( application. )

[dulacaun]

Player nickname: Ichi
Player LJ: unspeakingly
Way to contact you:
Email: ezzigreenie@hotmail.com
AIM: kowareta ichi
Other: plurk.
Are you at least 15?: Y.
Current Characters: Xion, Minatsuki Takami, Ciel Phantomhive, Sasuke Uchiha, John Egbert.

Character: Celty Sturluson
Fandom: Durarara!!
Character Notes:
History:

Celty's life began in Ireland, although when is unknown, because she could have been around since ancient times; she seems to have been there for a long time, in any case, because at certain points in her memory she can be seen wearing a suit of armour or very old-fashioned clothes, and she says she's sure her memories go back for hundreds of years. She was a Dullahan - an Irish faerie that acted as a herald of death and also as a sort of grim reaper. She spent her days carrying out her single duty, reaping those whose time had run out, and she was content with this, because it was her purpose and her meaning for existing.

But one day, her head was severed from her body, destroying the link between them almost entirely. She awoke to find herself unharmed in the fields of Ireland, but with her head missing, and with no recollection of what had happened to it. It also seemed that, although she could function just fine without it, her head stored most of the memories of her life; as such, she knew that her name was Celty Sturluson, that she was a Dullahan, and that her head was missing. Beyond that, she couldn't remember much except for instincts, such as knowing how to control her powers, and that she had to find her head at all costs.

She could feel the presence of her head, a distant pull, so she followed it and ended up stowing away on a ship to Japan along with her Familiar, now in the shape of a motorcycle where it was once a horse. On the ship, she was discovered by a young Shinra Kishitani, who brought his father to see her, and with no other options available to her, she agreed to make a deal with the man; she would be allowed to stay with him in Japan whilst she searched for her head, but he would be allowed to dissect and examine her first, because she was such an incredible scientific phenomenon. She didn't remember the experimenting that followed, despite that she was awake and in extreme pain for the entire thing, unaffected by any drugs they used on her, but both the older Kishitani and the child Shinra dissected and examined her.

After that, Celty spent the next twenty years living with Shinra, and the two of them fell in love although never developed a romantic relationship. She took up a job as a transporter - although often she ends up doing more than simple courier work - in order to earn money and gather information off the streets in hopes of finding a hint about the whereabouts of her head. She continued to search for her head despite settling down into a somewhat domestic pattern with Shinra, and that is her role throughout the series - the Black Rider searching for her head and her life.

Personality:

As the Black Rider, Celty is cool, calm and collected, and she is a force to be reckoned with. She's the strong, silent type and will do whatever she can to ensure that her job gets done. If people are in her way, she will make them move without hesitation. If there's an obstacle she needs to overcome, she will overcome it. She's capable, focused and she is determined beyond all else. She prefers to be as efficient and thorough as she can, and doesn't really care about the people she's doing jobs for or the people she encounters on her jobs; their business is their own, and they are doing their own jobs, just as she is doing hers. Everyone has a goal, and she won't get involved with anyone else's.

As Celty Sturluson, she's a bit more relaxed. She's still strong, and she tries to be as fiercely independent as she can be, but she's less of a cold, faceless worker and more of a woman - more human. She's outspoken and honest, and although she stays calm most of the time, she can get riled up and very emotional around someone close to her; Shinra, in particular. She's passionate about things, stubborn, and she has a temper that's fairly easy to set off. She's a lot more sensitive than one would think, getting annoyed or offended or upset over things that aren't a big deal and overreacting, and she typically reacts with anger once she's upset or hurt in some way - but also when she's embarrassed or in a lot of other situations, because she's a bit of a tsundere, mostly when it comes to Shinra.

The fact that she's more sensitive than she appears means that she can also be exceedingly kind, at times. She's optimistic enough that, even in her line of work and with the things she's seen, she can say that the world "isn't as bad as it seems". She likes to find the good in things and in people. Celty doesn't mix well with others, but she does have a few friends, and she's grateful and kind to those friends; she doesn't like to know that they're upset for any reason, although she doesn't coddle or protect them because she believes in their strength and their independence. She prefers to see people at their best. She even comes to love Shinra. Despite the violence that she often shows in her work, Celty also dislikes fighting and she saves innocent lives if she can; she goes out of her way to rescue and help a girl that Izaya talks into suicide, she tries to keep Shizuo calm and hold him back from fights, and she prefers to run away rather than argue or get into a bad fight with Shinra.

As a Dullahan, Celty is obsessed with finding and retrieving her head. She is willing to spend however long it takes to get it back, shown by the fact that twenty years after making it to Japan, she is no less determined and set on this single goal. Her head is the most important thing in the world to her, and she usually gets extremely offended and angry whenever Shinra tries to convince her that she doesn't need it. She's sure that she does need it, and she won't stop until she has it. She wants her head back because without it, she feels incomplete; she doesn't know who she really is, she doesn't have any of the memories that she's made throughout her life, and she doesn't know what her purpose is. She feels that she needs to know these things to have any grasp on herself, and it torments her not to. She is also terrified by the idea of her death being out of her control, and she wants to decide for herself when and how she dies. She's scared of losing things.

