App for The Pines

[therewerefifty]

PLAYER

NAME: KJ
CONTACT: kayjayyy
OTHER CHARACTERS IN THE PINES: Nope!

CHARACTER

NAME: Makie Otono-Tachibana
CANON: Blade of the Immortal
CANON-POINT: Chapter 200 - at the point of her death

DOSSIER

HISTORY:

Please note:  I've had to write out her history because it does not exist online in any accurate form.  But in case you want to spot check accuracy, www.thespectrum.net hosts the entire series and Makie appears mostly at volumes 3, 13-14, and 28-30. (Vol 3 has her entire backstory.)

Makie was born into a samurai family famed for its talent in swordsmanship in approximately 1758, the second child after a brother five years older than she was. Her father was Yoshiaki Harukawa and her mother was Fuki. When she was ten years old, her older brother, urged into it as a prank by his peers, challenged her to a duel. It wasn’t serious — more just teenage boys having some fun. But that didn’t stop Makie from defeating him three times in a row without him ever landing a strike. The bloodline had passed its talent into the daughter, not the son.

Humiliated, her brother committed seppuku rather than live with the shame that he had been beaten by his own sister. In rage, Harukawa disowned Makie — and his own wife, when Fuki attempted to defend her daughter — casting them out onto the street. Fuki was forced to find work in a brothel to support them both, and Makie was left with a great anger for her father for doing this to her mother, and anger to her mother for just accepting it — but also an overwhelming shame and sadness at both their situation and her role in society, where the fact of her skill meant that her existence was the greatest shame her family had to endure.

A lot of her years after that are never gone into, but I can surmise that as the child of a whore, Makie spent a lot of time either keeping out of the way or wandering the streets (it’s clear at least that she doesn’t become a prostitute herself until much later). She continues to practice with the sword despite the stigma it brings, her goal to one day return to her old home and her father to kill him for the dishonour done to her mother. After that, she fully intends to kill herself. Makie is not a happy child.

At the age of twelve, she meets Anotsu Kagehisa in the wastelands for the first time. Both of them children, she saves him from the attack of a wild dog, and he praised her skill in awe. It was the first time she’d ever heard praise for being able to use a sword, and he asked her at that point to teach him; that he stay by her side always, and learn from her. She agrees, but her only request is that some day he become stronger than she is, because at least one man should be stronger than she is. (This is never borne out in the series – Anotsu never becomes stronger than Makie. But as she’s completely in love with him throughout their adult lives, it’s only a source of joy for her because it means that she has a reason to stay by his side and protect him.)

It’s while they’re talking that Anotsu’s grandfather comes across them and, realising that his grandson was saved by a girl, flies into a rage and beats both children bloody. He intends to kill Makie to preserve the honour of Anotsu, and then recognises her at the last moment for the infamous disowned daughter of the Harukawa clan… and instead beats her near half to death and leaves both Makie and her weapon on a tree branch in the field, saying the blood would draw every wild dog for miles, and that Makie’s fate was now in the hands of the gods.

Anotsu returns to the field the next day to find the corpses of fifty wild dogs strewn across the field and no Makie. When he reports this to his grandfather, the man laughs, claims he was right, and tells Anotsu the story of Makie's shame. This incident goes at least partway to helping Anotsu define what he wants out of his own life, which is creating his own no-holds-barred sword school, where there is no shame to be found in what weapon you use or what gender you are; only that you are strong and you can fight.

What happens in the next years until 1782 is very vaguely defined. Makie and Anotsu do see each other again, at least enough for them to grow to know each other, for Anotsu to learn from her, for Makie to fall in love with him. But they obviously lose track of each other somewhere along the way; most likely near the point that Makie’s mother Fuki, suffering from tuberculosis, passes away. Fuki spent the last of her days in the pleasure houses, and Makie is ashamed of that life for her, still intending to go back to avenge Fuki’s disgrace some day… but Fuki is against Makie’s vendetta, and tells Makie instead that if she wanted to be a swordsman, to “become a whore instead” because it was the better choice.

