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Entry tags:
[Changed - Application]
PLAYER INFO
Name: Nai
Preferred pronoun: She/her/ladywords
Preferred means of contact: by preference: Plurk@starcrossedsky, skype@starcrossedsky, AIM@starcrossedskyy
Any other characters currently in-game? Nooope
CHARACTER INFO
Name: Asch the Bloody (previously Luke fon Fabre. Shenanigans occurred.)
Gender: Male
Age: 17, nearly 18 (note: Auldrant years are 756 days; however, they age are the same per-year rate earthlings do, so a 17-year-old from Auldrant and a 17-year-old from Earth look basically the same, despite the one from Auldrant having actually lived more than twice as long. In 365-day-years, Asch is 39.)
Source: Tales of the Abyss (Game canon, with some additions from anime adaptation and manga spinoffs)
Canon Point: Between the second and third swords that ran him through (leading to his death). (Sucks to be that Fetch.)
CANON
History: Wiki!
(Note: While it’s not explored in canon very much at all, it’s a generally accepted headcanon in the fandom that Asch’s position in Special Operations put him in charge of assassinations and the like for the Order. I go with this because, strategically, it’s a good position for Van to put him in for several reasons. First, it would keep Asch isolated and prevent him from forming an attachment to anyone other than Van; second, it would largely keep him off the battlefield and out of the direct line of fire; and third, it would have increased the amount Asch hated the Order and the Score, which made him more amenable to Van’s plan to overturn it.)
Personality: Kidnapped at a young age, Asch has spent almost his entire life relying on and dedicated to a single person. Van Grants manipulated Asch with exactly that goal in mind - to gain the unquestioning loyalty of the boy born with the power of Lorelei. And it was terribly effective, up until the point that Asch discovered the nature of Van's plans and betrayed his master.
Having now distanced himself from Van, Asch has adopted a mindset of total isolation. He is distant at best, hot-tempered at worst; indeed, anger seems to be the only emotion Asch can express normally. Asch hates to dwell on his feelings; if there is anything at all he can occupy himself with instead, that’s what he’s going to do. After he decides to betray Van, Asch is constantly in motion to put a stop to those plans, and denies (loudly) that he had ever put his trust in Van at all.
However, he does display his emotions in other ways. Although he claims otherwise, Asch still has a few people from his previous life that he cares for, primarily his mother and his childhood friends, Guy and Natalia. He gives Natalia support several times throughout the game, and seems hurt when Guy chooses the replica Luke over him. Perhaps most tellingly, the only time in the game that Asch really stops pursuing a way to stop Van is when his mother falls ill; when the party goes to fetch ingredients for her medicine, Asch is already on the scene, in spite of not having had contact with his parents for seven years. In spite of everything, there is a certain amount of the Luke who loved his people that Asch cannot throw away, and he seems to take to heart the promise he and Natalia once made to support their people, even if it can’t ever be fulfilled.
His view towards relationships with other people seems to be "there's not point in growing close to people who will just replace me when I leave." Asch sees himself as expendable to everyone; while once it was "to everyone but Van," Van extended his offer of alliance towards Luke when Asch refused. That Luke refused as well has no bearing on Asch's feelings of rejection, which he has already smothered in the pessimistic view that everyone will choose the replica over him in the end. It’s possible to get close enough to Asch to earn some measure of trust, but difficult and time-consuming. In a way it’s a self-fulfilling cycle - Asch is a jerk to people around him so they leave him alone, but his attitude drives off a lot of people who might be his friends in other circumstances.
In spite of this, Asch has a great will to live, and his apparent impending death due to fonon separation is one of the few inward troubles that he expresses outwardly. Although he behaves as though he has no regard for his own life, this is simply because he has an impending doom hanging over him. In Asch's view, it's better to die making a difference for the world than to simply waste away doing nothing, so he puts his life at risk constantly and never allows himself to stop moving. His time working under Van left Asch with a need to be useful, somehow, to someone, which he isn’t fully aware of at the conscious level. When he’s not in motion, he grows agitated and, in some ways, depressed; without a purpose to dedicate himself to, Asch isn’t quite sure what to do with himself.
