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[OOC - FAQ.]

This isn't really a 20 facts thing - I hope I don't have twenty questions that need explaining - more like a FAQ for stuff that comes up often.

First of all, why is he calling my character by their last name? Nobody does that!
Issei does. Canonically, he's shown to still call his best friend of almost two years by his last name. Emiya Shirou calls him by his first name in return, so they're obviously close enough that Issei could use his first name if he chooses to. In fact, in canon, Issei never calls anyone by their first name. This may differ in the sequel that isn't translated, but that takes place in la la la fantasy dreamland, so that technically doesn't count.

What this means for you is: he will call you by your last name. Even if he really likes you. Even if he really doesn't like you. Even if he thinks you are the embodiment of all the evils of the world, he will call you by your last name. He probably won't be very respectful otherwise (pronouns, honorifics), but you'll get the last name treatment.

Possible exceptions: if you have only one name, he'll call you that. If you insist on being called your first name, he'll eventually relent... or, more likely, not address you by name for a while, then go back to your last name when you're not paying attention. And I had him decide of his own free will to start calling someone by their first name... of course, it was his best friend of two years who'd been calling him by his first name forever, and it had just been established that Issei was willing to die for him. So, yeah, if he comes close to dying for you, he might consider you close enough to address by your first name.

You mentioned honorifics, but I haven't seen Issei use them?
That one's my fault. I, personally, don't use honorifics when writing Japanese characters unless they're things like -nii or -sensei. The thing is, we don't see Issei around characters he uses honorifics around (best friend, no honorific; mortal enemy, no honorific) except one time, when he's only just met her and calls her -san. So, if you want, you can assume he's using appropriate honorifics with you.

My character's a god/psychic/telepath/l33t haxor, so I'm going to look in his brain to find out what his secret is! Magic powers? Different species? Alien? Saved the world? Something?
Nope, nothing.

...Seriously?
Seriously. Issei has absolutely no special powers, no martial training, no feats of heroism in his background, no magic, no alien technology, nothing. He's just a guy.

So, uh, didn't I hear something about spiritual sensitivity a while back?
Well, he's a guy who's a monk, and that sensitivity's frankly hit-or-miss. He says a monk is good enough at sensing the aura of someone to make an accurate first impression, and he's usually right about someone... with one big mistake. (Tohsaka is a witch/mage and lying to the school, but she's also a good person; Saber is a good and trustworthy person, but she happens to be lying to him at the moment; Caster does dearly love Kuzuki-nii and can be a good housewife, but she doesn't mind getting Issei and other people killed.)

So basically, he's decent at forming first impressions, which isn't really a magic power, and if it was, it doesn't work over the internet anyway.

So my character's still a god/psychic/whatever. What can they know about him?
Oh, anything! There's just not much to him that he wouldn't ordinarily tell you if you asked. But seriously, if you need to know something, just send me a message saying 'hey, what's Issei's favorite flavor of ice cream, my character needs to know' and I'll tell you it's vanilla. Or whatever it is you're asking about.

What's with him and girls?
He is - well, was - equal parts scared of and disliking girls. It's not the standard misogynist 'stay in the kitchen' kind of thing; rather, he finds girls to be formidable opponents who are too powerful to be fully trusted.

Of course, online when he can better think out his responses instead of snapping at people (what he usually does to girls offline), he has no excuse for not being polite. And that led to him becoming friends with a bunch of girls, which led him to reconsidering his views on girls.

So basically, nowadays, if you're a girl, Issei assumes that you can be dangerous, but he's not much more likely to assume that you're out to harm him than he would be if you were a guy.

Isn't that blushing of his a little exaggerated from canon?
No.

To go into more detail: Issei blushes. A lot. He has fourteen different sprites, not including that one time he got possessed. Six of those, or nearly half, are blushing sprites. He blushes all the time, even at little things like worrying over someone's safety or at being thanked (by his crush, but still). I am probably downplaying his blushing tendencies, seriously.

Huh. He's pretty gay, isn't he?
Well, in canon he does think Caster and Saber are beautiful, and can be argued to have a crush on at least the former, but both times they're noted as the rare exception. So... technically he's bi? He's definitely much more interested in men, however.

What happened in his canon that I should know about?
Not much. Issei's only been told about most of it, since lol, minor character who's not in on The Secret.