So she does. One assumes she is honouring her mother’s last wishes, or that there is debt for her mother’s medical treatment that needs to be repaid. These are likely both reasons. But another is that Makie is a deeply sad and confused woman, always swinging from one goal to another and unsure what she should do with her life… perhaps all of these things are behind her decision to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a prostitute. What else can such a woman do? What else does she deserve? It’s there that Anotsu finds her again, in 1782, where he buys out the last of her contract from the brothel, setting her free on the streets again, and tells her of his own situation: that he has formed his new school, the Itto-Ryu, but there is a swordsman by the name of Manji who is intent on murdering them all due to a vendetta of revenge. By pledge of honour, Makie becomes a swordswoman of the Itto-Ryu. She also becomes a geisha at about the same time in order to make the money to pay Anotsu back for the money he’s spent on her behalf, despite Anotsu saying with irritation that he never asked for such a thing.

Soon after, things happen in quick succession. She finds Manji in the street and approaches him under the guise of a streetwalking prostitute, luring him into the back alleys with intent to kill him, because that’s what Anotsu wants. They have their first fight, but Makie’s heart is not in it — she loses. Manji, believing she’s an amateur, delivers a lecture and walks off, leaving her alive. Anotsu finds her a few days later to question both how the fight went and why she’s working as a geisha. He refuses to believe she could have genuinely lost to Manji, because she is the only swordsman alive capable of beating him. Makie says:

“My mother said something to me once. I just remembered it the other day. If I wanted to live by killing people, to be a swordfighter, then to become a whore instead. That’s what she said. So go ahead-- laugh at me. This pathetic person… who doesn’t have it in her to be either one.”

Anotsu then claims that one day, he will make her his woman. Makie cries, believing he’s only after her skill with a sword — she could be so happy otherwise. He kisses her, then tells her he won’t have her wasting her talent, and leaves her alone on the bridge.

It’s while she’s there composing herself that three thugs arrive to state they were there to take her back to her original brothel, because the manager was happy to get so much money for her, but was sure he’d go out of business without his “best show piece”. Makie quietly says she understands—- and cuts her hair off. She's made her decision, and her worth as a prostitute certainly goes down without all that hair. Then she slaughters all three of them on the bridge in a matter of seconds. And the following day, she tells Anotsu that she will be his when she brings him back Manji’s head.

Cue her second fight with Manji, much more vicious this time, where it’s clear that Manji doesn’t stand a chance against her — but she still loses her nerve midfight, and is encouraged by Manji of all people, saying that if he was going to be offed in the street, at least let it be in a way he didn’t regret; for Makie to remember the reason she took up the sword in the first place, cling to it, and fight. She thanks him for it, they resume their fight, and Makie wins. Before she can deliver the final blow, however, Manji’s travelling partner, a young girl called Rin, intervenes to protect him — and Makie decides this is not what she wants to do, turning her back on Manji — and thus Anotsu — and instead making the choice to return home to her father, to finally avenge her mother’s treatment at his hands.

When she finally finds her father, he is both sick with the last stages of tuberculosis himself and quite demented, now living in a tiny hovel in a farming village, having fallen so far, deeply mourning the loss of his wife and his daughter and he is so happy when Makie walks in the door, pleading for news of his wife, giving her a beautiful hair comb to take back, begging for Makie to leave and come back with Fuki so that he can make amends. Her heart moved by pity, unable to go through with her intentions, Makie lies about Fuki’s death and says she’s doing well, agreeing to bring her back, and leaves again. She hasn’t gone very far when she visibly reminds herself that she didn’t come here to be a bleeding heart, that Fuki deserved this vengeance, and she rushes back to the hovel to mete out justice—only to find that her father has breathed his last and coughed himself to death on the floor.

So after a long life of perceived shame and failure, the way she fails in every conceivable way when it comes to her lifelong goal to avenge her mother’s disgrace is enough to induce a breakdown into full despair and depression, and Makie takes up living in her father’s old hovel. She sews her sword hand shut, makes raincoats for the couriers that travel through this tiny village, and sells her body, intent on causing as little harm to the lives of others as possible, intent on speedily making the funds to repay Anotsu for buying out her original contract.

