[OOC] State of the Union and Anything Goes Meme

[devilofajob]

State of the union stuff for Raidou:


IC: Currently re-adjusting to being his proper age again after spending a week and a half as a seven-year-old. Might possibly have developed a slight aversion to camp's cornfields.

Plot: Raidou has been pretty busy over the last few months, between canon-updating to post-Lucifer, the camp anniversary event, and most recently being reverted to childhood. He is still coming to terms with that last in particular; he doesn't like being vulnerable (and he's still smarting over the camp anniversary event somewhat, for much the same reason) and while he's grateful that so many people were willing to look out for him and everything, he's not sure he really wants to talk about it with anyone. Mostly, he's embarrassed about it. There's also the fact that Raidou essentially had to cast off his former identity to become Raidou, and suddenly being reverted to the person he was before was... unsettling. Raidou does not think of himself as Jouhei; that chapter of his life is over with.

Before his de-aging, he'd stepped up his training regimen so he wouldn't be caught again the way he was during the cultists' invasion. He was extremely displeased at his poor showing and can't help but think Gouto would be appalled. To say nothing of the elders/his predecessors. He is still crushing on Narumi (and to a lesser extent Dante) but does his level best to ignore said crushes and mostly wishes they'd just go away.

OOC: Raidou has had problems with OOC-ness and veering into excessive angst (Anon, I am really sorry I never got back to you, but I am very grateful for the concrit). I've been trying to cut back on that, but I'm not sure it's been all that effective, since he tends to veer towards serious business in general. Otherwise, I'm still having a lot of fun playing him; reverting him to Jouhei was a particular highlight. The demons are also a tremendous amount of fun to play, but I still feel like I'm getting away with things I shouldn't by having them in camp.

Drop likelihood: Since he's my only character, that would result in dropping camp, and I'd rather not.

Meanwhile! Raidou hit 15,000 comments sometime last month, so have an Anything Goes meme! Essays, relationships (hypothetical and non-), first impressions, threading suggestions, whatever, demons included. I will try to answer in a more timely fashion this time.

Comments

[purpleprosebud.livejournal.com]

So what does Raidou think of Rika and Cielo? /selfish

On a less selfish and more general note, how exactly does Raidou view demons in comparison to himself? I'm kinda curious.

[devilofajob]

Raidou likes Cielo a lot, but worries about him, especially now that Serph has left camp. He wonders at times how Cielo feels about his being a devil summoner given that Cielo is a demon; it's something that's always in the back of his mind whenever he interacts with any demon, really, but he considers Cielo a friend.

Raidou is more and more suspicious of Rika's cute and innocent act. He is reasonably sure there is more going on with her than she pretends and was not fooled in the slightest when she pretended not to know what the beer she was drinking was. He otherwise gets along with her and enjoys being around her; on some level she reminds him a bit of himself. (Minus the repeated horrible deaths, but then he doesn't know about those.) He appreciated her keeping her cool in Masque's basement.

As far as Raidou's views on demons... He is very aware of the power dynamics inherent in being a summoner. My headcanon is that he occasionally used to play with stray demons in the forest as a very young child - relatively weak ones, like pixies and poltergeists, along with the occasional Jack Frost - and he's more comfortable in general with nonhumans in any case, because he doesn't need to pretend to be someone he isn't, with them. But being a human and (especially) a summoner, he is very aware that there's a divide between them. He needs to be able to command demons in the field, and that requires a certain amount of detachment, since it could conceivably lead to the death of the demon. In practice, he finds this extremely difficult.

The fact that his demons can and will die for him - while he cannot do the same for them - bothers him, as it runs counter to his sense of fairness. He wants to do right by his demons; he makes sure to treat them well and that they know he appreciates what they do for him. At the same time, he knows he can't let them run roughshod and do whatever they want; that way leads to Orochi trying to eat female campers and Raiho... being Raiho, only in ways that wreak even more havoc, and... no. The pacts he forms with them mean they are subservient to him, which he did see early on as more of a fact of life than an ethical issue, but he's more aware of the implications now, especially when talking to other demons in camp. It's a tricky issue for him, and the fact that he needs the demons to help him do his job complicates matters for him somewhat. His entire identity is, after all, bound up in his being Raidou Kuzunoha XIV, Devil Summoner, and without that, he doesn't know who he'd even be.

(A number of his demons think he worries too much about these things, but still.)

He does not like demon fusion. He knows it's necessary - and Gdon's resistance to ice is a result of fusion - but it bothers him tremendously. He doesn't think it can possibly be pleasant for the demons, although they do try to reassure him that it doesn't bother them ("NEXT TIME ME WALK ON TWO LEGS," "Fuse me with a fine young filly," etc.). Also, Victor creeps him out.

On a more minor note, Raidou uses the word "people" to mean pretty much any sort of entity, human and otherwise. He would not mind having another word that didn't imply "humans" in the way "people" can - some demons in particular can get touchy about this, and he suspects many humans miss the nuance - but for now, this is the best he can come up with. For all the power issues inherent in being a demon summoner, he doesn't really see demons as "less."

I don't know; does that make any sense at all?

[moextispicy]

It does actually! \o\ ♥ I've always thought that Raidou was in a fascinating position when it came to demons, and that makes a lot of sense to me and is also awesome.