Tora would favour the drama, versatility, and flair of the violin, as well as the fact that one needn’t strictly sit still to play, nor necessarily play with others. He’d be one of those moody, somewhat violent/erratic players, inclined to pacing around.
Hushen is the one I find most difficult to imagine playing an instrument; not because I doubt his ability to learn one but because I find it easier to imagine him enjoying the consumption of music more than the production. He seems more one to enjoy singing or dancing along than anything. I don’t have an instrument association with him at all.
Heyva is easily the most musical among these four. He’s the type that, given some time to tinker around, both can and most likely will develop at least a passing proficiency with any instrument that falls into his grubby little hands. He’s very much a self-teacher. As of now I associate him the most with the cello.
Talma would find something like a piano the most intuitive to pick up on account of its sequential keys laid out in a row in front of him, but also would find the act of sitting down at one to play to be grounding. Something about the piano would strike him as soothingly orderly.
Two more of the kais whom Shin associated with during his time on Kaishin: Hushen, regarded at times as something of a witch even among his own magically gifted kind; and Heyva, the resident eccentric.
Follow-up to this introductory art post featuring Tora and Talma.
Brows furrowing slightly, like he hadn’t expected to explain the gesture and now finds himself at a loss, he looks down at the vase in his hands, offered slightly forward for Fuji to take. Ceramic, white. Simple. From its mouth juts a vibrant spray of blue larkspur. Beside it -- shorter, yet no less vibrant -- nestles a large, yellow daisy, broad face bobbing on its stem.
The two, together, remind him of them both. To say so, however, in his ungainly tongue--? He wonders, passingly, whether or not she sees the same. Voice pitching softer, more inward-turned--
Tora is very much a dominant personality, but could perhaps be coaxed to submit by the very right and very rare kind of person. He likes to be the more aggressive partner, the pace-setter, and so forth; the one expected to see after the fulfillment of the other’s wants and needs. He also likes the sense of satisfaction which comes from knowing that he’s done a good job in this. He’s not good at allowing anybody to take care of him, or letting himself appear ‘vulnerable’ in front of others, so, while it’s not impossible that he could find himself taking the receptive role to someone from time to time, it’s likely that it would take a very particular kind of person to make him feel willing even to try. The prospect of bottoming, especially in sex, is tricky with him, and not something which would come naturally, easily, or comfortably to him. Essentially, to get him willing to try this, the person would need to be strong enough to take him in a fight, but probably gentle enough to make him feel like it’s safe to not fight this. Treating his submission like a humiliation or a punishment would be a huge no-go.
Hushen tends strongly toward a more submissive and receptive role, but can conceivably take a more forward or dominant role if it’s wished of him. While Hushen is a literal god, and therefore immensely powerful and self-sufficient within the grand scheme of things and in comparison to the “average” being, in matters of love and sex he likes best to feel claimed and protected by his partners. One could say he likes the illusion of feeling small from time to time. He also takes a great deal of pleasure from the act of making his lovers feel good both physically and emotionally. This, on top of loving to feel desired as much as he does, likely makes it only natural that he gravitates toward submitting, finding it immensely rewarding to give himself to his lovers and know that it’s precisely what they want. By the same token, when it comes to partners who are themselves more submissive, he delights too in taking a more aggressive approach, overcoming and taking them in precisely the same considerate, thorough, serving way that he himself enjoys, or simply talking them through the act of taking him, showing them precisely what he likes and how, and heaping them with praise and encouragement.
Heyva is…whatever his partner need him to be within certain parameters, I guess; I don’t even know. He has a more passive personality type in general, but I don’t think, at least at this stage, that calling him a bottom or a sub is correct, for all that calling him a top or a dom isn’t correct either. Mostly I think that if he ever got around to actually having sex in the first place, he’d be inclined deeply and primarily toward learning how to please. Themes of dominance and submission would likely mean little to him, and, if anything – outside of the basic ‘being trusted with the vulnerability of another person’ sentiments – he’d probably find their more extreme forms off-putting. Heyva is not the partner for people who want aggression or force, either in or out of bed. Heyva would probably be very vanilla, taking less delight in the specifics of acts themselves and more instead in the sense of closeness and oneness with another person. He would do best with partners who are emotional and vulnerable in bed, and furthermore who won’t ask him to hurt, humiliate, or mistreat them, even for the sake of consensual play.
