Hake no Sakkaku ("Cerulean Canvas") [Ready]

[Scootaloved]

 

Roleplay Type: World of Equestria
Name: Hake no Sakkaku (ハケの錯覚, lit. "an illusion of brush"); goes by "Cerulean Canvas" in pony form
Sex: Female
Age: Very old
Species: 6-tailed Kitsune (Yokai)
Eye colour: Light green
Coat: The dominant color of Cerulean's fur is white. In her kitsune form, she has blue markings along the tips of her tails, along her sides, on her front legs, part of her back leg, above her eyes, below her eyes, and at the tips of her ears. On her pony form, these markings are only around her eyes. Her hooves are also furred.
Mane/Tail: Cerulean has flaring bangs outward and a ponytail at the back. Her tail is evenly and well-combed, and even her bangs are well controlled. 
Physique: In her kitsune form, Cerulean is rather large, about the size of your average adolescent dragon. She stands on all fours, and she's largest at her chest area and her body recedes toward her hindquarters. In her pony form, she's slightly larger than the average earth pony but otherwise does not stand out physique-wise.
Residence: Ponyville, though she does wander from place to place.
Occupation: Freelance artist
Cutie Mark: A paintbrush with blue paint the same color as her mane. Cerulean will claim to you that she earned this cutie mark when she tried out painting for the first time and it seemed as though it "literally came to life", and that she'd done so when she was living in a home situation where she was getting kicked out by her parents, telling her she needed to support herself, and she couldn't find any skills applicable to self-support. She specializes in painting optical illusions and paintings that seem so real.

 

In reality, her magic is something she's developed and honed over the many, many years she's been alive, and indeed her paintings are done with magic, not with actual skill.

Unique Traits: Does being a kitsune count? Her pony form's unique trait lies in the bauble she wears around her neck, which is the gemstone that contains all of her magical power. Its power is far more obvious when she is in her kitsune form as the ribbon around it flows around her neck rather than being directly tied to it. It sometimes glows in her pony form when she's transmuting magic into her artistry or creating illusions.

 

As should be guessed, Cerulean is an expert at illusion magic. Her pony form itself is an illusion, a shapeshift in order to deceive ponies. 

 

History: Given how old Cerulean is, it would take a very long time to go into her history - and she wouldn't tell you about it if you asked, anyway. A summation is that she was born into a group of yokai much like herself, outreached in the fringes of Equestria. Her story with her parents isn't entirely fabricated, as they believed in tough love and criticized her harshly for her magical ability as it was developing as she grew older. Thankfully for Cerulean, she was a hard worker and once she gained her second tail, she had confidence that she could support herself without the aid of her parents, who decided a two-tailed kitsune was old enough to take care of herself. Much of what she was taught revolved around deceiving other species in order to swindle support from them. When asked about other animals outside of that, she never had her questions answered; this led to her turn-around once she grew that second tail to become a traveler and immerse herself in the cultures of other species in order to grow to better understand them.

 

Cerulean was there to witness the growing of the two alicorn sisters, and she was there to witness Luna's banishment to the moon. She changed her form many times over these years in order to ensure no one uncovered her identity. Cerulean's natural craftiness allowed her to keep on the down low for a long time, especially since she switched up her personality every so often to make the connection even harder to make. The easiest way to tell her forms from each other came from her coloration, the one thing about her appearance that she never changed, but even then she varied it up enough that she could play it off as if she was a descendant of the previous creature. It also helped that she species-hopped often, going from dragons to alligators to sirens and everything in between.

 

It wasn't until recently that she settled on being an earth pony, and she's begun to covet the simple life of the ponies in Ponyville, such that she's beginning to consider settling into this form and settle down as a permanent residence. It's a good thing for her, too, because being in that tribe as well as being on the run was beginning to become boring and tumultuous for her. She's tired and old and she'd rather immerse herself in a culture and forget entirely about the fact she is a yokai, even if she may enjoy some aspects of it.