His time in the Oracle Knights left him with other, somewhat-abnormal traits as well. When his temper isn’t getting the better of him, Asch is deathly practical and constantly assessing the situation; specifically, he’s always looking for advantage as though on a mission, looking at everything from the standpoint of small-scale military strategy. Although at one time he had strong morals, for Asch they’re just another thing that he’s had to leave behind; he’d prefer not to violate them, but when push comes to shove he’ll violate them without too much regret.
His emotions towards Luke are almost entirely contradictory. On the one hand, he despises Luke, both for replacing him, and because of Luke himself, who goes from one extreme Asch despises (a snotty noble brat) to the other (a boy bent up over an inferiority complex that is, in large part, Asch's fault in the first place). Asch insults Luke constantly, seeing Luke as only a worthless replica; but then he grows angry when Luke insults himself, because nothing that took Asch's place should consider itself worthless, since that makes everything Asch lost worthless by extension. At the same time, Asch is always keeping an eye out for Luke, one way or another; he's the only one who was willing to tell Luke the truth after Akzeriuth, and was the one who took up responsibility for finding the Jewel of Lorelei after Luke failed to manifest it. He even states, after Akzeriuth, that he had intended to try and work with Luke to stop Van; however, up to that point, their interaction had been nothing but antagonism from Asch's side. Asch himself sees nothing contradictory in these attitudes, probably because he has never really taken the time to examine them thoroughly. Although at this canon point, Asch has recognized Luke as a separate person and as worthy to finish off Van, the rest of the impact the duel had on their relationship is never explored (because Asch dies within the next two hours of gameplay).
INTO THE HEDGE
Seeming: Possession
Role: Record player, with a recording function and a fancy stand
Abilities: Primarily, his purpose is to play music, and that’s what he does - there’s no need for speakers or anything else to transmit the records into sound. The records themselves have no labels, and play songs seemingly at random, usually but not always instrumentals. He also has the ability to record new records of anything he’s hearing at the time - this ability causes the needle of his physical form to glow with a golden light (which, to anyone with memories of the thing, is fairly obviously a hyperresonance corrupted by fae magic).
Additionally, perhaps as a side effect of being tied to a soul deeply associated with the Seventh Fonon and the Score, the music played is all too often eerily fitting for the situation, and sometimes can even give a clue or two as to the future (although never more than a moment or two in advance). Think of it like the haunted shuffle effect, but turned up to the degree you’d expect of fae magic.
(Note that pretty much all of his canon special abilities have been sealed. The exception is the corrupted hyperresonance - in its original form, hyperresonance is the act of vibrating Seventh Fonons together in such a way that they tear apart matter on an atomic level. As it is now, though, it’s just useful for recording things.)
Description: Physical form: An ornate record player on a wooden stand. The stand is pale wood, with a cupboard underneath full of records (all unlabeled and in no apparent order), with red and gold metal inlays similar to the designs on Asch’s Oracle Knights uniform. The record player itself is in darker colors, but with similar trappings and details.
Spirit form: From a distance, his spirit form is one of those that greatly resembles his human self - but get closer and you’ll notice all the little details that are off. His long hair, while still as deep a red as ever, is now form of a multitude of tiny wires and cables - violin strings, and the like. His skin is the pale wood of the player’s stand (complete with the detailing, long marks down his arms and legs), in both appearance and texture, although it strangely still has the softness of flesh if pressed or cut. Look even more closely, and you might notice that the irises of his eyes - still green - rotate slowly along with the record.
Changing the record being played will often cause Asch to lose his train of thought, as though the entire line of thinking was simply picked up and replaced with something else. When there is no record playing, he is completely mute - even banging on things won’t generate a sound.
Reasoning: Long, convoluted, and canon-specific, please bear with me.
In Tales of the Abyss, the root of the “magic” of the world is particles called fonons. The Seventh Fonon, responsible for basically the entire plot, is described as the fonon of sound, although it could also be considered a fonon of memory. Almost all technology on Auldrant uses the Seventh Fonon, and is thus technically based on sounds and music. Every object and person has a “fonon frequency” that, in some magical way, defines what they actually are by the way their fonons vibrate together.