Talma would be very much a bottom, and prone in turn to gravitating strongly toward the passive role. This is admittedly due in part to the fact that he was raised on the understanding that romance and sex are things which “good” Kais neither need nor even particularly want, and as a result possesses significant hang-ups surrounding personal relationships and sexuality (even though he also has doubts about those ideals actually being correct or good). Such hang-ups would hamper his ability and willingness to be forward either in terms of his actions or his words. Still, even below those hang-ups, he would generally be drawn to people with more forward personalities and bearings than his own anyway, and would find it most natural to yield to those people. He also would like the sense of allowing (and, more importantly, trusting) someone else to be in control for once. He could take a less passive role, but I don’t think it’d ever come naturally to him to be more aggressive in this, and it’s likely that it’d only come up if it was very specifically asked of him, or if he was in a relationship with somebody who tended deeply in a bottom-y direction as well.
Shin is vastly more of a bottom at heart, but, much like a muscle, his ability to step into a more dominant/forward role could certainly be trained. Like Talma, he would struggle with repression, and a sense that it’s inappropriate of him to act upon particular desires. Passivity; allowing another person to call the shots, initiate, and set the pace would be far easier for him at first than actually attempting to take the reins of the encounter himself, especially if he was with a more experienced or aggressive partner. Furthermore, he would find that he liked the sense of being wanted and overcome. But too, while nerves would certainly be a thing to contend with, Shin would want, both for himself as well as for his lover, ultimately to be competent in this. He would want to be able to please a partner, including being able to make them feel as desired and safe as he himself likes to feel. So, while it might not come wholly naturally to him at first, or at least not readily, he would earnestly want to develop his ability to be more forward and firm-handed with a partner.
How would the Kais react to being told that someone fell in love with them (including Shin)?
There are so many possible answers to such a question, depending upon, for example, the general dynamic of the Kais’ relationships with the person confessing their love, whether or not they were aware beforehand that the person felt that way toward them, whether or not they in fact loved the person back, and so forth. Lots of scenarios could be believable depending upon the factors surrounding the event!
So, let’s assume for the sake of these answers that the confessions are coming from people whom the Kais love in return, and whom they already have some kind of mutually acknowledged entanglement with:
Tora would probably act smugly assured about it in the moment – like ‘oh, yeah?’ – as something of a subtle distancing tactic, to give himself time to think. I don’t think that love would be easy for him; not because he can’t love, but because he doesn’t strictly know how to love, or how to act such an emotion out. I also don’t think that he’d entirely understand how to accept love, and, oddly enough, some very particular emotional walls might go up or thicken further for awhile when he realized that someone was beginning to feel so strongly for him in the first place. It’s not because he thinks of himself as strictly unlovable, but more like he doesn’t expect soft sentiments of that magnitude to be directed at him at all. He expects other things – respect, admiration, competition, desire or lust, frustration, even hate – but love–? Not so much. It’s likely that he wouldn’t return the sentiment right away, but instead would choose his own, later time, after having given it some thought, to say it for himself, not as a response but as its own, independently expressed sentiment. He wouldn’t find it comfortable or freeing to say. In fact, he might very well prefer to not say it, if it can be at all helped; though perhaps in time I’ll be shown wrong on that.
For as much as Hushen would always cherish being told that he was loved, even if it was the 10,000th time, I think that the first time hearing it from his special someone would always hold a particularly dear place in his heart. Hushen loves the sense of being desired and chased, he loves the ‘game’ of flirtation and wooing, but too he loves the sense of being caught and feeling that he has caught someone else in return. A love confession is something special that he would never take lightly. Hearing that for the first time would be a warmly endeared, happy occasion, and he’d be apt to fawn over the person as though they had just given him an especially rare, one of a kind gift. (As far as Hushen is concerned, that’s precisely what it is.) Hushen’s response would leave little question in their mind that, indeed, it’s what he’d wanted to hear, and too that he loves them in return.
