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Personal Information
Name: Squid
Age: 26
Personal Journal: hailthenarc
Email / AIM / MSN / Plurk: AIM: Squiddlyeon PLURK: Squiddly
Current Character(s): Ratchet, Deadpool

Character Information
Name: Kani
Age: He fudges it a lot, but in general his age is a touch over three hundred years old

Appearance: A six foot tall, slim and fit man, if somewhat edging on the side of a beanpole. He's clean shaven, face and head, and doesn't seem to have any hair on the rest of him, save for very fine, downy stuff. He was born with heterochromia, and one eye is green, while the other is blue. While he has some vaguely masculine features, and generally portrays a very male character, his bone structure and general build is more androgynous than anything else. His teeth only start out human in the front, but sharply become shark like and larger in the back of his mouth, necessary for breaking shells, bones and tearing flesh.

Kani's ears are slightly pointed, enough to be missed, but while in the shape of a half fish, they become sharper, more opaque at the tips, and vaguely blue at the edges.

Full blown half fish involves a long, eel like, silver scaled tail with an excessively fancy gossamer fin at the end, and the whole thing is iridescent. Scales also line his jaw like this, his fingers become webbed and clawed, and the rest of his teeth sharpen and thicken.

Character history: Kani (assumed human name for various magical reasons) was born roughly three hundred years ago near Greece, by a pair of old world sirens as another son in a long line of sirens the two had born before him. Needless to say, they were not that interested in raising yet another siren child, and were just kind enough to stick around to show the fairy child how to feed and defend himself before they took off for different waters, leaving the young siren alone on an island off the coast of Greece. He was more or less isolated from his kind for all of his formative years as a child, seeing only occasional mermaid pods.

Needless to say, it formed a feral child of a fairy, who basically learned how to talk and act from sailors he sang into the island and either enslaved or ate. Rude, crass and passionate. While sirens themselves are fairly high class, elegant and regal fairies, Kani ended up being high energy, loud, bawdy and... human-like. He found it easier to connect with the humans that washed up on his shore than the various non-humans that swam past every now and again, though it never really stopped him from eating them or making them live with him. A fairy is as a fairy does.

In time, he grew bored of Greece, and abandoned his pining entourage of sailors on his island, making a line for tropical waters. He'd find himself near Bimini, once more singing down ships, stealing their various treasures, and tormenting the humans that would wash up on his shore. Thus he lived for another solid one hundred and fifty years before one day, while lounging on the shore of his island, he spotted a small boat. Just a nice little row boat, and as he readied himself to charm the vessel into the rocks, he spotted the rider. A sudden shock of brilliant copper hair, skin as white as alabaster, dressed in a loose fitting, almost gauzy dress.

It took a minute for him to come to the conclusion that he couldn't wreck the boat. It took a day for him to come to terms with the emotion that flickered over his mind as he watched her, listened to her laugh and sing in the boat with the friend that had gone out with her. It was a second birth. An awakening unlike any he had felt before. And he for once, understood and could fathom what that look was, on the faces of washed up humans entranced by his spell. Because now it was his turn to be ensnared. Within that emotion that was wholly human blossomed a realization, the glow of a soul, and the sinking of ships finally tapered and ended, as he found himself growing more and more upset at the idea of taking the life of a human.

Not entirely of course but enough to stop the needless murder. And eating them.

Soon, her weekly visits towards the island in the boat were filled with the sounds of singing back to her, magic leeched from it as he couldn't bear to force her to come to him. The light of a soul had gifted him with an outstanding moral: He couldn't force someone to love him. All the power and ability to coerce a person to adore him, but the idea of anything less than true love for him was more than just distasteful. Every weekend, he'd sing to her, and she'd sing back, strangers otherwise though Kani felt more and more connected every time she'd sing to him. Every day, he could feel the emotion growing, and every day, more of that wild nature would fall to the wayside, the siren becoming embarrassed with his nakedness, with his feminine, delicate appearance, made to appeal to another man, perhaps-

But not a woman.