Important Canon Event #1: His best friend, Emiya Shirou, suddenly ordered him to strip one day at lunch. Issei blushed like he'd never done before and didn't immediately comply, so Shirou stripped him forcibly. (He was looking for a magical symbol on Issei, but of course he couldn't tell Issei that.) This isn't really all that important, but it's good 'make Issei blush' fodder if you need something to bring up.

Important Canon Event #2: Kuzuki Souichirou, who Issei considered to be an older brother to him, was killed. (He kinda deserved it, what with accepting Caster sucking energy from the people of the town, but Issei doesn't know about that.) Issei only found out later (i.e. through here) that he was killed rather than just deciding to leave suddenly, and took it hard.

It's been a year since you apped him, shouldn't he be out of high school, and officially a monk with a shaved head and everything?
Yeah, uh, about that... Him being in high school gives me more options during viruses if he complains about missing school and everything, it gives him more people to be embarrassed around in day-to-day life, and it gives him stuff to do.

As for the hair, well, all of my icons have him with a not-shaved head, and I don't really have any of him the other way. So for right now, he's going to keep getting older on his birthdays, and at one point I'll probably decide that he's graduated, but we'll keep putting off his official becoming-a-monk. Okay?

From dormition, paraphrased: You know he doesn't have to shave his head, right?
Yes, but in canon it's said that he wants to. Thanks for telling me, though!

From clockmaster, paraphrased: What's with that Archer and Shirou thing? I'm confused.
So are we. Um, all of this is going to be spoilerish for Fate/stay night.

When I say Emiya Shirou, I mean: Issei's best friend, and the protagonist of Fate/stay night. Also the narrator.
When I say Archer, I mean: An alternate timeline version of Shirou. Shirou grew up, had a royally sucky life, made a deal with the world, and got a royally sucky afterlife. He gets summoned into the timeline of Fate/stay night during the Grail War, and butts heads with the Shirou already there.
And if I ever say proto-Archer, I mean: The version of Shirou who became Archer, before he was summoned as the Servant class Archer, and thus was still called Emiya Shirou.

If anyone has any more questions, I can go ahead and add them to the list~ And should I pin this?

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Yeah, that comment would actually say to me that he's really serious about being a monk and is committed to it. In Japan there's a lot of part time monks, funny as that may sound, who are salarymen or have "day jobs" during the week, and families at home. It's not much of a religious calling. :3 I'd even wager a guess that for Issei it's more of a family thing than a religious thing, especially considering Japan's normal take on religion.

But yes, it's traditional and expected for him to shave his hair when he becomes a full monk, but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't. Some of the old fogies might be all BLAH BLAH THE PRECEPTS buuut it'd probably largely depend on the sect of Buddhism he's in how much of a big deal it'd be. Since he's young and might go to college, though (I assume), I doubt anyone would push it.

UH IF YOU HAVE ANY RANDOM QUESTIONS FOR ME EVER DON'T HESITATE? XD I adore babbling about Japanese religion. Seriously. :|;;;;

Yep, he's really serious about it. (Although it makes me wonder why he's the successor of the temple, when he has an older brother who's clearly also a monk. How does becoming the head of a Japanese temple work anyway? It looks like it's inherited, since, well, it's Ryudoji Temple and the current head is a member of the Ryudo family, but you'd know more about it than me.) Issei does seem to at least be interested in the religious aspect of it as well (he'll start chanting prayers under his breath to calm himself, and he thinks romantic entanglements are distracting and monks shouldn't be involved in them), rather than it being just a job.

I wouldn't be surprised if his father did push it - it's said in canon, for example, that his father won't let him put meat in his lunches even though his sect allows him to eat meat and drink alcohol, because he thinks a monk should be able to live on a modest diet. Of course, this is the same father who's BFF with the head of the local yakuza, so everyone in canon agrees that Issei's father is kind of weird.

I'll definitely keep that in mind! I love hearing about it, so that works well.

Uhhh well, my knowledge of that is a bit skewed, but my impression is that it used to be an enormous deal and the eldest son would always inherit and there was a lot of pressure on that. But today things are quite different; Japan is obviously a very modern country and I suspect Issei is set to inherit simply because he's the most interested in it. This article (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090802x1.html) in particular supports that theory...

(To quote: "Most children born in temples don't want to become monks. It's just a matter of how far away you can get from the gravity (of the family tradition). Some struggle in other parts of society and return to the religious community. But as far as I know, only a handful actively set out to inherit a priesthood.")

...lol. His father does sound like a sketch. xD; That's pretty indicative of most Japanese monks, though - you're as serious about it as you want to be.

