Recolle Application

[imaginex]

PLAYER
YOUR NAME: Marie
18+?: Yes
CONTACT: ignitible
CHARACTERS IN GAME: N/A
RESERVATION LINK: here

CHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: Sakura Matou
AGE: 16
CANON: Fate/Stay Night (Heaven’s Feel Route)

CANON HISTORY: Here is the wiki for the Heaven's Feel Route, which is sufficent, but I'm going to add details regarding Fate/Zero as a means of further fleshing out her backstory. Because this app clearly wasn't long enough.

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Originally born as Sakura Tohsaka, she is the second daughter to Aoi and Tokiomi, and for four years grew up beside her older sister, Rin. Not only did she and Rin have high quality magic circuits, but also rare element affinities that would make both of them enticing heirs.

Which was a problem. Most mage families can only allow for one; the other child is either given away to live a normal life, or never told the truth hiding in their own home. But when faced with the raw potential of his children, Tokiomi found both options distasteful, as it meant his rejected daughter would not be allowed to explore her talents -- or worse, be cruelly used to fulfill another mage's agenda.

The best hope would be for the other daughter to find safety in the arms of another family -- and who should be looking for a heir to adopt but the Matous! Wholesome people, those Matous.

Zouken himself picked Sakura as the child he'd welcome into his home, and if Tokiomi was concerned that she'd be barred from talking to her former family, that didn't stay his hand. He gave Sakura away with his blessing.

... Really, it's probably for the best Tokiomi never lived to realize his mistake.

It's eleven years before the start of Fate/Stay Night, and in that time, Sakura is trained in the basement of the Matou estate. So great are the demands that it changes her DNA and physical appearance, and that's to say nothing of the torture and abuse she's forced to endure. What's worse is that her body has been filled with the Worm Crest... which, yes, is as nasty as it sounds. They devour her mana as a price for teaching her body the Matou lineage's magecraft, on top of causing her incredible pain when not properly sated.

But the true horror of it is the inevitability of her fate. With the crest inside her body, Zouken is free to control her however he pleases. She is in every way his puppet: unable to resist him, unable to die without his blessing.

CANON PERSONALITY:

At first glance, Sakura presents like any quiet teenager: modest, polite, a little fragile. She is obedient to her teachers, and fellow classmates would offhandedly cite her as “nice” for no other reason than they can’t think of better word. Give them a little longer and they’d wonder why they rarely see her hanging out with girls her age.

Then they would simply forget all about her.

To Sakura, that's a standard reaction. Nothing about her warrants a second glance, despite the fact that underneath that automatic smile exists a sad girl with an equally sad story. Years of torture and abuse at the hands of her adoptive family have turned her lonely, accustomed to cruelty, and the result is that Sakura remains polite in her interactions while making few efforts to branch out. Instead, she bends to the whims of others, often without voicing any dissent, and rarely seems to make friends. It’s such a pervasive trait that the protagonist of the game mentions how he’s never seen her around people besides himself or her brother.

But that’s to be expected; after all, Sakura can barely stand herself, let alone what others might think of her. She knows better than anyone the scope of her insecurities and flaws:

Deeply vindictive towards the people she thinks have wronged her? Yep. Bitter at the happenstance which landed her here and that no one has ever thought to save her? Oh yes. A raging hypocrite who knows she shouldn’t be passing judgement on others when she follows the whims of her Grandfather with all the resistance of a broken puppet?

Check, underline, bold print.

Sakura's self-loathing is a constant wound at the forefront of her thoughts, and whereas others might applaud her perseverance in the face of daily cruelties, she sees nothing but a coward who has accepted her fate. She won’t run away, because there is nowhere to go. She can’t bring herself to take her own life, because she fears hurting herself. There is no one to save her, either – no one who’s willing, anyway – and thus there's little point in picking up the broken pieces left in the wake of her grandfather and step-brother.

But the truth is, for all her bitterness, a deep seed of resilience is what defines Sakura’s core. Her grandfather handpicked her because he thought her fragile – then tortured her for years, implanting a Worm Crest in her body to break her spirit and mold her into a fitting vessel – and yet his abuse has yet to strike the killing blow. She bears through her training with great stoicism, never fighting back but never giving in, like a splintered mirror that won't completely shatters.