And then, one day, she vanished. No boat came to greet him near the island, and every day he swam out just a little further, closer to the mainland to see if he could find her. Finally, he did. It was a lovely gathering, people milling around a makeshift podium of sorts, he supposed, a tall, dark haired man, powerful and with an elegantly groomed beard standing beside it. Dressed in black, a sharp top hat on his head, Kani was enamored by the look- And then she appeared. Resplendent in a pearly white gown, her wild red hair neatly pinned back and under a gossamer veil. He watched them kiss, and experienced another emotion that would have been beyond him: the breaking of a heart. He watched the gathering cheer and celebrate, and while he could indeed have washed it all away, he didn't want to ruin her happiness.

As they all slowly began to file away from the beach, he watched as his nameless love took the hat from her new husbands head, and tossed it into the sea with a laugh, before taking her mates hand and leaving. He'd find the hat washed up on the beach a day later, and never again would it ever leave his possession. For days, he lay in a complete depression, unable to eat, sing or greet the sun outside, curled in his cave of meaningless objects and bathed in the attention of servants who'd long ago had their free will sung away. It all meant nothing, if they didn't do it of their own accord. Then, he made a resolution. He'd find her, and confess his love to her. Even if she rejected him, it was better than knowing she'd never know his feelings. He gathered what few scraps of clothes he'd ever seen fit to own, a long, battered dress shirt and that one hat, and freed every servant he had. From here on in, he'd never need them again, before swimming for the mainland again. His former servants would light a fire and be rescued not too long after his departure.

He could use their plight for his gain, and did, appearing on the shore and appealing to a couple that lived near the coast. His ship had sank near an island, and rather than fester and die there, he'd made an attempt for the shore. They believed him and took him in, but wondered at his thin, feminine appearance, too pretty for a man. Unable to do much about it, and unwilling to explain why his hair was so exceedingly long, he pleaded with the husband to help him cut it off. Nothing would do until every last hair was meticulously shaved off, the siren refusing to let the man touch him with an iron razor and taking the time to 'discover' gold to pay for an expensive silver one. It was the only way he felt he could approach the look of a human male, and kept it that way from thereon in.

Aside from his apparent ability to dive for and find riches, he'd entertain the couple with his singing, and smelling an opportunity, the two whisked him off to the nearest city, dressing him up in some better fitting clothes and giving him the chance to display his skills to a theater and opera. Normally such a thing would be unheard of, but with a bit of convincing magic, the siren was allowed to preform, and soon enough was making a name for himself, and delivering a healthy flow of cash for both himself and his human benefactors.

Soon enough he was well known and popular, a well liked singer and performer in plays and operas. Known for a massive range, startling good looks, a bawdy, loud and lively personality and a wide taste in women and slightly less well known, men, he was a big hit at parties and often invited to high profile get togethers and fund raisers, making his way through dozens of partners within a single year. He was also known for having a volatile temper, and carried the odd 'curse' about him of people he disliked choking and dying on their drinks while he was there. Prolific enough to be noticed, but this was past the era of witch craft and while the fae were known, Kani was far too loud, obvious and visible to be considered on of the secretive fair folk.

He made the mistake of becoming too trusting in the late twenties, when an attractive young man that had charmed him one night offered to invite him to a private party. The siren eagerly agreed, almost managing to make it back to the young mans house, before he was attacked by him in an empty alley way. As it turned out, the young man was less interested in his body for romantic reasons, and more for having something interesting in the curio-cabinet. He'd found out the singer was more than human, though Kani was never able to put a finger on how he managed to arrive at that conclusion. Not that he asked either. He merely killed that young man, and left his water filled corpse in the middle of the sidewalk. From that day on, the siren was a great deal less trusting of men in general, his distrust of humans as an entire species being born when a young woman he'd slept with poisoned his water after he admitted he wouldn't be coming back again for her. Rather than kill the woman though, he managed to shift to his water shape and slipped down the drain in the bathroom.