Somewhat more significantly, the Seventh Fonon allows the reading of the Score, which is described as “the planet’s memory,” and is basically a record of all things that are supposed to happen on Auldrant (making these things NOT happen is the major driving force of the plot). The Score is “read” by Seventh Fonists (people born with the ability to use the Seventh Fonon, which not everyone can) and reading it produces fonstones (which contain records of the Score as it was read and thus can be used to read it over and over, even after the original reader’s death).
Within this cosmology we have Asch, born as “Luke,” who was specifically named by the Score as possessing the “power of Lorelei” - Lorelei being the entity that is essentially the source of Seventh Fonons in the world. Asch has the same fonon frequency as Lorelei, and thus it can be said that he is the Seventh Fonon, on a certain esoteric theoretical level. From that perspective, his soul basically is memory/sound, and might as well be put to good use in those arenas.
The reason he’s as much a record writer as a record player is because of that goal of overturning the Score - specifically, Asch (the original Luke) ought to have died at a specific place and time, and him not dying drove the Score off the rails. Since that time, he’s been “writing” his own fate, no longer just a passive player driven by the prophecy of his birth.
God I hope that makes sense.
MEMORIES
First Memory: The scene where, from the perspective of Luke/the player, Asch’s face is seen for the first time - Asch is turned away from the camera, Luke charges down the hill yelling, they clash swords, Luke sees identical faces and freaks out, Sync yells for Asch’s attention and they make a getaway after Asch takes potshots at Luke a bit.
Another Five: The Seventh Fonon/Hyperresonance - both as a concept and “hey this is a thing you could do.” Lorelei, fomicry, and the Score are separate but related concepts.
His mother - Susanne fon Fabre, chronically ill half sister to the king. Asch loves her. A lot. His sidequest title may as well be “Momma’s boy.” He’s seen her once in the last seven years. Oops.
Van - Van Grants (properly, Vandesdelca Musto Fende), formerly a knight of Hod and now the Commandant of the Oracle Knights. Asch’s mentor/kidnapper/commanding-officer/not-father ... It’s complicated.
The events of his kidnapping/replication - Take one redhead. Strap to a machine. Add excruciating amounts of pain and trauma. Suddenly, two redheads!
Luke’s party as a group - that’s one annoying replica, one replica boypope, one household servant, one Van’s sister, one princess, one colonel obnoxious, and boypope’s guardian. They worked towards the same goals, but Asch never travelled with them for longer than a dungeon or two.
SAMPLES
Log sample from Exsilium (it’s very long sorry).
And a prose sample -
Someone was careless. It wasn’t him, because his other body was in another room when it happened, and it wasn’t like he would ever be that kind of an idiot anyway. It’s more than just a short disruption of thought - everything stops, and everything is silent when he manages to get his thoughts together again.
Someone, or something, had knocked him over. And it hurt, even though wood and metal shouldn’t be able to feel it, and so he’s limping angrily through the hallways, mouth moving in curses that don’t have any sound to them. No click when he opens the door - which, thankfully, doesn’t take him instead to some closet where he’ll never be heard from again.
The room is pleasant enough, a couch, a few bookshelves. At least, that’s how it is normally - right now it’s a mess, one of the bookshelves knocked over as well as his stand, records and pages strewn across the floor. No telling what kind of wild disaster had come through (maybe someone let one of the pets into the house as a joke), except that they hadn’t cleaned up after themselves. Bastards.
It takes some muscle to tilt the heavy stand back up, but it’s manageable (lucky that whoever he used to be was some kind of warrior). He can breathe a little easier once it’s back in place, easier still when he drops the needle onto a new record - the music that fills the room is a relatively soothing sound, but it doesn’t dispel his annoyance much as he gathers up records and orders them into the cupboard under the stand.
He doesn’t bother much with putting the bookshelf back in order, just picking up a few books that might get tripped over and setting them on an endtable. When everything is finally ordered enough for his tastes, he stalks into the hallway, voice raised well above the calmer music -
“Okay, which of you idiots thought running wild through here was a good idea?”
