed. She’s excited about new things without being excitable. She’s childlike without being bratty. She’s impressed and awed by the world, without having to gush about it. She’s level-headed and calm, but not disciplined or anything approaching Zen-like. It would be most accurate to say that she is like Nature itself—at once calm, fierce, wild and quietly wise.
She is not, however, human, and therefore does not have human sensibilities. She is a fairy, a Tuatha De Danann, the last surviving member of an ancient and noble magical people. Her family and likely most of her people were killed long ago by a dark god. She is a lot older than she looks, and all of this combined means she has a very particular outlook on the world. She doesn’t trust humans, partially since it was Crom worshipers who gave Crom the strength to destroy Aisling’s family. Aisling, however, has the utmost respect for nature, and is able to peacefully live alongside it. According to her, humans just use nature for their own benefit or outright destroy it. At the same time, she is a little fascinated by humans, just as she’s fascinated by the world at large. They have amazing ideas, make beautiful works and use such interesting tools. Since meeting Brendan and befriending him, she has a newfound respect for certain humans, and would gladly show people the wonders of nature if they would listen—but she still doesn’t trust them as a whole.
Unlike other mythological fairies, Aisling isn’t that much of a trickster. Nor is she malicious. She has no interest in stealing children or tricking humans, though she will occasionally have a bit of fun at their expense. She’s somewhat contrary, in that she’d really like to be left alone, but she also hates being alone. She misses her family and her people, and she misses the rare friends she’s made who have moved on. She knows she’s not completely alone, however. She has her forest and her animals, and they’re usually enough of a comfort. At certain times, though, the loneliness is almost unbearable.
She has a certain naivety that comes from both being a fairy and being a child. She can have a certain innocent outlook on things at times, and she’s completely naïve when it comes to the world of humans. She doesn’t know much of anything about their inventions or technology, even as simple as books and ink. That’s not to say that she doesn’t know about or ignores the realities of the world. She is very much aware that there is suffering in the world, but tries to pay more attention to the beauty and loveliness found everywhere. When she’s presented with dark things like evil and suffering, her first instinct is to run and hide. She is terrified of Crom Cruach and of certain things about the human world, particularly Christianity and the concept of hallowed ground.
She is an undyingly loyal friend, however, and even when faced with danger she will risk her life to help people and things she cares about. For all that she has her array of fears, she is always brave when she needs to be. The Tuatha De Danann are natural born warriors, and while Aisling isn’t much of a fighter, she is as fearsome as her ancestors when she wants to be. She is certainly not above killing, either, and can be rather ruthless when she feels that she, her forest or her friends are being threatened.
At the end of the day, however, Aisling always prefers to take small joys where she can find them, reveling in the little wonders of the natural world. She likes to have fun, and laughs a lot. She will always prefer to make friends than enemies—even if it’s with silly humans.
Appearance: Aisling appears most of the time as a pale, pint-sized little girl wearing a gray wolf fur dress and wolf fur boots. She has bright green eyes, bushy eyebrows and very, very long white hair, so long she can easily wrap herself in it completely. She also sometimes takes on the appearance of certain animals, particularly a wolf and sometimes a deer or salmon. Even in animal form, she is always white.
Abilities: Aisling has a fair amount of magic as per her Tuatha de Danann heritage. She can speak to pretty much all lifeforms, from wolves to trees to wasps and has a certain amount of control over them—though it’s unclear whether this is direct control, or if things simply obey her out of a respect for her. Her less subtle magic appears as white mist from her breath, and she can do a number of things with this. She can make flowers grow, control mist, and can turn animals into spirit versions of themselves through song so they can go places where she can’t. She’s therefore a very good singer. She’s also very fast, to the point where it almost seems she can teleport, though a lot of this is just illusion. She can also readily shapeshift into various animals.
