She-ctionary: Anime-inspired madness! [MUL]

[Unishifter]

This is the story of ordinary high school boy Kenji Kamiyama, who one day finds out that he has a very strange ability. Using a magical dictionary inherited from his grandfather, he can reach into the pages and pull out a word... which manifests itself as... a beautiful girl? What a silly premise. A story like that could only be called something silly like...

SHE-CTIONARY!

This is going to be a lighthearted, anime-inspired thread resulting from an attempt I've made at coming up with a premise more ridiculous than Akikan's.
I don't think I have succeeded at that particular goal.

So, what's this all about?
The story revolves around Kenji and the "Words" he pulls from his dictionary. The Words are strange entities, with looks, personalities and powers that are often somehow related to the word they originated from. For example, a girl pulled from "cold" would be yout typical ice queen with cold-themed powers. No one could tell, though, what would come out for words like "isenthalpic" or "doorhinge"...

Okay, what happens then?
Once the characters are in place, who knows? Hijinxs ensue! The Words join high school somehow! They try to figure out a way to get back into the dictionary! (Note: There isn't any!) All the fanservice in these kinds of series leads to the next logical step for a change! One of them flips out and kills the others with a chainsaw! The sky is the limit!

Wait! I'm a guy and I want to play too!
Male characters are allowed, but shouldn't be TOO abundant, given the genre this is inspired by. For now, the only limit is that males shouldn't outnumber the girls.

Sounds fun! Where do I sign?
Fill out the following form:

Name: Since this is anime-inspired, japanese-ish names would make the most sense, but about anything is allowed, including nonsense words or simply the Word in question.
Word: Where applicable. This can be absolutely ANYTHING you would find in a dictionary, from "energy" to "trumpet"!
Description: Written descriptions or pictures are both accepted.
Personality: Feel free to inspire yourself from your favorite anime stereotypes. Keep in mind that zaniness is the name of the game, so you should probably throw in a comedic quirk or two, even if the character is fairly serious.
Powers/Abilities: Once again, word-related. The ability to breathe fire, sew at superhuman speeds or see through walls would all be acceptable. If you'd like to have an ability but keep it a surprise for others, PM me and we can discuss it.

Here's an example of what could be a good character: (Feel free to take her if you can't come up with anything, by the way!)

Name: Haruka

Word: Indifferent

Personality: Nothing impresses Haruka.  Not daredevil stunts, not death-defying superhuman abilities, not even really good homemade cookies. 

Powers/Abilities: Anyone who gets close to Haruka is overwhelmed by a lassitude, an apathetic mood that overtakes all but the strongest emotional states.  Whether or not this is a power, or just an aspect of her completely indifferent personality is anyone's guess.









And that's it for now. I'm looking forward to seeing what you people come up with!

[Tankou]

Name: Ty Dao

Word: Obscenity

Description:
She stands about six feet tall. (They're d cups XP)

Personality: The stereotypical angry redhead on steroids would sum up Ty Dao in an instant. Ty Dao is quick to pick up a fight, join in on arguments, insult anybody who crosses her path, or swear often enough to be considered a supreme trash-talker. She is full of snappy, witty comebacks, creative insults, and angry comments. Despite this fact Ty Dao has an even more disturbing side. On occasion Ty Dao gets an itch she can't scratch and at that moment will look for the nearest attractive man to molest constantly until she is sexually satisfied. Still swearing is what Ty Dao is known for best, never having a sentence in a conversation without a swear word. Her favorite word is Fuck, and it was the first word she uttered after being pulled from Kenji's magical dictionary. Instead of referring to Kenji with San or Kun she uses the honorific "bozu" as in a young, obnoxious boy.

Powers/Abilities: Though with most people swearing may seem harmless Ty Dao uses her swear words as weapons. If she likes Ty Dao can utter a curse and make it become a violent blast of force. The swear words vary in effect depending on how crude, or intense they are. Crap results in sparks in midair, harmless, and colorful, but words like Fuck and Shit often end up in huge fireballs, or cars spontaneously exploding in the background. Ty Dao normall doesn't use fuck as an attack word unless the time calls for it though.