Name: Nai
Preferred pronoun: She/her/ladywords
Preferred means of contact: by preference: Plurk@starcrossedsky, skype@starcrossedsky, AIM@starcrossedskyy
Any other characters currently in-game? Nooope
CHARACTER INFO
Name: Asch the Bloody (previously Luke fon Fabre. Shenanigans occurred.)
Gender: Male
Age: 17, nearly 18 (note: Auldrant years are 756 days; however, they age are the same per-year rate earthlings do, so a 17-year-old from Auldrant and a 17-year-old from Earth look basically the same, despite the one from Auldrant having actually lived more than twice as long. In 365-day-years, Asch is 39.)
Source: Tales of the Abyss (Game canon, with some additions from anime adaptation and manga spinoffs)
Canon Point: Between the second and third swords that ran him through (leading to his death). (Sucks to be that Fetch.)
CANON
History: Wiki!
(Note: While it’s not explored in canon very much at all, it’s a generally accepted headcanon in the fandom that Asch’s position in Special Operations put him in charge of assassinations and the like for the Order. I go with this because, strategically, it’s a good position for Van to put him in for several reasons. First, it would keep Asch isolated and prevent him from forming an attachment to anyone other than Van; second, it would largely keep him off the battlefield and out of the direct line of fire; and third, it would have increased the amount Asch hated the Order and the Score, which made him more amenable to Van’s plan to overturn it.)
Personality: Kidnapped at a young age, Asch has spent almost his entire life relying on and dedicated to a single person. Van Grants manipulated Asch with exactly that goal in mind - to gain the unquestioning loyalty of the boy born with the power of Lorelei. And it was terribly effective, up until the point that Asch discovered the nature of Van's plans and betrayed his master.
Having now distanced himself from Van, Asch has adopted a mindset of total isolation. He is distant at best, hot-tempered at worst; indeed, anger seems to be the only emotion Asch can express normally. Asch hates to dwell on his feelings; if there is anything at all he can occupy himself with instead, that’s what he’s going to do. After he decides to betray Van, Asch is constantly in motion to put a stop to those plans, and denies (loudly) that he had ever put his trust in Van at all.
However, he does display his emotions in other ways. Although he claims otherwise, Asch still has a few people from his previous life that he cares for, primarily his mother and his childhood friends, Guy and Natalia. He gives Natalia support several times throughout the game, and seems hurt when Guy chooses the replica Luke over him. Perhaps most tellingly, the only time in the game that Asch really stops pursuing a way to stop Van is when his mother falls ill; when the party goes to fetch ingredients for her medicine, Asch is already on the scene, in spite of not having had contact with his parents for seven years. In spite of everything, there is a certain amount of the Luke who loved his people that Asch cannot throw away, and he seems to take to heart the promise he and Natalia once made to support their people, even if it can’t ever be fulfilled.
His view towards relationships with other people seems to be "there's not point in growing close to people who will just replace me when I leave." Asch sees himself as expendable to everyone; while once it was "to everyone but Van," Van extended his offer of alliance towards Luke when Asch refused. That Luke refused as well has no bearing on Asch's feelings of rejection, which he has already smothered in the pessimistic view that everyone will choose the replica over him in the end. It’s possible to get close enough to Asch to earn some measure of trust, but difficult and time-consuming. In a way it’s a self-fulfilling cycle - Asch is a jerk to people around him so they leave him alone, but his attitude drives off a lot of people who might be his friends in other circumstances.
In spite of this, Asch has a great will to live, and his apparent impending death due to fonon separation is one of the few inward troubles that he expresses outwardly. Although he behaves as though he has no regard for his own life, this is simply because he has an impending doom hanging over him. In Asch's view, it's better to die making a difference for the world than to simply waste away doing nothing, so he puts his life at risk constantly and never allows himself to stop moving. His time working under Van left Asch with a need to be useful, somehow, to someone, which he isn’t fully aware of at the conscious level. When he’s not in motion, he grows agitated and, in some ways, depressed; without a purpose to dedicate himself to, Asch isn’t quite sure what to do with himself.