In a less directly magical sense, Aisling has a number of skills. She’s immune to heat, cold and rain, perfectly content to curl up on a tree branch to sleep with nothing but her hair as a blanket. She can jump extremely high, and can climb like a squirrel, vertically or upside-down, apparently on any surface except perhaps glass. She’s also incredibly strong, able to lift very heavy stones with minimal effort.
As a fairy, she’s naturally very weak to iron, particularly wrought iron or cast iron. Iron-based good luck charms like horseshoes are an effective deterrent if you don’t want fairies sneaking into your house. Aisling also cannot enter hallowed ground, so most things associated with Christianity are off-limits to her. She also has an aversion to Christian imagery, specifically crosses—Bibles, fish and chi rhos don’t seem to bother her; it probably depends on the intent behind the imagery. She also has an aversion to bells and wind chimes.
Aisling is also weak to dark, evil places, such as places where atrocities happened. She can often sense where suffering has occurred and instinctively avoids such places; simply being in such a place can make her nervous or even sap her lifeforce if the conditions are right. She also has an aversion to snakes, as they remind her of Crom and aren’t native to Ireland.
Just in general, Aisling is also extremely naïve when it comes to the human world. She only knows what things like ink, pages and books are because of her friendship with Brendan. Considering she lives in the 800s, she also has absolutely no idea about anything even remotely related to technology. Everything from clocks to plastic to cell phones will completely baffle her. Judging by fairy myths, she also has substantially less magic power when she’s in areas that belong to humans, particularly with her inability to enter certain places or be around iron.
Aisling is immortal and hardy, but she can certainly be killed.
Inventory: Her clothes.
Suite: Wood
In-Character Samples:
Third Person: The forest sang to her in the wind and rain and thunder, the whispers of the trees and the mushrooms and the wolves and the deer all telling her the same thing: he’s come home.
She called to her wolf pack, told them to grant him safe passage, and raced to meet him, her paws thudding on the ground in time to her racing heartbeat. Would he remember her? Humans forgot things so easily, sometimes. She had been a wolf for so long now, and humans always hated wolves. Would he remember her as she was? As a friend?
She was cautious, and so was he. She watched him from the safety of the brush, tailed him and marveled at how he’d change. Humans were impermanent. They changed so much, so quickly. He was taller, straighter, still with that cheerful, almost whimsical air to him that she loved. He wore a beard and carried Pangur Ban, that silly old cat, on his shoulder. He wasn’t afraid. Cautious at the sound of wolves, but not afraid.
He was old. So much older. Would he even see her now?
She had to know.
She stepped out from the brush, startling Pangur, but the cat recognized her. Cats were silly, but always clever. He stopped as well, her human, her friend. And he stared at her, and for a moment she was afraid, sure that he would back away from her in fear.
But no. She could see it now. There was recognition in his face, a tiny smile on his mouth. He knew her. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy. He knew her, but he was different, apart. It wouldn’t be like it was, not ever again. But that was alright. Of course that was alright.
She led him through the trees, and he followed, like she knew he would. She led him to the edge of her forest, to where the ruins of Kells appeared down the slope. The rain pelted them and turned the world gray and misty, as she liked it. It reminded her of when they had met.
He spoke her name, and for a moment time peeled back and they could reach each other again across the divide. And that was enough. For the first time in years, she laughed through her real mouth.
Network: They say this...thing, that it shows pictures and sounds. That it lets you talk to others. But, I don’t know where the ink is supposed to go. Isn’t it easier, using pages instead of...all of this? It’s very silly, and pointless! None of it makes sense, I tell you.
I would like to go back to my forest now. My forest needs me, and this place is unfamiliar. This isn't a place for me. I don’t like it here.
Suite: WO-1A, Wood due to the fact that it sounded the most like home, considering she belongs in a forest.
Name: Pen
Age: 25
Contact: Plurk: talkingsoup ; Email: tripwire015@yahoo.com
Game Cast: None
Character Information:
Name: Aisling
Canon: The Secret of Kells
Canon Point: The end of the movie, when Brendan has returned to Kells, Aisling has reappeared to him and she has seen the Book.