[privilegedXchore]

Name: Haruka

Word: Unapproachable.

Description:


Personality: Haruka is very uninterested in most of the outside world. She usually stands with her eyes gazing straight ahead. She doesn't seem to pay attention to anyone who is speaking to her unless they give her something. She will listen to anyone as long as they give her something to play with, or eat or look at. But once said object has either grown tiresome for her, or has been ingested, she'll return to her uninterested state. She is generally nice when she interacts with people, but she doesn't let them come to close to her. She doesn't like to be touched in anyway unless she is in control. She is scared of most things and is rather timid. It takes her a lot to be angered and upset. Because of her uninterested state she does not have many emotions and most of the time does not let anyone or anything bother her. She almost seems like a shell of a person.

Powers/Abilities: When she feels like not being bothered she will place her bubble around her which is like a wall. It goes about a foot around her in all directions and she can't hear anything outside her, and others can not come near her. She likes it that way. If she is scared she will put the bubble up for protection. Her belts are her only weapon and when angered she will use them to subdue her opponent by tying them to a object or person near to her and leave them. It takes a good deal to push Haruka to that point, but when she is angered, there is little to stop her.

[Rhapsody]

Name: Kurai

Word: Monochrome

Personality:  Kurai is a thoughtful sort of Word, who likes to examine every angle of a question or problem before deciding how to answer it.  She sees things only in shades of grey, and the nuances of color and their associated meanings and concepts are completely lost on her.  She tends to remain slightly aloof in interactions with others, since she doesn't quite understand color-folk who are forever beyond her realm of comprehension.

Powers/Abilities:  Kurai only sees things in shades of black, white and grey.  Anything she is in contact with immediately fades to greyscale color and if she remains in one place long enough, the color leeching extends to her immediate surroundings.  If she touches a living thing, the effect tends to linger for a short time even after contact has ended, greyscaling their natural hues and temporarily transforming their vision to monochrome.

[Unishifter]

All right, I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. :-) I'm thinking of getting the actual thread started sometime this weekend, but I'll probably be keeping character requests open forever unless I'm given a good reason not to.

Until then, a bit of food for thought: Would you prefer to start the story out with your characters all already there, or should the thread begin with a sort of "first episode", with the rest of the characters pulled out gradually?

[strudel]

Name: Nyoko

Word: Sultry

Personality: Nyoko has a confidence befitting her cool, calm, and collected disposition. She has a honey-coated, deep voice that almost demands to be listened to, easy on the ears and arousing to the senses. She's never in a hurry, always choosing to take her time, never rushing in.. or out of anything she decides to get herself into. She enjoys meeting people, and delights in how they tend to enjoy her company as well, being quite the coy.. playful type.

Powers/Abilities:  Nyoko can cause things to become heated via touch or telepathically picking a target. This heat can range from mildly hot to an uncomfortable swelter at her whim. Second to this, she has an alluring gaze, sultry in all forms of the word, which can cause those of whom make eye contact with her to become rather sexually hot and bothered.. decidedly needing contact then and there, even leading occasionally to premature self-climax.

[Bloody Paramour]

Name: Haku
Word:Chimerical \ky-MER-ih-kuhl; -MIR-; kih-\ , adjective:
1. Merely imaginary; produced by or as if by a wildly fanciful imagination; fantastic; improbable or unrealistic.
2. Given to or indulging in unrealistic fantasies or fantastic schemes.

Power: Illusions.

Haku is a mischevious sort of girl and coming from the word Chimerical she's a great manipulater of her surroundings. she can create any type of illusion that she desires and project it at will. this also applies to her appearance which she can also change to suit her.

Haku is 5'10,
loves the color green,
is usually found reading,
and will probably use her illusions to amuse herself.

(<3)

[Bloody Paramour]

All right, I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. :-) I'm thinking of getting the actual thread started sometime this weekend, but I'll probably be keeping character requests open forever unless I'm given a good reason not to.