His time in the Oracle Knights left him with other, somewhat-abnormal traits as well. When his temper isn’t getting the better of him, Asch is deathly practical and constantly assessing the situation; specifically, he’s always looking for advantage as though on a mission, looking at everything from the standpoint of small-scale military strategy. Although at one time he had strong morals, for Asch they’re just another thing that he’s had to leave behind; he’d prefer not to violate them, but when push comes to shove he’ll violate them without too much regret.
His emotions towards Luke are almost entirely contradictory. On the one hand, he despises Luke, both for replacing him, and because of Luke himself, who goes from one extreme Asch despises (a snotty noble brat) to the other (a boy bent up over an inferiority complex that is, in large part, Asch's fault in the first place). Asch insults Luke constantly, seeing Luke as only a worthless replica; but then he grows angry when Luke insults himself, because nothing that took Asch's place should consider itself worthless, since that makes everything Asch lost worthless by extension. At the same time, Asch is always keeping an eye out for Luke, one way or another; he's the only one who was willing to tell Luke the truth after Akzeriuth, and was the one who took up responsibility for finding the Jewel of Lorelei after Luke failed to manifest it. He even states, after Akzeriuth, that he had intended to try and work with Luke to stop Van; however, up to that point, their interaction had been nothing but antagonism from Asch's side. Asch himself sees nothing contradictory in these attitudes, probably because he has never really taken the time to examine them thoroughly. Although at this canon point, Asch has recognized Luke as a separate person and as worthy to finish off Van, the rest of the impact the duel had on their relationship is never explored (because Asch dies within the next two hours of gameplay).
INTO THE HEDGE
Seeming: Possession
Role: Record player, with a recording function and a fancy stand
Abilities: Primarily, his purpose is to play music, and that’s what he does - there’s no need for speakers or anything else to transmit the records into sound. The records themselves have no labels, and play songs seemingly at random, usually but not always instrumentals. He also has the ability to record new records of anything he’s hearing at the time - this ability causes the needle of his physical form to glow with a golden light (which, to anyone with memories of the thing, is fairly obviously a hyperresonance corrupted by fae magic).
Additionally, perhaps as a side effect of being tied to a soul deeply associated with the Seventh Fonon and the Score, the music played is all too often eerily fitting for the situation, and sometimes can even give a clue or two as to the future (although never more than a moment or two in advance). Think of it like the haunted shuffle effect, but turned up to the degree you’d expect of fae magic.
(Note that pretty much all of his canon special abilities have been sealed. The exception is the corrupted hyperresonance - in its original form, hyperresonance is the act of vibrating Seventh Fonons together in such a way that they tear apart matter on an atomic level. As it is now, though, it’s just useful for recording things.)
Description: Physical form: An ornate record player on a wooden stand. The stand is pale wood, with a cupboard underneath full of records (all unlabeled and in no apparent order), with red and gold metal inlays similar to the designs on Asch’s Oracle Knights uniform. The record player itself is in darker colors, but with similar trappings and details.
Spirit form: From a distance, his spirit form is one of those that greatly resembles his human self - but get closer and you’ll notice all the little details that are off. His long hair, while still as deep a red as ever, is now form of a multitude of tiny wires and cables - violin strings, and the like. His skin is the pale wood of the player’s stand (complete with the detailing, long marks down his arms and legs), in both appearance and texture, although it strangely still has the softness of flesh if pressed or cut. Look even more closely, and you might notice that the irises of his eyes - still green - rotate slowly along with the record.
Changing the record being played will often cause Asch to lose his train of thought, as though the entire line of thinking was simply picked up and replaced with something else. When there is no record playing, he is completely mute - even banging on things won’t generate a sound.
Reasoning: Long, convoluted, and canon-specific, please bear with me.
In Tales of the Abyss, the root of the “magic” of the world is particles called fonons. The Seventh Fonon, responsible for basically the entire plot, is described as the fonon of sound, although it could also be considered a fonon of memory. Almost all technology on Auldrant uses the Seventh Fonon, and is thus technically based on sounds and music. Every object and person has a “fonon frequency” that, in some magical way, defines what they actually are by the way their fonons vibrate together.