Age: Unknown; looks to be about eight. Probably at least a century or so old.
Reference: movie wiki entry
Tuatha de Danann
Aisling's magic
Setting: It’s set in the real world, in ninth century Ireland. It is an Ireland where Christianity has taken hold and the pagan ways are dead or dying; where abbeys dot the landscape amidst untouched forests, and where the threat of Viking invasion is always very real. This is a time when the great illuminators lived and when creating a Bible took years or even decades, if not lifetimes. This is also the time when the Book of Kells was created.
The Book of Kells is considered the definitive illuminated manuscript, created by Irish monks sometime in the early 800s C.E. It was created at the Abbey of Kells, located in County Meath in Ireland, and to this day no one is certain how the inks used for the vivid colors or the incredibly intricate details were made. Ireland at the time is considered to have been a veritable melting pot of people and cultures, as the rise of Christianity had opened the doors to many travelers. Study of the Book indicates that it might have been influenced by North African, Asian and European motifs and art styles.
In this world lives Brendan, a boy living at the Abbey of Kells. He has never seen anything outside the abbey walls, and the abbey itself is ruled over by his stern uncle, Abbot Cellach. The Abbot is concerned with the defense of Kells, as the Vikings have been coming down out of the north and sacking villages and abbeys across Ireland. To protect the abbey, the Abbot has ordered the construction of a gigantic wall to try and keep out the northmen, as well as other unsavories like pagans and cultists.
There are other things beyond the walls of Kells as well. Though the days of fairies and druids have faded, their influence is still seen and the wilds still seem to belong to the Fair Folk. Beyond the walls of Kells lies an enormous forest, unsullied and uncharted by humans, and ruled over by the fae child, Aisling. Aisling is the last surviving member of the Tuatha de Danann.
The Tuatha de Danann are a race of magical people who lived in Ireland long, long before Christianity reached the island. They were strong and proud, skilled with magic, and were able to live alongside nature in a way no human could. They could speak to animals and plants and control clouds and mist. They could also even change their form at will. As the Tuatha de passed into legend, they came to be considered fairies or even deities, with names like Dagda, Lugh and Cuchallain.
According to Aisling, her people were all destroyed by the Dark One, a creature called Crom Cruach. Crom is represented as a sort of snake god, and in real world mythology, he demanded the sacrifice of children until he was defeated by St. Patrick. All the same, Aisling lost her people and her entire family to Crom, and now the snake sleeps deep in a mound in her forest, presumably sent to rest by St. Patrick himself. Simply approaching the area drains her lifeforce. She’s absolutely terrified of Crom, and even the mention of him or the sight of his iconography scares her.
Despite the Dark One’s mound in her woods, Aisling’s forest is a beautiful place, one she has kept watch over for centuries. It’s dominated by an extremely large oak tree somewhere near the center, and is populated by wolves, deer and plenty of other wildlife, all of whom Aisling seems to be friends with.
Brendan meets Aisling when he goes into her forest to look for berries (technically oak galls) to make ink. At first Aisling wants to drive Brendan out, but after awhile they become friends. Aisling even invites Brendan to return to her forest whenever he likes. She even indirectly helps Brendan with his work on the Book of Kells, helping him to see the beauty of the natural world, and later helping him to enter Crom’s lair in search of a magnifying crystal, almost at the cost of her life.
When the Vikings finally arrive at Kells and destroy it, Aisling helps Brendan to escape with the Book. He and Brother Aidan of Iona eventually complete the Book and travel Ireland, literally spreading the Gospel to people. Finally, Brendan returns to the forest and to the abbey, to find Aisling’s health restored after her encounter with Crom, and to find his uncle Abbot Cellach still alive and waiting for him.
Aisling remains in her forest, where she continues to look after it, though now with a certain respect for humans and their work.