Until then, a bit of food for thought: Would you prefer to start the story out with your characters all already there, or should the thread begin with a sort of "first episode", with the rest of the characters pulled out gradually?

I like the idea of them being pulled out gradually, but thats just me, do what you think is best ^.~

[Tankou]

On the purpose of being impatient I would say start it all off with them out, but the compulsion of storyline is better and that tells me to prefer gradual!
So gradual is my choice ^_^

[privilegedXchore]

My vote is for gradually. Seems like it would make more sense.

[iridum248]

Name: Kodama

Word: Echo

Personality: Soft-spoken and proper...Or is she? Sure, she prefers to act like a proper Yamato Nadeshiko- Kodama certainly has the look for it, all right. Still, when no-one's looking, or when she's annoyed, she can be a trifle...Feisty. Certainly, the more people she meets, the stranger her personality gets- Especially when she begins to mirror them in oddly disquieting (If exaggerated) ways. Of course, she finds it all good fun. ^_^

Powers/Abilities::

Kodama's a natural mimic of sound...Voices a speciality, though she just *loves* the mischief ventriloquism causes. On a supernatural level, she can amplify, or loop those noises- Don't think it's dangerous? Try hearing a foghorn, at way, way above comfort level. Or have an insipid pop soundtrack, stuck in your head- Playing, out loud, non-stop for weeks on end!

[jilorbb]

Name: Midori
Word: green!
Description: Midori has 2 forms: that of a rather young-looking girl (her chibi form) and her adult (true) form. Her adult form is 5'10, 175lbs (that's right, this is a girl with "meat on her bones") but she carries her weight well. In both forms she has long green hair and green eyes (different shades/hues) and rather pale skin. She wears cutesy clothing, often of the 'lolita' fashion, with a nature-themed pattern. (I'll try to draw up a picture some time soon)
Personality: Midori is very friendly and tends to throw herself at random strangers with a hug. She is incredibly curious and has a bad tendency to eves drop in on conversations that she's not part of. She's quite childlike in a lot of ways and doesn't take rejection very well. The only time that she loses her childlike attitudes is when someone is deliberately causing harm to someone or something (meaning the plants and animals of the earth). She cannot tolerate injustice and will come down harshly on abusers.
Powers/Abilities: Midori, the color green, channels the powers of life. She is tied to the concept of the earth goddess and is forever young, this is why she can transform from one form to another. Her other powers include bringing healing to those in need: human, plant and animal alike. She need not eat to survive but she may eat if the mood strikes her, though Midori is a strict vegetarian and generally only consumes buds, fruit, seeds, nuts and other plant products that don't call for the complete death of the plant. When angered she can call upon the plant life in the area to bind her adversaries.

[Unishifter]

Oh, I'm liking those new additions too! And it just occured to me that I might want to post my own character's profile, too...

Name: Kenji Kamiyama
Word: N/A
Description: For some reason, about everything about Kenji screams "average". His hair is a depressingly normal shade of black, his height and weight all fall squarely within the usual standard for boys his age, and even his voice is easy to confuse for someone else's. The only things that truly stand out about him are his utter lack of fashion sense and messy, spiky haircut, but those aren't really so notable in that bizarre world of his...
Personality: Much like with his looks, Kenji's behavior seems painfully generic. He's not too dumb nor too smart and just a bit hormonal, but not excessively so. His friends used to taunt him about being some sort of generic mold for guys to project himself into, but he has no idea what they're talking about. Recently, he's been thinking of trying to take on new hobbies in order to get rid of his "generic" label. He doesn't seem to realize this, but his basic human decency is irrisistible to women for some reason.
Powers/Abilities: Once again, Kenji would be painfully normal, be it in sports and academics, if it weren't for his strange power of pulling Words out from his grandfather's old dictionary. More details on his power and the rules that govern it will be coming shortly.
Bonus section! Backstory: Despite his young age, Kenji has recently moved away from home to live by himself in an oversized apartment, located somewhere in an unnamed city on the outskirts of Tokyo. Transferring to a new school in about a week as summer ends, he hasn't made any new friends yet, and is thinking of trying to build himself a new image. However, a monkey wrench is thrown into his plans when he recieves, in the mail, a strange dictionary from his recently-deceased grandfather...