 

Character Personality: The personality that Cerulean has settled on for this pony form is closest to her original personality. She has, in years, shifted between being a shy recluse, to an outgoing stage performer, to a rough and tumble dragon; but now that she's embracing a permanent life, she doesn't want to play a face anymore. As a result, aside from some secrets she keeps close to the chest, her pony self is pretty close to who she was.

 

Cerulean is an artist by nature and has all the eccentricities that come with that. She loves to create, she loves to see her creations come to life, and she seeks validation from others on how great her creations are. She also appears to often be in her own world, thinking of ideas of the next big show she can create or the next big mural she can paint. This ditziness only appears when she is in the zone, thinking about what she wants to do next, and it's not so much airheadedness as a space she goes in her head where everything around her seems to disappear. She won't communicate how she's feeling in this mode, and hell, she may not even communicate at all when someone is attempting to talk to her, at least until her project is finished. She has an intense amount of focus that doesn't compare even to other artists, to the point that it can be eerie how little she seems to perceive once she's "in the zone". She also has a tendency to drop whatever she is doing whenever she reaches this state, making it a potential frustration to those communicating with her.

 

When she isn't in this zone or when she's just creating for fun, though, Cerulean is very sociable - perhaps too much, in a very forward way. Cerulean should be known as a very flirtatious pony, regardless of the recipient's gender, and quite the teaser. She appears to enjoy getting under the skin of other ponies, making them squirm, and with all of her years of studying animal behavior, she also seems to have an intuitive instinct for what will get under their skin, too. She pokes and prods at buttons until she either perturbs the pony too much or advances actually happen and the pony appears to think she's interested, in which case she will make it clear she isn't. That isn't to say she's not up for a flirtatious foray, necessarily, but she avoids commitments and relationships like the plague. Part of the reason is due to the fact that Cerulean will outlive any particular partner, and as a result despite her friendliness, overly friendliness, she is also fairly detached from other ponies.

 

In a way, this is a good thing, because her wealth of knowledge and her age means that she can give good advice. When she's seen it all before, she has an idea of how to handle it now, and she has no troubles telling other ponies information they may need to know. That being said, she is still slightly a tricky one by nature, like most kitsune, and may pull a joke or a prank. In fact, Cerulean has a penchant for pranks and may deceive another pony for a laugh. This can lead to her earning the reputation of someone who is callous rather than helpful, but really it is more based on her whim and how attached she is to the pony in particular (of course, it's not often she's that attached, but a secret need to have someone close to her may bring her to be so in the future). When she does give good advice and means it, it's solid advice because she doesn't become too emotionally invested in any other pony's situation. And when she tricks somepony, it's going to be a good prank. She knows what works and what doesn't, after all.

 

Being a kitsune, a yokai, who has been without yokai for so long, who wouldn't understand what it's like, has left Cerulean being deeply lonely deep inside. That detachment can betray that in her, for those of the keener eye.

 

But Cerulean puts up a playful, flirtatious front, and it works fine for her. It also makes it especially harsh and contrasting when Cerulean breaks that front, either with a show of emotion (which she rarely ever does; vulnerability is something she's gotten very good at hiding, along with her true form) or with a kind of deep wisdom or harshness that drastically conflicts with those personality traits. Cerulean, in fact, can be very chilling whenever she does get serious, and she can even come off as cold and heartless with the way she may address certain issues. She doesn't sugarcoat the truth if she is going to give advice to you, so be warned.

Character Summary: Hake no Sakkaku, or "Cerulean Canvas", is a kitsune living disguised as an earth pony. She's flirtatious and wise, and yet there is that impression she has a deep secret that she is hiding. She's card-carrying and cunning, sly as the fox she is, but not unfriendly toward those she speaks to. She doesn't like to commit, and she does like to prank. She's old and tired... And she just needs someone who understands.

[RainbowFoxxy]