And it’s that same resilience that begins to bleed into hope when she sees a young boy attempting to jump over a pole, refusing to give up.

This event marks a transition in Sakura’s life. Inspired by the boy – a boy named Shirou – she begins to believe there is strength in enduring her hardships, and with the right company, Sakura transforms into a more optimistic, hopeful individual. While still very quiet, she can laugh and smile, even gently tease her friends. She stands as a well of compassion and makes it her job to cheer others on should they need the extra boost. There’s no shortage of stubbornness in her, either, especially when she’s determined to make herself useful, or when the people she cares about are pushing themselves beyond their limits. And rather than wallow in her misery, she throws herself into tasks that give her life meaning, from cooking a meal that Shirou will approve of, to keeping the house clean so he has one less thing to worry about.

In fact… most of her efforts are aimed to increase one specific person’s opinion of her, and it’s here that Sakura’s dedication is cast in shadow. Starved for attention, Sakura pours her love and affection onto whoever glances her way, obsessively so, and it's why Shirou becomes her sun, her moon, her guiding star. Believing he's the one good thing to come into her life (and she's not completely wrong, in the scope of the story), she covets his affections while assuming he'll eventually leave her.

Does she want him to? Of course not. If she dares to want for anything, it'd be a life shared between them. But what she wants isn’t important, see – Shirou will find someone more worthy of his love, and that’s how it must be.

Which brings up the other relationship with equal hold on Sakura’s heart. Her biological sister, Rin Tohsaka. Her idol and tormentor. The girl who was chosen to head the Tohsaka household because (Sakura assumes) she was the better choice. If there is ever a relationship that encompasses the ugliness of Sakura’s thoughts, it’s this one. It's the dream of every little sister to be protected by her older sibling, and Sakura cannot help but revere the girl. Yet at the same time it's Rin whom Sakura blames more than anyone else for her predicament. She craves Rin’s attention and love, all while doubting the depth and validity of those feelings, resulting in an undercurrent of bitterness and loathing. After all, she has never tried to rescue Sakura from her plight, and the kindness expressed during those empty moments in the school hallways won't be enough to bridge the golf between them. That Sakura knows Rin is attracted to Shirou (and vice versa) is constant knife in her heart, further proof that she really isn’t worthy.

These two relationships in Sakura’s life highlight that while she’s made gains into being a more open, thoughtful person, Sakura is still wrought with jealousy, bitterness, and curses. Just because there are moments where she hopes for the best doesn’t change that happiness is a pipe dream in her eyes. The world cosigned her suffering by standing silent when she cried for help all those years ago, and what's left is a girl searching for a hero – someone to love her, someone to save her, someone to remind her there’s hope for a future without pain and misery.

SKILLS/ABILITIES:

• Connection to the Root: The Root has an entire wiki dedicated to its explanation, so for here, liken it to an endless well of energy/mana, one that Sakura is hooked up to. Essentially, she's a mana battery. No matter the spells used, she’ll quickly refill, and she has enough mana on standby to keep Rider (her Servant during the war) from disappearing.

• Imaginary Numbers: a rare magical affinity that grants Sakura the ability to sense and interact with “hollows” (think ghosts, spirits, shadows, etc). When used in conjunction with the water element, Sakura has the means to control them and store hollows in a separate pocket dimension, or even use them as a means to attack/defend herself.

• Water Element: One of the Great Five Elements of which mages can have an affinity towards, and in canon, Sakura tends to use spells that manipulate a person’s mana flow, much like the current of a river. She can also manipulate water with the right spell, too.

• Magic Circuits: The reason Sakura can use magecraft in the first place. She has 40 high quality circuits in her body.

• Matou Family Spells: Specific examples aren’t given in canon, but Sakura was trained in the magecraft of the Matou family, so presumably knows what Zouken taught her/her worm crest bestows upon her. As a general rule of thumb, all these spells focus on “absorption” – draining a person’s mana, or at least transferring it between the victim and caster. If you at any point thought "Mana Vampire", you are correct.

• Cooking: Despite her age, Sakura is an impressive cook, with special focus on Western recipes.

• Archery: She shows enough diligence in canon to imply she's a wicked shot with a bow and arrow, on top of her arrow motif.

CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: Sakura Tohsaka
AU AGE: 18
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: Trade the purple hair for dark brown, along with warm green eyes. Otherwise her physical appearance is the same as in canon.