Good heavens, it's a harem lead, ladies and gentlemen!

In other news, it seems the general consensus so far is to introduce characters gradually. I think that's what we'll be going with, then, but I'll try to keep things moving so no one has to wait two months for their turn to introduce themselves!

Now, for the order in which to introduce the girls, I'm considering several options. One is to go first-come, first-serve, and start from the beginning of the thread and move on from there. The other is to pick an order at random and stick with it. The last one is to go with what is the most appropriate story-wise (Kodama being first because the yamato nadeshiko is always first in that sort of story) without trying to force anything, with the downside being that one might get the impression of favoritism if they're one of those to come last. You can post your opinion on this here or PM me about it!

One mooore thing, and I'm done for this post: What do you think the circumstances surrounding your character's introduction should be? Why do you think Kenji would want to look up your character's Word in the dictionary and pull someone out? I've got a few ideas already, but maybe you can come up with something interesting! Here, again, you can either post your mind here or PM me about it if you want to keep it a surprise from the rest.

[Bloody Paramour]

Circumstances surrounding Haku's pull from the dictionary should be something out of pure boredom or desperation. if kenji is bored or lonely while looking through the dictionary, haku could appear and make loads of trouble or loads of fun, depending on her mood.

<3 its whatever you decide.

[jilorbb]

I'd rather have them come out gradually and I have no preference as to the order. But, perhaps the circumstances might be that some time after Haku arrives they might decide to look up 'green' in the dictionary for some reason. I'm not really attached to the idea, it was just the only thing I could come up with because Haku apparently likes the color green.

That's all I've got. Sorry! >.<

[Tankou]

Personally I think the Idea for Kodama is perfectly reasonable. Still if I were to be biased toward myself I am gonna have to say that Ty Dao would be a good choice. Here are the circumstances if you will listen ^_^

Now being a kid in school that, for a while, was positively normal, I know that such kids tend to get picked on for their weakness or just the fact that they can't stick out nor fit in. Being picked on makes people angry and anger calls upon the wish to use BAD WORDS! Obscenity is just the word to cause havoc for others. Kenji could choose Ty Dao from the dictionary because he wants her to make somebody's life a living hell but instead ends up on the brunt of her explosive rage because nobody tells Obscenity what to do. It isn't something that is necessarily called upon.

Still I like Kodama appearing fist anyway cause it just seems to fit better ^_^

[privilegedXchore]

I think Kodama would be the best choice to come out with at first, because it makes the most sense.

However as for pulling everyone else I think it would semi interesting to it almost be accidental. If your character has to read the word this makes it a little more difficult. Say the dictionary is left near an open window and the wind blows the pages around, and any of the other words try and reach out, like they are being released?

But if your character has to say the words, then it makes things a little more difficult. For my character I could see Kenji learning English words and pulling my character from the pages. Studying for the SATs? It sounds kinda silly, but also plausible in the realm of weirdness. ^_^

[ManyMindsManyVoices]

"This is an interesting role-play concept, when did you plan to start? I'd be interested in playing, maybe adding the first other male to the group (a non-word) just for variety. If you desire, if not, I can come up with a word too."

[Unishifter]

Ryuka, I was thinking of starting sometime this weekend, but it turns out I may be busier than I expected, so it may have to wait until Monday. Keep watching this space for more details. I'm open to a new human male character for balance, since admittedly I didn't expect to get this many Words this early! :-) I think the easiest thing to do would be to go for the usual "Luckless male friend"-type character, and have Kenji try and fail to hide the Words from him at the beginning. Feel free to come up with anything else, though.

Everyone else, I'll be taking note of your suggestions! I'm still a bit undecided, but we'll see.

