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[rottencactus]

Character info

Character name: Mayoi Ayase (western order)
Canon: Ensemble Stars!!
Canon point & release date: Enstars is constantly ongoing, but it has been running since 2016. Mayoi's canonpoint will be Post-Phantom Airship, after he decides to accept the offer to audition for the La Mort movie.

Note: Enstars does not release content on a linear timeline, and so it may be that we get an event story that takes place much earlier than the current furthest point we know. The Enstars time line is an actual fucking nightmare, but that's why this being a memloss game is super convenient for me.
History: Mayoi's wiki
Powers: Mayoi has no powers, probably. Maybe? Canon is very ambiguous on this, but I will make a note of this one thing just in case.

Mayoi has the uncanny ability to just blend into the scenery in a way that makes him fucking disappear. It's been commented on that he simply slips into shadows and vanishes, and he's often able to stand in corners and watch others without people knowing until he chooses to reveal himself. He has also done this so well in his own dorm that his roomate thought he had a ghost problem, not an actual roomate for the longest time. This could be the result of him being very good at staying still that it creates that effect, or it could be something he can do thanks to being a literal mole person! we don't know. I tend to air on the side of "He's just like this" so I actually will let you guys make the call on if this is something he has to get back with points or if its okay for him to instinctively do this.

Personality

What is your character most afraid of? How are they defined by this fear? (200-300 words)

Mayoi's fear can be broken down into two major points. His fear of exposure and his fear of loneliness. Ultimately loneliness is the true core of it all, but the distinction between the two is still important. Mayoi is walking a threadbare tightrope in his every day life. His clan lives exiled underground with no legal documentation in modern day Japan (barring them from any rights and protections from the government). Mayoi lives on the surface as an idol with a fabricated identity and is pursuing his dream while risking his family's exposure. Every waking moment of his life is fought with the knowledge that if he slips up, he brings ruin to everything he knows. This entire situation rules every ounce of how Mayoi behaves and conducts himself. It's always there, weighing on him. Mayoi is very stressed out.

And he does this, he takes this monumental risk, because he desperately wants to be apart of the world above. He wants to exist. To lose all of that, would send him back into the darkness he was born in, to once more be a Nothing, a hideous non-existence. A fate worse than death.


What is your character's greatest desire? How are they defined by this desire? (200-300 words)

To be apart of the world on the surface and to "Show the world that creatures like him exist, and that, if possible, they would like to be loved". This is the reason Mayoi decided to become an idol, despite how polarizing his temperament for such a job seems to be. Mayoi grew up listening to the sounds of singing from above, through his rock and dirt walls, "like fairies from another world." His wish to stand on the surface and to be apart of the world that sings and dances on stage, to bring happiness to others, it was an all encompassing desire. It was a dream so powerful that he is literally risking everything for it.

It makes him seem like a bundle of contradictions, being this person who is weak in crowds and can't talk to others, who absolutely hates showing his face and has a very real, legal reason why he should never step outside, but then musters up his strength to stand on a stage for thousands upon thousands and sings his heart out. The reality is that in spite of everything he is fighting against, things like his own doubts and fears, his short comings, his flaws, his greatest desire is actually much more simple than the desire to stay above, or to even be seen or heard.

It's happiness.

What is your character's most defining memory or relationship? How are they defined by this relationship? (200-300 words)

The story of Dead End Land: Mayoi, a member of the Ninja Association (Not the ninja club because they only have two members.) and Shinobu, the leader, take a job to work in a themed cafe with the drama club. While seemingly simple, Mayoi realizes his job is to individually entertain tables of guests while serving food, catering their attention on him. Faced with this, Mayoi straight up just shuts down. When he realizes he's at his limits, rather than risk blacking out from the stress and making the Ninja Association look bad, Mayoi excuses himself to the bathroom and escapes out the window.

Mayoi finds a park bench and has a full on panic attack. He doom spirals into believing he's going to have to banish himself back into the underground, and that he has essentially lost everything now that he's done what he's done. He cries himself to sleep on the bench until he's eventually found.

