MAJOR REVAMP: So, I think I've FINALLY made him an outfit I actually consider his "main one." Only issue being he still can't really wear it at work (at least without rolling up the sleeves for the shirt) so I kept his parlor outfit as a separate thing. And the fancy purple get up bc I still love that one.
Anyway, here's his (updated) bio:
Name: Jurou Alistair Blackthorne
Alias: Araknos of this generation. (Araknos is a title passed on to the strongest member(s) of each generation that gives them some special perks, such as access to a special library and ability to communicate with their ancestral spirit, the OG Sorceress Araknos)
Age: considered to be in his late thirties/mid-forties (I.E middle aged) by Soul eater standard. from human viewpoint, he's between 100-150
Height: 195 cm
Occupation: Tattoo artist (Artisan level)/full-time single dad
ABOUT TATTOOISTS: In his world they play a more important societal role than just being specialized artists. ;here are 3 ranks with tattoo artists, known as Artist, Craftsman, and Artisan. ARTIST: The basic level of skill, basically similar work to human world tattooists. Mainly means they do not use any magic in their craft as they aren't certified for it (yet/don't want to/Can't train further for whatever reason) CRAFTSMAN: Advanced level of skill, applies cosmetic magic into the tattoos, such as giving them color shift, glow, and movement. ARTISAN: Highest level of skill needed, includes more serious applications for magic, such as creating protective seals, or aiding medics and doctors with healing spells, exorcisms, etc.
Family: mother Yui (A popular jazz singer) Father Harrow (A fugitive of the law) late sister Meredith, nephew/adoptive son Ichirou, adoptive son Caelan, Biological daughter Hitomi. Distant cousin family the Murasakis. (the exact relations are veeery complicated, so they're just called his aunt/uncle and cousins) Even more distant relative Taiga (A kitsune)
Friends: Closest friend Shura, a special type of magic spirit. Shura's beloved Shika, a chimera. He's also friendly with his staff at the parlor, Claude and Avane.
Love interest: Alois Faydream, a Dream-eater running a cafe next to his tattoo shop. he also had a short relationship with Hitomi's human mother Saeko before this.
Abilities:
Soul Devouring: As a soul eater, he can devour the souls of anything that has one. He also has the rare and forbidden ability of "God Eater" which means he can even devour the soul of a Deity, something they normally can't do. (think beings from ancient Greek/Roman/ Egyptian mythology basically) He's also naturally very resistant to possession as a Soul eater, and can devour any soul trying to do so.
Transformation: being a Spirit type Soul eater allows him to give himself sharp spider like limbs on his back, create massive spider-like monsters from his shadowy demonic aura, use spiders to deliver messages and so on. He even has a demonic form, which has very sharp claws that can even cut through metal
Inhuman body: He is incredibly durable and can basically only be damaged by light magic based weapons and attacks. He's also physically strong, able to tear people to pieces with his bare hands if he wants to.
Soul Link: Like most Soul eaters, he can create mental links with people he trusts, and sense if they are in trouble. Soul eaters do this automatically with family, but outside them Jurou currently only has links with Angus, Shura and Shika.
Summoning Stone: Like most soul eaters, he creates "summoning stones" naturally, that appear in random places in human realm. He has no control over this process, apart from occasionally willing for one to appear in a specific place, such as the stone he gave to Hitomi's mother before they parted ways.
General magic knowledge: He knows some old dark magic spells that allow him to open portals to the human world even from the deepest parts of the Mirror World normally inaccessible from human realm.
Artisan tattooist skills: Jurou has the required knowledge to create complex magic tattoo seals as well as undo them if necessary. (example; create one to ward off possession, remove a curse tattoo, etc)
Araknos title priviledges: As the current holder of the title, Jurou is capable of contacting their ancestral spirits - including the original Araknos sorceress herself - and has access to a special secret library with all the forgotten/obscure knowledge their family had gathered over the centuries. (Jurou isn't actually aware of this until later on in the story)
Weaknesses:
He has gone through a lot off loss in his family; his father suddenly committing a seemingly atrocious crime and being jailed, losing his sister to her sickness, and having to leave Hitomi's mother behind, later finding out she'd died. All these things have left him wary and not liking to open up to new people easily in fear of losing them again. He's also very protective over his family he does have left because of all this, and they could be used as a leverage against him.
Because of people's natural fear towards him, he tends to be easily irritable and blunt towards those who don't know him well, having little patience for nonsense and feeling self-conscious over being perceived as something he doesn't see himself as (evil/dangerous). This makes him difficult to approach for many, which in turn worsens their fear towards him unfortunately.
He tends to be the type to not share his woes openly, often being the person everyone is leaning on for support, so Jurou doesn't feel like he's allowed to show weakness most of the time.
He has somewhat of a turbulent relationship with his father where he's easily irritated by his father's antics and argues with him a lot, something Jurou does wish wasn't a thing. He's still bitter towards Harrow for doing what he did, and not at least telling them the reason.
Personality:
Jurou is mostly very calm and collected person who isn't shaken easily by anything. He has very little patience for pointless chit-chat outside his close ones, and tends to get easily annoyed by someone's incompetence.
Beneath his intimidating facade, he is a very gentle and caring father who wants nothing more but to be a good parent to his kids, and do better than his father ever did. He is more affected by people's fears and suspicion towards him than he likes to admit, having the tendency to get hostile if someone accuses him of something he didn't do, occasionally not helping his case.