However as for pulling everyone else I think it would semi interesting to it almost be accidental. If your character has to read the word this makes it a little more difficult. Say the dictionary is left near an open window and the wind blows the pages around, and any of the other words try and reach out, like they are being released?

That's a good question, actually, maybe I should have said more about that. The way I pictured it is as follows: Whenever Kenji triggers his power, consciously or not, his hand dips into the pages of the dictionary as if they were water, and inside, a hand grasps for his, ready to be pulled out.

It can be activated consciously by putting a finger on the word and actively trying to pull it out, or he could just rest his hand on a random page, and have a Word on the other side "force" the connection if she wants to come out for whatever reason, be it whim, curiosity, or otherwise. I think doing that would leave a lot of possibilities open, but if you have other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

[Bloody Paramour]

Ryuka, I was thinking of starting sometime this weekend, but it turns out I may be busier than I expected, so it may have to wait until Monday. Keep watching this space for more details. I'm open to a new human male character for balance, since admittedly I didn't expect to get this many Words this early! :-) I think the easiest thing to do would be to go for the usual "Luckless male friend"-type character, and have Kenji try and fail to hide the Words from him at the beginning. Feel free to come up with anything else, though.

Everyone else, I'll be taking note of your suggestions! I'm still a bit undecided, but we'll see.

That's a good question, actually, maybe I should have said more about that. The way I pictured it is as follows: Whenever Kenji triggers his power, consciously or not, his hand dips into the pages of the dictionary as if they were water, and inside, a hand grasps for his, ready to be pulled out.

It can be activated consciously by putting a finger on the word and actively trying to pull it out, or he could just rest his hand on a random page, and have a Word on the other side "force" the connection if she wants to come out for whatever reason, be it whim, curiosity, or otherwise. I think doing that would leave a lot of possibilities open, but if you have other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

that is fantastically awesome,

i just had a thought.

how agressively opposed are you to having a male word? like...raging hormonal homosexual...
he can be in complete denial, but i'd be great for slap-stick-humor (pun intended)

[jilorbb]

I do have one possible suggestion: perhaps it doesn't always happen? That way he could continue to use the dictionary normally (for school reports and such) and only on occasion (randomly) does it happen on its own - or when he's actively trying to do it as well.

I'm thinking that if this book ended up always shooting out a word-girl, then your typical anime "normal" guy might want to just not use it after a while.

[Bloody Paramour]

I do have one possible suggestion: perhaps it doesn't always happen? That way he could continue to use the dictionary normally (for school reports and such) and only on occasion (randomly) does it happen on its own - or when he's actively trying to do it as well.

I'm thinking that if this book ended up always shooting out a word-girl, then your typical anime "normal" guy might want to just not use it after a while.

quite true.

[jilorbb]

that is fantastically awesome,

i just had a thought.

how agressively opposed are you to having a male word? like...raging hormonal homosexual...
he can be in complete denial, but i'd be great for slap-stick-humor (pun intended)

Ha! That's adorable because so many gays end up being branded "one of the girls"

If you added him in though, I'd suggest just the one so the dictionary would remain mostly female.

[ManyMindsManyVoices]

Ryuka, I was thinking of starting sometime this weekend, but it turns out I may be busier than I expected, so it may have to wait until Monday. Keep watching this space for more details. I'm open to a new human male character for balance, since admittedly I didn't expect to get this many Words this early! :-) I think the easiest thing to do would be to go for the usual "Luckless male friend"-type character, and have Kenji try and fail to hide the Words from him at the beginning. Feel free to come up with anything else, though.

Everyone else, I'll be taking note of your suggestions! I'm still a bit undecided, but we'll see.

"I'd be happy to play the friend, and I can't play weekends anyway, so Monday's good by me, I'll check in later and drop a PM."

[Bloody Paramour]

Ha! That's adorable because so many gays end up being branded "one of the girls"

If you added him in though, I'd suggest just the one so the dictionary would remain mostly female.

^^ my sentiments exactly!

though i would have to come up with a good word.
im not opposed to playing more than one character...i would just have to label my posts clearly.