When Shinobu finds him, rather than be angry with him for dipping out without saying anything and causing a great deal of stress for the rest of the staff, Shinobu very patiently explains that no one is upset and that he should have realized Mayoi was struggling sooner. Shinobu is someone who struggles with his own anxiety, after all. After some discussion, they all decide the best thing they can do is switch Mayoi to the kitchen. The sheer volume of business that day had been bogging the kitchen down pretty badly and they did need someone with Mayoi's skill for organization and meticulousness, as well as his ability to learn quickly on the fly. This important support role allows Mayoi to thrive and they complete their job so well that they all get invited back.

This establishes a few things for Mayoi. It shows Mayoi that he does not have to change who he is in order to complete work as an idol, and that there is lots of value in behind the scenes work. That the solution was not to "get over it" or "buck up" but rather that his friends were willing to accommodate his needs in a way that still allowed him to complete his job. It showed him the strength of human kindness, and that he can think of the people around him as friends. It is one of those early moments in the story where Mayoi realizes that even in the darkness, there are people willing to reach a hand out to him, and it's okay for him to take it.

How will not having memories change your character? What core personality traits, if any, will change? How? (200-300 words)

While nothing is going to remove Mayoi's anxiety entirely, just because the sheer level of it is something that is ingrained in him on an almost generational level, he won't understand the cause. Without having this secrets to guard, it may very well make him more open to dealing with that anxiety and finding ways to alleviate it. Mayoi is also, just on principle, going to be in much less of a constant, baseline fight-or-flight mode.

He does also currently lack the context of a lot of his self-hatred, and while having no memories will not eradicate his particularly nasty intrusive thoughts, he might end up being much kinder to himself than he is in canon. It will all depend a lot on his social network in a game like this, since a great deal of Mayoi's support comes from the people around him. Taking all of that away from him puts him in a precarious "ground-zero" but it does give him the most opportunity to reset himself without the baggage of his origins dragging him under.

Thread samples:
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Memories

You have 10 memory points. How will you use them?
Type of regain: 2 points.
Mayoi remembers that he can sing and that there are songs he knows. However he cannot recall any titles or words, he only knows melodies and tunes and that, whatever they are, they are important.

Type of regain: 2 points.
Mayoi remembers that he can dance and that he is very good at it, actually. He will not recall much of any specific routines other than a few steps here and there that seem to fit together, but he is capable of coming up with choreography if he wants to sit down and make some up himself.

Type of regain: 1 points.
He is afraid of cars. For ...some reason. There's a brief memory of a coast line and of a guard rail rapidly flashing past them and then this feeling of being lightheaded. weird!

Type of regain: 2 points.
A distinct memory of being somewhere dim and underground, though strangely furnished. He remembers being young, reading a book, and then suddenly hearing the muffled sounds of someone singing. Where is it coming from? he thinks, as he shoves himself into an unlit, unused fire place and starts to climb up the shaft, the music getting louder and louder.

Type of regain: 1 points.
Mayoi has an unshakable feeling that something is wrong or "other" about him, but will have no idea why. Something that may make him question if he is human or not.

Type of regain: 1 points.
He recalls that he likes to grow his own tea because it's easier for him to cater to his delicate palette that way. It will help reinforce his assumption that he's kind of on the sickly side.

Type of regain: 1 points.
A weird, almost encyclopedia knowledge of folklore, ghost stories, and dark fiction. He will know nothing of its context, for example, he can recall a story from greek mythology, but he won't actually know what "Greek" means or that Greece is a country with its own history. He will recall several Shakespearean plays but he can't tell you anything about who wrote them. Japanese folklore will feel more familiar to him, but that is where it stops.

Player info

Name: Jami
Pronouns: They/Them
Age: 33
Contact: takatorabatta
Permissions: here!

Link to invite: Invite
Character in game: NA