Personality: At first blush, Aisling is pretty much indistinguishable than your usual free spirit child. She has an unbridled curiosity and a fascination with everything she sees, always happy to learn about new things. Yet she also continually finds new joy from things she’s seen many times, like a spiderweb or a flower or a sunset. At the same time, she is very mobile and hyperactive, never sitting still, never staying in one place for long, always preferring to keep moving. She is full of energy, but not to the point of talkativeness or bounciness. Her energy is almost like a river; steady, controlled and directed. She’s excited about new things without being excitable. She’s childlike without being bratty. She’s impressed and awed by the world, without having to gush about it. She’s level-headed and calm, but not disciplined or anything approaching Zen-like. It would be most accurate to say that she is like Nature itself—at once calm, fierce, wild and quietly wise.
She is not, however, human, and therefore does not have human sensibilities. She is a fairy, a Tuatha De Danann, the last surviving member of an ancient and noble magical people. Her family and likely most of her people were killed long ago by a dark god. She is a lot older than she looks, and all of this combined means she has a very particular outlook on the world. She doesn’t trust humans, partially since it was Crom worshipers who gave Crom the strength to destroy Aisling’s family. Aisling, however, has the utmost respect for nature, and is able to peacefully live alongside it. According to her, humans just use nature for their own benefit or outright destroy it. At the same time, she is a little fascinated by humans, just as she’s fascinated by the world at large. They have amazing ideas, make beautiful works and use such interesting tools. Since meeting Brendan and befriending him, she has a newfound respect for certain humans, and would gladly show people the wonders of nature if they would listen—but she still doesn’t trust them as a whole.
Unlike other mythological fairies, Aisling isn’t that much of a trickster. Nor is she malicious. She has no interest in stealing children or tricking humans, though she will occasionally have a bit of fun at their expense. She’s somewhat contrary, in that she’d really like to be left alone, but she also hates being alone. She misses her family and her people, and she misses the rare friends she’s made who have moved on. She knows she’s not completely alone, however. She has her forest and her animals, and they’re usually enough of a comfort. At certain times, though, the loneliness is almost unbearable.
She has a certain naivety that comes from both being a fairy and being a child. She can have a certain innocent outlook on things at times, and she’s completely naïve when it comes to the world of humans. She doesn’t know much of anything about their inventions or technology, even as simple as books and ink. That’s not to say that she doesn’t know about or ignores the realities of the world. She is very much aware that there is suffering in the world, but tries to pay more attention to the beauty and loveliness found everywhere. When she’s presented with dark things like evil and suffering, her first instinct is to run and hide. She is terrified of Crom Cruach and of certain things about the human world, particularly Christianity and the concept of hallowed ground.
She is an undyingly loyal friend, however, and even when faced with danger she will risk her life to help people and things she cares about. For all that she has her array of fears, she is always brave when she needs to be. The Tuatha De Danann are natural born warriors, and while Aisling isn’t much of a fighter, she is as fearsome as her ancestors when she wants to be. She is certainly not above killing, either, and can be rather ruthless when she feels that she, her forest or her friends are being threatened.
At the end of the day, however, Aisling always prefers to take small joys where she can find them, reveling in the little wonders of the natural world. She likes to have fun, and laughs a lot. She will always prefer to make friends than enemies—even if it’s with silly humans.
Appearance: Aisling appears most of the time as a pale, pint-sized little girl wearing a gray wolf fur dress and wolf fur boots. She has bright green eyes, bushy eyebrows and very, very long white hair, so long she can easily wrap herself in it completely. She also sometimes takes on the appearance of certain animals, particularly a wolf and sometimes a deer or salmon. Even in animal form, she is always white.
Abilities: Aisling has a fair amount of magic as per her Tuatha de Danann heritage. She can speak to pretty much all lifeforms, from wolves to trees to wasps and has a certain amount of control over them—though it’s unclear whether this is direct control, or if things simply obey her out of a respect for her. Her less subtle magic appears as white mist from her breath, and she can do a number of things with this. She can make flowers grow, control mist, and can turn animals into spirit versions of themselves through song so they can go places where she can’t. She’s therefore a very good singer. She’s also very fast, to the point where it almost seems she can teleport, though a lot of this is just illusion. She can also readily shapeshift into various animals.