Heyva’s most immediate response to a love confession would likely be something akin to a freeze, as if the whole of the moment is a bubble that he fears will pop if he does the slightest thing to disturb it. In a way the response would be rooted in a wish to preserve the moment as it is for as long as he can – (the sense of being, if but for an instant, known, understood, cherished, wanted by, and connected with another) – because in truth he would never expect such a sentiment to be directed his way, much less spoken to him aloud. It’d be little shock then if there was some part of him which couldn’t help but believe that the feeling would be taken away or revoked again just as quickly as it was granted. Privately, in the wake of those words, there might be some sense inside him too that this is a piece of what he’s been missing when it comes to his relationships (or lack thereof) with others. It’d be bittersweet and perhaps even a bit world-shaking to realize that even he could partake in this most good and wondrous of thing, if he wanted; but also that so much of his time has been spent simply assuming the opposite. The words would hurt him in a way that he perhaps needed at the same time that they healed him. As a result, it might not be immediately obvious to the other person whether or not he was happy. Very likely he’d just stare mutely at them, looking like he wants to speak but being unable, hands beginning to flap, frustrated, the longer the moment drags on. He would be happy though, ultimately. Hopefully someone who came to love him the first place would too be patient enough to understand why he needs this moment to himself before he can hope to reply.
It’s likely that Talma’s first response to a confession of love, most particularly if it came from a mortal lover, would be something like anxiety, or even shame. He would be happy; no doubt that he would have wanted desperately to hear those words from his lover. At the same time though, even if he had known up until that point that the person most likely loved him, to at last be faced by the words themselves would force him to acknowledge to himself, with no punches pulled, that he had allowed someone to become close to him in a way that he isn’t yet sure is meant for his kind to experience. The “selfish” side of him would be more happy than he knew how to express at the sense of feeling loved and cherished by another person; but the perfectionist side of him, who wants to be a “good” Kai, utterly above reproach, would be torn, knowing that he was flying in the face of (what he’d been taught was) propriety by allowing himself to indulge in such a ‘distraction’. On one hand he’d feel dirty and presumptuous, like he was willingly turning his back on his ability to be an absolutely flawless Kai; but on the other hand he’d feel guilty for feeling that way in the first place. Overall he’d be very confused and anxious, wanting to be loved and knowing that he wants to continue forward with the relationship, but too feeling like he must surely be sacrificing some of his commitment to duty and selflessness if he’s willing to go down this path. It’d take a patient and empathetic lover to help untangle this knot.
Shin’s initial response to a love confession would be the most similar to Talma’s, albeit not so severe. It’s likely that he would have grappled with the worst of his fears about allowing himself to partake in such a relationship when the prospect of entering one in the first place was initially dumped into his lap; or rather when he was no longer able to ignore or dance around the draw which clearly existed between him and the other person. He would have seen that point – the point where they had to decide between themselves, ‘what are we? what do we want to be with each other?’ – as a crossroads, at which he had to determine exactly what he was willing to allow himself in the way of romance and all its trappings. Getting Shin to a point of being willing to attempt navigating a romantic and/or physical dynamic at all would probably be the hardest part of the battle. Once he decided though that, yes, he was willing to try it, and had acknowledged as much to himself that and to the other person (even if indeed he still had some anxieties about whether or not it was truly something he could allow himself to explore while still aspiring to be a good and proper Kai), he would commit to that attempt very earnestly, in spite of his nerves, inexperience, and uncertainty. Being faced with these words for the first time would almost certainly bring up those anxieties in him again, but too he’d know that he already committed to this. He’d already decided to try. So, the words might make him nervous or ungainly, but too they’d make him happy, even a bit giddy in some strange, hard-to-define way.
((I’m not sure how often, if at all, this will have occasion to be brought up around here, so, simply as a point of interest--
Heyva possesses a particular technique -- though Hushen is the one to work later upon refining it -- in which he (quite literally) stops a person’s breath, essentially taking their air hostage and ‘locking’ it in their lungs, preventing them from inhaling or exhaling. The gist of the technique is basically just matter control like what we all are accustomed to with kais, and utilizing that skill in an unorthodox way.
The catch to this technique is that, while kais are generally able to hone and exert their control over matter which is “““neutral”““ -- that is to say, basically unliving/non-cognizant matter -- it’s extremely difficult, though not necessarily outright impossible, to harness matter when it comes in the form of a conscious, living being, pretty much precisely because the kais don’t tend to perceive those beings as “just matter”, regardless of how remote they are. Basically, a kai needs to know, in a bone-deep way, that the matter they’re controlling is indeed theirs to control. If they don’t, then it’s as good as sand in a sieve. In order to control someone’s actual body, therefore, a kai would have to basically sever their awareness of that person as a living, cognizant being and perceive them solely as “material” to be bent to their own will. This is why Heyva’s technique typically relies upon controlling the air being breathed rather than the person’s lungs: it’s easier for him to conceptualize that air as a separate and unliving entity (therefore exploitable) than it would be to conceptualize the lungs themselves in that way.