Presently, he lives a nomadic life, able to finally come out as a fairy in public now that the fair folk have become more universally recognized as another intelligent species. While he still distrusts people in general he still takes great delight in spending time with them. It's been a hundred and fifty years since he's last seen his human love, and while some small part of him is aware she's dead, he still searches for her nevertheless, unwilling to admit he'll never be able to tell her how he felt about her.

Personality: Kani is first and foremost, obsessed with being 'special'. One of a kind, the only one there is like him out there. After all there are a great deal many sirens out there. He needs to be the only one out there who is like himself. It's very common for many fairies to be indistinguishable from each other within their given race, and Kani has gone above and beyond in an attempt to set himself apart from the rest of them. He's cast aside the androgynous look most males of his species have, and pushed to be seen as more 'human' than the rest of his kind, while still boasting his status as a fairy. There's an odd obsession, some underlying jealousy of humans, though it's something Kani will never openly admit to. He gets very upset at being brushed aside, forgotten, mistaken for someone else or otherwise treated as unimportant or a copy.

He's a very passionate creature, and can never feel anything to moderation. From boredom to anger to love, he feels everything to their fullest extent, and almost always acts on each of them without a thought as to how this could effect him later. If he 'falls in love' with someone, he's quick to profess it and seek their attention, if he's angry, he says it immediately, and attempts to gain relief from the feeling in any way possible, be it a physical fight or demanding appeasement and an apology. While he doesn't seem to have a full grasp on what fear is, he does seem to be aware of regret, dimly.

Kani is the kind of person who always has to be right, and even if he knows he is solidly, awfully wrong, will still try and argue his point without being directly dishonest. If he doesn't know what he's talking about, he will often just make things up as he goes along, as story telling isn't lying, per-say. If presented with facts, he'll get huffy and leave before admitting any possible fault. He has a rather childish, innocent approach to things such as this, being somewhat unaware that making things up isn't exactly considered the socially correct thing to do, despite his years with humans.

He cannot lie, and if he makes a promise, he must adhere to that promise or suffer a punishment, thus it's very rare to make Kani promise to do anything at all. He also lies by omission, leaving things out of stories and explanations to sway people into believing what he wants them to. He's a somewhat shifty individual when it comes to words, and while it may outwardly seem like he's incapable of being quietly dishonest, it's actually rather rare that the siren is fully truthful either. It's very hard to tell when he's using his freedom of opinion to speak, or leaving out pieces of the story, and he fully prefers it this way.

He's also quite the flirt, and has it in mind that sharing is caring. While not perverted, he is known to make the odd inappropriate joke to get a laugh. He's more of a perfect gentleman to women than men, as he considers human women more likely to be hurt by crass comments than another man. He'll openly flirt with both genders, and portrays a very masculine persona, almost to the point of being stereotypical. It's always been deeply important to him that he be seen as masculine, fully male in every sense, considering his life before as being physically androgynous and more of an object of lust for other men. Any attempt to take away this dominant and masculine role will be met with violence for men, and angry name calling for women, as he's a creature whose ego can be easily bruised and is very easily threatened. He isn't that physically strong, and mostly relies on magic for self defense, and takes great offense to this fact and will always initiate a fight with a physical attack.

Kani has a massive ego that he loves to have stroked, and in the case that he finds someone he likes, he'll often be doting and express the wish to care for them. Siren males are usually not very social creatures, but will often take one mate for life. Kani is something of an outlier in this aspect and feels some slight social push to find someone who 'fits' with him. He isn't very good at it. He's too mercurial for most peoples tastes, and enjoys wandering too much to settle down with anyone for more than a few weeks, a month at most.

All this being said, he does make an honest and obvious attempt to do the right thing. It's just that the 'right thing' for humans can vary greatly from the 'right thing' for fairies, and he's often torn between the two. As well as this, he gets conflicting messages from each human, and he cannot seem to find anything that neatly fits into pleasing everyone. Feed a man for a day and he'll enable them to a life of begging, give a man a job and he's forcing someone to do things beyond their scope, or handing off good jobs to an undeserving man, save someone from a mugging, starve a poor man, let them get mugged, and he's indifferent to the lives of others- He's deeply concerned about fitting in morally, especially now that humans are fully aware of the existence of fairies, and have an assumption that all fairies are dangerous sociopaths. He knows deep down that needless death is wrong, but still believes that he has the right to pick and choose who should die when they pick a fight with him. Some fairy traits are just too hard for him to shake.

