App

[readingcomprehension]

( CHARACTER INFORMATION )

Name/Work Name: Kosuzu Motoori / Isabel
Canon: Touhou Project (specifically the manga Touhou Suzunaan ~ Forbidden Scrollery)
Canon Point: As of the most recently translated chapter, 38. (But it's pretty episodic so it doesn't matter a great deal.)
AU/CRAU: N
Age: Teenaged??
History: Wiki link! The information there is good but it's a little scattered, so for the heck of it, let me also give a very brief outline of the basic idea:

Gensoukyou is something like a wildlife sanctuary for beings of myth and legend, magically sealed off from the rest of the world. Human civilization therein is more or less limited to a singular village (so singular that it's just called the Human Village). While most of the series centers on the exploits of remarkable human heroes with superpowers, the villagers are, for the most part, ordinary, helpless folk who just want to grow some rice and not get eaten by youkai. So that's where Kosuzu comes in, as a normal human villager... mostly normal... normal-ish.

There's not much to be said about her early life; it seems to have been relatively uneventful. Her family runs a book renter which also does some printing and bookbinding, etc (the village being small and isolated, there's not a huge market for books, thus the renting). Kosuzu has certainly spent her whole life helping out there, and by the time Forbidden Scrollery starts, she seems to be doing most of the work operating the storefront.

Shortly before the start of her series, Kosuzu developed the magical ability to read any text regardless of language. This either sparked or greatly enhanced her deep interest in any and all magical writings. (The specific term used is mainly translated as "youma books", although it's not only applied to actual books.) Just about anything written by a youkai qualifies, and in practice, most such texts don't have any unusual properties. However, many feature dangers such as youkai being actually sealed inside. For starters. So the series proceeds in largely episodic stories about the antics Kosuzu gets into as she pursues her hobby, while also touching on some exploration of the tension between humans and youkai.

Personality:
Kosuzu is a bright, cheerful girl with loads of passion for her own interests. Everything else... she takes a lot less seriously than she should. Her manga is basically Kosuzu's Adventures In No Sense Of Self-Preservation Land.

Her passion, as mentioned above, is youma books. Actually it's an obsession. Kosuzu's a bibliophile to the core and will pretty much read anything -- maybe that's a result of being raised in a bookstore! With her power to read any writing, though, she's the only human who can read a lot of weird mystical texts, sometimes the only person at all. She's clearly fascinated with this, intoxicated even. So when it comes to securing new youma books, all other concerns basically go flying out the window. This is a problem because her hobby, and her existing stockpile of friggin' magic books, is guaranteed to attract trouble. Warn Kosuzu that she may be putting herself in danger, or that she may even be headed away from humanity, and she'll brush it off cheerfully, like she couldn't care less.

Which is odd, because if you instead asked her straight out, she'd absolutely claim to be scared of youkai. She is, after all, a young girl with no fighting ability, and like every human villager, she's been raised with the knowledge that youkai are dangerous. And Kosuzu is by no means immune to being scared! A creepy atmosphere will get to her. Being directly menaced certainly scares the crap out of her as it should. Under the right circumstances, she can be an extremely ordinary girl: she gets the willies about snakes, she takes her work running the store seriously, she snarks with her BFF and fangirls over a cool mysterious stranger. She pokes her nose into new things, gossips and tries her hand at fortune-telling. And that stuff is FUN, while the idea that she should fear it is most of the time a distant abstract, far from her cute little mind.

(She also likes reading material from the world outside Gensoukyou, again seemingly just because she can read them, but she never has the context to actually understand things like world events or science.)

Preoccupied with her obsession, Kosuzu can give in to some pretty bad behavior. She's relying on the local superhuman heroes to keep her safe -- by which I mean, when they asked what she'd do if she unleashed something dangerous, her answer was essentially "You'll take care of it!" As long as those hero types are in the room, she's fearless. Yet, while she honestly likes and admires them, she also wants to keep her collection safe from them, and is perfectly willing to plead, argue, sneak around and even outright deceive them as long as she doesn't think she's hurting anyone. It's a thoughtless selfishness, not a malicious one. She doubtless wouldn't enjoy being called out on it. She simply can't bear to see precious youma books be lost, let alone destroyed! The fact that they can be dangerous isn't part of the appeal, but it's a whole separate topic as far as she's concerned.