When Anotsu finds her some weeks later, he's angered by how low she's sunk, and she points out this is a life she can make for herself wherein she's self-sufficient and can't hurt anyone. She repays her debt, and he leaves-- only to return minutes later to take her off guard in the middle of a breakdown, at which point Anotsu discovers both that she's smoking some kind of illicit substance (assumed opium-- never confirmed) and the damage to her sword hand. After she rails and cries at him that this is the only way she can seek penance for the damage she's done, he points out its complete idiocy and that she solves nothing by withdrawing the way she has. Instead, Anotsu tells her to take the pain of him removing the string from her hand as a form of penance on its own, treats her hand, and then quietly leaves while she's asleep.

Once she awakens she's lucid enough to realise that Anotsu looked very ill (he has the onset of tetanus), and sets off after him at once, only to track him down as he and some others are being ambushed by a good dozen men. There, Makie makes her final choice when it comes to killing; she's no assassin as Anotsu tried to use her earlier, but in order to protect him she will cross all lines. With all inhibitions gone, she decimates the opposing force, stepping back only to allow the last survivor to fight Anotsu one on one. Anotsu wins, and Makie and a fellow member of the Itto-Ryu spirit Anotsu off to get him medical help and rest. From that point, Makie's role in the Itto-Ryu is cemented.

She vanishes from the manga for some time after that, surfacing months later as already having contracted tuberculosis herself. Ironically, now that she's ill, Anotsu is more focused on keeping her out of the fighting which, now she's decided her place is by his side, leads to some mild arguments. Meanwhile, Anotsu's own ambitions have turned sour as the Shogunate-- who orchestrated the events that had him attacked earlier-- have perceived the Itto-Ryu as being enough of a threat that he is threatened with the full might of the Shogunate forces unless he leaves Japan. A lot of complicated things happen at this point, at which Makie is only on the sidelines of, so I'll spare another six paragraphs-- in the end, what happens is Anotsu and the last of the Itto-Ryu depart, making for the coast to exit Japan, pursued by two sets of men from the Shogunate with conflicting motivations. Concerned about Makie's illness, Anotsu leaves her behind.

Makie refuses to be left behind and arrives at the coast just before Anotsu, and just before Manji and Rin from earlier also turn up, still seeking to settle their vendetta against Anotsu. She takes refuge on one of the fishing boats that she knows will be used to leave, conserving her strength, and thus is there when the first group from the shogunate arrive and mercilessly start slaughtering all people on board the boats at the docks. Makie enters a pitched fight against both the shogunate forces and the ports authority militia, until her illness makes battle impossible and she falls. Before she can be killed, however, Manji intervenes to save her life and pass her medicine that will suppress her symptoms (one assumes as payback for their earlier encounter), and the two of them join forces. They're soon joined by Rin and Anotsu, who is somewhat exasperated that Makie pursued him, but acknowledges it as fair.

Fighting breaks out all along the docks between the four of them and the various groups that have turned up seeking Anotsu's head, and the four of them separate to deal with different fights; healthier than she's felt in a long time, Makie deals with a good three quarters of them herself, dealing with the less skilled before facing off against a more elite group. She's not particularly interested in killing so much as she is interested in keeping them away from Anotsu so he can have his one on one fight with the group's leader, and to that end, rather than risk them breaking and running because she's too skilled, fakes the return of her symptoms-- to the point of biting off the tip of her own tongue to simulate internal bleeding and luring them in close for the kill. However, at the end, the battle is joined at the last moment by Hyakurin, a woman who is the pregnant partner of one of Makie's opponents, and rather than risk Hyakurin's death her partner instead requests that Makie please let them live as they are now too injured to fight.

Makie leaves them in peace (after lecturing Hyakurin for jumping down a cliff when she's pregnant) and crosses the docks to find Anotsu. She catches sight of him and smiles-- and at that point, the artillery brigade that's just arrived on the clifftops above them open fire, injuring Anotsu, killing another on the field, and riddling Makie multiple times. Anotsu manages to get her to shelter and realises she won't survive, and he's now pinned down where he is. Makie finally asks him if he ever managed to surpass her, and he says he could not. And she's glad, because that means she still had a reason to be by his side.

Then she collects her weapon, uses it to leverage her way up the cliff face, and uses the last of her strength to decimate the artillery squad, saving Anotsu's life one last time before she finally succumbs to her injuries.