I've actually been considering writing up a primer on Japanese religion and the subsequent holiday calendar for RPers that play Japanese characters, just because it's very, uh, counter-intuitive to the Western mindset and I see a lot of mistakes on that front. (Not from you, just in general!) Of course it's not something I can expect anyone to know, particularly since finding information on it is pretty much hell on wheels, so I thought I might write a quick primer up or something. But idk if that'd be too presumptuous of me. xD;;;;

Huh, I see. That's another thing I wasn't sure about, but from what you say and what canon says, it looks like Issei really is going to inherit. ...Yeah, that's definitely going to come up sometime. ~~I don't have any icons of him in his robes either, but we ignore the clothes in icons all the time, that shouldn't matter.~~

Yeah, his father is... well, there's a reason he only gets mentioned early in the game when everything's comic relief. Issei's brother isn't much different - from what I can tell, his two expressions are |D and ^_^. Issei's pretty much the only one who's srs business all the time.

I think a primer would be definitely helpful! I know there have been times when I've thought 'fffff, Issei would so know about this and all I have to go on is Wikipedia', and I often end up desperately Googling something so that I don't feel like I'm messing it up completely.

Yeah, it probably is. xD; I mean, obviously I don't know his canon, but it's important in Japanese tradition to keep temples among families - particularly when you have it right there in the name, geez. Ryudoji? Oh yes. Someone has to inherit, and it has to be a man, and he has to be ordained, and if Issei's older brother isn't going to do it it's going to be Issei. XD;

I wouldn't be surprised if he's so into it partially as a defense... by which I mean, he really can't do anything else with his life until he has another Ryudo set up to inherit after him, so he takes the practical approach and doesn't try to search elsewhere. That's all speculation, obvs, but Japanese society is extremely centered around fulfilling your obligations - particularly family ones.

Alright, I'll get on that then! :3 Looking up things about Japanese religion is challenging, so don't feel badly. The Japan Times and the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/jjrs/jjrsMain.htm) are two places I can wholeheartedly recommend online, but honestly a lot of the truly helpful stuff is only in books or, even more likely, hasn't been translated. A lot of what I know just comes directly from my teacher and her husband, who's a monk himself, and their experiences and research living in Japan.

Edited 2009-08-20 15:11 (UTC)

It's probably even more important in canon, although whatever magical talent the Ryudo family had (they had to have had some, as they knowingly founded the temple on a leyline) has dwindled down into just a slightly higher spiritual awareness than most people. Still, upholding the family tradition definitely comes up a lot in canon.

If Issei was really set against being a monk, he could probably get Reikan-nii to inherit. I think most of what he does is a genuine desire to focus on being a monk. (For one thing, he's really bad at lying or just not being up-front with anything, so pretty much everything he does is genuine.) ...He's going to freak out when he realizes he himself needs a heir, though. Thank you for reminding me to mention that some day.

I'll keep those places in mind! Thanks once again, you're a great help.

--Which is another thing this primer needs to cover! Buddhism and "magic" and Japan's nonchalance about mystical powers. Oh god this is going to be the longest thing ever please self do not rambleeee ;;;;

But um. Yes. I'm extremely not surprised to hear that the Ryudo family had magical talent - it was a very popular way of proselytizing centuries ago. Which is not to say the practitioners didn't believe in their magical talent, it's just that the magic in it was debatable. Things such as sword-swallowing, coal-walking and intentional starvation were said to be proof of quite literally supranatural power.

ffff glad to give him more things to freak out about XD ♥

No problem, lol, it's better than blathering on to my uninterested roommates. xD

Ooh, fascinating! It makes me wonder when the Ryudo family turned from 'we founded this temple on a leyline, and by the way the Holy Grail or whatever we're calling the magical artifact of power is in a cave under the temple' to 'we're not mages! We don't know anything about the Grail War! The witch living with us now can easily take over our bodies if she feels like!'. How the mighty have fallen...

Because Issei can never have too many things to flail over~

LOL THAT'S KIND OF A COMMENT ON JAPANESE RELIGION ET AL. Most temples and shrines want to lay claim to some form of religious or magical artifact, what have you, and it can get to be a huge deal. There are debates all the time over who has which piece of Kukai's cloak or Saicho's scroll and so on and so on; undoubtedly most of them have no actual basis in reality, fff.
There's really quite a lot of disconnect between the origins of Buddhism in Japan as relying on innate cultural beliefs in the otherworldly and modern day Japan's profound skepticism.