Even Heyva’s ‘work-around’ technique of controlling airflow rather than a body part itself is limited precisely because it’s a struggle -- even for him -- to maintain the “distance” necessary. Because a kai’s matter control technique can be interrupted the instant they psych themselves out with any kind of ‘oh fuck that’s a person’ sentiments, even techniques adjacent to it -- such as this one -- can be unreliable and ‘wobbly’ at best in the hands of an empathetic wielder.))
Are any of these four handsome fellas hampered by the same Issues that Shin is ex. that sex and personal pleasure or relationships are superfluous and something not essential to the existence and respectable life of a Kaioshin?
((Tora and Hushen, quite demonstrably, are not hampered by those issues. For the sake of comparing and contrasting the two against each other, Tora is more motivated by sex and the enjoyment of erotic tension/conflict (he is not incapable of love, but falls very rarely, and in truth has never experienced it), while Hushen – as much as he loves sex – is motivated by the sense of being chased, desired, and ‘caught’. Neither is of the belief that sex and/or erotic/emotional personal relationships are inappropriate for gods to pursue, although the caveat here is that they both operate on the belief that a god’s foremost priority should be the seeing through of their duties, studies, and so forth. They both are, of course, aware of the social ideals surrounding their kind – that they are to remain unattached, impartial, objective, etc. – and as a result will not flaunt their dalliances openly (although their inner circle of friends and associates may know of them). This is not on account of fearing punishment, but rather on account of knowing that it’s more socially advantageous in the long run to keep such cards close to their chests, so to speak. That said, Tora and Hushen are confident in their approaches to these things, and feel no guilt or sense of being pulled in two warring directions when it comes to pursuing their particular desires as it suits them.
Heyva doesn’t struggle with such beliefs either. However, the key difference between him and Tora&Hushen in this is the fact that Heyva is a virgin in quite nearly every sense of the word, and has never experienced this issue in a truly personal way. To him, it’s all immensely abstract, and is more a matter of his thinking that the best one can do in this world is simply live as one sees fit, whatever the hell that means. Furthermore, while Heyva doesn’t strictly reject the prospect of such things having some kind of place in his life, he tends to live a very physically and even emotionally disconnected life, so in a way it hasn’t entirely occurred to him yet that such things are equally as available to him as they are to other people. At this point in time, he has never been asked for love or sex, nor has he ever felt particularly compelled to offer or give those things himself. One could perhaps say that it’s not that he’s abstaining – (which would imply that he was consciously avoiding these experiences or withholding himself from them) – but rather that he is still “innocent”, to the effect that it simply doesn’t occur to him to seek or consciously desire such things. He’s the type that, if he found himself spending more and more time with a specific person, enjoying that time, etc., and then eventually was asked by that person, “What is this? What are we?” he legitimately wouldn’t know what answer to give them, because such questions would imply that things weren’t as they appeared. Without being very specifically prompted – like literally ‘hey, I want you to be my boyfriend; will you?’ – Heyva wouldn’t know what to make of that. Basically, love and sex are a door in life which Heyva recognizes as a door, but which he has had no particular reason to walk through yet. The possibility is simply, dimly, un-pressingly There, in some vague hypothetical way.
Talma was the most similar to Shin in temperament and belief, and would indeed have struggled with the notion that sex and romantic love are things which are regarded as impure and unnecessary distractions among the kais, yet too are, as far as he could tell, natural impulses which shouldn’t be considered inherently wrong as long as they aren’t detracting from one’s ability to lead a responsible and effective life. On one hand, he would have wanted to be precisely the kind of ‘good’ kai that he was raised to be, and do the most proper job of it that he could. On the other hand, he was an inquisitive, thoughtful sort with a strong mind for justice, for the recognition and purging of hypocrisy, etc., so of course he would have noticed the inconsistencies and weak places in the social code he was raised and taught beneath. He would have noticed, and he would have questioned. He would have been torn by the thought that perhaps the ‘code’ that he knew wasn’t objective; that perhaps it was biased, and that perhaps he could accept or reject certain parts of it as he saw fit, if he didn’t fully agree. Without fail, he would have been torn between what he thought and what he had been taught. There would have been discomfort and shame associated too with the fact that he found himself questioning these things in the first place.))