When he's with people he trusts, he tends to be relaxed and even teasing, and has always been a good flirt (ask Alois or Hitomi's mother). He's quite a thoughtful person and enjoys deep conversations and pondering abstract concepts.
BG Story
Jurou was the first child born for Yui and her husband; he was given the Japanese name "Jurou" (tenth son) because he was born on the tenth day of the tenth month (October 10:th). For a name from his father, he went with Alistair, meaning "protector of people."
His sister was born couple years later, and they named her Meredith from Harrow's language, whereas her Japanese name ended up being Hanae. (She mainly used Meredith as her name)
Jurou was always close with his mother, whereas Meredith was close with their dad. He rarely had time for them though, due to being very busy with his job most of the time. He still did his best to try and spend time with his children anytime he could, such as teaching Jurou how to play a piano.
His father was a member of the Overshadower Council responsible in handling the matters of dark beings, such as Soul Eaters, but did not really like how things worked, feeling like people were being labeled as "evil" just for being born a certain way by the said council. He rather advocated for returning back to the ways of old where there was no such oversight needed, and each Soul Eater could do as they pleased, good or bad, and get treated/punished accordingly rather than be immediately suspected of being bad just for being born.
He ended up thrown in prison after supposedly murdering some of his fellow council members, having snapped without warning. (it is later revealed that these Council members had found out about Jurou's God Eater ability and were contemplating on confiscating the boy from his parents to monitor him closely, potentially imprisoning him for safety and trying to erase his powers) This had a huge impact on Jurou growing up, as he was now known as the child of a murderer. He'd already been treated with suspicion by his peers due to being a Soul Eater, and this made it worse.
The only things keeping him from going down a dark path at the time were his mother and sister, and his childhood friend Shura, a Vigour Spirit who for some reason chose to be his friend despite their opposing natures (Cue introvert getting adopted by an extrovert).
He and his family did learn the true reason behind Harrow's actions eventually, which did also somewhat help him mellow out towards his parent and see things in a different light, though didn't do much to mellow out his frustrations towards his dad.
Years later, Jurou moves on to live in the "entrance city" of Mirror World, the Chrysalis, the only place that can be accessed directly from Human realm. during this time he ends up going to the human realm on his own volition, eventually meeting a human woman whom he falls in love with briefly, though eventually realizes the relationship was too dangerous for her. He leaves her with a summoning stone though before leaving, stating she could use it anytime she needed help.
Unknowingly to him, she had gotten pregnant, and years later Jurou does get summoned, but not by her, but their daughter, Hitomi. He rescues her from cultists who had found out about her powers, taking her in to the Mirror world to raise her, as she had no other place to go, and needs help learning to control her unique powers.
(Before this event he'd already adopted both his nephew who'd lost his mother to an illness, and a water serpent child Caelan, whose family - sans his cousin - had been killed by a pollution spill caused by humans.)
Fun Facts:
Jurou has been asked to join the Overshadowers council by Alois' brother Lawrence, but he always refuses due to what his father did. He's not aware that Lawrence is still planning on getting him to join, and is observing him to find a moment of weakness he can utilize.
In the same way, Jurou is ALSO not aware that Alois and his niece Ava are both trying to protect him from this.
Jurou has a complicated relationship with his father Harrow, as while he's been absent from his life for the most part, and did cause them lot of trouble with his actions, he can't really hate Harrow for his choice given he'd done the same thing had he been in his dad's shoes. He knows his dad loves him, he's just....really impulsive and stupid sometimes.
The rare times they do interact, Jurou tends to get annoyed at his father, as their tempers somewhat naturally clash and he feels like his father doesn't always think before he acts.
Jurou's more calm, less eccentric nature comes from his mother rather than father.
He tends to show his theater kid tendencies only in the human world, when he's Alistair.
You can tell he doesn't actually mind his father's personality that much, given the two other, highly important people in his life. They somewhat share Harrow's eccentric, impulsive qualities, though to a lesser extent (His bestie Shura, and his love interest Alois)
Jurou is extra protective over Hitomi/any woman in his life, because he's already lost two important ones (his sister and first lover)
He and Caelan sometimes duet to have a small-scale concert for the younger kids, with him playing a piano and Caelan his violin. Sometimes if Yui is visiting, she joins in as a singer.
Harrow in fact was the one who taught Jurou to play piano, one of the few rare bonding things they managed to do between his duties, and later being in prison and a fugitive eventually.
Jurou drinks his coffee black, of course. His favorite tea is black tea too, though he also enjoys an occasional Chai latte
Jurou tends to use Alistair Blackthorne as his name when in human realm. This sometimes confuses people because his Asian heritage from his mother is visible on his features, but then he is able to speak with a perfect English or Scottish accent (His family owns a mansion in Scotland).
Despite having Japanese relatives, they ironically are not related to him through his actual Japanese mother, but his father.
Their home is in the same building as his tattoo parlor; the entire two floors upstairs are his home while the bottom floor is for the parlor.
The old mansion in human world Scotland is where his father currently lives in, and it is staffed by four people; two humans and two nonhumans.
He was always creative and since he is good with spells and part of him wanted a job that'd allow him to connect with people more/a more lowkey work, he ended up as tattooist. (In mirror world, tattoos can have magic effects applied to them, such as glowing, shifting and moving images, color change, etc)
Generally his clients tend to be nice and less afraid of him than most others, not to mention his and his staff's work quality is top notch.
Most of his tattoos were made by his staff in fact.
The spiderweb under his eye is not a tattoo, but a birthmark
He often goes to lunch in Shinjii's cafe next door.