Kani is a creature trapped between human and fairy, unable to choose which side he identifies more with. Accepted by neither side, and seeking admiration and love from both, he portrays the image of someone who couldn't care and is happy with his life, while constantly questioning himself and if he should do things as he does them, and if he even counts as a sentient being due to being born without a soul. It bothers him to this day, and often leaves him brooding and sulking on his own.


Powers and Abilities: Sirens Song
Kani's singing abilities can be neatly broken up into five categories as follows:
Control: The typical sirens song, alluring and demanding, forcing men to jump to their deaths into the ocean, or heedlessly obey every command given by the siren themselves. It can be defeated by ear plugs, a powerful will, by injuring the fairy and driving them outside the radius of control, or killing the fairy outright.

Love song: Though rarely used, it causes the feelings of deep infatuation to grow in the listener. While it doesn't entirely rob the listener of free will, they will feel as if they have truly fallen for the siren in question. Once more the spell is defeated by a powerful will, or by somehow removing the sound or source of the music.

War Song: Used to start fights or embolden fighters themselves. Kicks a fire up in the listeners soul, the need to attack and fight tooth and nail, drives away all fear and replaces it with anger.

Fear dirge: Rather than cause panic, it instills a sense of deep discomfort. The sense that something is horrifically wrong.

Lullaby: What it says on the tin. Another rarely used piece as it requires the most amount of time to work, and Kani rarely has the patience to sing the entire lullaby. If only partially sung, it brings a feeling of calm, drowsiness and peace to the listener.

Water Magic
Magic with water, what did you expect? Rather, the careful manipulation of water, though he can't control the weather or temperature of water in any way, shape or form, and if it's frozen solid it's useless to him. He is also capable of reverting to water shape in order to avoid damage, though simply dropping something made of iron into the puddle can force him to revert back.

Siren Shape
Hand in hand with water breathing, he can only linger underwater for long periods of time if he has assumed his siren's shape. He loses his legs and gains a long, eel like, silver scaled tail, iridescent with a long gossamer fin in the back. His fingers become webbed and clawed, and he develops a line of scales at his jawline, near his ribs and down his spine. Of course, he can't do much on land in this shape, and will immediately revert to siren form if injured enough, as his fairy glamour needs a certain amount of concentration.

Glamour
Not true shapeshifting, in a sense. If someone were to see past the illusion, he'd still be a scaled and finned entity, just with legs. Rather the glamour is used to adopt a more human like appearance, and to give him a more attractive face. Can be broken with the use of iron, or by simply physically damaging him enough so that he can't concentrate on the image anymore.


World Summary: Kani's world is more or less like our own present day world, same massive historical events, same pop stars, same music... Save for the fact that mythical and cryptozological beings are well known, documented and accepted. Well, generally accepted. For many feral kinds of mythical beasts and cryptids, there are zoos, some have been domesticated (such as a flourishing unicorn stable in Montana) and many other roam wildly and are observed by modern day zoological experts. For beings such as Kani, who have a fully functioning human intelligence (or greater than human intelligence), they have the ability to go out and register for personhood. This is considered necessary, as wild fairies are known to be predators to humans, and many people agree that unless carefully monitored, causalities among the human population would rise sharply. Most fairies must go through rigorous testing, exams, personal visits and then daily to weekly checks to ensure that they are operating safely among humans. Kani himself has been grandfathered into the system, as he's been living among people for well over one hundred years without (documented) incident, and proudly carries a card declaring his unalienable personhood status.