In a less directly magical sense, Aisling has a number of skills. She’s immune to heat, cold and rain, perfectly content to curl up on a tree branch to sleep with nothing but her hair as a blanket. She can jump extremely high, and can climb like a squirrel, vertically or upside-down, apparently on any surface except perhaps glass. She’s also incredibly strong, able to lift very heavy stones with minimal effort.
As a fairy, she’s naturally very weak to iron, particularly wrought iron or cast iron. Iron-based good luck charms like horseshoes are an effective deterrent if you don’t want fairies sneaking into your house. Aisling also cannot enter hallowed ground, so most things associated with Christianity are off-limits to her. She also has an aversion to Christian imagery, specifically crosses—Bibles, fish and chi rhos don’t seem to bother her; it probably depends on the intent behind the imagery. She also has an aversion to bells and wind chimes.
Aisling is also weak to dark, evil places, such as places where atrocities happened. She can often sense where suffering has occurred and instinctively avoids such places; simply being in such a place can make her nervous or even sap her lifeforce if the conditions are right. She also has an aversion to snakes, as they remind her of Crom and aren’t native to Ireland.
Just in general, Aisling is also extremely naïve when it comes to the human world. She only knows what things like ink, pages and books are because of her friendship with Brendan. Considering she lives in the 800s, she also has absolutely no idea about anything even remotely related to technology. Everything from clocks to plastic to cell phones will completely baffle her. Judging by fairy myths, she also has substantially less magic power when she’s in areas that belong to humans, particularly with her inability to enter certain places or be around iron.
Aisling is immortal and hardy, but she can certainly be killed.
Inventory: Her clothes.
Suite: Wood
In-Character Samples:
Third Person: The forest sang to her in the wind and rain and thunder, the whispers of the trees and the mushrooms and the wolves and the deer all telling her the same thing: he’s come home.
She called to her wolf pack, told them to grant him safe passage, and raced to meet him, her paws thudding on the ground in time to her racing heartbeat. Would he remember her? Humans forgot things so easily, sometimes. She had been a wolf for so long now, and humans always hated wolves. Would he remember her as she was? As a friend?
She was cautious, and so was he. She watched him from the safety of the brush, tailed him and marveled at how he’d change. Humans were impermanent. They changed so much, so quickly. He was taller, straighter, still with that cheerful, almost whimsical air to him that she loved. He wore a beard and carried Pangur Ban, that silly old cat, on his shoulder. He wasn’t afraid. Cautious at the sound of wolves, but not afraid.
He was old. So much older. Would he even see her now?
She had to know.
She stepped out from the brush, startling Pangur, but the cat recognized her. Cats were silly, but always clever. He stopped as well, her human, her friend. And he stared at her, and for a moment she was afraid, sure that he would back away from her in fear.
But no. She could see it now. There was recognition in his face, a tiny smile on his mouth. He knew her. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy. He knew her, but he was different, apart. It wouldn’t be like it was, not ever again. But that was alright. Of course that was alright.
She led him through the trees, and he followed, like she knew he would. She led him to the edge of her forest, to where the ruins of Kells appeared down the slope. The rain pelted them and turned the world gray and misty, as she liked it. It reminded her of when they had met.
He spoke her name, and for a moment time peeled back and they could reach each other again across the divide. And that was enough. For the first time in years, she laughed through her real mouth.
Network: They say this...thing, that it shows pictures and sounds. That it lets you talk to others. But, I don’t know where the ink is supposed to go. Isn’t it easier, using pages instead of...all of this? It’s very silly, and pointless! None of it makes sense, I tell you.
I would like to go back to my forest now. My forest needs me, and this place is unfamiliar. This isn't a place for me. I don’t like it here.
Suite: WO-1A, Wood due to the fact that it sounded the most like home, considering she belongs in a forest.