AU HISTORY:

• Sakura is born the second child into a well to-do Japanese family from Fuyuki City. Her parents come from a combination of old money and young ingenuity, so at no point does Sakura ever want for anything growing up.

• … Except maybe her family’s approval. While she is clearly adored, especially by her mother, it’s tough growing up under the shadow of a brilliant older sibling who sets the standard for what a “Tohsaka” should be. Sakura’s crowning achievements always feel eclipsed by what she assumes to be her superior sister.

• Desperate to prove her worth, Sakura careens down the path of self-imposed anxiety. School is divided between studies and whatever hobbies she thinks will set her apart (which turns out to be an odd mix of traditional Japanese customs, like being proficient at tea ceremonies… and then turning into a closet horror fanatic) and while she performs extremely well, it’s never enough to ease her anxieties about measuring up. As an additional consequence, Sakura doesn’t make many friends her age.

• Her parents are quick to notice their daughter’s unstable mental health, and because they Actually Try, drown her in extra love and reassurances. It’s a tactic that works in middle school, but quickly loses its charm by the time she enters high school. Their devotion only proves to her that she’s being coddled and not held to the same standard as her sibling.

• On a whim, Sakura takes up a more “expressive” field of study – namely the arts, which is contrary to everything she's studied thus far, and with the added bonus of shunning her parents’ wish that she might focus on a career path with more pedigree. To her surprise, she is quite talented at watercolors.

• Which naturally means her parents swoop in with full support, ready to pay the bills and buy the supplies if it means furthering their daughter’s education. It should make her happy (and it does!), but as before, their love cuts like a double-edged sword. Art is meant to be fun, freeing, only to be turned into another obligation with which she can disappoint her loved ones.

• Needing to sort through what she wants and her instinctive need to please everyone, Sakura flies out to visit Recolle in the USA. The plan is two-fold: surprise her sister, who has been gone for almost a year attending college, and also take a look at Recolle U’s art program.

• Except upon arriving, Sakura can’t find her elusive sister, no matter how hard she tries. Even worse is her rebellion streak isn’t completely over. Given the opportunity to strike out and force herself into the world of adulthood, Sakura decides she’s not going home. If she’s feeling smothered, obviously the solution is to buy a crappy apartment and take the first job she comes across while looking for her long-lost sister… right?

• Tl;dr lemme tell you the story of a spoiled rich girl with lowkey anxiety

AU PERSONALITY:

Dodging the utter shit-show of her canon history means Sakura’s Recolle personality is comparatively stable and healthy. She was never adopted out, she isn’t pressed into a cruel vendetta of the Matou family, and she’s leveled up from thinking she’s garbage to just assuming she’s mildly unimpressive. No abuse, no sexual assault, no festering well of bitterness waiting to manifest itself as The Final Boss and ruin everyone's day.

And it's because Sakura knows that she’s loved. Her actions are the maladjusted expectations of a girl wanting to be as cool as her older sibling, but that’s really it. Her parents adore her, her sister is her best friend, and though she struggles to make lasting connections with others her own age, she doesn’t walk into situations with the resignation of a girl abandoned by fate.

The wonders of a stable support system.

It also means she can afford to be compassionate in a way her canon-self assumes would be impossible. She helps others because she wants to, because she can, because it’s not going to be used as a cruel attempt to break her spirit. Need some cash? She's got you covered. Want a shoulder to cry on? Sakura thinks you could do better, but she'll do her best to do right by you, friend. And while she still comes across as a shy introvert, her need to please people now extends towards anyone she likes, and not just the two or three people in her original canon.

Though compared to canon, Sakura is on the…. spoiled side… which is putting it lightly. Not by way of petty tantrums or preppy girl hair-flips, but she is used to a certain level of comfort and doesn’t realize how lucky she’s got it. It's not that she means to be That Rich Girl (and to her parents' credit, they never went out of their way to lavish her with ridiculous expenses) but she can be extremely tone deaf to the daily grind of the common man.

I mean, her parents would let her roll on their bank account, from the tuition to a private room to whatever else she needs, yet she fucks off and gets a cheap-ass apartment because of a poorly-planned rebellion. Tumblr would rip her to shreds.

SAMPLE: My TDM threads