Wei Wuxian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
espritdecorpse) wrote2018-10-31 10:50 pm
espritdecorpse) wrote2018-10-31 10:50 pm
Application
Applicant Info
Name: Beren
Contact: pm this journal
Current Character(s): n/a
Character Info
Character's Name: Wei Wuxian
Character's Canon: Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation
Character's Age: His current body is about 19. His real age is about mid 20’s or so.
Canon Point: After riding out of Mo town (end of chapter 5)
Background/History: Link! Please scroll down to "history."
Strengths:
He is an independent thinker, driven by his own sense of reason. He won't accept ideas simply because they are received wisdom, nor will he reject them just because he’s told that they’re wrong. As a teenager, he hits upon the idea of harnessing and controlling the power of resentful energy, even though this is taboo for righteous cultivators. It’s what enables him to survive and escape from the Burial Mound, and defeat the overwhelmingly powerful Wens. In a world that idealizes tradition, he becomes an inventor, discovering how to reverse-engineer exorcism talismans into ghost-attracting talismans (and in so doing, destroy the Wen sect’s supervisory offices, crippling their power). He refines this discovery into a spirit-attraction flag array, an invention so powerful that it’s still used years later. Another invention, his Stygian Tiger seal overturns the world’s greatest armies. Fierce corpses are understood by all to be mindless, bloodthirsty creatures, but he manages to turn one, Wen Ning, into the mighty “Ghost General,” a corpse with a mind and personality of its own, who tirelessly defends him. It’s because of his independent thinking and resourcefulness that he’s able to rise from a prisoner, stripped of his powers and hopelessly trapped, to become the most powerful man in the cultivational world.
He has a powerful sense of personal morality based on generosity, justice, and mercy. This morality comes from within; things like narrow loyalties or crusty sect rules don’t mean much to him, even when they're literally beaten into him. He stands by his beliefs, no matter the cost. He unreservedly praises and encourages a timid archer from another sect, Wen Ning, both privately and publicly; this despite the fact that their sects are competing with one another, and the Wens have a bad reputation. Later, Wen Ning goes against his own sect and saves the lives of both Wei Wuxian and his adoptive brother, Jiang Cheng. When reborn as Mo XuanYu, his best chance for self-preservation is to separate himself from the cultivational world, but he gives himself away to save the lives of several junior cultivators from the Lan sect; later, this leads Lan Wangji to defend him from attack and imprisonment.
He has a ready wit and a great sense of humor, which is a large part of his charisma. Even as he proves himself to be a knowledgeable and talented cultivator, he never takes himself seriously and prioritizes having fun, even if it means breaking a few rules here and there. He can diffuse tense situations with jokes. He makes friends easily: he’s popular with disciples both from his own and other sects. His playfulness even attracts the attention of Lan Wangji, a cultivator known for his coldness and isolation; he goes on to become Wei Wuxian’s strongest ally, the person without whom he couldn’t have survived for very long, when he’s reborn as Mo XuanYu.
Weaknesses:
His greatest weakness is hubris: he is arrogant and overconfident. Wei Wuxian fancies himself the smartest man in the room. While at the Cloud Recesses, rather than focussing on what he could learn from the Lans (humility and self-restraint), he chafes against their restrictive rules. After demonstrating his superior intellect, he intentionally gets himself kicked out of class. When required to copy out aphorisms on virtue, rather than bothering to absorb any of them, he hatches elaborate plans to tease his classmate. He gets good advice repeatedly about the physical and psychological dangers of cultivating the demon path, but ignores it every time. He’s warned what might happen if he loses control of his corpse army, but brushes it off every time. In the end, directly because he didn’t heed this advice, he hurts or kills the people closest to him and loses his own life.
He is reckless. He often acts impulsively, not considering the consequences of his actions. As a result, the people closest to him suffer. He acts to save two cultivators from other sects from the evil Wens, not only attacking but directly humiliating them. For their lives, he pays a terrible cost: his own YunmengJiang sect is targeted and massacred, including thousands of disciples and his own adoptive parents. Later, he directly confronts and publicly shames the second-most powerful sect, Lanling Jin, thus antagonizing and alienating the leaders of the Jins and other sects, who as a result are all too happy to turn on him later on. To pacify Wen Ning’s grieving sister, Wei Wuxian makes him into a powerful living corpse, with a mind of his own, never considering the danger such a creature might present to others. Sadly, Wen Ning kills the newlywed husband of Wei Wuxian’s beloved adoptive sister Jiang Yanli, setting events in motion for the later deaths of Jiang Yanli and ultimately Wei Wuxian himself.