CR AU: N/A

WHAT ARE YOUR CHARACTER'S STRENGTHS?:
Makie has far more in the way of weaknesses than she does strengths when it comes to just character. However, she's shown several times to have particular strengths that stand out-- her resilience, her ability to just keep going, despite all odds. She's amazingly resourceful, both in analysing the battlefield in a split second and knowing how to maneuver people into the right situation-- her impersonation of a streetwalker is the most informal we ever see Makie as she discards her courtesy for playfulness, and then there's the fact she bit off her own tongue to keep a bevy of fighters still believing they had a chance to take her down. These strengths are far more muted outside of battle and she only employs them when necessary, but it still shows Makie has a capability for subtle manipulation that's quite impressive. She's also diplomatic (a product of both her early upbringing and her time as a geisha), and shows a lot of gentle compassion towards various other female characters in the manga, from a small girl left behind on the street to Rin herself, which I believe is borne from her understanding of just how painful it can be to be a woman in that era that doesn't quite fit in.

WHAT ARE YOUR CHARACTER'S WEAKNESSES?:
Makie's very character tends to be weak. She has a streak of self-loathing a mile wide, and has not particularly cared about being alive her entire life. She literally says, two chapters before her death, that for the first time she really wants to live-- and her reason for doing so is because everyone else Anotsu depends on is dropping dead around him. Makie has never held any self-worth, going from the girl child of a samurai clan who would grow up to be a wife and/or property to being an outcast that brought the same fate on her mother, and it's telling that, although Anotsu and Makie really do love each other, she measures her own worth by how much he needs her. She's constantly depressed, hates her skills, but is addicted to fighting at the same time, and spent much of her earlier life paralysed on the horns of that moral dilemma. Choosing finally to side with Anotsu and be his bodyguard made the uncertainty that plagued her every action before that go away, but she clearly believes she killed a part of herself to do so.

She has a terrible tendency to feel sorry for herself about all of the above, and one of her biggest flaws is an inability to think outside the box, which is striking given how much resourcefulness she brings to a fight. But there are other options for a woman outcast in that time of Japan that don't involve being a whore - the whole manga is littered with examples - and yet she gives up and follows in her mother's footsteps and, later on when she breaks, retreats to it. I think the shame of those events when she was ten imprinted hard enough that she believes this is all she's capable of, and outside of fighting, new ideas or how to deal with things just don't come to her quickly, if at all. She's quiet, reserved, and is hypersensitive to the idea of not being a burden to anyone. Basically, Makie is a mess.

WHAT EVENTS OR CIRCUMSTANCES IN YOUR CHARACTER'S PAST HAVE IMPACTED THEM THE MOST?:
- her father going mad and throwing Fuki and Makie out, forever imprinting that shame on her psyche
- meeting Anotsu, and entering the pact for him to stay by her side and learn
- her meeting with Rin and Manji, wherein Manji told her to remember the reason she took up the sword and fight for it, and Rin reminded her of herself enough that she finally turned for home to avenge her mother
- her father's death, through no efforts of her own and her subsequent breakdown
- Anotsu offering her another way of penance, followed swiftly by the realisation he was deathly sick and needed her protection immediately. Those two events happened so quickly that the catharsis from the former combined with the decision and throwing away of her earlier morals of the latter. After that, her path was set until the end.

WHAT MOTIVATES YOUR CHARACTER?:
Currently, precious little. Her driving motives over the course of the manga were to avenge her mother and to stay with Anotsu. Neither are an option in a game, and given her life is over at home she would be vastly adrift. But her earlier desire not to cause trouble, not to cause unnecessary pain or hardship or a burden to others, would resurface. As time went on and she adjusted and potentially made friends (and realised how friendly everyone was in comparison with her old life), her motives would manifest as a very low key watchfulness and protectiveness over those she grows to hold dear. Makie does still have her compassion and a sense of right and wrong, and while she will likely put her weapon down with the intent never to pick it up again, she would still try to help in other ways.

Or in short, a penance of sort for her earlier life, a thank you for people being kind. A chance at something new. She is... not the type to fight being in Wayward Pines, though she might certainly get drawn into the fight at a later date.

WHAT IMPRESSION DO OTHERS TEND TO HAVE OF YOUR CHARACTER?:
Frail, gloomy, incredibly sad, incredibly courteous and a reserved manner.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES THAT IMPRESSION DIFFER FROM WHO YOUR CHARACTER REALLY IS?:
Not at all. Well, she's not frail with how she handles a weapon, but otherwise she's exactly as advertised on the tin. Occasionally, dry and morbid humour may manifest that would probably surprise people, but she'd have to know them pretty well. The only other thing that's not immediately obvious is her capacity for manipulation, but that may never surface at all.