The fact that she's becoming more domestic and human also scares and worries Celty, because she doesn't want to lose sight of her goal and just let her identity slip from her fingers like that when she knows she could find it if she keeps trying. She enjoys being with Shinra, she likes having friends and doing jobs, but she's not human and she's painfully aware of it; she doesn't know why it seems like she keeps trying to be, and she often wonders what she's doing when she catches herself at it. It's not that she dislikes the idea of being human - she's forgotten what it's like to be a true Dullahan, anyway, so "human" is what she knows now - but she knows that she isn't a human, she will never be, and she has an important goal that doesn't have time for playing human or (as is still the case twenty years after her joining with them) learning how to be human. A lot of human things do still frustrate and puzzle her, though, and despite her convictions, she keeps learning. She's a little bit stuck in humanity, and she can't drag herself out.

First Person (entry type):

Forgetting things is really scary, don't you think?

... I feel like I'm forgetting more and more every day. There are certain things I never want to let go of, so it scares me when I realise that I don't remember some of these things any more. I knew a form of Irish once, but I can't think of how it goes these days. I only know Japanese, and a little bit of English. Worse than just forgetting something, it was my language, and I don't know it now. It was something important to me! What if I forget my own face, and so I can never find it? What if I forget why I'm looking for my head even now?!

It's scary. That's why I don't want to forget anything at all.

I really just wanted to ask... Has anyone else ever forgotten something important to them? How do you deal with it? Can you find it again? An idiot like Shinra can't answer this... He'd no doubt give me a stupid answer, and I don't want to hear it. I can't expect him to understand.

But the community is different. You are all strange, so I thought that maybe there must be someone else like this. Right? |

Third Person:

The fond looks Shinra gave her whenever he walked in on her watching television, sitting around, trying to cook for him - they were strange. She was so used to them that she barely noticed, but sometimes she met his eye, and she felt strange. They were the looks he gave her when she was doing something human. They were loving.

He was giving her them again when she was setting out breakfast for him in the morning - pancakes, simple and impossible to ruin, with a sense of taste or not - and he spoke up unexpectedly when she had taken the frying pan off the stove.

"Hey, I'm sorry about yesterday, Celty."

Celty paused, and she straightened to look up at him. Shinra was tilting his chair on its back legs, and he had a strangely sobered expression on his face now. She used the time it took for her to set the plate down, switch off the stove and grab the spatula to recall what he could be apologising for - that was right, they had fought yesterday, hadn't they? He had scolded her for not being careful, and she had reacted badly... She had almost forgotten. It was such an insignificant fight, and she hadn't wanted to give it any longer thought than necessary.

She turned back to him, spatula in hand, and picked up her phone off the counter beside her.

It's alright. I was being reckless. |

"You know what you're doing, though! It's your job, and I shouldn't have gotten so mad." She would have ignored him and dismissed his apologies, since she wasn't hurt by it, but he looked guilty about it. She shook her head. "Does that mean you forgive me? Are we all good now?"

I forgive you. We're good. There's no need to worry about that. |

The fond smile came back. "That's a relief. I was just surprised to hear how reckless you'd been, so I guess I didn't handle it well. In fact, I'm always worried about you, because your job is so dangerous..." He tilted his head back, that affectionate grin now pointed up at the ceiling.

"But you're the kind of girl who has a good head on her shoulders."

Celty almost dropped her phone onto the plate, and Shinra realised his mistake a second too late - the legs of his chair hit the floor and he floundered, cried out as she slammed the spatula down onto the counter, pleaded quickly, "No, Celty, crap, wait, I didn't mean it like-- it's just a saying, I'm sorry! Come on, you know I wouldn't say something like that to hurt you, you have to believe me, it was an honest mistake!"

And she did. She did believe him, she didn't blame him at all, she knew as well as anyone that Shinra never tried to make her hurt on purpose. But it was too late, it was always too late when this happened - the damage had already been done, she already felt stung and shaken as if she had been slapped, and she wasn't going to sit down and wait for Shinra to try and ease the pain. He didn't mean it and he never would, but he would never stop and he would never understand, either. She couldn't rely on him to soothe an ache he couldn't reach. She had to make it better on her own.

She would calm down soon, anyway, and she would forgive him. She just needed some air, away from him. She just needed to go and find that drive for the purpose she had left.

"No, Celty-- Celty, please wait--"

She had grabbed her helmet and slammed the door behind her before Shinra could make it across the room, and she ran down the hallway in case he followed. She didn't want to fight. She could make it better this way. He didn't need to hurt with her.

Besides, the bike ride alone would cheer her up a little.