Application to hadriel

[deadlining]

PLAYER

Player name: Luna
Contact: AppleBlossoms
Characters currently in-game: None.

CHARACTER

Character Name: Takashi "Shiro" Shirogane
Character Age: 26
Canon: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Canon Point: S07E09

History: Here!

Personality:

"There's nothing left for you to prove. You've broken every record there is to break."
-Shiro's ex-boyfriend, Adam, about Shiro; just before Shiro goes to break another record and then shoulder the fate of the universe
Shiro is an over-achiever. Legendary pilot, legendary team leader, legendary gladiator - you name it, he's done it. He's of the opinion that by putting in time and effort humans can accomplish incredible things and he's made himself the poster-child of this belief. He has a strong work ethic, a superhuman amount of self-discipline and an all-encompassing sense of duty. People far and wide admire him for these qualities. What they don't know is that Shiro developed this personality because for a lot of his young adult life he felt like he was a person with an expiry date. Diagnosed with a progressive muscle disease, Shiro's been firmly aware that he'll only have his 20s to accomplish all the incredible feats he dreamed of. Fighting against the clock, Shiro abandoned self-care and relationships in favor of getting as much done as is humanly possible for him, even if it means risking his life. Shiro is not someone who is satisfied with going half-way. No matter the danger, Shiro will always see his plans through.

"My wound's great. It's getting bigger all the time..... Just trying to lighten the mood."
-Shiro, near-fatally injured
The main plot validates Shiro in his ways. The fate of the universe is thrust onto Shiro's shoulders and he takes it in stride. Now 'go big or go home' is a matter of 'go big at all times or risk the death of millions'. Shiro's enormous drive forward also impacts how he deals with his various traumatic experiences (being taken prisoner by aliens who replace part of his body, being forced to fight for his life as a gladiator, literally dying...). How he deals with trauma and failure is mostly... not at all. Shiro directs his gaze into the future. In his own words you "can't focus on what went wrong, gotta focus on how to make it right." And there is a lot to make right in VLD universe. As Shiro and the Voltron crew go from battle to battle, there is indeed always something to productively direct his energies to and thus distract him from thinking too hard about the things that went wrong in his life. The only times Shiro lets his exhaustion shine through in public are short worrisome one-liner jokes about his situation. In private, only people Shiro is truly close to ever get to be privy to his moments of doubt and helplessness.

"Is everyone bonding and focusing?"
-Shiro, during training
Most of the time, Shiro presents as a charming and dedicated leader. He takes charge of the situation, comes up with strategies, and personally places himself on the front lines whenever possible. Yet, he values the input of his team greatly. Despite being the senior officer, and later the leader of Voltron, Shiro always puts emphasis on the team being a unit comprised of individuals combining their will. He wants everyone's hearts to be in it and puts great efforts into helping and understanding the members of his team. (This trait is the one that functions as the most major hint that Shiro has been replaced with a clone mid-series: his clone, unlike Shiro, flaunts authority.)

Generally, Shiro greatly enjoys teambuilding and teaching. He's gone on recruitment drives in schools and taught classes within the Garrison proper. Shiro is very good at building a bond between himself and younger people by acting very self-assured yet approachable. His interest in guiding children is not just superficial either. Seeing that Keith is troubled, Shiro goes to great lengths to help the boy out, even when assuming responsibility over him puts Shiro himself at risk of reprimidation by superiors. Despite having some trouble at intimacy in his close personal relationships, Shiro is a very compassionate man who most often will put the well-being of others above his own.

Yet, his patience is not quite endless. While Shiro will make a genuine attempt at accomodating everybody's needs, he does get irritated by people whose line of thinking is wildly different from his own. This notably gets shown in VLD when he meets Slav, a fellow survivor of Galra torture. Slav has extreme anxiety and verbalizes this all the time, clashing harshly with Shiro's philosophy of simply going forward no matter what. Situations like that, in which Shiro meets his polar opposite, will get him to lash out and get irritated enough to actually snap at someone.

Inventory: Shiro will be coming in wearing a Galaxy Garrison uniform. That's it. We're starting over from zero, inventory-wise.

Abilities: Shiro is gifted at pretty much anything he tries. He's a legendary space pilot, breaking records left and right. Everyone in Voltron has a lot of adaptability when it comes to dealing with wildly different technology and vehicles, so it's safe to assume Shiro could passably fly most kinds of planes and ships after only shortly familiarizing himself with them. He's also a natural leader, he knows how to keep a team together. He's a fighter of incredible skill - his martial arts are excellent, his strategy is good and he's unreasonably physically durable. (However, he will be coming in missing one arm, which limits his physical prowess). He's also good at using different kinds of weaponry.

Flaws: Though Shiro is often perceived as some kind of perfect super-man by the people around him, he's still very humanly flawed. His biggest personality problem is that he can be summed up with "can't stop, won't stop, not sure how to stop". In the past, Shiro used to define himself by his achievements - since he felt he had a deadline set to him by his deteriorating health, Shiro's main goal was to get as many amazing feats done in as little time as possible. This went at the cost of common sense, self-preservation and also close interpersonal relationships. His ex-boyfriend/fiancé Adam broke up with Shiro due to Shiro's refusal to place his own health above his desire to accomplish more. Shiro refuses to let people worry about him and thus ends up alienating those who care about him, while making no attempts to step back and mend these relationships.
In the present, Shiro's inability to give anything less than 100% has converted from a personal desire to something he views as necessity. Having been thrust into a position of responsibility for the safety of the universe, Shiro devotes himself fully and entirely to it. His extreme forward-drive prevents him from ever properly confronting the trauma he has experienced in the Galra war. Left to his own devices, Shiro absolutely will just keep pushing on until he burns out and dies. Incidentally, this happened to him before and he had to be brought back from it, so... go figure.

SAMPLES

Action Log Sample:

[ 'Haven't had this nightmare in a while.' That's the first thing to cross Shiro's mind as he drowsily gets his bearings after having woken up on the cold hard floor.

It's all hauntingly familiar. The details are wrong, of course, as is common for dreams. The shape meanwhile is unmistakable. This is an arena, outdated yet completely recognizable. The empty seats seem to be staring down at him. It doesn't take much to imagine a cheering crowd, thirsty for the blood of any poor fool down in the ring. Shiro's been there many times before; in waking and in sleeping. He likes to think it doesn't impress him now. One step at a time, one hit at a time... and he'll survive. He always has, at least in this context.

Shiro feels that he isn't alone before he sees it. His body adopts fighting stance automatically by now. This time, however, there is a problem... his right hand, which had always been his most important asset in a fight, is missing. That's new. Even after returning from the dead in a one-armed clone body, Shiro's dreams had always still included his prosthetic arm.

Now he doesn't have a mechanical arm to help him nor does he have any other kind of weaponry at his side. The air is way too cold, the arena is far too outdated and whatever is in here with him is definitely approaching. Taking in the wrongness of it all, Shiro finally knows beyond a shadow of doubt that he's not sleeping.

This realization raises a plethora of question but there's no time to even attempt to answer them, when he's unarmed in every sense of the word. He really really needs to be elsewhere as soon as possible. Shiro takes one deep breath and focuses his attention to scan the arena for accessible exit points. Thinking 'okay, how much worse can it get?' feels like testing fate, but he's not sure even fate can quite surprise him anymore. ]