Somewhat more significantly, the Seventh Fonon allows the reading of the Score, which is described as “the planet’s memory,” and is basically a record of all things that are supposed to happen on Auldrant (making these things NOT happen is the major driving force of the plot). The Score is “read” by Seventh Fonists (people born with the ability to use the Seventh Fonon, which not everyone can) and reading it produces fonstones (which contain records of the Score as it was read and thus can be used to read it over and over, even after the original reader’s death).
Within this cosmology we have Asch, born as “Luke,” who was specifically named by the Score as possessing the “power of Lorelei” - Lorelei being the entity that is essentially the source of Seventh Fonons in the world. Asch has the same fonon frequency as Lorelei, and thus it can be said that he is the Seventh Fonon, on a certain esoteric theoretical level. From that perspective, his soul basically is memory/sound, and might as well be put to good use in those arenas.
The reason he’s as much a record writer as a record player is because of that goal of overturning the Score - specifically, Asch (the original Luke) ought to have died at a specific place and time, and him not dying drove the Score off the rails. Since that time, he’s been “writing” his own fate, no longer just a passive player driven by the prophecy of his birth.
God I hope that makes sense.
MEMORIES
First Memory: The scene where, from the perspective of Luke/the player, Asch’s face is seen for the first time - Asch is turned away from the camera, Luke charges down the hill yelling, they clash swords, Luke sees identical faces and freaks out, Sync yells for Asch’s attention and they make a getaway after Asch takes potshots at Luke a bit.
Another Five: The Seventh Fonon/Hyperresonance - both as a concept and “hey this is a thing you could do.” Lorelei, fomicry, and the Score are separate but related concepts.
His mother - Susanne fon Fabre, chronically ill half sister to the king. Asch loves her. A lot. His sidequest title may as well be “Momma’s boy.” He’s seen her once in the last seven years. Oops.
Van - Van Grants (properly, Vandesdelca Musto Fende), formerly a knight of Hod and now the Commandant of the Oracle Knights. Asch’s mentor/kidnapper/commanding-officer/not-father ... It’s complicated.
The events of his kidnapping/replication - Take one redhead. Strap to a machine. Add excruciating amounts of pain and trauma. Suddenly, two redheads!
Luke’s party as a group - that’s one annoying replica, one replica boypope, one household servant, one Van’s sister, one princess, one colonel obnoxious, and boypope’s guardian. They worked towards the same goals, but Asch never travelled with them for longer than a dungeon or two.
SAMPLES
Log sample from Exsilium (it’s very long sorry).
And a prose sample -
Someone was careless. It wasn’t him, because his other body was in another room when it happened, and it wasn’t like he would ever be that kind of an idiot anyway. It’s more than just a short disruption of thought - everything stops, and everything is silent when he manages to get his thoughts together again.
Someone, or something, had knocked him over. And it hurt, even though wood and metal shouldn’t be able to feel it, and so he’s limping angrily through the hallways, mouth moving in curses that don’t have any sound to them. No click when he opens the door - which, thankfully, doesn’t take him instead to some closet where he’ll never be heard from again.
The room is pleasant enough, a couch, a few bookshelves. At least, that’s how it is normally - right now it’s a mess, one of the bookshelves knocked over as well as his stand, records and pages strewn across the floor. No telling what kind of wild disaster had come through (maybe someone let one of the pets into the house as a joke), except that they hadn’t cleaned up after themselves. Bastards.
It takes some muscle to tilt the heavy stand back up, but it’s manageable (lucky that whoever he used to be was some kind of warrior). He can breathe a little easier once it’s back in place, easier still when he drops the needle onto a new record - the music that fills the room is a relatively soothing sound, but it doesn’t dispel his annoyance much as he gathers up records and orders them into the cupboard under the stand.
He doesn’t bother much with putting the bookshelf back in order, just picking up a few books that might get tripped over and setting them on an endtable. When everything is finally ordered enough for his tastes, he stalks into the hallway, voice raised well above the calmer music -
“Okay, which of you idiots thought running wild through here was a good idea?”