Finally, for someone so brilliant and well-liked, Wei Wuxian is surprisingly oblivious when it comes to human relations. He doesn’t realize that his bond with his fellow disciple-brother Jiang Cheng is full of fractures: jealousy, blame, and self-interest. He makes enormous sacrifices to help Jiang Cheng, who despite this, leads the siege that ends in Wei Wuxian’s death. Conversely, the person who turns out to be his best ally is Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian is unable to befriend him at first. They both have issues, but Wei Wuxian is the one most at fault. Later, when Lan Wangji sincerely tries to help him, Wei Wuxian treats him like an enemy. Almost everyone who knows them can tell Lan Wangji loves him: everyone but Wei Wuxian, who obliviously hurts him over and over again. Despite his charisma, he’s never able to truly open up to anyone; thus he is progressively more isolated from the world, until he has to stand alone against it.
Powers/Abilities:
- Demonic cultivation: he is a grandmaster of accumulating and controlling the resentful (bad/negative) energy of dead or supernatural beings.
- Summon and control ghosts and corpses with talismans or his flute.
- Can use music to exert psychological changes in people or spirits, such as agitation or calm, depending on the tune.
- Can animate puppets.
- Can communicate with dead souls, including seeing their past lives.
- Can put his soul into a piece of paper and use that for traveling around and spying. Time-limited; even minor damage to the talisman can injure his soul.
- Can make and use talismans. Talismans can draw or repel spirits, shed light, alert to boundary violations, teleportation, etc.
- Can invent and create new talismans and magical items. Note that talismans tend to burn up after one use, and powerful ones (such as teleportation) use a lot of spiritual energy. So while you could make a “torch” talisman, an “ever-burning fire” talisman would require too much energy from the user to be workable. Basically they are neat little hacks but not OP.
- Excellent at martial arts including sword-fighting and hand-to-hand combat.
Other Noteworthy Traits:
Skilled in the “six arts” of ancient China:
- Poetry
- Music (he’s a spectacular flautist)
- Archery
- Calligraphy
- Mathematics
- Equestrianism
Terrible cook.
High tolerance to spicy food and booze.
Pathologically afraid of dogs.
Weapons & Other Special Inventory:
A qiankun bag: basically an item bag with large capacity, i.e. it’s bigger on the inside, and lightweight even filled to capacity. Currently empty, alas.
Color: Blood red, because it’s the color of demonic cultivation.
Sample: Wei Wuxian and his wingman
(I also tagged around elsewhere on the TDM if you need more)
World Aspect:
A zombie apocalypse would be grand. Or just wandering evil spirits full of resentful energy.
Settings might include:
- A mountain full of murdered corpses.
- Karst mountains wreathed in mist with waterfalls and secluded pools.
- An ancient Chinese palace complex set on the shores of a lake full of water lilies.
Name: Beren
Contact: pm this journal
Current Character(s): n/a
Character Info
Character's Name: Wei Wuxian
Character's Canon: Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation
Character's Age: His current body is about 19. His real age is about mid 20’s or so.
Canon Point: After riding out of Mo town (end of chapter 5)
Background/History: Link! Please scroll down to "history."
Strengths:
He is an independent thinker, driven by his own sense of reason. He won't accept ideas simply because they are received wisdom, nor will he reject them just because he’s told that they’re wrong. As a teenager, he hits upon the idea of harnessing and controlling the power of resentful energy, even though this is taboo for righteous cultivators. It’s what enables him to survive and escape from the Burial Mound, and defeat the overwhelmingly powerful Wens. In a world that idealizes tradition, he becomes an inventor, discovering how to reverse-engineer exorcism talismans into ghost-attracting talismans (and in so doing, destroy the Wen sect’s supervisory offices, crippling their power). He refines this discovery into a spirit-attraction flag array, an invention so powerful that it’s still used years later. Another invention, his Stygian Tiger seal overturns the world’s greatest armies. Fierce corpses are understood by all to be mindless, bloodthirsty creatures, but he manages to turn one, Wen Ning, into the mighty “Ghost General,” a corpse with a mind and personality of its own, who tirelessly defends him. It’s because of his independent thinking and resourcefulness that he’s able to rise from a prisoner, stripped of his powers and hopelessly trapped, to become the most powerful man in the cultivational world.
He has a powerful sense of personal morality based on generosity, justice, and mercy. This morality comes from within; things like narrow loyalties or crusty sect rules don’t mean much to him, even when they're literally beaten into him. He stands by his beliefs, no matter the cost. He unreservedly praises and encourages a timid archer from another sect, Wen Ning, both privately and publicly; this despite the fact that their sects are competing with one another, and the Wens have a bad reputation. Later, Wen Ning goes against his own sect and saves the lives of both Wei Wuxian and his adoptive brother, Jiang Cheng. When reborn as Mo XuanYu, his best chance for self-preservation is to separate himself from the cultivational world, but he gives himself away to save the lives of several junior cultivators from the Lan sect; later, this leads Lan Wangji to defend him from attack and imprisonment.