Many popular stars and celebrities are also well known non-humans, such as Lady Gaga, Tim Burton and one of the creators of South Park. There's a general assumption that anyone of fairy blood will be a natural born star, considering their kinds predisposition towards drama, imagination, and natural attention seeking nature. Kani himself considers himself to be a fully fledged high class fairy in that aspect, as he meets the human expectation of how their species should act in public. Many of his own kind would loudly disagree, however.

There is a standing hierarchy among fairies, that the older you are, the more important you are, alongside your specific type of fairy. For instance, Kani, being a siren, is a considerably high class fairy, akin to being born into old money for a human. His parents were both very old, original Grecian sirens, and by all means he should, by fairy standards, act the part of it. However, with his general attitude and relatively young age, Kani is actually slightly below a lower standing fairy of higher age. The lowest type of fairy on the totem pole would be the commonly seen Trooping Fairy, or the fairy that everyone imagines if someone says they saw a fairy. These small humanoids span anywhere from a basic, almost rodent like intelligence, to fully fledged human intelligence, but have great difficulty in applying for personhood due to their diminutive size and accepted stereotype. Human sized fairies like Kani have it much easier and can blend in far quicker into human society.

While politically, accepting their non-human neighbors is considered in good taste, there are still loud minorities that feel as if all fairies should either be deported or killed due to their potential danger towards humans. The loudest group, the O.H.P, Organization for Human Protection, is one of the loudest advocates for the removal of all non-human persons from the country, and have been linked to many assassination attempts and terrorist actions against fairies. While it's not that scary for your average, run of the mill elf or human passing huldra to walk around freely, creatures like the aforementioned trooping fairy, Black Aggis, kelpie or centaur have a greater issue with getting around, and often times must either remain in hiding, or operate solely under government care.

Samples
Network: What's a guy gotta do ta get some drinkin' buddies around here? I'm bored! There ain't nuthin' ta do! ... Since them giant robits won't let me pal around their stupid base no more. It's boring here, I'm gonna die! I'm dyin' right now, here lies Kani, mourned by all, killed by critical fun failure, rest in peace you beautiful bastard.

Come oooooonnnnn, I'll even sing ya a song, free a'charge. An' one dance. Just the one. Ya get another if ya actually drink, I mean it! Fanny's my aunt!

I'll pay fer first round! Not even a lie, can't even lie, cross my heart an' hope ta die stick a needle in my eye.

Please guys I'm gonna choke an' die from bein' bored.

Third Person: He was so happy he found the ocean here. The river was nice, of course, though swimming in DENILE was a bit insulting. No, he'd always preferred salt water over fresh. His parents were salt water sirens, and it was only logical he would be too. Drifting in the waves close to the air temple, he took time to dive down every now and again, seeking out caves and secret hiding places, just in case he ever saw fit to stash anything down here. Never knew when a secret cache was going to be needed for later.

It wasn't so bad here, to be honest. Sure, his friends weren't here but... well he was always good at making new ones. And now, he was almost positive he was the only one of his kind here. That need to be different and special was being realized, he wasn't the same as someone else around here. Only siren there was.

"The Siren o' Nautilus. Got a nice ring to it, don't it?" He talked openly to the crab he'd plucked from the ocean, jabbing at it a little with his index finger and guiding it around the flat of his belly as he floated along. His new little friend didn't seem too thrilled to be a part of this, waving its claws angrily at the siren. "I mean, one of a kind! That's special. Rare! Ya find a one of a kind rock or a one of a kind hat? Worth a lot, innit? Worth a lot more'n hat number three hundred an' eighty six outta five billion, right? Imagine if you were the only crab out here, they'd have ya in a lil place of honor in the city somewhere. Hank, the crab, one of a kind." Another angry snip towards the tips of his fingers, and Kani jabbed at it's eye huffily. "Yer a bad friend, Hank, anyone ever tell ya that? No wonder they ain't never named anythin' nice after crabs." And off Hank went, tossed into the ocean by the irate fairy before he started swimming for the mainland again.

He had things to do in there, anyway. Being the one and only one of him there was here, he had a lot of PR to build. A name to make.

Special and all.