Supposedly my teacher once asked a monk if the sacred object's history in the temple was accurate, and he just gave her this dour look and said, "I don't think that's what's important." Aka, no you bitch it isn't but we don't care so stop spreading your foreign doubt.

Heh, yeah, that comes up too, although it's doubtful that the monks now even know they have/had it - Issei certainly doesn't it. And everybody knows it's not the Holy Grail, but it is an ancient magical artifact of some kind, and at one point (before 1800, at least) they had to have known that they had it.

oh god that's not even infeasible /facepalms forever

A lot of statues or mirrors and whatnot are kept intentionally secret because it's believed that exposing them to daylight and common sight would lessen their power or actually be dangerous. There's some paintings like that too. So some of these artifacts LITERALLY haven't been seen in hundreds of years, and it's only belief that says what's there.

...Somehow I don't think that's the case here, more of the mages going 'okay, we can't let anybody know about this Grail War we have every once in a while because it's secret and we're secret, where do we put it?' And then they stuck it in a cave that they magically covered the entrance to. And then in the third Grail War Angra Mainyu corrupted it, so Issei's basically been living above an evil-spewing abomination all this time.

I'm going to guess that that doesn't happen in real Japan.

LOL I HOPE NOT? But if they told the general public "this is a sacred item you can't see it" they'd just be like, yeah alright. So they don't even need to lie about it that much, roflmao.

...and it's in a cave with a covered entrance. /more facepalming. I could do an entire essay on Shinto's influence on Buddhism in Japan but I will spare you. xD Suffice to say, they are not separate entities.

Yeah, but mages take more precautions than really necessary. Code of secrecy and all that. And there's always some kid who doesn't know not to go running into the cave, and then gets eaten by the evil-spewing abomination, and cleaning that up is a lot of work.

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OH AND I FORGOT TO ADDRESS SOMETHING HERE lol whoops. Which is Issei chanting prayers under his breath - that's not all that uncommon for even a regular Japanese person from what I've heard, and more than 90% of the time it's probably going to be the Heart Sutra (http://homepage.mac.com/doubtboy/HeartSutra.html) or chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra (http://lotus.nichirenshu.org/lotus/sutra/english/watson/lsw_chap25.htm). (That chapter, btw, is talking about Kannon, aka Kanzeon Bosatsu - I would lol forever if Issei met her on the community. XD)

Didn't know that, thanks! (Issei actually has met Kanzeon, although he didn't know who she was. She posted a picture of him in a dress, and he flailed.) Although most people don't start chanting prayers because they think they need to purify themselves after thinking a woman is beautiful. That's just Issei being Issei.

...LMFAO OH ISSEI. You make me want to get into this fandom seriously. XD;;;;

rofl he should talk to Minato sometime just so I can have him casually mention that he works for Kanzeon.

You know, I kind of worry about people who say they want to get into the fandom because of Issei, because he's a minor character who's not all that indicative of what the rest of the series is like. (Doesn't fight, doesn't use magic, isn't a legendary hero, doesn't use seafood metaphors during sex scenes.)

That would be great. Issei'd do a doubletake and be like 'wait, the Kanzeon'?

Well, he's from Fate/Stay Night, right? I've been seeing that all over the place lately and have been considering it... XD; But idk much about it. It's a game, right?

lol, Minato still calls her Kannon-sama no matter how much she tells him not to. He's Japanese at heart, damn it.

Yep, that's where he's from. It's a visual novel, which is like a choose-your-own adventure book except with more pictures, background music, and even more text. (Long game is long.) And for an eroge visual novel, it's massively popular/famous in Japan. (It helps that it's really heavy on the plot and the eroge parts are more of an afterthought.)

...omg I effing love visual novels omg omg. Where do I find this I am doomed.

Buy it here (http://www.paletweb.com/selectpage.asp?code=4560158370142), and get the English patch here (http://mirrormoon.org/news/2008/11/fatestay_night_english_v3_2). ...Or you could torrent it if you don't want to pay $83... I can also hook you up with the voice patch, with voices from the PS2 rerelease.

Yeah, I'll probably torrent it. xD Vivi does not have that kind of monies. Voice patch would be sweet though. \o/

This torrent worked for me. (http://dl.torrentreactor.net/download.php?id=1248314&name=Fate-stay+Night) And let's see, voice files one (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=hr7u9md0) and two (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=e6h0zapg), do those still work? Instructions for whatever the heck are over here (http://sanae.livejournal.com/219192.html) if you need them.

...ilu long time, Issei-kun. ♥♥

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