He has a ready wit and a great sense of humor, which is a large part of his charisma. Even as he proves himself to be a knowledgeable and talented cultivator, he never takes himself seriously and prioritizes having fun, even if it means breaking a few rules here and there. He can diffuse tense situations with jokes. He makes friends easily: he’s popular with disciples both from his own and other sects. His playfulness even attracts the attention of Lan Wangji, a cultivator known for his coldness and isolation; he goes on to become Wei Wuxian’s strongest ally, the person without whom he couldn’t have survived for very long, when he’s reborn as Mo XuanYu.
Weaknesses:
His greatest weakness is hubris: he is arrogant and overconfident. Wei Wuxian fancies himself the smartest man in the room. While at the Cloud Recesses, rather than focussing on what he could learn from the Lans (humility and self-restraint), he chafes against their restrictive rules. After demonstrating his superior intellect, he intentionally gets himself kicked out of class. When required to copy out aphorisms on virtue, rather than bothering to absorb any of them, he hatches elaborate plans to tease his classmate. He gets good advice repeatedly about the physical and psychological dangers of cultivating the demon path, but ignores it every time. He’s warned what might happen if he loses control of his corpse army, but brushes it off every time. In the end, directly because he didn’t heed this advice, he hurts or kills the people closest to him and loses his own life.
He is reckless. He often acts impulsively, not considering the consequences of his actions. As a result, the people closest to him suffer. He acts to save two cultivators from other sects from the evil Wens, not only attacking but directly humiliating them. For their lives, he pays a terrible cost: his own YunmengJiang sect is targeted and massacred, including thousands of disciples and his own adoptive parents. Later, he directly confronts and publicly shames the second-most powerful sect, Lanling Jin, thus antagonizing and alienating the leaders of the Jins and other sects, who as a result are all too happy to turn on him later on. To pacify Wen Ning’s grieving sister, Wei Wuxian makes him into a powerful living corpse, with a mind of his own, never considering the danger such a creature might present to others. Sadly, Wen Ning kills the newlywed husband of Wei Wuxian’s beloved adoptive sister Jiang Yanli, setting events in motion for the later deaths of Jiang Yanli and ultimately Wei Wuxian himself.
Finally, for someone so brilliant and well-liked, Wei Wuxian is surprisingly oblivious when it comes to human relations. He doesn’t realize that his bond with his fellow disciple-brother Jiang Cheng is full of fractures: jealousy, blame, and self-interest. He makes enormous sacrifices to help Jiang Cheng, who despite this, leads the siege that ends in Wei Wuxian’s death. Conversely, the person who turns out to be his best ally is Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian is unable to befriend him at first. They both have issues, but Wei Wuxian is the one most at fault. Later, when Lan Wangji sincerely tries to help him, Wei Wuxian treats him like an enemy. Almost everyone who knows them can tell Lan Wangji loves him: everyone but Wei Wuxian, who obliviously hurts him over and over again. Despite his charisma, he’s never able to truly open up to anyone; thus he is progressively more isolated from the world, until he has to stand alone against it.
Powers/Abilities:
- Demonic cultivation: he is a grandmaster of accumulating and controlling the resentful (bad/negative) energy of dead or supernatural beings.
- Summon and control ghosts and corpses with talismans or his flute.
- Can use music to exert psychological changes in people or spirits, such as agitation or calm, depending on the tune.
- Can animate puppets.
- Can communicate with dead souls, including seeing their past lives.
- Can put his soul into a piece of paper and use that for traveling around and spying. Time-limited; even minor damage to the talisman can injure his soul.
- Can make and use talismans. Talismans can draw or repel spirits, shed light, alert to boundary violations, teleportation, etc.
- Can invent and create new talismans and magical items. Note that talismans tend to burn up after one use, and powerful ones (such as teleportation) use a lot of spiritual energy. So while you could make a “torch” talisman, an “ever-burning fire” talisman would require too much energy from the user to be workable. Basically they are neat little hacks but not OP.
- Excellent at martial arts including sword-fighting and hand-to-hand combat.
Other Noteworthy Traits:
Skilled in the “six arts” of ancient China:
- Poetry
- Music (he’s a spectacular flautist)
- Archery
- Calligraphy
- Mathematics
- Equestrianism
Terrible cook.
High tolerance to spicy food and booze.
Pathologically afraid of dogs.
Weapons & Other Special Inventory:
A qiankun bag: basically an item bag with large capacity, i.e. it’s bigger on the inside, and lightweight even filled to capacity. Currently empty, alas.
Color: Blood red, because it’s the color of demonic cultivation.
Sample: Wei Wuxian and his wingman
(I also tagged around elsewhere on the TDM if you need more)
World Aspect:
A zombie apocalypse would be grand. Or just wandering evil spirits full of resentful energy.
Settings might include:
- A mountain full of murdered corpses.
- Karst mountains wreathed in mist with waterfalls and secluded pools.
- An ancient Chinese palace complex set on the shores of a lake full of water lilies.