HOW DOES YOUR CHARACTER HANDLE CRISIS OR ADVERSITY?:
It depends on the type. A physical crisis, a fight, a conflict, Makie will handle with some pretty lethal flair. Her resilience means that with many other, more subtle types of adversity, she's more likely to bow her head, wait it out, and keep going with her life, unless an opening presents itself for something more. But she's not so good at spotting those, so...

WHICH 5 THINGS WILL YOUR CHARACTER REMEMBER UPON ARRIVAL, AND WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THEM?:
1) That she was shot to pieces in the middle of a winter thunderstorm (because it will induce a massive sense of dissociation, both in the fact she's still alive and it is distinctly not winter)
2) She can play the shamisen (a comfort memory)
3) That she's terminally ill (becauuuse that part will be obvious)
4) The memory of waking up bleeding in a tree surrounded by starving wild dogs (an existential dread memory)
5) That she was very much in love and that love was returned (a bittersweet memory)

It's a collection of memories crafted to give her a sense of melancholy displacement and realise that, whatever the rest of her memories are/whatever this place is, there's nowhere else to go and she'll just. Start over. Or initially decide to find some place to curl up and live out her short days, until someone points out that tuberculosis is curable, go to the hospital, you silly idiot. (If the hospital staff don't say that at the outset.)

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU FEEL WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER?:
Just an official note on her tuberculosis - I'll have her come in with it, but am more than amenable to people ICly guiding her to a cure, and then once it's cured it's gone. It will probably make her happier.

Also I realise I have not once stated what Makie uses as a weapon. Blade of the Immortal is a series where a lot of people wield some very unlikely handcrafted hybrid style blades, and Makie is no exception. Her weapon of choice is a three-section double-bladed staff which she folds up and keeps inside her shamisen. Here is a picture of it.

SKILLS, ABILITIES, & PHYSICAL WEAKNESSES:
Makie is the most skilled swordsman in her canon, which, given we see warriors all the way up the ranks of the Shogunate, could make her arguably the best swordsman in Japan. She fights with amazing speed and grace to the point that people in the manga comment on it regularly ("how does she fight like that?") and Anotsu stops to fanboy about it occasionally, in that 18th century samurai-ish way of his. (Manji, when faced with the possibility of fighting her a second time, turns and runs.) She's canonically so fast and so agile that while she can slaughter a group of men in seconds, she'll end the fight without a single drop of blood on her clothing.

Apart from that, though, her skill-set is on the artistic side. Beginning to learn how to be a proper samurai's wife when she was very young, and adding to that her time both as a prostitute and a geisha, Makie's skill in singing, songwriting, and playing the shamisen is praiseworthy. Her songs are said to be sad enough to tear at the heart (because Makie is a miseryguts and so are all her songs). It can be said that Makie, for all her depression, obviously enjoys playing the shamisen as she's shown several times playing it just because, so it makes for a positive outlet for all that angst.

She also has some fledgling skill in diplomacy, and a trained warrior's eye in spotting trouble before it ever really manifests.

On the physical weaknesses side, there's her illness, to be sure, cutting great swaths out of her endurance and leaving her thin and sickly. She's also not actually very strong, and her weapon of choice is one based more on momentum than heavy strikes. This is commented on outright in her fight with Manji. But Makie's weaknesses are otherwise psychological in this regard, and her dexterity and grace are pretty outstanding otherwise and, once the tuberculosis is dealt with, she more than compensates for that lack of strength in other ways.


INVENTORY:
1) her weapon
2) her shamisen
3) her clothing (kimono, yukata, shawl, sandal sand socks)
4) an ornate hairpin (belonged to her mother)
5) a pretty hair comb (belonged to her mother)

Those last two were definitely not on her person at the end, but were the only keepsakes Makie had ever been given, one by either parent, so. I figure they might round out the list. Makie didn't really have anything else.

SAMPLES

PROSE-HEAVY: Here!
DIALOGUE-HEAVY: Here!

Both of these are from a current game that's in space of all places, so she's had time to adjust.