(Example: Kosuzu was fervently opposed to destroying a set of letters which were haunted by a ghost that had already possessed her in order to attack people. Sealing them should be enough, even though her accidental unsealing had caused the problem in the first place, right?)

To be frank, her behavior is immature and inconsistent, and that's because her views are immature and inconsistent. She doesn't THINK about these things. Kosuzu is likely in a transitional state: her ability awakened fairly recently, and with it her overwhelming curiosity about things she never had reason to question before. She's being newly exposed to the ideas and viewpoints of youkai, but also to personal experiences of how scary they can be. She's said she's beginning to wonder whether they're necessarily all bad, but that seed of doubt isn't enough to stake her life on.

She's already in over her head, and she doesn't even know it. She's helpless, and her unique advantage is only useful for getting her into more trouble. Her new hobby simply doesn't fit with the lifestyle and worldview she's always had, and wrapped up in her own fun, she's not stopping to notice a little thing like that.

Be worried about this girl. Cause she isn't.

Debt: Kosuzu has made a generic wish for safety, prosperity for the family business, and all that jazz. The kind of thing you pray for when you can't think of anything to pray for. Going to Koriko is really its own reward due to Books.

Inventory: Besides clothes, the only remotely notable thing is her reading glasses. Those are important.

Abilities: Kosuzu's superpower is to read any writing regardless of language, including weird magical languages that are normally impossible for humans to learn, for instance. Which... is mostly pointless in an RP where everyone has auto-translation. HOWEVER! She gained this ability relatively recently, and of chapter 16 it has evolved, allowing her to gain additional information from the magical aura of magical texts. Still not likely to come up very often, but it's something. And if her ability is going to grow more, we'll see...

Strengths and Weaknesses:
+ Educated, clever and well-read. She may not grasp the impact of everything she reads, but you can't be a voracious bibliophile without picking up a few book smarts.
+ She's quite good at running the family business, actually. Has a good manner with customers, doesn't give discounts to people who keep saving her ass, knows math. A (minor and weak, granted) self-proclaimed evil dragon recovered its power in her store and she demanded payment for use of the merchandise. She even helps with the store's bookmaking services!
+ Well, she's an optimist... She's resilient. The fact that she keeps passing out because of weird youkai hijinks is becoming a running joke and she doesn't even care.
- Will get herself into trouble for books.
- Will doublecross allies for books.
- Will ignore any amount of cognitive dissonance for books.
- Books.
( SAMPLE )

Characterization Sample:
Isabel took one last peek out the door before sliding it shut. There was still no one around this particular lounge, just as there hadn't been a moment ago, but the crowds outside had left her uncharacteristically nervous. This wasn't what she'd been expecting -- although it probably would have been if she'd actually stopped to think at all.

The smooth-talking woman who'd visited the shop had been friendly, composed, and really really cool. She had assured Isabel that her safety and needs would be provided for, that she didn't need to stay long, that nobody at home would ever know she'd been gone. What more valuable opportunity could there be than to visit a nexus for visitors from countless worlds, especially if said nexus were to include used book stores? It hadn't sunk in until further through the process that "not long" was a relative concept. And, Isabel felt, the Witch definitely could have made it clearer that Koriko was so very populated by youkai. (She might have mentioned it at some point.)

Isabel knew she'd had brushes with danger before, but that was all water under the bridge. She just wanted to read and learn; what could be wrong with that? If her habits just happened to attract something dangerous, well, it was the shrine maiden's job to keep ordinary people like her safe. Nothing she could do about it. But even Isabel had to admit that this situation was on an entirely different level from the trouble she could get into reading a book in her home. The phrase "spirited away" kept coming to mind. To be trapped, alone, in a strange world, at the mercy of that powerful Witch and her guests? For an uncomfortable moment she couldn't help but wonder if she really had gotten in over her head, if she should have taken the Witch's deal more seriously back when she'd had the chance.

Movement caught her attention, though she was still alone in the room, and her eyes widened. One wall had a bulletin board hung up, and just now a series of handwritten notes had begun appearing on it from thin air, one after another. Isabel's mood shifted instantly; she could get back to fearing for her life in a sec, because that right there was incredible. Some girls would squeal, clap their hands, and hurry across the room for an especially cute kitten -- and admittedly, she might too -- but for Isabel, there was no surer way to get that reaction than something written and clearly magical. This was what she was here for.